AMPLIFICATION, in rhetoric, part of a dis-Amplification course or speech, wherein a crime is aggravated, a praise or commendation heightened, or a narration enlarged, by an enumeration of circumstances; so as to excite the proper emotions in the souls of the auditors. Such is the passage in Virgil, where, instead of saying merely that Turnus died, he amplifies the circumstances of his death.
— At illi solvantur frigore membra,
Vitaque eum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras.
The masters of eloquence make amplification to be the soul of discourse. See ORATORY, n° 39.