[61]
Such
methods will also provide us with elegant transitions,
although transition is not itself to be ranked among
figures: for example, Cicero,1 after telling the story
of Piso, who ordered a goldsmith to make a ring
before him in court, adds, as though this story had
suggested it to him, “This ring of Piso's reminds
me of something which had entirely slipped my
memory. How many gold rings do you think
Verres has stripped from the fingers of honourable
men?” Or we may affect ignorance on certain
points, as in the following passage2: “But who
was the sculptor who made those statues? Who
[p. 413]
was he? Thank you for prompting me, you are
right; they said it was Polyclitus.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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