Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/432

402 on the Chersonese, on the "fraudulent embassy," "on the Crown," and others. The political purpose of these speeches has already been noted. As literature they mark the highest point in the development of a Greek prose style. Clear, incisive, and harmonious, the language at once pleases the ear and flashes the meaning upon the mind. The art is so great that it is entirely concealed; and for the moment each word or phrase seems inevitable, He carried conviction as though by an irresistible torrent. It was only when the commanding voice, and the long roll of the sentences were silent, that an audience could begin to see that it had been carried off its feet, and swept far in a direction to which, in its soberer reflections, it had no intention of going.

Though with the loss of freedom the constant need for oratory was much diminished, it continued to be cultivated in Greece as an art. Rhetoric schools existed in other parts of Hellas as well as at Athens, as, for instance, at Rhodes and in various Greek cities of Asia. The Attic style, however, retained its reputation for purity and moderation, while that of Asia was ornate and turgid. The Rhodian style was regarded as intermediate, and in the age of Cicero the school at Rhodes was very largely frequented by young Roman nobles who wished to perfect themselves in the art of Rhetoric, as the foundation for the practical use of oratory, so much needed by public men at Rome.

Within the last twenty years certain parts of the writings of Greek authors long lost have been recovered on papyri found in Egypt. The most