[54]
But the custom prevalent in the schools of regarding everything not definitely stated in the theme as
being in the speaker's favour,1 is likely to prove
harmful to students destined for practice in the
courts. You bring a charge of adultery. “Who is
your witness? who is your informer?” You charge
me with treason. “What was my reward? who was
my accomplice?” You charge me with poisoning.
“Where did I buy the poison, and from whom?
When did I buy it, what was the price, and whom
did I employ to administer it?” Or in defence of
one charged with attempting to establish himself as
tyrant, the declaimer will cry, “Where are my
weapons, and what bodyguards have I ever
collected?”
1 cp. IV. ii. 28. As the examples which follow show, the declaimer assumes that his imaginary opponent has no good evidence to support his case: i.e. no witness, no informer, no weapons, no bodyguard.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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