3 Thucydides surpasses all other writers in the bold use of this figure, even breaking up sentences which are by their nature absolutely one and indivisible. But nowhere do we find it so unsparingly employed as in Demosthenes, who though not so daring in his manner of using it as the elder writer is very happy in giving to his speeches by frequent transpositions the lively air of unstudied debate. Moreover, he drags, as it were, his audience with him into the perils of a long inverted clause.

4 He often begins to say something, then leaves the thought in suspense, meanwhile thrusting in between, in a position apparently foreign and unnatural, some extraneous matters, one upon another, and having thus made his hearers fear lest the whole discourse should break down, and forced them into eager sympathy with the danger of the speaker, when he is nearly at the end of a period he adds just at the right moment, i.e. when it is least expected, the point which they have been waiting for so long. And thus by the very boldness and hazard of his inversions he produces a much more astounding effect. I forbear to cite examples, as they are too numerous to require it.

XXIII

The juxtaposition of different cases, the enumeration of particulars, and the use of contrast and climax, all, as you know, add much vigour, and give beauty and great elevation and life to a style. The diction also gains greatly in diversity and movement by changes of case, time, person, number, and gender.

2 With regard to change of number: not only is the style improved by the use of those words which, though singular in form, are found on inspection to be plural in meaning, as in the lines—

"A countless host dispersed along the sand With joyous cries the shoal of tunny hailed,"

but it is more worthy of observation that plurals for singulars sometimes fall with a more impressive dignity, rousing the imagination by the mere sense of vast number.

3 Such is the effect of those words of Oedipus in Sophocles—

"Oh fatal, fatal ties! Ye gave us birth, and we being born ye sowed The self-same seed, and gave the world to view Sons, brothers, sires, domestic murder foul, Brides, mothers, wives.... Ay, ye laid bare The blackest, deepest place where Shame can dwell."[1]

Here we have in either case but one person, first Oedipus, then Jocasta; but the expansion of number into the plural gives an impression of multiplied calamity. So in the following plurals—

"There came forth Hectors, and there came Sarpedons."

[Footnote 1: O. R. 1403.]

4 And in those words of Plato's (which we have already adduced elsewhere), referring to the Athenians: "We have no Pelopses or Cadmuses or Aegyptuses or Danauses, or any others out of all the mob of Hellenised barbarians, dwelling among us; no, this is the land of pure Greeks, with no mixture of foreign elements,"[2] etc. Such an accumulation of words in the plural number necessarily gives greater pomp and sound to a subject. But we must only have recourse to this device when the nature of our theme makes it allowable to amplify, to multiply, or to speak in the tones of exaggeration or passion. To overlay every sentence with ornament[3] is very pedantic.

[Footnote 2: Menex. 245, D.]

[Footnote 3: Lit. "To hang bells everywhere," a metaphor from the bells which were attached to horses' trappings on festive occasions.]

XXIV

On the other hand, the contraction of plurals into singulars sometimes creates an appearance of great dignity; as in that phrase of Demosthenes: "Thereupon all Peloponnesus was divided."[1] There is another in Herodotus: "When Phrynichus brought a drama on the stage entitled The Taking of Miletus, the whole theatre fell a weeping"—instead of "all the spectators." This knitting together of a number of scattered particulars into one whole gives them an aspect of corporate life. And the beauty of both uses lies, I think, in their betokening emotion, by giving a sudden change of complexion to the circumstances,—whether a word which is strictly singular is unexpectedly changed into a plural,—or whether a number of isolated units are combined by the use of a single sonorous word under one head.

[Footnote 1: De Cor. 18.]

XXV

When past events are introduced as happening in present time the narrative form is changed into a dramatic action. Such is that description in Xenophon: "A man who has fallen, and is being trampled under foot by Cyrus's horse, strikes the belly of the animal with his scimitar; the horse starts aside and unseats Cyrus, and he falls." Similarly in many passages of Thucydides.

XXVI

Equally dramatic is the interchange of persons, often making a reader fancy himself to be moving in the midst of the perils described—

"Unwearied, thou wouldst deem, with toil unspent, They met in war; so furiously they fought."[1]

and that line in Aratus—

"Beware that month to tempt the surging sea."[2]

[Footnote 1: Il. xv. 697.]

[Footnote 2: Phaen. 287.]

2 In the same way Herodotus: "Passing from the city of Elephantine you will sail upwards until you reach a level plain. You cross this region, and there entering another ship you will sail on for two days, and so reach a great city, whose name is Meroe."[3] Observe how he takes us, as it were, by the hand, and leads us in spirit through these places, making us no longer readers, but spectators. Such a direct personal address always has the effect of placing the reader in the midst of the scene of action.

[Footnote 3: ii. 29.]

3 And by pointing your words to the individual reader, instead of to the readers generally, as in the line

"Thou had'st not known for whom Tydides fought,"[4]

and thus exciting him by an appeal to himself, you will rouse interest, and fix attention, and make him a partaker in the action of the book.

[Footnote 4: Il. v. 85.]

XXVII

Sometimes, again, a writer in the midst of a narrative in the third person suddenly steps aside and makes a transition to the first. It is a kind of figure which strikes like a sudden outburst of passion. Thus Hector in the Iliad

"With mighty voice called to the men of Troy To storm the ships, and leave the bloody spoils: If any I behold with willing foot Shunning the ships, and lingering on the plain, That hour I will contrive his death."[1]

The poet then takes upon himself the narrative part, as being his proper business; but this abrupt threat he attributes, without a word of warning, to the enraged Trojan chief. To have interposed any such words as "Hector said so and so" would have had a frigid effect. As the lines stand the writer is left behind by his own words, and the transition is effected while he is preparing for it.

[Footnote 1: Il. xv. 346.]

2 Accordingly the proper use of this figure is in dealing with some urgent crisis which will not allow the writer to linger, but compels him to make a rapid change from one person to another. So in Hecataeus: "Now Ceyx took this in dudgeon, and straightway bade the children of Heracles to depart. 'Behold, I can give you no help; lest, therefore, ye perish yourselves and bring hurt upon me also, get ye forth into some other land.'"

3 There is a different use of the change of persons in the speech of Demosthenes against Aristogeiton, which places before us the quick turns of violent emotion. "Is there none to be found among you," he asks, "who even feels indignation at the outrageous conduct of a loathsome and shameless wretch who,—vilest of men, when you were debarred from freedom of speech, not by barriers or by doors, which might indeed be opened,"[2] etc. Thus in the midst of a half-expressed thought he makes a quick change of front, and having almost in his anger torn one word into two persons, "who, vilest of men," etc., he then breaks off his address to Aristogeiton, and seems to leave him, nevertheless, by the passion of his utterance, rousing all the more the attention of the court.

[Footnote 2: c. Aristog. i. 27.]

4 The same feature may be observed in a speech of Penelope's—

"Why com'st thou, Medon, from the wooers proud? Com'st thou to bid the handmaids of my lord To cease their tasks, and make for them good cheer? Ill fare their wooing, and their gathering here! Would God that here this hour they all might take Their last, their latest meal! Who day by day Make here your muster, to devour and waste The substance of my son: have ye not heard When children at your fathers' knee the deeds And prowess of your king?"[3]

[Footnote 3: Od. iv. 681.]

XXVIII

None, I suppose, would dispute the fact that periphrasis tends much to sublimity. For, as in music the simple air is rendered more pleasing by the addition of harmony, so in language periphrasis often sounds in concord with a literal expression, adding much to the beauty of its tone,—provided always that it is not inflated and harsh, but agreeably blended.

2 To confirm this one passage from Plato will suffice—the opening words of his Funeral Oration: "In deed these men have now received from us their due, and that tribute paid they are now passing on their destined journey, with the State speeding them all and his own friends speeding each one of them on his way."[1] Death, you see, he calls the "destined journey"; to receive the rites of burial is to be publicly "sped on your way" by the State. And these turns of language lend dignity in no common measure to the thought. He takes the words in their naked simplicity and handles them as a musician, investing them with melody,—harmonising them, as it were,—by the use of periphrasis.

[Footnote 1: Menex. 236, D.]

