Institutio Oratoria

But even when the accuser says

You were found on the spot where your enemy was killed

I was not,

Is it, I ask you, irrelevant for one accused of bribery to set forth his parentage, his past life and the services on which he relied for success in his candidature? And if a man is indicted for extortion, will it not be to his advantage to set forth not merely his past record, but also the reasons which have made the whole province or the accuser or a witness hostile to himself?

If these are not statements of facts, neither is the first portion of Cicero's [*](V. 11.) defence of Cluentius, beginning with the words

Aulus Cluentius Habitus.

There are also statements which do not set forth the facts of the case itself, but facts which are none the less relevant to the case: the speaker's purpose may be to illustrate the case by some parallel, as in the passage in the Verrines [*]( V. 3. The shepherd was crucifed because the carrying of arms was forbidden. ) about Lucius Domitius who crucified a shepherd because he admitted that he had used a hunting spear to kill the boar which he had brought him as a present;

or he may desire to dispel some charge that is irrelevant to the case as in the passage of the speech for Rabirius Postumus, [*]( X. 28. The charge in question was that Rabirius had worn the Greek pallium instead of the Roman toga. But as an official of the king he was forced to wear Greek dress. ) which runs as follows:

For when he came to Alexandria, gentlemen, the only means of saving his money which the king suggested to Postumus was that he should take charge of the royal household and act as a kind of steward.