Noctes Atticae

That o(moiote/leuta, o(moio/ptwta, and other devices of the kind which are considered ornaments of style, are silly and uerile, is indicated, among other places, in some verses of Lucilius.

LUCILIUS in the fifth book of his Satires shows, and indeed most wittily, how silly, useless, and puerile are o(moiote/leuta, or

words of the same ending,

i)sokata/lhkta, or

words of the same sound,

pa/risa, or

words exactly balanced,

o(moio/ptwta, or

words of the same case,

and other niceties of that kind which those foolish pedants who wish to appear to be followers of Isocrates use in their compositions without moderation or taste. For having complained to a friend because he did not come to see him when he was ill, he adds these merry words: [*](vv. 181 ff., Marx.)

1. Although you do not ask me how I am,
2. I'll tell you, since with those I still abide
3. Who of all mortals are the lesser part [*](The poet has been ill, but still lives; cf. abiit ad plures, Petron. 42.) . . .
4. You are the slacker friend [*](Marx suggests Tu cessator malus, talis amicus as the sense of the lacuna.) who'd wish him dead
5. Whom you'd not visit though it was your debit.
6. But if you chide this

   visit

   joined with

   debit

7. ('Twas writ by chance), if you detest it all,
8. This silly, puerile, Isocratic [*](The homoioteleuta of Isocrates are mentioned, among others, by Cicero, Orator, 38.) stuff,
9. I'll waste no time on you, [*](That is, in deleting the jingle.) since such you are. [*](Such a friend as he has described.)