“Anchises, worthy deigned
Of Venus' glorious bed, [beloved of heaven,
Twice rescued from the wreck of Pergamum.]
”
[42]
For then it becomes long-winded and
cumbrous, in fact you might compare it to an army
with as many camp-followers as soldiers, an army, that
is to say, which has doubled its numbers without
doubling its strength. None the less, not merely
single epithets are employed, but we may find a
number of them together, as in the following passage
from Virgil:1
1 Aen. iii. 475. I have translated 476 (cura deum, bis Pergameis erepte ruinis) as well to bring out Quintilian's meaning. Quintilian assumes the rest of quotation to be known.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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