SCRIPTA RETHORICA

 

Dionysius himself undoubtedly regarded the Archaeologia as the great achievement of his life. Since the reawakening of historical criticism in the earlier decades of the past century, the modern world has agreed to value it only so far as it reproduces Roman authorities now lost, or records legends and primitive observances the key to which has since been sought by scientific inquirers. So that, by one of those curious ironies not uncommon in the history of letters, Dionysius is now chiefly remembered by his shorter writings. He is one of those historians who owe such fame as they possess not so much to their more ambitious efforts as to what they would themselves unquestionably have considered their minor works and more ephemeral essays.

The shorter writings of Dionysius are traditionally known under the title Scripta Rhetorica. This title it is well to retain, if only as a reminder that, whenever we speak of Dionysius as a literary critic, we are speaking of one who was, first and foremost, a teacher of rhetoric. At the same time, if an English title general enough to cover the various essays in question must be suggested, ‘literary criticism’ (a term of wide application) is probably a more appropriate heading than ‘rhetorical writings’ Of purely technical rhetoric Dionysius has left us but little. The Ars Rhetorica is no longer held to be his work, though it may possibly contain fragments of his doctrine. The treatise on the Arrangement of Words contains much that is technical, but much also that may fairly be described as literary criticism. The general character of this treatise, and of the other Scripts Rhetorica of Dionysius, will appear more clearly from the description to be given later.

The approximate order in which the rhetorical writings of Dionysius were written may be conjectured from the numerous references which, in the course of them, he makes from one to another. He never wearies of telling his readers that this matter or the other has been, or is being, or will be treated in a separate work. But singularly enough, he lets fall no hint as to whether his History preceded, or followed, his Critical Works. Nevertheless, though the rhetorician never refers to the historian and the historian never refers to the rhetorician, it is likely that most of the rhetorical writings of Dionysius were composed at intervals during the two-and-twenty years of which the Archaeologia was, in his own view, the principal fruit.

 

DIONYSIUS AS A LITERARY CRITIC

 

We pass now from this account of Dionysius’ essays in criticism to the question of the relation in which they stand to the Latin and Greek literature of his own and other times. Latin literature, as here coming only to a slight extent under review, may be treated first and summarily.

Following a long-established custom, Dionysius composes his critical writings in the form of letters, addressed to one or other of his literary friends, patrons, or pupils. It is not easy to determine the nationality of all these persons, but Quintus Aelius Tubero, to whom the De Thucydide is addressed, is clearly a Roman and possibly no other than the eminent jurist and historian. The young Melitius Rufus, to whom Dionysius offers the De Compositione, was also a Roman, his father being a highly valued friend of the author. Gnaeus Pompeius Geminus was, his name notwithstanding, perhaps rather a Greek than a Roman, and will therefore more fitly be considered later.

It would be interesting, did not the inquiry open a somewhat extensive field, to illustrate, by other examples than that of Dionysius, the position occupied at Rome by the Greek men of letters who resided there. We must here be content with quoting Dionysius’ own testimony to the part played by Rome in that purification of literary taste to which he himself contributed so much. “I believe that this great revolution (sc. the reversion to the Attic models) was caused and originated by Rome, the mistress of the world, who drew all eyes upon herself. The principal agents were members of the ruling classes of Rome, distinguished by their high character and by their excellent conduct of public affairs, and highly cultivated men of lofty critical instincts. Under their administration the saner elements in the commonwealth have grown still further in strength, and folly has been constrained to be discreet Accordingly many important historical works are written by men of our day, and many graceful specimens of civil oratory are produced, together with philosophical treatises of no mean order. Many other fine works on which both Romans and Greeks have lavished great pains have appeared, and may be expected to appear; and since so vast a revolution has been effected in so short a time, I should not be surprised if that former fashion of insensate oratory failed to survive another generation. The reduction of a giant bulk to small dimensions may well be followed by complete extinction.”

This passage may be taken to imply that Dionysius had at least a general knowledge of the Latin literature which was being produced during his own time. But the knowledge was probably only general. Although he was himself a writer of history and although he had (as he has told us) learnt the Latin language, he never mentions the historian Livy—any more than Livy mentions him. Nor does he, literary critic though he is, make any reference to the Art Poetica (or to any other poem) of Horace. And yet he must have been a close contemporary of Horace, whose life covered the years 65 to 8 B.C. The fact may be that Dionysius was influenced more directly, and perhaps more healthily, by the Roman men of affairs with whom (or with whose sons) his vocation brought him into contact than by any Roman man of letters. It is possible also that he felt that his reputation would be exposed to less risk if he confined his criticisms to Greek literature, with which he was intimately familiar, than if he ventured on ground where he could not tread so securely.

The last supposition may help to explain the absence, in Dionysius’ critical writings, of any reference to a Roman writer of an earlier generation, whose fame (already great in his lifetime) had had time to grow still greater, since he died some thirteen years before Dionysius came to Rome. Dionysius’ friend and contemporary, Caecilius of Calacte, was the author of a comparison between Cicero and Demosthenes, for making which he was afterwards taxed with temerity by Plutarch, who likens him to a fish out of water. The author of the De Sublimitate ventures to make the same comparison, but with all due apologies for his deficiencies as a Greek. Dionysius seems to have thought it better to refrain altogether. At all events, be the reason what it may, he never refers to Cicero, whether as an orator or as a writer on rhetoric, nor does he quote, for purposes of literary illustration, from any Latin author whatsoever.

It may be added that a similar reluctance to estimate the literary qualities of works written in another language may, indirectly, account for the fact that the critical judgments pronounced on Greek authors by Quintilian in the first chapter of the Tenth Book of his Institutio Oratoria often bear a marked resemblance to those of the De Imitatione. It would seem probable that Quintilian drew them from some Greek source which Dionysius himself also used. The coincidences, close as they are, hardly warrant the assumption of direct transference from the pages of Dionysius.

It has just been stated, or implied, that Dionysius himself drew from earlier Greek sources. This point needs some little discussion in detail. But before speaking of his Greek predecessors, we shall find it convenient to say a word about his Greek contemporaries. The contemporary name which we most naturally associate with Dionysius of Halicarnassus is that of Caecilius of Calacte, his fellow-worker (on somewhat different lines) in the Attic Revival during the age of Augustus. In one of the letters here edited Dionysius refers affectionately to his “dear friend Caecilius” as concurring with him in a certain view. A fuller account of the life and writings of Caecilius will be found elsewhere. Here it need only be noted that he wrote an essay On the Sublime, which formed the controversial basis of the treatise with the same title issued later (probably only shortly later) by the author traditionally known as ‘Longinus’. When it was first observed that the best manuscript ascribes the extant treatise On the Sublime “to Dionysius or Longinus,” the suggestion was made that Dionysius of Halicarnassus might be its author. But against this speculation, the argument from style and spirit (usually precarious) seems here decisive, even if it were not supported by other kinds of evidence. Dionysius, with the views he held of Plato as a writer, could not have admired and imitated him with the fervour shown in the De Sublimitate. Not Dionysius, but the friend Pompeius, whom he addresses in the Letter in­scribed with his name, adopts the attitude which the unknown writer of the De Sublimitate bears towards Plato; and conjecture (if seeking an author in the age of Dionysius) might have done worse than fix on this Pompeius. His full name appears to have been Gnaeus Pompeius Geminus. It is possible that he was some Greek freedman, or Greek client, of the great Pompeius, and that he was named after him. To judge from the latter part of the second chapter of the Letter addressed to him by Dionysius, he wrote in Greek and was a warm admirer of Plato, whose occasional lapses he defended on the principle expounded with much eloquence in the De Sublimitate. Probably he practised as a rhetorican, and at Rome. Besides Pompeius, three other contemporaries (Ammaeus, Demetrius, Zeno) mentioned by Dionysius appear to have been Greeks, but the question of their identification is attended with many serious difficulties. It may be added that among the later Greek rhetoricians Dionysius enjoyed great fame as one of the most eminent critics of antiquity. It was no doubt his wide reputation in this respect that caused him to be coupled with Longinus in the conjectural title prefixed (probably by Byzantine scholars) to the De Sublimitate. He was regarded as a paramount authority on the study of rhetoric.

To guide us in estimating the obligations of Dionysius to his predecessors in the province of rhetoric and literary criticism we have a good many statements of his own scattered up and down his critical writings. We find in him some emphatic or qualified declarations of independence, and also many direct or indirect acknowledgments of indebtedness. For example, he states, in the fourth chapter of the De Compositione, that when he decided to write a treatise on that subject he looked about to see whether any previous writers had treated of it With this object he paid special attention to the philosophers of the Stoic school, who (to do them justice) had given no slight attention to the department of expression. But he had found no contribution, small or great, made by any writer of note to the branch of rhetorical inquiry which he had himself chosen. Similar in tone is the emphatic “I” of which Dionysius is in the habit of making use when he wishes to lay stress upon his own originality. A more qualified claim is advanced in c. 4 of the introduction to the Ancient Orators. “These are fine subjects and indispensable for students of political philosophy. Nor indeed are they familiar or hackneyed topics. I myself, at all events, am not aware that I have come across any such book, although I have made diligent search. I do not, how­ever, make any positive assertion' with an assumption of certain knowledge. There may well be writings of the kind which have escaped my notice. It is an act of great audacity —one may almost say, of lunacy—to set oneself up as a standard of universal knowledge and to deny the occurrence of something which may possibly have occurred. So on these points, as I said, I have no positive assertion to make.” At first sight this curious passage has an air of something like dissimulation about it. But the truth probably rather is that Dionysius is quite sincere and straightforward in thus guarding himself against the possibility that, in the multitude of critical writings produced in his own and previous times, something might emerge to convict him of plagiarism!

When acknowledging, as he often, does, his indebtedness to his predecessors, Dionysius is given to quoting a half-line of Euripides, “for not mine the word.” He also uses such expressions as “much has been said on these topics by our predecessors” And, when occasion demands it, he eschews merely general statements and specifies his authorities by name’.

