Institutio Oratoria

Consequently all harshness and abruptness must be avoided at this point, where the mind takes breath and recovers its energy. It is there that style has its citadel, it is this point that excites the eager expectation of the audience, it is from this that the declaimer wins all his glory. Next to the conclusion of the period, it is the beginning which claims the most care: for the audience have their attention fixed on this as well.

But the opening of the sentence presents less difficulty, since it is independent and is not the slave of what has preceded. It merely takes what has preceded as a starting point, whereas the conclusion coheres with what has preceded, and however carefully constructed, its elegance will be wasted, if the path which leads up to it be interrupted. Hence it is that although the rhythmical structure adopted by Demosthenes in the passage τοῖς φεοῖς εὔχομαι πᾶσι καὶ πάσαις; [*](De Cor. I. I pray to all gods and goddesses. ) and again in another passage (approved by all, I think, except Brutus) κἄν μήπω βάλλῃ μηδὲ τοξεύῃ, [*](Phil. iii. 17. Even though he neither shoots at me nor strikes me as yet. )

is regarded as severely correct, Cicero is criticised for passages such as familiaris coeperat esse balneatori [*](Pro Cael. xxvi. 62. He had hegnn to be intimate with the bathkeeper. ) and for the not less unpleasing archipiratae. [*](Verr. xxvii. 70. ) For although balneatori and archipiratae give exactly the same cadence as πᾶσι καὶ πάσαις and μηδὲ τοξεύῃ the former are more severely correct.

There is also something in the fact that in the passages from Cicero two feet are contained in one word, a practice which even in verse produces an unduly effeminate effect, and that not merely when the line ends with a five-syllable word as in fortissima Tyndaridarum [*](Hor. Sat. I. i. 100. ) but also in four-syllable endings such

Consequently we must also avoid ending our periods with words containing too many syllables. With regard to the middle portions of our periods we must take care not merely that they possess internal cohesion, but also that the rhythm is neither sluggish nor long, and above all that we do not fall into the now fashionable fault of placing a number of short syllables together with the result that we produce an effect not unlike the sound of a child's rattle.