Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

A simple cause, however, although it may be defended in various ways, cannot have more than one point on which a decision has to be given, and consequently the basis of the cause will be that point which the orator sees to be the most important for him to make and on which the judge sees that he must fix all his attention. For it is on this that the cause will stand or fall. On the other hand questions may have more bases than one. [*](See § 21.)

A brief example will show what I mean. When the accused says

Admitting that I did it, I was right to do it,

he makes the basis one of quality; but when he adds

but I did not do it,

he introduces an element of conjecture. [*]( See § 30 aqq. ) But denial of the facts is always the stronger line of defence, and therefore I conceive the basis to reside in that which I should say, if I were confined to one single line of argument.