Institutio Oratoria

For abnormal figures lying outside the range of common speech, while they are for that very reason more striking, and stimulate the ear by their novelty, prove cloying if used too lavishly, and make it quite clear that they did not present themselves naturally to the speaker, but were hunted out by him, dragged from obscure corners and artificially piled together. Figures, then,

may be found in connexion with the gender of nouns; for we find oculis capti talpale [*](Georg. i. 183. ) (blind moles) and timidi damae [*](Ecl. viii. 28. ) (timid deer) in Virgil; but there is good reason for this, since in these cases both sexes are covered by a word of one gender, and there is no doubt that there are male moles and deer as well as female. Figures may also affect verbs: for example, we find such phrases as fabricatus est glatdium [*]( Cic. pro Rab Post. iii. 7. He made a sword. ) or inimicum poenitus es. [*](pro Mil. xiii. 33. You punished an enemy. )