Institutio Oratoria

Secondly, inanimate things may be substituted for inanimate, as in the Virgilian.

1. And gave his fleet the rein,

Aen. vi. 1.

or inanimate may be substituted for animate, as in

1. Did the Argive bulwark fall by sword or fate?

From an unknown tragedian.

or animate for inanimate, as in the following lines:

1. The shepherd sits unknowing on the height
2. Listening the roar from some far mountain brow.

Aen. ii. 307.

But, above all, effects of extraordinary sublimity are produced when the theme is exalted by a bold and almost hazardous metaphor and inanimate objects are given life and action, as in the phrase

1. Araxes' flood that scorns a bridge,

Aen. viii. 728.

or in the passage of Cicero, [*](Pro Lit. iii. 9. See VIII. iv. 27. ) already quoted,

where he cries,

What was that sword of yours doing, Tubero, the sword you drew on the field of Pharsalus? Against whose body did you aim its point? What meant those arms you bore?

Sometimes the effect is doubled, as in Virgil's.

1. And with venom arm the steel.

Aen. ix. 773.

For both

to arm the steel

and

to arm with venom

are metaphors.