[19]
I will admit
that rhetoric sometimes substitutes falsehood for
truth, but I will not allow that it does so because its
opinions are false, since there is all the difference
between holding a certain opinion oneself and
persuading someone else to adopt an opinion. For
instance a general frequently makes use of falsehood: Hannibal when hemmed in by Fabius
persuaded his enemy that he was in retreat by
[p. 335]
tying brushwood to the horns of oxen, setting fire
to them by night and driving the herds across
the mountains opposite.1 But though he deceived
Fabius, he himself was fully aware of the truth.
1 See Livy, XXII. xvi.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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