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previous: Book III This webpage reproduces part of a complete English translation of the Rhetorica ad Herennium published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1954 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: IV.19‑46

Rhetorica ad Herennium

 p229  Book IV

1 1 Inasmuch as in the present Book, Herennius, I have written about Style, and wherever there was need of examples, I have used those of my own making, and in so doing have departed from the practice of the Greek writers​1 on the subject, I must in a few words justify my method. And that I make this explanation from necessity, and not from choice, is sufficiently indicated by the fact that in the preceding Books I have said nothing by way either of preface​2 or of digression. Now, after a few indispensable observations, I shall, as I undertook to do, discharge my task of explaining to you the rest of the art. But you will more readily understand my method when you have learned what the Greeks say.3

On several grounds they think that, after they have given their own precepts on how to embellish style, they must for each kind of embellishment offer an example drawn from a reputable orator or poet.​4 And their first ground is that in doing so they are  p231 prompted by modesty, because it seems a kind of ostentation not to be content to teach the art, but to appear desirous themselves of creating examples artificially. That, they say, would be showing themselves off, not showing what the art is. 2 Hence it is in the first place a sense of shame which keeps us from following this practice, for we should appear to be approving of ourselves alone,​5 to be prizing ourselves, scorning and scoffing at others. For when we can take an example from Ennius, or offer one from Gracchus,​6 it seems presumptuous to neglect these and to have recourse to our own examples.

In the second place, examples, they say, serve the purpose of testimony; for, like the testimony of a witness, the example enforces what the precept has suggested and only to a slight degree effected.​7 Would not a man be ridiculous, then, if in a trial​8 or in a domestic procedure​9 he should contest the issue on the basis of his own personal testimony? For an example is used just like testimony to prove a point; it should properly therefore be taken only from a writer of highest reputation, lest what ought to serve as proof of something else should itself require proof. In fact, inventors of examples must either prefer themselves to all others and esteem their own products most of all, or else deny that the best examples are those taken from the orators or poets of highest reputation. If they should set themselves above all others, they are unbearably conceited; if they should grant to any others a superiority over themselves and yet not believe that  p233 the examples of these others excel their own, they cannot explain why they concede this superiority.

2 And furthermore, does not the very prestige of the ancients not only lend greater authority to their doctrine but also sharpen in men the desire to imitate them? Yes, it excites the ambitions and whets the zeal of all men when the hope is implanted in them of being able by imitation​10 to attain to the skill of a Gracchus or a Crassus.

3 Finally, they say, the highest art resides in this: in your selecting a great diversity of passages widely scattered and interspersed among so many poems and speeches, and doing this with such painstaking care that you can list examples, each according to its kind, under the respective topics of the art. If this could be accomplished by industry alone, we should yet deserve praise for not having avoided such a task; but actually, without the highest art it cannot be done. For who, unless he has a consummate grasp of the art of rhetoric, could in so vast and diffuse a literature mark and distinguish the demands of the art? Laymen, reading good orations and poems, approve the orators and poets, but without comprehending what has called forth their approval, because they cannot know where that which especially delights them resides,​11 or what it is, or how it was produced. But he who understands all this, and selects examples that are most appropriate, and reduces to individual principles of instruction everything that especially merits inclusion in his treatise, must needs be a master artist​12 in this field. This, then, is the height of  p235 technical skill — in one's own treatise to succeed also in using borrowed examples!

4 When the Greeks make such assertions, they influence us more by their prestige than by the truth of their argument. For what I really fear is that some one may consider the view contrary to mine adequately recommended because its supporters are the very men who invented this art and are now by reason of their antiquity quite universally esteemed. If, however, leaving the prestige of the ancients out of consideration, they are willing to compare all the arguments, point for point, they will understand that we need not yield to antiquity in everything.

3 First, then, let us beware lest the Greeks offer us too childish an argument in their talk about modesty. For if modesty consists in saying nothing or writing nothing, why do they write or speak at all? But if they do write something of their own, then why does modesty keep them from composing, themselves, everything they write? It is as if some one should come to the Olympic games to run, and having taken a position for the start, should accuse of impudence those who have begun the race — should himself stand within the barrier and recount to others how Ladas​13 used to run, or Boïscus​14 in the Isthmian games. These Greek rhetoricians do likewise. When they have descended into the race-course of our art, they accuse of immodesty those who put in practice the essence of the art; they praise some ancient orator, poet, or literary work, but without themselves daring to come forth into the stadium of  p237 rhetoric.​15 5 I should not venture to say so, yet I fear that in their very pursuit of praise for modesty they are impudent. Some one may say to them: "Now what do you mean? You are writing a treatise of your own; you are creating new precepts for us; you cannot confirm these yourself; so you borrow examples from others. Beware of acting impudently in seeking to extract from the labour of others praise for your own name." Indeed, if the ancient orators and poets should take the books of these rhetoricians and each remove therefrom what belongs to himself, the rhetoricians would have nothing left to claim as their own.16

"But," they say, "since examples correspond to testimony, it is proper that, like testimony, they should be taken from men of the highest reputation."​17 First and foremost, examples are set forth, not to confirm​18 or to bear witness, but to clarify.​19 When I  p239 say there is a figure of speech which, for instance, consists of like-ending words, and take this example from Crassus: quibus possumus et debemus,​20 I am setting up, not testimony, but an example. The difference between testimony and example is this: by example we clarify the nature of our statement, while by testimony we establish its truth. 6 Furthermore, the testimony must accord with the proposition, for otherwise it cannot confirm the proposition. But the rhetoricians' performance does not accord with what they propose. How so? In that they promise to write a treatise of the art, and then mostly bring forward examples from authors who were ignorant of the art. Now who can give authority to his writings on the art unless he writes something in conformity with the art?​21 Their performance is at variance with what they seem to promise; for when they undertake to write the rules of their art, they appear to say that they have themselves invented what they are teaching to others, but when they actually write, they show us what others have invented.

