[21]
locus is usually taken to mean
the opposite of seriousness. This view is, however,
somewhat too narrow. For to feign, to terrify, or to
promise, are all at times forms of jesting. Dicacitas
is no doubt derived from dico, and is therefore
common to all forms of wit, but is specially applied
to the language of banter, which is a humorous form
of attack. Therefore, while the critics allow that
Demosthenes was urbanus, they deny that he was
dicax.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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