3 So Xenophon: "Labour you regard as the guide to a pleasant life, and you have laid up in your souls the fairest and most soldier-like of all gifts: in praise is your delight, more than in anything else."[2] By saying, instead of "you are ready to labour," "you regard labour as the guide to a pleasant life," and by similarly expanding the rest of that passage, he gives to his eulogy a much wider and loftier range of sentiment. Let us add that inimitable phrase in Herodotus: "Those Scythians who pillaged the temple were smitten from heaven by a female malady."

[Footnote 2: Cyrop. i. 5. 12.]

XXIX

But this figure, more than any other, is very liable to abuse, and great restraint is required in employing it. It soon begins to carry an impression of feebleness, savours of vapid trifling, and arouses disgust. Hence Plato, who is very bold and not always happy in his use of figures, is much ridiculed for saying in his Laws that "neither gold nor silver wealth must be allowed to establish itself in our State,"[1] suggesting, it is said, that if he had forbidden property in oxen or sheep he would certainly have spoken of it as "bovine and ovine wealth."

[Footnote 1: De Legg. vii. 801, B.]

2 Here we must quit this part of our subject, hoping, my dear friend Terentian, that your learned curiosity will be satisfied with this short excursion on the use of figures in their relation to the Sublime. All those which I have mentioned help to render a style more energetic and impassioned; and passion contributes as largely to sublimity as the delineation of character to amusement.

XXX

But since the thoughts conveyed by words and the expression of those thoughts are for the most part interwoven with one another, we will now add some considerations which have hitherto been overlooked on the subject of expression. To say that the choice of appropriate and striking words has a marvellous power and an enthralling charm for the reader, that this is the main object of pursuit with all orators and writers, that it is this, and this alone, which causes the works of literature to exhibit the glowing perfections of the finest statues, their grandeur, their beauty, their mellowness, their dignity, their energy, their power, and all their other graces, and that it is this which endows the facts with a vocal soul; to say all this would, I fear, be, to the initiated, an impertinence. Indeed, we may say with strict truth that beautiful words are the very light of thought.

2 I do not mean to say that imposing language is appropriate to every occasion. A trifling subject tricked out in grand and stately words would have the same effect as a huge tragic mask placed on the head of a little child. Only in poetry and ...

XXXI

... There is a genuine ring in that line of Anacreon's—

"The Thracian filly I no longer heed."

The same merit belongs to that original phrase in Theophrastus; to me, at least, from the closeness of its analogy, it seems to have a peculiar expressiveness, though Caecilius censures it, without telling us why. "Philip," says the historian, "showed a marvellous alacrity in taking doses of trouble."[1] We see from this that the most homely language is sometimes far more vivid than the most ornamental, being recognised at once as the language of common life, and gaining immediate currency by its familiarity. In speaking, then, of Philip as "taking doses of trouble," Theopompus has laid hold on a phrase which describes with peculiar vividness one who for the sake of advantage endured what was base and sordid with patience and cheerfulness.

[Footnote 1: See Note.]

2 The same may be observed of two passages in Herodotus: "Cleomenes having lost his wits, cut his own flesh into pieces with a short sword, until by gradually mincing his whole body he destroyed himself";[2] and "Pythes continued fighting on his ship until he was entirely hacked to pieces."[3] Such terms come home at once to the vulgar reader, but their own vulgarity is redeemed by their expressiveness.

[Footnote 2: vi. 75.]

[Footnote 3: vii. 181.]

XXXII

Concerning the number of metaphors to be employed together Caecilius seems to give his vote with those critics who make a law that not more than two, or at the utmost three, should be combined in the same place. The use, however, must be determined by the occasion. Those outbursts of passion which drive onwards like a winter torrent draw with them as an indispensable accessory whole masses of metaphor. It is thus in that passage of Demosthenes (who here also is our safest guide):[1]

[Footnote 1: See Note.]

2 "Those vile fawning wretches, each one of whom has lopped from his country her fairest members, who have toasted away their liberty, first to Philip, now to Alexander, who measure happiness by their belly and their vilest appetites, who have overthrown the old landmarks and standards of felicity among Greeks,—to be freemen, and to have no one for a master."[2] Here the number of the metaphors is obscured by the orator's indignation against the betrayers of his country.

[Footnote 2: De Cor. 296.]

3 And to effect this Aristotle and Theophrastus recommend the softening of harsh metaphors by the use of some such phrase as "So to say," "As it were," "If I may be permitted the expression," "If so bold a term is allowable." For thus to forestall criticism[3] mitigates, they assert, the boldness of the metaphors.

[Footnote 3: Reading hupotimesis.]

4 And I will not deny that these have their use. Nevertheless I must repeat the remark which I made in the case of figures,[4] and maintain that there are native antidotes to the number and boldness of metaphors, in well-timed displays of strong feeling, and in unaffected sublimity, because these have an innate power by the dash of their movement of sweeping along and carrying all else before them. Or should we not rather say that they absolutely demand as indispensable the use of daring metaphors, and will not allow the hearer to pause and criticise the number of them, because he shares the passion of the speaker?

[Footnote 4: Ch. xvii.]

5 In the treatment, again, of familiar topics and in descriptive passages nothing gives such distinctness as a close and continuous series of metaphors. It is by this means that Xenophon has so finely delineated the anatomy of the human frame.[5] And there is a still more brilliant and life-like picture in Plato.[6] The human head he calls a citadel; the neck is an isthmus set to divide it from the chest; to support it beneath are the vertebrae, turning like hinges; pleasure he describes as a bait to tempt men to ill; the tongue is the arbiter of tastes. The heart is at once the knot of the veins and the source of the rapidly circulating blood, and is stationed in the guard-room of the body. The ramifying blood-vessels he calls alleys. "And casting about," he says, "for something to sustain the violent palpitation of the heart when it is alarmed by the approach of danger or agitated by passion, since at such times it is overheated, they (the gods) implanted in us the lungs, which are so fashioned that being soft and bloodless, and having cavities within, they act like a buffer, and when the heart boils with inward passion by yielding to its throbbing save it from injury." He compares the seat of the desires to the women's quarters, the seat of the passions to the men's quarters, in a house. The spleen, again, is the napkin of the internal organs, by whose excretions it is saturated from time to time, and swells to a great size with inward impurity. "After this," he continues, "they shrouded the whole with flesh, throwing it forward, like a cushion, as a barrier against injuries from without." The blood he terms the pasture of the flesh. "To assist the process of nutrition," he goes on, "they divided the body into ducts, cutting trenches like those in a garden, so that, the body being a system of narrow conduits, the current of the veins might flow as from a perennial fountain-head. And when the end is at hand," he says, "the soul is cast loose from her moorings like a ship, and free to wander whither she will."

6 These, and a hundred similar fancies, follow one another in quick succession. But those which I have pointed out are sufficient to demonstrate how great is the natural power of figurative language, and how largely metaphors conduce to sublimity, and to illustrate the important part which they play in all impassioned and descriptive passages.

[Footnote 5: Memorab. i. 4, 5.]

[Footnote 6: Timaeus, 69, D; 74, A; 65, C; 72, G; 74, B, D; 80, E; 77, G; 78, E; 85, E.]

7 That the use of figurative language, as of all other beauties of style, has a constant tendency towards excess, is an obvious truth which I need not dwell upon. It is chiefly on this account that even Plato comes in for a large share of disparagement, because he is often carried away by a sort of frenzy of language into an intemperate use of violent metaphors and inflated allegory. "It is not easy to remark" (he says in one place) "that a city ought to be blended like a bowl, in which the mad wine boils when it is poured out, but being disciplined by another and a sober god in that fair society produces a good and temperate drink."[7] Really, it is said, to speak of water as a "sober god," and of the process of mixing as a "discipline," is to talk like a poet, and no very sober one either.

[Footnote 7: Legg. vi. 773, G.]

8 It was such defects as these that the hostile critic[8] Caecilius made his ground of attack, when he had the boldness in his essay "On the Beauties of Lysias" to pronounce that writer superior in every respect to Plato. Now Caecilius was doubly unqualified for a judge: he loved Lysias better even than himself, and at the same time his hatred of Plato and all his works is greater even than his love for Lysias. Moreover, he is so blind a partisan that his very premises are open to dispute. He vaunts Lysias as a faultless and immaculate writer, while Plato is, according to him, full of blemishes. Now this is not the case: far from it.

[Footnote 8: Reading ho mison auton, by a conjecture of the translator.]

