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[43] Be this as it may, two epithets directly attached to one noun are unbecoming even in verse. There are some writers who refuse to regard an epithet as a trope, on the ground that it involves no change. It [p. 327] is not always a trope, but if separated from the word to which it belongs, it has a significance of its own and forms an antonomasia. For if you say, “The man who destroyed Numantia and Carthage,” it will be an antonomasia, whereas, if you add the word “Scipio,” the phrase will be an epithet. An epithet therefore cannot stand by itself.

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