Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

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

He departed, he went
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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:

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.

I cannot therefore see why Caecilius should have stigmatised these words by such a name, since the doubling and repetition of words and all forms of addition may likewise be regarded as pleonasms. And it is not merely words that are thus grouped together. The same device may be applied to thoughts of similar content.

The wild confusion of his thoughts, the thick darkness shed upon his soul by his crimes and the burning torches of the furies all drove him on.

[*]( From the lost in Pisonem. )

Words of different meaning may likewise be grouped together, as for instance,

The woman, the savage cruelty of the tyrant, love for his father, anger beyond control, the madness of blind daring

; [*](Probably from a declamation.) or again, as in the following passage from Ovid, [*](Met. v. 17. )

But the dread Nereids' power,
But horned Ammon, but that wild sea-beast
To feed upon my vitals that must come.

I have found some who call this also by the name of πλοκή: but I do not agree, as only one figure is

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involved. We may also find a mixture of words, some identical and others different in meaning; of this figure, which the Greeks style διαλλαγή, the following will provide an example:

I ask my enemies whether these plots were investigated, discovered and laid bare, overthrown, crushed and destroyed by me.

[*]( From the lost speech in Q. Metullum. ) In this sentence

investigated,

discovered

and

laid bare

are different in meaning, while

overthrown,

crushed

and

destroyed

are similar in meaning to each other, but different from the three previous.

But both the last example and the last but one involve a different figure as well, which, owing to the absence of connecting particles, is called dissolution ( asyndeton ), and is useful when we are speaking with special vigour: for it at once impresses the details on the mind and makes them seem more numerous than they really are. Consequently, we apply this figure not merely to single words, but to whole sentences, as, for instance, is done by Cicero in his reply [*](Only a few fragments remain.) to the speech which Metellus made to the public assembly:

I ordered those against whom information was laid, to be summoned, guarded, brought before the senate: they were led into the senate,

while the rest of the passage is constructed on similar lines. This kind of figure is also called brachylogy, which may be regarded as detachment without loss of connexion. The opposite of this figure of asyndeton is polyxyndeton, which is characterised by the number of connecting particles employed.

In this figure we may repeat the same connecting particle a number of times, as in the following instance:

v7-9 p.477

His house and home and arms
And Amyclean hound and Cretan quiver;
Georg. iii. 344.

or they may be different,

as in the case of arma virumque followed by multum ille et terris and multa quoque. [*](Aen. i. sqq.)

Adverbs and pronouns also may be varied, as in the following instance: [*](Ecl. i. 43. Here I beheld that youth For whom each year twelve days my altars smoke, He first gave answer to my aupplication. ) lic ilium vidi iunvenem followed by bis senos cui nostra dies and hic mihi responsum primus dedit ille petenti. But both these cases involve the massing together of words and phrases either in asyndeton or polysyndeton.