[32]
It may also happen that a jest directed against an
opponent may apply to the judge or to our own client,
although there are some orators who do not refrain
even from jests that may recoil upon themselves.
This was the case with Sulpicius Longus, who,
despite the fact that he was himself surpassingly
hideous, asserted of a man against whom he was
appearing in a case involving his status as a free
man, that even his face was the face of a slave. To
this Domitius Afer replied, “Is it your profound
conviction, Longus, that an ugly man must be a
slave?”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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