Kitap 7
1.3
For it will often be expedient for the parties to place different points first; otherwise the pleading would always be determined by the good pleasure of the prosecution. Finally, in a case of mutual accusation, cp. III. x. 4. where both parties have to defend themselves before accusing their antagonist, the order of everything must necessarily be different. I shall therefore set forth the method adopted by myself, about which I have never made any mystery: it is the result in part of instruction received from others, in part of my own reasoning.
1.4
When engaged in forensic disputes I made it a point to make myself familiar with every circumstance connected with the case. cp iv. iv. 8; IV. ii. 28. (In the schools, of course, the facts of the case are definite and limited in number and are moreover set out before we begin to declaim: the Greeks call them themes, which Cicero Top., 21. translates by propositions. ) When I had formed a general idea of these circumstances, I proceeded to consider them quite as much from my opponent's point of view as from my own.
1.5
The first point which I set myself to determine (it is easy enough to state, but is still all-important) was what each party desired to establish and then what means he was likely to adopt to that end. My method was as follows. I considered what the prosecutor would say first: his point must either be admitted or controversial: if admitted, no question could arise in this connexion.
