Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/532

510 510 I1ISTOIIY OF THE to have the power of either rousing or quieting the anger of his hearers ((?. g. the judges), and, in general, of working at pleasure on the feelings of men. There was a work of his called. " The Commiseration Speeches" (tkeoi), and it is to be remarked that this tendency of his eloquence must have induced him at the same time to give an easier and more lively flow to his sentences. It was Isocrates, however, above all others, who, by a judicious choice of subjects, imparted to his language the harmonious effect which is so closely connected with the circle of language, as it is called. By this we understand such a formation and distribution of the periods that the several members follow one another as integral parts of one whole, and the general conclusion is expected by the hearer in the very place where it occurs, and is, as it were, almost heard before it is uttered.* This impression is produced partly by the union of the several sentences in larger masses, partly by the relation of these masses to one another, so that, without counting or measuring, we feel that there is a sort of harmony which a little, either more or less, would utterly destroy. This is not merely true of primary and subordinate sentences, in the .proper sense of the word, which are mutually developed by the logical subordination of thoughts to one another,! but also holds of the co-ordinate masses of opposed sentences (in that antithetic?d style to which Isocrates' longer periods mostly belong), if a periodical cadence is introduced into them. The ancients themselves compare a period in which there is a true equilibrium of all parts with a dome § in which all the stones tend with equal weight to the middle point. It is obvious that this must be regulated by the rhetorical accent, which is the same in oratory that the grammatical accents are in language, and the arsis and thesis in rhythm : these accents must regularly correspond to one another, and each fully occupy its own place : an improper omission, and especially a loss of the fuller accent at the end of the period, is most sensibly felt by a fine and correct ear. The ancients, however, like the moderns, rather leave this main point to be fixed by a sort of general feeling, and reserve definite rules for the subordinate details, upon which Isocrates has be- stowed most extraordinary pains in his panegyrical speeches. Euphonious combinations of sound, avoidance of hiatus, certain rhythmical feet at the beginning and end of sentences, these are the objects which he aims at with labour far more than proportioned to the effects which they produce on the hearer. This sort of prose has, in these particulars, a great resemblance to tragedy, which also avoided the hiatus more than any other kind of poetic composition. || t Such as temporal, causal, conditional, and concessive protases, with their apodoses. X avriKQiiAfA Xt%i;. § XtpQsgils triyn. position of vowels in words and collocations of words produces a soft {molle quid-
 * Compare Cicero's admirable remarks, Orator. 53, 177, 178.
 * j The ancients frequently express their •well-founded opinion, that the juxta-