Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/515

493 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 493 In the connection of his sentences there is sometimes an inequality and harshness * very different from the smooth and polished style of later times. Moreover he does not avoid using different grammatical forms (cases and moods) in the corresponding memhers of the sentence, f or allowing rapid changes in the grammatical structure, which are often not expressly indicated hut tacitly introduced, an expression required hy the sentence heing supplied from another similar one. J § 11. The structure of periods in Thucydides, like that of Antiphon, stands half-way between the loose connexion of sentences in the Ionian writers and the periodic style which subsequently developed itself at Athens. The greater power and energy in the combination of thoughts is manifested by the greater length of the sentences. In Thucydides there are two species of periods, which are both of them equally charac- teristic of his style. In one of them, which may be termed the descend- ing period, the action, or result, is placed first, and is immediately followed by the causes or motives expressed by causal-sentences, or participles, which are again confirmed by similar forms of speech. § The other form, the ascending period, begins with the primary cir- cumstances, developing from them all sorts of consequences, or re- flexions referring to them, and concludes, often after a long chain of consequences, with the result, the determination, or the action itself. || Both descriptions of periods produce a feeling of difficulty, and require to be read twice in order to be understood clearly and in all respects ; it is possible to make them more immediately intelligible, more con- venient and pleasant to read, by breaking them up into the smaller clauses suggested by the pauses in the sentence ; but then we shall be forced to confess that when the difficulty is once overcome, the form chosen by Thucydides conveys the strongest impression of a unity of thought and a combined working of every part to produce one result. This mode of constructing the sentence is peculiar to the historical style of Thucydides : but he resembles the other writers of the age in f e. g., when he connects by xa.) two different constructions of cases, as the grounds of an action, or when, after the same final or conditional particle, he places first the conjunctive, and then the optative, in which the distinction is obvious.— [See Arnold's Thucydides, III. 22. — Ed.] % The ifJM *& to ttiftuivifAtvov, also the uiro xwov, is very common in Thucy- dides. § Examples, I. 1: Qovxvb'ilns %vviy^a.^l x.r.X. I. 25: Kogirfaoi St xttra, to %'ixu.iov — vp^ovro voXi/Ait)/- and everywhere. Examples, I. 2: rri; yao Ifuregiee; x.r.X. I. 58 : Uorilaiarai h Tift^avrt; x.r.X. IV. 73, 74 : el ya^ Mtyajjff— Jfjx"" 7 *'- II is interesting to observe how Dionysius (de Tkucyd. judic, p. 872) subjects these ascending periods to his criticism, and resolves them into more intelligible and pleasing, but less vigorous forms, by taking out of the middle a number of the subordinate clauses ami adding them, by way of appendix, at the end. Antiphon resembles Thucydides in this particular also; e. g. in the sentence (Tttral. I. a. 6 6) : ix ■xuXamZ yug x.r.X.
 * uvupaXicc, r^ay^urrti.