Category: Latin

Legal Strategies When You Can’t Deny Or Defend

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Quintilian, Orator’s Education, 5.13 7-9

“Hence, what cannot be denied or put off must eventually be defended, whatever kind of case it is, or else just surrendered. We have demonstrated that there are two types of denial: either to say “this was not done” or to claim “what was done was not this.” Issues that cannot be defended or avoided must ultimately be denied and not only if there is some “redefinition” which might come to our aid, but also if there is nothing else but simple denial.

If there are witnesses, it is permitted to say much against them. If there is written proof, we can discredit the authenticity of the letter. Whatever the matter, there is nothing worse than a confession. The final option, when there is no room for defending or denying, is attacking the legality of the proceeding.”

Ergo quae neque negari neque transferri possunt utique defendenda sunt, qualiacumque sunt, aut causa cedendum. Negandi duplicem ostendimus formam, aut non esse factum aut non hoc esse quod factum sit. Quae neque defendi neque transferri possunt, utique neganda, nec solum si finitio potest esse pro nobis, sed etiam si nuda infitiatio superest. Testes erunt: multa in eos dicere licet; chirographum: de similitudine litterarum disserendum. Utique nihil erit peius quam confessio. Ultima est actionis controversia, cum defendendi negandive non est locus

Emotions in the Courtroom
nitial N: King James I of Aragon Overseeing a Court of Law, unknown illuminator c. 1290 – 1310. Courtesy of Getty Images

Seneca on the Faults of Historians

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Seneca the Younger, Nat. Quest. 7. 16

“This has been said against the arguments; now I must speak against the witnesses. Euphorus’ authority need not be attacked with a great effort—he is a historian. Some of these types gain commendation by telling of incredible things and they excite a reader with something amazing when he would probably do something else if he were guided through more common events.”

Some historians believe anything; others overlook much. Some are unaware of a lie; but others find it pleasing. The first type do not avoid misinformation while the second seek it out. That’s enough about the whole nation of historians who do not think that their own work can be praised and achieve popularity unless they spice it up with lies. Indeed, Euphorus is not one of ‘religious’ fidelity. Often he is deceived, and often he deceives.”

Contra argumenta dictum est, contra testes dicendum est. Nec magna molitione detrahenda est auctoritas Ephoro: historicus est. Quidam incredibilium relatu commendationem parant et lectorem, aliud acturum si per cotidiana ducetur, miraculo excitant; quidam creduli, quidam neglegentes sunt; quibusdam mendacium obrepit, quibusdam placet; illi non evitant, hi appetunt. Haecin commune de tota natione, quae approbari opus suum et fieri populare non putat posse, nisi illud mendacio aspersit. Ephorus vero non est religiosissimae fidei; saepe decipitur, saepe decipit.

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Johannes Moreelse,  “Clio, Muse of History”

Cicero: A Liar Will Probably Commit Perjury Too

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Cicero, Pro Quinctui Roscio 16

“Still,” he said, “Cluvius told Lucius and Manilius he was not on sworn oath.” If he told them while sworn in, would you believe? What is the difference between a perjurer and a liar? A man who is accustomed to lying, can get used to committing perjury.

I can easily get a man to perjure himself once I am able to persuade him to lie. For once someone has departed from the truth, he is not in the habit of being constrained by greater belief from perjury than from lying. For what man who is not moved by the force of his own conscience is moved by invocation of the gods?

The reason for this is that the gods dispense the same penalty for the perjurer and the liar. The gods become enraged and punish a man not for the institution which frames the swearing of the words but because of the evil and the malice that these traps are set for another person.”

XVI. “Dicit enim,” inquit, “iniuratus Luscio et Manilio.” Si diceret iuratus, crederes? At quid interest inter periurum et mendacem? Qui mentiri solet, peierare consuevit. Quem ego, ut mentiatur, inducere possum, ut peieret, exorare facile potero. Nam qui semel a veritate deflexit, hic non maiore religione ad periurium quam ad mendacium perduci consuevit. Quis enim deprecatione deorum, non conscientiae fide commovetur? Propterea, quae poena ab dis immortalibus periuro, haec eadem mendaci constituta est; non enim ex pactione verborum, quibus ius iurandum comprehenditur, sed ex perfidia et malitia, per quam insidiae tenduntur alicui, di immortales hominibus irasci et suscensere consuerunt.

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Sinon. Augustine, La Cit de Dieu, Books I-X. Paris, Ma tre Franois (illuminator); c. 1475-1480.

