Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

inasmuch as they are characterised by energy and speed, will employ the feet best adapted to these qualities. They will not however acquire rapidity at the expense of force by employing trochees, [*](Trochee (u u u). ) but will rather make use of those feet which consist of a mixture of long and short syllables, though the long should not outnumber the short. Lofty passages,

which employ long and sonorous vowels, are specially well served by the amplitude of the dactyl and the paean, feet which, although they contain a majority of short syllables, are yet not deficient in time-length. On the other hand, where

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violence is required, the requisite energy will be best secured by the employment of the iambus, not merely because that foot contains but two syllables, with the result that its beat is more frequent, making it unsuited to gentle language, but also because every foot gives the effect of an ascent, as they climb and swell from short to long, a fact which renders them superior to the choreus, which sinks from long to short.