Note 310 — Chapter II · THE CONTEMPORARIES OF QUINTILIAN.

Præcipitandus est liber spiritus. A characteristic Petronian phrase which will serve (and has in part been used) as text for very different sermons. Part of what follows is no doubt intentionally obscure. The ambages deorumque ministeria refer, of course, to the stock revolutions and interventions of Epic as of Tragedy. But fabulosum sententiarum tormentum is not such plain sailing. I think it means (with an intentional side-glance at the fabled torments which the heroes of Epic see in Hades) the process of racking the brain for story-ornament and sententious conceit of phrase.