Institutio Oratoria

In employing this form of ornament we must be especially careful that the subject chosen for our simile is neither obscure nor unfamiliar: for anything that is selected for the purpose of illuminating

1. As when Apollo wintry Lycia leaves,
2. And Xanthus' streams, or visits Delos' isle,
3. His mother's home,

Aen. iv. 143.

But even the type of simile which I discussed in connexion with arguments [*]( xi. 22. ) is an ornament to oratory, and serves to make it sublime, rich, attractive or striking, as the case may be. For the more remote the simile is from the subject to which it is applied, the greater will be the impression of novelty and the unexpected which it produces.

The following type may be regarded as commonplace and useful only as helping to create an impression of sincerity:

As the soil is improved and rendered more fertile by culture, so is the mind by education,

As physicians amputate mortified limbs, so must we lop away foul and dangerous criminals, even though they be bound to us by ties of blood.

Rock and deserts reply to the voice of man, savage beasts are oft-times tamed by the power of music and stay their onslaught,

This type of simile has, however, sadly degenerated in the hands of some of our declaimers owing to the license of the schools. For they adopt false comparisons, and even then do not apply them as they should to the subjects to which they wish them to provide a parallel. Both these faults are exemplified in two similes which were on the lips of everyone

Even the sources of mighty rivers are navigable,

The generous tree bears fruit while it is yet a sapling.

In every comparison the simile either precedes or follows the subject which it illustrates. But sometimes it is free and detached, and sometimes, a far better arrangement, is attached to the subject which it illustrates, the correspondence between the resemblances being exact, an effect produced by reciprocal representation, which the Greeks style ἀνταπόδοσις. For example, the simile already quoted,

1. Thence like fierce wolves beneath the cloud of night,

Aen. ii. 355.

1. As when, their barriers down, the chariots speed
2. Lap after lap; in vain the charioteer
3. Tightens the curb: his steeds ungovernable
4. Sweep him away nor heeds the car the rein.

Georg. i. 512.

Such reciprocal representation places both subjects of comparison before our very eyes, displaying them side by side. Virgil provides many remarkable examples, but it will be better for me to quote from oratory. In the pro Murena Cicero [*](Pro Mur. xiii. 29. ) says,

As among Greek musicians (for so they say), only those turn flute-players that cannot play the lyre, so here at Rome we see that those who cannot acquire the art of oratory betake themselves to the study of the

v7-9 p.257

law.

There is also another simile in the same speech, [*](Pro Mur. xvii. 36. ) which is almost worthy of a poet, but in virtue of its reciprocal representation is better adapted for ornament:

For as tempests are generally preceded by some premonitory signs in the heaven, but often, on the other hand, break forth for some obscure reason without any warning whatsoever, so in the tempests which sway the people at our Roman elections we are not seldom in a position to discern their origin, and yet, on the other hand, it is frequently so obscure that the storm seems to have burst without any apparent cause.

We find also shorter similes, such as

Wandering like wild beasts through the woods,

He fled from the court like a man escaping naked from a fire.