4 "But," say they, "this very choice from among many is difficult." What do you mean by difficult? That it requires labour? Or that it requires art? The laborious is not necessarily the excellent. There are many things requiring labour which you would not necessarily boast of having done — unless, to be sure, you thought it a glorious  p241 feat to have transcribed by your own hand whole dramas​22 or speeches! Or do you say that that kind of thing requires exceptional art? Then beware of appearing inexperienced in greater matters, if you are going to find the same delight in a petty thing as in a great. Doubtless no one quite uncultivated can select in this way; yet many who lack the highest art can. 7 For any one at all who has heard more than a little about the art, especially in the field of style, will be able to discern all the passages composed in accordance with the rules; but the ability to compose them only the trained man will possess. It is as if you should wish to choose maxims from the tragedies of Ennius,​23 or messengers' reports from the tragedies of Pacuvius; if, however, just because no one who is quite illiterate can do this, you should suppose that having done it, you are most highly cultivated, you would be foolish, because any person moderately well-read could do it easily. In the same fashion if, having chosen from orations or poems examples marked by definite tokens of art, you should suppose that your performance gives proof of superlative art on the ground that no ignoramus is capable of it, you would be in error, because by this token that you offer we see only that you have some knowledge, but we shall need still other tokens to convince us that you know a great deal. Now if to discern what is written artistically proves your mastery of the art, then a far better proof of this mastery is to write artistically yourself. For though the artistic writer will find it easy to discern what has been skilfully written by others, the facile chooser of examples will not necessarily write with skill himself. And even if it is an especial mark of artistic skill, let them  p243 employ this faculty at another time, and not when they themselves should be conceiving, creating, and bringing forth.​24 In short, let them devote their artistic power to this purpose — to win esteem as worthy themselves to be chosen as models by others, rather than as good choosers of others who should serve as models for them.

Against the contentions of those who maintain that we should use borrowed examples I have said enough. Now let us see what can be said from my own particular point of view.25

5 Accordingly I say that they are not only at fault in borrowing examples, but make an even greater mistake in borrowing examples from a great number of sources.​26 And let us first look at my second point. Were I granting that we should borrow examples, I should establish that we ought to select from one author alone. In the first place, my opponents would then have no ground​27 for opposing this procedure, for they might choose and approve whom they would, poet or orator, to supply them with examples for all cases, one on whose authority they could rely.​28 Secondly, it is a matter of great concern to the  p245 student whether he should believe that every one can attain the sum total of qualities, or that no one can, or that one individual can attain one quality and another individual another quality. For if the student believes that all qualities can exist in one man, he himself will strive for a mastery of them all. But if he despairs of this achievement, he will occupy himself in acquiring a few qualities, and with these be content. Nor is this surprising, since the teacher of the art himself has been unable to find all the qualities in one author. Thus, when examples have been drawn from Cato, the Gracchi, Laelius, Scipio, Galba, Porcina, Crassus, Antonius,​29 and the rest, and some as well from the poets and historians, the learner will necessarily believe that the totality could have been taken only from them all, and that barely a few examples could have been taken from only one. 8 He will therefore be content with emulating some one author​30 and distrust his own single power to possess the sum total of qualities possessed by all the authors. Now it is disadvantageous for the student to believe that one person cannot possess all qualities;​31 and so I say, no one would fall into this opinion if the rhetoricians had drawn examples from one author alone. Actually, the fact that the writers on rhetoric have presented neither their own examples nor those of some single author, or even two, but have borrowed from all the orators and poets, is a sign that they themselves have not believed that any one individual can be brilliant in all the  p247 branches of style. Moreover, should any one wish to show that the art of rhetoric is of no benefit for speaking, he might well in support employ the argument that no one man has been able to master all the branches of rhetoric. Is it not ridiculous for a rhetorician himself to approve by his own judgement what thus supports the theory of those who utterly condemn the art of rhetoric?32

I have, then, shown that if examples were always to be borrowed, the borrowing should have been from one author. 6 9 Now we shall learn from the following that they should not have been borrowed at all.

Above all, an example which is cited by a writer on an art should be proof of his own skill in that art. It is as if a merchant selling purple or some other commodity should say: "Buy of me, but I shall borrow from some one else a sample of this to show you." So do these very people who offer merchandise for sale go in search of a sample of it elsewhere; they say: "We have piles of wheat," but have not a handful of grain to show as a sample.​33 If Triptolemus, when dispensing seed to mankind, had himself borrowed it from other men, or if Prometheus, wishing to distribute fire amongst mortals, had himself gone about with an urn begging a few coals of his neighbours, he would have appeared ridiculous.  p249 Do not these schoolmasters, teachers of public speaking to all the world, see that they are acting absurdly when they seek to borrow the very thing they offer to bestow? If any one should say that he has discovered the richest of deeply hidden springs, and tell of the discovery while suffering extreme thirst and lacking the wherewithal to slake his thirst, would he not be a laughingstock? When these writers declare that they are not only the masters of the springs, but are themselves the wellsprings​34 of eloquence, and when it is their duty to water the talents of all, do they not think it will be laughable if, whilst making the offer to do so, they are themselves parched with drought? Not thus did Chares learn from Lysippus how to make statues.​35 Lysippus did not show him a head by Myron,​36 arms by Praxiteles, a chest by Polycleitus. Rather with his own eyes would Chares see the master fashioning all the parts; the works of the other sculptors he could if he wished study on his own initiative. These writers believe that students of this subject can be better taught by another method.

7 10 Furthermore, borrowed examples simply cannot be so well adapted to the rules of the art because  p251 in speaking each single topic is in general touched lightly, so that the art may not be obvious. In instructing, on the other hand, one must cite examples that are draughted expressly to conform to the pattern of the art. It is afterwards, in speaking, that the orator's skill conceals his art,​37 so that it may not obtrude and be apparent to all. Thus as to the end that the art may be better understood is it preferable to use examples of one's own creation.

