D. A. Russell, M. Winterbottom - Ancient Literary Criticism - The Principal Texts in New Translations-Oxford University Press, USA (1988)
D. A. Russell, M. Winterbottom - Ancient Literary Criticism - The Principal Texts in New Translations-Oxford University Press, USA (1988)
EDITED BY
D. A. RUSSELL
Fellow ofSt. John 's College, Oxford
AND
M. WINTERBOTTOM
Fellow of Worcester College,
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION xiii
INDEXES
1. INDEX OF GREEK AND LATIN TERMS 585
2. INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 586
3. GENERAL INDEX 600
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INTRODUCTION
THERE are a number of recent surveys, both long and short, of the Greek
and Roman contribution to literary criticism. I The purpose of this book
is to provide, in English and with brief explanatory comments, the most
important texts on which any judgement must be based. We have tried
to keep in mind the intrinsic interest of what our authors say, its im-
portance as a commentary on ancient literature, and its influence on later
criticism. Some of the texts are well known and have often been translated;
others, especially the later Greek ones, are less familiar.
In date, these texts are concentrated-by the accident of survival-in
two main periods: the century which ended with Aristotle, and the two
centuries beginning with Cicero. Of the first beginnings of Greek critical
thought in the casual but illuminating remarks of poets, we have only
scraps: enough however to show that the basic ideas of inspiration, social
or didactic commitment, and levels of style and genre, were present and
natural in the Greek approach to literature long before speculation
became articulate. Yet most of the first part of this book (chaps. 2-3) is
devoted to the two great philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. Plato's view of
literature is indeed a curiously negative one; concerned always with his
moral counter-revolution, his attempt to defend inherited values in a
hostile world, he seems to give most of his attention to the task of counter-
acting the bad effects of poetry and rhetoric. It is obvious that Aristotle
in the Poetics is activated by the need to answer Plato's austerity; the
contrast between master and pupil is perhaps more interesting in this
marginally philosophical field than in the issues of logic and metaphysics.
We see how Aristotle's detachment from civic emotion and the limitations
of his own literary talent lead him to a saner and more illuminating view of
what poets do and ought to do for their fellow men.
It is, as we said, the accident of survival that determines the chrono-
logical pattern of our texts. The Hellenistic age is a blank. One candidate
presented himself, but could not be included: Philodemus the Epicurean,
a contemporary indeed of Cicero, but an active debater in the contro-
versies of the Hellenistic schools. The fragments of his work (papyri from
Herculaneum) are obscure and thorny; it is often difficult to distinguish
his own views from those he is arguing against. But the reader who wishes
I G. M. A. Grube, The Greek and Roman Critics, Toronto, 1965, is now a standard
book; miniature surveys by D. A. Russell in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edn., s.v.
Literary Criticism, and in A Social History of Western Literature, ed. D. Daiches, vol. i.
xiv INTRODUCTION
to take a fair view of the whole development can hardly avoid taking him
into account. Like Horace, he was a poet as well as a critic; and it is clear
that he protested both against the current didactic view of the poet's
function and against the ordinary rhetorical assumption that content
and form can be treated separately. I
All the rest of this book (chaps. 4-15) dates from a long but fairly
homogeneous period: that of the imitative, bilingual literature of the
Roman empire, an age of standardized rhetorical teaching and very great
concern with form, especially stylistic form. Only Demetrius (chap. 4)
and Strabo (chap. 7, A) open the window a little on the preceding dark-
ness: Demetril,ls byhis obvious connections with stylistic problems as seen
in the late fourth century B.C., Strabo by his 'didactic' reaction to the
Hellenistic opinion that the essence of poetry lies in its entertainment
value. The rest of our authors should be seen against the background of
the changing fashions of oratory and prose style generally in the first
two centuries of the Empire. There are of course great differences between
the Greeks an!ithe Romans; there are also strikingly close connections-
the 'survey of literature' which Q!lintilian gives as a guid(! to the orator's
reading (chap. 9, D) is largely derived, in its Greek part, from Dionysius'
book 'On Imitation', written perhaps a century earlier.
The Greek picture is both simpler and more baffling. Dionysius
(chap. 7) is the prophet of a reformation: he has a vision of a new litera-
ture arising out of the intelligent imitation of the classics, discarding the
extravagance, banality, and illiteracy which he sees in Hellenistic prose.
But of course this reformation did not produce a clean sheet. 'Longinus'
(chap. u) shar(!s Dionysius' historical view-but neither is his own
writing classicizing nOr is the quality of 'sublimity' with which he is
concerned one that is particularly prominent in Attic prO!le. He does
battle with a friend of Dionysius-Caecilius of Caleacte-over the
crucial subject of the evaluation of Plato : his admiration for the rich
metaphorical abundance of the Timaeus ('Longinus' 32) is symptomatic
of a 'baroque' taste :which is very far from jehme Atticism.
But it is difficult to follow the fluctuations of Greek taste-the texts
we have (apart from Dionysius) are of doubtful date, the successive
waves of 'reform' are hard to distinguish from one another. We are on
much firmer historical ground with the Romans.
Here the dominance of rhetoric in our texts is particularly obvious.
We have not only Cicero (chap. 5) and Q!lintilian (chap. 9), but a selection
(chap. 8) of practical examples of 'declamation' and comments on the
practice. It is clear that the habit of debating general themes and imaginary
I See Grube, 193 If., for a useful and intelligent. summary of what is known of
Philodemus.
INTRODUCTION xv
In this chapter we collect passages from early Greek poets and other writers to
illustrate the beginnings of aesthetic reflection and criticism. Many of the original
texts are printed (with Italian commentary and translation) in G. Lanata,
Poetica pre-platonica, Firenze, 1963. See also R. Harriott, Poetry and Criticism
before Plato, London, 1969.
A. HOMER
The epics, and especially the Odyssey, contain a number of passages which
express views on the function and nature of poetry (the poet's dependence on
the Muse, his divine skill, and so on) and the power of speech. See Grube,
pp. 1-4; H. Maehler, Die AufJassung des Dichterberuft im friihen Griechentum,
G6ttingen, 1963, pp. 9-34.
I. Tell me now, Muses who dwell on Olympus-for you are goddesses,
you are there, you know everything, while we hear only repute and know
nothing-tell me who were the leaders and princes of the Danaoi. Their
number I could not tell or name, no, not if I had ten tongues and ten
mouths, a voice that would not tire, a heart of bronze, if the Olympian
Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, did not tell me how many
there were who went to Troy. (Iliad 2.484-92)
2. And the famous bard (aoidos) sang to them, and they sat quietly
listening. He sang of the dreadful return of the Achaeans that Pallas
Athene sent them on their way home from Troy ... And Penelope wept
and said to the divine bard: 'Phemius, you know many ways to charm
men with deeds of men and gods, that bards commemorate. Sit by me and
sing one of those; let them drink their wine in silence; but stop this song,
this dreadful song, that always pains my heart in my breast, for intolerable
grief touches me deeply. For I always remember and yearn for the head
of a man whose fame is great in Hellas and Argos.'
Wise Telemachus answered: 'Mother, why grudge the trusted bard
giving such pleasure as h is mind commands him? Bards are not to blame;
it is Zeus who is to blame, because he gives what lot he pleases to every
man on earth. No blame to Phemius, either, for singing the bad fortune
of the Danaoi: men give most praise always to the newest song they hear.'
(Od.yssey 1. 325-8, 336-52)
S148591 B
2 BEGINNINGS
3. 'Herald, come here, take this meat for Demodocus to eat; let me
embrace him, for all my sorrows. Bards earn honour and respect among
all men on earth, because the Muse has taught them the ways of song
(oimai), and loves the race of bards ...
'Demodocus, I praise you above all men. Either the Muse taught you,
the daughter ofZeus, or else Apollo. Very beautifully you sing the fate of
the Achaeans, their deeds and sufferings and toils, as if you were there
yourself or had heard from someone else. But change your tune now,
and sing of the making of the Wooden Horse ... If you will sing me that
tale properly, I shall tell all mankind that god in kindness gave you the
divine power of song.' (Odyssey 8. 477 ff.)
4. [Phemius] ..• seized Odysseus by the knees and spoke to him, begging:
'I beg you, Odysseus, respect me and pity me. You will suffer hereafter
if you kill a bard who sings to gods and men. I taught myself; god put
all kinds of ways of song into my mind; I am fit to sing at your side
as at a god's; do not desire to cut my throat.' (Odyssey 22. 342 ff.)
D. PINDAR
The greatest lyric poet of the fifth century speaks now and then, in his own
person, about the making and purpose of poetry. See especially C. M. Bowra.
Pina"ar, Oxford, 1964, chap.!.
4 BEGINNINGS
1. Under my arm are many sharp arrows in the quiver, that speak to those
that understand. For the world at large, they need interpreters. Wise is he
who knows many things by nature. But those who have merely learned
gabble incessantly, like crows insatiate of chatter, against the holy bird
of Zeus... (Olympian 2. 83 ff.)
2. A man successful in his deeds gives a pleasant cause for the Muses'
streams to flow. Great valour dwells in deep darkness for need of song.
In one way only we know a mirror for noble deeds-if thanks to bright-
clad Memory reward is found for labour in the famous songs of poetry
... I fancy Odysseus' story has become greater than his sufferings because
of the sweet poetry of Homer. There is something grand about his lies
and winged devices. Wisdom deceives, misleading with fables. But the
mass of men have a blind heart. . • (Nemean 7. I I ff.)
3. Prophesy (manteueo), Muse, and I will be your interpreter (propha-
teusa). (fr. 137 Bowra)
E. FRAGMENTS OF PHILOSOPHERS
Xenophanes (c. 565-470 B.C.) was both poet and philosopher. To him is assigned
the first criticism of early poetry on moral grounds; he seems to anticipate the
view that Plato develops in the Republic (below, chap. 2, B).
Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods all the reproaches and disgraces
of men-theft, adultery, deceit. (fr. B I I Diels-Kranz)
Democritus (c. 460-360 B.C.), the greatest of the atomists, is often quoted as an
authority for the doctrine that poets need divine inspiration (cf. Horace, The
Art of Poetry, 295 ff.: below, p. 287).
Whatsoever a poet writes under possession (enthousiasmos) and the divine
spirit (hieron pneuma) is very beautiful. (fr. B 18)
Homer, being endowed with a nature subject to divine influences (phusis
theazousa), constructed a fair work of poetry of every kind. (fr. B 21)
5. It is noticeable that Dionysus in judging between the two poets makes up his
mind only after putting to them two questions of a non-literary kind. This was
fair enough, because both had agreed (1008-12) that admonition and advice
were a function of poetry. The two questions (1422 f., 1435 f.) are both political
'feelers'. Asked simply for their views on Alkibiades-which meant their views
on the question of his recall from exile at this critical moment-Euripides gives
no advice, but generalizes, expressing his hatred for Alkibiades by implication.
Aeschylus, by contrast, urges the need for tolerance: 'If you rear a lion-cub,
you must humour him.' This comes near to suggesting a policy and matches the
frame of mind pleaded for by Aristophanes in the Parabasis. Finally the merits
of the two replies are summed up by Dionysus with diplomatic ambiguity,
which must have released political tension and earned a laugh.
Unfortunately the replies to the second question-how to save the country-
cannot be determined with certainty, because the Greek text from 1435 to 1466
is very much confused. But of course (or so I think!) Dionysus' verdict had to go
to Aeschylus. The veteran of Marathon and Salamis was clearly the man for the
moment. He represented the fighting spirit and high-mindedness and single-
hearted patriotism that were required.
, These two were the Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone, centred in the precinct of
Demeter at Eleusis, 12 miles from Athens, and the Dionysian Mysteries, traced back
to Orpheus and connected with the 'Lenaean' festival of Dionysus, the name of which
may be derived from 'Lenai', female followers of the god. It was at' this festival the
Frogs was first shown. Its setting was the southern slopes of the Acropolis.
2 Cf. 'Death of a Comedian' by Michael Wade, in The Times Saturday Review,
I See C. P. Segal, 'The Character of Dionysus and the Unity of the Frogs', Harvard
Studies in Classical Philology, 65, 1961, as revised for Twentieth Cetltury Interpretations
of the 'Frogs', ed. D. J. Littlefield, New Jersey, 1968, pp. 55 f. and reff.
2 cr. Arthur Platt, Nine Essays, Cambridge, 1927, pp. 55 f.
BEGINNINGS.
The nature of a translation must always depend very largely on its purpose.
The translation I have made for this book is to illustrate a chapter of history
-the history of ancient literary criticism. I have therefore thought it right to keep
closely to the text of Aristophanes, translating line for line, and, except in the
rendering of expletives, making only a sparing use of modernizations, though
these might well be used in versions written for the stage of today. The text
I have followed, with only a few deviations, is that of Professor W. B. Stanford's
second edition of the play. I am much indebted to him also for his commentary.
To represent the ordinary dialogue metre of Greek comedy-an iambic
six-foot line ('trimeter') much more freely constructed than that of tragedy-
I have used a five-beat verse with an indeterminate number of 'slack' syllables.
This makes it possible to render line for line without padding or other embarrass-
ment; and when the speaker quotes from tragedy, or plays at being tragic, the
line can be contracted to the more formal measure of our own tragic blank-verse.
Fidelity to the spirit of the Greek really involves fidelity to its metrical forms;
for metres have a way of asserting their own personality. I have therefore tried,
outside the ordinary dialogue, to reproduce these forms. Metre in ancient
Greek depended upon measurements of time. Syllables were regarded as either
'long' (-) or 'short' (v) in duration, usually called 'quantity'; and Greek syllaba-
tion differed from our own, except when we sing, e.g. they said pe-ri-phe-ry,
not per-iph-er-y. In English, by contrast, the incidence of stress n, meaning
loudness or emphasis however slight, is the guiding metrical principle. This
being so, the only practical method, in my opinion, of conveying some notion
of Greek metrical patterns is to represent the longs and shorts by stressed
and unstressed syllables respectively. But preferably, the stressed syllables
should also be 'true-timed', i.e. actually long in duration as judged by the ear;
and the short should have naturally short vowels, uncluttered by consonants.
What will then be written-and what I have tried myself to write-is best called
'true-timed accentual verse'. The 'quantitative' translation of classical metres,
which attempts to observe most of the ancient rules of prosody, is quite different.
On it see The Oxford Book o/Greek Verse ill Translation (1938), pp. lvi-ix and
Robert Bridges' quantitative hexameters on pp. 55-60 of the same book.
In writing true-timed verse by elr one soon finds that the quantity of one and
the same syllable varies with its context. Contrast, for example, an angry 'Hurry
up!' with 'She won't hurry up for anyone!' where the 'She' is followed by a
flurry of shorts. Or take the word 'and'. In some places it bears sufficient stress
to count as a long; but with stressed syllables next to it on either side, as in
'bread and bUtter' it is little more than "n'. There are other discoveries to be
made--but here's a caution. Readers of my translation should not, in the act of
reading, try to work out the metrical patterns. My hope is that if they go ahead,
as naturally as they would in reading the morning paper, most of the metrical
patterns will assert themselves.
Some of the patterns are not foreign to English poetry; and among that
number is one which is well worth reproducing both because of its recurrence
ARISTOPHANES, FROGS 15
in the Frogs and because Euripides, at one point, is criticized for a fault in his
use of it. It is known as the 'Glyconic' metre and was adapted by Tennyson on
an accentual basis (mostly true-timed) for a poem 'On the Jubilee of QIeen
Victoria'. For example:
You then joyfully, all of you,
Set the mountain aflame to-night,
Shoot your stars to the firmament •••
In Greek the basic form with its common variations is '" Ci I - v v - I '" -.
Metrists mark it off, as shown, into 3 constituents or 'feet', of which the most
distinctive is the central 'nucleus' - v v -, a 'choriambus'. Variations shown in
the 1st foot are an iambus (v -), a spondee (- -), or a trochee (- v); and in the
last v - , or - -. In certain places and on certain conditions further variation
could be made by 'resolving' a long into two shorts. Such 'resolutions' both in
dialogue and in lyrics are commoner in Euripides than in Aeschylus or Sophocles
and may perhaps be classed among his dietary methods (cf. 939-43) of slimming
the Tragic Muse. Associated with glyconics is a metre, the 'Pherecratean',
exactly the same except in the last foot, which consists of a single long syllable.
See 1253, 1256, 1258-60.
Nine glyconics are quoted from or attributed to Euripides by Aeschylus in
the course oflines 1310-28. Five of these keep to the basic form, viz. 13II, 1318,
1320, 1324, 1326. Two show 'resolutions' in the 1st foot, viz. 1317, 1327. There
is nothing uncommon in these. But the remaining two are unique. In 1322
Aeschylus quotes from Euripides:
put an arm I round mother, child I of mine,
where the 1st foot is an 'anapaest' (v v -). In theory this could be explained as
a spondee (- -) with the first long 'resolved'; but in normal practice that licence
was ruled out. So Aeschylus, himself beginning a glyconic of basic form, asks
Dionysus 'This foot's I curious, see I it?' To which Dionysus replies not with a
monosyllabic 'yes', which would have completed the line regularly, but with 'I
do', making a licentious anapaest ('it? I do') in the 3rd foot and showing that he
had taken Aeschylus' point.
Aristophanes had great metrical versatility. This translation may perhaps give
some conception of it to readers with no knowledge of Greek.
EURIPIDES (To Dionysus) I claim the Chair and won't give up. Don't
lecture me.
In the art of poetry I say I'm the better man.
DIONYSUS. You see his point, Aeschylus. Then why so mum?
EUR. First he'll assume a proud reserve, that trick
of mystification common to his tragic heroes.
DIO. My dear good fellow, take a moderate tone.
EUR. I know the man, long ago I saw clean through him,
16 BEGINNINGS
the creator of boorish characters, tongue-tied when he will,
or mouthing with no curb, no continence, no closure,
a narrow-ranging big-mouthed-bundle-of-bombast.
AESCHYLUS. Is that so, you son of a market-garden goddess?l 840
Do you speak so of me, you picker-up of tittle-tattle,
you stager of beggar-men, you rag-and-tatters-patcher ?
o but you'll soon be sorry for it!
010. Aeschylus, stop!
'And let no passionate rancour fire your soul.'
AES. I shall not stop until I have clearly shown
what this stager of cripples is worth, for all his bluff.
DIO. (Playfully suggesting a sacrifice to appease the Storm god)
A lamb, boys, a black lamb, go, fetch it out;
there's a hurricane here, working up for a sortie.
AES. (To Euripides) You picker-up of Cretan monodies, you importer
of sacrilegious unions into the art of Tragedy. 850
010. Hi, you! Hold hard, most honourable Aeschylus;
and you, my poor Euripides, if you're wise,
go off, well away from the hailstones falling,
or else he'll strike in his rage, coming down on your head
with some capital phrase that will knock your Te!ephlls out of it.
You, Aeschylus, don't be wild, but give and take
criticism gently. Poets should not exchange
volleys of abuse like bake-house wives; but you
flare up all at once with the roar of an oak on fire.
EUR. I am ready for battle, I am not shirking; 860
ready, if he's game, to give or get first bite,
probing dialogue, lyrics, and sinews of structure;
and I'll submit, 'fore god, my Peleus, my Aeolus,
my Me!eager too, and even the Telephus as well.
010. (To Aeschylus) What plan do you suggest? Speak, Aeschylus.
AES. I have never wished to hold a contest here;
we are not meeting, you see, on equal terms. 010. How's that?
AES. My works have not died with me, as his with him;
his will be handy here, when he wishes to quote.
However, since you approve, I too must comply. 870
010. (Preparing to invoke the Muses) Come, then, bring me frankincense,
someone, and fire;
then I, before the battle of wits begins,
can pray for grace to judge with professional skill.
I ef. 947. Whatever the real social status of Euripides' mother, Aristophanes likes
ora. (To Aesch. and Eur.) Now you two pray, before you speak yout
lines. 885
AES. Demeter, who informed and fed my mind,
may I prove worthy of thy Mysteries.
ora. (To Eur.) It's your turn now. Put some incense on. EUR. No, thank
you.
The gods I pray to are other ones than these.
DIO. Personal gods, new coinages? EUR. For sure. 890
ora. Pray, then, to your private, nonconformist gods.
EUR. Upper Air, my nutriment! Pivoted, wagging Tongue!
Intellectual Power! Nostrils that scent out faults!
Right well may I expose the flaws I pounce upon.
(Dionysus gives a lead with the long iambic measure commonly used in
attack and bids Euripides open the debate.)
8143591 c
18 BEGINNINGS
DlO. Now speak and hurry; making sure that all you say is witty;
jocose comparisons are out and commonplace expressions.
EUR. My observations on myself as poet I'll put second;
at first I'll deal with Aeschylus and shortly I'll expose him
as nothing else than charlatan and cheat. I'll show the dodges
by which he fooled the simple souls of Phrynichus'I upbringing. 910
He'd stage at first some lonely form, seated and veiled, and faceless,
Achilles, say, or Niobe-a piece of window dressing,
for there they'd sit without a word, never so much as grunting.
DlO. Qllite true, not even a grunt.
EUR. Meanwhile the choir would force upon us
string after string of lyric verse-and still that form was silent.
DlO. I revelled in the silence and I found it no less pleasant
than listening to our talkers of to-day.
EUR. But you were simple,
depend upon it.
DlO. I agree. But why did the feller do it?
EUR. A charlatan's device to hold his audience: they'd be waiting
for Niobe to say something. On went the play and on. 920
DlO. The utter scoundrel! How I was imposed upon!
(Turning to Aeschylus) Hi, you there!
What makes you fume and fidget so?
EUR. He knows when he is beaten.
Then after all this choral stuff, when half the play was over
came twelve big words from the ox-hide age, browbeaters, helmed and
crested,
unheard-of horrors, bogywords.
AES. Oh my, oh my!
DlO. Be silent.
EUR. Not one intelligible thing he'd say.
DlO. (To Aeschylus) Don't gnash your teeth, man.
EUR. His talk was all Scamanders, trenches, shields with griffin-eagles
embossed in beaten bronze, and heaps of towering, craggy phrases
of meaning hard to gather.
DlO. Yes, my word, I've lain before now 930
'sleepless the long night-watches through' and inwardly debating
whatever kind of bird the phrase 'a brown horse-cock' denoted.
AES. An emblem, that was, painted on the ships, you ignoramus.
DlO. And all the time I thought it meant Phil6xenos' boy, Eryxis!
EUR. But should one write in tragic verse of even a barn-door rooster?
AES. And,,"y0u, you god-forsaken rogue, of what, I ask, did you write?
I The greatest of Aeschylus' predecessors: cf. 1300.
ARISTOPHANES, FROGS 19
EUR. Ofhorse-cocks never! Good god, no! Nor andered goats, as you did-
the things one sees depicted on those tapestries from Persia.
Oh no! When I took over tragic art, "nd found our mistress
blown out with your bombastic stuff and phrases stomach-loading, 940
a slimming course was first my care. To take off weight, I gave her
versicles, constitutionals, some white beetroot for purges,
and verbal flux, strained off from books, presented in decoction.
Next, monodies to plump her-Dlo. With KephisophonI for dressing.
EUR. Again, no prating prologues mine; no slapdash, clueless forewords!
My prologist at once explained the drama's antecedents.
DlO. And more respectable than yours, god knows, he must have shown them!
EUR. And further, from the play's first lines I'd have no unemployment;
the women I'd keep talking, and the servants just as freely, 949
the master of the house, young girl and aged crone-AES. Then surely
you should have died the death for such effrontery. EUR. Good lord, no!
I acted in a democratic spirit. DlO. Let that be, friend;
for you it's not a subject that would warrant an excursus. 2
EUR. (With a gesture to the audience) What's more, I taught our people here
the way to talk. AES. I'll say so!
And better if your guts had split before you started teaching!
EUR. I taught them to apply a subtler Metrik; trim their verses
by set-square; ponder, pry, perceive; love twisting and sharp practice;
think evil and be always hypercritical. AES. I'll say so!
I showed our common life, familiar things, the things around us,
which could themselves have proved me wrong, because my audience
knew them 960
and could have faulted me. I never used pretentious language
to make the listeners lose their heads, staging to stupefy them
a Kyknos or a Memnon with-bell-harness-and-cheek-pieces.
Our pupils mark the difference between us: two of his are
Phormisius the hearth-rug and Megainetus the cock-shy,3
the-trumpet-lance-and-whiskers-breed whose-arched-pine-stems-
disrupt-you.
Kleitophon's mine, and mine Theramenes, the Smartie.
DlO. Theramenes? Ah, there's an artist! Up to every challenge!
I An Athenian, living in Euripides' house; supposed to help him with his plays and
to have an affair with his wife. Cf. 1408; also 1046, 1440-4.
2 An insinuation that Euripides had oligarchic leanings, like his 'pupils' Theramenes
and Kleitophon, and that spending his last years at the Macedonian court was far from
democratic.
3 Phonnisius was shaggy in appearance; a part of his name suggests the Greek for a
rug. Megainetus may have resembled the bronze figure which formed part of the target
for heel-taps thrown from a wine-cup in the game of'Kottabos'.
20 BEGINNINGS
Wherever trouble faces him and brinkmanship is needed,
he's trouble-free the trimmer's way-if Chians lose, he's Keian. 970
(The short iambic lines which follow form the traditional 'breathless piece'
(pnigos), so called because delivered at high speed. These mark the end
of the attacking speech of the first debater.)
EUR. Such sound advice on how to think
I gave our friends the audience
by blending my tragedian's art
with Reasoning and Searching Thought,
that no one now could name a thing
beyond their grasp: they know what's what,
including new, progressive ways
of keeping house: 'Is all well here?'
they ask, 'Where's this?' and 'Who's got that?'
DIO. Lord, yes! The menfolk, everyone, 980
in Athens now, no sooner home,
bawl out to their domestic staff
'Where is the crock? This sprat's head, where?
Who wolfed it? Can the bowl I used
last year have died on me? We had
some garlic yesterday: what's left?
This olive's partly gnawed: by whom?'
The times are gone when they'd sit round
as feeble-minded as you please,
with jaws agape, mere suckers all 990
and simple sugar-babies.
rno. (To Aeschylus) 'You behold these things, lustrous Achilles ?'l
What on earth will you say? How refute them? Look to it, or
passion may be sweeping you
off the race-course, past the 0lives. 2
Grave your rival's accusations!
o beware, my noble friend!
Do not state your case in anger;
reef to just one edge of canvas,
inch by inch then ease her on. 1000
Keep a wary eye the meanwhile,
wait the moment ripe for sail and
open out to catch a constant, gentle breeze.
(The leader of the Chorus urges Aeschylus to the counter-attack, giving
him a lead in the anapaestic measure he will adopt.)
I From the lost Myrmidons of Aeschylus. 2 Flanking the course.
ARISTOPHANES, FROGS 21
AES. I'm bridling with rage at this turn of events and my innards revolt
at the notion
of a counter attack on the likes of my foe. But in case he should say I
am cornered-
(To Euripides) first answer me this: for a gift of what kind is it right
to admire any poet?
EUR. For his expertise and his sound advice and because we improve by
our teaching
mankind's civic sense and their natures too. AES. Very well, if you've
failed to improve them 1010
and have made finished rascals of those who were sound and of noble
demeanour aforetime,
what is due, will you say, for amends? DIO. It is death. Spare him such
a personal question.
AES. Now please to reflect what the breed of my day proved like, when I
handed them over;
they were noble, upstanding, of four cubits' height, not malingering
skrimshankerburghers,
not your idlers or tricksters, the type of today, nor the rogues whose
kind stick at nothing;
for the spear and the lance were the breath of their lives and the white-
ness of plumes coruscating
and the casque and the greave and a heart fear-proofed sevenfold, as a
buckler of oxhide!
EUR. It's his curse, getting worse-DlO. And will bore me to death, if he
will knock away at his helmets.
EUR. (To Aeschylus) What in fact did you do to instruct and produce so
noble a breed of our manhood?
DlO. Speak, Aeschylus, speak, no longer persist in your obstinate pride
and displeasure. 1020
AES. There's a drama I wrote, full of war. DIO. How so? AES. 'Seven
leagued against Thebes' was the title.
Not a soul could have seen it without the desire himself to give proof
of his mettle.
DlO. How wrong of you, that! It's the army of Thebes that your warlike
play has emboldened
-and to side with our foes! For that service at least the reward you
receive is-a hiding!
22 BEGINNINGS
AES. Y\Ju Athenians, ton, could have trained for the field, but you turned
to your own avocations.
To resume: in my Persians again, let me add, I extolled a superlative
action;
and the lesson I taught was to crave always for supremacy over
opponents.
DIO. I rejoiced in that scene where the King's crown prince wailed loud
for his father departed
and the chorus at once clapped their hands-like so I-with a hullabaloo
of 'i-au-oi'.
AES. (Disregarding interruption) It's the duty of poets to practise their art
in the ways I have told; reckon only 1030
how helpful the nobler among them have been, to this day from the
earliest ages.
First Orpheus showed us his mystical rites and barred foods taken by
slaughter;
Musaeus, again, taught cures of disease and oracular lore; and from
Hesiod
field-work we have learned, when to reap, when to plough. Or reflect
on the genius of Homer-
whence came all his glory and fame? Was it not from his teaching us
practical lessons ?
Battle-order he showed and the deeds that excel and the way to bear
arms- DJO. That is something
Pantokles never learned; for our greatest of fools, t'other day, on parade
as an escort,
strapped a helmet on first, then was mounting a plume-as if plumes
could be fixed from the outside!
AES. Yet he taught many more, fine soldiers and brave, such as Lamachus, I
known as 'the Hero'.
I too, being shaped to the mould of his mind, bodied forth many
patterns of greatness- 1040
a Patr6klos, or Teucer, the old lion-hearts; and I hoped that my fellow
Athenians
might take on the stamp of heroical types at the sound of the trumpeter
calling.
Never once, god knows, did my hand portray loose Phaedras or loose
Sthenoboias, 2
'One of the three generals commanding in Sicily in 415 B.C. He was killed there.
Z Phaedra, wife of Theseus, who loved her stepson Hippolytus: the reference is to
Euripides' Hippolytus-the earlier version shocked more than the one extant. For
Sthenoboia (or Anteia) and Bellerophon see Iliad 6.
ARISTOPHANES, FROGS 23
not in one of my plays could you find anywhere any lovelorn woman
presented.
EDR. God knows, Aphrodite can hardly have made any mark upon you!
AES. Never may she!
What a burden she was, what a cumbersome weight, when she lighted
on you and your household!
And she tumbled your own very self to the ground. DID. That's a fact,
god's truth, very much so!
Those plays, written round other folk and their wives, struck painfully
back at their author!
EDR. (To Aeschylus) What's the harm, you bigot, you're thinking I do to
our country by my Sthenoboias?
AES. If the noblest of wives from our noblest of homes drained poison to
end their abasement, 1050
it was all your fault, with the lure of your plays and the shame your
BeIlerophons brought them.
EDR. Do you think there was no foundation of fact in the play I composed
about Phaedra?
AES. Lord knows, it was true; but a poet should veil and conceal what is
base and immoral,
not stage and propound it. Our infants are taught by whoever is near to
instruct them;
but the poets alone are the teachers of youth-so, for sure, what we say
in our poems
should adhere to what's morally sound. EDR. I suppose if your vocables
dwarf Lycabettus,
Parnassus-big mouthfuls of speech, that's the way to impart sound
moral instruction?
No, rather be human and speak man to man. AES. Poor fool, by a law of
their nature
su blime ideas and greatness of thought are be getters oflofty expression, I
and, again, demigods as of right should excel mere mortals in grandeur
of phrasing, -1060
since greater magnificence, too, than our own is the outward mark of
their clothing.
I preached sound doctrine in all these points. You ruined the show.
EUR. By what action?
AES. Byyourtreatment of Royalty. Time and again, to arouse compassion,
you staged them
not in royal array but in bundles of rags. EDR. And whatever was harm-
ful in that?
I Cf. 'Longinns' (below, p. 468).
BEGINNINGS
AES. A result is that now there is no one of means who will stanu running-
costs of a trireme.
Ostensibly clothed in a costume of rags he'll weep and declare he's a
pauper.
DlO. By our Lady, that's true! And beneath, all the time, he is swathed
in the warmest of woollens
and when once well away with his fraudulent tale-up he bobs buying
delicatessen!
AES. And another effect of the views you professed is the talkative, tongue-
wagging fashion;
for it emptied the gyms, it was hard on the rumps of the young, sitting
long in discussion, 10']0
and encouraged indiscipline. Admirals' crews give an officer back-chat.
In my day
they knew little else than to shout for their loaves and to bawl 'pull
away' at a send-off.
DlO. Lord, yes! And to blow from abaft in the face ofa rower behind in
the galley,
or to crown a messmate with a load of their dirt and to filch civvy
clothes on a shore-leave.
Nowadays whole crews give you cheek and won't row, spreading sail
on their slightest occasions.
am. Big is the crisis, bitter the quarrel, massive hostilities now impend.
Is there a judge could make decision IlOO
when, of the two, one throws his weight in,
yet his opponent, ably wheeling, scores a fine, sharp counter-blow?
Now for both it's 'up and at him!'
Openings there are in dozens, ways for new inroads of wit.
If any quarrel is to be settled,
tell of it, go ahead, bring you up, both of you,
incriminations, new or ancient.
Take a chance with subtle wisecracks phrased with knowledgeable skill.
Should you feel alarm, mistrusting these your listeners' competence,
thinking they will fail to see the IlIO
finer points in what you're saying,
feel no fear, the whole position is today completely changed.
All by now are old campaigners,
one and all possess a textbook and perceive the smarter hits.I
I The references in these lines to the intelligence of the audience, who are 'old cam-
paigners, each one with a book', are best taken as (i) advance notice of the literary fare
Aristophanes is about to provide; (ii) a jest, appearing to deprecate the spread oflearning
and bookishness-his Clouds in 423 B.C. had been above the heads of most of the audience.
The very word 'book' had become a good gag, as its use in Aristophanes elsewhere
shows, from at least 414 B.C.; cf. line 943 above. Books, in the form of a papyrus roll
. (or papyrus folded horizontally for short memoranda), had become available from the
second haIf of the fifth centtuy or earlier. Aristophanes makes only one certain reference
to the text of a written play, viz. in Frogs 52, where Dionysus 'had been reading Euri-
pides' Andromeda on board ship'. It seems that books were sometimes distributed to
friends by their authors after a public reading and eventually traded in the market-
place from sold-up estates. There is no trace at this time of professional publishers,
speculating on public demand. See E. G. Turner, Athenian Books in the 5th and 4th
centuries B.C., London, 1952.
26 I3EGINNINGS
Now their minds, by grace of nature
sharp before, are sharper still.
Forge ahead, then, do not worry,
you've no need to doubt your audience, they're a highly cultured lot!
EUR. (To Dionysus) Mark, then, his prologues! in themselves. I'll turn
at first to them, testing the part that's first II20
in this accomplished author's tragic dramas;
for some preliminary facts he'd not make clear.
DIO. And which of his prologues will you test? EUR. A good number.
(To Aeschylus) Recite me first the one from the myth of Orestes.
AES. 'Thou Nether Hermes, watchman of realms paternal,
be thou my saviour and ally, I pray thee,
for I am come to this country and return. '2
DIO. (To Euripides) Have you any faults to find there? EUR. Twelve or more.
DIO. But the lines recited are only three in all. II30
EUR. With a score of faults in every single line.
DIO. Aeschylus, take my advice and quote no more,
or amends will clearly be owing for more than three.
AES. Am I to shut up to please him?
DIO. If you take my advice.
EUR. At the very start a blunder, huge as high OlympusP
AES. (To Dionysus) Do you see what rot your advice is?
DIO. I couldn't care less.
AES. (To Euripides) How do you say I went wrong?
EUR. Repeat, from the start.
AES. 'Thou Nether Hermes, watchman of realms paternal .. .'
EUR. Orestes is speaking, isn't he, close to the tomb
of his father, who is dead?
AES. That's nothing but what I say. II40
EUR. Then was it the death which Orestes' own father died,
'By stealthy cunning slain at a woma.n's hand'
- was it that of which Hermes, he said, was the watchman?
AES. No, no! he invoked not Hermes the CWd of Stealth
but Nether Hermes, the Helpful, making this clear
I Formal prologues are found in all but four of the extant Greek tragedies. They are
spoken by one of the characters or by a divine being closely in touch with the events
concerned. The prologist by explaining the situation out of which the plot develops
gave useful help to the audience, for the myths on which plays were based had more
than one version.
2 The beginning of the Choephori-known only through Aristophanes.
3 I borrow the translation from Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, iv. 3. 90 if.: Cassius. A
friendly eye could never see such faults. Bru/lIs. A flatterer's would not, though they do
appear I As huge as high Olympus.
ARISTOPHANES, FROGS
by calling that role a paternal, inherited power.
EUR. There's a bigger fault, then, than the one I was meaning;
for if he holds his nether-world power by inheritanee-
DlO. (Interrupting) That would make him a grave-robber on his father's
side.
AES. Dionysus, that is not a vintage joke!1 1150
DIO. (To Aeschylus) Give him another verse. (To Euripides) You, watch
the costs.
AES. 'Be thou my saviour and ally, I pray thee,
for I am come to this country and return.'
EUR. The accomplished Aeschylus has told us the same thing twice.
AES. How so?
EUR. Consider the phrasing-but I'll inform you.
'I am come to this country', he says, and 'I return' says he;
but to 'come to the country' and to 'return' are one and the same.
DlO. Lord, yes! it's just as if one begged from a neighbour like this:
'Please lend me a bowl, or a crock, if you will, to mix in.'
AES. It's not 'one and the same', you talked-silly creature! rr60
Far from it. The verse is excellently phrased.
EUR. In what respect? Tell me your reason for saying so.
AES. A man with civic rights can be said to 'come home',
for without more ado he arrives home and is there;
but an exile does more than to 'come': he 'returns' or 'is restored'.
D1O. By Apollo, well said! Your answer, Euripides ?
EUR. I deny that Orestes was ever 'restored' to his home.
He came home secretly, without official leave.
DlO. By Hermes, well said-but, seareh me, what does he mean?
EUR. (To Aeschylus) Go ahead now with another verse.
DIO. Go on, Aeschylus, do, 1170
and jump to it! (To Euripides) You, keep a close look out for faults.
AES. 'On this heaped tomb I call upon my father
to hear and hearken .. .'
EUR. Two words for one again!
'To hear and hearken', says he. A clear tautology!
DlO. It's the dead he was addressing, you insufferable fool,
to whom we cry out thrice, yet never get through.
AES. (To Euripides) And how did you compose your prologues?
EUR. I'll explain.
And if ever I say the same thing twice, or if
I I have some recollection that an unnamed pupil offered the translation I print of
this line to his tutor the late J. D. Denniston of Hertford College, Oxford, who passed
it on to me. I wish I could make fuller acknowledgement.
BEGINNINGS
you detect any padding or irrelevance-spit on me!
DIO. Come, then, recite. Clearly it's up to me 1180
to hear how correctly written your prologues are.
EUR. 'Oedipus was at first a happy man .. .'1
A~. Good god, no! In misery he was born and bred.
Why, Apollo foretold even before his birth
that he would kill his father, aye, spoke it of one unborn.
How could he have been 'at first a happy man' ?
EUR. (Continuing) 'to prove in turn of all men wretchedest'.
AES. Good god, no! He never 'proved' that way 'in turn',
his wretchedness never ceased. From his earliest hour
they exposed him, in winter, abandoned in a crock, II90
to prevent his growing up and killing his father;
then ill-chance linked him with Polybus, his feet all swollen;
next, he was married young to an old beldame,
and his own mother she was, to make it worse;
lastly, he gouged his eyes out.
DIO. Happy still, even if
he had shared Erasfnides' command-and execution. 2
EUR. (To Aeschylus) You drivel, sir. My prologues are elegantly
written.
AES. I won't now carp at your phrasing word by word,
'fore heaven no! but demolish, so help me god,
your prologues with the aid of a litt'l old f1ask. 3 1200
EVR. My prologues? With a litt'l old flask?
AES. A single one,
for your style is such that the meanest things are in place-
a lit~'l old fleece, or flask, or shopping bag;
they suit your iambic verse, as I'll prove on the spot.
EUR. You'll prove it, will you? AES. Yes. DIO. (To Euripides) Recite away.
EUR. (Quotinglrom a prologue 01 his)
'Aegyptus, in the tale most widely told,
with fifty sons took ship; and driven by oar
to port in Argos . . .'
I Euripides' Antigone.
2 See above, p. 9.
3 The word (Jekuthion) for flask in 1200 and the two words coupled with it are all
diminutives, i.c. expressive of affection or, more often, contempt, and mostly of collo-
quial use. A small, globular flask, often containing oil such as sunbathers use, was carried
about by Athenians or their slaves. In translating I found that a plain English diminutive
('little flask', 'flasklet', etc.) did not convey the undertones and the flat colloquial bathos
of the diminutive in Greek. Hence' litt'l old flask'.
ARISTOPHANES, FROGS
making no continuous sense. To each he adds, as a kind of refrain, a shorter line, the
ARISTOPHANES, FROGS 31
o pam
upon pain! Come you not to the rescue?
'Hermes, Sire of our race,
we adore thee, a breed of the lake-lands .
o pain
upon pain! Come you not to the rescue?
DIO. That is two against Aeschylus, two pains.
EUR. 'My lesson learn, great king of kings,
in Achaia supreme, son of Atreus .. .'
o pain
upon painl Come you not to the rescue?
DIO. That's a third against Aeschylus, three pains.
EUR. 'Silencel Artemis' honey-bee maids
are approaching to open her temple .. .'
o pain
upon pain! Come you not to the rescue?
'1 am well able to speak
of their march and their Chiefs, sped by Heaven .. .'
o pain
upon pain! Come you not to the rescue?
DIO. Zeus, King of Heaven I What a bellyful of 'pains' I
I'm for the bathroom, a douche is the thing for me,
pains upon pains have set my kidneys aching. 1280
EUR. Don't go, first hear another set of his songs,
worked up from modes accompanied on the lyre.!
same every time, which picks up the dactylic rhythm into which the quotations invari-
ably fall. Very possibly the rhythm was commoner in lost plays than in those we possess.
Dionysus meanwhile keeps the score with pebbles for counters. His two interjections
match the rhythm of the refrain, which theline·arrangementofthe translation helps to mark.
I264. PhthiBt: ofPhthia or Phthiotis, just N. of the Euboic gulf.
This quotation (from the Myrmidons) and the next three are all from plays known to
us by little more than their titles. The last is from the Agamemnon.
I Tragic choruses were normally accompanied by the flute, not the lyre as here. Loss
of the music obscures the point made by Euripides in this second set of quotations from
Aeschylus. As before, the prevailing rhythm is dactylic, the dactyls being preceded in
the Ist and 4th quotations by an iambic' metron (v - v -); and, as before, the line-
arrangement in the translation aims at marking the recurrent dactylic run. By contrast.
the metre of the refrain 'tophlattothrat' is iambic and suggests that Euripides made play
of thrumming on a lyre as he sang. It seems that he is charging Aeschylus with musical as
well as metrical monotony.
The Ist and 3rd quotations are from the Agamemnotl, the 4th is of unknown origin,
and the 2nd and 5th are from plays known to us only by their titles. Stitched together
they make a crazy kind of continuous sense. The 5th matches the refrain in metre,
except in the last foot (-v forv-). It is incomplete, gives no clear sense, and may be an
interpolation.
32 BEGINNINGS
DID. Proceed, proceed-and don't go tacking on 'pains'.
EUR. 'How kings, twin-throned,
of Achaia and spearmen of Hellas'
to-phlat-to-thrat to-phlat-to-thrat
'dire as the Sphinx,
a dispenser of evil, a hell-hound',
to-phlat-to-thrat to-phlat-to-thrat
'marched to avenge,
bidden on by a heartening omen',
to-phlat-to-thrat to-phlat-to-thrat 1290
much as before, but with greater originality in their setting. They are integral parts of a
central story which serves to ridicule Euripides' proud boast of having democratized
tragedy (948-52). The narrator is a working woman. She begins with the tale of her
ill-boding dream, the taint of which demands a ritual purification. Then, invoking the
Sea-god, she relates her dream's horrible fulfilment: her rooster has been stolen! And
the thief is a female slave called Glyke, a name roughly equivalent to 'Dulcie'.
This disaster prompts invocations of her housemates, or maybe townsfolk; of the
mountain nymphs; and of a menial whose name Mania is the same as that of a Phrygian
prostitute.
Next she tells how she was working far into tlJe night at her spinning-perhaps implying
that she fell asleep at the task. Meanwhile tlJe theft occurred and the cock, as pictured in
her imagination, soared up and away in temporary escape from Glyke---or did she
dream of it as flying away from herself for ever? (footnote continued overleaf)
843591 D
34 BEGINNINGS
1 A trifling line, said to come from Euripides' much-ridiculed Telephus (cf. 855, 864).
2 In view of J468 I agree with those who think that the one who 'delights' Dionysus
is Aeschylus; but lines can be adduced to support the opposite opinion.
ARISTOPHANES, FROGS 37
And so, whichever one gives her the sounder advice 1420
on policy, he is the man I am minded to take.
(He turns to Aeschylus and Euripides)
First, then, about Alkibfades. What views
have you? The country's in travail, painfully, for an answer.
EUR. What are her own views, pray? 010. 'Her own', you ask.
'She yearns and hates and fain would have him back.'
But tell me, you two, what you think about it.
EUR. I hate a citizen should he prove slow
to help his country and swift to do much harm,
meeting his own needs well, shiftless in hers.
DIO. Lord bless me, that's well said. (Turning to Aeschylus) And what's
your view? 1430
AES. "Twere best to rear no lion in the State;
if one be reared, best humour his caprice.'
010. Lord help me, I'm in a torment of indecision!
One's given a clever, one a lucid answer.
But state your views once more, you two, and tell us
what means of saving the country you envisage.
EUR. Suppose Kle6kritos were given the featherweight
Kinesias for wings and blown to sea-
DIO. That sight would be a laugh, but what's the idea?
EUR. Suppose a sea-fight and the pair with flasks 1440
of vinegar, showering it into our enemies' eyes! 1441
DIO. Well done, my Palamedes, a born genius you! 145 1 I
Your own thought was it? Or Kephisophon's ?
EUR. My own, barring the vinegar flasks. That's his.
DIO. (To Aeschylus) And what say you? AES. First tell me about the
country,
-is she served by serviceable men? 010. Of course not,
she hates their guts. AES. And likes the ne'er-do-wells?
DIO. Not she, oh no! Bad lots are forced upon her.
AES. What means, then, are there of saving such a country,
'unsuited both by smooth wear and the rough' ?
DIO. Find means, good heavens, if you're to rise from the dead. 1460
AES. Above ground I'll speak: here I would rather not.
010. Please, please, not that! Send up and save from here. 1462
AES. I know a way to do it and will show. 010. Speak on. 1442
AES. When we think trusty what we now mistrust
and what we trust untrusty. DIO. How? I'm lost.
Less learning, please, and more lucidity.
I 1442-62 rearranged as shown.
BEGINNINGS
AES. If we mistrusted citizens whom now
we trust, and used the services of those
we do not use, we should, perhaps, be saved;
and if in present courses we fare badly,
would not the opposite ways be our salvation? 1450
(Here it is assumed that two lines, in which Aesclzylus was asked to
elaborate his advice, are missing.)
AF.S.When they regard their enemy's land as theirs, 1463
their own as free to him; and find sea-power
means full State-banks: tax-levies, bankruptcy.
DIO. Good! But all gains are swiped by soak-the-rich courts.
PLU. (To Dionysus) Your judgement, please. DIO. I'll judge this way
between you:
'choosing the one my soul is pleased to choose'.
EUR. Mindful of gods you named in sworn assurance
that you would take me home again, choose your friends. 1470
DIO. 'My tongue has sworn, but'-I'll choose Aeschylus.
EUR. What have you done, you bloody man? DIO. Meaning me?
Aeschylus I judged the winner. And why not?
EUR. 'Can you meet my eyes, fresh from your deed of shame ?'1
DIO. 'What's shameful, if the audience think not so ?'2
£OR. Have you no heart? Will you really shrug me off, dead?
DIO. 'Who knows? Perhaps to be alive is death'3
(Improvising equal nonsense) and breath our bread and sleep a fleecy
nap. 1481
PLU. Go in then, Dionysus, you and he. DIO. Why so?
PLU. You'll be my guests before you sail. DIO. That's fine,
god bless me, fine! I don't mind if I do.
I From Aeolus.
• Again from Aeolus, with one word-change, viz. 'audience' for 'doers'.
3 Euripidcs Polyidus; ef. 1082.
2
PLATO
Plato's discussions of poetry and rhetoric are numerous and have often been
studied. For a recent, systematic treatment see P. Vicaire, PIaton: critique
Iitteraire, Paris, 1960.
and musical contests formed a part of it from classical times. See E. J. and L. Edelstein,
Asclepius, Baltimore, 1945, i. 313, ii. 208 ff.
PLATO
Neither Metrodorus of Lampsacus nor Stesimbrotus of Thasos nor
Glaucon nor anybody else has ever had so many fine thoughts to utter
about Homer as I have.'!
'Splendid, Ion! I'm sure you won't grudge me a demonstration.'
'Well, Socrates, my embellishments of Homer really are worth hearing.
I deserve a golden crown from the Homeridae,z I fancy.'
'I shall make leisure to hear you yet; but for the moment just tell me one
53 1 thing. Are you good only at Homer, or at Hesiod and Archilochus too?'
'Only at Homer; I think that is quite enough.'
'But is there anything about which Homer and Hesiod say the same ?'
'Many things, surely.'
'Then can you expound what Homer says about these things better
than what Hesiod says?'
'Equally well, Socrates, as far as the things about which they both say
the same are concerned.'
'And what about things where they don't say the same? For instance,
Homer and Hesiod both speak of divination.'
'Yes.'
'Well, would you or a good diviner give a better explanation of the
similarities and differences between what these two poets say about
divination ?'
'The diviner.'
'And if you were a diviner, would you not know how to expound the
things which they say differently, if you were able to expound those of
which they give a similar account?'
'Certainly I should.'
'Why then are you good at Homer but not at Hesiod or any other poet?
Is it that Homer talks about different things from all other poets? Does
he not for the most part talk of war, dealings of men-good and bad,
laymen and craftsmen-with one another, the dealings of gods with one
another and with men, the phenomena of the heavens, Hades, the
genealogies of gods and heroes? These are the su bjects of Homer's poetry,
are they not?'
'Indeed, Socrates.'
'And what about other poets? Don't they handle the same subjects ?'
'Yes, but not like Homer, Socrates.'
'Worse ?'
powers in some kinds of madness. See E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational,
University of California Press, 1951, p. 79.
2 Dithyrambs were elaborate sung lyrics in various metres, sometimes of narrative
content; encomia are songs of praise; hyporchemata are songs with a dance accom-
paniment (the word first occurs here, and exact definition is difficult).
3 Strictly, a song in praise of Apollo.
PLATO
being in any doubt, that these beautiful poems are not human and of
men, but divine and of the gods, poets being merely interpreters of the
gods, each possessed by his own peculiar god. To demonstrate this, the god
deliberately sang the most beautiful song through the mouth of the
535 worst poet. Don't you think I'm right, Ion?'
'Indeed I do. You touch me in the heart, Socrates, by what you say,
and I believe it is by a divine dispensation that good poets interpret these
messages to ITs from the gods.'
'And you rhapsodes then interpret the messages of the poets?'
'That's right too.'
'So you are interpreters of interpreters?'
'Just so.'
'Well now, tell me this, Ion, and don't hide what I ask you. When you
recite well and most amaze your audience-say when you sing Odysseus I
leaping on the threshold, revealing himself to the suitors and pouring
the arrows out at his feet, or Achilles 2 advancing against Hector, or some
pathetic passage about Andromache or Hecuba or Priam-are you at
that time in your right mind, or are you beside yourself? Does your mind
imagine itself, in its state of enthusiasm, present at the actual events you
describe-in Ithaca or at Troy or whatever the poem requires?'
'That's a very clear indication you've given me, Socrates; I'll tell you
without concealment. When I recite a pathetic passage, my eyes fill with
tears; when it is something alarming or terrifying, my hair stands on
end in terror and my heart jumps.'
'Well, now, Ion: can we call a man sane who, when elaborately dressed
and wearing a gold crown, and not having lost any of this finery, never-
theless breaks into tears at a sacrifice and festival, or feels frightened in
the company of twenty thousand or so friendly persons, not one of whom
is trying to rob him or do him any harm?'
'To tell you the truth, Socrates-no.'
'You know then that you people have the same effect on many of the
spectators ?'
'Certainly I do. I can see them from up on the platform, weeping and
looking fierce and marvelling at the tale. Indeed, I am obliged to attend
to them; for if I can set them crying, I shall laugh when I get my money,
but if I make them laugh, I lose my money and it's I who'll be crying.'
'You know then that the spectator is the last of the rings which I described
as taking their force from the Heraclean stone? You-the rhapsode or
536 the actor-are the middle link, and the poet himself is the first. Through
all these, the god draws the human mind in any direction he wishes,
hanging a chain of force from one to the other. Just as with the stone,
I Odyssey 22. I ff. 2 Iliad 22. 31 2 ff.
RHAPSODES AND INSPIRATION 45
there IS a huge chain of dancers, producers, and under-producers, hanging
sideways from the rings which hang down from the Muse. Poets are
suspended from different Muses-we say "possessed by", but it is much
the same thing-a matter of being held-and from this first set of rings,
the poets, are suspended-or possessed-other persons, some from one
and some from another, some from Orpheus, some from Musaeus-but
most are possessed and held by Homer. You are one of these, Ion. You
are possessed by Homer. When something by any other poet is performed,
you fall asleep and have nothing to say, but the moment anyone utters a
song of Homer, you wake up, your heart dances, and you have a lot to
say; this is because your talk about Homer comes not from knowledge or
art, but from divine dispensation and possession. Like the Corybantic
dancers, who are keenly aware only of the tune that belongs to the god
who possesses them and can dance and give utterance to this alone,
taking no notice of others, so you, Ion, are ready enough when Homer is
mentioned, but at a loss with everything else; and the reason for this,
which is what you're asking, the reason why you are ready on the subject
of Homer but not of the others, is that it is not art but divine dispensation
that makes you a good encomiast of Homer.'
'You do speak well, Socrates; but I should be surprised if you were
eloquent enough to persuade me that I am possessed and mad when I
praise Homer. I don't believe you'd think so yourself if you heard me
speaking about Homer.'
'I want to hear you very much, but not before you have answered one
question. I Which of the subjects Homer speaks of do you speak well
about? It can't be all, surely.'
'Every single one, Socrates.'
'But not surely about things which Homer speaks of but of which you
are ignorant ?'
''\nd what is there, pray, that Homer speaks of and I don't know?'
'Well, doesn't Homer often say a good deal about various arts? For 537
example, chariot-driving. If I can remember the lines, I'll say them.'
'No, I will: I remember.'
'Well, then, repeat what Nestor says to his son Antilochus, advising
him to take care at the turn in the chariot race in honour of Patroclus.'2
'Lean over yourself in your polished chariot
gently, to the left; goad on the right-hand horse,
and let him have the reins.
I This passage marks the transition from the account Socrates has given of'posscssion'
'That'1I do. Now, Ion, who would know best whether Homer is right
here-a doctor or a charioteer ?'
'A charioteer, of course.'
'Because he possesses the art, or for some other reason ?'
'Because he possesses the art.'
'Then god has granted every art the power of knowing some one thing?
What we know by the pilot's craft, we shan't know by medicine, for
instance.'
'Indeed not.'
'And what we know by medicine, we shan't know by carpentry.
'No.'
'And so with all other arts: what we know by one, we shan't know by
another? But first answer me this: do you say there are different arts ?'
'Yes.'
'When one is knowledge of one set of things, and another of another,
I go by that, and call them different arts: is that what you do?'
'Yes.'
'Now if there were a science which dealt with one set of things, how
could we say that there were two differC1lt sciences, at least if the same
facts were to be learned from both? For example, I know that these
fingers are five in number, and you know so too; and if I were to ask you
whether you and I both knew this by the same art, namely arithmetic, or a
different one, you would reply "by the same".'
'Yes.'
538 'Then tell me now what I was going to ask you just then. Do you
think it applies to all arts that the same art must necessarily have know-
ledge of the same things, and a different art of different things?'
'Yes I do, Socrates.'
'Then anyone who doesn't possess a certain art will not be able to know
properly the words or actions which belong to that art?'
'True.'
'Then consider the lines you recited. Will you or a charioteer know
better whether Homer is right or not?'
'The charioteer.'
'Because you are a rhapsode, not a charioteer ?'
'Yes.'
'And the rhapsode's art is different from that of the charioteer?'
'Yes.'
RHAPSODES AND INSPIRATION 47
'Therefore, since it is different, it is knowledge concerned with different
things ?'
'Yes.'
'And what about the place where Homer says that Hecamede, Nestor's
concubine, gave the wounded Machaon a draught to drink?-
... with Pramnian wine; and she grated goat's cheese upon it
with a bronze grater; and an onion went with the drink?1
Is it the business of the rhapsode's art or that of the doctor to tell properly
whether Homer is right?'
'The doctor's.'
'And when Homer saYS:2
Like a lead weight she went to the bottom,
that, mounted on the horn of an ox of the field,
goes to bring trouble to the ravenous fish,
And there's a lot in the Iliad, too: for example, in the battle for the wall: 4
A bird came towards them as they made to cross,
an eagle flying high, flanking the host on the left.
He carried a huge snake in his claws,
, Iliad II. 639 f. 2 Iliad 24. 80 If.
3 Odyssey 20. 351 If. • Iliad 12. 200 If.
PLATO
alive, still writhing-it had not yet forgotten its fight,
for it bent back ~nd bit the eagle by the neck,
and he felt the p~in and dropped it to the ground,
dropped it in the middle of the army,
and flew off screaming on the wind.
This and similar passages, I shall maintain, are for the prophet to examine
and criticize.'
'You are quite right, Socrates.'
'Well, you say it's right too, Ion. Now what I want you to do for me is
this: just as I picked out for you passages in the Iliad and the Odyssey
which belong to the prophet, the doctor, and the fisherman, you pick out
for me, since you know Homer better than I do, passages which belong
to the rhapsode and his art-things which the rhapsode ought to be able
to examine and criticize better than other people.'
'In my view, Socrates, that means everything.'
'That's not your view, Ion: or are you so forgetful? A rhapsode has
no business being forgetful.'
540 'What am I forgetting ?'
'Don't you remember that you said that the rhapsode's art was different
from the charioteer's?'
'I remember.'
'And you admitted that, being different, it would have knowledge of
different things?'
'Yes.'
'Then, on your view, the rhapsode and his art will not have knowledge
of everything.'
'No; they will, Socrates, except perhaps for such exceptions.'
'And by "such exceptions" you mean the fields of other arts. But what
will the rhapsode know, since it won't be everything?'
'I think it would be what a man ought to say, or a woman, or a slave,
or a free man, or a subject or a ruler.'
'You mean that the rhapsode will know better than the pilot what the
ruler of a ship ought to say in a storm at sea ?'
'No; the pilot will know that better.'
'And the rhapsode will know better than the doctor what the ruler of a
sick patient ought to say?'
'No.'
'He knows what a slave ought to say, does he?'
'Yes.'
'The rhapsode will know better than the cowherd, will he, what a slave
cowherd ought to say to quieten his cattle when they are excited ?'
'Oh no.'
RHAPSODES AND INSPIRATION 49
'And what about what a woman woolworker ought to say about the
treatment of wool ?'
'Not that either.'
'But he will know what a man ought to say as a general exhorting his
troops ?'
'Yes; that's the sort of thing the rhapsode wilL know.'
'Then is the rhapsode's art the same as the general's?' 54!
'Well, I should know what sort of thing a general ought to say.'
'Perhaps because you have the talents of a general, Ion. If you were
both a horseman and a lyre-player, you would know good horsemanship
from bad, but if I asked you which of your arts it was that enabled you
to recognize good horsemanship, what would you answer ?'
'The horseman's art.'
'And if you recognized good lyre-playing, that, you would admit,
would have been by virtue of your being a lyre-player, not by virtue of
your being a horseman?'
'Yes.'
'Then since you understand military matters, is this so because you
have military talents or because you are a good rhapsode ?'
'I don't think there's any difference.'
'What? No difference? Are the rhapsode's art and the general's one or
two?'
'One, I believe.'
'Then the man who is a good rhapsode is in fact a good general'?
'Certainly, Socrates.'
'And the good general is a good rhapsode?'
'Well, no.'
'But the good rhapsode-you still think this ?-is a good general?'
'Yes.'
'And you're the best rhapsode in Greece?'
'By a long way, Socrates.'
'Are you the best general in Greece, too, then?'
'Of course, Socrates, I've learned it from Homer.'
'Then why on earth, Ion, being the best rhapsode and the best general
in Greece, do you go round performing as a rhapsode but not commanding
as a general? Do you think Greece has need of a rhapsode with his gold
crown but not of a general?'
'My city, Socrates, is under the government and military leadership of
yours and needs no general, and your people and the Spartans would never
elect me, for you think you are good enough yourselves.'
'My dear Ion, don't you know Apollodorus of Cyzicus?'
'Who do you mean?'
8143591 E
~ PLATO
'The foreigner whom the Athenians have often elected general. And
there's Phanosthenes of Andros and Heraclides of Clazomenae, whom this
city advances to generalship and other offices, though they are foreigners,
because they have shown that they are men of worth. Won't it then elect
Ion ofEphesus general, and honour him, if he seems to be a man of worth?
Anyway, aren't you Ephesians Athenians by old tradition? Isn't Ephesus
a city as great as any? The fact is, Ion, that if you are right in saying
that your capacity for praising Homer comes from art and knowledge,
you are not playing fair: you professed to know many fine things about
Homer, and you said you would demonstrate your knowledge, but now
you deceive me and are far from making the demonstration; why, you
won't even say what it is you're clever at, despite all my insistence, but
twist about and turn yourself into all sorts of shapes like a veritable
Proteus, until in the end you escape me altogether and turn up as
a general! Anything to avoid demonstrating how good your Homeric
542 scholarship is. As I say, if you are a man of art and are deceiving me with
your undertaking to give a demonstration about Homer, you are not
playing fair; but if you are no man of art, but are possessed by Homer
by some divine dispensation and say many fine things about the poet
without having any knowledge-this is the account I gave of you-then
you're not being unfair. So choose which you would rather be thought-
an unfair man or an inspired one.'
'That's a very unequal choice, Socrates; it's much more honourable
to be thought inspired.'
'Then, so far as I am concerned, the more honourable part is yours,
Ion; it is not art that makes you praise Homer as you do, but divine
inspiration.'
B. POETRY IN EDUCATION
In this first discussion in the Republic (2. 376-3. 398), Socrates is explaining to
Adimantus his ideas for the education of the 'guardians' of the new state. The
passage is mostly concerned with a critique of the moral values inculcated by
existing myth and poetry; there follow some suggestions of what poets ought to
do. After discussing content, Socrates goes on to form; this gives rise to a first
account of mimesis (imitation).
Text and commentary: J. Adam, 1902.
Grube 50 ff.; Vicaire 41 ff.
There are many English translations: e.g. by F. M. Cornford, Oxford, 1941,
clear but abridged; and by H. D. P. Lee in the Penguin Classics.
POETRY IN EDUCATION SI
'You and I, Adimantus, are not poets, at the moment: we are founders 379
of a city. Founders have to know the patterns within which poets are to
be made to construct fables, and beyond which they must not be allowed
to go, but they don't have to make up fables themselves.'
'True enough: but just what are the patterns for an account of the gods?'
'Something like this, I fancy. God must always be represented as he is,
whether in epic or in lyric or in tragedy.'
'Yes indeed.'
'Now God is in truth good and must so be described.'
'Of course.'
'And nothing good is harmful, is it?'
'No.'
'Does the non-harmful harm ?'
'No.'
'And does what doesn't harm do any evil?'
'No.'
'And what does no evil is cause of no evil?'
'Of course.'
'Now again. The good is useful?'
'Yes.'
'Therefore the cause of felicity ?'
'Yes.'
'The good therefore is not the cause of everything, but only of what is
well.'
'Certainly.'
'God therefore, being good, cannot be responsible for everything, as is
the common opinion, but only of some few things in human life. There is
much for which he bears no responsibility. Our blessings are far fewer
than our troubles, and, while none but God is responsible for the blessings,
we must seek other causes for the troubles.'
'That seems perfectly right.'
54 PLATO
'We mllst therefill'e not allow Homer or any other poet to make this
fuolish mistake about the gods, and to say that
by Zeus's door stand two jars full of dooms,
one good, one bad, I
and that if Zeus gives a man a mixture of the two,
sometimes he is in trouble, sometimes in luck,
while if he gives him the one kind unmixed,
grim famine drives that man over the earth.
Nor can we allow that Zeus is "steward of our goods and ills". Nor shall
we approve anyone who says that the breach of the oaths and truce,
committed by Pandarus, was due to the agency of Athena and Zeus 2-
or that the quarrel and judgement of the goddesses was the work of Zeus
380 and Themis. Young people must not be allowed to be told, in Aeschylus'
words, that
god breeds a crime in men.
when he would utterly overthrow a house. 3
If a poet does write about the story of Niobe, or the House of Pelops, or
Troy, or anything like that, then either he must be allowed to say that
they are not the works of god, or if they are, he must concoct some such
account as the one we are now seeking, and say that what god did was just
and good, and the victims profited from their punishment. What the
poet mustn't say is that god did it, and the victims were wretched. It is
all right to explain that the wicked were wretched because they needed
punishment, and profited from receiving that punishment at the god's
hands. But that god, who is good, is the cause of evil to anyone is a
proposition to be resisted at all costs. No one must say such a thing in the
city, if it is to be well governed. No one must hear it said. This goes for
young and old, for verse fables and prose. Such tales, if told, would be
wicked, unprofitable and self-contradictory.'
'I shall vote with you for that law. I like it.'
'Then that's one of the laws and patterns relating to the gods, which
speakers and poets will have to observe: god is responsible only for the
good things.'
'That sufIices.'
'What about the second one then? Do you think that god is a magician
and appears, as it were deliberately, in different shapes at different times,
sometimes in person, changing himself into many shapes, and sometimes
1 Iliad 24. 527 If.; cf. Plutarch (below, p. 523). • I Had 4. 69 If.
3 Aeschylus, fr. 156 Nauck.
POETRY IN EDUCATION ss
deceiving us and making us think this of him? Or is he single and least
likely of any being to depart from his own form ?'
'I can't say, just at the moment.'
'Well. Ifhe were to depart from his own form, must he not do so either
by his own act or under the influence of another ?'
'Yes.'
'But things which are in a very good condition are not changed or
moved by other things. Consider the effect of food, drink, and exercise
on bodies, or of exposure to sun and wind and other circumstances on
plants; the healthiest and strongest are changed least.'
'Of course.'
'Then the mind which external happenings are least likely to disturb 381
and change is the bravest and wisest?'
'Yes.'
'And, similarly, manufactured tools, houses, and clothing are least
altered by time and other circumstances if they are well constructed and
in good condition?'
'Yes.'
'Then, in general, whatever is in a good condition, as a result of nature
or art or both, admits the minimum change from external influence?'
'So it seems.'
'But god and what is god's is in every way exceedingly good?'
'Of course.'
'So from this point of view god can't have "many shapes" ?'
'No.'
'But might he change and vary himself?'
'He must, if he varies at all.'
'Well, then, does he change himself for better or for worse?'
'For worse, inevitably, if he does vary: for we can't say that god is
defective in beauty or goodness.'
'Qy.ite right. And that being so, Adimantus, do you think any god, or
man, would voluntarily make himself worse in any way?'
'Impossible. '
'Impossible therefore for god to want to vary himself. Every god, being
exceedingly beautiful and good, remains always simply, so far as possible,
in his own shape.'
'Necessarily so.'
'So let none of the poets tell us that
in guise of foreign strangers
gods visit cities in every manner of shape. I
I Odyssey 17. 485 f.
56 PLATO
Let us have no tales against Proteus and Thetis; let us not have Hera
brought in, in tragedy or any other poem, disguised as a priestess begging
to the life-giving children of Inachus, river of ArgoS.1
There are a lot of other false tales we must not hear. Mothers must not
be persuaded by these people into frightening their children with horrid
fables of how the gods go about at night in the shape of strangers of all
kinds. We can't have them blaspheming the gods and making cowards of
their boys at the same time!'
'No, they mustn't do that.'
'Can it be then that, though the gods themselves can't change, they
make us think they appear in various guises, deceiving and bewitching us?'
'Maybe.'
'Indeed? Might a god want to give a false impression in word or deed
382 by exhibiting a phantom ?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know that all gods and men abhor the true falsehood, if I
may use such an expression?'
'What do you mean?'
'That no one deliberately wants to be false in the most important part
of his being or in relation to the most important subjects. Everyone is
afraid of having falsehood there.'
'I still don't understand.'
'Because you think I'm saying something grand. But all I'm saying is
that everybody will refuse to continue or to be put into a state of false-
hood, or to be ignorant, in relation to reality in the mind, or to have or
acquire falsehood in that department. This is something they detest.'
'Indeed.'
'But it's the mental ignorance of the deceived that is rightly called, as I
was saying, true falsehood. Verbal falsehood is a representation of the
mental situation, a subsequent image, not real, undiluted falsehood.
Agreed?'
'Yes.'
'So real falsehood is abhorred by men as well as by gods?'
'I think so.'
'What about verbal falsehood? When is it useful, and not deserving of
detestation? Is it not useful in dealing with enemies, and, as a medicine,
against some supposed friends, to deter them when they try to do some-
thing bad through madness or folly? Or again, falsehood can surely be
made useful in mythology, such as we have been discussing, because we
J Aeschylus, fr. 168 Nauck.
POETRY IN EDUCATION 57
don't know the truth about antiquity: what we do is to make the false-
hood as like the truth as possible.'
'That's right.'
'Then in which of these ways is falsehood useful to god? Will he
produce falsehoods of the likeness type because he doesn't know the past ?'
'Ridiculous idea!'
'So there's no false poet in god?'
'No.'
'Will he lie then for fear of enemies?'
'Certainly not.'
'Or because of his friends' folly or madness?'
'No lunatic or fool is god's friend.'
'So god can have no reason for falsehood?'
'No.'
'So the superhuman and divine is altogether free from falsity ?'
'Yes.'
'God, therefore, is simple and true in deed and word. He neither
changes nor deceives in visions or words or significant signs, in waking
or in sleep.'
'That is how it seems to me as I listen to you.' 383
'You agree, then, that this is the second pattern within which tales and
poetry about gods are to be constructed: they are not wizards to change
themselves nor do they trick us with falsehoods in word or deed.'
'Agreed.'
'There is much in Homer we must praise: but we shall not praise the
dispatch of the Dream by Zeus to Agamemnon.I Nor, in Aeschylus, shall
we praise the passage where Thetis tells of Apollo's song at her marriage:
he hymned my happy children,
a long and healthy life;
he told it all, sang of god's love, my good fortune,
heartening me, and I thought his holy lips,
so skilled in prophecy, could speak no falsehood;
but he who sang the hymn, he who was at the feast,
he who said all this, he is my boy's killer. 2
When a poet says things like this about gods, we shall be angry and shall
not let his play be produced. Nor shall we allow teachers to use it for
education, if our guardians are to be god-fearing and divine, in so far as
human powers can be.'
'I agree completely with these patterns. I shall regard them as laws.. .'
'To conclude, then: men who are to honour the gods and their parents 3. 386
1 Iliad 2. 1-34. • Aeschylus, fr. 350 Nauck.
58 PLATO
and set a high value on mutual friendship must keep to some such rules
as these about what may and may not be listened to concerning the gods.'
'And I think our view is right.'
387 b We shall ask Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out
these and similar lines. Not that they're not poetical and pleasant hearing
for the general public: indeed, the more poetical they are, the less they
should be presented to boys and men who ought to be free, and more
afraid of slavery than of death.'
'Certainly.' .•.
387 c 9 '':'he pattern to be followed III stories and poetry is therefore the
opposite of these.'
'Clearly.'
'We shall therefore excise lamentations and expressions of pity by men
of note.'
'Inevitably, if we excluded what we have already discussed.'
'Well, consider whether we shall be doing right or not. We say, I
think, that the good man (epieikes) will not think death a terrible thing for
another good man, whose friend he is.'
'We do.'
I Odyssey II. 489 ff. Other examples follow, but we omit them: 11. 20. 64, 23.103;
Od. 10.495; /1.16.856,23.100; Od. 24. 6-9.
POETRY IN EDUCATION S9
'So he won't lament for him as though something dreadful had happened
to him.'
'No.'
'We also say that such a man is particularly self-sufficient for living a
good life, and needs other people less than anyone does.'
'True.'
'So it's least dreadful for him to be deprived of a son or a brother or
money or anything like that.'
'Yes.'
'So he grieves least, and endures most placidly, when such a disaster
overtakes him.'
'Yes.'
'So we should be right to remove the laments of notable men, and give
them to women-but not to good women-and to bad men, so that the
guardians whom we claim to be educating are disgusted at the idea of
doing likewise.'
'Right.'1 •••
'If our young men heard things like this in earnest and did not laugh 388 d
at them as unworthy remarks, they would be most unlikely to think
themselves, being but men, below this sort of thing, or to check them-
selves if it occurred to them to say or do anything of the kind. They
would mourn and lament freely, without shame or restraint, at small
accidents.'
'Very true.'
'But they ought not to do so, as our argument just now showed-and
we ought to be convinced by it, until someone convinces us with a better
one.'
'Indeed they ought not.'
'SO much for what is said (logoi). We must next consider its expression
(Iexis). When that is done we shall have covered the whole subject of what
is to be said and how.'
'I don't understand what you mean.'
'You ought to; but perhaps you'll know better if I put it like this.
Everything that fable-tellers or poets say is a narrative of past or present
or future.'
'Of course.'
'And they execute it either by simple narrative or by narrative conveyed
by imitation (mimesis) or by both.'
'I should like a clearer account of that too, please.'
'I must be a ridiculously obscure teacher. I'll try to do what incom-
petent speakers do and show you what I mean by taking a little bit, and
not the whole topic. Tell me: you know the beginning of the Iliad, where
the poet says that Chryses asked Agamemnon to release his daughter,
Agamemnon was angry, and Chryses, unsuccessful, cursed the Achaeans 393
to the god?'
'I know.'
'Then you know that as far as the lines
and he begged all the Achaeans,
and especially the two Atridae, the generals of the host, I
the poet speaks in his own person, and does not try to turn our attention
in another direction by pretending that someone else is speaking. But
from this point on he speaks as though he were Chryses himself and tries
to make us think that it is not Homer talking, but the old priest. And he
does practically all the rest of the narrative in this waY,2 both the tale of
Troy and the episodes in 1thaca and the whole Odyssey.'
'Yes.'
'Now it is narrative both when he makes the various speeches and in
the passages between the speeches.'
'Of course.'
'But when he makes a speech pretending to be someone else, are we
not to say that he is assimilating his expression as far as possible to the
supposed speaker?'
'Certainly.'
'And to assimilate oneself in voice or gesture to another is to imitate
him?'
I Iliad I. 15-16.
2 i.e. in a combination of speeches with linking or introductory narrative.
62 PLATO
'Yes.'
'So in this sort of thing Homer and the other poets are conveying their
narrative by way of imitation (mimesis)?'
'Yes.'
'Now if the poet never concealed himself, his whole poetry and mirra-
tive would be free of imitation. Don't say you don't understand again-
I'll explain how it would be. If Homer, having said that Chryses came
with his daughter's ransom to be a suppliant of the Achaeans, and
particularly of the kings, had gone on not as Chryses but as Homer, it
would have been pure narrative, not imitation. It would have gone
something like this-I'll do it without metre, for I'm no poet. "The
priest came and prayed that the gods might grant them to capture Troy
and return home safely, if they accepted ransom, respected the god, and
freed his daughter. Most of them respected his words and were ready to
agree, but Agamemnon was angry, telling him to go away and never
come back, lest his staff and the god's garlands might prove of no avail
to him: before the daughter was freed, she would grow old in Argos with
him. And he told the old man to be off and not stir up trouble, if he
394 wanted to get home safe. Hearing this, Chryses was frightened and went
silently away, but when he had left the camp he prayed long to Apollo,
calling on him by his special names, reminding him and begging him, if
he had ever given him before an acceptable gift in temple-building or
sacrifice; in return for this, he prayed to him to avenge his tears on the
Greeks with his arrows."-That's pure narrative without imitation.'
'I understand.'
'Then understand that the opposite happens when the poet removes the
passages between the speeches and leaves just the exchange ofconversation
(ta amoibaia).'
'I see: that's what we have in tragedies.'
'Q!!.ite right. I think I'm making clear to you now what I couldn't
before, namely that there is one kind of poetry and fable which entirely
consists of imitation: this is tragedy and comedy,.as you say; and there's
another kind consisting of the poet's own report-you find this particularly
in dithyrambs; while the mixture of the two exists in epic and in many
other places, if you see what I mean.'
'Yes: I understand now what you meant then.'
'Remember also what we said even before that-that we've dealt with
the question what to say, but have still to consider how.'
'I remember.'
'Well, what I meant was, that we must come to an understanding as to
whether we are to allow our poets to narrate by imitation, or partly by
imitation (and if so, what parts), or not to imitate at all.'
POETRY IN EDUCATION
'I have an inkling that you are asking whether we should admit tragedy
and comedy into the city or no.'
'Perhaps-or perhaps more than that. I don't know yet: we must go
where the wind of the argument blows.'
'That's right.'
'Well then, consider whether our guardians ought to be imitative
people or not. Or does this follow from our previous argument that an
individual can do one thing well but is liable to fail in everything, so far
as acquiring real note is concerned, if he tries to do many things?'
'Bound to follow.'
'Similarly with imitation-one individual can't imitate many things
well, though he can one ?'
'Yes.'
'So still less will one man be able to pursue some worthwhile pursuit
and also imitate many things and be an imitator. Even apparently closely
related imitations (mimemata) cannot be practised well by the same 395
person-tragedy and comedy for example. You called these two imita-
tions, didn't you?'
'Yes; and you're quite right, the same people can't do both.'
'Nor can people be both rhapsodes and actors.'
'True.'
'Nor even tragic actors and comic actors. All these things are imita-
tions, aren't they?'
'Yes.'
'Now it seems to me as if human nature is specialized even more
minutely than this. It is unable to imitate many things well, or to do well
the things of which the imitations are likenesses.'
'True.'
'So if we are to preserve our first conclusion, that our guardians ought
to be exempt from all other crafts and be craftsmen of freedom in the
city, and perfect craftsmen, and ought to practise nothing that does not
conduce to this end, they must not do or imitate anything else. If they do
imitate, the subject of their imitation, from childhood onwards, must be
what is appropriate to them: the brave, the self-controlled, the righteous,
the free, and so on. They must neither display in action nor be good
at imitating the illiberal, or any other disgraceful quality, lest the fruit
of their imitation be the reality. Haven't you observed that imitations, if
persisted in from childhood, settle into habits and fixed characteristics
of body, voice, or mind?'
'I have indeed.'
'So we sa'an't allow those whom we profess to care for, and who we
say ought to be brave men, to imitate a woman, young or old, in the act
PLATO
of reviling her husband or boastfully competing with the gods, full of the
conceit of her own felicity, or possessed by misfortune or mourning or
lamentation. And as for illness, love, or childbirth-God forbid !'I
'Yes indeed.'
'Nor slaves, male or female, performing slavish tasks.'
'No.'
'Nor bad men, cowards, and people doing the opposite of what we have
just described, people abusing or ridiculing one another or using filthy
396 language, drunk or sober, or committing any of the other errors of word
or deed against self or others that such people incur. Nor must we allow
them to form the habit of likening themselves to madmen by word or
action. Of course they must be able to recognize mad or wicked men
or women-but they're not to do or imitate any of these things.'
'True.'
'Well then, what about smiths or other workmen doing their work, or
rowers in triremes or their officers? Is anything like this to be imitated?'
'How could it be? None of them is going to be allowed even to think
of these things.'
'Well, horses neighing? Bulls lowing? Rivers babbling? The roar of the
sea? Thunder? Are they to imitate this sort of thing ?'Z
'They have been forbidden to be mad or to make themselves like the
mad.'
'If I understand what you're saying, there is a kind of expression and
narrative which the really good man would use, if he had to say anything,
and there is another and very different kind which the person of opposite
breeding and education would consistently use for his narratives.'
'What are these kinds?'
'As it seems to me, the decent man, when he comes in his narrative to
the words or action of a good man, will want to report it by identifying
himself with that good man, and will not be ashamed of such imitation.
Especially will he imitate the good man secure and sane: less readily, the
good man tripped up by sickness, love, drink, or some other accident.
But when he comes to a man unworthy of himself, he will not want
seriously to liken himself to his own inferior, except momentarily, when
he's acting well. He will be ashamed. For one thing, he will have had
no practice in imitating such characters. For another, he will feel disgust
at modelling himself on, and inserting himself into, the patterns of the
inferior. He will have an intellectual contempt for them, except as a game.'
'Probably so.'
'He will therefore use the style of narration that we described ID
r Plato is thinking of tragic heroines: Medea, Niobe, Phaedra.
a a. Plutarch, below, p. 514.
POETRY IN EDUCATION
connection with Homer's epic. His expression will have elements both of
imitation and of narrative, but with very little narrative to a long story.
Right ?'
'Yes: that must be the pattern of a speaker of this kind.'
'But consider the other kind. The worse he is, the readier he will be to 397
imitate e1erything. He won't regard anything as beneath him. He will
try to imitate everything, seriously and in public--even what we were
speaking of just now, thunder and the noise of wind and hail, axle and
pulley, the sound of trumpets, oboes, pipes, and all kinds of instruments,
the cries of dogs, sheep, and birds. His expression will be entirely imita-
tive, in voice and gesture-or at most it will have a little narration in it.'
'Necessarily so.'
'Then this is what I meant by the two kinds of expression.'
'I see.'
'In one of them, the variations are not great. If you give the expression
its appropriate harmony and rhythm, a correct speaker is able to deliver
the piece practically in one and the same harmony-the variations are
small-and in very much the same rhythm.'
'Quite so.'
'The other performer's type, on the other hand, needs the very opposite
-all harmonies and all rhythms-if it is to be delivered appropriately,
because of the manifold forms of its variations.'
'Certainly.'
'Then all poets and speakers fall into one or other pattern of expression
or into one arising from their combination of the two.'
'Inevitably.'
'What shall we do then? Shall we admit all these patterns into the city,
or one or other unmixed, or the mixed one ?'
'If my vote is allowed to prevail, the imitator of the good, unmixed.'
'But the mixed pattern is pleasing-while to children and their atten-
dants and to the multitude it's the one that's opposite to your choice that
gives by far the most pleasure.'
'Yes, it is.'
'But perhaps you would say it didn't suit our "republic", for we have
no double or multiple men, because everybody performs one function.'
'Well, it doesn't suit.'
'So this is the only city where we shall find the cobbler a cobbler and
not a ship's pilot as well, the farmer a farmer and not a juryman as well,
and the man of war a man of war and not also a man of money.l Isn't it?'
'It is.'
I Plato is contrasting his city with democratic Athens, where just these combinations
595 'There are many respects in which I feel convinced, when I reflect on it,
that we founded our city rightly-and not least in this business of poetry.'
'In what way?'
'In our refusing to admit imitative poetry. It is even clearer, I think,
that we ought not to admit it, now that we have distinguished the elements
in the mind.'
'How so?'
'Between ourselves-and 1 know you're not going to denounce me to
the writers of tragedy and all the other imitators-all this kind of thing
is ruination to the listeners' minds, unless they are protected by the
knowledge of what it really is.'
'What are you thinking of?'
'I shall have to be frank-though my lifelong liking and respect for
Homer inhibits me, for he is the prime teacher and leader of all these fine
folk. Still, persons mustn't be put before the truth. As 1 say, I shall have
to be frank.'
'Indeed you will.'
'Listen then-or rather answer.'
'Ask away.'
THE TRUE NATURE OF IMITATION
'Can you tell me what imitation in general is? 1 can't see myself what
it means.'
'Then it's hardly likely that 1 should.'
'There would be nothing surprising if you did. Duller eyes often see
sooner than sharp ones.'
'1 dare say. But with you there 1 shouldn't be able even to want to speak
if 1 have an idea. You try and see.'
'Would you like us to begin with our usual procedure ? We are in the
habit of assuming a "form" in relation to each group of particular objects
to which we apply the same name. I Or do you not understand?'
'1 understand.'
[On this assumed basis of the 'theory of forms' Plato develops the argument
that there are, for instance, three beds: the 'idea' of bed, the actual bed,
the image of a bed. The constructor of the first is God, of the second the
bed-builder, of the third the painter, who is an imitator. So imitators-
tragic poets, for instance-are 'third from the King and from truth' (597 e 7).
We resume where the argument returns specifically to poetry.]
'We must now consider tragedy and its leader, Homer, in the light of S98 d
this, for we hear it said by some that tragedians know all arts, all human
affairs where vice and virtue are involved, and all divine things too: for,
they say, the good poet must compose with knowledge ifhe is to compose
well on any subject. We must therefore consider whether these people
have fallen in with a set of imitators who have deceived them and have
failed to realize that their works, which they see, are 'third removes' from 599
the reality and are easy to make even if you don't know the truth. They
are images, not realities. Or do you think there is something in what they
say, and good poets really do know about the things which ordinary
people think they describe so well?'
