Institutio Oratoria

But when it is a question of facts, and he is confronted by the hard realities of battle, his last thought will be for his personal glory. Nay, it is even unseemly to trouble overmuch about words when the greatest interests are at stake. I would

For whereas in deliberative oratory the senate demand a certain loftiness and the people a certain impetuosity of eloquence, the public cases of the courts and those involving capital punishment demand a more exact style. On the other hand, in private deliberations and lawsuits about trifling sums of money (and there are not a few of these) it is more appropriate to employ simple and apparently unstudied language. For we should be ashamed to demand the repayment of a loan in rolling periods, or to display poignant emotion in a case concerned with water-droppings, or to work ourselves into a perspiration over the return of a slave to the vendor. But I am wandering from the point.

Since rhetorical ornament, like clearness, may reside either in individual words or groups of words, we must consider the requirements of both cases. For although tile canon, that clearness mainly requires propriety of language and ornament the skilful use of metaphor, is perfectly sound, it is desirable that we should realise that without propriety ornament is impossible.

But as several words may often have the same meaning (they are called synonyms), some will be more distinguished, sublime, brilliant, attractive or euphonious than others. For as those syllables are the most pleasing to the ear which are composed of the more euphonious letters, thus words composed of such syllables will sound better than others, and the more vowel sounds they contain the more attractive they will be to hear.