XXXIII

But supposing now that we assume the existence of a really unblemished and irreproachable writer. Is it not worth while to raise the whole question whether in poetry and prose we should prefer sublimity accompanied by some faults, or a style which never rising above moderate excellence never stumbles and never requires correction? and again, whether the first place in literature is justly to be assigned to the more numerous, or the loftier excellences? For these are questions proper to an inquiry on the Sublime, and urgently asking for settlement.

2 I know, then, that the largest intellects are far from being the most exact. A mind always intent on correctness is apt to be dissipated in trifles; but in great affluence of thought, as in vast material wealth, there must needs be an occasional neglect of detail. And is it not inevitably so? Is it not by risking nothing, by never aiming high, that a writer of low or middling powers keeps generally clear of faults and secure of blame? whereas the loftier walks of literature are by their very loftiness perilous?

3 I am well aware, again, that there is a law by which in all human productions the weak points catch the eye first, by which their faults remain indelibly stamped on the memory, while their beauties quickly fade away.

4 Yet, though I have myself noted not a few faulty passages in Homer and in other authors of the highest rank, and though I am far from being partial to their failings, nevertheless I would call them not so much wilful blunders as oversights which were allowed to pass unregarded through that contempt of little things, that "brave disorder," which is natural to an exalted genius; and I still think that the greater excellences, though not everywhere equally sustained, ought always to be voted to the first place in literature, if for no other reason, for the mere grandeur of soul they evince. Let us take an instance: Apollonius in his Argonautica has given us a poem actually faultless; and in his pastoral poetry Theocritus is eminently happy, except when he occasionally attempts another style. And what then? Would you rather be a Homer or an Apollonius?

5 Or take Eratosthenes and his Erigone; because that little work is without a flaw, is he therefore a greater poet than Archilochus, with all his disorderly profusion? greater than that impetuous, that god-gifted genius, which chafed against the restraints of law? or in lyric poetry would you choose to be a Bacchylides or a Pindar? in tragedy a Sophocles or (save the mark!) an Io of Chios? Yet Io and Bacchylides never stumble, their style is always neat, always pretty; while Pindar and Sophocles sometimes move onwards with a wide blaze of splendour, but often drop out of view in sudden and disastrous eclipse. Nevertheless no one in his senses would deny that a single play of Sophocles, the Oedipus, is of higher value than all the dramas of Io put together.

XXXIV

If the number and not the loftiness of an author's merits is to be our standard of success, judged by this test we must admit that Hyperides is a far superior orator to Demosthenes. For in Hyperides there is a richer modulation, a greater variety of excellence. He is, we may say, in everything second-best, like the champion of the pentathlon, who, though in every contest he has to yield the prize to some other combatant, is superior to the unpractised in all five.

2 Not only has he rivalled the success of Demosthenes in everything but his manner of composition, but, as though that were not enough, he has taken in all the excellences and graces of Lysias as well. He knows when it is proper to speak with simplicity, and does not, like Demosthenes, continue the same key throughout. His touches of character are racy and sparkling, and full of a delicate flavour. Then how admirable is his wit, how polished his raillery! How well-bred he is, how dexterous in the use of irony! His jests are pointed, but without any of the grossness and vulgarity of the old Attic comedy. He is skilled in making light of an opponent's argument, full of a well-aimed satire which amuses while it stings; and through all this there runs a pervading, may we not say, a matchless charm. He is most apt in moving compassion; his mythical digressions show a fluent ease, and he is perfect in bending his course and finding a way out of them without violence or effort. Thus when he tells the story of Leto he is really almost a poet; and his funeral oration shows a declamatory magnificence to which I hardly know a parallel.

3 Demosthenes, on the other hand, has no touches of character, none of the versatility, fluency, or declamatory skill of Hyperides. He is, in fact, almost entirely destitute of all those excellences which I have just enumerated. When he makes violent efforts to be humorous and witty, the only laughter he arouses is against himself; and the nearer he tries to get to the winning grace of Hyperides, the farther he recedes from it. Had he, for instance, attempted such a task as the little speech in defence of Phryne or Athenagoras, he would only have added to the reputation of his rival.

4 Nevertheless all the beauties of Hyperides, however numerous, cannot make him sublime. He never exhibits strong feeling, has little energy, rouses no emotion; certainly he never kindles terror in the breast of his readers. But Demosthenes followed a great master,[1] and drew his consummate excellences, his high-pitched eloquence, his living passion, his copiousness, his sagacity, his speed—that mastery and power which can never be approached—from the highest of sources. These mighty, these heaven-sent gifts (I dare not call them human), he made his own both one and all. Therefore, I say, by the noble qualities which he does possess he remains supreme above all rivals, and throws a cloud over his failings, silencing by his thunders and blinding by his lightnings the orators of all ages. Yes, it would be easier to meet the lightning-stroke with steady eye than to gaze unmoved when his impassioned eloquence is sending out flash after flash.

[Footnote 1: I.e. Thucydides. See the passage of Dionysius quoted in the Note.]

XXXV

But in the case of Plato and Lysias there is, as I said, a further difference. Not only is Lysias vastly inferior to Plato in the degree of his merits, but in their number as well; and at the same time he is as far ahead of Plato in the number of his faults as he is behind in that of his merits.

2 What truth, then, was it that was present to those mighty spirits of the past, who, making whatever is greatest in writing their aim, thought it beneath them to be exact in every detail? Among many others especially this, that it was not in nature's plan for us her chosen children to be creatures base and ignoble,—no, she brought us into life, and into the whole universe, as into some great field of contest, that we should be at once spectators and ambitious rivals of her mighty deeds, and from the first implanted in our souls an invincible yearning for all that is great, all that is diviner than ourselves.

3 Therefore even the whole world is not wide enough for the soaring range of human thought, but man's mind often overleaps the very bounds of space.[1] When we survey the whole circle of life, and see it abounding everywhere in what is elegant, grand, and beautiful, we learn at once what is the true end of man's being.

[Footnote 1: Comp. Lucretius on Epicurus: "Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi," etc.]

4 And this is why nature prompts us to admire, not the clearness and usefulness of a little stream, but the Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, and far beyond all the Ocean; not to turn our wandering eyes from the heavenly fires, though often darkened, to the little flame kindled by human hands, however pure and steady its light; not to think that tiny lamp more wondrous than the caverns of Aetna, from whose raging depths are hurled up stones and whole masses of rock, and torrents sometimes come pouring from earth's centre of pure and living fire.

To sum the whole: whatever is useful or needful lies easily within man's reach; but he keeps his homage for what is astounding.

XXXVI

How much more do these principles apply to the Sublime in literature, where grandeur is never, as it sometimes is in nature, dissociated from utility and advantage. Therefore all those who have achieved it, however far from faultless, are still more than mortal. When a writer uses any other resource he shows himself to be a man; but the Sublime lifts him near to the great spirit of the Deity. He who makes no slips must be satisfied with negative approbation, but he who is sublime commands positive reverence.

2 Why need I add that each one of those great writers often redeems all his errors by one grand and masterly stroke? But the strongest point of all is that, if you were to pick out all the blunders of Homer, Demosthenes, Plato, and all the greatest names in literature, and add them together, they would be found to bear a very small, or rather an infinitesimal proportion to the passages in which these supreme masters have attained absolute perfection. Therefore it is that all posterity, whose judgment envy herself cannot impeach, has brought and bestowed on them the crown of glory, has guarded their fame until this day against all attack, and is likely to preserve it

"As long as lofty trees shall grow, And restless waters seaward flow."

3 It has been urged by one writer that we should not prefer the huge disproportioned Colossus to the Doryphorus of Polycletus. But (to give one out of many possible answers) in art we admire exactness, in the works of nature magnificence; and it is from nature that man derives the faculty of speech. Whereas, then, in statuary we look for close resemblance to humanity, in literature we require something which transcends humanity.

4 Nevertheless (to reiterate the advice which we gave at the beginning of this essay), since that success which consists in avoidance of error is usually the gift of art, while high, though unequal excellence is the attribute of genius, it is proper on all occasions to call in art as an ally to nature. By the combined resources of these two we may hope to achieve perfection.

Such are the conclusions which were forced upon me concerning the points at issue; but every one may consult his own taste.

XXXVII

To return, however, from this long digression; closely allied to metaphors are comparisons and similes, differing only in this * * *[1]

[Footnote 1: The asterisks denote gaps in the original text.]

