Institutio Oratoria

Nor is it only past or present actions which we may imagine: we may equally well present a picture of what is likely to happen or might have happened. This is done with extraordinary skill by Cicero in his defence of Milo, [*](Ch. 32.) where he shows what Clodius would have done, had he succeeded in securing the praetorship. But this transference of time, which is technically called μετάστασις was more modestly used in vivid description by the old orators. For they would preface it by words such as

Imagine that you see

Though you cannot see this with your bodily eyes, you can see it with the mind's eye.

Modern authors, however, more especially the declaimers, are bolder, indeed they show the utmost animation in giving rein to their imagination; witness the following passages from Seneca's treatment of the controversial theme in which a father, guided by one of his sons, finds another son in the act of adultery with his stepmother and kills both culprits.

Lead me, I follow, take this old hand of mine and direct it where you will.

And a little later,

See, he says, what for so long you refused to believe. As for myself, I cannot see, night and thick darkness veil my eyes.

Some include the clear and vivid description of places under the same heading, while others call it topography. I have found some who speak of irony as dissimulation, but, in view of the fact that this latter name

In the first place, the trope is franker in its meaning, and, despite the fact that it implies something other than it says, makes no pretence about it. For the context as a rule is perfectly clear, as, for example, in the following passage from the Catilinarian orations. [*](I. viii. 19.)

Rejected by him, you migrated to your boon-companion, that excellent gentleman Metellus.

But in the figurative form of irony the speaker disguises his entire meaning, the disguise being apparent rather than confessed. For in the trope the conflict is purely verbal, while in the figure the meaning, and sometimes the whole aspect of our case, conflicts with the language and the tone of voice adopted; nay, a man's whole life may be coloured with irony, as was the case with Socrates, who was called an ironist because he assumed the role of an ignorant man lost in wonder at the wisdom of others. Thus, as continued metaphor develops into allegory, so a sustained series of tropes develops into this figure.

There are, however, certain kinds of this figure which have no connexion with tropes. In the first place, there is the figure which derives its name from negation and is called by some ἀντίφρασις. Here is an example:

I will not plead against you according to the rigour

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of the law, I will not press the point which I should perhaps be able to make good

Why should I mention his decrees, his acts of plunder, his acquisition, whether by cession or by force, of certain inheritances?

I say nothing of the first wrong inflicted by his lust

I do not even propose to produce the evidence given concerning the 600,000 sesterces

or

I might say, etc.

If I were to plead on this point as though there were some real charge to refute, I should speak at greater length.

1. Go!
2. Follow the winds to Italy;