The most direct and explicit mention of Aristotle in particular will be found in the latter part of the De Compositione, where a statement of Dionysius is defended from any possible suspicion of novelty or paradox by a detailed reference to the Third Book of the Rhetoric. In the De Isocrates. c. 18, as elsewhere occasionally in the rhetorical writings, similar references are made to Aristotle as a generally recognised authority. But on the whole, as the second chapter of the First Letter to Ammaeus shows, Dionysius is inclined to resist the extravagant claims made by the Peripatetics on behalf of the founder of their school. He reminds the readers of that chapter that eminent services had been rendered to the art of rhetoric not only by philosophers but by a number of orators and professional rhetoricians whose names he mentions. This list deserves a brief analysis. Seven of the names—Antiphon, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Lycurgus, Hyperides—belong to the canon of the Ten Attic Orators. Thrasymachus appears in the First Book of Plato’s Republic, while Theodoras is mentioned in the Phaedrus. Alcidamas was a pupil of Gorgias. Theodectes, Philiscus and Cephisodorus were disciples of Isocrates, Theodectes being known also from Aristotle’s Poetics as a writer of tragedies. Anaximenes was a rhetorician and historian of the time of Philip and Alexander, and was in all probability the author of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, once attributed to Aristotle.

A few further comments suggested by the names thus selected may not be amiss. As might have been expected from the adverse judgments of Dionysius elsewhere (e.g. ad Pomp. c. 2, ad Amm. II. c. 2, de Isaeo c. 19), no place is found for Gorgias on the list, though his pupil Alcidamas is there. And yet Gorgias of Leontini is the real founder of artistic prose, and extravagance may be condoned (or at any rate, can be understood) in the case of an enthusiastic propagandist. Not only Gorgias, but also his satirist Plato is absent from the list of Dionysius, who hardly ever refers to Plato as an authority on any branch of rhetoric. This may partly be because Plato symbolized the old quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric, but it is also connected with the feeling of dislike entertained by Dionysius for vicious imitations of Plato’s style. Isocrates, on the other hand, is commended both as a writer and as a theorist. Of the ‘philosophy’ of Isocrates Dionysius was an ardent admirer.

 

DIONYSIUS’ AIMS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

 

Beyond and above the question of the relation of Dionysius to his Greek predecessors in the sphere of rhetoric and literary criticism is that of his attitude towards Greek literature generally. His true distinction as a critic is his purity of taste. When the temptation to follow later and more pretentious writers must have been great, he reverts to the real classics of Greece. He is eager to restore the great authors to their rightful supremacy; he labours to discriminate between their genuine and their spurious works. Practical in his aims, he desires to determine the highest standard reached by Attic prose, and to mould thereby his own writing, that of his fellow-Greeks, and (indirectly) that of his Roman pupils also.

His own graphic description of the vicissitudes of taste which ended in the Attic Revival of his own day may be read in the Proem of his Ancient Orators:—

“Great is the gratitude due to our own age, most excellent Ammaeus, not only on account of the recent improvement in other pursuits, but above all because of the great advance made in the study of Civil Oratory. In the times before our own the ancient and philosophic rhetoric was flouted, grossly outraged, and brought lower and lower. Its decline and gradual decay began with the death of Alexander of Macedon, and in our own generation it reached the verge of final extinction. Another rhetoric stole into its place,—one intolerably ostentatious, shameless and dissolute, and without part in philosophy or any other liberal discipline; Craftily it deluded the ignorant multitude. Not only did it live in greater affluence and luxury and style than its predecessor, but it attached to itself those offices and those foremost public positions, which should have been held by the philosophic rhetoric. Very vulgar it was and offensive, and in the end it reduced Hellas to the same plight as the households of miserable prodigals. For just as in their houses the wedded wife, free-born and virtuous, sits with no authority over what is hers, while a riotous mistress, by her presence spreading confusion in the home, claims rule over all the property, spuming and intimidating the wife: so in every city and not least (which was the worst calamity of all) in the recognised centres of culture, the Attic Muse, ancient and sprung from the soil though she was, had been robbed of her dignities and covered with dishonour, whereas her rival, who had come but yesterday from one of the dens of Asia, a Mysian or Phrygian wanton or some Carian abomination, presumed to govern Greek states, driving the true queen from the public council-chambers,—the ignorant ousting the philosophic, the wild the chaste.”

After thus vividly depicting the fortunes of the more meretricious qualities of style, Dionysius next proceeds to congratulate his age and the united forces of the ‘philosophers’ on the magnitude of the revolution so successfully effected, and to note the part borne in it by the leading men of Rome. The protracted struggle which he has in mind is that between Arianism and Atticism, or the cult of the florid writers (conveniently but not exhaustively grouped as ‘Asiatic’) of the period between Demosthenes and Cicero, as contrasted with the counter­movement which sought its models in the Attic writers of the best days of Greece. Especially notable is the term philosophos which Dionysius, in this and other passages, applies to the Atticist rhetoric as distinguished from the Asiatic. By philosophohe means ‘theoretic’ (or ‘technical’ in the best sense), ‘artistic,’ ‘scientific’; the antithesis of all that is merely ‘empirical,’ merely the result of practice.

The style of a leader of the Asiatic school, Hegerias of Magnesia, and some criticisms passed upon it by Dionysius. Later in that treatise Dionysius enlarges on the sins of Hegesias in the matter of rhythm. “Upon my soul, I cannot decide whether he was so dense and stupid that he could not see which are the noble and ignoble rhythms, or (as I am rather inclined to think) so infatuated and fatally misguided that he chose the worse although he knew the better. Ignorance may frequently hit the mark: it is wilfulness that invariably misses it Among all the works left by the man it would be impossible to find a single page successfully composed.” In proof he quotes a historical passage from Hegesias, and compares it with an excerpt from Homer full of nobly rhythmical lines.

It is by comparisons such as this, in which Homer is pitted against the arch-offender Hegesias, that Dionysius endeavours to raise the standard of literary taste in his own time. He appeals to the example of the truly classical writers,—not only of the Attic but of a still earlier period, not only prose-writers but poets. To him posterity thus owes, among other boons, the preservation of Sappho’s Hymn to Aphrodite and of Simonides’ Danae. His apt choice of illustrations, and his skill in comparing those drawn from one author with those drawn from another, are admirably shown when he is dealing with the prose-writers of Greece, and especially with his own favourite orators. His critical writings form a golden treasury of extracts from the best writers of Greece.

Dionysius more than once reminds us of the often-forgotten truth that the excellence of the ancient authors was the result of ingenious and elaborate art. He will not exempt from this rule even Homer himself, who seems so spontaneous in his utterance. Homer is, in his view, a sedulous artist. In the same way he mentions the stories current in antiquity concerning the infinite pains bestowed by Isocrates upon his Panegyric and by Plato upon the opening of his Republic. Admitting that the labour is severe, he maintains that the joys of literary success are a sufficient compensation, and he condemns unsparingly the dictum of Epicurus that ‘writing entails no trouble’. At the conclusion of his own treatise he reminds his young pupil that the precepts of literary manuals cannot, of themselves, make powerful de­baters of those who are minded to dispense with study and practice.

At the same time Dionysius knows, as well as anyone, that the best art is that which best conceals itself. A studied simplicity is the ideal he upholds. Of Plato he says, “he is a long way superior when he employs language which is plain and correct, language which seems to be natural but is really elaborated with unoffending and unpretentious skill”. Lucidity of expression he pronounces to be the fore­most excellence of style. When discussing the obscurities of language found in the History of Thucydides and especially in his Speeches, he remarks that “only a select few can comprehend the whole of Thucydides, and not even they without occasional help in the way of grammatical explana­tions.” He adds his opinion that the language of Thucydides was unique even in his own day, and combats the view that a historian (as distinguished, say, from an advocate) may plead in excuse for an artificial style that he does not write for “ people in the market-place, in workshops or in factories, nor for others who have not shared in a liberal education, but for men who have reached rhetoric and philosophy after passing through a full curriculum of scientific studies, to whom therefore none of these expressions will appear unfamiliar.” Obscurity and eccentricity, he says in effect, are not virtues except in the eyes of literary coteries ; pre­sumably a speaker speaks, and a writer writes, in order to be understood.

It is interesting to observe that what Dionysius prescribed to others he did not fail to practise himself. As for his own style of writing it may suffice to remark that, whatever else may be thought about it, it is at least eminently lucid and unaffected. It is equally evident that, in his own domain of literary criticism, he was a hard and assiduous worker. His range was wide, and his knowledge of the countless ‘lines’ he mentions from time to time seems to have been minute and accurate. He united most effectively philological with rhetorical studies. He was at once a scholar and a critic. Thoroughness was his watchword. In his view, rhetoric ought not to be practised by arm-chair professors. He is no frivolous dabbler or dilettante (such as the many who have made literary criticism a byword for superficiality), but he believes in serious, prolonged, and fortifying literary and literary-historical studies. He furnishes us with one of the earliest and the best examples of the systematic exercise of the art of literary criticism.

We cease to wonder at his success as a literary critic when we consider the temper in which he approached his task. Not only was he a lover alike of work and of simplicity, but he possessed other excellent critical attributes. Let him, yet once again, speak for himself. Criticism, he says, must be outspoken but not censorious. He protests that throughout his life he had been on his guard against a contentious and quarrelsome and promiscuously snarling attitude. But he claims full critical liberty, and exposes a popular fallacy which is as hollow as it is offensive. “If we are inferior in ability to Thucydides and other writers, we do not therefore forfeit the right to form an estimate of them.” In the same spirit he declares that though it would be an act of impiety to attack Plato after the manner of a Zoilus, it is none the less the duty of the critic (as opposed to the panegyrist) to examine into the truth with the utmost exactitude, and to pass over none of an author’s good or bad qualities. For such an inquiry the method of com­parison, invidious though it may seem, is essential.

