Institutio Oratoria

and further, whether he could have done the deed at some other time and in some other way, or with greater ease or security, as Cicero says in the pro Milone, [*]( c. xiv. sqq. ) where he mentions the numerous occasions when his client could have killed Clodius with impunity. There is also the question why the accused should have chosen that particular place or time or means for the commission of the crime, a topic to which Cicero gives a thorough treatment in the same passage;

or whether, without having the least reason for the deed, he was carried away by the impulse of the moment and acted without deliberate purpose (for it is a common saying that crimes are irrational), or finally, whether he was led astray by the fact that crime had become a habit with him.