Institutio Oratoria

Similar to these is that class of proverb which may be regarded as an abridged fable and is understood allegorically:

The burden is not mine to carry,

he said,

the ox is carrying panniers.

Simile has a force not unlike that of example, more especially when drawn from things nearly equal without any admixture of metaphor, as in the following case:

Just as those who have been accustomed to receive bribes in the Campus Martius are specially hostile to those whom they suspect of having withheld the money, so in the present case the judges came into court with a strong prejudice against the

v4-6 p.285

accused.

[*](pro Cluent. xxvii. 75. )

For παραβολή, which Cicero [*](de Inv. i. 30. ) translates by

comparison,

is often apt to compare things whose resemblance is far less obvious. Nor does it merely compare the actions of men as Cicero does in the pro Murena [*](ii. 4.) :

But if those who have just come into harbour from the high seas are in the habit of showing the greatest solicitude in warning those who are on the point of leaving port of the state of the weather, the likelihood of falling in with pirates, and the nature of the coasts which they are like to visit (for it is a natural instinct that we should take a kindly interest in those who are about to face the dangers from which we have just escaped), what think you should be my attitude who am now in sight of land after a mighty tossing on the sea, towards this man who, as I clearly see, has to face the wildest weather?

On the contrary, similes of this kind are sometimes drawn from dumb animals and inanimate objects.

Further, since similar objects often take on a different appearance when viewed from a different angle, I feel that I ought to point out that the kind of comparison which the Greeks call εἰκών, and which expresses the appearance of things and persons (as for instance in the line of Cassius [*]( Probably the epigrammatist Cassius of Parma. lanipedis =bandaged for the gout. Regius emended to planipedis, a dancer who performed barefoot. ) —

1. Who is he yonder that doth writhe his face
2. Like some old man whose feet are wrapped in wool?)

should be more sparingly used in oratory than those comparisons which help to prove our point. For instance, if you wish to argue that the mind requires cultivation, you would use a comparison drawn from the soil, which if neglected produces thorns and thickets, but if cultivated will bear fruit; or if you are exhorting someone to enter the service of the state, you will point out that bees and ants, though not merely dumb animals, but tiny insects, still toil for the common weal.

Of this kind is the saying of Cicero [*](See IV. iv. 8.) :

As our bodies can make no use of their members without a mind to direct them, so the state can make no use of its component parts, which may be compared to the sinews, blood and limbs, unless it is directed by law.

And just as he draws this simile in the pro Cluentio from the analogy of the human body, so in the pro Cornelio [*](pro Clunt. liii. 146. ) he draws a simile from horses, and in the pro Archia [*](pro Arch. viii. 19. ) from stones.

As I have already said, the following type of simile comes more readily to hand:

As oarsmen are useless without a steersman, so soldiers are useless without a general.

Still it is always possible to be misled by appearances in the use of simile, and we must therefore use our judgment in their employment. For though a new ship is more useful than one which is old, this simile will not apply to friendship: and again, though we praise one who is liberal with her money, we do not praise one who is liberal with her embraces. In these cases there is similitude in the epithets old and liberal, but their force is different, when applied to ships and friendship, money and embraces.