Dionysius may not always have succeeded in attaining the high ideals which he thus fearlessly set before him. His immediately practical aim has sometimes led him to circumscribe his activities, and to dwell, at perhaps disproportion­ate length, on matters of style and purely verbal criticism. But for the modem world even these limitations have not been altogether a disadvantage. He has helped where help was most needed. He has brought to bear upon the discussion of delicate questions of literary appreciation the trained instinct of a critic for whom Greek was still a spoken tongue, and whose ears still rang with the music of the language as it once was heard upon the lips of the great Athenian Orators.

 

THE THREE LETTERS OF DIONYSIUS

EPISTULA AD AMMAEUM I

 

Dionysius to his friend Ammaeus

WITH CORDIAL GREETINGS

I.

 

Our age has produced many strange paradoxes; and among them I was inclined to class the following proposition when I first heard it from yourself. You said that a certain Peripatetic philosopher, in his desire to do all homage to Aristotle the founder of his school, undertook to demonstrate that it was from him that Demosthenes learnt the rules of rhetoric which he applied in his own speeches, and that it was through conformity to the Aristotelian precepts that he became the foremost of all orators. Now my first impression was that this bold disputant was a person of no consequence, and I advised you not to pay heed to every chance paradox. But when on hearing his name I found him to be a man whom I respect on account of his high personal qualities and his literary merits, I did not know what to think; and after careful reflection I felt that the matter needed a more attentive inquiry. It was possible that I had failed to discern the truth and that he had not spoken at random. I wished, therefore, either to relinquish my previous opinion if convinced that the Rhetoric of Aristotle preceded the speeches of Demosthenes, or to induce the person who has adopted this view, and is prepared to put it in writing, to change it before giving his treatise to the world.

You have yourself furnished me with a powerful motive for a thorough investigation of the truth. For you have invited me to state the arguments by which I have convinced myself that it was not till Demosthenes had reached his prime, and had delivered his most celebrated speeches, that Aristotle wrote his Rhetoric, And you seemed to me, further, to be right in counselling me not to rest my case on mere indications or probabilities or pieces of extraneous evidence, since no such proof is absolutely conclusive, but rather to bring forward Aristotle himself as witnessing by means of his own treatise to the truth of my view. This I have done, my dear Ammaeus, out of regard not only for the truth, which I think ought to be fully sifted in every issue, but for the satisfaction of all who are interested in civil oratory. I would not have them think that all the precepts of rhetoric are included in the Peripatetic philosophy, and that nothing important has been devised by men such as Theodoras and Thrasymachus and Antiphon, nor by Isocrates and Anaximenes and Alcidamas, nor by their contemporaries who composed rhetorical handbooks and engaged in oratorical contests—such men as Theodectes and Philiscus and Isaeus and Cephisodorus, together with Hyperides and Lycurgus and Aeschines. Nor would I have it thought that Demosthenes himself, who surpassed all his predecessors and contemporaries and defies the rivalry of the ages, would not have risen so high if he had only obeyed the precepts of Isocrates and Isaeus and had not mastered the Rhetoric of Aristotle.

 

‘That story is not true,’ my dear Ammaeus, nor did the Rhetoric of Aristotle, which was issued at a later date, govern the composition of the speeches of Demosthenes. These were indebted to other teachers, concerning whom I will state my views in a separate work, since the subject needs full discussion and could not well be treated by the way. Meanwhile I will endeavour to show that, at the time when Aristotle wrote his Rhetoric Demosthenes was already at the height of his public career and had delivered his most celebrated speeches, forensic and deliberative, and was famous throughout Greece for his eloquence. And perhaps I ought first of all to mention the facts I have taken from the current histories, which the compilers of biographies have bequeathed to us. I will begin with Demosthenes.

 

Demosthenes was born in the year preceding the hundredth Olympiad. In the archonship of Timocrates he had entered upon his seventeenth year... He commenced to write public speeches in the archonship of Callistratus, when twenty-five years of age. The first of his forensic speeches is that against Androtion, written for Diodorus, who was arraigning the proposal of Androtion as unconstitutional. Another belonging to the same period—that of the archonship of Callistratus—is the speech on the Exemptions. This he delivered himself; it is the most graceful and the best written of all his speeches. Under Diotimus, who succeeded Callistratus, he pronounced before the Athenians his first parliamentary oration, that entitled On the Navy Boards in the bibliographical lists of the orators. In this speech he urged the Athenians not to break the peace concluded with the Persian King nor be the first to make war, unless they should have organised their navy, in which their chief strength lay. He himself suggests a method of organisation. Under Thudemus, who succeeded Diotimus as archon, he wrote the speech Against Timocrates for the use of Diodorus, who was prosecuting Timocrates as the proposer of an unconstitutional measure. The oration On the Relief of the Megalopolitans he delivered himself in the assembly. Thudemus was succeeded by Aristodemus, in whose archonship Demosthenes began his orations against Philip, and delivered a speech before the people on the dispatch of the mercenary force and of the flying squadron of ten galleys to Macedonia. At this time he also wrote his speech Against Aristocrates for Euthycles, who was arraigning an unconstitutional proposal. Under Theellus, who came next after Aristodemus, he delivered his oration On the Rhodians, in which he sought to persuade the Athenians to abolish the Rhodian oligarchy and enfranchise the commons. Under Callimachus, the second archon in succession to Theellus, he delivered three orations, urging the Athenians to send reinforcements to the Olynthians, against whom war was being waged by Philip. The first begins, ‘In many instances, men of Athens, one may see’; the second, ‘Not the same thoughts present themselves to my mind, men of Athens’; the third, ‘ You would, men of Athens, give a great price’. During this same archonship was written the speech Against Meidias, which Demosthenes composed after the vote of censure passed on Meidias by the people.

I have so far mentioned twelve public speeches, seven of the deliberative, five of the forensic order. All of these are earlier than the Rhetoric of Aristotle, as I will prove both from what others relate concerning that author and from his own writings. I begin with his biography.

 

Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus, who traced his pedigree and his profession to Machaon, the son of Aesculapius. His mother, Phaestis, was descended from one of those who led the colony to Stageira from Chalcis. He was born in the ninety-ninth Olympiad, when Diotrephes was archon at Athens, and was, therefore, three years older than Demosthenes. In the archonship of Polyzelus, after his father’s death, he went to Athens, being then eighteen years of age. Having been introduced to the society of Plato, he spent a period of twenty years with him. Upon Plato’s death, in the archon­ship of Theophilus, he repaired to Hermias, despot of Atameus, and after spending three years with him retired to Mytilene in the archonship of Eubulus. Thence he proceeded, during the archonship of Pythodotus, to the court of Philip, and spent eight years there as Alexander’s tutor. After the death of Philip, in the archonship of Evaenetus, he returned to Athens, and taught in the Lyceum for a space of twelve years. In the thirteenth year, after the death of Alexander in the archonship of Cephisodorus, he betook himself to Chalcis, where he fell ill and died at the age of sixty-three.

 

Such, then, are the records transmitted to us by the biographers of Aristotle. What the philosopher says of himself in his own writings completely cuts away the ground beneath the feet of those who wish to assign him honours to which he is not entitled. In addition to many other proofs, hone of which I need recall at present, there is the passage he has written in the First Book of the treatise in question. Here we have the strongest evidence that he was no stripling when he composed the Rhetoric, but in the prime of life, having previously published his treatises the Topics, the Analytics, and the Methodics. At the commencement of the section in which he sets forth the advantages embraced in the art of rhetoric, he has the following words which are here quoted as they stand: ‘Rhetoric is useful because truth and justice are, by nature, stronger than their opposites. If, therefore, judicial trials do not end as they should, a man’s defeat must be due to himself; and this is deserving of censure. Moreover, in addressing some audiences, it is not easy, even when we possess the most exact and methodical knowledge, to carry conviction by means of it For methodical statement is a kind of instruction; and instruction is here out of the question. But in our proofs and arguments we must make use of processes understood by all, as we remarked in the Topics when treating of the manner of addressing the multitude.’

 

In the passage in which he sets himself to show that ‘examples’ and ‘enthymemes’ are equivalent to ‘inductions’ an ‘syllogisms’. Aristotle has the following references to his Analytics and his Methodics. Of proofs obtained by real or apparent demonstration there are, in Dialectic, these varieties: induction, syllogism, and apparent syllogism. So also in Rhetoric, where example corresponds to induction, enthymeme to syllogism, and apparent enthymeme to apparent syllogism. By “enthymeme” I mean a rhetorical syllogism, and by “example” a rhetorical induction. Everyone relies for demonstrative proof in Rhetoric upon examples and entymemes; upon these and these only. If, therefore, it is absolutely necessary that whatever is proved should be proved either by syllogism or by induction—and this is plain to us from the Analytics—it follows of necessity that enthymeme and example are respectively identical with syllogism and induction. The difference between example and enthymeme is clear from the Topics. In that work we have already said, when treating of syllogism and induction, that the proving of a rule in many similar instances is called an induction in Dialectic and an example in Rhetoric; while the conclusion that from certain premisses something different follows, because of these and owing to the fact that these are true either universally or as a general rule, is called a syllogism in Dialectic and an enthymeme in Rhetoric. It is evident that each form of rhetorical argument has its own strong points, the statement made in the Methodics holding good here also? In writing thus Aristotle has given unequivocal evidence about himself to the effect that he composed the Rhetoric in his later years and after the publication of his most important treatises. These are the proofs by which I think I have sufficiently demonstrated what I proposed to make clear, that the orator had practised the art of speaking before the philosopher had formulated the theory. In fact, Demosthenes began at the age of twenty-five to engage in public affairs, to address the assembly, and to write speeches for the law-courts. About the same period Aristotle was still a disciple of Plato, and he lived to be seven-and-thirty without any school to lead and without any body of personal adherents.

 

Possibly, however, some captious critic will raise an objec­tion even in the face of these conclusions. He may admit that the Rhetoric was written later than the Analytics and Methodics and Topics, but maintain that Aristotle may very well have composed all these treatises while still a disciple in the school of Plato. Such a contention is absurdly improbable; it is a violent attempt to commend the wretched paradox that it is likely that the unlikely may at times occur. Omitting, therefore, what I could have said in reply, I turn to the pieces of evidence which Aristotle himself furnishes in the Third Book of the Rhetoric, where he has these words (here quoted word for word) on the subject of metaphor:  Of the four kinds of metaphor, the proportional are the most in repute. It is thus that Pericles compared the loss of the youth of a state in war to taking the spring out of the year. So also, when Chares was eager to have his conduct in the Olynthian War submitted to a scrutiny, Cephisodotus impatiently exclaimed that he wanted to secure such a scrutiny while he had the people by the throat.