'We must certainly go into this.'
'Do you think then that if anyone could make both the object of imita-
tion and the image, he would let himself take image-construction seriously
and make it the guiding principle in his life, as though it were the best
thing he had ?'
'No.'
'But if he was really knowledgeable about the things he imitates, he
would take trouble over the real object rather than the imitation, and try
to leave many beautiful objects behind as his memorial. He would rather
be praised than compose the praises of others.'
I A reference to Plato's characteristic 'theory of forms': see e.g. R. S. Bluck, Plato's
'SO this imitation relates to something three removes from truth, 602 C
does it?'
'Yes.'
'Now what element in human nature does it affect?'
'What do you mean?'
'Something like this. The same size appears different according to
whether it is seen close at hand or at a distance.'
'Yes.'
~ PLATO
'A thing may seem straight or crooked according to whether it is seen
in or out of water. Similarly with the concave and convex, because of
visual error connected with colours. This is evidently a sort of total mental
confusion: and it's this natural experience that' perspective drawing
exploits with its magic, and conjuring tricks too, and many other such
devices.'
'True.'
'Now the best aid in all this is measurement, counting and weighing.
These prevent the apparently bigger or smaller, heavier or more numerous,
from prevailing in our minds, and make the calculating, measuring, and
weighing element do so.'
'Just so.'
'Now this will be the work of the ratiocinative part of our mind.'
'It will.'
'Now it often happens that when this faculty has measured and indicates
that A is bigger or smaller than B, or equal to it, it nevertheless finds
contrary appearances at the same time about the same object.'
'Yes.'
'Now we said that the same thing cannot make contrary judgements at
the same time about the same object.'
'And that was surely right.'
603 'Then the element of the mind that judges against the measurements
is not the same as that which judges with them.'
'No.'
'But that which relies on measurement and calculation will be the best
element of the mind.'
'Of course.'
'So its opponent will be one of the inferior elements.'
'Necessarily.'
'This is the agreement I was aiming at when I said that painting, and
imitative art generally, accomplishes work that is far removed from truth
and addresses itself to an element in us that is far removed from wisdom,
becoming this element's friend and close associate for no good or honest
purpose.'
'Q!tite so.'
'So the art of imitation is an inferior thing, its associate is inferior,
and its products are inferior.'
'So it seems.'
'Does this apply only to visual imitation or also to auditory imitation
-what we call poetry?'
'Probably to this too.'
'Then let us not simply trust the probability on the evidence of painting,
THE TRUE NATURE OF IMITATION
but consider what-mental element it is that poetical imitation consorts
with. Is it good or bad?'
'We must indeed consider that.'
'Let us set the question out like this. Imitation imitates men perform-
ing actions' either forced or voluntary, and believing that they are either
successful or not in these actions, and feeling pain or pleasure as a result
of it all. Is there anything else ?'
'No.'
'Now is a man in a state of concord with himself in all these circum-
stances? Or does he dissent and quarrel within himself in his actions as
he did visually when he had contrary judgements at the same time about
the same things? But I recall that we need not agree this point now,
because we agreed earlier quite adequately that our minds are full of
contradictions of this kind.'
'O!Iite rightly, too.'
'Yes: but I think we must now go into the point which we omitted
then.'
'What is that ?'
'We said that a good man who has, for example, lost a son or something
else to which he attaches great value, will bear the disaster more easily
than others.'z
'Yes.'
'Let us now consider whether he will feel no grief at all or, that being
impossible, show moderation in his grief.'
'The second seems right.'
'Then tell me one thing more. Do you think he will resist and fight his 60 4
grief more when he is seen by his peers, or when he is alone by himself
in solitude?'
'When he's being seen, by a long way.'
'Yes: when he's alone, I imagine, he will allow himself to say many
things he would be ashamed to be heard saying, and do many things he
would not allow anyone to see him doing.'
'Yes.'
'Now the element that bids him resist is reason and law; that which
pulls him towards the grief is the painful experience itself.'
'True.'
'And if there are contrary pulls in the man at the same time in regard
to the same situation, we say that there must be two elements in him.'
'Of course.'
'One of which is ready to obey the law, wherever it gives guidance.'
I Cf. Aristode, Poetics 1448al (below, p. 92). 2 387 d-e (above, p. 58).
P PLATO
'What do you mean?'
'The law says it is best to keep as quiet as possible in misfortune and
not show distress. The good and the evil in such situations are not clear,
nothing is gained for the future by indignation, no human affairs are worth
great trouble, and, finally, grief prevents the arrival of what ought to be
our most present help.'
'What do you mean by that ?'
'Planning in relation to f!1e event. We have to make the right move to
respond to the throw of the dice, as it were, and do what reason dictates
as best. If we fall down, we mustn't clap our hands to the hurt place and
scream like babies, but accustom our mind to attend as quickly as it
can to the healing and setting upright of the fallen and sick. Medicine
must drown threnodies.'
'Certainly that is the right way to react to disasters.'
'So the best part of us wants to follow this reasoning.'
'Obviously.'
'And the element that encourages recollection of the trouble and
lamentation, and is never sated with these, is irrational, inert, and asso-
ciated with cowardice?'
'So we shall say.'
'Now the indignant element admits much varied imitation, while the
. quiet and sensible personality, always very much on the same level, is
difficult to imitate-and difficult to detect if someone does try to imitate
it, especially at a festival where miscellaneous multitudes throng into
the theatre, for it's an imitation of an experience which is foreign to them.'
605 '~ite so.'
'So the imitative poet is obviously not made for this element in the
mind-nor is his skill directed to please it, ifhe is to win popular renown-
but for the indignant and variable personality, because it is easy to imitate.'
'Oearly.'
'So we can now properly take hold of him and place him as corre-
sponding to the painter. He is like hiin in his inferiority with regard to
truth, and also in his habitual association with an element of the mind
which has the same characteristics, rather than with the best element.
We should now be right not to admit him into a potentially well-governed
city, because he rouses and feeds this part of the mind and by strengthen-
ing it destroys the rational part. It is like giving power to bad men in a
city and handing it over to them, while ruining the better. The imitative
poet, we shall say, produces a bad government in the individual mind,
indulging the foolish element that cannot recognize greater and less but
thinks the same thing one moment big, and the next little; he is an image-
maker, far removed indeed from the truth.'
THE TRUE NATURE OF IMITATIO;N 73
'Yes.'
'But we still haven't brought the greatest accusation against him. It is
a terrible thought that he can ruin good men, apart from a very few.'
'But of course he can, if he does this.'
'Listen and think. When the best of us hear Homer or some other
tragic poet imitating a hero in mourning, delivering a long speech of
lamentation, singing, or beating his breast, you know how we feel pleasure
and give ourselves up to it, how we follow in sympathy and praise the
excellence of the poet who does this to us most effectively.'
'Of course I know.'
'But when we have some private bereavement, you notice how we
pride ourselves on the opposite reaction-on keeping quiet and sticking
it out-because this is a man's reaction, and the other, which we were
praising just now, a woman's.'
'I notice that.'
'Is this approval proper? Is it right not to be disgusted, but to feel 606
pleasure and give praise when you see a man whom you would be
ashamed to be yourself?'
'Well, it's not reasonable.'
'No, especially if you look at it like this.'
'Like what ?'
'The element which is forcibly restrained in our own misfortunes,
starved of tears and the satisfaction of lamentation, though it naturally
desires this, is the very element which is satisfied and given pleasure by
the poets. In these circumstances, our best element, not being adequately
trained by reason or habituation, relaxes its watch over this element of
lamentation, because the sorrows it sees are others' sorrows and there
seems no disgrace in praising and pitying a man who claims to be virtuous
and is mourning out of season; indeed, the pleasure seems a positive
gain, and we can't bear to reject the whole poem and so be deprived of it.
Not many people can see that the consequences of others' experience
invade one's own, because it is difficult to restrain pity in one's own
misfortunes when it has grown strong on others'.'
'Very true.'
'Does not the same apply to the ridiculous? Suppose you enjoy in a
comedy or a private conversation jokes you would be ashamed to make
yourself, instead of disliking them as morally bad-aren't you doing the
same thing as with the expressions of pity? You are releasing the element
in you that likes jokes, and that you used to restrain by reason because
you were afraid of a reputation for buffoonery. Without realizing it, you
have made a big thing of it by your frequent indulgence in private con-
versation, with the result that you've become a comedian.'
74 PLATO
'Quite so.'
'Poetical imitation in fact produces the same effect in regard to sex
and anger and all the desires and pleasures and pains of the mind-and
these, in our view, accompany every action. It waters them and nourishes
them, when they ought to be dried up. It makes them our rulers, when
they ought to be under control so that we can be better and happier people
rather than worse and more miserable.'
'I cannot but agree.'
'So when you find admirers of Homer saying that he educated Greece
and that for human management and education one ought to take him
up and learn his lesson and direct one's whole life on his principles, you
607 must be kind and polite to them-they are as good as they are able to be-
and concede that Homer is the foremost and most poetical of the tragic
poets; but you must be clear in your mind that the only poetry admissible
in our city is hymns to the gods and encomia to good men. If you accept
the "sweetened Muse" in lyric or epic, pleasure and pain will be enthroned
in your city instead oflaw and the principle which the community accepts
as best in any given situation.'
'True.'
'Well, these were the points that I wanted to recall to complete our
justification for wishing to banish poetry from the city, such being its
nature. The argument forced us. But let us say to her, lest she damn us as
coarse and philistine, that there is an old quarrel between poetry and
philosophy. I could quote a lot of passages for that: "the yapping bitch
that barks at her master", "a great man amid the vanities of fools", "the
rabble of know-all heads", "thin thinkers starve", and so on.t However,
let us make it clear that if poetry fo: pleasure and imitation have any
arguments to advance in favour of their presence III a well-governed city,
we should be glad to welcome them back. We are conscious of their
charms for us. But it would be wrong to betray what we believe to be the
truth. Doesn't poetry charm you, especially when you see her in Homer ?'
'Indeed she does.'
'So she deserves to return from exile, if she can make her defence in
lyric or other metre ?'
'Yes.'
'And we might also allow her defenders, who are lovers of poetry but
not themselves poetical, to make a prose speech on her behalf, to show
that she is not only pleasing but useful for government and human life;
and we shall be glad to listen. After all, it will be our gain if she turns out
useful as well as pleasing.'
'Certainly it will.'
I The source of these quotations is not known.
POETIC MADNESS 7S
D. POETIC MADNESS
Plato's Phaedrus deals mainly with rhetoric; but it includes also this classic
statement of the irrationality of the poet's urge (245 a).
Translation: R. Hackforth, Cambridge, 1952. Commentary: G. J. de Vries,
Amsterdam, 1969.
See E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, chap. 3.
. . . Third! is the possession and madness of the Muses. Gripping the
delicate and untouched mind, it rouses it to frenzy in songs and other
poems, and, by its adornment of innumerable deeds of the ancients, it
educates posterity. He who comes to poetry's door without the Muses' mad-
ness, convinced that art will make him an adequate poet, is without fulfil-
ment himself, and his sane man's poetry vanishes before that of the insane.
by Mind (Nous) in the creation and continuance of the universe. Peric1es did indeed
know Anaxagoras; but Plato's account of his debt to him is fantastic.
RHETORIC, ACTUAL AND IDEAL 79
complex, how many parts has it, and what are the capacities for action
and reaction in each ?'
'That's about right, Socrates.'
'Well, a procedure without this would be like a blind man's walk.
But the scientific inquirer can't be compared to the blind or the deaf.
If you arc imparting rhetoric to anyone scientifically you'll obviously
have to explain to him carefully the nature of the thing to which he is to
apply his rhetoric. And that means the mind.'
'Yes.'
'Then that's where all the effort goes; it's conviction that he tries to 271
produce, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
'Then Thrasymachus, or anyone else who seriously imparts a science
of rhetoric, will first describe the mind with complete accuracy and make
it apparent whether it is a homogeneous whole or complex, like the body;
this is what we mean by "explaining a nature".'
'Quite so.'
'And, secondly, he will show how it acts and reacts in relation to other
things.'
'Of course.'
'And, thirdly, having classified the species of words and of the mind,
together with the ways they are affected (pathemata), he will explain the
causes, fitting each species to each, and explain what kind of mind is
bound to be convinced or not convinced by particular kinds of words,
and why.'
'That would be excellent.'
'Neither this subject nor any other will ever be scientifically treated in
speech or writing, for display or delivery, in any other way. The present
writers of treatises on the science, whom you have heard, are dishonest;
they know all about the mind, but hide it. Let us therefore not allow that
they are writing scientifically, until they talk and write in this way.'
'What way?'
'It's not easy to put words to it. But I am prepared to explain how
one must write if it is to be as scientific as possible.'
'Do.'
'The power of speech is a charm for the mind (psuchagogia), and the
potential orator must therefore know the kinds of mind there are. They
are such-and-such in number, and of such-and-such kinds. Men there-
fore are of various types. These distinguished, we proceed to distinguish
various kinds of words. We then say: men of type A are easily convinced
by words of type B, for reason C, of proposition D-and type E, for
reason F, is not so easily convinced. Having grasped this theory, one must
80 PLATO
then see these things in practice, and be able to pick them up by quickness
of perception. Otherwise, one doesn't know any more than the lectures
one used to hear I Once able to explain what types of men are convinced
by what types of argument-once able to point out to oneselfby perception
272 in actual fact that "this is the man and this is the sort of character we were
talking about-it's really here now, and I must apply argument X in
this way to persuade them to Y"-once able to do this, given also the
proper moments for speech and silence, and understanding when it is
opportune and when inopportune to employ concision and "words of
pity" and "exaggeration" and so on-then, and then only, one will have
reached the perfection of art. If there is any defect in these respects in
the speaker or teacher or writer, but he still claims science, the unbeliever
wins! "Do you really think that?" our writer may object-"or is there
some other way of understanding the notion of a science of speech ?'"
'No other way possible, Socrates. But it's a big job.'
'Indeed it is. This is why we ought to turn all the arguments this way
and that to see if there's any easier and shorter road. We don't want a long,
rough journey for nothing, if a short, smooth one will do. Do try and
recollect if you have heard Lysias or anyone else say anything helpful.'
'I can try, but I haven't anything in mind at the moment.'
'Would you like me, then, to repeat something I heard from the experts
in these matters ?'
'Of course.'
'Even the wolf's cause ought to be presented, as they say, Phaedrus.'
'Well, present it.'
'They say there is no need to make such a grand business of it, or go
such a roundabout way. As we said at the beginning of our discussion,
the potential good orator need have nothing to do with truth in regard to
just or good actions-or men, whether good by nature or by education.
Nobody worries about these things in law-courts. They are concerned
with persuasiveness-and this means probability, which ;s the scientific
speaker's proper study. Both in prosecutions and in defences, there are
times when one ought not to tell the truth, if it's not probable, but rather
what is probable. Probability is always to be pursued, and you can say
good-bye to truth. It's probability, which runs through a speech from
273 beginning to end, that constitutes the whole subject of the science.'
'Indeed, Socrates, that is exactly what those who claim to understand
the science of speech say. I remember we touched on this before; it's a
big subject for those concerned.'
'Well, you've studied Tisias himself pretty thoroughly; so let Tisias
tell us whether he means by probability anything other than "what
most people believe".'
RHETORIC, ACTUAL AND IDEAL 81
'He can't.'
'This clever and scientific discovery, it seems, led him to write that if
a weak but brave man beat up a hefty cowar~, stealing his cloak or
something, and was brought into court, neither party ought to tell the
truth. The coward ought to say he wasn't beaten up by the brave man
alone, and the other ought then to prove that there were only the two of
them, and then use the argument "Look at him and look at me; how could
I have tackled him?" The other man, of course, won't admit his own
cowardice; he'll try some other lies, which will soon give his opponent
a chance to refute it. "Scientific" advice is all about this sort of thing,
isn't it, Phaedrus?'
'It is indeed.'
'Ah me, it's a fearfully recondite science that Tisias discovered, or
whoever it was and whatever he likes to be called. But ought we, or ought
we not, to say to him-'
'What were you thinking of?'
'This. "Tisias, we have been saying for some time, before you came in,
that this probability generally arises through similarity to the truth, and
we argued a little while ago that in everything it's the man who knows
the truth who best knows how to find similarities. So, while we'd give a
hearing to anything else you say about the science of words, as to this,
we'll abide by our discussion. Without enumerating the natures of the
potential audience, and being able to divide things according to their kinds
and grasp each under a single form, no one can attain science in words,
so far as human capacities go. And this is unattainable without much
labour, which the good man ought not to undertake for the sake of speech
and action in human relationships, but only in order to be able to speak
and act as far as he can in a manner pleasing to the gods. Wiser men than
we, Tisias, say that the wise ought not to strive to please their fellow 274
slaves, except incidentally, but to please masters who are good and of good
folk. So don't wonder if the way round is long; the object is a great one,
on a different scale from what you imagine ... '"
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Poetics
Aristotle Poetics: Introduction, Commentary, and Appendixes by D. W. Lucas,
Oxford, 1968 (this, the most recent commentary, itself contains a useful brief
bibliography).
H. House, Aristotle's Poetics, London, 1956.
The translation of T. S. Dorsch in the Penguin volume Classical Literary
Criticism, 1965, is valuable.
Rhetoric
E. M. Cope, An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric, London and Cambridge,
1867.
- - The Rhetoric of Aristotle with a Commentary, revised by]. E. Sandys,
3 vols., Cambridge, 1877.
J. H. Freese, Aristotle: The 'Art' of Rhetoric (Loeb), London, 1926.
A. POETICS
INTRODUCTION
Aristotle's Poetics is probably the most important single book that has ever
been written about poetry, both for what it says and for what it has been taken
to say. Various factors make it a work singularly easy to misinterpret, and the
misinterpretations have been just as seminal in the development of aesthetic
theory and, at some periods, of poetry itself as a correct understanding of it.
The factors that make for misunderstanding are worth listing, if only for
monitory purposes: (I) Aristotle's thought, though generally exquisitely lucid,
is never easy and never slack; it is therefore as hard for a person who knows
Greek to follow him as it is for a person who knows English to follow Hume.
(2) Some accidental features of its composition or its transmission have made
the Poetics one of his most compressed and elliptical works; the contrast with
the comparatively open texture of the Rhetoric, for instance, is marked. (3)
Aristotle presupposed in his audience an acquaintance not only with the doctrines
of the Ethics and Politics but also with the central concepts of his logical and meta-
physical theories (cf. below, pp. 98 n. 4, 99n. I, 101 n. 3,106 n. I). (4) The Poetics
envisages a variety of different interests in literature, the politician'S, the poet's,
the critic's; but the book is not written primarily for any of these, but rather
for the philosopher. In other words, it is neither principally a defence of poetry,
86 ARISTOTLE
nor a treatise on how to write it, nor an enunciation of principles of literary
criticism, though it has elements of all these; it is first and foremost a work of
aesthetic theory, and interpretations that under-stress this fact inevitably lead to
distortion.
Aristotle had a quite coherent theory of the nature of our pleasure in art. It
starts from simple principles and ramifies everywhere; it explains his preferences
in literature and it is the antithesis of Plato's, though it accepts some of the same
presuppositions.
The basic premiss of Aristotle's aesthetic theory is stated in c. 4 of the
Poetics and several times in the Rhetoric (below, pp. 94, 134, ISO): it is that by
and large human beings positively enjoy learning or understanding or realizing
things. ' Our desire to understand things is a natural desire like hunger, and its
satisfaction is pleasurable, a 'restoration to a natural state', like eating (below,
p. 134). Our pleasure in art is a branch of this pleasure; the poet or the orator
or the painter makes us see or understand things that we did not see before, and
particularly he points out the relations and similarities between different things,
enables us to say, in Aristotle's phrase, 'this is that' (below, pp. 94, 134, ISO).
This basic foundation of aesthetic pleasure explains many of Aristotle's
further requirements in art. First and foremost, it justifies the general Greek
belief, which Aristotle accepted and elaborately defends, that art is essentially
'representational', i.e. that mimesis is necessary to it.' Aristotle takes the relation
between mimesis and mathesis to be a close one, both at the simplest level, where
'we make our first steps in learning through mimesis' (below, p. 94) and at the
infinitely more sophisticated one where the tragic poet makes 'general statements'
analogous to those of the moral philosopher. At the lowest level mimesis is what
Plato asserted it was at any level, mere copying, a parrot act that can be performed
without any real knowledge of the act or object copied; even here, however,
Aristotle implies that though we may not have knowledge before we engage in
mimesis we acquire knowledge by engaging in it. And at the higher level the
tragic poet, presenting individually characterized people in specific situations,
makes us aware of moral facts and moral possibilities relevant to more than the
situation he envisages.
If mimesis is to produce the sort of realization that Aristotle demands of art
at its best, a prime requirement is obviously truth. A poem or play that operates
in the realm of fantasy can charm and rouse wonder, and Aristotle is as sus-
ceptible as anyone to the enchantment of the fantastic in Homer (below,
pp. 125 f.). Yet his judgement is against fantasy and given in favour of the more
I These are different possible translations of mathesis and the associated verb man-
thanein.
Z Once at any rate, in an interesting passage of the Phi/eh us (SI b--e), Plato does
question the necessity of mimesis to aesthetic pleasure; but in general he, like Aristotle,
accepts the general Greek assumption that our pleasure in art is principally pleasure in
mimesis.
POETICS
rigorous causal chain of tragedy,' which, because it is presented to the senses
and not just to the feebler imagination, cannot afford to follow epic into the
area of the marvellous and the irrational.
Yet the realization must be a sudden one too, and for this the prime require-
ment is surprise. A play whose plot, however truthful, is predictable will not
give us the pleasure of sudden realization. This is the reason for Aristotle's
insistence on the unexpected and a second reason for his preference for the
complex form of tragedy, which is defined with reference to surprise turns
(peripeteiai) and recognitions. It is juxtaposition that best makes us aware of
opposites (below, pp. 138, 149, 167), and the sudden reversals of fortune in com-
plex tragedy most powerfully bring home to us the truths that the poet is stating.
For both these reasons Aristotle regards complex tragedy as the entelecheia
or full realization of the essential nature of poetry. It is the form that makes us
realize most truth fastest, and therefore provides in greatest measure and con-
centration the pleasure that a work of art can provide. The same criteria are de-
ployed not only to judge between or within literary kinds, but also in evaluating
details of style, both in poetry and prose. It is the requirements of mathisis
that determine the high estimate Aristotle sets on metaphor (pp. 122,150), on
the periodic style (p. 148), on antithetical expression (pp. 149, 150 f., 154), on
rhythm in prose (p. 146), on various forms of argument (p. 150).
Whatever may be true of other arts, 2 tragedy at any rate operates on a conscious-
ness heightened by intense emotion, and specifically by the two emotions of
fear and pity. The discussion of these two emotions in Rhetoric 2. 5 and 2. 9
shows them closely related; essentially they are roused by the same kind of
situations, but fear is self-regarding and pity other-regarding. Aristotle's state-
ment that tragedy arouses fear in the audience therefore implies that he takes
for granted a remarkable degree of identification between the audience and the
characters presented. No doubt the fear felt by the audience of tragedy does not
cover the whole range of fear in ordinary life, but the flat statement of the
Rhetoric 3 inescapably implies that Aristotle does not agree with Dr. Johnson's
'The truth is, the audience are always in their senses', much less with more
recent aesthetic theories about the necessity of 'distancing'.
A by-product of the stimulation of these intense emotions is their catharsis
(p. 97). This cryptic phrase has attracted more attention than it deserves,
but the theory concealed by it is nevertheless important. Plato had attacked
mimesis, and particularly tragedy, on two counts, the first that it does not present
us with truth (above, pp. 66 ff.), the second that it stimulates emotions that a
, The topic is developed in Poetics, cc. 7-9, below, pp. 100 If.
2 It is never made quite clear whether or not epic also operates by rousing the same
emotions as tragedy.
3 1382b30 If. 'No one feels fear if he thinks nothing is likely to happen to him, or
fear of things he does not think would happen to him or of people he does not think
likely to harm him, or at the time when he does not anticipate harm.'
88 ARISTOTLE
good man tries to suppress (above, pp. 69 ff.). Aristotle's answer to the first
charge is to be found in the mathesis doctrine, and especially in c. 9 of the
Poetics: Plato had claimed that an instance of mimesis has less reality than an
individual particular, which in turn has less reality than the idea. Aristotle
replies that the statements of the poet, so far from being inferior to statements of
particulars, are more comprehensive and more philosophical (below, p. 102);
ifhe were thinking in Platonic terms this would amount to saying that the object
of mimesis is not the particular but the idea. Of course he does not say any such
thing, as he did not believe in substantive ideai; but the implication was drawn
by later Platonists. 1 The answer to Plato's second charge is contained in the
reference to catharsis. 2
Some light is thrown on the concept of catharsis by the passage cited from the
Politics (below, pp. 132 ff.). But that passage is also in some respects mis-
leading, as there Aristotle is talking from the point of view of the legislator and
educationalist and discussing the uses of various kinds of music. In the Poetics
he is indeed talking at the legislator, but not from his point of view, and he can
be content with a more purely defensive position. As against Plato he only has
to show that tragedy's stimulation of the emotions is not in fact undesirable and
may indeed be beneficial.
The passage, unprovided with the explanation promised in the Politics, has
provoked the most various interpretations. The most promising line is that
put forward by House, op. cit., pp. 100 ff.; he takes catharsis in its medical sense
of the production of a 'mean', and interprets the concept of 'mean' in Aristotle's
own sense. When we consider what degree of emotion is 'undue', we take into
account not merely the quantity of emotion but its object and its circumstances
(Nic. Eth. II06b l8 ff. 'One can feel fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity .•.
both too much and too little, and in both cases wrongly; but the mean is attained
when we feel them at the right time, at the right objects, towards the right
people, for the right reason, in the right way'). Aristotle's answer to Plato,
so maddeningly undeveloped, seems to be that tragedy presents us with objects
(great and good men suffering terrible fortunes) that are proportioned to the
degree of emotion they arouse. So far from encouraging a vicious indulgence
in emotion on any and every occasion, tragedy gives us an imaginative apprehen-
sion of a degree of suffering normally beyond our ken. We need not suppose that
Aristotle has romantic expectations about the educative power of tragedy; of
course one perception of the mean is not enough to make a virtuous man. Yet
any perception of the mean helps one to right feeling and right behaviour, and
that is so far, so good.
It is important that the concept of catharsis does not commit Aristotle to
either of two erroneous aesthetic positions common both in antiquity and later
times. Catharsis is not something the tragic poet aims to produce. His aim is
I Cicero, Orator 8 If., Plotinus S. 8. I.
2 It certainly required a reply and in the Poetics gets no other. This is a main
reason for rejecting the interpretation of catharsis recently proposed by L. Golden,
Transactions of the American Philological Association, 93, 1962, SS If. (reiterated in the
commentary of Golden and Hardison); cf. also Classical Philology 64,1969, 145 If.
POETICS
defined below (p. 108) as 'to produce the pleasure springing from pity and fear
via mimesis'. Catharsis is a therapeutic by-product, not something the poet either
does or should intend. But just as Aristotle can therefore avoid the Scylla of
taking the poet to have a duty to improve his audience's morals, he equally
shuns the Charybdis of denying that poetry has any moral effect. Tragedy is
not trivial; it does alter our moral attitudes, and a legislator might well consider
whether to do something about it. Aristotle is not however convinced that the
legislator would be well advised to tell the poet what kind of poems to write.
THE TRANSLATION
Theories on how to translate the Poetics are almost as numerous as the actual
translations. This translation is based on the single principle of trying to make
coherent sense, of the material presented by tradition when one can make sense
of it, of modem conjectures when one cannot. The attempt to express in English
the logical relation between Aristotle's ideas inevitably leads to some camouflaging
of the way he puts them, but is necessary to avoid the more damaging impression
that Aristotle spoke a version of the higher Babu. If he arranges two nouns
and two adjectives chiastically and says that the ridiculous is 'a blunder or
ugliness that does not imply pain or cause damage', one should suppress this
stylistic elegance in the interests of clarity. Ifhe says 'On the one hand this and
on the other hand that' and means, as Greeks did, 'Though this, nevertheless
that' or alternatively 'Just as this, so also that', it is better to make him say in
English what he means in Greek. If he wants to say 'anything' and has to use a
word equally open to the translation 'everything', there is no reason to make
him tell lies by putting the second into his mouth. He is not responsible for the
fact that Greek is over-fond of the co-ordinate form of expression and sometimes
uses one word for two different concepts. Anyone who understood his author
would accept such principles of translation if he were dealing with, say, an
orator; there is no sense in allowing a slavish adherence to the actual Greek
words to obscure Aristotle's meaning in a way that would not be tolerable in a
rendering ofDemosthenes. On the other hand, I have tried to be very scrupulous
in warning the reader by square brackets whenever I have added a phrase to
show what I take to be the logical relation between sentences. The chapter and
paragraph headings are mine.
Some constant technical terms are merely transliterated, like peripeteia or
pathos (with its plural patM); these are defined in the treatise itself and when
used in the sense defined are left in their transliterated form. I have followed
the same course with mimesis, the central concept of the Poetics, which is too
important to be rendered by an only roughly approximate English word. It is
never defined and the range of ideas Aristotle uses it to cover is a shifting one;
one sees better what they are if one comes to it with no English-based pre-
conceptions.
In some other places, particularly those dealing with minute stylistic points,
the Greek examples are left untranslated; we have no way, for instance, of
showing in English the stylistic effect of what Aristotle calls a 'dialect term'
90 ARISTOTLE
(below p. 119). Merely to render it by a stronger, though current, English word
undervalues the strangeness of the dialect term, while a scattering of occasional
phrases from Lallans or Mummerset would not be, to English taste, agreeable.
CHAPTER I
Contents
1447' The subject I wish us to discuss is poetry itself, its species with their
1 respective capabilities, the correct way of constructing plots so that the
work turns out well, the number and nature of the constituent elements
[of each species], and anything else in the same field of inquiry.
mimesis in general, but a variety of mimesis defined by the media, 'mimesis in speech,
harmony, and rhythm, separately or in combination'.
2 The reference is to sounds, not necessarily articulate, made by the human vocal
organs. Direct mimicry of the bird-call kind seems to be what Aristotle has in mind.
3 Literally 'flute-playing and lyre-playing and any other arts that have the same
capability, for example, playing the Pan-pipe'.
POETICS 91
represent characters, passions, I and actions by rhythmic movement and
postures.
Conclusion
So much for the number and nature of the differentiae of poetic
mimesis.
I The Greek is perhaps defective and also admits the interpretation '(i) sometimes in
narration, either becoming someone else, as Homer does, or speaking in one's own
person without change, or (ii) with all the people .. .'. The threefold classification given
in the translation is in accordance with Plato's view (Rep. 392 d If.); more important,
it agrees better with Aristode's own insistence on the uniqueness of Homer (pp. 94 f.,
101 f., 123, 125 f.).
2 The position of this digression, carefully segregated from the following serious
discussion of the development of the poetic kinds, seems to show that Aristode thought
Iitde of the Dorian claims.
3 Early in the sixth century.
4 The first known poets of Attic comedy, very litde later, in fact, than Epicharmus.
94 ARISTOTLE
SECTION B. THE PROOF THAT THE KINDS WE ARE INTERESTED
IN DEFINING ARE EACH A COMPLETELY DEVELOPED AND
A SINGLE SPECIES
aesthetic pleasure; cf. the fuller discussion in Rhet. I. I37Ia2I ff. (below, p. I34) and
pp. 86 f.
2 The translation is borrowed from Milton (P.R. 4. 266); the word is translated 'good'
POETICS 95
in this kind being the only ones that are not only well done but essentially
dramatic, Homer also first adumbrated the form of comedy by dramatizing
the ridiculous instead of producing invectives; his Margites bears the
same relation to comedy as the Iliad and Odyssey do to tragedy.' 1449a
On the subsequent appearance of tragedy and comedy, those whose
natural bent made lampooners of them turned to comedy, while those
naturally inclined to epic became tragedians, because the new forms were
more ample and more highly esteemed than the old.
produces in this section some embarrassment of expression, which has induced some
editors to rearrange the argument in the form Aristotle would have given it if he had
been unscrupulous. The series hymns-Homer-tragedy leads him to posit a similar
series invectives-Homer-comedy. In fact the invention of the iambic trimeter was
attributed to Homer in the Margites, and Archilochus, the great poet of invective, was
later than Homer.
2 Tragedy is more elaborated than epic, as it has more qualitative elements (p. 96).
The 'other story' seems to be given by the deduction of the sufficiency of the qualitative
elements of tragedy on pp. 97 f.
ARISTOTLE
hexameters are rare and only occur when we depart from conversational
tone;
(iv) in the increased number of episodes.
There is no need to say more of this or of the other developments that
gave it beauty; it would take too long to go through them in detail.
The plot therefore is the principle, or one might say the principle of
life,' in tragedy, while the mimesis of character comes second in impor-
tance, a relation similar to one we find in painting, where the most beautiful I4S0b
colours, if smeared on at random, would give less pleasure than an un-
coloured oudine that was a picture of something. A tragedy, I repeat,
is a mimesis of an action, and it is only because of the action that it is a
mimesis of the people engaged in it. Third comes the mimesis of their
intellect, by which I mean their ability to say what the situation admits
and requires; to do this in speeches is the job of political sense and rhetoric,
since the older poets made their people speak as the former directs, while
the modems make them observe the rules of rhetoric. Of these two, the
mimesis of character is that [in the play] which makes plain the nature of
the moral choices the personages make,2 so that those speeches in which
there is absolutely nothing that the speaker chooses and avoids involve
no mimesis of character. By 'mimesis of intellect' I mean those passages in
which they prove that something is or is not the case or deliver themselves
I The 'principle of life' renders psyche ('sou!'), which stands to the living body in the
same relation as plot to tragedy; it is 'what the rest is there for' as in argument (a), and
it is what the living body essentially is as in argument (b). In traditional language it is
both a 'final cause' and the 'formal cause'. a. De Anima 4ISbSff.
2 After this the manuscripts add 'in cases in which it is not clear whether (?) he chooses
I a. pp. 116 f.
2 Others interpret 'a tragedy can do its job', making Aristotle say the same as in
c. 26, pp. 131 f. But the point here seems a different one; though an aCIUal, fully realized
performance of a tragedy demands spectacle, the poet has done what he has to do when
he has produced something that is potentially a tragedy. Its staging is not something
that belongs to the poet's art.
3 In this large and important section Aristotle is not yet talking about what is
necessary for a good plot, a subject that he only begins to discuss on p. 106. He is
continuing his analysis of the essential nature of tragedy by considering the minimum
characteristics that a plot must have if it is not to be judged positively defective.
4 It is perhaps worth pointing out that the four essential characteristics are not on a
level, but that the first three are defined in terms of the last. The kind of order, the kind
of ampliIUde, the kind of unity in question are all explained in terms that invoke
probable or necessary connection.
POETICS 101
3 The interpretation is that ofVahlen and is the only one that does justice to the Greek.
The analogy is drawn from logic. To give an example, some of the statements to be made
about a coffee-pot will define it as a piece of crockery, those plus some more statements
will define it as a coffee-pot; but a great many statements that are incidentally true of
it will only detail its life history and not define it as a member of any species.
102 ARISTOTLE
implied the other at all; instead he composed the Odyssey about an action
that is one in the sense I mean, and the same is true of the Iliad. In the
other mimetic arts a mimesis is one if it is a mimesis of one object; and in
the same way a plot, being a mimesis of an action, should be a mimesis of
one action and that a whole one, with the different sections so arranged
that the whole is disturbed by the transposition and destroyed by the
removal of anyone of them; for if it makes no visible difference whether
a thing is there or not, that thing is no part of the whole.
ment of analysis that Aristode displays in this argument. One should remember that to
the Greeks Oedipus was just as much a historical personage as Alcibiades. The dis-
tinction between what a poet means when he says 'X did such-and-such' and what an
historian means when he makes an identical statement is not in itself obvious and was
not grasped by most ancient historians. The historian must not suppress the fact that
does not fit in, he must not bridge the gaps in his evidence with plausible conjecture
presented as a statement of fact. The poet, on the other hand, cannot say anything that
his audience will not take to be relevant to the picture they assume he is presenting,
and this picture is an investigation of moral possibilities. Poetry is therefore like philo-
sophy (or like science); its statements, though in form the same as the historians', are
in fact taken to be statements of the greatest generality that its subject-matter allows.
POETICS 103
to deny the necessity of verse to poetry (though he might have done, if pushed), but to
assert the necessity of mimesis.
Z The manuscripts add 'and that can happen', perhaps defensible as a piece of donnish
10 Some plots are simple, some complex, since the actions of which the
plots are mimeseis fall naturally into the same two classes. By 'simple
action' I mean one that is continuous in the sense defined 2 and is a unity
and where the change of fortune takes place without peripeteia or recogni-
tion, by 'complex' one where the change of fortune is accompanied by
peripeteia or recognition or both. The peripeteia and recognition should
arise just from the arrangement of the plot, so that it is necessary or
probable that they should follow what went before; for there is a great
difference between happening next and happening as a result.
(i) Peripeteia
11 A peripeteia occurs when the course of events takes a turn to the
opposite in the way described,3 the change being also probable or neces-
sary in the way I said. For example, in the Oedipus, when the 4 man came
and it seemed that he would comfortS Oedipu sand free him from his fear
about his mother, by revealing who he was he in fact did the opposite.
Again in the Lynceus, Lynceus was being led off and it seemed that he
would be put to death and that Danaus who was with him would kill him,
but the earlier actions produced Danaus' death and Lynceus' release.
(ii) Recognition
Recognition is, as its name indicates, a change from ignorance to know-
ledge, tending either to affection or to enmity; it determines in the direction
of good or ill fortune the fates of the people involved. The best sort of
recognition is that accompanied by peripeteia, like that in the Oedipus.
I Those where things happen unexpectedly but because of each other.
(iii) Pathos
These then are two elements of the plot, and a third is pathos. I have
dealt with the first two, peripeteia and recognition. A pathos is an act
involving destruction or pain, for example deaths on stage and physical
agonies and woundings and so on.
So much for the parts of tragedy that one ought to use as qualitative 12
elements.
meter a running metre appropriate to a hasty choral entry. Cf. A. M. Dale, Collected
Papers, Cambridge, 1969, pp. 34 If.
106 ARISTOTLE
use as qualitative elements, I have now dealt with the category of quantity
and the quantitative divisions of a tragedy. I
CHAPTER III
EXCELLENCE IN TRAGEDY
13 What ought one to aim at and beware of in composing plots? And what
is the source of the tragic effect? These are the questions that naturally
follow from what I have now dealt with.
as well a late form not used by Aristotle; such a dreary piece of scholasticism is unlike
him. The whole discussion of tragedy under the category of quantity has been chal-
lenged, and may be an interpolation. Yet it stands where it should stand, concluding the
analysis of the nature of tragedy and preceding the consideration of its virtues, and
though bald is not absurd in content. Of the ten categories that belong to the Aristotelian
theory of predication, it is of course these three, substance, quality, and quantity, that
provide the definition of a thing's essential nature; the other categories only state
things that are incidentally true of it at a particular time and place.
2 Aristotle's thought in this section is best illuminated by the discussion in Rhetoric
2. 9 of the emotions that expel pity, and particularly by the discussion of 'justified
POETICS 107
So the good plot must have a single line of development, not a double
one as some people say;' that line should go from good fortune to bad
and not the other way round; the change should be produced not through
wickedness, but through some htrge-scale piece of ignorance; the person
ignorant should be the sort of man I have described-certainly not a
worse man, though perhaps a better one.
This is borne out by the facts: at first the poets recounted any story
that came to hand, but nowadays the best tragedies are about a few families
only, for example, Alcmaeon, Oedipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Tele-
phus, and others whose lot it was to suffer or commit fearful acts.
Well then, the best tragedy, judged from the standpoint of the tragic
art, comes from this sort of arrangement. That is why those who censure
Euripi~es for doing this in his tragedies and making many of them end
with disaster are making just the same mistake. 2 For this is correct in
the way I said. The greatest proof of this is that on the stage and in the
contests such plays are felt to be the most properly tragic, if they are well
managed, and Euripides, even if he is a bad manager in the other points,
is at any rate the most tragic of the poets. 3
Second comes the sort of arrangement that some people say is the best:
this is the one that has a double arrangement of the action like the
Odyssey, and ends with opposite fortunes for the good and bad people.
It is thought to be the best because-of the weakness of the audiences;
for the poets follow the lead of the spectators and make plays to their
indignation' (nemesiin). This emotion has several aspects, pain at the undeserved mis-
fortunes of the good, pain at the undeserved good fortune of the wicked, pleasure at the
deserved misfortunes of the wicked; these three aspects correspond to the three cases
that Aristotle here excludes. 'What satisfies our human feeling' (to philanthropon) seems
here to be the opposite of 'the morally outraging' (to miaron).
Aristotle clearly has some difficulty in reconciling the need to avoid 'justified indigna-
tion' with the requirement that the characters of high poetry should be good. To do so
he invokes hamartia as the cause of their misfortune. In the context two things are
necessary, that the tragic figure should in some sense be responsible for his fate (to
avoid the first case), and that his fate should nevertheless be worse than he deserves (to
avoid the third case); that is, a hamartia here is 'a going wrong that is venial'. Other
discussions (especially Nic. Eth. 3. 1-2) show that it is venial because the character did
not know what he was doing; the same act done in full knowledge would be a crime. In
the case of Oedipus, for instance, the hamartia is simply and solely the murder of Laius
and the marriage with Jocasta, in ignorance of the fact that they were his parents. The
Bradleyan notion popular among English critics that the hamartia is a fault of character
is of course excluded by the description of the hamartia as large-scale; a large-scale
fault of character is not, in Aristotle's view, venial.
I See below, n. 2.
2 They make the same mistake as the 'some people' mentioned above and below,
specifications. But this is not the pleasure proper to tragedy, but rather
belongs to comedy; for in comedy those who are most bitter enemies
throughout the plot, as it might be Orestes and Aegisthus, I are reconciled
at the end and go off and nobody is killed by anybody.
for a comedy on the topic of Orestes and Aegisthus or take this to be a reference to a
hypothetical third form of tragedy, with a happy ending for everybody.
• Prior both in time and in importance, as it belongs to the poetic art proper; the
point is the same as that made about spectacle on p. 100 above.
3 Cf. above, p. 105.
POETICS log
agents knowing and aware [whom they are damaging]; even Euripides has
the example of Medea killing her children with full knowledge. [And
they can have knowledge and not act].' Or they can commit the deed that
rouses terror without knowing to whom they are doing it, and later
recognize the connection, like Sophocles' Oedipus; this indeed happens
outside the play, but we have examples in the tragedy itself, for example,
Astydamas' Alcmaeon and Telegonus in the Wounded Odysseus. 2 Again,
apart from these one might through ignorance intend to do something
irreparable, and then recognize the victim-to-be before doing it. These
are the only possible ways, as they must either do it or not, and in know-
ledge or ignorance.
The worst of these is to have the knowledge and the intention and
then not do it; for this is both morally outraging and untragic-'untragic'
because it involves no pathos. That is why nobody does behave in this 1454a
way except very rarely, as Haemon, for example, means to kill Creon
in the Antigone. 3 The second worst is doing it: the better form of this is
when the character does it in ignorance, and recognizes his victim after-
wards; for this involves no feeling of outrage and the recognition produces
lively surprise. But the best is the last, for example, the case in the Cres-
phontes4 where Merope means to kill her son and does not, but recognizes
him instead, and the case involving brother and sister in the Iphigenia in
Tauris; again in the Helle the son recognized his mother when on the
point of giving her up.s
I In view of the last sentence of the paragraph this addition from the Arabic
IS In the representation of character, there are four things that one ought
to aim at:
(a) First and foremost, the characters represented should be morally
good. The speech or action will involve mimesis of character if it
makes plain, as said before, the nature of the person's moral choice, and
the character represented will be good if the choice is good. This is
possible in each class: for example, a woman is good and so is a slave,
though the one is perhaps inferior, and the other generally speaking
low-grade.
(b) The characters represented should be suitable: for example, the
character represented is brave, I but it is not suitable for a woman to be
brave or clever in this way.2
(c) They should be life-like; this is different from the character's
being good and suitable in the way I used 'suitable'.3 .
(d) They should be consistent: for even if the subject of the mimesis is
an inconsistent person, and that is the characteristic posited of him,
still he ought to be consistently inconsistent.
An example of unnecessary badness of character is Menelaus in
the Orestes,4 of the unsuitable or inappropriate Odysseus' lament in the
Scylla s and Melanippe's speech,6 of the inconsistent Iphigenia in the
Iphigenia at Aulis, as the girl who pleads for her life is quite different
from the later one.
In the representation of character as well as in the chain of actions
one ought always to look for the necessary or probable, so that it is
I And therefore meets the requirement of being morally good.
2 Cf. Politics I. 5, and 1277b21 ff., for the difference between the virtues of men and
women, even when their virtues are called by the same name.
3 It is not clear what Aristotle means by this requirement, especially as he either did
not give or the tradition has lost the example ofits violation.
4 His cowardice in 682-715. Else rightly argues that this and the other examples
given are, when we can check them, 'unnecessary' because they do not contribute to the
action of the play, which would be unaffected whether they were there or not.
S The example does not come from tragedy, but from a dithyramb by Timotheus.
6 In Euripides' Melanippe the Wise Woman.
POETICS III
I. Recognition
I gave before the genus definition of recognition. Now for its species: 16
(a) The first and least artistic (and the one most used because people
I This is the reading of the sixth-century Syriac translation and is the only one that
allows all this chapter, apart from the last sentence (below, n. 5), to deal with character.
The rest of the evidence for the text has 'should arise from the plot itself'. If this is
right, we must suppose that the bundle of practical hints for playwrights that occupies
chapters 16-18 and interrupts the orderly development of the treatise begins with this
sentence, and not with the last sentence of c. 15 or the first of c. 16 (below, n. 6).
2 Probably Athene's intervention at Iliad 2. 166 If.
3 Cf. below, p. 126.
4 The last clause renders Lobel's conjecture.
s Or 'arising from'. The text and interpretation are uncertain. The sentence seems to
have some relation to the discussion of poetic imagination on p. I 13 below.
6 The discussion of excellence in tragedy, which proceeds from plot (cc. 13-14) and
character (c. 15) to the representation of intellect (c. 19) and verbal expression (cc. 19 If.),
is suspended, and we have three chapters which nobody would have planned to put
where we find them, though they are indubitably Aristotelian.
II2 ARISTOTLE
can think of nothing better) is recognition by visible signs. These signs
may be birthmarks, like 'the spear the earth-born bear' or stars like those
Carcinus supposed in his Thyestes, or acquired after birth; there are two
kinds of the latter, bodily onesJike scars, or external ones, like necklaces
and the recognition by means of the cradle in Sophocles' Tyro. Even
such signs can be well or badly handled: for example, Odysseus' scar
leads to his being recognized in one way by his nurse and in another by
the swineherds; recognitions like the latter, which are just meant to
convince [the other characters in the poem], are less artistic, and so are all
others similarly contrived; those that spring from a peripeteia, like that
in the Bath episode, are better.!
(b) The next are those manufactured by the poet: this makes them
inartistic. An example is Orestes' making himself known in the Iphigenia
in Tauris; for she herself was recognized by means of her letter, but
Orestes says without more ado what the poet wants him to say, not what
the plot demands. So this is quite near the previous fault, since it would
have been possible for him to bring some tokens too. There is also the
'voice of the shuttle' in Sophocles' Tereus. 2
(c) The third is by means of memory, that is, when one's awareness is
1455a roused by seeing something: for example, in Dicaeogenes' Cyprians, he
sees the picture and bursts into tears, and in the story of Alcinous Odysseus
is reminded by listening to the harpist, and weeps; this leads to the
recognition in each case.
(d) The fourth is recognition on the basis of reasoning: in the Choe-
phoroe, for instance, we have the argument 'Somebody like me has come;
nobody but Orestes is like me; so Orestes has come'.3 Another example
is the way the sophist Polyidus dealt with Iphigenia; it was natural, he
thought, for Orestes to argue that his sister had been sacrificed and now
it was his turn to be sacrificed. Another is in Theodectes' Tydeus to the
effect that in coming to find his son he was losing his own life. Again, in
the Sons of Phineus, when the women saw the place they inferred that
they were destined to die there, since that was where they had been
exposed.
There is also a composite kind involving a false inference on the part
of the other character. An example of this is in Odysseus the False Mes-
senger. For that Odysseus and only he can string the bow is something
I The Bath episode is the recognition by Eurycleia in Odyssey 19.
2 Philomela told her story by weaving it, as her tongue had been cut out.
3 Electra does not use this dubious bit of reasoning to help her recognize Orestes; he
recognizes her because he hears her producing it in lines 164 if. Her recognition of him
is 'manufactured by the poet', i.e. he simply declares who he is (219) and also produces
tokens (225 if.: the lock fits the place on his head from which it was cut and he has a
robe that Electra embroidered). Editors have failed to see this.
POETICS II3
manufactured by the poet, and there is a hypothesis 'If he said that he
would know the bow that he has not seen', I but to construct the plot so
that it looks as if he will recognize him through this [false inference] is
[the case of] paralogism [being described].z
(e) The best kind of all is that which arises from the actions alone,
with the surprise developing through a series of likelihoods; examples are
that in Sophodes' Oedipus and Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris; for it was
likely that she would want to send a letter. 3 Only such recognitions are
really free from manufactured signs and necklaces. The next best are
those that come from reasoning.
2. Poetic imagination
In composing plots and working them out so far as verbal expression 17
goes, the poet should, more than anything else, put things before his eyes,
as he then sees the events most vividly as if he were actually present,
and can therefore find what is appropriate and be aware of the opposite.
The censure on Carcinus is an indication of this: that was a matter of
Amphiaraus' coming from the temple, which would have escaped notice
ifithad not been seen, but fell flat on the stage, because the audience made
a fuss about it. So far as possible one should also work it out with the
appropriate figures. 4 For given the same natural endowment, people who
actually feel passion are the most convincing; that is, the person who most
realistically expresses distress is the person in distress and the same is true
of a person in a temper. That is why poetry is the work of a genius rather
than of a madman; for the genius is by nature adaptable, while the mad-
man is degenerate. s
I Taking this to be a hypothesis entertained by one of the characters and meaning
'Ifhe truly says that he will recognize the bow that he has not, since his arrival in Ithaca,
seen', one can see that the character might falsely infer 'He is Odysseus'. The false
inference is the fallacy ofinferring the antecedent from the consequent; below, p. 126.
Z Text and interpretation are a matter of speculation. The false inference might be
made by the audience instead of by another character, and we do not know whether the
work discussed is a play or the relevant part of the Odyssey.
3 Iph. Taur. 725-803.
• Le. of speech and thought. Others interpret 'gestnres'.
5 The manuscripts have 'That is why poetry is the work of a genius or of a madman',
in conjunction with which the next clause must be interpreted 'for the genius is by
nature adaptable, while the madman is beside himself'; if this is right Aristotle is placidly
assenting en passant to Plato's account of poetic mania (above, p. 75), though that
account can hardly be reconciled with the demands he himself makes on the poet in this
discussion. This attitude is, to say the least, less to be expected than that of tacit dissent
from a Platonic paradox. The pseudo-Aristotelian Problems (954) implies that both
madmen and geniuses share the temperament later called 'melancholy adust', but that in
8143591 I
ARISTOTLE
Whether the argument of a play is pre-existent or whether one is
I455b inventing it oneself, one should set it out in general terms, and only
then make it into episodes and extend it. By 'setting it out in general
terms' I mean, to take the case of the Iphigenia in Tauris: [before the
action proper begins] a girl was sacrificed and disappeared without the
sacrificers knowing what had happened to her, and she was settled in
another country where there was a law that ont,! sacrificed strangers to
the goddess; she was installed as priestess of this rite ; [then in the action
proper] it came about later that the priestess's brother arrived (that he
came because of an oracle and his purpose in coming are things outside
the action); anyway he came and was captured and when on the point
of being sacrificed disclosed himself, either as in Euripides' poem or
as in Polyidus,I saying, that is, as was natural, that it turned out that he
was destined to be sacrificed as well as his sister; and this recognition
produced his rescue. After this one should come to adding the names
and making the episodes. Take care that the episodes are relevant; for
example, in the case of Orestes in the Iphigenia such episodes are the fit
of madness that led to his capture, and his escape through being purified.
In plays episodes are brief, but epic uses them to increase its length.
The Odyssey, for instance, has a very brief argument: [as preliminary to
the action] a man is away from home for many years and jealously
watched by Poseidon and has lost his followers; moreover at home his
affairs are such that his property is being wasted by suitors and plots
laid against his· son; [and in the action proper] he comes home in dire
distress and after disclosing himself makes an attack and destroys his
enemies without being killed himself. This is what is proper to the
action; the rest of the poem is episodes.
the genius 'the excessive heat has sunk to a moderate amount'; it also contains the signi-
ficant remark that 'Maracus the Syracusan was even a better poet when he was mad',
an example so remote from the main stream of poetry and so cautious in expression that
it is clear that the author of the Problems, at any rate, did not think poetic mania very
common. The manuscript tradition has been challenged by three people in whose
company it is a comfort to be, Castelvetro, Dryden, and Tyrwhitt; there is also a passage
in which Coleridge, though without reference to Aristotle, fascinatingly makes the same
point (Table Talk, May I, 1833):
, "Great wits are sure to madness near allied" says Dryden, and true so far as this,
that genius of the highest kind implies an unusual intensity of the modifying power,
which, detached from the discriminative and reproductive power, might conjure a
plaited straw into a royal diadem: but it would be at least as true, that great genius is
most alien from madness, yea, divided from it by an impassable mountain,-nameiy,
the activity of thought and vivacity of the accumulative memory, which are no less
essential constituents of "great wit".'
I Above, p. II2. Aristotle's expression here rather implies that Polyidus produced
this criticism in a poem, not in a critical work, i.e. that he made his criticism by managing
the recognition differently.
POETICS lIS
3. Complicati01z and denouement (desis and lusis)
Part of every tragedy is the complication, part the denouement: the 18
preliminaries and often some of the action proper are the complication,
the rest the denouement. By 'complication' I mean the section from the
beginning to the last point before he begiI).s to change to good or bad
fortune, by 'denouement' the part from the beginning of the change to
the end; for example, in Theodectes' Lynceus the complication is made
up of the preliminaries, the kidnapping of the child and their being
found out, the denouement is everything from the capital charge to
the end.
statement that has no possible reference; if Aristotle made it, he had forgotten his own
analysis.
2 The reading is uncertain.
II6 ARISTOTLE
poets are either hissed off the stage or do badly in the contest-even
Agathon was hissed off just for this reason.
19 As I have dealt with the other qualitative elements, I now have to talk
about the representation of intellect and about verbal expression. The
representation of intellect we may take to be covered by the Rhetoric; for
it does belong rather to that inquiry. What is involvcd in the representation
of intellect is every effect to be produced by speech. Its sections are proof
and disproof, rousing emotion (pity, fear, anger, and so on), making a
14S6b thing look important or unimportant. 5 OearIy in the plot too one ought
conjecture.
2 Above, pp. 106 f.
3 To a modern reader the failure to take Aeschylus into account is notable. One may
remark also that Aeschylus is thought to have composed a trilogy on the main action
of the Iliad (Myrmidons, Nereids, Phrygians), something derisively mentioned only as
an absurd possibility on p. IIS above.
4 At this point the main line of the argument is resumed (above, p. 1 II n. 6).
5 Except on p. 99 above, Aristotle in c. 6 confined the mimesis of intellect to
the speeches containing demonstrative arguments and general maxims. Here he includes
POETICS
to proceed from just these same main heads, when one needs to produce
an effect of pity or fear, likelihood or importance. There is some difference,
though; in the action these should be obvious without one's being told,
whereas the other effects should be produced in words by the person
using them and should result from his words, as the speaker would be
quite unnecessary if the desired result were obvious without his saying
anything.
the use that the characters make of persuasive language more widely defined. The
negatives 'disproof' and 'unimportant' and the varieties of emotions mentioned show
that in this sentence he is speaking of the effect the characters in a play have on each
other. The next sentence seems a rather casual addition, pointing out that the poet in
composing his plot and aiming to produC(' a certain effect on his audience draws on the
same sources of argument as he makes his characters use.
I In modern tenninology: vowels, fricatives, and stops.
lIS ARISTOTLE
does occur: such are sand r. A soundless element is one where contact
occurs without the element itself having any audible sound, though it is
audible when combined with elements that have audible sound: such are
g and d. The elements in these three classes can be further classified,
according to the shape of the mouth, the place of contact, rough or smooth
breathing, length or shortness of quantity, and accent, acute, grave, or
intermediate. One can investigate the subject further in works on metric.
A syllable is a composite non-significant sound made up of a voiceless
element and one with voice: gr, for example, is a syllable by itself without
a, and also if a is added to make gra. I But the investigation of this too is a
matter of metric.
1457' A linking word is (a) a non-significant sound which neither prevents
nor produces the formation from a number of sounds of one significant
utterance; it ought not to stand alone at the beginning of a statement:
examples are men, toi, de, de [the linking particles]; (b) a non-significant
sound that naturally produces from a plurality of sounds that nevertheless
signify one thing a single significant utterance: examples are amphi, peri,
and the rest [of the prepositionsJ.2
An articulatory word (arthron) is a non-significant sound that indicates
the beginning or end or dividing point of a statement; it is naturally
put at either end (?) of a statement or in the middle. 3
A noun is a composite significant sound with no temporality, and made
up of parts not in themselves significant. For in compound words we
do not take the parts to be significant in themselves; in Theodorus, for
example, the doron has no significance.
A verb is a composite significant sound with temporality, and, like a
noun, is made up of parts not in themselves significant; by 'with tem-
porality' I mean that, while 'man' and 'white' do not signify when, 'walks'
and 'walked' do signify present and past time respectively.
Termination is the part of a noun or verb that signifies case and number
and also the part concerned with delivery, for example, question and
command: 'Did he walk?' and 'Walk' show terminations of the verb under
the sections of this class.
A statement is a composite significant sound whose separate parts are
themselves significant; I give this definition because not every statement
is made up of nouns and verbs-the definition of man, for instance;4
"Cleon is walking".'
2 To avoid repetition, Aristode's discussion of poetical style covers more than tragedy,
dealing as well with choral lyric and with epic. The compound words discussed in the
first classification are particularly suitable to choral lyric, while many of the decorative
elements in the second classification are epic rather than tragic.
3 Above, p. II 8. The qualification must also be extended to variety (ii).
4 The Arabic translation has 'Massiliote words', for which editors have a strange
affection, though they admit that the 'most' then becomes nonsensical; it also suggests
that our text is defective after 'Hermocaicoxanthus'.
5 Unlike the other terms in the list, this is not defined and discussed below. A
papyrus fragment of a work perhaps written by Theophrastus seems to deal with
ornamental epithets ('blazing steel', 'bright gold') after a discussion of metaphor akin
to ours. Others have thought of synonymous terms and have tried to provide the treat-
ment of 'decorative terms' from fr. 3: 'Aristode says in his Poetics that things are
synonymous if they have more than one name but the same definition, that is, things
that have several names, for example, topion and himation and pharos (all words for
"cloak").'
120 ARISTOTLE
By 'from genus to species' I mean, for example, 'Here my ship is still"I
as lying at anchor is a species of being still. By 'from species to genus',
'Odysseus conferred ten thousand benefits',2 as 'ten thousand' is a specific
example of plurality and he uses this instead of 'many'. By 'species to
species', 'drawing the life with the bronze' and 'cutting off [the water]
with the unwearying bronze';3 in these examples 'drawing' is used for
'cutting off' and 'cutting off' for 'drawing', and both are species of the
genus 'removing'. By 'analogical' I mean where the second term is related
to the first as the fourth is to the third; for then the poet will use the
fourth to mean the second and vice versa. And sometimes they add the
term relative to the one replaced: I mean, for example, the cup is related
to Dionysus as the shield is to Ares; so the poet will call the cup 'Dionysus'
shield' and the shield 'Ares' CUp';4 again old age is to life what evenjng
is to day, and so he will call evening 'the old age of the day' or use
Empedocles' phrase,s and call old age 'the evening of life' or 'the sunset of
life'.6 Sometimes one of the four related terms has no word to express it,
but it can be expressed through a comparison; for example, scattering
seed is called 'sowing', but there is no term for the scattering of light by
the sun; but as this is related to the sun as sowing is to the scatterer of
seed, we have the expression 'sowing the god-created fIame'.7 There is
yet another form of analogical metaphor: this is the use of the transferred
term coupled with the denial of one of its implications, for example,
calling the shield 'the wineless cup' instead of 'Ares' cup'.
Neologisms are terms not in use at all, but invented by the poet himself;
some are thought to be of this kind, for example, ernuges for 'horns' and
areter for 'priest'.8
14S8a A 'lengthened word' is one using a longer vowel than is usual, or an
extra syllable: an example of the former is poleos for polcos, and of the
second PeleiadiO for Peleidou. 9
A 'shortened word' is one where something is removed from it, for
example, kr' for krithC, do for doma, and ops for opsis •..
An 'altered word' is one where part of the ordinary term is left, and
something made up is added, like dexiteron for dexion •••1
feminine, and neuter. This is untrue, fatuous, and irrelevant; it is impossible to believe
that it is the work of the same man who produced the penetrating linguistic analysis
of pp. 117 ff. above, and it is accordingly omitted here.
Z Contrast the definition of excellence in prose style, below, p. 137.
CHAPTER IV
EPIC
Epic differs from tragedy in the length of its plot and in its metre.
I. Length
The above mentioned limit oflength4 is an adequate guide: that is, one
should be able to get a synoptic view of the beginning and the end. This
will be the case if the poems are shorter than those of the ancients,S and
about as long as the number of tragedies offered at one sitting.
Epic has a peculiar characteristic in that its size can be considerably
I Probably not everything in this list is due to Aristotle.
2 Cf. above, p. II5. 'Simple' here corresponds to what should probably be 'spectacle'
there.
3 F. Soimsen, CQ 29, 1935, 195, was probably correct in arguing that a series of
remarks about the qualitative parts (here enclosed in double brackets) has been super-
imposed on a straightforward discussion of the species of epic. Whether he is right
in believing that these inane interruptions are later additions by Aristotle himself is
another matter.
4 Above, p. 101.
S The phrase delicately veils the name of Homer, the only one of the older epic poets
to produce very long compositions. The limit suggested by Aristotle is virtually that
observed by Apollonius Rhodius; Virgil decided that he needed more room to deploy a
heroic theme.
POETICS
further extended; for though in tragedy it is impossible to represent
many parts as at the moment of their occurrence, since one can only
represent the part on the stage and involving the actors, in epic, because
it is narrative, one can tell of many things as at the moment of their
accompli~hment, and these if they are relevant make the poem more
impressive. So it has this advantage in the direction of grandeur
and variety for the hearer and in being constructed with dissimilar
episodes. For it is similarity and the satiety it soon produces that make
tragedies fail.
2. Metre
The heroic verse was found suitable from experience. For if anyone were
to make a narrative mimesis in any other metre or in many metres, it would
be obviously unsuitable, as the heroic metre is the steadiest and most
weighty of all (which is why it is most ready to admit dialect terms and
metaphors); for the narrative mimesis has itself a sort of abundance
in comparison with the others. The iambic trimeter and trochaic tetra-
meter are metres of movement, one of the dance, the other of action. It 1460•
would be even stranger if one mixed them like Chaeremon. That is why
no one has composed a long composition except in heroic verse; instead,
nature herself teaches people to choose the metre appropriate to the com-
position in the way I said.
Homer especially deserves praise as the only epic poet to realize what the
epic poet should do in his own person, that is, say as little as possible,
since it is not in virtue of speaking in his own person that he is a maker of
mimesis. Other pocts are personally engaged throughout, and only rarely
use mimesis; but Homer after a brief preface at once brings on a man or
woman or other characterized person, none of them characterless, but all
full of character.'
Though one ought of course to aim at surprise in tragedy too, epic is
more tolerant of the prime source of surprise, the irrational, because one is
not looking at the person doing the action. For the account of the pursuit
of Hector would seem ludicrous on the stage, with the Greeks standing
I The doctrine in this section seems at variance with the view that plain narrative is a
variety of mimesis (above, p. 93). The same sort of exaggeration of the small part played
in Homer by direct narration seems to occur in Plato, Republic 393 a (above, p. 61).
I26 ARISTOTLE
still and not pursuing him, and Achilles refusing their help;1 but in epic
one does not notice it. And surprise gives pleasure, as we can see from the
fact that we all make additions when telling a story, and take it that we are
giving pleasure. Now it was Homer who taught other poets the proper
way to tell lies, that is, by using paralogism. For people think that if,
whenever one thing is true or happens, another thing is true or happens,
then if the second is true, the first is true or happens; but this is not so.
That is why, if the first is false, but if it were true something else must be
true or happen, one should add the second; for because we know that the
second is true, our soul falsely infers that the first is also true. The thing
in the Bath scene is an example of this. Z
One ought to prefer likely impossibilities to unconvincing possibilities
and not compose one's argument of irrational parts. Preferably there
should be no irrationality at all, and if there is it should be outside the
plot; the Oedipus, for example, has this sort of irrationality in his not
knowing how Laius died. 3 It should not be inside the plot like the mes-
sengers from the Pythian games in the Electra4 or the man who went
speechless from Tegea to Mysia in the Mysians. 5 So it is absurd to say
that otherwise the plot would have been ruined, as one should not com-
pose them to be like this in the first place. If one does put in an irration-
ality and it is apparent that it could be dealt with more rationally, it is
absurd as well. For it is clear that even the irrationalities in the Odyssey
1460b about his being put ashore 011 Ithaca would have been intolerable if
produced by a bad poet;6 but as it is Homer completely disguises the
flavour of absurdity by his other excellences. It is in the parts that involve
no action and no mimesis of character or intellect that one should be most
elaborate in verbal expression; when character and intellect are being
represented too brilliant a style often conceals them.
• The reference is to Homer, Odyssey 19. 220 If. where Pene10pe infers from
Odysseus' account of the clothes he wore in Crete that he had met Odysseus there. The
instance is not particularly to the point, as it involves a false inference made by one
character about another, whereas the context is talking about how the poet misleads his
hearers.
3 It may be remarked that Sophocles seems to have been aware of this irrationality,
and to have tried to palliate it by attributing to the royal house of Thebes and to the
chorus an instinctive distaste for the public discussion of unpleasant subjects (91 f.
Creon, 637 f. Jocasta, 678 f., 685 f. the chorus).
4 Sophocles, Electra 680 If. The irrationality may lie in the anachronism.
S Of Aeschylus or Sophocles.
6 Homer, Odyssey 13. II3 If.
POETICS IZ7
is said is not true, the fourth with the charge that what is said is not as it should be,
i.e. is morally damaging.
3 Above, p. 4. 3 Homer, Iliad 10. '52.
4 The charges answered are, as one would expect, of very diverse kinds; answer (7),
for instance, copes first with a supposed irrationality, then with a supposed self-
contradiction ('How could Dolon run fast if he was deformed ?'), then with something
supposed morally damaging.
POETICS 129
8143591 K
13 0 ARISTOTLE
3. Summary
In fact, whenever a word is thought to signify something involving a
contradiction, we ought to consider how many meanings the word
might have in the phrase in question; for example, in 'by it the bronze
spear was stayed',. in how many senses is it possible to take 'was stayed
by it', and is it by taking it in this sense or in that sense that one would be
146Ib going most contrary to the practice described by Glaucon, when he said
that some people make irrational assumptions about a thing and, having
passed this vote of censure all by themselves, make an inference from it
and blame the poet as if he had said what they think he did, if what he
says contradicts what they imagine. This has happened in the argument
about Icarius. They think he was a Spartan and therefore say it is absurd
that Telemachus did not meet him when he went to Sparta. But the
facts may be as stated by the Cephallenians; they say that Odysseus took
his wife from among them and that his father-in-law was Icadius, not
Icarius; so probably the criticism rests on a mistake.
Generally speaking, one should answer a charge that a thing is im-
possible by a reference to the demands of poetry (I), or to the fact that
it is better so (3) or commonly thought to be so (4). By 'the demands of
poetry' I mean that a convincing impossibility is preferable to something
unconvincing, however possible; again it is perhaps impossible for people
to be as beautiful as Zeuxis painted them, but it is better so, as the ideal
should surpass reality.
A charge of irrationality should be dealt with by reference to what is
commonly said (4). That is one answer. Another is that on some occasions
it is not irrational, as it is likely that things happen even contrary to
likelihood. 2
A charge of self-contradiction one should consider on the same basis
as refutations in argument, asking, that is, whether it is itself the same,
and related to the same thing, and used in the same sense, so that it is the
poet himself who is contradicting either what he himself says or what a
sensible man assumes.
A charge of irrationality or of representing wickedness is justified if
there is no necessity for the irrationality or moral wickedness and no
use is made of it. An example of the former is Euripides' treatment of
Aegeus [in the Medea], of the latter his treatment of Menelaus in the
Orestes.J
I Homer, Iliad 20. 272; the problem is how the layer of gold stopped the spear when
Well then, people produce censures under five heads, claiming that
things are impossible, irrational, morally dangerous, self-contradictory,
or contrary to technical correctness. I The answers to them are on the
basis of the points enumerated: they are twelve in number.
Which is better, the epic or the tragic mimesis? This is a question one 26
might raise.
olfence against 'the art of poetry itself' would be an indefensible example of one of the
other four.
2 The position here stated is largely that formulated by Plato: see the criticism
of mimesis in the Republic (above, pp. 61 If.).
132 ARISTOTLE
does; for a reading I makes its nature quite clear. So ifit is superior in all
other respects, this charge will not necessarily lie. 2
Again, tragedy has everything that epic has (it can even use its metre),
and moreover has a considerable addition in the music and the spectacle,
which produce pleasure in a most vividly perceptible way.
Moreover, it has vividness when read as well as when performed.
1462b Again, it takes less space to attain the end of its mimesis; this is an ad-
vantage because what comes thick and fast gives more pleasure than some-
thing diluted by a large admixture of time-think, for instance, of the
effect if someone put Sophocles' Oedipus into as many lines as the Iliad.
Again, the mimesis of the epic poets is less unified, as we can see from the
fact that any epic mimesis provides matter for several tragedies. The
result of this is that if they do make a single plot, it either appears cur-
tailed, when it is only briefly indicated, or follows the lead of its lengthy
metre and becomes dilute; I mean here the poem made up of several
actions, in the way in which the Iliad has many such parts and also the
Odyssey, and these parts have extension in themselves (and yet these two
poems are as admirably composed as can be and are, so far as possible,
the mimesis of a single action).
If tragedy is superior in all these respects and also in artistic effective-
ness (for these arts should produce not just any pleasure, but the one
we have discussed),3 it would obviously be superior to epic as it is more
successful in attaining what it aims at.
So much for tragedy and epic, their nature, the number and differences
of their qualitative elements and quantitative parts, the reasons for success
and failure in them, and criticisms of them and how to answer them.
B. CATHARSIS
(Politics 134Ib32 If.)
In the absence of better evidence, this passage must be taken as determinant of
the meaning of catharsis in the Poetics as well; and in speaking of pity and fear
Aristotle certainly seems to have tragedy in mind rather than just music.
Catharsis therefore operates by rousing to a high pitch an emotion to which
people are, either morbidly or to some degree, prone; the intensification of
emotion produces a relief from it. Nevertheless, music is not quite on all fours
with tragedy: its place in therapeutic practice was established; more important,
though the Greeks regarded music as more 'programmatic' than we do, it is
I Cf. below, p. 143.
2 The three arguments in this paragraph are defensive; the rest state positive ad-
vantages of tragedy.
3 Cf. above, pp. 86 f. The catharsis of pity and fear could hardly stand at the point
where it does in the definition of tragedy if Aristotle thought it characteristic of epic too.
CATHARSIS 133
still not the case that music makes 'general statements' of the kind that tragedy
makes. Music stirs the audience up, tragedy presents it with something to get
stirred up about. The physiological manifestations of the resulting emotion
may be the same, but the psychological attitude will be other; as Aristotle
remarks (De anima 403'29 ff.), one needs to know both. Some caution is there-
fore necessary in applying the notion of musical catharsis to tragedy.
We accept the classification of tunes made by some of the philosophers
when they say that some are relevant to character, some to action, and
some to high excitement,! and also that each of these has a particular
musical mode naturally related to it. We also say that we should use
music for several beneficial purposes, not just one, for example, for the
education of the young and for catharsis (the meaning of catharsis I leave
unexpressed at the moment and shall explain more clearly in the Poetics),
and thirdly for entertainment, for relaxation and relief from tense effort.
These premisses obviously imply that we should use all the modes, but
not all in the same way; instead, we should use for education those
relevant to character, while when we are listening to others performing
the best are those relevant to action and high excitement. For the emotions
that violently affect some minds are present to all, though with differences
of degree, pity and fear, for instance, and also high excitement, as this
too is a disturbance to which some are morbidly subject. We see the effect
of sacred music on the latter when they use the tunes that produce frenzy
and are thereby restored to health, finding, as it were, cure and catharsis;2
the same effect will necessarily follow in the case of those over-inclined to
pity, fear, and other emotions, in the proportion appropriate to each
individual, that is, they all get a sort of catharsis, a relief accompanied
by pleasure. Similarly, cathartic melodies give people 3 a harmless enjoy-
ment.
So we should allow the competitors who go in for the music appro-
priate to the theatre4 to use such modes and melodies. Since the audience
is diverse, some free-born and educated, others vulgar, artisans, labourers,
and so on, the latter too should have contests, shows, and the like for
relaxation. And just as their souls are warped from the natural state, so
there are deviations from the modes and high-strung melodies with smaller
intervals than normal, and what produces pleasure in any set of people
is what they find naturally akin to them; so we should allow the con-
testants to use such music to such an audience. For the education of the
I These are enthousiastika; cf. p. 146 n. 3.
2 For the homoeopathic use of music in curing madness, cf. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks
alld the Irrational, pp. 77 ff.
3 Presumably those without the morbid tendency to emotion felt by the people men-
tioned in the previous sentence.
• Such music belongs to dithyrambs and nomes as well as to the drama.
l34 ARISTOTLE
young, however, as said above, we should use the melodies and modes
relevant to character.
D. PROSE STYLE
(Rhetoric 3)
Book 3 of the Rhetoric is a kind of appendix to what Aristotle regarded as his
principal contribution to the art, the analysis of rhetorical argument and of
psychology. It is more open and much more richly provided with examples than
the Poetics, and can much more easily be left to speak for itself. Our headings are
designed merely to make obvious a structure that is in any case pretty per-
spicuous, and the notes to provide a minimum of background information.
I40 3b There are three things that need to be treated in discussing speaking,
1 the sources of convincing arguments, their verbal expression, and the
proper arrangement of the parts of the speech. 4 I have dealt with con-
I Cf. above, p. 86.
2 The word used is peripeteiai, but it does not seem here to have its technical sense
(above, p. 104).
3 The verb thaU11Iazeill, here translated 'wonder', can also be used of surprise; cf.
above, p. 87.
4 Standard rhetorical theory added two others, memory and delivery. Aristotle says
nothing of memory and confines to the preface of this book the brief remarks he has to
make on delivery.
PROSE STYLE 135
vincing arguments, stating the number of their sources (three), and what
they are, and why there are no others (the reason is that in all cases people
feel conviction either because they are affected in some particular way
themselves, or because they suppose the speaker to have some particular
character, or because they are offered demonstrative proof); I have also
dealt with the proper sources of rhetorical inferences (entlzumemata),
some of which are specific and some common places. The next subject to
be discussed is expression. This is necessary because it is not enough to
know what to say; one must also say it in the right way, and this does a
good deal towards giving a speech its particular character.
The first subject that people investigated was naturally what came
naturally first, the sources of convincingness in what is being talked about;
next came how to express and arrange them; there is a third which is
powerfully effective but has not yet been seriously treated, the subject
of delivery. Even in relation to tragic acting and to epic recitation it was
a long time before it came to the fore, as the poets themselves acted their
own tragedies at first. Now clearly there is something of this kind in the
study of oratory as well as in the study of poetry, where it has been
treated by Glaucon of Teos among others. This study is about the proper
use of the voice (loud, soft, and moderate, to express individual emotions),
the proper use of accents (acute, grave, and circumflex), and the rhythms
appropriate to different things. These are the three subjects they investi-
gate, loudness, harmony, and rhythm. Generally speaking it is actors good
at delivery who win prizes in the dramatic contests, and nowadays the
actors have more influence there than the poets; the same is true of
political contests, because of the low character of the citizens.' But, as I
said, there is no treatise on the subject (naturally enough, as even the
study of verbal expression made a late appearance) and iF is thought 1404'
vulgar, and rightly so. Still, as the whole study of rhetoric is directed
towards producing belief,3 we should attend to it on the assumption that
it is necessary even if not strictly proper. Of course the proper thing is
not to bother about anything in speaking except the avoidance of giving
either pain or pleasure; for the proper thing is to use no weapons other
than the actual facts, so that everything except demonstrative proof is
superfluous. Nevertheless, it is, as I said, very effective because of the
low character of the auditor.
Now the study of verbal expression has some minimal necessity in
all forms of instruction, as it makes some difference to clarity of exposition
whether one says a thing in this way or that, though not all that much
I This is a conjecture; the manuscripts have 'of the political institutions'.
2 The reference in the rest of this paragraph is to delivery, not verbal expression.
3 That is, not knowledge.
ARISTOTLE
difference, since all this is mere presentation and directed at the hearer;
that is why nobody tries to teach geometry in a rhetorical fashion. Now
whenever you find successful expression it will have the same effect as
delivery; there has been a little systematic discussion of it, for example
by Thrasymachus in his Eleoi. I And whereas delivery is a matter of natural
endowment rather than of technique, the study of verbal expression is
a technical one. So people who are powerful in this field also win prizes,
just like the speakers who rely on delivery; for the written speeches are
more efficacious because oftheir expression than because of their thought. 2
CHAPTER I
VERBAL EXPRESSION3
Now the first originators [of styleJ were naturally the poets, as words 4
are imitative of things and the voice is the most imitative of all our organs
(hence the development of the various arts of epic recitation, acting, and
others). Since the poets, because what they said was naive, were held to
have earned their repute by the way they said it, [prose] style was at first
poetical, for instance, that of Gorgias; and even today the majority of the
uneducated think such speakers the best. This is wrong, the style of
oratory being different from that of poetry, as the facts show; for the
tragedians no longer use it in the same way either, and just as they
changed from the trochaic tetrameter to the iambic trimeter because tllis
is of all metres the one most like prose, they have also given up words
unfamiliar in ordinary usage, which were used for decorative effect by ilie
earlier tragedians and are still used by hexameter poets. So it is absurd
to imitate the poets, when they themselves no longer follow the former
style. Clearly then we need not concern ourselves in detail with every
The components of a speech are nouns and verbs, and the nouns are
classifiable in the way investigated in the Poetics. Of the classes there
I Contrast the excellence of poetic style 'to be clear and not mean' (p. 12I).
2 Cf. pp. II9 If. 3 Cf. p. I34.
4 Cf. Proust on the acting of Berma : 'I could not even, as I could with her companions,
distinguish in her diction and in her playing intelligent intonations, beautiful gestures.
I listened to her as though I were reading PhUre, or as though Phaedra herself had at
that moment uttered the words that I was hearing, without its appearing that Berma's
talent had added anything at all to them.'
5 Cf. 'Longinus', below, p. 498.
ARISTOTLE
mentioned, there are very few times or places where it is right to use
dialect words, compounds, and neologisms (I shall say where later, and the
reason has already been given: they involve too great a departure from
the appropriate); the only ones that are really useful for prose are standard
proper words and metaphor. This is shown by the fact that they are the
only ones everybody uses; everyone talks in metaphor and standard
proper words, so that clearly if one does this well, the result will be out
of the ordinary and yet not obvious, and it will be clear. And this is what
we said was excellence in oratorical style. I
140Sa The definition of each of these, the enumeration of the species of
3 metaphor, and the statement that the latter is most effective both in
poetry and in prose, is to be found, as I said, in the Poetics; one should
take all the more pains with metaphors in prose, because it has fewer
resources than verse. It is metaphor more than anything that provides
clarity, pleasure, and the unusual; moreover one cannot learn metaphor
from anyone else. One's use both of epithets2 and of metaphors should be
appropriate. This is secured by using the right analogy; otherwise it will
seem inappropriate, as opposites show up most when juxtaposed. Instead,
one should consider, given that a scarIet cloak suits a youth, what suits
an old man (it is not the same dress), and if one wants to make something
look finer, one should derive one's metaphor from what is best in the
same genus, and if one intends blame, from the worse. For instance, since
opposites belong to the same genus, to say that a beggar is praying or
that someone praying is begging, both being varieties of requesting, is
doing what I describe. Another instance is Iphicrates' calling CaIIias a
mendicant priest instead of a torch-carrier, to which CaIIias rejoined that
Iphicrates could not have been initiated, as otherwise he would have called
him a torch-carrier, not a mendicant priest (both offices are religious,
but one is honourable, the other disreputable). Similarly someone called
actors Dionysus' hangers-on, while they refer to themselves as artists
(both of these are metaphors, one derogatory, the other the reverse), and
pirates nowadays call themselves 'providers'. That is why one can say
that a wrongdoer errs and the man in error does wrong, and use both
'takes' and 'plunders' of a thief. But Telephus' phrase in Euripides,
lord of the oar, landing in Mysia,3
I After this the manuscripts add: 'The sophist can use homonyms, as these are his
instruments in cheating, the poet synonyms, I mean words both standard and synony-
mous, like poreuesthai and badizein; both these are standard and synonymous with each
other' (they mean 'go'). This sentence is pointless in the context, laboured and tiresome
in expression, and introduces a different classification from the one in the Poetics. It is
tempting to regard it as an interpolation.
2 Cf. below, p. I39 n. 3. 3 Fr. 705.
PROSE STYLE 139
is inappropriate because 'lord' is too grand for the subject; so the artifice is
not concealed. There is also a fault in the syllables, if they do not express
an agreeable sound; for instance, Dionysius Chalcus in his elegies calls
poetry 'CalIiope's scream' because both are vocal sounds, but the metaphor
is a bad one because of the non-significant sounds.!
Moreover metaphors should not be far-fetched; instead one should
derive them from things of the same genus or species so as to give to
things that have no name one that will be obviously akin as soon as it is
said, as in the celebrated riddle
I saw a man weld bronze on a man with fire; 140Sb
what is happening has no name, but both are a sort of application and
so he used 'welding' of the application of the CUp.2 Generally indeed one
can derive good metaphors from good riddles, as metaphors do pose
riddles, so that the metaphor [borrowed from a riddle] is clearly successful.
The sources from which one derives metaphors should also be beautiful.
Beauty of words depends partly, as Licymnius says, on their sounds or
on the object signified, and so does ugliness. There is also a third possi-
bility, which answers a sophistic argument: it is not the case that, as
Bryson says, nobody uses indecent words since the meaning is the same
whether you say this or that; this is false, because one word is more
standard than another and more like the object and more akin, by virtue
of putting the thing spoken of before one's eyes. Moreover the thing
is not regarded in the same light when one indicates it by this word rather
than that, so that in this respect too one must take one word to be more
beautiful or uglier than the other; both of them signifY the beautiful or
ugly thing, but not qua beautiful or ugly, or if they do, they express the
beauty or ugliness in greater or less degree. One must then derive meta-
phors from sources that are beautiful either because of their sound or
because of what they can signify or because of the appeal to the eyes or
some other sense. It makes a difference whether one says 'rosy-fingered
dawn' in preference to 'scarlet-fingered' or, worse still, 'red-fingered'.
Similarly in the case of epithets,3 the qualities attributed can be derived
from a bad or ugly source, like 'matricide', or from a nobler one, like
'father's avenger';4 so too Simonides, when offered a small fee by the
victor in the mule-race, refused to write a poem on the ground that he
felt distaste at writing for mules, but when given an acceptable fee, wrote
Hail, daughters of the tempest-footed mares,
I The text is corrupt and the drift of the second criticism uncertain.
2 The reference is to medical 'cupping'. Cf. below, p. 192.
3 Epithets are 'accessory expressions'; the word covers genitival and other qualifica-
tions as well as adjectives; cf. the examples on pp. 140 f. below.
4 The examples are from Eur. Orestes IS87-8.
ARISTOTLE
though they were of course the asses' daughters tOO.I One can also use
diminutives [for the same purpose]; a diminutive is what diminishes
both evil and good, as, for instance, in Aristophanes' jests in the Babylon-
ians, where he uses diminutive forms for 'gold-piece', 'cloak', 'abuse',
and 'disease'. One should be careful and keep an eye on the right pro-
portion in both [epithets and diminutives].
3. Eikones 2
The eikon 3 is also a metaphor, as there is only a slight difference; for when 4
he says 'Like a lion he leapt upon him' it is an eikon, while 'A lion, he
leapt upon him' is a metaphor (because both are brave he 4 metaphorically
called Achilles a lion). The eikon can be used in prose, but only rarely, as
I Cf. above, p. 122.
