Quintilian in the context of "Ovid"

Metalepsis (from Ancient Greek: μετάληψις, metálēpsis) is a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase from figurative speech is used in a new context. Ancient Roman academic Quintilian described metalepsis as an "intermediate step" to the original phrase, and its meaning depends upon its connection to the idiom from which it derives. Harold Bloom called metalepsis a "metonymy of a metonymy" because it uses part of an established trope to refer to the whole.

Xenophon of Athens (/ˈzɛnəfən, -ˌfɒn/; Ancient Greek: Ξενοφῶν; c. 430 – 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been part of Cyrus the Younger's attempt to seize control of the Achaemenid Empire. As the military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge wrote, "the centuries since have devised nothing to surpass the genius of this warrior".

For at least two millennia, it has been debated whether Xenophon was first and foremost a general, historian, or philosopher. For the majority of time in the past two millennia, Xenophon was recognized as a philosopher. Quintilian in The Orator's Education discusses the most prominent historians, orators and philosophers as examples of eloquence and recognizes Xenophon's historical work, but ultimately places Xenophon next to Plato as a philosopher. Today, Xenophon is recognized as one of the greatest writers of antiquity. Xenophon's works span multiple genres and are written in plain Attic Greek, which is why they have often been used in translation exercises for contemporary students of the Ancient Greek language. In the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laërtius observed that Xenophon was known as the "Attic Muse" because of the sweetness of his diction.

The distinction between literal and figurative language exists in all natural languages; the phenomenon is studied within certain areas of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics.

• Literal language is the usage of words exactly according to their direct, straightforward, or conventionally accepted meanings: their denotation.
• Figurative (or non-literal) language is the usage of words in addition to, or deviating beyond, their conventionally accepted definitions in order to convey a more complex meaning or achieve a heightened effect. This is done by language-users presenting words in such a way that their audience equates, compares, or associates the words with normally unrelated meanings. A common intended effect of figurative language is to elicit audience responses that are especially emotional (like excitement, shock, laughter, etc.), aesthetic, or intellectual.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, and later the Roman rhetorician Quintilian, were among the early documented language analysts who expounded on the differences between literal and figurative language. A comprehensive scholarly examination of metaphor in antiquity, and the way its use was fostered by Homer's epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, is provided by William Bedell Stanford.

Pindar (/ˈpɪndər/; Ancient Greek: Πίνδαρος Pindaros [píndaros]; Latin: Pindarus; c. 518 BC – c. 438 BC) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himself. His poetry, while admired by critics, still challenges the casual reader and his work is largely unread among the general public.

Pindar was the first Greek poet to reflect on the nature of poetry and on the poet's role. His poetry illustrates the beliefs and values of Archaic Greece at the dawn of the Classical period. Like other poets of the Archaic Age, he has a profound sense of the vicissitudes of life, but he also articulates a passionate faith in what men can achieve by the grace of the gods, most famously expressed in the conclusion to one of his Victory Odes:

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Classical Latin: [ˈkʷiːntʊs (h)ɔˈraːtiʊs ˈfɫakːʊs]; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (/ˈhɒrɪs/), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his Odes as the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."

Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (Satires and Epistles) and caustic iambic poetry (Epodes). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrings".

Hegias or Hegesias of Athens (Ancient Greek: Ἡγησίας) was a famous sculptor of Athens, a member of the Late Archaic school of the generation before Pheidias. No surviving work can be securely identified as his, though Pliny mentions a Pyrrhus Supported by Pallas Athena.

Pausanias (8.42.4 and 8.42.10) mentions Hegias as the contemporary of Onatas and of Agelatus of Argos. Lucian of Samosata mentions Hegesias, in common with Kritios and Nesiotes, as belonging to the Archaic school, whose productions were constrained, harsh, stiff and rigid, though accurate in the outline. Quintilian says of Hegesias and Callon that their works were harsh and resembled the Etruscan style. (Smith). Pliny's Natural History (vol. xxxiv.8.19) places Hegias among the rivals of Phidias.

Institutio Oratoria (English: Institutes of Oratory) is a twelve-volume textbook on the theory and practice of rhetoric by Roman rhetorician Quintilian. It was published around year 95 AD. The work deals also with the foundational education and development of the orator himself.

Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (Italian: [dʒaɱ franˈtʃesko ˈpɔddʒo brattʃoˈliːni]; 11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries. His most celebrated finds are De rerum natura, the only surviving work by Lucretius, De architectura by Vitruvius, lost orations by Cicero such as Pro Sexto Roscio, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Statius' Silvae, Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae (Rerum gestarum Libri XXXI), and Silius Italicus's Punica, as well as works by several minor authors such as Frontinus' De aquaeductu, Nonius Marcellus, Probus, Flavius Caper, and Eutyches.