[44]
But since my first task is to point out the faults to
be avoided, I will begin by calling attention to the
fault known as κακέμφατον, a term applied to the
employment of language to which perverted usage
has given an obscene meaning: take, for example,
phrases such as ductare exercitus and patrare bellum,1
which were employed by Sallust in their old and
irreproachable sense, but, I regret to say, cause
amusement in certain quarters to-day. This, however, is not, in my opinion, the fault of the writer, but
of his readers;
1 ductare might mean ad libidinem abducere. patrare bellum might mean paedicare formosum.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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