M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
this form of preciosity. In public speaking you have need to use the shield of Achilles, not wave a little targe or feint with the sham lances of the stage. Water gushes more daintily from little pipes than from the clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8. . . . .[† 1] You spoke of harmonizing eyes.[1] What applause, redoubled! for either word had been obviously sought after and found: and when you had found the word, you knew admirably how to use it with caution. Those who stammer[2] are said to have an impediment in their speech, and the contrary is the case with a speech free and unimpeded: much better clearly was your tongue-untied. And I think you have gone to that same passage for an expression "drawn from the contrary," that, since the utterance of stammerers is imperfect, it was possible to speak of a perfect utterance. That you should have been unaware of this . . . .[† 2] when you said harmonizing eyes . . . .[† 3] this passage is found fault with . . . . (because the word is of a varied) meaning: Theodorus calls it the "method from synonyms."[3] For the Greeks express to agree, to fit, to suit, to harmonize by the term ἡρμόσθαι (to be adapted).
I do not doubt that you passed in review other words also. For as in him who squints the eyes are not of a match, you could have called them equal or
- ↑ Marcus may have been alluding to himself and Lucius as the eyes of the state.
- ↑ See De Eloquentia above, 3, § 1.
- ↑ J. W. E. Pearce has suggested to me that this is the meaning of the words. A text-book on rhetoric by Theodorus seems referred to, by the rules of which Fronto judges the expressions quoted. There were two rhetoricians of this name, one of Gadara, the other of Byzantium. For the latter see Cic. Brut. 12 (in arte suitilior).
