[27]
“What was that sword of yours
doing, Tubero, the sword you drew on the field of
Pharsalus? Against whose body did you aim its
point? What meant those arms you bore? Whither
were your thoughts, your eyes, your hand, your fiery
courage directed on that day? What passion, what
desires were yours?” This passage recalls the figure
styled συναθροισμός1 by the Greeks, but in that
figure it is a number of different things that are
accumulated, whereas in this passage all the accumulated details have but one reference. The
heightening of effect may also be produced by
making the words rise to a climax.2 “There stood
the porter of the prison, the praetor's executioner,
the death and terror of the citizens and allies of
Rome, the lictor Sextius.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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