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CHAPTER II

THE ORIGINS OF THUCYDIDES' STYLE

I

In discussing the numerous resemblances of thought and expression between Euripides and Thucydides, (note 1) I tried to show that many ideas and forms of argument attributed by Thucydides to his speakers were in fact familiar when their speeches were allegedly delivered; for the same ideas and arguments appear in the contemporaneous plays and fragments of Euripides. It seemed therefore to follow that although Thucydides wrote some, perhaps most, of his History after 404, he nevertheless reflects with some fideliry the outlook and attitude of earlier years. One could not, to be sure, assert on such evidence that given speakers actually spoke as Thucydides said they did, but it was at least clear that they might well have spoken so, since the ideas were then so much in the air as to find expression in tragedy. Still other resemblances between early plays of Euripides and parts of the History other than the speeches appeared to show that Thucydides was himself led to conceive many of his characteristic ideas before leaving Athens, as in the first sentence of the History he indeed suggests was the case. Both conclusions seemed of some value as [1. See above, chap. 1. Relevant passages from contemporary authors, notably Sophocles and pseudo-Xenophon. were likewise discussed.]

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refuting or at least mitigating the common view that Thucydides, a more or less isolated thinker, after the end of the war put his own incisive reflections on it into the mouths of earlier statesmen. Essentially that view charges him with anachronism and derives its strength from two kinds of argument: first, that the historian at the end of the war was primarily interested in vindicating the policy of Pericles which at that time seemed to have been ruinous, (note 2) and then, that it was the bitter experience of war itself which bred not only in Thucydides but among Greeks generally that rhetoric and rationalism which, however, mark even the opening speeches of the History. (note 3) Now without going over the evidence again, one can at least say that the defense of democracy attributed to Pericles, the theory of oligarchy ascribed to Archidamus, the respective positions of Cleon and Diodotus (to name only what is most striking) find close parallels in the plays of Euripides before and during the Archidamian War; and what is more important, that the considerations of power, the arguments from tÚ sumfdeg.ron, the use of efikÒw to show what is generically true of men or states--in short, the characteristic means by which Thucydides and his speakers reveal their rationalistic outlook--are not less attested in the same period. There seems therefore a very real error in underrating the rationalism and the skill in argument which, as is clear from the Medea of 431, already marked the Athens of Pericles. If so, then even the speeches of the first books may well be thought to reflect, not primarily the author's later views or a rhetoric which developed later, but rather the ways of the contemporary mind.But even if the view thus inadequately sketched were accepted, the objection would soon arise that in style at [2. Ed. Schwartz, Das Geschichtswerk des Thukydides (Bonn 1929) 133.

[3. Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen (Berlin 1893) I 116.]

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least the speeches of the first books cannot be faithful to the period which they purport to represent. The antithetical sentences of Pericles, for instance, have usually been described as Gorgian, but Pericles died in 429, two years before the famous embassy on which Gorgias first dazzled the Athenians. Blass accordingly was led to state, (note 4) "Die Leichenrede bei Thukydides und die beiden andern daselbst dem Perikles in den Mund gelegten Reden geben uns von dem Geiste des Mannes ein treues Abbild, von seiner Beredsamkeit nicht," and Alfred Croiset, (note 5) Steup, (note 6) and two scholars who have most fully discussed Thucydides' style, Rittelmeyer (note 7) and Ros, (note 8) echo his words directly or, by calling the style Gorgian, indirectly. Hence the issue seems quite clear: either Gorgias introduced antithetical prose into Athens in 427, in which case the style of speeches representing a period before and doubtless immediately after that date is in fact anachronistic, or Pericles spoke in some such way as Thucydides said he spoke, in which case the innovations of Gorgias, however significant in some respects, were nevertheless not so far-reaching as has been supposed.But thus baldly put, the alternative seems somewhat unreal. Could one man, it may be asked, make such a change so quickly? Can one year stand as a dividing line between literary styles, which by their nature are merely instruments to express pervading and therefore slow changes in men's outlook? For however brilliant or startling the innovations of an individual may be, they owe their acceptance (the more so if it be rapid) to some state of readiness or [4. Die attische Beredsamkeit 2 (Leipzig 1887) 134.

[5. Thucydide, Livres I-II (Paris 1886) 104, 110, 114-15.

[6. Classen-Steup, Thukydides 5 (1919) I, lxxx, though his statements are more guarded than the foregoing.

[7. Thukydides und die Sophistik (Leipzig 1915), esp. 36-51, 93-102.

[8. Die metabolØ als Stilprinzip des Thukydides (Paderborn 1938) p. 1. But see below, pp. 112-17.]

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preparation in the public mind. So considered, the question rather becomes: were there no antecedents of the Gorgian style; for if not, then the changes wrought by Gorgias were almost unprecedented in their speed and thoroughness. Consider, for example, a fragment of the orator Antiphon almost certainly from a speech of the year 425: (note 9) ka[[currency]]toi oÈk ín t[[infinity]]w mcentsn t<<n ëllvn polit<<n talaipvr[[currency]]aw proÈkdeg.canto, t[[infinity]]w dcents sfetdeg.raw aÈt<<n *tair[[currency]]aw oÈk [[section]]neyumÆyhsan. Must one say that so pointed an antithesis would have been foreign to the prose of two years past, and that, although it was composed by an experienced advocate then probably in his fifties for persuasion, not for show? Undoubtedly it would be easier to believe that Antiphon did not in 427 suddenly adopt an unfamiliar and, if so, probably a repellent style, but rather that certain of the so-called Gorgianisms were already known before the rhetorician came to Athens. If it could be shown that they were, then Gorgias would appear less as the bringer of something wholly new than as a man of brilliant virtuosity who systematized, heightened, and carried farther usages known before but never so boldly sought. Yet exactly that fact would, if admitted, have the greatest bearing on the origin of Thucydides' style. For one would no longer be compelled to think of his antitheses as Gorgian and, therefore, as anachronistic in the speeches of the early books. On the contrary, his style, like the arguments of his speeches and many of his own ideas, would in its essentials appear to reflect the Athens which he knew in the thirties and twenties before his exile.

II

Perhaps the easiest and clearest means of discussing the question will be first to examine the more important [9. L. Gernet, Antiphon (Paris 1923) fg. 4, p. 165; cf. also p. 161 on the date of the Per< toË Samoyrñkvn fÒrou.]

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opinions advanced in ancient and modern times on the innovations of Gorgias, and at the same time to appraise those opinions by comparing them with one another and with such other evidence as seems relevant. Then another section will be devoted to the fragments of the sophist Antiphon which, if, as seems probable, they antedate the arrival of Gorgias in Athens, should serve both to test the conclusions achieved thus far and to present a concrete, if limited, example of the sophistic prose composed in Athens during Thucydides' early manhood. Finally, in a brief conclusion the evidence on the question, how far the style of Thucydides' speeches is representative of the period in which they were allegedly delivered, will be collected and summarized.The most categorical statement made in ancient times on the innovations of Gorgias and the one which undoubtedly has been most influential is that of Diodorus. His source is usually taken to be Timaeus, mentioned by Dionysius in his somewhat similar account. But since Dionysius expressly hesitates to speak so categorically, the sweeping statement of Diodorus is not beyond suspicion. Moreover, one must remember that it appears in a compendium of history. Had Diodorus known the several steps in the development of Attic style, he doubtless would not have reported them in such a work, and as it was, Gorgias was sufficiently celebrated to appear in a general way as the eÍretÆw of artistic prose. The statement of Diodorus follows (XII ): Gorgias, he says, was the most eminent rhetorician of his day; on his arrival in Athens with the deputation from Leontini, t" jen[[currency]]zonti t[[infinity]]w ldeg.jevw [[section]]jdeg.plhje toÁw ÉAyhna[[currency]]ouw ^ntaw eÈfue>w ka< filolÒgouw. pr<<tow går [[section]]xrÆsato to>w t[[infinity]]w ldeg.jevw sxhmatismo>w perittotdeg.roiw ka< t[[ordfeminine]] filotexn[[currency]]& diafdeg.rousin, éntiydeg.toiw ka< fisok~loiw

[[60]]ka< par[[currency]]soiw ka< imoioteleÊtoiw ka[[currency]] tisin [[section]]tdeg.roiw toioÊtoiw, ì tÒte mcentsn diå tÚ jdeg.non t[[infinity]]w kataskeu[[infinity]]w épodox[[infinity]]w +/-jioËnto, nËn dcents perierg[[currency]]an [[paragraph]]xein doke> ktl.

In short, Gorgias was the first to use the so-called Gorgian figures, which were unknown in Athens before he introduced them but promptly accepted thereafter.Dionysius was less certain. He says (Lys. 3): [[yen]]cato dcents ka< t<<n ÉAyÆnhsi =htÒrvn <= poihtikÆ te ka< tropikØ prãsiw, ...w mcentsn T[[currency]]maiÒw fhri, Gorg[[currency]]ou êrjantow <=n[[currency]]kÉ ÉAyÆnaze presbeÊvn katdeg.plhje toÁw ékoÊontaw t[[ordfeminine]] dhmhgor[[currency]]&, ...w dcents télhycentsw [[paragraph]]xei, tÚ ka< palaiÒteron afie[[currency]] ti yaumazomdeg.nh. (note 10) Evidently he could not feel sure how far Gorgias introduced a new style of speaking, because he did not question the essential accuracy of the speeches ascribed by the historian to Pericles, yet observed in them certain Gorgian traits. He in fact well expresses the dilemma regarding the speeches of Thucydides which was set forth above.

Cicero, with what significance it is hard to tell, names Thrasymachus before Gorgias as having systematically employed antithesis, parison, and the like (Orat. 12.39; cf. 13.40), though he undoubtedly thought the latter's style more marked by these figures (52. 175). Now Thrasymachus is mentioned in a fragment of the Daital[[infinity]]w (note 11) produced early in 427 some months before the deputation from Leontini reached Athens in the autumn of the same year (Thuc. III 86). Since Aristophanes would hardly have chosen the new rhetoric as the subject of his first play unless it had been well known, Cicero's statement thus gains a certain strength. Yet he doubtless made no such close [10. But he names only Polus and Licymnius as practicing such a style (Thuc. 24, Ep. II ad Amm. 2) and elsewhere links the names of Thucydides and Gorgias (Demosth. 4 and 6; Ep. ad Pomp. 2.8).

[11. Fg.168, Kock.]

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calculations of date. No more should probably be deduced from his words than that he or someone from whom he gained his information (note 12) knew that Thrasymachus, who certainly was in Athens before Gorgias, used the Gorgian figures, though in moderation. Thus, if in itself Cicero's statement gives little that is certain, it at least undermines the seeming certainty of Diodorus. That Gorgias in one visit and by a few orations suddenly changed the whole course of Attic prose seems the less probable the more one considers the plot of the Daital[[infinity]]w and the later fame of Thrasymachus.As one turns from these later citations to those of a period nearer the events in question, much less is heard of Gorgias' innovations. There can be little doubt that no early tradition existed in Athens concerning the importance of the visit of 427. Gorgias is often mentioned, not unnaturally since he lived into the fourth century, visited Athens several times, left such disciples there as Isocrates and Alcidamas, and in his declining years became doubtless to many, as he did to Plato, the great symbol of rhetorical education. Aristotle (Rhet. III 1.1404a24) cites his poetical style to illustrate an early stage in the development of artistic prose; apparently he considered it not necessarily the only or the first, but rather the best example ofthe tendency which he is describing. But he was less concerned with style than with argument, and it is perhaps significant that he attributes the development of koino< tÒpoi equally to Protagoras and to Gorgias (Rhet. II 24.1402a23; cf. Soph. El. 34.183b37; Plato, Phaedrus 216b, 267a). Yet Protagoras was in Athens probably as early as 450, and since the technical part of his teaching [12. He elsewhere mentions Aristotle and Theophrastus (Orat. 51.172, 57.194), the latter of whom is known to have discussed the style of Thrasymachus (Dion. Lys. 6).]

