Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/439

 Alexander and Augustus the rhetorical school of history prevailed. Diodorus Siculus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus are both rhetoricians, the rhetoric of Diodorus being combined with a quasi-philosophical bent, and that of Dionysius with aesthetic criticism. Diodorus, indeed, has some quaintly judicious remarks on the introduction of long speeches into history. They interrupt the story, he says, and distract the reader: writers who wish to show their eloquence should do so somewhere else. A history should be an organic whole; a speech which is inserted amiss cannot have vital grace. Still, speeches are sometimes desirable, Diodorus adds, for the sake of variety. When circumstances require that an envoy or senator should speak, the historian must gallantly accompany his personages into the arena of debate. Diodorus appears to recognise, as he certainly used, the free licence of invention. His view is substantially that