Institutio Oratoria

Juba misrepresented another man's opinion, when he replied to one who complained of being bespattered by his horse,

What, do you think I am a Centaur?

[*]( The point of the jest, such as it is, is that Juba disclaims forming part of his horse. The reference is to Juba, historian and king of Mauretania, captured by Julius Caesar and restored by Augustus. ) Gaius Cassius misrepresented his own, when he said to a soldier whom he saw hurrying into battle without his sword,

Shew yourself a handy man with your fists, comrade.

So too did Galba, when served with some fish that had been partially eaten the day before and had been placed on the table with the uneaten sides turned uppermost:

We must lose no time,

he said,

for there are people under the table at work on the other side.

Lastly there is the jibe that Cicero made against Curius, which I have already cited; [*](§73.) for it was clearly impossible that he should be still unborn at a time when he was already declaiming.

There is also a form of misrepresentation which has its basis in irony, of which a saying of Gaius Caesar will provide an example. A witness asserted that the accused attempted to wound him in the thighs, and although it would have been easy to ask him why he attacked that portion of his body above all others, he merely remarked,

What else could he have done, when you had a helmet and breastplate?

Best of all is it when pretence is met by pretence, as was done in the following instance by Domitius Afer. He had made his will long ago, and one of his more recent friends, in the hopes of securing a legacy if he could persuade him to change it, produced a fictitious story and asked him whether he should advise a senior centurion who, being an old man, had already made his will to revise it; to which Afer replied,

Don't do it: you will offend him.

But the most agreeable of all jests are those which are good humoured and easily digested. Take another example from Afer. Noting that an ungrateful client avoided him in the forum, he sent his servant [*](Lit. the slave employed to name persons to his master.) to him to say,

I hope you are obliged to me for not having seen you.

Again when his steward, being unable to account for certain sums of money, kept saying,

I have not eaten it: I live on bread and water,

he replied,

Master sparrow, pay what you owe.

Such jests the Greeks style ὑπὸ τὸ ἦθος [*]( The meaning is dubious and the phrase cannot be paralleled and is probably corrupt. ) or adapted to character.