Book 8
6.42
For then it becomes long-winded and cumbrous, in fact you might compare it to an army with as many camp-followers as soldiers, an army, that is to say, which has doubled its numbers without doubling its strength. None the less, not merely single epithets are employed, but we may find a number of them together, as in the following passage from Virgil: Aen. iii. 475. I have translated 476 ( cura deum, bis Pergameis erepte ruinis ) as well to bring out Quintilian's meaning. Quintilian assumes the rest of quotation to be known. Anchises, worthy deigned Of Venus' glorious bed, [beloved of heaven, Twice rescued from the wreck of Pergamum.]
6.43
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 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.
