 Like his fellow ancients, Quintilian conceived metaphor as an affair of terms rather than as an affair of sentences. A metaphorical employment of the term “lion” to refer to the man Achilles doesn’t say that Achilles is like a lion, since it doesn’t say anything at all. Namings aren’t sayings; they merely pave the way for sayings. What Quintilian meant, then, is that a simile states the real or alleged similarity (of Achilles to lions) which the corresponding metaphorical substitution leaves to a listener’s imagination.