Institutio Oratoria

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,

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.