[26]
My own teachers used to prepare us for conjectural cases by a form of exercise which was at once
useful and attractive: they made us discuss and
develop questions such as “Why in Sparta is Venus
represented as wearing armour?”1 or “Why is Cupid
believed to be a winged boy armed with arrows and
a torch?” and the like. In these exercises our aim
was to discover the intention implied, a question
which frequently occurs in controversial declamations.
Such themes may perhaps be regarded as a kind of
chria or moral essay.
1 The reason according to Lactantius (Inst. Div. i. 20) was the bravery of the Spartan women in one of the Messenian wars.
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