ROMAN GRICE

Speranza

Significatio est res quae plus in suspicione relinquit
quam positum est in oratione. Ea fit per exsupera-
tionem, ambiguum, consequentiam, abscisionem,
similitudinem.

Per exsuperationem, cum plus est dictum quam
patitur Veritas, augendae suspicionis causa, sic :

Hie de tanto patrimonio tam cito testam qui sibi
petat ignem non reliquit."

Per ambiguum, cum verbum potest in duas pluresve
sententias accipi, sed accipitur tamen in cam partem
quam vult is qui dixit ; ut de eo si dicas qui multas
hereditates adierit : " Prospice tu, qui plurimum
cernis." LIV. Ambigua quemadmodum vitanda
sunt quae obscuram reddunt orationem, item haec
consequenda quae conficiunt huiusmodi significa-
tionem. Ea reperientur facile si noverimus et ani-
mum adverterimus verborum ancipites aut multiplices
potestates.



" Such sentiments as are expressed in these two passages
might have been uttered by tribunes of the plebs in the time
of Marius ; see Kroehnert, p. 32. L. Junius Brutus liberated
Rome from the Taiquins and founded the Roman consulate.

*" »See 2. XXX. 48-xxxi. 50.

' €ix(f>aaL9. Meaning conveyed by implication. Really
more a trope than a figure. Cf. Quintilian, 8. 3. 83 : " There
are two kinds of Emphasis; one means more than it says,
the other often means something it does not say."

^ See 4. xxxiii. 44 above (superlatio).

« This passage is in the spirit of the excerpts, in Cicero, De
Oratore 2. 55. 223-6, from the speech delivered in probably

400



AD HERKNNIUM, IV. mil 66-liv. 67

without peril, do not care to be free.' " *» Personi-
fication may be applied to a variety of things,
mute and inanimate. It is most useful in the
divisions under Amplification and in Appeal to Pity.*
67 Emphasis <^ is the fif^ure which leaves more to be
suspected than has been actually asserted. It is
produced through Hyperbole, Ambiguity, I^ogical
Consequence, Aposiopesis, and Analogy.

The emphasis is produced through Hyperbole '^
when more is said than the truth warrants, so as to
give greater force to the suspicion, as follows : " Out
of so great a patrimony, in so short a time, this man
has not laid by even an earthen pitcher wherewith to
seek a fire for himself." ^

The emphasis is produced through Ambiguity/
when a word can be taken in two or more senses, but
yet is taken in that sense which the speaker intends ;
for example, if you should say concerning a man who
has come into many legacies: " Just look out, you,
who look out for yourself so profitably."'^ hlV. p],ven
as we must avoid those ambiguities which render
the style obscure, so must we seek those which
produce an emphasis of this sort. It will be easy to
find them if we know and pay heed to the double and
multiple meanings of words.

91 B.C. by L. Lifinius Crassus on behalf of Cn. Planc(i)us
against M. Junius Brutus, who had squandered his patrimony.
Kroehnert, p. .31, thinks it may come from this speech, but
there is no real evidence for the ascription.

^ Quintilian, 6. 3. 47 flF., considers the play on double
meanings only rarely teUing, unless helped out by the facts.

" The play is upon the double meaning of cernere : to " dis-
cern " and, in judicial language, " to enter upon an in-
heritance; " thus : " you who know exceedingly well how to
enter upon bequests."

401



[CICERO]

Per consequentiam significatio fit cum res quae
sequantur aliquam rem dicuntur, ex quibus tota res
relinquitur in suspicione ; ut si salsamentarii filio
dicas : " Quiesce tu, cuius pater cubito se emungere ^
solebat."

Per abscisionem, si, cum incipimus aliquid dicere,
deinde praecidamus, et ex eo quod iam diximus satis
relinquitur suspicionis, sic : " Qui ista forma et aetate
nuper alienae domi — nolo plura dicere."

Per similitudinem, cum aliqua re simili allata nihil
amplius dicimus, sed ex ea significamus quid sen-
tiamus, hoc modo : " Noli, Saturnine, nimium populi
frequentia fretus esse; inulti iacent Gracci."

Haec exornatio plurimum festivitatis habet inter-
dum et dignitatis ; sinit enim quiddam tacito oratore
ipsum auditorem suspicari.
68 Brevitas est res ipsis tantummodo verbis necessariis
expedita, hoc modo: " Lemnum praeteriens cepit,
inde Thasi praesidium reliquit, post urbem Bithynam

1 cubito se emungere E : cubiti seraugire H : cubitis emungi
CIl3Ix : cubiti semugi P : cubitis emugi B.



" iiraKoXovOrjaiS'

* The saying is common, e.g., with reference to the freedman
father of the poet Horace, in Suetonius, De Viris Illustrihus,
Vita Horatii, and to the freedman father of Bion of Borys-
thenes (first half, third century B.C.), in Diogenes Laertius
4. 46. Cf. also Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. 2. 4 (631 D), and,
illustrating oKa>iJ.fxa {contumelia celata), Macrobius, Sat. 7. 3. 6.

