Institutio Oratoria

Again, our style need not always dwell on the heights: at times it is desirable that it should sink. For there are occasions when the very meanness of the words employed adds force to what we say. When Cicero, in his denunciation of Piso, [*](Fr. 100. ) says,

When your whole family rolls up in a dray,

You put down your head and butt him.

This device may also serve to carry off a jest, as in the passage of Cicero where he talks of the

little sprat of a boy who slept with his elder sister,

Flavius, who put out the eyes of crows,

Hi, there! Rufio!

Erucius Antoniaster.

Give your father bread,

You feed even your dog.

especially in

Words are proper, newly-coined or metaphorical. In the case of proper words there is a special dignity conferred by antiquity, since old words, which not everyone would think of using, give our style a venerable and majestic air: this is a form of ornament of which Virgil, with his perfect taste, has made unique use.

For his employment of words such as olli, [*]( Archaic for illi. ) quianam, [*](Because.) moerus, [*]( Archaic for murus (Aen. x. 24.). ) pone [*](Behind.) and pellacia [*]( Deceitfulness ( Aen. ii. 90). ) gives his work that impressive air of antiquity which is so attractive in pictures, but which no art of man can counterfeit. But we must not overdo it, and such words must not be dragged out from the deepest darkness of the past. Quaeso is old enough: what need for us to say quaiso? [*](quaeso = pray, oppido quite, exactly. ) Oppido was still used by my older contemporaries, but I fear that no one would tolerate it now. At any rate, antegerio, [*](Quite, very.) which means the same, would certainly never be used by anyone who was not possessed with a passion for notoriety.

What need have we of acrumnosum? [*](Wretched.) It is surely enough to call a thing horridum. Reor may be tolerated, autumo [*](Assert.) smacks of tragedy, proles [*](Offspring.) has become a rarity, while prosapia [*](Stock, family.) stamps the man who uses it as lacking taste. Need I say more Almost the whole language has changed.

But there are still some old words that are endeared to us by

1. Britain's Thucydides, whose mad Attic brain
2. Loved word-amalgams like Corinthian bronze,
3. First made a horrid blend of words from Gaul,
4. Tau, al, min, sil and God knows how much else,
5. Then mixed them in a potion for his brother!

a fact which Cicero recorded in the words,

Cimber has killed his brother German.

1. Crispus, you, too, Jugurtha's fall who told,
2. And filched such store of words from Cato old.

It is a tiresome kind of affectation; any one can practise it, and it is made all the worse by the fact that the man who catches the infection will not choose his words to suit his facts, but will drag in irrelevant facts to provide an opportunity for the use of such words. The coining of new words is, as I stated in the first book, [*](I. v. 70) more permissible in Greek, for the Greeks did not hesitate to coin nouns to represent certain sounds and emotions, and in truth they were taking no greater liberty than was taken by the first men when they gave names to things.

Our own writers have ventured on a few attempts at composition and derivation, but have not met with

Of the coining of words by expansion and inflexion we have examples, such as the Ciceronian [*](De Nat. D. I. xxxiv. 95. ) beatitas and beatitudo, forms which he feels to be somewhat harsh, though he thinks they may be softened by use. Derivatives may even be fashioned from proper names, quite apart from ordinary words, witness Sullaturit [*](a Att. IX. x. 6. Desires to be a second Sulla. ) in Cicero and Fimbriatus and Figulatus [*]( Metamorphosed into Figulus. Presumably refers to Clusinius Figulus, see VII. ii. 26. ) in Asinius.

Many new words have been coined in imitation of the Greeks, [*](See II. xiv. 2.) more especially by Verginius Flavus, some of which, such as queens and essentia, are regarded as unduly harsh. But I see no reason why we should treat them with such contempt, except, perhaps, that we are highly self-critical and suffer in consequence from the poverty of our language. Some new formations do, however, succeed in establishing themselves.

For words which now are old, once were new, and there are some words in use which are of quite recent origin, such as reatus, [*](The condition of an accused person.) invented by Messala, and munerarius, [*](The giver of a gladiatorial show.) invented by Augustus. So, too, my own teachers still persisted in banning the use of words, such as piratica, musica and fabrica, while Cicero regards favor and urbanus as but newly introduced into the language. For in a letter to Brutus he says, eum amorer et eum, ut hoc

while to Appius Pulcher he writes, le hominem non solum sapientem, verum etiam, ut nunc loquimur, urbanum. [*](ad Fam. III. viii. 3. You who are not merely wise, but, as we say nowadays, urbane. ) He also thinks that Terence was the first to use the word obsequium, while Caecilius asserts that Sisenna was the first to use the phrase albente caelo. [*](When the sky grew white (at dawn).) Hortensius seems to have been the first to use cervix in the singular, since the ancients confined themselves to the plural. We must not then be cowards, for I cannot agree with Celsus when he forbids orators to coin new words.

For some words, as Cicero [*](Part Or. v. 16. ) says, are native, that is to say, are used in their original meaning, while others are derivative, that is to say, formed from the native. Granted then that we are not justified in coining entirely new words having no resemblance to the words invented by primitive man, I must still ask at what date we were first forbidden to form derivatives and to modify and compound words, processes which were undoubtedly permitted to later generations of mankind. If, however,

one of our inventions seems a little risky, we must take certain measures in advance to save it from censure, prefacing it by phrases such as

so to speak,

if I may say so,

in a certain sense,

if you will allow me to make use of such a word.

The metaphorical use of words cannot be

I would commend this remark to those who do not think it necessary to avoid obscenity on the ground that no word is indecent in itself and that, if a thing is revolting, its unpleasantness will be realised clearly enough by whatever name it is called. Accordingly, I shall content myself with following the good old rules of Roman modesty and, as I have already replied to such persons, shall vindicate the cause of decency by saying no more on this unpleasant subject.

Let us now pass to consider connected discourse. Its adornment may be effected, primarily, in two ways; that is to say, we must consider first our ideal of style, and secondly how we shall express this ideal in actual words. The first essential is to realise clearly what we wish to enhance or attenuate, to express with vigour or calm, in luxuriant or austere language, at length or with conciseness, with gentleness or asperity, magnificence or subtlety, gravity or wit.

The next essential is to decide by what kind of metaphor, figures, reflexions, methods and arrangement we may best produce the effect which we desire. But, before I discuss ornament, I must first touch upon its opposite, since the first of all virtues is the avoidance of faults.