Finally, I have been led to this method by another consideration also​38 — the remoteness from our own usage of the technical terms​39 I have translated from the Greek. For concepts non-existent among us could not have familiar appellations. The translated terms, therefore, must seem rather harsh at first — that will be a fault of the subject, not mine. The rest of my treatise will be devoted to examples. If, however, these which I have here set down had been borrowed from other sources, the result would have been that anything apt in this book would not be mine, but whatever is a little rough or strange would be assigned to me as my own particular contribution. So I have escaped this disadvantage also.

On these grounds, although esteeming the Greeks as the inventors of the art, I have not followed their  p253 theory of examples. Now it is time to turn to the principles of Style.

I shall divide the teaching of Style into two parts. First I shall state the kinds to which oratorical style should always confine itself,​40 then I shall show what qualities style should always have.

8 11 There are, then, three kinds of style, called types,​41 to which discourse, if faultless, confines itself: the first we call the Grand; the second, the Middle; the third, the Simple.​42 The Grand type consists of a smooth and ornate arrangement of impressive words.​43 The Middle type consists of words of a lower, yet not of the lowest and most colloquial, class of words. The Simple type is brought down even to the most current idiom of standard speech.

 p255  A discourse will be composed in the Grand style if to each idea are applied the most ornate words that can be found for it, whether literal or figurative; if impressive thoughts are chosen, such as are used in Amplification and Appeal to Pity; and if we employ figures of thought and figures of diction which have grandeur — these I shall discuss later.​44 The following will be an example of this type of style:

 p259  9 13 Our discourse will belong to the Middle type if, as I have said above,​50 we have somewhat relaxed our style, and yet have not descended to the most ordinary prose, as follows:

10 14 Of the Simple type of style, which is brought down to the most ordinary speech of every day, the following will serve as an example:

15 Thus the examples themselves are enough to make clear the types of style. For one arrangement of words is of the simple type, another again belongs to the grand, and another belongs to the middle.

But in striving to attain these styles, we must avoid falling into faulty styles closely akin to them.​56 For instance, bordering on the Grand style, which is in itself praiseworthy, there is a style to be avoided.  p265 To call this the Swollen​57 style will prove correct. For just as a swelling often resembles a healthy condition of the body, so, to those who are inexperienced, turgid and inflated language either in new or in archaic words, or in clumsy metaphors, or in diction more impressive than the theme demands,​58 as follows: "For he who by high treason betrays his nature land will not have paid a condign penalty albeit hurl'd into gulfs Neptunian. So pursue ye this man, who hath builded mounts of war, destroyed the plains of peace."​59 Most of those who fall into this type, straying from the type they began with, are misled by the appearance of grandeur and cannot perceive the tumidity of the style.

11 16 Those setting out to attain at Middle style, if unsuccess­ful, stray from the course and arrive at an adjacent type, which we call the Slack​60 because it is without any sinews​61 and joints; accordingly I may call it the Drifting, since it drifts to and fro, and cannot  p267 get under way with resolution and virility. The following is an example: "Our allies, when they wished to wage war with us, certainly would have deliberated again and again on what they could do, if they were really acting of their own accord and did not have many confederates from here, evil men and bold.​62 For they are used to reflecting long, all who wish to enter upon great enterprises."​63 Speech of this kind cannot hold the hearer's attention, for it is altogether loose, and does not lay hold of a thought and encompass it in a well-rounded period.

Those who cannot skilfully employ that elegant simplicity of diction discussed above, arrive at a dry and bloodless kind of style which may aptly be called the Meager.​64 The following is an example: "Now this fellow came up to this lad in the baths. After that he says: 'Your slaveboy here has beat me.' After that the lad says to him: "I'll think about it.' Afterwards this fellow called the lad names and shouted louder and louder, while a lot of people were there."​65 This language, to be sure, is mean and trifling, having missed the goal of the Simple type, which is speech composed of correct and well-chosen words.

Each type of style, the grand, the middle, and the simple, gains distinction from rhetorical figures,  p269 which I shall discuss later.​66 Distributed sparingly, these figures set the style in relief, as with colours; if packed in close succession, they set the style awry.​67 But in speaking we should vary the type of style, so that the middle succeeds the grand and the simple the middle, and then again interchange them, and yet again. Thus, by means of the variation,​68 satiety is easily avoided.

12 17 Since I have discussed the types to which style should confine itself, let us now see what qualities should characterize an appropriate and finished style. To be in fullest measure suitable to the speaker's purpose such a style should have three qualities: Taste, Artistic Composition,​69 and Distinction.70

Taste makes each and every topic seem to be expressed with purity and perspicuity. The subheads under Taste are Correct Latinity and Clarity.

It is Correct Latinity​71 which keeps the language pure, and free of any fault. The faults in language  p271 which can mar its Latinity are two: the Solecism and the Barbarism. A solecism occurs if the concord between a word and one before it in a group of words is faulty. A barbarism occurs if the verbal expression is incorrect. How to avoid these faults I shall clearly explain in my tract on grammar.72

Clarity​73 renders language plain and intelligible. It is achieved by two means, the use of current terms​74 and of proper terms.​75 Current terms are such as are habitually used in everyday speech. Proper terms are such as are, or can be, the designations specially characteristic of the subject of our discourse.76

18 Artistic Composition consists in an arrangement of words which gives uniform finish to the discourse in every part. To ensure this virtue we shall avoid the frequent collision of vowels,​77 which makes the style harsh and gaping, as the following: "Bacae aeneae amoenissime inpendebant."​78 We shall also avoid the excessive recurrence of the same letter,79  p273 and this blemish the following verse will illustrate — for at this juncture, in considering faults, nothing forbids me to use examples from others:

And this verse of the same poet:

And again, we shall avoid the excessive repetition of the same word,​82 as follows:

Again, we shall not use a continuous series of words with like case endings,​84 as follows:

Again, we shall avoid the dislocation of words,​86 unless it is neatly effected — and this I shall discuss later. Coelius persists in this fault, as the following illustrates: "In priore libro has res ad te scriptas,  p275 Luci, misimus, Aeli."​87 One should likewise avoid a long period, which does violence both to the ear of the listener and to the breathing of the speaker.

