Institutio Oratoria

But we must exercise our breathing capacity to make it as great as possible. To produce this result Demosthenes used to recite as many successive lines as

Sometimes the breath, although capable of sustained effort and sufficiently full and clear, lacks firmness when exerted, had for that reason is liable to become tremulous, like bodies which, although to all appearances sound, receive insufficient support from the sinews. This the Greeks call βρασμός. [*](βράγχος is generally read, but the word is used in the sense of hotrseness, which is not what Quintilian describes. I would read βρασμός, a word meaning effervescence, shaking, shivering. Here = tremolo. ) There are some too who, owing to the loss of teeth, do not draw in the breath naturally, but suck it in with a hissing sound. There are others who pant incessantly and so loudly that it is perfectly audible within them: they remind one of heavily-laden beasts of burden straining against the yoke.