Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

The term enthymeme may be applied to any concept of the mind, but in its strict sense means a reflexion drawn from contraries. Consequently, it has a supremacy among reflexions which we may compare to that of Homer among poets and Rome among cities.

I have already said enough on this topic in dealing with arguments. [*]( See v. x. 2, and again, for greater detail, v. xiv. 1 (note at end), where an example of this type of sententia is given from the pro Milone (ch. 29) You are sitting to avenge the death of one whom you would be unwilling to restore to life even if you thought it was in your power to restore it! ) But the use of the enthymeme is not confined to proof, it may sometimes be employed for the purpose of ornament, as in the following instance: [*](Pro Lig. iv. 10. )

Caesar, shall the language of those whom it is your glory to have spared goad you to imitate their own cruelty?

Cicero's motive in saying this is not that it introduces any fresh reason for clemency, but because he has already demonstrated by other arguments how unjust such conduct would be,

while he adds it at the period's close as an epiphonema, not by way of proof, but as a crowning insult to his opponents. For an epiphonema is an exclamation attached to the close of a statement or a proof by way of climax. Here are two examples:

Such toil it was to found the Roman race!
Aen. i. 33.

and

The virtuous youth preferred to risk his life
v7-9 p.289
by slaying him to suffering such dishonour.

[*]( Cic. pro Mil. iv. 9, cp. V. xi. 13. )

There is also what our modern rhetoricians call the noema, a term which may be taken to mean every kind of conception, but is employed by them in the special sense of things which they wish to be understood, though they are not actually said, as in the declamation where the sister defends herself against the brother whom she had often bought out from the gladiatorial school, when he brought an action against her demanding the infliction of a similar mutilation because she had cut off his thumb while he slept:

You deserved,

she cries,

to have all your fingers,

meaning thereby,

You deserved to be a gladiator all your days.

There is also what is called a clausula. If this merely means a conclusion, it is a perfectly correct and sometimes a necessary device, as in the following case:

You must, therefore, first confess your own offence before you accuse Ligarius of anything.

[*](Pro Lig. i. 2. It is a conclusion in the logical sense. But clausula more commonly means close, conclusion, cadence of a period. Cp. what follows. ) But to-day something more is meant, for our rhetoricians want every passage, every sentence to strike the ear by an impressive close.

In fact, they think it a disgrace, nay, almost a crime, to pause to breathe except at the end of a passage that is designed to call forth applause. The result is a number of tiny epigrams, affected, irrelevant and disjointed. For there are not enough striking reflexions in the world to provide a close to every period.

The following forms of reflexion are even more modern. There is the type which depends on surprise for its effect, as, for example, when Vibius Crispus, in denouncing the man who wore a breastplate when strolling in the forum and alleged that he did so because he feared for his life, cried,

Who
v7-9 p.291
gave you leave to be such a coward?

Another instance is the striking remark made by Africanus to Nero with reference to the death of Agrippina:

Caesar, your provinces of Gaul entreat you to bear your good fortune with courage.

Others are of an allusive type: for example, Domitius Afer, in his defence of Cloatilla, whom Claudius had pardoned when she was accused of having buried her husband, who had been one of the rebels, addressed her sons in his peroration with the words:

Nonetheless, it is your duty, boys, to give your mother burial.

[*]( The point is uncertain. Possibly, as Gesner suggests, the sons were accusing their mother. ) Some, again,

depend on the fact that they are transferred from one context to another Crispus, in his defence of Spatale, whose lover had made her his heir and then proceeded to die at the age of eighteen, remarked:

What a marvellous fellow to gratify his passion thus!

[*](sibi indulsit would seen to mean his appointing S. his heir and then being kind enough to die so soon! But the point is uncertain. )

Another type of reflexion may be produced by the doubling of a phrase, as in the letter written by Seneca for Nero to be sent to the senate on the occasion of his mother's death, with a view to creating the impression that he had been in serious danger:—

As yet I cannot believe or rejoice that I am safe.

Better, however, is the type which relies for its effect on contrast of opposites, as

I know from whom to fly, but whom to follow I know not;

[*]( Cic. ad Att. VIII. vii. 2. ) or,

What of the fact that the poor wretch, though he could not speak, could not keep silence?

[*]( Probably from the lost in Pisonem, since St. Jerome in a letter to Oceanus says postea vero Pisoniano vitio, cum loqui non post, tacere non poterat. But here again the point is obscure. ) But to produce the most striking effect this type should be given point by the introduction of a comparison, such as is made by Trachalus in his speech against Spatale, where he says:

Is it your pleasure, then, ye laws, the faithful guardians of chastity, that wives should receive a title [*]( By the lex Julia et Papia Poppaea childless wives were only entitled to a tenth of their husband's estate. ) and harlots a quarter?

v7-9 p.293

In these instances, however, the reflexion may equally well be good or bad.

On the other hand, there are some which will always be bad, such as those which turn on play upon words, as in the following case:

Conscript fathers, for I must address you thus that you may remember the duty owed to fathers.

Worse still, as being more unreal and far-fetched, is the remark made by the gladiator mentioned above in his prosecution of his sister:

I have fought to the last finger.

[*]( The exact meaning is uncertain. The allusion may be to the turning up of the thumb as a sign of defeat. See sect. 12. )

There is another similar type, which is perhaps the worst of all, where the play upon words is combined with a false comparison. When I was a young man I heard a distinguished pleader, after handing a mother some splinters of bone taken from the head of her son (which he did merely to provide an occasion for his epigram), cry:

Unhappiest of women, your son is not yet dead and yet you have gathered up his bones!

Moreover, most of our orators delight in devices of the pettiest kind, which seriously considered are merely ludicrous, but at the moment of their production flatter their authors by a superficial semblance of wit. Take, for instance, the exclamation from the scholastic theme, where a man, after being ruined by the barrenness of his land, is shipwrecked and hangs himself:

Let him whom neither earth nor sea receives, hang in mid air.