Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

Galba on the other hand made use of partition when he replied to a friend who asked him for a cloak,

It is not raining and you don't need it; if it does rain, I shall wear it myself.

Similar material for jests is supplied by genus, species, property, difference, conjugates, [*](See v. x. 85.) adjuncts, antecedents, consequents, contraries, causes, effects, and comparisons of things greater, equal, or less, [*]( See v. x. 55 sqq. ) as it is also by all forms of trope.

Are not a large number of jests made by means of hyperbole? Take for instance Cicero's [*](cp. de Orat II. lxvi. 267, where the jest is attributed to Crassus. ) remark about a man who was remarkable for his height,

He bumped his head against the Fabian arch,

or the remark made by Publius Oppius about the family of the Lentuli to the effect, that since the children were always smaller than their parents, the race would

perish by propagation.

Again, what of irony?

Is not even the most severe form of irony a kind of jest? Afer made a witty use of it when he replied to Didius Callus, who, after making the utmost efforts to secure a provincial government, complained on receiving the appointment that he had been forced into accepting,

Well, then, do something for your country's sake.

[*](i.e. sacrifice your own interests and serve your country or its own sake. ) Cicero also employed metaphor to serve his jest, when on receiving a report of uncertain authorship to the effect that Vatinius was dead, he remarked,

Well, for the meantime I shall
v4-6 p.477
make use of the interest.

[*]( The report may be false, but I will enjoy the hope it arouses in me. The capital on which I receive a dividend may be non-existent, but I will enjoy the interest. )

He also employed allegory in the witticism that he was fond of making about Marcus Caelius, who was better at bringing charges than at defending his client against them, to the effect that he had a good right hand, but a weak left. [*]( The right being the sword arm, the left carrying the shield. ) As an example of the use of emphasis I may quote the jest of Aulus Villius, that Tuccius was killed by his sword falling upon him. [*]( Tuccius was clearly a coward who committed suicide. Villius suggested that he would never have had the courage to fall upon his sword, and that therefore the sword must have fallen on him. )