Institutio Oratoria

Sometimes we rebut a

charge openly, as Cicero did when he refuted the extravagant lies of Vibius Curius about his age:

Well, then,

he remarked,

in the days when you and I used to practise declamation together, you were not even born.

At other times we may rebut it by pretending to agree. Cicero, for example, when Fabia the wife of Dolabella asserted that her age was thirty, remarked,

That is true, for I have heard it for the last twenty years.

Sometimes too it is effective to add something more biting in place of the charge which is denied, as was done by Junius Bassus when Domitia the wife of Passienus [*](See VI. i. 50.) complained that by way of accusing her of meanness he had alleged that she even sold old shoes.

No,

he replied,

I never said anything of the sort. I said you bought them.

A witty travesty of defence was once produced by a Roman knight who was charged by Augustus with having squandered his patrimony.

I thought it was my own,

he answered.