ints out what topics we ought to employ in each. For the object of
judicial judgment is right; from which also it derives its name. And
the divisions of right were explained when we explained the divisions
of equity. The object of deliberation is utility; of which the
divisions have also been already explained when we were treating of
things to be desired. The object of panegyric is honour; concerning
which also we have already spoken.

But inquiries which are definite are all of them furnished with
appropriate topics, as if they belonged to themselves, being divided
into accusation and defence. And in them there are these kinds of
argumentation. The accuser accuses a person of an act; the advocate
for the defence opposes one of these excuses: either that the thing
imputed has not been done; or that, if it has been done, it deserves
to be called by a different name; or that it was done lawfully and
rightly. Therefore, the first is called a defence either by way of
denial or by way of conjecture; the second is called a defence by
definition; the third, although it is an unpopular name, is called the
judicial one.

XXV. The arguments proper to these excuses, being derived from the
topics which we have already set forth, have been explained in our
oratorical rules. But the refutation of an accusation, in which there
is a repelling of a charge, which is called in Greek [Greek: stasis],
is in Latin called _status_. On which there is founded, in the first
place, such a defence as may effectually resist the attack. And also,
in the deliberations and panegyrics the same refutations often have
place. For it is often denied that those things are likely to happen
which have been stated by some or other in his speech as sure to take
place; if it can be shown either that they are actually impossible, or
that they cannot be brought about without extreme difficulty. And in
this kind of argumentation the conjectural refutation takes place. But
when there is any discussion about utility, or honour, or equity, and
about those things which are contrary to one another, then come in
denials, either of the law or of the name of the action. And the same
is the case in panegyrics. For one may either deny that that has been
done which the person is praised for; or else that it ought to bear
that name which the praiser has conferred on it, or else one may
altogether deny that it deserves any praise at all, as not having been
done rightly or la