[62]
This device
may serve for other purposes as well. For there
are means of this kind whereby we may achieve
an end quite other than that at which we appear
to be aiming, as, for example, Cicero does in the
passage just quoted. For while he taunts Verres
with a morbid passion for acquiring statues and
pictures, he succeeds in creating the impression
that he personally has no interest in such subjects.
So, too, when Demosthenes1 swears by those who
fell at Marathon and Salamis, his object is to lessen
the odium in which he was involved by the disaster
at Chaeronea.
1 De Coron. 263. He argued that defeat in such a cause could bring no shame. Athens would have been unworthy of the heroes of old had she not fought for freedom.
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