[220]. A Sicilian rhetor, probably of Calacte, said by Suidas to have been of Greek, or at any rate non-Roman, birth, and a Jew in religion. Dionysius knew him, and he lived in the time of Augustus. There was another (confused by Suidas) in that of Hadrian. This may be our C.
[221]. οὐ γὰρ εἰς πειθὼ ἀλλ' ἐις ἔκστασιν ἄγει τὰ ὑπερφυᾶ.
[222]. καιρίως ἐξενεχθέν.
[223]. A phrase of the rhetor Theodorus, meaning “the thyrsus poked in at the wrong time,” “enthusiasm out of place.”
[224]. λόγων κρίσις πολλῆς ἐστι πείρας τελευταῖον ἐπιγέννημα. Dionysius (v. supra, pp. [130], [131]) had said as much in sense, but less magisterially in phrase. I have translated λόγων in its narrowest equivalent, instead of “style” or “literature,” which it doubtless also means, in order to bring out the antithesis better. I have small doubt that Longinus[Longinus] meant, here as elsewhere, to fling back the old contempt of the opposition of “words” and “things.”
[225]. This word, which has the stamp of Dryden, is often preferable to “composition.”
[226]. τὸ μεγαλοφυές.
[227]. φῶς γὰρ τῷ ὄντι ἵδιον τοῦ νοῦ τὰ καλὰ ὁνόματα.
[228]. It may, however, be plausibly argued that the circle is more apparent than real, resulting from a kind of ambiguity in the word πηγαί. If Longinus had slightly altered his expression, so as to make it something of this kind, “There are five points [or ways, or aspects] in which ὕψος may be attained, thought, feeling, ‘figure,’ diction, and composition,” he would be much less vulnerable. And, after all, this is probably what he meant.
[229]. μεγάλης φύσεως ὑποφερομένης ἤδη ἰδιόν ἐστιν ἐν γήρᾳ τὸ φιλύμυθον.