Institutio Oratoria

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.

and

The virtuous youth preferred to risk his life

v7-9 p.289

by slaying him to suffering such dishonour.

[*]( Cic. pro Mil. iv. 9, cp. V. xi. 13. )

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,

she cries,

to have all your fingers,

meaning thereby,

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.

[*](Pro Lig. i. 2. It is a conclusion in the logical sense. But clausula more commonly means close, conclusion, cadence of a period. Cp. what follows. ) But to-day something more is meant, for our rhetoricians want every passage, every sentence to strike the ear by an impressive close.