Institutio Oratoria

Therefore the substitution of one word for another is placed among tropes, as for example in the case of metaphor, metonymy, antonomasia, metalepsis, synecdochè, catachresis, allegory [*](See VIII. vi.) and, as a rule, hyperbole, which may, of course, be concerned either with words or things. Onomatopoea is the creation of a word and therefore involves substitution for the words which we should use but for such creation.

Again although periphrasis often includes the actual word whose place it supplies, it still uses a number of words in place of one. The epithet as a rule involves an element of antonomasia [*](VIII. vi. 29 and 46.) and consequently becomes a trope on account of this affinity. Hyperbaton is a change of order and for this reason many exclude it from tropes. None the less it transfers a word or part of a word from its own place to another.

None of these can be called figures. For a figure does not necessarily involve any alteration either of the order or the strict sense of words. As regards irony, I shall show elsewhere [*](IX. ii. 44.) how in some of its forms it is a trope, in others a figure. For I admit that the name is common to both and am aware of the complicated and minute discussions to which it has given rise. They, however, have no bearing on my present task. For it

even though they adopt a new name, so these artifices will produce exactly the same effect, whether they are styled tropes or figures, since their values lie not in their names, but in their effect. Similarly it makes no difference whether we call a basis conjectural or negative, or concerned with fact or substance, [*](See III. vi. 15, 39.) provided always that we know that the subject of enquiry is the same.

It is best therefore in dealing with these topics to adopt the generally accepted terms and to understand the actual thing, by whatever name it is called. But we must note the fact that trope and figure are often combined in the expression of the same thought, since figures are introduced just as much by the metaphorical as by the literal use of words.

There is, however, a considerable difference of opinion among authors as to the meaning of the name, [*](i.e. figure.) the number of genera and the nature and number of the species into which figures may be divided. The first point for consideration is, therefore, what is meant by a figure. For the term is used in two senses. In the first it is applied to any form in which thought is expressed, just as it is to bodies which, whatever their composition, must have some shape.

In the second and special sense, in which it is called a schema, it means a rational change in meaning or language from the ordinary and simple form, that is to say, a change analogous to that involved by sitting, lying down on something or looking back. Consequently when a student tends

In so doing we speak as if every kind of language possessed a figure: for example cursitare and lectitare [*]( Frequentative forms of curro (run) and lego (read). ) are said to have the same figure, that is to say, they are identical in formation. Therefore in the first and common sense of the word everything is expressed by figures. If we are content with this view, there is good reason for the opinion expressed by Apollodorus (if we may trust the statement of Caecilius on this point) to the effect that he found the rules laid down in this connexion quite incomprehensible.