2 One would expect this section to come earlier, as part of the discussion of the
resources of prose, not to follow the treatment of their misuse.
3 Conventionally rendered 'simile', which suits the initial description well enough.
But the statement that the eikiin is a possible metaphor if used without the reason for the
comparison being stated suggests a more elaborate form, which appears in many of the
examples, 'X is like Y; forY is A and so is X'. But cf. M. H. McCall, Ancient Rhetorical
Theories of Simile and Comparison (Harvard, 1969), pp. 32 If.
4 Homer (Iliad 22. 164).
ARISTOTLE
it is poetical. They should be derived from the same sources as metaphors,
since they are really metaphors, apart from the difference mentioned.
An example of an eikon is Androtion's remark against Idrieus, 'He is
like unchained curs; they rush at people and bite, and Idrieus grew
tyrannical once freed from his chains'. There is also Theodamas' com-
parison of Archidamus to a Euxenus ignorant of geometry, which is
analogical, as Euxenus will be an Archidamus with knowledge of geo-
metry. So too in Plato's Republic the comparison of those who strip the
dead with curs that bite the stone but do not touch the thrower, and of the
people in a democracy with a sturdy but rather deaf ship's captain, and
140 7a of the poets' verses with those who have the bloom of youth without
beauty; for when the boys have lost their bloom or the verses are broken
up, they no longer look the same.! And Pericles' saying of the Samians
'They are like children, who wail as they take the sop', and of the Boeotians
'They are like holm-oaks; just as the oaks are cut down by themselves,
the Boeotians are ruined by intestine wars'.2 And Demosthenes' saying
of the people that they were like sea-sick passengers. 3 And Democrates'
comparison of politicians with nurses who swallow the sop they chew,
and smear the baby with the spittle. 4 And Antisthenes' comparison of the
thin Cephisodotus with frankincense, because he gave pleasure by
wasting away. One can produce all these either as eikones or as metaphors;
so any such comparisons that have won favour when stated as metaphors
will clearly be [possible] eikones as well, and eikones [possible] metaphors
if used without the reason being given. One should always give the
analogical metaphor reciprocity, so that it is applicable to either of the
things of the same genus; for instance, if the cup is Dionysus' shield,
it is also appropriate for the shield to be called Ares' cup.s
5 So much for the elements of which a speech is composed.
I. Correctness
The first requirement of style is speaking pure Greek. This consists in
five things:
I PI. Rep. 469 d, 488 a, 601 b; Aristotle has misremembered the second example.
2 The comparison involves an ironical twist, as the first statement is like our 'They are
real he;trt-of-oak', and the eikon therefore seems laudatory at first, and then turns out
not to be.
3 If the Demosthenes referred to is the orator, this is Aristotle's only reference to him.
4 Nurses chewed the baby's food to soften it. 5 Cf. above, p. 120.
6 Cf. the statement (derived from Theophrastus) of the four requirements of prose
style in Cicero, below, p. 241.
PROSE STYLE 143
(i) The first is in the use of particles, giving them in sequence in their
natural order, in the way some of them require; for instance, 'Now .. .'
and 'Now I .. .' require 'but .. .' and 'but he .. .'1 One should duly
produce the second while the first is still in mind, and nol: append it at
too great a distance, nor put another particle before the one needed, as
this is very rarely suitable. 'Now I, when he had spoken (for Cleon came
with both demands and entreaties), set off with them as company.' Here
many particles are interpolated before the 'but he .. .' demanded by the
'Now I .. .'; if there is a long interval before the 'set off', the result is
unclear.2 One element, then, is the correct use of particles.
(ii) The second is the use of particular terms and not inclusive ones.
(iii) The third is the use of unambiguous terms, unless of course one
intends the opposite effect, as people do when they have nothing to say,
but pretend they have; such persons do use ambiguous expressions in
verse, Empedocles, for example. This long circumlocution imposes on
the hearers, who are affected in the same way as the majority are by
fortune-tellers; when they speak ambiguously, people nod solemn assent
('Croesus by crossing the Halys will destroy a great empire'). And because 1407b
it involves less error fortune-tellers use generic descriptions of what is
being discussed; one would be more likely to succeed in playing 'odd and
even' if one said 'Odd' or 'Even' and not how many the other player had,
and similarly with saying an event will occur rather than when it will
occur; that is why oracle-mongers never define the when. All these are
akin to one another, so that, unless for some such purpose, one should
avoid them.
(iv) The fourth is the correct use of Protagoras' classification of nouns
into masculine, feminine, and things; these must also properly and duly
correspond.
(v) The fifth is the correct use of number.3
2. Clarity
Generally speaking, a written work should be easy to read aloud4 and to
deliver, which is really the same thing. This is impaired by a superfluity
[ The "Greek men . .. de: the commonest particles to indicate an adversative relation-
ship between two statements.
• If the text is right, Aristode himself has not succeeded in making it clear whether he
approves or disapproves of the example he has constructed. Perhaps he wrote: 'Here
not many ... ; but if ... '
3 Aristode gives examples of the last two classes, which there is no point in translating
into an uninflecte'\.language.
4 The first person of whom we are told cxplicidy that he read without sound is
St. Ambrose (Aug. Con! 6. 3).
144 ARISTOTLE
of particles or in works not easy to pWlctuate, like those of Heraclitus.
Punctuating Heraclitus is hard work because it is not clear whether some-
thing is to be taken with what precedes or what follows, as, for example,
at the beginning of his treatise, where he says, 'This truth which is constant
ever misWlderstood by men' and it is not clear to which phrase one should
attach the 'ever'. Another thing that produces solecism is not giving the
due accompaniment, I mean if you link [to two terms] one that does not
suit both; for instance, 'seeing' is not appropriate to both sOWld and
colour, while 'perceiving' is. It is also unclear if you do not make a full
statement beforehand when you mean to interpolate many things in
between, like saying 'I intended after a discussion with him about this
and that and in these terms to set out', rather than 'I intended to set out
after a discussion with him', and then 'This and that took place and in
these terms'. I
3. Pomp2
6 Pomp of style is aided by the following means:
(i) The use of a definition instead of a word, saying, for instance, not
'circle' but 'the surface with a circumference equidistant from its centre';
concision results from the opposite, using a word instead of a definition.
(ii) When something is ugly or lacking in propriety, then if the ugliness
is in the definition one should use the word, if in the word use the
definition.
(iii) Representing things by metaphor and epithets, while taking care
to avoid the poetical.
(iv) Using the plural for the singular, as the poets do; for even when
there is only one harbour they still say 'to the Achaean harbours' and
'Here are the many-leaved folds of the tablet'.3
(v) Not combining [two words with one article], but giving each its
own ...4; for concision one should do the opposite.
(vi) Using particle linkings; for concision one should not use particles,
but not write asyndetically either. Examples are 'having gone and had a
1408a discussion', 'having gone I had a discussion'.s
(vii) One can also use Antimachus' trick of describing a thing by
qualities it does not have (so he says of Teumessus 'There is a little
windless hill'); this gives limitless possibilities of amplification. One can
also use this 'It does not have so and so' of things good and bad, ID
I The 'and then' is normally taken to be part of the example.
4. Propriety
There are three conditions for propriety: that the style be capable of 7
expressing emotion and of expressing character, and that it be propor-
tioned to its subject-matter. Proportion consists in not talking in an
off-hand way about subjects that require pomp nor in a grand style about
trivial subjects, and in not attaching a decorative epithet to a trivial word;
otherwise the result seems a piece of comedy as in Cleophon, whose
expression in some cases was very much in the style of 'Lady fig'.
By 'capable of expressing emotion', I mean that if an outrage is being
described the style should be that of an angry man, if impious and shame-
ful acts, that of a person feeling disgust and reluctant even to describe them,
if praiseworthy, that one should speak admiringly, if pitiable, miserably
and so on. A fact is made more credible by the style that belongs to it;
for our mind assumes that a man is speaking with genuine feeling and
falsely infers that the feeling is roused by the events described, so that
people think the facts are what the speaker says, even if they are not.
Moreover the hearer always feels in sympathy with the person who
expresses emotion, even if he says nothing of substance; that is why
many speakers try to stun the audience with din.
One can express character too by this indication by signs, when the
suitable indication goes with the relevant class and disposition. By 'class'
here I mean, for example, determination by age or sex or nationality,
while I confine 'disposition' to those that make us say that in his life a
man has such and such a character; of course not every disposition helps
to characterize a life. Well then, if a speaker uses the words adapted to
his disposition he will express his character; a rustic and an educated man
would not use the same terms or in the same way.
The hearers are also affected by the trick that the speech-writers use
ad nauseam, 'Who does not know?' and 'Everyone knows'. The hearer
assents in shame, so that he can share this universal knowledge.
Seasonable and unseasonable use is something common to all the 1408b
kinds. The cure for every excess is the one constantly used, of reproaching
oneself; this is thought to be all right, since the speaker is aware of what
he is doing. Moreover one should not use all the elements of a proportion
at once, as the hearer is less aware of what is happening if one does not;
8143591 L
146 ARISTOTLE
I mean, for example, if the words are harsh, you should not also employ
a voice and a facial expression to suit, as otherwise it is obvious what is
going on in each case. But if one is one thing and ONe another, this secures
the same effect without being obvious. So if one says soft things in a harsh
tone and harsh ones softly, it is unconvincing.!
Compound words and plurality of epithets and terms out of the ordinary
best suit the speaker who is expressing emotion; one forgives an angry
man for saying that an evil is 'heaven-high' or 'monstrous',2 and also a
speaker who already has a grip on his audience and has filled them with
high excitement 3 by encomium or invective or anger or love, as Isocrates
too does in the Panegyricus at the end ... 4 People do voice such expressions
when excited, so that an audience in the same state will obviously find
them acceptable. That is why I said they suit poetry, as it involves such
high excitement. One should use them therefore either in the circum-
stances described or ironically, as Gorgias did or as in the Phaedrus. 5
3 This idea is expressed by the verb enthousiazein, which in earlier writers is used of
divinely inspired excitement, as in the Ion, pp. 42 If. above. In Aristotle the word has no
such religious overtones and seems quite conventional.
4 Aristotle misquote~ some elevated phrases.
5 231 d, 241 e.
PROSE STYLE 147
metre), whereas onc needs grandeur and an effect higher than usual. The
trochaic is too appropriate to the comic dance, as one can see from the
tetrameter, which is a bustling rhythm. So we are left with the paean, 1409'
which people have used from the time of Thrasymachus, though they
were not able to describe it. The paean is a third rhythm, related to those
mentioned, as it has the ratio of 3: 2, while of the others the dactylic is
I : I, the iambic and trochaic 2: I; It: lis related to these and is the ratio
of the paean.' So the others should be left alone for the reasons given
and also because they have fixed verse forms,z while the paean should be
accepted, as it is the only one of the rhythms mentioned that has no fixed
verse form and is therefore least obvious. Now at the moment people
use the same form of paean both at the beginning of a sentence and at
the end, but the end should be different from the beginning. There are
two kinds of paean that are opposites, and one of them is suitable at the
beginning, where people do in fact use it; this is the one with its first
syllable long and the other three short. 3 The reverse form is that which
starts with three shorts and ends with a long. 3 This makes a suitable end,
as a short ending, being incomplete, makes the rhythm look maimed.
Instead one should cut the sentence off with a long and make the ending
clear not with the scribe's help, using a punctuation mark, but by means
of the rhythm. 4
So much for the subject of the necessity to prose of agreeable rhythm,
and what rhythms are agreeable and how they are constructed.
The style will inevitably be either strung together (eiromene) and made
one by connection, like the preludes in dithyrambs, or neatly ended like
the antistrophes of the ancient choral lyrists. The strung-together style
I In measuring the quantity of syllables, a long syllable is taken to be equivalent to
two shorts; thus the long of the dactylic or anapaestic foot (-vv, vv-) exactly balances
the two shorts, that is, they are in a I : I ratio, while the iambic and trochaic (y -, - y)
have a I : 2 or 2 : I ratio. The long of the paean (- v vv, v v v -) is 2 to its 3 short
syllables, which gives a ratio midway between the I : 1 of the dactyl and the 2 : 1 of the
iambic and trochaic.
2 i.e. they are organized in trimeters, tetrameters, hexameters, and so on.
Thurii', a misquotation of the opening phrase ofHerodotus, which disrupts the sentence
and is not even an example of the 'strung-together' style, though that is frequent in
Herodotus.
• Actually Euripides (fr. 515). The next line may be rendered:
The adverse shore confronts its fertile plains.
But the two lines could also be translated:
This land is Calydon in Pe1ops' isle,
With fertile plains upon the ad verse shore.
PROSE STYLE 149
behind, just as those who only turn when they have passed the limit
leave behind the people they are walking with; similarly periods that are
too long become a speech in themselves and are like a dithyrambic
prelude. The result is like what Democritus of Chios mocked at in
Melanippides, who composed preludes instead of antistrophic works:
One can say the same of periods with over-long cola. Those where the
cola are too short are not periods at all; and consequently they send
the hearer flying headlong.
The expression composed of cola has two species, the divided and the
antithetical; an example of a divided one is 'I have often marvelled at the
men by whom assemblies are constituted and athletic games instituted'; aI4IO
while the antithetical is that in which in the pair of clauses either opposite
answers opposite or one word serves as a bridge between the opposites.
Examples are: 'They benefited both those who stayed at home and those
who went out; for the latter they acquired more than they had at home,
for the former they left their possessions at home adequate' (staying at
home is opposed to going out, more to adequate); 'so that both those who
needed money and those who wanted enjoyment' (enjoyment is opposed
to acquisition). And again: 'It often happens in these affairs that the sen-
sible fail and the senseless succeed', 'Then and there they were deemed
worthy of the prize of valour, and not long after they acquired the empire
of the sea', 'to sail over the land, to march over the sea, by bridging the
Hellespont and channelling through Athos', 'and though by nature they
are citizens, by law they are deprived of citizenship', 'some of them
wretchedly perished, some were disgracefully saved', 'and as private citizens
to use barbarians as slaves, but as a state allow many of their allies to be
enslaved [to barbarians]" 'either to have in life or to leave at death'.2 And
what someone said in court againstPitholaus and Lycophron: 'while at home
they sold you, and when they came to you they bought you'. All these
produce the effect described. Such a form of expression gives pleasure
because opposites are easiest to recognize (and even easier when put
beside each other), and because it is like a piece of reasoning; for refuta-
tion involves bringing together opposite conclusions. 3
SECTION F. WIT 1
l.pOb Now that we have got clear descriptions of all this, the next thing to
10 discuss is the source of witty expressions that are well thought of. Though
producing them is a task for the person of natural talent or practised skill,
showing how to is a proper subject for this inquiry. So let us say what
they are and list them, taking this as our starting-point: anybody natur-
ally enjoys understanding something easily,Z and as words signifY some-
thing those that produce understanding in us give most pleasure. Now
as we are unfamiliar with dialect words and know standard terms already,
it is metaphor that most produces this effect; for when he3 calls old age
stubble, he makes us understand and realize something via their generic
similarity, as both are past their prime. The poets' eikones4 also produce
the same effect, and therefore, when successful, give an impression of wit.
The eikOn, as I said before, is a metaphor with a difference in the way of
setting it out; that is why it gives less pleasure, because it is more long-
winded, and it does not say that this is that, so that our soul does not
even inquire whether it is. So necessarily wit will be found in expressions
and inferences that produce immediate understanding. That is why
people think nothing of superficial inferences (those, I mean, that are
obvious to anybody and are found without investigation), nor of those
that we do not understand when they are expressed, but admire those
whose force we realize the moment they are uttered, even though we had
no notion of them before, or those where the understanding lags only a
little behind; this produces a sort of sudden realization which is absent
in the other two cases. Well then, so far as the sense is concerned, people
think well of the sort of inferences described. In the expression of them a
are in conflict by deriving from them directly contradictory conclusions, rather than a
situation where one speaker says A and the other arrives at the conclusion not-A.
• asteia, in Latin urbane dicta. 'Wit' is unfortunately devalued in modern English;
it is used here in the hope that its older usage will carry over. The concept that Aristotle is
deploying is very like 'wit' in the two aspects that Dr. Johnson suggests in the Lift of
Cowley: 'If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be considered as wit
which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first
production, acknowledged to be just; if it be that which he that never found it wonders
how he missed ... But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more
rigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of diseordia coneors; a combination
of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike.'
• O. the discussion on p. 134 above.
3 Homer (Od. 14.214); cf. p. 141, n. 4 above.
• Cf. above pp. 141 f.
PROSE STYLE 151
I Horn. Od. 11. 598. Cf. below, p. 336. • Horn. It. 13. 587.
3 Ibid. 4. 126. 4 Ibid. II. 574. 5 Ibid. IS. 542.
6 One may contrast with Aristotle's praise the condemnation of Ruskin in his essay
on the Pathetic Fallacy (Modern Painters iii, pt. 4, § 6): 'Now we are in the habit of con-
sidering this fallacy as eminently a character of poetical description, and the temper of
mind in which we allow it as one eminently poetical, because passionate. But, I believe,
if we look well into the matter, that we shall find the greatest poets do not often admit
this kind of falseness-that it is only the second order of poets who much delight in it';
(§ II) 'it is one of the signs of the highest power in a writer to check all such habits of
thought, and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the pure fact, out of which if any feeling
comes to him or his reader, he knows it must be a true one.'
7 Horn. Il. 13. 799.
8 Aristotle's manuscripts almost all offer the reflexive, which gives the threat two
points, that the trees will be cut down and the people massacred; the scholiast and
Demetrius (below, p. 192) have 'will sing to them'. Aristotle cites the saying also in
Book 2 (1395"2) with no pronoun at all.
IS4 ARISTOTLE
strange, to use Theodorus' phrase; this happens when the phrase is
unexpected and, in his words, 'not in line with our previous opinion',
but is instead like the parodic turns in jokes (the same effect is produced
by puns, as they also cheat expectation) and in verse lines, as they too do
not run in the way the hearer assumed ('he went on his way and beneath
his feet were chilblains', when the hearer expected 'sandals'). Such a turn
should be obvious the moment it is uttered.
[We omit a section on puns and the like, again mainly composed ofexamples,
some of which are unintelligible.]
I41Zb21 These expressions are all of the same kind; but the more succinctly and
antithetically they are expressed, the better thought of they are. The
reason is that we understand better because of the antithesis and faster
because of the brevity. It should always have as well correct expression
of its personal application, if what is said is to be both true and free of
superficiality;I an expression can have one of these qualities2 without
the other, like 'One should die without doing wrong', 'The deserving
man should marry the deserving woman'. But there is no wit unless both
qualities are present, 'It is right to die when it is not right for one to die'.3
The more of the qualities described an expression has the wittier it will
appear, I mean, if the terms are metaphorical and the metaphor is of a
particular kind and there is antithesis and paris6sis, and an expression of
activity.
As I said above, the eikones that are well thought of are also metaphors
in a way, as they always involve two terms, like analogical metaphors; for
14 1 3' instance, to use our ordinary example, 'the shield is Ares' cup' and 'the
bow is a lyre without strings'.4 When they speak in this way the expression
is not simple, like calling the bow a lyre or the shield a cup. And they
produce eikones in the same way, for instance likening a flute-player to an
ape, a short-sighted man to a lamp with water dripping on it, because both
blink. Excellence in them demands metaphor; one can produce an eikon
comparing the shield to Ares' cup and ruins to the rags of a house,s and
Niceratus can be called 'a Philoctetes bitten by Pratys', as in Thrasy-
machus' eikon when he saw Niceratus after his defeat by Pratys in the
citharoedic contest, stilI dishevelled and unwashed. Such comparisons
I The text here is uncertain.
2 i.e. truth and freedom from superficiality.
3 In the section omitted Aristotle cited a line of Anaxandrides, 'It is fine to die before
doing what rightly merits death', which he said was equivalent to the formulation given
here.
4 Theognis, trag. 1, above, p. IZO.
5 The opposite comparison of rags to 'ruins of clothes' occurs in trag. adesp. 7, Eur.
Tro. 1025.
PROSE STYLE 155
earn poets the most hisses when they fail and the most applause when they
succeed, I mean, when they make them correspond:
His legs are curly like parsley-leaves.!
Like Philammon at close quarters with the punch-ball. 2
All such expressions are eikones. And I have said often already that
eikones are metaphors.
Proverbs are also metaphors, of the species to species kind. 3 For instance,
if a man calls in another expecting to benefit and is then hurt, he says
'Like the Carpathian with the rabbit',4 as each of them has suffered the
fate described. Well then, the sources of witty expression and the reasons
why they are sources have been just about dealt with. Hyperboles of the
kind that are well thought of are also metaphors, for instance, of the
man with the black eye, 'You would have thought he was a basket of
mulberries'; the black eye is red, but the expression is very extreme. The
'Just like such and such' is really a hyperbole with a different form of
expression: 'like Philammon at close quarters with the punch-ball', 'You
would have thought he was Philammon fighting with the punch-ball',
'His legs are curly like parsley-leaves', 'You would have thought his legs
not legs but parsley, they were so curly'. Hyperboles are juvenile, as they
indicate vehemence. That is why they are most used by people in a temper:
'Not if he were to give me gifts as many as the sand and dust. I shall
not marry the daughter of Agamernnon, :A.treus' son, not if she vies in
beauty with golden Aphrodite and in handiwork with Athena.'s That is why 1413
such expression is inappropriate in the mouth of an older man.
One must not forget that different styles are suitable for different kinds 12
of discourse. The styles of written composition and extemporary debate
are not the same, and [within the latter] the style of political debate is
different from that of the law-courts. One needs to know both; capability
in debate is knowing how to express oneself in Greek, and the other means
you are not compelled to be silent if you want to impart your ideas to the
rest of the world, a fate suffered by those who do not know how to produce
written compositions. The written style is the most finished, the style of
debate that most capable of being delivered (the latter has two species,
one expressive of character, the other of emotion); that is why actors
eagerly seek for plays in this style and poets for such actors, while the
I Com. adesp. 208. • Com. adesp. 207. 3 Cf. p. 120 above.
4 'Like the Australians and the rabbit' would make the same point nowadays.
5 Horn. Il. 9. 385 ff. At this point the manuscripts add: 'Its use is very frequent in
Attic orators'.
ARISTOTLE
poets who can be read are continually in our hands, like Chaeremon (he
is as finished as a writer of speeches) and Licymnius among the dithy-
rambic poets. When the two sorts are put side by side the speeches of
the writers seem too constrained in actual delivery, while those of the
extemporary speakers, which were admirable when delivered, seem unpro-
fessional when one takes them up to read. The reason is that it' is suitable
in real debate; this is also why, when delivery is removed, the features
adapted for delivery seem inane because they are not producing their
proper effect, things, for instance, like asyndeta and frequent repetitions
of the same idea, which are rightly disapproved of in the written style
but not in that of debate, and are in fact used by the orators, as such a
style is adapted for delivery. In repeating the same idea one should use
variation, since this paves the way for the form of delivery, as in 'He is the
one who robbed you, he is the one who cheated you, he the one who finally
attempted to betray you', or as the actor Philemon did in Anaxandrides'
Old Men's Madness,2 whenever he said 'Rhadamanthys and Palamedes',
and the'!, in the prologue of the Devotees;3 if one does not deliver such
things expressively, one would be like a man who had swallowed a poker.
The same is true of asyndeta, 'I came, I approached him, I besought
him'; one needs to deliver this expressively and not give it a uniform
vehemence and a uniform expression of character as if one were saying
only one thing. There is moreover a special feature of asyndeta, that many
things are taken to be said in the time it would take to say one, since
connection makes a unity out of plurality, so that its removal obviously
turns a unit into a plurality. It therefore gives an effect of magnifica-
14 1 4a tion: 4 'I came, I spoke to him, I besought him' (this seems a lot of things),
'he contemned everything I said'.s This is what Homer aims to do with
his
Nireus from Syme .. .
Nireus son of Aglaia .. .
Nireus the most beautiful ...6
If one says a lot about a thing, one must speak of it more than once; so if
one speaks of it more than once, one is taken to be saying a lot about it.
So Homer here has magnified Nireus, though mentioning him only once,
because we make the false inference, and has made us remember him
though he says nothing at all about him later in the poem.
The style adapted to public assemblies is throughout like outline
painting, since the more numerous the crowd, the further the individuals
I If the text is right the 'it' must be something like 'such a style'.
2 Com. 2.138 f. K. 3 Also by Anaxandrides, ibid. 140.
4 Auxesis. 5 The text is uncertain. 6 Horn. It. 2. 671 ff.
PROSE STYLE 157
stand away from the picture. That is why in both cases exact finish is
superfluous and indeed produces an inferior impression. 1he style of
the law-courts is more finished, and most of all the style that depends
on a single judge, as it least admits the arts of the speaker; it is easier here
to keep in one view what is relevant to the case and what not, and as there
is no public debate, the judgement is unimpeded. That is why the same
speakers do not find favour in all three ki,nds; instead, whenever delivery
is most in point, finish is least required. And this is the case where we need
a voice and most of all where we need a loud voice.
Well then, the style of epideictic speeches is best adapted to writing,
as its function is to be read, and next to it comes the style of the courts.
It is superfluous to go in for further distinctions about style and say,
for instance, that it should give pleasure and be magnificent. Why that
rather than temperate or liberal or endowed with any other moral virtue?
The qualities described above will obviously make it give pleasure, if
excellence of style has been rightly defined. What else is the point of its
being clear and not mean but appropriate? If one is garrulous one is not
clear, and nor is one if one is over-concise, so that the mean between these
is obviously suitable. The things described will make it give pleasure if they
are well-blended, the usual and the out-of-the-ordinary, and rhythm,
and the convincingness produced by propriety. So much for style, both the
general discussion common to all kinds and the particular description of
each.
course. It is obviously directed at the hearer not qua hearer [of the speech
proper], since everyone uses the proem when they are trying to rouse
prejudice or remove alarm (,Lord, I shall not tell you that with haste .. ."
and 'Why this proem ?').z Similarly with those who have or think they
have a bad case; they think it better to spend their speech on any subject
rather than the facts of the case. That is why slaves do not answer the
question asked but beat about the bush and produce a long proem. The
sources of conciliating goodwill have already been stated,3 and everything
else of the same kind. 'Let the Phaeacians befriend me and pity me
when I come to them' is a good saying; so one should aim at these
two things.
In epideictic speeches one should make the hearer feel that he too is
being praised, either himself or his family or his pursuits or something
or other; there is truth in Socrates' remark in the Epitaphios 4 that it is
not hard to praise Athenians among Athenians, though it is among
Spartans.
4. Prejudices
On the question of prejudice, one subject is the means of doing away 15
with a damaging assumption (it makes no difference whether someone
has voiced it or not, so that this is a general description). Another topic
is how to deal with the things one contests, by denying either that they
are the case or that they are injurious or injurious to him, or saying that
they are not so important as he says, or not a wrong or not a substantial
1 The watchman's opening words in Soph. Ant. 223.
2 Eur. [ph. Taur. II62. 3 Book 2, c. 4.
4 Plato, Menerenus 235 d.
5 This development, prompted by the mention of prejudice in § 2 above, is not
altogether tidily worked in.
8143591 M
162 ARISTOTLE
one, or not disgraceful or not a substantial disgrace. These are the sort
of things that are contested, as by Iphicrates· against Nausicrates; he
admitted that he had done what his opponent said and that he had in-
flicted injury, but denied inflicting wrong. Or when one has done wrong
one can try to compensate for it, by saying that if it was an injury it was
nevertheless noble, if painful, yet beneficial or something else of the kind.
Another topic is that it was done in error or by ill chance or under con-
straint; so Sophocles said that he was trembling not, as his adversary
said, so as to be thought old, but because he could not help it; it was not
of intent that he was eighty. One can also compensate by stating the
expected result, that he meant to do not injury but something else, and
did not do what he is accused of, as the injury was incidental ('It would be
fair to hate me if I had intended this result of my action'). Another topic
arises if the accuser himself or someone connected with him has been
involved in the same charge, either now or formerly. Another, if g!hers
are involved in it who are agreed to be innocent, for example, 'If X is an
adulterer because he dresses neatly, so must Y be'. Another, if someone
else or the accuser himself has roused unfair prejudice against others,
or if, without such an attack, others were exposed to the same suspicion
as you are now, and were later shown to be innocent. Another from
retorting the attack on one's accuser, and saying that it would be absurd
to trust his words when his character is distrusted. Another, if there
has been a previous decision, as in Euripides' reply to Hygiaenon in the
exchange case, when he accused him of impiety for saying
My tongue has sworn, my mind remains unsworn;1
he retorted that it was not fair of Hygiaenon to bring judgements from the
Dionysiac contest into court, as he had given account of his words there,
or would do so if Hygiaenon wanted to accuse him. Another from the
accusation of arousing prejudice, with the arguments that it is monstrous,
that it introduces judgements about irrelevant matters, that it does not
I4I6b show confidence in the facts. Both accuser and defender can use the topic
of tokens, as in the Teucer 2 Odysseus argues that Teucer was related to
Priam, whose sister Hesione was, Teucer that his father Telamon was
hostile to Priam and that he himself had not denounced the spies. Another
is open to the attacker, praising the trivial at great length and blaming a
substantial fault concisely, or setting forth many good qualities in his
opponent and blaming just one, the one being that which really furthers
the charge; such topics are the most skilful and most unfair, as they try
to damage the good qualities by mixing them up with the bad. Another
topic common to both accuser and defender is that of motive, as the
I Hippolytus 608. 2 Of Sophocles.
PROSE STYLE
same act can be done for different reasons; the accuser should disparage
the act by taking the worse motive, while the defender should take the
better, saying, for example, that Diomede chose Odysseus because he
was the bravest, whereas the accuser says that this was not the reason
but that he was the only Greek whose rivalry Diomede did not fear,
taking him to be a coward. So much for unfair prejudice. 16
2. Refutation
The refutation of one's adversary is not a separate element; to refute
some of his case by producing a contrary proposition, some by reasoning,
is part of the argument. Both in political and in forensic oratory one
should, if one is the opening speaker, state one's own arguments first,
and later meet the opponent's arguments by refutation, i.e. by pulling
them to pieces before he produces them. If the opposition is very diversi-
fied, you should begin with the opponent's case, as Callistratus did in
the Messenian assembly; he stated his own case only after destroying
beforehand the arguments they were going to use. If one speaks second,
one should deal first with the opponent's case, refuting it and producing
counter-reasonings, most especially if it has found favour; the mind
refuses a welcome to a man against whom prejudice has been created,
and similarly to an argument, if the opponent is thought to have spoken
well. So one should make room in the hearer for the speech that is to
come, and this you will do if you destroy the arguments against you;
that is why one should try to make one's own case convincing only after
combating all or the most important or the most favourably received
or the most easily refuted on the other side ('First I shall speak in the
goddesses' defence; I think that Hera .. .';3 with these words she attacked
first the silliest opposing argument).
So much for arguments.
I §§ IIO If. 2 De Pace 27. J Eur. T,oades 969 f.
168 ARISTOTLE
3. Char~cterl
4. Interrogation
18 As for interrogation, the most advantageous occasion for its use is when
1419' your opponent has stated one [of two contradictory propositions], so
that with one further question an absurdity will result. For instance, when
Pericles questioned Lampon about initiation into the rites of Demeter
and Lampon said it was i,mpossible for the uninitiated to be told, Pericles
asked if he knew them himself, and when he said yes, continued 'And
how, when you are not initiated?' The second best is when one premiss of
an inference is obvious and it is clear that he will grant the other if
questioned; one should ask him about the one premiss and not proceed to
a question about the obvious one, but simply state the conclusion. An
example is Socrates' question when Meletus denied that he recognized
gods but said that he spoke of a daimonion; he asked whether the dai-
mones were either children of gods or something divine, and when he
said 'Yes', went on, 'Well, is there anyone who thinks there are children
of gods but no gods ?'6 A third case is where one means to show that one's
opponent is saying something self-contradictory or paradoxical. A fourth
where he can resolve the difficulty only by a sophistic answer; if he
gives such a reply, like 'It is and it isn't', 'Sometimes yes, sometimes no',
or 'In some ways yes, in some ways no', the audience shout him down and
I This and the following two sections are appendices to the discussion of argument.
2 4 If., 23. 3 141 If. • Frs. 74 and 22 Diehl.
5 Antigone 688 If. 6 Plato, Apology 27 d.
PROSE STYLE
think he is at a loss. Otherwise do not attempt it, as if he resists you will
be thought to have been defeated, since one cannot ask many questions
because of the feebleness of the audience. That is why one should try
to make one's inferences, too, as compact as possible.
In answering, you should meet ambiguous questions with a developed
distinction, not a concise one, and deal with supposed contradictions by
producing the solution straight away in your reply, before he asks the
next question and proceeds to the conclusion, as it is quite easy in some
cases to foresee what he will say. Both this and the forms of solution
are clear to us from the Topics. And when he draws the conclusion, if he
puts it in the form of a question, one should give the explanation, as
Sophocles did when Pisander asked if he, like the other probouloi, had
assented to the establishment of the Four Hundred. 'Yes', he said. 'Well
then, did you think this wrong?' 'Yes.' 'So you committed this wrong
act?' 'Yes, as there was no better one possible.' Or like the Spartan being
examined on his ephorate and asked if he thought the condemnation of
his colleagues had been fair: 'Yes', he replied. 'Did you concur in their
actions?' 'Yes.' 'Then would it not be fair to condemn you too?' 'Cer-
tainly not', he said. 'They did it for bribes, I because I thought it best.'
That is why one should not ask another question after stating the con- 14I9b
clusion nor put the conclusion itself in the form of a question, unless there
is a tremendous surplus of truth on your side.
5. Jokes
So far as jokes go, they are thought to have some use in actual debate, and
Gorgias rightly said that one should ruin one's opponent's seriousness
with laughter and his laughter with seriousness. Jokes are to be found
classified in the Poetics,I some of them suitable for a gentleman, some
not, so that one can choose what suits one. Irony is more gentlemanly
than buffoonery, as the ironical man makes a jest for his own amusement,
the buffoon for another's.
The epilogue is composed of four elements: they are making the hearer 19
well-disposed towards oneself and the contrary towards one's opponent,
amplification and belittling, rousing emotion in the hearer, recapitulating.
It is natural that one should first prove one's own truth and one's oppo-
nent's falsehood, and then go on to praise, blame, and hammer the point
I In the lost second book.
ARISTOTLE
home. [In the first of the four] one should aim at one of two things,
being thought good by this jury or being thought good without qualifica-
tion (and also at making your opponent seem bad to them or bad without
qualification). The sources from which one can produce this impression
have been stated, that is, the topics basic to producing an impression of
goodness or badness. The next thing, when the proof is over, is naturally
amplification or belittling, since the facts must be admitted before one
can assign a particular importance to them, just as bodily growth is growth
from what was there before. The sources of amplification and belittling
have also been stated previously. After this, when it is clear what the
facts are and how important, is the time to produce emotion in the hearer.
These emotions are pity, indignation, anger, hatred, envy, emulation,
quarrelsomeness. The sources of these have also been previously de-
scribed, so that the remaining subject is the recapitulation. The suitable
place for this is not the proem, as usually but wrongly recommended (we
are urged to be repetitive there so as to make the hearer receptive). Well
now, in the proem one should state the subject, so as to make the hearer
aware what his decision is about, and in the epilogue the various proofs
of it, in a summary way. The starting-point is that one has performed
what one promised, and so one must say what and why. This is sometimes
based on a comparison with your adversary. One can compare what both
have said on the same subject, either directly ('But he said this about that,
while 1 said this other thing and for the following reasons'), or ironically
1420' (,He said this, 1 that' and 'What would he have done if he had proved
this rather than that ?'), or in question form ('Well then, what has been
proved?' or 'What has he proved ?'). Either then one can do it this way
via comparison or in the natural order as it was said, recapitulating one's
own argument and in turn, if one likes, stating separately what one's
opponent said. As the ending of the speech an asyndeton is suitable,
something to finish off the speech, not make another one: '1 have said
my say, you have heard it all, it is in your hands, give your judgements.'
4
DEMETRIUS ON STYLE
INTRODUCTION
(i) ANALYSIS
On Style may be summarized as follows:
1-35:' the structure of sentences-clauses and periods.
36--304: the four styles, each followed by a brief account of its corresponding
faulty style:
(I) 36---7: the theory offour styles.
(2) 38-II3: the grand style.
II4-27: the frigid style.
(3) 128-85: the elegant style.
186--9: the affected style.
(4) .190--235: the plain style.
236--9: the arid style.
(5) 240--301: the forceful style.
302-4: the unpleasant style.
Each style is analysed under the same three headings of diction, word-arrange-
ment, and subject-matter; additional topics then follow. In the grand style, for
example, we find grandeur from arrangement, subject-matter, and diction in
38-102, extra topics in 103-13. Similarly in the plain style the analysis under
these three headings in 190--208 is followed by the accounts of vividness, per-
suasiveness, and the style of letters in 209-35, and in the forceful style subject-
matter, composition, and diction in 24Q--16 are followed by a series of topics,
for example, oblique allusion and the three categories of style in 287--98. The
one exception is the elegant style: ostensibly we find the three headings of
diction (137-55), subject-matter (156--62), and arrangement (179-85) but in
136 and 156 only two headings are recognized and the account of diction includes
topics from arrangement (e.g. figures of speech in 140--1). The style is logically
analysed as follows:
(i) 128-35: the forms of charm.
(ii) 136--62: the sources of charm: style and subject-matter.
(iii) 163-85: additional topics, of which the last is elegant arrangement-as if
it had not been realized that arrangement had already been discussed with
diction.
This irregular structure is partly a result of the fact that the elegant style
, The numbering is sixteenth-century. In the translation these numbers appear in
the margin, the paragraphing and sub-tiding are the translator's.
DEMETRIUS
contains two concepts, graceful charm and witty charm, partly of the adoption
not only of material from a work on wit but the traditional twofold classification
of wit under style and content (e.g. Cicero, de Oratore 2.248).
Editions
L. Radermacher (text, notes), Teubner, 1901, reprinted 1966.
W. Rhys Roberts (text, translation, notes), Cambridge, 1902.
T. A. Moxon (translation), Everyman library, London, 1934.
G. M. A. Grube (translation, useful introduction), Toronto, 1961.
D. M. Schenkeveld, Studies in Demetrius on Style, Amsterdam, 1964 (includes
a recent bibliography).
G. M. A. Grube, The Greek and Roman Critics, London, 1965, pp. nD-21.
ON STYLE
THE STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES: CLAUSES
and the like, prose is divided and articulated by what are called clauses
(cola). These may be said to offer rests for both the speaker and the
subject itself and set frequent bounds to the discourse, which would
otherwise prove long and unending and simply run the speaker out
of breath. It is the function of these clauses to mark the conclusion 2
3 Archilochus, frr. 89 anu 94 Bergk; Anacreon, Poetae Melici Graeei 396 Page.
ON STYLE 175
Teleboas: 'It was not large, beautiful though.' The short, broken rhythm
I
mirrors the river's smallness and charm. If he had expanded the sentence
to say 'in size it fell short of most other rivers but in beauty it surpassed
them all', he would have shown bad judgement and the passage would
have become what is called frigid-but we must fliscuss frigidity later. 2
Short clauses may also be used in the forceful style, since much expressed 7
briefly gives added force and pungency. This forcefulness is the reason
why the Spartans use words sparingly. Commands too are succinct and
concise and every master is monosyllabic to his slave, whereas supplica-
tions and laments are prolix and Homer describes the Prayers 3 as lame
and wrinkled because of their slowness, that is to say their loquacity; old
men are similarly loquacious because they are frail. An example of such 8
brevity is 'Sparta to Philip: Dionysius in Corinth'.4 This compressed
message is much more forceful than if the Spartans had expanded it and
said: 'Though Dionysius was once, like you, a great tyrant, he is now living
as a private citizen in Corinth.' Set out in full it no longer resembles a
threat but a piece of narrative and suggests an author imparting informa-
tion, not instilling fear. The amplification weakens the vigour and strength
of the passage and, just as wild beasts coil themselves before they attack,
the spoken word should also draw itself taut to form a sort of coil for
forceful impact.
This kind of brevity in sentences is called a phraseS and a phrase is 9
defined as being shorter than a clause, as in the above example, 'Dionysius
in Corinth', and the maxims of the sages, 'knowyourself'and 'follow god'.
Brevity fits proverbs and adages and it shows considerable skill to com-
press much meaning into a few words, just as seeds contain the potentiality
of whole trees. Express a maxim at length and it becomes instead a mere
statement and empty rhetoric.
From the combination of such clauses and phrases are formed what are 10
called periods. A period is a combination of clauses and phrases which
has brought the underlying thought to a conclusion with a neatly turned
ending, as in this example: 'It was especially because I thought it in the
interest of the state for the law to be repealed and secondly because of
I Anabasis 4. 4. 3. The same point is made in 121 below.
z See II4 If. on the frigid style.
3 Iliad 9. 502 If.
4 Cf. 102 below. Dionysius became tyrant of Syracuse in 367 B.C.
S 'Phrase' is an inadequate rendering of the Greek 'komma', which, like the clause,
refers to a complete thought.
DEMETRIUS
Chabrias' son that 1 have agreed to be, to the best of my ability, my
clients' advocate.'I This period, formed from three clauses, has a sort
of twist and concentration at the end. This is Aristotle's definition of the
period: 'A period is a sentence with a beginning and end'z-a very good
and appropriate definition. For by saying 'period' we immediately imply
that it has a beginning, will have an ending, and is hurrying to a definite
goal, just like runners when the race has begun, since from the beginning
of the race they too have the goal in view. 3 Hence the term 'period', an
image from paths which form a circle or ring. More generally, the period is
but a certain kind of word-arrangement, as we see if a sentence expressed
in periodic form is broken up and given a different arrangement: the
content remains the same but the period will cease to exist. Suppose we
turned round the period cited above from Demosthenes and said: '1 shall
be my clients' advocate, Athenians; for the son of Chabrias is dear to me,
and much dearer still is the state, whose interests it is right for me to
defend.' The period is now lost.
12 The origin of the period is as follows. One kind of style is called the
neatly-ended style, such as the wholly periodic style found in the rhetori-
cal artifices of Isocrates' school, Gorgias, and Alcidamas, where period
succeeds period no less regularly than the hexameters in the poetry of
Homer. The other style is called the disjointed style and consists ofloosely
related clauses with little interlocking, as in Hecataeus, most ofHerodotus,
and all the early writers generally. Take this example: 'Hecataeus of
Miletus relates as follows. 1 write of these things as I believe them to be
true. For the stories of the Greeks are, it seems to me, both many and
absurd.' The clauses seem to be piled one on top of the other and thrown
together without any integration and interdependence and they do not
13 give the mutual support found in periods. Periodic clauses are in fact
like stones which uphold rounded domes by their mutual support and
dependence, while the clauses of the disconnected style resemble stones
which are merely thrown down near one another and not fitted together.
14 It is this characteristic which gives early style the sharp outlines and
neatness of early statues, when sculptors strove for compactness and
spareness, while later style corresponds to the works of Phidias in the
IS combination of nobility and finish. 4 1 myself consider that speech should
be neither wholly a string of periods, as in Gorgias, nor wholly discon-
I Demosthenes, Against Leptines I. The passage recurs in 20.
2 Aristotle, Rhetoric 3. 9, 1409a3S: see above, p. 148.
3 In the diaulos or two-lap race the runner ran back from the end of the first lap
towards the starting-point again. The comparison is particularly apt since the Greek
word 'periodos' means literally 'a path brought round'.
4 For the rare chronological comparison to sculpture compare Cicero, Brutus 70 and
Q!!int. 12. 10. 1--9 (below, pp. 404-6).
ON STYLE
nected, as in the early writers, but a combination of the two. Then it will
have both artistic finish and simplicity and from the presence of both it
will be pleasing, neither too rude nor too artificial. As for those who use
periods uninterruptedly, even their own heads reel and they seem in-
tOl.:icated, while the audience feels nauseated by the implausibility and
finds the end of each sentence so inevitable that they sometimes forestall
them by shouting it aloud.
The smaller periods consist of two clauses, the longest of four. Any- 16
thing beyond four would exceed the proper proportions of the period.
There are also some of three clauses, while some have only one and are 17
called simple periods. Whenever a clause has some length and a twist at
the end, it becomes a single-clause period, as in this example, 'The
results of the inquiries of Herodotus of Halicarnassus are here set forth' /
or again 'Clear language brings great illumination to the hearer's mind'.
Both characteristics of the simple period are essential, length and the
twist at the end; one alone is not enough. In compound periods the last 18
clause should be longer and, as it were, envelop and encompass the
others.2 Then the period will be grand and stately, since it ends on a
long, stately clause; otherwise it is abrupt and seems to limp. Here is
an example: 'Nobility lies not in noble words but in following noble
words with deeds.'3
There are three forms of period, the historical, the dialogue, and the 19
rhetorical. The historical is neither too well-rounded nor too loose but
between the two, so that it does not seem rhetorical and unconvincing
because of its rounding but has the dignity suitable for history from its
simplicity, as in the sentence 'Darius and Parysatis' down to 'the younger
Cyrus',4 where the closing phrase seems to halt on a firmly secured and
safe ending. The rhetorical period has a taut, circular form, requiring a 20
firm utterance and gestures which are in accordance with the rounded
structure, as in the sentence: 'It was especially because 1 thought it in
the interest of the state for the law to be repealed and secondly because of
Chabrias' son that I have agreed to be, to the best of my ability, my
clients' advocate.'s From almost its very beginning such a period has a
tautness which suggests that it will not run on to end simply. The dialogue 21
period is one which is still looser and simpler than the historical period and
is scarcely seen to be a period, as in the following example: 'I went down
to the Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, partly to offer
I Herodotus I. I. The author of the second example is unknown.
: A principle quite commonly followed in ancient prose, especially in 'tricolon
crescendo', where three clauses appear with increasing length.
3 Author unknown. 4 Cf. above, 3.
s Demosthenes 20. I. Cr. above, 10.
8143591 N
DEMETRIUS
prayers to the goddess, but partly also because I wanted to watch the
ceremony to see how they would conduct it, since this was its first cele-
bration.'! The clauses have been thrown one on top of the other, as in the
disconnected style, and when we stop at the end *e barely realize that
the sentence is a period. The dialogue period sh~uld be written in a
manner midway bet'Yeen the disjointed and neatly-ended styles, forming
a combination which draws from both. These, then, are the three forms
of period.
22 Periods are also formed from clauses in antithesis. These may be anti-
thetical either in content, as in 'sailing over the land and marching over
the sea',2 or in two respects, content and language, as in the case of this
23 same period. There are also clauses with purely verbal antithesis, as in
this comparison of Helen to Heracles: 'For the one he created a life full
of labour and danger, in the other he formed a beauty surrounded by
admiration and strife.'3 There is antithesis of article to article, connective
to connective, like to like throughout, with correspondence of 'created'
to 'formed', 'labour' to 'admiration', 'danger' to 'strife', in factlike matches
24 like at every point. We also find clauses which are not antithetical but
have an apparent antithesis because they are shaped in an antithetical
pattern, as in the playful words of the poet Epicharmus:
Now I was in their house, now in their company.4
The same idea is expressed twice and there is no real contrast, but the
structure of the sentence, with its imitation of an antithesis, looks like
an attempt to mislead; but perhaps Epicharmus used this antithetical
form for its ludicrous effect and to ridicule the rhetoricians.
25 There are also closely similar clauses, some with the similarity at the
beginning, as in
Presents could buy them, prayers could move them,s
others at the end, as at the beginning of the Panegyricus: 'I have often
marvelled at the men by whom assemblies are constituted and athletic
games instituted.'6 Another form of similarity is the isocolon, where two
clauses have the same number of syllables, as in Thucydides: 'Neither
I The opening words of Plato's Republic. Cf. Dionysius, below, p. 34I.
2 Isocrates, Panegyricus 89.
3 Isocrates, Praise of Helen 17. 4 Fr. 147 Kaibel.
5 Homer, Iliad 9. 526.
6 Isocrates, Panegyricus 1. Cf. above, p. 149.
ON STYLE 179
did those questioned disclaim the deed nor did those concerned to know
censure it." This, then, is isocolon. Homoeoteleuton occurs in clauses 26
with similar endings, either of the same word, as in 'When he was alive
you would speak of him slightingly, now that he is dead you write of him
slightingly',z or of the same final syllable, as in the Panegyricus passage
above.
The use of such clauses is risky. They do not suit forceful speech, since 27
the artifice and premeditation destroy any forcefulness, as is clear from
this example in Theopompus' invective against the friends of Philip:
'Slayers of men by nature, sleeping with men by habit, they were called
his men but were really his women.'3 The balanced structure and anti-
thesis destroy the forcefulness by their misplaced artifice. Anger has no
need of artifice and the style of such invectives should seem spontaneous
and natural. But if, as I have shown, such clauses do not suit forceful 28
speech, they are also alien to the expression of the passionate or milder
emotions. 4 Strong passion is essentially simple and unaffected, and the
same is true of the milder emotions. Take the passage from Aristotle's On
Justice where the speaker grieves for the city of Athens. 5 If he were to
say 'What city did they ever take from the enemy as great as their own
city which they had lost?', he would have spoken with passion and grief.
But if he used balanced clauses to say 'What city of the enemy had they
constrained as great as their own which they had not retained ?', he will
assuredly excite neither passion nor pity but what are called tears of
laughter. In fact the proverb, 'to jest among mourners', sums up such
misapplied artifice in emotional contexts. Yet sometimes these devices 29
are useful, as in Aristotle: 'I went from Athens to Stagira because of the
great king and from Stagira to Athens because of the great winter.'6 If
you remove the second 'great', you will also remove the charm. Such
clauses may also contribute towards a nobility of expression, as do many
antitheses in Gorgias and Isocrates. So much, then, on similar clauses.
The enthymeme differs from the period in that the period is a rounded 30
form of sentence-structure (hence its name), whereas it is the content
which gives the enthymeme its function and existence. The period may
give rounded form to an enthymeme just as it can to any subject but
the enthymeme is a thought which draws a conclusion either from a
I Thuc. I. 5. Z Author unknown. It recurs in 2II.
3 Fr. 249 Mueller. Compare 75 and 240.
4 Pathos and ethos: compare Q!Iint. 6. 2. 8 If. 5 Fr. 82 Rose
6 Cf. 154 below. Aristotle, fr. 669 Rose.
ISo DEMETRIUS
31 contradiction or in the form of a logical consequence. l In proof of this asser-
tion, if you broke up the structure of an enthymeme, you would destroy
any periodic form but the enthymeme remains untouched. Suppose, for
example, we broke up this enthymeme of Demosthenes: 'Just as you would
not have sponsored this bill if any of them had been co~victed, no one
else will in the future if you are convicted now.'2 Let us break it up: 'Do
not be lenient to sponsors of unconstitutional bills; for if they were
always stopped, the defendant would not be sponsoring this bill now,
nor will anyone else sponsor them in the future if he is convicted now.'
Here the circular form of the period is broken up but the enthymeme
32 remains as it was. In general terms, the enthymeme is a rhetorical syllog-
ism, whereas the period is not a form of argumentation but merely a
particular sentence-structure. We also use periods in all the sections of a
speech, for example in introductions, but we do not use enthymemes
everywhere. The enthymeme is, as it were, an additional comment, the
period is simply a form of words. The former is a sort of imperfect
33 syllogism, the latter involves no syllogism, perfect or imperfect. The
enthymeme has the accidental property of being a period if it is expressed
in periodic form but it is not itself a period, just as a white building has
the accidental property of whiteness but buildings are not always white.
This concludes my discussion of the difference between the enthymeme
and the period.
34 This is Aristotle's definition of a clause: 'A clause is one of the two parts
of a period.' He then adds: 'There is also the simple period.'3 By 'one of
the two parts' in his definition he clearly signifies a period of only two
clauses. Archedemus4 combined Aristotle's definition and additional
comment to produce a clearer and more correct definition: 'A clause is
35 either a simple period or part of a composite period.' I have explained the
simple period already; but in saying 'part of a composite period' it would
seem that Archedemus does not limit the period to two clauses but allows
three or more. I have given my views on the proper limits of the period:
let us now turn to describe the types of style.
I On the two types of enthymeme compare Aristotle, Rhetoric 2. 22, 1396b z5 and
Quint. 5. 14.4. The first refutes the opponent, the second proves something from agreed
premisses.
2 Against Aristocrates 99.
3 Rhetoric 3. 9, 1409b I6: cf. above, p. 148.
4 No identification is possible.
ON STYLE 181
There are four primary styles, plain, grand, elegant, and forceful. There 36
are also styles formed from combinations of these, though not every
combination is possible: the elegant style combines with the plain and the
grand, likewise the forceful with the same two, but-the one exception-a
mixture of the grand and plain styles is impossible, since the two stand,
as it were, diametrically opposed to each other in permanent conflict.
This is in fact why some people claim that only these two styles exist
and that the other two are contained within them; for they classify the
elegant under the plain style and the forceful under the grand on the
grounds that the elegant style involves an element of triviality and
daintiness, the forceful style weight and majesty. But this line of argument 37
is absurd. It ignores the fact that, with the exception of the two extremes
already mentioned, every combination of styles is possible. In the epic
poetry of Homer, for example, and the prose of Plato, Xenophon, Hero-
dotus, and many other authors there is a considerable element of grandeur
but also a considerable element of forcefulness and charm. We must, then,
recognize our original number of four styles, each with an appropriate
form of expression which I shall now describe.
I shall begin with grandeur, the quality which men now term true 38
eloquence. Grandeur springs from three sources, thought, diction, and
appropriate word-arrangement. In arrangement grandeur is, as Aristotle I
says, given by the use of paeonic rhythm. There are two kinds of paeon,
the initial paeon formed by one long syllable followed by three shorts
(e.g. erxiito de)z and, the reverse of this, the final paeon formed by three
short syllables and one long (e.g. Arab/a). In the clauses of the grand style 39
the initial type of paeon should stand at the beginning, the terminal type
later, as in this example from Thucydides:
-u u v vvu-
CONNECTIVES
53 Connective particles such as men and del should not answer each other too
exactly. Exactitude is petty and we should cultivate instead a certain
negligence, such as we find in this passage of Antiphon: 'The island on
the one hand which we inhabit is visibly on the one hand high and rugged
even from a distance, its productive on the one hand and arable area is
small, its unproductive area on the other hand large for such a small
54 island.'4 Here one de answers three instances of men. Often too a chain of
connectives exalts even small things, for example the names of the Boeo-
tian towns in Homer: of no account and unimpressive in themselves,
they take on weight and grandeur from a great chain of connectives, as in:
and Schoenus and Scolus and mountainous Eteonus. 5
55 Expletive particles should not be used as empty fillers and, as it were,
alien growths or extra chippings to fill cracks, though this is the aimless
manner in which some people use 'indeed' and 'now', but only if they
56 increase the grandeur of what is being said, as in Plato's 'And indeed
mighty Zeus in heaven' and Homer's
But when indeed they came to the ford of the fair-flowing river.6
By forming a fresh start and wrenching what follows away from what
precedes, the particle has created a stately effect, since many fresh starts
achieve dignity. If Homer had said:
But when they reached the ford of the river,
I Republic 411 a-b. 2 Odyssey 9. 190-2.
3 i.e. 'on the one hand' (men) and 'but on the other hand' (de).
4 Fr. 50 Blass. 5 Iliad 2. 497.
6 Plato, Phaedrus 246 e and Homer, Iliad 14- 433 (also 21. 1).
ON STYLE
the sentence would have seemed insignificant and a mere continuation
of the preceding narrative.
A particle may often be used to express emotion, as in Calypso's words 57
to Odysseus:
• Descendant of Zeus, son of Laertes, guileful Odysseus,
so it is indeed your wish to return to your own dear country?I
If you remove the particle, you will also remove the feeling of emotion.
In general, as Praxiphanes 2 says, such particles were used to represent
moanings and groans and, just as we all see the function of 'ah! ah!' and
'alas!', in exacdy the same way, he says, in Homer's
And now upon their laments 3
the 'now' was appropriate for laments because it creates the effect of an
interjection of woe. Those, however, he continues, who use particles 58
aimlessly are like actors who aimlessly insert this or that interjection, as if
one were to say:
This land is Calydon and Pelops' realm, alas!
beholds its fertile plains across the straits, ah! ah!4
If the 'alas!' and 'ah! ah!' are redundant there, the same is true if we
poindessly insert particles everywhere.
FIGURES OF SPEECH
The ana ph ora of the repeated Nireus and the asyndeton give the im-
pression of a mighty contingent, though he has only two or three ships,
62 and, although Nireus is named only once in the course of the action,
we remember him as vividly as Achilles and Odysseus, whose names recur
in almost every line. The reason is the force of the figure of speech: if
Homer had said
HIATUS
The subject of hiatus has produced varying opinions. Isocrates and his 68
followers deliberately avoided it, others used it indiscriminately at every
opportunity. The proper course is not to make our sentences too resonant
by a random and indiscriminate use of hiatus (that simply wrenches and
jerks the words asunder) nor to pursue only an unbroken continuity,
since the sentence will then perhaps run more smoothly but will be less
musical and completely monotonous because it will have lost the melodious
euphony which hiatus gives. We should bear in mind, first of all, that 69
even common usage, whose chief aim is euphony, admits words with
internal hiatus, such as Aiakos and chian,I and even forms many words
like Aiaie and Euios2 which have only vowels but are no less euphonious
than any others and perhaps even more melodious. Then in poetry we 70
find forms where the vowels are deliberately resolved and juxtaposed, for
example edios, which is more melodious than keHos, and likewise ore on
instead of oran.3 The resolution and hiatus add the suggestion of a song.
We also find many words which would sound harsher if the vowels were
run together but are melodious if they remain apart and stand in hiatus,
as in kala estin:4 if you run the vowels together to say kal' estin, the phrase
will sound harsher and more banal. Again, in Egypt the priests even chant 7I
hymns to the gods in which they sound each of the seven vowels in turn,
and men listen to the sound of these letters in preference to the flute or
lyre because of their euphony. If we remove the hiatus, we simply lose
entirely the hymns' melody and music. But perhaps now is not the time
to enlarge on this topic.
In the grand style the appropriate form of hiatus to use is the juxta- 72
position of the same two long vowels, as in laan ana atheske,5 where the
hiatus makes the line ponderous and reproduces the stone's resistance and
the force needed to push it up. Similar examples occur in Thucydides ... 6
The juxtaposition of different vowels also produces grandeur, with the 73
added merit of variety from the diversity of sound, as in eas and still
I i.e. 'Aeacus' and 'snow'.
2 i.e. Aeaea, the name of an island, and Euius, an epithet of Bacchus.
3 'Sun' (keHos) and 'mountains' (oran).
~ 'They are beautiful.'
S Homer, Odyssey II. 596. 'He pushed the stone upwards.' Cf. the discussion of the
passage by Dionysius, below pp. 335 if.
6 We omit two examples, one between two long vowels and one between two
diphthongs.
188 DEMETRIUS
more hoien,' where the change of vowels is accompanied by the transition
74 from aspirated to unaspirated sound. As a result it has many elements of
dissimilarity. In songs too trills are sung on one single long vowel, a song
within a song one might say: hiatus, then, between the same two long
vowels will compose a small part of a song or a trill. Here I conclude my
account of hiatus and the whole topic of grandeur in word-arrangement.
75 Grandeur also derives from the nature of the subject-matter, for example
an important and famous battle on land or sea or the theme of the heavens
or of earth. If we listen to a dignified subject we immediately suppose
that the speaker is using a dignified style-but we are deceived. We must
consider not the content but the manner of its expression. It is perfectly
possible to speak on dignified themes in an undignified manner and
produce a style inappropriate to the subject. This is why we find some
writers like Theopompus who are thought forceful but merely express
76 forceful themes in an unforceful style. The painter Nicias 2 used to say
that it was, to look no further, an important part of the painter's art to
choose a distinguished subject and not to fritter away his skill on tiny
things like little birds or flowers but to take cavalry or naval battles where
he could portray horses in many different poses-galloping, rearing,
stumbling to their knees-and many riders hurling javelins or thrown
to the ground. He thought that the theme itself was as integral a part of the
painter's art as the plot is part of the poet's. It is not surprising, then, if
grandeur results in prose also from the choice of dignified subject.
77 In this style the diction should be ornate, distinctive, and unusual. It will
then have dignity, whereas normal, ordinary diction has clarity but is
78 plain and cheap. Pride of place belongs to metaphors, since these make
the greatest contribution of charm and grandeur to prose, but they must
not occur too frequently or we find ourselves writing dithyrambic poetry
instead of prose, and they should not be far-fetched but derived from a
related analogy in a similar field. For instance, there is a similarity between
I i.e. 'dawn' (cos) and 'such' (hoien).
2 Athenian painter of the second half of the fourth century. For his choice of theme
compare the famous Alexander mosaic in the House of the Faun at Pompeii, a copy of a
fourth-century original.
ON STYLE
a general, pilot, and charioteer, since they all control something, and we
may safely call a general 'pilot of the state' or conversely a pilot 'charioteer
of the ship'. Not all metaphors, however, have this reciprocal quality: 79
Homer could call the lower slope of Mount Ida its 'foot' but never a
man's foot his 'lower slope'.
If a metaphor seems risky, turn it into a simile (eikasia). Then it will 80
be safer. A simile is an extended metaphor. For example, take the words
'Then the orator Python rushed in spate against you' 1 and expand them
to say 'Then the orator Python rushed, as it were, in spate against you':
the passage has become a simile and acquired safety, while the original
version was a metaphor and more risky. This is why Plato's use of meta-
phor in preference to simile is thought a tricky procedure; Xenophon,
however, prefers similes.
Aristotle considers the best metaphor to be what is called the active 81
metaphor,z where inanimate objects are presented as if they were animate,
as in the description of an arrow 'sharp-pointed, eager to hit its mark
in the crowd' and waves 'arched, foam-crested'.3 All such terms as 'foam-
crested' and 'eager' imply the activities of living creatures.
Some ideas are expressed more clearly and properly in metaphors than 82
if the proper terms were used. Take 'The battle shuddered';4 no version
using only proper terms could have greater truth or clarity. By 'shuddering
battle' Homer has expressed the movement of the spears and their low,
continuous sound-and at the same time he has also made use of the
active metaphor we have just discussed, since he speaks of the battle
shuddering like a living creature.
It must not be forgotten, however, that some metaphors create a loss 83
of dignity rather than grandeur, even when the metaphor is intended to
give dignity as in:
All around the great heaven trumpeted. s
Homer should not have likened the sound of the heaven to the sound of
a trumpet-unless perhaps he can be defended on the grounds that the
great heaven resounded as it would if the whole heaven were a sounding
trumpet. Let us find, then, a second example of a metaphor which creates 84
loss of dignity instead of grandeur, bearing in mind that metaphors should
compare small to great, not the reverse. Take Xenophon's passage:
'When, during their march a part of the phalanx surged out.'6 He has
I Demosthenes, On the Crown 136. Cf. 272.
2 Rhetoric 3. Il, I4IIh32 If. above, p. 152.
3 Homer, Iliad 4. 126 and 13. 799. Cf. 64.
• Homer, Iliad 13. 339.
5 Ibid. 21. 388. Cf. 'Longinus' (below, p. 469), Pliny (below, p. 430).
6 Anabasis 1. 8. 18.
190 DEMETRIUS
compared a falling out of rank to the surging waves and rightly applied
the metaphor, but if anyone were to reverse the analogy and speak of
waves falling out of rank, perhaps the metaphor would not even be appro-
priate, certainly it is utterly devoid of dignity.
85 Some people make a metaphor safe by adding an epithet if they think
it too bold. Theognis, for example, applies the phrase 'lyre without
strings' I to a bow in his description of a man shooting: to call a bow a
lyre is bold but the epithet 'without strings' makes it safe.
86 Usage is our guide in everything but particularly in the case of meta-
phors. Almost every expression in common use involves a metaphor but
we do not notice because they are safe metaphors, such as 'clear voice',
'keen man', 'rough character', 'lengthy speaker', and all the other in-
stances where the metaphor is applied so aptly that it seems the proper
87 term. This, then, is my criterion for metaphors in prose, usage as estab-
lished by art or nature. Usage has in fact taken over some metaphors so
successfully that we no longer feel the lack of a proper term and the
metaphor is firmly established as the proper term, for example 'the eye
88 of the vine' and suchlike expressions. Note, however, that when 'sphon-
dulos', 'kleis', and 'ktenes' are applied to parts of the body,z these terms
are not being used metaphorically from analogy but because of their
physical resemblance to a spindle-weight, key, and comb respectively.
89 When we turn a metaphor into a simile in the way I described, we
should aim at conciseness and add no more than 'like'. Otherwise it will
be a poetic comparison instead of a simile, as in Xenophon's 'like a valiant
hound which recklessly attacks a boar'3 and 'like a horse let loose which
90 prances and cavorts over the plain'.4 These no longer resemble similes
but poetic comparisons, which should not be used lightly in prose but
only with the greatest care. So much, then, for an outline sketch on the
subject of metaphor.
COMPOUND WORDS
by Aristophanes.
2 viz. vertebra, collar-bone, and back of the hand.
3 Cyropaedia 1. 4. 21.
• Author unknown: but cf. Iliad 6. 506/f.
5 Of unknown authorship. See Poetae Melici Graeci 962 Page.
ON STYLE
and it gives us 'lawgivers', 'master-builders', and many other formations
which we may safely copy. A compound word will not only have variety 92
and grandeur from the fact that it is a compound but also conciseness.
A whole phrase will be replaced by one word, for instance 'supplies of
corn' by 'corn-convoy', a much more impressive expression-though
sometimes it may be more impressive to reverse the process and turn
a word into a phrase, for example 'convoy of corn' instead of 'corn-
convoy'. Another instance of a word replacing a phrase may be taken from 93
Xenophon: 'It was possible to catch a wild ass only if the horsemen were
spaced out and hunted in relays." From the single word 'relays' we
understand that some gave chase from behind, others rode forward to
meet them, so that the ass was intercepted between the two. Finally, we
should not use compound words in profusion or we transgress the limits
of prose.
NEOLOGISMS
Critics define neologisms as words which imitate the sound of an emotion 94
or action, for example 'hissed' and 'lapping'.2 Such words create grandeur 95
on account of their resemblance to inarticulate sounds and in particular
from their strangeness, since the neologist does not use existing words but
ones which are now appearing for the first time. It also shows cleverness
to create a new form and, as it were, a new usage. In fact, in coining such
words he resembles the original creators of language.
We3 must aim primarily at clarity and natural Greek elements in 96
forming new words and secondly at achieving forms analogous to existing
words, so that we may not seem to speak the barbarous Greek ofPhrygians
and Scythians. Such a neologism must be either a completely new form, 97
as, for example, when a writer called the drums and other accompani-
ments of the eunuch priests their 'effeminacies' and Aristotle invented
'elephantist',4 or an existing form given a secondary meaning, as, for
example, when a writer called a man who was rowing his craft a 'crafts-
man' and Aristotle called the man who lived alone by himself an 'autite'.S
On the same lines Xenophon says 'The army rang out',6 deriving the 98
I Anabasis I. 5. 2.
2 Homer, Odyssey 9.394 and Iliad 16. 161. Cf. 220.
3 The transition to derivative neologisms is harsh. If we compare the unwarranted
'as I said' in 98, it is attractive to assume a lacuna here: e.g. 'There are also derivative
neologisms. Like all neologisms they carry risks, even for poets.'
• Author unknown and Aristotle, History of Animals 497b28.
5 Author unknown and Aristotle, fr. 668 Rose. Elsewhere the latter example refers
to home-made wine. The point is hard to make in English: 'selfish' is a possible ren-
dering, if we suppose it might bear two meanings. Cf. '44 below.
6 Anabasis 5. 2. 14.
192 DEMETRIUS
meaning from their continuous ringing cheers. Neologism is, however,
as I said, a risky procedure even for poets.
Again, a compound word will be a species of neologism, since a com-
pound obviously derives from parts already in existence.
ALLEGORY
THE EPIPHONEME
Il4 Each style has an adjacent fault in the same way that there are adjacent
good and bad qualities in the field of ethics, such as courage and rashness
or reverence and shame. The first to be discussed will be the neighbour
of the grand style. Its name is the frigid style, and frigidity is defined by
Theophrastus as that which exceeds the proper expression, as in
A cup un based cannot be tabled,s
instead of 'A cup which has no base cannot be placed on a table'. The
IlS slight nature of the subject does not allow such an ornate style. Like
grandeur, frigidity springs from three sources: first the thought, as in
one account of the Cyclops hurling a rock at Odysseus' ship: 'As the rock
sped on its way, goats \vere grazing on it.'6 This is frigid because the
I Homer, Iliad 12. 113. 2 Odyssey 19. 172-3.
3 Thuc. 4. 64.
4 The use of the word pSllchros to describe the fault of excessive grandeur is as odd in
Greek as 'frigid' in English. Demetrius' use derives from Aristotle, Rhetoric 3. 3,
140Sb3S if.: see note on this passage, where we use 'bathetic' for pSlIcilros (above, p. 140).
5 Sophoc1es, Triplolemus, fr. 554 l'iauck. 6 Author unknown.
ON STYLE 19S
be easier to count her teeth than her fingers', and 'He has made off with as
many drachmas as he deserved strokes of the whip',! they are indistin-
guishable from gibes and close to the laughter of buffoonery. On the other 129
hand, Homer's lines,z
The nymphs
played at her side, and Leto rejoiced in her heart
and
She was easily pre-eminent, though all were beautiful,
show what we call the dignified or stately kind of charm. Homer also uses 130
pleasantries on occasion to add force and expressiveness and the very
jesting makes him more fearsome. He seems to have been the first to
discover forceful pleasantries, as in the gift of hospitality offered by that
most repulsive character, the Cyclops:
I shall eat No-man last, after the others. 3
Nothing expresses his monstrous nature as vividly as this witticism, not
even when he devours two of Odysseus' companions, nor the huge door
of his cave, nor his mighty club. Xenophon too adopts this device and 131
derives forcefulness from pleasantries, as in the case of the armed dancing-
girl: when a Greek was asked by a Paphlagonian whether their women
too went on campaigns, he replied: 'Yes, and it was the women who
routed the king.'4 The witticism is forceful on two scores, the implication
that the women who accompanied them were not ordinary women but
Amazons and the sneer that the king was so weak that he was put to
flight by women.
These, then, are the varieties and characteristics of charm. Some 132
derive from the content, such as gardens of the nymphs, wedding-songs,
loves, all the poetry of Sappho. Even if handled by a Hipponax 5 such
themes retain their charm and are intrinsically gay. No one could sing
a wedding-song in wrath or achieve a style able to turn Cupid into a
Fury or a giant, or laughter into tears. But if some themes have their own 133
charm, the style can lend added charm, as in Homer:
As when the daughter of Pandareus, the auburn nightingale,
warbles her sweet song in the first days of spring. 6
I Frr. I. 5 and 275 Sauppe.
2 Odyssey 6. 105-6 and 108. Homer compares Nausicaa among her handmaidens to
Artemis among the nymphs.
3 Odyssey 9. 369. Cf. 152 below.
4 Anabasis 6. I. 12-13.
5 Sixth century B.C., notorious for his invective poetry.
6 Odyssey 19. 518-19.
DEMETRIUS
The nightingale is a charming bird and spring is always a charming
thought but the style has greatly heightened the beauty by the added
charm of 'auburn' and the personification of a bird as a daughter of
134 Pandareus. Both are the poet's own contributions. Often too a subject
which is essentially unattractive and grim may acquire gaiety from the
writer's treatment. This skill seems to be found first in Xenophon. His
subject was a stem and grim character, the Persian Aglaitadas, yet he
135 created laughter with a tharming jest: 'It is easier to strike fire from you
than laughter." This kind of charm has the most powerful effect and
more than any other depends on the writer, since he takes a subject like
Aglaitadas which is essentially grim and hostile to charm and shows that
it is possible to make jests even from unpromising material, just as one
may be cooled by warmth and warmed by cold.
136 We have now indicated the forms of charm and the ways in which they
appear. Now we shall indicate their sources. We have already seen that
charm derives from style and content and we shall treat the sources under
these two headings, beginning with style.
137 First we have charm from brevity, where an idea which would become
unattractive under detailed treatment derives charm from a passing
mention, as in Xenophon: '''This man has in fact no claim to be Greek,
for I saw him with both ears pierced like a Lydian"-and this was SO.'2
The brevity of the final 'and this was so' creates charm, while a longer
version, 'What he had said was true; they were obviously pierced', would
138 have replaced the charm with a bald narrative. Again, we may often
contrive a charming effect by combining two ideas in one, as in one
writer's description of the sleeping Amazon: 'Her bow lay strung, her
quiver full, her shield beside her head; but they do not loosen their
girdles.'3 The same words indicate the regular custom about the girdle
and the fact that she had not loosened her girdle, two points in one. The
brevity is elegant.
139 A second source is word-order, since a final position lends some words
a charm which they lack if put in the beginning or middle. Here is an
example from Xenophon on Cyrus: 'He gave him gifts, a horse, a robe,
a necklace, and a promise against further ravaging of his country.'4 The
last gift, the promise against further ravaging, creates charm from its
, Cyropaedia 2. 2. 15. 2 Anabasis 3. I. 31.
3 Author unknown. • Anabasis I. 2. 27.
ON STYLE 199
strangeness and peculiarity. The final position is responsible: reverse
the order, for example 'He gave him gifts, a promise against further
ravaging of his country, a horse, a robe, and a necklace', and there would
be no charm; as it is, he begins with the conventional gifts and adds at
the end the one which is strange and unusual. Hence the charming effect.
The charm derived from the use of figures of speech is self-evident 140
and is found above all in Sappho, as in her use of repetition, for example
when a bride addresses her virginity,
Virginity, virginity, where have you gone, deserting me?
and her virginity replies, using the same figure,
Never again shall I come to you, never again shall I come.!
The idea would have less charm if it were expressed only once, without
the figure of speech. It is true that repetition seems to have been invented
rather as a means of lending forcefulness, but Sappho makes even the
most forceful turns of style contribute charm. Sometimes she derives 141
charm from anaphora, as in her address to the evening-star:
Evening-star, you bring everything home,
you bring the sheep, you bring the goat, you bring the child to the mother. z
Here again there is charm, the result of the repetition of 'you bring' at
the beginning of successive clauses. Many other examples could be 142
adduced.
There are also examples from single words, for instance metaphor, as
in this passage on the cicada:
From under its wings
it lets its shrill song flow forth, whenever the blazing ... ;3
or compound words of a dithyrambic nature, such as 143
Pluto, lord of the black-winged ... 4
-but these are more especially the playful oddities of comedy and satyr-
plays. There may also be charm from a word associated with a particular 1#
'46 Such are the sources of charm from single words. We may also derive
charm from comparisons, as in Sappho's description of a tall, handsome
man:
pre-eminent, like the Lesbian singer among strangers. 3
Here the comparison has resulted in charm, not the grandeur which could
have been achieved by the choice of a more poetical comparison, for
example 'pre-eminent, like the moon among the stars' or 'like the sun in
'47 brightness'. Sophron too derives charm from this source, for example:
'See how many leaves and twigs the boys shower on the men, in just the
way they say, my dear, the Trojans hurled mud at Ajax.'4 This com-
parison is charming, because it makes fun of the Trojans as if they were
children.
'48 There is also a source which Sappho has made peculiarly her own,
recantation. She says something, then recants and, as it were, changes
her mind, as in this example:
Raise the haII
high, you builders.
The bridegroom is entering, the equal of Ares,
taller by far than a taII man. S
She seems to check herself, conscious of using an impossible exaggeration
'49 since no one is the equal of Ares. Similar is this passage in Telemachus: 6
'Two dogs were tethered in front of the court and I can even tell you the
dogs' names-but why should I wish to give their names?' The writer
has wittily changed his mind in the middle and suppressed their names.
I Or 'from a colloquial word' ... 'is colloquial'. The fragment (668 Rose) is cited
There is also charm in parodying someone else's line, for example ISO
Aristophanes mocks Zeus somewhere for failing to cast his thunderbolts
against the wicked:
But he strikes his own temple and 'Sunium, headland of Athens';
It is as though it were no longer Zeus but Homer and Homer's line
which find ridicule, and this increases the charm.
Again, some allegories have a piquant flavour, as in 'Delphians, your ISI
bitch is with child'2 or Sophron's description of old men: 'Here I too
sit at anchor with you, white-haired like myself, waiting to set sail on the
sea; for men of our age are ready to lift anchor.' He also has an allegory
on the subject of women, using the imagery of fish: 'Razor-fish, oysters
with soft flesh, delicacies for widows.'3 But comparisons like this last
example are gross and suitable only for mimes.
Charm also springs from the unexpected, as in the Cyclops' words 152
that he would eat No-man last4 (for neither Odysseus nor the reader had
expected such a token of hospitality) or in Aristophanes' mockery of
Socrates:
He melted the wax, then took a pair of compasses
and in the wrestling school-he stole a cloak. 5
In this example there are, however, two sources of charm: the last com- 153
ment is not only unexpected, it does not even cohere with what precedes.
This sort of incoherence is called double-entendre 6 and may be illustrated
from the speech ofBulias in Sophron (none of his remarks cohere together)
and the prologue of Menander's Woman of Messenia.
Similar clauses are another frequent source of charm, as in Aristotle: 154
'I went from Athens to Stagira because of the great king and from Stagira
to Athens because of the great winter." The fact that both clauses have
the same ending lends charm and, if you delete 'great' from either clause,
you will also remove the charm.
Veiled accusations can sometimes seem charming, as in Xenophon's 155
account of how Heraclides, one of Seuthes' followers, approaches each
of the dinner-guests in turn and urges him to give what he can to Seuthes. 8
The request has a sort of charm and is at the same time a veiled accusation.
J Clouds 401, with parody of Odyssey 3. 278.
• Author unknown and interpretation uncertain.
3 Frr. 52 and 24 Kaibel.
4 Homer, Odyssey 9. 369. Cf. 130. 5 Clouds 149 and 178--9.
6 At first hearing there is a surface meaning but it does not make sense and we look
for the underlying real meaning. We have no details on either of the two examples
(Sophron, fr. 109 Kaibel; Menander, fr. 268 Koerte).
7 Fr. 669 Rose. Cf. 29. 8 Anabasis 7.3. 15 If.
202 DEMETRIUS
CHARM FROM CONTENT: PROVERBS, FABLES, MISTAKEN
FEARS, COMPARISONS, AND HYPERBOLES
156 So much, then, on the number and sources of charm derived from style.
In content we derive charm from proverbs, since they are of their nature
charming. In Sophron, for example, we find 'Epioles who choked his
father' and, in another passage, 'he deduced the lion from the claw', 'he
scraped the ladle', and 'he split cummin'.' He amasses charm by having
two or three proverbs in quick succession and we can almost make a
157 complete collection of all proverbs from his dramas. Aptly introduced
fables are also charming. Some are traditional, such as Aristotle's com-
ment on the story that the eagle dies of hunger because its beak becomes
bent: 'and it suffers this fate because once, when it was a man, it injured
158 a guest'.2 This is a traditional and familiar fable. There are also many
fables which we invent to match and suit the context, like one writer's
novel addition to the story that the cat grows fat and thin in sympathy
with the phases of the moon: 'hence the story that the moon is the eat's
mother.'3 There is not only charm from the novelty, the story that the
moon is the cat's mother is itself attractive.
159 Relief from fear 4 is another frequent source of charm, when a man is
needlessly afraid, for example when he mistakes a strap for a snake or a
stove for a hole in the ground-but these mistakes are essentially more
160 suited to comedy. Comparisons are yet another source, if you compare a
cock to a PersianS because its crest stands upright-or to a king because it
is purple or because we jump up when a cock crows, just as we do when
161 a king calls. But comic charm derives especially from hyperbole, since
every hyperbole involves an impossibility.6 For example, Aristophanes
exaggerates the gluttony of the Persians,
They roasted oxen, not bread, in the ovens,7
and another writer of the Thracians, 'Medoces their king would carry
162 a whole ox in his jaw'.8 There are other examples of the same kind,
'healthier than a pumpkin', 'balder than the blue sky', and Sappho's
More melodious by far than a lyre,
more golden than gold. 9
The charm of all such examples derives from hyperbole.
I Frr. 68 and 110 Kaibel. The meaning of the first is obscure.
2 History of Animals 619316.
3 Author unknown. 4 Text uncertain.
5 Aristophanes, Birds 486-7 and 490. In fact only the king in Persia wore his tiara
upright.
6 The impossible is a regular source oflaughter.
7 Aristophanes, Acharnians 85-6. 8 Author unknown. Cf. 126.
9 Sophron, frr. 108 and 34 Kaibel; Sappho, fr. 156 Lobel-Page. Cf. 127.
ON STYLE 203
Comic laughter and graceful charm differ. They differ, first of all, in their 163
material. Gardens of the nymphs and loves are material for charm but
do not provoke laughter, unlike Irus and Thersites I who do. The differ-
ence, then, is as great as that between Thersites and Cupid. They also 164
differ in language: charm welcomes stylistic adornment and beautiful
words, the richest source of charm, as in
The many-garlanded earth was carpeted with flowers
and 'auburn nightingale',2 whereas laughter is not merely content to use
commonplace, ordinary words 3 but is actually destroyed by stylistic 165
adornment and becomes grotesque. Charm, then, may be adorned without
offence 4 but to elaborate upon a subject for laughter is tantamount to
beautifying an ape. It is for this reason that Sappho uses beautiful, 166
melodious words when she speaks of beauty or loves, spring and the
halcyon. Every beautiful word is woven into her poems and some are
even her own creation. But her style changes when she mocks the boorish 167
bridegroom and the doorkeeper of the bridal chamber: then she departs
from poetic language to use very ordinary and pedestrian words and we
feel readier to recite these poems in a conversational tone than to sing
them, and they would not fit the accompaniment of chorus and lyre-
unless of course you can imagine a chorus which merely recites. But the 168
most fundamental difference lies in their aims: the elegant and comic
writers have different aims, the former to delight us, the latter to make
us laugh. Their results are similarly different, since the one arouses
laughter, the other praise. Different too are their spheres of action: in 169
some genres, the satyr-play and comedy, we need both laughter and
charm, whereas tragedy makes frequent use of charm but laughter is
its enemy. No one could even conceive of a mirthful tragedy: he would
simply produce a satyr-play.
Even sensible men will sometimes make jests, on appropriate occasions 170
such as banquets and parties and in rebuking the dissolute, for example
I Irus, the beggar in Homer, Odyssey 18, and Thersites, ugliest of the Greeks in the
Iliad.
2 Author unknown (Poetae Me/ici Graeci 964(a) Page) and Homer, Odyssey 19.518,
BEAUTIFUL WORDS
17J Charm is also created by the use of what are called beautiful words. This
is Theophrastus' definition: 'There is beauty in a word if it is attractive
174 to the ear or eye or has inherent nobility from its meaning.' Attractive
to the eye are such expressions as 'rose-coloured' and 'flower-laden
meadow' (for whatever delights the eye retains its beauty when we hear
about it) and attractive to the ear are 'Callistratus' and 'Annoon', where
175 there is resonance in the double '11' and 'nn'; it is also for the sake of
euphony that Attic writers generally add 'n' in forms like Demosthenell
and Sokraten. s Nobility from meaning is exemplified by 'our ancestors'
instead of 'the ancients': 'our ancestors' is more distinguished.
176 Musicians classify words as smooth, rough, well-proportioned, and
weighty. A smooth word consists wholly or largely of vowels, for
example 'Aias', whereas 'bebrokC'6 is a rough word-in fact the sound of
this particular rough word reflects its meaning. The well-proportioned
I A Pythagorean ascetic, contemporary with Socrates and mocked by Aeschines of
ELEGANT ARRANGEMENT
Elegance also derives from the arrangement of words, but it is not an easy 179
subject to discuss, since no earlier critic has treated elegant arrangement.
I must, however, attempt it as best I can. It seems, then, that pleasure 180
and charm will result if we construct our sentences from metres, either
whole or half lines, but so that the metres do not obtrude as such in
continuous speech and we detect them only if you separate and analyse
each different part. There will be the same charm even if the rhythm is 181
only roughly metrical. The charm from this kind of pleasing arrange-
ment steals upon us imperceptibly and is the form prevalent in the
Peripatetics, and in Plato, Xenophon, and Herodotus; it seems that it is
also frequent in Demosthenes, but Thucydides avoids it. It might be 182
illustrated by the following example from Dicaearchus: en Elea tes Italias,
presbuten ide ten helileian onta. 3 The ends of the two clauses are roughly
metrical but the metre is hidden by the unbroken continuity in the flow
of words. This gives considerable charm. Again, Plato often derives 183
elegance from rhythm alone by using long clauses which avoid harsh-
sounding juxtapositions and a succession of long syllables (for the former
characterizes the plain and forceful styles, long syllables the grand
style). Each clause seems to glide smoothly into the next and they are
neither completely metrical nor unmetrical, for example his description
of music beginning 'we were saying a moment ago'4 ...
