Institutio Oratoria

The nature of the main question is sometimes sufficiently clear without any proposition, especially if the statement of facts ends exactly where the question begins. Consequently the recapitulation generally employed in the case of arguments is sometimes placed immediately after the statement of facts.

The affair took place, as I have described, gentlemen: he that laid the ambush was defeated,

v4-6 p.133

violence was conquered by violence, or rather I should say audacity was crushed by valour.

[*](pro Mil. xi. 30. )

Sometimes proposition is highly advantageous, more especially when the fact cannot be defended and the question turns on the definition of the fact; as for example in the case of the man who has taken the money of a private individual from a temple: we shall say,

My client is charged with sacrilege. It is for you to decide whether it was sacrilege,

so that the judge may understand that his sole duty is to decide whether the charge is tantamount to sacrilege.