XXXVIII

Such absurdities as, "Unless you carry your brains next to the ground in your heels."[1] Hence it is necessary to know where to draw the line; for if ever it is overstepped the effect of the hyperbole is spoilt, being in such cases relaxed by overstraining, and producing the very opposite to the effect desired.

[Footnote 1: Pseud. Dem. de Halon. 45.]

2 Isocrates, for instance, from an ambitious desire of lending everything a strong rhetorical colouring, shows himself in quite a childish light. Having in his Panegyrical Oration set himself to prove that the Athenian state has surpassed that of Sparta in her services to Hellas, he starts off at the very outset with these words: "Such is the power of language that it can extenuate what is great, and lend greatness to what is little, give freshness to what is antiquated, and describe what is recent so that it seems to be of the past."[2] Come, Isocrates (it might be asked), is it thus that you are going to tamper with the facts about Sparta and Athens? This flourish about the power of language is like a signal hung out to warn his audience not to believe him.

[Footnote 2: Paneg. 8.]

3 We may repeat here what we said about figures, and say that the hyperbole is then most effective when it appears in disguise.[3] And this effect is produced when a writer, impelled by strong feeling, speaks in the accents of some tremendous crisis; as Thucydides does in describing the massacre in Sicily. "The Syracusans," he says, "went down after them, and slew those especially who were in the river, and the water was at once defiled, yet still they went on drinking it, though mingled with mud and gore, most of them even fighting for it."[4] The drinking of mud and gore, and even the fighting for it, is made credible by the awful horror of the scene described.

[Footnote 3: xvii. 1.]

[Footnote 4: Thuc. vii. 84.]

4 Similarly Herodotus on those who fell at Thermopylae: "Here as they fought, those who still had them, with daggers, the rest with hands and teeth, the barbarians buried them under their javelins."[5] That they fought with the teeth against heavy-armed assailants, and that they were buried with javelins, are perhaps hard sayings, but not incredible, for the reasons already explained. We can see that these circumstances have not been dragged in to produce a hyperbole, but that the hyperbole has grown naturally out of the circumstances.

[Footnote 5: vii. 225.]

5 For, as I am never tired of explaining, in actions and passions verging on frenzy there lies a kind of remission and palliation of any licence of language. Hence some comic extravagances, however improbable, gain credence by their humour, such as—

"He had a farm, a little farm, where space severely pinches; 'Twas smaller than the last despatch from Sparta by some inches."

6 For mirth is one of the passions, having its seat in pleasure. And hyperboles may be employed either to increase or to lessen—since exaggeration is common to both uses. Thus in extenuating an opponent's argument we try to make it seem smaller than it is.

XXXIX

We have still left, my dear sir, the fifth of those sources which we set down at the outset as contributing to sublimity, that which consists in the mere arrangement of words in a certain order. Having already published two books dealing fully with this subject—so far at least as our investigations had carried us—it will be sufficient for the purpose of our present inquiry to add that harmony is an instrument which has a natural power, not only to win and to delight, but also in a remarkable degree to exalt the soul and sway the heart of man.

2 When we see that a flute kindles certain emotions in its hearers, rendering them almost beside themselves and full of an orgiastic frenzy, and that by starting some kind of rhythmical beat it compels him who listens to move in time and assimilate his gestures to the tune, even though he has no taste whatever for music; when we know that the sounds of a harp, which in themselves have no meaning, by the change of key, by the mutual relation of the notes, and their arrangement in symphony, often lay a wonderful spell on an audience—

3 though these are mere shadows and spurious imitations of persuasion, not, as I have said, genuine manifestations of human nature:—can we doubt that composition (being a kind of harmony of that language which nature has taught us, and which reaches, not our ears only, but our very souls), when it raises changing forms of words, of thoughts, of actions, of beauty, of melody, all of which are engrained in and akin to ourselves, and when by the blending of its manifold tones it brings home to the minds of those who stand by the feelings present to the speaker, and ever disposes the hearer to sympathise with those feelings, adding word to word, until it has raised a majestic and harmonious structure:—can we wonder if all this enchants us, wherever we meet with it, and filling us with the sense of pomp and dignity and sublimity, and whatever else it embraces, gains a complete mastery over our minds? It would be mere infatuation to join issue on truths so universally acknowledged, and established by experience beyond dispute.[1]

[Footnote 1: Reading all' eoike mania, and putting a full stop at pistis.]

4 Now to give an instance: that is doubtless a sublime thought, indeed wonderfully fine, which Demosthenes applies to his decree: touto to psephisma ton tote te polei peristanta kindunon parelthein epoiesen hosper nephos, "This decree caused the danger which then hung round our city to pass away like a cloud." But the modulation is as perfect as the sentiment itself is weighty. It is uttered wholly in the dactylic measure, the noblest and most magnificent of all measures, and hence forming the chief constituent in the finest metre we know, the heroic. [And it is with great judgment that the words hosper nephos are reserved till the end.[2]] Supposing we transpose them from their proper place and read, say touto to psephisma hosper nephos epoiese ton tote kindunon parelthein—nay, let us merely cut off one syllable, reading epoiese parelthein hos nephos—and you will understand how close is the unison between harmony and sublimity. In the passage before us the words hosper nephos move first in a heavy measure, which is metrically equivalent to four short syllables: but on removing one syllable, and reading hos nephos, the grandeur of movement is at once crippled by the abridgment. So conversely if you lengthen into hosperei nephos, the meaning is still the same, but it does not strike the ear in the same manner, because by lingering over the final syllables you at once dissipate and relax the abrupt grandeur of the passage.

[Footnote 2: There is a break here in the text; but the context indicates the sense of the words lost, which has accordingly been supplied.]

XL

There is another method very efficient in exalting a style. As the different members of the body, none of which, if severed from its connection, has any intrinsic excellence, unite by their mutual combination to form a complete and perfect organism, so also the elements of a fine passage, by whose separation from one another its high quality is simultaneously dissipated and evaporates, when joined in one organic whole, and still further compacted by the bond of harmony, by the mere rounding of the period gain power of tone.

2 In fact, a clause may be said to derive its sublimity from the joint contributions of a number of particulars. And further (as we have shown at large elsewhere), many writers in prose and verse, though their natural powers were not high, were perhaps even low, and though the terms they employed were usually common and popular and conveying no impression of refinement, by the mere harmony of their composition have attained dignity and elevation, and avoided the appearance of meanness. Such among many others are Philistus, Aristophanes occasionally, Euripides almost always.

3 Thus when Heracles says, after the murder of his children,

"I'm full of woes, I have no room for more,"[1]

the words are quite common, but they are made sublime by being cast in a fine mould. By changing their position you will see that the poetical quality of Euripides depends more on his arrangement than on his thoughts.

[Footnote 1: H. F. 1245.]

4 Compare his lines on Dirce dragged by the bull—

"Whatever crossed his path, Caught in his victim's form, he seized, and dragging Oak, woman, rock, now here, now there, he flies."[2]

The circumstance is noble in itself, but it gains in vigour because the language is disposed so as not to hurry the movement, not running, as it were, on wheels, because there is a distinct stress on each word, and the time is delayed, advancing slowly to a pitch of stately sublimity.

[Footnote 2: Antiope (Nauck, 222).]

XLI

Nothing so much degrades the tone of a style as an effeminate and hurried movement in the language, such as is produced by pyrrhics and trochees and dichorees falling in time together into a regular dance measure. Such abuse of rhythm is sure to savour of coxcombry and petty affectation, and grows tiresome in the highest degree by a monotonous sameness of tone.

2 But its worst effect is that, as those who listen to a ballad have their attention distracted from its subject and can think of nothing but the tune, so an over-rhythmical passage does not affect the hearer by the meaning of its words, but merely by their cadence, so that sometimes, knowing where the pause must come, they beat time with the speaker, striking the expected close like dancers before the stop is reached. Equally undignified is the splitting up of a sentence into a number of little words and short syllables crowded too closely together and forced into cohesion,—hammered, as it were, successively together,—after the manner of mortice and tenon.[1]

[Footnote 1: I must refer to Weiske's Note, which I have followed, for the probable interpretation of this extraordinary passage.]

