[22]
They are sitting with
the prosecutor; they rise up from the prosecutor's bench; they use no concealment; they feel
no apprehension. Do I complain of where they sit? They come with him from his house, if they
trip at one word, they will have no place to return to. Can any one be a witness, when the
prosecutor can examine him without any anxiety and have not the slightest fear of his giving
him any answer which he is unwilling to hear? Where, then, is the oratorical skill, which
formerly used to be looked for either in the prosecutor or in the counsel for the defence?
“He examined the witness cleverly; he came up to him cunningly; he scolded him; he
led him where he pleased; he convicted him and made him dumb.”
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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