These vices of composition avoided, we must devote the rest of our efforts to conferring Distinction upon the style.

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The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 See note on 4.v.7 below.

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2 Cf. the long prefaces to the books of Cicero, De Inv.

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3 The character of this Introduction to Book 4 (only the final argument and some of the illustrations are Roman) suggests a Greek origin. It reflects the debates between Greeks and Greeks — on Atticism as against Asianism, or the old rhetoric, based on the imitation of the ancients (μίμησις τῶν ἀρχαίων), as against the modern (νεωτερισμός). Hermagoras, to whose reliance on the ancients Cicero, De Inv. 1.vi.8, refers, and whom Cicero in his Introduction to that work attacks, was doubtless also in the author's mind. See Paul Wendland, Quaestiones Rhetoricae, Göttingen, 1914. As our notes show, in spite of the argument in this Introduction, Book 4 contains numerous examples taken (though often with considerable changes) from a variety of sources, both Roman and Greek.

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4 Rhetoric and poetry meet expressly also in 4.i.2, ii.3, iii.5, iv.7, v.7, v.8, xxxii.43, xxxii.44, and 2.xxii.34. The Peripatetic school encouraged the close relation­ship between the two.

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5 Cf. Horace, Ars Poet. 444.

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6 Ennius and Gracchus served as models for Crassus in his youth; cf. Cicero, De Oratore 1.34.154.

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7 See note on 4.iii.5 below.

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8 Whether civil or criminal.

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9 In which the paterfamilias exercises his jurisdiction. See Mommsen, pp16 ff.; Wenger, Institutes of the Roman Law of Civil Procedure, pp9 f.

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10 Cf. the place of Imitation in our author's theory, as set forth in 1.ii.3 above, with the position taken in this Preface (see esp. 4.iv.7 and 4.vi.9 below) against borrowing examples which should serve as models for imitation.

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11 The like point, with respect to rhythm, is made by Cicero, Orator 51.173.

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12 τεχνίτης, τεχνογράφος. On expertness in criticism see Cicero, Brutus 47.183, 51.190, 54.199 ff., 93.320, Orator 11.36, De Opt. Gen. Dic. 4.11, De Offic. 3.3.15; Dionysius Halic., De Thuc. 4.

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13 Of Sparta, a celebrated long-distance runner (c. 450 B.C.), winner in the Olympic games, whose speed is often referred to by Roman authors; see P.‑W. 12.380‑1.

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14 Text corrupt. The runner "Boïscus" (if that reading is correct) is elsewhere unknown. The name (of a Thessalian boxer) occurs in Xenophon, Anab. 5.8, and (of a Samian) in W. Dittenberger, Syll. Inscript. Graec., 3rd ed., Leipzig, 1915, No 420.

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15 Cf. Corpus Fabularum Aesopicarum, ed. Hausrath, Fab. 33(1), about the man who, boasting when away from Rhodes that he had "beaten the Olympic record" in a jump he had made at Rhodes, and promising to produce witnesses of his exploit if his hearers would come to Rhodes, was challenged to repeat the leap where he was.

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16 In Horace, Epist. 1.3.15 ff., Celsus is advised to be self-reliant, and not to draw upon writers whose works he has used in the library of the temple of Apollo — "lest, if by chance some day the flock of birds come to reclaim their feathers, the wretched crow stripped of his stolen colours excite laughter." Cf. the jackdaw in Phaedrus, Fab. Aesop. 1.3 and Babrius, Mythiamb. Aesop. 72. Philodemus, Rhet., ed. Sudhaus, 2.67‑8, says that in drawing certain technical principles from other arts, such as dialectic, the rhetoricians have "decked themselves out with borrowed plumage." Cf. also in Lucian, Pseudolog. 5, the sophist's speech, "like Aesop's jackdaw patched together with borrowed plumes of many colours."

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17 Cf. the rule in Theon 8 (Spengel 2.110.25) that in epideictic the judgements must be taken from reputable men.

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18 But cf., just above, eas confirmare, and 4.xliv.57, end, exemplo conprobatum.

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19 Cf. Aristotle, Problem. 18.3 (916B): "We more readily believe in facts to which many bear witness, and examples and tales are like witnesses; furthermore, belief through witnesses is easy;" Rhet. 2.20 (1394A): "If we lack enthymemes, we must use examples as logical proofs . . . If we have enthymemes, we must use examples as witnesses, subsequent and supplementary to the enthymemes. . . . When they follow the enthymemes examples function like witnesses." Cf. also the definition and functions of the figure exemplum, 4.xlix.62 below, and note. On Example as rhetorical induction see Aristotle, Rhet. 1.2 (1356B, 1357B), and cf. Anal. Pr. 2.24 (68B ff.); its place in Cicero's theory of argumentation, De Inv. 1.xxix.44 ff., esp. 49, and De Oratore 2.40.169. See further Quintilian, 5.11.1 ff., and on the exemplum in deliberative speaking 3.v.9 above.

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20 From the celebrated speech delivered before an Assembly of the people in B.C. 106 by L. Licinius Crassus in support of the law by which Q. Servilius Caepio sought, on behalf of the Senate, to wrest the judicial powers from the equites. In Cicero, De Oratore 1.52.225, the passage is fuller: "Deliver us from our miseries, deliver us from the jaws of those whose cruelty cannot have enough of our blood: suffer us not to be slaves to any but yourselves as a whole, whom we both can and ought to serve." See also Cicero, Paradoxa Stoic. 5.41. The figure of speech is Homoeoteleuton; see 4.xx.28 below.

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21 Cf. Cicero, De Inv. 1.vi.8: "But for a speaker it is a very unimportant thing to speak concerning his art — that Hermagoras has done; by far the most important thing is to speak in conformity with his art — and this, as we all see, Hermagoras was altogether incapable of doing."

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22 δράματα. Cf. fabula in 1.viii.13, 1.vi.10, and 2.viii.12 above. The task of copying was usually entrusted to slaves.

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23 Cf. Isocrates, Ad Nicocl. 44, on the selection of maxims from the outstanding poets.

