dealt with matters connected with every-day life, pointing out such as
are useful and necessary, and such as are hurtful and needless. They had
occasion often to support the authority of fabulous accounts, and to
detract from that of historical narratives, which sort the Greeks call
"Propositions," "Refutations" and "Corroboration," until by a gradual
process they have exhausted these topics, and arrive at the gist of the
argument.

Among the ancients, subjects of controversy were drawn either from
history, as indeed some are even now, or from (526) actual facts, of
recent occurrence. It was, therefore, the custom to state them
precisely, with details of the names of places. We certainly so find
them collected and published, and it may be well to give one or two of
them literally, by way of example:

"A company of young men from the city, having made an excursion to Ostia
in the summer season, and going down to the beach, fell in with some
fishermen who were casting their nets in the sea. Having bargained with
them for the haul, whatever it might turn out to be, for a certain sum,
they paid down the money. They waited a long time while the nets were
being drawn, and when at last they were dragged on shore, there was no
fish in them, but some gold sewn up in a basket. The buyers claim the
haul as theirs, the fishermen assert that it belongs to them."

Again: "Some dealers having to land from a ship at Brundusium a cargo of
slaves, among which there was a handsome boy of great value, they, in
order to deceive the collectors of the customs, smuggled him ashore in
the dress of a freeborn youth, with the bullum [907] hung about his neck.
The fraud easily escaped detection. They proceed to Rome; the affair
becomes the subject of judicial inquiry; it is alleged that the boy was