Book 8
6.25
the converse procedure would rarely be ventured on by any save a poet: take, for example, the phrase: Ucalegon burns next. Aen. ii. 311. It is, however, perhaps more permissible to describe what is possessed by reference to its possessor, as, for example, to say of a man whose estate is being squandered, the man is being eaten up. Of this form there are innumerable species.
6.26
For example, we say sixty thousand men were slain by Hannibal at Cannae, and speak of Virgil when we mean Virgil's poems ; again, we say that supplies have come, when they have been brought, that a sacrilege, and not a sacrilegious man has been detected, and that a man possesses a knowledge of arms, not of the art of arms.
6.27
The type which indicates cause by effect is common both in poets and orators. As examples from poetry I may quote: Pale death with equal foot knocks at the poor man's door Hor. Od. I. iv. 13. and There pale diseases dwell and sad old age; Aen. vi. 275 while the orator will speak of headlong anger , cheerful youth or slothful ease .
