Institutio Oratoria

We may note therefore that jests which turn on the meaning of things are at once more pointed and more elegant. In such cases resemblances between things produce the best effects, more especially if we refer to something of an inferior or more trivial nature, as in the jests of which our forefathers were so fond, when they called Lentulus Spinther and Scipio Serapio. [*]( From their resemblances to Spinther, a bad actor, and to Serapio, a dealer in sacrificial victims. ) But such jests may be drawn not merely from the names of men, but from animals as well; for example when I was a boy, Junius Bassus, one of the wittiest of men, was nicknamed the white ass.

And Sarmentus [*]( Sarmentus, a favourite of Augustus, cp. Hor. Sat. I. v. 56, where the story is given. ) compared Messius Cicirrus to a wild horse. The comparison may also be drawn from inanimate objects: for example Publius Blessius called a certain Julius, who was dark, lean and bent, the iron buckle. This method of raising a laugh is much in vogue to-day.

Such resemblances

Don't hold it out as if you were giving a penny to an elephant.

Some of these jests turn on similarity of meaning. Of this kind was the witticism uttered by Vatinius when he was prosecuted by Calvus. Vatinius was wiping his forehead with a white handkerchief, and his accuser called attention to the unseemliness of the act. Whereupon Vatinius replied,

Though I am on my trial, I go on eating white bread all the same.