Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
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 yourv4-6 p.289neighbour 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.