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evidently resembled that of Gorgias, it is hard to believe that his style, on the other hand, was quite different. (note 13)Plato, rather than describe Gorgias' style, consciously imitates it in the Symposittm in the speech of Agathon. (note 14) From the point of view of chronology, the speech is especially interesting since it shows that a person who reached maturity after the Peace of Nicias was most influenced by Gorgias, a fact abundantly confirmed by the fragments of Agathon (note 15) and possibly by the similarities between the ÑEldeg.nhw ÉEgk~mion and the speech of Helen in the Trojan Women, produced in 415. (note 16) Thus, if one is to speak of a thoroughgoing influence of Gorgias in Athens--an influence which inspired pleasure not so much in logical antithesis as in the mannerisms of short balanced clauses, rhyme, and wordplay--then one finds it first in Agathon. But Plato certainly did not think that antithesis as such was Gorgian. On the contrary, in the Protagoras, the dramatic date of which is before the outbreak of the war, he attributes highly antithetical sentences to Prodicus (Protag. 337a-c2), as does Xenophon in the Memorabilia (II 1.21-34). Thus if, as is usually believed, Plato tried to be true to history in the setting of his dialogues, we must take it that he distinguished an earlier use of antithesis, which he thought typical of the older sophists, from the mannered and rhymed antitheses of Gorgias, which he considered characteristic of the generation of Agathon.

Moreover, certain facts knovn to ourselves seem to confirm Plato's judgment. First, although, as will be shown [13. See below, pp. 70, 73-84, 105-8.

[14. 194e4-197e8. CE 198c, ka< gãr me Gorg[[currency]]ou i lÒgow énem[[currency]]mn[[dotaccent]]sken, and the following pun on the Gorg[[currency]]ou kefalÆ.

[15. Esp. fgs. 6, 9, 11, 12, 27, 29 (Nauck 2 1926).

[16. Possibly also by the fact that in the Birds of 414 Aristophanes first speaks of Gorgias at some length (1694-1705). He mentions him briefly in the Wasps, line 421.]

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below, (note 17) the early extant plays of both Sophocles and Euripides reveal abundant and conscious antithesis, these poets never assumed the mannerisms of Agathon. In other words, they acquired their styles in a period when antithesis was common and did not succumb to the extreme and truly Gorgian symmetry of a later generation. Then, the antithetical style of the orator Antiphon may well have been fully formed by 427. At least, Aly's attempt (note 18) to date the Tetralogies after 428 on the ground that the efisfora[[currency]] mentioned in Tetralogy A, b, 12, necessarily follow the efisforã which Thucydides says was first voted in that year (III 19.1) cannot be accepted. For an orderly procedure governing such levies is already recognized in the second part of the well-known decree of Callias (IG I 2 92, lines 48, 50), now generally dated in 434/3. (note 19) Thus Thucydides means that the efisforã of 428 was the first to be raised in the course of the war, not in the course of Attic history, (note 20) and the imaginary defendant of the first Tetralogy speaks of an institution quite accepted in the Periclean Age. But the absence of a terminus post quem does not, of course, in itself place the Tetralogies before 427, and although it is impossible to consider here in any detail the vexed question of their date, it can at least be said that, because of their more poetical language and greater number of Ionisms, the Tetralogies have been commonly accepted as the earliest of the orator's [17. Pages 75-85.

[18. "Formprobleme der frühen griechischen Prosa," Philologus, Supplementband 21, Heft 3 (1929) 116.

[19. Kolbe, "Das Kalliasdekret," Sitztungsber. d. Berl. Akad. (1927) 319ff = Thukydides im Lichte der Urkunden (Stuttgart 1930) 50-67. Kolbe's dating is accepted by W. S. Ferguson, The Treasurers of Athena (Cambridge, Mass. 1932) 153, and B. D. Meritt, AJP 55 (1934) 263, who reports (ibid., p. 272) the agreement also of H. T. Wade-Gery in spite of the latter's previous argument (JHS 51 [1931] 57-85) for the year 422/1.

[20. So RE X 2150 s.v. efisforã. This interpretation of Thucydides is quite natural since he previously (I 141.5, II 13.3-6) emphasizes the huge surplus with which Athens entered the war.]

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extant works. (note 21) Certainly, the fact that Protagoras and Pericles are reported (Plut. Per. 36) to have discussed the same subject as is treated in the second Tetralogy tells something of the period when such subjects were of interest, (note 22) and the pervasive religiosity of all three works, as well as their extreme reliance on the oldest of the sophistic arguments, that of efikÒw, again point to an early date. Then, the contrast of tone between the impassioned third speech of the second Tetralogy and the carefully reasoned fourth speech (note 23) offers a close parallel not only, as will appear below, to the debate between Cleon and Diodotus in Thucydides but also to two debates of tragedy, namely, those between Oedipus and Creon in the Oedipus Rex (513-615) and between Theseus and Hippolytus (Hipp. 936-1035). In all four cases one sees violent accusation answered by clear and close argument, (note 24) and since the reasoning which these debates of tragedy reflect is undoubtedly sophistic (both Creon and Hippolytus use the argument from efikÒw), (note 25) it seems natural to think of the Tetralogies as preceding either of the plays. For theorists must have been elaborating their new methods of proof for some time before these became sufficiently well known to find a place in tragedy. Further arguments for the Tetralogies' early date may be found in their undoubted difference in language from the orator's later speeches--a difference which has led certain scholars to deny the [21. Cf. J. H. Thiel, Antiphons erste Tetralogie (Den Haag 1932) 13.

[22. The subject seems to have come up also in Euripides' Telephus of 438. Cf. Hyginus Fab. 101 (quoted by Nauck 2 p. 579), where it is stated that the Achaean chiefs begged Achilles to heal Telephus; quibus Achilles respondit se artem medicam non nosse. tunc Ulixes ait: non te dicit Apollo, sed auctorem vulneris hastam nominat. quam cum rasissent, remediatus est.

[23. In Tetr. B, d, 2 the speaker refers to his arguments as leptå...ka< ékrib[[infinity]]. Jason uses the same words in his debate with Medea (Med. 529, 532).

[24. Cf. above, chap. 1 pp. 31-32.

[25. See below, n. 28.]

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Tetralogies to Antiphon, (note 26) but which seems quite explicable on the assumption of a lapse of time between the two classes of works (note 27)--and also in the fact that Thucydides, exiled in 424, knew and admired Antiphon (VIII 68.1-2), who thus was presumably active as a writer during the historian's earlier life in Athens. These indications are doubtless not conclusive, and a new and thorough attempt to date the Tetralogies is much to be desired. (note 28) Nevertheless, they do tend to confirm Drerup's suggestion that the Tetralogies were composed about 430 and thus to reinforce his view, of which more will be said later, (note 29) that their style is quite free from the special Gorgian traits. [26. So Gernet (above, n. 9) pp. 6-16, where references are given to earlier writings.

[27. So Thiel (above, n. 21) 5-19.

[28. Interesting recent attempts are those of Thiel (pp. 122; see above, n. 21), who argues for a date shortly after 427, and of F. Schupp ("Zur Geschichte der Beweistopik in der älteren griechischen Gerichtsrede," Wiener Studien 45 [1926] 17-28, 173-85), who thinks that the Palamedes of Gorgias precedes the Tetralogies and thus would place them nearer 420 (pp. 177-80). But Thiel's arguments are largely stylistic, and if this paper has any merit, the mere presence of antithesis in the Tetralogies does not suffice to place them after the visit of Gorgias. On the other hand, Schupp's valuable paper, in which he treats the proofs used by Gorgias, Antiphon, and others, is impaired by his failure to consider the early plays and fragments of Euripides. Thus he argues that Gorgias broadened the topic of efikÒw to include four aspects of any crime--namely, the person, act, place, and time (prÒsvpon, prãgma, tÒpow, xrÒnow)--and suggests that this method became known in Athens only after 427. But in the Hippolytus of 428, the hero covers the first two of these subjects in answering the charges of his father, arguing, in lines 993-1006, that a person of his svfrosÊnh would not have been likely to commit such a crime and, in lines 1007-20, that the crime itself would have brought him no advantage. The theory of efikÒw and the use of tekmÆria are set forth again in fgs. 811 and 812 of the Phoenix, which, being mentioned in the Acharnians (line 421), was produced at the latest at the Great Dionysia of 426 only a half year after Gorgias' arrival and, quite as probably, somewhat earlier. The second of these fragments contains further resemblances to Antiphon in the suggestion that a man is normally true to his fÊsiw (cf. Tetr. B, g, 1) and that efikÒta are quite as important as the testimony of witnesses (Tetr. A, a, 9). Examples of Schupp's three other topics, sÊgkrisiw (i.e. the argument a maiore, a minore, or from the opposite), irismÒw (definition), d[[currency]]lhmma (alternatives) are likewise found in the early plays of Euripides. For the first, cf. Med. 490-91, 586-87, Philoctetes fg. 794; for the second, Bellerophon fg. 297; for the third, ibid. fg. 292, Ino fg. 407. Since, as has been remarked, the use of such arguments in tragedy implies that they were already somewhat familiar to the general public, a theorist such as Antiphon should probably be imagined as writing earlier rather than later.

[29. Pages 70-72.]

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Again, in a well-known passage of the Mytilenean Debate (III 38.3; summer 427) Thucydides makes Cleon accuse the Athenians of an empty love of rhetoric. Like Aristophanes in the Daital[[infinity]]w of the same year, he therefore testifies to the prominence of rhetoric before the arrival of Gorgias, and though in an essay on the historicity of Thucydides' style, it would obviously be reasoning in a circle to adduce the balanced clauses of Diodotus as typical of the rhetoric to which Cleon alludes, nevertheless it is in fact difficult to think of that rhetoric in any other context than that of Antiphon's Tetralogies, Cicero's testimony concerning Thrasymachus, and Plato's parody of Prodicus, the more so since the peculiarly antithetical style of Diodotus confirms the rest of the evidence. In short, the Mytilenean Debate offers a test case of the stylistic veracity of Thucydides' speeches; for when Cleon attacks rhetoric and Diodotus replies in cool antithetical sentences quite evidently intended to illustrate a rhetorical training, then to doubt the style means virtually to doubt the substance of the debate. Finally, contrasting the present generation with the older breed of the Marayvnomãxai, personified by the chorus, Aristophanes in the Acharnians (686) represents the former as speaking stroggÊloiw to>w =Æmasin. The best commentary on the word stroggÊlow, "well-rounded," "periodic," appears in the Phaedrus (234e), where Socrates uses it to describe the foregoing speech which the young Phaedrus had taken from Lysias, a speech which by its formal use of tekmÆria and efikÒta and by its rigid antithetical style is apparently designed to portray or mimic the rhetorical methods pursued by Lysias before he turned logogrãfow. In any case, this word well shows what Aristophanes in 425 considered the current oratorical style, and though the citation postdates the first visit of Gorgias

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by something over a year, still, as in the case of Antiphon's Tetralogies, it is hard to credit to one man and one visit a phenonemon apparently so general. Thus, when Plato distinguishes between an earlier antithetical style of sophists present in Athens before the war and the later more precious symmetry of Gorgias which he ascribes to Agathon in the period after the Peace of Nicias, other evidence from the years in question seems to confirm his judgment.We may now pass from the ancient testimony on the influence of Gorgias in Athens to more recent opinions on the subject. Blass, as was remarked, (note 30) laying great weight on the statement of Diodorus, attributed antithetical prose as such to the influence of Gorgias, which he accordingly found in the Tetralogies of Antiphon and the speeches of Thucydides. Quite consistently he thought the actual speeches of Pericles could not have resembled those ascribed to him by the historian. And scholars concerned more narrowly with Thucydides accepted Blass's position by calling the historian's style Gorgian because it is antithetical. But other students of rhetoric, notably Norden, Navarre, Drerup, and Aly, advanced a different view.

