Institutio Oratoria

As regards facts falling within the present, if they can be detected by the eye without any reference to their logical antecedents being required, there will be no need of conjecture: let us suppose, for instance, that the Lacedaemonians are enquiring whether the Athenians are erecting fortifications. But although conjecture may seem entirely foreign to this class of question, there are cases in which it it necessary, as in questions of personal identity, which may be illustrated by the action brought against the heirs of Urbinia, [*](cv. IV. i. 11 and VII. ii. 26. ) where the question was whether the man who claimed the property as being the son of the deceased, was Figulus or Sosipater.