Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Book 4
Harold Edgeworth Butler, Ed.

[132] As regards the conclusion of the statement of facts, there is a controversy with those who would have the statement end where the issue to be determined begins. Here is an example. “After these events the praetor Publius Dolabella issued an interdict in the usual form dealing with rioting and employment of armed men, ordering, without any exception, that Aebutius should restore the property from which he had ejected Caecina. He stated that he had done so. A sum of money was deposited. It is for you to decide to whom this money is to go.”¹ This rule can always be observed by the prosecutor, but not always by the defendant.

III. In the natural order of things the statement of fact is followed by the verification. For it [p. 123] is necessary to prove the points which we stated with the proof in view. But before I enter on this portion, I have a few words to say on the opinions held by certain rhetoricians. Most of them are in the habit, as soon as they have completed the statement of facts, of digressing to some pleasant and attractive topic with a view to securing the utmost amount of favour from their audience.