[74]
For since the wife could not legally be appointed
[p. 421]
his heir, this procedure was adopted to enable the
property to be transferred to her by a secret conveyance in trust. Now it was easy for me to secure
the woman's acquittal, by openly mentioning the
existence of the bond; but this would have involved
her loss of the inheritance. I had, therefore, to plead
in such a way that the judges should understand that
the bond had actually been given, but that informers
might be unable to avail themselves of any statement of mine to that effect. And I was successful
in both my aims. The fear of seeming to boast my
own skill would have deterred me from mentioning
this case, but for the fact that I wished to demonstrate that there was room for the employment of
these figures even in the courts.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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