190 In the case of the plain style we should perhaps choose trivial subjects
of the kind appropriate to plain treatment, as in Lysias: 'I have a modest
house on two floors, and the upper floor is exactly like the lower.'3 The
diction should be entirely ordinary and in everyday use, since anything
I Authors unknown. In the second example of 187, there is a pun on Olympias, the
ordinary is always more trivial, while words which are unusual and meta-
phorical create grandeur. Compound words are also to be avoided, since 19 1
they too are characteristic of the opposite style, as are neologisms and all
the other embellishments which produce grandeur. Above all, the plain
style should have clarity. This derives from several qualities, in the first 192
place from the use of ordinary words, secondly from connectives. Writing
which is unconnected and disjointed is utterly unclear, since the lack of
articulation obscures the beginning of each clause, as in Heraclitus, whose
lack of connectives is largely responsible for his reputation as a dark
riddler. This disconnected style is perhaps more suited to the immediacy 193
of debate. It is also called the dramatic style because the lack of connectives
stimulates dramatic delivery, whereas the written style is easier to read
because its parts are fitted together and, as it were, secured in place by
connectives. This is why actors like Menander, whose style for the
most part lacks connectives, but readers prefer Philemon. 1 To prove the 194
dramatic nature of unconnected clauses let us take this example:
I conceived you, I bore you, I nurse you, my dear.2
The lack of connectives will force even an unwilling reciter to give the
line a dramatic delivery: but if you insert connectives and say
I conceived you and I bore you and I nurse you,
the connectives will bring with them a great loss of emotion, and any-
thing which lacks emotion gives no scope for dramatic delivery. Dramatic 195
technique includes other interesting factors. Euripides' Ion,3 for example,
snatches his bow and threatens the swan which is fouling the statues:
here the actor is given a variety of movements, such as the run to his
bow, the face turned upwards to the sky as he addresses the swan and all
the other gestures which the dramatic nature of the scene demands. But
our present concern is not dramatic technique.
Clear writing should also avoid ambiguities and use the figure of 196
epanalepsis, the repetition of a connective in the course of a long sentence,
for example: 'Now all Philip's actions, the subjection of Thrace, the cap-
ture of the Chersonese, the siege of Byzantium, the refusal to return
Amphipolis-now all these I shall pass over.'4 The repetition of the con-
nective may be said to remind us of the first words and re-establish us
at the beginning of the sentence. Again, we should often repeat ideas for 197
the sake of clarity, since greater charm than clarity results from brevity.
I Dramatist contemporary with Menander.
Z Menander, fr. 685 Koerte.
3 Ion 158 fT. 4 Author unknown.
208 DEMETRIUS
For just as we sometimes overlook men racing past us, a sentence too can
rush along too quickly for comprehension.
19 8 The use of dependent constructions should also be avoided, because
they lack clarity, as we see from the style of Philistus. I A briefer example
of obscurity from a dependent construction may be found in Xenophon:
'He heard news of triremes sailing round from Ionia to Cilicia with
Tamos on board and belonging to the Spartans and Cyrus himself.'2
This could be expressed in the following straightforward construction:
'Triremes were expected in Cilicia, many of them Spartan but many of
them Persian ships built by Cyrus for this very purpose. They were
sailing from Ionia and the commander in charge was the Egyptian Tamos.'
This version would perhaps be longer but certainly clearer.
199 As a general rule we must use the natural order of words, as in 'Epidam-
nus is a city on your right as you sail into the Ionian gulf'.3 First the subject
is mentioned, then the predicate (it is a city) and then the rest in due
200 order. The reverse order may also appear, for example 'There is a city
Ephyra'.4 We neither completely approve of the one nor disapprove of the
201 other: we are simply giving the natural way of ordering words. In narrative
we must begin either with a nominative, 'Epidamnus is a city', or with an
accusative, 'It is said the city Epidamnus .. .'5 Use of other cases will
result in obscurity and torture both speaker and reader.
202 Try also to avoid extremely long periods of the kind in this sentence:
'The Achelous, which flows from Mount Pindus and passes inland by
the city of Stratus before running into the sea .. .'6 Instead, make a break
immediately and give the reader a rest: 'The Achelous flows from Mount
Pindus and runs into the sea.' This version is much clearer, on the analogy
of roads with many signposts and resting-places: the signposts act as
guides, whereas a straight road without signposts, however short· it is,
seems aimless.
203 These are a few of the many remarks one might make on the subject
of clarity. It is to be used particularly in the plain style.
[We omit 204-8, on word-arrangement in the plain style.]
VIVIDNESS
209 Vividness derives in the first place from accurate detail and the fact that
no circumstance is omitted or deleted, as in the whole of Homer's simile
beginning
I Historian c. 430-356 B.C.; his style imitated that of Thucydides: cf. Dionysius,
PERSUASIVENESS
longer just listens to you but acts as your witness, one too who is pre-
disposed in your favour since he feels he has been intelligent and you
are the person who has given him this opportunity to exercise his intelli-
gence. In fact, to tell your hearer everything as if he were a fool is to reveal
that you think him one.
Since the style of letters should also be plain, I shall turn to this topic. 223
Artemon,I the editor of Aristotle's letters, says that dialogue and letters
should be written in the same manner, since a letter may be regarded as one
of the two sides in a dialogue. His comment has some truth perhaps, but 224
not the whole truth. A letter should somehow be slightly more elaborately
written than a dialogue, because the latter aims at an effect of improvisa-
tion but the former is of its nature written and is sent as a sort of gift.
Who would ever talk to a friend in the way Aristotle writes to Antipater 225
to express sympathy for the old man in exile ?-'If he wanders over all
the world, an exile with no prospect of return, clearly no reproach attaches
to men in his position if they wish to find a home in the kingdom of the
dead.'2 A man who talked like that would seem to be declaiming, not
chatting.
Frequent disjointed sentences are also unsuitable in letters, since dis- 226
jointedness in written compositions destroys clarity and imitation of the
spoken word suits writing less than the immediacy of debate, as we see in
the Euthydemus: 'Who was that, Socrates, who was talking with you in
the Lyceum yesterday? There was certainly a large crowd standing round
you.' And a little further on: 'I thought he was from abroad, that man who
was talking with you. Who was he ?'3 All this kind of style in imitation
of the spoken word suits an actor but not the written nature of letters.
A letter should be very largely an expression of character, just like the 227
dialogue. Perhaps everyone reflects his own soul in writing a letter. It is
possible to discern a writer's character in every other form of literature
but in none so fully as in the letter.
The length of a letter should be moderate, as should its style. Any 228
which are too long and, furthermore, rather pompous in language can
assuredly never become letters but are monographs with the conventional
opening of a letter, as in the case of many of Plato's letters and that one of
Thucydides. The actual sentences should be rather loosely formed. It is 229
ridiculous to build periods as if you were writing a speech, not a letter.
I Date uncertain. 2 Fr. 665 Rose.
240 We now come to forcefulness (deinotes) and it will be clear from what has
already been said that it too springs from the same three sources as all
the preceding styles. There are some subjects which have an inherent
forcefulness which makes even writers whose style is feeble seem forceful.
When Theopompus, for example, speaks of the flute-girls of the Piraeus,
the brothels, and the men playing the flute, singing, and dancing,3 all
I Fr. 670 Rose. 2 Fr. 656 Rose.
these ideas have such a forceful effect that his feeble style is overlooked
and he is thought forceful.
[We omit 241-71, which deal with word-arrangements and figures appro-
priate to forcefulness.]
We should use every kind of diction found in the grand style, only our aim 272
will be different. Force can be achieved from metaphor, as in 'Python
grew bold and rushed in full spate against you', and from simile, as in 273
Demosthenes' words: 'This decree made the danger which then sur-
rounded the city pass away like a cloud.'! Poetical comparisons, however, 274
are disqualified by their length, as in 'like a valiant but inexperienced
hound which recklessly attacks a boar':2 beauty and precise detail
characterize such images, whereas forcefulness requires pungent brevity
and is like an exchange of blows. Again, compound words can give force, 275
as we see from the many examples in current usage, for example 'loose-
livers', 'brainless',3 and the like. Many such examples may be found in
the orators. We should also attempt to find words in keeping with the 276
thought. For example, a man acts with reprehensible violence: say 'he
forced his way through'; or with open and reckless violence: say 'he cut
and hacked his way through'; or with furtive secrecy: say 'he insinuated
himself' or 'he stole his way through'.
[We omit 277-86, where other kinds of dcinotcs are illustrated.]
OBLIQUE ALLUSIONS
Cicero, besides his life-long practice of oratory and literature, was always
concerned with the theory that lay behind it; the list of his theoretical works
begins with an immature handbook On Invention, dating from the 80S B.C., and
passes through the dialogue On the Orator (55) to a series of shorter works written
in the 40s. These later works reflect Cicero's standpoint in a controversy that
had developed around the concepts of Atticism and Asianism in oratory; but
that by no means limits their interest, and Cicero's theory shows at all periods
of his development consistent enough attitudes to justify our abandoning the
chronological order of his works in the interests of giving a clear over-all view.
We begin therefore with an extract from the Brutus (46 B.C.; text by E. Malcovati
(Teubner, 1965), complete translation by G. L. Hendrickson (Loeb); com-
mentary by A. E. Douglas (Oxford, 1966».
183 Here Atticus said: 'How do you mean, both in your judgement and in
everybody's? Does the judgement of the mob always coincide with that
of the knowledgeable in the approval or disapproval of an orator? Or are
some approved by the many, others by the experts?'
'You are right to ask, Atticus', I said, 'but you will hear an answer that
perhaps may not be given the approval of everybody.'
184 'Does that worry you', he asked, 'if you manage to prove your point to
Brutus here?'
'Atticus', I said, 'I should very much prefer this discussion on the
approving and disapproving of the orator to please you and Brutus; my
eloquence, however, I should wish to be approved by the people. For it
follows that someone who speaks so as to win the approval of the many
will win that of the connoisseur also. So long as I am capable of judge-
ment, I shall be able to judge what is right or wrong in speaking. But an
orator's quality will be realized from what he can bring about by his
185 oratory. There are in my opinion three things that oratory should bring
about: the instruction of the hearer, his being given pleasure, his being
strongly moved. It will be for the technical expert to judge what virtues
in an orator cause each of these, and what faults mean that he fails to
WHO SHOULD JUDGE ORATORS?
attain them or even slips and falls in the attempt. But whether the orator
succeeds or fails in making his audience feel the required emotions is
normally judged by the applause of the mob and the approval of the
people. And so there has never been a difference between the people and
the experts on whether an orator was good or not. Or do you imagine 186
that, in the periods during which there flourished the orators I have
mentioned, I there was not an identical ranking of orators in the judgement
of the crowd and of the educated? If-you asked the man in the street:
"Who is the most eloquent man in the country ?" he would answer either
Antonius or Crassus, or he would hesitate between the two. Would
nobody prefer to these Philippus, so agreeable, weighty, and witty an
orator--one whom we ourselves, who are trying to apply some system to
our weighing of these matters, claimed to be next in rank to the other two ?
Nobody surely; it is a mark of the top orator to be regarded as top orator
by the people.
'If the flute-player Antigenidas said to a pupil who was a failure in 187
public "Play for me and the Muses", my advice to Brutus here when he
speaks (as he often does) before a crowd is: "Play for me, my friend, and
the people." Those who listen will feel the effect of your speech; I shall
realize why that effect is produced. The orator's audience believes his
words, thinks them true, assents, approves; his speech carries conviction;
what more could the critic ask? A listening multitude is charmed and 188
allured by oratory, it is deluged with delight: what can the critic find fault
with here? The crowd rejoices, grieves, laughs, cries, likes, dislikes, de-
spises, envies, pities, feels shame, feels annoyance. It is angered and soothed,
it hopes and fears. These effects take place according to the way in which
the minds of those present are worked on by words, thoughts, and de-
livery. Why wait for the judgement of some expert? What the multitude
approves must be approved by the expert too.
'Here is a final illustration of popular judgement-and there has never
yet been any difference here between people and connoisseurs. There 189
have been many orators of various styles; yet who has been popularly
reputed to excel without being approved by the expert as well? In
our fathers' day either Antonius or Crassus would unquestionably have
been the invariable choice of anyone free to select his advocate. Many
other lawyers were practising; yet though someone might have doubted
which of the two to choose, no one would have failed to choose one or the
other. Again, in my youth, Cotta and Hortensius were pre-eminent:
would anyone with a choice have preferred anybody else to these two ?'
Then Brutus said: 'Why look elsewhere? What about you? We saw 190
what defendants preferred, and what Hortensius himself thought. When
I The Brutus consists largely ofa roll-call of Roman orators down to Cicero's time.
218 CICERO
he was splitting a case with you (I often used to be there) he would
leave you the last speech, where oratory has most of its effect.'
'He did do that', I replied. 'It must have been his friendliness towards
me that made him so generous. However, I don't know what the people
think about me; but in the case of others, I am confident that those who
have been popularly regarded as the most eloquent have been the most
19 1 highly regarded by the experts. Demosthenes could not have said what is
attributed to the famous poet Antimachus. Once Antimachus got an
audience together and began to read them a large volume of his (you
know it). Everyone but Plato walked out as he read. "I shall go on reading
all the same", he said. "For me Plato counts as a hundred thousand." And
quite right too; for a poem, if abstruse, need move the enthusiasm only of
the few. But a speech is meant for the people-and must win the approval
of the crowd. And ifDemosthenes were reduced to having Plato as his sole
19 2 audience, he would not be able to say a word. What could you do, Brutus,
if you got abandoned by your audience as Curio once was by his ?'
'To tell the truth', said he, 'I shouldn't be able to go on if I was aban-
doned by the audience, even in a case where my speech was wholly
directed at the judge and not at the people at all.'
'That's how it is', I said. 'If a flute didn't give any sound when it was
blown, the player would think it time to throw it away. And to the orator
the people's ears a~e like a flute; if they don't receive what he blows
in, or if the audience (like a horse) just doesn't suit-then it's no use
persevering.
193 'However, there is this difference, that the mob sometimes approves an
orator who doesn't deserve it-but it approves without applying any
comparison. When it is pleased by a middling or even poor speaker, it
contents itself with him and, not realizing that anything better is available,
it gives its applause to what there is, whatever its quality. Even a second-
rate orator, providing he has something, can hold the attention; for nothing
so influences men's minds as arrangement and embellishment of
style.'
[Cicero proceeds (194-8) to give the details of a case in which Quintus
Scaevola and Lucius Crassus had been on opposing sides.]
198 'Now this ordinary critic of ours, having admired one of these two when
heard by himself, might find himself laughing at his judgement when he
heard the other; while an educated and knowledgeable hearer of Scaevola
would sense that there was room for something richer and more ornate.
But if both critics were to be consulted at the completion of the case as to
which was the better orator, the judgement of the skilled man would
surely not differ from that of the layman.
WHO SHOULD JUDGE ORATORS? 21 9
'Where then does the expert surpass the layman? In an important matter, 199
and one hard to achieve: for it is important to know how effects that
should be obtained by oratory, or at least must not be let slip, are in fact
achieved or lost. There is another superiority of skilled over unskilled
in that, when the people approve of two or more orators, the skilled critic
can tell what style is best. For what is not liked by the people cannot be
liked by the expert either. You can tell from the sound of the strings how
skilfully a lyre is being played; and you can tell from the emotions aroused
in the mind what the orator is doing by his playing on them. Thus 200
the skilled critic of oratory can often judge an orator in passing and
at a glance, without sitting by and listening carefully. He can see the
judges yawning, talking to a neighbour, sometimes even chatting in
groups, asking the time, calling for an adjournment: so he knows that in
that case there is no orator capable of bringing his oratory to bear on the
minds of judges like a hand to a lyre. But if he goes by and sees the judges
sitting up, wide-awake, proving by their very faces that they are getting
the point: if he sees them held in suspense by the speech like a bird by
music, or-most important of all-violently shaken by pity, anger, or some
other emotion: if he goes by, I say, and sees all this, even without hearing
anything he will judge that an orator is at work in that case and that the
orator's job is being done-or has already been completed.'
Also from Brut us (25-51); the rather repetitive and disorderly exposition is
Cicero's concession to the conventions of dialogue.
I said: 'It is not my intention here-nor is it necessary-to praise 25
eloquence, to describe the extent of its powers, and of the prestige it
brings to those who have attained to it. But one thing I will say without
hesitation: whether it is produced by art, by practice, or by nature,
eloquence is a uniquely difficult accomplishment. It is ~aid to consist of
five elements:' and each of these is a great skill in itself. Thus it can be
imagined how powerful, and how difficult to reach, is this combination of
five major skills.
'Look, for example, at Greece: she was fired with enthusiasm for 26
eloquence, and has long excelled all her rivals in it; yet all her other
arts are longer established, and were discovered and even perfected well
before such effective and fluent oratory was developed. Now when I look at
Greece, Atticus, there particularly comes to my mind, with a sort of glow,
your favourite city Athens, where the orator first raised his head, and where
I Invention, arrangement, diction, memory, delivery.
220 CICERO
27 speeches were first immortalized in the literary record. Yet before
Pericles, some of whose works are extant in writing, and Thucydides,
both of whom lived when Athens was adult, not adolescent, there is no
written word that shows any degree of ornament, any sign of the orator,
though there is certainly a tradition that the far earlier Pisistratus, together
with Solon rather before him and Clisthenes after him, were, for their
28 times, powerful speakers. A number of years after that generation, as we
can tell from Atticus' chronology,! came Themistocles, who is agreed to
have stood out for wisdom and eloquence too; after him Pericles, a
brilliant example of every virtue, earned nevertheless his highest fame in
this field of oratory. It is known too that Cleon, at the same period, was,
29 though an obstreperous citizen, an eloquent speaker. More or less con-
temporary were Alcibiades, Critias, and Theramenes. The type of oratory
that flourished at this time can be best judged from Thucydides, who lived
at the same period. They were elevated in their vocabulary, close-packed
in thought, brief, compressed, and sometimes, for that very reason, some-
what obscure.
30 'Now when it became known what influence careful and studied
oratory could have, many teachers of the art of speaking suddenly sprang
up. Gorgias of Leontini, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, Protagoras of
Abdera, Prodicus ofCeos, Hippias of Elis were in great repute; and many
others at this period professed, arrogantly enough, their ability to teach
how the weaker cause (as they put it) could by skill in oratory be made the
31 stronger. They found an opponent in Socrates, who used an acute method
of disputation to reject their claims. His fruitful conversations gave rise
to disciples of great learning; and it is at this time that the branch of
philosophy that disputes about good and bad, about men's lives and ways,
as opposed to the older type concerned with nature, is said to have been
invented. This phenomenon lies outside my present subject: philosophers
I must leave for another occasion; let us return to the orators from whom
I have digressed.
32 'Now in the old age of the men I have just mentioned appeared
Isocrates, whose home was open to all Greece as a sort of school and
factory of oratory. He was himself a great orator and a consummate
teacher, even though he avoided the glare of the courts and fostered
indoors a glory that no one, in my judgement, has ever since equalled.
He both wrote himself, much and brilliantly, and taught others; he ex-
celled earlier orators in other ways but especially in that it was he who
first realized that in prose too you must, while steering clear of verse,
33 preserve a certain measured rhythm. For before him there was no
I Atticus' liber anna/is, the source of much of Cicero's chronological lore: cf. 39, 42;
Oralor 120.
THE PROGRESS OF GREEK ORATORY ZZI
whom I mentioned before, first brought training to bear. This did not
then exist in the field of oratory, but Pericles was taught by the philosopher
Anaxagoras, I and easily transferred the mental accOlpplishments acquired
in recondite and abstruse matters to cases befor~ courts and people.
Athens was captivated by his charm, wondered at his fullness and facility,
and feared the terrifying force of his eloquence.
'This was the generation that was the first, at Athens, to produce the 45
almost perfect orator. Ambition for eloquence is not normally born in
those founding states and waging wars, or in men hampered and ham-
strung by the rule of despots. Eloquence is the companion of peace, the
friend of leisure, foster-child of a securely settled society. And so, as 46
Aristotle says,2 it was when the tyrants had been got rid of in Sicily, and
private property was being claimed back after a long interval by legal
process, that (the Sicilian race being sharp-witted and naturally gifted for
dispute) a handbook and rules for oratory were first composed, by the
Sicilians Corax and Tisias; no one before that was accustomed to speak
methodically and systematically, though many spoke with care and from
a written text. Protagoras prepared written discussions of important
matters, now called commonplaces. Gorgias did the same, composing 47
eulogies of and invectives against particular things, because he regarded
it as especially the orator's job to be able to increase merit by praise and to
depress it again by invective. Antiphon of Rhamnus had similar composi-
tions written out. We have the excellent witness of Thucydides,3 who
heard the speech, that no one ever pleaded a capital case better than
Antiphon did in his own defence.
'Lysias (still according to Aristotle) was at first a professor of the art of 48
oratory, but later, because Theodorus was subtler in theory (though
thinner in his practice), Lysias began to write speeches for others, and
abandoned theory. Similarly, Isocrates at first denied the existence of an
art of speaking, though he made a practice of writing speeches for others
to use in court. But after himself being frequently summoned to trial for
alleged offences against the law forbidding legal malpractice, he stopped
writing speeches for others, and devoted himself entirely to composing
handbooks. Here you have the birth and origin of Greek oratory, long 49
ago by the standard of our history, but quite recently by theirs. For the
city of Athens had many memorable feats, in war and peace, to its credit
before it began to take delight in the accomplishment of oratory.
'Now this enthusiasm was peculiar to Athens, not shared with the whole
of Greece. Who can tell of an Argive or Corinthian or Theban orator 50
at that period? Unless, that is, we may speculate about the literary
1 ef. Plato, Phaedrus 269 e (above, p. 78).
2 In a lost work. 3 8. 68.
224 CICERO
accomplishments of Epaminondas. And I have never heard of a Spartan
orator to this day. Homer tells us that even Menelaus was a man of few
words, though an agreeable speaker. I Now conciseness is sometimes, and
in particular passages, a good thing; but in oratory as a whole it is without
51 merit. Outside Greece, however, there were great vogues for oratory;
honour was heaped on skill in eloquence, making the name of orator
illustrious. For, once it left the Piraeus, eloquence passed through all the
islands and made itself so much at home throughout Asia that it became
contaminated with the ways of foreigners, 2 lost the old health and sound-
ness of the Attic style, and almost forgot how to speak. Hence we have
the orators of Asia, by no means to be despised for their speed and full-
ness, but not concise enough and over-redundant. The Rhodians are
sounder, and more like the Attic orators. But enough of the Greeks:
perhaps even what I have said is unnecessary.'
C.CATO
In BTutus 61-'76, Cicero, in the course of his survey of Latin orators, praises the
elder Cato.
61 'Cethegus, then, was followed chronologically by Cato, who was consul
63 nine years after him 3• • • Cato's speeches are hardly less numerous than
those of the Attic Lysias, and he wrote very many (there is no doubt of
his being Attic, by the way: he was certainly born and died in Athens,
and did all his civic duties there, though Timaeus ... claims him for
Syracuse): and in a way there is a certain resemblance between the two
authors.4 They are both pointed, elegant, witty, brief. But the Greek is
64 happier in his reputation. He has a distinct set of enthusiastic admirers
who pursue slimness rather than grossness. So long as health is un-
impaired, they find positive pleasure in being thin. In Lysias, indeed,
there are often muscles showing too, nothing could be stronger; but he is in
general pretty spare. However: as I say, he has his admirers, who rejoice
in his very slenderness.
65 But what orator of our time reads Cato? Who even knows him? Yet
what a man he was! Forget about Cato the citizen, the senator, the general
-we are looking at the orator now. Who is more weighty than he in
panegyric, more savage in invective, more penetrating in thought, more
1 Iliad 3. 213-a passage elsewhere quoted with the lines cited above, 40.
2 Cf. the account of the origin of 'Asianism' in Quintilian 12. 10. 16 f. (below,
P·407).
3 i.e. in 195 B.C.
• Echoes of the Atticist-Asianist controversy are audible here.
CATO
subtle in exposition and explanation? His speeches, more than a hundred
and fifty that I have so far found and read, are stuffed with notable lan-
guage and content. Pick out the passages deserving especial notice and
praise: you will find all the qualities of an orator there. And as to the 66
Origins, what ornament, what brilliance of eloquence do they not possess?1
Cato lacks admirers, just as many centuries ago did Philistus of Syra-
cuse and even Thucydides. Their brief sentences, sometimes not altogether
lucid because of their brevity and extreme point, are eclipsed by the high
elevation of Theopompus (as Lysias is by Demosthenes); similarly the
loftier stylistic erections of those who succeeded him have got in the
way of our appreciation of Cato's brilliance. But our critics are so blind 67
that, while on the Greek side they rejoice in antiquity and what they call
'Attic' slenderness (subtilitas), they don't even know it exists in Cato.
They want to be like Hyperides and Lysias. Well and good: why not
like Cato? They say they enjoy the Attic type. Very wise-would that 68
they did imitate the Attic orators, blood as well as bones! Still, it's
pleasant that they even want to.
Why, then, are Lysias and Hyperides loved, while Cato gets utterly
ignored? His language is rather dated, his vocabulary sometimes a little
uncouth. That was how they spoke then. Change that (he could not, in
his day); give him rhythm, arrange the words to fit better and (so to say)
joint them together (something antiquity didn't achieve even in Greece):
then you won't put anyone higher than Cato. The Greeks think language 69
is embellished if they use the deviations of words that are called tropes,
and figures (schemata) in thought and speech. It is hardly credible how
frequently and how notably Cato employs these features. I am perfectly
aware that he's not yet polished enough, that he leaves scope for the
search for something more finished. Fair enough-he's so remote in
comparison with our day that no writer's work that is at all worth read-
ing exists from any earlier period. But antiquity enjoys greater repute
in every other art than it does in oratory.
No one who is expert in such comparatively trivial matters fails to 70
realize that Canachus' statues are too rigid to be life-like, that Calamis' are
stiff, but less so than Canachus'; that Myron's aren't yet sufficiently
realistic, though undoubtedly to be described as beautiful; that Poly-
clitus' are more beautiful and by now positively perfect (or so I think). So
too in painting. We praise Zeuxis, Polygnotus, Timanthes, and the shapes
and lines produced by those who used no more than four colours. But
in Aetion, Nicomachus, Protogenes, Apelles, everything is now perfect. 2
Perhaps the same is true generally: nothing is perfect the moment it is 71
I This was Cato's work on Roman history, beginning with Aeneas.
2 For the analogy with painting and statuary cf. Qpint. 12. 10. 3 (below, p. 5).
8143591 Q
226 CICERO
invented. There were undoubtedly poets before Homer, as you can tell
from the songs sung in his poems at the feasts of the Phaeacians and the
suitors. I And where have our old verses got to, the ones that
once the Fauns and bards would sing,
when (none had scaled) the Muses' heights?
There was no one keen on learned words before him, as the poet 2 says of
himself-and though he boasts, he does not lie. That's how the facts
stand. For the Latin Odyssey 3 is a sort of work of Daedalus, and the plays
75 of Livius aren't worth reading twice ... If only the songs still existed,
the ones that Cato records in the Origins as once being sung by the guests
in turn at banquets many centuries before his day, in praise of famous
men! However, like some work of Myron's, the Punic War of an author 4
whom Ennius counted among bards and Fauns does give pleasure.
76 Ennius may be-certainly is-better finished. But if he despised him as he
pretends to he wouldn't leave out the bitterly fought first Punic war in his
recital of every war in Roman history. And he says why he does it: 'Others
have written the story in verse's-and written it brilliantly indeed, even
if less elegantly than you, Ennius: and you shouldn't dissent-you've
taken over much from Naevius: that's what we'll say if you admit to it;
if you deny it, it's a theft. 6
D. ATTICUS ON CATO
Brutus 292-9
This answers Cicero's encomium.
292 Then Atticus said: 'I regard as witty and elegant the irony they say
Socrates possessed, which he displays in the books by Plato, Xenophon,
and Aeschines. 7 Only a man of taste and wit could, when wisdom
is under discussion, disown it for himself while playfully attributing
it to those who claim it: thus in Plato Socrates praises to the skies
Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus, Gorgias, and the rest, and pretends that
he himself is ignorant of everything and quite naive. This somehow suits
Socrates, and 1 don't agree with Epicurus' condemnation of it.s But in
history-which after all you were employing throughout your description
I e.g. Odyssey 1. 154,8.43. 2 i.e. Ennius (Annales 214).
3 By Livius Andronicus, in Saturnians.
4 Naevius. 5 Enn. Atmales 213.
6 Cf. 'Longinus' on 'theft' and 'borrowing' (below, p. 476).
7 The Socratic, not the orator.
S For an Epicurean attack on Socrates, cf. Plutarch, Againsl Colotes 19-20.
ATTICUS ON CATO 227
every day-more or less the people you just mentioned; and when it got
about somehow that I (like you) tend to get involved in important law-
suits, they all put forward for themselves their arguments on the function
and method of the orator. Some of them, including the famous Mnesar- 83
chus, said that what we call orators are no more than odd-job men with
quick and practised tongues. Only the wise man is an orator. l Eloquence
itself (defined as the knowledge of speaking well) is one virtue; whoever
possesses one virtue possesses all, and all are equal and on a par. Thus the
eloquent man has all the virtues and is a wise man. But this was a dry and
thorny argument that I found very repellent.
'Charmadas, however, was much more forthcoming on the same sub- 84
ject-not that he voiced his own opinion, it being the traditional custom
of the Academy always to oppose everybody in an argument. But on
this occasion he argued that those who are called rhetors and who teach
the rules of oratory have no real knowledge. The only man capable of
attaining any sort of ability at speaking is the man who has learned the
discoveries of the philosophers.
'Opposition was expressed by some eloquent Athenian lawyers and 8s
politicians, including that Menedemus who was recently my guest in Rome.
Menedemus said that there exists a certain practical wisdom that func-
tions in the discovery of methods of organizing and ruling states; where-
upon that quick-witted and widely learned speaker/ who has such an
extraordinary fund of varied information, was provoked to reply that
every facet of this practical wisdom is to be looked for from philosophy.
The provisions of states about religion, education, justice, endurance,
temperance, moderation in everything, and all the other things in whose
absence cities could not exist, at least in any good condition, are never
found in the books of the rhetoricians. If in fact teachers of rhetoric 86
embrace within their art such an abundance of key matters, why are their
books full of proems and epilogues and trivialities (that was the word he
used) of this kind? Why can no word be found there of the organization
of states, the codification of laws, equity, justice, good faith, the over-
coming of desire, the shaping of morals? This same man kept making 87
fun of rhetoricians' precepts, demonstrating that rhetors are quite devoid
of the practical wisdom they claim for themselves, and what is more are
not even aware of the correct method of oratory itself. He regarded it as the
hallmark of the orator to appear to the audience in the light he wishes
(that is attained by living a respectable life-a subject ignored by teachers
of rhetoric in their precepts) and further to ensure that his hearers feel
the emotions he intends them to feel: and that, too, cannot come about
I The Stoic position. Cf. also Qyintilian's view (12. I. I If., below, p. 417).
2 Channadas.
230 CICERO
unless the speaker knows what methods and what style of oratory avail
to sway the minds of men in each direction. Now these are matters
hidden away deep in philosophy, an ocean into which these rhetors have
never ventured a toe.
88 'Menedemus endeavoured to refute all this by instances rather than by
arguments. He quoted from memory a good deal of first-rate quality from
the speeches of Demosthenes, and showed that that speaker was not un-
skilled in using his oratory to move judges and people in any direction,
and could thereby get effects that the other had asserted could not be
89 attained without philosophy. To this the reply was that there was no
denying that Demosthenes possessed supreme practical wisdom and
supreme powers of speech: but that whether he owed that to his natural
ability or to the fact that (as was well known) he had been an ardent pupil
of Plato, the question at issue concerned not the genius of Demosthenes
but the teaching of the rhetors.
90 'Often this speaker went so far as to assert that there is no 'art' of
speaking. He had arguments to prove this, such as that we are born with
a natural ability to flatter those from whom we have to get something,
and to menace and frighten our adversaries, to narrate an event, to prove
a point or disprove an opposite contention, and, finally, to beg or com-
plain-this being the full range of the orator's potentialities. Or he would
argue, again, that it is habit and practice that sharpen intellect and spur
on eloquence to greater fluency. He also had an abundance of illustrations
91 to offer. First, he said that, as it were on principle, no writer of an 'Art' has
ever been even moderately eloquent-and he went back to one Corax
and one Tisias, apparently the acknowledged inventors and originators of
the technique. On the other hand, he named countless very eloquent men
who never learnt the 'art' and took no trouble to get acquainted with it:
among them he counted myself, perhaps for a joke, or perhaps because
he really believed, from hearsay, that I belong in that company, having
had no training and nevertheless (so he said) possessing some power of
oratory. I was very ready to agree on the point that I had learnt nothing;
on the other point, I thought he was making fun of me or else was him-
self mistaken.
92 'However, he said there is no art that is not made up of known and
thoroughly understood facts, tending to a single end and never deceptive;
on the other hand, everything that is treated by the orator is uncertain
and doubtful: the speaker is not in full possession of it, the hearer is
regarded as the recipient not of knowledge but of temporary opinion,
93 false or at the least obscure. Isn't that enough? This was how he purported
to persuade me that there is no technique of oratory, and that no one can
speak cleverly or fully unless he is acquainted with the doctrines of the
THE NATURE OF ELOQUENCE 23 1
most learned philosophers. Charmadas here used to express the highest
admiration of your gifts, Crassus-he said that while I was a very ready
listener, you were a very doughty disputant.
'So it was that I was attracted by this same view, and went so far as to 94
say, in a little book that slipped out and was read by people though I was
unaware and even unwilling, that I had known a few accomplished
speakers, but none yet who was eloquent. I defined an accomplished
speaker as one who could speak with tolerable intelligence and clarity in
the presence of second-rate men and keeping to the average view. An
eloquent man, on the other hand, was one who could magnify and
embellish whatever he wished in an extraordinary and splendid manner,
containing in his mind and in his memory all the sources of everything
relevant to oratory. That is something hard to attain for us, who plunged
ourselves in a legal career before we got round to training. But it does not,
let us assume, lie outside the bounds of possibility. For I-as far as my 95
powers of augury allow and in view of the eminent talents I see in our
race-do not despair that one day there will be a man I gifted with keener
enthusiasm than ours is or has been, with more leisure and opportunity
to learn in early life, with superior industry and ability to work hard;
who, having devoted himself to listening and reading and writing, may
prove to be the sort of orator we are looking for, one who deserves to be
called not just a good speaker but truly eloquent: a man embodied, in
my opinion, either here and now in Crassus, or in someone who shall
have equal abilities but, having heard and read and written more than
Crassus, may be able to add somewhat to Crassus' attainments.'
fully trained in every type of speech and in every branch of human affairs.
Well, I should not say that if I thought that I was the man I'm trying to
portray to you. But, as Gaius Lucilius used to say (a man who had a bit 72
of a grudge against you, and so wasn't as much my friend as he would
have wished-still, a learned and a very witty man), my view is that no
one should be counted an orator unless he is highly polished in all liberal
arts. Even if we are not employing them in a speech, it is quite clear and
evident whether we are ignorant or educated in them: similarly, a ball- 73
player may not employ in a game the virtuosity characteristic of the
gymnasium, but his very manner of moving shows whether he's trained
or untrained; or take an artist-he may not actually be wielding a brush
at a given moment, but it's not difficult to tell whether he knows how to
paint or not. So in oratory-in court, popular assembly, or senate: even if
the rest of the arts are not being employed particularly, nevertheless it's
perfectly easy to see whether the speaker has merely done the rounds of
the declaimers or comes to his oratory equipped with all the arts a gentle-
man should have mastered.'
H. 'ATTIC' ORATORY
In the 40s, Cicero found himself under attack from admirers of the orator
Calvus, who regarded his elaborate and rhythmical oratory as turgid-the sort
of thing one would associate with Asia Minor rather than with Attica. a.
Tacitus, Dia/ogus 18 (below, p. 443); Qp.intilian 12. 10. 12-15 (below, p. 406).
He replied in the Brutus, by showing himself as the culmination of the long
development of Roman oratory, and also in the Orator (ed. P. Reis, 1932;
O. Jahn-W. Kroll, 1913; ]. E. Sandys, 1885), where he showed that Attic
oratory covered a wider field than the plainness of Lysias, the principal hero
of the 'Atticists'. We begin with Orator 22-32.
We see that there have been orators whose style combined ornament 22
and weight, dexterity and plainness. Would that we could find such a
model among the Romans! It would be excellent to content ourselves
I i.e. the Adriatic.
2 This alludes to the doctrine of stasis (Lat. status), much developed in Hellenistic
times by Hermagoras and others; it was a set of rules intended to help the orator to think
out and select the most telling and appropriate ways of treating his case.
CICERO
23 with home-grown products and not have to look abroad. In the conversa-
tion recorded by me in the Brutus, I conceded a good deal to Roman
writers, to encourage others or because I was enthusiastic for my fellow
countrymen: but I remember, all the same, that I put Demosthenes on
his own ahead of all rivals.! And it is Demosthenes that'l should wish to
identify with the ideal eloquence which I feel without myself having known
it in anyone. No one has ever been more weighty than Demosthenes,
cleverer or more self-controlled. My advice, therefore, to those whose
ignorant views have been publicized-who want to be called 'Attic' or
themselves claim to speak in the Attic manner-is that they should admire
this man most of all: Athens herself was surely not more truly Attic.
Thus they would learn what the 'Attic' is, and would measure eloquence
24 by his strength, not their own weakness. For, as it is, everyone gives
praise to what he thinks his own imitation may perhaps attain. These
people have the most admirable enthusiasm, but their taste is unstable;
and I do not think it irrelevant to try to instruct them in the nature of the
characteristic excellence of the Attic orators.
Orators have always had, to guide their eloquence, the good sense of
their listeners. All who wish to be popular have regard to the taste of those
who hear them; they mould and adapt themselves to it completely, and
2S to their will and nod. Hence Caria, Phrygia, and Mysia,Z being far from
cultured and far from elegant, took up a style of oratory that, in its rich-
ness and as it were fattiness, was suited to their ears. This style was never
liked by their neighbours across the narrow stretch of sea, the Rhodians,
still less by the mainland Greeks; and it was altogether rejected by the
Athenians, whose taste was always so sensible and sure that they could
listen to nothing that was corrupt or inelegant. Their scruples had to be J
respected by the orator, who would not dare to introduce a word that was
26 unusual or objectionable. Hence the orator whom I have ranked above
the rest, in far his best speech, that for Ctesiphon, began quietly, pro-
ceeded concisely in his argument about the laws, but then later, after
gradually enflaming his hearers, spread himself boldly in the remainder
of the speech once he saw that the jury were on fire. Yet this same Demo-
sthenes, who carefully weighed the merits of every word, was criticized in
some respects by Aeschines. Aeschines harried him, mockingly saying
that his vocabulary was harsh, hateful, intolerable: he went so far as to
call him a monster, asking whether these were words or wonders.3 To
27 Aeschines, apparently, not even Demosthenes seemed to speak Attic. Of
course, it is easy to pick on one, as it were, burning word, and make fun
of it once the flames of emotion have died down. So Demosthenes made
I Cf. Brutus 3S (above, p. 221). 2 Cf. Dionysius, below, p. 306.
First of all, I must sketch the man whom some regard as the only true
76 Attic orator. He is pitched in a low key and unpretentious, giving an
appearance of using ordinary language, but in reality differing from the
inexpert more than is commonly supposed. Hence those who hear him,
however incapable of utterance themselves, are confident that they too
could speak like that. Plainness of style may seem easily imitable in
theory; in practice nothing could be more difficult. It has not a great deal
of blood about it, but it must have a sort of sap to give it good health
even if it lacks the greatest strength.
77 The plain orator must first be freed from the shackles of rhythm: for
there are, as you know, certain rhythms used in oratory, to be dealt with
later, which one must methodically keep to in another style but altogether
ignore here. This must be quite unrhythmic, though not wandering; it
should seem to walk freely, not stray at random. It should not trouble to
(as it were) cement words to each other: hiatus, thanks to the juxtaposi-
tion of vowels, has something soothing about it, something that indicates
a not unpleasant negligence on the part of a speaker more worried about
78 content than about phraseology. But other matters must be seen to, even
though these two factors-periodic structure and the 'glueing' of words-
are not enforced on this style. For even short and cut-up sentences are
THREE STYLES AND THE PERFECT ORATOR 241
There is another type, richer and rather more robust than this plain one 91
1 have been describing, but more restrained than the fullest, which 1 have
yet to discuss. This type has a minimum of muscle, a maximum of sweet-
ness. For it is fuller than our concise type, more restrained than the ornate
and copious style. Here all stylistic ornaments are appropriate: for this 92
pattern of oratory has the greatest possible charm. Many have distin-
guished themselves in it in Greece, but in my view Demetrius ofPhaleron
surpasses the rest. His style flows gently and quietly, but it is brightened,
as ifby stars, by words transferred and altered. 1 mean (as often before)
by the former those that are transferred by means of a similarity from one
thing to another to give pleasure or to satisfy a lack: by 'altered' those
in which another word is substituted for the correct one, meaning the
same, but drawn from some associated idea. This, too, of course, is the 93
result of 'transferring'; but Ennius was using one sort of transference
when he said: '1 am bereft of citadel and city', quite another when he
made 'horrid Africa shake with terrible tumult'. I This last the rhetoricians
call hupallage, because (as it were) words are exchanged for words;
grammarians use the term metonymy, because it is names that are
I AIU/romache, fr. 88; Annales 310.
CICERO
94 transferred. Now Aristotle! ranges under 'transference' (i.e. metaphor)
both these phenomena and also 'abuse'-his word is katachresis-as, for
instance, when we say that a man's spirit is 'minute' rather than 'small':
and we can 'abuse' words neighbouring on each other, if we need a word
that pleases or is suitable.
When several metaphors have flowed on successively, a new sort of
speech develops: this type the Greeks call allegory-a good enough name,
but the better classification is to regard all these devices, as Aristotle
does, under the genus 'metaphor'. Demetrius uses them frequently, and
they are most agreeable. He has much metaphor-and no one has more
9S 'alterations' (immutationes). Into this same style of oratory (I am still
speaking of the moderate and blended kind) fall all figures of speech, and
many too of thought. Here wide-ranging and learned disputations will be
deployed, and commonplaces recited without heat. To sum up, orators of
this kind generally emerge from the schools of philosophy; they will
merit our admiration for their own sake, so long as we avoid open com-
96 parison with a stronger. The style is decorative, flowery, bright, and
polished; all beauties of word and sentiment are interwoven here. The
whole flowed from a sophistic fountain-head into the courts; but scorned
by the plain orators, rejected by the weighty, it has come to rest, as I
have described, in the middle.
97 The third type of orator is the full, copious, weighty, and ornate. Here
surely lies the most power. It is he whose splendour and fullness the world
has so admired that it has suffered eloquence to prevail in our cities-
meaning by eloquence the sort which is carried along with vast flow and
sound, looked up to and wondered at by all, by all thought to be above
their own powers of attainment. This eloquence has it in itself to manipu-
late minds, to move them in every way. Sometimes it breaks through into
the feelings, sometimes insinuates itself. It sows new opinions, uproots
old ones.
98 But there is a great difference between this style and those discussed
above. The orator in the plain and sharp style who has striven to speak
shrewdly and acutely, without higher pretensions, is a great orator, even
if not the greatest, if he attains this one aim. He will be on safe ground;
if he once gets a footing, he will never fall. The middle orator, whom I
call moderate and temperate, so long as he does justice to his own aims,
need not fear the doubtful and uncertain chances of oratory. Even if, as
I Poetics 21 (above, p. II9).
THREE STYLES AND THE PERFECT ORATOR 245
often happens, he does not always succeed, he will not be running a grave
danger: he cannot fall far. 1 But the weighty, fierce, and burning orator, 99
whom we put first, deserves the greatest scorn if he is born to this style
alone, and has practised and studied it and only it, without blending his
fullness with the other two kinds. The restrained speaker is regarded as
wise because he speaks acutely and with an expert's skill; the middle
manner is thought pleasant; but the very full speaker, if he is nothing
else, is scarcely to be regarded as sane. He who can say nothing quietly
and gently, nothing that shows organization, precision, clarity, and wit
(especially as cases are sometimes in part, sometimes wholly to be handled
in these ways), looks like a madman raving in sane company, a drunk
revelling among the sober, if he begins to set a subject alight for ears
that he has not prepared in advance.
Here, then, Brutus, we have the man we are looking for-but in our 100
minds only: for if I'd managed to get him in my clutches, not all his
eloquence would persuade me to let him go. But all the same we have
surely found the eloquent man whom Antonius never saw. 2 Who is he?
I shall sum up briefly, then explain at length. That man is eloquent who
can speak of humble things plainly, lofty things with gravity, middling
things with the blended style. There never was such a man, you will say.
Maybe not. I am talking of what I should like to see, not what I have seen: 101
which takes me back to that Platonic 'form' and 'pattern' of which I
spoke earlier, and which we can have in our minds even if we do not see
it. I am not seeking the eloquent man, or anything that is mortal and
subject to decay, but the quality whose possessor is thereby eloquent-
nothing else, in fact, but eloquence itself, which we can see only with the
eye of the mind. To repeat: he will be eloquent who can speak of trivial
things in a subdued manner, middling things in the blended style, great
things with gravity.
DEMOSTHENES
CICERO'S YOUTH
The taste of the city, then, as I took it over, was hungry for this oratory
of many facets, that spreads with equal facility into every style, and I
turned the ears of Rome, in my earliest years, however slight my qualities
and achievements, to a quite extraordinary enthusiasm for this kind of
107 oratory. How great the applause when, as a youth, I spoke words on the
THREE STYLES AND TilE PERFECT ORATOR 247
punishment of parricides' that only rather later did I begin to feci had
not sufficiently come off the boil! 'For what is so common a boon as
breath to the living, as earth to the dead, as the sea to the storm-tossed,
as the shore to the ship-wrecked? They live, while they can-but cannot
draw breath from the sky. They die, but their bones never touch the earth.
They are tossed by the waves, but they are never washed by them. They
are cast ashore at last-but find no rest in death even upon the rocks',
and what follows. 2 Everything bears the mark of a young man, praised
not for mature performance but for the hopes he aroused. In that vein,
too, were words spoken in maturer years: 'The wife of her son-in-law,
stepmother of her son, rival of her daughter.'3
But I wasn't carried away into making all my speeches sound like this. 108
Even that youthful copiousness has much that is subdued, even some-
thing a little more gay: witness the speeches for Cluentius and Cornelius
and some others. For no orator, even in the leisure of Greece, has written
so much as I-and my works have the variety which I am recommending.
I should concede to Homer, Ennius, and the rest of the poets, particularly 109
the tragedians, that they need not everywhere use the same strained
manner, that they should frequently vary it, and sometimes even descend
to the normal everyday style of conversation: was I myself then never to
leave the vehemence of my highest flights? But why bring up the inspired
poets? I have seen actors at the very top of their profession who could
not only acquit themselves well in the most dissimilar characters, while
keeping to their own special field, but could do pretty well in tragedy,
though specializing in comedy, or in comedy, though specializing in
tragedy; was I not to strive for the like?
And when I say'!', I mean you, Brutus. What was possible in me was IIO
long ago complete. But will you go on delivering all your speeches in the
same way? Will you reject one particular sort of case? Will you, within
the same case, preserve a constantly animated tone with no variation?
Demosthenes-you must, I imagine, admire him, for I saw a bronze
of him among the statues of you and your family when I visited you
in your villa at Tusculum-Demosthenes yields nothing in plainness to
Lysias, nothing in sharpness and acumen to Hyperides, nothing in
smoothness and brilliance of diction to Aeschines. Many of his speeches II1
are plain throughout, as for example that against Leptines. Many are
wholly grand, as some of the Philippics. Many have variety, such as the
speech against Aeschines on the misconduct of the embassy or against
the same man on behalf of Ctesiphon. Again, he snatches at the middle
style whenever he wishes, and, when he leaves the grandest, it is thither
I Parricides were tied lip in sacks and thrown into the sea.
• Pro Sex. Roscjo Ameri7lo 72. 3 Pro Cluentio 199.
CICERO
that he prefers to resort. But he rouses applause and has most effect
in his oratory when he is developing the grand passages.
JI2 But let us leave him for a while; we are investigating a type, not an
individual: let us reveal the potentialities and nature of a thing-eloquence.
"But let us remember what I said before, that I shall say nothing in the way
of precept, and shall behave like a critic, not a teacher. But I go the further
in many points because I see that you won't be the only reader of these
words (which are more familiar to you than to me, your apparent instruc-
tor): this book is bound to be publicized by your name being attached
to it-if not by any merit of mine.
II3 Now I think the perfectly eloquent man must not merely have his own
peculiar capacity, for flowing and copious speech: he must also acquire
a neighbouring branch of knowledge, namely logic. Of course, oratory is
one thing, disputation another. Dialectic and rhetoric differ. But both
are branches of discourse. To the logicians belongs the technique of
dispute and argument; to the orators that of speech and ornamentation.
Zeno, founder of Stoicism, used to use his hand to demonstrate the dif-
ference between these arts. Clenching his fist, he would say that logic was
like that: relaxing and spreading the hand, that eloquence resembled the
JI4 palm, so. Even before that, Aristotle, at the start of his Rhetoric, said that
that art was as it were the complement of logic: they differ (of course)
because rhetoric is wider, dialectic more contracted. Therefore, I want
my supreme orator to be familiar with every logical technique that may
be applicable to oratory. You are an expert in this field, and will know
that logic has been taught in two ways. Aristotle himself handed down
very many precepts for argument, and later the so-called dialecticians I
lIS produced many rather thorny rules. My view is that the aspirant for
eloquence should not be altogether naive in these matters, but should
receive training either in the old doctrine of Aristotle or in the newer one
of Chrysippus. He should know the force, nature, and types of words
both in isolation and in combination; the various modes of assertion; the
method of judging between truth and falsehood; what deduction should
be made from each statement, what is consequent, what contrary; and
-since many ambiguous statements are made-how each ambiguity
should be analysed and resolved. These principles must be borne in
mind by the orator, and they often come up; but on their own they are
these speeches they made on opposite sides of the same case. I have
translated not as an interpreter but as an orator, preserving the sentiments
and their forms (so to say, 'figures') from the original, but adapting the
words to our own usage. I have not thought it necessary to translate word
for word, but I have kept to the same kind of words, preserving their
general meaning. I did not think I ought to count the words out one by
one to the reader, but as it were to weigh them out. The result of my 15
labour will be that our countrymen may know what to ask of those who
want to be known as Atticists, and understand by what (as it were) rule
of speech they should measure them.
'But', you may say, 'Thucydides will be brought up. Some people
admire his eloquence.' That is certainly proper; but it has nothing to do
with the orator we are in search of. It is one thing to give a survey of
historical facts by narration, quite another to use arguments to bring
accusations or refute them; one thing to hold a hearer's attention while
narrating, another to stir his emotions. 'But his style is so agreeable.'
Better than Plato's? In any case, the orator we are searching for must deal 16
with legal issues in a style of oratory suitable for instructing, pleasing,
and stirring emotion. Thus, if there is anyone who claims that he will
plead cases in the forum in the Thucydidean style, he can have no notion
of what goes on in legal and political affairs. If he merely wants to register
admiration of Thucydides, he can add my vote to his.
Even Isocrates himself, Plato's virtual contemporary and the subject 17
of a warm encomium by that immortal author, through the mouth of
Socrates in the Phaedrus I-a man whom all scholars have accepted to be
a great orator: even Isocrates I do not put into this class. He has no
experience of battlefield and cold steel. His oratory fences, with a
wooden sword. To use a trivial analogy, I am introducing a very notable
pair of gladiators: Aeschines, like Aeserninus in Lucilius' poem (no 'lout',
however, but a keen and learned man), 'is matched with Pacideianus, far
the best of all men born'.2 Nothing nearer the gods could be imagined,
I think, than that great orator.
This task of mine encounters two types of criticism. One is this: 18
'Didn't the Greeks do this better?' The counter-question is: 'Could you
do anything better in Latin?' The other is: 'Why should I read these
rather than the Greek originals?' Yet these same critics welcome Latin
versions of the Andria and the Synephebi, no less than the Andromache
or the Antiope or the Epigoni. 3 What is this distaste of theirs for orations
translated from the Greek which doesn't apply to poetry?
I 27 8 e. 2 Lucilius 149 f. Marx.
3 Comedies by Terence and Caecilius, tragedies by Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius.
All versions of Greek originals.
254 CICERO
19 But I must start on my task-once I have explained the case that was
brought to judgement. There was a law in Athens 'that no one should
decree that anyone be granted a crown during his magistracy before he
has rendered account for his office': and another that 'those who are re-
warded by the people should have that reward conferred in the popular
assembly; those rewarded by the council should have the reward con-
ferred in the council chamber'. Demosthenes was the official in charge of
the renewing of the walls, and he renewed them at his own expense;
Ctesiphon, therefore, moved a decree, though Demosthenes had not
accounted for his office, that a golden crown should be given to him, that
the conferment should take place at an assembly of the people in the
theatre, which is not the place for lawful assemblies, and that the citation
should read that he received the honour 'because of the virtue and bene-
20 volence which he displayed towards the Athenian people'. This Ctesiphon
K. HISTORY
This extract (de oratore 2. 51-8) gives some of Cicero's views on the writing of
history. Compare the beginning of de legibus, the famous letter to Lucceius (ad
Jam. 5. 12), and Brutus 42 (above, p. 222). See also below, chap. 13, for some
Greek views on similar topics.
'Well, now,' said Antonius, 'what sort of orator, how great a stylist does SI
it take to write history?'
'If you mean history in the way the Greeks wrote it,' said Catulus, 'it
takes a very great one. If you mean our sort, there's no need of an orator
at all. It's enough not actually to be untruthful.'
'I must stop you despising our historians', said Antonius. 'The Greeks
themselves wrote like our Cato, Pictor, and Piso at the start. History 52
meant merely the compiling of annals. It was for this purpose, in other
words for the preservation of public records, that, from the beginning of
Rome right up to the pontificate ofPublius Mucius, the Pontifex Maximus
used to commit to writing the complete history of each year. He made
a fair copy, and put up the tablet in his residence so that it became
public knowledge: even nowadays these are called the 'Great Annals'.
This kind of writing was imitated by many who have eschewed ornament 53
and left mere records of dates, people, places, and events. Corresponding
to many Greeks, including Pherecydes, Hellanicus, and Acusilas, we have
on our side Cato, Pictor, and Piso; they had no notion of what goes to
embellish a piece of writing-that is something quite recently introduced
to Rome-and so long as they were understood, they had only one
criterion for excellence in speech-brevity. A fine man, Coelius Anti- 54
pater, a friend of Crassus', made a little progress and gave history a
louder voice. The rest were merely narrators of events: they did not make
them attractive.'
'That is quite true', Catulus said. 'But even Antipater did not set off
his history with varied colour, nor did he polish it with studied word-
arrangement and a smooth even flow of language. Still, for a man neither
learned nor particularly suited to oratory, he chiselled away as best he
could. And, as you say, he did surpass his predecessors.'
Antonius replied: 'There is nothing the least surprising if history hasn't 55
yet been made brilliant in Latin. No Roman studies eloquence except
to shine at the bar. It was different in Greece. Extremely eloquent men,
far removed from the law, applied themselves to various important
256 CICERO
subjects, and particularly to history. Herodotus, one knows, the first dis-
tinguished writer in this field, never touched a lawsuit at' all, yet he's so
eloquent that I get great pleasure from him-so far, that is, as I can
56 understand Greek. Later, Thucydides was (in my view) easily superior
to any other manipulator of words. His material is so close-packed that he
has almost as many ideas as words, and he's so exact and concise in
language that one doesn't know whether to say that his material is made
brilliant by its expression or the other way round. Yet not even he-
statesman though he was-is recorded as having pleaded cases; and his
actual history is said to have been composed at a time when he was out-
side politics and indeed in exile-something that tended to happen as a
matter of course to the most honourable Athenians.
57 'Next came Philistus of Syracuse, a great friend of the tyrant Dionysius,
who spent his leisure time writing history, in imitation particularly, I
think, of Thucydides. After that, a very famous rhetorical factory (so to
speak) produced two highly talented men, Theopompus and Ephorus,
who turned to history on the encouragement of their teacher, Isocrates.
58 They never touched a case. Finally, even philosophy gave rise to historians,
notably Xenophon, a follower of Socrates, and later Callisthenes, an
Aristotelian and friend of Alexander. Callisthenes certainly was more or
less a rhetorician. But Xenophon employed a gentler tone; he hadn't the
orator's drive, and so was perhaps less forceful-but I think he was a bit
more agreeable. Younger than all these was Timaeus. As far as I can
judge, he was much the most learned, overflowing with information and
unfailing in ideas. Nor was he unpolished in word-arrangement. He
brought great eloquence to his writing-but no forensic experience.'
INDIVIDUAL WORDS
149 All speech, then, is the product of words.' Let us consider how they are
employed, first singly, then in combination: for words taken individually
and in combination form two different kinds of ornamentation of speech.
The words we use are either (1) those 'proper' to things, as it were their
fixed names, coeval, almost, with them: or (2) those 'transferred', put
where they do not really belong: or (3) those that result from our own
innovation and creation.
THE USE OF WORDS 257
'PROPER' WORDS
As to 'proper' words, the orator attains distinction ifhe avoids the vulgar 150
and obsolete and employs those that are choice and bright and that have
something full and resonant about them. In this type, selection has to
be exercised, the decision being left to the judgement of the ear: here
good usage is of paramount importance. The ignorant tend to say 151
of orators: 'This man uses good words', 'So-and-so doesn't use good
words'. But this is something not to be judged on any system; it has to
be left to a certain innate sense. It is important here, though hardly a
matter for high praise, to be able to avoid faults; but the essential founda-
tion is the ability to use good words and never run short of them. What 152
the orator himself is to build on this foundation, where he is to employ
his art, is, I think, the subject of my inquiry.
Now there are three things with regard to the individual word that the
orator may use to brighten and ornament his language: the unusual word,
the coined word, the 'transferred' word.
'UNUSUAL' WORDS
Unusual words are, in most cases, old ones, long obsolete in ordinary 153
everyday conversation. They are more freely available to poetic licence
than to us: all the same even in prose a poetic word may occasionally
supply dignity. I should not hesitate to say (as Coelius I did) qua tempestate
Poenus in Ita/iam uenit ('at which tide the Carthaginian came to Italy'),
or pro/es ('scion'), or suboles ('offspring'), or effari ('outspeak'), or nuncu-
pare ('clepe'); or, as you often do, Catulus, non rebar ('I did not deem')
or opinabar (,methought'); or many other things which in their right
place often make oratory more grand and more archaic.
COINED WORDS
Words are coined when they are produced and invented by the speaker 154
himself. It may be that he links words together:
I am terrified: fear out-breasts all my sense 2
and
His crafty-spoken malice you'd not want me ... 3
You will observe that the words 'out-breasts' and 'crafty-spoken' are
I i.e. the historian Coelius Antipater. • Ennius, Alcmeo, fr. 2.
3 TrQg. fr. incerl. 62. Ribbeck.
8145591 s
258 CICERO
manufactured, rather than born, by the linking of words. But often words
are coined even without such conjunctions: e.g. 'that abandoned oldster',
'genital gods', 'incurve with richness of berries'.l
METAPHORS
ISS The third method, involving 'transferring' words, has wide ramifications.
It was the result of necessity imposed by shortage of vocabulary; but
it was made popular later by the agreeable charm it brought. Just as
clothes were originally invented to keep off the cold, but later began to
serve the purposes of bodily decoration and dignity as well, so transference
of words was instituted out of need but extended for pleasure. Even
rustics say: 'The vine is gemming', ')lie grass is luxuriant', 'the crops are
happy'. When we use a metaphor to express something that it is difficult
to get over without it, our meaning is given clarity by the analogy intro-
156 duced. These metaphors, therefore, are a kind of borrowing; you take
from elsewhere what you have not got to hand. But there is a rather bolder
category of metaphors that are not a sign of lack of vocabulary, but bring
a positive splendour to the style. It is hardly necessary for me to explain
157 their origin or types. But metaphor is desirable when it makes a thing
more vivid, e.g.
the sea bristles,
the shadows mass, the blackness of night and clouds blinds,
flame dazzles in the clouds, the sky shakes with thunder,
hail with heavy rain falls sudden, headlong.
All the winds burst forth, savage whirlwinds appear,
the sea seethes with surge. 2
Almost all of this is expressed in metaphor for the sake of vividness.
158 Another object of metaphor is to express the whole of some action or
intention. For instance, this description, by means of two metaphors, of
someone concealing his intentions:
for he clothes himself in words, fences himself with guile)
Sometimes, again, metaphors allow brevity: e.g. the well-known 'If a
weapon fled the hand'-the lack of intention in the discharge of the
weapon couldn't have been put over more briefly in non-metaphorical
terms than it has been here in a single metaphor.
159 While I am on this subject, I should say that it often surprises me that
everyone should find more pleasure in transferred 'alien' words than in
I Trag. fr. incert. 72. 2 Pacuvius,fr. incerl. 45. 3 Trag.fr. incert. 61.
THE USE OF WORDS 259
the 'proper' ones that really belong. Certainly, if something has no name
proper to it (a 'sheet' in a boat; 'bond' as used of a transaction in law;
'parting' in the case of a wife), you are forced to take from elsewhere
what you do not possess. Yet even where 'proper' words abound, men still
take much greater pleasure in the 'alien' word, providing the metaphor is
properly done. This, I believe, is either because it's a sign of cleverness to 160
pass over the obvious in favour of the far-fetched, or maybe because the
listener, without actually straying, is led in his thought in a new direction
-and this is a source of the greatest pleasure. Or perhaps it is because
the situation and the whole analogy is embodied in a single word, or
because every apt metaphor is directed to the senses, particularly that of
sight, the keenest of all. Of course, phrases like 'a whiff of urbanity' or 'the 161
softness of humanity' or 'the roar of the sea' or 'the sweetness of a speech'
draw on other senses. But those appealing to the sight are much sharper:
they almost place within the mind's eye things that we cannot see and
perceive in fact. For there is nothing in the world whose name we could
not use of something else. From wherever you can draw a likeness (from
everything, in fact) the single word that contains the likeness will bring
the brilliance of metaphor to one's language.
Here the first thing to avoid is lack of likeness. Take 'the vast archways 162
of heaven'. I Ennius may (as we are told) have brought a sphere on to the
stage; but there is no likeness to an archway in a sphere.
Live, Ulysses, while you can:
snatch with your eyes the last bright light. 2
He didn't say 'seek' or 'take' (that would imply the taking of a little time,
on the part of a man hoping to live longer), but 'snatch': the word is
suited to what went before-'while you can'.
Second, one must make sure that the likeness is not too remote. For 163
'the Syrtes of his patrimony' I should rather say 'the rock', for 'the
Charybdis of his wealth' rather 'the whirlpool'. The mind's eye is more
easily carried to things seen than to things heard of.
The highest distinction here is that a metaphor should strike the senses.
Accordingly, one should shun any indecency in the things to which the
attention of the listener will be directed by one's analogy. I don't like it 164
to be said that the state was 'castrated' by the death of Africanus. I don't
like Glaucia to be called 'the excrement of the senate-house'. However
close the analogy may be, the thought raised by both likenesses is not
pretty. I also dislike the metaphor to be too great for the subject (,the
tempest of the revelry') or too trivial ('the revelry of the tempest'). I dislike
I Ennius, trag. fr. incert. 33. Z Trag. fr. incert. 29.
CICERO
the metaphorical word being narrower than the 'proper' one would have
been:
What is it, I beg yOU? Why do you shake your head
at my approach?1
Better would be 'Why do you forbid, prohibit, deter': for he had said:
Stay right there,
lest my contagious shadow harm good men.
165 Also, if you are afraid that a metaphor may seem over-harsh, you may
often soften it by prefixing some phrase. For instance, if, in d,ays gone by,
at the death of Marcus Cato someone had said that the senate was left
'orphan', it would be rather harsh. But if he said 'so to say, orphan', it
becomes rather milder. Indeed, a metaphor should be modest; it should
seem to have been escorted to the place of another, not to have burst in:
to have come on sufferance, not by force.
ALLEGORY
METONYMY
CATACHRESIS
Ijl I turn to series ofwords. This requires two things primarily: first, arrange-
ment, then a certain shape and pattern.
Arrangement involves so ordering and positioning words that their
joins should not be harsh or gaping but smooth and as it were cemented.
On this matter, Lucilius,I who could do that sort of thing very urbanely,
put the following pleasantries into the mouth of my father-in-law:
How nicely his phrases are put together! All just like mosaic,
skilfully arranged on a pavement, in wriggling inlays.
After this joke at the expense of Albucius, he laid into me too:
My son-in-law is Crassus-so don't get too rhetorical.
Well? This Crass us, since you make use of his name, what does he do?
Just that. Rather better, however, than Albucius, as Scaevola implied
(and as I should hope). Still, he had his joke at me, as usual.
Ij2 All the same, we cannot neglect this arranging of words. It makes
language rhythmic, coherent, smooth, flowing. You will attain it if you
so juxtapose the end of one word with the start of the next that there is
neither harsh clash nor too wide a gulf.
RHYTHM
Ij3 Following on this duty comes the shaping and balancing of words. Catulus
here, I fear, may find this puerile. The old writers thought that we should
bring a certain rhythm, almost amounting to verses, into our prose: and
that speeches should have pauses (clausulae) dictated by the need to draw
I Fr. 84 Marx. The father-in-law was Scaevola. Albucius was a very philhellene
When your poet first applied his mind to writing, he thought his only
business was to make sure his plays pleased the public. But he's realizing
that things are turning out quite differently: he has to use all his time in
his prologues not in describing the plot but in replying to the abuse of
an ill-disposed old poet. Please listen to the complaint. Menander wrote
an Andria and a Perinthia. Anyone who knows one of these plays well
knows both; their plots are pretty similar-but they have different styles
of language. Your poet agrees that he has transferred various things that
fitted from the Perinthia to his Andria and used them for his own purposes.
This is what people carp at-they claim that it's not right for plays to be
'contaminated" in this way. Doesn't their understanding let them under-
stand anything? When they accuse this poet, they accuse those he relies
on as precedents-Naevius, Plautus, Ennius: 2 he would rather rival their
negligence than these people's dim diligence. I suggest they keep quiet
from now on, and stop their abuse if they don't want to hear their own
faults rehearsed. Be kind, be fair, and judge: you may learn what hope
there is-whether the comedies he writes in future are to be given a hear-
ing, or hissed off the stage. (Andria 1-27)
More positive is Terence's claim to delicate comedy and pure language:
1968, p. 305.
• i.e. the first great Roman dramatists, already thought of as classics.
3 Stock characters of comedy: Terence claims more discriminating characterization,
higher and less farcical comedy.
266 LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
with the greatest noise and the maximum effort ... In this play is un-
corrupted language. Try out what my talents can do in both directions.
(Heauton Timoroumenos 35 ff.)
B. A DEFENCE OF SATIRE
Rorace: Satires I. 4
LUCILIUS
Writing well, that is: that he wrote a lot is irrelevant. Here's Crispinus
taking me on at long odds: 'Come on, if you like, pick up these tablets:
let's have a place, a time, umpires-let's see which of us can write more.'
The gods did well to give me a scanty and feeble talent that says little and
that rarely; you can behave, if you wish, like the air shut up inside a pair
20 of goat-skin bellows, labouring on until the fire softens the iron. Fannius
is a popular success-people bring him presents of bureaux and busts:
A DEFENCE OF SATIRE
nobody reads my writings, and I don't like to give public recitations
because some people aren't best pleased by this genre-after all, most of
them deserve criticism. Choose someone out of a crowd: he's a victim of
avarice or the unhappiness of ambition; one man is mad with love for
married women, another for boys; one is dazzled by the gleam of silver-
but Albius there is crazy over bronze; another trades from the lands of
sunrise to the sunset warmth of the west-he's carried headlong from 30
one disaster to another like the dust in a whirlwind, dreading that he
may lose something from his capital or fail to increase it. All such people
fear poetry and hate poets. 'He has hay on his horns: 1 keep a long way
away from him-so long as he can raise a laugh, he isn't concerned to
spare any of his friends, or himself: he's agog that anything he smears
down on paper as first thoughts should be read by every labourer coming
back from bakery and vat, boys and old women alike.' Hey, listen to
something on the other side.
HORACE IS NO POET
First of all, let me dissociate myself from the company of those I grant
to be poets; you can't say it's enough merely to write in verse-you 40
shouldn't think anyone who, like me, writes something nearer to ordinary
language, is a poet. Give the honour of that name to someone of genius,
with inspired mind and resonant tongue. This is why some people have
raised the question: 'Is Comedy poetry or not?' For its content and its
language equally lack inspiration and force-it's mere conversation,
except for the regular metre. 'But you get a father seething with rage
because his spendthrift son is madly in love with a whore, and is refusing 50
an heiress, and disgracefully walks the streets before nightfall with
torches, drunk.' But would Pomponius be let off lighter than that if his
father were alive?z So it's not enough to write verses in ordinary words
which, reduced to prose, you might hear on the lips of any angry father,
just the same as a stage one. If you removed the beat and the fixed metre
from what I'm writing now-or what Lucilius wrote in the past-and
switched the order of words about, putting first later and last first, you
wouldn't get the same result as if you broke up 'After loathsome Discord 60
shattered War's ironbound posts and doors'3-there you'd get the re-
mains of a poet, albeit a dismembered one.
SO much for that. Another time I may inquire if satire is legitimate poetry
-now I merely ask whether this type of composition justly arouses
your suspicion. When fierce Sulcius and Caprius, I terribly hoarse,
summonses at the ready, stroll the streets, they strike fear into the hearts
of robbers. But if a man lives honestly and with clean hands he can despise
70 both. You may be like the robbers Caelius and Birrius: that doesn't make
me like Caprius and Sulcius. Why fear me? My books aren't to be found
in shops and stalls to be clutched by the sweaty hands of the mob-and
of Hermogenes TigeIIius. I give recitations to no one except friends-
and I have to be forced to do that: and I give them not just anywhere or
in just anyone's presence. There are many who recite in mid forum, or in
the bath-house-the enclosed space gives an agreeable resonance to the
voice. This pleases empty-heads who don't stop to inquire whether they
mayn't be acting tactlessly and out of season.
'You like hurting', someone says, 'and you do it with conscious malice.'
80 Where did you get that stone to cast at me? Who among those I have lived
with told you that story? A man who backbites a friend in his absence,
who doesn't defend him from another's criticism, who clutches at cheap
laughs and wants to be known as a wit, who can make up things he hasn't
seen, but cannot keep a secret-this is the viper, this is the one you should
beware of, citizen of Rome! You may often see a dinner-party, four
guests each on three couches: one of them makes it his business to find
something to sneer at in all those present, except the host-and him too
once he's tight, when truthful Bacchus opens up the secrets of the heart.
90 You hate vipers-yet you find such a man pleasant, urbane, frank. But
if I smile because Rufillus smells of lozenges, Gargonius of goat, can you
call me bitter and biting? If there's some mention in your hearing of the
thefts of Petillius Capitolinus, you may defend him as your custom
demands-'Capitolinus has been my companion and friend since boy-
hood, and he's done a great deal for me when I've asked him to, and I'm
delighted he's still safe and in Rome: all the same, I'm surprised that he
100 got off that charge.' This is the real venom, the straight smear. I promise-
if I ever promise anything faithfully about myself-that in the future as
in the past that vice will stay far from my pages and from my mind.
I Informers.
A DEFENCE OF SATIRE
HORACE'S FATHER
If I should ever say anything a little too frankly, or a iittle too jokingly,
you will concede me a point and forgive me: it was my father who
accustomed me to avoid vices by putting a black mark against examples
of them. If he was exhorting me to live carefully and frugally, contented
with what he'd saved for me, he'd say: 'Don't you see what a bad time
Albius' son has, and pauper Baius? They're an excellent warning to 110
anyone not to squander his fortune.' When he steered me off sordid
affairs with tarts: 'Don't be like Scetanus.' If he was discouraging me
from chasing married women when I could find legitimate sex elsewhere:
'Trebonius got caught-and his reputation isn't pretty', he used to say.
'A philosopher will give the reasoning on what to pursue and what to
avoid. It's enough for me if I can keep the old traditions up, and preserve
your life and your good name while you're in need of a guardian. As soon
as age has hardened your limbs and your character, you will swim with- IZO
out cork.' That was the way he shaped me as a boy with his advice. If he
was ordering me to do something, he'd say: 'You have a precedent for
doing this', and point out one of the judges. If he was forbidding me,
'You surely can't doubt that this is a dishonest and unprofitable thing to
do when this or that man is in such bad odour?' Ailing gluttons are
terrified by a neighbour's death and forced through reflection on mor-
tality to go carefully: similarly reproaches cast at others often deter
tender minds from wrong.
The result is that I am free of disastrous vices, though the prey of 130
minor and venial faults. Perhaps even they have been diminished gener-
ously by long life, a frank friend, my own good sense; I don't leave myself
alone when I'm in a litter or a portico. 'This thing is more honest: if! do
this I shall lead a better life. In such-and-such a way I shall make myself
agreeable to my friends. So-and-so was not wise to act like that: shall
I ever unwittingly do something similar?' These are the thoughts I
ponder, lips pursed: when I have a moment, I scribble in my notebook.
Indeed, that is one of my 'minor faults': and if you won't concede me that 140
one, a great band of poets would come to my rescue-we should outnumber
you, and like Jews force you to conform with our company.
All right, I said Lucilius' verses ran harshly. Lucilius' most stupid fan
would agree with me. But on the same page you'll find compliments on
270 LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
the man's rubbing the city down with a great deal of salt. If I concede
that, I don't concede the rest-if I did, I should have to admire even the
mimes of Laberius, think them beautiful poems. So it's not enough to
split the hearer's mouth with a smile (though that's ope point to watch):
10 you need conciseness, so that the thought runs free an1d doesn't bog itself
down with words that tire the dulled ear: and you need a style now sad,
now gay, keeping up the role sometimes of a declaimer or poet, sometimes
of a wit who purposely spares his strength and tones down his efforts.
Normally it's the joking, not the bitter word that hits the important nail on
the head, hard and well. This was the principle of Old Comedy, and that's
where we should follow it-though the pretty Hermogenes never read it,
nor did the well-known ape whose learning extends only so far as reading
Calvus and Catullus. I
But I said Lucilius flowed along muddily, often carrying along in his 50
stream more that should be cut out than should be left Well, here's a
question for you: do you find no fault, you learned man, with the great
Homer? Doesn't the level-tempered Lucilius want to change anything
in the tragedian Accius? Doesn't he smile at verses of Ennius that are
something less than dignified, without regarding himself as superior to
the poets he criticizes? What is there to prevent me too from asking, as
I read the writings of Lucilius, whether it was his own shortcomings, or
the shortcomings of his subject, that stopped him producing better-
finished, smoother verses-smoother, that is, than a man might turn out
if he's content just to make sure there are six feet a verse and normally 60
writes two hundred lines before supper and two hundred after it, with
the flood-like facility of Cassius Etruscus, who is reported to have been
cremated on a pyre consisting solely of his own books in their cases?
Right: Lucilius may be pleasant, witty, more refined than an illiterate
untouched by the Greek culture, than the multitudinous primitives. But
if fate had made him a contemporary of ours, he'd be cutting a lot out
of his own works, deleting everything that goes on after the point is made. 70
He'd be scratching his head as he wrote his verses, and biting his nails
to the quick.
If you want to write something worth re-reading, keep the eraser busy;
forget the adulation of the many, and be happy to have a few readers.
You're not, I take it, insane enough to want your poems dictated in the
elementary schools? I am not. It's enough for me if knights applaud-as
I i.e. Lucilius.
272 LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
the unperturbed Arbuscula said when she was hissed off the stage. She
ignored the others. And am I to be worried about the louse Pantilius,
or feel the pinch if Demetrius gibes at me when I'm not there to defend
80 myself? Do I mind if silly Fannius, boon companion of Hermogenes
Tigellius, wounds me? Plotius, Varius, Maecenas, Virgil, Valgius, Octa-
vius-it's their approval I want, and the praise of my friend Fuscus and
the two Visci. I'm not looking to my future when I name Pollio, and
Messalla and his brother, and Bibulus and Servius, and the candid Furnius,
and many others whom I do not mention, but don't forget either, for
they are friends, and friends of taste. I want my book to please them,
90 such as it is; and I should be sorry if they like it less than I hope they
may. Demetrius and Tigellius can go and wail among the desks of their
school-girls. Run, boy, be quick and make this the last line of my book.
D. A LETTER TO AUGUSTUS
Horace: Epistles 2. I
PROOEMIUM
You have much important business to conduct with no one to help you,
defending Italy with arms, adorning her with virtue, chastening her with
laws; and I should thwart the public interest, Caesar, if I occupied your
time with a lengthy conversation. Romulus and father Liber, Castor and
Pollux, were all received into the temples of the gods after a life of tremen-
dous deeds; but while they looked after the world and the human race,
settling bitter wars, allotting land, founding cities, they lamented that
their services were not matched by the popularity for which they hoped.
10 The heroI who crushed the dread Hydra, and quelled familiar monsters in
labours assigned by fate, likewise found that death is the only cure for
unpopularity. The man who is felt by inferior talents to weigh on them
arouses envy by his brilliance; once he is eclipsed, he will be loved. Yet it
is while you are still with us that we bestow on you honours that come
before the usual time; we set up altars that bind oaths by your divinity,
and acknowledge that nothing comparable has arisen before or will arise
again.
I Hercules.
A LETTER TO AUGUSTUS 273
All the same, this people of yours, wise and correct in preferring you to
all rulers, Roman or Greek, do not apply similar standards to other things: 20
they scorn and hate everything that is not removed from the world and
safely dead. They so favour the ancients that they have a tradition that
the Muses spoke, on the Alban Hill, the Tables! forbidding misdoing
that the decemvirs sanctioned, the royal treaties made on equal terms with
Gabii and the unyielding Sabines, the books of the Pontiffs, 2 and the aged
volumes of the prophets. The oldest writings of the Greeks are the best;
and if one weighs Roman writers in the same scale there is not much to 30
say. On that principle,3 an olive could be argued to have no stone, a nut
no shell. We have reached the peak: therefore we paint and play the lyre
and wrestle better than the well-oiled Achaeans.
But if passage of time improves poems as it does wine, I have a question:
how many years will give value to a book? Should a writer dead for a
hundred years be registered under the perfect old or the worthless new?
Let us have a limit, to stop disputes: 'He is old and good who completes a
century.' What then of someone who died a month or a year later-where 40
will he come? Among the old poets, or those to be rejected alike by the
present and the future? 'Of course it will be right to place him among
the ancients, if he is a short month, or even a whole year, more recent.'
I follow up this concession, and gradually pluck the hairs from the horse's
tail, taking away one and then another until, baffled by the Fallacy of the
Diminishing Heap,4 the searcher of annals, the man who judges quality
by age, the admirer of nothing that Death has not sanctified, is brought
to his knees.
Ennius is-so the critics say-wise, strong, a second Homer, and doesn't 50
much worry how the promises of his Pythagorean dreams turn out.S
Naevius is on our shelves and in our minds, almost undated. Such is the
sanctity of every old poem. When dispute arises who excels whom,
Pacuvius carries off the reputation of being an erudite oldster, Accius
a sublime one. The Roman dress of Afranius' comedies, they say, fitted
Menander's back. Plautus hurries along after the manner of the Sicilian
I The Twelve Tables, the earliest code of Roman law.
2 Cf. Cicero, de oratore 2. 52 (above, p. 255).
3 i.e. such analogical arguments could be used to lead to absurd conclusions. Olives
have no stones because nuts have none (so too nuts have no shells); we are supreme in the
arts because we are masters of the world.
• If I take things away one by one, when does it stop being a heap?
5 i.e. his immortality is assured whether or not he was right in believing in Pythagorean
transmigration. Ennius began his Annals with a vision of Homer, whose reincarnation
he perhaps claimed to be.
8143591 T
274 LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
90 But if the Greeks had hated novelty as much as we, what would exist
now to be ranked as old? What would the public have to read and thumb,
man by man? When Greece first laid aside her wars and began to be
frivolous, slipping into vice as fortune smiled, she burned with favour now
for athletes, now for horses, loved craftsmen in marble or ivory or bronze,
I A comprehensive list of the second-century poets. Afranius' togatae were comedies
in Roman dress, as distinct from the Greek-dress palliatae of Plautus, Caecilius, and
Terence.
2 The archaic chant of the Salii, priests instituted by Numa, unintelligible to Horace's
contemporaries.
A LETTER TO AUGUSTUS 275
gazed long and thoughtfully at paintings, enthused over flute-players and
tragic actors. Like a little girl playing around her nurse's feet, she soon 100
had had enough, and abandoned what she had sought so greedily. What
finds favour or disfavour that is not subject to change?! All this was the
result of benign peace and favouring winds.\
At Rome it was for long usual, and agreeable, to get up early, open the
house up, tell one's client his rights, lend (with due security) to respect-
able debtors, pass on to the young what one heard from the old about
the increasing of one's property and the avoidance of damaging self-
indulgence. Now the fickle people has changed: it has only one enthusi-
asm to excite it-writing. Boys and dignified fathers alike dine with leaves IIO
in their hair, and dictate poetry. I swear I write no verse, but I'm a bigger
liar than a Parthian: I get up before dawn, to call for pen, paper, desk.
One who knows nothing about ships hesitates to steer them. You don't
venture to prescribe southernwood 2 to the sick unless you've been to
medical school-doctors look after their own profession. Craftsmen ply
crafts. But we all write poetry, taught and untaught alike.
Primitive farmers, brave men whom a little made rich, used to appease
140 Earth with a pig, Silvanus with milk, their Genius I (who knows how
short life is) with flowers and wine at feast-time, when they had brought
the crops in and were relaxing body and mind (it's the prospect of an end
that makes the mind endure) in company with their loyal wives and the
sons who shared their labours. In this manner, the licentious Fescennines 2
were discovered, that made verse dialogues the vehicle for rustic insult;
this freedom, handed down through the years, gave agreeable sport, until
the joking became savage, turned to open madness, and raced, menacing
150 and unpunished, through decent households. Those who were attacked
had something to cry about-a tooth that drew blood. But even those
unaffected began to worry about the situation in general. In fact a law
and penalties were provided, forbidding anyone to be savaged in a mali-
cious poem. Men were given the cudgel to fear, and so they changed their
ways, and returned to innocent words and entertainment.
ROMAN DRAMA
Greece, now captive, took captive its wild conqueror, and introduced the
arts to rural Latium. The unprepossessing Saturnian 3 rhythm went out,
160 and elegance drove off venom. All the same, traces of the country long
remained, and they are there today. It was late in the day that the Roman
applied his intelligence to Greek literature; for it was in the lull after the
Punic Wars 4 that he began to inquire what use there might be in Sophocles
and Thespis and Aeschylus. He had a go himself too, seeing whether he
could make a decent translation, and wasn't displeased with the result,
thanks to a natural loftiness and bite. The spirit was tragic enough, the
innovations daring and felicitous; but in his ignorance he feared erasure,
and thought it shameful.
Comedy is thought to involve less sweat, seeing that it takes its material
170 from daily life. But it is more burdensome in that it receives less indul-
gence. See how badly Plautus maintains the character of a youth in love,
an economical father, a treacherous pimp--what a Dossennus 5 he is with
I i.e. the individual's tutelary spirit.
2 'Fescennine verses' were traditionally ribald lines sung at Roman weddings: cf.
Catullus 61. 120.
3 The common verse of early Roman poetry. Specimens survive, but even whetheritis
basically quantitative or accentual is still discussed.
4 The Hannibalic war ended in 201 B.C.
S i.e. clown, dolt.
A LETTER TO AUGUSTUS 277
his greedy parasites, shuffling in his loose slippers across the stage. The
author only wants money for his pocket-after that he doesn't care if the
play flops or keeps its footing.
Ifit was Fame that carried the playwright to the stage in her airy chariot,
he is deflated by an indifferent audience, encouraged by an attentive one.
So small and light a thing is it that can overthrow or refresh a mind that is
athirst for praise. Goodbye to the stage if a prize denied sends me home 180
thin, a prize won makes me fat! And often, if a poet is brave, he is dis-
concerted and put to flight by the fact that the majority (deficient, how-
ever, in rank and virtue), stupid, illiterate, ready to fight it out with any
of their betters who differ from them, call for bears or boxers in the middle
of the play. That's what the plebs enjoys. In fact, even the knights have
now transferred all their pleasure from the ear to the shifting and empty
delights of the eye. The curtain is up for four hours or more while 190
squadrons of horse and hordes offoot pour over the stage. Once-glorious
kings are dragged by, hands pinioned; chariots, carriages, wagons, ships
hurry on, carrying looted ivory and models of captured Corinth. I If
Democritus were alive he'd laugh at the way the hybrid camelopard or
the white elephant keeps the crowds riveted; he'd watch the populace
more attentively than the actual spectacle, as being far more worthy of his
gaze. As for the writers, he'd imagine they were telling their tale to a
deaf ass: no voice could make itself heard above the clamour emitted by 200
our theatres. You might think it was the moaning of the Apulian forests
or the Tuscan sea-such is the noise as they watch the show, the objets
d' art and the exotic wealth: when an actor is smeared over with that, he
only needs to stand on the stage and hands start to clap. 'Has he said
anything yet?' 'No, nothing.' 'What's so popular, then?' 'Wool turned
violet by the purple of Tarentum.'
