Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
Again the same problem arises when we endeavour to magnify our wrongs by saying that other far lesser ills are intolerable; e.g.
If you had merely struck him, your conduct would have been indefensible. But you did more, you wounded him.However I will deal with this subject more fully when I come to speak of amplification. [*](viii. iv. 9.) Meanwhile I will content myself with the observation that the aim of appeals to the emotion is not merely to slew the bitter and grievous nature of ills that actually are so, but also to make ills which are usually regarded as tolerable seem unendurable, as for instance when we represent insulting words as inflicting more grievous injury than an actual blow or represent disgrace as being worse than death.
For the force of eloquence is such that it not merely compels the judge to the conclusion toward which the nature of the facts lead him, but awakens emotions which either do not naturally arise from the case or are stronger than the case would suggest. This is known as deriosis, [*]( Lit. making terrible. ) that is to say, language giving additional force to things unjust, cruel or hateful, an accomplishment in which Demosthenes created immense and special effect.
If I thought it sufficient to follow traditional rules, I should regard it as adequate treatment for this topic to omit nothing that I have read or been taught, provided that it be reasonably sound. But my design is to bring to light the secret principles of this art, and to open up the inmost recesses of the subject, giving the result not of teaching received from others, but of my own experience and the guidance of nature herself.
The prime essential for stirring the emotions of others is, in my opinion,