Institutio Oratoria

Such ambiguity may even go so far as to present all the appearance of a riddle, witness the jest that Cicero made at the expense of Pletorius, the accuser of Fonteius:

His mother,

kept a school while she lived and masters after she was dead.

A similar form of

This form of jest is as poor as is the invention of punning names by the addition, subtraction or change of letters: I find, for instance, a case where a certain Acisculus was called Pacisculus because of some

compact

sour

Such puns are more successful with things than names. It was, for example, a neat hit of Afer's when he said that Manlius Sura, who kept rushing to and fro while he was pleading, waving his hands, letting his toga fall and replacing it, was not merely pleading, but giving himself a lot of needless trouble. [*]( This pan cannot be reproduced. Watson attempts to express it by doing business in pleading and overdoing it. But overdoing it has none of the neatness of salagere, which is said to have a spice of wit about it, since it means lit. to do enough, an ironic way of saying to overdo it. ) For there is a spice of wit about the word satagere in itself, even if there were no resemblance to any other word.

Similar jests may be produced by the addition or removal of the aspirate, or by splitting up a word or joining it to another: the effect is generally poor, but the practice is occasionally permissible. Jests drawn from names are of the same type. Cicero introduces a number of such jests against Verres, but always as quotations

boar

priest

Sometimes, however, a lucky chance may give us an opportunity of employing such jests with effect, as for instance when Cicero in the pro Caecina [*]( x. 27. The reference must be to the make-up of Phormio on the stage: there is nothing in the play to suggest the epithet black. ) says of the witness Sextus Clodius Phormio,

He was not less black or less bold than the Phormio of Terence.

We may note therefore that jests which turn on the meaning of things are at once more pointed and more elegant. In such cases resemblances between things produce the best effects, more especially if we refer to something of an inferior or more trivial nature, as in the jests of which our forefathers were so fond, when they called Lentulus Spinther and Scipio Serapio. [*]( From their resemblances to Spinther, a bad actor, and to Serapio, a dealer in sacrificial victims. ) But such jests may be drawn not merely from the names of men, but from animals as well; for example when I was a boy, Junius Bassus, one of the wittiest of men, was nicknamed the white ass.

And Sarmentus [*]( Sarmentus, a favourite of Augustus, cp. Hor. Sat. I. v. 56, where the story is given. ) compared Messius Cicirrus to a wild horse. The comparison may also be drawn from inanimate objects: for example Publius Blessius called a certain Julius, who was dark, lean and bent, the iron buckle. This method of raising a laugh is much in vogue to-day.

Such resemblances

Don't hold it out as if you were giving a penny to an elephant.

Some of these jests turn on similarity of meaning. Of this kind was the witticism uttered by Vatinius when he was prosecuted by Calvus. Vatinius was wiping his forehead with a white handkerchief, and his accuser called attention to the unseemliness of the act. Whereupon Vatinius replied,

Though I am on my trial, I go on eating white bread all the same.

Still more ingenious is the application of one thing to another on the ground of some resemblance, that is to say the adaptation to one thing of a circumstance which usually applies to something else, a type of jest which we may regard as being an ingenious form of fiction. For example, when ivory models of captured towns were carried in Caesar's triumphal procession, and a few days later wooden models of the same kind were carried at the triumph of Fabius Maximus, [*]( Legatus of Caesar in Spain. The wooden models were so worthless compared with those of ivory that Chrysippus said they must be no more than the boxes in which Caesar kept the latter. ) Chrysippus [*]( Probably Chrysippus Vettins, a freedman and architeot. Presumably the poet Pedo Albinovanus. ) remarked that the latter were the cases for Caesar's ivory towns. And Pedo [*]( Probably Chrysippus Vettins, a freedman and architeot. Presumably the poet Pedo Albinovanus. ) said of a heavy-armed gladiator who was pursuing another armed with a net and failed to strike him,

He wants to catch him alive.

Resemblance and ambiguity may be used in conjunction: Galba for example said to a man who stood very much at his ease when playing ball,

You stand as if you were one of Caesar's candidates.

I need say no more on this form of humour. But the practice of combining different types of jest is very common, and those are best which are of this composite character. A like use may be made of dissimilarity. Thus a Roman knight was once drinking at tile games, and Augustus sent him the following message,

If I want to dine, I go home.

Yes, but you are not afraid of losing your seat

What shall I say to my father?

Tell him that I fell under your displeasure.

I cannot lend it you, as I am going to stay at home,

You are more lustful than a eunuch,

Some day then he will cease to stink,

But I shall overload this book with illustrations and turn it into a common jest-book, if I continue to quote each jest that was made by our forefathers.

Galba on the other hand made use of partition when he replied to a friend who asked him for a cloak,

It is not raining and you don't need it; if it does rain, I shall wear it myself.

Are not a large number of jests made by means of hyperbole? Take for instance Cicero's [*](cp. de Orat II. lxvi. 267, where the jest is attributed to Crassus. ) remark about a man who was remarkable for his height,

He bumped his head against the Fabian arch,

perish by propagation.

Is not even the most severe form of irony a kind of jest? Afer made a witty use of it when he replied to Didius Callus, who, after making the utmost efforts to secure a provincial government, complained on receiving the appointment that he had been forced into accepting,

Well, then, do something for your country's sake.

Well, for the meantime I shall

v4-6 p.477

make use of the interest.

He also employed allegory in the witticism that he was fond of making about Marcus Caelius, who was better at bringing charges than at defending his client against them, to the effect that he had a good right hand, but a weak left. [*]( The right being the sword arm, the left carrying the shield. ) As an example of the use of emphasis I may quote the jest of Aulus Villius, that Tuccius was killed by his sword falling upon him. [*]( Tuccius was clearly a coward who committed suicide. Villius suggested that he would never have had the courage to fall upon his sword, and that therefore the sword must have fallen on him. )

Figures of thought, which the Greeks call σχήματα διανοίας, may be similarly employed, and some writers have classified jests under their various headings. For we ask questions, express doubts, make assertions, threaten, wish and speak in pity or in anger. And everything is laughable that is obviously a pretence.

It is easy to make fun of folly, for folly is laughable in itself; but we may improve such jests by adding something of our own. Titius Maximus put a foolish question to Campatius, who was leaving the theatre, when he asked him if he had been watching the play.

No,

I was playing ball in the stalls,