 

Thus does the philosopher himself clearly prove that he wrote the Rhetoric after the Olynthian War. Now that war took place in the archonship of Callimachus, as Philochorus shows in the Sixth Book of his Atthis, where his words (exactly given) are: 'Callimachus of the deme Pergase. In his time the Olynthians, attacked by Philip, sent ambas­sadors to Athens. The Athenians made an alliance with them and sent to their aid two thousand targeteers, and thirty galleys under the command of Chares, as well as eight others which they put into commission for the occasion’. Next, after describing the few intervening events, he proceeds: About the same time the Chalcidians of the Thracian sea­board were harassed by the war and sent an embassy to Athens. The Athenians dispatched to their assistance Charidemus, who held command in the Hellespont. Charidemus brought with him eighteen galleys and four thousand targeteers and a hundred and fifty horsemen. Supported by the Olyn­thians, he advanced into Pallene and Bottiaea, and ravaged the country’. Later on he writes thus on the subject of the third alliance: ‘The Olynthians sent a fresh embassy to the Athenians, begging them not to see them irretrievably ruined, but to send out, in addition to the troops already there, a force consisting not of mercenaries but of Athenian citizens. Thereupon the Athenian people sent them other seventeen galleys, together with two thousand heavy-armed infantry and three hundred horsemen conveyed in transports, the whole force being composed of citizens. The entire expedition was under the command of Chares,

 

Enough has been already said to expose the vain pre­tensions of those who affirm that the Rhetoric of Aristotle inspired Demosthenes. Before the date of the Rhetoric Demosthenes had already delivered four orations against Philip and three on the affairs of Greece. He had also written for the law-courts five public speeches, which no one could brand as inferior, poor, and showing no signs of technical mastery, because composed earlier than the Rhetoric, Having, however, advanced thus far, I shall not halt, but show that his most famous speeches generally, whether addressed to the people or to the law-courts, had been delivered before the publication of the Rhetoric, Once more Aristotle himself shall be my witness. After the archonship of Callimachus, in whose year of office the Athenians sent their reinforcements to Olynthus at the instance of Demosthenes, came the archonship of Theophilus, in whose time Olynthus fell into the hands of Philip. Next came Themistocles, under whom Demosthenes pronounced the fifth of his orations against Philip. This speech, which is concerned with the protection of the islanders and the cities of the Hellespont, begins as follows: ‘This, men of Athens, is what I have been able to contrive’. Under Archias, the successor of Themistocles, Demosthenes urged the Athenians not to attempt to hinder Philip from becoming a member of the Amphictyonic Council, nor to give him an occasion for reopening the war, now that they had recently made peace with him. This oration begins thus: ‘I see, men of Athens, that the present crisis.’ Archias was succeeded by Eubulus, and he by Lyciscus. It was in Lyciscus’ year of office that Demosthenes pronounced the seventh of his orations against Philip. He there replies to the envoys from the Peloponnese, and begins thus: ‘When, men of Athens, speeches are made’. The next archon to Lyciscus was Pythodotus, under whom Demosthenes replied to the envoys of Philip by the delivery of the eighth of the orations which bear the king’s name. The opening of this speech is: ‘It is not possible, men of Athens, that the accusations’. At the same time he also composed the speech against Aeschines, who had to render an account of his conduct in the second embassy, the object of which was to bind Philip by oaths. The successor of Pythodotus was Sosigenes, under whom he delivered the ninth oration against Philip, that on the soldiers in the Chersonese, the aim of which was to prevent the disbandment of the mercenaries commanded by Diopeithes. This begins: ‘It would be best, men of Athens, that all public speakers.’ Under the same archon he delivered the tenth speech, in which he endeavoured to show that Philip was violating the peace and was the aggressor in the war. The speech begins: ‘Although many speeches, men of Athens, are made.’ After Sosigenes the next archon was Nicomachus, in whose time he delivered the eleventh oration, on the subject of the violation of the peace by Philip, and urged the Athenians to send reinforcements to the people of Byzantium. It begins: ‘Serious as I consider, men of Athens.’ In the archonship of Theophrastus, who followed Nicomachus, Demosthenes urged the Athenians to sustain the war bravely, Philip having already declared it This, the last of the orations against Philip, opens thus: ‘The fact that Philip did not, men of Athens, make peace with you, but only deferred the war.’

 

To show that all the speeches I have enumerated were delivered by Demosthenes before the publication of the Rhetoric of Aristotle, I will bring forward Aristotle himself as witness. In the course of the passage in the Second Book of the Rhetoric, in which he defines the topics from which enthymemes are derived, he deals with that of time and illustrates it by examples. I will quote his actual words. ‘Another topic has reference to time. For example, Iphicrates in defending himself against Harmodius said: “If before ren­dering these services I had claimed the statue in the event of rendering them, you would have granted it. Will you refuse it, when they are already rendered? Nay, do not promise a reward in anticipation, and withhold it after realisation.” Again, with the object of inducing the Thebans to allow Philip a passage through their territory into Attica, it might be urged that if he had made the demand before he helped them against the Phocians they would have promised, and it would therefore be a scandal if they refused the request now because he then trusted to their honour and forbore to extort pledges.’

Now the date at which Philip called upon the Thebans to grant him a passage into Attica reminding them of his help in the Phocian War, is clear from known facts. The cir­cumstances were as follows. In the archonship of Themistocles, after the capture of Olynthus, Philip made a treaty of friendship and alliance with the Athenians. This covenant lasted seven years, till the year of Nicomachus. It was brought to an end under the archon Theophrastus, who succeeded Nicomachus. The Athenians accused Philip of beginning the war, while Philip blamed the Athenians. The reasons for which the two parties, each of which claimed to be in the right, engaged in the war, and the date at which they violated the peace, are precisely indicated by Philochorus in the Sixth Book of his Atthis, from which I will quote simply the essential particulars: ‘Theophrastus of the deme Halae. Under his archonship Philip, first of all, attacked Perinthus by sea. Failing here, he next laid siege to Byzantium and brought engines of war against it’. After­wards he recounts the allegations which Philip made against the Athenians in his letter, and adds these words which I quote as they stand: ‘ The people, after listening to the letter and to the exhortations of Demosthenes, who advocated war and framed the necessary resolutions, passed a resolution to demolish the column erected to record the treaty of peace and alliance with Philip, and further to man a fleet and in every other way to prosecute the war energetically.’

After assigning these events to the archonship of Theo­phrastus, he describes the occurrences of the succeeding year when Lysimachides was archon after the violation of the peace. Here again I will quote only the most essential particulars.  Lysimachides of the deme Achamae. Under this archon the Athenians, in consequence of the war against Philip, deferred the construction of the docks and the arsenal. They resolved, on the motion of Demosthenes, that all the funds should be devoted to the campaign. But Philip seized Elateia and Cytinium, and sent to Thebes representa­tives of the Thessalians, Aenianians, Aetolians, Dolopians, Phthiotians. An embassy, headed by Demosthenes, was at the same time despatched by the Athenians, with whom the Thebans resolved to enter into alliance.’ Now it is clear that it was under the archonship of Lysimachides, when both sides had already made preparations for war, that the Athenian envoys headed by Demosthenes and those sent by Philip entered Thebes Demosthenes himself, in his speech On the Crown, will show clearly what were the claims preferred by the two embassies. I will quote from the actual text the parts which bear upon the question. ‘By these means Philip sowed discord among the Greek states; and encouraged by the decrees and answers already mentioned, he came with his army and seized Elateia. He assumed that, whatever hap­pened, we and the Thebans could never again act in concert.’ Moreover, after describing the events which then ensued and describing also the speeches delivered by himself before the public assembly and the circumstances under which he was sent by the Athenians as an ambassador to Thebes, he adds (to quote his actual words): ‘When we arrived at Thebes, we found representatives of Philip, of the Thessalians and of the rest of the allies, already there and our friends in a state of alarm, his full of confidence.’ Then, after requesting a certain letter to be read, he continues: ‘So when the Thebans had convened the assembly, they introduced Philip’s representatives first, because they had the status of allies. And these came forward and addressed the people, paying many compliments to Philip, and laying to your charge many faults, recalling every instance in which you at any time opposed the Thebans. In brief, they urged them to show their gratitude for the favours conferred upon them by Philip, and to seek satisfaction for the wrongs done them by you. They might avenge themselves in either of the two following ways as they pleased; they might allow Philip’s troops to pass through their territory to attack you, or they might join him in invading Attica.’ Now if it was in the archonship of Lysimachides, the successor of Theophrastus, and after the peace had been dissolved, that the ambassadors of Philip were sent to the Thebans urging them to join in invading Attica, or (failing that) to allow Philip the right of passage in recognition of his services in the Phocian War, and if further this is the embassy mentioned by Aristotle, as I showed a little earlier when I cited his own words, then surely it is demonstrated by irrefutable proofs that all the speeches of Demosthenes which were addressed to public assemblies and to law-courts before the archonship of Lysimachides are earlier than the Rhetoric of Aristotle.

 

I will add another piece of evidence furnished by the philosopher, from which it will appear still more plainly that his Rhetoric was composed after the war which broke out between Philip and the Athenians, when Demosthenes had reached his prime as a statesman and had delivered all the deliberative and the forensic speeches which I mentioned a little while ago. Among the topics of enthymemes enumerated by him, the philosopher includes that of cause. I will adduce his own words. ' Another topic consists in regarding what is no cause as a cause, because (it may be) one thing happens with or after another. Post hoc is assumed to be identical with propter hoc; and this is specially the case in the world of politics. Demades, for example, considered the administration of Demosthenes to have caused all the troubles of the state, for it was thereafter that the war occurred.’ Now what can the speeches have been which Demosthenes composed under the guidance of the Rhetoric of Aristotle if (as I have previously shown) all the public addresses on which his reputation and fame depend preceded the war. The sole exception is the speech On the Crown. This, and this alone, came before a tribunal after the war, in the archonship of Aristophon, eight years after the battle of Chaeroneia, six years after the death of Philip, at the time of Alexander’s victory at Arbela.

