Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

But even the type of simile which I discussed in connexion with arguments [*]( xi. 22. ) is an ornament to oratory, and serves to make it sublime, rich, attractive or striking, as the case may be. For the more remote the simile is from the subject to which it is applied, the greater will be the impression of novelty and the unexpected which it produces.

The following type may be regarded as commonplace and useful only as helping to create an impression of sincerity:

As the soil is improved and rendered more fertile by culture, so is the mind by education,
or
As physicians amputate mortified limbs, so must we lop away foul and dangerous criminals, even though they be bound to us by ties of blood.
Far finer is the following from Cicero's [*](Pro Arch. viii. 19. ) defence of Archias:
Rock and deserts reply to the voice of man, savage beasts are oft-times tamed by the power of music and stay their onslaught,
and the rest.

This type of simile has, however, sadly degenerated in the hands of some of our declaimers owing to the license of the schools. For they adopt false comparisons, and even then do not apply them as they should to the subjects to which they wish them to provide a parallel. Both these faults are exemplified in two similes which were on the lips of everyone

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when I was a young man,
Even the sources of mighty rivers are navigable,
and
The generous tree bears fruit while it is yet a sapling.