Institutio Oratoria

These may have been figures when Sallust made them; but it is a question whether they can now be so considered, since they have met with such general acceptance. For we are in the habit of accepting common parlance as sufficient authority where current phrases are concerned: for example, rebus agentibus in the sense of while this was going on, which Pollio rebukes Labienus [*](See IV. i. 11; I. V. 8.) for using, has become an accredited idiom, as has contumeliam fecit, which, as is

well known, is stigmatised by Cicero [*](Phil. III. ix. 22. Quintilian appears primafacie to regard the phrase as meaning to suffer insult. But in Plautus and Terence it means to inflict an insult, and Quintilian probably quotes the phrase in this sense. He should, however, have said adficere, not adfici, to make his meaning clear. ) : for in his day they said ad fici contumelia.

Figures may also be commended by their antiquity, for which Virgil had such a special passion. Compare his

1. vel cum se pavidum contra mea iurgia iactat

Aen. xi. 400. [*]( The figure consists in the use of vel cum to introduce an independent sentence. Even when he claims, to tremble at my taunts. )

or

1. progeniem sed enim Troiano a sanguine duci
2. audierat.

An. i. 19. [*](But she had heard that even now a raceWas springing from the blood of fallen Troy. Quintilian refers to the archaic sed enim. )

Numerous instances of the same kind might be cited from the old tragic and comic poets.