Impressed by the antithetical nature of Greek speech as such but more particularly by the antitheses, which he listed, in the early plays of Euripides, Norden (note 31) sought and, as he believed, found the prototypes of the Gorgian figures in Heraclitus, arguing that other sophists as well as Gorgias underwent the latter's influence. Thus, he concluded his remarks on the early sophists by saying, (note 32) "Das gemeinsame Band, welches sie alle umschliesst, ist der Kampf gegen das traditionell Bestehende, und er find et seinen sinnlichen Ausdruck in der antithetischen Sprache." Again, alluding to [30. Above, p. 57.

[31. Die antike Kunstprosa (Leipzig 1898) I 17-41.

[32. Ibid., p. 20.]

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the language of the Medea of 431, he said: (note 33) "Nur das können wir mit Sicherheit schliessen, dass durch den Einfluss der in Athen sich aufhaltenden Sophisten die attische Rede schon vor Gorgias durch künstliche Mittel gehoben war." But he contented himself with these pregnant remarks, not attempting to pursue their full implications.Navarre, (note 34) two years after Norden but apparently in ignorance of his work, treated the rhetorical and sophistic movements of the Periclean Age in greater detail, but although he thus amassed more evidence concerning the style of the period, he failed to interpret it with Norden's insight. Nevertheless, he established at the start one point of great importance, namely, that no rigid line could be drawn, as it had been by Blass and Jebb, between the Ionian dialectic of the earlier sophists and the Sicilian rhetoric of the later. (note 35) For, as he showed, the ties between Athens and the West were close after the founding of Thurii where Protagoras lived as lawgiver and Tisias is said to have taught. Moreover, Protagoras himself visited Sicily, (note 36) evolved koino< tÒpoi similar to those of Gorgias and, as has been said, is reported to have discussed with Pericles the same case of the boy killed accidentally by a javelin that Antiphon treats in his second Tetralogy. (note 37) Moreover, the early plays of Euripides confirm the existence of the Sicilian arguments in Athens before the arrival of Gorgias. (note 38) Thus Navarre (note 39) could speak of a whole generation between 450 and 430, "qui dans sa façon de raisonner, comme aussi dans les procédés de son langage, a été marquée pas les sophistes d'une empreinte ineffaçable. [33. Ibid., p. 29.

[34. Essai sur Ia Rhétorique Grecque avant Aristote, Paris 1900.

[35. Ibid., pp. 21-23.

[36. [Plato] Hipp. Mai. 282d.

[37. Plut. Per. 36. Stesimbrotus, mentioned just below, appears to be Plutarch's authority.

[38. See above, n. 28.

[39. Pages 24-25.]

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Cette action des Protagoras, des Prodicos, des Hippias, elle éclate dans l'histoire d'un Thucydide comme dans la poésie d'un Euripide; si nous avions conservé quelques unes des oeuvres oratoires de ce temps-là, par exemple celles de Périclès nul doute qu'elle ne s'y montrât au même degré."But Navarre was less convincing when he went on to discuss the style of the early sophists, the chief traits of which he listed as poetic diction, amplitude, and distinction in the meaning of words. (note 40) Yet a few pages later he declared that the antecedents of the Gorgian style are to be found in tragedy, notably in the early plays of Sophocles, which he contrasted with those of Aeschylus by saying, (note 41) "Une première différence, c'est que le nombre de ces figures, ou du moins de certaines d'entre elles, y est infiniment plus considérable," and again, (note 42) "l'antithèse, rare chez Eschyle, est un des procédés favoris de Sophocle." And through several pages he carefully listed the examples of antithesis and paronomasia in the Antigone. Thus he adduced, though with greater thoroughness, essentially the same evidence as Norden, yet failed to draw Norden's conclusion that this great advance in reasoned antithetical speech in Sophocles and Euripides over Aeschylus was inspired by the sophistic movement and therefore must reflect its style. On the contrary, he merely concluded that Sophocles was Gorgias' model, not inquiring why Sophocles himself abandoned the magniloquent, poetic tradition of the past for the more exacting, more intellectual manner of the Antigone. But even on his own view of the style fostered by the earlier sophists, it is hard to see how the practice of distinguishing between synonyms did not conduce to an antithetical style. [40. Pages 67-68.

[41. Page 102.

[42. Page 106.]

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Certainly Plato in his parody of Prodicus suggests that it did, as does Xenophon, (note 43) and the examples of Prodican distinctions in Euripides (note 44) and Thucydides (note 45) fall naturally into antithesis. For, after all, antithesis is nothing more than an effective means of isolating and therefore clarifying concepts, and its vogue in fifth-century style, if it grew to be artificial seemingly through Gorgias' influence, at bottom springs from the desire for forceful clarity. (note 46) Thus, not only the distinctions of Prodicus but the Ùryodeg.peia and éntilog[[currency]]ai (note 47) of Protagoras, being likewise attempts to clarify the substance and expression of ideas (in the latter case, of contrasting ideas), seem hardly imaginable except as one posits a widespread use of such style as that of the famous sentence, pãntvn xrhmãtvn mdeg.tron [[section]]stNorden and Navarre, then, pointed to tragedy as a source of information on prose style, a legitimate and fruitful procedure since the tragedians were in close touch with all the great contemporary movements, rhetoric not least. Their successor Drerup, (note 49) on the other hand, largely confined himself to the notices concerning the early rhetoricians and to their actual fragments, when in a brilliant essay he sought to show that the rudiments of two styles existed in [43. See above, p. 62.

[44. Cf. H. Mayer, Prodikos von Keos (Paderborn 1913) 48-54.

[45. Cf. I 69.6; II 62.4; III 39.2, 72.1, 82.4.

[46. Cf. Arist. Rhet. III 9.8: <=de>a dÉ [[section]]st [47. Vorsokr. 9 II, fg. 5 (p. 265).

[48. Ibid., fg. 1 (p. 263).

[49. "Theodoros von Byzanz," Jahrbücher f. class. Philologie, Supplementband 27 (1902) 219-372.]

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the late Periclean Age: the one, the truly periodic style of Thrasymachus which, though it used antithesis, included it in a rhythmical and rounded whole, and the other and earlier, the antithetical style as such, which aimed at no larger periodic framework. This latter style he regarded as the offspring of eristic (note 50)--"Sie beruht auf der gegensatzlichen Entwicklung der Gedanken in der Antithese, die in der sophistischen Prosa zu einer Grundlage stilistischer Kunst gepragt worden ist, nachdem sie langst schon von den Vorlaufern der Sophisten, einem Heraklit und Zenon, gekannt war." And he argued that it was wholly from this sophistic inheritance, not from Gorgias, that Antiphon derived the antithetical style of his Tetralogies; for the originality of Gorgias was not to have created that style but to have embellished it. Accordingly he recognized the latter's influence only in the artificial heightening of the antithesis by means of rhyme and wordplay, concluding, (note 51) "Deshalb ist es eine sonderbare Verkennung der Grundbedingungen dieses Stiles, wenn man allgemein mit der antiken Stilkritik die Antithese zu den eigentlichen gorgian ischen `Figuren' rechnet. Gorgias hat vielmehr den Gegensatz zur Grundlage seines Stiles genommen und auf dieser Grundlage das complizierte System der schmückenden Figuren aufgebaut, indem er die in der Antithese sich entwickelnden Wortkunsteleien und Klangwirkungen mit Anlehnung an die Kunstmittel der Dichtersprache systematisch ausbildete." This statement stands as a kind of landmark; for it expounds with force and clarity the view adumbrated by Norden but for the most part still neglected, that the antithesis is not in itself Gorgian but a stylistic principle which Gorgias merely developed. Moreover, [50. Ibid., p. 224.

[51. Ibid.,p. 261; cf. p. 289.]

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Drerup regarded that principle as to some extent dictating its own effects; for in noting the pãrista and parÒmoia of the Tetralogies, he could say that they arose not through the conscious application of Gorgian rules (the developed Gorgian figures of the Helen and the Palamedes being on the whole absent) but were rather (note 52) "das Produkt einer naturlichen rednerischen Veranlagung und einer scharfen logischeristischen Schulung des Verstandes." In other words, granted what was remarked in the last paragraph, that antithesis and parallelism are the readiest instruments of clarity, then a mind trained in eristic debate and grappling with the logic of Sicilian argument would of itself tend to symmetry of expression, the more so since Greek not only supplied the connectives te-te, mcentsn ddeg. but the natural assonances of the verbal and nominal endings. But if one accepts the argument so far, then its application to the style of Thucydides is obvious. Though he expressly abstained from discussing it in detail, Drerup remarks that it (note 53) "auf denselben Elementen beruht, wie die altere sophistische Kunstprosa [i.e. pre-Gorgian prose] und aus ihr ganz offenbar abgeleitet ist," In other words, one should not, like Rittelmeyer (note 54) or indeed Dionysius, consider the historian's antitheses, parallelisms, and occasional assonances as in themselves Gorgian, since they appear likewise in the Tetralogies. Rather on such a theory these figures would reflect the sophistic influences current in Thucydides' youth and apparent in tragedy before 427, whereas the later influence of Gorgias could be shown only insofar as the special Gorgian traits--short equal clauses, abundant wordplay, consistent rhyme--likewise appear. [52. Ibid., p. 288.

[53. Ibid., p. 332.

[54. See above, p. 57.]

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Finally, it will be necessary to speak at greater length of Aly's (note 55) very suggestive monograph, though it seems more valuable for the study of Antiphon than of pre-Gorgian prose, on which it is neither easy to follow nor seemingly quite consistent. On the one hand, Aly speaks of Protagoras, in Athens shortly after 450, as "der Schöpfer der perikleischen Geistigkeit" (p. 133); attributes to him the concept of the unwritten laws (pp. 133, 173) and the contemporary theory of democracy (p. 103); finds in his use of the dialogue and of the antilogy Thucydides' model respectively for the Melian Dialogue and the pairing of speeches (pp. 95-101) and in general considers his influence that which "die Denkform des Thukydides von der des Herodot scheidet" (p. 102). Further, he stresses the rise of oratory after the middle of the century (p. 179) and admits the use of certain Gorgian figures in that period (p. 75), since they appear in the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw of the sophist Antiphon which he follows Altwegg in dating as early as 439 (p. 153). (note 56) On the other hand, he thinks of Protagoras as having a figurative and poetic style and as often expounding his ideas by myths (though it is not clear how such a style or method comports with the logical content of his thought, which accordingly Aly, despite the examples of Heraclitus and Parmenides, declares incapable of real abstraction, p. 173). Similarly, he emphasizes the imagery and the poeticisms of Pericles (p. 81), dismissing any possible stylistic resemblances to the speeches given by Thucydides (p. 79); finally, he says that Gorgias introduced the argument from efikÒw (pp. 53, 176) and that rhetorical theory reached Athens in the twenties (ibid.).

Now undoubtedly Aly has a very real feeling, nurtured by his studies of Herodotus, for archaic and popular [55. For reference, see above, n. 18.

[56. See below, pp. 92-96.]

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expression; yet he seems too much influenced by Herodotus and too little by tragedy. As has been remarked, (note 57) the Hippolytus of 428 and the Oedipus Rex, commonly dated at about the same time, (note 58) use the argument from efikÒw, as does the Phoenix (fgs. 811, 812), produced at the latest in 426 and very possibly somewhat earlier. (note 59) Indeed, as Drerup remarked, (note 60) the argument was probably used from the first by Protagoras, being the most natural means of strengthening the [[yen]]ttvn lÒgow. The use of tekmÆria, another Sicilian device, is probably attested in the ÉAlÆyeia, (note 61) dated by Aly himself in the thirties, (note 62) and certainly in the fragments of the Phoenix cited above. Pericles himself uses the device in the famous sentence on the dead in the Samian War, the exact wording of which seems to have been quoted by Plutarch from Stesimbrotus (Per. 8 ad fin.), oÈ går [[section]]ke[[currency]]nouw ir<<men, éllå ta>w tima>w, ëw [[paragraph]]xousi, ka< to>w égayo>w, ì pardeg.xousin, éyanãtouw e[[perthousand]]nai tekmairÒmeya. In passing, the antithetical arrangement and the assonance of [[paragraph]]xousi, and pardeg.xousin should be noticed in this sentence. Thus Aly is incorrect in ascribing the Sicilian arguments to Gorgias.Then again, if one turn to the debate of the Medea of 431, an ëmilla lÒgvn (546) between the heroine and Jason in which the latter, as the chorus remarks (576), expounds the [[yen]]ttvn lÒgow, it is at once apparent that Aly underrates the [57. Above, pp. 645.

