QUINTILIAN

BOOK X

It is enough to look at our own work. All words, except those I have already mentioned, are best in some place; for there is a need at times for humble and common words, and those which appear coarse in a more elegant passage are used properly when the situation calls for them. We cannot by any means achieve this knowledge—understanding not only their meanings but their forms and measures so that they fit wherever they are placed—except through extensive reading and listening, since we receive all language first through our ears. For this reason, children who were raised in solitude by mute nurses by order of kings, even if they are reported to have emitted certain wordsoriginal: "verba quaedam emisisse traduntur", lacked the faculty of speech. 11 Moreover, there are others of this nature, in that they express the same thing with many words, so that there is no difference in meaning as to which you might use, such as ensis and gladiusBoth mean "sword."; others, however, even if they are the proper names for certain things, are still carried to the same understanding tropicallyby a figure of speech, such as ferrum (iron/sword) and mucro (point). 12 For through catachresisabusive or strained use of a word, we even call everyone sicarios (assassins) who has committed murder with any weapon whatsoever. We show other things through a circuit of words (periphrasis), such as "Abundance of pressed milk"A reference to Virgil's Eclogues..