Book 6
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Cicero on the other hand employed dissimulation when Sextus Annalis gave evidence damaging to the client whom lie was defending, and the accuser kept pressing him with the question, Tell me, Marcus Tullius, what have you to say about Sextus Annalis? To which he replied by beginning to recite the Sixth book of the Annals of Ennius, which commences with the line, Who may the causes vast of war unfold? Enn. 174 (with oras for causas ).The question ( numquid, etc.) is treated by Cicero as meaning Can you quote anything from the sixth book of the Annals? ingentis is ace. plural. This kind of jest finds its most frequent opportunity in ambiguity,
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as for example, when Cascellius, A famous lawyer mentioned by Horace, A.P. 371. Cascellius pretends to take dividere literally ( i.e. cut in two); his client had meant to sell half his ship, i.e. take a partner in the venture. on being consulted by a client who said, I wish to divide my ship, replied, You will lose it then. But there are also other ways of distorting the meaning; we may for instance give a serious statement a comparatively trivial sense, like the man who, when asked what he thought of a man who had been caught in the act of adultery, replied that he had been too slow in his movements. de Or. II. lxviii. 275.
