The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4Cicero, Marcus Tullius
History
The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Speeches, addresses, etc., Latin -- Translations into English
At present we will begin with the conjectural statement of a case
of which this example may be sufficient to be given--A man overtook
another on his journey as he was going on some commercial expedition,
and carrying a sum of money with him, he, as men often do entered into
conversation with him on the way, the result of which was, that they
both proceeded together with some degree of friendship, so that when
they had arrived at the same inn, they proposed to sup together and to
sleep in the same apartment. Having supped, they retired to rest in
the same place. But when the innkeeper (for that is what is said to
have been discovered since, after the man had been detected in another
crime) had taken notice of one of them, that is to say, of him who had
the money, he came by night, after he had ascertained that they were
both sound asleep, as men usually are when tired, and took from its
sheath the sword of the one who had not the money, and which sword he
had lying by his side and slew the other man with it and took away
his money, and replaced the bloody sword in the sheath, and returned
himself to his bed.
But the man with whose sword the murder had been committed, rose
long before dawn and called over and over again on his companion; he
thought that he did not answer because he was overcome with sleep; and
so he took his sword and the rest of the things which he had with him,
and departed on his journey alone. The innkeeper not long afterwards
raised an outcry that the man was murdered, and in company with some
of his lodgers pursued the man who had gone away. They arrest him on
his journey, draw his sword out of its sheath, and find it bloody, the
man is brought back to the city by them, and put on his trial. On this
comes the allegation of the crime, "You murdered him," and the denial,
"I did not murder him," and from this is collected the statement of
the case. The question in the conjectural examination is the same as
that submitted to the judges, "Did he murder him, or not?"
V. Now we will set forth the topics one portion of which applies to
all conjectural discussion. But it will be desirable to take notice of
this in the exposition of these topics and of all the others, and to
observe that they do not all apply to every discussion. For as every
man's name is made up of some letters, and not of every letter, so it
is not every store of arguments which applies to every argumentation,
but some portion which is necessary applies to each. All conjecture,
then, must be derived either from the cause of an action, or from the
person, or from the case itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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