Institutio Oratoria

Sometimes, as I remarked in connexion with the doubling of words, the beginnings and the conclusions of sentences are made to correspond by the use of other words with the same meaning. Here is an example of correspondence between the beginnings:

I would have faced every kind of danger; I would have exposed myself to treacherous attacks; I would have delivered myself over to public hatred.

[*]( From the lost in Q. Metellaim. ) An example of the correspondence of conclusions is provided by another passage in the same speech which follows close on that just cited:

For you have decided; you have passed sentence; you have given judgment.

Some call this synonzmy, others disjunction: both terms, despite their difference, are correct. For the words are differentiated, but their meaning is identical. Sometimes, again, words of the same meaning are grouped together. For instance,

Since this is so, Catiline, proceed on the path which you have entered; depart from the city, it is high time. The gates are open, get you forth.

[*](L. v. 10.)

Or take this example from another book of the orations against Catiline,

He departed, he went

v7-9 p.473

hence; he burst forth, he was gone.

[*](II. i. l.) This is regarded as a case of pleonasm by Caecilius, that is to say, as language fuller than is absolutely required, like the phrase:

1. Myself before my very eyes I saw:

Aen. xii. 638.

for

myself

is already implied by

I saw.

But when such language is over weighted by some purely superfluous addition, it is, as I have also pointed out elsewhere, [*](VIII. iii. 53.) a fault; whereas when, as in this case, it serves to make the sense stronger and more obvious, it is a merit.

I saw,

myself,

before my very eyes,

are so many appeals to the emotion.