[36]
For the credibility of oracles may be established
or destroyed in one way, and that of soothsayers,
augurs, diviners and astrologers in another, since
the two classes differ entirely in nature. Again the
task of establishing or demolishing such evidence as
the following will give the orator plenty to do; as
for example if certain words have been uttered under
[p. 191]
the influence of wine, in sleep or in a fit of madness,
or if information has been picked up from the mouths
of children, whom the one party will assert to be incapable of invention, while the other will assert that
they do not know what they are saying.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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