Scholarship Declines Into Compilation

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Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,

History of Classical Scholarship (trans. Alan Harris):

“Higher education was centered entirely on the study of rhetoric, but that required preliminary training in the use of language by a ‘grammarian’. As early as the reign of Augustus, Tryphon compiled the first onomastikon, or vocabulary of the written language, and was also the first writer on syntax. Two hundred years later Herodian finally fixed orthography and ‘prosody’, both on strict classical principles. Innumerable manuals gave the classical vocabulary, and in time pasticheurs like Aristides became models of style in their own right. On the other hand, scholarly elucidation was reserved for an ever-diminishing range of poetical literature, and scholarship itself sank to the level of pure compilation.”

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The Liar’s Memory

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Plautus, The Ghost 181

“I love the truth, I want someone to tell me the truth. I hate a liar.”

ego uerum amo, uerum uolo dici mi: mendacem odi.

Quintilian Orator’s Education 4.2 90-92

“For fictions which are developed entirely from matters outside of the situation betray our license to lie. We must take most special care—which often escapes those who lie—not to contradict ourselves, since some stories are flattering in bits but do not contribute to a coherent whole; that we then say nothing which countermands what is accepted as true; and, in academic exercises, not to seek ornamentation beyond the themes.

Both in training and in the court, the orator ought to remember the what he has claimed falsely during the whole action since false things often escape the mind. That common saying is proved true, that the liar requires a good memory. Let us see, moreover, that if we are questioned about our own deed, we must say one thing only; if it is about somebody else’s we can cast doubt in many directions.”

nam quae tota extra rem petita sunt mentiendi licentiam produnt. Curandum praecipue, quod fingentibus frequenter excidit, ne qua inter se pugnent; quaedam enim partibus blandiuntur, sed in summam non consentiunt: praeterea ne iis quae vera esse constabit adversa sint: in schola etiam ne color extra themata quaeratur. Utrubique autem orator meminisse debebit actione tota quid finxerit, quoniam solent excidere quae falsa sunt: verumque est illud quod vulgo dicitur, mendacem memorem esse oportere.  Sciamus autem, si de nostro facto quaeratur, unum nobis aliquid esse dicendum: si de alieno, mittere in plura suspiciones licere.

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The Infernal Torments of the Damned, illuminated French manuscript of Augustine’s City of God by an unknown artist (15th century).

Seneca’s Hiring Advice

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Seneca, De Ira 8. 4-6

“There are many people who will do the same for different reasons. An arrogant man offends you with his scorn, a bitter man uses an insult, the petulant causes an injury; a spiteful man is malicious while a pugnacious man is contentious and the windbag liar is vain. You will not tolerate being feared by a suspicious man, beaten by a stubborn one, or looked own upon by a delicate man.

Choose honest, easy-going, even-tempered people who do not inspire rage and yet endure it if it comes. More advantageous than these are those who are submissive, kind, and even sweet-tempered—but not so bad that they fawn on you since too much toadying upsets temperamental men. There was a friend of mine, who was a good man, but easy to anger, whom it was no safer to praise than to mock”

Multi ex variis causis idem facturi: offendet te superbus contemptu, dicax contumelia, petulans iniuria. lividus malignitate, pugnax contentione, ventosus et mendax vanitate; non feres a suspicioso timeri, a pertinace vinci, a delicato fastidiri. Elige simplices, faciles, moderatos, qui iram tuam nec evocent et ferant. Magis adhuc proderunt summissi et humani et dulces, non tamen usque in adulationem, nam iracundos nimia assentatio offendit. Erat certe amicus noster vir bonus, sed irae paratioris, cui non magis tutum erat blandiri quam male dicere.

 

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Book of Hours, MS M.1001 fol. 88r

Cicero Delayed Publishing a Book of Poetry Because the Acknowledgements Would Be Too Long

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Cicero, Letters to Friends  30 Lentulus Spinther 1.9. 29

“I have also composed a three book poem On My Times which I ought to have send you previously if I thought it right to publish it. For these books are truly an eternal testament of your efforts for me and my duty to you. But I was reluctant not because of those who might judge themselves wounded by it—I have done this rarely and gently—but because of those who had helped me, if I had named them at all I would have gone on for ever.

