Institutio Oratoria

Writers have given special names to all the different forms, but the names vary with the caprice of the inventor. The origin of these figures is one and the same, namely that they make our utterances more vigorous and emphatic and produce animpression of vehemence such as might spring from repeated outbursts of emotion. Gradation, which the Greeks call climax, necessitates a more obvious and less natural application of art and should therefore be more sparingly employed. Moreover, it involves addition,

since it repeats what has already been said and, before passing to a new point, dwells on those which precede. I will translate a very famous instance from the Greek. [*]( Demosth. de Cor. 179. )

I did not say this, without making a formal proposal to that effect, I did not make that proposal without undertaking the embassy, nor undertake the embassy without persuading the Thebans.

There are, however, examples of the same thing in Latin authors.

It was the energy of Africanus that gave him his peculiar excellence, his excellence that gave him glory, his glory that gave him rivals.

Consequently this means the abolition

v7-9 p.479

of trials for treason no less than for extortion, for offences covered by the Plautian law no less than for treason, for bribery no less than for those offences, and for all breaches of every law no less than for bribery,

It is also to be found in poets, as in the passage in Homer [*](Il. ii. 101. ) describing the sceptre which he traces from the hands of Jupiter down to those of Agamemnon, and in the following from one of our own tragedians: [*](Unknown.)

1. From Jove, so runs the tale, was Tantalus sprung,
2. From Tantalus Pelops, and of Pelops' seed
3. Sprang Atreus, who is sire of all our line.

As regards the figures produced by omission, they rely for their charm in the main on conciseness and novelty. There is one of these which I mentioned in the last book [*](VII. vi. 21.) with reference to synecdoche, and postponed discussing until such time as I came to deal with figures: it occurs when the word omitted may be clearly gathered from the context: an example may be found in Caelius' denunciation of Antony: stupere gaudio Graecus: [*](The Greek was struck dumb with joy.) for we must clearly supply coepit. Or take the following passage from a letter of Cicero [*]( Lost. No talk except of you. What better? Then Fla virus says, 'Couriers to-morrow,' and I scribbled these lines at his house during dinner. ) to Brutus: Serno nullus scilicet nisi de te: quid enim potius? turn Flavius, cras, inquit, tabellarii, et ego ibidem has inter cenum exaravi.

Of a similar kind, at any rate in my opinion, are those passages in which words are decently omitted to spare our modesty.

1. You—while the goats looked goatish-we know who,
2. And in what chapel—(but the kind Nymphs laughed).

Ecl. iii. 8.

For in aposiopesis it is either uncertain or at least requires an explanation of some length to show what is suppressed, whereas in the present case only one word, and that of an obvious character, is missing. If this, then, is an aposiopesis, all omissions will have a claim to the title.