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[32] For my own part, I have included both under the same generally accepted term, since we cannot imagine a speech without we also imagine a person to utter it. But when we lend a voice to things to which nature has denied it, we may soften down the figure in the way illustrated by the following passage: “For if my country, which is far dearer to me than life itself, if all Italy, if the whole commonwealth were to address me thus, 'Marcus Tullius, what dost thou?”1 A bolder figure of the same kind may be illustrated by the following: “Your country, Catiline, pleads with you thus, and though she utters never a word, cries to you, 'For not a few years past no crime has come to pass save through your doing!'”2

1 in Cat. T. xi. 27.

2 in Cat. I. vii. 18.

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