[58. Cf. Schmid-Stahlin, Gesch. d. griech. Lit., I, 2 (1934), p. 361; M. Pohlenz, Griech. Trag., II 63; T. B. L. Webster, Sophocles, pp. 4-5. Webster well observes the close similarity of the debates in the two plays cited above, p. 64. Since the arguments of Hippolytus transcend and include those of Creon, the Hippolytus would appear to be the later play (so D. Grene, "The Interpretarion of the Hippolytus of Euripides," CP 34 [1939] 53).

[59. See above, n. 28.

[60. "Theodoros von Byzanz," pp. 221-22.

[61. Vorsokr. 9 II, fg. 44, col. 5.1-17 (pp. 349-50), where examples are given to confirm a general statement.

[62. See below, pp. 97-103.]

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conscious rhetoric of the Periclean Age. Medea, like Cleon in the Mytilenean Debate (III 39) or the Corinthians at Athens (esp. I 40-4I), relies on the argument from tÚ d[[currency]]kaion. After stating her husband's shamelessness, she proves it, as do the aforementioned speakers, by retailing her past benefits to him (465-95); she then goes on to an appeal to the emotions of the sort attributed to Thrasymachus, and concludes by exclaiming on the wickedness of men (496-519). Jason (522-75), like Diodotus (III 46-47) and the Corcyreans (I 33), relies on the arguments from tÚ sumfdeg.ron and from the irresistibility of natural impulses. (note 63) Being the second speaker, he adopts a technique of rebuttal similar to that of Antiphon (Tetr. A, b, 1-9) (note 64) and, after a brief introduction, refutes her arguments in detail (522-44); then, again like the Corcyreans (I 32.1), he states what he must prove (note 65) and does so, concluding with an attack on women (569-75) which balances Medea's opposite conclusion. (note 66) Here then is a perfect example of the pairing of speeches which Aly attributes to Protagoras and considers Thucydides' model, and in fact, as has been said, the speeches have many Thucydidean traits, But quite evidently the rhetorical structure followed by Euripides is more developed than Aly asserts; hence by his own argument the rhetoric taught in Athens by Protagoras was by no means simple, and one can no more say that Gorgias was the first to introduce rhetorical principles than one can attribute the Sicilian arguments to him. [63. For a fuller discussion see above, chap. 1 pp. 11-13, 29-33.

[64. Cf. also the opening paragraphs of the Corinthians (137-39) and of Diodotus

(III 42-43).

[65. Lines 548-50, [[section]]n t"de de[[currency]]jv pr<<ta mcentsn sofÚw geg~w, | [[paragraph]]peita s~frvn, e[[perthousand]]ta so< mdeg.gaw f[[currency]]low | ka< pais< to>w [[section]]mo>sin.

[66. I omit discussion of the similar debate in the Hippolytus in which Phaedra relies on the argument from tÚ kalÒn (373-430), and the nurse, very much like Diodotus (III 45), rejoins by stating the irresistibility of natural impulses (433-81). See below, pp. 99-100, and above, chap. 1 pp. 29-33.]

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But the structure of the debate in the Medea leads on to its style; for just as Medea's and Jason's speeches outwardly balance each other, so internally they often fall into balanced and symmetrical clauses. Such sentences as those of Jason (569-73),éllÉ [[section]]w tosoËton [[yen]]keyÉ ÀstÉ Ùryoumdeg.nhweÈn[[infinity]]w guna>kew pãntÉ [[paragraph]]xein nom[[currency]]zete,un dÉ gdeg.nhtai jumforã tiw [[section]]w ldeg.xow,tå l"sta ka< kãllista polemi~tatat[[currency]]yesye,and (601-2),tå xrhstå mÆ soi luprå fa[[currency]]nesya[[currency]] pote,mhdÉ eÈtuxoËsa dustuxØw e[[perthousand]]nai doke>n,

only exemplify a common practice confirmed on almost every page. Such antitheses are perhaps commonest at the conclusion either of speeches or of their natural subdivisions, but they are quite usual elsewhere. Occasionally they are heightened by assonance as in the lines quoted by Norden (408-9, cf. 314-15),guna>kew, [[section]]w mcentsn [[paragraph]]sylÉ émhxan~tatai,kak<<n dcents pãntvn tdeg.ktonew sof~tatai.

Hence if, as seems rnevitable, the structure and argumentation of such a debate as this of the Medea reflect the teachings of the early sophists, particularly Protagoras, then the style of the debate must do so equally. It may well be that in narrating a myth such as that ascribed to him by Plato (Protag. 320d--322a), Protagoras used the poetic and imagistic style that Aly conceives. Again, the fragment from his speech of condolence to Pericles (Vorsokr. 9 II, fg. 9, p. 268)--the passage most frequently cited as proof that Protagoras used only simple sentences heightened by poetic words--

[[77]]

proves merely that, like Antiphon the sophist, (note 67) he did not use antithesis in narratives. But that the man and the period which delighted in the juxtaposing of opposite ideas should not have carried that principle further and applied it to the structure of the sentence, particularly when we see Euripides doing exactly that, is incredible, After all, the greater antithesis of conflicting speeches and the lesser antithesis of balanced sentences spring from the same habit of thought and reflect the same desire, that of clarity enhanced by contrast.But the Medea does not provide the earliest example of opposing speeches couched in antithetical language. Indeed, Drerup (note 68) could see in Euripides' less poetic idiom and longer sentences the marks of the periodic rather than of the earlier and truly antithetical style, and undoubtedly the technical skill of the debate in the Medea implies a period of development during which Euripides mastered the art of debate and imposed his own style on it. It is rather with the Ajax and the Antigone of Sophocles that the first complete éntilog[[currency]]ai appear, and these plays, the latter produced in 442 or 441 and the former almost certaInly somewhat earlier, reveal very clearly the first stages in the art which was to enjoy so great a vogue as the century progressed. Doubtless, as Aly remarked, (note 69) the love of the ég~n goes even further back to such contests as those between Homer and Hesiod, Calchas and Mopsus, Solon and Croesus. The ninth book of the Iliad shows arguments of a high order; and the Eumenides of Aeschylus embodies the conffict of two principles. And yet precisely because not even the conflict of the Eumenides achieves the clear and pointed expression of opposing speeches, does the emergence of [67. See below, p. 105.

[68. "Theodoros von Byzanz," p. 229. Cf. Arist. Rhet. III 2.5.

[69. "Formprobleme," p. 98.]

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such speeches in the Ajax so clearly mark the beginning of a new era when the art of debate was for the first time seriously studied.The play contains two debates, the one between Ajax and Tecmessa on the obligations of the eÈgenØw énÆr, the other between Teucer and Menelaus concerning the ultimate authority in the army at Troy. Both debates are highly symmetrical; in both the concluding lines so pointedly echo each other that, when actually heard, they must greatly have enhanced the effect of symmetry. As we have seen, Jason's and Medea's speeches likewise end with closely similar lines, and there can be no doubt that both playwrights consciously sought, and that the public had come to admire, this somewhat statuesque form of opposition. Thus, after Ajax has concluded (479-80),éllÉ u kal<<w z[[infinity]]n u kal<<w teynhkdeg.naitÚn eÈgen[[infinity]] xrÆ. pãntÉ ékÆkoaw lÒgon,Tecmessa, after replying to his arguments and asking for pity, herself concludes (520-24),éndr[[currency]] toi xre[[Delta]]nmnÆmhn prose>nai, terpnÚn e[[daggerdbl]] t[[currency]] pou pãyoi.xãriw xãrin gãr [[section]]stin <= t[[currency]]ktousÉ ée[[currency]].~tou dÉ éporre> mn[[infinity]]stiw eÔ peponyÒtow,oÈk ín gdeg.noitÉ [[paragraph]]yÉ oÔtow eÈgenØw énÆr.

Similarly the debate between Teucer and Menelaus, after the passionate opposition of the stichomythy, ends in two short symmetrical speeches each in the form of a riddle (1142--58).But if the elaborate symmetry of these debates, remote as it is from anything in Aeschylus, strongly suggests the contemporary influence of Protagoras' éntilog[[currency]]ai, so does

[[79]]

their content. (note 70) No one would, to be sure, maintain that the debates of the Ajax are abstract: Tecmessa's speech, for instance, owes much to the famous appeal of Andromache in the Iliad and, throughout, Sophocles seeks a dramatic, not a philosophic contrast. Yet the debates do embody general ideas. Unlike the speeches of the ninth Iliad, which concern purely concrete problems, these, as it were, lift the specific to the general, so that the immediate case comes to illustrate a widespread truth. (note 71) The matter is not easy to describe; indeed the debates of the Ajax illustrate only an early stage in this quality of abstraction, which is far better shown in the Antigone, the Medea, or the Hippolytus. And yet one can at least say that whereas Homer's generalizations almost entirely concern human beings--Odysseus in the ninth book, for instance, speaks as the skilled and realistic orator, Achilles as the impassioned youth, Phoenix as the sage elder, and thus like many of Homer's characters, they embody lasting human attitudes--in the Ajax, on the other hand, the first debate turns essentially on the abstract idea of eÈgdeg.neia, the second on that of discipline.Take for example the speech of Menelaus. After describing the outrages committed by Ajax (1052-62), he goes on to forbid his burial on the grounds that no state can survive without a hearty fear of authority, since fear alone holds an army together (1073-86),oÈ gãr potÉ oÎtÉ ín [[section]]n pÒlei nÒmoi kal<<wfdeg.rointÉ ên, [[paragraph]]nya mØ kayestÆkh ddeg.ow,oÎtÉ ín stratÒw ge svfrÒnvw êrxoitÉ [[paragraph]]ti,mhdcentsn fÒbou prÒblhma mhdÉ afidoËw [[paragraph]]xvn... [70. Cf. Schmid-Stählin, I, 2, p. 490, "Mit diesen Wendungen ist schon das Gebiet der antithetischen Denkform betreten, die, bei Aischylos erst erwachend, durch Herakleitos, die Eieaten und besonders durch die rhetorischen Beleuchtungskünste der Sophistik vulgarisiert worden ist."

[71. Ibid., p. 483, "so dass aus dem Kampf der augenblicklichen Interessen ein Kampf der Grundsatze zu werden scheint."]

[[80]]éllÉ *stãtv moi ka< ddeg.ow ti ka[[currency]]rion,ka< mØ dok<<men dr<<tew ìn <=d~meyaoÈk éntite[[currency]]sein aÔyiw ìn lup~meya.

I have already discussed (note 72) the marked similarity of idea in this passage not only to the speech of Creon in the Antigone (esp. 661-80) but to those of Archidamus in Thucydides (I 80-85; II 11). There can, I think, be no doubt that Menelaus, pointedly referred to as a Spartan (1102), was intended to typify not merely the Spartan but, more widely, the oligarchic attitude. His references to Teucer's ill-birth, to the fact that he was a bowman rather than a hoplite (1120- 23), (note 73) to the question whether Ajax came as an independent or a subordinate commander (1097-1101) that issue, paramount since Salamis, (note 74) had not long since come to a head at Ithome--only strengthen the central impression of the lines already quoted. But if so, the similarities of thought between this passage and the speech of Archidamus have an added significance. The fact that in both a Spartan is made to expound in similar language the basic assumptions of the oligarchic state shows that Sophocles was already familiar with certain of those political generalizations which form the essence of Thucydides' speeches. Now Aly (note 75) saw the influence of Protagoras in the debate on constitutions of Herodotus III 80-82. The great sophist professed a knowledge of government (Plato Protag. 318e), and Aristoxenus found in his Antilogies the substance of Plato's Republic (note 76) one thinks especially of Plato's discussion of the different forms of government. Certainly one would believe even without evidence that the rise of democratic Athens [72. Above, chap. 1 pp. 14-17.