XLII

Sublimity is further diminished by cramping the diction. Deformity instead of grandeur ensues from over-compression. Here I am not referring to a judicious compactness of phrase, but to a style which is dwarfed, and its force frittered away. To cut your words too short is to prune away their sense, but to be concise is to be direct. On the other hand, we know that a style becomes lifeless by over-extension, I mean by being relaxed to an unseasonable length.

XLIII

The use of mean words has also a strong tendency to degrade a lofty passage. Thus in that description of the storm in Herodotus the matter is admirable, but some of the words admitted are beneath the dignity of the subject; such, perhaps, as "the seas having seethed" because the ill-sounding phrase "having seethed" detracts much from its impressiveness: or when he says "the wind wore away," and "those who clung round the wreck met with an unwelcome end."[1] "Wore away" is ignoble and vulgar, and "unwelcome" inadequate to the extent of the disaster.

[Footnote 1: Hdt. vii. 188, 191, 13.]

2 Similarly Theopompus, after giving a fine picture of the Persian king's descent against Egypt, has exposed the whole to censure by certain paltry expressions. "There was no city, no people of Asia, which did not send an embassy to the king; no product of the earth, no work of art, whether beautiful or precious, which was not among the gifts brought to him. Many and costly were the hangings and robes, some purple, some embroidered, some white; many the tents, of cloth of gold, furnished with all things useful; many the tapestries and couches of great price. Moreover, there was gold and silver plate richly wrought, goblets and bowls, some of which might be seen studded with gems, and others besides worked in relief with great skill and at vast expense. Besides these there were suits of armour in number past computation, partly Greek, partly foreign, endless trains of baggage animals and fat cattle for slaughter, many bushels of spices, many panniers and sacks and sheets of writing-paper; and all other necessaries in the same proportion. And there was salt meat of all kinds of beasts in immense quantity, heaped together to such a height as to show at a distance like mounds and hills thrown up one against another."

3 He runs off from the grander parts of his subject to the meaner, and sinks where he ought to rise. Still worse, by his mixing up panniers and spices and bags with his wonderful recital of that vast and busy scene one would imagine that he was describing a kitchen. Let us suppose that in that show of magnificence some one had taken a set of wretched baskets and bags and placed them in the midst, among vessels of gold, jewelled bowls, silver plate, and tents and goblets of gold; how incongruous would have seemed the effect! Now just in the same way these petty words, introduced out of season, stand out like deformities and blots on the diction.

4 These details might have been given in one or two broad strokes, as when he speaks of mounds being heaped together. So in dealing with the other preparations he might have told us of "waggons and camels and a long train of baggage animals loaded with all kinds of supplies for the luxury and enjoyment of the table," or have mentioned "piles of grain of every species, and of all the choicest delicacies required by the art of the cook or the taste of the epicure," or (if he must needs be so very precise) he might have spoken of "whatever dainties are supplied by those who lay or those who dress the banquet."

5 In our sublimer efforts we should never stoop to what is sordid and despicable, unless very hard pressed by some urgent necessity. If we would write becomingly, our utterance should be worthy of our theme. We should take a lesson from nature, who when she planned the human frame did not set our grosser parts, or the ducts for purging the body, in our face, but as far as she could concealed them, "diverting," as Xenophon says, "those canals as far as possible from our senses,"[2] and thus shunning in any part to mar the beauty of the whole creature.

[Footnote 2: Mem. i. 4. 6.]

6 However, it is not incumbent on us to specify and enumerate whatever diminishes a style. We have now pointed out the various means of giving it nobility and loftiness. It is clear, then, that whatever is contrary to these will generally degrade and deform it.

XLIV

There is still another point which remains to be cleared up, my dear Terentian, and on which I shall not hesitate to add some remarks, to gratify your inquiring spirit. It relates to a question which was recently put to me by a certain philosopher. "To me," he said, "in common, I may say, with many others, it is a matter of wonder that in the present age, which produces many highly skilled in the arts Of popular persuasion, many of keen and active powers, many especially rich in every pleasing gift of language, the growth of highly exalted and wide-reaching genius has with a few rare exceptions almost entirely ceased. So universal is the dearth of eloquence which prevails throughout the world.

2 "Must we really," he asked, "give credit to that oft-repeated assertion that democracy is the kind nurse of genius, and that high literary excellence has flourished with her prime and faded with her decay? Liberty, it is said, is all-powerful to feed the aspirations of high intellects, to hold out hope, and keep alive the flame of mutual rivalry and ambitious struggle for the highest place.

3 "Moreover, the prizes which are offered in every free state keep the spirits of her foremost orators whetted by perpetual exercise;[1] they are, as it were, ignited by friction, and naturally blaze forth freely because they are surrounded by freedom. But we of to-day," he continued, "seem to have learnt in our childhood the lessons of a benignant despotism, to have been cradled in her habits and customs from the time when our minds were still tender, and never to have tasted the fairest and most fruitful fountain of eloquence, I mean liberty. Hence we develop nothing but a fine genius for flattery.

[Footnote 1: Comp. Pericles in Thuc. ii., athla gar hois keitai aretes megista tois de kai andres arista politeuousin.]

4 "This is the reason why, though all other faculties are consistent with the servile condition, no slave ever became an orator; because in him there is a dumb spirit which will not be kept down: his soul is chained: he is like one who has learnt to be ever expecting a blow. For, as Homer says—

5 "'The day of slavery Takes half our manly worth away.'[2]

"As, then (if what I have heard is credible), the cages in which those pigmies commonly called dwarfs are reared not only stop the growth of the imprisoned creature, but absolutely make him smaller by compressing every part of his body, so all despotism, however equitable, may be defined as a cage of the soul and a general prison."

[Footnote 2: Od. xvii. 322.]

6 My answer was as follows: "My dear friend, it is so easy, and so characteristic of human nature, always to find fault with the present.[3] Consider, now, whether the corruption of genius is to be attributed, not to a world-wide peace,[4] but rather to the war within us which knows no limit, which engages all our desires, yes, and still further to the bad passions which lay siege to us to-day, and make utter havoc and spoil of our lives. Are we not enslaved, nay, are not our careers completely shipwrecked, by love of gain, that fever which rages unappeased in us all, and love of pleasure?—one the most debasing, the other the most ignoble of the mind's diseases.

[Footnote 3: Comp. Byron, "The good old times,—all times when old are good."]

[Footnote 4: A euphemism for "a world-wide tyranny."]

7 "When I consider it I can find no means by which we, who hold in such high honour, or, to speak more correctly, who idolise boundless riches, can close the door of our souls against those evil spirits which grow up with them. For Wealth unmeasured and unbridled is dogged by Extravagance: she sticks close to him, and treads in his footsteps: and as soon as he opens the gates of cities or of houses she enters with him and makes her abode with him. And after a time they build their nests (to use a wise man's words[5]) in that corner of life, and speedily set about breeding, and beget Boastfulness, and Vanity, and Wantonness, no base-born children, but their very own. And if these also, the offspring of Wealth, be allowed to come to their prime, quickly they engender in the soul those pitiless tyrants, Violence, and Lawlessness, and Shamelessness.

[Footnote 5: Plato, Rep. ix. 573, E.]

8 "Whenever a man takes to worshipping what is mortal and irrational[6] in him, and neglects to cherish what is immortal, these are the inevitable results. He never looks up again; he has lost all care for good report; by slow degrees the ruin of his life goes on, until it is consummated all round; all that is great in his soul fades, withers away, and is despised.

[Footnote 6: Reading kanoeta.]

9 "If a judge who passes sentence for a bribe can never more give a free and sound decision on a point of justice or honour (for to him who takes a bribe honour and justice must be measured by his own interests), how can we of to-day expect, when the whole life of each one of us is controlled by bribery, while we lie in wait for other men's death and plan how to get a place in their wills, when we buy gain, from whatever source, each one of us, with our very souls in our slavish greed, how, I say, can we expect, in the midst of such a moral pestilence, that there is still left even one liberal and impartial critic, whose verdict will not be biassed by avarice in judging of those great works which live on through all time?

10 "Alas! I fear that for such men as we are it is better to serve than to be free. If our appetites were let loose altogether against our neighbours, they would be like wild beasts uncaged, and bring a deluge of calamity on the whole civilised world."

11 I ended by remarking generally that the genius of the present age is wasted by that indifference which with a few exceptions runs through the whole of life. If we ever shake off our apathy[7] and apply ourselves to work, it is always with a view to pleasure or applause, not for that solid advantage which is worthy to be striven for and held in honour.

