Institutio Oratoria

As regards making light of a charge, there are two ways in which this may be done. We may throw cold water on the excessive boasted of our opponent, as was done by Gaius Caesar, [*](A cousin of the father of C. Julius Caesar.) when Pomponius displayed a wound in his face which he had received in the rebellion of Sulpicius and which he boasted he had received while fighting for Caesar:

You should never look round,

he retorted,

when you are running away.

Or we may do the same with some charge that is brought against us, as was done by Cicero when he remarked to those who reproached him for marrying Publilia, a young unwedded girl, when he was already over sixty,

Well, she will be a woman to-morrow.

Some style this type of jest consequent and, on the ground that both

jests seem to follow so naturally and inevitably, class it with the jest which Cicero levelled against Curio, who always began his speeches by asking indulgence for his youth:

You will find your exordium easier every day,

he said.