Institutio Oratoria

If however after employing all these artifices our array of facts is still long, it will not be without advantage to append a summary at the end of it as a reminder: Cicero does this even at the close of a

To this day, Caesar, Quintus Ligarius is free from all blame: he left his home not merely without the least intention of joining in any war, but when there was not the least suspicion of any war etc.

The statement of fact will be credible, if in the first place we take care to say nothing contrary to nature, secondly if we assign reasons and motives for the facts on which the inquiry turns (it is unnecessary to do so with the subsidiary facts as well), and if we make the characters of the actors in keeping with the facts we desire to be believed: we shall for instance represent a person accused of theft as covetous, accused of adultery as lustful, accused of homicide as rash, or attribute the opposite qualities to these persons if we are defending them: further we must do the same with place, time and the like.