3. Agamemnon debates whether to sacrifice Iphigenia, when Calchas has declared that the Trojan expedition cannot otherwise set sail with the consent of the gods. 4. Alexander the Great debates the entry into Babylon after the auguries have warned that danger lurks for him there. 5. The Athenians debate whether to remove the monuments of their victories over the Persians, Xerxes having threatened to come back unless they do so. 6. Cicero debates whether to appeal to Antonius for mercy. 7. Cicero debates whether to burn his writings, Antonius having offered him immunity on this condition.[36] That the subjects seem to have been always historical reminds us that Roman deliberative oratory was barred from its natural field of the living present. Thus restricted, it is meager even for a school exercise. (2) _Subjects for Controversiæ_ The cases assigned for the _controversiæ_ of older students, though more various, were even more removed from actuality. The list of those used by Seneca to exhibit the skill of the rhetors themselves fully justifies the exclamation of Tacitus,[37] _quales, per fidem!_ Posed as available for argument on either side—a rhetor would sometimes espouse now one side, now the other—they are difficult, subtle, sensational, often so dubious as to preclude quotation, always remote. On their face they were chosen and iterated by men who desired sensation, prized ingenuity, and had turned the art of persuasion to advertisement. _A Disinheriting Uncle_ (I. 1) “Children who refuse support to their parents are liable to imprisonment.” Two brothers quarreled. The son of one of them, in spite of his father’s prohibition, supported his uncle, who had fallen into poverty. Disinherited on this account, he made no legal protest. He was adopted by his uncle. Through a legacy the uncle became rich. The father began to be in want. The son supported him in spite of the uncle’s prohibition. He was disinherited. [Speak for either the young man or the disinheriting uncle.] _The Pirate Chief’s Daughter_ (I. 6) [A young man] captured by pirates wrote to his father for ransom. He was not ransomed. The pirate chief’s daughter induced him to promise marriage if he got his freedom. He promised. She left her father to follow him. He has returned to his father and has married her. An orphan heiress comes along. His father bids him repudiate the pirate chief’s daughter and marry the heiress. When he refuses, he is disinherited. [Defend either the father or the son.] _An Oath of Husband and Wife_ (II. 2)