Institutio Oratoria

The term enthymeme may be applied to any concept of the mind, but in its strict sense means a reflexion drawn from contraries. Consequently, it has a supremacy among reflexions which we may compare to that of Homer among poets and Rome among cities.

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.