Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

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
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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.
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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,

but is occasionally employed, For although an orator would not say

Tydides
or
Pelides,
he will speak of certain definite persons as
the impious parricides,
while I should have no hesitation in speaking of Scipio as
the destroyer of Carthage and Numantia,
or of Cicero as
the prince of Roman orators.
Cicero himself, at any rate, availed himself of this licence, as, for example, in the following case:
Your faults are not many, said the old praeceptor to the hero,
[*](Pro Muren. xxix. 60. The passage continues (a quotation from some old play) But you have faults and I can correct them. Phoenix is addressing his pupil Achilles. ) where neither name is given, though both are clearly understood.

On the other hand, onomatopoea, that is to say, the creation of a word, although regarded with the highest approbation by the Greeks, is scarcely permissible to a Roman. It is true that many words were created in this way by the original founders of the language, who adapted them to suit the sensation which they expressed. For instance, mugitus, lowing, sibilus, a hiss, and murmur owe their origin to this practice.

But to-day we consider that all has been done that can be done in this line, and do not venture on fresh creations, in spite of the fact that many of the words thus formed in antiquity are daily becoming obsolete. Indeed, we scarcely permit ourselves to use new derivatives, so they are called, which are formed in various ways from words in common use, such as Sullaturit, [*]( Cic. ad Att. IX. x. 6. )

he wishes to be a second Sulla,
or proscripturit,
he wishes to have
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a proscription,
while laureati posies,
laurelled door-posts,
for lauru coronati,
crowned with laurel,
are similar formations.