[62]
Resemblance and ambiguity may be used in conjunction:
Galba for example said to a man who stood very
much at his ease when playing ball, “You stand
as if you were one of Caesar's candidates.”1 The
[p. 473]
ambiguity lies in the word stand, while the indifference
shewn by the player supplies the resemblance.
1 A candidate recommended by the emperor was automatically elected. I have borrowed Watson's translation of the pun. Petere is the regular word for “standing for office.” Petere pilam probably means “to attempt to catch the ball.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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