[73. Cf. Wilamowitz (Herakles 2 1933) on H. F. 160, where Heracles is insulted for being a bowman.

[74. Thuc. I 91.7.

[75. "Formprobleme," p. 103.

[76. Vorsokr. 9 II, fg. 5 (pp. 265-66).]

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stimulated widespread discussion of the contrary assumptions of democracy and oligarchy, but, as it is, the passages where the subject is actually discussed so markedly converge, as I have tried to show, (note 77) that one can only posit a considerable body of known political argument in the Periclean Age. And the first example of such argument, the more significant because like most of the later examples it appears in a debate, is this passage of the Ajax.Thus, even in this earliest of his extant plays, Sophocles seeks in his debates a fundamental contrast of idea, and though his method is less abstract than that of Euripides who in the Medea opposes tÚ d[[currency]]kaion by tÚ sumfdeg.ron and in the Hippolytus tÚ kalÒn by the dictates of nature, yet basically it foreshadows these later debates. The Antigone seems to stand midway; for Creon there speaks in more general terms than Menelaus in setting forth much the same arguments (661-80), while Antigone by upholding the êgraptoi nÒmoi, and the ties of family profoundly expresses the opposite position (450-57). Haemon and Creon likewise expound contrasting but equally general views on parental duty and the obligations of power (639-60, 684-739). In sum, if the later debates of Euripides and Thucydides, as Aly argues and as would doubtless be generally agreed, reflect the continuing influence of the éntilog[[currency]]ai of Protagoras, then it follows irresistibly that the debates of the Ajax and the Antigone betray the same influence at an earlier stage. For, although they are less developed than those of Euripides, and although Sophocles, unlike his rival, never was so fascinated by the abstract as to lose sight of purely human and personal motives, yet his debates introduce a method unknown to Aeschylus, in form and structure [77. Above, chap. 1 pp. 14-17 (on oligarchy), pp. 21-25 (on democracy), where the relevant passages (besides those already cited, notably the tract of the Old Oligarch and Euripides' Suppliants) are discussed.]

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markedly resemble those of Euripides, anticipate ideas later used for similar contrasts by Thucydides, and in general, like the debates of both these authors, raise the purely personal conflict of situation to the higher conflict of idea. Certainly sophistic debate, if it taught anything, taught exactly this art of seeing the general implications of the specific act.Thus by a somewhat circuitous route we return to the question of the antithetical style. As we saw, antithesis strongly marks the debate of the Medea, the finished skill of which seemed however to imply an earlier period when Euripides evolved not only his argumentation but, as Drerup contended, the more periodic tendencies of his style. If, therefore, the debates of the Ajax and the Antigone foreshadow those of the Medea and the Hippolytus, then their style should do so likewise. And that is in fact the case. The passage already cited from the Ajax, being antithetical throughout and closing with an elaborate homoioteleuton, is sufficient evidence from the earlier play, and for the Antigone one can perhaps do no better than refer to the exhaustive list by which Navarre supported his contention that Gorgias modeled his style on that of Sophocles. (note 78) There can, then, be no question that in this period when, I have argued, Sophocles deeply felt the influence of the sophistic debates, he also evolved an antithetical style by which to express them.

But one point of difference between the styles of the two plays may make the matter more clear and at the same time cast further doubt on Aly's contention that Protagoras' style, as well as that of Pericles, must have been primarily figurative and poetic. The difference is that, whereas the style of the Ajax is extremely figurative and becomes [78. Rhétorique Grecque, pp. 102-9.]

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antithetical largely in the debates, the Antigone, though still figurative, stands out as easily the most tightly woven, the most antithetical of Sophocles' plays. In the former one thinks perhaps especially of the great figures drawn from the changes of nature by which Ajax justifies his own submission (670-76), but numerous others occur (8, 17, 140, 169-71, 196, 257, 582, 651, 1253-54), whereas in the Antigone the chief examples appear in Creon's tirade against Antigone (473-78, though also 712-17), where they are evidently intended as a contrast to her more measured speech. Now Sophocles, so Plutarch reports, (note 79) said that he affected three styles during his lifetime, first, the lofty style of Aeschylus, then an artificial style which he described as pikrÚn ka< katãtexnon, and finally his most characteristic style, further qualified as +/-yik~taton. One inevitably seeks to apply the statement to the marked changes in style between the Ajax and the Antigone. The former certainly cannot be in the second, so-called artificial manner, and its numerous figures and generally grandiose utterance seem to connect it with the first rather than with the third manner, though, on the other hand, it is definitely less Aeschylean than the fragments of the poet's earliest play, the Triptolemus. It may thus possibly illustrate the declining use of the first manner. The Antigone, on the other hand, from its very opening so consistently affects a balance and compression quite peculiar to itself--one thinks of such lines as (10),prÚw toÁw f[[currency]]louw ste[[currency]]xonta t<<n [[section]]xyr<<n kakãor (13-14),duo>n édelfo>n [[section]]sterÆyhmen dÊo,miò yanÒntoin <=mdeg.r& dipl[[ordfeminine]] xer[[currency]]-

that it is difficult not to see in it an example of the second, [79. Plut. de Prof. in Virt. 7, cf. Schmid-Stählin, I, 2, 313 n. 5.]

[[84]]

artificial period. (note 80) But whether or not one accepts this interpretation, the fact remains that the Antigone, composed at a time when Protagoras enjoyed a great reputation in Athens and reflecting the antilogical mode of thought for which he was famous, is also in style the most antithetical not merely of Sophocles' but probably of all extant Greek tragedies. The fact cannot be a mere coincidence. Why should the poet have brusquely abandoned the great tradition of poetic language and why should he have sought the balance and intellectuality of prose, unless he was influenced by prose?Finally, the decline in imagery between the Ajax and the Antigone and the increase in antithesis much weaken Aly's contention that not only Protagoras but Pericles sought their effects chiefly through imagery. Unquestionably Pericles used striking and memorable images such as the spring taken from the year, the Boeotians like old oaks breaking their limbs against each other, or war coming like a cloud from the Peloponnesus. But that was doubtless an immemorial usage known also to the old-fashioned Cimon, who called Athens and Sparta the yokefellows of Greece. Moreover, the practice continued with Antiphon and Gorgias, with whom poetic figures were by no means incompatible with the antithetical style. Now as we have seen, the debates of Sophocles and Euripides are expressed in an antithetical style, and since the debate as a form goes back to Protagoras, it has been argued that the style likewise did. Moreover, we have seen that Sophocles abandoned the grandeur of the Ajax for the logical, balanced manner of the Antigone, and again it was argued that the change is explic- [80. So T. B. L. Webster (Sophocles, pp. 143-62), though he underestimates the differences between the styles of the Ajax and Antigone and hence ascribes both to the second period. On the other hand, K. Reinhardt (Sophokles [Frankfurt am Main 1933] 27) finds in the imagery of the Ajax a mark of Sophocles' early style.]

[[85]]

able only by the increasing influence of prose. When, therefore, Aly conceives that Pericles in his actual Funeral Oration primarily relied on imagery and poetic diction, he is crediting him with fashions of speech quite abandoned by Euripides in the Medea of the same year, beginning to be abandoned even by Sophocles a decade earlier. Few would deny that tragedy was a living instrument, highly sensitive to the intellectual currents of the time. But if so, it clearly shows that the antithetical style attributed by Thucydides to Pericles would in fact have been familiar to him.Since the argument, except as concerns Antiphon the sophist, is now complete, it remains only to summarize the chief points hitherto made. The tradition that Gorgias in the autumn of 427 first introduced at Athens not merely the so-called Gorgian figures but the antithetical style as such derives, it was seen, from Diodorus, who almost certainly quotes no more trustworthy a source than Timaeus and, moreover, wrote not as a serious critic of style but for the sweeping purposes of a universal history. Dionysius, though he regards the antithesis as Gorgian and can speak of Thucydides and Gorgias in one breath, expressly doubts the view upheld by Diodorus, and Cicero, possibly on the authority of Aristotle or Theophrastus, attributes antithesis to Thrasymachus, certainly in Athens before 427. Athenians of the fourth century seem to have been unaware of the importance of Gorgias' visit. Aristotle, who cites his style as best exemplifying the poeticisms of an earlier period of prose, is more interested in his use of set arguments and koino< tÒpoi, which he likewise attributes to Protagoras. Plato contents himself with parodying his mannered style in the speech of Agathon in the Symposium, the dramatic date of which is just before the Sicilian expedition, whereas in the Protagoras, imagined as taking place in the Periclean

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Age, he ascribes a highly antithetical speech to Prodicus, Since Plato was careful to avoid anachronism, we may presumably take it as his opinion that the influence of Gorgias was not to be found in the antithetical style as such, which was used by earlier sophists, but in the artificial heightening of that style by means of the constant balance of clauses and by the equally constant rhyme and wordplay which were affected by the younger exquisites such as Agathon. Plato's view, it was argued, is confirmed not merely by the fragments of Agathon but by certain other considerations. First, the styles of Sophocles and Euripides, which shows no trace of the narrower Gorgian influence felt by Agathon, were evidently formed when antithesis was common, and are probably more antithetical in their early than in their late plays. Then, if the antithetical style was unknown in Athens before 427, the orator Antiphon must have changed his style with unprecedented speed not only in the Tetralogies, which were doubtless meant for students, but even in the speech on the Samothracian tribute, the unfamiliar mannerisms of which must then have shocked a jury of common men and thus have defeated their own ends. Again, Aristophanes in the Daital[[infinity]]w and Thucydides in the Mytilenean Debate speak of the rhetorical movement as widespread some months before Gorgias arrived, and to dissociate that movement from the antithetical style, particularly when it appears fully developed in Antiphon at or near the time and when Thucydides takes special pains to use it in the speech of Diodotus, truly requires an act of faith. Finally, in the Acharnians, produced a year and some months it is true after the arrival of Gorgias, Aristophanes describes the sentences then generally in vogue except among the older men as stroggÊloi, the word used by Plato to describe the balanced sentences of Phaedrus' highly sophistic speech.

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Among modern scholars, Blass, it was seen, and others concerned more narrowly with Thucydides accepted the antithetical style as Gorgian and accordingly called the historian's speeches, in style at least, anachronistic. Norden, on the other hand, largely moved by the evidence oftragedy, stated that the style was common among the sophists of the Periclean Age. Navarre, though he refused to dissociate early sophistry from rhetoric on the grounds that Athens was in close touch with the West after about 450, and though he amassed extremely full evidence on the antithetical style of the Antigone, lacked Norden's penetration when, instead of asking how Sophocles came to adopt that style, he tamely deduced that Sophocles was Gorgias' model. To Drerup falls the very great credit of fixing closely on the developed Gorgian traits of rhyme, wordplay, and consistent balance, and of stating that only their united presence suffices to prove Gorgian influence Accordingly, he declared that mere antithesis was not Gorgian, even when, as in the Tetralogies, it is carried out with a certain rigor, but rather reflects the logical method and the search for precision and clarity which were introduced by the first generation of sophists.

