Institutio Oratoria

Further, all kinds of arguments may easily be drawn either from facts previous to a certain act, or contemporary or subsequent. As regards antecedent facts the following example will illustrate my meaning;

You threatened to kill him, you went out by night, you started before him.

Motives of actions may also belong to past time.

Some writers have shown themselves over-subtle in their classification of the second class of circumstances, making

a sound was heard

an example of circumstances combined with an act and

a shout was raised

an instance of circumstances attached to an act. As regards subsequent circumstances I may cite accusations such as

You hid yourself, you fled, livid spots and swellings appeared on the corpse.

The counsel for the defence will employ the same divisions of time to discredit the charge which is brought against him.

In these considerations are included everything in connexion with words and deeds, but in two distinct ways. For some things are done because something else is like to follow, and others because something else has previously been done, as for instance, when the husband of a beautiful woman is accused of having acted as a procurer on the ground that he bought her after she was found guilty of adultery, or when a debauched character is accused of parricide on the ground that he said to his father

You have rebuked me for the last time.

[*]( Both cases are clearly themes from the schools of rhetoric. ) For in the former case the accused is not a procurer because he bought the woman, but bought her because he was a procurer, while in the latter the accused is not a parricide because he used these words, but used them because lie intended to kill his father.

With regard to accidental circumstances, which also provide matter for arguments, these clearly belong to subsequent time, but are distinguished by a certain special quality, as for instance if I should say,

Scipio was a better general than Hannibal, for he conquered Hannibal

;

He was a good pilot, for he was never shipwrecked

;

He was a good farmer, for he gathered in huge harvests

; or referring to bad qualities,

He was a prodigal, for he squandered his patrimony

;

His life was disgraceful, for he was hated by all.