Institutio Oratoria

A proposition may also be put forward unsupported, as is generally done in conjectural cases:

The formal accusation is one of murder, but I also charge the accused with theft.

Or it may be accompanied by a reason:

Gaius Cornelius is guilty of an offence against the state; for when he was tribune of the plebs, he himself read out his bill to the public assembly.

[*]( The speech is lost. In 67 B.C. Cornelius as tribune of the plebs proposed a law enacting that no man should be released from the obligations of a law save by decree of the people. This struck at a privilege usurped by the senate, and Servilius Globulus, another tribune, forbade the herald to read out the proposal. Cornelius then read it himself. He was accused of maiestas, defended by Cicero in 65 B.C. and acquitted. ) I In addition to these forms of proposition we can also introduce a proposition of our own, such as

I accuse him of adultery,

or may use the proposition of our opponent, such as

The charge brought against me is one of adultery,

or finally we may employ a proposition which is common to both sides, such as

The question in dispute between myself and my opponent is, which of the two is next-of-kin to the deceased who died intestate.

Sometimes we may even couple contradictory propositions, as for instance

I say this, my opponent says that.

We may at times produce the effect of a proposition, even though it is not in itself a proposition, by adding after the statement of facts some phrase such as the following:

These are the points on which you will give your decision,

thereby reminding the judge to give special attention to the question and giving him a fillip to emphasise the point that we have finished the statement of facts and are beginning the proof, so that when we start to verify our statements he may realise that he has reached a fresh stage where he must begin to listen with renewed attention.