Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/498

476 4^6 HISTORY OF THE with thib striving after an opposition of ideas and a counterpoise of thoughts, the object being to make this relation of the thoughts signifi- cant to the ear also ; but this was pursued so eagerly that the real object was often overlooked. The figures of speech, which were mentioned while we were speaking of Gorgias, — the Isocola, Homocoteleuta, Parisa, Paronomasia, and Parecheseis, — were admirably suited to this symmetrical architecture of the periods. The ornaments of diction are all found in Antiphon, but not in such numbers as in Gorgias, and they are treated with Attic taste and discernment. But Antiphon also makes his antitheses of equal numbers of like-sounding words balanced against one another.* Anti- phon, too, is fond of opposing words of similar sound in order to call attention to their contrasted significations,! and his diction has some- thing of that precision and constrained regularity which reminds us of the stiff symmetry and parallelism of attitudes in the older works of Greek sculpture. § 5. Though Antiphon by the use of these artifices, which the old rhetoricians called " figures of diction," J was enabled to trick out his style with a sort of antique ornaments, he did not, according to the judicious remark of one of the best rhetoricians, § make any use of the " figures of thought." || These turns of thought, which interrupt its equable expression, proceed for the most part from passion and feeling, and give language its pathos ; they consist of the sudden burst of indig- nation, the ironical and sarcastic question, the emphatic and vehement repetition of the same idea under different forms, ^f the gradation of weight and energy,** and the sudden breaking off in the midst of a sentence, as if that which was still to be said transcended all power of expression, ft But there is often as much of artful design as of violent emotion in these figures of thought : thus the orator will sometimes seek about for an expression as if he could not find the right one, in order that he may give the proper phrase with greater force after he has dis- covered it: sometimes he will correct what he has said, in order to me justly, than in my enemies' wish to destroy me unjustly" — to vft'iTivov Skws/asvov liJA oixctiws iTuZf.ii J) to Toil i^6^uv (hovXotJAvov aYiKa>; iyA a'XoWvva.i. f We have an example of this Paronomasia in de cced. Herod., § 91 : " If some error must be committed, it is more consonant to piety to acquit unjustly, than to condemn contrary to justice" — £&!*&>} KTokuo-ai oo-mnoov «v el* tou fih hxa/iu; u.wottrai. X o-^umto. t?,; iZiu;. § Csecilius of Calacte (apud Phot., Cod. 259, p. 485 Bekker), who adds with great judgment, " that he will not assert that the figures of thought never occur in Anti- phon, but that when they occur, they are not designed (xxr 'frirvhuo-iv), and that they are of rare occurrence." i o"X/i^a.T«. Tris liavela;. IT Polyptotojl.
 * As, e. g., in de coed. Herod., 73 : " There must be more in your powei to save
 * Climacc. (-f- Aposiopesit* ' Aporia.