Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, books 4-6: notes
Harold Edgeworth Butler, Ed.

[28] IV. II. 28, secundo partis suae loco. There seems to have been nothing in the schools of rhetoric which corresponded with the mock trials employed to-day for the training of law students. It would have needed little to adapt the controversiae to this more practical form, but it seems not to have been done. The declaimer dealt both with the case for the prosecution and that for the defence, as stated in section 29. But more than one declamation might be made on the same theme. The declamation which is described as being delivered secundo loco would appear to be, not a declamation for the defence, though this is conceivable, but rather a second speech in answer to the defence. The declaimer refutes the arguments which he alleges have been made by the defence, but that he may not miss the opportunity of practice in making a statement of facts, preludes his refutation with a statement of facts, inserted in the usual position immediately following the exordium. For the whole of this obscure passage cp. v. xiii. 50.