Institutio Oratoria

What need have we of acrumnosum? [*](Wretched.) It is surely enough to call a thing horridum. Reor may be tolerated, autumo [*](Assert.) smacks of tragedy, proles [*](Offspring.) has become a rarity, while prosapia [*](Stock, family.) stamps the man who uses it as lacking taste. Need I say more Almost the whole language has changed.

But there are still some old words that are endeared to us by

1. Britain's Thucydides, whose mad Attic brain
2. Loved word-amalgams like Corinthian bronze,
3. First made a horrid blend of words from Gaul,
4. Tau, al, min, sil and God knows how much else,
5. Then mixed them in a potion for his brother!

a fact which Cicero recorded in the words,

Cimber has killed his brother German.

1. Crispus, you, too, Jugurtha's fall who told,
2. And filched such store of words from Cato old.

It is a tiresome kind of affectation; any one can practise it, and it is made all the worse by the fact that the man who catches the infection will not choose his words to suit his facts, but will drag in irrelevant facts to provide an opportunity for the use of such words. The coining of new words is, as I stated in the first book, [*](I. v. 70) more permissible in Greek, for the Greeks did not hesitate to coin nouns to represent certain sounds and emotions, and in truth they were taking no greater liberty than was taken by the first men when they gave names to things.

Our own writers have ventured on a few attempts at composition and derivation, but have not met with

Of the coining of words by expansion and inflexion we have examples, such as the Ciceronian [*](De Nat. D. I. xxxiv. 95. ) beatitas and beatitudo, forms which he feels to be somewhat harsh, though he thinks they may be softened by use. Derivatives may even be fashioned from proper names, quite apart from ordinary words, witness Sullaturit [*](a Att. IX. x. 6. Desires to be a second Sulla. ) in Cicero and Fimbriatus and Figulatus [*]( Metamorphosed into Figulus. Presumably refers to Clusinius Figulus, see VII. ii. 26. ) in Asinius.

Many new words have been coined in imitation of the Greeks, [*](See II. xiv. 2.) more especially by Verginius Flavus, some of which, such as queens and essentia, are regarded as unduly harsh. But I see no reason why we should treat them with such contempt, except, perhaps, that we are highly self-critical and suffer in consequence from the poverty of our language. Some new formations do, however, succeed in establishing themselves.

For words which now are old, once were new, and there are some words in use which are of quite recent origin, such as reatus, [*](The condition of an accused person.) invented by Messala, and munerarius, [*](The giver of a gladiatorial show.) invented by Augustus. So, too, my own teachers still persisted in banning the use of words, such as piratica, musica and fabrica, while Cicero regards favor and urbanus as but newly introduced into the language. For in a letter to Brutus he says, eum amorer et eum, ut hoc

while to Appius Pulcher he writes, le hominem non solum sapientem, verum etiam, ut nunc loquimur, urbanum. [*](ad Fam. III. viii. 3. You who are not merely wise, but, as we say nowadays, urbane. ) He also thinks that Terence was the first to use the word obsequium, while Caecilius asserts that Sisenna was the first to use the phrase albente caelo. [*](When the sky grew white (at dawn).) Hortensius seems to have been the first to use cervix in the singular, since the ancients confined themselves to the plural. We must not then be cowards, for I cannot agree with Celsus when he forbids orators to coin new words.

For some words, as Cicero [*](Part Or. v. 16. ) says, are native, that is to say, are used in their original meaning, while others are derivative, that is to say, formed from the native. Granted then that we are not justified in coining entirely new words having no resemblance to the words invented by primitive man, I must still ask at what date we were first forbidden to form derivatives and to modify and compound words, processes which were undoubtedly permitted to later generations of mankind. If, however,

one of our inventions seems a little risky, we must take certain measures in advance to save it from censure, prefacing it by phrases such as

so to speak,

if I may say so,

in a certain sense,

if you will allow me to make use of such a word.

The metaphorical use of words cannot be

I would commend this remark to those who do not think it necessary to avoid obscenity on the ground that no word is indecent in itself and that, if a thing is revolting, its unpleasantness will be realised clearly enough by whatever name it is called. Accordingly, I shall content myself with following the good old rules of Roman modesty and, as I have already replied to such persons, shall vindicate the cause of decency by saying no more on this unpleasant subject.

Let us now pass to consider connected discourse. Its adornment may be effected, primarily, in two ways; that is to say, we must consider first our ideal of style, and secondly how we shall express this ideal in actual words. The first essential is to realise clearly what we wish to enhance or attenuate, to express with vigour or calm, in luxuriant or austere language, at length or with conciseness, with gentleness or asperity, magnificence or subtlety, gravity or wit.

The next essential is to decide by what kind of metaphor, figures, reflexions, methods and arrangement we may best produce the effect which we desire. But, before I discuss ornament, I must first touch upon its opposite, since the first of all virtues is the avoidance of faults.

Therefore we must not expect any speech to be ornate that is not, in the first place,

He desires, therefore, that our words should have a certain weight about them, and that our thoughts should be of a serious cast or, at any rate, adapted to the opinions and character of mankind. These points once secured, we may proceed to employ those expressions which he regards as conferring distinction on style, that is to say, specially selected words and phrases, metaphor, hyperbole, appropriate epithets, repetitions, synonyms and all such language as may suit our case and provide an adequate representation of the facts.

But since my first task is to point out the faults to be avoided, I will begin by calling attention to the fault known as κακέμφατον, a term applied to the employment of language to which perverted usage has given an obscene meaning: take, for example, phrases such as ductare exercitus and patrare bellum, [*](ductare might mean ad libidinem abducere. patrare bellum might mean paedicare formosum. ) which were employed by Sallust in their old and irreproachable sense, but, I regret to say, cause amusement in certain quarters to-day. This, however, is not, in my opinion, the fault of the writer, but of his readers;

still it is one to be avoided, for we have perverted the purity of language by our own corruption, and there is no course left to us but to give ground before the victorious advance of vice. The same term is also applied in the cases where an unfortunate collocation of words produces an obscene suggestion. For example, in the phrase cum hominibus notis loqui, unless hominibus is placed between cum and notis, we shall commit ourselves to a phrase

I might quote other collocations of words which are liable to the same objection, but to discuss them in detail would be to fall into that very fault which I have just said should be avoided. A similar offence against modesty may be caused by the division of words, as, for example, by the use of the nominative of intercapedinis. [*](interccapedo, of which the last two syllables might give rise to unseemly laughter; pedo = break wind. )