Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator), 9.2.54

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[54] Aposiopesis, which Cicero ¹ calls reticentia, Celsus obticentia, and some interruptio, is used to indicate passion or anger, as in the line: ²

Whom I—

But better first these billows to assuage.

Or it may serve to give an impression of anxiety or scruple, as in the following: ³

Would he have dared to mention this law of which Clodius boasts he was the author, while Milo was alive, I will not say was consul? For as regards all of us—I do not dare to complete the sentence.

There is a similar instance in the exordium of Demosthenes' speech in defence of Ctesiphon. ⁴

Institutio Oratoria. Quintilian. Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator). Cambridge, Mass.. 1920-1922.

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Current edition Perseus

Institutio Oratoria (English) (Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.)

Editions (1)

Institutio Oratoria Perseus (Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, editor. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.) — 9.2.54 focus

[54] quam idem Cicero reticentiam, Celsus obticentiam, nonnulli interruptionem appellant, et ipsa ostendit aliquid adfectus vel irae, ut.

quos ego—sed motos praestat componere fluctus;

vel sollicitudinis et quasi religionis: an huius ille legis, quam Clodius a se inventam gloriatur, mentionem facere ausus esset vivo Milone, non dicam console? de nostrum omnium — non audeo totum dicere; cui simile est in prooemio pro Ctesiphonte Demosthenis.

Notes on the current edition

Institutio Oratoria

1. See quotation in IX. i. 31.

2. Aen. i. 135. Neptune rebukes the winds for raising a storm, but breaks off without actually saying what he would do to them.

3. Now frequently inserted in pro Mil. xii. 33. But it is quite possible that the words formed part of the speech actually delivered, and do not belong to the existing speech, from the MSS. from which they are absent. The law proposed to give freedmen the right to vote in all thirty-five tribes and not as before in the four city-tribes only.

4. § 3. ἀλλ᾽ ἐμοὶ—οὐ βούλομαι δὲ δυσχερὲς εἰπεῖν οὐδέν.

Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 9.2.54

Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator)

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