Wherefore there are not as many common topics for orators as there are for lawyers.  For they cannot be handled with elegance and weight, as their nature requires, except by those who have acquired a great flow of words and ideas by constant practice.  And this is enough for us to say in a general way concerning the entire class of common topics.

XVI.  Now we will proceed to explain what common topics are usually available in a conjectural statement of a case.  As for instance—­that it is proper to place confidence in suspicions, or that it is not proper, that it is proper to believe witnesses, or that it is not proper, that it is proper to believe examinations, or that it is not proper, that it is proper to pay attention to the previous course of a man’s life, or that it is not proper, that it is quite natural that a man who has done so and so should have committed this crime also, or that it is not natural, that it is especially necessary to consider the motive, or that it is not necessary.  And all these common topics, and any others which arise out of any argument peculiar to the cause in hand, may be turned either way.

But there is one certain topic for an accuser by which he exaggerates the atrocity of an action, and there is another by which he says that it is not necessary to pity the miserable.  That, too, is a topic for an advocate for the defence by which the false accusations of the accusers are shown up with indignation, and that by which pity is endeavoured to be excited by complaints.  These and all other common topics are derived from the same rules from which the other systems of arguments proceed, but those are handled in a more delicate, and acute, and subtle manner, and these with more gravity, and more embellishment, and with carefully selected words and ideas.  For in them the object is, that that which is stated may appear to be true.  In these, although it is desirable to preserve the appearance of truth, still the main object is to give importance to the statement.  Now let us pass on to another statement of the case.

XVII.  When there is a dispute as to the name of a thing because the meaning of a name is to be defined by words, it is called a definitive statement.  By way of giving an example of this, the following case may be adduced.  Caius Flaminius, who as consul met with great disasters in the second Punic war, when he was tribune of the people, proposed, in a very seditious manner, an agrarian law to the people, against the consent of the senate, and altogether against the will of all the nobles.  While he was holding an assembly of the people, his own father dragged him from the temple.  He is impeached of treason.  The charge is—­“You attacked the majesty of the people in dragging down a tribune of the people from the temple.”  The denial is—­“I did not attack the majesty of the people.”  The question is—­“Whether he attacked the majesty of the people or not?” The argument is—­“I only used the power