“I say that you, O prince of Aeacus' line,Or it may arise from the arrangement of the words,
Rome can o'erthrow.
”
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[6]
Thus arises the Greek theme
[p. 157]
about Leon and Pantaleon, who go to law because
the handwriting of a will makes it uncertain whether
the testator has left all his property to Leon or his
property to Pantaleon.1
Groups of words give rise to more serious ambiguity. Such ambiguity may arise from doubt as
to a case, as in the following passage:2—
1 i. e. whether he wrote πάντα Λέοντι or Πανταλέοντι.
2 Enn. Ann. 186. An ambiguous oracle quoted by Cicero (de Div. II. lvi.). It might equally mean that Rome or Pyrrhus would conquer. Cp. the oracle given to Croesus: “If thou cross the Halys, thou shalt destroy a mighty empire.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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