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24 Cf. the Preface to the Rhet. ad Alex. (1421A): "For the so‑called Parian sophists, because they did not themselves give birth to what they teach, have no love for it, in their tasteless indifference, and peddle it about for money."

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25 After the Greek writers have had their say, and have been refuted, our author takes up his own "constructive" case; see 4.i.1.

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26 The theory and practice of presenting examples from a variety of sources were doubtless Peripatetic; the rhetoricians criticized belong perhaps to the second century B.C. The use of one's own examples, on the other hand, goes back to Corax (see Paul Wendland, Anaximenes von Lampsakos, Berlin, 1905, pp31 ff.) and was characteristic of the sophists and of the author of the Rhet. ad Alex. Note that neither point of view can be regarded as characteristically Greek.

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27 Their theory is set forth in 4.i.1‑ii.3 above.

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28 In Cicero, De Oratore 2.22.90‑3, Antonius discusses the imitation of some one good model; Quintilian, in 10.5.19, urges the student to follow this "custom of our ancestors," but in 10.2.23 advises him not to devote himself entirely to imitating one particular style. Seneca, Contr. 1, Praef. 6, takes a stand against the adoption of a single model, however eminent.

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29 On the eloquence of these orators see the following sections in Cicero, Brutus: M. Porcius Cato (cos. 195 B.C.) 63 ff., 293 ff.; Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (tr. pl. 133 B.C.) 103‑4, 296; C. Sempronius Gracchus (tr. pl. 123 B.C.) 125‑6, 296; C. Laelius (cos. 140 B.C.), P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus (Africanus Minor, cos. 147, 134 B.C.), and Ser. Sulpicius Galba (cos. 144 B.C.) 82 ff.; M. Aemilius Lepidus Porcina (cos. 137 B.C.) 95‑6; M. Antonius (cos. 99 B.C.) and L. Licinius Crassus (cos. 95 B.C.) 139 ff..

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30 Who exemplifies only a few virtues.

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31 On the popularity of this maxim in different forms see Otto, s.v. "omnis" 1 and 2, pp254‑5.

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32 Here is reflected the quarrel, in the second century, between philosophers and rhetoricians concerning education: see Hans von Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa, Berlin, 1898, ch. 1, Hubbell, The Rhetorica of Philodemus, pp364‑382, Kroll in P.‑W., "Rhetorik," coll. 1080‑90. For example, the three Greek philosophers who came as ambassadors from Athens to Rome in 155 B.C. (and wielded considerable influence there) were all opposed to rhetoric — the Academic Carneades, the Peripatetic Critolaüs, and the Stoic Diogenes the Babylonian.

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33 Cf.  Plutarch, Demosth. 23: "Further, [when Alexander demanded the surrender of the Athenian leaders,] Demosthenes said: 'Just as we see merchants selling their stock of wheat by means of a few grains which they carry about with them in a bowl as a sample, so by giving us up, you, without knowing it, give yourselves up too, all of you.' "

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34 Cf. Longinus, De Sublim. 13.3: "Plato, who from that great Homeric spring drew to himself countless side streams;" Quintilian, 10.1.46, and Dionysius Halic., De Composit. Verb. 24, on Homer, as source of inspiration, representing his own conception of Ocean (Il. 21.196‑7).

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35 In the eyes of Rhodians, Chares, who produced the Colossus in 280 B.C., would belong in this list of celebrated sculptors of Greece. Lysippus, his teacher, was a contemporary of Alexander the Great; Myron fl. 460 B.C.; Praxiteles was born c. 390 B.C.; Polycleitus fl. 450‑420 B.C. Rhetoricians liked to use the graphic arts for comparison in their theory. Cf., for example, Cicero, De Inv. 2.i.1 ff., Brutus 18.70, Orator 2.8 ff.; Horace, Ars Poet., init. (poem and painting, as in 4.xxviii.39 below); Quintilian, 12.10.1 ff.; Dionysius Halic., De Imit. 6 (ed. Usener-Radermacher, 2[1].203, and for the method contrary to that in our author's analogy, fragm. 6A, p214); Theon 1, in Spengel 2.62.1 ff. Cf. also 4.xi.16 below: "set the style in relief, as with colours"; Cousin, Études sur Quintilien, 1.658 ff.; Friedrich Blass, Die griechische Beredsamkeit in dem Zeitraum von Alexander bis auf Augustus, Berlin, 1865, pp222 ff.; E. Bertrand, De pictura et sculptura apud veteres rhetores, Paris, 1881; Julius Brzoska, De canone decem oratorum Atticorum quaestiones, Breslau, 1883, pp69 ff., 81 ff.; Lessing, Laokoon.

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36 Cicero, Brutus 19.75, likens the pleasurable effect of Naevius' Bellum Punicum to that yielded by a work of Myron; cf. also Dionysius Halic., De Thuc. 4.

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37 Cf. 1.x.17, 2.xxx.47, and 4.xxiii.32. The idea is widespread in ancient rhetoric; cf. Aristotle, Rhet. 3.2 (1404B): "Hence may be inferred the need to disguise the art we employ, so that we give the impression of speaking naturally, not artificially. Naturalness is persuasive, artifice is the contrary. People take offence at a speaker who employs artifice, and think he has designs on them — as if he were mixing drinks for them;" also 3.7 (1408B). See further Philodemus, Rhet., ed. Sudhaus, 1.200; Dionysius Halic., De Lys. 8; Dionysius, Ars Rhet. 8.16 (ed. Usener-Radermacher, 2[1].322); Longinus, De Sublim. 22.1: "For art is perfect when it seems to be nature, and nature is effective when she contains art hidden within her," 17.1‑2, 38.3; Anon. Seg. 94, in Spengel-Hammer 1(2).369; Hermogenes, De Meth. Gravit. 17 (ed. Rabe, p433); Philostratus, Vita Apollon. 8.6; Longinus, in Spengel-Hammer 1(2).195.4; Cicero, De Inv. 1.xviii.25, 1.lii.98, Brutus 37.139, De Oratore 2.37.156, 2.41.177, Orator 12.38, Part. Orat. 6.19; Ovid, Metam. 10.252; Quintilian, 1.11.3, 2.5.7, 4.1.8‑9, 4.1.54, 4.1.56‑58, 4.2.59, 4.2.126‑7, 9.4.144, 11.2.47.