Finally, Aly's detailed and in many ways penetrating study of early style gave rise to a fuller treatment of the evidence from tragedy. For, although Aly laid great weight on the dialogues and debates of Protagoras, particularly in their effect on Thucydides, he underestimated both the argumentation which they imply and their evident connection with the antithetical style. It was first pointed out that the use of efikÒta and tekmÆria appears in tragedy before the arrival of Gorgias; then, that the debates of the Medea and Hippolytus show a very advanced skill in contrasting the arguments from the just and the profitable,

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the noble and the natural. These same debates, it was seen, are not only symmetrical in outward form, but internally rely on clear and forceful antitheses, and both these traits, the outward and the inward, were found in the earlier Ajax and Antigone. Further, there seemed reason to believe that these debates of tragedy do in fact reflect the influence of the sophistic éntilog[[currency]]ai, particularly because they follow a recognized form differing from anything known to Aeschylus, and because at bottom they depend on those political and psychological generalizations which were in all probability given currency by the earliest sophists. Finally, it seemed more than a coincidence when Sophocles, in keeping with the spirit of contrast which pervades the Antigone and differentiates it from the earlier Ajax, also adopted an extremely antithetical style, which, it was suggested, is the style of his second period described by him as pikrÚn ka< katãtexnon. In any case, the Antigone shows the declining importance of imagery in the tragic style and the great increase of antithesis. This fact, it seemed, could not be dissociated from the current fashions in argument and oratory, but rather encourages the belief that for a decade before the outbreak of the war, antithesis was, as Plato and Thucydides suggest, a common instrument of speakers.

III

These arguments then tend to discredit the view that Gorgias was, in the famous phrase, the only begetter of the antithetical style. By so doing, they likewise suggest that the speeches of Thucydides more faithfully echo the Athenian oratory which he knew before his exile than has commonly been thought. This is not the place to resume those larger questions which I attempted to discuss beforehow far, for example, the accuracy of the speeches suffers through their

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numerous cross-references and pervading similarity of style (note 81) or, again, how a rhetoric perhaps appropriate to Athenians comports with Spartans or Corinthians (note 82) or, what is more important, whether we should think of fifth-century speakers as using arguments so profoundly general in character as those which appear in Thucydides (note 83)--in short, the larger questions concerning the nature and purpose of Thucydides' speeches. But even though these questions be left aside, still the fact, if granted, that not Gorgias but the sophists of the Periclean Age caused the widespread use of the antithetical style, would immensely enhance the essential truthfulness of the History, the more so since, as was said at the start, the thought both of Thucydides and of his speakers in many important ways demonstrably reflects that of the earlier period of which he writes. If, in other words, we could believe that, when at the beginning of the war, Thucydides first conceived the idea of his History, he inevitably conceived it in terms of the rationalism, the rhetorical method, and the style which were in the air about him, then it would be a matter of less importance for us to fix the exact proportion of fact and interpretation in the speeches (a task ultimately impossible in such complex works of art). For we should at least be able to say that, as a matter of historical fact, the great impulses shaping his thought and his style were felt by him in Athens, and that his book consequently reveals the Athenian mind as only something quite native can do. Then, though it were granted that through years of exile Thucydides achieved a greater pregnancy of style and a deeper abstraction of thought, still his book would in essence remain, not a mere interpretation of the past written in a style then unfamiliar, but a work [81. Above, chap. 1 pp. 4-6, 52-53.

[82. Above, p. 36.

[83. Above, pp. 34-35, 52-53.]

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which in style as well as in thought carries the imprint of the past itself.But the foregoing argument on the antithetical style, thus significant for our opinion of Thucydides, is seemingly confirmed by the fragments of the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw and ÉAlÆyeia of Antiphon the sophist. The question here turns very largely on the dating of the two works, which Altwegg (note 84) and Aly, (note 85) against Jacoby (note 86) and Diels, (note 87) ascribed to the decade 440-430. If on exammation the formers' views appear to have merit, then these fragments can by no means be neglected as evidence for the sophistic teachings of the Periclean Age. For though broken, they are considerably longer than any similar fragments from the same period, and though somewhat remote in subject matter from Thucydides and hence less pertinent to the History than more political works would have been, they would at least illustrate certain stylistic fashions current in the historian's early manhood. The further question, seemingly insoluble on the basis of our present knowledge, whether the sophist and the orator Antiphon are one person or two, does not affect our argument. It is perhaps enough to say that Xenophon (Memor. I 6), Plato (Menex. 236a), and Aristotle do not distinguish between them, though Xenophon includes traits (note 88) seemingly appropriate to the orator in a description which is generally taken to be of the sophist, and Aristotle cites now one, now the other, with the simple name Antiphon. Didymus (note 89) is the first person known to have distinguished between them, but whether [84. De Libro Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw Scripto, Basel 1908.

[85. "Formprobleme," p. 153.

[86. De Antiphontis Sophistae Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw Libro, Berlin 1908.

[87. Vorsokr. 9 II, pp. 357, n. 14; 359, n. 2.

[88. His filargur[[currency]]a, Mem. I 6.11, cf. the papyrus fg. of the Per< t[[infinity]]w metastãsevw (Cernet, Antiphon, p. 165), and Aly, "Formprobleme," p. 110.

[89. Cf. Hermogenes de Id. II 11.7, quoted below, p. 92.]

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he did so on good authority or merely because he assumed (as he might perhaps in his own time) that a serious forensic orator would not have composed the other more general works, is not known. A work on dreams, the purpose of which, as Aly (p. 100) argues on the basis of de Divinatione, II 144, was to give opposite and thus mutually destructive interpretations, was ascribed to the sophist, as was a PolitikÒw, the nature of which is unknown. Finally, if the Antiphon of Xenophon's portrait is in fact the sophist rather than the orator (the reverse could hardly be the case), then he is apparently as old as Socrates; if there is only one Antiphon, then his dates are those given for the orator, ca. 480-411.Before considering the dates of the two works, it is worthwhile to observe two ancient criticisms of them. The first, on the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw, is from Philostratus (V. Soph. I 15.4), who remarks, speaking of Antiphon, lÒgoi dÉ aÈtoË dikaniko< mcentsn ple[[currency]]ouw, [[section]]n o[[perthousand]]w <= deinÒthw ka< pçn tÚ [[section]]k tdeg.xnhw [[paragraph]]gkeitai, sofistiko< dcents ka< ßteroi mdeg.n, sofistik~tatow dcents i ÑUpcentsr t[[infinity]]w imono[[currency]]aw, [[section]]n / gnvmolog[[currency]]ai te lampa< ka< filÒsofoi semnÆ te épaggel[[currency]]a ka< [[section]]phnyismdeg.nh poihtiko>w ÙnÒmasi ka< tå épotãdhn *rmhneuÒmena paraplÆsia t<<n ped[[currency]]vn to>w ple[[currency]]oiw. Two traits, then, of the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw especially impressed Philostratus: the abundance of its gn<<mai and the poeticisms of its language.

The other commentary is from Hermogenes (de Ideis II 11.7, p. 385 Walz), who, after saying that Didymus distinguished the orator from the author of the PolitikÒw and of the two works in question here, goes on to state his own doubts. On the one hand, he says, the two classes of works do differ in style; especially does the ÉAlÆyeia differ from the rest. On the other hand, the ancient testimony

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(especially Plato's) does not suggest that there were two men, and though Thucydides is often said to have been the pupil of the orator from Rhamnus, yet tÚn mcentsn ÑRamnoÊsion efid[[Delta]]w [[section]]ke>non, o[[apple]]per efisw te êlloiw ka< t" diÉ épofãnsevn pera[[currency]]nein tÚ pçn, ~ dØ toË éjivmatikoË te lÒgou [[section]]st< ka< mdeg.geyow ir<<ntow, ÍchlÚw dcents t[[ordfeminine]] ldeg.jei ka< traxÊw, Àste ka< mØ pÒrrv sklhrÒthtow e[[perthousand]]nai. ka< peribãllei dcents xvr tÚn lÒgon ka< [[paragraph]]stin èsafØw tå pollã. ka< [[section]]pimelØw dcents katå tØn sunyÆkhn ka< taWe may now consider the dates of the two works, and first, that of the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw. The evidence consists almost wholly in its resemblances to certain passages of Sophocles and Euripides, perhaps the most striking of which appear in the long fg. 49. (note 90) The author is there expounding [90. The references are to Vorsokr. 9 II.]

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the difficulties of marriage: if it is unhappy, then to continue it is misery and to end it means the enmity of one's wife's family; if on the other hand it is happy, then to be responsible for another person is unbearable, when to be responsible for oneself is labor enough (oÈk oÔn d[[infinity]]lon, ~ti gunØ èndr[[currency]]... oÈdcentsn [[section]]lãttouw tåw filÒthytaw pardeg.xetai ka< tåw ÙdÊnaw u aÈtÚw aÍt" Ípdeg.r te t[[infinity]]w Ígie[[currency]]aw diss<<n svmãtvn ktl). As evidence that Euripides knew this passage, Altwegg, (note 91) following Dümmler (note 92) and Nestle, (note 93) cited Alcestis 882-84,zhl<< dÉ égãmouw étdeg.knouw te brot<<n:m[[currency]]a går cuxÆ, t[[infinity]]w Íperalge>nmdeg.trion êxyow,

Hippolytus 258-59,tÚ dÉ Ípcentsr diss<<n m[[currency]]an >>d[[currency]]neincuxØn xalepÚn bãrow,

also Medea 1090-1115, on the troubles of raising children (a passage which closely echoes the last lines of the fragment), and Medea 235-36, where the heroine says of marriage,kén t"dÉ ég[[Delta]]n mdeg.gistow, u kakÚn labe>nu xrhstÒn,

to which one may compare from the present fragment mdeg.gaw går ég[[Delta]]n gãmow ényr~p[[florin]] and the similar alternative that follows. Altwegg pointed to the exact parallel of ideas in the first and second of these passages, to the fact that the third is not a commonplace, since children are usually regarded as the protection and stay of their parents, and to the pervading similarity of structure in the fourth. It is true that Jacoby, who wrote independently on [91. Pages 60-73; see above, n. 84.

[92. Akademika, p. 171.

[93. Euripides, p. 249.]

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the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw in the same year as Altwegg, refused to deduce that Euripides knew the sophist's work. (note 94) Yet he was able to cite from earlier poets only the statement that marriage can be a blessing or a curse, (note 95) and he failed to explain the closer similarities noted above. Diels, therefore, seems nearer the truth when he assumed borrowing on one part or the other, (note 96) though his conclusion that Antiphon was the borrower appears questionable for three reasons. First, when similar ideas are expressed consecutively by one author but in scattered passages by another, it is easy to see how the former could have influenced the latter but difficult to imagine the reverse. Then, the assumption that Euripides was the borrower is the more natural because he reverts to the ideas in question during the limited period from the Alcestis to the Hippolytus. One need not adduce instances to prove that one man may be influenced by another and lesser man whose ideas for a time fit his own, and then later, as his thought changes, escape that influence. Finally, Euripides seems to develop the ideas in his own and characteristic way. In the Alcestis, the view of marriage presented by Antiphon applies, as it does with him, to a man's life; in the Medea, to a woman's; in the Hippolytus, it concerns not marriage but the life ofa nurse. But an essential similarity of expression remains throughout, as if Euripides had in mind a certain fixed series of thoughts which he then increasingly diverted to his own uses.If these arguments hold, then the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw was written before the Alcestis of 438, and in fact it contains two parallels to the Antigone, the only other extant play of about the same period. The first, as has ofien been noted, is between fg. 61, énarx[[currency]]aw dÉ oÈdcentsn kãkion ényr~poiw, and Antigone [94. Page 35; see above, n. 86.

[95. Hes. Theog. 607, Op. 702; Semon. fg. 6.

[96. Vorsokr. 9 II, p. 357, n. to line 14.]

