But inquiries which are definite are all of them furnished with appropriate topics, as if they belonged to themselves, being divided into accusation and defence.  And in them there are these kinds of argumentation.  The accuser accuses a person of an act; the advocate for the defence opposes one of these excuses:  either that the thing imputed has not been done; or that, if it has been done, it deserves to be called by a different name; or that it was done lawfully and rightly.  Therefore, the first is called a defence either by way of denial or by way of conjecture; the second is called a defence by definition; the third, although it is an unpopular name, is called the judicial one.

XXV.  The arguments proper to these excuses, being derived from the topics which we have already set forth, have been explained in our oratorical rules.  But the refutation of an accusation, in which there is a repelling of a charge, which is called in Greek [Greek:  stasis], is in Latin called status.  On which there is founded, in the first place, such a defence as may effectually resist the attack.  And also, in the deliberations and panegyrics the same refutations often have place.  For it is often denied that those things are likely to happen which have been stated by some or other in his speech as sure to take place; if it can be shown either that they are actually impossible, or that they cannot be brought about without extreme difficulty.  And in this kind of argumentation the conjectural refutation takes place.  But when there is any discussion about utility, or honour, or equity, and about those things which are contrary to one another, then come in denials, either of the law or of the name of the action.  And the same is the case in panegyrics.  For one may either deny that that has been done which the person is praised for; or else that it ought to bear that name which the praiser has conferred on it, or else one may altogether deny that it deserves any praise at all, as not having been done rightly or lawfully.  And Caesar employed all these different kinds of denial with exceeding impudence when speaking against my friend Cato.  But the contest which arises from a denial is called by the Greeks [Greek:  krinomenon]; I, while writing to you, prefer calling it “the precise point in dispute.”  But for the parts within which this discussion on the point in dispute is contained, they may be called the containing parts; being as it were the foundations of the defence; and if they are taken away there would be no defence at all.  But since in arguing controversies there ought to be nothing which has more weight than the law itself, we must take pains to have the law as our assistant and witness.  And in this there are, as it were, other new denials, which are called legitimate subjects of discussion.  For then it is urged in defence, that the law does not say what the adversary states it to say, but something else.  And that happens when the terms of the law are ambiguous,