Institutio Oratoria

The reason for placing the statement of facts before the proof is to prevent the judge from being ignorant of the question at issue. Why then, if each individual point has to be proved or refuted, should not each individual point be stated as well? If my own experience may be trusted, I know that I have followed this practice in the courts, whenever occasion demanded it, and my procedure has been approved both by learned authorities and the judges themselves, while the duty of setting forth the case was generally entrusted to me. I am not boasting, for there are many with whom I have been associated as counsel, who can bring me to book if I lie.

On the other hand this is no reason for not following the order of events as a general rule. Indeed inversion of the order has at times a most unhappy effect, as for example if you should mention

Sometimes, too, we get false statements of facts; these, as far as actual pleading in the courts is concerned, fall into two classes. In the first case the statement depends on external support; Publius Clodius, for instance, relied on his witnesses when he stated that he was at Interamna on the night when he committed abominable sacrilege at Rome. The other has to be supported by the speaker's native talent, and sometimes consists simply in an assumption of modesty, which is, I imagine, the reason why it is called a gloss, [*](color is a technical term for the particular aspect given to a case by the skilful manipulation of the facts—the 'gloss' or ' varnish' put on them by the accused or accuser. — Peterson on Quint. x. i. 116. ) while at other times it will be concerned with the question at issue.