[31] Quoted by T. D. Goodell School Grammar of Attic Greek p. 296. ἡμεῖς seems to owe some at least of its emphasis to its late insertion. If placed immediately after ηὐξήσαμεν, it would, surely, lose a little in weight. Goodell does right to include some treatment of the question of Greek word-order in a Grammar intended primarily for use in schools. It should be pointed out even to beginners that so simple a sentence as οἱ δ’ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐνίκησαν τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους can be arranged in half-a-dozen ways, each with its own separate shade of meaning. Compare the remarks of W. H. D. Rouse with regard to the teaching of Latin: “It is possible by question and answer to make clear from the first the essential structure of an inflected language, as depending for emphasis on the order of words; and this lies at the root of style. Thus a simple sentence may give matter for several questions. Take Caesar Labienum laudat. I may ask, Quem laudat Caesar? Answer: Labienum laudat Caesar. Question: Quid facit Caesar? Answer: Laudat Labienum Caesar. If all the texts read are treated in this way, the pupils become used to correct accidence, syntax, and order, and learn the elements of style” (Classical Review xxi. 130; cp. also W. H. S. Jones The Teaching of Latin p. 33). An instructive contrast might be drawn, with reference to the context in either case, between Romanus sum civis in Livy ii. 12, and Civis Romanus sum in Cicero Verr. II. v. 65, 66.
[32] With “verbi transgressio” cp. “verborum concinna transgressio” in Cic. de Orat. iii. 54. 207.
[33] A modern reader might be disposed to see an example of emphasis in the illustrative passage which “Longinus” here quotes from Herodotus vi. 11. In hyperbata the Treatise on the Sublime itself greatly abounds, being much influenced (in this as in other ways) by Plato. For examples of hyperbaton in Plato see Riddell’s edition of the Apology, pp. 228 ff. Among modern English writers, Matthew Arnold had a curious and perhaps half-humorous trick of securing emphasis by a “bold and hazardous” hyperbaton (cp. de Sublim. xxii. 4), which keeps back the verb till the end of the sentence: e.g. “And a good deal of ignorance about these there certainly, among English public men, is”; “the grand thing in teaching is to have faith that some aptitudes for this every one has”; “one thing that Protestants have, and that the Catholics think they have a right, where they are in great numbers, to have too, this thing to the Prussian Catholics Prussia has given.” Such oddities are, in English, usually of a playful and undress character: e.g. “it was really a party that one might feel proud of having been asked to; at least I might, and did, very” (Life and Letters of Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb p. 93; cp. J. D. Duff’s remarks, on the same page, with regard to the literary adequacy of the following English translation of a pathetic sentence in one of Demosthenes’ greatest speeches: “this woman in the first instance merely quietly to drink and eat dessert they tried to force, I should suppose”).
[34] The immediately preceding sentence in Quintilian is “venio nunc ad ornatum, in quo sine dubio plus quam in ceteris dicendi partibus sibi indulget orator.” This may be compared with Dionysius’ view that it is the accessory arts (such as the heightening of style) that best reveal the orator’s power: ἐξ ὧν μάλιστα διάδηλος ἡ τοῦ ῥήτορος γίνεται δύναμις (de Thucyd. c. 23). In this attitude there is always some danger (unless, like Dionysius himself, a writer has a saving belief in the virtue of simplicity) of falling into that vice of écrire trop bien, which, according to M. Anatole France, is the worst of all literary vices.
[35] If we were to say that in a Greek sentence there are two kinds of arrangement, viz. (1) grammatical arrangement which aims at clearness, and (2) rhetorical arrangement which aims at (α) emphasis, and (β) euphony; then it must be admitted that Dionysius’ real subject is (2) (β)
[36] The lines quoted from Homer in c. 16 are particularly telling.
[37] C.V. [244] 23. Perhaps ‘spontaneous’ or ‘subconscious’ would be a better translation than ‘instinctive.’ Dionysius certainly does not intend to exclude training.
[38] The judgment of the ear appears to be indicated by the words τοῦ πυκνὰ μεταπίπτοντος κριτηρίου at the end of c. 24.
[39] Cp. C.V. c. 6.
[40] Cic. ad Att. xiv. 20. Dionysius Halic. Ant. Rom. i. 1 ἐπιεικῶς γὰρ ἅπαντες νομίζουσιν εἰκόνας εἶναι τῆς ἑκάστου ψυχῆς τοὺς λόγους. Buffon Discours de réception à l’Académie, 1753: “le style est l’homme même.” Cp. Plato Rep. iii. 400 D τί δ’ ὁ τρόπος τῆς λέξεως, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, καὶ ὁ λόγος; οὐ τῷ τῆς ψυχῆς ἤθει ἕπεται;