But you will still see these books if I can find anyone I can rightly trust to bring them to you. I will entrust this for your preservation. I pass to you for judgment this part of my life and my practice, however much I am able to accomplish in literature, in research and in our old pleasures, I send to you who have always loved these things.”

scripsi etiam versibus tris libros De temporibus meis, quos iam pridem ad te misissem si esse edendos putassem; sunt enim testes et erunt sempiterni meritorum erga me tuorum meaeque pietatis. sed quia verebar, non eos qui se laesos arbitrarentur (etenim id feci parce et molliter), sed eos quos erat infinitum bene de <me> meritos omnis nominare ∗ ∗ ∗quos tamen ipsos libros, si quem cui recte committam invenero, curabo ad te perferendos. atque istam quidem partem vitae consuetudinisque nostrae totam ad te defero; quantum litteris, quantum studiis, veteribus nostris delectationibus, consequi poterimus, id omne <ad> arbitrium tuum, qui haec semper amasti, libentissime conferemus.

 

Harley MS 4329, f 130r. 

Wild Etymology of the Night

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Giovanni Boccaccio, The Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, 1.9:

“The fact that Night is clothed in a painted coat clearly indicates that she is the very decoration of the sky, by which the sky is covered. Night (nox) however, as Papias says, is so called ‘because she harms (noceat) the eyes’; for she takes away their power of sight, since we see nothing at night. Night is harmful, further, in that she is well-suited to evil-doers, since we say ‘one who does evil hates the light’ – from this it follows that the evil-doer loves the shadows because they are more suited to the evil work. Even Juvenal says, ‘Thieves rise at night to cut the throats of others.’ Furthermore, Homer calls her the subduer of the gods in the Iliad, by which we may understand that since great-spirited people turn over important matters in their hearts at night, nevertheless night (not being suited to such things at all) oppresses their overflowing spirits, and overpowers them, subdued, all the way until the light.”

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Quod autem picta palla amicta sit, facile videri potest illam celi ornatum significare quo tegitur. Nox autem, ut ait Papias, ideo dicitur quia noceat oculis; aufert enim illis videndi officium, cum nil nocte cernamus. Nocet insuper quia male agentibus apta est, cum legamus: Qui male agit odit lucem; exquo sequitur ut tenebras amet tanquam malo operi aptiores. Et dicit etiam Iuvenalis: Ut iugulent homines surgunt de nocte latrones. Omerus preterea in Yliade eam domitricem deorum vocitat, ut sentiamus quoniam nocte magnanimes ingentia pectoribus versant, tamen nox minime talibus apta ebullientes opprimit spiritus, eosque tanquam domitos in lucem usque coercet.

An Old Catonian Joke for the Road

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Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.2.8:

“There was once among the ancients a type of sacrifice which they called a ‘for the road.’ The custom was that if anything was left over from a feast, it was burned in the fire. This is the source of one of Cato’s jokes. He said that a certain Albidius, who had consumed his own goods and had recently lost everything which was left in a fire had made a ‘for the road’ – what he wasn’t able to consume, he burned!”

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Sacrificium apud veteres fuit quod vocabatur propter viam. In eo mos erat ut, si quid ex epulis superfuisset, igne consumeretur. Hinc Catonis iocus est. Namque Albidium quendam, qui bona sua comedisset et novissime domum quae ei reliqua erat incendio perdidisset, propter viam fecisse dicebat: quod comesse non potuerit, id combussisse.

Tacitus on Germanic Standards for Women and Child-Rearing

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Some of the rhetoric here seems a bit familiar…

Tacitus, Germania 19-20

In that country, no one finds vice amusing; nor is seducing or being seduced celebrated as a sign of the times. Even better are those communities where only virgins marry and a promise is made with the hope and vow of a wife. And so, they have only one husband just as each has one body and one life so that there may be no additional thought of it, no lingering desire, that they may not love the man so much as they love the marriage. It is considered a sin to limit the number of children or to eliminate the later born. There good customs are stronger than good laws.

There are children there naked and dirty in every house growing into the size of limbs and body at which we wonder. Each mother nourishes each child with her own breasts; they are not passed around to maids and nurses.”

nemo enim illic vitia ridet, nec corrumpere et corrumpi saeculum vocatur. melius quidem adhuc eae civitates, in quibus tantum virgines nubunt et cum spe votoque uxoris semel transigitur. sic unum accipiunt maritum quo modo unum corpus unamque vitam, ne ulla cogitatio ultra, ne longior cupiditas, ne tamquam maritum, sed tamquam matrimonium ament. numerum liberorum finire aut quemquam ex agnatis necare flagitium habetur, plusque ibi boni mores valent quam alibi bonae leges.In omni domo nudi ac sordidi in hos artus, in haec corpora, quae miramur, excrescunt. sua quemque mater uberibus alit, nec ancillis aut nutricibus delegantur.

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