Institutio Oratoria

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

   .