Institutio Oratoria

I have already said enough on this topic in dealing with arguments. [*]( See v. x. 2, and again, for greater detail, v. xiv. 1 (note at end), where an example of this type of sententia is given from the pro Milone (ch. 29) You are sitting to avenge the death of one whom you would be unwilling to restore to life even if you thought it was in your power to restore it! ) But the use of the enthymeme is not confined to proof, it may sometimes be employed for the purpose of ornament, as in the following instance: [*](Pro Lig. iv. 10. )

Caesar, shall the language of those whom it is your glory to have spared goad you to imitate their own cruelty?

while he adds it at the period's close as an epiphonema, not by way of proof, but as a crowning insult to his opponents. For an epiphonema is an exclamation attached to the close of a statement or a proof by way of climax. Here are two examples:

1. Such toil it was to found the Roman race!

Aen. i. 33.

The virtuous youth preferred to risk his life

v7-9 p.289

by slaying him to suffering such dishonour.

There is also what our modern rhetoricians call the noema, a term which may be taken to mean every kind of conception, but is employed by them in the special sense of things which they wish to be understood, though they are not actually said, as in the declamation where the sister defends herself against the brother whom she had often bought out from the gladiatorial school, when he brought an action against her demanding the infliction of a similar mutilation because she had cut off his thumb while he slept:

You deserved,

to have all your fingers,

You deserved to be a gladiator all your days.

There is also what is called a clausula. If this merely means a conclusion, it is a perfectly correct and sometimes a necessary device, as in the following case:

You must, therefore, first confess your own offence before you accuse Ligarius of anything.

In fact, they think it a disgrace, nay, almost a crime, to pause to breathe except at the end of a passage that is designed to call forth applause. The result is a number of tiny epigrams, affected, irrelevant and disjointed. For there are not enough striking reflexions in the world to provide a close to every period.

The following forms of reflexion are even more modern. There is the type which depends on surprise for its effect, as, for example, when Vibius Crispus, in denouncing the man who wore a breastplate when strolling in the forum and alleged that he did so because he feared for his life, cried,

Who

v7-9 p.291

gave you leave to be such a coward?

Caesar, your provinces of Gaul entreat you to bear your good fortune with courage.

Others are of an allusive type: for example, Domitius Afer, in his defence of Cloatilla, whom Claudius had pardoned when she was accused of having buried her husband, who had been one of the rebels, addressed her sons in his peroration with the words:

Nonetheless, it is your duty, boys, to give your mother burial.

depend on the fact that they are transferred from one context to another Crispus, in his defence of Spatale, whose lover had made her his heir and then proceeded to die at the age of eighteen, remarked:

What a marvellous fellow to gratify his passion thus!

Another type of reflexion may be produced by the doubling of a phrase, as in the letter written by Seneca for Nero to be sent to the senate on the occasion of his mother's death, with a view to creating the impression that he had been in serious danger:—

As yet I cannot believe or rejoice that I am safe.

I know from whom to fly, but whom to follow I know not;

What of the fact that the poor wretch, though he could not speak, could not keep silence?

Is it your pleasure, then, ye laws, the faithful guardians of chastity, that wives should receive a title [*]( By the lex Julia et Papia Poppaea childless wives were only entitled to a tenth of their husband's estate. ) and harlots a quarter?