Book 9
2.61
Such methods will also provide us with elegant transitions, although transition is not itself to be ranked among figures: for example, Cicero, Ve err. IV. xxvi. 57. 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 passage Verr. IV. iii. 5. : But who was the sculptor who made those statues? Who was he? Thank you for prompting me, you are right; they said it was Polyclitus.
2.62
This device may serve for other purposes as well. For there are means of this kind whereby we may achieve an end quite other than that at which we appear to be aiming, as, for example, Cicero does in the passage just quoted. For while he taunts Verres with a morbid passion for acquiring statues and pictures, he succeeds in creating the impression that he personally has no interest in such subjects. So, too, when Demosthenes De Coron. 263. He argued that defeat in such a cause could bring no shame. Athens would have been unworthy of the heroes of old had she not fought for freedom. swears by those who fell at Marathon and Salamis, his object is to lessen the odium in which he was involved by the disaster at Chaeronea.