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38 Postremo . . . rationem form a hexameter.

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39 ὀνόματα τεχνικά. Cf. Varro in Cicero, Academ. 1.6.24: "Since we are treating unusual subjects you will no doubt allow me on occasion to use words unheard‑of before, as the Greeks themselves do, and they have now been treating these subjects for a long time"; Cicero, Orator 57.211.

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40 The three kinds do not occur in every correct discourse, but the kinds of correct discourse are limited to these three.

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41 χαρακτῆρες, πλάσματα. Notice the word figura. Our author's term corresponding to English "figure of speech" is exornatio (σχῆμα), as in 4.xiii.18 below (Cicero's term, lumen, is used only in 4.xxiii.32 below); figura as "figure of speech" first appears in Quintilian.

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42 ἁδρόν (μεγαλοπρεπές, περιττόν), μέσον (μικτόν), ἰσχνόν (λιτόν), and for other terms see W. Schmid, Rhein. Mus. 49 (1894), 136 ff. Here is the first extant division of the styles into three. Cf. especially Cicero, De Oratore 3.45.177, 52.199, 55.212, Orator 5.20 ff., 23.75 ff.; Dionys. Halic., De Demosth. 1 ff., and for the doctrine as transferred to Composition (σύνθεσις), De Composit. Verb., chaps. 21 ff.; Quintilian, 12.10.58 ff.; also Varro in Gellius 6.14. To Cicero (Orator 21.69 ff.), following a Hellenistic (and doubtless Peripatetic) concept, each of the styles represents a function of the orator, the plain (subtile) serving for proof (probare), the middle (modicum) for delight (delectare), and the vigorous (vehemens) for swaying the hearers (flectere). Scholars are not in agreement on the ultimate origin of the fixed categories; some assign the doctrine to Theophrastus (see A. Körte, Hermes 64 [1929], 80, and Wilhelm Kroll, Rhein. Mus. 62 [1907], 86 ff., Introd. to ed. of Cicero, Orator [Berlin, 1913], p4, note 1, and "Rhetorik," coll. 1074 f.), while others deny this attribution (see G. L. Hendrickson, Amer. Journ. Philol. 25 [1904], 125‑46 and 26 [1905], 249‑290, and Stroux, De Theophrasti virt. dic., Leipzig, 1912, chaps. 1, 7, and 8). On varying views of the part played by the Peripatetic ethical idea of the mean (μεσότης) in the development of the doctrine see especially the articles by Hendrickson and Kroll, and S. F. Bonner in Class. Philol. 33 (1938), 257‑266. Cf. the four types of style in Demetrius, De Elocut. 36, the twofold division in Cicero, Brutus 55.201; and see Fritz Wehrli, "Der erhabene und der schlichte Stil in der poetisch-rhetorischen Theorie der Antike," Phyllobolia für Peter von der Mühll, Basel, 1946, p29. Quintilian, 12.10.66 ff., considers the limitation to three styles arbitrary.

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43 Echoed below in connection with Epanaphora (xiii.19), Antithesis (xv.21), Interrogation (xv.22), Paronomasia (xxiii.32), Surrender (xxxix.39 — provoking pity), and Asyndeton (xxx.41 — animation).

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44 4.xiii.19 ff.

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45 Cf. Cicero, Verr. 2.2.16.40: "How shall one deal with this man? What punishment can be found commensurate with his lawlessness?"

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46 On the criminal law in respect to wounding with intent to kill, see Mommsen, p627.

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47 Cf. the ninth commonplace in 2.xxx.49 above, the comparison of crimes.

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48 This passage (see also 4.xxxvi.48 and 4.xxxix.51 below, and 2.xxviii.45 above) is not to be taken (with Mommsen, p972, note 1) as evidence that interdiction was the legal punishment for treason exacted of a citizen. Note "bequeathed no specific penalty" above in this example, and see Ernst Levy, Die röm. Kapitalstrafe, Sitzungsber. Heidelberg. Akad. (philos.-hist. Klasse) 21, 5 (1930‑31), 20 ff.

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49 The example is of an amplificatio criminis, belonging to the Conclusion of a speech. For an analysis of this passage, see Jules Marouzeau, Rev. de Philol. 45 (1921), 155‑6, and Traité de stylistique appliqué au Latin, Paris, 1935, p181: The diction is grandiloquent, but not artificial as in the passage below illustrating the swollen style. Note the elegant and learned abstract in -tus (dominatu) for –ito, the archaic genitive deum, the far-fetched hostilem libidinem (adj. serving for genitive of noun), the artificial disjunctions (e.g., idoneam . . . poenam), the periods, the tripartite interjections, the chiasmus in violassent ingenuum, matremfamilias constuprassent, the play on words (hominem humanitate, excogitare cogitarit), the accumulation of epithets and of superlatives, the contrasts as in uno consilio, universis civibus, the variety in the echoes (quo pacto, quo modo), the periphrasis in huius sceleris qui sunt adfines, the expressive verbs (excogitare, constuprassent, machinantur, conflagrata, trucidatis), and the poetic words (e.g., moenibus). Figures of speech are Paronomasia (see 4.xxi.29 below) in excogitare . . . cogitarit, Isocolon (see 4.xx.27 below) in Quod maleficium conparari, quod huic . . . inveniri, Apostrophe (see 4.xv.22 below) in O feros animos . . . humanitate, Reasoning by Question and Answer (see 4.xvi.23 below) in Quid agere, etc., and Surrender (see 4.xxix.39 below) in the last two sentences of the passage. The passage contains no periods ending with monosyllables; the example of the middle style below contains a few. It contains sixteen dichorees () in the clausulae; the example of the middle style contains eight, and that of the simple style only one. See Friedrich Blass, Die Rhythmen der asianischen und römischen Kunstprosa, Leipzig, 1905, pp107‑9; Konrad Burdach, Schlesisch-böhmische Briefmuster aus der Wende des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts (Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation 5), Berlin, 1926, pp106 ff.; and the notes on 4.xix.26 and 4.xxxii.44 below. Dionysius Halic., De Demosth., ch. 1, chooses Gorgias and Thucydides as representatives of the grand style.

