[15]
A different
form of fictitious question is to be found in the pro
Caelio. “Some one will say, 'Is this your moral
discipline? Is this the training you would give
young men?'” with the whole passage that follows.
Then comes his reply, “Gentlemen, if there were
any man with such vigour of mind, with such
innate virtue and self-control, etc.”1 A different
method is to ask a question and not to wait for a
reply, but to subjoin the reply at once yourself.
For example, “Had you no house? Yes, you had
one. Had you money and to spare? No, you were
in actual want.”2 This is a figure which some call
suggestion.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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