Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

But the orator is not content with producing this effect, but proceeds to reverse the figure.

He knows and understands how to keep off the forces of the enemy, you how to keep off the rainwater; he is skilled to extend boundaries, you to delimit them.

A similar correspondence may be produced between the middle and the opening of a sentence, as in the line:

  1. te nemus Angitiae, vitrea te Fucinus unda.
Aen. vii. 759 [*](Thee did Angitia's grove bewail,Thee too the glassy waves o' the Fucine lake. The correspondence is to be found in te (coming first in one and second in the other clause). )
Or the middle may correspond to the end, as in the following sentence:
This ship, laden with the spoil of Sicily, while it was itself a portion of the spoil.
[*](Verr. v. xvii. 44. ) Nor will it be questioned that a like effect may be produced by the repetition of the middle of both clauses. Again, the end may correspond with the beginning.
Many grievous afflictions were devised for parents and for kinsfolk many.
[*](Verr. v. xlv. 119. )

There is also another form of repetition which simultaneously reiterates things that have already been said, and draws distinctions between them.

  1. Iphitus too with me and Pelias came,
  2. Iphitus bowed with age and Pelias
  3. Slow-limping with the wound Ulysses gave.
Aen. ii. 435.
This is styled ἐπάνοδος by the Greeks and regression by Roman writers.

Nor are words only repeated to reaffirm the same meaning, but the repetition may serve to mark a contrast, as in the following sentence.

v7-9 p.467
The reputation of the leaders was approximately equal, but that of their followers perhaps not so equal.
[*](pro Lig. vi. 19. ) At times the cases and genders of the words repeated may be varied, as in
Great is the toil of speaking, and great the task, etc.
; [*](pro Muren. xiii. 29. ) a similar instance is found in Rutilius, but in a long period. I therefore merely cite the beginnings of the clauses. Pater hic tuus? patrem nunc appellas? patris tui filius es? [*](Rutil. i. x. Is this your father? Do you still call him father? Are you your father's son? )

This figure may also be effected solely by change of cases, a proceeding which the Greeks call πολύπτωτον It may also be produced in other ways, as in the pro Cluentio: [*]( lx. 167. But what was the time chosen for giving the poison? Was it on that day? Amid such a crowd? And who was selected to administer it? Where was it got? How was the cup intercepted? Why was it not given a second time? ) Quod autem tempus veneni dandi? illo die? illa frequentia? per quem porro datum? unde sumptum? quae porro interceptio poculi? cur non de integro autem datum?

The combination of different details is called μεταβολὴν by Caecilius, and may be exemplified by the following passage directed against Oppianicus in the pro Cluentio: [*](xiv. 41.)

The local senate were unanimously of opinion that he had falsified the public registers at Larinum; no one would have any business dealings or make any contract with him, no one out of all his numerous relations and kinsfolk ever appointed him as guardian to his children,
with much more to the same effect.

In this case the details are massed together, but they may equally be distributed or dissipated, as I think Cicero says. For example:

  1. Here corn, there grapes, elsewhere the growth of trees
  2. More freely rises,
Georg. i. 54.
with the remainder of the passage.