230 All the same, it's worth finding out what sort of priests should serve
virtue well-tried at home and abroad-for it's not something to be handed
over to an unworthy poet. The great king Alexander gave his favour to
the notorious Choerilus/ who repaid the royal gifts of gold pieces in verses
ill-born and inelegant. Black ink when handled leaves a disagreeable blot;
similarly writers often smear disgusting poems over fine deeds. All the
same, this king who so dearly bought such absurd poetry (improvident
man I) made an edict that he was to be painted by none but Apelles, and
that only Lysippus should cast statues to represent the martial features
of Alexander. He had, then, an acute taste in the visual arts-but summon
it to pronounce on books and poetry, and you'd swear he was a Boeotian,
born in a gross climate. 2
But your judgement of your favourite poets, Virgil and Varius, has not
been disgraced by them, nor the gifts which they have received from you,
so much to your credit. And for portraying the character and mind of
famous men, the work of the poet is as satisfactory as the representation
of their features in bronze statues. I wouldn't choose these conversation
pieces that creep along the ground in preference to writing history, telling
of the lie of lands and the course of rivers, of mountain-top citadels and
foreign kingdoms, of wars won over all the world under your auspices,
of Janus, guardian of Peace, shut up behind his gates, of Rome a terror
to Parthia now that you are emperor-if, that is, my abilities measured
up to my desires. But your greatness will not tolerate a slight poem, and
260 I am ashamed to try a theme that my strength won't stand. Attentiveness
tends to be stupid and annoy the object of its attentions, particularly when
it uses verse and art to commend itself. What we admire and venerate
• Athenian malice made the stupidity of Boeotians a byword cf. the proverbial
'Boeotian pig'.
A LETTER TO AUGUSTUS 279
is less likdy to impress itself on our memory than the risible. 11 don't
care for attentions that annoy me. I don't ever want to be set up in wax,
my face portrayed for the worse. I don't want to be cdebrated in badly-
turned verse: I'd only blush when I got such a coarse gift; and along with
the writer, laid out in an open book-case, I'd be removed to the quarter
where they sell perfumes and scent and pepper and everything else that 270
gets wrapped up in worthless literature.
attention. a Or 'equal'.
280 LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
Serious and ambitious designs often have a purple patch or two sewn on
to them just to make a good show at a distance-a description of a grove
and altar ofDiana, the meanderings of a stream running through pleasant
meads, the River Rhine, the rainbow: but the trouble is, it's not the place
for them.
Maybe you know how to do a picture of a cypress tree? What's the
good of that, if the man who is paying for the picture is a desperate ship-
wrecked mariner swimming to safety? The job began as a wine-jar: the
20 wheel runs round-why is that a tub that's coming out? In short, let it
be what you will, but let it be simple and unified.
FASHIONS IN WORDS
It always has been, and always will be, lawful to produce a word stamped
with the current mark. Ai!. woods change in leaf as the seasons slide on,
and the first leaves fall, so the old generation of words dies out, and the 60
newly born bloom and are strong like young men. We and our works
are a debt owed to death. Here a land-locked sea protects fleets from the
North wind-a royal achievement; here an old barren marsh where oars
were plied feeds neighbouring cities and feels the weight of the plough;
here again a river gives up a course that damaged the crops and learns a
better way. But whatever they are, all mortal works will die; and still less
can the glory and charm of words endure for a long life. Many words which
have fallen will be born again, many now in repute will fall if usage' decrees: 70
for in her hand is the power and the law and the canon of speech.
Histories of kings and generals, dreadful wars: it was Homer who showed
in what metre these could be narrated. Lines unequally yoked in pairs
formed the setting first for lamentations, then for the expression of a vow
fulfilled;2. though who first sent these tiny 'elegies' into the world is a
grammarians' quarrel and still sub judice. Madness armed Archilochus
with its own iambus; that too was the foot that the comic sock and tragic 80
buskin held, because it was suitable for dialogue, able to subdue the
shouts of the mob, and intended by nature for a life of action. To the
lyre, the Muse granted the celebration of gods and the children of gods,
victorious boxers, winning race-horses, young men's love, and generous
wine. If I have neither the ability nor the knowledge to keep the duly
assigned functions and tones of literature, why am I hailed as a poet?
Why do I prefer to be ignorant than learn, out of sheer false shame? A
comic subject will not be set out in tragic verse; likewise, the Banquet of
Thyestes disdains being told in poetry of the private kind, that borders 90
on the comic stage. Everything must keep the appropriate place to which
it was allotted.
I Or 'need'.
Z Horace is thinking of inscriptions accompanying dedications to gods.
LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
Nevertheless, comedy does sometimes raise her voice, and angry
Chremes perorates with swelling eloquence. Often too Telephus and Pe-
teus' in tragedy lament in prosaic language, when they are both poor
exiles and throwaway their bombast and words half a yard long, if
they are anxious to touch the spectator's heart with their complaint.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRAGEDY
The flute used not to be, as it is now, bound with copper and a rival to
the trumpet. It was slight and simple, with few apertures, but serviceable
J U. Aristotle, Poetics, for many of these precepts.
• Not Aristotelian; but Menander seems normally to have composed his comedies in
five acts, separated by choral interludes. 3 Poetics 18 (above, p. II6).
THE ART OF POETRY 28 5
to accompany and aid the chorus and to fill with its music the still not
too crowded benches, where a population of no great size gathered in
numbers easily counted, honest and decent and modest: But when that
same population won wars and began to extend its territory, when longer
walls came to embrace the cities, and people indulged themselves on 210
holidays by drinking in the daytime, and nobody blamed them, then
rhythm and tunes acquired greater licence. For what taste could the
uneducated show, the holiday crowd of countrymen and townsmen,
honest folk and rogues, all mixed up together? This is how the musician
came to add movement and elaboration to his art, and to trail his robe as
he roamed the stage. This is how even the austere lyre gained a stronger
voice, while lofty eloquence produced strange utterance and thought
that shrewdly grasped practical needs and prophesied the future grew
indistinguishable from the oracles of Delphi.
SATYR-PLA YSI
The competitor in tragic poetry, who strove for a worthless goat, next 220
showed the rustic Satyrs, naked. Preserving his seriousness despite his
keen wit, he made an attempt at a joke, because the audience, drunk and
lawless at the end of the festival, had to be prevented from going away by
tricks and pleasing innovations. But the way to recommend your laughing,
joking satyrs, the way to turn seriousness to jest, is this: no god or hero
you bring on the stage, if he was seen not long ago in royal gold and
purple, must lower his language and move into a humble cottage; nor, on
the other hand, must his efforts to get off the ground lead him to try to 230
grasp clouds and void. Tragedy does not deserve to blurt out trivial lines,
but she will modestly consort a little with the forward satyrs, like a
respectable lady dancing because she must on a feast day.
As a Satyr-writer, my Piso friends, I shall not limit my liking to plain
and proper terms, nor yet try to be so different from the tone of tragedy
that there is no difference between Davus talking or bold Pythias, when
she's just tricked Simon out of a talent,2 and Silenus, at once guardian
and servant of the god he has brought up. I shall make up my poem of 240
known elements, so that anyone may hope to do the same, but he'll sweat
and labour to no purpose when he ventures: such is the force of arrange-
ment and combination, such the splendour that commonplace words
1 These featured Silenus and satyrs in burlesque episodes of myth; style and metre
were those of tragedy, not <;omedy. The piece was commonly performed as a fourth
play after three tragedies.'Euripides' Cyclops is the only complete extant example.
Aristotle believed satyr-plays were at the origin of tragedy (above, p. 95); others,
as Horace here, that they were a later refinement.
• Typical New Comedy names: slave, maid or prostitute, old man.
286 LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
acquire. Your woodland Fauns, if you take my judgement, should beware
of behaving as if they were born at the street corner and were creatures of
the Forum-they shouldn't play the gallant in languishing verse or crack
dirty and disreputable jokes; possessors of horses or ancestors or property
take offence at this sort of thing and don't look kindly on work approved
250 by the fried-peas-and-nuts public, or give it the prize.
GREEK MODELS
270 Study Greek models night and day. Your ancestors praised Plautus' metre
and his humour. On both counts their admiration was too indulgent, not
to say childish, if it's true that you and I know how to distinguish a witless
jest from a subtle one and if we've skill in our fingers and ears to know
what sounds are permitted.
I Horace's main theme in what preceded was propriety; in the next section it is
perfection. He marks the transition by humorously giving some very elementary metrical
instruction. Greektrimetershavethe basic scheme: \.!-Iv-I \.!-Iv-I \.!-I v-, whereas
the corresponding old Latin senarius (Ennius, Accius) admits spondees (- -) also in the
second and fourth feet.
THE ART OF POETRY
Our poets have left nothing unattempted. Not the least part of their
glory was won by venturing to abandon the footsteps of the Greeks and
celebrate our own affairs; some produced historical plays, some comedies
in Roman dress. Latium would have been as famous for literature as for
valour and deeds of arms if the poets had not, one and all, been put off 290
by the labour and time of polishing their work. Children of Numa, show
your disapproval of any poem which long time and much correction have
not disciplined and smoothed ten times over, to satisfy the well-pared nail.
THE POETI
tion, moral knowledge, care for posterity, commitment. This main theme continues
to the end. 2 See above, p. 4.
3 Hellebore, proverbially a cure for madness, came from Anticyra.
LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
Wisdom is the starting-point and source of correct writing. Socratic
310 books will be able to point out to you your material, and once the material
is provided the words will follow willingly enough. If a man has learned
his duty to his country and his friends, the proper kind oflove with which
parent, brother, and guest should be cherished, the functions of a senator
and a judge, the task of a general sent to th~ front-then he automatically
understands how to give each character its proper attributes. My advice
to the skilled imitator will be to keep his eye on the model oflife and man-
ners, and draw his speech living from there.
320 Sometimes a play devoid of charm, weight, and skill, but attractive
with its commonplaces and with the characters well drawn, gives the
people keener pleasure and keeps them in their seats more effectively than
lines empty of substance and harmonious trivialities.
The Greeks have the gift of genius from the Muse, and the power of
well-rounded speech. They covet nothing but praise. Roman boys do
long sums and learn to divide their as into a hundred parts.!
'Young Albinus, subtract one uncia from a quincunx: what's left? ...
You could have told me by now .. .'
'A triens.'
'Excellent. You'll be able to look after your affairs. Now add an uncia.
What is it now?'
'A semis.'
330 Once this rust and care for cash has tainted the soul, can we hope for
poems to be written that deserve preserving with cedar oil and keeping
safe in smooth cypress?
Poets aim either to do good or to give pleasure-or, thirdly, to say
things which are both pleasing and serviceable for life.
Whatever advice you give, be brief, so that the teachable mind can take
in your words quickly and retain them faithfully. Anything superfluous
overflows from the full mind.
Whatever you invent for pleasure, let it be near to truth. We don't
want a play to ask credence for anything it feels like, or draw a living
340 child from the ogress's belly after lunch. The ranks of elder citizens chase
things off the stage if there's no good meat in them, and the high-spirited
youngsters won't vote for dry poetry. The man who combines pleasure
with usefulness wins every suffrage, delighting the reader and also giving
I 12 unciae = 1 as; 5 unciae = quincunx; t as = triens; t as = semis.
THE ART OF POETRY
him advice; this is the book that earns money for the Sosii,1 goes overseas
and gives your celebrated writer a long lease of fame.
However, there are some mistakes we are ready to forgive. the string
doesn't always give the note that the hand and mind intended: it often
returns a high note when you ask for a low. The bow won't always hit
what it threatens to hit. But when most features of a poem are brilliant, I 350
shan't be offended by a few blemishes thrown around by carelessness or
human negligence. But what then? If a copyist goes on making the same
mistake however much he is warned, he is not forgiven; if a lyre-player
always gets the same note wrong, people laugh at him; so, in my estima-
tion, if a poet fails to come off a good deal, he's another Choerilus, whom I
admire with a smile if he's good two or three times. Why, I'm angry even
if good Homer goes to sleep, though a doze is quite legitimate in a long 360
piece of work.
Poetry is like painting. Some attracts you more if you stand near, some
if you're further off. One picture likes a dark place, one will need to be
seen in the light, because it's not afraid of the critic's sharp judgement.
One gives pleasure once, one will please if you look it over ten times.
Dear elder son of Piso, though your father's words are forming you in
the right way and you have wisdom of your own besides, take this piece of
advice away with you and remember it. In some things, a tolerable
mediocrity is properly allowed. A mediocre lawyer or advocate is a long 370
way from the distinction oflearned Messalla and doesn't know as much as
Aulus Cascellius, but he has his value. But neither men nor gods nor
shop-fronts allow a poet to be mediocre. Just as music out of tune or
thick ointment or Sardinian honey with your poppy gives offence at a nice
dinner, because the meal could go on without them, so poetry, which was
created and discovered for the pleasure of the mind, sinks right to the
bottom the moment it declines a little from the top. The man who doesn't
know how to play keeps away from the sporting gear in the park. The 380
man who's never been taught ball or discus or hoop keeps quiet, so that
the packed spectators can't get a free laugh. But the man who doesn't
know how to make verses still has a go. Why shouldn't he? He's free,
and of free birth, he's assessed at an equestrian property rate, and he's
not got a fault in the world.
You will never do or say anything if Minerva is against you: your taste
and intelligence guarantee us that. But if you do write something some
day, let it find its way to critic Maecius' ears, and your father's, and mine,
and be stored up for eight years in your notebooks at home. You will be
able to erase what you haven't published; words once uttered forget the 390
way home.
I Booksellers.
8US591 U
LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
Orpheus, who was a holy man and the interpreter of the gods, deterred
the men of the forests from killing and from disgusting kinds of food.
This is why he was said to tame tigers and rabid lions. This too is why
Amphion, the founder of the city of Thebes, was said to move rocks
where he wished by the sound of the lyre and coaxing prayers.! In days
of old, wisdom consisted in separating public property from private, the
sacred from the secular, in checking promiscuity, in laying down rules
for the married, in building cities, in inscribing laws on wooden tablets.
And that is how honour and renown came to divine poets and poetry.
4')') After them came the great Homer and Tyrtaeus, who sharpened masculine
hearts for war by their verses. Oracles were uttered in verse. The path of
life was pointed out in verse. Kings' favours were won by the Muses'
tunes. Entertainment was found there also, and rest after long labour.
So there is no call to be ashamed of the Muse with her skill on the lyre
or of Apollo the singer.
mourners at a funeral say and do almost more than those who genuinely
grieve. Kings are said to ply a man with many cups and test him with wine
if they are trying to discover if he deserves their friendship. If you write
poetry, the fox's hidden feelings will never escape you. If you read any-
thing aloud to Q!iintilius, he'd say 'pray change that, and that'. You would
say you couldn't do better, though you'\d tried two or three times, to no
purpose. Then he'd tell you to scratch it out and put the badly turned 440
lines back on the anvil. If you preferred defending your error to amend-
ing it, he wasted no more words or trouble on preventing you from
loving yourself and your handiwork without competition. A wise and
good man will censure flabby lines, reprehend harsh ones, put a black
line with a stroke of the pen besides unpolished ones, prune pretentious
ornaments, force you to shed light on obscurities, convict you of ambi-
guity, mark down what must be changed. He'll be an Aristarchus. I He
won't say, 'Why should I offend a friend in trifles?' These trifles lead to 450
serious troubles, if once you are ridiculed and get a bad reception.
Men of sense are afraid to touch a mad poet and give him a wide berth.
He's like a man suffering from a nasty itch, or the jaundice, or fanaticism,
or Diana's wrath. Boys chase him and follow him round incautiously. And
if, while he's belching out his lofty lines and wandering round, he happens
to fall into a well or a pit, like a fowler intent on his birds, then, however
long he shouts 'Help! Help! Fellow citizens, help!' there'll be no one to 460
bother to pick him up. And if anyone should trouble to help and let down a
rope, my question will be, 'How do you, know that he didn't throw himself
down deliberately? Are you sure he wants to be saved?' And I shall tell
the tale of the death of the Sicilian poet. Empedocles wanted to be re-
garded as an immortal god, and so he jumped, cool as you like, into burn-
ing Etna. Let poets have the right and privilege of death. To save a man
against his will is the same as killing him. This isn't the only time he's
done it. If he's pulled out now, he won't become human or lay aside his
love of a notorious end.
It's far from clear why he keeps writing poetry. Has the villain pissed 47 0
on his father's ashes? Or disturbed the grim site of a lightning-strike?
Anyway, he's raving, and his harsh readings put learned and unlearned
alike to flight, like a bear that's broken the bars of his cage. If he catches
anyone, he holds on and kills him with reading. He's a real leech that
won't let go of the skin till it's full of blood.
I The great Alexandrian scholar marked spurious or doubtful lines in Homer
with the sign which Horace here attributes to the good critic.
LATIN CRITICISM OF POETRY
F. A POET'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
In this and the next two sections we give extracts from the elegiac poems of
Ovid, the greatest poet of the generation after Horace. The first passage (Tristia
4. 10. 1-64), like the second, was written in exile at Tomi on the Black Sea in
the first decade of our era.
See, in general, L. P. Wilkinson, Ovid Recal/ed, Cambridge, 1955.
Listen, readers of the future, if you want to know who I was-the jesting
author of light love poems whom you read. My birthplace is Sulmo, rich
in cold streams, and ninety miles away from the City. Here I was raised:
if you want to know the year, it was when both consuls met a like fate. I
If it's of any note, I inherit my rank from distant forefathers: it wasn't
merely a gift of fortune that made me Knight. I was not the first child-
10 I had an elder brother, born a twelve-month earlier. The same star shone
on both our birthdays: there was one day to celebrate, with two cakes.
It's one of the five feast-days of the warlike Minerva-the one that is
first to get stained with blood in battle. 2
Our education began while we were still young; thanks to our father's
care, we went off to distinguished professional men in the city. My brother
had an inclination towards oratory from a tender age; he was born to
wield the stout weapons of the garrulous forum. But as for me, while I
20 was still a boy I enjoyed poetry, gift of the gods, and the Muse kept
furtively luring me over to her department. My father often said: 'Why
touch it? It's a useless pursuit. Homer himself had no money to leave
in his will.' I was persuaded by what he said, left Helicon altogether, and
had a go at writing prose. But what I tried to say proved to be verse-
poetry came of its own accord and the rhythms fitted.3
Meanwhile, as the years glided by on silent foot, my brother and I
put on the toga of a free man: the purple robe with the wide stripe went
30 over our shoulders.4 And still our former interests remained. When my
brother was twenty, he died, and I had to start getting used to doing
without a half of myself. I took on the first honours my youth allowed;
once I was one of the tresviri. There remained the senate; but I had my
stripe narrowed: that was a load too great for my strength. My body
wouldn't put up with the work, my mind was not suitable for it; I became
a fugitive from tiresome ambition. And the Muses kept persuading me
40 to retreat to safety and quiet-which my judgement had always hankered
I Hirtius and Pansa in 43 B.C. 2 i.e. 20 March: cf. Fast; 3. 809 ff.
ROMAN EROTICA
Let me not be defended only by foreign aid: Roman literature, too, has
much of a sportive kind. While Ennius sang gravely of war-Ennius, so
talented yet so primitive; while Lucretius expounded the causes of darting
fire, prophesying that the threefold structure of the world would fall:
wanton Catullus frequently sang of the woman disguised under the name
430 of Lesbia. Not content with her, he publicized many affairs, confessing
his own adulteries. Tiny Calvus had equal licence; he revealed his
exploits in various metres. Cinna is their companion, and Anser, more
lascivious than Cinna, and the light-weight compositions of Cornificius
and Cato. What of the work of Ticidas and of Memmius, in whom things
are called by their names-and the names have their shameful side?
What of those who have a place in their books for the woman till recently
disguised as Perilla (now we read of her under your name, Metellus).
440 The man who carried the ArgO on to the waves of Phasis could not keep
I i.e. Circe and Calypso for Odysseus.
2 i.e. Satyr plays (for which see Horace, Ars 220 If.: above, p. 285).
3 Who founded public libraries in Rome.
POETR Y AND MORALITY 295
quiet about his amorous adventures.' Hortensius' poems are equally
wanton, and Servius'. Who would hesitate to follow in the footsteps of
such great men? Sisenna translated Aristides, and it did not go against
him to have inserted obscene jests in his story. Gallus was not reproached
for celebrating Lycoris, merely for not holding his tongue when drunk.
Tibullus finds it hard to believe his mistress' oath-because she disclaims
knowledge of him to her husband in just the same way. He, moreover,
confesses to teaching how to deceive guards, and says that he's now 450
unfortunate enough to be caught by his own wiles. 2 He recalls that often
he touched his mistress' hand on purpose while pretending to test her
ring and seal. He often spoke with nods and gestures (he says), and drew
silent marks on the round table. He describes how he gets rid of the marks
of love-bites with herbs. He begs the all too unaware husband to look
out for him too, and see that she strays less often. He knows who gets
barked at when he walks alone, to whom he coughs so often before the 460
closed gate, and gives many precepts for similar deceptions, tells how
wives can trick husbands. He came to no harm; Tibullus is read, and he
is in favour, and was known when you were already emperor. You will
find the same precepts in the pleasing Propertius: yet he was not marked
by the least stain. I am their successor, as my uprightness makes me keep
quiet about the names of distinguished living poets. I did not, I must
confess, feel any fear that, on a route where so many ships had sailed
before, one should be shipwrecked, when all the rest were safe. 470
[There have been, says Ovid, 'arts' on dicing, cosmetics, and other frivolous
subjects.]
I was deceived by these, and wrote cheerful poems: but a grim penalty
followed on my jests. Out of all the writers there have ever been I can
find none except myself whose Muse has destroyed him. What if I had
written mimes with obscene jokes, which always contain passages on
illicit sex: where the bedizened adulterer is constantly abroad, and the
clever wife tricks the stupid husband? These are watched by girls ready 500
to marry, by matrons, men and boys-and most of the senate attends.
It's not enough that their ears should be besmirched by unchaste language:
their eyes have to get used to seeing much that is improper. And when the
lover has found some new trick to deceive the husband, there is applause,
I Varro Atacinus.
In our houses there are paintings of men long ago, bright from the
artist's hand-but you may find in some corner a miniature representation
of various methods of intercourse and sexual postures. Ajax, son of Tela-
mon, sits there, his face showing his anger;! Medea, that barbarous
mother, has her crime in her eyes: yet a dripping Venus dries her wet
hair and is seen newly emerged from, the waves that gave her birth.
53 0 Others sing loudly of war and its array of gory weapons; some hymn your
deeds, some those of your race. Nature, grudgingly, has confined me to a
narrow space, and given my intellect but feeble strength. Yet even the
fortunate author of the Aeneid you patronized takes his 'hero and his arms'
to bed in Carthage; no part of the whole work is so eagerly read as the
story of that illicit love. As a youth, he had used the bucolic metre to sing
lightly of the ardour of Phyllis and Amaryllis. In my case too it is long
540 ago that I gave offence with that sort of writing: it is the punishment, not
the offence, that is new; and I had published poetry when I passed your
scrutiny so often, a knight sans reproche. Thus the poems which as a
youth I unwarily supposed would do me no harm have harmed me now
that I am old. A late penalty has afflicted an old book, and the punishment
is far in time from what called it forth.
And you shouldn't imagine that all my work is relaxed; I've often hoisted
big sails on my boat. I wrote twelve books of Fasti,I each volume finishing 550
at the end of a month. That, previously, was written in your name,
dedicated to you: but my calamity cut it short. I have issued a book, royal
in its tragic buskins, with the language that the gravity of tragedy de-
mands. 2 And although I did not put the last touch to it, I have written
of bodies changed to new appearances. If only you would relax your anger
for a little while, and in a moment of ease ask to have a bit of that book
read to you-the passage in which I speak of starting from the first origin 560
of the world and tracing the story down to your own times, Caesar.3 You
will observe how much spirit you gave me, how enthusiastically I sing
of you and yours.
I never attacked anyone in vicious poetry: my verses bring no charges. 4
I am straightforward, I shunned humour steeped in bile: no word is
given a venomous jest. Out of so many thousands of Romans, when
I have written so much, I shall be the only one harmed by my Muse. I
do not expect any Roman to have rejoiced at my sad fate-I expect many 570
to have grieved. I cannot believe that anyone spurned my prostrate body-
if my fairness has earned any reward. May your majesty be dissuaded by
these and other pleas, father of your country, its care and its shield! I do
not ask to return to Italy-unless later, when you are overcome by the
length of my punishment; I ask only a safer and a somewhat quieter
exile-to make my penalty fit the crime.
Petronius II 8
This is a rather later comment (we draw on Petronius again, below, p. 361); it
leads up, in the context, to an extract from an epic on the Civil War.
'Young men,' said Encolpius, 'many have been deceived by poetry.
Anyone who's fitted a verse out with feet, and woven a thought of some
delicacy into a period, imagines that he's straightway arrived in Helicon.
Thus, men tired out by the duties of the courts often betake themselves to
the tranquillity of poetry as to a safe haven, thinking it easier to construct
a poem than a controversia 6 decked out with vibrant little epigrams. But
I Hesiod. • Varro Atacinus. 3 Cf. Lucretius 5. 235 If.
4 Cf. Virgil, Eel. 10. s a. Horace, Odes 3. 30.
6 A rhetorical exercise. Cf. below, p. 344.
THE TRUE POET 299
the more noble spirit loves health: the mind cannot conceive or bring
forth its offspring unless it is washed by a vast river of literature. One
must shrink from all so to say cheapness of vocabulary, selecting words
that are remote from the mob (your motto should be: "I hate the profane
crowd and keep it at a distance").' Further, one must take care that the
epigrams don't project obviously from the body of the work, but shine
with a colour that is woven into the texture. Witness Homer, and the
lyric poets, Roman Virgil and the studied felicity of Horace. The rest
either didn't see the route that leads to poetry, or saw it but feared to
tread it. Look at the immense theme of the civil wars. Whoever takes on
that without being immersed in literature must falter beneath the load.
Historical events are not the stuff of verses-that's much better dealt
with by historians. Instead, the free spirit must be plunged in complexi-
ties of plot, divine machinery, and a torrent of mythological material.
The result should be the prophecies of an inspired soul, not the exact
testimony of a man on oath.'
I Horace, Odes 3. I. I.
7
GREEK AUGUSTANS
Strabo I. 2. 3-9
This is a statement of the Stoic position about the didactic value of poetry, and
an argument against the opinions of the great Alexandrian scholar and scientist,
Eratosthenes (c. 275-194 B.C.). See Grube 127 f., R. Pfeiffer, History o/Classical
Scholarship, Oxford, 1968, 166 f. .
1.2. 3 Every poet, according to Eratosthenes, aims at entertainment (psuck-
agjjgia), not instruction. The ancients held a different view. They regarded
poetry as a sort of primary philosophy, which was supposed to introduce
us to life from our childhood, and teach us about character, emotion, and
action in a pleasurable way. My own school, the Stoics, actually said that
only the wise man could be a poet. This is why Greek communities give
children their first education through poetry, not for simple 'entertain-
ment' of course, but for moral improvement. Even the musicians lay claim
to this, when they teach plucking the strings with the fingers, or playing
the lyre or aulos;1 they are, as they say, educators and correctors of
character. Nor is it only the Pythagoreans who can be heard asserting
this; Aristoxenus says the same. Homer himself regards bards as moral
guides-like the man who was set to guard Clytemnestra-
whom, when he sailed for Troy,
Atrides oft enjoined to watch his wife.
Aegisthus, let us recall, did not succeed in seducing Clytemnestra until
he had 'taken the bard to a desert island and left him there'; then he
took willingly home the willing lady.2
Q.!Iite apart from this, Eratosthenes contradicts himself. A little before
the statement just quoted, at the beginning of his Geography, he says that
everyone has always been ambitious to publish researches into this sort
I See below, p. 497.
• Odyssey 3. 267, f., 272.
AGAINST ERATOSTHENES' VIEW 301
of question. Homer, for example, found room in his poetry for what he
had found out about Ethiopia and Egypt and Libya, and went into
extraordinary detail on Greece and adjacent areas; in phrases like 'Thisbe
of the many doves', 'grassy Haliartus', 'remote Anthedon', 'Lilaia by
Cephissus' spring', there is not an epithet without point.! Well, is the
poet who does this offering entertainment or instruction? Instruction, of
course; but-Eratosthenes might answer-what does not fall within
sense-experience is filled up, by Homer as by other poets, with fabulous
wonders. If this is so, one ought to say that poets say some things for
entertainment and some for instruction; Eratosthenes' conclusion, how-
ever, was that everything was for entertainment. He labours the point
further, asking what it contributes to the excellence of a poet to have
experience of many places or of generalship or farming or rhetoric or
whatever it is that people have wanted to foist on him. To try to foist
everything on him would be the act of a man whose zeal brings him to
grief: as Hipparchus says, to hang every variety of learning and skill
on the poet would be like hanging fruits it can't bear, apples and pears,
on an Attic begging-bush (eiresione).2 You may well be right about that,
Eratosthenes. But it is not right to take away all that learning and prove
poetry to be a mass of old wives' tales, in which any fiction suitable for
entertainment is allowed. Is no contribution made towards the excellence
of the poets' audiences? Surely listening to poets gives them a knowledge
of many places, and of generalship and farming and rhetoric?
Homer certainly attributes all such knowledge to Odysseus, whom he I. 2. 4
adorns above all men with every excellence. Odysseus
saw the cities of many men, and knew their minds;3
Odysseus
knew all manner of guile and cunning devices;4
Odysseus is the sacker of cities, the man who took Tray
by counsel and words and guileful art.5
According to Diomedes,
if he is with us, even from burning fire
we'd both return. 6
I Phrases from the 'Catalogue of Ships' in Iliad 2.
• A wreath with fruits on it, taken from door to door in begging-visits at harvest time.
3 Odyssey I. 3. 4 Iliad 3. 202.
5 A line quoted by other ancient authors but not in our texts of Homer: cf. Stobaeus
4. I3. 48 Hense. 6 Iliad 10. 246.
302 GREEK AUGUSTANS
And he prides himself on farming skills; on harvesting-
in the meadow, if I had a curving sickle,
and you had one just like it- I
and on ploughing-
you'd see if I could cut a straight furrow. 2
Nor does Homer think so much of all this without finding support in
the whole educated world, which trusts his evidence as embodying right
judgement on the great contribution to wisdom made by such experience.
I. 2. 5 Rhetoric is wisdom relating to words; Odysseus displays this through-
out the poem-in the Testing, the Prayers, the Embassy, the passage
where Antenor says:
But when he let his great voice come up from his chest,
and the words like winter snows,
no man on earth could contend with Odysseus. 3
Can one believe that a poet who can introduce characters delivering
speeches, commanding armies, and performing other virtuous actions,
is himself a humbug and a mountebank, capable only of bewitching and
cajoling his audience without doing them good? Do we pretend that the
excellence of a poet lies in anything but his skill to represent life by the
medium of words? If this is so, how can he represent, if he is inexperienced
in life and foolish? The goodness of a poet is not like that of a carpenter
or a smith. Theirs has nothing grand or noble about it; the poet's is linked
with the man's-one cannot be a good poet without first being a good man.
I. 2. 6 So to deny the poet rhetoric is wholly to disregard our argument.
What is more a subject of rhetoric than diction (phrasis)? And what is
more closely connected with poetry? And who is better at diction than
Homer? 'But poetic diction is something different.' Yes, it is a different
species: just as, within. poetry, tragic diction differs from comic, and,
within prose, historical diction differs from forensic. Speech must be a
generic term, with metrical and prose speech as its species; and this surely
cannot be so unless rhetorical speech also is generic, and also diction and
excellence of speech.
In fact, prose speech of an elaborate kind is very much an imitation
of poetical. Poetical elaboration came into the world first and won fame.
Then writers like Cadmus, Pherecydes, and Hecataeus 4 imitated it,
keeping all the poetical qualities except metre. Their successors further
pruned away various poetic elements, and so brought prose down from
I Odyssey 18. 368 f. • Ibid. 375. 3 Iliad 3. 221.
• Early historians; cf. Hcrmogenes, below, p. 578.
AGAINST ERATOSTHENES' VIEW 30 3
the heights to its present level. Similarly, one might say that comedy
took its form from tragedy and descended from tragic heights to its present
'prosaic' state (logoeides). The use by early writers of 'sing' for 'tell'
(phrazein) is also evidence of the same point, that poetry was the fount and
beginning of all elaborate diction and rhetoric. Poetry used music to help
her in performances; this was song, Ode, or lyrical verse\.hence the suffix
-ody in rhapsody, tragedy (tragodia), comedy (komodia).J-Ience, since 'to
tell' (phrazein) was first used of poetical diction, and poetry was accom-
panied by song, they could use 'sing' in the same sense as 'tell'. Then,
'sing' being misused for prose, the catachresis extended to the other term
also. The term 'pedestrian' (pezos) I for language without metre also
betrays the descent from a height or a vehicle to the ground.
Homer does not, as Eratosthenes says, speak only of places near at I. 2. 7
hand or in Greece. He gives also much accurate information of remote
places. He does indeed tell fables more than his successors, but they are
not all just wild fantasies. They are allegories or fictions or sermons
composed for instruction. This is especially so with the wanderings of
Odysseus. Eratosthenes is sadly astray about this, when he tries to prove
that Homer's interpreters and Homer himself are talking nonsense. This
is worth a fuller discussion.
For one thing, myths have been accepted not only by poets but, even I. 2. 8
earlier, by cities and lawgivers, for their utility. They have observed what
comes naturally to a reasoning animal. Man loves knowledge; the prelude
to this is a love of fable. This is the area in which children begin to listen
and increase their understanding. The reason is that fable is a novelty
of a kind-it does not tell of the ordinary, but of something new; novelty
and the previously unknown are pleasant; and this is what makes us fond
of knowledge. The addition of the wonderful and marvellous intensifies
the pleasure-and pleasure is the charm to make us learn. These entice-
ments are necessary in the early stages; as the child grows older, and his
mind strengthens and has no need of cajoling, he may be brought to the
knowledge of real things. In a sense, all ordinary uneducated people are
children, and love fable in the same way. Indeed, the same is true of the
partly educated, who have little strength of reason and preserve their
childhood habits.
The marvellous is both pleasing and frightening; both children and
adults need both these elements. We impress on children pleasing stories
to encourage them, frightening ones to deter them: Lamia, Gorgo,
Ephialtes, Mormolyce are such bogies. Most adult citizens, too, are
encouraged by pleasing myths, when they hear the poets relating heroic
deeds of mythology-the Labours ofHeracles or Theseus, or the honours
I Cf. below, p. 538.
GREEK AUGUSTANS
given by the gods-or when they see paintings, statues, or sculptures
representing such mythical dramas. Similarly, they are deterred by
learning, by word or by visible images, of diVine punishments, terrors,
or threats, or even by coming to believe that people have encountered such
things. A mob of women and common folk cannot be summoned to piety
and holiness and belief by philosophical argument; superstition is the
only means, and this involves fables and marvels. The thunderbolt, the
aegis, the trident, the torches, the snakes, the thyrsus-Iances, are fables,
primitive theology. The founders of our societies, however, used these
tales as bogies for infantile minds. This characteristic of mythology, and
its value in the transition to communal and public life and the acquisition
of genuine knowledge, led the ancients to continue elementary education
right up to adult life. They thought that all ages could receive adequate
moral training through poetry. It was only later that history and philo-
sophy, as it now is, appeared on the scene. Philosophy has a small audience;
it is poetry, and above all Homer's, that is useful to the multitude and can
fill the theatres. The first historians and scientists, moreover, were mytho-
graphers.
1. 2. 9 It was because Homer regarded his fables as educative that he thought
so much of truth, while also 'placing therein' some falsehoods. l The truth
he himself accepted; the false he used to manage and command the
multitude.
Like a man that covers silver with gold,2
Homer added fable to real events, embellishing and adorning his style,
but looking to the same end as the historian or the dealer in facts. Thus
he added fabulous elements to the real event of the Trojan war, and so
also with Odysseus' wanderings. Idle fantasy on no foundation of fact
is not in Homer's way. No doubt it occurs to one that lies are more
convincing if truth is mixed with them; indeed Polybius says this in his
attack on Odysscus' wanderings. The line
he told many lies, resembling truth,3
points the same way-many lies, not all lies, for if it had all been lies it
could not have resembled truth. Homer therefore took his starting-points
from history. Aeolus, they say, dominated the islands round Lipara;
inhospitable Cyclopes and Laestrygones ruled the area of Etna and
Leontini. Hence the straits were inaccessible in those days; Charybdis
and Scyllaeum were haunts of pirates. We can give similar interpretations
of Homer's other descriptions. He knew, for example, that the Cimmerians
lived on the Cimmerian Bosphorus, in the northern darkness; so he
I Iliad 18. 541. 2 Odyssey 6. 232. 3 Ibid. 19. 203.
AGAINST ERATOSTHENES' VIEW 30 5
moved them to a dark place near Hades, relevant to the mythology of the
Wanderings. Proof that he knew of them is supplied by the chroniclers
who date the Cimmerian invasion in or a little before the time of Homer.I
Dionysius' ambitious treatise on the classical orators began with a Preface, from
which this extract (5.3-6 Vsener-Raderrnacher) is taken, in which he condemns
Hellenistic writing as 'Asianic' and associates the revival of a purer style with the
domination (and good taste) of the Romans. a. Cicero, Orator 22-32 (above,
p. 237); Quintilian 12. 10 (below, p. 407).
pressure from the Scythians, they invaded Asia Minor and penetrated to the Ionian
coast. This would be a late date for Homer.
8143591 x
306 GREEK AUGUSTANS
luxury, and elegance unknown to its predecessor, but attached to itself the
honours and political supremacies which belonged by right to its philo-
sophical sister. With its crudeness and vulgarity, it ended by making
Greece like the household of some desperate roue, where the decent,
respectable wife sits powerless in her own home, while some nitwit of a
girl, there only to ruin the property, thinks she has a right to rule the
roost, and bullies the wife and treats her like dirt. Just so, in every city,
even-worst of all-in the highly cultivated, the old, native Attic Muse
was in disgrace, cast out from her inheritance, while another, sprung
from some Asian sewer the other day-some Mysian or Phrygian or, God
help us, Carian plague-claimed the right to govern the cities of Hellas,
and, in her ignorance and madness, to drive out her sane, philosophical
rival.
But it is not only just men, as Pindar says,! of whom 'time is the best
preserver', but arts and pursuits and indeed all good things. Our own age
is an illustration of this. Whether some god set it in train, or the revolution
of nature itself recalled the old order, or human impulse guided multi-
tudes to the same goal-whatever the cause, this generation has restored
to the old, respectable rhetoric her just honour, and stopped the young
fool enjoying a reputation which did not belong to her, and behaving
extravagantly in another's house. Nor is the fact that men have begun
to honour the better above the worse the only reason for praising this
age and its philosophers. It is true of course that 'well begun is half
done'; but the point is also that the change has been rapid and the progress
great. Apart from some few cities in Asia, where ignorance makes good
learning slow to penetrate, the liking for the vulgar, frigid, and tasteless
in literature has ceased. Those who formerly took pride in such things are
becoming ashamed and gradually deserting to the other side, apart from
a few incurables, while recent beginners are despising that style and
ridiculing the passion for it.
The cause and beginning of this great change lies in Rome. The
mistress of the world makes all other cities look to her. Her own men of
power, who govern their country on the highest moral principles, are
men of education and fine judgement. The discipline they impose has
strengthened the wiser elements of the community, and forced the foolish
to learn sense. In consequence, many serious historical works are now
being written, many elegant speeches published, while philosophical
treatises which are far from contemptible, and many other excellent works,
serious productions both of Romans and of Greeks, have appeared and
will no doubt continue to appear. Such is the change in such a short time
that it would not surprise me if the taste for the foolish style does not
I Fr. 159 Snell.
ROME AND THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL
survive this one generation; when something once universal has been
contracted to such small properties, the step to its total disappearance is
no great one.
C. DEMOSTHENES
3 The third species of style was the mixed one: acorn bination of the first
two. The first to make this combination and to bring the style to its
present degree of polish may have been Thrasymachus of ChaIcedon, as
Theophrastus says, or another; I cannot feel sure. However, it was the
Athenian orator Isocrates and the Socratic philosopher Plato who adopted,
developed, and virtually perfected it. Indeed, it would be very hard to
find anyone, apart from Demosthenes, who has done more than these two
writers either in the practice of useful and necessary qualities or in the
display of fine writing and accessory forms of ornament. Thrasymachus'
own style-supposing him to have been really the fountain-head of the
'middle style'-obviously has serious (and worthwhile) intentions; it
is a successful mixture and possesses the usefulness of both. But his
ability does not match his ambitions. (p. 132, 3-18)
[Dionysius quotes a prooemium to prove his point (fr. B I Diels-Kranz).
His criticism is too dependent on verbal effects to be given in English.]
ISOCRATES
PLATO'S STYLE
Plato's style, too, also aims at being a mixture of the two manners-the 5
lofty (hupseJos) and the plain (ischnos)-as I said above; but it is not equally
felicitous in both. When it studies to be plain, simple, and unaffected
in diction, it is extraordinarily agreeable and winning. It is pure enough,
and transparent, like the most pellucid of streams, careful and delicate
as any of its rivals. It pursues normality of vocabulary, and clarity,
disdaining all accessory ornamentation. The patina of the past spreads
softly and unobtrusively over its surface; the fresh green bloom of the
springtime burgeons in it. It is as though a fragrant breeze were blowing
off some flowery meadow. The clear tone gives no hint of garrulity, the
cleverness no hint of theatricality. But when-and this often happens-
the style takes an uncontrollable plunge into fanciness and fine writing,
great deterioration ensues. Charmless, incorrect, and coarse, compared
with what it was, it now obscures and darkens what was plain, and drags
out the meaning to vast length when it ought to have been concentrated
in a few words. It spreads itself in tasteless periphrases, showing off a
vain wealth of vocabulary and seeking novel, foreign, and archaic terms
out of contempt for the literal and usual. Most of all is it at sea with tropes.
Rich in epithets, it indulges in and out of season in metonymy, and its
harsh metaphors fail to preserve the proper proportions between the
terms. It wraps itself up in lots oflong allegories, unending and untimely,
and makes a childish parade, with no sense of occasion, of nauseating
poetical, and more particularly Gorgianic, figures. In a word, as Deme-
trius ofPhaleron and many others have said before me-'it's not my
story'-there is a lot of hocus-pocus in Plato in this sort of thing.
I should not like anyone to think that in saying this I condemn all 6
Plato's unusual or elaborate style. I should not wish to be so ignorant or
insensitive as to hold such an opinion about so great a man. I am well
aware that he has written much on many subjects which is splendid and
admirable and the product of the highest abilities. What I want to show
3 10 GREEK AUGUSTANS
is that he makes this kind of mistake ill his elaborations, and that he falls
below his true level when he aims at the grand or unusual in diction; he
excels himself, on the other hand, when he adopts a manner which is
slight and precise and gives the impression of being artless, though in fact
it has been worked over with simple and faultless artistry. His mistakes
indeed (if he makes any) are insignificant and not worth complaining
about; but I rather thought that so great a genius should have avoided
any possibility of criticism. I As a matter of fact, his contemporaries (whom
I need not name) find fault with him for the same reason. Indeed, he
does it himself-a brilliant stroke; for he seems to have perceived his
own lack of taste, and used the word 'dithyramb' of it-a true comment,
but one I should have been ashamed to make here on my own. The reason
for this decline, in my opinion, is that Plato was reared on Socratic
dialogues, which are very slight and precise in style, but instead of stick-
ing to them fell in love with the elaboration of Gorgias and Thucydides.
It was therefore only to be expected that he should acquire some of the
faults as well as the excellences which these writers' styles possess.
7 The example I offer of elevated language comes from one of Plato's
most famous works-the dialogue in which Socrates sets forth speeches
about Love to one of his friends, Phaedrus, after whom the book is
named. The opening scene has great elegance and charm: 'Where are
you going, Phaedrus, and where have you been?' 'I've been with Lysias,
Socrates, Cephalus' son. And now I'm going for a walk outside the wall.
I've been sitting down a long time there, since early morning.'2 This
style continues up to the reading of Lysias' speech and for some time
thereafter. Then, like a gale suddenly springing up out of calm and settled
weather, he throws his pure diction into turmoil, breaking into tasteless
poeticism. 'Hither, ye clear-toned (ligeiai) Muses-be it for your song you
are so called or for your Ligurian birth-come aid me in my tale.'3
Plato shall explain for himself that this is simply noise and dithyramb,
a vast clatter of words with very little meaning. Even in his explanation
of how eros comes to be the name of the emotion, he uses this manner:
'When irrational desire, tending to pleasure in beauty and in desires
akin to herself, overcomes the judgement that aims at good, the pull
towards beauty of body is mightily (errhomenos) strengthened (rhOstheisa)
and from this strength (rhOme) received the name eros.'4 But after a long
passage of this sort of periphrasis, expressing something which could
have been put adequately in a few words, Plato attacks his own bad taste:
'Listen to me quietly. This is a holy place, I fancy. Don't be surprised
if I am often bewitched as the argument proceeds. My present utterance
I This type of attack is answered by 'Longinus' 32-6 (below, p. 491).
• Phaedrus 227 a. 3 Ibid. 237 a. 4 Ibid. 238 b.
DEMOSTHENES 311
is pretty dithyrambic." So there you are, most divine Plato; by 'none
other than ourselves condemned',2 we are convicted of being in love
with the sound and fury of the dithyramb! (pp. 134, 8-141, 9)
[Dionysius illustrates his point further by a detailed discussion of Phaedrus
246 e, comparing it with a passage of Pindar (Paean 9, I If.).]
To avoid too long a discussion, I shall now leave Plato and proceed to 8
Demosthenes. It was in connection with him, after all, that I enumerated
what I considered the most important types of style, and the chief
practitioners in each. My list of writers was not exhaustive. Antiphon,
Theodorus, Polycrates, Isaeus, Zoilus, Anaximenes, and their contem-
poraries had no special novelty or peculiarity, but devised their own
styles out of these types and on these principles. Such was the state of
oratorical style which Demosthenes inherited, such the changes it had
undergone. Demosthenes, in succeeding these great predecessors, took
no single style or writer as his model, because he thought them all
incomplete and immature. Instead, he wove his own style out of an
eclectic choice of the best and most serviceable qualities of them all.
The result was a manner at once grand and simple, elaborate and un-
elaborate, unusual and usual, panegyrical and realistic, severe and smiling,
tense and relaxed, sweet and sharp, attractive in character (lthike) and
forcible in emotion (pathetike). He is like the mythical Proteus in the
old poets, who could take on any shape effortlessly; and who indeed, one
might plausibly conjecture, was not really a god or demigod deceiving
men's eyes but a clever trick of speech in a wise man, always deceiving
the ear-for it is impious to attribute low or indecent appearances to
gods or demigods.
A study of my examples will show whether this view of Demosthenes- 9
namely that his style is a combination of every other type-is the correct
one.
Consider first his modification of Thucydides' manner.
Men of Athens, many speeches are made virtually at every meeting
of the assembly about what Philip, ever since he made peace, has
been doing wrong, not only to you but to all Greece-and everyone, I
am sure, would have said, even if their acts belie their words, that one
ought to speak and act in such a way as to ensure that he is stopped
and punished for his arrogance; and yet I see the situation has gone so
I Ibid. 238 d. 2 Aeschylus, fr. 135 Nauck.
312 GREEK AUGUSTANS
far, and is so far out of control, that I fear it may now be true to say,
however disagreeable, that if all the speakers had chosen to propose, and
all of you had chosen to vote for, the thing that was going to make
the situation the worst possible, it could not have been worse than it is.'
14 Of the type of oratory which lies between the two extremes, which
Demosthenes inherited in an imperfect state from Isocrates, his pre-
decessor Thrasymachus, and Plato, and which he perfected to the limit
of human capacity, many examples can be found in the speeches against
Philip and the other public orations, but the most numerous and best
instances are in the defence of Ctesiphon, the speech which in my
opinion employs the finest and most controlled stylistic art. If 1 had time,
I would set out the actual passages; but with many essential topics still
to cover, 1 can do no more here than present a few brief examples,
relying on my readers' knowledge.
For example, the following passage from the attack on Aeschines is
in the middle style: 'It is always right, men of Athens, to hate and punish
traitors and bribe-takers. On this occasion it is especially right and it
will do a service to all mankind. A terrible and dire disease, men of
Athens, has invaded Greece; it needs great good luck and great effort
on your part .. ,'1 (pp. 158, 13-159, 13)
IS This is the style (I approve most). If anyone cannot accept my reason
for not putting Thucydides' extravagances and abnormalities first or
regarding the sovereign virtue of style as lying in the thin conciseness of
Lysias, here is my reply.
People who attend assemblies, courts, and other gatherings where
public speaking is necessary are not all clever or exceptional or possessed
of Thucydidean intelligence. Nor yet are they all plain folk with no ex-
perience of the art of noble speech. Some indeed have come in from
work on their farms or at sea or from some artisan's trade, and these are
certainly better pleased by a simpler and more everyday way of talking.
Precision, special elegance, anything that sounds unusual or unfamiliar,
annoys them and distresses their ears just as really unpleasant food or
drink turns the stomach. Others are used to public life, they come from
the squares and streets and have had a regular education. These cannot
be addressed in the same way. They need elaborate, special, recherche
language. Of course they are not as numerous as the others-they are a
tiny fraction of the whole, as everybody knows-but they are not to be
I 19. 258. Other examples follow: 23. 65, 20. 68, IS. 60.
DEMOSTHENES 315
despised on that account. Now the speech that aims at the educated few
will not be convincing to the ignorant majority, and the speech that
pleases the multitude of ordinary folk will be despised by the more sophis-
ticated. The speech that tries to win both audiences will be less likely
to fail in its purpose. This means the style composed of the two extreme
styles; and this is why I regard a style so constructed as the most moderate,
and am particularly willing to accept writing that avoids the extremes of
the two manners.
I said at the beginning that in my opinion Isocrates and Plato, the prin- 16
cipal exponents of this style, developed it to a very high standard, but
did not perfect it. I undertook then to show that it was Demosthenes
who completed the task. To this point I now proceed, putting forward
passages of admitted excellence from both authors, and comparing them
with passages of Demosthenes on the same themes, so that the intentions
and abilities of the writers reveal themselves by the searching test of
similar subjects.
First, Isocrates. Let us take a passage of acknowledged charm from 17
the oration On the Peace.! Isocrates himself quotes the passage in the
Antidosis. No doubt he was proud of it. It is a comparison between the
political scene in olden days and the present time, between ancient and
modern achievements. Isocrates approves the old and criticizes the
new. He shows that the responsibility for the deterioration lies with the
demagogues, who, instead of introducing good measures, proposed only
what would give pleasure to the masses. The comparison is lengthy: I
quote only the most important part.
What foreign visitor, not corrupted as we are but coming fresh to the
situation, would not think us lunatic and insane? We take pride in the
deeds of our ancestors and think it right to praise Athens for what she
did in those days, yet we act ourselves not as they did, but in a quite
opposite way. They fought the barbarians on behalf of Greece, we have
brought men from Asia, where their living came from, to attack Greeks.
They liberated and aided Greek cities and so were thought deserving
of hegemony; we enslave and do the reverse of what they did, yet grow
angry that we are refused the honour they enjoyed. How far we fall
short in thought and deed of the men of those days! They found the
courage to leave their home on behalf of the safety of Greece; they
fought by land and sea, they triumphed. We are not even ready to court
I Isocrates 8..41-50.
31 6 GREEK AUGUSTANS
danger for our own greed, but seek universal rule without being prepared
to serve as soldiers. We go to war againstthewholeworld, but instead of
disciplining ourselves for it we train a horde of refugees, deserters, and
criminals who will join the other side the moment they are offered
higher wages. And yet we love them very dearly: if our own children do
wrong we should not want to suffer on their behalf, but if these creatures
steal and murder and flout the laws and complaints fall upon us, we feel
no anger-indeed we enjoy hearing that they have done this kind of
thing. Such a pitch of folly we have reached that we go without our daily
needs while endeavouring to maintain mercenaries, and distress and
over-tax our own allies to pay these enemies of mankind their wages. The
measure of our inferiority not only to those of our ancestors whose fame
stood high, but to those who earned unpopularity too, is that they, when
they resolved on war, though the acropolis was full of silver and gold,
nevertheless thought it right to risk their own lives for their decisions,
while we, impoverished and numerous as we are, hire our armies like
the king of Persia. In those days, if we manned triremes, we embarked
the foreigners and slaves as sailors, and sent citizens under arms; now
we use the foreigners as soldiers and make the citizens row. Con-
sequently, when we make a landing in enemy territory, the would-be
masters of Greece disembark with their bench-cushions, while the
characters I have been describing face the foe in arms.
But perhaps seeing domestic affairs well managed may give us con-
fidence about the rest? But is not this the area where indignation is most
in place? We claim to be indigenous, we say that this is the oldest city in
Greece-and, when we ought to offer an example of good and orderly
government, we in fact manage our affairs less efficiently and more con-
fusedly than recent foundations. We take pride, and find cause for boast-
ing, in being of better race than others-and yet we share our racial
superiority with others more readily than the Triballoi or the Lucanians
do their inferiority of race.
one, the style is contorted in the way that we find in other late dialogues.
2 Iliad 5. 428 f.
DEMOSTHENES 321
cntlClSDlis in the same vein as the passage on lsocrates. For contrast,
Dionysius takes On the Crown 199-209. His general conclusion is as follows:]
CONCLUSION
171--{)1; Pfeilfer, History o/Classical Scholarship, Oxford, 1968, esp. 203 If., 272.
32 4 GREEK AUGUSTANS
3 Every expression by which a thought is signified is either metrical
or unmetrical. Either kind, if given beautiful rhythmical form' (harmonia),
is able to beautify either metre or prose. Thrown out ignorantly and ran-
domly, either kind ruins even the value of the thought it expresses.
Many poets, many historians, philosophers and orators, have chosen
with care and taste beautiful words appropriate to their needs, but have
wasted their efforts by giving them a careless and tasteless rhythmical
form. Others, taking vulgar and contemptible words but arranging them
with charm and distinction, have invested their writing with great elegance.
The relation of arrangement to selection seems in a sense analogous to
that of words to thought. Just as there is no profit in a good idea unless
one gives it the setting of fine words, so it is no use finding pure and
elegant expressions unless one gives them the appropriate setting of
rhythmical form.
In order not to give the impression of putting forward statements
without demonstration, I will try to show by a practical example why I
am convinced that arrangement is a higher and more significant study than
selection. I shall offer a preliminary taste both of poetry and of prose.
Let us take Homer as our poet, and Herodotus as our prose-writer. They
offer material enough for forming an opinion about the rest.
Odysseus, in Homer, is lodging with the swineherd. He is about to
have breakfast, according to the old custom, around dawn. Telemachus
appears, returning from his visit to the Peloponnese. It is a scene of
ordinary life, beautifully expressed. The lines themselves will show where
the excellence of the style lies: 2
Meanwhile, in the hut, Odysseus and the swineherd made breakfast;
it was dawn, and they lit the fire.
They had sent out the herdsmen with the pigs to pasture.
Now on Telemachus the noisy dogs fawned, they did not bark
at his approach. Odysseus noticed the dogs whining,
and there was a sound of footsteps.
He spoke at once to Eumaeus, who was just by.
'Eumaeus, some friend must be coming
or someone well-known; the dogs are not barking,
they are whining, and I hear the sound of footsteps.'
He had not finished speaking, when his own son stood at the door.
Up leapt the swineherd, surprised; the bowl,
in which he was mixing the bright wine, fell from his hands.
He ran to meet his master.
I Or 'sound fonn', if 'rhythmical' narrows the meanillg too much.
a Odyssey 16. 1-16.
ON THE ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS
He kissed him on the head, on both his eyes,
on both his hands. His tears fell warm and fast.
I am s~re it would be universally acknowledged that this passage attracts
and charms the ear and is not inferior to the most agreeable piece of
poetry. But where does its persuasiveness lie? What makes the piece what..
it is? Is it the selection of words or the arrangement? No one, lam'
convinced, could attribute it to the former: the whole context is made up
of the most commonplace and undistinguished words, which any farmer
or seaman or artisan-anyone who took no trouble to speak well-might
have found ready to hand. Without the metre, they will seem poor and
unattractive; there are no fine metaphors, no hypallages, no catachrese~;
no trope of any kind-and not even any obscure archaic words or foreign
or newly-coined terms. What alternative have we, then, but to attribute
the beauty of the piece to the arrangement? Homer, as everybody of
course knows, contains countless such examples. This one suffices for
the present occasion, since all we want is a reminder.
(pp. 3, 5- 12 ,3)
[Dionysius then gives a prose example, Herodotus 1. 8-IO-the story of
Gyges and Candaules. He follows this with some poetical examples in-
tended to show how a change of order will produce different rhythms and
effects. We omit this, as it is almost impossible to translate adequately and
because it adds little that is new to the argument.]
To make it easier to see how prose can be affected, like verse, by a change 4
of arrangement, though the words remain the same, I will take the begin-
ning of Herodotus' history, because many people know it well, changing
only the dialect:
Croesus was a Lydian by race, the son of Alyattes, and the ruler of tribes
west of the Halys, which flows from the south between Syria and Paph-
lagonia and debouches in the north in the sea called the Euxine. l
Change the rhythmical form, and the shape of the sentence will no longer
be sinuous and suitable to history, but in the direct manner of the law-
court:
Croesus was the son of Alyattes, by race a Lydian, and ruler of the west
of the Halys tribes: the Halys flowing from the south, between Syria and
Paphlagonia, into the sea called the Euxine debouches in the north.
I Herodotus I. 6.
326 GREEK AUGUSTANS
This style may be thought not very different from that of this passage of
Thucydides:
Epidamnus is a city on the right as you enter the Ionian gulf; neigh-
bouring it are the Taulantioi, barbarians, an Illyrian tribe.!
Next I am going to change the same passage round and give it another
shape. Thus:
Of Alyattes, the son was Croesus, by race a Lydian, and west of Halys
ruler of the tribes; the Halys from the south flowing between Syria and
Paphlagonia towards the north debouches in the so-called Euxine Sea.
This is Hegesianic arrangement, cheap, vulgar, effeminate. Hegesias z is
high priest of all this nonsense:
After a good feast a good we celebrate again;
From Magnesia I come, the great, a man of Sipylus;
Not a small drop into the Thebans' water spat Dionysus; sweet it is,
but makes men mad.
Let this suffice for examples. I think I have now made my point clear,
that arrangement has a greater effect than word-selection. It would be
fair to make a comparison with Homer's Athena, who made Odysseus
look different on different occasions, now small and wrinkled and ugly
like a poor beggar or an old man,3
now, after another touch from the same wand,
taller and stronger to see; and from his head
made thick locks tumble, like the hyacinth flower. 4
Similarly arrangement, taking the same words, makes thoughts seem at
one moment ugly, low, and beggarly, and at another lofty, rich, and
beautiful. Skilful arrangement of words is, indeed, what most dis-
tinguishes poet from poet and orator from orator. The ancients, almost
all of them, took great pains about this. This is why their poems and lyrics
and prose are so beautiful. Of their successors, only a few took trouble;
and in the end the subject fell into total neglect, and nobody thought it
necessary or indeed contributory in any way to the beauty of writing.
They therefore left behind them writings which no one can bear to read
to the end. I am referring to Phylarchus, Douris, Polybius, Psaon,
Demetrius of Callatis, Hieronymus, Antigonus, Heraclides, Hegesianax,
and innumerable others. s If I mentioned all their names, 'the day would
I Thucydides I. 24. • Cf. 'Longinus' 3 (below, p. 464).
3 Odyssey 16. 273. 4 Odyssey 6. 230 ff.
S All Hellenistic writers; only Polybius survives in sufficient quantity for us to judge
the grounds of Dionysius' opinion.
ON THE ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS 32 7
be too short'. And why be surprised at these, when professors of philo-
sophy and writers of logic textbooks are so miserably inefficient at the
arrangement of words that one is really ashamed to mention it? No need
to go further for a sufficient instance than Chrysippus the Stoic. No one
has given a better or more exact treatment of logic-nor written a book,
a famous and distinguished book anyway, in a worse style. Yet some of
these philosophers claim to take this subject seriously, as a necessary
part of linguistic study, and have written handbooks on the combination
of parts of speech; but they all strayed far from the truth and did not
even dream of what it really is that makes arrangement agreeable and
beautiful. When I resolved on putting this book together, I investigated
previous researches, and especially those of the Stoic philosophers,
knowing that they had devoted considerable thought to linguistic
questions-one must give them their due. But I found no work by any
author of any note, small or great, bearing on the subject I proposed; the
two treatises of Chrysippus 'On the combination (sun taxis) of the parts
of speech' are concerned not with rhetoric but with logic, as those who
have read them l.::.now. They deal with the 'combination' of propositions,
true and false, possible and impossible, admissible, variable, ambiguous,
and so forth; they have no practical value for oratory, at least as far as
elegance and beauty, the aims of word-arrangement, are concerned. I
therefore abandoned this study, and began to inquire independently to
see whether I could discover some natural starting-point, the best kind
of first principle, it is generally believed, for any subject or inquiry.
I had got hold of some observations and thought that things were going
well, when I realized that the road was not leading me in the direction
in which I started and in which I had to travel. I therefore desisted. But
perhaps I had better touch on the inquiry I thus abandoned, and say
why I did so, lest anyone should think that it is ignorance and not deli-
berate intention that leads me to pass it over. (pp. 18, 3-23, 12)
The science of arrangement has three functions: (i) to see what com- 6
binations produce a total character which is beautiful and agreeable;
(ii) to know what configuration of each of the elements to be combined
will improve the joint effect; (iii) to recognize and execute in an ap-
propriate fashion any necessary modification of the original elements-
GREEK AUGUSTANS
subtraction, addition, or alteration. Let me explain these three functions
more clearly by means of the analogy of constructive arts which everyone
understands-building, ship-construction, and the like. When a builder
has provided himself with the material from which he is going to construct
the house-stones, timber, tiles, and so on-he proceeds to put the house
together. He first considers three problems: he sees what sorts of stone,
timber, and brick must be fitted together, how each of them should be
placed and on which side, and finally how to trim and shape anything
which does not fit with ease, so as to make it do so. The shipbuilder does
the same. Similarly, the good arranger of the parts of speech. First, he
considers what verb, noun, or other part of speech is appropriately com-
bined with what other, and how the combination can be made good or
better (not every arrangement affects the ear in the same way). Secondly,
he decides what forms of noun, verb, or other word will be more agree-
able, or more appropriate to the subject. For example: in nouns, which
will give the better over-all impression, singulars or plurals, nominatives
or oblique cases? If some masculines can be turned into feminines, or
feminines into masculines, or these genders into neuters, which is the
best form? And so on. Similarly with verbs. Are active or passive forms
better? In what moods-'verbal cases' some call them-should verbs
be expressed in order to aquire the best position? What tense differences
should they indicate? And so on, with the other natural modifications
of verbs. (The same precautions should be taken with the other parts of
speech also, but I do not want to go into detail.) Thirdly, he decides
whether any selected verb or noun needs alteration of form to secure
better sound or setting. This question is a rich one in poetry, but there is
less to it in prose, though it does occur where opportunity allows.
(pp. 27, 18-29, 18)
[Examples follow: tout on;, the emphatic and deictic form, for touton ('this');
kalidon 'seeing' for the uncompounded idon; and various other examples
of changed or modified words.]
COLA
P·5 61 ).
332 GREEK AUGUSTANS
above suffices. I return now to the distinction I made of pleasurable and
beautiful arrangements, so that my argument may proceed, as they say,
according to plan.
I said then that the ear is pleased by tunes, by rhythms, and finally
by variations, and in each case by what is appropriate. Experience shall
testify to the truth of my words; no one can find fault with a witness who
agrees with our common feelings. Who indeed has not found himself
affected and charmed by one style and unaffected by another, or soothed
by one rhythm and exasperated by another? I sometime think, in a
crowded theatre, packed with a miscellaneous and uneducated crowd,
that I can see how we all have a natural affinity with melody and rhythm,
because I notice a popular lyre-player howled down by the mob for
striking a wrong note and ruining the piece, or an aulos-player of supreme
skill at his instrument suffering the same fate for blowing an unresonant
note or not closing his mouth and so producing a false note or being
what is called out of tune. And yet if one asked a layman to take the
instrument and perform one of the actions which he was blaming the
musician for doing badly, he couldn't do it. Why? Because this is a matter
of knowledge, which we do not all share, whereas the other is a feeling
which nature imparts to all. I have noticed the same thing with regard
to rhythms. Everyone becomes angry and uncomfortable when a step or
movement or gesture is made with incorrect timing and the rhythm
thereby obscured. It might be thought that, while melody and rhythm
give pleasure and we are all bewitched by them, variations and propriety
do not possess that degree of charm and grace and do not have the same
effect on all ears. But this would be wrong; correctness in this field does
charm us all, as incorrectness causes us distress. For proof of this, I draw
attention to the fact that instrumental and vocal music and dancing, if
successful in achieving charm at every point but lacking timely variation
or erring in propriety, produce in the end a heavy, sated feeling or a
disagreeable sense of the inappropriateness to the subject.
All this is no irrelevant comparison. The science of oratory is a sort
of music which differs quantitatively not qualitatively from the vocal
and instrumental kind; words too have their melody and rhythm, their
variation and propriety, so that in oratory too the ear is delighted by
melody, seduced by rhythm, gratified by variety, and everywhere seeks
what properly belongs. It is simply a difference of degree.
(pp. 32,6-40, 16)
PROPRIETY
In his story to the Phaeacians, Odysseus, after relating his own wanderings
and his descent to Hades, comes to the visions of the horrors there. In
this context, he relates the sufferings of Sisyphus, for whom, they say,
the gods of the underworld ordained an end to labour when he succeeded
in rolling a stone over a certain hill-this being, however, impossible,
because the stone always fell back again whenever it got to the top. It is
worth while noticing how he depicts this imitatively with the help of the
actual arrangement of the words:
kai men Sisuphon eiseidon krater' alge' ekhonta,
laan bastazonta pelorion amphoteresin.
etoi ho men skeriptomenos khersin te posin te
laan anD otheske poti lophon.
GREEK AUGUSTANS
And I saw Sisyphus too in great distress,
lifting a huge stone in his two hands;
and straining with his hands and feet
he pushed the stone up, up the hill.'
Here it is the arrangement which makes all the happenings clear-the
weight of the stone, the laborious shifting of it from the ground, Sisyphus
straining with his limbs and climbing the hill, the rock pushed up with
difficulty. That is undeniable. But just how is each of these effects
achieved? Not automatically or accidentally. First: in the two lines
in which he is rolling the rock uphill, all the words except two are mono-
syllables or disyllables. Second: in each of the two lines, the long syllables
are half as many again as the short. Again: the joints between the words
are set wide apart and there are perceptible intervals, resulting from the
clash of vowels or the combination of semivowels and consonants.
Moreover, the rhythms of which the whole composition is made are
dactyls and spondees, the grandest of all and those with the broadest
spread. What then is the effect of these various factors? The mono-
syllables and disyllables, leaving as they do numerous intervals between
one word and the next, reproduce the slowness of the work; the long
syllables with their rests and impediments reproduce its resistance,
heaviness, and difficulty; the gaps between words and the juxtaposition
of harsh sounds reproduce the interruption and hesitations of the action,
and the immensity of the labour; finally, the rhythms, with their impres-
sion of drawn-out length, represent the stretching limbs and straining
apart of Sisyphus, and the resistance of the stone. That this is the work
not of nature improvising but of art endeavouring to imitate events is
shown by the ensuing lines. Homer does not use the same style for the
return of the stone from the top and its rolling downhill; he speeds up
and concentrates the arrangement of the words. Beginning in the old
manner,
all' hote melloi
akron huperbaleein ...
but when it was just
about to pass the top,
he then adds
tot' epistrepsaske krataiis;
autis epeita pedonde kulindeto laas ana ides,
then momentum took control,
and down to the bottom rattled the unmanageable boulder.
I Odyssey, I. 593 If.
ON THE ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS 337
Does not the word-arrangement roll downhill with the weight of the rock
-or rather, the speed of the narrative overtake the momentum of the
stone? I believe it does. Once again-why? The answer is worth noticing.
The line which represents the downward movement of the rock contains
no monosyllabic, and only two disyllabic, words. This, in the first place,
accelerates rather than extends the intervals. Further, of the seventeen
syllables in the line, ten are short and only seven long and those not
perfect ones: the expression is therefore inevitably qontracted and com-
pressed under the influence of the shortness of the syllables. Again, no
word has any appreciable separation from the next: no vowel is in juxta-
position with another vowel, no semivowel or consonant with semivowel
-and these are the features which roughen or break up word-structure.
There is no perceptible interval, you see, if the words are not separated.
Instead, they slide into one another to form a single movement; in a
manner of speaking they all become a single word through the exact
fitting of the joins. Most wonderful of all, no long rhythm-spondee or
bacchiusI-such as naturally falls into a heroic metre, is to be found in
the line except at the end. The others are all dactyls-and even they have
their irrational syllables so much accelerated that some hardly differ from
trochees. There is nothing to hinder a composition made up of such ele-
ments from running smoothly and easily and flowingly.
Many similar examples could be cited from Homer. I content myself
with these, to leave myself room for my remaining topics. The above
remarks do, I believe, comprise the most important and essential points
to be kept in mind by those who wish to produce pleasing or beautiful
word-arrangement, either in poetry or in prose. What I could not set
down-minor and more recondite matters, too numerous to be easily
embraced in one work-I will communicate in the course of our daily
exercises, when I will also adduce the evidence of many good poets,
historians, and orators. For the moment, I confine myself to essentials of
my promised plan which have so far been omitted. I shall consider what
different types of word-arrangement there are, and what is the general
character of each. I shall state what writers are supreme in each kind, and
offer specimens. This done, I shall elucidate a problem commonly dis-
cussed-namely, what it is that makes prose seem like poetry though it
remains prose in form, and what makes poetical expression resemble
prose while it preserves the dignity of poetry: most good writers of prose
or poetry have these qualities. I must try, therefore, to say what I think
about this problem too.
But I begin with the first point.
1 __, v--.
8143591 z
GREEK AUGUSTANS
AUSTERE ARRANGEMENT
SMOOTH ARRANGEMENT
The smooth type of arrangement, which I placed second, has the follow- 23
ing characteristics. It does not seek 'all-round visibility' for every indi-
vidual word, or a broad secure base for them all, or long intervals between
them. Any effect of slowness or stability is alien. The aim is words in
motion, words bearing down on one another, carried along on the stability
afforded by their support of one another, like a perpetually flowing stream.
This style likes the individual parts to merge into one another, to be woven
together so as to appear as far as possible like one continuous utterance.
This is achieved by exactly fitting joints which leave the intervals between
the words imperceptible. It is like cloth finely woven together or pictures
in which the light merges into the shade. All the words are expected to be
euphonious, smooth, soft, virginal; it hates rough, recalcitrant syllables,
and has a cautious attitude towards anything at all bold or risky.
Not satisfied with suitable joins and smooth connections between
words, this manner aims also at a close interweaving of cola, the whole
building up to a period. It limits the length of the colon-not too short,
not unduly long-and of the period, which should be such that an adult
man's breath can control it. It cannot tolerate non-periodic writing, a
period not divided into cola, or a colon out of proportion. It employs
rhythms that are not very long but medium or quite short. The ends of
340 GREEK AUGUST ANS
its periods must be rhythmical and precisely based. Connections between
periods here are formed on the opposite principle from those between
words: this type of writing merges words but distinguishes periods and
tries to make them visible all round, as it were. Its favourite figures are
not the more archaic or such as produce an impression of solemnity or
weight or tension, but the luxurious and blandishing kind, full of decep-
tive and theatrical qualities. To put it more generally, this manner has
in all important respects the opposite characteristics lo the former; no
more need be said.
It remains to enumerate its distinguished practitioners. Of epic writers,
the finest exponent of this manner is, I think, Hesiod; of lyric poets
Sappho, and then Anacreon and Simonides; among the tragic poets there
is only Euripides; strictly speaking there is no historian, though Ephorus
and Theopompus are nearer than most. Among orators, we have Isocrates.
(pp. II I, 18-II4, 9)
24 THe third kind of structure, midway between the two just mentioned,
I call the mixed kind, for want of a proper and better name. It has no
special form, but is a reasonable combination of the other two, a sort of
selection of the best features of each. To my way of thinking, it deserves
the first prize, because it is a mean-and excellence is a mean in life and
actions too, according to Aristotle and his school-though it is to be seen,
as I said above, in broad outline, not in detail, and has many specific
differences. Its users do not all make the same thing out of it, but some
stress some features and some others, intensifying or underplaying the
same elements in different ways; its successful practitioners, despite
differences of approach, have all profited. Towering above them all,
the source of all the rivers, seas, and springs,!
is, we must say, Homer. Every passage in him that one touches is exquisitely
elaborated in both the austere and smooth manners. The others who have
practised the same 'mean' are very much his inferiors, though well worth
study in their own right. Stesichorus and Alcaeus are the lyric poets,
Sophocles the tragedian, Herodotus the historian, Demosthenes the
orator. Among the philosophers, in my estimation, are to be seen Demo-
I Iliad 21. 196 f.
ON THE ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS
critus, Plato, and Aristode i it is impossible to find any who have com-
bined styles more successfully than these. (pp. 120, 11-121, 21)
At this point I suspect an attack from persons who have had no general 2S
education but practise the day-t<Klay part of rhetoric without method
or system. They must be answered. We must not be thought to let the
case go by default.
Now this is what they will say. 'Was Demosthenes such a poor drudge
that whenever he wrote a speech he had to have measures and rhythms
to apply, like a modeller, and tried to fit his cola to these patterns, turning
his words up and down, and watching his quantities and pauses, his
cases and conjugations, fussing about all the tiny modifications of which
the parts of speech are capable? A man of that ability would be a fool to
devote himself to trivial pedantry of that sort.' This kind of scoff and
jeer is not hard to repulse. First, it would not be odd if a man whose
reputation for eloquence transcended all his predecessors, and who was
composing eternal works and submitting himself to the authority of all-
testing time, should want to avoid adopting any word or fact rashly, and
should pay great attention both to the arrangement of his thoughts and to
beauty of expression-especially as his contemporaries were publishing
works more like fine carving and engraving than writing. I mean the
sophists 1socrates and Plato. 1socrates, to take the minimum estimate,
spent ten years writing the Panegyricus, and Plato, in the course of his
eighty years, never gave up combing and curling his dialogues, refashion-
ing them in all kinds of ways. Every scholar knows the anecdotes of his
industry, especially the story of the tablet found after his death containing
the opening sentence of the Republic, with the words arranged in various
ways: 'I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of
Ariston.' What was odd then in Demosthenes' also taking thought for
euphony, harmony, and the avoidance of random and unconsidered
placings of word or thought? It seems to me much more appropriate
for an orator composing public speeches as a permanent memorial of his
ability to take care of the smallest detail, than for painters and engravers,
displaying the skill and industry of their hands on perishable material,
to expend their craftsmanship on veins and down and bloom and similar
minutiae. These seem to me reasonable arguments; one might add that
it was only to be expected that, as a young beginner, Demosthenes
should have been careful in everything, so far as human endeavour could
go, but that when long exercise had given mastery and shaped forms and
342 GREEK AUGUSTANS
models in his mind of everything he practised, he became able to produce
his results with ease and as a matter of habit. The same sort of thing
happens in other arts whose end is activity or creation of some kind.
For example, skilled players of the lyre or harp or autos, when they hear
an unfamiliar tune, finger it out on their instruments with the speed of
thought, with no trouble at all; but while they are still learning, it takes
much time and trouble for them to grasp the force of the various notes.
At that stage, their hands were not in the habit of performing what they
were bidden. It was later, when long practice had established a habit as
strong as nature, that they succeeded in their efforts. There is no need
for other examples. One fact, that we all know, is enough to explode all
the nonsense. When we learn our letters, we first learn their names, then
their shapes and· functions, then syllables and what happens to them,
only then words and their accidents-Iengthenings and shortenings,
accents, and so on. Then, when we have acquired knowledge of these
things, we begin to write and read, at first slowly and syllable by syllable;
it takes a long time to form firm models in our minds, but when that has
happened we do it easily, and run through any book presented to us
accurately and speedily. We must suppose that word-arrangement and
facility with cola develop in the same way in expert performers. It is
no wonder if the inexpert and ignorant are surprised and incredulous
if anyone achieves perfect control through his skill.
26 So much for the scoffers at technical advice. I come next to some remarks
on lyrical and metrical arrangement having a close resemblance to prose.
The first cause of this type (as of the unmetrical equivalent) is the way in
which the words are made to fit, the second is the combination of the
co/a, the third the balance of the periods. Success in this department
requires multifarious variety in the handling and joining of words and the
construction of cola with divisions at the right intervals, not complete
at the ends oflines but dividing the metre; the cola in fact must be unequal
and heterogeneous, often contracted into shorter commata, while the
periods, at least juxtaposed ones, must not be equal in length or similar in
form; irregularity in rhythm and metre gives the closest approximation
to prose. Composers of epic, iambic, and other homogeneous metres
cannot divide their verses up by variety of metrical or rhythmical form,
but have to keep always to the same pattern; lyric poets on the other hand
are allowed to combine many metres or rhythms in one period. Single-
metre composers, therefore, when they break up their lines by dividing
them by cola in a variety of ways, disintegrate and destroy the exactness
of the metre, and when they compose periods of varying length and form
cause us to forget it altogether. The lyric poets on the other hand, with
their polymetric strophes, effect heterogeneous and unequal divisions
ON THE ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS 343
of unequal and heterogeneous cola; these two features prevent us from
getting a grip of any consistent rhythm, and this produces poetry with
a great similarity to prose. Even if metaphorical, foreign, rare, and other-
wise poetic words remain in the poem, there is still this resemblance.
I should not wish anyone to think me unaware that what is called
'prosiness' is generally supposed to be a fault, or convict me of ignorance
because I regard a fault as a virtue in poetry or prose. I ask my critic to
hear how I think good work can be distinguished from bad in this field
also. As I understand it, one kind of prose writing is private-garrulous
and trivial-and the other public, containing a large element of elabora-
tion and art. When I find a poem resembling the garrulous and trivial
type of prose, I put it down as ridiculous; if it resembles the elaborate and
artistic, I think it deserves our attention and imitation. Now if these two
types of prose had different names, the two types of poets which resemble
them would have different names also. But in fact, the good and the
worthless are both called prose, and it is therefore quite right to call
poetry good if it resembles good prose and bad if it resembles bad, and
not be disturbed by the identity of name. A similarity of name applied to
two different things will not prevent us from seeing the nature of both.
(pp. 13 1, 14- 138,9)
8
DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
THEME
A proem has its own particular form, rules, and manner. The form of
narrative and that of commonplaces is quite alien to the proem. There
is one part of a declamation, however, that it is often like-the epilogue.
AN EXPOSED CHILD AND A DIVORCED WOMAN 345
The resemblance is that both tend to be outside the issue. The proem
precedes the issue, while the epilogue is spoken when the issue has been
dealt with. Moreover, both have the same object-to win over the judge.
They differ, however, in that proems must ensure the attentiveness of the
judge, while this part of the burden is not required of the epilogue, the
speech being over. The epilogue may sometimes indulge in repetition,
to refresh the memory of the judge. Thus at the staft we ensure that the
judge listens to everything, at the end that he remembers what he heard.
Further, the epilogue attracts feelings towards the speaker. This is true
of the proem also, but the end requires more rousing of pity and more
freedom. The proem, though it has something to ask of the judge, should
not tire him (nor indeed should the epilogue either)-for it is a very true
saying that tears dry quickly.
Proems are to be drawn from persons, either our own or those of our
opponents, or sometimes those of the judges themselves. From ours, to
win favour, from our adversaries' to arouse the judges' hatred of those we
are attacking. The persons of the judges rarely come up in school declama-
tions, though often in the forum. Sometimes we may also speak about
facts, for the reason that the controversia of the schools embraces every-
thing that may happen in the forum, and in the forum the proem is
sometimes drawn from facts, if one speech has already been made on
each side and the judge already knows the case. Well then, we shall be
right to do it: as also l both to narrate and, in the same declamation, to
put forward replies even when we are on the side of the accuser-some-
thing that will never happen, to my mind, in the forum; there the first
speaker, who puts forward the case, will not himself be able to reply to
objections unless written evidence has been given by the other side and re-
ceived by the court. To sum up, you must never make capital out of what
the other side may be going to say-only out of what they have said.
Today we are not dealing with the dispute of this woman with her
husband. You can't have a suit between someone who yields and someone
who claims. The youth is claimed by the poor man; the father is ready to
yield to him-but the mother is not.
THE DECLAMATION
Even if the dispute of the woman for whom I appear,z judges, were with
this poor man, my party would be thought the weaker and the worthier
! The point is that in a first speech, for the accuser, narration is in place, but not
replies to something said by the other side, for nothing will yet have been said, unless
there is evidence in writing. Cf. Quint. 4. 2. 28-9, 5. 13. 50.
• The speaker is counsel for the first wife.
DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
of assistance. For woman is in herself a feeble thing, and in this lady the
natural weakness is greatly increased by the fact that she is no longer
married. There is the further particular point in her case that what was
formerly a safeguard has become a source of anxiety. Even if she had
ceased to have a husband and had been driven from the house into which
she came as a young bride, she would not seem quite helpless if she had
her youthful son. But this very fact is in dispute, and at this moment can
bring the mother nothing but worry.
Nevertheless, my contention is that she is not in dispute with the man
you see across the court from me; the case is weighted against her by a
profounder influence. This mother would be distinctly more fortunate if
her husband hau been content to yield his claim to the son; as it is, he has
added weight to his evidence, and forced the wretched nurse, twice
subjected to torture because she spoke the truth, to die-to our dis-
advantage. If her authority moves you, judges, I am content to make one
point in the first part of my speech: her words are evidence on both sides.
NARRATION
But if in fact he wanted his son claimed rather than yielded, he would be
adequately supported by the mere setting forth of the facts. For once
upon a time he was anxious to have children. So he married, rejoiced at
the prospect of imminent offspring, reared the baby, and brought it
through to adolescence (quite far enough) with no doubts. The husband
has suffered a great injury: I should be happier to attack the stepmother,
judges. I know what it meant when she burst into the house of a man
already old, a matrimonial home with a grown son in it: she knew that
the house could be emptied. Do not inquire what her plans were, how
she did it-alone. I She began to hate the boy at once-not merely with a
hidden and secret passion, but openly quarrelling. This very fact,
judges, can be taken as a vital proof: 2 she hated this youth as only a
stepmother can.
He did not lack the outspokenness that confidence inspires; but no fault
could be found in his way of life to justify his being disinherited. Accord-
ingly she found a novel method of getting rid of him. First of all, this
worthless individual,3 ready to be bought to forward any dispute, bore
witness against himself, saying he had exposed the child: doubtless so
that this man should not need to be ashamed of being a bad father. I call
I Text and sense uncertain.
• i.e. that the boy was her husband's son by the previous wife.
3 The poor man.
AN EXPOSED CHILD AND A DIVORCED WOMAN 347
the gods, I call your sense of what is right, judges, to witness: this man,
wanting to get rid of his son, did not think it enough to believe this man;
he mutilated with all kinds of cruelty the unfortunate nurse-he hated
her too. You ask why he did this: you will realize-when he tortures her
the second time.
The first tortures had merely tired her, and her loyalty had remained
constant, her words the same. She had made her blood his reproach. The
torturer was recalled, the torments renewed. It was obvious to the wretched
woman that she would be tortured for as long as she went on saying the
same thing. I am not angry with her. So long as she had strength and
breath, she resisted. She was not forced into lying until she was on the
point of death. Her conqueror thought that this was the sole object of the
tortures; he had no further doubts. I do not claim him (to speak mildly)
for equal torments. But I do ask that this should be regarded as applying
only to his own cause.'
PROOF
I claim the son for his mother against one who only lately began to claim
him. First of all, judges, you will realize that no burden of proof rests on
me. There has never been any doubt that the youth in question lived for
many years with this man-years that carried him right up to an age of
maturity. Shall I now add weaker points-that she married and was
capable of conception? In fact, if she had not conceived, her husband would
not have believed her.2 The whole burden lies on the other side. My
opponent must prove a lot-that he had a wife, that she conceived, bore-
and bore a son, bore him at a time which fits in with the age of the boy in
dispute: that he exposed him, that the exposed child lived, that he was
taken up by the man from whom he claims the boy-or on the other hand
was produced as her own by this woman, she being (as he asserts)
sterile or having recently miscarried. You will not be able to say she was
sterile-her husband did not think so. And it's not enough to say she
lost her child: it has to be proved. We should make these demands, judges,
if the case concerned a slave, or a sum of money; but you are trying to
snatch a son from a mother, to tear out part of her womb. Against the
groans of a mother, you are content to adduce the negligence of the other
parent.
'What motive have I ? Why am I claiming the child ifhe is not my own?'
Without yet explaining why you are in this dispute,3 I can say that your
I Meaning uncertain. 2 i.e. on the legitimacy of the son.
3 The explanation is the bargain struck between the father and the poor man. illuded
to above.
DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
contention makes no sense. If you have no motive for claiming another's
son, he hasn't any for keeping another's son. Indeed, it is easier for a poor
man to make this pretence. What difference does it make to your fortune
whether you have an heir? But I shall explain the reason for your in-
vention later; meanwhile, I want to discuss the material on which your
case rests.
'I rely', he says, 'on the testimony of the man you say is the father.'
Let us suppose that that is true: the father is only one man, he is angry,
he is the husband of another woman. When I say 'one man', you should
bear in mind people like Cato and Scipio and many other names glorious
in our city} When I say 'he is angry', remember not factual instances in
this country so much as plays on the stage-remember how great an
effect this emotion has had, how many it has driven off course like some
tempest. When I say 'he is the husband of another woman', I say two
things at once. He has a motive for harming the woman he divorced, and
he has a motive for being of service to the woman he married. This is
what I should say if the evidence were his. What does your witness say?
That he knows something. I must next ask: how does he know? From the
nurse. The evidence then is that of the nurse-not of the witness who
believes her. Let us for the moment leave the husband-we shall bring
him back in his place; let us speak of the nurse.
If she had lied from the start, I should venture to say of her yet more
boldly what I venture to say of him: she is only one. As it is, there were
two different examinations. Let us see which is more likely to have elicited
the truth. Under torture she said the youth is your son. I want to give the
evidence weight: it was an old woman who was tortured. Is not one
examination enough for a woman, for an old one ? You rack those already
naturally failing limbs, you lacerate with your whips skin that already
hardly holds together-then you say: 'You lie.' Can she lie for long against
your wishes? Even when the strongest men are tortured, even when the
spirited are subjected to the bitterest pain, it still makes a lot of difference
what reply the torturer wants. She stuck it out, I don't say against fire,
against whips: against you. Truth is the object of the examination so
long as she hopes you are beaten if she tells the truth. But when you
repeat the treatment, call back the executioner, what are you saying
except: 'Torture her-till she lies?' You certainly won a great victory:
you overcame an old woman. As the breath failed, a whisper escaped:
'Pity me. He is not yours. Spare me. I have told the truth.' Here, I
imagine, the torturer was told to press on, and make sure that the result
of the examination was the woman's dying while still saying this, while
you were the victor, happily announcing to your adversary what you had
I The relevance of Cato and Scipio is unclear.
AN EXPOSED CHILD AND A DIVORCED WOMAN 349
done. I ask you: when the same woman says different things under
torture, isn't it obvious that the answer you wanted 'was the answer you
believed?
EPILOGUE
What mortal does not see through the whole farce? Who fails to see the
wiles of a stepmother, the bargain struck by an unfortunate old man?
I shall have to pity him, even if it goes against me. You ask: why does he
yield? For the same reason that he drove the mother of his grown-up
son from his house, that he broke a long happy marriage, when nothing
was said or suspected of his wife, that he brought a new bride to a bed still
warm with the imprint of the former wife, that he would not even give
his son the privilege of being defeated.' Surely we find quite different
behaviour in those 2 who become parents by means of a passing pleasure,
who are bound to their sons by ties that lie outside themselves. G.!Iite
different is the love of a mother, who brings before you the memory of
ten months, the recollection of all those dangers and anxieties. Count this
youth's years-it will seem brief enough a space; count all the days,
every individual moment that has passed: that is the length of a mother's
testimony. No pretence could last so long.
If the laws permitted, if you allowed, she would wish to be tortured,
demand to be placed on the fire and torn with blows. What are you up to,
woman? You are rash: you are a woman and an old one. You may perhaps
endure the first torments: but pain will overcome, and you will give way
to the final ones. A wonderful thing to say, judges: 'Let him torture me:
I am the mother.' G.!Iite different 3 is a nurse, a slave, tortured by her
master. Well? When you devote your last breath to uttering these words,
to whom are we to deliver the boy? Will you want him to return to this
father-and to that stepmother?
QUINTUS HATERIUS 1
I Let posterity know that the republic could have been Antony's slave,
Cicero could not. You will have to praise Antony:2 on that theme words
will fail Cicero himself. Believe me, however carefully you control your-
self, Antony will do something that Cicero could not pass over in silence.
You must understand, Cicero, that he is not saying: 'Ask to live', but
'Ask to be a slave'. But how will you be able to enter the senate as it now
is, cruelly drained, dishonourably replenished? Will you want to enter a
senate where you cannot see Pompey, Cato, the Luculli, Hortensius,
Lentulus, and Marcellus-or your own friends, Hirtius and Pansa,
consuls both? Cicero, what place for you in an age not your own?
Our day is over.
2 Cato, in himself the ultimate pattern for life and death, preferred to
die rather than to beg (and he would not have had to beg Antony):
in hands clean to the last of his people's blood he took a sword to strike his
holy breast. Scipio,3 his sword plunged into his breast, heard soldiers
who had embarked on his ship looking for the genera!. 'The general',
he said, 'is wel!.' Defeated, he uttered the words of a victor. 'Milo',
you once said,4 'forbids me to beg his judges.' Beg Antony if you wil!.
PORCIUS LATRO
3 So does Cicero at last speak without Antony being afraid? Does Antony
at last speak so as to frighten Cicero? Sulla's thirst for civil bloodshed
returns to the state. At the triumvirs' auction not Roman taxes but Roman
deaths are for sale. A single notice surpasses in disaster Pharsalus, Munda,
Mutina. The heads of consuls are weighed for gold. Your words, Cicero,
are in place: 'What times! What morals!'s You will see those eyes burn-
ing with cruelty and pride. You will see that face-not of a man but of
I What is known about Haterius and the other Augustan declaimers may be found
Let Cato, whose death you praised, come before your mind. Is anything 4
worth being indebted to Antony for your life?
CESTIUS PIUS
If you have regard to the loss the people will feel, Cicero, you will die
too soon whenever you perish; if to what you achieved, you have lived
long enough; if to the insults of fortune and the present state of the
republic, you have lived far too long; if to the immortality of your works,
you will live for ever.
POMPEIUS SILO
You can see that it is best not to live-if it is Antony who permits you to
live. Will you be silent when Antony proclaims proscriptions and tears
the state to shreds? Will even your groans not be free? I should rather
the Roman people missed Cicero dead than alive.
TRIARIUS
CORNELIUS HISPANUS
7 He who merely followed your lead has been proscribed. The whole list is
just a prelude to your death. One triumvir allows the proscription of a
brother, one of an uncle: what hope have you? All these parricides have
been committed for Cicero to die! Recall your defences, your patronage,
your consulship-greatest of your services: now you can understand that
Cicero can be forced to die-but not to beg.
ARGENT AR IUS
The luxurious banquets of the triumvir kings are laid out, the kitchen
equipped with the tribute of nations. Himself, weak with wine and sleep,
he raises drooping eyes to the heads of the proscribed. In this strait it is
not enough to say: 'Wicked man!'1
8 Latro divided the suasoria thus: even if you can win your life from Antony,
it is not worth so much to ask for it. Then: you cannot win it. In the first
I Philippic z. 77.
CICERO AND ANTONY 353
part, he put the argument that it is shameful for any Roman, let alone
Cicero, to beg for life. In this passage he placed instances of men who
had voluntarily accepted death. Then: for Cicero life will be worthless in
future, harsher than death now that liberty has gone. Here, he described
all the bitterness of the slavery to come. Then: the bargain will not be
kept. Here, after saying: 'There will be something to offend Antony: a
deed or a word, a silence or a look', he added an epigram: 'Or else you
will content him 1'1
Albucius' division was different. His first point was: Cicero must die, 9
even if no one proscribed him. Here came an invective against the period.
Then: he must die willingly, since he had to die even ifhe were unwilling.
The hatred he aroused had serious causes; the greatest reason for the
proscription was Cicero himself. Albucius was the only declaimer'who
ventured to say that Antony was not Cicero's sole enemy. Here he spoke
the epigram: 'If there is any of the triumvirs who does not hate you,
he finds you a nuisance'-and another very popular one: 'Ask, Cicero:
beg one that you may be the slave of three.'
Cestius' division was as follows: it is expedient for you to die; it is 10
right; it is necessary, so that you may complete your life free and with
undiminished authority. He produced the daring epigram: 'Thus you
may be numbered with Cato, who could not be a slave even though
Antony was not yet master.' MarceIlus' epigram on Cato was better:
'Is everything as topsy-turvy as the Roman people's fortunes that some-
one should be deliberating whether it is better to live with Antony or die
with Cato?' But-to return to Cestius' division. He said it was expedient
for Cicero to die to avoid bodily torture. Cicero would have no straight-
forward death if he fell into Antony's hands. In this part he described
the insults, blows, and tortures to be inflicted on Cicero, and introduced a
much praised epigram: 'Cicero, when you come before Antony you will
beg-for death.'
Varius Geminus' division was like this: 'I should advise you, if you 11
had to do one or the other now-die or beg-to die rather than beg.'
He included all the points covered by the others: adding, however, a
third main heading-he exhorted Cicero to exile. There was Brutus, there
was Cassius, there was Sextus Pompeius. And he added an epigram
highly admired by Cassius Severus: 'Why do we give way? The republic
too has its triumvirs.' Next, he reviewed the regions he could make for.
Sicily had been avenged by Cicero, Cilicia excellently administered in
his proconsulship, Achaea and Asia were well known from his student
days, the kingdom of Deiotarus was bound to him by services rendered,
Egypt remembered a benefit and felt repentant for a perfidy. But he
1 Text uncertain.
8143591 Aa
354 DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
advised him most pressingly to go to Asia and Macedonia and the camp of
Brutus and Cassius. So it was that Cassius Severus used to say that while
others declaimed, Varius Geminus gave living advice.
12
~ot many declaimers pleaded on the other side. Nobody, almost,
ventured to advise Cicero to beg Antony's pardon: they thought too well
ofCicero's spirit. Varius Geminus, however, took the opposite side also,
saying: 'I hope I can persuade my friend Cicero to wish to live. His
high-sounding words-"death not premature to an ex-consul or grievous
to a wise man"I-do not sway me. He is a private citizen now; I know
his ways well-he will do it, he will beg. As for slavery, he will not refuse
it. His neck is already worn by the yoke-Pompey and Caesar broke him
in. You see before you an experienced slave.' And he said many other
facetious things, as usual.
13 His division was: he will be able to beg pardon with honour and with
success. In the former part, he placed the argument that it is not shameful
for the defeated to ask mercy from a victorious fellow citizen. Here he
recalled how many had implored Caesar, and he mentioned Ligarius.
Then: it was quite fair for Cicero to make satisfaction, having been the
first to proscribe Antony and proclaim him enemy: satisfaction always
starts from the defendant; let him be bold-and ask. Then: he will be
begging not on behalf of his life but on behalf of the republic; Cicero had
lived long enough for himself, not long enough for the state. In the second
part, he said that enemies are constantly won over; Cicero himself had
been reconciled and had defended Vatinius and Gabinius at their trials. 2
Antony could more easily be won over because he was one of three: he
would be concerned to prevent either of the others from snatching this
splendid chance for clemency from him. Perhaps Antony was angry
14 because he had not thought it worth his while to beg him. Varius described
the danger of flight, and added that wherever he went he would still be a
slave, would have to put up either with the violence of Cassius, the
hauteur of Brutus, or the stupidity of Pompeius.
A SKETCH OF AN ORATOR
Now in no one could the contrast have been more striking. His oratory 2
was strong, polished, full of striking ideas; no one was less tolerant of the
superfluous in his pleading; there was no part that did not stand on its
own feet, no place where the listener could afford to let his attention
wander. Everything was relevant and pointful. No one better controlled
the emotions of his audience. My friend Gallio truly said of him: 'When
he spoke, he was a king on his throne, so religiously did everyone do what
they were told. When he required it, they were angry. Everyone was
afraid, while he was speaking, in case he should stop.' It is impossible 3
to judge him from his publications, though even there one may sense his
eloquence; he was far better heard than read. It happens to almost every-
one that they gain from being heard rather than read, but to a smaller
degree: in him there was a vastly greater gulf.
First of all, the man ",:as as impressive as the talent. His body was
noticeably big, his voice both sweet and strong (an infrequent combination,
this), while his delivery would have made any actor's reputation, without
being at all reminiscent of an actor's. For-and this is perhaps the most 4
remarkable thing about him-the dignity which he lacked in his life he
possessed in his speech. 50 long as he steered clear of jokes, his oratory
was worthy of a censor. Again, what he actually said was better than what
he wrote. A man of resource, talented rather than studious, he gave more
pleasure by his improvisations than by his prepared version. He spoke
better when in a temper, and hence men took great care not to interrupt
him-he was the only one to benefit by any onslaught on him; chance 5
always served him better than preparation. All the same, this gift never
enticed him into negligence. In one day he would not give more than two
private speeches, one before, one after midday. In public cases, his limit
was one a day. I don't know that he ever defended anyone except him-
self: the only dangers that gave him any scope were his own. He never 6
spoke without notes, and he was not content merely with the sort that
contains the bare bones of the speech, but to a large extent the whole
would be written out. In this text, he used to note even possibilities for
wit. However, though he was not ready to set off without ~quipment, he
was glad to lay it aside. When he had to speak extemp6re, he excelled
himself, and it always paid him to find himself in a tight corner rather than
DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
to be prepared; all the more remarkable that he did not abandon his
care, even though his daring was so successful.
7 So he had everything that could equip him to be a good declaimer:
choice diction, neither common nor low; a ~tyle of oratory that was not
relaxed or languid but burning and spirited I developments neither slow
nor empty, but richer in content than words l; and finally the painstaking
approach which is so great a stand-by even for a mediocre talent. But
when he declaimed he fell below his own level-and that of many others:
so he rarely did declaim-and only when his friends insisted.
CASSIUS EXPLAINS
MOCKERY OF CESTIUS
'I recall that I once went into his school when he was going to recite a 16
speech against Milo. Cestius, with his usual admiration for his own
works, said: "If I were a Thracian, I should be Fusius. If I were a mime,
I should be Bathyllus. If I were a horse, I should be Melissio." I couldn't
contain my rage. I shouted: "If you were a drain, you'd be the Great
Drain." Universal laughter. The scholastics looked at me to discover who
this lout was. Cestius, who had taken on himself to reply to Cicero,
could find nothing to reply to me, and he said he wouldn't go on if I
didn't leave. I said I wouldn't leave the bath until I'd had my wash.
DECLAMA TION AND THE SENECAS
17 'After that, I resolved to revenge Cicero on Cestius, in the courts.
Soon, I met him and summoned him before the praetor, and when I'd
had enough of deriding and abusing him, I requested the praetor to admit
a charge under the law on unspecified offences. Cestius was so worried
that he asked for an adjournment. Next, I haled him off to a second praetor
and accused him of ingratitude. I Finally, before the Urban Praetor, I
requested a keeper for him. His friends, who had thronged to the spec-
tacle, put in a word for him, and in response to them I said I should give
no further trouble if he swore he was less eloquent than Cicero. But
neither joke nor serious argument would induce him to that.
18 'I've told you this tale to show that declamations breed a virtually
separate race of men. To be comparable with them, I need not more
genius but less sense. So I can scarcely be persuaded to declaim: and
when I am, it is only before my best friends.'
And so he did. His declamations were unequal, but what stood out in
them were things that would have made any declamation look unequal.
His rhythm was harsh, and avoided periodic structure. His epigrams were
lively. But it would be unfair to judge him from the extracts that follow.
They don't show him at his best; but they are what I best remember.
the second:
the freezing North wind and the un freezing South. 3
From which it is clear that this talented man lacked the will rather than
the taste to restrain the licence of his poetry. He used sometimes to say
that a face was all the more beautiful for a mole.
My boys, you are doing something necessary and useful in not being 6
satisfied with the models provided by your own day and wanting
to get to know those of the last generation. 4 For one thing, the more
I Amores 1. 2. II-I2. • Art of Love 2. 24.
3 Amores 2. Il. 10.
• Cf. on imitation Quint. 10. 2 (below, p. 400) and 'Longinus' (below, p. 475).
DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
patterns you examine, the greater advantage to your eloquence. You
should not imitate one man, however distinguished, for an imitator
never comes up to the level of his model. This is the way things are;
the copy always falls short of the original. Moreover, you can by these
means judge how sharply standards are falling every day, how far some
grudge on nature's part has sent eloquence downhill. Everything that
Roman oratory has to match the arrogant Greeks (or even prefer to them)
7 reached its peak in Cicero's day: all the geniuses who have brought
brilliance to our subject were born then. Since then things have got worse
daily. Perhaps this is due to the luxury of the age (nothing is so fatal to
talent as luxury); perhaps, as this great art became less prized, com-
petitiveness transferred itself wholly to sordid affairs that bring great
prestige and profit; perhaps it is just Fate, whose grim law is universal-
things that get to the top sink back to the bottom faster than they
8 rose. Look how lazy and sleepy-minded our young men are; no one can
stay awake at night to work at one honest pursuit. Sleep, languor, and
an activity for evil that is more shameful than either have seized hold
of their minds. Libidinous delight in song and dance transfixes these
effeminates. Waving the hair, raising the tone of the voice till it is as
caressing as a woman's, competing in bodily softness with women,
beautifying themselves with indecent cosmetics-this is the pattern our
youth set themselves!
9 Which of your contemporaries-quite apart from his talent and his
studiousness-is enough of a man? Born feeble and spineless, they stay
like that throughout their lives; enemies of others' chastity, careless of
their own. God prevent them being blessed with eloquence-something
for which I should have scant respect if it exercised no choice in those on
whom it bestowed itself. That well-known saying of Cato was really an
oracle-and you are wrong, my dear young men, if you fail to realize it.
For surely an oracle is the divine will given human expression: and what
high priest could the gods have found more holy than Marcus Cato, not
so much to teach mankind as to abuse it? What, then, was it that he said?
10 'An orator, son Marcus, is a good man skilled in speaking.'1 Go and look
for orators among the smooth and hairless of today, men only in their
lusts. As one would expect, they have models as depraved as their intel-
lects. Who cares for his future renown? Who is made popular-I won't
say by great qualities-but even by qualities that are his own? Undetected
by a casual public, they can easily pass off as their own epigrams let drop
by really eloquent speakers, constantly violating the holiness of an elo-
quence they cannot attain.
shout: "These wounds I received for the freedom of all: this eye I for-
feited for you. Give me a guide to lead me to my children; my knees are
hamstrung and will not support my body." Even this would be bearable
if it paved the way for aspirers to eloquence. As it is, their only profit
from their inflated material, their empty clamour of epigram, is that
when they get into court they think they've been deposited in another
world. My view is that youths get exceedingly stupid in school, and this
is because they neither hear nor see anything there that one is normally
acquainted with, but only pirates in chains on the beach, tyrants writing
edicts instructing sons to cut off their fathers' heads, oracles ordering that
three or more virgins should be sacrificed to remedy a plague, honeyed
balls of words, everything that's done or said coated with poppy-seed
and sesame.
'Boys brought up amidst all this have as much chance of being sensible 2
as the inhabitant of a kitchen has of smelling nice. Don't be offended if
I say that it is you people, first and foremost, who have destroyed elo-
quence. By stirring up outrageous effects amid trivial and empty sounds,
you have made the body of oratory effeminate and drooping. Youths
weren't confined to declamation when Sophocles and Euripides found
words they could not but use. The scholar in his shady retreat had not
yet stamped out genius when Pindar and the nine lyricists hesitated to
write in Homeric verse. And, to leave poets out of account, I am sure
neither Plato nor Demosthenes got involved with this style of exercise.
Grand and, so to say, respectable speech is not tainted or turgid: it
abounds in a beauty that is natural. It is only recently that grotesque and
windy loquacity has migrated from Asia to Athens, and infected students
of high aspirations like some pestilential planet. 2 The pattern once
become decadent, eloquence came to a halt, fell silent. Who after them
reached the heights of Thucydides, the reputation of Hyperides? There
was not so much as a poem of healthy complexion to shed its brilliance
I Cf. Tacitus, Dialogus 35 (below, p. 454).
2 Cf. Dionysius (above, p. 306), Cicero, Brutus SI (above, p. 224). Note the tenden-
tious 'recendy'-the change, if a real one, happened in Hellenistic times.
DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
abroad; everything was fed on the same food, and could not reach the
white hairs of old age. Painting suffered the same fate, too, once the
daring Egyptians found a short-cut for that great art.
3 'Agamemnon wouldn't let me declaim in the colonnade any longer
than he'd sweated it out in the school. "Young man," he said, "your con-
versation is of no vulgar stamp. What is rarest of all, you approve of good
sense. So I shall not deprive you of the secrets of my trade. No wonder
teachers go astray in these exercises; they think they must rave in the
company of the mad. Unless they say the sort of things the youth will
like, they will be left, as Cicero I put it, alone in the schools. Flatterers in
search of a rich man's hospitality rehearse nothing more readily than
what they suppose will be most acceptable to their hearer-they won't
get what they're after without laying some ambush for the ear. So with
the teacher of eloquence. Unless, like a fisherman, he arms his hook with
the sort of bait he knows the fish will like, he's left stuck on his rock,
with no chance of a catch.
4 "What are we to conclude? The parents are to blame: they don't want
their sons to prosper under stern discipline. Like everything else, their
young hopefuls are sacrificed to ambition. Again, in a hurry to reach
their aims, they thrust still raw lads into the courts, and clothe new-born
kids in eloquence-though proclaiming that nothing is more important.
If they only allowed for gradations of study, so that the studious young
could be immersed in serious reading, form their minds in the precepts
of philosophy, strike out wantonnesses with a savage pen, listen long to
favoured objects of their imitation, if they got used to the idea that
nothing is splendid that boys enjoy-then the old great oratory would
have its proper weight and dignity. As it is, the children play at school:
when they are youths they get laughed at in the forum. Worse than
either, the mistakes a man imbibed at school he is disinclined to admit to
in his old age."
This is the first of three extracts from the younger Seneca, the second son of the
'rhetor' on whom we have been drawing. These letters were written A.D. 62-4,
and deal with a variety of problems, mostly in ethics. Edition: L. D. Reynolds,
Oxford, 1965. Commentary on selected letters (including 40 and 114) by W. C.
Summers, London, 1910.
This letter (1I4) was regarded by Eduard Norden as the most important
document for the history of first-century prose. It is illuminating to compare
Seneca's strictures on Maecenas with the views of contemporaries and successors
I Pro Caelio 41.
STYLES AND MORALS
on Seneca himself: the Emperor Caligula called Seneca's works mere prize-day
speeches, 'sand without lime'; Qyintilian (10. 1. 125, below, p. 399) solemnly
warns the young against the"'pleasing vices' of Seneca's style.
Why, you ask, have certain periods seen the appearance of a corrupt I
style of speech? How is it that writers have veered into different sorts of
fault-so that sometimes bombast has prevailed, sometimes emasculated
song-like oratory? Why have bold extravagant ideas found favour at one
time, at another abrupt dark sayings in which there was more to be under-
stood than heard? Why was there a time when immoderate use was made
of the privilege of metaphor? The answer lies in a common saying-one
that is proverbial in Greek: 'As are men's lives, so is their speech.'
Now just as each man's actions are like his style of speaking, so style 2
in oratory sometimes apes the mores of society-if the community's
standards have slipped and it has given itself over to dissoluteness.
Abandoned speech is a sign of public luxury, so long, that is, as such speech
is not confined to a few but is generally approved and accepted.
One's intellect and one's personality cannot have different com- 3
plexions. If the personality is healthy, if it is sedate, serious, and restrained,
the intellect too is dry and sober. When the personality is corrupted, the
intellect too is infected. If the personality is depressed, you can see
the limbs dragging, the feet trailing. If the personality is effeminate, the
softness is expressed in the very gait. If it is fierce and fiery, the step
quickens. If it is mad-or, what is hardly different, angry-the body's
movement is troubled: it is carried along willy-nilly. But surely this is
even more the case with one's intellect, which is inextricably mixed with
the mind-is formed by it, obeys it, looks to it for orders.
How Maecenas lived is too well known for me to have to relate here how 4
he walked, how fastidious he was, how he longed to be seen, how he had
no wish to hide his faults. So? Is not his style as lax as the man himself
was abandoned? Aren't his words as conspicuous as his dress, his com-
pany, his house, his wife? He would have been a great genius if he had
taken a straighter road, and not tried to avoid being understood, extend-
ing his dissoluteness to his style. The result is a drunkard's eloquence,
complex, wandering, abandoned. What could be worse than these phrases? 5
'Water and woods on the bank leafy.'
'Furrow the bed with the boat, and by stirring the shallows move back
the gardens.'
DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
'Wrinkles his face with a wink to a lady, bills with his lips and sighing
begins, as the monarchs of the glade rut with neck adroop.'
'A conspiracy beyond redemption, they ferret out with feasting, batter
households with the bottle, demand death for hope.'
'Genius scarcely to be invoked on its own festal day.'
'Threads of slim candle and spluttering grain.'
'The fireside mother or wife drape.'I
6 When you read this,you are immediately struck that this is the man
who always walked the streets with his tunic loose (for even when he was
deputizing for the absent Augustus, it was an unbelted Maecenas that
gave the watchword for the day); who at the tribunal, at the rostrum, in
every public gathering could be seen with his head wrapped in his
cloak-only his ears sticking out-like nothing so much as a rich man's
runaway slave in a mime. This was the man who, when the civil wars
were raging at their worst, when the city was in arms and anxious, had
as his bodyguard two eunuchs-and they more men than he; the man
who married one wife-a thousand times.
7 These words so licentiously arranged, so negligently flung down, so
abnormally employed, show us that his character was no less strange,
depraved, and individual. The best thing we can say of him is that he was
kind; he spared the sword, abstained from blood-letting-only in his
licence did he show his possibilities. But this compliment is spoiled by
those portentous self-indulgences in his speech; it is clear that he was
8 soft, not gentle. From that labyrinthine arrangement, those words that
lie in wait to trip you, those extraordinary sentiments, often grand, but
emasculated even in the utterance, anyone can see the truth: too much
luck had turned his head.
9 This sometimes happens to a man, sometimes to an age. When pros-
perity has spread luxury far and wide, in the first place dress starts to
become more elaborate; then trouble is taken over furniture; then care is
lavished on the very houses, so that they extend freely into the country,
walls shining with imported marble, roofs brightened with gold, ceilings
and floors reflecting each other's brilliance. Then lavishness moves on to
food: compliments are sought for novelty of dish or change of the normal
order, the dessert placed first, hors-d'reuvres offered to the parting guest.
10 Once the mind has grown accustomed to despising the normal and feeling
that the usual is stale, it looks for novelty in speech too. Sometimes it
recalls old worn-out words and trots them out again; sometimes it mints
new ones or varies familiar ones; sometimes-as has been popular
recently-bold and frequent metaphor is regarded as smart.
I These examples are all very obscure, and the translation we offer is tentative.
STYLES AND MORALS
There are some who cut short their sentences, and hope the effect will II
please if the thought remains in the air, challenging the hearer to distrust
its surface meaning; there are others who hold sentences up, and stretch
them out; there are yet others who don't just run into/faults-that is
inevitable if your aims are high-but who love faults for their own sake. I
Th~s, wherever you see that a corrupt style of speech finds favour,
you may be sure that morals too have gone astray. Luxury in feasting and
clothes are signs of an ailing society; so, too, licentious speech, where
widely spread, shows the degeneracy of the minds from which it proceeds.
You need not wonder at the acceptance of the corrupt by the intelligentsia 12
as well as the mob; their only difference is in their togas, not in their
discernment. You may wonder more that faults find approval as well as
faulty works. One thing has always been true: no talent has merited
favour without allowance having to be made. Mention any man of high
reputation: I will tell you what his age had to forgive him, what it de-
liberately ignored in him. I can give examples of many who were not
harmed by their faults, some who were helped by them. I can mention
men of the highest fame, held up to us for our admiration, who would
be destroyed by being corrected. Vices and virtues are inextricably
linked: vices carry virtues along with them.
H. SPEED IN ORATORY
Seneca does not approve of too rapid delivery in philosophical lectures (Episl.
40. 11-14)·
But there are some things, I think, more suitable or less suitable for II
whole races as well. Among the Greeks this freedom 2 is tolerable; but
the Romans are accustomed to punctuate even in writing. Our great
Cicero, source of Roman eloquence, was an ambler. The Roman language
is more watchful of itself; it examines itself, and is open to examination.
Fabianus,3 a man excellent in character and learning and also-a 12
secondary thing-in eloquence, used to argue readily rather than pas-
sionately. You could talk of his fluency rather than his speed. Speed I am
prepared to tolerate in a wise man, but I don't demand it. So long as his
speech issues unimpeded, I would rather it were brought forth deliberately
than came pouring out.
Here is another reason to deter you from that disease. Speed is only 13
possible if you stop feeling shame; it involves growing a thick skin and
failing to listen to your own words; unguarded flow of language carries
with it much that you would wish to criticize. Speed, I say it again, cannot 14
I Virgi!, Georgics 4. 212-13. 2 i.e. to speak without pause, like Haterius.
3 See the next extract.
DECLAMATION AND THE SENECAS
come your way without harming your modesty. You need daily exercise
for it, and concentration has to shift from matter to words. Even if they
are available and can flow with no trouble on your part, words must be
kept under control. A modest gait suits the wise man; so does a style that
is concise and unadventurous. The sum total of my advice is: speak
slowly.
WORD-ARRANGEMENT
We conclude with a passage from Aulus Gellius (Nights in Attica 12. 2: ed.
P. K. Marshall, Oxford, 1968), which gives us both a judgement on Seneca
himself, written from the standpoint of the mid second century, and a report
on Seneca's own view of Cicero, Ennius, and Virgil.
pares the splendour and attraction of the old style to the beds of
Sotericus--ones of no beauty, obsolete and scorned. All the same you 13
may hear people recalling some dicta of Seneca that are good, such as
what he said in criticism of a greedy avaricious money-grubber: 'What
difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have is
much more.' That is good, isn't it? But youth is so constituted that it 14
is less helped by good sayings than infected by bad-and much more so
if the worse predominate and some of the bad are used not to promote
some triviality but as advice in a crisis.
[ Ennius, Annales 306. • De republica 5., 11.
9
QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
QUINTILIAN
M. Fabius Q!lintilianus, of Spanish descent (as were the Senecas), had a long
career as an imperially-favoured teacher of rhetoric in Rome. His great work,
Institutio Orataria, was written about A.D. 95. This 'education of an orator'
covers the rhetorical training from the cradle to the grave.
Text: L. Radermacher, Leipzig, 1907, 1935; M. Winterbottom, Oxford,
1970 •
Source-discussion and bibliography: ]. Cousin, Etudes sur Quintilien, Paris,
1936; supplemented in Lustrum 7, 1962, 289 ff.
Loeb translation by H. E. Butler, London, 1921-2.
I Once a boy has been well trained and sufficiently practised in these
elementary exercises (which are not in themselves trivial, but rather the
parts and so to say limbs of greater things), it will usually be time to
approach deliberative and forensic topics. Before I get on to them, how-
ever, I must say a few words about the actual raison d'etre of declamation
-the most recently developed of all methods of training but far the most
2 useful. It contains within it virtually all the exercises I have mentioned,
and gives the nearest approximation to reality; and so it has become
prevalent to the extent that many people think it all that is needed to
shape eloquence, there being no quality at least of continuous oratorical
prose that is not found as well in this kind of preparation for oratory.
3 Thanks to its teachers it has now so degenerated that the licentious
ignorance of declaimers has become one of the principal causes for the
corruption of eloquence. But things that are naturally good can be put
4 to good use. We must ensure, then, that even fictitious topics should be
as near as possible to real life, and that declamation, as far as may be,
should follow the pattern of the speeches it was invented to train for.
s For wizards and plagues and oracles and stepmothers crueller than those
on the tragic stage and other still more fabulous phenomena will be
DECLAMATION AND REALITY 373
looked for in vain amid the stipulations and interdicts of the court.
Are we then never to permit youths to treat these unreal and indeed
poetic themes, giving them a chance to spread themselves and enjoy
their topic and as it were put on weight? That would indeed be best; but 6
at least let the themes be grand and even inflated without also being absurd
and laughable to the keen observer, so that, if we are to make this con-
cession, the declaimer may sometimes stuff himself, so long as he realizes
that he must keep his fat down and be purged of any corrupt humours that
he accumulates if he wants to be strong and healthy (similarly, animals
swollen with green-stuffs are treated by blood-letting and can then get
back to foods that will keep them strong). Otherwise the emptiness of the 7
swelling will get shown up on his first attempt at any real-life contest.
Those who regard the whole business of declamation as utterly different
from forensic cases are surely blind even to the reason for the discovery
of this exercise. If it is not a preparation for the forum, it is mere his- 8
trionic display or crazy mouth-shooting. What is the point of 'preparing'
a judge who doesn't exist, narrating what all know to be false, elaborating
proofs for a case on which no one will pronounce? These are a waste of
time, but no more than that: itis sheer mockery, however, to feel emotion,
to be moved by anger or grief, if we're not as it were on manreuvres to
prepare us for the real battle and the serious fighting.
Is there, then, to be no difference between the legal manner of speaking 9
and this declamatory kind? None-if declamation aims solely at our
own improvement. I only wish that we could add to the rules the use of
proper names, and the occasional introduction of more complex con-
troversiae, that would take longer to deliver. We ought to be less afraid
of ordinary words, and get used to putting in jokes. These are things that
show us up as tiros in the forum however practised we may have been in
other respects in the school room. If, on the other hand, declamation is to 10
be aimed at display, we ought surely to go a little out of our way to please
the audience. For in speeches that are certainly to some extent 'real', I I
but are meant for pleasing the public (such as the panegyrics we read,
and the whole 'display' type) one is allowed to use more ornament, and
to acknowledge and even show off to an audience invited with that in
mind all the art that must generally in law-cases be kept hidden. So I2
declamation, as the mirror of suits and deliberations, must resemble
reality; but as having an element of display in it, it must take on a certain
brilliance.
This is the practice of comic actors, who don't speak quite as we do 13
normally (that would require no art), but don't, either, get too far away
from the natural, a fault that would destroy realism. Instead, they deck
out our ordinary habits of speech with a certain actors' gloss.
374 QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
14 Even so, we shall be dogged by some disadvantages arising from our
fictitious themes. In particular much in them is left uncertain, which
can be taken as we decide: ages, wealth, children, parents, the strength
IS of cities, their laws and customs, etc. In fact, sometimes we actually
draw arguments from loopholes in the themes set.
In this ambitious survey (10. I), Qyintilian attempts to go through in detail the
authors, both Greek and Latin, who will be 'particular1y suitable to those
proposing to become orators'. He meant the list to be used by older pupils who
had finished the rhetorical course and wished to improve their control of vocabu-
lary, figures, and word-arrangement. This famous passage must be read in the
light of these specific intentions, which account for the sketchiness of some of
the judgements, particularly those on types of poetry (e.g. the elegiac) that
offered little to the speaker. The Greek material, at any rate, is for the most part
not original: the fragments of Dionysius' On Imitation show many close verbal
resemblances to Quintilian's judgements.
ACCUMULATING VOCABULARY
16 Hearer and reader have different rewards. A speaker arouses the listener
by his animation-he sets him on fire not by the shadow of things but
by the things themselves. Everything lives and moves, and we receive
his words as they (as it were) come newly to birth, with a sympathetic
anxiety. We are moved not only by the way the judgement may go, but
I Herodotus (2. 2) tells how the children, thus brought up, uttered the word bekos,
READING SPEECHES
For a good while only the best writers and the ones least liable to deceive 20
those who trust in them should be read. And it should be done carefully,
almost as carefully as writing. Everything should be scrutinized-but
not merely a little at a time; a book should be read right through, and
then taken up again from the beginning: especially a speech, whose good
points are often hidden, and even deliberately so. Often an orator plans 21
for the future, pretends, lays traps, says in the first part of his speech
things that will payoff at the end. Such passages, therefore, cannot be
properly appreciated in their immediate context, while we are still
unaware of their point, and we shall have to go back to them when we
are familiar with the whole. One most useful thing is to know the details 22
of the cases to which the speeches we are dealing with relate, and, where
possible, to read the pleas on both sides: for example, those of Demo-
sthenes and Aeschines against each other,' Servius Sulpicius and Messalla
(the one for, the other against Aufidia), Pollio and Cassius at the trial of
Asprenas, and many others. Even if some do not appear to be evenly 23
matched, we are right to turn to them in search of an understanding of
the point at issue in the case-for instance, the speeches of Tubero
against Ligarius and of Hortensius for Verres when Cicero was on the
I The speeches On the Crown and Against Ctesiphon: cf. Cicero's (?) preface to the
READING POETRY
I The Art of Poetry 359 (above, p. 289). For Cicero, see Plutarch, Gicero 24. 6.
• Pro Archi(l 12 (Cicero's defence of a poet-client).
READING FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT 385
shorten, transpose, and divide them. We, by contrast, are armed soldiers,
standing in the front line, with important matters at stake and victory to
strive for. But I should not wish the arms we use to be dirty, mouldy, and 30
rusted. They should have the glint that brings terror to the beholder,
the glint of steel that dazzles mind and sight at once, not the gleam
of gold and silver which has nothing to do with war and is positively
dangerous to its possessor.
READING HISTORY
History too can nourish the orator, with a rich and pleasant juice. But 3£
this also we must read in the knowledge that many of its good qualities
must be avoided by the orator. It is very near poetry; in a manner of
speaking it is a poem written in prose, composed for telling a story, not
proving a case. The whole genre is designed not for practical effect and
the contest of the moment, but for the enlightenment of posterity and the
glory of the writer's genius. Thus it avoids monotony of narrative by
using words a trifle remote from ordinary usage, and figures a shade free.
So-as I have said before-we must not aim, when we speak in front 32
of a preoccupied and often uneducated judge, at the brevity of Sallust,
perfect as that is for the ears of the attentive and the learned. Equally,
Livy's milky richness is not the style in which to bring a point home to
someone who is looking for conviction, not for agreeable narration.
Cicero, moreover, thinks that not even Thucydides or Xenophon are 33
useful for an orator, though he feels that the one 'sounds for war' and that
the Muses spoke with the other's lips.' We may sometimes use even the
historians' brilliance in our digressions, so long as we bear in mind that in
the crucial passages of a speech it is the strong arm of the soldier, not the
bulging muscle of the athlete that is needed, and that the many-coloured
coat assumed (it is said) by Demetrius of Phaleron is unsuitable for the
dust of the forum. History has a further use-a very important one, 34
though not relevant here-in its supply of knowledge of events and pre-
cedents: in these an orator must be well versed. He must not rely on his
client to supply all the evidence; much he must provide for himselffrom
his own carefully garnered knowledge of the past: that alone can escape
the charge of prejudice and bias-hence its special authority.
READING PHILOSOPHY
Well then: just as Aratus thinks that one should start with Zeus, 2 I 46
think our proper beginning is with Homer. He-rather as, in his own
words,J Ocean is the source of rivers and fountains-gave rise to all
departments of eloquence and provided them with a pattern. No one
could surpass his sublimity in great subjects or his aptness in small.
He combines luxuriance and concision, charm and gravity; he is a miracle
of copiousness as well as brevity, and he is outstanding in the qualities
of an orator as well as a poet. To leave aside his panegyrics, his exhorta- 47
tions, and his consolatory speeches, is it not clear that the ninth book4
containing the embassy to Achilles, or the quarrel between the leaders
in the first, or the opinions voiced in the second, lay bare for us all the
techniques of law-suit and political deliberation? No one is so uneducated 4B
as to deny that this author had under his control all types of emotion,
whether gentle or violent. Indeed, by the openings of both his poems did
he not, in a very few lines-I can hardly say observe-did he not formulate
the rules to be followed in composing a proem? For he makes his listener
well-disposed to him by calling on the goddesses who, it was believed,
preside over poets: attentive by his mention of the greatness of the theme:
and open to instruction by his swift sketch of the plot. As for narrative, 49
who could conduct that more briefly than the author of the announce-
ment of Patroclus' death?S Who more vividly than the narrator of the
war of Curetes and Aetoli?6 And take the comparisons, amplifications,
instances, digressions, signs, and arguments, and the rest of the means
of proof and refutation-all these are so frequent that even writers of
I 12. 10 (below, p. 404). 2 Phaenomma I: 'Let us begin from Zcus.'
3 Iliad 21. 196. • The references in § 47 are all to the Iliad.
5 Iliad 18. 18 If. 6 Iliad 9. 529 If.
QUlNTILIAN AND PLINY
rhetorical handbooks look to this poet for very many of their examples
50 of these matters. Again, what peroration could ever be equal to Priam's
prayers to Achilles ?l Surely in language, thought, figures, the organization
of his whole work, he passes the bounds of human genius. It takes a great
man to match up to his qualities-not by rivalling them (that would be
impossible) but by understanding them.
SI Homer left all others, in every kind of eloquence, far behind him: the
epic poets in particular, for where the matter is similar the comparison
52 can be pressed home most harshly. Hesiod rarely leaves the ground, and a
good deal of his space is occupied with lists of names; however, his
didactic reflections are of use, and one may approve his smooth wording
and structure. He gets the palm in the middle style.
53 In Antimachus, on the other hand, force, impressiveness, and dis-
tinction of style merit praise. The almost unanimous opinion of critics
gives him the second position; but he is deficient in emotion, charm,
arrangement-in technique generally: so that it is quite clear what a
difference there is between coming closest to first and being second.
54 Panyasis, a mixture of the last two, is judged to equal neither's virtues
in his style; but Hesiod he surpasses in subject-matter, Antimachus in
method of organization.
Apollonius [Rhodius] does not come into the classification drawn up
by the critics, for those judges of poets, Aristarchus and Aristophanes,
included no one of their own times. But it was no contemptible work that
55 he composed; it keeps a sort of sustained middle course. Aratus' subject
lacks movement-it has no variety, no emotion, no characters, no speeches:
but he is up to the task to which he thought himself equal. Theocritus in
his genre is wonderful; but that rustic and pastoral muse of his fights shy
even of the city-let alone the law-courts.
56 I seem to hear people pressing numerous names of poets on me from
all directions. Did not Pisandros well describe the deeds of Hercules ?
Are we to say that Macer and Virgil were mistaken in their imitation of
Nicander? Are we to pass Euphorion by?-after all, unless Virgil had
thought he was good, he would never have mentioned in the Eclogues
'poems wrought in Chalcidian verse'. 2 Was Horace wrong to link the names
57 of Tyrtaeus and Homer?3 The fact is that no one is so ignorant of poets
that he could not transfer to his book at least a library catalogue of their
I Iliad 24. 486 If.
2 Eel. 10. 50. Euphorion came from Chalcis in Euboea.
3 The Art of Poetry 402 (above, p. 290).
READING FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT 389
names. If I miss people out, that does not mean I have not heard of them
-or necessarily that I value them lightly: have I not already said that
everyone has something useful to give? But to those lesser poets we shall 58
return once our strength is complete and established. After all, at big
dinners we often find that when we are sated with the best food, the
variety provided by the less luxurious is welcome.
It is then, too, that we shall have leisure to pick up elegy; here the leader
is Callimachus, while most agree that Philetas took second place. But 59
while we are in the process of acquiring the stable facility of which I
spoke, we must get used to the best; our minds must be formed, our style
developed, by much reading rather than the exploration of many authors.
On this principle, we shall say that, of the three writers of iambics marked
off by the judgement of Aristarchus, it is Archilochus who will be found
to have most relevance to hexis. He has the greatest force of style; his 60
reflections are at once powerful, concise, and vibrant, and he has a great
deal of blood and muscle: to such a degree that some people think that
it is not his genius but his subject-matter that prevents him from
leading the field.
Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is far and away the best. He excels in 61
sublime grandeur of conception, in thought and figures. He has an un-
surpassed supply of words and matter, a great flood of eloquence. And
Horace, for these reasons, was right to believe him inimitable.' The 62
strength of Stesichorus' genius is demonstrated, amongst other things,
by his material, for he sings of the greatest wars and the most famous
generals, measuring up to the burdens of epic poetry on a mere lyre.
For he can give characters their due weight in action and speech alike,
and he could be thought a potential rival of Homer had he preserved a
sense of proportion; but he is redundant and spreads himself-a fault,
without doubt, but a fault of a rich talent. A part of Alcaeus' a?Uvre 63
merits his being awarded a 'golden plectrum'2-the pan in which he
attacked tyrants: here he has much to contribute to morals also. As to
his style, he is brief, lofty, careful, often similar to an orator. But he also
wrote trivia, and descended to erotica, though he was more suited to
higher themes. Simonides, otherwise a slender talent, can be praised for 64
his correctness oflanguage and a certain charm; but his principal quality
lies in his power to arouse pity, so that some critics prefer him in this
respect to all other writers in the genre.
lOdes 4.2. I. 2 Ibid. 2. 13. 26.
39 0 QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
65 Old Comedy is almost alone in preserving the genuine grace of the Attic
tongue; moreover, it has a most eloquent freedom of speech: and if it is
especially notable for its attacks on vices, it has a great deal of strength
in other departments also. It is splendid, elegant, graceful; and nothing
else after Homer (who, like Achilles,1 must always be the exception) is
66 more like oratory, or more suitable for training orators. It has many
exponents, but Aristophanes, Eupolis, and Cratinus stand out.
Tragedy was first brought to light by Aeschylus, lofty, impressive,
and often grandiloquent even to a fault-but in many respects unformed
and inharmonious. Hence the Atheni.ms allowed later poets to correct his
plays for competitive performance, and many won prizes in this manner.
67 Much greater brilliance was brought to this genre by Sophocles and
Euripides: their styles are very different, and many have disputed which
of the two is the better poet. This is irrelevant to my present purpose, and
I leave the question unanswered. But all must agree that it is Euripides
who will be far more useful to those who are preparing themselves for
68 speaking in court. His style is nearer the oratorical type (a point that is in
fact criticized by those who find Sophocles' grave tragic resonance more
lofty). He abounds in noteworthy thoughts, and in philosophical precept
he is almost the equal of the philosophers themselves. In both speech and
repartee he is comparable with any of those whose eloquence has been
heard in the court-room. His command of all emotions, especially pathos,
is remarkable.
69 Menander, as he frequently testifies, greatly admired Euripides; and he
imitated him, though in a different genre. Menander himself, in my
opinion, is the one poet who, if carefully studied, would be enough to
give a pattern for everything that I have been recommending-such is the
complete picture of life that he drew, such his richness of invention and
his powers of expression, such his capacity for adaptation to all subjects,
70 characters, and emotions. And the critics who think that the speeches
published under the name of Charisius were the work of Menander
certainly have a point. But the proof of his rhetorical skill seems to me to
lie far more in his own plays: all an orator's stock-in-trade is seen to
perfection in the well-known trial scenes in the Arbitration,z the Heiress,
and the Locrians, or the soliloquies in the Timid Man, the Law-giver,
71 and the Change/ing. But I think that he has even more to offer to the de-
claimers, who have to assume many different characters to comply with
the nature of controversiae-fathers, sons, bachelors, husbands, soldiers,
I Iliad 2. 673-4.
• Epitrepontes 42 If.; of the scenes mentioned this alone survives.
R.EADING FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT 39 1
countrymen, rich men, poor men, people angry, pleading, gentle, harsh:
in all these types this poet preserves a wonderful trueness to life. I And 72
he has eclipsed the reputation of all other writers in that genre, putting
them in the shade by his resplendent brilliance. All the same, there are
other comic writers who can provide occasional passages worth excerpt-
ing, though you have to read them in an uncritical spirit; particularly
Philemon, who was often preferred to Menander by their contemporaries
-wrongly, though everyone agrees that he did deserve second place.
HISTORY
Many have written history with distinction, but no one doubts that two 73
are far ahead of the rest, different in qualities, but hardly to be distin-
guished in reputation. Thucydides is close-knit, concise, always pressing
on. Herodotus is charming, clear, discursive. The one excels in strong,
the other in calm emotions; the one in set speeches, the other in con-
versations; the one in force, the other in giving pleasure. Theopompus 74
ranks next to these, inferior to them as a historian, but more like an orator
than either-and an orator indeed he was for a long time before he was
persuaded to enter this new field. Philistlls, too, deserves to be distin-
guished in the throng of later historians (however good they may be);
he imitated Thucydides, and managed to be rather more lucid without
attaining his force. Ephorus, as Isocrates thought, needs the spur.
Clitarchus' talents are admired, his veracity impugned. Timagenes ap- 75
peared after a long gap, and is praiseworthy for this very achievement of
restoring with new lustre a historical tradition that had lapsed. I have not
forgotten Xenophon, but shall deal with him under philosophy.
ORATORY
PHILOSOPHY
I must keep to the same order in dealing with Roman writers also. 85
With us Virgil-like Homer with the Greeks-may provide the most
auspicious opening; indeed, of all poets of that genre in either language
he undoubtedly comes nearest to Homer. To quote the answer which, as a 86
young man, I received when I asked Domitius Afer who he thought most
nearly approached Homer: 'Virgil comes second, and nearer first than
third.' Of course, we have to yield pride of place to Homer's superhuman
and immortal genius. But Virgil shows more care and pains for the very
reason that he had to work harder. And perhaps we make up by Virgil's
good general level for the inferiority our champion shows to Homer's
heights.
All the rest will be found to follow far behind. Macer and Lucretius 87
are worth reading-but not for any ability to provide the style that is
the stuff of eloquence; each shows elegance on his own subject, but the
one is unambitious, the other difficult. Varro Atacinus made his name as a
translator of another's work; he is not to be despised, but he is hardly
rich enough to increase an orator's powers. Ennius we must venerate as 88
we do groves whose age makes them holy, full of great old oaks that nowa-
days have less beauty than sanctity. Others are closer to us, and more
useful for the matter in question. Ovid is as frivolous in his hexameters
as elsewhere: he is too much in love with his own talents, but deserves
praise in parts. Cornelius Severus, even though a better versifier than 89
poet, could lay good claim to the second place if (as has been said) he had
completed his Sicilian War to the standard of his first book. Premature
death prevented Serranus coming to ripeness, but his youthful works show
outstanding gifts and a concern for stylistic purity especially admirable in
someone so young. We have recently had a great loss in Valerius Flaccus. 90
Saleius Bassus' genius was forceful and poetic, but he too did not have
long life in which to mature. Rabirius and Pedo are worth getting to know
if one has time to spare. Lucan is passionate, spirited, full of bril-
liant thoughts: indeed, to be frank, a better model for orators than poets.
93 In elegiac verse, too, we can offer a challenge to the Greeks. The most
brief and elegant exponent is in my opinion Tibullus; there are those who
prefer Propertius. avid is less restrained than either, Gallus more harsh.
As for satire, it is completely our own. Lucilius was the first to win
outstanding praise for it, and he still has admirers so devoted that they
do not hesitate to class him above all other poets, not merely all other
94 satirists. I am as far from their view as from that of Horace,z who thinks
that Lucilius 'flows along muddily' and that there are things in him that
you could well be rid of. He has astonishing learning and outspokenness-
and, as a result of that, acerbity: and a great deal of wit. Horace is much
more concise and pure: unless I am biased by my love for him, he is the
best. Persius won a good deal of genuine fame, despite writing only one
book. There are brilliant satirists today, whose names will be celebrated
in the future.
95 The other type of satire,3 an earlier invention, was exploited by Teren-
tius Varro, in his case with prose as well as a variety of metres. This
most learned among Romans composed very many books of vast erudi-
tion. He was highly skilled in the Latin language and every aspect of
antiquity, together with both Greek and Roman history; but he has more
to offer to learning than to eloquence.
96 The iambus has not been much used by the Romans as a metre by
itself, but rather with other sorts of line interposed. You may find in-
stances of its bitter invective in Catullus, Bibaculus, and Horace (though
in him short lines intervene). But of the lyric poets this same Horace is
virtually the only one worth reading. He is lofty at times, full of gaiety and
grace, varied in his use of figures, in his use of words most felicitously
I Eel. 8. I3. 2 Sat. I. 4. II (above, p. 266).
Among writers of tragedy, Accius and Pacuvius are the most renowned 97
of the ancients for the high seriousness of their thought, their weighty
language, and their impressive characters. They lack brilliance and the
final touches in the polishing of their plays-but that may be thought to
have been a deficiency of their age, not of themselves. Accius, however,
is conceded to have more power, while critics who lay claim to learning
would have us believe this is where Pacuvius excels. Varius' Thyestes 98
is comparable to any Greek tragedy. avid's Medea shows, in my view,
what its author could have achieved if he had been ready to control his
genius rather than pander to it. Of my contemporaries, far the best is
Pomponius Secundus. Old men thought him not tragic enough, but they
had to agree that he excelled in learning and brilliance.
In the field of comedy, we are at our lamest. Varro may say that the 99
Muses, in the view of Aelius Stilo, would have spoken in the language of
Plautus if they had wished to talk Latin; the ancients may praise Caecilius;
Terence's plays may be thought to have been the work of Scipio Africanus
(they are certainly the most elegant examples of this genre, and would
have had even more grace if they had been restricted to trimeters);2
but despite all this it is a fleeting shadow that we attain to. Indeed I 100
think that the very language of Rome does not admit of the charm that is
conceded to Attic speakers (and only to them, for even the Greeks could
not attain to it in any other dialect of their language). Afranius excels
in plays on Roman subjects. I wish that he had not spoiled his plots by
introducing the sordid homosexual affairs that throw such light on his
own habits.
HISTORY
But in history we do not need to yield to the Greeks. I should not be 101
afraid to match Sallust with Thucydides; and Herodotus should not be
angry to find Livy put on a par with him. For Livy shows extraordinary
grace and brilliant lucidity in narration, while in his speeches he is
indescribably eloquent, so nicely is everything that is said adapted to
I Including Statius?
2 i.e. had not used also the longer and more vivacious iambic and trochaic lines.
QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
circumstances and character; and to put it mildly, no historian has better
102 judged his use of emotions, particularly the gentler ones. Hence, by quite
different qualities, he equalled the wonderful speed that we associate with
Sallust. It was, I think, an excellent dictum of Servilius Nonianus that
these two are on the same level rather than alike. Nonianus himself I
have heard recite; he was a man of splendid talents, full of pointed
103 reflection, but more diffuse than the dignity of history demands. That
dignity was excellently maintained, especially in the books on the German
war, by a slightly earlier writer, Aufidius Bassus, thanks to his style. I
He is deserving of approval in all respects, though in some points he
104 falls short of his own powers. There still survives, to the distinction of
our age, a writer 2 worthy of the attention of posterity. In the future he
will be named; now my readers will know who I mean. Cremutius' out-
spokenness, not unreasonably, has its admirers, though it has been docked
of the parts that it ruined him to have written: but you can detect his
splendidly exalted spirit and his daring thoughts even in what survives.
There are other good writers in this field, but I am only dipping into
each genre, not searching out whole libraries.
ORATORY
105 It is our orators, however, who in particular can put Latin eloquence
on a par with Greek: for I should happily pit Cicero against any Greek
writer whatever. I am not unaware of the battle I am provoking: though
I do not intend here to compare him with Demosthenes. Indeed, there is
no point in such a comparison, for I am in any case convinced that Demo-
sthenes must be a primary subject for study-or rather for learning by
106 heart. Their virtues, I think, are most of them alike: their judgement,
arrangement, technique of division, preparation, and proof, everything in
fact that has to do with 'invention'. There is a certain difference of style.
One is closer-packed, the other more diffuse; one rounds his periods more
tightly, the other more spaciously. One fights all his battles by quickness
of wit, the other, often, adds brute strength. One permits of no abbrevi-
ation, the other of no expansion. Demosthenes is more studied, Cicero
107 more naturally gifted. IQ. two matters of especial weight in emotional
oratory, wit and pathos, 'we Romans undoubtedly win. It may be that
Athenian customs denied Demosthenes his epilogues. But it is equally
true that the different genius of the Latin language handicaps us in
attaining· effects that Attic audiences admire. There is no comparison
between the two in letters (which survive from both), or in dialogue
I Text uncertain. 2 Perhaps Fabius Rusticus.
READING FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT 397
(not attempted by Demosthenes). But one point must be conceded: 108
Demosthenes came first, and he it was, to a large extent, who made Cicero
the great orator he was. For Cicero, in my opinion, devoted himself
entirely to the imitation of the Greeks. He reproduced the force of Demo-
sthenes, the copiousness of Plato, the agreeable charm of Isocrates. But 109
he did not merely attain by study to the best points of each of his models;
his superhuman richness of genius produced from itself most, indeed all
of his virtues. He does not (to quote Pindar) 'collect the rain water',
but 'overflows with a vital torrent'. I He was born, by some gift of provi-
dence, as one in whom eloquence could try out her full strength. No one I10
can instruct more painstakingly, rouse emotion more forcefully. No one
was ever so pleasant to hear-so that even when he is wrenching some-
thing out of you, you believe that he is winning your willing consent:
and though he is sweeping the judges off their feet, they think they are
following without any constraint. In all that he says there is so much III
authority that one feels ashamed to disagree. He brings to bear not the
partisan zeal of an advocate, but the reliability of witness or judge. What is
more, all these things, that an ordinary person could scarcely achieve
one at a time after the most laborious effort, flow out without trouble;
and that oratory, the fairest ever heard, nevertheless displays not only
perfect felicity but complete ease. It was, then, not undeservedly that I12
men of his day said that he was king in the courts-or that he has so made
his mark with posterity that 'Cicero' now is regarded not as the name of a
man but as the name of eloquence itself. This, then, should be the object
of our gaze, this the model we set ourselves. By this token a man shall
know that he has made progress-that he takes real pleasure in Cicero.
Asinius Pollio has great powers of invention, supreme (some think I13
excessive) diligence, tolerable judgement, and spirit: but he is so far
removed from the refined and agreeable Cicero that he might be thought
to be earlier by a century. Messalla is refined all right, and lucid, and (as
it were) shows his noble birth in his style: but he is inferior in vigour.
In Gaius Caesar, however, ifhe had devoted his attention solely to law- I14
suits, we should have an incontestable name to set against Cicero; such
are his force, pointedness, and vigour that it is clear that he spoke with the
same spirit with which he made war: and all this is given lustre by his
wonderful choiceness of language, on which he was so peculiarly keen.
In Caelius there is much talent, and, especially in accusation, much wit: lIS
he deserved greater wisdom and' a longer life. I have found those who
preferred Calvus to anyone else, others who agreed with Cicero 2 that by
excessive self-criticism he lost genuine full-bloodedness. All the same,
his style is grave, weighty, correct, and often forceful. But he was a
I Fr. 287 Bowra. 2 Brutus 283.
QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
follower of the Attic orators; and his early death did him a disservice only if
he would have added to his qualities, not ifhe would have pared them down.
116 Servius Sulpicius, too, won a not undeserved reputation, by three speeches
only. Cassius Severus, if read with judgement, will give us much worthy
of imitation. If he had added to the rest of his virtues a fit tone and gravity
117 of style, he would have to be ranked among the b~st. For he has a great
deal of talent, astonishing tartness, and much wit; but he prized ill-
temper before judgement. His humour may be bitter; but often the bitter-
ness itself causes laughter.
IIS There are many other eloquent men, for whom I have no space. Of
my contemporaries, Domitius Afer and Julius Africanus are far the best.
Afer is to be preferred for his use of words and his whole style of speak-
ing; you would not hesitate to include him in the ranks of the ancients.
Africanus is more vigorous, but he takes his care in choosing words too
far, and his structure is sometimes diffuse, his metaphors too bold.
119 There have been distinguished talents even quite recently. Trachalus
was often lofty and tolerably lucid. His aspirations, one could well
believe, were of the highest. But he was better heard than read; vocal
endowments, unparalleled in my experience, a delivery that would not
have disgraced the stage, good looks-everything in fact that nature can
give to an orator he had in full measure. There was Vibius Crispus, too,
smooth, agreeable, born to please: better, however, in private cases than
120 public ones. If Julius Secundus had lived longer, he would surely have
won the highest renown for oratory: he would have added, indeed he
already was adding, to his other virtues what might be thought lacking
in him-he would have become, that is, much more pugnacious, and
121 would have had more frequent regard to matter as opposed to style. Cut
scope for sincere praise of those who flourish today, when the highest
talents give lustre to the courts. Those now mature are rivals of the
ancients; and they are being imitated and followed by hard-working and
aspiring young men.
PHILOSOPHY
was in this genre too a rival of Plato. But Brutus-excellent here, and much
more impressive than in his oratory-did not fall short of the importance
of his subject. You may easily feel his sincerity. A very prolific writer was 124
Cornelius Celsus, follower of the Sextii, and not lacking in polish and
refinement. Plautus, among the Stoics, is useful for his information.
Among the Epicureans, a light-weight but not disagreeable authority is
Catius.
SENECA
E. IMITATION
Quintilian next proceeds (10. 2) to discuss imitation, which he obviously con-
ceives as something much more than mechanical reproduction. Cf. 'Longinus'
13-1 4 (below, pp. 475-6).
Here (12. 10) Qyintilian discusses different kinds of oratory. His remarks are by
no means the stereotyped ones, and he has interesting things to say on the
parallel with artistic progress, and on the contrast between the Greek and Latin
languages. See R. G. Austin's edn. of Book 12, Oxford, 1948, 1965.
I It remains for me to discuss types of oratory: this was the third topic
I set myself in my original division, for I promised that I would talk of
the art, the artist, and his product. The product both of rhetoric and of
the orator is oratory, and, as I shall show, it has many forms, which differ
much among themselves (though in all the art and the artist are found at
work), not only in species, as statue differs from statue, picture from
picture, one speech from another, but in type even, as Etruscan from
2 Greek statues, or an Asian orator from an Attic. Now all of these types
of product that I speak of have their admirers as well as their exponents;
and perfection in oratory and perhaps in any other art has not yet been
attained not only because each orator has different strengths, but also
because not everyone has preferred the same one kind, partly as a result
of variation of time or place, partly because of individual tastes and
alms.
TYPES OF ORATORY
The first famous painters-the first, at least, whose works deserve looking 3
at not merely on account of their age-are said to have been Polygnotus
and Aglaophon, whose simple use of colour still has admirers so enthu-
siastic as to prefer these crude pictures, mere shadows of the art that was
to come, to the greatest of later artists: but this, I think, is merely a
private bid to be taken for connoisseurs. After this, Zeuxis and Par- 4
rhasius, both of much the same period about the time of the Peloponnesian
wars (we find in Xenophon Z a conversation between Parrhasius and
Socrates), added a great deal to the technique of painting; Zeuxis is said
to have discovered the method of representing light and shade, Parrhasius
to have brought new skill to the exploitation of outline. Zeuxis gave human 5
limbs more fullness, thinking that this gave increased nobility and di-
stinction, and thereby following Homer (it is thought), who likes the
strongest possible bodies, even in women. Parrhasius, however, was so
universally definitive that they call him the lawgiver-everyone follows
his authoritative representation of gods and heroes as though it were
compulsory. Painting in particular flourished in the period of Philip 6
and right down to the successors of Alexander, though its qualities varied.
Protogenes excels in care, Pamphilus and Melanthius in method, Anti-
philus in facility, Theon of Samos in vividness of conception (the Greeks
use the term phantasia),3 Apelles in talent and the grace of which he is
particularly proud. Euphranor is to be admired because, while being
distinguished in the other honourable arts, he was at the same time an
astonishing painter and sculptor.
A similar variety can be traced in statuary. Call on and Hegesias made 7
things that were rather harsh, very like Etruscan. Calamis' products were
already less unbending, Myron's softer still. Polyclitus' had surpassing
care and beauty; most yield him the palm, but, in order to have something
to carp at, find in him a lack of weight. For, while giving an unrealistic 8
beauty to the human form, he is regarded as not having provided gods
with their due of authority. Indeed, he is said to have avoided represent-
ing more advanced age, restricting his enterprise to smooth cheeks.
What Polyclitus lacked, it is agreed that Phidias and Alcamenes possessed.
But Phidias (so it is said) was more skilled at representing gods than men; 9
in ivory, however, he was far beyond any rival-even if he had done
nothing except the Athena in Athens or the Olympian Zeus in Elis,
whose beauty is thought even to have added something to the traditional
I See R. G. Austin's notes on this passage.
1 Manorabilia 3. 10. I.
3 a. 'Longinus' IS, below, p. 477.
QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
awe inspired by the god, so fully did the majesty of the piece come up to
the majesty of its subject. It is claimed that Lysippus and Praxiteles
best attained to realism; indeed Demetrius is criticized for over-indulgence
in it, and he was certainly more keen on a likeness than on beauty.
DEVELOPMENT OF ORATORY
10 Now if you care to look at types in oratory, you may find almost as many
kinds of talent as of human body. But there have been types of oratory
that as a consequence of their period were rather rough, while nevertheless
already displaying great vigour of genius. Here may be classed orators
such as Laelius, Africanus, even Cato and Gracchus; these you might
I I call the Polygnotuses and the Callons. The middle class may be assigned
This division between Attic and Asian orators was an old one; the former 16
were regarded as brief and healthy, the latter tumid and empty; the
former had nothing superfluous, the latter lacked in particular taste and
moderation. Santra, amongst others, thinks that this came about because,
as the Greek language gradually spread into the nearest Asian cities, their
inhabitants were agog for eloquent utterance while they were not yet
sufficiently skilled in ordinary language; thus they began to express by
circumlocutions things that had their own special terms, and then pro-
ceeded to stick to this practice. My view, however, is that the difference 17
of speech was the result of the character of both speakers and hearers;
the Attic people, smooth and correct, would put up with nothing empty
or redundant, while the Asians, in general a more bombastic and boastful
race, puffed themselves out with vainglory in oratory also. A third type, 18
the Rhodian, has been added by those who formulated this distinction,
intending it to be a middle kind partaking of both the other two. The
Rhodians are not concise in the Attic manner or wordy in the Asian, there-
by revealing, besides a certain national characteristic of their race, the
influence of a founder-Aeschines, who, having chosen this place for 19
his exile, brought there the literary interests of Athens, which, just as
certain plants degenerate in new soils and climates, contaminated their
Attic flavour with a foreign one. As a result, the Rhodians are thought of
as rather slow and slack, though not without weight; they are like neither
pure fountains nor muddy torrents: rather do they resemble calm meres.
There is no room for doubt, then, that far the best type is the Attic. 20
Within this type, though there is a certain common element of concise and
sharp tastefulness, we may distinguish many different kinds of talent.
Thus, I think that a great mistake is made by those who regard the only 21
Attic orators as those who are plain, clear, pointed, but content with a
certain economy of eloquence, always keeping their hand inside the cloak.
Who will then count as this sort of Attic orator? Suppose it is Lysias
(he is the standard fixed by admirers of the name of Attic, and by choosing
him we may avoid the extreme of Coccus and Andocides): then I should 22
I Both the Orator and the Brutus are in effect a reply to the 'Atticists'.
QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
want to ask whether Isocrates spoke in the Attic way. For nothing could
be so different from Lysias. They will say no; yet Isocrates' school
produced master-orators. Let us look for something a little nearer. Was
Hyperides Attic? 'Surely.' But he was less austere than Lysias. I pass
over many, such as Lycurgus, Aristogiton, and the earlier Isaeus and
Antiphon, all of whom you might call similar to each other in genus but
23 different in species. What about Aeschines, whom I mentioned just now?
Is he not broader and more daring and more lofty? Finally, what about
Demosthenes? Did he not surpass all those plain and circumspect
orators with his fire, sublimity, impetus, sophistication, and rhythm?
Does he not have lofty common places ? Does he not gladly'use figures?
24 Does he not shine with metaphor? He is not averse to using fictitious
passages where he gives a voice to the silent; and that great oath by those
who were killed defending their country at Marathon and Salamis '
surely must make it clear that Plato was his teacher. (And I take it that
we are not going to call Plato of all men an Asian; often he is comparable
rather with divinely inspired poets.) Then there is Pericles. Shall we
regard him as being slender like Lysias? After all the comic poets com-
pare him to lightning flashes and thunder from heaven, even while they
2S abuse him.2. There is no reason to think of the Attic savour as the pre-
rogative of those who flow among pebbles in a slender rill, and imagine
that it is only here that one can get a whiff of Attic thyme. I believe that
such critics would be inclined to deny Attic nationality to any rich soil
or fertile crop found in that country just because it gives back more seed
than it received (with an allusion to Menander's jest about the exact-
26 ness with which Attica pays her debts},3 Similarly if an orator were
granted, in addition to the qualities which the supreme Demosthenes
possessed, the one that, thanks to his own nature or the laws of his city,
he lacked-:-more vigorous emotional appeal, would I hear people saying:
'Demosthenes was not like that' ? If a passage were to run more rhythmi-
cally (perhaps that is impossible-but suppose it did), can't we count it as
Attic? I suggest that these people should have a better opinion of the
term, and come to believe that to speak in the Attic manner is to speak
in the best manner.
35 Thus anyone who demands of the Latins the grace that characterizes
the Attic tongue must provide us with an equally agreeable and rich
language. If that is denied us, we shall have to go on fitting our thoughts
to the words we have-taking care not to swamp slender subjects with
words too rich (perhaps I had better say 'too strong') for them: for that
36 is the way to ruin both elements in the confusion. The less one's language
helps one, the more one has to use one's material as one's weapon. We
must search out lofty and varied sentiments, rouse every emotion, enliven
our speech with sparkling metaphor. We cannot be so gracefully slender
as the Greeks: let us be stronger . We are worsted in su btlety; let us
prevail by weight. They have a better chance of finding the exact word;
37 let us vanquish by our fullness. Even lesser Greeks have their ports to
shelter them; we generally sail under a greater spread of canvas. Let a
stronger breeze billow out our sails. But we shall not always be traversing
the open sea; sometimes we must follow the shore. The Greeks can
approach it across the shallowest waters; I shall have to find something
deeper-though not much deeper-to save my craft from going aground.
38 But, even though the Greeks produce these more plain and concise
effects better, and we are inferior here, though only here (hence our
inability to compete in comedy), we should not therefore abandon this side
of oratory: rather we should exploit it as best we can. What we can do is
to rival the Greeks in restraint and tastefulness of matter, while sprinkling
on to our words from other sources the attractions that they do not in
39 themselves have. Cicero in his private speeches was surely pointed, exact,
controlled; Marcus Calidius was noted for these qualities. Scipio, Laelius,
and Cato showed in their actual language that they were the Roman equi-
valent of the Attic orators. What cannot be improved must needs suffice.
'NATURAL' ELOQUENCE
So I am not too much in disagreement with those who think that the 45
temper of the age and men's tastes need some concession made to them
when they demand something more polished and more emotional.
I don't think an orator should be tied down to predecessors of Cato and
the Gracchi, or even to those orators themselves. And Cicero's principle,
I notice, was to give everything to the needs of his case-but a part to
pleasure; he used to say that he had himself to consider also, but he was
in fact considering his clients above all-the very fact that he was giving
pleasure itself gave him an advantage. And to the pleasure he gave I 46
can personally see no possibility of addition-except that we have more
epigrams in our speeches: something that need not harm the conduct of
a case or our authority of language so long as these conceits are not
frequent, continuous, and self-destructive. But if I make this concession, 47
I am not to be driven further. I will concede to the fashion that a toga need
not be hairy, not that it should be silk: the hair doesn't have to be
QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
unbarbered, but it should not be trained into tiers and ringlets. I only add
that unless your norm is luxury and lust, the better things really are the
48 more beautiful they look. These epigrams-sententiae as they are com-
monly called-were not used by the old orators, in particular the Greeks,
though I find them in Cicero. But so long as they have content and are not
simply redundant, and so long as they have a view to the winning of the
case, they can hardly be denied to be useful. They strike the mind, and
can frequently turn it at a single stroke; they stick just because they are
brief, and they are persuasive because they are pleasurable.
49 Yet there are those who feel that these more spirited conceits should be
excluded from one's written text even if they allow them to be spoken.
I cannot, then, neglect this topic I either. Very many scholars have thought
there is one method for speaking, another for writing: and that that is
why orators renowned for making speeches have in some cases left nothing
to posterity and lasting literature-for example Pericles and Demades;
on the other hand, others, such as Isocrates, have been excellent at com-
50 posing speeches but unequipped for delivering them. Further (this view
holds) delivery usually needs more spirit, and rather more courting of
pleasure (it being the uneducated whose minds have to be roused and
won over); but something committed to paper and published as a model
must be polished, filed, composed according to the rules, for it will come
51 into the hands of the learned and have artists to judge its art. In addition,
well-known preceptors (subtle thinkers in their own view and others')
have laid down that the instance (paradeigma) is more suitable for speech,
the rhetorical syllogism (enthumema) for writing. My own view is that it
is one and the same thing to speak well and to write well: and a written
speech is merely the record of a delivered speech. And so it must not have
those virtues alone ... (gap in the text) and virtues, mark you, not faults-
for I am well aware that sometimes the inexperienced like what is faulty.
How, then, will they differ?
52 But if you were to grant me an audience of wise judges, I could prune
quite a lot off the speeches not only of Cicero but even of the much
sparer Demosthenes. For there would be no need to rouse any emotion,
or provide pleasures to soothe the ear--even proems were thought by
Aristotle 2 to be superfluous in such circumstances; these wise men would
not be attracted by such devices-enough to describe the facts in exact
I Cf. Pliny, epist. I. 20 (below, p. 424).
• Rhetoric 3. 14 (above, p. 160).
TYPES OF ORATORY
and clear language and draw out one's proofs. In fact, however, the judges 53
provided are the people or drawn from the people; those who will give
the verdict are often ill-educated, sometimes even rustics. We therefore
have to bring to bear everything that we think will aid us in carrying
our point. These things will be spoken when we are delivering a speech;
and they cannot be suppressed when we write out a speech, if in fact we
write in order to show how it should be spoken. Would ,Demosthenes or 54
Cicero have done badly to deliver their orations as they wrote them?
Have we, indeed, any way of knowing these distinguished speakers except
by their written texts? Now, did they deliver these speeches better or
worse than that? If worse, they should rather have spoken them as they
wrote them; if better, they should have written them as they spoke them.
Well then, is an orator always to deliver his speech just as he will 55
eventually write it? If possible, always. But there may be limits set by
the judge that embarrassingly shorten the actual speech, causing the
excision of much that could have been said: then the published text will
contain the lot. Again, certain things are said to suit the character of the
judges; they will not be handed down to posterity in that form-other-
wise they might seem to reflect on the orator's standards rather than his
circumstances. In fact, it makes a great deal of difference how a judge is 56
prepared to listen. 'His very face is often the orator's guide', as Cicero
teaches us. I Hence the need to emphasize points that you realize are
popular, and to steer clear of what will not be well received. Even language
may be suited to make the judge take the point as easily as possible;
nor is this surprising, for variations have to be made even to suit the
character of witnesses. Compare the foresight of one who asked a rustic 57
witness whether he knew Amphion and received the answer 'no'. He
proceeded to ask the question again with no aspirate and the second
syllable of the name shortened: 2 in that guise the witness knew Amphion
very well. Circumstances of this kind will cause us sometimes to speak and
write differently-at times when it is impossible to speak as one would
write.
Eloquence, then, has many aspects. But it is stupid to ask to which the 69
orator should direct himself: every kind, if it is not faulty, has its use.
An orator cannot be said to have (to use the popular phrase) a 'style' of
oratory: he will use all the styles as necessary, varying them not only
according to the case but even to parts of the case. He will not speak in 70
the same ways in defence of a man on trial for his life, in a testamentary
case, on interdicts, securities, loans. He will also preserve the distinction
between speeches in senate and before the people and private delibera-
tions, altering much to suit persons, places, and times. But in one and the
same speech he will use one style to rouse, another to conciliate; he will
have different sources for inspiring anger and pity; he will employ one
technique for instruction, another for emotional appeal. He will not keep 71
to one tone in proem, narration, argument, digression, peroration. He
will speak gravely, austerely, spiritedly, vehemently, stirringly, fully,
pungently; he will speak agreeably, relaxedly, plainly, winningly, gently,
sweetly, briefly, wittily. He will not everywhere be the same, though he
will never fall below his own standards. Thus, he will speak effectively 72
and to good purpose (the main reason for the development of oratory);
and he will also win a reputation, among the populace as well as the
scholars.
MODERN EXCESSES
'PERSEVERE'
77 All these things of which I have spoken the orator will carry out supremely
well-and supremely easily. The highest force of oratory, the tongue
men marvel at, is not constantly haunted by desperate worries; the true
orator is not wasted and tormented by feverish juggling of words, nor
does he pine away with the effort of weighing and fitting them together.
78 This brilliant, lofty, well-endowed speaker controls a wealth of eloquence
that flows on all sides of him. When you have reached the top, you cease
to struggle with the slope. The climber finds trouble on the lower stretches:
the further you go, the gentler the gradient, the more fertile the soil.
79 And if you pass even beyond the gentler slopes, and persist in your
endeavours, you will find fruits offering themselves to you without your
labour, and everything coming automatically-though you have to
pluck them daily, or they wither. But plenty requires moderation-
without that nothing is praiseworthy or healthy: polish needs a manly
80 elegance, imagination judgement. The outcome will be the great, not
the excessive, the lofty, not the precipitous, the bold, not the rash, the
restrained, not the austere, the impressive, not the slow, the fertile, not
• In a lost hendecasyllabic poem.
TYPES OF ORATORY
the rank, the pleasant, not the luxurious, the grand, not the turgid.!
It is the same with other qualities. The middle way is usually safest; the
extreme on either side is a fault.
Our orator then should be (as Marcus Cato defined him) 'a good man I
skilled in speaking': but particularly a good man-for that is what Cato
put first and what is naturally more desirable and more important. One
reason is that if oratorical ability is added to the armoury of evil nothing
would be more dangerous, whether publicly or privately, than eloquence,
while I myself, who have tried, as far as man could, to contribute towards
capacity for speaking, should deserve very ill of humanity in forging these
weapons for the thief rather than for the soldier. And-to forget about 2
myself-nature would prove to have been no true parent but a mere
stepmother in what is on the face of it her greatest favour to man, the
one that marks us off from other animals, if she devised speech merely
to be the ally of crime, the adversary of innocence, and the enemy of
truth. It would have been better for men to be born speechless and
altogether irrational than to turn the gifts of providence to the destruction
of each other.
But my view goes further. I am not merely saying that the orator 3
ought to be a good man: I say too that he will not even become an orator
unless he is a good man. Surely you would not regard intelligence as an
attribute of those who prefer the worse way when the choice between
honour and dishonour is placed before them? Or good sense when an
unforeseen turn of events can land them in the direst punishments-
those that their own bad consciences inflict, if not, as often happens, those
exacted by the law as well. And if it is alike the saying of philosophers and 4
the constant belief of the lay that no one is bad unless he is also stupid,
well, there will hardly be an orator who is stupid. Moreover, only a mind
free of all faults can have the time even to study this most wonderful of
I For such relationshipsl of faults and virtues, cf. (e.g.) Horace, The Art of Poetry
H. PLINY'S LETTERS
The younger Pliny was a pupil ofQy.intilian. In his Letters he sometimes touches
on literary themes, and often echoes his master. Text: R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford,
1963; commentary: A. N. Sherwin-White, Oxford, 1966; translation: Betty
Radice, Penguin, 1963.
I have sent you my recent consular speech of thanks to our excellent emperor. I
You asked for it, but I should have sent it even if you had not. I should 2
like you to take into account the difficulty of the subject as well as its
attractions. In other speeches the reader is kept interested by the novelty
I Delivered by Pliny as consul before Trajan in A.D. 100.
p8 QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
alone; here everything is familiar, common property, everything has
been said before. So the reader attends only to the style, leisurely and
unmoved as he necessarily is: and when only style is under the critical
3 eye, it is more difficult to make it please. If only people would look at
least at the arrangement, the transitions, the figures I as well! Brilliant
content and impressive expression are sometimes within the capacities
even of the uncivilized: only the expert can arrange with propriety and
give variety to his figures. But one shouldn't always aim at the high-
4 flown and the sublime. In a picture nothing sets off light so well as shade,
5 and similarly in a speech it is as fitting to relax as to strain. But I need
hardly say this to someone so knowledgeable. This, rather: mark what you
think needs correcting. I shall be more ready to believe you like the rest
if you let me know there were some things you disliked. Farewell.
6 You may judge how highly I value your criticism from the fact that
I wanted to let you ponder all my verses rather than praise a selection.
And indeed even the neatest start looking less neat when they're all on a
I Or 'figuration'-i.e. the general way in which the thoughts are put, not in the
poems, but weigh each for itself, not thinking it worse than another if it's
perfect of its own kind.
Enough. To use a long preface to excuse or commend one's indiscretions 8
is in itself hardly discreet. One proviso however: I am thinking of calling
these trifles of mine 'Hendecasyllables', thus referring to nothing except
the metre. You may call them epigrams or idylls or eclogues or (as many 9
do) poematia, 2 or anything else you like: I promise merely hendeca-
syllables.
You are a frank friend: please say to me about my book what you will 10
say to anyone else: no difficult request. 3 If this were my chief or only pro-
duction, it might perhaps be hard to have to say: 'Look for something else
to do.' AB it is, you can say, quite kindly and gently: 'You have other
things to do.' Farewell.
I once said of an orator of our time-a good sound one, but hardly lofty I
and ornate enough-something that I think apt: 'He has no fault except
that he has no fault.' An orator ought to be roused and exalted, at times 2
even boil and get carried away: and he should often come near the edge,
precipices commonly lying near the heights. The flat route is safer, but
it is lower and duller. Runners slip more often than crawlers; but the
crawlers get no praise for failing to slip, and runners get some even if
they do. Eloquence thrives, like some other arts, on hazard as on nothing 3
else. You observe what applause greets tight-rope walkers on their way
up the wire when they seem to be all but falling off. Particular admiration 4
is the reward of the particularly unexpected, the particularly dangerous
and (as the Greeks put it more expressively) hazardous (parabola).
The qualities of a steerSman show up by no means the same on a calm
as on a rough sea; in a calm he wins no admiration: unpraised, un-
honoured he makes his port. But when the sheets shriek, the mast
bends, the rudder groans-then he is famous and rivals the gods of the
ocean.
Why all this? Because you seem to have marked as turgid in my writings 5
some things I thought sublime: as outrageous what I thought daring: as
I i.e. if a selection is made containing only the best.
2 i.e. 'little poems'.
3 a. 'Longinus' I (below, p. 462) for this conventional request for frankness .
.. The attitudes, and even some of the details, of this letter can be paralleled in
'Longinus'.
43 0 QUINTILIAN AND PLINY
excessive what I thought full. But it's very important whether the
6 passages you mark are blameworthy or outstanding. Anyone can notice
something that sticks up and stands out; but it needs acute taste to decide
if it's excessive or grand, high or grotesque. To turn to Homer for prefer-
ence: who can miss, one way or the other: 'all around the great heaven
trumpeted',! and 'his spear rested on a cloud', and all the part where 'the
7 sea wave does not thunder so loud'?z But whether these are incredible
and empty passages or splendid superhuman ones requires the scales and
balance to decide. I don't mean that I have written or could ever write
anything comparable (I'm not so mad); I mean rather that the reins
should be kept loose on eloquence, that the natural impulses should not
be crippled by keeping them to too narrow a course.
8 'Orators have one set of rules, poets another.' As if Cicero were less
daring! Still, I will leave him out of account (I don't think there is any
dispute there). Let us take Demosthenes himself, the very pattern and
rule of the orator. Does he check and restrain himself when he says in a
famous passage: 'Filthy men, flatterers and devils'; or again: 'I did not
fortify the city with stones or brick .. .'; or just after that: 'Was it not to
make Euboea a sea-ward shield for Attica?';3 or, in another speech:
'I think, men of Athens, that he by heaven is drunk with the vastness of
9 his acts.'4 What could be more daring, again, than that long and fine
digression beginning 'For a disease .. .' ?s What of another passage, shorter
than those but equally daring: 'Then I <confronted) Pytho in all his
pride, flowing down full on us' ?6 In the same rank: 'But when someone
grows powerful, as he has, on malevolent ambition, the first excuse, the
slightest false step customarily unseats and confounds all. '7 Similarly:
'Roped off by every process of justice in the state'; and in the same speech:
'You, Aristogiton, threw away the pity they deserved-indeed, you utterly
destroyed it. Do not, then, think you can anchor in harbours that you
yourself have blocked and filled with obstructions.'8 Before that he had
said: 'I see no spot where he can set foot, but everywhere cliffs, precipices,
chasms.' And again: 'I am afraid you may be thought to be tutoring each
new aspirant to vice in this city.' Or again: 'I do not imagine your an-
cestors built these law-courts for you to propagate such people in them.'
Even this was not enough; he also has: 'But if he is a trader and retailer
and trafficker in wickedness', 9 and many other such things-not to mention
what Aeschines 10 calls not words but wonders.
I Iliad 21.388; cf. 'Longinus' 9. 6 (below, p. 469); Demetrius 83 (above, p. 189).
2 Iliad 5. 356; 14. 394.
3 18. 296, 299, 301. For the range of speeches cited, cf. Hermogenes (below,
pp. 561 If.). 4 Philippics I. 49. 5 19.259. 6 18. 136.
7 2. 9. 8 [25.] 28, 84. 9 [25.] 76, 7, 48, 46.
10 Against Ctesiplioll 167.
PLINY'S LETTERS 43 1
I have come up against an obstacle; you will say that here is Demo- 10
sthenes being criticized for these things. But observe the superiority of
the man who is criticized to the critic-and the superiority lies partly in
expressions like these: elsewhere we can glimpse his forcefulness-here
his grandeur shines out.
And did Aeschines himself avoid the 'faults' he found in Demosthenes? II
'Gentlemen of Athens, the orator and the law must say the same thing;
but when the law speaks with one voice, the orator with another .. .'
Elsewhere: 'He can be seen throughout the bill .. .' And in yet another:
'But wait there in ambush and listen, and so drive him into words
that break the law.'! He liked this so much that he repeats it: 'But, as 12
in horse-races, drive him into the path of relevance.'2 Then there is
something more brief and guarded: 'You open old sores, and care more
for your immediate words than for the safety of the state.' But this is
loftier: 'Will you not drive away one who is the common misfortune of
Greece? He sails through the state on a flood of words; will you not take
him and punish him as a pirate in public life ?'3
I am sure that you will strike out with the same marks as the passages 13
I mentioned various expressions in this letter, like 'the rudder groans' and
'rivals the gods of the ocean': I know that in asking pardon for earlier
offences I have fallen into the very faults you pointed out. But strike
out as you will, so long as you fix a day now on which we can discuss all
my crimes in person. You shall make me cautious; or I shall make you
rash. Farewell.
I Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 16, 101, 206.
2 Against Timarchus 176. 3 Against Ctesiphon 208, 253.
10
TACITUS, DIALOGUE ON ORATORS
The dramatic date of this dialogue is under Vespasian, probably A.D. 74. But it
was perhaps not written till after 100. In it, the historian Tacitus gives a different
view of the state of eloquence from that ofQuintilian; indeed, he may be answer-
ing Quintilian's lost work on the causes of the decay in eloquence. Quintilian
still looked for great oratory, and thought his kind of education might yet produce
it. Tacitus shows that the times are unfavourable; his Maternus refutes both his
Aper (the modem orator) and his Messalla (the admirer of the ancients). The
Dialogue is a minor masterpiece of characterization. Style and form are modelled
on Cicero's dialogues;I but the historian commands perspectives unusual in
classical literary criticism.
Text: E. Kostermann, Leipzig, 1964. Commentaries: W. Peterson, Oxford,
1893; A. Gudeman, 2nd. edn., Leipzig, 1914. The best introduction to the
problems of the work is in R. Syme, Tacitus, Oxford, 1958, 100 ff.
I You often ask me, Justus Fabius, why, while earlier periods were
brightened by the lustre and talent of so many outstanding orators,
our own times should find themselves barren, bereft of distinction in
eloquence-scarcely, indeed, even retaining the name 'orator'. We use
the word now only of the old-timers; the accomplished speakers of our day
are dubbed lawyers, advocates, attorneys-anything rather than orators.
To answer your question is to take up the burden of an important
problem. It reflects on our abilities if we cannot reach the heights
attained by our predecessors, and on our judgement if we do not wish to;
in fact I should hardly venture on to this topic if I proposed to put forward
my own views: actually, however, I have set myself to recount a conversa-
tion between men as eloquent as you may find nowadays, whom I heard
discussing this very question when I was still quite young. So it's not
talent I need, but power of memory. What I heard from these brilliant
men they had thought out carefully, and they used considered language,
each putting forward different though convincing reasons, and each
marking them with the genuine stamp of his own personality and interests.
My task now is to retrace what they said, altering no stage of the dis-
cussion, changing no argument, and keeping the same order that the
disputants took. Nor, indeed, was there lacking someone on the other side,
I The characters in both authors are historical-but little is known about Tacitus'
figures apart from what we can learn from the dialogue itself.
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS 433
ready to pour abuse and ridicule on the old days and back modern elo-
quence against the geniuses of the past.
The day before the discussion Curiatius Maternus had recited his z
Cato, thus offending (it was said) the susceptibilities of powerful persons;1
it was felt that in working out the plot of his tragedy he had forgotten
his own situation and thought only of Cato's. The city was buzzing with
the affair when Matemus had a visit from Marcus Aper and Julius
Secundus, the most notable lawyers of the day-men whom I myself was
engaged in following with all attention not only in the courts but even
in their homes and whenever they made public appearances. For I was
in love with my studies, and it was a sort of youthful passion that led
me to hang on their lightest stories, their discussions, and their private
oratorical exercises; though most people, it must be admitted, regarded
them in a less flattering light-found Secundus halting, and thought that
Aper had made his reputation by sheer natural force of intellect rather
than by any systematic education. In fact, however, Secundus' style was
clear, concise, and adequately fluent, while Aper by no means lacked
learning-he wasn't without letters, he merely despised them, perhaps
visualizing a greater reputation for hard work if his abilities stood in no
apparent need of the support of extraneous techniques.
Thus it was that we three entered Maternus' room, to find him sitting 3
there holding the very book that he had read aloud the day before.
Secundus said: 'Maternus, don't the spiteful stories that are going
around frighten you into loving this unpopular Cato of yours a little
less? Or perhaps you've taken the book in hand to give it a thorough
revision and cut out the parts that have given a handle to misrepresenta-
tion: so that Cato on publication may turn out, if not better, at least
safer ?'
'You will find in the book', he replied, 'what Maternus owed it to
himself to put there-and you will recognize what you heard at the recita-
tion. If Cato left anything out, Thyestes will repair the omission at the
next recital. I've already got that tragedy organized in my mind-and I'm
hurrying on the publication of Cato so that I can put that care aside and
concentrate whole-heartedly on the new one.'
'You're never tired of these tragedies of yours', said Aper. 'You still
neglect oratory and the law-courts, and spend all your time on Medea
and now Thyestes, though you're constantly being summoned to the
forum by your friends' cases and countless obligations to colonies and
municipalities. You'd hardly have time for them even if you hadn't
brought this new business on yourself of lumping in Domitius and Cato
-Roman names and Roman episodes-with Greek mythology.'
I The story of the death of Cato naturally gave scope for anti-imperial sentiments.
8143591 F f
434 TACITUS
4 'I should be more put off by your harshness', said Maternus, 'if our
continual differences of opinion hadn't turned virtually into a habit.
You keep harrying poets and hunting them down; I have a plea to sustain
every day-the defence of poetry against you: so much for my'laziness
in advocacy. So I'm particularly glad we find ourselves provided with a
judge who can either forbid me writing my verses in future, or lend his
own authority to an old dream of mine-to abandon the niceties of the
law (I've sweated away quite enough at them) and devote myself to the
worship of an eloquence that better deserves my respect and reverence.'
5 'Before Aper rejects me as a judge', said Secundus, 'I shall do what
good honest judges always do---excuse themselves in cases where it's
clear that they have an interest on one side. Everybody knows that no one
is a closer friend and companion to me than Saleius Bassus, the best of
men and the most perfect of poets. If poetry is under attack, 1 can't
think of a more credit-worthy defendant.'
'As for poems and verses, on which Maternus wants to spend his whole 9
life-that was where all this started from-they win their authors no
respectable position and bring them no advantages; the pleasure they give
is fleeting, the fame empty and fruitless. Maternus' ears may reject this
and what I am going on to say: but what good is it to anybody if your
Agamemnons and Jasons wax eloquent? Does it mean that anyone can
return home successfully defended and in your debt? Does anyone escort
Saleius, our friend and excellent poet-most distinguished bard (is
that more impressive ?)-or pay him visits or throng around him in
the street? Ifhe himself, or a friend of his, or a relation gets into difficulty,
he will come running to Secundus here, or to you, Maternus-but not
in your capacity as poet, and not wanting you to write verses for him.
Verses Bassus can supply for himself-they grow in his garden, very
pretty and agreeable tOQ: but the upshot of it all is that after burning the
midnight oil for a whole year, working all day and most of the night, and
contriving to knock together one volume, he has to go round begging and
canvassing to find someone who will condescend to listen to it-at a
price. He has to borrow a house and equip a recital-hall, hire seats and
distribute advertisements. And even if the recitation is a high success,
the praise he wins for it is the matter of a day or two, something plucked
in leaf or flower that cannot go on to give real tangible fruit; he gains no
'friendship', acquires no clients, leaves no grateful memory; the applause
is fleeting, the compliments empty, the pleasure swiftly gone. The other
day we thought Vespasian was being wonderfully and outstandingly
generous when he gave Bassus five thousand. Of course, it's nice to find
one's abilities paying off with the emperor; but it's even nicer, in a domes-
tic emergency, to be able to look to oneself, draw on one's own resources,
test one's own generosity. And after all, if they want to produce anything
worthwhile, poets hav(to leave the society of their friends and the pleasures
of the city, throw up all their other responsibilities, and withdraw, as
they put it, 'to the woodland groves'-that is, to a life of solitude.
'They are enslaved to fame c aitd reputation alone, and agree that this 10
is the only reward they get f~r their labours: but fame hardly attends
poets as assiduously as orators. Nobody knows the third-rate poet, few
the first-rate. Recitations, however successful,' are hardly ever reported
round the whole city, let alone the provinces of this great empire. Few
arrivals from Spain or Asia-to forget about my native Gaul-ask for
Saleius Bassus. And if anyone does, he passes on after seeing him once,
quite contented, just as if he'd viewed a picture or a statue.
I Text conjectural.
TACITUS
'I don't want you to think that I'm trying to turn away from poetry
those who have been denied a natural talent for oratory, if they can in
fact pass their spare time agreeably in this field and even make a bit of a
name. I regard all branches of eloquence as sacred and holy; not only
your tragic style and the thunder of epic, but pleasing lyrics, saucy
elegiacs, bitter iambics, playful epigrams, and all other types are to be
preferred to other artistic fields. My quarrel is with you personally,
Maternus; your constitution destines you for the heights of eloquence,
yet you prefer to wander below: you could reach the top, but you potter
over trivia. If you were Greek-for in Greece sport too is a respectable
career-and were fortunate enough to have the strength of a Nicostratus,
I shouldn't be content that your immense arms, obviously meant for
wrestling, should squander themselves on tossing light javelins and
discuses. In the same way now I can only summon you to leave your halls
and theatres and come to the forum, to lawsuits and real contests, espe-
cially as you can't take refuge in the plea whi~h many shelter behind,
that poetry is less liable to offend than oratory. Your splendid natural
energy bubbles out, and you give offence-not for some personal friend,
but for Cato--which is more dangerous. You can't minimize the offence
by appealing to the ties of duty or an advocate's responsibilities or the
impulse of extemporary speech. You obviously took care to pick a character
that was notorious and would speak with authority. I can see a possible
reply-such a move brings immense applause, special praise in the
recital-hall, and soon a topic for all tongues. But that destroys the argu-
ment that a poet has a quiet, safe life. You are taking on an adversary
too big for you. We are satisfied to take up non-political disputes-and
ones of our own century: if it were ever necessary to offend great men
because a friend is on trial, our loyalty to him would be approved of, and
our freedom of speech excused.'
II Aper had said all this pretty pungently, as usual, and with a serious face.
Maternus was relaxed and smiling. 'I was getting ready,' he said, 'to
start accusing orators as thoroughly as Aper praised them; for I supposed
that he would pass on from his eulogy to a disparagement of poets and the
overthrow of the pursuit of poetry. But he has cunningly disarmed me by
allowing people who couldn't plead at the bar to write poetry. I may, with
an effort, be able to make some impression in law-cases; but it was by
reciting tragedy that I put myself on the road to fame, when, in Nero's
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS 439
reign, I broke Vatinius' evil influence that was polluting even literature:
and if! have any name or fame today, I think it's due to my poetry rather
than my speeches. And now I've decided to disengage myself from work at
the bar-I don't want the escorts and ceremonious departures and crowds
of callers that you talk of, any more than the bronzes and portraits that
have pushed their way into my house despite myself. Innocence is a better
safeguard of a man's position than eloquence: no fears in my case that I may
find myself speaking in the senate-except when someone else is in a fix:
'As for the woodland groves, and the solitary life Aper was jeering at, 12
they bring me such joy that I count it among the principal rewards of
poetry that it is composed away from the bustle and the litigant at the door
and the shabby and weeping defendants: the mind is free to withdraw to
fresh innocent places, and enjoy a holy world. This is where true eloquence
had its beginnings and its shrine-this the guise in which it first won over
mortals and flowed into hearts still chaste and uncorrupted. This was
the language of oracles. The profiteering and bloodstained eloquence of
today is a new thing, born of evil habits and-as Aper said-a substitute
for the sword. But the old happy and (as a poet may be allowed to put it)
golden era had neither orators nor accusations, but it swarmed with
inspired poets to sing of good deeds, not to defend bad ones. Nobody
received greater fame or more reverent honour, either from the gods,
whose oracles they passed on and whose feasts they attended (as the
story goes), or from kings who were themselves sacred and descended
from gods. We hear of no pleader then, but of Orpheus and Linus and,
further back, Apollo himself. This may seem tendentious fiction: but
you won't deny, Aper, that the fame of Homer with posterity doesn't
yield to that of Demosthenes: the reputation of Euripides or Sophocles
isn't narrower than Lysias' or Hyperides'. You will come across more
people nowadays to carp at Cicero's reputation than at Virgil's: Ovid's
Medea and Varius' Thyestes are more famous than any volume ofPollio
or Messalla. I
'I have no worries about the contrast of the poet's lot, and his happy 13
relationship to the Muses, with the anxious troubled life of an orator.
They may be brought by their struggles and their perils to the consulship;
I prefer the quiet security of Virgil's retreat-and he didn't go without
imperial favour or popular fame. You need only look at Augustus' letters,
or remember the day when the people rose as one man in the theatre on
hearing lines by Virgil quoted, and rapturously applauded the poet-
who happened to be present as a spectator-as though he was Augustus
himself. And in our time too Pomponius Secundus was every bit as
respectable and lastingly famous as Domitius Afer.
I These famous Augustan plays are lost.
440 TACITUS
'What is there to envy in the fortunes of Crispus and Marcellus, on whom
you want me to model myself? Is it the fear they feel or the fear they
inspire? Is it that they are every day at the mercy of the importunate, who
turn on them as soon as they get what they want? Or that they are fettered
by every sort of obsequiousness, always too free for the emperor and too
servile for us? How does all this give them supreme power? Freedmen
have as much. I should prefer to be carried by Virgil's 'sweet Muses'l to
their sacred haunts and fountains, far from troubles and cares and the
daily compulsion to act against one's inclinations: and have no further
truck with the mad slippery life of the forum, trembling and pale in the
pursuit of fame. I don't want to be woken up by shouting clients or breath-
less freedmen, or worry so much about the future that I have to write
safeguards into my will, or own more than I could safely leave to the heir
I choose. For 'some day my hour too will come'-I trust the statue on
my grave will be cheerful and garlanded, not sad and grim. No debates, no
petitions about my memorial, please.'
ENTRY OF MESSALLA
I Georgics 2. 475.
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS
of the schools, but prefers to spend his leisure as the new rhetoricians
do, rather than as the old orators did.'
Aper said: 'You're always showing your admiration for the old and IS
antique, Messalla, and laughing present-day pursuits to scorn. I've often
heard you in this vein: forgetting your own eloquence, and your brother's,I
and affirming that nobody nowadays is an orator-and particularly boldly
because you don't fear to be called envious: the glory you deny to your-
self others concede to you.'
'I don't repent of my words,' Messalla replied, 'and 1 don't believe
Secundus or Maternus or even you, Aper, despite your occasional
arguments to the contrary, really differ from me. 1 should like one of you to
consent to investigate the causes of the infinite gulf between old and new,
and expound them to me-for 1 often find myself reflecting on the problem.
What consoles others only increases my puzzlement-I mean that the
Greeks too have declined: there's a greater difference between Aeschines
and Demosthenes on the one hand, and Nicetes Sacerdos 2 or any of the
others who shake Ephesus and Mytilene with the shrieked applause of
their pupils, than between Afer or Africanus or yourselves and Cicero or
Asinius.'3
'It's a big question you bring up,' said Secundus, 'and one well worth 16
discussing. But who is more qualified to take it up than you? You have
supreme learning and outstanding powers, and you've taken trouble to
consider the problem beforehand.'
Messalla said: 'I will tell you what 1 have thought-so long as 1 get you
to agree in advance to help me in my speech.'
'I promise for both of us', said Maternus. 'Secundus and 1 will both
take up the sections that we see you have left-not left out, but left to us.
Aper is a habitual dissentient, as you said just now: and it's been obvious
for some time that he's girding himself for the opposition, and won't
easily put up with this alliance of ours in praise of the ancients.'
'No,' said Aper, 'I certainly shall not allow our own century to go unheard
and undefended, and so be condemned by your conspiracy.
'My first question is this: who do you mean by "ancients"? What
generation of orators do you mark off by this term? When 1 hear the
word, 1 think of old-timers born long ago, and Ulysses and Nestor come
into my mind-men living perhaps thirteen hundred years ago. But you
, M. Aquillius Regulus. 2 A first-century Greek orator.
3 i.e. Pollio, consul 40 B.C., a famous politician and literary man at the time of the
beginnings of the principate.
442 TACITUS
APER ON CICERO
'1 come to Cicero. He had the same battle with his contemporaries as I 22
have with you. They admired the ancients, he preferred the eloquence of
his own day. And there is nothing in which he outstripped the orators of
that period more decisively than in his judgement. He was the first to
cultivate oratory, the first to apply choice to words and artifice to structure.
44 6 TACITUS
He even attempted more flowery passages, and happened on a number of
epigrams, at least in the speeches he wrote as an old man at the end of his
life-after, that is, he had developed, and discovered by practice and
experience what the best style was. For his early speeches have the faults
of the ancients. He is slow in his proems, verbose i\1 his narrative, lax
in his digressions; he is slow to be moved, rarely catches fire; few sen-
tences end neatly and with a punch. Nothing here to excerpt, nothing to
take home-it's like a rough building, with a firm wall that will last but
with no proper polish or splendour.
'I think of an orator as a family man of su bstance and taste: I don't want
him to have a house that merely keeps wind and rain off, but one that
catches the eye and pleases it. His furniture shouldn't be confined to
necessities-he should have gold and jewels in his store, so that one enjoys
frequently taking him down and admiring him. Some things are out of
date and smelly-let them be kept ouf: we want no word tarnished with
rust, no sentences put together in the slow sluggish manner of the annalists:
he must avoid tasteless and disagreeable pleasantry, vary his structure,
and use more than one kind of clausula.
23 'I have no wish to laugh at Cicero's "wheel of fortune"l and "boar-
sauce"2-or the esse videatur which appears instead of an epigram at the
end of every other sentence throughout his speeches. 3 I bring this up
unwillingly, and I ignore many further instances that monopolize the
admiration and even imitation of those who call themselves 'ancient'
orators. No names-I am quite happy just to make the type clear. But in
any case you can picture the people I mean: they read Lucilius in pre-
ference to Horace and Lucretius rather than Virgil; they find the eloquence
of Aufidius Bassus and Servilius Nonianus tame in comparison with
Sisenna's or Varro's; they scorn and even hate the model speeches
published by rhetoricians-but admire Calvus'. These people go on
chatting in front of the judge in the old style, but they have lost their
audience's attention; the spectators don't bother to listen, and even the
litigant can scarcely put up with them, so gloomy and unpolished are
they. They may attain the healthiness they boast of, but they do so by
starving, not by building up their strength. Even as far as the body is
concerned, doctors hesitate to recommend a state of health that involves
mental anxiety. It's not enough not to be unwell: I want a man to be
strong, cheerful, and active. One who is praised only for his health is not
far off illness.
I In Pisonem 22.
2 Cf. Vcrr. I. I. 121: the Latin is a pun, and could also mean 'Verrine justice'.
3 A form of the conunon cretic+spondee (-u---) clausula. Cf. QlIint. 10. 2. 18
(above, p. 402).
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS 447
'But you-my very eloquent friends-go on brightening this age of ours
with beauty of speech as you can, and as you do. You, Messalla, 1 observe,
choose out the brightest passages of the ancients for your imitation: and
you, Maternus and Secundus, mix with your grave sentiments brilliant
and refined language. Such is your choice of material, Such your ordering
of it, such your copiousness when the case demands, such your conciseness
when the case permits, such your agreeable rhythm, such the clarity of
your thought, such the vividness of the emotions you portray, such the
discretion of your outspokenness, that even if the judgement of our own
period is dulled by envy and jealousy, our descendants will surely speak
the truth of you.'
After Aper's speech, Maternus said: 'One recognizes our friend Aper's 24
force and ardour. What an irresistible torrent of eloquence he brought to
the aid of our century! How fully, on how many fronts he harried the
ancients! He showed not merely brilliance of inspiration, but learning and
technique, borrowing from the ancients the weapons with which to go
on and attack them. 1 trust, however, Messalla, that he hasn't put you off
your promise. We aren't looking for a defender of the ancients-and
despite his praise just now we don't put any of ourselves in the class of the
men he attacked. Of course, he isn't being candid: it's an old trick, and
one often used by our friends the philosophers, to take on oneself the
role of opponent. So produce for us not so much a eulogy of the ancients
-their fame is enough praise for them-as the reasons why we have
lagged so far behind their standards of eloquence: particularly when
chronology has proved that only a hundred and twenty years have passed
since the death of Cicero.'
Then Messalla said: 'I shall follow the line you suggest, Maternus. 25
There is certainly no need for a long refutation of Aper-indeed, his first
point was in my view a verbal quibble: 1 mean, that it's improper to call
men ancients who have quite certainly been dead a hundred years. 1 am
not fighting about a word; he can call them ancients or elders or anything
else he prefers, so long as it's granted that the oratory of those days was
superior. And I'm not disposed to argue with the part where he came to
grips with the problem and pronounced that you get more than one style
of oratory even at the same time-let alone in different centuries. Now
among the orators of Attica Demosthenes takes the crown, Aeschines
and Hyperides and Lysias and Lycurgus are in next place: but it is that
period which is by universal consent regarded as the peak. Similarly at
TACITUS
Rome Cicero outstripped all other eloquent speakers of his time, but Calvus
and Asinius and Caesar and Caelius and Brutus are rightly regarded as
superior to those who came before and after. It makes no difference that
their species differ-the genus is the same. Calvus is more concise,
Asinius more vigorous, Caesar more impressive, Caelius more bitter,
Brutus more serious, Cicero more vehement and full and powerful than
his contemporaries; but they all display the same health of eloquence: if
you turn over all their books together, you can tell that, however much
their talents differed, there is a certain similarity and kinship between
their judgement and intentions. They carped at each other, to be sure--
and there are traces of reciprocated malice in their letters; but that is a
fault they were subject to as men, not as orators. Certainly Calvus,
Asinius, and Cicero too were wont to envy and be jealous and to be
afflicted by other human weaknesses; alone among them Brutus, I think,
laid bare his inmost convictions with no malice or envy, but with sim-
plicity and candour. It's hardly likely he could envy Cicero when he
didn't (I think) envy even Caesar. As for Servius Galba and Gaius
Laelius and other ancients that Aper couldn't stop chasing, the defence
can be waived; I agree that their eloquence, still growing and adolescent,
lacked much.
26 'But if we leave out of account supreme and perfect oratory, and look
round for a style to choose, I should distinctly prefer Gaius Gracchus'
impetuosity or Lucius Crassus' ripeness to Maecenas' curling-tongs I or
Gallio's jingles: better clothe oratory in a hairy toga 2 than prink it out in
gaudy and meretricious costumes. That sort of refinement doesn't suit
oratory-or even a real man: I mean the sort many pleaders of our day
so abuse that they come to reproduce the rhythms of the stage: language
obscene, thoughts frivolous, rhythm licentious. Many people actually
boast, as if it were a step towards fame and a sign of their genius, that
their model speeches are sung or danced: it ought to be almost out of the
question even to listen to talk like this. Hence the common remark-
shameful and perverse though it is-that modern orators speak lasciviously,
modern actors dance eloquently.
'I don't wish to deny that Cassius Severus-the only name Aper dared
to mention-could be called an orator, if we compare him with his suc-
cessors: though he has more bile than good red blood in the great majority
of his speeches. He was the first to despise order in his material, to lay
aside shame and modesty in language. He is inept even in the use of such
arms as he does employ, often so eager to strike a blow that he loses his
balance altogether. He doesn't fight-he brawls. But, as I say, compared
I Cf. Seneca, epist. 114. (above, pp. 363 If.).
Z Cf. Q!lint. 12. 10. 47 (above, p. 411).
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS 449
with his successors he is superior by far to the others whom Aper couldn't
bring himself to name or deploy in the battle-superior in variety of
learning, wit, charm, and sheer strength.
'I was certainly expecting that Aper, having condemned Asinius,
Caelius, and Calvus, would bring up a fresh division for us, and give even
more names, or at least as many, so that we could find a pair for Cicero
and Caesar and so on, one by one. As it is, he confines himself to criti-
cizing the ancients by name-but hasn't dared to praise any of their suc-
cessors except in a generalized manner. 1 suppose he was afraid that if he
picked only a few out, he would offend many others. Every man jack of
today's rhetoricians labours under the illusion that he can class himself
Cicero's superior-though at the same time altogether inferior to Gabini-
anus. 1 shan't hesitate to name individuals; if 1 put forward examples,
it becomes easier to see by what stages eloquence has been broken and
enfeebled.'
'Spare us that', said Maternus. 'Just keep your promise. We don't need 27
a demonstration that the ancients are more eloquent-I for one am quite
convinced of that: we're looking for the causes which you mentioned you
frequently thought about. That of course was when you were in a quieter
frame of mind a little while ago and hadn't been provoked by Aper's
criticisms of your ancestors into getting angry with the oratory of today.'
'I haven't been provoked by Aper's point of view,' he said, 'and you
mustn't be provoked if anything happens to grate on your ears. You
know the rule of conversations of this kind: give your honest opinion and
don't worry about giving offence.'
'Go on, then,' said Maternus, 'and since you speak of the ancients,
employ the ancient habit of plain speaking-we've got even further away
from that than from eloquence.'
Messalla went on: 'The causes you are looking for, Maternus, are by 28
no means abstruse-you and Secundus and Aper know them quite well,
even if you have given me the role of expounding publicly things we all
feel. Everybody knows that eloquence, and the other arts too, have
declined from their old heights not for any lack of exponents, but because
the young are lazy, their parents neglectful, their teachers ignorant-and
because the old ways are forgotten. The rot started in Rome, then spread
through Italy-and now is seeping into the provinces. You know better
than I the situation there; I shall talk about the city, and its own indivi-
dual and home-bred vices that are on hand to welcome a child as soon as
he's born, and pile up as he grows older. First of all, I must say a few
words about our ancestors' strict methods in the education and moulding
of their children.
'In the old days everyone had his son-born in wedlock of a chaste
8143591 G g
45 0 TACITUS
mother-brought up not in the room of some hired nurse but on his
mother's lap; and the mother's especial claim to praise was to look after
her household and slave for her children. Or some older relation was
selected, of tried and proved character, and the whole brood committed
to her charge; in her presence it was not allowed to say anything that was
shameful or do anything that was wrong. She brought an element of
purity and modesty not only to their tasks and studies but to their games
and relaxations as well. This is the way Cornelia, as is well known, took
charge of the upbringing of the Gracchi, and educated these distinguished
children; so Aurelia with Caesar, Atia with Augustus. The object of this
austere training was that each child's nature, open, honest, untwisted by
any vice, should immediately and whole-heartedly seize on good arts.
And whether the child inclined to the army or to law or to eloquence he
concentrated on that alone and made it his whole diet.
29 'But nowadays a child is delivered on birth to some Greek maid, who
is helped by one or other of the slaves-and generally a quite worthless
one at that, unfit for any serious duty. Their nursery stories and supersti-
tions give the first colour to green and untrained minds. Nobody in the
whole house cares what he does or says in the presence of the young
master; even the parents don't trouble to get their little ones used to
goodness and propriety-they substitute wantonness and pertness: hence
very soon impudence creeps in, and contempt for one's own property and
everyone else's. The peculiar and private vices of this city seem to be
implanted in children while they're still in the womb, stage fever and
enthusiasm for gladiators and race-horses. The mind gets taken over and
besieged by these activities, and no room is left for better attainments.
Do you often find people talking of anything else at home? All the youths
are chatting about such things when we go into the lecture room. Even
teachers have no more frequent topic of discussion with their pupils:
indeed they attract students not by being disciplinarians or showing proof
of their attainments, but by servile greetings and the enticements of
flattery.
30 '1 won't stop to discuss elementary education, though here too in-
sufficient trouble is taken; not enough time is spent either on getting to
know authors or studying history or acquiring knowledge of events,
people, and times. They're all agog for the so-called rhetoricians. 1 shall
shortly tell you when the profession was introduced into this city, and
how it had no sort of standing in the eyes of our ancestors; but first let me
draw your attention to the training that we know was undergone by those
old orators: for their endless pains, their daily practice, their constant
exercise in all kinds of study are mentioned in their own books.
'You will, of course, be acquainted with Cicero's Brutus, at the end of
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS 4S 1
which, after his recital of the old orators one by one, he relates his own
beginnings, the steps he took towards eloquence, what one may call his
oratorical education. He relates how he studied civil law at the feet of
Qyintus Mucius and took a deep draught of all kinds of philosophy from
the Academic Philo and the Stoic Diodotus. He was by no means content
with the teachers to whom he had access in Rome, and so he traversed
Greece and Asia also, in order to take in the widest variety of accomplish-
ment. This, obviously, is why one can diagnose from Cicero's books that
neither mathematics nor music nor grammar nor any other gentlemanly
branch of knowledge fell outside his range. He was acquainted with the
subtleties of dialectic, the practical teachings of ethics, and the physical
causes and changes of events. This is the point I am making, my friends:
that wonderful eloquence is the lavish overflow from great learning, wide
skills, and universal knowledge. There is no narrow boundary circum-
scribing oratorical potentiality and ability, as there is in other fields: he
only is a true orator who can speak on any question brilliantly and splen-
didly and persuasively, with equal regard for the importance of the
subject, the circumstances of the time, and the pleasure of the audience.
'This was the conviction of those old-time orators. They realized that 31
it was therefore essential not to declaim in the rhetoricians' schools, not
to exercise one's tongue and one's vocal chords in imaginary debates that
have no sort of relation to reality, but to fill their minds with those high
accomplishments that necessitate discussion of Good and Evil, Right and
Wrong, Just and Unjust: this is the material that is the orator's stock-
in-trade. In law-courts we are generally talking about equity, in delibera-
tions about what is expedient, in eulogy about the Good. But often these
distinctions are blurred: and no one can talk fluently and widely and
elegantly on such topics unless he has acquainted himself with human
nature, the power of virtue and the depravity of vice, and can understand
the class of things that are neither virtue nor vice. Hence other advantages:
the man who knows what anger is can more easily arouse or calm a judge's
anger, and a knowledge of the nature of pity and the emotions by which
it is aroused can enable one to move it more freely. If an orator is con-
versant with these arts and this training, whether he has to speak to hostile
or prejudiced or envious or morose or frightened men he will be able to
feel his hearers' pulses, and proceed to adapt his speech as their characters
require. He will have all the means available, stored up for every conceiv-
able use. There are audiences with whom a concise, brief, one-argument-
at-a-time style will carry more conviction; here a training in dialectic
pays off. Others are pleased rather by oratory that is wordy, level,
appealing to common feelings: to influence them we shall borrow from
the Peripatetics commonplaces ready and available for any controversy.
45 2 TACITUS
The Academics will provide belligerence, Plato sublimity, Xenophon
sweetness. An orator won't regard it as outside his province to bring into
action good remarks even of Epicurus and Metrodorus, and employ them
where appropriate. 1 am trying to model not a sage, or some disciple of the
Stoics, but someone who must take a sip of all the arts, while draining
only some of them down. So it was that the old orators included legal
knowledge in their studies, and learnt the elements of grammar, music,
and mathematics. Many of the cases one comes up against-indeed
virtually all of them-require a knowledge of the law; and there are a
large number that call for acquaintance with those other attainments, too.
32 '1 don't want to hear the retort that it's enough for us to receive straight-
forward special briefings as each occasion requires. First of all, we make
different uses of our own and borrowed materials; it's obvious that it
matters a lot if one owns what one puts on display or merely hires it.
Moreover the very fact that we have wide knowledge of the arts lends us
distinction even when we're on quite another tack-it stands out brilliantly
when you least expect it. This is noticed by ordinary people as well as by
a learned and observant listener; and their instantaneous praise means
that they agree that here is a true orator, who has had a proper training
and has gone through all the right hoops. Such a man cannot be, 1
maintain, and never has been anyone but somebody who goes into the
forum armed with all the arts like a fully-equipped soldier striding into
battle. But this point is so ignored by modern speakers that you may catch
them in their cases uttering phrases with all the disgraceful and shaming
faults of our every-day conversation. They have no knowledge of the
laws, no acquaintance with decrees of the senate, no respect, even, for
the Roman code; as for philosophy and the precepts of the wise they
shudder at the very thought of them. They squeeze eloquence into a hand-
ful of bright ideas and a narrow range of epigrams-dethroning it, one
may say; for once it was the mistress of all the arts, and filled men's
hearts with the beauty of its retinue. Now it is circumscribed and crippled,
with no attendants and no respect shown it, without-I could almost say
-any claim to breeding, and is learnt as though it were a mere low-class
trade. This is, 1 think, the first and foremost cause for the extent to which
we have fallen short of the old oratory.
'If you want witnesses, who better to call than Demosthenes among the
Greeks, whom history relates to have been a most attentive student of
Plato? And Cicero, I seem to remember, committed himself to the state-
ment that anything he may have attained in eloquence he attained thanks
not to the workshops of the rhetoricians but to the wide spaces of the
Academy.1 There are other reasons, weighty and important ones-but it's
I Orator 12.
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS 453
only fair that you should expose them; I have done my job, and, accord-
ing to my habit, offended quite enough people who, hearing my argu-
ments, will certainly say that in praising the knowledge of law and
philosophy as essential for an orator, I merely pander to my own foolish
pursuits.'
Maternus said: 'Personally, 1 don't think you have yet completed the task 33
you undertook-indeed you seem merely to have begun it, and drawn a few
preparatory lines and sketches. You've told us what arts the old orators
were normally trained in, and you've contrasted our ignorance and sloth
with their vigorous and fruitful studies. But I'm waiting for the rest: I've
learnt what they knew-or what we don't know-but 1 want also to find
out what exercises youths about to enter the forum generally used to
strengthen and nourish their talents. Eloquence is a matter of art and
knowledge-but far more of capacity and experience: you won't, I'm
sure, dispute that, and 1 judge from the faces of our friends that they
agree.'
Aper and Secundus assented, and Messalla made a sort of fresh start.
'1 think I've given a sufficient exposition of the roots and beginnings of
the old eloquence, showing you in what arts the ancient orators were
normally trained and brought up: now for their exercises. Of course, there
is exercise in the arts themselves; no one can grasp such recondite and
varied matters unless theory is backed by practice, practice by capacity,
capacity by actual experience. From which it can be inferred that there is
no distinction between understanding what you are to express and express-
ing what you understood. This may seem a little obscure; but anyone
who tries to separate theory and practice will at any rate concede that a
mind that is full and trained in these arts comes much more prepared to
those exercises that are characteristic of oratorical education.
'Well, in the time of our ancestors the youth who was preparing for the 34
forum and an oratorical career, after a thorough training at home and
stuffed with desirable knowledge, was led off by his father or relations to
an orator who held a high position in the state. He got used to following
this man about, escorting him, being present at all his speeches in law-
court or public assembly: he was on hand to listen to his legal cross-talk
and observe his tiffs: he learnt to fight, you might say, in the battle-line.
Hence vast experience, vast patience, and immense power of judgement
came the way of youths right from the start. They studied in the full glare
of daylight, amid actual crises where no one says anything stupid or
inconsistent and gets away with it-he faces rejection by the judge, abuse
from his adversaries, scorn even from his own supporters. Thus they
straight away became imbued with an eloquence that was real and un-
spoilt. They might follow one man in particular, but they got to know all
454 TACITUS
the advocates of the time in constant law-suits and actions. Moreover,
they had a chance to observe the variations of public taste, and so easily
discovered what in each man found favour or disfavour. Thus they had
available a teacher-and a very good select one at that-who presented
the actual face of eloquence to them, not a mere reflection: and opponents
and rivals fighting with swords of steel, not of wood: and an auditorium
never empty, never the same, consisting of hearers for and against them,
with the result that nothing that was said, good or bad, could go un-
noticed. For you know that really great and lasting distinction in oratory
has its source as much in the benches opposite as in those on your side:
there indeed it grows more firmly, and gains strength more surely. Under
this sort of supervisor the youth of whom I am speaking-pupil of
orators, spectator in the forum, follower oflaw-cases, trained and hardened
in the experience of others, familiar with the laws from daily hearing
of them, one to whom the faces of the judges did not seem strange-
constantly observing the habits of assemblies, constantly aware of
the taste of the people-such a man in prosecution or defence, from the
start was by himself and alone equal to the demands of any case.
Lucius Crassus prosecuted Gaius Carbo at eighteen, Caesar Dolabella
at twenty, Asinius Pollio Gaius Cato at twenty-one, Calvus Vatinius
when not much older-and those speeches we read even today with
admiration.
3S 'But now our poor young men are led off to the schools of the so-called
rhetors. That these people emerged a little before the time of Cicero and
displeased our ancestors is clear from the fact that they were ordered by
the censors Crassus and Domitius to close-as Cicero says-their "schools
for shamelessness".! But as I was saying: youths are led off to schools in
which it is difficult to say what has the worst effect on their progress-the
place, their fellow students, or the studies they go through. There is no
respect in a place where no one not of equal ignorance ever goes; the
other students are no help-boys among boys and youths among youths,
they speak and are heard with equal irresponsibility; but the exercises
themselves are to a large extent positively harmful.
'Two types of subject, of course, are dealt with in the rhetors' schools:
suasoriae and controversiae. The former are regarded as much the less
serious and as demanding less experience, and so they are assigned to the
boys; but the older ones get the controversiae-God, how do I describe
those! They are fantastically put together; and moreover these deliberately
unreal subjects are treated with declamatory bombast. So it comes about
that the most grandiose language is lavished on rewards for tyrannicides
or choices by the raped or remedies for plague or adultery by matrons or
I De oratore 30 940 This was in 92 BoC.
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS -455
any of the other topics that come up daily in school, in the forum rarely or
never: but when they come to speak before real judges.. .'1
' ... consider the matter. He could utter nothing sordid, nothing low. 36
Great eloquence is like a flame: it needs fuel to feed it; it is roused by
movement; and it brightens as it burns.
'It was the same principle in our city also that carried the oratory of the
ancients to its heights. Modern orators have attained what influence they
reasonably may in a settled, calm, and contented state; but they saw that
they could reap advantages from the confusion and licence then prevailing;
all was in turmoil, there was no single ruler, and an orator had prestige
to the extent that he could carry a fickle people with him. Hence the
continual passing of laws to win popular acclaim, hence the addresses by
magistrates ready to spend pretty well all night on the rostrum, hence the
prosecutions of leading men and the feuds handed down like family heir-
looms, hence the quarrels of the great and the incessant rivalry of senate
and people. These contributed to the dismemberment of the state: but
they meant practice for the eloquence of those times and ensured that it
was heaped with great rewards; the better at speaking one was, the more
easily one could attain public office, the more when holding it one could
outdistance one's colleagues, the more influence one could wield with
leading men, the more authority in the senate, the more fame and glory
with the public. These people were flooded with clients-even foreign
nations counted as that; they were the object of respect from magistrates
about to go to their provinces and of attentions from the same men on
their return; they seemed to be at the beck and call of praetorships and
consulships, and even when out of office they did not lack power, for their
counsel and authority lent them control of senate and people alike. They
had convinced themselves that no one could attain or preserve an out-
standing and pre-eminent place in the city without eloquence. And no
wonder, when they found themselves addressing the people even when
they did not want to, when it was not enough just to give a brief explana-
tion of your position in the senate, but you had to defend your opinion
with all your powers of eloquence: when they regarded it as essential to
reply in person if one was summoned to face some charge or calumny:
when one had to give evidence at public trials not in absence or in writing,
but present and personally. Eloquence was not just the route to the highest
rewards-it was a vital necessity: it was splendid and glorious to be
thought eloquent, and shameful to be called dumb and tongueless.
'So shame as much as rew'lrd urged them on, to avoid being petty 37
clients rather than patrons, to ensure that inherited connections did
not pass to others, and that they did not, by a reputation for sloth and
I There is a lacuna here. When the text resumes, Maternus is the speaker.
TACITUS
incompetence, fail to achieve office-or come to grief in it when achieved.
I don't know whether you have handled those old documents, still avail-
able in the libraries of antiquarians and just now being collected by
Mucianus: eleven books of Proceedings and three of Letters have already
come out, haven't they? Ar.yway from these you can judge that Pompey
and Crassus excelled in oratorical talent as well as in military prowess;
the Lentuli, Metelli, Luculli, Curios, and the other top people took a
great deal of trouble over the same pursuits: no one in those days attained
to great power without some eloquence.
'Remember too the distinction of the defendants and the importance
of the cases, themselves a considerable spur to eloquence. For it makes a
lot of difference whether you have to speak about a theft or a rule of
procedure or an interdict-or about electoral bribery, the robbery of
allies, and the slaughter of citizens. No doubt it is better that such things
should not happen; no doubt the best state of affairs for a country is one
in which we don't have to put up with such evils; but seeing that they did
happen, they provided immense scope for eloquence. A talent swells with
the size of the events it has to deal with; no one can produce a famous and
notable oration unless he finds a case equal to his powers. Demosthenes
is not famous, surely, for the speeches he wrote against his guardians,
Cicero isn't a great orator because he defended Publius Q!Jintius or
Licinius Archias. It was Catiline, Milo, Verres, and Antony who covered
him with glory. Don't think I'm saying that it was worth it that the state
should produce such criminal citizens merely to give orators rich scope
for their oratory. But, as I keep saying, let us remember the question under
discussion, and realize that we are speaking of something that flourishes
more easily in stormy and troubled times. It's better (everyone knows
that) and more advantageous to enjoy peace than to be harassed by war:
it remains true that wars produce more good fighters than peace. So it is
with oratory. The more often it stands in the firing-line, the more knocks
it gives and receives, the greater adversaries and the more bitter battles
it takes on, the higher and more sublime it reigns, ennobled by those
crises, in the mouths of men, who are so made that they desire safety but
have a penchant for danger.
38 'I turn now to the shape and customs of the old law-courts. The present
pattern is more convenient, but the forum in its old guise gave more
practice to eloquence. No one then was forced to keep his speech down
to a meagre ration of hours ; there was free scope for postponements; every
speaker fixed his own time-limit, and there was no limitation on the
number of days or of advocates in attendance. Pompey, during his third
consulship, I was the first to bring in restrictions and to put the bit on
I 52 B.C.
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS 457
eloquence: all the same everything continued to be conducted in the
forum and according to the laws and before the praetors. For the praetors
presided over far greater cases then, as can most strikingly be seen from
the fact that the centumviral Cl'ses, which now hold first place, were so
overshadowed by the prestige of other courts that we now read no speech
delivered before the Centumviri by Cicero, Caesar, Brutus, Caelius,
Calvus, or any great orator-only the speeches of Asinius entitled For the
Heirs of Urbinia: but they were delivered by Pollio as late as the middle of
Augustus' reign, at a time when a long period of peace, continuous public
calm, unbroken tranquillity in the senate, and particularly the restraining
influence of the emperor had combined to pacify eloquence herself, like
everything else.
'What I am going to say may perhaps seem ridiculously trivial, but I'll 39
say it all the same to get a laugh purposely. Don't we agree that eloquence
has been brought into disrepute by those tight cloaks that enclose and
fetter us when we chat away to the judges? Hasn't it been emasculated by
the recital halls and public record offices where cases are now normally
disposed of? Well-bred horses are proved by spacious race-tracks: and
there is similarly a kind of unfenced field where orators must run free
and unshackled if eloquence is not to be weakened and broken. We even
find ourselves thwarted by the very trouble we take over careful style,
because the judge often asks when you propose to begin-and you have
to begin there, the moment he asks. Often the judge orders silence when
proofs or evidence are being given. Only one or two people are present
amidst all this, and matters proceed in a sort of vacuum. But what an
orator needs is noise and applause, a theatre for his performance: the
old orators had all that every day. An audience large (and well-bred too)
packed the forum; clients, fellow tribesmen, municipal delegations, a
good proportion of the popUlation of Italy came to support defendants---
for in many cases the Roman people believed that what was decided
mattered to them. It is well known that when Gaius Cornelius, Marcus
Scaurus, Titus Milo, Lucius Bestia, and Publius Vatinius were prose-
cuted and defended the whole state came running to listen: even the most
tepid orator might have been excited and inflamed by the enthusiasm of
the partisan public. And this is why, surely, these speeches are extant, and
are so fine that their authors need cite no other evidence to be put in their
true class.
'Moreover, the constant public assemblies, the opportunity to harass 40
any powerful man, the fact that vendettas could bring actual fame-for
many eloquent speakers did not scruple to attack even Scipio, Sulla, or
Pompey, and even actors I used their control of the public ear to assault
1 Text doubtful.
TACITUS
grave personages (such is malice!)-all this made speakers eager, and gave
the spur to oratory.
'It is no inert and passive thing I speak of, that rejoices in probity and
modesty. The great and famous eloquence I have in mind is the nurseling
of licence-which fools call liberty-and the companion of sedition: it
unbridles and spurs on the people; it has no respect for persons, no proper
dignity; it is insolent, rash, arrogant; in well-organized states it does not
arise. What Spartan or Cretan orators have we heard of? Yet those states
reputedly had the severest constitutions and the severest laws. We know
of no eloquence that flourished among the Macedonians or Persians or
any race that was content not to challenge its rulers. There were some
Rhodian orators, and many Athenian ones-and in their cities everything
was in the power of the people, everything under the control of the
inexperienced: everyone, you might almost say, had a hand in everything.
Our state, so long as it drifted, so long as it sapped itself by faction,
dissension, and discord, so long as there was no peace in the forum, no
agreement in the senate, no settled routine in the courts, no respect for
superiors, no restriction imposed on magistrates, produced no doubt
a stronger eloquence, just as an untilled field has some more luxuriant
plants. But the eloquence of the Gracchi was not worth to the republic the
price it had to pay-the laws of the Gracchi: and Cicero, by the end he
met, bought his fame in eloquence at too high a cost.
41 'And what remains of the old forum only goes to prove that the state is
not yet healed, not yet settled as we should wish. Who needs our advocacy
except the guilty or the unfortunate? What town becomes our client unless
it is harassed by a neighbouring people or by internal discord? Do we
defend a province unless it has been despoiled and plundered? It would
have been better not to have to complain than to have the complaint
rectified. If a state in which no one committed any crime could be found,
the orator would be superfluous amidst those innocent men, like a doctor
among the healthy. And just as medicine has little practice and has made
little progress in races that have the best health and the soundest constitu-
tions, so among dutiful citizens ready to serve their ruler orators have
less honour and a more obscure name. What need oflong speeches in the
senate? Our great men swiftly reach agreement. What neiid of constant
harangues to the people? The deliberations of state are not left to the
ignorant many-they are the duty of one man, the wisest. What need of
prosecutions? Crime is rare and trivial. What need of long and unpopular
defences? The clemency of the judge meets the defendants half way.
Believe me, my excellent friends, who are as eloquent as our day requires:
if you had been born in earlier ages and those men we so much admire
had been born in our times, some god having suddenly switched round
DIALOGUE ON ORATORS 459
your lives and periods, you would not have missed the highest distinction
in eloquence-and they would not have failed to observe moderation. As
it is, since no one can at the same time enjoy both great fame and great
peace, let each group enjoy the blessings of his own age without carping
at the other's.'
Matemus had finished. Messalla said: 'I should have liked to contradict 42
some things and hear more about others. But the day is over.'
'Let that be later on, as you like,' said Matemus, 'and if anything seemed
obscure in what I said, we can discuss it again.'
And he got up, and embraced Aper, saying: 'I will tell on you to the
poets, and Messalla will to the antiquarians.'
'And I will tell on both of you to the rhetoricians and the professors.'
They laughed; and we went our ways.
11
LONGINUS, ON SUBLIMITY
INTRODUCTION
(i) ANALYSIS
The single medieval manuscript on which our knowledge of ,Long in us' depends
suffered damage before any of the extant copies of it were made: some pages fell
out. Consequently, about a third of the book is lost (the seven lacunae are in-
dicated in the translation). Though this robs us of much that would be of interest,
it does not, except in one important particular, affect our understanding of the
author's fairly simple plan.
The key to the book is in chapter 8; what precedes this is an extended intro-
duction.
We may summarize the book as follows:
1-2: a formal Preface.
3-5: faults incident to the attempt to achieve 'sublimity'. (This helps to define
the subject by contrast.)
6--]: some marks of true 'sublimity'.
8: the five sources of 'sublimity':
(i) The power of conceiving impressive thoughts (discussed in 9-15);
(ii) strong emotion;
(iii) certain kinds of figures of thought and speech (16-29);
(iv) nobility of diction (30-8, 43);
(v) 'Composition', i.e. word-order, rhythm, euphony (39-42).
(What has happened to (ii)? At the very end of the book (44. 12), we are told that
a separate work on emotions is to follow. It seeIflS most natural to conclude that
the long lacuna in 9 I contained a warning of this change of plan. Certain features
both of the treatment of thought (9-15) and of later sections involve considera-
tions of emotion, which is often mentioned and emphasized; it may be that the
writer pointed this out also in the missing section.)
9-43: working out of the scheme (I have given more details in the headings
of the translation; there is a good deal of unevenness in the scale of
treatment).
44: 'Appendix' on the causes of the current decline of literature.
I The chapter divisions are sixteenth-century, and are (as this example shows)
perverse and unpractical. They will be found in the margin of the translation. My
paragraphing and sub-titling are independent of them.
ON SUBLIMITY
(ii) AUTHORSHIP
Editions
W. Rhys Roberts (text, translation, notes), Cambridge, 1899, 1907.
D. A. Russell (text, commentary), Oxford, 1964.
(Both these books contain bibliographies.)
Older translations
N. Boileau-Despreaux, Paris, 1674, etc. (ed. Boudhors, 1942).
W. Smith, London, 1739, etc.
Influence
M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, New York, 1953.
S. H. Monk, The Sublime, New York, 1935.
'LONGINUS'
ON SUBLIMITY
PREFACE
means 'emotion'. Boileau omits the word. The English word 'bathos' seems to have
ON SUBLIMITY
to reduce things like this to technical rules. Greatness, the argument runs,
is a natural product, and does not come by teaching. The only art is to be
born like that. They believe moreover that natural products are very
much weakened by being reduced to the bare bones of a textbook.
In my view, these arguments can be refuted by considering three 2
points:
(i) Though nature is on the whole a law unto herself in matters of
emotion and elevation, she is not a random force and does not work
altogether without method.
(ii) She is herself in every instance a first and primary element of cre-
ation, but it is method that is competent to provide and contribute
quantities and appropriate occasions for everything, as well as perfect
correctness in training and application.
(iii) Grandeur is particularly dangerous when left on its own, unaccom-
panied by knowledge, unsteadied, unballasted, abandoned to mere impulse
and ignorant temerity. It often needs the curb as well as the spur.
What Demosthenes' said of life in general is true also of literature: 3
good fortune is the greatest of blessings, but good counsel comes next,
and the lack of it destroys the other also. In literature, nature occupies the
place of good fortune, and art that of good counsel. Most important of all,
the very fact that some things in literature depend on nature alone can
itself be learned only from art.
If the critic of students of this subject will bear these points in mind,
he will, I believe, come to realize that the examination of the question
before us is by no means useless or superfluous.
[Lacuna equivalent to about two of these printed pages]
2 Aeschylus, fr. 281 Nauck. The speaker is Boreas, the North Wind, who is enraged
with King Erechtheus of Athens because he will not give him his daughter Orithyia.
As the passage is incomplete, the point of some of the critical comment is lost.
'LONGINUS'
vomiting to heaven, making Boreas a flute-player, and so on. The result
is not impressiveness but turbid diction and confused imagery. If you
examine the details closely, they gradually sink from the terrifying to
the contemptible.
Now if untimely turgidity is unpardonable in tragedy, a genre which is
naturally magniloquent and tolerant of bombast, it will scarcely be
2 appropriate in writing which has to do with real life. Hence the ridicule
I In the eighth century H.C. Our other sources make this war last twenty years; we do
not know the source of the variant (assuming the text to be correct).
Z The disastrous Athenian expedition against Syracuse (415-413 H.C.) had been
preceded by a mysterious incident at Athens, in which the 'Hermae' in the city were
mutilated one night.
3 Dionysius Il, expelled in 356. The name Dion is etymologically connected with
Zeus (accusative Dia, genitive Dios).
4 The word kore means both 'girl' and 'pupil'; Xenophon replaces it by parthellos,
which means unambiguously 'maiden'.
S Iliad I. 225.-The text of this sentence in 'Longinus' is uncertain, but the general
sense beyond doubt.
8143591 Hh
'LONGINUS'
has not left the monopoly of this frigid conceit to Xenophon. He uses it in
connection with Agathocles, who eloped with his cousin from the un-
veiling ceremony of her marriage to another: 'Who would have done this,
if he had not had harlots in his eyes for pupils (koras) ?'!
6 And what of Plato, the otherwise divine Plato? He wants to express the
idea. of writing-tablets. 'They shall write', he says, 'and deposit in the
temples memorials of cypress.'2 Again: 'As for walls, Megill..us, I should
concur with Sparta in letting walls sleep in the earth and nOt get Up.'3
7 Herodotus' description" of beautiful women as 'pains on the eyes' is the
same sort of thing, though it is to some extent excused by the fact that
the speakers are barbarians and drunk-not that it is a good thing to
make an exhibition of the triviality of one's mind to posterity, even through
the mouths of"characters like these.
5· 1 All such lapses from dignity arise in literature through a single cause:
that desire for novelty of thought which is all the rage today. Evils often
come from the same source as blessings; and so, since beauty of style,
sublimity, and charm all conduce to successful writing, they are also
causes and principles not only of success but of failure. Variation, hyper-
bole, and the use of plural for singular are like this too; I shall explain
below the dangers which they involve. s
6. I At this stage, the question we must put to ourselves for discussion is how
to avoid the faults which are so much tied up with sublimity. The answer,
my friend, is: by first of all achieving a genuine understanding and
appreciation of true sublimity. This is difficult; literary judgement comes
only as the final product of long experience. However, for the purposes of
instruction, I think we can say that an understanding of all this can be
acquired. I approach the problem in this way:
7. 1 In ordinary life, nothing is truly great which it is great to despise;
wealth, honour, reputation, absolute power-anything in short which
has a lot of external trappings-can never seem supremely good to the
wise man because it is no small good to despise them. People who could
have these advantages if they chose but disdain them out of magnanimity
are admired much more than those who actually possess them. 6 It is much
the same with elevation in poetry and literature generally. We have to ask
I Agathocles was ruler of Syracuse from 317 to 287. The 'unveiling ceremony' was
normally held on the third day after the marriage. 2 Laws 741 C.
3 Laws 778.d.
4 Herodotus 5. 18. S See chaps. 23 and 38.
6 Compare Aristotle's 'magnanimous man': Nicomachean Ethics 4. 3.
ON SUBLIMITY
ourselves whether any particular example does not give a show of gran-
deur which, for all its accidental trappings, will, when dissected, prove
vain and hollow, the kind of thing which it does a man more honour to
despise than to admire. It is our nature to be elevated and exalted by true 2
sublimity. Filled with joy and pride, we come to believe we have created
what we have only heard. When a man of sense and literary experience 3
hears something many times over, and it fails to dispose his mind to
greatness or to leave him with more to reflect upon than was contained in
the mere words, but comes instead to seem valueless on repeated inspec-
tion, this is nottrue sublimity; it endures only for the moment of hearing.
Real sublimity contains much food for reflection, is difficult or rather
impossible to resist, and makes a strong and ineffaceable impression on
the memory. In a word, reckon those things which please everybody all 4
the time as genuinely and finely sublime. When people of different train-
ings, ways of life, tastes, ages, and manners all agree about something,
the judgement and assent of so many distinct voices lends strength and
irrefutability to the conviction that their admiration is rightly directed.
There are, one may say, five most productive sources of sublimity. 8. I
... the interval between earth and heaven. One might say that this is the 5
measure not so much of Strife as of Homer. I
Contrast the line about Darkness in Hesiod-if the Shield is by Hesiod:
Mucus dripped from her nostrils. z
This gives a repulsive picture, not one to excite awe. But how does
Homer magnify the divine power?
As far as a man can peer through the mist,
sitting on watch, looking over the wine-dark sea,
so long is the stride of the gods' thundering horses. 3
He uses a cosmic distance to measure their speed. This enormously
impressive image would make anybody say, and with reason, that, if the
horses of the gods took two strides like that, they would find there was
not enough room in the world.
The imaginative pictures in the Battle of the Gods are also very remark- 6
able:
And the great heavens and Olympus trumpeted around them.
Aidoneus, lord of the dead, was frightened in his depths;
and in fright he jumped from his throne, and shouted,
for fear the earth-shaker Poseidon might break through
the ground,
and gods and men might see
the foul and terrible halls, which even the gods detest. 4
Do you see how the earth is torn from its foundations, Tartarus laid bare,
and the whole universe overthrown and broken up, so that all things-
Heaven and Hell, things mortal and things immortal-share the warfare 7
and the perils of that ancient battle? But, terrifying as all this is, it is
blasphemous and indecent unless it is interpreted allegorically; in relating
the gods' wounds, quarrels, revenges, tears, imprisonments, and manifold
misfortunes, Homer, or so it seems to me, has done his best to make the
men of the Trojan war gods, and the gods men. If men are unhappy,
there is always death as a harbour in trouble; what he has done for his
gods is to make them immortal indeed, but immortally miserable.
I The reference is to Iliad 4. 440 ff., where Strife is described as having her head in
the sky and walking on the earth. 'Longinus' means that Homer too is a colossus of
cosmic dimensions.
• Shield of Heracles 267. 3 Iliad 5. 770-2.
4 See Iliad 21. 388 and 20. 61 ff.
47 0 'LONGINUS'
8 Much better than the Battle of the Gods are the passages which repre-
sent divinity as genuinely unsoiled and great and pure. The lines about
Poseidon, much discussed by my predecessors, exemplify this:
The high hills and the forest trembled,
and the peaks and the city of Troy and the Achaean ships
under the immortal feet of Poseid on as he went his way.
He drove over the waves, and the sea-monsters gambolled around
him,
coming up everywhere out of the deep; they recognized their king.
The sea parted in joy; and the horses flew onward. I
9 Similarly, the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary man-for he under-
stood and expressed God's power in accordance with its worth-writes at
the beginning of his Laws: 'God said'-now what ?-"'Let there be
light", and there was light; "Let there be earth", and there was earth.'2
10
Perhaps it will not be out of place, my friend, if I add a further Homeric
example-from the human sphere this time-so that we can see how the
poet is accustomed to enter into the greatness of his heroes. Darkness falls
suddenly. Thickest night blinds the Greek army. Ajax is bewildered.
'0 Father Zeus I', he cries,
'Deliver the sons of the Achaeans out of the mist,
make the sky clear, and let us see;
in the light-kill US.'3
The feeling here is genuinely Ajax's. He does not pray for life-that
would be a request unworthy of a hero-but having no good use for his
courage in the disabling darkness, and so angered at his inactivity in the
battle, he prays for light, and quickly: he will at all costs find a shroud
worthy of his valour, though Zeus be arrayed against him.
For the same reason, I maintain, he made the whole body of the Iliad, 13
which was written at the height of his powers, dramatic and exciting,
whereas most of the Odyssey consists of narrative, which is a characteristic
of old age. Homer in the Odyssey may be compared to the setting sun: the
size remains without the force. He no longer sustains the tension as it was
in the tale of Troy, nor that consistent level of elevation which never
admitted any falling off. The outpouring of passions crowding one on
another has gone; so has the versatility, the realism, the abundance of
imagery taken from the life. We see greatness on the ebb. It is as though
the Ocean were withdrawing into itself and flowing quietly in its own
bed. Homer is lost in the realm of the fabulous and incredible. In saying 14
this, I have not forgotten the storms in the Odyssey, the story of Cyclops,
and a few other episodes; I am speaking of old age-but it is the old age
of a Homer. The point about all these stories is that the mythical element
in them predominates over the realistic.
I digressed into this topic, as I said, to illustrate how easy it is for
great genius to be perverted in decline into nonsense. I mean things like
the story of the wineskin, the tale of the men kept as pigs in Circe's
palace ('howling piglets', Zoilus called them), the feeding of Zeus by the
doves (as though he were a chick in the nest), the ten days on the raft
without food, and the improbabilities of the murder !If the suitors.2 What
can we say of all this but that i: really is 'the dreaming of a Zeus' ?3
There is also a second reason for discussing the Odyssey. I want you 15
to understand that the decline of emotional power in great writers and
poets turns to a capacity for depicting manners. The realistic description
of Odysseus' household forms a kind of comedy of manners.
10. I Now have we any other means of making our writing sublime? Every
topic naturally includes certain elements which are inherent in its raw
material. It follows that sublimity will be achieved if we consistently
select the most important of these inherent features and learn to organize
them as a unity by combining one with another. The first of these pro-
cedures attracts the reader by the selection of details, the second by the
density of those selected.
Consider Sappho's treatment of the feelings involved in the madness of
being in love. She uses the attendant circumstances and draws on real
life at every point. And in what does she show her quality? In her skill in
selecting the outstanding details and making a unity of them:
2 To me he seems a peer of the gods, the man who sits facing you
and hears your sweet voice
and lovely laughter; it flutters my heart in my breast. When I see
you only for a moment, I cannot speak;
my tongue is broken, a subtle fire runs under my skin; my eyes
cannot see, my ears hum;
cold sweat pours off me; shivering grips me all over; I am paler
than grass; I seem near to dying;
but all must be endured ... 1
3 Do you not admire the way in which she brings everything together-
mind and body, hearing and tongue, eyes and skin? She seems to have
lost them all, and to be looking for them as though they were external to
her. She is cold and hot, mad and sane, frightened and near death, all
by turns. The result is that we see in her not a single emotion, but a
complex of emotions. Lovers experience all this; Sappho's excellence, as
I have said, lies in her adoption and combination of the most striking
details.
A similar point can be made about the descriptions of storms in Homer,
4 who always picks out the most terrifying aspects. The author of the
Arimaspea on the other hand expects these lines to excite terror:
This too is a great wonder to us in our hearts:
there are men living on water, far from land, on the deep sea:
I See D. L. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, Oxford, I955, chap. 2, for this poem (= Sappho,
Anyone can see that this is more polished than awe-inspiring. Now com- 5
pare it with Homer (I select one example out of many):
AMPLIFICATION
II. I The quality called 'amplification' is connected with those we have been
considering. It is found when the facts or the issues at stake allow many
starts and pauses in each section. You wheel up one impressive unit after
2 another to give a series of increasing importance. There are innumerable
... spreads out richly in many directions into an open sea of grandeur. 3
Accordingly, Demosthenes, the more emotional of the two, displays in
abundance the fire and heat of passion, while Plato, consistently magnifi-
cent, solemn, and grand, is much less intense-without of course becoming
in the least frigid. These seem to me, my dear Terentianus-if a Greek 4
is allowed an opinion-to be also the differences between the grandeur of
Cicero and the grandeur of Demosthenes. Demosthenes has an abrupt
sublimity; Cicero spreads himself. Demosthenes burns and ravages; he has
violence, rapidity, strength, and force, and shows them in everything; he
can be compared to a thunderbolt or a flash of lightning. Cicero, on the
other hand, is like a spreading conflagration. He ranges everywhere and
rolls majestically on. His huge fires endure; they are renewed in various
forms from time to time and repeatedly fed with fresh fuel.-But this is 5
a comparison which your countrymen can make better than I.
Anyway, the place for the intense, Demosthenic kind of sublimity is in
indignant exaggeration, in violent emotion, and in general wherever the
hearer has to be struck with amazement. The place for expansiveness is
where he has to be deluged with words. This treatment is appropriate in
loci communes, epilogues, digressions, all descriptive and exhibition pieces,
historical or scientific topics, and many other departments.
To return to Plato, and the way in which he combines the 'soundless 13.1
flow'r of his smooth style with grandeur. A passage of the Repuhlic 2 you
have read makes the manner quite clear: 'Men without experience of
wisdom and virtue but always occupied with feasting and that kind
of thing naturally go downhill and wander through life on a low plane of
existence. They never look upwards to the truth and never rise, they never
taste certain or pure pleasure. Like cattle, they always look down, bowed
earthwards and tablewards; they feed and they breed, and their greediness
in these directions makes them kick and butt till they kill one another with
iron horns and hooves, because they can never be satisfied.'
Plato, if we will read him with attention, illustrates yet another road to 2
sublimity, besides those we have discussed. This is the way of imitation
and emulation of great writers of the past. Here too, my friend, is an aim
J Plato, Theaetetus 144 b. 2 Republic 9. 586 a (adapted).
'LONGINUS'
to which we must hold fast. Many are possessed by a spirit not their own.
It is like what we are told of the Pythia at Delphi: she is in contact with the
tripod near the cleft in the ground which (so they say) exhales a divine
vapour, and she is thereupon made pregnant by the supernatural power and
forthwith prophesies as one inspired. Similarly, the genius of the ancients
acts as a kind of oracular cavern, and effluences flow from it into the minds
of their imitators. Even those previously not much inclined to prophesy
become inspired and share the enthusiasm which comes from the great-
3 ness of others. Was Herodotus the only 'most Homeric' writer? Surely
Stesichorus and Archilochus earned the name before him. So, more than
any, did Plato, who diverted to himself countless rills from the Homeric
spring. (If Ammonius had not selected and written up detailed examples
of this, I might have had to prove the point myself.) In all this process
4 there is no plagiarism. It resembles rather the reproduction of good
character in statues and works of art. I Plato could not have put such a
brilliant finish on his philosophical doctrines or so often risen to poetical
subjects and poetical language, if he had not tried, and tried whole-
heartedly, to compete for the prize against Homer, like a young aspirant
challenging an admired master. To break a lance in this way may well
have been a brash and contentious thing to do, but the competition proved
anything but valueless. As Hesiod says, 'this strife is good for men.'2 Truly
it is a noble contest and prize of honour, and one well worth winning, in
which to be defeated by one's elders is itself no disgrace.
1+ I We can apply this to ourselves. When we are working on something
which needs loftiness of expression and greatness of thought, it is good
to imagine how Homer would have said the same thing, or how Plato or
Demosthenes or (in history) Thucydides would have invested it with
sublimity. These great figures, presented to us as objects of emulation
and, as it were, shining before our gaze, will somehow elevate our minds
2 to the greatness of which we form a mental image. They will be even
more effective if we ask ourselves 'How would Homer or Demosthenes
have reacted to what I am saying, if he had been here? What would his
feelings have been?' It makes it a great occasion if you imagine such a
jury or audience for your own speech, and pretend that you are answering
for what you write before judges and witnesses of such heroic stature.
3 Even more stimulating is the further thought: 'How will posterity take
what I am writing?' If a man is afraid of saying anything which will out-
last his own life and age, the conceptions of his mind are bound to be
incomplete and abortive; they will miscarry and never be brought to
birth whole and perfect for the day of posthumous fame.
I Text uncertain: perhaps 'the reproduction of beauty of form •. .'
2 Works and Days 24: healthy rivalry contrasted with the strife that produces war.
ON SUBLIMITY 477
VISUALIZATION (PH ANT ASIA)
. one. not say that the writer's soul has mounted the chariot, has taken
May
wmg WIth the horses and shares the danger? Had it not been up among
those heavenly bodies and moved in their courses, he could never have
visualized such things.
Compare, too, his Cassandra:
the point. Compare p. 473, n. 4 for a similar abridged quotation, where 'Longinus'
assumes his readers to know the context.
2 Aeschylus, fr. S8 Nauck; Euripides, Bacchae 726. Euripides makes the idea easier by
adding the notion that the mountain shared the ecstasy of the bacchanals themselves.
ON SUBLIMITY 479
Oedipus dying and giving himself burial to the accompaniment of a sign
from heaven, I and in the appearance of Achilles over his tomb at the
departure of the Greek fieet. 2 Simonides has perhaps described this scene
more vividly than anyone else; but it is impossible to quote everything.
The poetical examples, as I said, have a quality of exaggeration which 8
belongs to fable and goes far beyond credibility. In an orator's visualiza-
tions, on the other hand, it is the element of fact and truth which makes
for success; when the content of the passage is poetical and fabulous
and does not shrink from any impossibility, the result is a shocking and
outrageous abnormality. This is what happens with the shock orators of
our own day; like tragic actors, these fine fellows see the Erinyes, and
are incapable of understanding that when Orestes says
Let me go; you are one of my Erinyes,
you are hugging me tight, to throw me into Hell,3
he visualizes all this because he is mad.
What then is the effect of rhetorical visualization? There is much it can 9
do to bring urgency and passion into our words; but it is when it is closely
involved with factual arguments that it enslaves the hearer as well as
persuading him. 'Suppose you heard a shout this very moment outside
the court, and someone said that the prison had been broken open and the
prisoners had escaped-no one, young or old, would be so casual as not to
give what help he could. And if someone then came forward and said
"This is the man who let them out", our friend would never get a hearing;
it would be the end of him.'4 There is a similar instance in Hyperides' 10
defence of himself when he was on trial for the proposal to liberate the
slaves which he put forward after the defeat. s 'It was not the proposer', he
said, 'who drew up this decree: it was the battle of Chaeronea.' Here the
orator uses a visualization actually in the moment of making his factual
argument, with the result that his thought has taken him beyond the
limits of mere persuasiveness. Now our natural instinct is, in all such cases, I I
to attend to the stronger influence, so that we are diverted from the
demonstration to the astonishment caused by the visualization, which by
its very brilliance conceals the factual aspect. This is a natural reaction:
when two things are joined together, the stronger attracts to itself the
force of the weaker.
I Dosing scene of Oedipus Coloneus.
• Probably in the lost Polyxena. It is possible that something is lost between this
sentence and the reference to Simonides.
3 Euripides, OresW 264-5 •
.. Demosthenes 24. 208.
5 i.e. after Philip's victory at Chaeronea (338 B.C.). The speech is not extant.
480 'LONGINUS'
12 This will suffice for an account of sublimity of thought produced by
greatness of mind, imitation, or visualization. l
16. 1 The next topic is that of figures. Properly handled, figures constitute, as
I said, no small part of sublimity. It would be a vast, or rather infinite,
labour to enumerate them all; what I shall do is to expound a few of those
which generate sublimity, simply in order to confirm my point.
2 Here is Demosthenes putting forward a demonstrative argument on
behalf of his policy.3 What would have been the natural way to put it?
'You have not done wrong, you who fought for the liberty of Greece;
you have examples to prove this close at home: the men of Marathon, of
Salamis, of Plataea did not do wrong.' But instead of this he was suddenly
inspired to give voice to the oath by the heroes of Greece: 'By those who
risked their lives at Marathon, you have not done wrong!' Observe what
he effects by this single figure of conjuration, or 'apostrophe' as I call it
here. He deifies his audience's ancestors, suggesting that it is right to take
an oath by men who fell so bravely, as though they were gods. He inspires
the judges with the temper of those who risked their lives. He transforms
his demonstration into an extraordinary piece of sublimity and passion,
and into the convincingness of this unusual and amazing oath. At the
same time he injects into his hearers' minds a healing specific, so as to
lighten their hearts by these paeans of praise and make them as proud of
the battle with Philip as of the triumphs of Marathon and Salamis. In
short, the figure enables him to run away with his audience.
3 Now the origin of this oath is said to be in the lines of Eupolis:
By Marathon, by my battle,
no one shall grieve me and escape rejoicing. 4
But the greatness depends not on the mere form of the oath, but on place,
manner, occasion, and purpose. In Eupolis, there is nothing but the oath;
he is speaking to the Athenians while their fortunes are still high and they
need no comfort; and instead of immortalizing the men in order to
engender in the audience a proper estimation of their valour, he wanders
away from the actual people who risked their lives to an inanimate object,
namely the battle. In Demosthenes, on the other hand, the oath is
I Note that this is not a complete summary of chaps. 9-15.
• The second 'source', emotion, does not appear in its expected place: see p. 460.
3 The passage discussed is in 18. 208. Cf. below, p. 575.
4 From the lost comedy Demoi. Eupolis parodies Euripides, Medea 395 If.
ON SUBLIMITY
addressed to a defeated nation, to make them no longer think of Chaeronea
as a disaster. It embraces, as I said, a demonstration that they 'did no
wrong', an illustrative example, a confirmation, an encomium, and an
exhortation. Moreover, because he was faced with the possible objection 4
'your policies brought us to defeat-and yet you swear by-- victories!' he
brings his thought back under control and makes it safe and unanswer-
able, showing that sobriety is needed even under the influence of inspira-
tion: 'By those who risked their lives at Marathon, and fought in the ships
at Salamis and Artemisium, and formed the line at Plataea!' He never says
conquered; throughout he withholds the word for the final issue, because it
was a happy issue, and the opposite to that of Chaeronea. From the same
motives he forestalls his audience by adding immediately: 'all of whom
were buried at the city's expense, Aeschines-all, not only the successful.'
At this point, my friend, I feel I ought not to pass over an observation of 17. I
my own. It shall be very brief: figures are natural allies of sublimity and
themselves profit wonderfully from the alliance. I will explain how this
happens.
Playing tricks by means of figures is a peculiarly suspect procedure. It
raises the suspicion of a trap, a deep design, a fallacy. It is to be avoided
in addressing a judge who has power to decide, and especially in address-
ing tyrants, kings, governors, or anybody in a high place. Such a person
immediately becomes angry if he is led astray like a foolish child by some
skilful orator's figures. He takes the fallacy as indicating contempt for
himself. He becomes like a wild animal. Even if he controls his temper, he
is now completely conditioned against being convinced by what is said. A
figure is therefore generally thought to be best when the fact that it is a
figure is concealed.
Thus sublimity and emotion are a defence and a marvellous aid against 2
the suspicion which the use of figures engenders. The artifice of the trick is
lost to sight in the surrounding brilliance of beauty and grandeur, and it
escapes all suspicion. 'By the men of Marathon .. .' is proof enough. For
how did Demosthenes conceal the figure in that passage? By sheer
brilliance, of course. As fainter lights disappear when the sunshine
surrounds them, so the sophisms of rhetoric are dimmed when they are
enveloped in encircling grandeur. Something like this happens in paint-
ing: when light and shadow are juxtaposed in colours on the same plane,
the light seems more prominent to the eye, and both stands out and
8143591 I i
'LONGINUS'
RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
18. I What are we to say of inquiries and questions? Should we not say that
they increase the realism and vigour of the writing by the actual form of
the figure ?z
'Or-tell me-do you want to go round asking one another "Is there
any news?"? What could be hotter news than that a Macedonian is
conquering Greece? "Is Philip dead?" "No, but he's ill." What difference
does it make to you? If anything happens to him, you will soon create
another Philip.'3
Again: 'Let us sail to Macedonia. "Where shall we anchor?" says
someone. The war itself will find out Philip's weak spotS.'4 Put in the
straightforward form, this would have been quite insignificant; as it is,
the impassioned rapidity of question and answer and the device of self-
objection have made the remark, in virtue of its figurative form, not only
2 more sublime but more credible. For emotion carries us away more
easily when it seems to be generated by the occasion rather than de-
liberately assumed by the speaker, and the self-directed question and its
answer represent precisely this momentary quality of emotion. Just as
people who are unexpectedly plied with questions become annoyed and
reply to the point with vigour and exact truth, so the figure of question
and answer arrests the hearer and cheats him into believing that all the
points made were raised and are being put into words on the spur of the
moment.
Again-this sentence in Herodotus is believed to be a particularly fine
example of sublimity 5 •••
[Lacuna equivalent to about two pages.]
ASYNDETON
19. I . . . the words tumble out without connection, in a kind of stream, almost
getting ahead of the speaker: 'Engaging their shields, they pushed,
fought, slew, died' (Xenophon).6
I See below, chap. 35.
2 Notice that these remarks are themselves cast as rhetorical questions.
3 Demosthenes 4. 10. 4 Ibid. 44.
5 Perhaps Herodotus 7. 21. 6 Hellenica 4. 3. 19.
ON SUBLIMITY
'We went as you told us, noble Odysseus, up the woods,
we saw a beautiful palace built in the glades',
says Homer's Eurylochus. 1
Disconnected and yet hurried phrases convey the impression of an
agitation which both obstructs the reader and drives him on. Such is the
effect of Homer's asyndeta.
The conjunction of several figures in one phrase also has a very stirring 20. I
effect. Two or three may be joined together in a kind of team, jointly
contributing strength, persuasiveness, charm. An example is the passage
in Against Midias,z where asyndeton is combined with anaphora and vivid
description. 'The aggressor would do many things-some of which his
victim would not even be able to tell anyone else-with gesture, with
look, with voice.' Then, to save the sentence from monotony and a 2
stationary effect-for this goes with inertia, whereas disorder goes with
emotion, which is a disturbance and movement of the mind-he leaps
immediately to fresh instances of asyndeton and epanaphora: 'With
gesture, with look, with voice, when he insults, when he acts as an enemy,
when he slaps the fellow, when he slaps him on the ears ... ' The orator is
doing here exactly what the bully does-hitting the jury in the mind with
blow after blow. Then he comes down with a fresh onslaught, like a 3
sudden squall: ' ... when he slaps the fellow, when he slaps him on the
ears. That rouses a man, that makes him lose control, when he is not used
to being insulted. No one could bring out the horror of such a moment
by a mere report.' Here Demosthenes keeps up the natural effect of
epanaphora and asyndeton by frequent variation. His order becomes dis-
orderly, his disorder in turn acquires a certain order.
POL YS1;-iliDETON
Now add the conjunctions, as Isocrates' school does. 'Again, one must 21. I
not omit this point, that the aggressor would do many things, first with
gesture, then with look, and finally with voice.' As you proceed with these
insertions, it will become clear that the urgent and harsh character of the
emotion loses its sting and becomes a spent fire as soon as you level it
down to smoothness by the conjunctions. If you tie a runner's arms to his 2
side, you take away his speed; likewise, emotion frets at being impeded by
I Odyssey 10. 251-2. 2 Demosthenes 21.72 •
'LONGINUS'
conjunctions and other additions, because it loses the free abandon of its
movement and the sense of being, as it were, catapulted out.
HYPERBATON
What is called polyptoton, like accumulation, variation, and climax, is, 23. I
Sometimes a writer, in the course of a narrative in the third person, makes a7. I
a sudden change and speaks in the person of his character. This kind of
thing is an outburst of emotion.
Hector shouted aloud to the Trojans
to rush for the ships, and leave the spoils of the dead.
'If I see anyone away from the ships of his own accord,
I will have him killed on the spot.'3
Here the poet has given the narrative to himself, as appropriate to him,
and then suddenly and without warning has put the abrupt threat in the
mouth of the angry prince. It would have been flat ifhe had added 'Hector
said'. As it is, the change of construction is so sudden that it has out-
stripped its creator.
Hence the use of this figure is appropriate when the urgency of the 2
moment gives the writer no chance to delay, but forces on him an im-
mediate change from one person to another. 'Ceyx was distressed at this,
and ordered the children to depart. "For I am unable to help you. Go
therefore to some other country, so as to save yourselves without harming
me" , (Hecataeus).4
Somewhat different is the method by which Demosthenes in Against 3
Aristogiton 5 makes variation of person produce the effect of strong emotion
and rapid change of tone: 'Will none of you be found to feel bile or anger
at the violence of this shameless monster, who-you vile wretch, your right
I 2. 29. z Iliad 5. 85. 3 Iliad IS. 346•
.. Fr. 30 Jacoby. • 25. 27 (a spurious speech).
'LONGINUS'
of free speech is barred not by gates and Joors which can be opened,
but ... !' He makes the change before the sense is complete, and in effect
divides a single thought between two persons in his passion (,who-you
vile wretch ... !'), as well as turning to Aristogiton and giving the im-
pression of abandoning the course of his argument-with the sole result,
so strong is the emotion, of giving it added intensity.
4 So also Penelope;
Herald, why have the proud suitors sent you here?
Is it to tell Odysseus' maidservants
to stop their work )md get dinner for them?
After their wooing, may they never meet again!
May this be their last dinner here--
you who gather together so often and waste wealth,
who never listened to your fathers when you were children
and they told you what kind of man Odysseus was!'
PERIPHRASIS
28. 1 No one, I fancy, would question the fact that periphrasis is a means to
sublimity. As in music the melody is made sweeter by what is called the
accompaniment, so periphrasis is often heard in concert with the plain
words and enhances them with a new resonance. This is especially true if
it contains nothing bombastic or tasteless but only what is pleasantly
2 blended. There is a sufficient example in" Plato, at the beginning of the
Funeral Speech;2 'These men have received their due, and having received
it they go on their fated journey, eS~(jrted publicly by their country and
privately each by his own kindred.' Plato here calls death a 'fated journey'
and the bestowal of regular funeral rites a public escort by the country.
This surely adds no inconsiderable impressiveness to the thought. He has
lyricized the bare prose, enveloping it in the harmony of the beautiful
periphrasis.
3 'You believe labour to be the guide to a pleasant life; you have gathered
into your souls the noblest and most heroic of possessions; you enjoy
being praised more than anything else in the world' (Xenophon).3 In this
passage 'you make labour the guide to a pleasant life' is put for 'you are
willing to labour'. This and the other expansions invest the praise with
a certain grandeur of conception.
4 Another example is the inimitable sentence of Hero dot us; 'The goddess
inflicted a feminine disease on the Scythians who plundered the temple.'4
I Odyssey 4. 681 If. 2 Menexenus 236 d.
3 Cyropaedia I. 5. 12. 4 Herodotus I. 105.
ON SUBLIMITY
Periphrasis, however, is a particularly dangerous device if it is not used 29. I
with moderation. It soon comes to be heavy and dull, smelling of empty
phrases and coarseness of fibre. This is why Plato-who is fond of the
figure and sometimes uses it up..seasonably-is ridiculed for the sentence
in the Laws I which runs: 'Neither silvern wealth nor golden should be
permitted to establish itself in the city.' If he had wanted to prohibit
cattle, says the critic, he would have talked of 'ovine and bovine' wealth.
Thought and expression are of course very much involved wi th each other. 30. I
We have therefore next to consider whether any topics still remain in the
field of diction. The choice of correct and magnificent words is a source of
immense power to entice and charm the hearer. This is something which
all orators and other writers cultivate intensely. It makes grandeur,
beauty, old-world charm, weight, force, strength, and a kind of lustre
bloom upon our words as upon beautiful statues; it gives things life and
makes them speak. But I suspect there is no need for me to make this
point; you know it well. It is indeed true that beautiful words are the 2
light that illuminates thought.
Magniloquence, however, is not always serviceable: to dress up trivial
material in grand and solemn language is like putting a huge tragic mask
on a little child. In poetry and history, however ...
[Lacuna equivalent to about four pages.]
I 801 b.
2 'Pathos' (emotion) characterizes truly 'sublime' writing; 'ethos' (realistic depiction
of manners or humours) belongs rather to lower, more human, and even comic, genres:
cf. the lliad-Odysuy contrast, 9. 13-15. 'Hedone' (pleasure, chann) is the typical aim
and effect of this second kind of literature. In tenns of the 'three styles' (cf. above,
pp. 413 ff., etc.), it consorts with the 'smooth' style as pathos and sublimity do with the
lofty style.
490 'LONGINUS'
METAPHORS
uncertain. Perhaps: ' ... But not Anacreon's "I turn my mind ... ".'
z 6. 75, 7. 181. 3 Demosthenes 18. 296.
ON SUBLIMITY
say that they demand the hazardous. They never allow the hearer leisure
to count the metaphors, because he too shares the speaker's enthusiasm.
At the same time, nothing gives distinction to commonplaces and 5
descriptions so well as a continuous series of tropes. This is the medium
in which the description of man's bodily tabernacle is worked out so
elaborately in Xenophon and yet more superlatively by Plato. l Thus
Plato calls the head the 'citadel' of the body; the neck is an 'isthmus'
constructed between the head and the chest; the vertebrae, he says, are
fixed underneath 'like pivots'. Pleasure is a 'lure of evil' for mankind; the
tongue is a 'taste-meter'. The heart is a 'knot of veins' and 'fountain of the
blood that moves impetuously round', allocated to the 'guard-room'.
The word he uses for the various passages of the canals is 'alleys'. 'Against
the throbbing of the heart,' he continues, 'in the expectation of danger
and in the excitation of anger, when it gets hot, they contrived a means of
succour, implanting in us the lungs, soft, bloodless, and with cavities,
a sort of cushion, so that when anger boils up in the heart, the latter's
throbbing is against a yielding obstacle, so that it comes to no harm.'
Again: he calls the seat of the desires 'the women's quarters', and the seat
of anger 'the men's quarters'. The spleen is for him 'a napkin for the
inner parts, which therefore grows big and festering through being filled
with secretions'. 'And thereafter', he says again, 'they buried the whole
under a canopy of flesh', putting the flesh on 'as a protection against
dangers from without, like felting.' Blood he called 'fodder of the flesh'.
For the purpose of nutrition, he says also, 'they irrigated the body,
cutting channels as in gardens, so that the streams of the veins might
flow as it were from an incoming stream, making the body an aqueduct'.
Finally: when the end is at hand, the soul's 'ship's cables' are 'loosed',
and she herself 'set free'.
The passage contains countless similar examples; but these are enough 6
to make my point, namely that tropes are naturally grand, that metaphors
conduce to sublimity, and that passages involving emotion and descrip-
tion are the most suitable field for them. At the same time, it is plain 7
without my saying it that the use of tropes, like all other good things in
literature, always tempts one to go too far. This is what people ridicule
most in Plato, who is often carried away by a sort of literary madness into
crude, harsh metaphors or allegorical fustian. 'It is not easy to understand
that a city ought to be mixed like a bowl of wine, wherein the wine seethes
with madness, but when chastened by another, sober god, and achieving
a proper communion with him, produces a good and moderate drink.'2
I Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.4.5 If.; Plato, Timaeus 65 c-85 e ('Longinus' picks various
8 Faults of this kind formed the subject of Caecilius' attack in his book on
Lysias, in which he had the audacity to declare Lysias in all respects
superior to Plato. He has in fact given way without discrimination to two
emotions: loving Lysias more deeply than he loves himself, he yet hates
Plato with an even greater intensity. His motive, however, is desire to
score a point, and his assumptions are not, as he believed, generally
accepted. In preferring Lysias to Plato he thinks he is preferring a fault-
less and pure writer to one who makes many mistakes. But the facts are
far from supporting his view.
33. I Let us consider a really pure and correct writer. We have then to ask
ourselves in general terms whether grandeur attended by some faults of
execution is to be preferred, in prose or poetry, to a modest success of
impeccable soundness. We must also ask whether the greater number
of good qualities or the greater good qualities ought properly to win the
literary prizes. These questions are relevant to a discussion of sublimity,
and urgently require an answer.
2 I am certain in the first place that great geniuses are least 'pure'.
Exactness in every detail involves a risk of meanness; with grandeur, as
with great wealth, there ought to be something overlooked. It may also
be inevitable that low or mediocre abilities should maintain themselves
generally at a correct and safe level, simply because they take no risks and
do not aim at the heights, whereas greatness, just because it is greatness,
incurs danger.
3 I am aware also of a second point. All human affairs are, in the nature
of things, better known on their worse side; the memory of mistakes is
4 ineffaceable, that of goodness is soon gone. I have myself cited not a few
mistakes in Homer and other great writers, not because I take pleasure in
their slips, but because I consider them not so much voluntary mistakes
as oversights let fall at random through inattention and with the negli-
gence of genius. I do, however, ~hink that the greater good qualities, even
if not consistently maintained, are always more likely to win the prize-
if for no other reason, because of the greatness of spirit they reveal.
Apollonius makes no mistakes in the Argonautica; Theocritus is very
felicitous in the Pastorals, apart from a few passages not connected with
5 the theme; but would you rather be Homer or Apollonius? Is the
Eratosthenes of that flawless little poem Erigone a greater poet than
ON SUBLIMITY 493
Archilochus, with his abundant, uncontrolled flood, that bursting forth
of the divine spirit which is so hard to bring under the rule of law? Take
lyric poetry: would you rather be Bacchylides or Pindar? Take tragedy:
would you rather be Ion of Chios or Sophocles? Ion and Bacchylides are
impeccable, uniformly beautiful writers in the polished manner; but it is
Pindar and Sophocles who sometimes set the world on fire with their
vehemence, for all that their flame often goes out without ~eason and they
collapse dismally. Indeed, no one in his senses would reckon all Ion's
works put together as the equivalent of the one play Oedipus.
If good points were totted up, not judged by their real value, Hyperides 3+ I
SIMILES
We must now return to the main argument. Next to metaphors come 37. I
HYPERBOLE
... such expressions as: 'Unless you've got your brains in your heels and 38. I
are walking on them'.3 The important thing to know is how far to push
a given hyperbole; it sometimes destroys it to go too far; too much tension
results in relaxation, and may indeed end in the contrary of the intended
effect. Thus Isocrates' zeal for amplifying everything made him do a 2
I 'Epigram on the tomb of Midas', ascribed to Homer: see Plato, Phaedrus 264 d.
2 It is not certain whether 'Longinus' means the Colossus of Rhodes or some other
large statue. For the Doryphorus, famous for its proportions, see, e.g., G. M. A.
Richter, Handbook of Greek Art, Phaidon, 1959, IIO.
3 Demosthenes 7. 45-a speech generally thought to be spurious.
'LONGINUS'
childish thing. The argument of his Panegyricus is that Athens surpasses
Sparta in services to the Greek race. Right at the beginning we find the
following: I 'Secondly, the power of speech is such that it can make great
things lowly, give grandeur to the trivial, say what is old in a new fashion,
and lend an appearance of antiquity to recent events.' Js Isocrates then
about to reverse the positions of Athens and Sparta? The encomium on
the power of speech is equivalent to an introduction recommending the
3 reader not to believe what he is told! I suspect that what we said of the
best figures is true of the best hyperboles: they are those which avoid
being seen for what they are. The desired effect is achieved when they are
connected with some impressive circumstance and with moments of high
emotion. Thucydides' account of those killed in Sicily is an example:
'The Syracusans came down and massacred them, especially those in the
river. The water was stained; but despite the blood and the dirt, men
continued to drink it, and many still fought for it.'2 It is the intense emo-
tion of the moment which makes it credible that dirt and blood should
4 still be fought for as drink. Herodotus has something similar about
Thermopylae: 'Meanwhile though they defended themselves with swords
(those who still had them), and with hands and mouths, the barbarians
buried them with their missiles.'3 What is meant by fighting armed men
with mouths or being buried with missiles? Still, it is credible; for we
form the impression that the hyperbole is a reasonable product of the
situation, not that the situation has been chosen for the sake of the hyper-
5 bole. As I keep saying, acts and emotions which approach ecstasy provide
a justification for, and an antidote to, any linguistic audacity. This is why
comic hyperboles, for all their incredibility, are convincing because we
laugh at them so much: 'He had a farm, but it didn't stretch as far as a
Laconic letter.' Laughter is emotion in amusement (hedone).
6 There are hyperboles which belittle as well as those which exaggerate.
Intensification is the factor common to the two species, vilification being
in a sense an amplification of lowness.
39. 1 There remains the fifth of the factors contributing to sublimity which we
originally enumerated. This was a certain kind of composition or word-
arrangement. Having set out my conclusions on this subject fully in two
books, I shall here add only so much as is essential for our present
subject.
I Panegyricus 6. 2 Thucydides 7. 84. 3 Herodotus 7. 225.
• Cf. in general Dionysius (above, pp. 321 If.).
ON SUBLIMITY 497
EFFECT OF RHYTHM
8143:;91 K k
'LONGINUS'
shorts; the removal of a syllable (has nephos) at once curtails and mutilates
the grand effect.
Now lengthen the phrase:
parelthein epoiesen hOsperei nephos.
It still means the same, but the effect is different, because the sheer
sublimity is broken up and undone by the breaking up of the run oflong
syllables at the end.
Phrases too closely knit2 are also devoid of grandeur, as are those which 3
are chopped up into short elements consisting of short syllables, bolted
together, as it were, and rough at the joins.
CONCLUSION
I shall not hesitate to add for your instruction, my dear Terentianus, one 44. I
Plutareh (ef. chap. I, F, above) was roughly Dio's contemporary. He was born
c. A.D. 45 and died c. 120. Moralist, philosopher, and biographer, he only
occasionally touches on topics of literary criticism. His preoccupation with
education is evident in all he wrote; he was a man of great learning and
conventional views.
See R. H. Barrow, Plutarch and his Times, London, 1967; also D. A. Russeil,
Greece CS Rome, 13 (1966), 139 if. and IS (1968), 130 if.
I Fr. 58! Hall and Geldart.
508 DIO CHRYSOSTOM AND PLUTARCH
Our first extract comprises the first part of an educational treatise
entitled 'How young men should study poetry' (De audiendis poetis 1-8 =
Moralia 14 d if.), written in the tradition of the moralizing criticism of Plato's
Republic (above, chap. 2, B). The ingenuity shown in explaining the poets in moral
terms gives many insights into a kind of discussion of the standard classics which
remained common throughout the Roman period. There are significant links
between Plutarch's interpretations and those found in the scholia to Homer.
We have indicated the source of the quotations as far as they are known; but
PlutaIch drew many of them from existing collections, not from first-hand
reading.
The text is in the first volume both of the Loeb and of the Teubner
Moralia.
To Marcus Sedatius l
p. 14 d 'The nicest meat', said the poet Philoxenus,2 'is what is not meat, and
the nicest fish is what is not fish.' Let us leave the discussion of this to the
people who, in Cato's phrase, have more sensibility in their palates than
in their heads. What is plain is that in philosophy very young students
enjoy more what does not appear to be philosophical or serious; to this
they are ready to submit and subject themselves. In going through not
only Aesop's fables and tales from the poets but Heraclides' Abaris and
Ariston's Lycon,3 they take a passionate delight in the doctrines about the
soul which are mixed with the mythology. Thus we must preserve the
decency of the young not only in the pleasures of food and drink; more
important, we must accustom them in their readings and lectures to make
use of the pleasurable element sparingly, as a kind of sauce, and to pursue
the profit and salvation that derives from it. Locked gates do not preserve
a city if one door is open to let in the enemy; continence in other pleasures
does not save a young man if he lets himself go inadvertently through the
p. IS pleasures of the ear. Indeed, the more firmly these delights take hold of
the sensible and intelligent, the more they are overlooked and damage
and destroy their host.
Now it is neither useful nor perhaps possible to keep boys of the age
of my Soclaros or your Cleandros away from poetry. Let us therefore
protect them. They need an escort in reading even more than they do
in the street.
I have decided therefore to send you in written form the thoughts
which came into my mind the other day when I had been talking about
I Not otherwise known.
4 'Set sail and get away from education of every kind', said Epicurus (fr. 163 Usener).
5 Iliad 6. 130. 6 Laws 773 d.
510 DIO CHRYSOSTOM AND PLUTARCH
let us introduce some admixture of philosophy. For just as mandragora
planted beside vines and transmitting its qualities to the wine makes the
effect on the drinker milder, so poetry, by taking some arguments from
philosophy and combining them with an element of fable, makes learning
easy and agreeable to young people. Future philosophers therefore must
not avoid poetry. Rather should they be initiated into philosophy through
it, becoming accustomed to seek and enjoy truth in pleasant surroundings
p. 16 -or to protest and be annoyed at the lack of it. This is the beginning of
education, and
work well begun is like to finish well
as Sophocles says. I
2 When we first introduce our young men to poetry, there is nothing they
should have learned so thoroughly, nothing so readily springing to their
mind, as the proverbial saying that
poets tell many lies,
whether deliberate or not. The deliberate lies of the poets are due to their
thinking truth drier than fiction, from the point of view of pleasure to
the hearer and charm, which is what most of them aim at. Truth is
real, and does not change course, however unpleasant the outcome.
Fiction easily deviates and turns from the painful to the pleasant. Metre,
trope, grand language, timely metaphor, harmony, and word-order
possess nothing like the beguiling charm of a well-contrived plot. In
painting, colour is more exciting than line because it is colour that
represents flesh and deceives the eye; and similarly in poetry a convincing
fiction produces admiration and satisfaction more than any device of
metre or diction deficient in plot and story. This is why Socrates, the life-
long striver for truth, found himself, when he set about composing poetry
in obedience to a dream, no very convincing or gifted maker of lies; he
therefore put Aesop's fables into verse, on the principle that where there
is no fiction there is no poetry. For there can be sacrifices without dances
and music, but poetry without plot and fiction is impossible. Empedocles,
Parmenides, the Theriaca of Nicander, and the wise saws (gnomologiai) of
Theognis have borrowed from poetry the vehicle, as it were, of grandeur
and metre, so as to avoid the pedestrian.'
I Fr. 747 Nauck.
2 i.e. didactic poetry is not really poetry at all: cf. Arist. Poetics I447b16 If. (above,
P·9 1 ).
ON THE STUDY OF POETRY 5I l
Now consider any absurd or unpalatable statement, in poetry, about
gods or demigods or virtue, put into the mouth of a man of distinction
and reputation. The reader who accepts it as true is lost, -and his judge-
ment ruined. The reader who remembers and clearly bears in mind the
magic of fiction that poetry possesses, and can say to it every time,
'You tricksy beast, more subtle than the lynx,!
why do you contract your brows in fun? Why do you pretend to teach
when in fact you deceive?'-he will come to no harm and believe no evil.
He will check himself when he feels afraid of Poseidon and dreads his burst-
ing the earth open and laying Hades bare. He will hold himself back when
he feels angry with Apollo on behalf of the first man among the Greeks-
he who sang the hymn, he who was at the feast,
he who said all this, he was the killer.2
He will stop weeping for the dead Achilles and Agamemnon in Hades,
stretching out their feeble and powerless hands in their longing for life.
Or if he is disturbed by their sufferings and drugged into submission, he
will not hesitate to say to himself:
Make haste towards the light. Know all these things
to tell your wife hereafter. 3
This is a neat touch of Homer's: the visit to Hades is aptly described as
a tale for women because of its fabulous content.
POETRY AS IMITATION
We shall keep our young student under control even better if, the moment 3
we introduce him to works of poetry, we indicate that poetry is an art of
imitation, a capacity analogous to painting. He should of course be given
the familiar dictum that 'poetry is speaking painting and painting silent
poetry';4 but in addition to this, let us explain that when we see a picture p. 18
of a lizard or a monkey or Thersites' face we feel pleasure and admiration
not because it is beautiful but because it is like. In reality, ugliness cannot
become beautiful, but imitation is commended if it achieves likeness,
whether of a good or a bad object. Indeed, if it produces a beautiful image
of an ugly thing, it fails to provide propriety or probability. Some
painters do in fact represent disconcertingly odd events: Timomachus
did a 'Medea killing her children', Theon an 'Orestes killing his mother',
Parrhasius 'Odysseus feigning madness', while Chaerephanes depicted
indecent intercourse of men and women. The young student must be
educated especially in this kind of thing, and be taught that we praise not
the action represented by the imitation but the art shown in the appropriate
reproduction of the subject. Similarly, since poetry also often narrates by
imitation wicked actions and bad emotions or traits of character, the
young man must not necessarily accept admirable or successful work of
this kind as true, or label it beautiful, but simply commend it as suitable
HINTS TO BE TAKEN
Attention must be paid in this connection to any indication the poet gives 4
that he disapproves of what is being said. For example, Menander writes p. 19
in the prologue to Thais:
Sing me a woman, 0 goddess, pert, pretty, persuasive,
unfair, exclusive, demanding,
loving nobody, but always pretending to 10ve. 1
Homer is best at this, because he gives advance discredit or recommenda-
tion to the bad or good things his characters say. For 'advance recom-
mendation', compare:
He spoke a sweet and shrewd word;2
or
He stood by him, and restrained him with gentle words. 3
In discrediting a remark in advance, Homer virtually gives a solemn
warning not to use or attend to it, because it is outrageous and vicious.
Thus, when he is about to relate Agamemnon's harsh treatment of the
priest, he prefaces it by saying:
But it did not satisfy Agamemnon, son of Atreus, in his heart,
but he dismissed him evilly4-
that is to say, brutally, wantonly, and improperly. Similarly, he gives
Achilles the harsh words
drunken sot, with a dog's eyes and a hind's heart,S
only after stating his own judgement:
Then Peleus' son again with grim words
addressed Atrides: he had not yet ceased from his anger.6
For nothing said angrily and harshly is likely to be good.
Similarly also with actions:
He spoke, and planned dire deeds on Hector,
laying him out on his face by Patroclos' bier.?
And he also uses concluding lines to good effect, casting his own vote
I Menander, fr. I85 K6rte. 2 Odyssey 6. I48.
3 Iliad 2. I89. 4 Ibid. I. 24.
5 Iliad I. 225; cf. 'Longinus' 4. 4, above, p. 465.
6 Iliad I. 223. 7 Ibid. 23. 24.
516 DIO CHRYSOSTOM AND PLUTARCH
as it were on what is said or done. Thus he makes the gods say of Ares'
adultery:
Bad deeds do not prosper. The slow catches the swift.'
On Hector's pride and boasting, we have:
So he spake, boasting; but Hera was indignant. 2
And on Pandarus' archery:
So spake Athena, and convinced the fool.3
Now these verbal assertions and opinions may be observed by any
attentive reader. But other lessons are supplied by the actual events
related. Euripides, for instance, is said to have answered critics who
attacked his Ixion as impious and vile by saying: 'But I didn't take him
off the stage until he was nailed to the wheel.' In Homer, this kind of
instruction is tacit; but it affords a useful kind of re-interpretation for the
most severely criticized myths. Some critics in fact have so forced and
perverted the meaning of these by using what used to be called huponoia 4
and is now called allegory, as to interpret the revelation by Helios of
Ares' adultery with Aphrodite as meaning that the planet Mars in con-
junction with the planet Venus produces adulterous births, which are
revealed by the return of the sun on his course to discover them; or
again, to interpret the way in which Hera beautified herself for Zeus,
and the magic of the cestus, as symbolizing a purification of the air coming
into proximity with the fiery element. As if Homer did not himself give
the solution of both these problems! In the story of Aphrodite, he in fact
teaches the attentive reader that poor music, bad songs, and speeches
with immoral themes produce dissolute character, unmanly life, and a race
of men content with luxury, softness, womanishness, and
p. :zo changes of clothes, hot baths, and bed.s
This is why he represents Odysseus as instructing the bard to
change the tune, and sing the Making of the Horse 6_
very properly suggesting that musicians and poets should take their
subjects from men of sense and wisdom. In the story of Hera, likewise,
he demonstrates that the sort of intercourse and pleasure between the
sexes that depends on drugs, magic, or deceit, is not only ephemeral,
I Odyssey 8. 329. Z Iliad 8. 198. 3 Ibid. 4. 104.
4 Cf. Plato, Republic 2. 378 d (above, p. 53).
5 Odyssey 8. 249. 6 Ibid. 492.
ON THE STUDY OF POETRY
inconstant, and insecure, but turns to hostility and anger as soon as the
effects of the pleasure fade. Zeus accordingly threatens Hera:
So that you can see if love and bed avail you,
the love you enjoyed when you came from the gods, and
deceived me. l
If the description and representation of bad deeds includes as well the
disgrace and damage which befalls the doers, it benefits rather than
harms the audience. Philosophers use examples, admonishing and in-
structing from given facts, while poets do the same thing by inventing
facts and spinning tales on their own. I am not sure whether Melanthius
was joking or in earnest when he said that Athens was preserved by the
dissidence and dissensions of the politicians, because they did not all
lean to the same side of the boat, but their quarrels somehow counteracted
their damaging effects. 2 But it is like that with poets: their differences
among themselves produce compensating convictions and prevent any
violent swing in a harmful direction. Sometimes, they themselves high-
light the contradictions by putting opposing opinions side by side. We
must then support the better side. For example:
'My child, the gods do often trip men up.'
'Yes, that's the easiest way--convict the gods';3
or
'Should you, but not they, glory in wealth of gold?'
'Stupid to be wealthy and know nothing else';4
or
'Why sacrifice, when you are going to die?'
'It's better; there's no hardship in piety.'s
The solutions of these problems are obvious if, as has been said, we
direct the young by our critical judgement in the better direction.
24.5 2 5.
• Euripides, fr. 972. 3 Fr. 292. 4 Isthmian 4. 52.
5 Ibid. 7. 47. 6 Sophocles, fr. 749. 7 Fr. 750.
8 Fr. 85. 9 Fr. 751. 10 Fr. 752.
ON THE STUDY OF POETRY
and
What grace is there in much beauty
if it is wicked intrigue
that breeds prosperity of riches ?r
Menander certainly encouraged and inflated the love of pleasure by the
burning eroticism of the lines:
All things that live and see our common sun
are slaves to pleasure. 2
Young men must be shown and reminded again and again that the imita- 7
tive purpose of poetry compels it to use its ornaments and splendours in
handling the events and characters of its subject without abandoning the
I Hesiod, Works and Days 313.
Z The argument anticipates a point often emphasized by modern scholars, that
arete in early literature is hardly moral at all, and means 'success' rather than 'virtue'.
3 Hesiod, Works and Days 287. 4 Odyssey 19. 360. 5 Ibid. 4. 93.
6 Fr. 612. 7 Medea 603. 8 Phoenissae 55 2 •
DIO CHRYSOSTOM AND PLUTARCH
likeness to reality, since the attraction of imitation lies in its convincing-
ness. Any imitation therefore which is not utterly neglectful of truth
inevitably reproduces the marks of vice and virtue along with the actions
concerned. Homer's art, for example, will have..no truck with the Stoic
doctrine that virtue has nothing bad attaching to it and vice nothing good,
the ignorant man being in error in everything and the good man univer-
sally successful. That is what We are told in the schools; in real life, as
Euripides says,
good and bad are not to be found apart;
there is a sort of mixture. I
And even apart from considerations of truth, poetry prefers if possible
to use varied and diversified material: emotional effect, paradox, and
surprise-prime sources of both wonder and charm-are given to myth
by variety, whereas simplicity lacks both emotion and poetical effect.
This is why poets do not represent the same people as always victorious,
prosperous, or successful. Indeed, they do not even treat the gods, when
involved inhuman affairs, as free from passion or error. This is to safe-
guard the disturbing and exciting element in poetry from lapsing through
the absence of danger and conflict.
S This being so, we must ensure, when we introduce the young student
to poetry, that he is free from the prejudice that these great and noble
names were necessarily wise and upright men, excellent kings, and
patterns of all virtue and right conduct. He will indeed come to harm ifhe
thinks everything splendid and gapes in awe, never feeling annoyance at
anything he reads and ignoring the protests of those who find fault with
actions and words like
o father Zeus, Athena, and Apollo,
would that no Trojan alive might escape from death,
and no Argive either, so long as you and I
dodge the destruction, and break, alone, the holy ring-wall
of Troy;2
or
I heard the piteous cry of Priam's daughter, Cassandra,
whom treacherous Clytemnestra killed beside me;J
or
To lie first with the concubine, to make her loathe the old man;
I was persuaded, and I did it;4
I Fr. 21. 2 IJiad 16. 97.
3 OdJ.ssey II. 421. 4 Iliad 9. 452.
ON THE STUDY OF POETRY
or
Father Zeus, no god is more baleful than thou ... '
The young reader must not get into the habit of praising anything of this p. 26
kind, or displaying unscrupulous persuasiveness in devising excuses and
specious evasions for bad deeds. Poetry, he must realize, is an imitation of
the manners and lives of men, who are not perfect, pure, and irreproach-
able, but involved in passions, false opinions, and ignorance-though they
often indeed improve themselves through their natural goodness. This
kind of training and attitude in a young man exalted and inspired by good
words and actions and unreceptive of, and distressed by, bad ones, will
ensure that reading does no harm. The student who admires everything
and makes it his own, and whose judgement is ensnared by the heroic
names, will inadvertently fall victim to many faults: it would be like
imitating Plato's stoop or Aristotle's lisp. There is no need to be cowardly
about it, or shiver or fall down and worship in superstitious awe; we must
accustom ourselves to commenting with confidence, and saying 'wrong'
and 'inappropriate' as often as we say 'right' and 'appropriate'.
Consider for example the conduct of Achilles. He summons an assembly
when the soldiers are ill. It is his own military distinction and reputation,
of course, that particularly make him distressed at the lull in the fighting.
But he has medical knowledge and realizes, after the ninth day (the normal
crisis period), that the disease is no ordinary one and comes from no
common cause. He rises, and, instead of making a speech to the multitude,
addresses advice to the king:
Son of Atreus, now I think we should turn and go home ... 2
This is correct, decent, appropriate behaviour. But when the seer
[Calchas] says he is afraid of the anger of the most powerful of the Greeks,
Achilles no longer behaves so well; he swears that no one shall lay hands
on Calchas while he lives, and adds 'even if you mean Agamemnon'.3
This displays neglect and contempt of the ruler. Then he becomes even
more furious and grabs his sword with intent to murder-a wrong action
from the point of view both of honour and of expediency. His repentance
follows:
He thrust his great sword back into the scabbard
and did not disobey Athene's words.•
It is quite right and proper that, unable to eradicate his anger altogether,
he controls it and subjects it to reason before doing anything irremediable.
I Iliad 3. 365.
• Ibid I. 59. Note that Plato also (above, p. 61) chooses the beginning of the Iliad, as
specially well known, to illustrate a point. 3 Ibid. 90. 4 Ibid. 220.
52 8 DIO CHRYSOSTOM AND PLUTARCH
Or take Agamemnon. In his words and actions in the assembly he is a
ridiculous figure, but in the Chryseis episode more dignified and kingly.
When Briseis is dragged off, Achilles
wept and drew aside and sat apart from his comrades;
but Agamemnon puts the woman on board ship himself and hands her
over, though he has not long before said that he thinks more of her than
of his wife. Here is nothing shameful, no yielding to love. Note also what
Phoenix says, after his father has cursed him because of the concubine:
I planned to kill him with the sharp edge of bronze;
but some immortal stopped my wrath, and made me think
of what the folk would say, and all the reproaches:
I did not want to be called my father's murderer. z
P.27 Aristarchus excised these lines, alarmed by them; but they are right in
the situation. Phoenix is showing Achilles what anger is like and what
men dare do out of anger, unless they use their reason and listen to
soothing words. Phoenix also cites Meleager as having been angry with
his fellow citizens, but then pacified. He rightly finds fault with the
emotion, but praises, as both honourable and expedient, Meleager's
resistance, opposition, control, and repentance. In this passage, the
difference is obvious. Where the intention is less clear, a distinction must
be made by drawing the student's attention in some such way as the
following.
If Nausicaa's remark to the maids-
I wish I had a husband like that
living here; I wish he wanted to stayJ-
was made frivolously because when she saw the stranger Odysseus she
felt towards him like Calypso, because she was a spoilt girl and now
marriageable, then her forwardness and lack of control deserve censure;
but if she perceived Odysseus' character from his words and admired his
sensible conversation, and so comes to pray for a husband like that rather
than one of the nautical gentlemen and good dancers of her own country-
then she deserves admiration.
Again, when Penelope converses amiably with the suitors, and they
give her clothes and gold and other ornaments, Odysseus is pleased
because she took their presents and charmed their hearts.4
I Iliad I. 349.
• Iliad 9. 458. These lines are not in our texts of Homer, which thus seems to have
been 'expurgated' as Plutarch reports.
3 Odyssey 6. 244. 4 Ibid. 18. 282.
ON THE STUDY OF POETRY 52 9
If it is her acceptance of presents and her greed that pleases him, this is
living off immoral earnings to a degree worse than Poliagros in the
comedy:
o happy Poliagros,
with his heavenly goat that brings in the money!1
But if Odysseus thought he would have them more under his thumb
because of their expectations-they would be confident and not see what
was coming-then his pleasure and confidence are justified. Similarly
with his counting the treasure the Phaeacians left with him before they
sailed away. If he was really afraid for the money
for fear they had gone away with something on the ship,z
then indeed-given his desolate situation and the total uncertainty about
his own fate-his avarice deserves pity or disgust. But if, as some say,
he was uncertain whether this really was Ithaca, and thought the safe
transport of the treasure an indication of the Phaeacians' good faith-they
would not otherwise have kept their hands off the money if they had
landed him, with no profit to themselves, in a country not his own-then
he uses a perfectly sound argument, and we should commend his common
sense. Some actually disapprove of his being put ashore like this, if it
really happened while he was asleep. They say the Etruscans preserve
a tradition that Odysseus was naturally sleepy, and bad company to most
people for this reason. They approve it only if the sleep was not genuine-
that is to say, if he felt ashamed to send the Phaeacians away without
presents and hospitality, but was unable to conceal himself from his
enemies if he had them with him, and therefore covered up his difficulty
by pretending to be asleep.
If we point out these things to young people, we shall stop any tendency
to deterioration of character, and encourage the pursuit and choice of the
better course, because we unhesitatingly accord blame to the one and
praise to the other. This is especially necessary in tragedies which con-
tain plausible and unscrupulous speeches concerned with disreputable or
immoral actions. When Sophocles says,
From evil actions good words never come,3
it is just not true. He himself often attaches smiling words and kind
explanations to bad ways and atrocious deeds. As for his colleague
[Euripides], you know how he makes Phaedra actually reproach Theseus p.28
as though it was because of his infidelities that she has fallen in love
I Unknown (com. aJesp. 8 Kock). 2 Odyssey 13. 216. 3 Fr. 755.
8143591 M m
53 0 DID CHRYSOSTOM AND PLUTARCH
with Hippolytus;1 and we have another example in the language assigned
to Helen about Hecuba in the Trojan Women, where she decides that it is
Hecuba who really should be punished, because she was the adulterer's
mother! The young student must beware of thinking thi~ neat or smart.
He must not smile indulgently at the ingenuity. The words of vice should
be more detestable to him even than the deeds!
It is thus always useful to inquire into the reason for what is said. Cato
as a child used always to do what his attendant told him-but he always
asked why. There is no need to listen to poets as though they were law-
givers or tutors unless their subject stands up to examination-which
it will if it is good. If it is bad, it will be seen as vain and futile. Now
many people inquire acutely into the rationale and significance of lines
like
And not to put the pourer above the bowl
while they are drinking;2
or
The man who can reach another chariot from his own
must thrust with his spear)
But they accept without question dicta on graver matters:
It enslaves a man, however bold he is,
to know a mother's or father's evil deeds;4
and
he who fares badly should have lowly thoughts. s
Yet these sayings touch the character and cause confusion in life, because
they produce bad decisions and unworthy opinions, unless we accustom
ourselves always to ask why the man who fares badly should have lowly
thoughts, instead of resisting fortune and raising himself above humili-
ation. And why, if I am the son of a bad, foolish father, but myself decent
and sensible, should I not be proud of my good character? Must I be
humbled and cast down because of my father's stupidity? If you react and
resist like this, instead of bowing to every word as to a gust of wind, and
if you remember that 'it is a lazy man who takes fright at everything that
is said', you will soon be free of many of these false and unhelpful state-
ments.
So much for the ways of ensuring that reading poetry does no harm.
I The idea that authors make progress between their earlier and later works is to be
We give a brief extract (711 f--'712 d) from Plutarch's Table Talk (Quaestiones
Convivales 7. 8. 4-10, Loeb Moralia, vo!. ix).
Old Comedy is unsuitable for drinkers because of its unevenness. The
seriousness and outspokenness of what are called the 'parabases'! are too
unrelieved and intense, while the tendency to jests and buffoonery is
altogether excessive and unrestrained, and improper expressions and
indecent words abound. Moreover, just as at princely dinners every guest
has his own wine waiter, so every reader needs his own grammarian to
explain all the details ... so that the party becomes a class-room, or else
the jokes go by ineffectively and without significance.
But to New Comedy there can be no possible objection. It is so closely
associated with drinking that one might as well do without the wine as
without Menander in arranging the party. The plot is dressed in pleasing,
pedestrian language, such that the sober will not despise it nor the drunk
take annoyance; useful and simple maxims, slipping in quietly, incline
even the toughest characters to better ways and soften the heart, using
the wine as a melting fire. Moreover, the combination of seriousness and
fun might have been invented on purpose to amuse and do good to
persons who have taken drink and are relaxed. The love interest also is
appropriate for men who have drunk and are shortly going to join their
wives in bed. 2 In all his plays, there is no homosexual love, and the
seductions of virgins end decently in marriage. As for the prostitutes, if
they are bold and forward, the affair is checked by punishment or
repentance in the young man; ifthey are good and return the hero's love,
either a proper father is discovered for the girl or the affair is prolonged by
a period which brings a humane relationship of respect. In ordinary life,
all this is perhaps not worth attention; but in drinking the pleasure and
elegance of these plays may well have an educational effect that helps to
mould the character in the likeness of the kindness and humanity they
represent.
I i.e. the addresses and songs given by the chorus, often used for discussions of
A. MALICE IN HISTORY
My dear Alexander,!
Herodotus' simple style, the effortless and facile veneer which covers
his facts, has deceived many. Even more have been taken in by his per-
sonality. Plato says that it is the utmost unrighteousness to seem righteous
when you are noU It is also true that it is the deepest malice to mimic
good temper and simplicity in a way hard to detect.
Though Herodotus spares no one, he shows his malice most towards
the Boeotians and Corinthians. So it is our natural duty to refute him in
defence both of our ancestors and of the truth, in this aspect of his work.
To enumerate all his lies and fictions would need a library.
Terrible is the face of Persuasion,
said Sophocles. 3 This is especially true when a style of charm and power
makes it possible to conceal the writer's eccentricities and nature. Philip
told the Greeks who were deserting him and going over to Flamininus
that they were getting a smoother collar, but a heavier one. 4 Herodotus'
malice is smoother and softer than Theopompus', but it grips and hurts
more-like a wind forced through a narrow passage compared with a
wind in the open.
My best plan, I think, is to make a general outline of the common foot-
prints and recognition-tokens, as it were, of disingenuous and hostile
( The addressee is a friend, but cannot be identified for certain.
• Republic 2, 361 a. 3 Fr. 781 Nauck.
• Cf. Plutarch's Life of Flamininus 10 for a version of this story.
MALICE IN HISTORY 535
narrative. I shall then classify the individual passages under these head-
ings, if they fit.
(i) A writer is unkind ifhe uses hard words and expressions where more
moderate ones are available: e.g. calling Nicias a fanatic, instead of 'too
much inclined to religious observance',! or speaking of Cleon's 'rashness
and lunacy' instead of his 'frivolity'.2 This is to get a kick out of the facts
by a lively description.
(ii) When there is some discreditable circumstance not relevant to the
history, and the writer seizes on it and foists it on to a context where it is
not needed, expanding and complicating the story to include someone's
misfortune or eccentric or evil action, here too he is plainly taking pleasure
in speaking ill. Though Cleon had abundant faults, Thucydides nowhere
clearly expounds them. He only has a single word for the demagogue
Hyperbolus-'a worthless character', he says,3 and lets it go at that.
Philistus in fact left out all the crimes committed by Dionysius against
non-Greeks unless they were closely connected with Greek events.
Digressions and excursuses in history are usually devoted to myth and
prehistory, and also to encomia; to use a digression for abuse and censure
is to fall victim to the tragedian's curse,
picking out the disasters from human life. 4
(iii) This, as is self-evident, is the opposite of the omission of the good
and honourable. People think this feature unobjectionable, but it is a
characteristic of malice, if the omission belongs to a topic relevant to the
history. Grudging praise is no fairer than enthusiastic blame; indeed, it
may be worse.
(iv) Another mark of unkindness in history is the choice of the less
creditable version when there are two or more available accounts of the
same event. Sophists are allowed, for professional reasons or for reputa-
tion, to take the worse cause sometimes and dress it up; they are not trying
to produce powerful conviction, and do not deny that they often make
paradoxical statements in incredible causes. The historian does his duty
ifhe states as true what he knows, and in cases of doubt says that the more
creditable story seems to him to be true. Many omit the less creditable
altogether. Ephorus, after saying that Themistocles knew of Pausanias'
treason and of his negotiations with the king's generals, continues: 'He
was not convinced, however, and would not join him, although Pausanias
communicated the plan to him and encouraged him to share his own
hopes.'s ThucydideS simply leaves out this story, implying that he
rejected it.
I Thuc. 7. So. 2 Ibid. 4- 28. 3 Ibid. 8. 73.
• Unknown (trag. adesp. 388 Nauck). 5 Fr. 189 Jacoby.
TWO CRITICS OF HISTORY
(v) Where the facts are established, but the motives and intentions
obscure, it is unkind and malicious to make the worse conjecture-as the
comic poets do when they say that Pericles fanned the war because of
Aspasia or Phidias, I not out of an honourable ambition to put down the
pride of the Peloponnesians and not yield to Sparta in anything. It is
obvious that there is extreme jealousy and malice in the man who assigns
bad reasons to famous deeds and laudable actions and is led on by his
slanders to weird suspicions about unseen motives, because he cannot
find fault with the overt act. This is exemplified by those who attribute
the murder of the tyrant Alexander by Thebe to feminine jealousy and
passion rather than to a noble heart and a hatred of evil; or again by those
who say that Cato killed himself because he was afraid of a horrible death
at the hands of Caesar.2
(vi) A historical narrative also admits malice in the actual manner of the
deed, e.g. if it is said to have been done (a) for money and not for virtue's
sake, as some say of Philip, (b) without trouble or difficulty, as some say
of Alexander, (c) by luck not judgement, as some say of Timotheus, when
they paint pictures of the cities going into the trap while he was asleep.3
Writers who deny the moral worth, effort, excellence, and personal
responsibility in actions obviously detract from their greatness and
nobility.
(vii) Persons who openly abuse those, they want to attack can properly
be charged with bad temper, rashness, and madness if they show no
restraint; those who shoot their arrows of slander from under cover, as it
were, and then turn about and retreat, saying they do not believe what
they very much want us to believe, earn the reproach of meanness as well
as that of the malice they are trying to deny.
(viii) Juxtaposing praise and blame leads to the same sort of result.
Aristoxenus, for instance, after saying of Socrates that he was uneducated,
ignorant, and licentious, added, 'but there was no injustice in him'.
Malice inserts praise in advance to lend credit to its accusations in the same
way that flattery of skill and ingenuity sometimes mix some mild censure
in with all their long praises, making frankness, as it were, a sauce to
flattery.
B. HO W TO WRITE HISTORY
HolP to Write History, from which the following excerpts are taken is light in
tone and in intention; but it is one of the more illuminating extant texts on
I For such stories cf. Aristoph. Acharnians 523 If., and Plutarch, Pericles 24, 30-2.
whom you despise will have a good laugh, when they see how un-
organized, unharmonious, and badly stuck together it all is. Everything
has its own appropriate beauty. Change this, and the change of use de-
stroys the beautiful effect.
I say nothing of the fact that praise pleases, at most, one person, its
subject, but is disagreeable to everyone else-especially if it is violently
exaggerated: and this is what usually happens, thanks to the common
habit of pursuing the subject's good will and dwelling on the theme until
the flattery is patent to all. They do not even know how to do it according
to the rules. They make no attempt to conceal their sycophancy; they
just fall to with a will, and produce a great mass of blatant implausi-
bilities.
Consequently, they fail to achieve their main object. The subjects of 12
their praises, especially if they are men of a spirited cast of mind, come
to dislike and despise them as flatterers. Aristobulus once composed an
account of a duel between Alexander and Porus. He made a particular
point of reading this passage aloud, because he thought he would give the
king great pleasure by inventing heroic actions for him and attributing to
him imaginary deeds far in excess of the truth. Alexander however seized
the book-they were sailing on the Hydaspes-and threw it straight into
the water. 'And that's what I ought to do to you, Aristobulus', he said,
'for the duels you fight on my behalf, and the elephants you kill with a
single spear.' It was entirely natural that Alexander should be angry.
He had no use either for the audacity of the architect who promised to
turn Mount Athos into a statue of him, and re-shape the mountain to
the likeness of the king. He recognized the man at once for the flatterer
540 TWO CRITICS OF HISTORY
13 he was, and stopped employing him. So where is the pleasure in all this,
except for anyone foolish enough to enjoy praises which can be refuted
out of hand? Ugly men-and especially women-who tell painters to
paint them as pretty as possible are like this. They think they will actually
look better if the painter gives them more rosy colour, and mixes plenty
of white in his paints. Many historians behave like this, watching the
present moment and their own interest and the profit they expect out of
their history. They deserve dislike; so far as the present moment is
concerned, they are blatant and unskilful flatterers, while they make their
whole enterprise suspect in the eyes of posterity by their exaggerations.
And if you think pleasure an indispensable element in history-well,
there are pleasures to be found in other kinds ofliterary refinement which
are not incompatible with truth. Yet most historians neglect them in
favour of quite unsuitable insertions.
I Ctesias, a Greek doctor at the court of Artaxerxes Il, who saw the revolt of Cyrus
from the other side. His work on Persian history is known from long extracts in Photius,
and was attractive and romantic.
2 Onesicritus of Astypalaea wrote a moralizing (Cynic) history of Alexander not long
after the events.
3 Thuc. 1.22.
HOW TO WRITE HISTORY 543
sensible way: 'if the same sort of thing happens again', he saY8, 'people
will be able to handle their problems better by referring to the record of
the past.'
Prooemia
His preparations complete, the historian will begin without a formal 52
prooemium, unless the subject really demands preliminary treatment in
the introduction. In effect, however, the statement of the projected subject
will amount to a prooemium. When there is a formal prologue, the his- 53
torian will have two objects in mind, not three like an orator: he will omit
the appeal to goodwill, while ensuring his readers' attention and ease of
understanding. Attention will be secured if it is made clear that the subject
is important, essential, close to home, or of practical utility. Clarity and
ease of comprehension are given by explaining causes and defining the
main heads of events. The best historians have always used this sort of 54
introduction. Herodotus' aim was 'that great and wonderful events be not
forgotten in time, revealing as they do Greek victories and barbarian
defeats'. Thucydides 'expected the war to be great and famous and more
important than any that went before'-and great indeed were the events
that befell in it.
Narrative
After the prooemium, long or short according to the subject, let there be a 55
smooth and easy transition to the narrative. All the rest of the history is a
long narrative.! So let it have narrative excellences to adorn it, advancing
smoothly and evenly, with nothing obtruding and nothing lying in the
background. A studied clarity should mark both the diction, as I said
above, and the connections of the facts. Everything should be finished
and polished. Only when the first point has been completed should it lead
on to the next, which should be, as it were, the next link of the chain.
There must be no sharp break, no multiplicity of juxtaposed narratives.
One thing should not only lie adjacent to the next, but be related to it
and overlap it at the edges.
Rapidity is always useful, especially if there is a lot of material. It is 56
secured not so much by words and phrases as by the treatment of the
subject. That is, you should pass quickly over the trivial and unnecessary,
and develop the significant points at adequate length. Much should be
I In a speech, narrative occupies a place normally between prooemium and proofs
Descriptions
57 Moderation is especially necessary in descriptions of mountains, forts,
and rivers. You mustn't give the impression of a tasteless display of
virtuosity or of neglecting the history to show off your own talents.
Just add a few necessary details for clarity's sake, and then pass on.
Avoid the snares of the subject, keep off the dainty fare. Homer, the
su blime, is a model for you: poet as he is, he passes quickly over Tantalos,
Ixion, Tityos, and the rest. If Parthenius or Euphorion or Callimachus
had been responsible, how many lines do you think it would have taken
to get the water to Tantalus' lips or make Ixion revolve?I Or-better-
think of the way Thucydides uses this manner for a little, and then quickly
abandons it, after describing a machine or explaining the plan of a siege,
if it's essential information-e.g. the plan of Epipolae or the harbour of
Syracuse. His narrative of the plague 2 may seem long-winded; but con-
sider the facts, and you will soon appreciate his rapidity and see how the
multifarious details grip and detain him despite his haste.
• When Philip's army was approaching, the Corinthians busied themselves with
defence preparations. Nobody could find any use for Diogenes; so he rolled his jar (in
which he lived) up and down the hill, not to seem the only man idle.
14
SECON D- AND THIRD-CENTURY. TEXTS
We group in this chapter a few short texts rather later in date than the pre-
ceding, and of varying significance.
C. IMAGINATION
This is a passage from a religious work of the early third century, Philostratus'
Life of Apollonius of Tyana (6. 19: Loeb edn. by F. C. Conybeare). Apollonius
complains of the ridiculous and peculiar representations of the gods among the
Ethiopians. The sage Thespesion attempts to answer him.
'How are your statues made then?' asked Thespesion angrily.
'In the most beautiful and pious way that statues of gods can be
fashioned.'
'You must be talking of the statue of Zeus at Olympia, of Athena, of
Aphrodite of Cnidos, Heraof Argos, and all those other beautiful
figures in the full bloom of youth ?'
'Not only those. Other peoples' statuary all in all measures up to the
standards of propriety, while you, it seems, ridicule the gods and don't
really believe in them.'
'Did Phidias and Praxiteles and the rest go up to heaven, I then, and
take an impression of the gods' appearances so as to reproduce it, or was
there some other influence controlling their work ?'
'Indeed there was-something rich in wisdom.'
'What? You can't find anything other than imitation (mimesis) surely.'
'Yes; imagination (phantasia) did this work, a more cunning craftsman
than your imitation. Imitation will fashion what she has seen, imagination
also what she has not seen. She will form her conception with reference
to reality. Amazement (ekplexis) often baffies imitation; nothing baffies
imagination. She marches undismayed to her own end .. .'
When trope will not serve the turn, we can use simile. Homer makes us
tense with:
as when a goatherd from his look-out sees a storm-cloud,5
This expression raises the story of the battle to a more grandiose tone,
but, since the word is indecorous as used of the heavens, Homer tries to
recover propriety by a special procedure, magnifying the sound of the
trumpet by the epithet 'great', and making the sound come from every
part of the heavens by adding the preposition 'around'.
Humble words obviously produce simplicity: for example
setting a poor chair and a little table. 4
1 Blessed is the race of poets and exempt from all troubles. Not only may
they initiate subjects of whatever kind they wish, false, sometimes
unconvincing, with no basis at all if we look at it properly-they also
handle them as they will, with thoughts and notions some of which would
be unintelligible without what goes before and after. We understand
and accept them only because it is all said in one piece-and we feel
very pleased at having understood. Sometimes they tell the beginning
of something and leave out the rest, as though they have given it up;
sometimes they rob it of the beginning, or take out the middle, and think
2 all well: they have a despotic power over their thoughts. Again, there is
nothing they cannot venture or contrive. They suspend gods from the
machine, embark them on ships with any fellow passengers they like, and
represent them not only sitting down with human beings but drinking
3 with them and carrying lamps to give light. 2 And think of their magni-
ficence and (this is where I started!) blessedness, and how, in Homer's
words, 'in ease they live', when they are composing their hymns and paeans
to the gods! In a couple of strophes or periods the whole thing is com-
plete. First, they give us 'Delos gird led by the main', or 'Zeus who
hurls the thunder' or 'deep-roaring sea', and then straight to Heracles'
arrival among the Hyperboreans, or lamos the prophet of old, or Heracles
and Antaeus;3 then, with the addition of Minos or Rhadamanthys,
Phasis or Danube, or a declaration that poets are 'the Muses' flock'
4 and invincible in their skill, they think their hymn complete. Nor do
laymen expect more of them. Indeed we honour them and think them so
I Iliad 19. 221-3.
2 An allusion to the activities of Athena in the Odyssey (2. 270 If., 3. SI If., 19· 34).
3 cr. Pindar, Olympiatl 3. II If., 6. 43, 50, Isthmiatl 3. 70 If.
POETRY AND PROSE 559
very holy that we have handed over to them the composition of hymns
and addresses to the gods, as though they were in truth their prophets. But
the capacity to propound an appropriate subject, the well-thought-out
arrangement of details, the preciseness (within human limits) of presenta-
tion-these are qualities we think unnecessary in regard to the gods.
For all other occasions we use prose speech (/ogos)-encomia of festivals
and heroic deeds, narratives of wars, invention of fables, contests in court.
Logos is at hand for everything-but towards the gods who gave it us we
do not think it right to use it! It is in prose that we lay down the pro-
cedures even of rituals and sacrifices, when we write laws; but hymns,
no-they are not to be composed like this. Is it that the poets need the 5
gods, but we-? Let me not say it! The poets themselves confess that
'all men have need of gods'. All men should therefore honour them accord-
ing to their several capacities. Are poets alone beloved of god? Is it from 6
them that the gods most like to receive gifts? Then why did we not make
the poets the sole priests of the gods? 'The oracular prophets of the gods 7
give instructions in metre.' No: the priestess at Delphi, the priestesses
at Dodona, Trophonios, the dreams that Asclepios and Sarapis send,
speak for the most part without metre. Indeed, it is more natural for 8
man to use prose-just as it is more natural to walk than to ride. It is not
true that metre was invented first, and then speech and conversation,
nor did poets lay down the words to use: words and prose came first,
and then, to provide a certain grace and fascination of the mind (psuch-
agogia), came poetry, for she makes such things. So in honouring nature
we should be honouring the ordinance and will of the gods; and if, as
the poets themselves say, the first and oldest is also best, we should be
doing it more honour by approaching the gods, who laid down all these
things, with addresses in this style; after all, we are not ashamed of talking
to one another un metrically.
I say this not to dishonour the poets, nor to rob them of their rank, 9
but to show, on their own admission, that we might properly add these
new sacrifices to the existing ones. And if naturalness is in everything
more acceptable to the gods, we may reasonably expect to give them
more pleasure by this kind of honour than by the other. The gods too
would honour us the more if we assigned seniority where they do.
Metre indeed gives the poets their profession's fame, but from the point
of view of utility it is much more our affair. For in poetry, metre measures 10
only the hexameter or the iambic line if it fills the verse, but in prose it
gives measure to the whole context and penetrates everything (starting with
the author's name).l It allows no excess or falling short, but makes us give
We can select only a very little from the great mass of late Greek rhetorical
writing. Hermogenes of Tarsus (born c. A.D. 160) was a brilliant young student
whom the emperor Marcus Aurelius made a detour to hear. His name is attached
to a number of treatises on rhetorical subjects. Peri ideon, On Types of Style, is
authentic, and is much the most important.
The ideai are stylistic types or qualities found in all authors. They are some-
thing like the aretai, virtues, with which Theophrastus and Dionysius had
operated, but Hermogenes distinguishes many more nuances even than Dionysius.
It is difficult to find English equivalents for these delicate discriminations. One
group of ideai is headed by sapheneia (clarity), with katharotes (purity) and
eukrineia (distinctness); a second is composed of megethos (grandeur) with its
various specialized forms: semnores, trachutes, deinotes, lamprotes, akme, peribo/e
(solemnity, asperity, vehemence, brilliance, florescence, abundance); the third
comprises the qualities roughly opposed to the 'grand' group-ethos (character-
fulness), and its concomitants apheleia, aletheia, drimutes (simplicity, truthful-
ness, sharpness) and some others. It will be seen that the first group corresponds
roughly to the necessary virtues of the earlier writers, and that the other two
represent the two sides of the basic antithesis between grandeur and emotion
on the one hand, and simplicity and 'manners' on the other (cf. Dionysius, above,
p. 33 1 ).
We excerpt passages to show Hermogenes' general principles, his attitude to
Demosthenes as the exemplar of all types,' and these general concepts of
megethos and ethos. The final passage chosen illustrates his handling of individual
authors. The translation sometimes abridges. Hermogenes is a diffuse author
and repeats himself often to make his points clear to his pupils.
Text: H. Rabe, Leipzig, 1913.
Discussion: D. Hagedorn, Zur Ideenlehre des Hermogenes, Giittingen, 1964.
Perhaps the most necessary subject for the orator to understand is p. 213 Rabe
that of the 'types' (ideai) of style: what are their characteristics and how
are they produced? Without this knowledge, one cannot know how to
judge excellence and craftsmanship, or the lack of them, in other writers,
ancient or modern; and if one wishes oneself to be a craftsman in words,
I Especially the public speeches and above all On the Crown (Oration 18)-witness
3. 'CHARACTER', SIMPLICITY
Simplicity
The thoughts of simplicity are in general those of purity. Thoughts com-
mon to mankind, reaching, or believed to reach, everyman, with nothing
deep or sophisticated about them, are obviously simple and pure. 'Think
me a villain, but let him go'Z is an example. It is generally agreed, too,
that pure thoughts will necessarily be simple, and vice versa. Simple in a
more special sense are the characters who are unaffected and childish-
not to say silly-to some degree.
For example, it gives this effect to go over events or tell a story that
is unnecessary and that no one has asked for. There is much in Anacreon
I [Dem.] 2S. IS, quoted more than once already: 'the whole life of man is governed
It is not very easy to say anything about the purely 'panegyric',4 except 403.21
that all the elements which produce the finest, Platonic panegyric can,
by their isolated predominance, produce a kind of panegyric mode:
viz. solemnity by itself, simplicity, sweetness, purity, care, all the qualities 404
mentioned above. Those ancient writers who have the highest reputation
for panegyric evidently wrote in this manner. They form my present
subject.
But first, some remarks by way of necessary preface. The best panegyric
must possess grandeur with charm, ornament, and clarity, as well as real-
istic representation of character and all the other things discussed in our
section on the panegyrical style. Not only poetry and prose in general
(logographia) possess these qualities. History has them in abundance.
Historians must therefore definitely be placed among the panegyrists.
They do indeed belong here, for their aims are grandeur and pleasure
and all the other usual objects, even if they do not attain them in the
same way as Plato. They must therefore be discussed here. First,
The novel Lucius or the Ass has been attributed to him without solid reason (c. A. Behr,
Aelius Aristides, Amsterdam, 1968, 13, n. 34).
2 7.46 fr.
8148591 Pp
578 LATER GREEK RHETORIC: HERMOGENES
first among the historians, because he is more panegyrical and more
charming not only than Thucydides but than any other practitioner in this
manner. Of Thucydides indeed, it might be doubted into which category
he falls; he is as much forensic and deliberative as panegyrical, in his
thought and the elaboration with which he introduces every point. Let
him however occupy his proper place, by genre and by his superiority
to some and (it may be) inferiority to others in literary capacity. I shall
merely describe him as he is.
Thucydides aims at grandeur, and he does in a sense achieve it-but
not the grandeur that I think he wanted. He aims, I fancy, at solemnity,
4 10 the proper quality of panegyrical grandeur, but he obviously goes too
far in the direction of roughness, harshness, and hence obscurity. This
is true especially of his diction, but also of his word-arrangement. He
takes great trouble over artistic adornment, but here too aims at sub-
limity and great grandeur, with the result that he overshoots the mark
in hyperbole and novel word-order~whence comes harshness, and then
obscurity. He is extremely dignified, and his thought possesses a remark-
able combination of the oratorical and the solemn. Nothing even in his
historical narrative goes unelaborated.
In his 'methods' or approaches, he is quite different. He introduces
even his elaborations with some notable piece of grandeur or the like,
and thus is almost wholly without sweetness. Where this does occur, it is
conspicuously alien to the style: for instance 'Tereus who took Procne
the daughter of Pandion from Athens as his wife' etc.! Were there no
such instances, one would have cause for surprise that his writing does
sometimes achieve charm; virtually no other individual style, that chooses
4I I and perfects some particular manner, can appear pure without making
at any rate some contact with all the other possible manners. As a historian,
Thucydides employs representation (mimesis) in his speeches and in some
dialogues,~ but he has the same characteristics here-indeed, they are
even more marked. In his actual narrative he is less harsh and rough with
many pure and distinct passages, far surpassing (in this and in much
else) his teacher Antiphon.
Hecataeus of Miletus, from whom Herodotus learned much, is pure and
lucid, and sometimes shows considerable charm. His pure, unmixed
Ionic, without the variety of that of Herodotus, makes him less poetical
in diction. Nor is he as studied or as ornamental in diction; his charms
thus are far inferior to Herodotus', despite the fact that almost his whole
subject is myth and narrative of that character. On the other hand, not
only is his subject capable of giving rise to any kind of style, but his
I Thuc. 2. 29.
2 Notably the Melian Dialogue in Book 5.
ON TYPES 579
diction, and the features associated with diction-figures, cola, word-
order, rhythm, clausulae-are well adapted to produce charm and sweet-
ness like that of Herodotus, and indeed any other of the various kinds of
writing. Hecataeus' inferiority, it seems, is thus due to his failure to take
sufficient care about accuracy and ornament of diction.
It seemed unnecessary here to discuss Theopompus, Ephorus, Hellani- 412
cus, Philistus, and their like. For one thing, it is easy to characterize them
on the basis of the theory of types, and of our discussions of individual
authors. Secondly, their styles have, to the best of my knowledge, never
been thought worthy of imitation or rivalry by Greeks, as h~e those of
Thucydides, Herodotus, Hecataeus, Xenophon, and some others.
B. ON INVENTED HYMNS
This piece and the next come from treatises on 'epideictic' ('display') oratory
attributed to a rhetor called Menander, and probably dating from the third
century A.D. They illustrate the concern of the later rhetoric for unreal themes.
Many of the prescriptions these handbooks offer are clearly much older than the
books themselves, and afford useful parallels for the interpretation of the Greek
and Latin poetry of the Empire.
Text: L. Spengel, Rhetores Graeei, iii. The first piece deals with hymns to the
gods involving myths made up for the occasion. Spengel 340 ff.
The first point to note about 'invented' hymns is that they cannot easily
be written for the famous gods, whose origins and powers are well
known, but usually relate to minor gods or demigods; for example Eros
in Plato is at one time said to have existed before the earth, at another to
be the child of Aphrodite; later on again he is represented as born of
Poverty and Plenty, as controlling the art of medicine, and as bringing
together the halves of the original human body. I Plato invents these
hymns, which relate to the nature, power, and birth of the divinity, with
great ingenuity. Thi~ licence comes to prose-writers from the poets.
Poets invent Deimos (Terror) and Phobos (Fear) as companions of Ares,
Phuge (Flight) as a friend of Phobos, and Sleep as the brother of Death.
I myself made Logos (Reason) the brother of Zeus (? to make a sort of
summary of moral philosophy). The next thing is to explain what rules
must be observed in invented hymns. First, they should not be separate
from the whole but continuous with it and this condition will be ful-
filled if the invention is taken from the main subject ( ?) and is not remote
from it. Secondly, the fiction must be constructed in a facile, elegant, and
by no means disagreeable manner: for example the Muses as the daughters
I Symposium 178 d, 180 d, 186 b, 191 c, 203 b.
580 LATER GREEK RHETORIC: MENANDER
of Memory, or the like. For some inventions are disagreeable even to
hear, for instance that Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. This may in-
deed do very well in some other circumstances, if it is meant allegorically,
but the invention is plainly disagreeable. Thirdly, in all our fiction we
should take proofs from reality, as I have done, and as Homer often does.
Fourthly: invented hymns should be consistent with themselves and
not involve contradictory or conflicting elements, as in the_story that
Zeus came before all things and is the father of all gods, and yet married
Themis, Cronos' former wife. For if he was before all things, he was
before Themis; but if Themis was before Zeus, Zeus was not before all
things. Fifthly: excessive length and elaboration are to be avoided. Some
recent writers, having invented the new demigod Jealousy, make Envy
her head-dress, and Strife her girdle. Pausanias I has a particular inclina-
tion to this sort of elaboration. Old and new can be made one both in
poetry and more particularly in prose.
The style for such hymns should be chosen with an eye to the subject.
If you invent a human story, it should be simple and neat-by 'human
story', I mean something not terrifying or supernatural: Poverty or
Insomnia or the like. If it is something supernatural, adopt a more solemn
style. This kind of hymn, it should be noted, shows great talent and is a
sign of inventiveness.
C. PROPEMPTICA (VALEDICTIONS)
A valedictory speech is one which speeds its subject on his journey with
good wishes. It likes delicacy and the charm of old-world stories. There
are many varieties of valediction. The first admits advice in some part,
while other parts of the speech give opportunities for encomiastic and
amatory passages, if the speaker so wishes. Advice is in place when a
superior is sending off an inferior (e.g. a teacher his pupil), because his
own position gives him a character which makes advice appropriate. A
second type allows the expression of a loving and passionate attitude to
the departing person without the addition of advice; this is when the
reputation and position of the two parties are equal, e.g. when a friend
sends off a friend. Even if the speaker in these circumstances is superior
to his departing companion, the common title of friend and their mutual
~ffection deprive him of his advisory position. A third type gives greater
scope for encomium-indeed it consists almost entirely of this: this is
when one wants to present as a valediction what is really an encomium.
I A second-century sophist. See Philostratus, Lives o/the Sophists 2. 13.
PROPEMPTICA
For example, we may be saying good-bye to a governor at the end of his
term of office or because he is moving to another city. In saying this, I
do not mean to deprive any of the varieties I have mentioned of the
emotions of love. The valedictory speech always rejoices in these. What
I am trying to show is that there are times for making greater use of it,
and times for making less. In the case of the governor, one can include the
desire and love of entire cities for him.
tion, 41-50; and sublimity, 462-3, 495; 471; plot of, 102, 108; proexns of, 160;
concealment of, 137, 484. See also language of, 141, 196, 199, 205, 410,
Textbooks 531; charm in, 202-3; whether poetry,
Asyndeton [lack of connectives], 156, 170, 26,; Old, 266, 270, 287, 390 , 531-3;
186,207,482-3 New, 265-6, 270-1, 39D-1, 53 1-3;
Roman, 395, 410
Bard (aoitIos), in Homer, 1-2,300 Comma [sub-division of colon, q.v.],
Bathos, see Frigidity 175 n., 342, 564
Bewitchment, see Charm Commonplace, the (to euteles), 566
Brevity, and charm, 198; and forcefulness, Commonplaces (loci communes) [general
213; and obscurity, 280; and bathos, topics, often of a philosophical nature,
499; in oratory, 224. 316-18, 423-6; in inserted into speeches], invented by
satire, 270; in poetry, 280, 288 Sophists, 223; in oratory, 244- 249,
408, 451, 474-5; in declamation, 344-
Catachresis (abusio), explained, 244- 359; style of, 491
261-2, 382 (lee also 303); in poetry, 6, Comparisons (sunkristis), 504 n. See also
325, 525 Simile
Catharsis, produced by tragedy, 97, 132-3 Complication (tIesis), in tragedy, lIS
Censorship, in Plato's republic, 66, 72-4; Compound words, restrictions on in prose,
at Rome, 276; of comedy, 287 138, 140-1, 146, 19G-2, 195, 199, 207,
Character (ethos), how to represent, 561, 213,258
570-5; in tragedy, 5,97 n., 1I0-1I; in Confirmations (epikristis), 570
oratory, 145, 155, 164. 166, 168; in Connectives, 184-5. See a/so Asyndeton,
letters, 21I; in declamation, 359; and Polysyndeton
emotion (pathos), lIS, 155, 179 n., 307, 'Contamination' of plots, 265
31I, 489 n.; and charm, 489 Correctness, virtue of style (Hellinismos,
Charm, in elegant style, 196-205; in Latinitas), 142-3, 241, 250, 376; in
Homer, 557; = bewitchment (psuch- music (orthotes), 82,94; generally, 127
agogia), 79, 300, 555, 559 (see also 7)· Corrupt style, 363, 365-6, 374. 378, 399,
See also Flowery style 415-16, 448. See a/so Affected style,
Chorus, role of in tragedy, 105, 116, 284- Decline
5; in comedy, 96; in Euripides, 30-3; in Court poetry, '278-9
Philoctetes, 505 Criticism, criteria of, 83, 216-19, 252,
Clarity (saphineia), virtue of style, 135, 271-4; by professionals, 28g, 388, 549;
137, 241, 313, 376, 561; how impaired, by friends, 291, 428--g, 462
141, 143-4> 157, 280; and metaphor,
138; and persuasiveness, 210; in plain Dactyls [-v v], 146. See a/so Hexameters,
style, 207-8; in Plato, 309; in Demo- Rhythm (heroic)
sthenes, 313, 563; in Isocrates, 316 Danger, see Hazard
Oausulae [pauses in prose speech, often Declamation (controversiae, masoriae),
marked by rhythm], 262, 264, 571-2; examples of, 344-54, 568 n.; style of,
esse videatur used as cliche in, 402, 298,454; form of, 344-5, 373; utility of,
446 372-4. 378-9; and reality, 354-8, 361-2,
Colon [sub-division of period, q.v.], 372-4. 401 , 454-5; and Ovid, 358-9;
1+8-9,173-80,323,328-3°,338-9,342, and comedy, 390-1
564. 571. See a/so Isocolon, Par- Decline, of drama due to audiences, 84; of
isosis rhetoric, stopped by Rome, 305-7; of
Comedy (komodia), as a genre, 82, 92, 250; Roman oratory, 379, 392, 415-16; due
why so called, 93, 303; origin and de- to spineless youth, 359-60; due to
velopment of, 6, 95-6 (see a/so 93); as immorality, 362-7, 502-3; due to de-
'imitation', 62-3, 90; and tragedy, 281- clamation, 372, 447-55; due to lack of
2; actors of, 373; of manners in Odyssey, freedom, 455-9,501; denied, 441-7
602 INDEXES
Delivery, in oratory, II7, 135-6, 143,207, 123-5, 131-2; narration in, 62; recita-
242,251,383; in specified orators, 319, tion of, 135-6 (v. Rhapsodes); proems
355, 398; speed of, 367-8; in recitation, of, 159,283; style of, 141,317; Greek, 6,
427. See also Actors 388~;Roman, 271, 393. See also Homer
Denouement (/usis), in tragedy, II5 Epideictic (also display) speeches, style and
Descriptions (ekphraseis), 546, 568 parts of, 157~, 161, 163, 165-7; and
Deus ex machina, Ill, 284 panegyric, 373; and poetry, 384;
Dialect words (glossaj), II9, 129, 138, and emotion, 468; in Hyperides. 493.
140- I, 150, 520. See also Rare words See also Encomia
Dialects, lack of in Latin, 409 Epigrams (sententiae), in poetry, 298-9;
Dialogues, style of, 2II, 310; Socratic, 91, in declamation, 353, 358; in middle
164> 215, 307, 310; of Cicero, 396; of style, 414; lacking in Fabianus, 36~;
Seneca, 399 in Cicero, 412, 446; in first-century
Dirges, 84 oratory, 4II-12, 444, 452
Dithyrambs [choral hymns to Dionysus, Epilogue, see Peroration
often extravagant in style], 6, 43, 62, Epiphoneme [culminating epigram or ex-
84> 90-2, 95, 250; preludes of, 147, 149, clamation], 193-4
159; style of, 122, 141, 156, 188, 190, Epithets, in prose, 138-41, 144-6; and
195,199; Plato a 'dithyrambist', 310-II metaphor, 190; in Homer, 555
Drama, see Comedy, Tragedy Erotica, defended, 293--'7,428; in Alcaeus,
389
Education, see Declamation, Fables, Euphonious (also beautiful) words, 139,
Morality, Music, Myth, Orator, Poetry 204-5, 317, 324, 333, 339
Elaborate style, 307-8, 310-13 Example (paradeigma), 412
Elegant style, 181, 196-205, 212, 221; Exodos, 105
etymology played on, 242 Expression (/exis, phrasis, elocutio), 61,
Elegy, origin of, 281; Greek, 389; Latin, 136n.; in poetry, 121; in prose, 135 If.;
394; as branch of eloquence, 438 importance of, 374-6; precepts for,
Emotion (pathos), and poetry, 44> 282, 489 If. See also Style
387,473; and oratory, 145, 170, 216-17, Extempore speaking, style of, 155-6;
307, 3II , 317, 319, 404, 408, 412, 414; pleasure from, 435; of Cassius Severus,
aids to production of, 179, 482, 484-8, 355-6; false appearance of, 424, 484
490,497; and sublimity, 462 n., 467-8,
489, 503; in Livy, 396; pathos as act Fables, use of in education, 51, 53-4, 303-
involving pain (Aristotelian), 105, 108- 4,510; charm of, 202; in Homer, 301,
10, II5, 124. See also Character 542; in prose, 559; in history, 539; in
Emulation (zelos), 562. See also Imitation Nicostratus, 577. See also Myth
Encomia (also panegyric, praise), poetic, Falsehood (pseudos), uses and abuses of,
43, 74> 94> 387; prose, 559; indirect 56--'7, 60; in Homer, 4, 126, 283, 304,
(parepajnos), 75; sophistic, 161, 167, 51 I; in poetry generally, 5-6, 51-2,384,
195,223; Roman, 224, 427-8; panegyric 510-13: in encomia, 537. See also Truth
and forensic oratory, 309, 373, 563; and Fear, removed by speech, 7; purged in
emotion, 468; and history, 537~, 546; tragedy, 133. See also Emotion, Pity
panegyric, extended use of in Hermo- Figures (schemata, schematismoi), infinite
genes, 575-9; praise in propemptica, in number, 329; in grand style, 185-7;
580-2. See also Epideictic in middle style, 244, 414; in plain style,
Enthymeme (enthumema) ['rhetorical syl- 241-2; and charm, 199; in individual
logism' or argument from probabilities], authors, 225, 308~, 317-18, 388-9,
135, 179-80, 193, 412 394, 408 ; in history, 385, 543; matter
Epanalepsis [repetition], 207 for experts, 428; first-century fashion
Epic, as genre, 53, 74, 90, 250, 438; and for, 375; 'Longinus' on, 480-9; Hermo-
inspiration, 43; and tragedy, 95-6, II5, genes on, 564 If.
GENERAL INDEX
Flowery style (antheron), 413; see a/so 557 141; in invective, 94-5, 281, 389, 394-
(anthos) 438; in tragedy, 95, 136, 286; and ordi-
Forceful style (deinon, deinotes), 175, 181, nary speech, 95, 146, 182
188,197, 199,205,212-13; see also 313, Ignorance (hamartia), in tragedy, 106-7
543,546, 561 , 563, 566 Imaginary second person, 486-7
Frigidity (a/so bathos: psuchron, psuchro- Imagination, see Visualization
tes), 462 n.; exemplified, 140-1, 464-6, Imitation (mimesis, mimemata), true
570; in Aristophanes, 531; frigid style, nature of, 66 ff. ; psychological effects of,
194-6 69-74; pleasure of, 134; and narrative,
61-2,578; and dancing, 82; and poetry,
Genres, need to keep separate, 84, 281; 62-6, 67--9, 71-4, 90 ff. passim (Aris-
rules of, 403. See also Appropriateness, totle); and art, 552; by sound of words,
and the individual genres 335-7; of previous authors, 228, 359-
Glosses, see Rare words 60,362,366,374,380,383-4,397,400-
Grammatici [elementary teachers of litera- 4,475-6,484,540, 548-50, 562; of life,
ture], 377, 450 288, 513-14., 527; of thought, 553. See
Grandeur (megethos, hadrotes, megalo- also Emulation
prepeia), 20-3, 507, 557, 561, 566-72, Immortality, afforded by poetry, 3, 297-8
578; grand style (hadron), 181--94, 205, Impossibilities, sometimes preferable to
213,244-5, 250, 413-14. See also Pomp possibilities, 126. See a/so Laughter
Greatness of thought, 468. See also Innuendo, 213-15
Grandeur 'Inside' and 'outside' the plot, Ill, 114,
126
Harmony, 90-1. See a/so Rhythm Inspiration (also enthusiasm, possession:
Hazard, in oratory (parabola), 245, 429; hieron pneuma, enthousiasmos, phusis
and sublimity, 491-2 theazousa), and poetry, 2-4, 42-4, 267,
Hexameters, as epic metre, 94, 96, 174; 299,439,537; and oratory, 146 n., 319,
converted into Sotadeans, 206. See also 477, 49 1, 497; and imitation, 476; of
Dactyls, Rhythm (heroic) Plato, 392, 408. See also Madness
Hiatus [juxtaposition of vowels], 187-8, Intellect (dianoia), in tragedy, 97 n. (and
240 ,309 passim in ch. 3. A)
History, meaning of, 102; and poetry, 102, Interrogation, 168--9
278, 385, 537, 543; and oratory, 239, Invective, 94-5, 223-4; indirect (para-
253, 325; in education of orators, 249- psogoi), 75. See also Encomia, Iambus
50, 377, 385; and panegyric, 537, 575, Irony, gentlemanly, 169; Socratic, 226-7;
577--9; malice in, 534-6; style of,S, of Hyperides, 493
543--6; some writers of, 255-6, 391, Isocolon [equality of length of balancing
395--6, 577--9; the ideal historian, 540-2. cola, q.v.], 178--9,242. See also Parisosis
See also Myth, Truth
Homoeoteleuton [similarity of ending in
Jests, 169, 203-4. See a/so Laughter
adjacent clauses], 179, 242
Humour, see Laughter Judge, posterity as, 476, 495, 542, 547.
See also Criticism
Hymns, 74, 84, 558--9; invention and
style of, 579-80. See also Paean
H yperbaton [distortion of natural word Lament, in tragedy (kommos), 105
order], 484-5 Laughter, effectiveness of, 270; un-
Hyperbole, 155, 495+6, 578; comic use of, desirable, 59-60, 73; and ugliness, 96;
196,202,49 6 and bathos, 141; and the impossible,
Hypostrophe [return to subject after 196; and charm, 203; Homeric, 59-60;
parenthesis], 571 dramatized by 'Homer', 95; in oratory,
242-3,493; in comedy, 531-3. See also
Iambus [v -], 286; iambics as genre, 43, Hyperbole, Jests, Wit
INDEXES
Letters, style of, 211-12; in Cicero and in history, 535, 546, 578; allegorizing,
Demosthenes, 396; of alphabet, 409 580. See also Fables
Lexis eiromene [strung-together style], 147
Low words, 334, 381, 490, 499-501 Narration (diegesis), in poetry, 61-2, 64-5,
Luxury, stylistic effects of, 360, 364. See 93, 471; in prose, 559; in oratory, 75,
also Decline, Morality 377, 414, 446; in declamation, 344; in
Lyre, 31, 42, 82, 285 history, 545
Lyrics, as genre, 6, 53, 74, 281, 317, 438, Nature, and sentence structure, 221;
493; writers of, 43, 147, 389, 394-5; 'natural' eloquence, 361, 375-6, 378,
parody of Euripides', 33-5; lyrical verse 386,398,400,410-11,562; naturalness
(Ode), 303 in oratory, 137; naturalness in acting,
373; 'natural' historians, 540; 'natural-
Madness (mania), of poets, 75,113 n., 287, ism' and archaism, 41 I. See also Art
291; and sublimity, 468; in Plato, 491. Neologisms (also coined, new words), 120,
See also Inspiration 138,191-2,200,207,241,256-8,280-1,
Magniloquence,s. See also Grandeur 308 , 325, 364
'Male' and 'female' in music and litera- Nomic poetry (nomoi), 84, 91-2
ture, 552-8 Nouns, classified, 119-20
Mediocrity and genius, 492-5. See also Novelty, dangers of, 466
Nature
Me~alepsis [use of one word for another], Obscenity, see Erotica, Low words
555 Obscurity, see Brevity, Oarity
Metaphor, defined and discussed, 119-20, Occasion (kairos), 333
258-60, 490-2; misuse of, 141; and Onomatopoeia, 191, 210. See also Imita-
simile, 142; in poets, 6, 121-2, 129,325, tion, Mimicry
551; in oratory, 138-9, 241-4, 250-1, Orator, education of, 449-55 (see Declama-
309, 363-4, 375, 378, 398, 408, 4 14; tion); morality of, 417-23; the perfect,
various effects of, 144-5, 150-6, 188- in theory, 231-7, 245-6, 248-51, 401,
90, 195, 199, 207, 213, 555-6; not 404,418-21,448; the perfect, in prac-
needed, 411; much needed in Latin, tice, 221, 223, 238; officia oratoris
40 9- 10 ('duties of the orator'), 216, 250, 253;
Metonymy (hupallage), 243, 261, 309 the officia related to the three styles,
Metre and subject, 125, 281-2 41 3- 1 4
Middle style, in oratory, 243-5, 250, 314- Oratory, types of, 155-'7 (and ch. 3. C-D
15,392,413-14; in poetry, 388. See also passim), 404-17, 451; parts of, 219;
Mixed style nature of, 228-31; development of, 219-
Mimes [sub-dramatic performances, often 24, 227-8, 391-2, 396-8, 406-8; reading
farcical], 91, 201, 270, 295-6, 364 of, 377; utility and pleasures of, 434-6;
Mimicry, of natural sounds, 64, 514. See how to judge, 216-19; and history, 239,
also Imitation, Onomatopoeia 544; and philosophy, 232-7, 248-9; and
Mixed style, 308 poetry, 136, 218, 232, 292, 384-5, 411,
Monodies, 16, 19 430, 434-40, 479; and political condi-
Morality, and oratory, 417-23, 439; and tions, 223, 455-9, 501
poetry, 293n, 428-9; in education, Order of words, 183-4. See also Arrange-
554-5; relation to literature, 360, 363-'7, ment, Rhythm
502-3 Ordinllry speech, champions of, 5,410-11;
Music, in edUcation, 51, 133, 319, 553 ff.; and metaphor, 190; and poetry, 136,
in tragedy, 132-3; analogies with ora- 141, 247; and oratory, 137, 210, 240,
tory, 332, 342, 488, 497. See also 247, 307, 375. See also Iambus, Low
-Pleasure words
Myth, in poetry, 6, 282-3, 299; in educa- Ornament, as virtue of style, 241, 376;
tion, 303-4, 508; in oratory, 493, 564; accessory, 3 I 6
GENERAL INDEX 60S
Paean, 43, 84, 558 Plot, 6, 106-10, 510. See also Comedy,
Paeon[-vvvor vvv -], 147, 181-2 'Contamination', Myth
Painting, analogy with poetry, 5, 42, 92, Poet, origin of the term (poietes), 91; the
99, Ill, 127, 134,279-80,289,296,338, true, 298-«)
510,513; analogy with oratory, IS6, 225, Poetic licence, 257
251-2,341,362,400-1,405,428,481-2 Poetry, nature of, 7; origins and develop-
Panegyric, see Encomia, Epideictic ment of, 6, 94; branches of (tragedy,
Parisosis [equality of balancing cola, q.v.], comedy, etc., qq.v.), 90, 250; subjects
150, 154. See also Isocolon of, 102, 526; audience for, 218, 304;
Parodos, 105 function and aim of, 21-3, 275, 290,
Parody, of Aeschylus and Euripides, 15- 300-5, 567; educational dangers of, 50-
38 passim; charm of, 201 66, 508-30; attack on and defence of,
Parts of a speech (proem, narration, argu- 437-40; and rhetoric, 302; and prose,
ments, peroration, qq.v.), 75, 1571f., 136-7,140- 2,144-6,190-1,194-5,257,
344-5, 377-8; sophistic sub-divisions, 302-3, 342-3, 558-60, 574, 576-7, 579·
75, 158 See also Imitation, Inspiration, Mad-
Parts of speech, 117-19, 323 ness, Morality, Ordinary speech,
Periods, periodic style 147-«), 175-80, Pleasure, Satire
183, 240, 309, 317, 323, 331, 339, 342, Polysyndeton [abundance of connectives],
445, 498. See also Colon, Comma, Lexis 186,483-4. See also Asyndeton
eiromene Pomp (onkos), 144-5, 566. See also
Peripeteia, 99, 104-5, 112, 115, 124, 134. Grandeur
See also Surprise Practice (part of triad with art, nature,
Periphrasis (also circumlocution), 409, qq.v.), 219, 230
4 11 , 488-«), 555, 557 Praise, see Encomia
Peroration (also epilogue), 158, 160, 169- Prejudice, 161-3, 165
70, 344-5, 388, 396, 475; sometimes Present tense, vivid, 486
called 'resume' (epanados), 76 Probability (eikos), 75, 80-1. See also
Persuasion, 7, 35-6, 159,425; persuasive- Impossibilities
ness, 80, 210-11 Proem (also prologue: prooemium), in
Philosophy, Greek, 392; Roman, 398-«); oratory, 75, 158-61, 163, 170, 377,387,
and oratory, 229-37, 244, 385-6, 443-4, 404, 412, 444, 446; in declamation,
451-2; and poetry, 288, 508, 510, 517; 344-5; in history, 545. See also Epic
and history, 256; audience for, 304; Prologues, in drama, 19, 25-30, 96, 105,
style of, 327, 368-']0 158-«), 265-6, 506
Pity, roused by speech, 7; by poetry, 73, Propemptica [valedictions to departing
97. 106, 108, 133, 164; by oratory, 170, travellers], 580-3
414, 493. See also Emotion, Fear Prophecy and poetry, 4
Plagiarism, 226, 476 Propriety, see Appropriateness
Plain style (ischnon, subtile), 18r, 205-8, Prose (pezon, logoeides, pedestre), 303, 392,
211-12, 221, 225, 237, 239-45, 250-2, 538 n.; style of, 134 If.; in general
307, 309, 413-14; 'slight' style (huper- (logographia), 575. See also Poetry
ischnon), 577 Proverbs (gnomai, paroimiai), 155, 175,
Pleasure (hedone), source and psychology 202, 212, 510
of, 134, 137, 303, 331-2; as criterion, Punctuation, 129, 367
82-3; given by poetry, 1,73, 132,288-
9,300,317,384,507,510,567; given by Rags, in Euripides, 23
various stylistic devices, 138, 148-50, Rare words (also glosses), 6, 257, 308, 343,
153, 411-12, 489 n.; given by history, 520-1. See also Dialect words
538, 540; given by music, 133, 263; Reading, in oratorical training, 377-86;
given by oratory, 135, 164, 216, 307, and listening, 382-3
411. See also Charm Recantation (i.e. self-correction), 200
606 INDEXES
Recitations, 267, 426-7, 437 passim (schema on p. 460); result of
Recognition, in tragedy, 104-5, 111-13 great thought, 23; in Plato, 309; Pliny
Rhapsodes, 39-50, 82-3 on, 429-31; sublime words, 378; not
Rhetores, see Declamation always to be aimed at, 428
Rhetoric, 75-81, 99, 135, 301-2; early Surprise, in tragedy, 103-4, 116. See also
development of, 220; elements of, (in- Peripeteia
vention, arrangement, diction, memory, Sweetness, 564
delivery), 219. See also Oratory, Text- Synecdoche [use of part for the whole,~t_
books sim.], 555, 557
Rhetorical questions, 482
Rhythm, in musical education, 552-3; in
.
Tastelessness, 6. See also Affected style,
poetry 6,65,135,324,343; heroic, 182; Frigidity
in prose, 135, 146-7, 181-2, 195, 205, Textbooks (also handbooks, 'arts'), 25 j of
220-1,225,240,251,262-4, 309, 365-6, rhetoric, 75, 79, 223, 230, 237, 322,
378, 406, 408, 4 14, 445, 497-9, 543, 378, 382, 388, 443, 462-3
564 ff.; rhythmical form (harmonia), in Traditional stories, in tragedy, 108-9
Dionysius, 324, 330-1, 334, 338-41 Tragedy (tragodia), as a genre, 53, 82, 250,
Riddles, 139, 153 438; origin of, 95, 287; nature of, 90-
132 passim (defined, 98); iInitation in,
Satire, function and style of, 266-72; 62-3; pleasure given by, 73; charm in,
whether poetry, 267-8; writers of, 394 203; construction of, 77; metre of, 28 I,
Satyr-plays, 95, 199, 203, 285-6, 294 286; style of, 282, 303, 493, 570; love
Sculpture (also statuary), analogy with in, 294; and truth, 317; and deceit, 509;
oratory, 225, 404-6; analogy with his- Greek, 6, 15-38, 390, 504-7; Roman,
tory, 544; and imitation, 476, 552 271, 276, 395. See also Actors, Charac-
Selectivity, and sublimity, 472-4 ter, Prologues, Plot
SiInile (also comparison: eikim, eikasia), Translation, 253, 548-50
141-2, 150, 153-5, 189-90, 200, 202, Tropes, 225, 309, 325, 491, 556. See also
2!3, 549, 55 6 Figures
SiInplicity (apheleia), 561, 567, 572-5 Truth, and pleasure, 317; in history, 222,
Sincerity, see Truth 537-8, 542; sincerity (alethria) in
Slight style, see Plain style oratory, 561, 563. See also Falsehood
Solemnity (semnotes), 561, 567-'72 Turgidity, 373, 429
Speech (logos), 7-8, 559 (logo;, SI, 61, Types, see Oratory, Style, Words
562); speeches in history, 239,391,395-
6,546 Unity (also wholeness), in tragedy, 100-3,
Standard expressions (kuria, propria), as 123; in poetry, 279-80, 472; and
opposed to metaphor, etc., 137-8, ISO, subliInity, 498
189-90, 241, 256-7, 259-61,411 Usage of words, 190,281,365,401,520
StasiInon [choral song in tragedy], 105
'Status' (stasis), 237 n. Variety (metabole), of oratorical style, 245-
Stock chaxacters in New Comedy, 265-6, 6, 415; as source of beauty in style,
270-1, 276-7, 285, 298 33 I -4, 485; in poetry, 428
Style, elements of, 33 I; types of (ideai), Vehement, see Forceful
561 ff.; three styles (grand, middle, Virtues (aretai) of style (correctness,
plain, qq.v.), 240-6, 413-15; four styles clarity, appropriateness, ornament,
(grand, elegant, plain, forceful, qq.v.: qq.v.), 142-6,241,376. See also 305 n.,
see also Affected style, Frigidity), 181; 561 n.
analogy with health, 240, 375. See also Visualization (phantasia), 405, 477-80,
Corrupt, Elaborate, Mixed styles, Ex- 552. See also Vividness
pression, Morality, SiInplicity, Virtues Vividness (enargeia), in poetry, 2, II3,
SubliIne, the (hupsos, hupselon), 462-503 132, 335-6; in history, 5, 545; tech-
GENERAL INDEX
niques of producing, 151-2, 208-10, of (sunthesis, compositio), 205, 262, 280-
258, 483, 486-'7, 490, 556-7. See also I, 32 1-43 pa ssim (types of arrangement
Visualization [cltarakteres], viz. austere, smooth,
Vocabulary, acquisition of, 381-2. See also mixed, 313, 331, 338-41), 369, 496-9,
Words 543, 571. See also Archaic, Dialect,
Euphonious, Low, Rare, Sublime
Wit (asteiotcs, urbanitas), 150-5, 396-8. words, Neologisms, Usage, Vocabulary
See also Laughter Written and spoken speeches, 155-7,
Words, all appropriate somewhere, 334, 412- 1 3,424-5
381; choice of, 323-5, 335; arrangement