[Footnote 7: Comp. Thuc. vi. 26. 2, for this sense of analambanein.]

12 We had better then leave this generation to its fate, and turn to what follows, which is the subject of the passions, to which we promised early in this treatise to devote a separate work.[8] They play an important part in literature generally, and especially in relation to the Sublime.

[Footnote 8: iii. 5.]



NOTES ON LONGINUS

[Transcriber's Note: Citation format is as in the printed text. The last number in each group appears to refer to clauses in the original Greek; there is no correspondence with line numbers in the printed book.]

I. 2. 10. There seems to be an antithesis implied in politikois tetheorekenai, referring to the well-known distinction between the praktikos bios and the theoretikos bios.

4. 27. I have ventured to return to the original reading, diephotisen, though all editors seem to have adopted the correction diephoresen, on account, I suppose, of skeptou. To illumine a large subject, as a landscape is lighted up at night by a flash of lightning, is surely a far more vivid and intelligible expression than to sweep away a subject.[1]

[Footnote 1: Comp. for the metaphor Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit, B 8. "Wie vor einem Blitz erleuchteten sich uns alle Folgen dieses herrlichen Gedankens."]

III. 2. 17. phorbeias d' ater, lit. "without a cheek-strap," which was worn by trumpeters to assist them in regulating their breath. The line is contracted from two of Sophocles's, and Longinus's point is that the extravagance of Cleitarchus is not that of a strong but ill-regulated nature, but the ludicrous straining after grandeur of a writer at once feeble and pretentious.

Ruhnken gives an extract from some inedited "versus politici" of Tzetzes, in which are some amusing specimens of those felicities of language Longinus is here laughing at. Stones are the "bones," rivers the "veins," of the earth; the moon is "the sigma of the sky" ((lunate Sigma) the old form of (Sigma)); sailors, "the ants of ocean"; the strap of a pedlar's pack, "the girdle of his load"; pitch, "the ointment of doors," and so on.

IV. 4. 4. The play upon the double meaning of kora, (1) maiden, (2) pupil of the eye, can hardly be kept in English. It is worthy of remark that our text of Xenophon has en tois thalamois, a perfectly natural expression. Such a variation would seem to point to a very early corruption of ancient manuscripts, or to extraordinary inaccuracy on the part of Longinus, who, indeed, elsewhere displays great looseness of citation, confusing together totally different passages.

9. itamon. I can make nothing of this word. Various corrections have been suggested, but with little certainty.

5. 10. hos phoriou tinos ephaptomenos, literally, "as though he were laying hands on a piece of stolen property." The point seems to be, that plagiarists, like other robbers, show no discrimination in their pilferings, seizing what comes first to hand.

VIII. 1. 20. edaphous. I have avoided the rather harsh confusion of metaphor which this word involves, taken in connection with pegai.

IX. 2. 13. apechema, properly an "echo," a metaphor rather Greek than English.

X. 2. 13. chlorotera de poias, lit. "more wan than grass"—of the sickly yellow hue which would appear on a dark Southern face under the influence of violent emotion.[2]

[Footnote 2: The notion of yellowness, as associated with grass, is made intelligible by a passage in Longus, i. 17. 19. chloroteron to prosopon en poas therines.]

3. 6. The words e gar ... tethneken are omitted in the translation, being corrupt, and giving no satisfactory sense. Ruhnken corrects, alogistei, phronei, ptoeitai, e p. o. t.

18. splanchnoisi kakos anaballomenoisi. Probably of sea-sickness; and so I find Ruhnken took it, quoting Plutarch, T. ii. 831: emountos tou heterou, kai legontos ta splanchna ekballein. An objection on the score of taste would be out of place in criticising the laureate of the Arimaspi.

X. 7. 2. tas exochas aristinden ekkatherantes. aristinden ekkatherantes appears to be a condensed phrase for aristinden eklexantes kai ekkatherantes. "Having chosen the most striking circumstances par excellence, and having relieved them of all superfluity," would perhaps give the literal meaning. Longinus seems conscious of some strangeness in his language, making a quasi-apology in hos an eipoi tis.

3. Partly with the help of Toup, we may emend this corrupt passage as follows: lumainetai gar tauta to holon, hosanei psegmata e araiomata, ta empoiounta megethos te pros allela schesei sunteteichismena. to holon here = "omnino." To explain the process of corruption, ta would easily drop out after the final -ta in araiomata; sunoikonomoumena is simply a corruption of sunoikodomoumena, which is itself a gloss on sunteteichismena, having afterwards crept into the text; megethos became corrupted into megethe through the error of some copyist, who wished to make it agree with empoiounta. The whole maybe translated: "Such [interpolations], like so many patches or rents, mar altogether the effect of those details which, by being built up in an uninterrupted series [te pros allela sch. suntet.], produce sublimity in a work."

XII. 4. 2. en auto; the sense seems clearly to require en hauto.

XIV. 3. 16. me ... huperemeron. Most of the editors insert ou before phthenxaito, thus ruining the sense of this fine passage. Longinus has just said that a writer should always work with an eye to posterity. If (he adds) he thinks of nothing but the taste and judgment of his contemporaries, he will have no chance of "leaving something so written that the world will not willingly let it die." A book, then, which is tou idiou biou kai chronou huperemeros, is a book which is in advance of its own times. Such were the poems of Lucretius, of Milton, of Wordsworth.[3]

[Footnote 3: Compare the "Gefluegelte Worte" in the Vorspiel to Goethe's Faust: Was glaenzt, ist fuer den Augenblick geboren, Das Aechte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren. ]

XV. 5. 23. pokoeideis kai amalaktous, lit. "like raw, undressed wool."

XVII. 1. 25. I construct the infinit. with hupopton, though the ordinary interpretation joins to dia schematon panourgein: "proprium est verborum lenociniis suspicionem movere" (Weiske).

2. 8. paralephtheisa. This word has given much trouble; but is it not simply a continuation of the metaphor implied in epikouria? paralambanein tina, in the sense of calling in an ally, is a common enough use. This would be clearer if we could read paralephtheisi. I have omitted tou panourgein in translating, as it seems to me to have evidently crept in from above (p. 33, l. 25). he tou panourgein techne, "the art of playing the villain," is surely, in Longinus's own words, deinon kai ekphulon, "a startling novelty" of language.

12. to photi auto. The words may remind us of Shelley's "Like a poet hidden in the light of thought."

XVIII. 1. 24. The distinction between peusis or pusma and erotesis or erotema is said to be that erotesis is a simple question, which can be answered yes or no; peusis a fuller inquiry, requiring a fuller answer. Aquila Romanus in libro de figuris sententiarum et elocutionis, Sec. 12 (Weiske).

XXXI. 1. 11. anankophagesai, properly of the fixed diet of athletes, which seems to have been excessive in quantity, and sometimes nauseous in quality. I do not know what will be thought of my rendering here; it is certainly not elegant, but it was necessary to provide some sort of equivalent to the Greek. "Swallow," which the other translators give, is quite inadequate. We require a threefold combination—(1) To swallow (2) something nasty (3) for the sake of prospective advantage.

XXXII. 1. 3. The text is in great confusion here. Following a hint in Vahlin's critical note, I have transposed the words thus: ho kairos de tes chreias horos; entha ta pathe cheimarrou diken elaunetai, kai ten polupletheian auton hos anankaian entautha sunephelketai; ho gar D., horos kai ton toiouton, anthropoi, phesin, k.t.l.

8. 16. Some words have probably been lost here. The sense of plen, and the absence of antithesis to houtos men, point in this direction. The original reading may have been something of this sort: plen houtos men hupo philoneikias paregeto; all' oude ta themata tithesin homologoumena, the sense being that, though we may allow something to the partiality of Caecilius, yet this does not excuse him from arguing on premises which are unsound.

XXXIV. 4. 10. ho de enthen helon, k.t.l. Probably the darkest place in the whole treatise. Toup cites a remarkable passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, from which we may perhaps conclude that Longinus is referring here to Thucydides, the traditional master of Demosthenes. De Thucyd. Sec. 53, Rhetoron de Demosthenes monos Thoukudidou zelotos egeneto kata polla, kai prosetheke tois politikois logois, par' ekeinou labon, has oute Antiphon, oute Lusias, oute Isokrates, hoi proteusantes ton tote rhetoron, eschon aretas, ta tache lego, kai tas sustrophas, kai tous tonous, kai to struphnon, kai ten exegeirousan ta pathe deinoteta. So close a parallel can hardly be accidental.

