Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

namely a feigned confession, which likewise may show no small wit. Thus Afer, when pleading against a freedman of Claudius Caesar and when another freedman called out from the opposite side of the court,

You are always speaking against Caesar's freedmen,

replied,

Yes, but I make precious little headway.

A similar trick is not to deny a charge, though it is obviously false and affords good opportunity for an excellent reply. For example, when Philippus said to Catulus,

Why do you bark so?

the latter replied, [*](cp. Cic. de Or. II. liv. 220. )

I see a thief.

To make jokes against oneself is scarcely fit for any save professed buffoons and is strongly to be disapproved in an orator. This form of jest has precisely the same varieties as those which we make against others and therefore I pass it by, although it is not infrequently employed.