Dilatio o dilatatio verborum? Nota esegetica a Giulio Vittore, Ars rhetorica, p. 105, 34 e p. 105, 19-21 Giomini – Celentano 1980

This paper focuses on the expression dilatione verborum transmitted in J. Victor’s De epistolis (IV-V cent. A.D.). The iunctura, also transmitted in a late compendium, is not easily intelligible and has gone through some proposals for emendation over time. The study of the expression in the light of ancient grammar and rhetoric texts, of Quintilian’s Institutio and, finally, of the Greek and Latin epistolary tradition leads, however, to the defence of the transmitted text. This study (also offering an exegesis of the expression ne diu circumferatur […] ambitio) is part of a larger project, i.e. a collection with translation and commentary on all Greek and Latin sources of epistolary theory.