XXXV. 4. 5. Longinus probably had his eye on the splendid lines in Pindar's First Pythian:

tas [Aitnas] ereugontai men aplatou puros hagnotatai ek muchon pagai, potamoi d' hameraisin men procheonti rhoon kapnou— aithon'; all' en orphnaisin petras phoinissa kulindomena phlox es bathei- an pherei pontou plaka sun patago,

which I find has also been pointed out by Toup, who remarks that hagnotatai confirms the reading autou monou here, which has been suspected without reason.

XXXVIII. 2. 7. Comp. Plato, Phaedrus, 267, A: Tisian de Gorgian te easomen heudein, hoi pro ton alethon ta eikota eidon hos timetea mallon, ta te au smikra megala kai ta megala smikra poiousi phainesthai dia rhomen logou, kaina te archaios ta t' enantia kainos, suntomian te logon kai apeira meke peri panton aneuron.



APPENDIX

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LESS KNOWN WRITERS MENTIONED IN THE TREATISE ON THE SUBLIME

AMMONIUS.—Alexandrian grammarian, carried on the school of Aristarchus previously to the reign of Augustus. The allusion here is to a work on the passages in which Plato has imitated Homer. (Suidas, s.v.; Schol. on Hom. Il. ix. 540, quoted by Jahn.)

AMPHIKRATES.—Author of a book On Famous Men, referred to by Athenaeus, xiii. 576, G, and Diog. Laert. ii. 101. C. Muller, Hist. Gr. Fragm. iv. p. 300, considers him to be the Athenian rhetorician who, according to Plutarch (Lucullus, c. 22), retired to Seleucia, and closed his life at the Court of Kleopatra, daughter of Mithridates and wife of Tigranes (Pauly, Real-Encyclopaedie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft). Plutarch tells a story illustrative of his arrogance. Being asked by the Seleucians to open a school of rhetoric, he replied, "A dish is not large enough for a dolphin" (hos oude lekane delphina choroie), v. Luculli, c. 22, quoted by Pearce.

ARISTEAS.—A name involved in a mist of fable. According to Suidas he was a contemporary of Kroesus, though Herodotus assigns to him a much remoter antiquity. The latter authority describes him as visiting the northern peoples of Europe and recording his travels in an epic poem, a fragment of which is given here by Longinus. The passage before us appears to be intended as the words of some Arimaspian, who, as belonging to a remote inland race, expresses his astonishment that any men could be found bold enough to commit themselves to the mercy of the sea, and tries to describe the terror of human beings placed in such a situation (Pearce ad. l.; Abicht on Hdt. iv. 12; Suidas, s.v.)

BAKCHYLIDES, nephew and pupil of the great Simonides, flourished about 460 B.C. He followed his uncle to the Court of Hiero at Syracuse, and enjoyed the patronage of that despot. After Hiero's death he returned to his home in Keos; but finding himself discontented with the mode of life pursued in a free Greek community, for which his experiences at Hiero's Court may well have disqualified him, he retired to Peloponnesus, where he died. His works comprise specimens of almost every kind of lyric composition, as practised by the Greeks of his time. Horace is said to have imitated him in his Prophecy of Nereus, c. I. xv. (Pauly, as above). So far as we can judge from what remains of his works, he was distinguished rather by elegance than by force. A considerable fragment on the Blessings of Peace has been translated by Mr. J. A. Symonds in his work on the Greek poets. He is made the subject of a very bitter allusion by Pindar (Ol. ii. s. fin. c. Schol.) We may suppose that the stern and lofty spirit of Pindar had little sympathy with the "tearful" (Catullus, xxxviii.) strains of Simonides or his imitators.

CAECILIUS, a native of Kale Akte in Sicily, and hence known as Caecilius Kalaktinus, lived in Rome at the time of Augustus. He is mentioned with distinction as a learned Greek rhetorician and grammarian, and was the author of numerous works, frequently referred to by Plutarch and other later writers. He may be regarded as one of the most distinguished Greek rhetoricians of his time. His works, all of which have perished, comprised, among many others, commentaries on Antipho and Lysias; several treatises on Demosthenes, among which is a dissertation on the genuine and spurious speeches, and another comparing that orator with Cicero; "On the Distinction between Athenian and Asiatic Eloquence"; and the work on the Sublime, referred to by Longinus (Pauly). The criticism of Longinus on the above work may be thus summed up: Caecilius is censured (1) as failing to rise to the dignity of his subject; (2) as missing the cardinal points; and (3) as failing in practical utility. He wastes his energy in tedious attempts to define the Sublime, but does not tell us how it is to be attained (I. i.) He is further blamed for omitting to deal with the Pathetic (VIII. i. sqq.) He allows only two metaphors to be employed together in the same passage (XXXII. ii.) He extols Lysias as a far greater writer than Plato (ib. viii.), and is a bitter assailant of Plato's style (ib.) On the whole, he seems to have been a cold and uninspired critic, finding his chief pleasure in minute verbal details, and incapable of rising to an elevated and extensive view of his subject.

ERATOSTHENES, a native of Cyrene, born in 275 B.C.; appointed by Ptolemy III. Euergetes as the successor of Kallimachus in the post of librarian in the great library of Alexandria. He was the teacher of Aristophanes of Byzantium, and his fame as a man of learning is testified by the various fanciful titles which were conferred on him, such as "The Pentathlete," "The second Plato," etc. His great work was a treatise on geography (Luebker).

GORGIAS of Leontini, according to some authorities a pupil of Empedokles, came, when already advanced in years, as ambassador from his native city to ask help against Syracuse (427 B.C.) Here he attracted notice by a novel style of eloquence. Some time after he settled permanently in Greece, wandering from city to city, and acquiring wealth and fame by practising and teaching rhetoric. We find him last in Larissa, where he died at the age of a hundred in 375 B.C. As a teacher of eloquence Gorgias belongs to what is known as the Sicilian school, in which he followed the steps of his predecessors, Korax and Tisias. At the time when this school arose the Greek ear was still accustomed to the rhythm and beat of poetry, and the whole rhetorical system of the Gorgian school (compare the phrases gorgieia schemata, gorgiazein) is built on a poetical plan (Luebker, Reallexikon des classischen Alterthums). Hermogenes, as quoted by Jahn, appears to classify him among the "hollow pedants" (hupoxuloi sophistai), "who," he says, "talk of vultures as 'living tombs,' to which they themselves would best be committed, and indulge in many other such frigid conceits." (With the metaphor censured by Longinus compare Achilles Tatius, III. v. 50, ed. Didot.) See also Plato, Phaedrus, 267, A.

HEGESIAS of Magnesia, rhetorician and historian, contemporary of Timaeus (300 B.C.) He belongs to the period of the decline of Greek learning, and Cicero treats him as the representative of the decline of taste. His style was harsh and broken in character, and a parody on the Old Attic. He wrote a life of Alexander the Great, of which Plutarch (Alexander, c. 3) gives the following specimen: "On the day of Alexander's birth the temple of Artemis in Ephesus was burnt down, a coincidence which occasions Hegesias to utter a conceit frigid enough to extinguish the conflagration. 'It was natural,' he says, 'that the temple should be burnt down, as Artemis was engaged with bringing Alexander into the world'" (Pauly, with the references).

HEKATAEUS of Miletus, the logographer; born in 549 B.C., died soon after the battle of Plataea. He was the author of two works—(1) periodos ges; and (2) geneelogiai. The Periodos deals in two books, first with Europe, then with Asia and Libya. The quotation in the text is from his genealogies (Luebker).

ION of Chios, poet, historian, and philosopher, highly distinguished among his contemporaries, and mentioned by Strabo among the celebrated men of the island. He won the tragic prize at Athens in 452 B.C., and Aristophanes (Peace, 421 B.C.) speaks of him as already dead. He was not less celebrated as an elegiac poet, and we still possess some specimens of his elegies, which are characterised by an Anacreontic spirit, a cheerful, joyous tone, and even by a certain degree of inspiration. He wrote also Skolia, Hymns, and Epigrams, and was a pretty voluminous writer in prose (Pauly). Compare the Scholiast on Ar. Peace, 801.

