Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Book 9, chapter 3, section 49

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[49] or when we concede to our opponents qualities which we are unwilling that they should seem to possess. This is specially effective when we possess these qualities and they do not, as in the following passage,¹

“Brand me as coward, Drances, since thy sword
Has slain such hosts of Trojans.
”

A like result is produced by reversing this method when we pretend to own to faults which are not ours or which even recoil upon the heads of our opponents, as for example,

'Twas I that led the Dardan gallant on
To storm the bridal bed of Sparta's queen!
Aen. x. 92. Juno ironically pretends to have brought about the rape of Helen, which was in reality the work of Venus.

1 Aen. xi. 383. Turnus addresses Drances, who has been attacking him as the cause of the war and bidding him fight himself, if he would win Lavinia for his bride.

Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.

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