Book 8
3.3
In this passage the first epithets are bad enough, but are rendered still worse by those which follow. I consider, However, that there are four principal methods of implication: augmentation, comparison, reasoning and accumulation. Of these, augmentation is most impressive when it ends grandeur even to comparative insignificance. This may be effected either by one step or by everal, and may be carried not merely to the highest degree, but sometimes even beyond it.
3.4
A single example from Cicero Verr. v. lxvi. 170. will suffice to llustrate all these points. It is a sin to bind a Roman citizen, a crime to scourge him, little short if the most unnatural murder to put him to death; chat then shall I call his crucifixion? If he had merely been scourged, we should have had but one tep, indicated by the description even of the lesser offence as a sin, while if he had merely been killed,
3.5
we should have had several more steps; but after saying that it was little short of the most unatural murder to put him to death, and mentioning the worst of crimes, he adds, What then shall call his crucifixion? Consequently, since he had ready exhausted his vocabulary of crime, words must necessarily fail him to describe something still orse.