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672, énarx[[currency]]aw dcents me>zon oÈk [[paragraph]]stin kakÒn. But it has not commonly been observed that the contexts of both passages are closely similar. Just as Creon says that children should learn obedience that they may later become good soldiers who can endure the shock of battle, so Antiphon goes on, taËta gin~skontew ofl prÒsyen ênyrvpoi épÚ t[[infinity]]w èrx[[infinity]]w e[[daggerdbl]]yizon toÁw pa>daw êrxesyai ka< tÚ keleuÒmenon poie>n, .na mØ [[section]]jandroÊmenoi efiw megãlhn metabolØn fiÒntew [[section]]kplÆssointo. Then fg. 62, o.[[florin]] tiw ín tÚ ple>ston t[[infinity]]w <=mdeg.raw sun[[ordfeminine]], toioËton énãgkh gendeg.syai ka< aÈtÚn toÁw trÒpouw, echoes the thought of Ismene's lines (5634),oÈ gãr potÉ, Œnaj, oÈdÉ [[breve]]w ín blãst[[dotaccent]] mdeg.neinoËw to>w kak<<w prãssousin, éllÉ [[section]]j[[currency]]statai. The concept that a man's fortune and environment mold his character, first emphatically expressed by Simonides, (note 97) plays a large part in the thought of the fifth century, as Thucydides' account Of the corruption of character through war and plague and Euripides' pervasive realism well show. The wording of Antiphon's passage is more closely echoed by a fragment of the Phoenix (fg. 812),toioËtÒw [[section]]stin oÂsper [[yen]]detai jun~n,

but its spirit appears clearly in the realism not merely of the Telephus, produced with the Alcestis in 438, but of the other plays on human wretchedness which Aristophanes ridicules in Acharnians 410-79. Now the whole trend of the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw was tG portray life, in the words of fg. 51, as eÈkathgÒrhtow... ka< oÈdcentsn [[paragraph]]xvn perittÚn oÈdcents mdeg.ga ka< semnÒn, éllå pãnta smikrå ka< ésyen[[infinity]] ka< ÙligoxrÒnia ka< énamemeigmdeg.na lÊpaiw megãlaiw. And if these words suggest the sad quietism of Euripides' Suppliants (953) or of the conclusion of the Heracles Mad, they are certainly [97. Fg. 4 (Diehl), 10-11, prãjaw går eÔ pçw énØr égayÒw, | kakÚw dÉ efi kak<<w. Cf. C. M. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry, pp. 343-44, also chap. 1 above, p. 34.]

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as applicable to the earlier plays just noted; for, as we have seen, Aristophanes in 425 already thought of Euripides as portraying above all the commonness and smallness of existence. None of the parallels adduced in this paragraph necessarily points to the specific influence of the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw; indeed the reverse may rather be the case. But they at least show that this work of Antiphon deals with important and well-known ideas of the decade before the outbreak of the war, and by so doing, they confirm the date suggested by the more precise parallels of fg. 49.There seems then no compelling reason why Jacoby (note 98) should have seen in the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw merely a panacea for the discords of Greece which Thucydides describes in III 82-83. It is true that Kramer's (note 99) later dissertation, by showing that the word imÒnoia was commonly used in a civic context, tended to confirm Jacoby's social interpretation of the work against Altwegg's view that it wholly concerned the individual's agreement with himself. Yet the extant fragments, as well as the description in Iamblichus, (note 100) amply prove that Antiphon at least emphasized the individual rather than the state, and no one who has in mind the purely personal problems of love or misfortune which Euripides treated in the thirties can say that such an emphasis is unthinkable at that time. On the contrary, the peaceful years before 431 doubtless left men freer to ponder on the new individualism fostered by the sophists than did the following period of civic and factional heat. Finally, the parallels between Democritus (note 101) and the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw prove nothing in regard to the date of the latter; for it is not known in what work or when Democritus discussed the [98. Pages 9-11; see above, n. 86.

[99. Quid Valeal imÒnia in Literis Graecis, Göttingen 1915.

[100. Vorsokr. 9 II, fg. 44a (p. 356).

[101. Fgs. 200, 227, 250, 255, 276.]

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subject of concord. That his teachings as a whole were far more systematic than Antiphon's and that his remarks on imÒnoia (esp. fgs. 250 and 255) appear to have been more social in their implication, may suggest that Democritus was the later. In sum, it is difficult to escape Altwegg's conclusion, accepted categorically by Aly, that the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw was composed shortly after 440. Certainly it contains sufficiently close and sufficiently numerous parallels to the works of roughly the same period to cast the burden of proof on those who dispute the dating.The three papyrus fragments of the ÉAlÆyeia, the first two of which were published in 1915 by Grenfell and Hunt and the third in 1922, (note 102) were unknown to Altwegg and Jacoby, and it has remained principally for Aly (note 103) to consider the date of the work of which they form part of the second book. On several grounds he ascribes it to the end of the decade 440-430. In the first place, its title reflects the spirit of Parmenides and Protagoras, the former of whom expounded ÉAlhye[[currency]]hw eÈkukldeg.ow étremcentsw [[Sigma]]tor (1.29-30), while the latter wrote an ÉAlÆyeia u katabãllontew. The descending line of influence thus suggested Aly (note 104) brilliantly confirmed by an analysis of the mathematical proofs known to the three men. It is unnecessary to restate his argument here: in essence, it is that Antiphon in the first book of the ÉAlÆyeia (fg. 13) applied to the problem of squaring the circle the Eleatic idea of infinite divisibility which Zeno, Protagoras, and Anaxagoras knew in a more general and philosophic sense, but that Democritus, on the other hand, not only repudiated the general idea in his atomic theory but specifically rejected its use in the problem to which [102. Vorskr. 9 Il, fg. 44 (pp. 346-55).

[103. "Formprobleme," pp. 115-56.

[104. pp. 115-16, 141-47.]

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Antiphon had applied it; (note 105) finally, that Hippias (note 106) approached the same problem by a more developed solution apparently unknown to Antiphon. On this view, then, Antiphon would stand after Zeno and Protagoras and feel their influence more strongly than did Hippias, while on the other hand he would definitely precede Democritus, a point which confirms what was suggested of their relationship in the last paragraph. The fact that Anaxagoras, while in prison in 433 on the motion ofDiopeithes, (note 107) is said to have diverted himself with the same problem (by what solution is not known), indicates, as Aly says, the period when it had come to be of interest.Then, Aly (note 108) seeks a second indication of date in the argument of the papyrus fragments themselves on the relative authority of fÊsiw and nÒmow. It is his general purpose to distinguish an earlier period, when the difference between local and universal law first became apparent, from a later period when that difference was used to justi such doctrines of might as Plato attributes to Callicles and Thrasymachus, and Thucydides to the generals at Melos. For certainly no such doctrines appear in the ÉAlÆyeia, which, as another critic has justly said, (note 109) merely argues that an individual, whether he wishes or not, must logically prefer the consistent dictates of natural law to the follies and inconsistencies of civic law. Though he presents such an individualism as inevitable, Antiphon apparently does not consider it widespread; much less does he advocate the unrestrained individualism which springs from the contempt of civic law. When, therefore, Aly goes on to ascribe this [105. Fg. 155. Aly, p. 115.

[106. Fg. 21. Aly, pp. 144-46.

[107. Plut. de Exil. 17; Per. 32. On the date of Anaxagoras' expulsion, cf. H. T. Wade-Gery, "Thucydides the Son of Melesias," JHS 52 (1932) 220.

[108. Pages 117-33.

[109. F. Altheim, Klio 20 (1926) 257-70.]

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later unrestrained individualism to the years after the Peace of Nicias and to argue that the ÉAlÆyeia must therefore be sensibly earlier, he seems to have much right on his side, the more so since the distinction between local and universal law was well known to the Periclean Age, as is clear from Empedocles fg. 135, Antigone 454, Herodotus III 38, and the tradition in Suidas that Archelaus (note 110) expounded the doctrine. Both Plato (Protag. 337c) and Xenophon (Mem. IV 4) cause Hippias to talk of fÊsiw and nÒmow, but, as Aly remarks, his reputation for encyclopedic learning suggests that he adopted rather than originated the idea. Aly (p. 133) attributes its widespread currency to Protagoras, and with great likelihood; but however that may be, it is at least certain that by the time of the Antiffone the doctrine was already well known.Finally the ÉAlÆyeia, like the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw, contains resemblances to the early plays of Sophocles and Euripides. Perhaps the most striking appears in the Hippolytus where Phaedra, after describing her futile struggle to quench her love, concludes (403-4)[[section]]mo< går e[[daggerdbl]]h mÆte lanyãnein kalåmÆtÉ afisxrå dr~s[[dotaccent]] mãrturaw polloÁw [[paragraph]]xein.Just so, in the opening lines of the first papyrus fragment, (note 111) Antiphon says that a man will succeed best, efi metå mcentsn martÊrvn toÁw nÒmouw megãuw êgoi, nomoÊmenow dcents martÊrvn tå t[[infinity]]w fÊsevw. For, he continues, transgressions of civic law are punished only when they are known, but transgressions of the law of nature entail their own automatic punishment (note 112)--tå oÔn nÒmima paraba[[currency]]nvn efiån lãy[[dotaccent]] toÁw imologÆsantaw, ka< afisxÊnhw ka< zhm[[currency]]aw [110. Vorsokr. 9 II, A2 (p. 45).

[111. Col. 1.16-23 (Vorsokr. 9 II, p. 346).

[112. Col. 2.3-20.]

[[100]]épÆllaktai: mØ lay[[Delta]]n dÉ oÎ. t<<n dcents t[[ordfeminine]] fÊsei jumfÊtvn [[section]]ãn ti parå tÚ dunatÚn biãzhtai, [[section]]ãn te pãntaw ényr~pouw lãy[[dotaccent]], oÈdcentsn [[paragraph]]latton tÚ kakÒn, [[section]]ãn te pãntew [[daggerdbl]]dvsin, oÈdcentsn me>zon

. Now, as was observed, (note 113) the debate between Phaedra and the nurse, like the Mytilenean Debate in Thucydides, turns on the opposite concepts of legal right and inescapable natural force. When, therefore, the nurse, in opposing Phaedra's honorable desire to die, adduces the overwhelming power of Aphrodite (438-58), whose shameful commands, she says, men perforce must obey,[[section]]n sofo>si gårtãdÉ [[section]]st< yhnt<<n, lanyãnein tå mØ kalã (465-66),she clearly expounds the same doctrine of natural law as Antiphon and echoes his precept of secrecy. Fragments of the earlier Hippolytus (fgs. 433, 434) and of the Bellerophon (fg. 286) repeat the idea. The next resemblance is found in the Medea, (note 114) where Creon twice states that a man must anticipate his enemies by vigorous action and not let afid~w interfere with policy. In the same way, Antiphon confirms his argument by citing as an example of those who harm themselves by following conventional rather than natural law, (note 115) w ín payÒntew émÊnvntai ka< mØ aÈto< <êrx>vsi toË drçn. It is significant that Thucydides attributes this same realistic outlook to the Corcyreans in 433 (133.4). (note 116) The debates of the Medea and Hippolytus, as has already been said, are permeated with the influence of the sophists, and it would hardly be denied that that influence shows itself as much in a deeper rationalism of outlook as in a more conscious rhetorical skill--indeed the two are [113. Above, n. 66.

[114. Lines 289-91, 349 (afidoÊmenow dcents pollå dØ dideg.fyora).

[115. Fg. A, col. 4.32-col. 5.3.

[116. Cf. above, chap. 1 pp. 12-13.]

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merely facets of the same influence. When then these plays present close resemblances to one fragment of the ÉAlÆyeia, brief as it is, it is difficult not to see in it an example of the sophistic writings which those plays reflect.Other indications of the same fact exist. For instance, Aly (note 117) with some probability saw in the words (note 118) oÈ går diå dÒjan blãptetai, éllå diÉ élÆyeian the contrast between truth and opinion which played an important part in the teachings of Parmenides (1.29) and probably of Protagoras. (note 119) Again, the suggestion of fg. B that it is the mark of barbarians to revere high birth echoes the judgment of Per< ÉAdeg.rvn ÑUdãtvn TÒpvn (ch. XVI) and of Herodotus, while the following argument that all men are in fact equal seems inspired by the same enthusiasm for sweeping scientific truths which marks the former of the two works just cited. Then, the doctrine that it is against nature to respect your parents if they are bad seems just such a sophistic tenet as would prompt Aristophanes to say that all pupils of the sophists beat their parents (Vesp. 1038, Nub. 1338-41, 1420-29). He makes Pheidippides justify the doctrine in Antiphon's way as a law of nature (1427-29), and is again at one with him (fg. 25) in speaking of D>now (380), though certainly Anaxagoras and Diogenes propounded the idea, which Antiphon doubtless merely utilized in his first book. Since Aristophanes must necessarily have travestied only the better known and therefore longer standing sophistic tenets, the doctrines just spoken of were presumably familiar sometime before the Wasps and the Clouds. In general, it can be said that Aristophanes' portrait of a sophist as partly absorbed in the physical sciences and partly givcn to novel and subversive ideas on human [117. Page 115.

