Institutio Oratoria

And even if we have to plead a case afresh before different judges, as may occur in a second trial of a claim to freedom or in cases in the centumviral courts, which are divided between two different panels, it will be most seemly, if we have lost our case before the first panel, to say nothing against the judges who tried the case on that occasion. But this is a subject with which I dealt at some length in the passage where I discussed proofs. [*]( ii. 1, where, as here, it is indicated that different portions of a case might be tried by two panels of centumviri sitting separately. The centumviral court dealt mainly with cases of inheritance. ) It may happen that we have to censure actions in others, of which we have been guilty ourselves,

Again, there have been cases where persons condemned for bribery have indicted others for the same offence with a view to recovering their lost position: [*]( See v. x. 108 note and with reference to pro Clu. xxxvi. 98. ) for this the schools provide a parallel in the theme where a luxurious youth accuses his father of the same offence. I do not see how this can be done with decorum unless we succeed in discovering some difference between the two cases, such as character, age, motives, circumstances of time and place or intention.

Tubero, for example, alleges that he was a young man at the time and went thither in the company of his father, who had been sent by the senate not to take part in the war, but to purchase corn, and further that he left the party as soon as he could, whereas Ligarius clung to the party and gave his support, not to Gnaeus Pompeius, who was engaged with Caesar in a struggle for the supreme power, though both wished to preserve the state, but to Juba and the Africans who were the sworn enemies of Rome.