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180 j. g. f. powell
dispatch as exemplified in the early books of Caesar’s Commentarii. 34 In
formal speeches of Cicero, its use is very restrained: again I take Pro Roscio
Amerino as a sample. The following instances are, I think, all that occur in
this speech, and they all occur at points of relatively high rhetorical tension
(although there are also many rhetorically elaborate passages in the speech
which do not display any instances of short-range hyperbaton). Five of
them involve modifiers of the ‘preferential’ category (which evidently lend
themselves more easily to separation):
magnam vim, magnam necessitatem, magnam possidet religionem paternus maternusque
sanguis (66)
aliqua fretus mora (110)
summum admisisse dedecus existimabant (111)
maxime videtur grave (112)
haec acta res est (149). 35
The speech yields only two further examples:
mandati constitutum est iudicium, non minus turpe quam furti (111).
Here there is clearly a strong focus on mandati as shown by the antithesis
with furti.
quod speravit sese apud tales viros aliquid ad perniciem posse innocentis (141).
Here, if this is a genuine example, 36 the genitive innocentis is placed second
and this therefore is an example of ‘head-first’ hyperbaton in which there
is strong focus on both elements. ‘The destruction of an innocent man’ is
a phrase which would certainly lend itself to such focus in this context.
Adams (1971) correlates the frequency of hyperbaton in the speeches
with the traditional distinction between ‘plain’ and ‘ornate’, but the facts
seem to be more complicated. We have seen that the Pro Roscio Amerino,
usually reckoned a relatively ‘grand’ speech and certainly one where there
is abundant, if sometimes suppressed, emotional tension, 37 shows a low
frequency of hyperbaton – hardly higher than that noted by Adams for
the ‘plain’ Pro Caecina. But the frequency also varies within speeches.
topicalised word, several words later, in order to specify more exactly the scope of the topic: thus
e.g. harundinem prende tibi viridem ‘take a reed – I mean a green one’ (160).
34 Adams 1971: 6, citing Fraenkel 1956.
35 On this type of order see Adams 1994a: 40–3 comparing his decreta verbis est (Catil. 3.15) andaltera
promulgata lex est (Phil. 1.21).
36 Note that posse in section 141 is a minority reading absent from the main MS tradition.
37 Another relevant factor, which I have not so far been able to investigate fully, might be chronological
variation across Cicero’s career. It is possible to conceive that Cicero’s first major venture into defence
oratory in the public courts would show a different pattern from the efforts of his mature years –
yet one could not predict in advance what the variation might be. Again the work is still to be done.