 

If some captious critic suggests that possibly Demosthenes did not write this, the best of all his speeches, before he had perused the Rhetoric of Aristotle, I have much to say in reply to him. But in order that my discussion may not run to undue length, I engage to show, on the evidence of Aristotle himself, that this oration also was completed before the publication of the Rhetoric. In dealing with the topic of enthymemes derived from relative terms, he writes the exact words which follow. Another topic is that derived from relative terms. If the terms “honorably” or “justly” can be applied to the man who acts, they can also be applied to the man who is affected by the action; if they can be applied to a command, they can also be applied to its execution. In this spirit the tax-gatherer Diomedon exclaimed : “If it is no discredit to you to sell the taxes, it is no discredit to us to buy them.” And if the terms “ honorably ” or “justly” can be applied to a man affected by an action, they can also be applied to the action itself and to the man who has done or is doing it. This is a case of unsound argument. For if a man has been justly treated, it does not necessarily follow that he has been justly treated by a particular agent. Accordingly we must consider separately whether the treatment is right and whether the action is right, and then deal with the case in whichever of the two ways seems the more suitable. For sometimes there is a distinction to be made, as in the Alcmaeon of Theodedes. Another example is the trial in which Demosthenes and those who slew Nicanor were involved. What, then, is the trial of Demosthenes [and of those who slew Nicanor] to which Aristotle here refers, in which the most important point in the controversy was derived from the topic of relative terms. It is that in which he defended, against Aeschines, Ctesiphon, who had proposed to crown Demosthenes and was on his trial as the author of an unconstitutional measure. For in this case the point at issue was not the general question whether Demosthenes deserved honours and crowns as having provided for the construction of the fortifications out of his own means, but whether he deserved these things while he was an official liable to account, and notwithstanding the fact that it was illegal to crown men who were so liable. Here we have the topic of relative terms: the point is whether a man liable to account had the same right to receive, as the people to give, the crown. It is my opinion, therefore, that Aristotle refers to this trial. If, however, it is maintained that the reference is to the accusation of corruption against which Demosthenes pleaded in the archonship of Anticles, about the time of the death of Alexander, this will prove that the Rhetoric of Aristotle is later than the speeches of Demos­thenes by a still greater interval.

But enough. The orator did not derive from the philoso­pher the rules of rhetoric which he embodied in his celebrated speeches. On the contrary, Aristotle wrote his Rhetoric with the works of Demosthenes, and the other orators, within his reach. I have, I think, proved my point

 

 

EPISTULA AD CN. POMPEIUM GEMINUM.

 

Dionysius to Gnaeus Pompeius

WITH GREETINGS.

 

I have received with great pleasure the scholarly letter you sent me. Zeno, our common friend, has supplied you (so you write) with a copy of my treatises. In going through them and making them your own, on the whole you admire them, but are dissatisfied, you say, with one portion of their contents, namely, the criticism of Plato. Now you are right in the reverence you feel for that writer, but not right in your view of my position. You may rest assured that I must be numbered among those who have fallen most completely under the spell of Plato’s gifts of expression. But I will explain to you my attitude towards all thinkers who are public benefactors and desire to reform our lives and words. And what is more, I mean to convince you that I have discovered nothing new, or startling, or contrary to the universally accepted view.

Now I think it is an author’s duty, when he elects to write a panegyric of some achievement or some person, to give prominence to merits rather than to any deficiencies. But when he wishes to determine what is most excellent in some walk of life and what is the best among a number of deeds of the same class, he ought to apply the most rigorous investigation and to take account of every quality whether good or bad. For this is the surest way of discovering truth, than which there is no more precious boon. So much premised, I make a further declaration. If there is any writing of mine which, like the work of Zoilus the rhetorician, contains an attack upon Plato, I plead guilty of impiety. And if when my design is to write a eulogy of him I interweave some fault-finding with my praises, I admit that I am in the wrong and am transgressing the laws by which eulogies are governed among us. For in my opinion they should not contain even vindications, much less detractions. On the other hand, when after undertaking to examine varieties of style, together with their foremost representatives among philosophers and orators, I chose from the entire number three who are generally held to be the most brilliant—Isocrates and Plato and Demosthenes—and among these again I gave the preference to Demosthenes, I thought I did no wrong either to Plato or to Isocrates.

That may be, you say, but you should not have exposed the faults of Plato, in your desire to extol Demosthenes. How then would my argument have undergone the most searching test had I not compared the best discourses of Isocrates and Plato with the finest of Demosthenes, and thus shown with the utmost candour in what respect their discourses are inferior to his, not maintaining that those two writers were always at fault (for that would be sheer lunacy), but not maintaining, either, that they were always and uniformly successful? If I had avoided this course, and had simply eulogised Demosthenes and detailed all his excellences, I should certainly have convinced my readers of the orator’s worth; but unless I had compared him with the best of his rivals, I should not have proved that he holds the very first place among all who have distinguished themselves in oratory. For many things which in themselves are thought beautiful and worthy of admiration appear to fall short of their reputation when set side by side with other things that are better. Thus gold when contrasted with other gold is found to be superior or inferior, and this is true of all manufactured articles, and of all objects designed to produce a brilliant effect.

But if in the province of civil oratory the comparative method of inquiry be judged ungracious, and a demand made for the examination of each writer individually, the same restriction will inevitably be introduced everywhere. Poetry will no longer be compared with poetry, nor historical treatise with historical treatise, nor constitution with constitution, nor law with law, general with general, king with king, life with life, tenet with tenet And yet no reasonable man would acquiesce in this. But if you need also the proofs which personal testimonies supply, to render it more plain to you that the best mode of examination is the comparative, I will pass over all others and appeal to Plato himself as my witness. Desiring to exhibit his own proficiency in civil oratory, he was not satisfied with the rest of his writings, but [in rivalry with] the foremost orator of the time, himself composed in the Phaedrus another speech with Love as its subject. Nor after advancing so far did he pause and leave to his readers to decide which speech was the better, but he actually assailed the faults of Lysias, allowing that he had excellences of style, but attacking his treatment of subject-matter. Since, therefore, Plato when engaging in the most vulgar and most invidious of tasks, that of praising himself in respect of his oratorical power, thought he was doing nothing blameworthy in claiming that his own speeches should be examined side by side with those of the best orator of the day, and in exhibiting the errors of Lysias and his own merits, what is there so astonishing in my comparison of the speeches of Plato with those of Demosthenes and my scrutiny of anything I found amiss in them? I forbear to quote from his writings generally, in which he attacks his predecessors, Parmenides, Hippias, Protagoras, Prodicus, Gorgias, Polus, Theodoras, Thrasymachus and many others, not writing of them in a spirit of perfect fairness, but (you must pardon me for saying so) with a touch of vainglory. There was, there really was in Plato’s nature, with all its excellences, something of vainglory. He showed this particularly in his jealousy of Homer, whom he expels from his imaginary commonwealth, after crowning him with a garland and anointing him with myrrh. Strange indeed to suppose that Homer needed such compliments in the hour of his expulsion, when it is through him that every refinement, and in the end philosophy itself, passed into human life! But let us suppose that Plato said all this in a spirit of perfect fairness and simply in the interest of truth What, then, was there to excite surprise in our action when we obeyed his ordinances, and wished to compare the discourses of his successors with his own?

Furthermore, it will be seen that I am not the first and only critic that has ventured to speak his mind about Plato. Nor could anyone justly take me to task on the special ground that I essayed to examine the most distinguished of philosophers, and one more than a dozen generations earlier than myself, in the hope forsooth of obtaining some credit thereby. No, it will be found that many have done so before me, whether in his own time or at a much later date. For his tenets have met with disparagement and his discourses with criticism. First on the list is his most representative disciple Aristotle, and next Cephisodorus, Theopompus, Zoilus, Hippodamas, Demetrius, and many others. These did not attack him out of envy or malice, but in the search for truth. Encouraged accord­ingly by the example of so many eminent men, and above all of the great Plato himself, I considered that my action was in no way alien to the spirit of philosophic rhetoric when I matched good writers against good. As regards, therefore, the principle on which I acted in comparing style with style, I have defended myself sufficiently even in your eyes, my dear friend.

 

I have now to refer to my actual remarks on Plato in the treatise on the Attic Orators. I will quote the passage in the words there written. The language of Plato, as I have said before, aspires to unite two several styles, the elevated and the plain. But it does not succeed equally in both When it uses the plain, simple, and unartificial mode of expression, it has an extraordinary charm and attraction. It is altogether pure and translucent, like the most transparent of streams, and it is correct and precise beyond that of any other writer who has adopted this mode of expression. It pursues familiar words and cultivates clearness, disdaining all extraneous ornament. The gentle and imperceptible lapse of time invests it with a mellow tinge of antiquity; it still blooms in all its radiant vigour and beauty; a balmy breeze is wafted from it as though from meadows full of the most fragrant odours; and its clear utterance seems to show as little trace of loquacity as its elegance of display. But when, as often happens, it rushes without restraint into unusual phraseology and embellished diction, it deteriorates greatly. For it loses in charm, in purity of idiom, in lightness of touch. It obscures what is clear and makes it like unto darkness; it conveys the meaning in a prolix and circuitous way. When concise expression is needed, it lapses into tasteless periphrases, displaying a wealth of words. Contemning the regular terms found in common use, it seeks after those which are newly-coined, strange, or archaic. It is in the sea of figurative diction that it labours most of all. For it abounds in epithets and ill-timed metonymies. It is harsh and loses sight of the point of contact in its metaphors. It affects long and frequent allegories devoid of measure and fitness. It revels, with juvenile and unseasonable pride, in the most wearisome poetical figures, particularly in those of Gorgias; and “in matters of this kind there is a good deal of the hierophant about him” as Demetrius of Phalerum has somewhere said as well as many others: for “not mine the word.”

