[25]
Further, things designed to raise a laugh may either be said or done.
In the latter case laughter is sometimes caused by
an act possessing a certain element of seriousness
as well, as in the case of Marcus Caelius the praetor,
who, when the consul Isauricus broke his curule
chair, had another put in its place, the seat of which
was made of leather thongs, by way of allusion to
the story that the consul had once been scourged
by his father: sometimes, again, it is aroused by
an act which passes the grounds of decency, as in
the case of Caelius' box,1 a jest which was not fit
for an orator or any respectable man to make.
1 cp. Pro Cael xxix. 69. There is no jest in this passage which lays itself open to such censure. The jest must have consisted in some action on the part of the orator.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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