Kitap 5
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shows that the two facts tell against one another. But, Attius, I would urge you to give the closest consideration to the following problem. Which do you desire to carry the greater weight—the judgment of the censors, or of Egnatius? If the latter, you regard the judgment of the censors in other cases as counting for little, since they expelled this same Gnaeus Egnatius, on whose authority you lay such stress, from his place in the senate. On the other hand, if you attach most weight to the judgment of the censors, I must point out that the censors retained the younger Egnatius, whom his father disinherited by an act resembling a censorial decision, in his position as senator, although they had expelled his father. As regards errors such as the following,
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the folly shown in their commission is out of all proportion to the skill required to deal with them: I refer to mistakes such as advancing a disputable argument as indisputable, a controversial point as admitted, a point common to a number of cases as peculiar to the case in hand, or the employment of trite, superfluous, or incredible arguments. For careless speakers are liable to commit a host of errors: they will exaggerate a charge which has still got to be proved, will argue about an act when the question is who committed it, will attempt impossibilities, drop an argument as if it were complete, whereas it is scarcely begun, speak of the individual in preference to the case,
