so Dionysius long ago anticipated the saying that the style is the man.[40]
Among the minor debts we owe to him is the fact that his minute analysis of rhythms, or feet, in passages of Thucydides, Pindar and others, helps to disclose the inner workings of the beautiful Greek language and to impress us with the importance attached by the ancients to what we moderns find it so hard fully to appreciate,—the effect on a Greek ear of syllabic quantity in prose as well as verse. And he insists no less upon the charm of variety,—the paramount necessity of avoiding monotony. He saw, for example, that the Greek inflexions (notwithstanding the many advantages which they brought with them) had at least one drawback: they are apt to lead to a certain sameness in case-endings. Accordingly he would, for instance, have approved (though he does not mention this particular passage) of the separation of the words σωτηρίαν ἀσφαλῆ from the other accusatives at the end of the de Corona: ἡμῖν δὲ τοῖς λοιποῖς τὴν ταχίστην ἀπαλλαγὴν τῶν ἐπηρτημένων φόβων δότε καὶ σωτηρίαν ἀσφαλῆ.[41] Further reference to these minutiae of style may fitly be made later, when the topics of “rhythm” and “music” are considered.[42]
F. Greek and Latin compared with Modern Languages, in regard to Word-Order
Something has already been said, incidentally, about certain differences in word-order between the ancient and the modern European languages. In such a comparison Greek and Latin may be placed upon the same footing, as their points of contact are vastly more numerous than their points of divergence, considerable though these are.[43]
The points of contact become manifest when an attempt is made to translate into Latin, and into English, the sentence from Herodotus which Dionysius quotes, and twice recasts, in his fourth chapter:—
(1) Κροῖσος ἦν Λυδὸς μὲν γένος, παῖς δ’ Ἀλυάττου, τύραννος δ’ ἐθνῶν τῶν ἐντὸς Ἅλυος ποταμοῦ· ὃς ῥέων ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας μεταξὺ Σύρων τε καὶ Παφλαγόνων ἐξίησι πρὸς βορέαν ἄνεμον εἰς τὸν Εὔξεινον καλούμενον πόντον.
Herodotus i. 6.
Croesus genere quidem fuit Lydus, patre autem Alyatte; earum vero nationum tyrannus, quae intra Halym amnem sunt: qui, a meridie Syros ac Paphlagones interfluens, contra ventum Aquilonem in mare, quid vocant Euxinum, evolvitur.
(2) Κροῖσος ἦν υἱὸς μὲν Ἀλυάττου, γένος δὲ Λυδός, τύραννος δὲ τῶν ἐντὸς Ἅλυος ποταμοῦ ἐθνῶν· ὃς ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας ῥέων μεταξὺ Σύρων καὶ Παφλαγόνων εἰς τὸν Εὔξεινον καλούμενον πόντον ἐκδίδωσι πρὸς βορέαν ἄνεμον.
Croesus erat filius quidem Alyattis, genere autem Lydus, tyrannusque earum, quae intra sunt Halym amnem nationes; qui, a meridie interfluens Syros ac Paphlagones, in mare, quod vocant Euxinum, evolvitur contra ventum Aquilonem.