Institutio Oratoria

The same figure may also sometimes be employed ironically, with a view to disparagement. Similar to such doubling of words is repetition following a parenthesis, but the effect is stronger.

I have seen the property alas! (for though all my tears are shed,

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my grief still clings to me deep-rooted in my heart), the property, I say, of Gnaeus Pompeius put up for sale by the cruel voice of the public crier.

[*](Phil. II. xxvi. 64. )

You still live, and live not to abate your audacity, but to increase it.

[*]( Cat. I. ii. 4. )

Again, a number of clauses may begin with the same word for the sake of force and emphasis.

Were you unmoved by the guard set each night upon the Palatine, unmoved by the patrolling of the city, unmoved by the terror of the people, unmoved by the unanimity of all good citizens, unmoved by the choice of so strongly fortified a spot for the assembly of the senate, unmoved by the looks and faces of those here present to-day?

[*]( Cic. Cat. I. i. 1. ) Or they may end with the same words.

Who demanded them? Appius. Who produced them? Appius.

[*](pro. Mil. xxii. 59. )

This last instance, however, comes under the head of another figure as well, where both opening and concluding words are identical, since the sentences open with

who

and end with

Appius.

Here is another example.

Who are they who have so often broken treaties? The Carthaginians. Who are they who have waged war with such atrocious cruelty? The Carthaginians. Who are they who have laid Italy waste? The Carthaginians. Who are they who pray for pardon? The Carthaginians.

[*]( Auct. ad Herenn., iv. 14. )

Again, in antitheses and comparisons the first words of alternate phrases are frequently repeated to produce correspondence, which was my reason for saying a little while back [*]( IX. ii. 100. The passage is from pro Murena, ix. 22. ) that this device came under the present topic rather than that which I was then discussing.

You pass wakeful nights that you may be able to reply to your clients; he that he and his army may arrive betimes at their destination. You are roused by

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cockcrow, he by the bugle's reveillé. You draw up your legal pleas, he sets the battle in array. You are on the watch that your clients be not taken at a disadvantage, he that cities or camps be not so taken.

But the orator is not content with producing this effect, but proceeds to reverse the figure.

He knows and understands how to keep off the forces of the enemy, you how to keep off the rainwater; he is skilled to extend boundaries, you to delimit them.

A similar correspondence may be produced between the middle and the opening of a sentence, as in the line:

1. te nemus Angitiae, vitrea te Fucinus unda.

Aen. vii. 759 [*](Thee did Angitia's grove bewail,Thee too the glassy waves o' the Fucine lake. The correspondence is to be found in te (coming first in one and second in the other clause). )

Or the middle may correspond to the end, as in the following sentence:

This ship, laden with the spoil of Sicily, while it was itself a portion of the spoil.

[*](Verr. v. xvii. 44. ) Nor will it be questioned that a like effect may be produced by the repetition of the middle of both clauses. Again, the end may correspond with the beginning.

Many grievous afflictions were devised for parents and for kinsfolk many.

[*](Verr. v. xlv. 119. )

There is also another form of repetition which simultaneously reiterates things that have already been said, and draws distinctions between them.

1. Iphitus too with me and Pelias came,
2. Iphitus bowed with age and Pelias
3. Slow-limping with the wound Ulysses gave.

Aen. ii. 435.

This is styled ἐπάνοδος by the Greeks and regression by Roman writers.