[11]
Let me then give you separate
examples of these classes of argument from the
pages of Cicero; for where should I find better?
The following passage from the pro Murena1 is an
instance of argument from the like: “For it
happened that I myself when a candidate had two
patricians as competitors, the one a man of the most
unscrupulous and reckless character, the other a
most excellent and respectable citizen. Yet I defeated Catiline by force of merit and Galba by my
[p. 279]
popularity.”
1 viii. 17. Sulpicius, one of Murena's accusers and an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship, had sought to depreciate Murena's birth. Cicero urges that even if Sulpicius' statements were true they would be irrelevant and cites his own case to support his argument.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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