A brief example of a similar argument is to be found in Virgil, Aen. ii. 540. But he, whom falsely thou dost call thy father,Even Achilles, in far other wiseDealt with old Priam, and Priam was his foe.

Historical parallels may however sometimes be related in full, as in the pro Milone pro Mil. iv. 9. : When a military tribune serving in the army of Gaius Marius, to whom he was related, made an assault upon the honour of a common soldier, the latter killed him; for the virtuous youth preferred to risk his life by slaying him to suffering such dishonour. And yet the great Marius acquitted him of all crime and let him go scot free.

On the other hand in certain cases it will be sufficient merely to allude to the parallel, as Cicero does in the same speech ib. iii. 8. : For neither the famous Servilius Ahala nor Publius Nasica nor Lucius Opimius nor the Senate during my consulship could be cleared of serious guilt, if it were a crime to put wicked men to death. Such parallels will be adduced at greater or less length according as they are familiar or as the interests or adornment of our case may demand.

A similar method is to be pursued in quoting from the fictions of the poets, though we must remember that they will be of less force as proofs. The same supreme authority, the great master of eloquence, shows us how we should employ such quotations.

For an example of this type will be found in the same speech ib. iii. 8. The allusion is to Orestes, acquitted when tried before the Areopagus at Athens by the casting vote of Pallas Athene. : And it is therefore, gentlemen of' the jury, that men of the greatest learning have recorded in their fictitious narratives that one who had killed his mother to avenge his father was acquitted, when the opinion of men was divided as to his guilt, not merely by the decision of a deity, but by the vote of the wisest of goddesses.

Again those fables which, although they did not originate with Aesop (for Hesiod seems to have been the first to write them), are best known by Aesop's name, are specially attractive to rude and uneducated minds, which are less suspicious than others in their reception of fictions and, when pleased, readily agree with the arguments from which their pleasure is derived. Thus Menenius Agrippa See Liv. ii. 32. is said to have reconciled the plebs to the patricians by his fable of the limbs' quarrel with the belly. Horace Epis I. i. 73.

also did not regard the employment of fables as beneath the dignity even of poetry; witness his lines that narrate What the shrewd fox to the sick lion told. The Greeks call such fables αἶνοι (tales) and, as I have already In the preceding section. cp. Arist. Rhet. II. xx. 3 for Libyan stories. remarked, Aesopean or Libyan stories, while some Roman writers term them apologues, though the name has not found general acceptance.

Similar to these is that class of proverb which may be regarded as an abridged fable and is understood allegorically: The burden is not mine to carry, he said, the ox is carrying panniers.

Simile has a force not unlike that of example, more especially when drawn from things nearly equal without any admixture of metaphor, as in the following case: Just as those who have been accustomed to receive bribes in the Campus Martius are specially hostile to those whom they suspect of having withheld the money, so in the present case the judges came into court with a strong prejudice against the accused. pro Cluent. xxvii. 75.

For παραβολή, which Cicero de Inv. i. 30. translates by comparison, is often apt to compare things whose resemblance is far less obvious. Nor does it merely compare the actions of men as Cicero does in the pro Murena ii. 4. : But if those who have just come into harbour from the high seas are in the habit of showing the greatest solicitude in warning those who are on the point of leaving port of the state of the weather, the likelihood of falling in with pirates, and the nature of the coasts which they are like to visit (for it is a natural instinct that we should take a kindly interest in those who are about to face the dangers from which we have just escaped), what think you should be my attitude who am now in sight of land after a mighty tossing on the sea, towards this man who, as I clearly see, has to face the wildest weather? On the contrary, similes of this kind are sometimes drawn from dumb animals and inanimate objects.

Further, since similar objects often take on a different appearance when viewed from a different angle, I feel that I ought to point out that the kind of comparison which the Greeks call εἰκών, and which expresses the appearance of things and persons (as for instance in the line of Cassius Probably the epigrammatist Cassius of Parma. lanipedis =bandaged for the gout. Regius emended to planipedis, a dancer who performed barefoot. — Who is he yonder that doth writhe his face Like some old man whose feet are wrapped in wool?) should be more sparingly used in oratory than those comparisons which help to prove our point. For instance, if you wish to argue that the mind requires cultivation, you would use a comparison drawn from the soil, which if neglected produces thorns and thickets, but if cultivated will bear fruit; or if you are exhorting someone to enter the service of the state, you will point out that bees and ants, though not merely dumb animals, but tiny insects, still toil for the common weal.

Of this kind is the saying of Cicero See IV. iv. 8. : As our bodies can make no use of their members without a mind to direct them, so the state can make no use of its component parts, which may be compared to the sinews, blood and limbs, unless it is directed by law. And just as he draws this simile in the pro Cluentio from the analogy of the human body, so in the pro Cornelio pro Clunt. liii. 146. he draws a simile from horses, and in the pro Archia pro Arch. viii. 19. from stones.

As I have already said, the following type of simile comes more readily to hand: As oarsmen are useless without a steersman, so soldiers are useless without a general. Still it is always possible to be misled by appearances in the use of simile, and we must therefore use our judgment in their employment. For though a new ship is more useful than one which is old, this simile will not apply to friendship: and again, though we praise one who is liberal with her money, we do not praise one who is liberal with her embraces. In these cases there is similitude in the epithets old and liberal, but their force is different, when applied to ships and friendship, money and embraces.

Consequently, it is allimportant in this connexion to consider whether the simile is really applicable. So in answering those Socratic questions which I mentioned above, § 3. the greatest care must be taken to avoid giving an incautious answer, such as those given by the wife of Xenophon to Aspasia in the dialogue of Aeschines the Socratic: the passage is translated by Cicero de Inv. I. xxxi. 51. as follows:

Tell me, pray, wife of Xenophon, if your neighbour has finer gold ornaments than you, would you prefer hers or yours? Hers, she replied. Well, then, if her dress and the rest of her ornaments are more valuable than yours, which would you prefer, hers or yours? Hers, she replied. Come, then, said she, if her husband is better than yours, would you prefer yours or hers? At this the wife of Xenophon not unnaturally blushed; for she had answered ill in replying that she would prefer her neighbour's gold ornaments to her own, since it would be wrong to do so. If on the other hand she had replied that she would prefer her ornaments to be of the same quality as those of her neighbour, she might have answered without putting herself to the blush that she would prefer her husband to be like him who was his superior in virtue.