Institutio Oratoria

Precisely similar methods are also employed in questions that occur in real life. For the scholastic themes concerned with the disowning of children are on exactly the same footing as the cases of sons disinherited by their parents which are tried in the public courts, or of those claims for the recovery of property which are tried in the centum viral court: themes dealing with cruelty find an actual parallel in those cases in which the wife claims the restoration of her dowry, and the question is whose fault it was that led to the divorce: and again the theme where the son accuses his father of madness has its analogy in cases where a suit is brought for the appointment of a guardian.

Under the same heading as the appeal to public or personal interest comes the plea that the act in question prevented the occurrence of something worse. For in a comparison of evils the lesser evil must be regarded as a positive good: for example, Mancinus may defend the treaty made with the Numantines on the ground that it saved the army from annihilation. This form of defence is called ἀντίστασις by the Greeks, while we style it defence by comparison.