Institutio Oratoria

For my own part, I seem to see before my eyes his face, his eyes, the unseemly blandishments of himself and his paramour, the silent loathing and frightened shame of those who viewed the scene.

At times, again, the picture which we endeavour to present is fuller in detail, as, for example, in the following description of a luxurious banquet, which is also from Cicero, [*]( From the lost pro Gallio. ) since he by himself is capable of supplying admirable examples of every kind of oratorical ornament:

I seemed to see some entering, some leaving the room,

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some reeling under the influence of the wine, others yawning with yesterday's potations. The floor was foul with wine-smears, covered with wreaths half-withered and littered with fishbones.

What more would any man have seen who had actually entered the room? So, too, we may move our hearers to tears by the picture of a captured town. For the mere statement that the town was stormed, while no doubt it embraces all that such a calamity involves, has all the curtness of a dispatch, and fails to penetrate to the emotions of the hearer.