Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
Nay, even the king himself, worn out by a ten years' war, which had cost him the loss of so many of his sons, and threatened to lay his kingdom in the dust, the man who, above all, should have loathed and detested her beauty, the source of all those tears, hears these words, calls her his daughter, and places her by his side, excuses her guilt, and denies that she is the cause of his sorrows.
Again, when Plato in the Symposium [*](218B–219D.) makes Alcibiades confess how he had wished Socrates to treat him, he does not, I think, record these facts with a view to blaming Aleibiades, but rather to show the unconquerable self-control of Socrates, which would not yield even to the charms which the greatest beauty of his day so frankly placed at his disposal.
We are even given the means of realising the extraordinary stature of the heroes of old by the description of their weapons, such as the shield of Ajax [*](Il. vii. 219. ) and the spear-shaft of Achilles [*](Il. xvi. 140. ) hewn in the forests of Pelion. Virgil [*]( Aen. iii. 659. ) also has made admirable use of this device in his description of the Cyclops. For what an image it gives us of the bulk of that body
So, too, what a giant must Demoleos [*](Aen. v. 264. ) have been,
- Whose hand was propped by a branchless trunk of pine.
Whose
And yet the hero buckled it upon him and
- corselet manifold
- Scarce two men on their shoulders could uphold
And again, Cicero [*](Phil. ii. 27. ) could hardly even have conceived of such luxury in Antony himself as he describes when he says,
- Drave the scattering Trojans at full speed.
You might see beds in the chambers of his slaves strewn with the purple coverlets that had once been Pompey's own.Slaves are using purple coverlets in their chambers, aye, and coverlets that had once been Pompey's! No more, surely, can be said than this, and yet it leaves us to infer how infinitely greater was the luxury of their master.
This form of amplification is near akin to emphasis: but emphasis derives its effect from the actual words, while in this case the effect is produced by inference from the facts, and is consequently far more impressive, inasmuch as facts are more impressive than words.
What was that sword of yours doing, Tubero, the sword you drew on the field of Pharsalus? Against whose body did you aim its point? What meant those arms you bore? Whither were your thoughts, your eyes, your hand, your fiery courage directed on that day? What passion, what desires were yours?This passage recalls the figure styled συναθροισμός [*](accumulation.) by the Greeks, but in that figure it is a number of different things that are accumulated, whereas in this passage all the accumulated details have but one reference. The heightening of effect may also be produced by making the words rise to a climax. [*](Verr. xv. xlv. 118. )
There stood the porter of the prison, the praetor's executioner, the death and terror of the citizens and allies of Rome, the lictor Sextius.
Attenuation is effected by the same method, since there are as many degrees of descent as ascent. I shall therefore content myself with quoting but one example, namely, the words used by Cicero [*](Leg. Agr. II. V. 13. ) to describe the speech of Rullus:
A few, however, who stood nearest to him suspected that he had intended to say something about the agrarian law.This passage may be regarded as providing an example of attenuation or of augmentation, according as we consider its literal meaning or fix our attention on the obscurity attributed to Rullus.
I know that some may perhaps regard hyperbole as a species of amplification, since hyperbole can be