previous next
[32] I must however express the strongest disapproval of the practice of sending a suborned witness to sit on the benches of the opposing party, in order that on being called into the witness-box from that quarter he may thereby do all the more damage to the case for the accused by speaking against the party with whose adherents he was sitting or, while appearing to help him by his testimony, deliberately giving his evidence in such an extravagant and exaggerated manner, as not only to detract from the credibility of his own statements, but to annul the advantage derived from the evidence of those who were really helpful. I mention this practice not with a view to encourage it, but to secure its avoidance.

Documentary evidence is not frequently in conflict with oral. Such a circumstance may be turned to advantage by either side. For one party will rest its case on the fact that the witness is speaking on oath, the other on the unanimity of the signatories.1

1 An over-statement, since in many cases the signatories could only testify that the statement was that actually made by the deponent; with its truth they were not necessarily concerned.

Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.

The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Latin (Harold Edgeworth Butler, 1921)
hide References (7 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: