Book 9
2.38
The combination of different details is called μεταβολὴν by Caecilius, and may be exemplified by the following passage directed against Oppianicus in the pro Cluentio: xiv. 41. The local senate were unanimously of opinion that he had falsified the public registers at Larinum; no one would have any business dealings or make any contract with him, no one out of all his numerous relations and kinsfolk ever appointed him as guardian to his children, with much more to the same effect.
2.39
In this case the details are massed together, but they may equally be distributed or dissipated, as I think Cicero says. For example: Here corn, there grapes, elsewhere the growth of trees More freely rises, Georg. i. 54. with the remainder of the passage.
2.40
A wonderful mixture of figures may be found in Cicero From the lost speech against Q. Metellus. in the following passage, where the first word is repeated last after a long interval, while the middle corresponds with the beginning, and the concluding words with the middle. Yours is the work which we find here, conscript fathers, not mine, a fine piece of work too, but, as I have said, not mine, but yours. This frequent repetition, which,
2.41
as I have said, is produced by a mixture of figures, is called πλοκὴ by the Greeks: a letter of Cicero Now lost. to Brutus will provide a further example. When I had made my peace with Appius Claudius and made it through the agency of Gnaeus Pompeius, when then I had made my peace, etc.
