ὥρα. [120] 20, [124] 12, [162] 1. Freshness, bloom, beauty. Lat. venustas, flos. Fr. fraîcheur. Cp. Ep. ad Cn. Pomp. c. 2 (quoted from de Demosth. c. 5: in reference to Plato’s style ὅ τε πίνος ὁ τῆς ἀρχαιότητος ἠρέμα αὐτῇ καὶ λεληθότως ἐπιτρέχει ἱλαρόν τέ τι καὶ τεθηλὸς καὶ μεστὸν ὥρας ἄνθος ἀναδίδωσι, καὶ ὥσπερ ἀπὸ τῶν εὐωδεστάτων λειμώνων αὔρα τις ἡδεῖα ἐξ αὐτῆς φέρεται).—In [68] 14 and [76] 6 ὥρα = ‘time,’ ‘season.’
ὡραϊσμός. [66] 18. Adornment, elegance. Lat. elegantia.
APPENDIX A
OBSCURITY IN GREEK
The natural lucidity of the Greek language is sometimes assumed by its modern admirers to extend to all the writings of Greek authors. But the ancients themselves made no such extravagant claims. They might praise Lysias as a model of clearness; but they knew well the difficulties, of subject matter or expression, to be met with not only in Heracleitus[199] or Lycophron, but in masters so great as Pindar, Aeschylus, Thucydides, and the author of that excellent definition which sees in lucidity a fundamental virtue of style—Aristotle himself. Thucydides (to take one writer only out of this group of four) is taxed with obscurity by critics other than Dionysius. Marcellinus, although not otherwise in entire agreement with Dionysius, attributes this particular defect to Thucydides and regards it as deliberate: ἀσαφῶς δὲ λέγων ἐπίτηδες, ἵνα μὴ πᾶσιν εἴη βατὸς μηδὲ εὐτελὴς φαίνηται παντὶ τῷ βουλομένῳ νοούμενος εὐχερῶς, ἀλλὰ τοῖς λίαν σοφοῖς δοκιμαζόμενος παρὰ τούτοις θαυμάζηται ... τὸ δὲ τῆς συνθέσεως τραχύτητος μεστὸν καὶ ἐμβριθὲς καὶ ὑπερβατικόν, ἐνίοτε δὲ ἀσαφές ... ἀσαφὴς τὴν διάνοιαν διὰ τὸ ὑπερβατοῖς χαίρειν (Marcell. Vita Thucyd. §§ 35, 50, 56). An epigram in the Greek Anthology is pitched in the same key:—
ὦ φίλος, εἰ σοφὸς εἶ, λάβε μ’ ἐς χέρας· εἰ δέ γε πάμπαν
νῆϊς ἔφυς Μουσέων, ῥίψον ἃ μὴ νοέεις.
εἰμὶ δέ γ’ οὐ πάντεσσι βατός· παῦροι δ’ ἀγάσαντο
Θουκυδίδην Ὀλόρου, Κεκροπίδην τὸ γένος.
Anth. Pal. ix. 583.
And Cicero, in a more uncompromising way, condemns the Speeches as scarcely intelligible: “ipsae illae contiones ita multas habent obscuras abditasque sententias, vix ut intellegantur; quod est in oratione civili vitium vel maximum” (Cic. Orat. 9. 30).