Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
or he may desire to dispel some charge that is irrelevant to the case as in the passage of the speech for Rabirius Postumus, [*]( X. 28. The charge in question was that Rabirius had worn the Greek pallium instead of the Roman toga. But as an official of the king he was forced to wear Greek dress. ) which runs as follows:
For when he came to Alexandria, gentlemen, the only means of saving his money which the king suggested to Postumus was that he should take charge of the royal household and act as a kind of steward.Or the orator may desire to heighten the effect of his charges, as Cicero [*](Verr. v. 10. ) does in his description of the journey of Verres.
Sometimes a fictitious statement is employed either to stir the emotions of the judges, as in that passage of the proo Roscio Amerino [*](xxii. 60.) dealing with Chrysogonus to which I referred just recently, or to entertain them with a show of wit, as in the passage of the pro Cluentio [*]( xx. 57 sqq. ) describing the brothers Caepasius: sometimes again a digression may be introduced to add beauty to the speech, as in the passage about Proserpine in the Verrines, [*]( IV. 48. The words quoted do not occur in our MSS of Cicero. ) beginning
It was here that a mother is once said to have sought her daughter.All these examples serve to show that he who denies a charge may not necessarily refrain from stating, but may actually state that very fact which he denies.
Even the assertion which I made above to the effect that a statement of facts familiar to the judge is superfluous, is not to be taken too literally. My meaning is that it may be dispensed with, if the judge knows not merely what has been done, but takes a view of the facts which is favourable to our case.