Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
There is, however, a form of propriety of speech which deserves the highest praise, that is to say, the employment of words with the maximum of significance, as, for instance, when Cato [*](Suet. Caes. 53. ) said that
Caesar was thoroughly sober when he undertook the task of overthrowing the constitution,or as Virgil [*](Ecl. vi. 5. ) spoke of a
thin-drawn strain,and Horace [*](Odes I. xii. 1, and III. vi. 36. ) of the
shrill pipe,and
dread Hannibal.
Some also include under this head that form of propriety
sweet unfermented wine,or
with white teeth.But of this sort of propriety I shall have to speak elsewhere. [*](SC. ch. vi. )
Propriety is also made to include the appropriate use of words in metaphor, while at times the salient characteristic of an individual comes to be attached to him as a proper name: thus Fabius was called
Cunctator,the Delayer, on account of the most remarkable of his many military virtues. Some, perhaps, may think that words which mean more than they actually say deserve mention in connexion with clearness, since they assist the understanding. I, however, prefer to place emphasis [*](See IX. ii. 64.) among the ornaments of oratory, since it does not make a thing intelligible, but merely more intelligible.
Obscurity, on the other hand, results from the employment of obsolete words, as, for instance, if an author should search the records of the priests, the earliest treaties and the works of long-forgotten writers with the deliberate design of collecting words that no man living understands. For there are persons who seek to gain a reputation for erudition by such means as this, in order that they may be regarded as the sole depositories of certain forms of knowledge.