KALLISTHENES of Olynthus, a near relative of Aristotle; born in 360, and educated by the philosopher as fellow-pupil with Alexander, afterwards the Great. He subsequently visited Athens, where he enjoyed the friendship of Theophrastus, and devoted himself to history and natural philosophy. He afterwards accompanied Alexander on his Asiatic expedition, but soon became obnoxious to the tyrant on account of his independent and manly bearing, which he carried even to the extreme of rudeness and arrogance. He at last excited the enmity of Alexander to such a degree that the latter took the opportunity afforded by the conspiracy of Hermolaus, in which Kallisthenes was accused of participating, to rid himself of his former school companion, whom he caused to be put to death. He was the author of various historical and scientific works. Of the latter two are mentioned—(1) On the Nature of the Eye; (2) On the Nature of Plants. Among his historical works are mentioned (1) the Phocian War (read "Phocicum" for v. l. "Troikum" in Cic. Epp. ad Div. v. 12); (2) a History of Greece in ten books; (3) ta Persika, apparently identical with the description of Alexander's march, of which we still possess fragments. As an historian he seems to have displayed an undue love of recording signs and wonders. Polybius, however (vi. 45), classes him among the best historical writers. His style is said by Cicero (de Or. ii. 14) to approximate to the rhetorical (Pauly).

KLEITARCHUS, a contemporary of Alexander, accompanied that monarch on his Asiatic expedition, and wrote a history of the same in twelve books, which must have included at least a short retrospect on the early history of Asia. His talents are spoken of in high terms, but his credit as an historian is held very light—"probatur ingenium, fides infamatur," Quint. x. 1, 74. Cicero also (de Leg. i. 2) ranks him very low. That his credit as an historian was sacrificed to a childish credulity and a foolish love of fable and adventure is sufficiently testified by the pretty numerous fragments which still remain (Pauly). Demetrius Phalereus, quoted by Pearce, quotes a grandiloquent description of the wasp taken from Kleitarchus, "feeding on the mountainside, her home the hollow oak."

MATRIS, a native of Thebes, author of a panegyric on Herakles, whether in verse or prose is uncertain. In one passage Athenaeus speaks of him as an Athenian, but this must be a mistake. Toup restores a verse from an allusion in Diodorus Siculus (i. 24), which, if genuine, would agree well with the description given of him by Longinus: Eraklea kaleesken, hoti kleos esche dia Heran (see Toup ad Long. III. ii.)

PHILISTUS of Syracuse, a relative of the elder Dionysius, whom he assisted with his wealth in his attack on the liberty of that city, and remained with him until 386 B.C., when he was banished by the jealous suspicions of the tyrant. He retired to Epirus, where he remained until Dionysius's death. The younger Dionysius recalled him, wishing to employ him in the character of supporter against Dion. By his instrumentality it would seem that Dion and Plato were banished from Syracuse. He commanded the fleet in the struggle between Dion and Dionysius, and lost a battle, whereupon he was seized and put to death by the people. During his banishment he wrote his historical work, ta Sikelika, divided into two parts and numbering eleven books. The first division embraced the history of Sicily from the earliest times down to the capture of Agrigentum (seven books), and the remaining four books dealt with the life of Dionysius the elder. He afterwards added a supplement in two books, giving an account of the younger Dionysius, which he did not, however, complete. He is described as an imitator, though at a great distance, of Thucydides, and hence was known as "the little Thucydides." As an historian he is deficient in conscientiousness and candour; he appears as a partisan of Dionysius, and seeks to throw a veil over his discreditable actions. Still he belongs to the most important of the Greek historians (Luebker).

THEODORUS of Gadara, a rhetorician in the first century after Christ; tutor of Tiberius, first in Rome, afterwards in Rhodes, from which town he called himself a Rhodian, and where Tiberius during his exile diligently attended his instruction. He was the author of various grammatical and other works, but his fame chiefly rested on his abilities as a teacher, in which capacity he seems to have had great influence (Pauly). He was the author of that famous description of Tiberius which is given by Suetonius (Tib. 57), pelos haimati pephuramenos, "A clod kneaded together with blood."[1]

[Footnote 1: A remarkable parallel, if not actually an imitation, occurs in Goethe's Faust, "Du Spottgeburt von Dreck und Feuer."]

THEOPOMPUS, a native of Chios; born 380 B.C. He came to Athens while still a boy, and studied eloquence under Isokrates, who is said, in comparing him with another pupil, Ephorus, to have made use of the image which we find in Longinus, c. ii. "Theopompus," he said, "needs the curb, Ephorus the spur" (Suidas, quoted by Jahn ad v.) He appeared with applause in various great cities as an advocate, but especially distinguished himself in the contest of eloquence instituted by Artemisia at the obsequies of her husband Mausolus, where he won the prize. He afterwards devoted himself to historical composition. His great work was a history of Greece, in which he takes up the thread of Thucydides's narrative, and carries it on uninterruptedly in twelve books down to the battle of Knidus, seventeen years later. Here he broke off, and began a new work entitled The Philippics, in fifty-eight books. This work dealt with the history of Greece in the Macedonian period, but was padded out to a preposterous bulk by all kinds of digressions on mythological, historical, or social topics. Only a few fragments remain. He earned an ill name among ancient critics by the bitterness of his censures, his love of the marvellous, and the inordinate length of his digressions. His style is by some critics censured as feeble, and extolled by others as clear, nervous, and elevated (Luebker and Pauly).

TIMAEUS, a native of Tauromenium in Sicily; born about 352 B.C. Being driven out of Sicily by Agathokles, he lived a retired life for fifty years in Athens, where he composed his History. Subsequently he returned to Sicily, and died at the age of ninety-six in 256 B.C. His chief work was a History of Sicily from the earliest times down to the 129th Olympiad. It numbered sixty-eight books, and consisted of two principal divisions, whose limits cannot now be ascertained. In a separate work he handled the campaigns of Pyrrhus, and also wrote Olympionikae, probably dealing with chronological matters. Timaeus has been severely criticised and harshly condemned by the ancients, especially by Polybius, who denies him every faculty required by the historical writer (xii. 3-15, 23-28). And though Cicero differs from this judgment, yet it may be regarded as certain that Timaeus was better qualified for the task of learned compilation than for historical research, and held no distinguished place among the historians of Greece. His works have perished, only a few fragments remaining (Luebker).

ZOILUS, a Greek rhetorician, native of Amphipolis in Macedonia, in the time probably of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), who is said by Vitruvius to have crucified him for his abuse of Homer. He won the name of Homeromastix, "the scourge of Homer," and was also known as kuon rhetorikos, "the dog of rhetoric," on account of his biting sarcasm; and his name (as in the case of the English Dennis) came to be used to signify in general a carping and malicious critic. Suidas mentions two works of his, written with the object of injuring or destroying the fame of Homer—(1) Nine Books against Homer; and (2) Censures on Homer (Pauly).

[The facts contained in the above short notices are taken chiefly from Luebker's Reallexikon des classischen Alterthums, and the very copious and elaborate Real-Encyclopaedie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, edited by Pauly. I have here to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. Wollseiffen, Gymnasialdirektor in Crefeld, in placing at my disposal the library of the Crefeld Gymnasium, but for which these biographical notes, which were put together at the suggestion of Mr. Lang, could not have been compiled. CREFELD, 31st July 1890.]

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Errata Noted by Transcriber:

The spellings "Heracles" and "Herakles" each occur twice.

certain tasteless conceits blamed / in Plato so in original: "on Plato"?

I.2 And since... text shows chapter break in previous line, "writer's ... instead"

... the very maidens in their eyes."[1] close quote missing in text

... choris hekasto ton eidon text reads hekasio [alternate citation form: 1449b]

XXIII.4 And in those words ... text shows chapter break in following line, "already ... to the"

... a good and temperate drink."[1] close quote missing in text

XXXIX.3 though these are mere shadows... chapter break conjectural: no sentence-ends in English text

APPENDIX any punctuation anomalies, including missing full stops after sentence-final parentheses, are as in the original

to ask help against Syracuse (427 B.C.) open parenthesis missing in text

the capture of Agrigentum (seven books) open parenthesis missing in text