Institutio Oratoria

At times, again, we may advance a parallel to make something which we desire to exaggerate seem greater than ever, as Cicero does in the pro Cluentio, [*](cp. v. xiii. 24. ) where, after telling a story of a woman of Miletus who took a bribe from the reversionary heirs to prevent the birth of her expected child, lie cries,

How much greater is the punishment deserved by Oppianicus for the same offence! For that woman, by doing violence to her own body did but torture herself, whereas he procured the same result by applying violence and torture to the body of another.

I would not, however, have anyone think that this method is identical with that used in argument, where the greater is inferred from the less, although there is a certain resemblance between the two. For in the latter case we are aiming at proof, in the former at amplification; for example, in the passage just cited about Oppianicus, the object of the comparison is not to show that his action was a crime, but that it was even worse than another crime. There is, however, a certain affinity between the two methods, and I will therefore repeata passage which I quoted there, although my present purpose is different.

For what I have now to demonstrate is that when amplification is our purpose we

Did that illustrious citizen, the pontifex maximus, Publius Scipio, acting merely in his private capacity, kill Tiberius Gracchus when he introduced but slight changes for the worse that did not seriously impair the constitution of the state, and shall we as consuls suffer Catiline to live, whose aim was to lay waste the whole world with fire and sword?