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50 4.viii.11.

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51 By destroying Fregellae when, after a long history of loyalty, she rebelled in 125 B.C., Rome kept her Italian confederacy intact. See 4.xv.22 and 4.xxvii.37 below. The figure here is Hypophora; see 4.xxiii.33 below.

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52 For the maxim (see 4.xvii.24 below) cf. Terence, Heaut. Tim. 221; Publilius Syrus 177 (ed. J. Wight Duff and A. M. Duff): "From another's fault a wise man corrects his own," 60: "In another's misfortune it is good to descry what to avoid," and 133; Livy, 22.39.10; Tacitus, Annals 4.33.

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53 Whether the example is an excerpt from a speech actually delivered, or our author's own creation, is uncertain. The sentiments are such as Q. Varius Hybrida might have uttered in support of his law (90 B.C.) prosecuting those who by malicious fraud compelled the allies to war against Rome; confederates at Rome are referred to in the example of the slack style, 4.xi.16 below. The present example belongs to the rationis confirmatio of an argument (see 2.xviii.28 above), and is not so impassioned as the example of the grand style above. Dionysius Halic., De Demosth., ch. 3 ff., chooses Thrasymachus, Isocrates, and Plato as representatives of the middle style.

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54 The Sundial, in the Forum, was a much frequented meeting-place for gossip; cf. Cicero, Pro Quinctio 18.59. The Roman citizen ordinarily looked down upon actors as beneath his dignity; they were usually freedmen or slaves. For the connection between the stage and vice see, e.g., Cicero, In Cat. 2.5.9.

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55 Analysing this example of the adtenuatum genus (the "thinness" refers to lack of adornment and fineness of texture), Marouzeau, Traité, pp181‑2 and art. cit., pp156‑7, points to the forms of colloquial usage (pedagogi, the diminutive oriculas), idioms like de traverso, coepit with the passive, the vulgar use of the archaism pone for post, and of the indicative potest in a characterizing clause, the expletive use as in conversation of the ethical dative tibi with ecce, the frequent use of the demonstrative iste for hic or is, the accusative of quality in id aetatis, the asyndeton in satisfacias oportet, and the type of parataxis characteristic of comedy in ita petulans est . . . exercitata. See also J. B. Hofmann, Lat. Umgangssprache, Heidelberg, 1936, p207. For heus see ibid., sect. 17; for eicere (= efferre), sect. 138. For quod de existimatione perderet see Schmalz-Hofmann, pp526 f. Note also the brevity of Hic vix. The example is a factual, not primarily emotional, narratio, which is a division of sermo; see 3.xiii.23 above. Dionysius Halic., De Demosth., ch. 2, chooses Lysias as representative of the simple style.

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56 παρακείμενα ἁμαρτήματα. Cf. Longinus, De Sublim., ch. 3, and Horace, Ars Poet. 24‑8. These deviations (παρεκβάσεις) are Peripatetic in concept; excess in style is judged in relation to the mean. The faulty styles were known to Marcus Varro (Gellius 6.14); cf. also Demetrius, De Elocut. 114, 186, 236, 302.

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57 οἰδοῦν, ἐπηρμένον, ὑπερβάλλον, φυσῶδες. Cf. Longinus, De Sublim. 3.4: "Evil are the swellings (ὄγκοι), both in the body and in diction, which are inflated and unreal, and threaten us with the reverse of our aim" (tr. W. Rhys Roberts); Horace, Ars Poet. 27.

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58 Thus violating propriety (τὸ πρέπον). See notes on 3.xv.26, 4.xi.16, 4.xii.17, and 4.xv.22, and Introduction, p. xx. For a study of the history of this principle, see Max Pohlenz, Nachrichten von der Gesellsch. der Wissensch. zu Göttingen (Philol.-histor. Klasse), 1933, pp53‑92.

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59 Marouzeau, art. cit., pp157‑8, and Traité, p181, analyses the learned affectations in spelling, forms, and construction, all embraced by a tour de force in four lines. Note the archaic forms subplicii, poenite, and the Lucretian montis; the curious depultus, representing the primitive form of the participle; the ancient deponent fabricari; the emphatic venditare; perduellionibus, rare example of an abstract in the plural (the author elsewhere uses maiestas; for the difference between the two crimes see H. F. Jolowicz, Historical Introd. to the Study of Roman Law, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1952, p327); the highly poetic lacunas; the disjunction of Neptunias and lacunas; the adjective Neptunias for the genitive of the noun; the learned double metaphor in montis and campos. These passages illustrating the faulty styles were doubtless made up by our author, with the examples of the faultless styles in view.

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60 ἐκλελυμένον, διαλελυμένον. Cf. Cicero, Orator 68.228.

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61 For the analogy cf. Fortunatianus 3.9 (Halm, p126): "What style is the reverse of the middle style? The lukewarm, slack, and, as I may call it, sinewless style"; and Horace, Ars Poet. 26‑7.

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62 The phrase malos et audaces is used by Sisenna, fragm. 110, Hist. Rom. Reliquiae, ed. Hermann Peter, Leipzig, 1914, 1.291. "Here" refers to Rome.

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63 Cf. Sophocles, Electra 320: "Yes, a man entering upon a great enterprise likes to pause."

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64 ταπεινόν, ξηρόν.

