Institutio Oratoria

Resemblance and ambiguity may be used in conjunction: Galba for example said to a man who stood very much at his ease when playing ball,

You stand as if you were one of Caesar's candidates.

[*]( A candidate recommended by the emperor was automatically elected. I have borrowed Watson's translation of the pun. Petere is the regular word for standing for office. Petere pilam probably means to attempt to catch the ball. ) The ambiguity lies in the word stand, while the indifference shewn by the player supplies the resemblance.

I need say no more on this form of humour. But the practice of combining different types of jest is very common, and those are best which are of this composite character. A like use may be made of dissimilarity. Thus a Roman knight was once drinking at tile games, and Augustus sent him the following message,

If I want to dine, I go home.

To which the other replied,

Yes, but you are not afraid of losing your seat

Contraries give rise to more than one kind of jest. For instance the following jests made by Augustus and Galba differ in form. Augustus was engaged in dismissing an officer with dishonour from his service: the officer kept interrupting him with entreaties and said,

What shall I say to my father?

Augustus replied,

Tell him that I fell under your displeasure.

Galba, when a friend asked him for the loan of a cloak, said,

I cannot lend it you, as I am going to stay at home,

the point being that the rain was pouring through the roof of his garret at the time. I will add a third example, although out of respect to its author I withhold his name:

You are more lustful than a eunuch,

where we are surprised by the appearance of a word which is the very opposite of what we should have expected. Under the same heading, although it is quite different from any of the preceding, we must place the remark made by Marcus Vestinus when it was reported to him that a certain man was dead.

Some day then he will cease to stink,

was his reply.