' See 4. XXX. 41 above {praecisio).

^ L. Appuleius Saturninus, of praetorian descent, after
being removed from the quaestorship by the Senate, joined
the populares, and thereafter by demagoguery and violence

402



AD HERENNIUM, IV. liv. 67 6S

Emphasis by Logical Consequence " is produced
when one mentions the things that follow from a
given circumstance, thus leaving the whole matter in
distrust ; for example, if you should say to the son of
a fishmonger: "Quiet, you, whose father used to
wipe his nose with his forearm." ^

The emphasis is produced through Aposiopesis '^ if
we begin to say something and then stop short, and
what we have already said leaves enough to arouse
suspicion, as follows: " He who so handsome and so
young, recently at a stranger's house — I am unwilling
to say more."

The emphasis is produced through Analogy, when
we cite some analogue and do not amplify it, but by
its means intimate what we are thinking, as follows :
" Do not, Saturninus, rely too much on the popular
mob — unavenged lie the Gracchi." '^

This figure sometimes possesses liveliness and
distinction in the highest degree ; indeed it permits
the hearer himself to guess what the speaker has not
mentioned.
68 Conciseness ^ is the expressing of an idea by the
very minimum of essential words, as follows : " On
his way he took Lemnus, then left a garrison at
Thasus, after that destroyed the Bithynian city,

fought the Senate until he was, in 100 b.c, declared a public
enemy by that body and slain, the mob participating; see
note on 4. xxii. 31 above. Saturninus was influenced by the
political ideas of C. Gracchus. On his grain-bill see 1. xii. 21
above.

* ^paxvXoyla. Also, from another point of view, iniTpo-
XaofjLos. Cf. distincte concisa brevitas and percursio in Cicero, De
Oraiore 3. 53. 202. Quintilian in 9. 3. 99 denies that fipaxv-
Aoyta is a figure, yet in 9. 3. 50 treats it as a form of
As3ndeton.

403



[CICERO]

Cium ^ sustulit, inde re versus ^ in Hellespontum
statim potitur Abydi ". Item : " Modo consul
quondam, is deinde primus erat civitatis ; turn pro-
ficiscitur in Asiam ; deinde hostis et exul est dictus ;
post imperator, et postremo vii ^ factus est consul."
Habet paucis conprehensa brevitas multarum rerum
expeditionem. Quare adhibenda saepe est, cum aut
res non egent longae orationis aut tempus non sinet
commorari.

LV. Demonstratio est cum ita verbis res exprimi-
tur ut geri negotium et res ante oculos esse videatur.
Id fieri poterit si quae ante et post et in ipsa re facta

1 Bithynam Cium Muenzer : bithinia b : bithinnia v :
bithana / : viminachium 31, Viminacium 3Ix.

2 reversus Baiter-Kayser : rursiis C : sulsus HPB U :
pulsus 3Ix.

^ Insertion of vii suggested by Omnibonus and Mx.

" Text and reference are uncertain. Friedrich Muenzer
(Philologus 89 [1934]. 215-25) believes that the expedition
made in 202-200 b.c. by Philip V of Macedon (Rome declared
war in 200) is indicated. Cius was the city on the Propontis
in Bithynia. The Rhodians were active against Philip;
this passage may come from an actual oration, perhaps
delivered, Muenzer thinks, bv Apollonius Molo or Apollonius
ofiaXaKos. W. Warde Fowler, Class. Rev. 29 (1915). 136-7,
and Roman Essays and Interpretations, Oxford, 1920, pp.
95-99, thinks the reference is to Lucullus and his fleet in 84
(85) B.C., when he was clearing the Hellespont and Aegean of
the lorces of Mithridates for Sulla. Marx ( Viminachmi),
Rhein. Mus. 47 (1892). 157-9, doubts the possibility of
establishing the reference. For other conjectures, see A.
von Domaszewski, Jahreshefte der oesterr. archaeol. Inst, in
Wien 5 (1902). 147-9 (Lysimachia, in the Thracian Chersonese,
and Lucullus), and H. Jordan, Hermes 8 (1874). 75-7 (Lysi-
machia, and Antiochus III after his defeat in 191 B.C. by the
Romans at Thermopylae).

Alexander Numenii, De Schemat. (Spengel 3. 22), cites in

404



AD HERENNIUM, IV. liv. 68-lv. 68

Cius ; next, returning to the Hellespont, he forthwith
occupies Abydus."» Again: " Just recently consul,
next he was first man of the state ; then he sets out for
Asia ; next he is declared a public enemy and exiled ;
after that he is made general-in-chief and finally
consul for the seventh time." * Conciseness expresses
a multitude of things within the limits of but a few
words, and is therefore to be used often, either when
the facts do not require a long discourse or when time
will not permit dwelling upon them.