Let no one suppose that I say this in general condemna­tion of the ornate and uncommon style which Plato adopts. I should be sorry to be so perverse as to conceive this opinion with respect to so great a man. On the contrary, I am well aware that often and on many subjects he has produced writings which are great and admirable and of the utmost power. What I desire to show is that he is apt to commit errors of this description in his more ornate passages, and that he sinks below his own level when he pursues what is grand and exceptional in expression, and is far superior when he em­ploys the language which is plain and exact and seems to be natural but is really elaborated with unoffending and simple artifice. For then he commits either no errors at all or only such as are extremely slight and venial. My own view, how­ever, is that so great a man should have been perpetually on his guard against any censure Now all his contemporaries, whose names I need not recall, reproach him with the same fault; and the most striking thing is that he does so himself. He was aware of his own lapse from good taste and gave it the name of “dithyramb”: a thing I had thought shame to say, true though it be. This trait in him appears to me to be due to the fact that, although he was bred among the Socratic dialogues, which were most spare and most exact, he did not continue under their influence, but became en­amoured of the artificiality of Gorgias and Thucydides. It was, therefore, no unnatural result that he should imbibe some of the errors, together with the good points, exhibited by the styles of those authors.

‘I will cite examples of the plain and the elevated style from one of the most celebrated books, in which Socrates has addressed the discourses on Love to one of his associates, Phaedrus, from whom the book takes its title....’

In this passage I blame in no way the subject-matter of the writer, but the tendency in the department of expression to figurative and dithyrambic diction, matters wherein Plato loses command of the due mean. And I criticise him not as an ordinary mortal but as a great man who has come near the standard of the divine nature. His fault is that, in imitation of the school of Gorgias, he has introduced the pomp of poetical artifice into philosophical discourses, so that some of his productions are of the dithyrambic order. And what is more, he does not even attempt to hide this failing but avows it. It is clear from your own letter, ex­cellent Geminus, that you yourself entertain the same opinion as I with regard to him. For you write thus, to quote your own words: ‘In other forms of expression there may well occur something which deserves mingled praise and blame. But in embellishment whatever is not success is utter failure. So that, in my opinion, these men should be judged not by their few most hazardous attempts but by their many successes.’ And a little later you add the following words: ‘Although I could defend all, or at any rate most, of these passages, I do not venture to gainsay you. But this one thing I strongly affirm, that it is not possible to succeed greatly in any way without such daring and recklessness as must needs fail now and then.’ There is no quarrel between us. You admit that the man who aspires to great things must sometimes fail, while I say that Plato, in his desire for elevated and stately and audacious diction, did not succeed in every detail, but that his mistakes are nevertheless only a small fraction of his successes. And in this one respect, I say, Plato is inferior to Demosthenes, that with him elevation of diction sometimes lapses into emptiness and dreariness, whereas with Demosthenes this is never so, or only very rarely. This is what I have to say with reference to Plato.

 

You wished also to learn my view with regard to Hero­dotus and Xenophon, and you wished me to write about them. This I have done in the essays I have addressed to Demetrius on the subject of imitation. The first of these contains an abstract inquiry into the nature of imitation. The second asks what particular poets and philosophers, historians and orators, should be imitated. The third, which treats of the proper manner of imitation, remains unfinished. In the second I write as follows concerning Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Philistus and Theopompus, these being the writers whom I select as most suitable for imitation:

These are my opinions concerning Herodotus and Thucydides, if I must extend my remarks to them. The first, and one may say the most necessary, task for writers of any kind of history is to choose a noble subject and one pleasing to their readers. In this Herodotus seems to me to have succeeded better than Thucydides. He has produced a national history of the conflict of Greeks and barbarians, ‘in order that neither should the deeds of men fade into oblivion, nor should achievements’ to quote from his opening words. For this same proem forms both the beginning and the end of his History. Thucydides, on the other hand, writes of a single war, and that neither glorious nor fortunate; one which, best of all, should not have happened, or (failing that) should have been ignored by posterity and consigned to silence and oblivion. In his Introduction he makes it clear himself that he has Chosen a bad subject, for he says that many cities of the Greeks were desolated because of the war, partly by the barbarians and partly by themselves, while proscriptions and massacres greater than any before known occurred, together with earthquakes and droughts and plagues and many other calamities. The natural consequence is that readers of the Introduction feel an aversion to the subject, for it is of the misfortunes of Greece that they are about to hear. As clearly as the story of the wonderful deeds of Greeks and barbarians is superior to the story of the sad and terrible disasters of the Greeks, so clearly does Herodotus show better judgment than Thucydides in his choice of subject Nor can it truthfully be said that Thucydides was driven, with full knowledge that the earlier events were grander, into this piece of writing by a desire not to treat of the same theme as others. On the contrary, he makes extremely light in his Introduction of the events of ancient days, and says that the achievements of his own time were the most remarkable. It is clear, therefore, that his choice was deliberate Very different was the course taken by Herodotus. Although his predecessors, Hellanicus and Charon, had previously issued works bn the same subject, he was not deterred, but trusted his own ability to produce something better. And this in fact he has done.

A second function of historical investigation is to deter­mine where to begin and how far to proceed. In this respect, again, Herodotus displays far better judgment than Thucydides. He begins with the cause of the original injuries done to the Greeks by the barbarians, and goes on his way till he ends with the punishment and retribution which befell them. Thucydides, on the contrary, starts with the incipient decline of the Greek world. This should not have been done by a Greek and an Athenian, and (what is more) no unappreciated citizen but one to whom his country­men assigned a foremost place, entrusting him with commands and offices generally. In his malice, he finds the overt causes of the war in the conduct of his own city, although he might have found many other grounds for the outbreak. He might have begun his narrative not with the affairs of Corcyra, but with the magnificent achievements of his country immediately after the Persian War, achievements which subsequently he mentions at the wrong point and in a perfunctory and cursory way. After he had described these events with all the enthusiasm of a patriot, he should then have added that it was through envy and dread thus occasioned that the Lacedaemonians were led to engage in the war, for which they suggested motives of a different nature He should next have related the occurrences at Corcyra and the decree against the Megarians, together with anything else of the kind he wished to mention. The conclusion of his work is tainted by a more serious error. Although he states that he watched the entire course of the war and promises a complete account of it, yet he ends with the sea-fight which took place off Cynossema between the Athenians and Peloponnesians in the twenty-second year of the war. It would have been better, after he had described all the details of the war, to end his History with a most remarkable incident and one right pleasing to his hearers, the return of the exiles from Phyle, from which event dates the recovery of freedom by Athens.

A third task of the historian is to consider which occurrences he should embody in his work and which he should omit In this respect, again, it seems to me that Thucydides is inferior. Herodotus, on his part, wished, in imitation of Homer, to give variety to his History. He was aware that every prolonged narrative affects the mind of the hearer pleasantly if it contains a number of pauses, but wearies and satiates (however successful it may otherwise be) if confined to one and the same series of events. If we take up his book, we are filled with admiration till the last syllable and always seek for more. Thucydides, on the other hand, in breathless haste and straining every nerve, describes a single war, heaping battle on battle, armament on armament, word on word. The hearer’s mind is in consequence exhausted. ‘Even honey,’ as Pindar says, ‘and the pleasant flowers of love bring satiety.’ Occasionally Thucydides has himself realised the truth of my contention that, in a historical writing, change is pleasant and gives variety, and he has taken this course in two or three passages—in inquiring into the cause of the growth of the Odrysian kingdom and in describing the cities of Sicily.

Next it is the function of a historian so to arrange his materials that everything shall be found in its proper place. How, then, do these authors respectively arrange and divide what they have to say? Thucydides keeps close to the chronological order, Herodotus to the natural grouping of events. Thucydides is found to be obscure and hard to follow. As naturally many events occur in different places in the course of the same summer or winter, he leaves half-finished his account of one set of affairs and takes other events in hand. Naturally we are puzzled, and follow the narrative impatiently, as our attention is distracted. Herodotus, on the other hand, begins with the dominion of the Lydians and comes down to that of Croesus, and then , passes at once to Cyrus who destroyed the empire of Croesus. Then he begins the story of Egypt, Scythia, and Libya. He relates some of the events as a sequel, takes up others as a missing link, and introduces others as likely to add to the charm of the narrative. Although he recounts affairs of Greeks and barbarians which occurred in the course of some two hundred and twenty years on the three continents and finally reaches the story of the flight of Xerxes, he does not break the continuity of the narrative. The general result is that, whereas Thucydides takes a single subject and divides one whole into many members, Herodotus has chosen a number of subjects, which are in no way alike, and has produced one harmonious whole.

I will mention one other feature of the treatment of subject-matter, a feature which in all histories we look for no less than for any of those already mentioned. I mean the attitude which the historian himself adopts towards the events which he describes. The attitude of Herodotus is fair throughout, showing pleasure in the good and grief at the bad. That of Thucydides, on the contrary, is severe and harsh and proves that he bears a grudge against his country because of his exile. For he details her misdeeds with the utmost exactitude, but when things go right, either he does not mention them at all, or only like a man under compulsion.

In subject-matter Thucydides is for these reasons inferior to Herodotus ; in expression he is partly inferior, partly superior, partly equal. I will state my views on these points also.

