without clauses, nor a clause without symmetry. The rhythms it uses are not the longest, but the intermediate, or shorter than these. It requires its periods to march as with steps regulated by line and rule, and to close with a rhythmical fall. Thus, in fitting together its periods and its words respectively, it employs two different methods. The latter it runs together; the former it keeps apart, wishing that they may be seen as it were from every side. As for figures, it is wont to employ not the most time-honoured sort, nor those marked by stateliness, gravity, or mellowness, but rather for the most part those which are dainty and alluring, and contain much that is seductive and fanciful. To speak generally: its attitude is directly opposed to that of the former variety in the principal and most essential points. I need not go over these points again.
Our next step will be to enumerate those who have attained eminence in this style. Well, among epic poets Hesiod, I think, has best developed the type; among lyric poets, Sappho, and, after her, Anacreon and Simonides; of tragedians, Euripides alone; of historians, none exactly, but Ephorus and Theopompus more than most; of orators, Isocrates. I will quote examples of this style also, selecting among poets Sappho, and among orators Isocrates. And I will begin with the lyric poetess:—
1 χρήσεται P 2 ῥυθμοῖς EFM: ῥυθμῶν PV || μεγίστοις EF: μηκίστοις PMV 3 καὶ om. P 4 ἂν EF: om. PMV 6 ταύτας EV: ταῦτα F: τας αυτας P, M 7 φανεροὺς F 8 ὅσοις F: ὅσοις ἢ PMV || πῖνος PV: τὸ πῖνος M: τόνος F 9 πρόσεστιν PMV: πάρεστιν F || κολακικοῖς FPM: μαλακοῖς V: θεατρικοῖς E 11 δὲ καὶ F: δὲ PMV 12 τῆς προτέρας EFM: τῆι προτέρα P, V || καὶ κυριώτατα FM: om. PV 14 ταύτη F: αυτῆι P, MV 15 ἔμοιγε EF: ἔγωγε PMV || κάλλιστα EFP: κάλλιστα νομίζω M: μάλιστα νομίζω V 16 δοκεῖ EFP: om. MV 17 μετ’ αὐτὴν EF: μετὰ ταύτην PMV 20 ταύτης EF: ταῦτα PMV
6. ἐκ περιόπτου, ‘ex edito loco,’ ‘undique.’
16-20. The list that follows may seem somewhat ill-assorted if it be not remembered that the point of contact between the authors mentioned is simply smoothness of word-arrangement.—For Hesiod cp. de Imitat. B. vi. 2 Ἡσίοδος μὲν γὰρ ἐφρόντισεν ἡδονῆς δι’ ὀνομάτων λειότητος καὶ συνθέσεως ἐμμελοῦς: and Quintil. x. 1. 52 “raro assurgit Hesiodus, magnaque pars eius in nominibus est occupata; tamen utiles circa praecepta sententiae levitasque verborum et compositionis probabilis, daturque ei palma in illo medio genere dicendi.”—In de Demosth. c. 40 Hesiod, Sappho, Anacreon, and Isocrates are (as here) considered to be examples of the ἁρμονία γλαφυρά.
17. Simonides is thus characterized in de Imitat. B. vi. 2: Σιμωνίδου δὲ παρατήρει τὴν ἐκλογὴν τῶν ὀνομάτων, τῆς συνθέσεως τὴν ἀκρίβειαν· πρὸς τούτοις, καθ’ ὃ βελτίων εὑρίσκεται καὶ Πινδάρου, τὸ οἰκτίζεσθαι μὴ μεγαλοπρεπῶς ἀλλὰ παθητικῶς. The Danaë (quoted in c. 26) will illustrate the concluding clause of this estimate.
18. Euripides: cp. Aristot. Rhet. iii. 2 κλέπτεται δ’ εὖ, ἐάν τις ἐκ τῆς εἰωθυίας διαλέκτου ἐκλέγων συντιθῇ· ὅπερ Εὐριπίδης ποιεῖ καὶ ὑπέδειξε πρῶτος, and Long. de Subl. c. xl. διότι τῆς συνθέσεως ποιητὴς ὁ Εὐριπίδης μᾶλλόν ἐστιν ἢ τοῦ νοῦ.
19. With respect to Ephorus the opinions of Diodorus and of Suidas are somewhat at variance: (1) Diodorus Sic. v. 1 Ἔφορος δὲ τὰς κοινὰς πράξεις ἀναγράφων οὐ μόνον κατὰ τὴν λέξιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ κατὰ τὴν οἰκονομίαν ἐπιτέτευχεν, (2) Suidas ὁ μὲν γὰρ Ἔφορος ἦν τὸ ἦθος ἁπλοῦς, τὴν δὲ ἑρμηνείαν τῆς ἱστορίας ὕπτιος καὶ νωθρὸς καὶ μηδεμίαν ἔχων ἐπίτασιν.
Theopompus: cp. an article, by the present writer, in the Classical Review xxii. 118 ff. on “Theopompus in the Greek Literary Critics: with special reference to the newly discovered Greek historian (Grenfell & Hunt Oxyrhynchus Papyri part v. pp. 110-242).” Reference may also be made to D.H. pp. 18, 96, 120-6, etc. Gibbon (Decline and Fall c. 53) classes Theopompus in high company: “we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of Menander, and the odes of Alcaeus and Sappho.”