Kitap 9
2.46
Or take this example from another book of the orations against Catiline, He departed, he went hence; he burst forth, he was gone. II. i. l. This is regarded as a case of pleonasm by Caecilius, that is to say, as language fuller than is absolutely required, like the phrase: Myself before my very eyes I saw: Aen. xii. 638. for myself is already implied by I saw. But when such language is over weighted by some purely superfluous addition, it is, as I have also pointed out elsewhere, VIII. iii. 53. a fault; whereas when, as in this case, it serves to make the sense stronger and more obvious, it is a merit. I saw, myself, before my very eyes, are so many appeals to the emotion.
2.47
I cannot therefore see why Caecilius should have stigmatised these words by such a name, since the doubling and repetition of words and all forms of addition may likewise be regarded as pleonasms. And it is not merely words that are thus grouped together. The same device may be applied to thoughts of similar content. The wild confusion of his thoughts, the thick darkness shed upon his soul by his crimes and the burning torches of the furies all drove him on. From the lost in Pisonem.
