Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
For when Cicero in his defence for Ligarius says,
After war had begun, Caesar, and was well on its way to a conclusion, I deliberately, of my own free will and under no compulsion, joined the forces of your opponents,[*](iii. 7.) he has in his mind something more than a desire to serve the interests of Ligarius, for there is no better way of praising the clemency of the victor.
On the other hand, in the sentence,
What else was our aim, Tubero, than that we might secure the power which he now holds?[*](iv. 10. We = the Pompeian party. He = Caesar.) he succeeds with admirable art in representing the cause of both parties as being good, and in so doing mollifies him whose cause was really bad. A bolder form of figure, which in Cicero's opinion [*](Orat. xxv. 85. ) demands greater effort, is impersonation, or προσωποποιΐα This is a device which lends wonderful variety and animation to oratory.
By this means we display the inner thoughts of our adversaries as though they were talking with themselves (but we shall only carry conviction if we represent them as uttering what they may reasonably be supposed to have had in their minds); or without sacrifice of credibility we may introduce conversations between ourselves and others, or of others among themselves, and put words of advice, reproach, complaint, praise or pity into the mouths of appropriate persons.
Nay, we are even allowed in this form of speech to bring down the gods from heaven and raise the dead, while cities also and peoples may find a voice. There are some authorities who restrict the term imepersonation to cases where both persons and words are fictitious, and prefer to call imaginary conversations between men by the Greek name of dialogue, which some [*]( Cornific. op. cit. iv. 43 and 52. ) translate