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65 Analysing this example of the sermo inliberalis, Marouzeau, Traité, pp103 and 182, and art. cit., p157, calls attention to the unsyncopated balineis (cf. 4.x.14 and 4.l.63), the reinforced istic (cf. iste in the example of the simple style above), the violation of the concord of number in the Old Latin expression praesente multis (see Schmalz-Hofmann, p638; W. M. Lindsay, Syntax of Plautus, Oxford, 1907, p4), the adverbial post, the vulgar locution convicium facere, the abuse of the demonstrative in istic, hunc, hic, hic, illi, illi, the monotonous transitions, the awkward parataxis and short sentences, the employment thrice of post or postea, and the direct style for the short and insignificant reply.

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66 4.xiii.18 below.

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67 Thus violating propriety; see note on 4.x.15 above. If oblitam be the correct reading, then "they produce an overloaded, or overdaubed, style."

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68 Tractatio; see note to 2.xviii.27 above. Dionysius Halic., De Demosth., chaps. 8 ff., thinks that Demosthenes best blended all three types of style.

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69 σύνθεσις ὀνομάτων, ἁρμονία. The scanty treatment of Artistic Composition in 4.xii.18 below is confined to the avoidance of faults rather than to constructive theory.

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70 The qualities were chiefly treated by the Peripatetics and Stoics. The Theophrastan scheme is here modified. The four qualities in Theophrastus' system were Purity (Ἑλληνισμός), Clarity (σαφήνεια), Appropriateness (τὸ πρέπον), and Ornamentation (κατασκευή), this last embracing Correct Choice of Words (ἐκλογὴ ὀνομάτων), Artistic Composition (ἁρμονία), and the Figures (σχήματα). Thus for our author, elegantia comprises two primary qualities of Theophrastus' scheme; Appropriateness (see note on 4.x.15 above) is here missing; the ornamentation residing in the choice of words is left unconsidered (except for what he says under explanatio, and his treatment of Metaphor among the figures; see 4.xxxiv.45 below); Artistic Composition is a primary quality, and is not treated as a branch of Ornamentation; finally, Ornamentation, represented by dignitas, is limited to the Figures. See Stroux, De Theophrasti virt. dic., pp22‑3, 64‑7.

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71 Corresponds to Ἑλληνισμός among the Greek rhetoricians. Solecism and barbarism were studied chiefly by the Stoics. Cf. Quintilian, 1.5.5 ff., 1.5.34 ff.; C. N. Smiley, Latinitas and ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΣ, Madison, 1906; Hubbell, The Rhetorica of Philodemus, p295, note 4; Volkmann, p396, note 1; Alexander Numenii, De Schemat., in Spengel 3.9.25: "Barbarism involves correction of a word, solecism of the syntax."

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72 At this juncture in the discussion of Style rhetoricians would refer to grammatical studies; cf. Quintilian, 8.1.2; Martianus Capella, 5.508. Whether our author ever wrote a tract on Grammar we do not know; see notes on 3.ii.3 and 3.xvi.28 above. This is the earliest mention in extant literature of a specific Latin ars grammatica. The close connection between grammatical and rhetorical studies is characteristic of Rhodian education.

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73 σαφήνεια.

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74 κοινὰ ἔπη.

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75 οἰκεῖα ἔπη, κύρια ἔπη.

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76 The regular designations of things, literal as against metaphorical, the designations "which were so to speak born with the things themselves" (Cicero, De Oratore 3.37.149).

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77 Hiatus, σύνκρουσις φωνηέντων. On this subject cf. Dionysius Halic., De Composit. Verb., ch. 23, and especially Demetrius, De Elocut. 2.68 ff., 5.299, who, while warning against a jerky style, yet points to the force, music, and harmony of speech that hiatus can bring. Isocrates and his followers, and Demosthenes, avoided hiatus, Thucydides and Plato [in his earlier dialogues] did not; see Cicero, Orator 44.150 ff. Philodemus, Rhet., ed. Sudhaus, 1.163, thinks hiatus rather frigid, but sometimes convenient.

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78 The copper-coloured berries hung most invitingly"; Asian in style.

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79 Alliteration; most often Paromoeon to the grammarians; Homoeoprophoron to Martianus Capella (5.514). Alliteration (as it has been called since early modern times) played a larger rôle in Latin than in Greek style; see Schmalz-Hofmann, pp801‑3, Marouzeau, Traité, pp42‑7, and Eduard Wölfflin, "Zur Allitteration," Mélanges Boissier, Paris, 1903, pp461‑4.

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80 "Thyself to thyself, Titus Tatius the tyrant, thou tookest those terrible troubles" (Fragm. 108, tr. Warmington); from Ennius' Annals, Bk. I. See Vahlen p18. Cf. Charisius, ed. Barwick, p370, and Donatus, in Keil, Gramm. Lat. 4.398.20.

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81 Marx suggests that in the original play this verse might have been preceded by something like cum debere carnufex. "[Since the rascal] denies that anyone [owes] anything to anyone, whoever sues whomever." We do not know from which play (comedy) of Ennius the verse comes.

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82 Transplacement. See 4.xiv.20 below.

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83 "For when the reasonableness of a reason is not evident, in that reason it is not reasonable to put any faith at all." These iambic senarii are by Marx, Proleg., p118, thought to be in the style of Ennius.

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84 Homoeoptoton. See 4.xx.28 below.

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85 "Bewailing, imploring, weeping, protesting." Spondaic hexameter, assigned without certitude to Ennius; see Vahlen, p16, Warmington 1.462. Cf. Charisius, ed. Barwick, p371; Diomedes, in Keil, Gramm. Lat. 1.447.16; and Donatus, in Keil 4.398.23.

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86 Hyperbaton. See 4.xxxii.44 below.

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87 L. Coelius Antipater, after 121 B.C., dedicated his Punic War (in seven books) to L. Aelius Stilo. In the Preface to Book I he promised that he would use Hyperbaton only when necessary (Cicero, Orator 69.230), but he violated this principle, as here in the Preface to Book II: "In the previous Book, Lucius Aelius, I dedicated to you the account of these events." Following a normal word order the sentence would read: In priore libro, Luci Aeli, has res scriptas ad te misimus. Note also that beginning with the fourth word we have a complete dactylic hexameter — an example of epic influence.

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