(3) οὐ γὰρ ἐπὶ κρίσει μέν τις δικασθεὶς οὐκ ἂν ἐπὶ τῶν δικαίων καὶ καλῶν ἐλεύθερος καὶ ὑγιὴς ἂν κριτὴς γένοιτο· ἀνάγκη γὰρ τῷ δωροδόκῳ τὰ οἰκεῖα μὲν φαίνεσθαι καλὰ καὶ δίκαια.
Longinus de Sublimitate c. xliv.
(4) καὶ τῶν κώλων ... ἀνίσων τε ὄντων καὶ ἀνομοίων ἀλλήλοις ἀνομοίους τε καὶ ἀνίσους ποιούμενοι τὰς διαιρέσεις.
Dionys. Halic. de Comp. Verb. c. xxvi.
The two last examples of elegant variation might, no doubt, be closely reproduced in modern languages. To the more important matter of emphasis, which arises in some of the other instances, a separate section must be devoted later.[12]
B. Normal Order
Though Dionysius does right to deny the existence of a natural or inevitable order in Greek and to emphasize the essential freedom of the language, he might well have recognized more explicitly that there is what may be termed a normal or usual order, and that it is precisely the departure from this normal usage which does much to give a definite character (good or bad, as the case may be) to the style of individual Greek authors. For instance, it is usual in Greek for an adjective to follow its noun, and for a negative to precede the word or words which it qualifies. There are, further, certain customary positions for the article (according as it is attributive or predicative); for the demonstrative pronouns in conjunction with the article; for αὐτός, according to the meaning which it bears; for the particles; for prepositions, conjunctions, and relative pronouns; and so forth. There is, in short, a grammatical order sanctioned by prevailing usage, an order which might be shown to hold good, commonly though not universally, in some of the grammatical constructions indicated by Dionysius in his fifth chapter. Now between this normal order, and lucidity of expression, there exists a close connexion.
C. Lucidity
It might easily be concluded, by a reader who knew the de Compositione alone among Dionysius’ critical essays, that he set little store by that clear writing which, as it presupposes clear thinking, is a rare and cardinal excellence of style. As the noun σαφήνεια occurs but once in the treatise and the adjective σαφής not much oftener, it might be supposed that he underrated a quality to which Aristotle and other writers of antiquity assign so high a place. Aristotle, indeed, regards it as a first essential of good style, which must be “clear without being mean” (λέξεως δὲ ἀρετὴ σαφῆ καὶ μὴ ταπεινὴν εἶναι, Aristot. Poet. xxii. 1: cp. Rhet. iii. 2. 1). Similarly Cicero puts clearness (sermo dilucidus) before ornament, asking how it is possible, “qui non dicat quod intellegamus, hunc posse quod admiremur dicere” (Cic. de Orat. iii. 9. 38). Horace’s approving reference to lucidus ordo has become proverbial.[13] And Quintilian allots the primacy to the same great quality: “nobis prima sit virtus perspicuitas, propria verba, rectus ordo, non in longum dilata conclusio; nihil neque desit neque superfluat” (Inst. Or. viii. 2. 22), and puts a high and not always attainable ideal before the orator in relation to his judicial auditor: “quare non, ut intellegere possit, sed, ne omnino possit non intellegere, curandum” (ibid. viii. 2. 24).
If Dionysius in the present treatise says little about lucidity, the sole reason is that he assumes it as a necessary and indispensable quality of style. In the de Thucydide c. 23 it is classed (together with purity and brevity) as one of the ἀρεταὶ ἀναγκαῖαι (in contradistinction to the ἀρεταὶ ἐπίθετοι, such as ἐνάργεια, ἡ τῶν ἠθῶν τε καὶ παθῶν μίμησις, etc.). The Greek critics recognized, however, that the plainer styles were more likely than the more elaborate ones to excel in lucidity,—that, in this respect, a Herodotus and a Lysias might be expected to surpass a Thucydides and a Demosthenes.[14] Among these authors let us choose Lysias and Thucydides, and see what praise or blame Dionysius awards to them upon this score. In the fourth chapter of the de Lysia, the lucidity of Lysias is contrasted with the obscurity often found in Thucydides and Demosthenes; and it is pointed out that this excellence is, in him, all the more admirable in that it is combined with a studious brevity, an opulent vocabulary, and a mind of great native force. And no finer example of pellucid clearness of narration could well be imagined than that quoted from Lysias in the sixth chapter of the de Isaeo: ἀναγκαῖόν μοι δοκεῖ εἶναι, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, περὶ τῆς φιλίας τῆς ἐμῆς καὶ τῆς Φερενίκου πρῶτον εἰπεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς, κτλ. To the obscurities of Thucydides, on the other hand, as seen in his History and particularly in his Speeches, constant and mournful reference is made in the essay which has the historian for its subject. “You can almost count on your fingers,” says Dionysius, “the people who are capable of comprehending the whole of Thucydides; and not even they can do so without occasional recourse to a grammatical commentary.”[15] Dionysius, further, gives it as his opinion that the language of Thucydides was unique even in his own day; and he 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 approved studies, to whom therefore none of these expressions will appear unfamiliar.”[16] 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.[17]