fear; and conversely, sublimity is often not in the least affecting, as
we may see (among innumerable other instances) in those bold expressions
of our great poet on the sons of Aloëus--

“Highly they raged
To pile huge Ossa on the Olympian peak,
And Pelion with all his waving trees
On Ossa’s crest to raise, and climb the sky;”

and the yet more tremendous climax--

“And now had they accomplished it.”

3
And in orators, in all passages dealing with panegyric, and in all the
more imposing and declamatory places, dignity and sublimity play an
indispensable part; but pathos is mostly absent. Hence the most pathetic
orators have usually but little skill in panegyric, and conversely those
who are powerful in panegyric generally fail in pathos.

4
If, on the other hand, Caecilius supposed that pathos never contributes
to sublimity, and this is why he thought it alien to the subject, he is
entirely deceived. For I would confidently pronounce that nothing is so
conducive to sublimity as an appropriate display of genuine passion,
which bursts out with a kind of “fine madness” and divine inspiration,
and falls on our ears like the voice of a god.


IX