The first of excellences is that without which style is of no worth in any of its aspects,—language pure in vocabulary and true to Greek idiom. In this respect both are correct writers. Herodotus represents the highest standard of the Ionic dialect, Thucydides of the Attic....Third in order comes the so-called ‘concision.’ In this Thucydides is commonly held to excel Herodotus. It might, indeed, be objected that it is only when united with clearness that brevity is found to be attractive; if it fails in this, it is harsh However, let us suppose that Thucydides is in no way inferior because of his obscurity. Vividness comes next in order as the first of the extraneous excellences. In this respect both authors are decidedly successful. After this excellence the imitation of traits of character,, and of emotions, presents itself. Here the historians divide the credit, for  Thucydides excels in expressing the emotions, whilst Herodotus has greater skill in representing aspects of character. Next come the excellences which exhibit loftiness and grandeur of composition. Here, again, the historians are on a par. Then come the excellences which comprise strength and energy and similar qualities of style. In these Thucydides is superior to Herodotus. But in grace, persuasiveness, charm and the like excellences, Herodotus is far superior to Thucydides. In his choice of language Herodotus aims at naturalness, Thucydides to intensity. Of all literary virtues the most important is propriety. In this Herodotus is more careful than Thucydides, who everywhere (and in his speeches still more than in his narrative) shows a want of variety. My friend Caecilius, however, thinks with me that his enthymemes have been imitated and emulated in a special degree by Demosthenes. It may be said in general that the poetical compositions (as I should not shrink from calling them) of both are beautiful. The chief point of difference is that the beauty of Herodotus is radiant, that of Thucydides awe-inspiring. Enough has been said about these historians, although much more could be said, for which there will be another opportunity.

 

Xenophon and Philistus, who flourished at a later time than these writers, did not resemble one another either in nature or in principles. Xenophon was an emulator of Herodotus in both kinds, matter and language. In the first. place, the historical subjects he chose are fine and impressive and such as befit a philosopher: the Education of Cyrus, the portrait of a good and prosperous king; the Expedition of the Younger Cyrus, in which Xenophon, who himself took part in the campaign, extols so highly the bravery of the Greek auxiliaries; and also the Greek History, the story which Thucydides left unfinished, in which are described the overthrow of ‘ the Thirty ’ and the restoration of the Athenian walls razed by the Lacedaemonians. It is not only for his subjects, chosen in emulation of Herodotus, that Xenophon deserves commendation, but also for his arrangement of his material. Everywhere he begins and ends in the most fitting and appropriate way. His divisions are good, and so is his order and the variety of his writing. He displays piety, rectitude, resolution, geniality, in a word all the virtues which adorn the character. Such is the manner in which he deals with his subject-matter.

 

In expression he is partly like Herodotus, partly inferior. He resembles him in marked purity and lucidity of vocabulary; he chooses terms that are familiar and consonant to the theme; and he puts them together with no less charm and grace than Herodotus. But Herodotus also possesses elevation and beauty and stateliness and what is specifically called the ‘historical vein? Not only was Xenophon powerless to borrow this from him, but if occasionally he wishes to enliven his style, like a land-breeze he blows but for a short time and quickly drops. Indeed, in many passages he is unduly long. So far from equalling the success of Herodotus in adapting his language to his characters, he is found on strict examination to be often careless in this respect.

Philistus would seem to resemble Thucydides more nearly and to have the same general stamp. Like Thucydides, he has not taken a subject of great utility and public interest, but a single and local one. He has divided it into two parts, entitling the former ‘Concerning Sicily,’ the latter ‘ Concerning Dionysius.’ But the subject is one, as may be seen from the conclusion of the Sicilian section. He has not presented his narrative in the best order, but has made it hard to follow; his arrangement is inferior to that of Thucydides. No more than Thucydides does he desire to admit extraneous matter, and he is therefore wanting in variety. He displays a character which is obsequious, subservient, mean, and petty. He shuns what is peculiar and curious in the style of Thucydides, and reproduces what is rounded and terse and enthymematic. He falls, however, very far behind the beauty of language and the wealth of enthymemes found in Thucydides. And not only in these respects is he inferior, but also in his composition. The style of Thucydides is full of variety, a fact which is so obvious that I consider it needs no further demonstration. But the language of Philistus is exceedingly uniform and lacking in variety. Many successive sentences will be found to be constructed by him in the same way. For example, at the beginning of the Second Book of his Sicilian History: ‘The Syracusans having associated with themselves the Megarians and Ennaeans, and the Camarinaeans having mustered the Sicels and the rest of the allies except the Geloans (now the Geloans said that they would not wage war against the Syracusans); and the Syracusans learning that the Camarinaeans had crossed the Hyrminus….’ all this is to me obviously most displeasing. He is trivial and common­place whatever his subject may be, whether he describes sieges or settlements, whether he deals in eulogium or in censure. Moreover, he does not write speeches worthy of the greatness of the speakers, but he makes even his parliamentary orators, one and all, abandon in a panic alike their faculties and their principles. He possesses, however, a sort of natural euphony of style and a well-balanced judgment And he is a better model for actual pleadings than Thucydides.

 

Theopompus of Chios was the most celebrated of all the disciples of Isocrates. He composed many panegyrics and many deliberative speeches, as well as the ‘Chian’ Letters and some noteworthy treatises. As a student of history he deserves praise on several grounds. His historical subjects are both good, one of them embracing the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War, the other the career of Philip. His arrangement, also, is good, being in both cases lucid and easy to follow. Especially admirable are the care and industry which mark his historical writing, for it is clear, even if he had said nothing to that effect, that he prepared himself most fully for his task and incurred heavy expense in the collection of his material. Moreover, he was an eye-witness of many events, and came in contact with many leading men and generals of his day, whether popular leaders or more cultivated persons. All this he did in order to improve his History. For he did not (as some do) consider the recording of his researches as a pastime, but as the one thing needful in life. The trouble he took may be inferred from the com­prehensiveness of his work. He has related the foundation of nations, described the establishment of cities, portrayed royal lives and peculiar customs, and incorporated in his work everything wonderful or strange found on any land or sea. Nor must it be supposed that this is merely a form of enter­tainment. It is not so. Such particulars are, it may in general be said, of the greatest utility.

In fine, who will not admit that it is necessary for the votaries of philosophic rhetoric to study the various customs both of foreigners and of Greeks, to hear about various laws and forms of government, the lives of men and their actions, their deaths and fortunes ? For such votaries he has provided material in all plenty, not divorced from the events narrated, but in close connexion with them. All these qualities of the historian are worthy of admiration. The same may be said of the philosophical reflections scattered throughout his History, for he has many fine observations on justice, piety, and the rest of the virtues. There remains his crowning and most characteristic quality, one which is found developed with equal care and effect in no other writer, whether of the older or the younger generation. And what is this quality? It is the gift of seeing and stating in each case not only what is obvious to the multitude, but of examining even the hidden motives of actions and actors and the feelings of the soul (things not easily discerned by the crowd), and of laying bare all the mysteries of seeming virtue and undiscovered vice. Indeed, I can well believe that the fabled examination, before the judges in the other world, of souls in Hades when separated from the body is of the same searching kind as that which is conducted by means of the writings of Theopompus. In consequence he was thought malicious on the ground that, where reproaches against distinguished persons were necessary, he added unnecessary details; while in truth he acted like surgeons who cut and cauterize the morbid parts of the system, carrying their operations far down, and yet in no way assailing the healthy and normal organs. Such is an account of the way in which Theopompus deals with his subject-matter.

In style he is most like to Isocrates. His diction is pure, familiar and clear; it is elevated, grand, and full of stateliness; it is formed according to the middle harmony, having a pleasant and easy flow. It differs from that of Isocrates in pungency and energy in some passages, when he gives free play to his emotions, and particularly when he taxes cities or generals with evil counsels and unjust actions. In such criticisms he abounds, and he falls not one whit behind the intensity of Demosthenes, as may be seen from many other writings and from his Chian Letters, in composing which he has obeyed his native instincts. If in the passages on which he has bestowed the greatest pains, he had paid less attention to the blending of vowels, the measured cadence of periods, and the uniformity of constructions, he would have far sur­passed himself in expression.

He is also guilty of errors in the sphere of subject-matter, and particularly in regard to his digressions, some of which are neither necessary nor opportune, but childish in the extreme. An instance is the story of the Silenus who appeared in Macedonia, and that of the fight between the serpent and the galley, and not a few other things of the kind.

The study of these historians will suffice to furnish to those who practise civil oratory a suitable fund of examples for every variety of style.

 

 

DIONYSII HALICARNASSENSIS

EPISTULA AD AMMAEUM II

 

Dionysius to his friend Ammaeus

WITH GREETINGS.

 

I thought I had sufficiently indicated the characteristics of Thucydides when describing the most important and remarkable of those peculiarities which seemed to me to distinguish him from all previous orators and historians. I have, in fact, previously treated the subject in the essays, inscribed with your name, on the Ancient Orators, and a little time before in the treatise on Thucydides himself which I addressed to Aelius Tubero, in which I have, to the best of my ability, gone into all the points needing discussion, and have added suitable illustrations. But your view is that these writings lack precision, in that I do not give the proofs till I have specified the characteristics. You think that the exposition of characteristic peculiarities would gain in pre­cision if, side by side with each single statement, I were to  set down the expressions of the historian, as is the practice of the authors of rhetorical handbooks and introductions to the art of composition. Desiring, therefore, to meet every criticism, I have taken this course, and have followed the didactic method in place of the epideictic.

