Institutio Oratoria

Sometimes we rebut a

Well, then,

in the days when you and I used to practise declamation together, you were not even born.

That is true, for I have heard it for the last twenty years.

Sometimes too it is effective to add something more biting in place of the charge which is denied, as was done by Junius Bassus when Domitia the wife of Passienus [*](See VI. i. 50.) complained that by way of accusing her of meanness he had alleged that she even sold old shoes.

No,

I never said anything of the sort. I said you bought them.

I thought it was my own,

As regards making light of a charge, there are two ways in which this may be done. We may throw cold water on the excessive boasted of our opponent, as was done by Gaius Caesar, [*](A cousin of the father of C. Julius Caesar.) when Pomponius displayed a wound in his face which he had received in the rebellion of Sulpicius and which he boasted he had received while fighting for Caesar:

You should never look round,

when you are running away.

Well, she will be a woman to-morrow.

Some style this type of jest consequent and, on the ground that both

You will find your exordium easier every day,

Another method of making light of a statement is to suggest a reason. Cicero employed this method against Vatinius. The latter was lame and, wishing to make it seem that his health was improved, said that he could now walk as much as two miles.

Yes,

for the days are longer.

That shows how often you kindle fire upon it.

Cassius Severus showed his wit by transferring a charge made against himself to a different quarter. For when lie was reproached by the praetor on the ground that his advocates had insulted Lucius Varus, an Epicurean and a friend of Caesar, he replied,

I do not know who they were who insulted him, I suppose they were Stoics.

If that is the case, you go into exile

And if it is not the case, you go back into exile.

Cassius Severus baffled an opponent who reproached him with the fact that Proculeius had forbidden him to enter his house by replying,

Do I ever go there?

General, give me your necklet,

I had rather give you the crown of oak leaves.

So, too, one lie may be defeated by another: Galba, for instance, when someone told him that he once bought a lamprey five feet long for half a denarius in Sicily, replied,

There is nothing extraordinary in that: for they grow to such a length in those seas that the fishermen tie them round their waists in lieu of ropes!

namely a feigned confession, which likewise may show no small wit. Thus Afer, when pleading against a freedman of Claudius Caesar and when another freedman called out from the opposite side of the court,

You are always speaking against Caesar's freedmen,

Yes, but I make precious little headway.

Why do you bark so?

I see a thief.

To make jokes against oneself is scarcely fit for any save professed buffoons and is strongly to be disapproved in an orator. This form of jest has precisely the same varieties as those which we make against others and therefore I pass it by, although it is not infrequently employed.

On the other hand scurrilous or brutal jests, although they may raise a laugh, are quite unworthy of a gentleman. I remember a jest of this kind being made by

I will smack your head, and bring an action against you for having such a hard skull!

There remains the prettiest of all forms of humour, namely the jest which depends for success on deceiving anticipations [*](See IX. ii. 22.) or taking another's words in a sense other than he intended. The unexpected element may be employed by the attacking party, as in the example cited by Cicero, [*](de Or. II. lxx. 281. )

What does this man lack save wealth and—virtue?

For pleading causes he is most admirably—dressed.

Is all well?

All is well.

Is he dead, then?

But the loudest laughter of all is produced by simulation and dissimulation, proceedings which differ but little and are almost identical; but whereas simulation implies the pretence of having a certain opinion of one's own, dissimulation consists in feigning that one does not understand someone else's meaning. Afer employed simulation, when his opponents in a certain case kept saying that Celsina (who was an influential lady) knew all about the facts, and he, pretending to believe that she was a man, said,

Who is he?

Cicero on the other hand employed dissimulation when Sextus Annalis gave evidence damaging to the client whom lie was defending, and the accuser kept pressing him with the question,

Tell me, Marcus Tullius, what have you to say about Sextus Annalis?

1. Who may the causes vast of war unfold?

Enn. 174 [*]( (with oras for causas ).The question ( numquid, etc.) is treated by Cicero as meaning Can you quote anything from the sixth book of the Annals? ingentis is ace. plural. )

as for example, when Cascellius, [*]( A famous lawyer mentioned by Horace, A.P. 371. Cascellius pretends to take dividere literally ( i.e. cut in two); his client had meant to sell half his ship, i.e. take a partner in the venture. ) on being consulted by a client who said,

I wish to divide my ship,

You will lose it then.

Of a similar nature are jests whose point lies in insinuation. Such was the reply which Cicero [*](ib. lxix. 278. ) quotes as given to the man who complained that his wife had hung herself on a fig-tree.

I wish,

you would give me a slip of that tree to plant.

Indeed the essence of all wit lies in the distortion of the true and natural meaning of words: a perfect instance of this is when we misrepresent our own or another's opinions or assert some impossibility.

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?

Shew yourself a handy man with your fists, comrade.

We must lose no time,

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

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.