Institutio Oratoria

This form of trope is not only a rhetorical ornament, but is frequently employed in everyday speech. Some also apply the term synecdoche when something is assumed which has not actually been expressed, since one word is then discovered from other words, as in the sentence,

1. The Arcadians to the gates began to rush;

Aen. xi. 142. A false explanation of the historic infinitive as involving the omission of some such word as coeperunt.

when such omission creates a blemish, it is called an ellipse.

For my own part, I prefer to regard this as a figure, and shall therefore discuss it under that head. Again, one thing may be suggested by another, as in the line,

1. Behold, the steers
2. Bring back the plough suspended from the yoke,

Ed. ii. 61

from which we infer the approach of night. I am not sure whether this is permissible to an orator except in arguments, when it serves as an indication of some fact. However, this has nothing to do with the question of style.

It is but a short step from synecdocheè to metonymy, which consists in the substitution of one name for another, and, as Cicero [*](Orat. xxvii. 93. ) tells us, is called hypallage by the rhetoricians. These devices are employed to indicate an invention by substituting the name of

the inventor, or a possession by substituting the name of the possessor. Virgil, for example, writes: [*](Aen. i. 177. )

1. Ceres by water spoiled,

and Horace:

1. Neptune admitted to the land
2. Protects the fleets from blasts of Aquilo.

A. P. 63.

If, however, the process is reversed, the effect is harsh.

But it is important to enquire to what extent tropes of this kind should be employed by the orator. For though we often hear

Vulcan

used for fire and to say vario Marte pugnatum est for

they fought with varying success

is elegant and idiomatic, while Venus is a more decent expression than coitus, it would be too bold for the severe style demanded in the courts to speak of Liber and Ceres when we mean bread and wine. Again, while usage permits us to substitute that which contains for that which is contained, as in phrases such as

civilised cities,

or

a cup was drunk to the lees,

or

a happy age,

the converse procedure would rarely be ventured on by any save a poet: take, for example, the phrase:

1. Ucalegon burns next.

Aen. ii. 311.

It is, however, perhaps more permissible to describe what is possessed by reference to its possessor, as, for example, to say of a man whose estate is being squandered,

the man is being eaten up.

Of this form there are innumerable species.

For example, we say

sixty thousand men were slain by Hannibal at Cannae,

and speak of

Virgil

when we mean

Virgil's poems

; again, we say that supplies have

come,

when they have been

brought,

that a

sacrilege,

and not a

sacrilegious man

has been detected, and that a man possesses a knowledge of

arms,

not of

the art of arms.

The type which indicates cause by effect is common both in poets and orators. As examples from poetry I may quote:

1. Pale death with equal foot knocks at the poor man's door

Hor. Od. I. iv. 13.

and

1. There pale diseases dwell and sad old age;

Aen. vi. 275

1. while the orator will speak of

   headlong anger

   ,

2. cheerful youth

   or

   slothful ease

   .

The following type of trope has also some kinship with synecdochè. For when I speak of a man's

looks

instead of his

look,

I use the plural for the singular, but my aim is not to enable one thing to be inferred from many (for the sense is clear enough), but I merely vary the form of the word. Again, when I call a

gilded roof

a

golden roof,

I diverge a little from the truth, because gilding forms only a part of the roof. But to follow out these points is a task involving too much minute detail even for a work whose aim is not the training of an orator.

Antonomasia, which substitutes something else for a proper name, is very common in poets: it may be done in two ways: by the substitution of an epithet as equivalent to the name which it replaces, such as

Tydides,

Pelides,

[*](The son of Tydeus=Diomede, the son of Peleus = Achilles.) or by indicating the most striking characteristics of an individual, as in the phrase

1. Father of gods and king of men,

Aen. i. 65.

or from acts clearly indicating the individual, as in the phrase,

1. The arms which he, the traitor, left
2. Fixed on the chamber wall.

Aen. iv. 495. This third example does not correspond with the twofold division given by utroque and may be spurious.

This form of trope is rare in oratory,