In order that the argument may be easy for you to follow, I will first quote word for word what I have previously said with regard to the historian, and will then cursorily review each several proposition, and will supply the illustrations as you desire. The passage about to be cited follows the remarks on Herodotus. ‘Coming after Herodotus and the authors previously mentioned, and taking a comprehensive view of their several excellences, Thucydides aspired to form and to introduce into historical composition an individual manner of his own, one which was neither absolute prose nor down­right metre, but something compounded of the two. In the choice of words he often adopts a figurative, obscure, archaic and strange diction, in place of that which was in common use and familiar to the men of his day. He takes the greatest trouble to vary his constructions, since it was in this respect chiefly that he wished to excel his predecessors. At one time he makes a phrase out of a word, at another time he condenses a phrase into a word. Now he gives a nominal in place of a verbal form, and again he converts a noun into a verb. He inverts the ordinary use of nouns and verbs themselves, interchanging common with proper nouns and active with passive verbs. He varies the normal use of the plural and the singular number, and predicates the one in place of the other. He combines feminines with masculines, masculines with feminines, and neuters with the other genders; and the natural agreement of gender is violated thereby. He wrests the cases of nouns or participles at times from the expression to the sense, at other times from the sense to the expression. In the employment of conjunctions and prepositions, and especially of the particles which serve to bring out the meanings of individual words, he allows himself full poetic liberty. There will be found in him a large number of constructions which by changes of person and variations of tense, and by the strained use of expressions denoting place, differ from ordinary speech and have all the appearance of solecisms. Further, he frequently substitutes things. In his entymemes  and his sentences the numerous parenthesis of the delays the conclusion for a long time, while there is much in him that is tortuous, involved, perplexed, and similarly defective. Moreover, not a few of the showy figures will be found to be employed by him,—I mean those parisoses, paromoeoses, paronomasiae and antitheses, which are so lavishly used by Gorgias of Leontini, by the school of Polus and Licymnius, and by many others who flourished in his time. The most obvious of his characteristics  is the attempt to indicate as many things as possible in as few words as possible, to combine many ideas in one, and to leave the listener expecting to hear something more. The consequence is that brevity becomes obscurity. In fine, there are four “ instruments”, so to say, of the style of Thucydides, the artificial character of the vocabulary, the variety of the constructions, the roughness of the harmony, the speed of the narrative. Its “ colours” are solidity, pungency, condensation, austerity, gravity, terrible vehemence, and above all his power of stirring the emotions. Such is Thucydides in respect of those characteristics of his style which distinguish him from all other writers.’

 

His novelty end variety in his constructions and his departure from established usage, which we consider to be the chief point of difference between him and all other writers, may be illustrated by the following instances.

 

When he amplifies a single idea and uses a number of nouns or verbs in place of one nominal or verbal expression, he expresses himself thus: ‘Themistocles exhibited his natural force in the most convincing way, and in this respect he was especially worthy of admiration beyond any rival.’ Again, in the Funeral Speech he writes: ‘nor yet on the score of poverty is a man who has it in his power to confer a service on the state debarred through the obscurity of his rank.’ For in these cases he expresses himself as in his description of the Spartan Brasidas when in the engagement at Pylus he was wounded and fell over­board. ‘He fell,’ he says, and his shield slipped off’.’ What he means is: ‘he fell over­board on to the projecting parts of the oars.’

 

When he gives the form of nouns to the verbal parts of speech, he expresses himself as follows. In his First Book the Corinthian envoy addresses the Athenians thus: ‘such are the pleas for justice we can bring before you, together with the following exhortation and claim to gratitude.’ Here the verbs ‘we can exhort’ and ‘we can claim’ have been changed into the nouns ‘exhortation’ and ‘claim.’ Parallel expressions are ‘the non-circumvallation of the Plemmyrium’ in the Seventh Book, and ‘the lamentation’ which in the First Book he has mentioned in the course of a speech. For to the verbs ‘to ‘circumvallate’ and ‘to lament ’ he has given the form of the nouns circumvallation ’ and ‘ lamentation.

 

But when conversely he turns his nouns into verbs, he produces such an expression as we find in the First Book when the cause of the war is under discussion.  The most real cause, though that which was least acknowledged, I consider to have been the fact that the growth of the Athenian power compelled them to wage war’. His meaning is that the growth of the Athenian power caused a compulsion to the war. But for the nouns ‘compulsion’ and ‘war’ he has substituted the verbs ‘to compel’, and ‘ to wage war.’

 

When he interchanges the passive and active forms of verbs, he writes in this fashion : ‘for neither the one hinders by the truce nor the other.’ The active verb ‘hinders’ is employed in place of the passive ‘is hindered.’ The real meaning of the expression is: ‘for neither the one is hindered by the truce nor the other.’ And so also with the words found in his introduction : ‘for in the absence of commerce, they did not mingle freely with one another.’ Here the active verb ‘did not mingle’ occupies the place of the passive ‘were not mingled.’

 

When instead of the active he uses the passive, he con­structs a sentence of this kind: ‘all of us who had by this time been brought into contact with the Athenians.’ His meaning is: ‘all of us who dealt with the Athenians.’ But he has used the passive form ‘been brought into contact with’ in place of the active ‘dealt with.’ And so with what next follows: ‘those who had been settled more in the interior’.’ For instead of the active verb ‘who had settled* he has used the passive ‘who had been settled.’

 

As regards the distinction of singular and plural, he changes the two numbers about and uses singular for plural thus: ‘and if perchance it occurs to some one that not he, but the Syracusan, is the enemy of the Athenian’.’ He means ‘Syracusans’ and ‘Athenians, but he has put each of the proper names in the singular. Another instance is the passage: ‘ and we shall find the enemy more formidable, if his retreat is made difficult.’ Here he has put ‘enemies’ in the singular, not in the plural. Deviating in the same way from customary language, he uses the plural in place of the singular. This mode of expression will be found in the first part of the Funeral Speech: ‘for eulogies bestowed on others are endurable only so far as each person thinks that he is himself capable of any of the deeds of which he hears.’ Here the words ‘each person’ and ‘hears’ are singular, but the following words are put in the plural: ‘ but when this point is passed, they begin to feel envy and incredulity.’ Such expressions would naturally be used not of one person but of many.

 

In his History things are treated as persons, as in the address of the Corinthians to the Lacedaemonians. The Corinthian speaker urges the leading men of the Peloponnese to maintain its prestige, in the eyes of external states, such as their fathers transmitted it to them. These are his words: ‘You must, therefore, be well advised, and strive that the Peloponnese which you lead forth may be no less powerful than when your fathers left it to your care’.’ He has used the expression ‘to lead forth’ in the sense ‘to guide the Peloponnese outside as its leaders.’ Now this could not apply to the territory, but it can apply to its glory and its power, and this is what he means to say.

Persons are transformed into things by him in the fol­lowing way. When the same Corinthian envoy, addressing the Lacedaemonians, compares the characters of the Athe­nians and Lacedaemonians, he says: ‘They are innovators and quick to conceive plans and to execute their resolves. But your alertness is directed to preserving what you have and to forming no fresh resolve, and to refraining even from the execution of what is absolutely essential.’ Now up to this point the construction is normal, the two persons forming its basis. But afterwards in the second clause the expression is changed, and instead of persons a thing is used in reference to the Lacedaemonians, when he says: ‘and once more they are daring even beyond their power, and venturesome beyond their better judgment, and full of hope in the hour of danger; but your way is to act below the measure of your power and to trust not even the safe conclusions of your judgment.’ Here ‘your way’ is used instead of ‘youp a thing taking the place of a person.

 

In his enthymemes and sentences the parentheses are numerous and reach their conclusion with difficulty. This makes the meaning hard to follow. There are many of them in every part of the History; but two only, taken from the Introduction, will suffice. One is the passage which shows the weakness of Primitive Greece and assigns the causes. ‘For in the absence of commerce, they did not mingle freely with one another whether by land or over sea: each tribe pos­sessing property enough of its own to support existence and having no superfluous goods ; none cultivating the land, for it was uncertain when some invader would come and rob them, as there were no fortifications to protect them: and feeling that they could command the bare means of subsistence everywhere alike, they readily migrated’.’ If he had added the word ‘readily migrated’ to the first period and shaped it thus, ‘ In the absence of commerce they did not mingle freely with one another by land or by sea, but each tribe possessing enough property of its own to support existence, they migrated readily/ he would have made his meaning clearer, but by the insertion of many parenthetical clauses he has made it obscure and hard to follow. The second passage is that which refers to the invasion of Attica by Eurystheus. ‘Eurystheus was slain in Attica by the Heracleidae. His maternal uncle was Atreus, to whom as being his kinsman Eurystheus entrusted the kingdom of Mycenae when he went to the wars. Atreus had been banished by his father because of the murder of Chrysippus. When Eurystheus failed to return, Atreus succeeded to the sovereignty over the Mycenaeans and over all others who had been under the rule of Eurystheus. He did so at the desire of the Mycenaeans, who feared the Heracleidae. He had also courted the multi­tude, and was thought to be a man of power.

 

The plan of his enthymemes is sometimes tortuous and involved and hard to unravel, as in the following passage of the Funeral Speech: ‘They found a dearer delight in the punishment of their foes; danger thus in­curred they considered the noblest of all, and wished to subordinate all other aims to that of vengeance. They com­mitted the uncertainty of success to hope, but in action deemed it right to trust themselves as concerning what was now before their eyes. Thinking it right to suffer in self-defence rather than save their lives by submission, they escaped a shameful reputation by exposing themselves to the brunt of the fray; and in a moment of time they were removed, at the height of their fortune, from the scene of their glory rather than their fear’. Of this kind also is the characterisation of Themistocles given by the historian in his First Book: ‘ For Themistocles exhibited his natural force in the most convincing way, and in this respect he was especially worthy of admiration beyond any rival. Through his native shrewdness, and unaided by knowledge acquired previously or at the time, he surpassed all others whether in judging present needs on the spur of the moment or in conjecturing the events of the most distant future. He had the power of explaining whatever he had in hand, and was well able to form a competent opinion of things of which he had no experience. He could foresee the better or worse course, while it was still in the dim future. In a word, through sheer natural capacity he could, however short the time for preparation might be, excel all men in improvising the right thing to be done.

 

The affected-figures of antithesis and paromoeosis and parisosis, in which Gorgias and his followers were particularly fertile, little become this style, which has an austere cast and is very far removed from preciosity. But instances of the following kind are found in the History of Thucydides: ‘ For it is clear that what is denominated Hellas now-a-days was not securely populated in ancient days.’ And again: ‘They are daring beyond their power, and venturesome beyond their better judgment; but your way is to act below the measure of your power, and to trust not even the safe conclusions of your judgment, and to think you will never escape from the dangers that threaten you’.' Another instance will be found in the passage in which he describes, in the following terms, the calamities which had overtaken Greece in consequence of party-spirit: ‘For reckless audacity was considered loyal courage; cautious hesitation was specious cowardice; moderation was the cloak of unmanliness; universal wisdom was general ineffectiveness.’ Many passages of this kind will be found throughout his History; but those already given will serve as a sample of the rest

Thus you have, my dear Ammaeus, the observations examined, as you desired, one by one, according to the ordinary method.