[118. Fg. A, col. 2.21-23.

[119. Plato Theaet. 166d.]

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relations is admirably exemplified in the ÉAlÆyeia, the first book of which treated the external world and the second, human society. Finally, it may not be farfetched to see in the ÉAlÆyeia a certain kinship to the Antigone. Both authors contrast universal with local laws, though the pious Sophocles finds in the former a religious, not a natural, force. In Creon's speech to Haemon on a child's duties to his parents (639-47) Sophocles again touches a question which, as we have seen, was treated by the sophist, though again the emphasis of the two works is quite different. Lastly, when Creon says to Antigone that in honoring Polynices she dishonors Eteocles (512-22), he states the dilemma of the third fragment which Antiphon sums up by saying, (note 120) tÚ går <ê>llouw >>feloËn êluw Blãptei. Since Antiphon is illustrating the inconsistencies of civic law, his use of the idea is again different from that of Sophocles, whose nobility of attitude is nowhere better shown than in Antigone's reply that death cancels such inconsistencies. It need hardly be said that there is no question here of direct influence, but when the Antigone as a whole expounds a great philosophic problem with a kind of bare clarity unknown to earlier verse and at the same time canvasses certain of the minor problems which appear in the ÉAlÆyeia, it is perhaps not too fanciful to believe that the vision of Sophocles, like his style, was then being sharpened by the discussions of the first sophists. It would take us far afield to consider whether, in maintaining the sanctity of strong character and the awful but ultimately beneficent power of the gods, Sophocles was in fact opposing an opportunism and an agnosticism which he felt in the sophistic teachings about him. But the fact at least that, in however different a spirit, he yet treats certain of the same [120. Col. 2.30-32.]

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questions as Antiphon, suggests something concerning the period when those questions were of interest in Athens.Thus, although absolute certainty cannot result from such discussions as the foregoing, the strong probability must remain that the ÉAlÆyeia was written some time near or just before the outbreak of the war, perhaps, as Aly suggests, (note 121) a few years later than the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw. Certainly, if both were written considerably later, they would apparently have concerned ideas already somewhat commonplace, an assumption hardly just to their evident seriousness. But if so much be granted, then we may return to the main question of the essay and consider what light is cast by these works on the stylistic fashions of pre-Gorgian Athens. For that purpose the foregoing discussion was perhaps not strictly necessary; for even Jacoby, (note 122) though he regarded the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw as somewhat later than did Altwegg, agreed that it was written during the early years of the war, a date likewise assumed by Altheim (note 123) for the ÉAlÆyeia. Hence, on any current view the two works might naturally be thought to reflect many stylistic elements of the years before 427. Yet so great has been the magic of Gorgias' name, that it seemed best to set forth somewhat fully the arguments in the case, which in fact tend to support the earlier date. For only by so doing can one transcend the inveterate habit of seeing in the antitheses of early Athenian prose the influence of Gorgias and of Gorgias alone.

It is unnecessary to analyze the style of the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw in great detail since Jacoby (note 124) has already done so. As Aly observed, (note 125) the work is apparently a sophistic epideixis, and as such it may be expected to reveal a poetic [121. Page 153.

[122. Pages 10-11, 35; see above, n. 86.

[123. See above, n. 109.

[124. Pages 48; see above, n. 86.

[125. Page 154.]

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cast of speech and an abundance of gn<<mai foreign to the more scientific ÉAlÆyeia. Jacoby noted its use of the old-Attic jÊn, (note 126) of the Ionic -ss-, of poetic and Ionic words presumably uncommon in normal speech, of words with unusual meanings (it is suggestive that Harpocration often cites from the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw (note 127)), and of compound words. Significant as these traits are in connection with the language of Thucydides, more significant is the author's marked preference of nouns to verbs. Thus he uses such a phrase as Ípcentsr toË kayÉ <=mdeg.ran b[[currency]]ou [[section]]w tØn jullogÆn (note 128) or megãlvn pÒnvn...efiw énãgkaw. (note 129) Similarly, he often makes an abstract noun subject of the sentence (afl går <=dona< oÈk [[section]]p< sf<<n aÈt<<n [[section]]mporeÊontai (note 130)), uses neuter adjectives in a general sense ([[section]]n t" aÈt" ddeg. ge toÊt[[florin]], [[paragraph]]nya tÚ <=dÊ, [[paragraph]]nesti plhs[[currency]]on pou ka< tÚ luphrÒn (note 131)), and articular infinitives (ka< [[section]]n mcentsn t" gegen[[infinity]]syai oÈk [[paragraph]]nestin, [[section]]n dcents t" mdeg.llein [[section]]nddeg.xetai gendeg.syai (note 132)).This last example leads on to the structure of his sentences which Jacoby (note 133) summed up by saying, "Nimirum scriptor parallelismum sententiarum adeo excoluit, ut quasi stropham antistropha excipiat." Antiphon commonly connects his sentences, it is true, by repeating a word from one sentence in the next, a practice more reminiscent of Protagoras' looser style (cf fgs. 4 and 9) than of the compression of Thucydides. Moreover, he often uses such lists of nouns as appear in the [126. On these usages in early Attic, cf B. Rosencranz, "Der lokale Grundton und die personliche Eigenart in der Sprache des Thukydides und der alteren attischen Redner," Indoger. Forsch. 48 (1930) 127-78.

[127. Cf. fgs. 67-71.

[128. Fg. 49, Vorsokr. 9 II, p. 359.6.

[129. Ibid., p. 359.2.

[130. Ibid., p. 358.9-10.

[131. Ibid., p. 358.8-9.

[132. Fg. 58, ibid., p. 363.18.

[133. Page 65; see above, n. 86.]

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second fragment of Protagoras just cited. Nevertheless, his style, except in passages of narrative (an exception equally true for Thucydides and Antiphon the orator), is unquestion ably based on antithesis and parallelism, the more markedly so, the more abstract and gnomic his thought. A good example is fg. 54, where Antiphon in simple, fluent sentences tells a fable on the use of money. When he sums it up, his style becomes more balanced, (note 134) ~t[[florin]] gãr tiw mØ [[section]]xrÆsato mhdcents xrÆsetai, ^ntow u mØ ^ntow aÈt" oÈdcentsn oÎte pldeg.on oÎte [[paragraph]]lasson blãptetai. When he adds a general reflection, he falls into truly antithetical clauses, ~t[[florin]] går i yeÚw mØ pantel<<w boÊletai égayå didÒnai éndr[[currency]], xrhmãtvn ploËton parasx~n, toË kal<<w frone>n pdeg.nhta poiÆsaw, tÚ ßteron éfelÒmenow émfotdeg.rvn épestdeg.rhsen. Again in fg. 8 one sees how naturally the abstraction of a gn~mh is clarified and made precise by antithesis (note 135)--[[section]]lp[[currency]]dew dÉ oÈ pantaxoË égayÒn: polloÁw går toiaËtai [[section]]lp[[currency]]dew katdeg.balon efiw énhkdeg.stouw sumforåw, ë dÉ [[section]]dÒkoun to>w pdeg.law poiÆsein, payÒntew taËta énefãnhsan aÈto[[currency]]. Jacoby (note 136) accordingly rejected Blass's statement that the Gorgian figures were absent from the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw by adducing, in addition to the sentences just quoted, such other examples as fg. 49, (note 137) dokoËnta +/-donåw ktçsyai lÊpaw êgesyai, and, from the same passage, [[daggerdbl]]sa fronoËntaw [[daggerdbl]]sa pndeg.ontaw, éji~santa ka< éjivydeg.nta. Yet Blass's view is undoubtedly correct in the sense that the more precise Gorgian traits of the Helen, that is, its short balanced clauses, its punning, wordplay, and rhyme, are foreign to this work. But if so, one is again led to the conclusion of the previous section, that antithesis, occasionally heightened by par[[currency]]svsiw and paromo[[currency]]vsiw, is not in itself Gorgian but, rather, [134. Vorsokr. 9 II, p. 362.12-14.

[135. Ibid., p. 364.3-6.

[136. Page 58; as above, n. 86.

[137. Vorsokr. 9 II, p. 358.4-5.]

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characteristic of an earlier sophistic prose already widespread before 427. It was also argued that, being in essence merely an aid to clarity particularly helpful in abstractions, antithesis must have been used by Protagoras in the debates the influence of which is seen in the early plays of Sophocles and Euripides. Certainly, the fact that Antiphon, revealing as he does certain of the same stylistic traits as Protagoras, uses antithesis for exactly that purpose must seem to confirm such an assumption.A1y (note 138) has called the ÉAlÆyeia an ÍpÒmnhma or scientific essay, similar in kind to the Per< ÉArxa[[currency]]hw ÉIhtrik[[infinity]]w and perhaps, as has recently been argued, (note 139) to the tract of the Old Oligarch. In style and feeling it shows little of the exuberance of the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw but approaches rather, as Hermogenes suggests, if not the speeches of Thucydides, at least such reasoned expository passages as the Archaeology or the description of stãsiw (III 82-83). Like the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw, it uses the old-Attic jÊn but, unlike it, at times the old-Attic -tt-. Its language is not generally poetic or imaginative, but it perhaps even surpasses the other work in its preference for substantives. For example, in the passage (note 140) efi mcentsn oÔn tiw to>w toiaËta prosemdeg.noiw [[section]]pikoÊrhsiw [[section]]g[[currency]]gneto parå t<<n nÒmvn, to>w dcents mØ prosieumdeg.noiw éllÉ [[section]]nantioumdeg.noiw [[section]]lãttvsiw, oÈk én<Ònhton ín> [[Sigma]]n t<Ú to>w nÒ>moiw pe> dcents fa[[currency]]new> prosieu tå toiaËta tÚ [[section]] nÒmou d[[currency]]kaion oÈx flkanÚn [[section]]pikoure>n, the author three times uses an abstract noun in the nominative and once a neuter adjective. Similarly, he has constant recourse to abstract neuter plurals and the articular infinitive. But what most concerns ourselves is the marked symmetry [138. Page 155.
[139. K. I. Gelzer, "Die Schrift vom Staate der Athener," Hermes, Einzelschriften 3 (1937) 93.
[140. Fg. A, col. 5.25--col. 6.9.]
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of his clauses. As in the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw, he sometimes makes his transitions by repeating words and he occasionally gives lists, (note 141) but on the whole, his method is to make a statement and then to analyze it in a series of contrasting clauses which, it must be agreed, admirably clarify his somewhat complex train of thought. The opening lines of fg. A well illustrate his method: dikaiosÊnh n tå t[[infinity]]w pÒw nÒmima <[[section]]n> [[radical]] ín politeÊhta[[currency]] tiw, mØ aba[[currency]]nein. xr"tÉ ín oÔn ênyrvpow mãlista[y] *aut" jumferÒntvw dikaiosÊn[[dotaccent]], efi metå mcentsn martÊrvn toÁw nÒmouw megãuw êgoi, monoÊmenow dcents martÊrvn tå t[[infinity]]w fÊsevw: tå mcentsn går t<<n nÒmvn <[[section]]p[[currency]]y>eta, tå dcents fÊsevw éka>a: ka< tå t<<n nÒmvn imologha oÈ fÊnn, tå dcents evw fÊn imologhydeg.nta. (note 142) Or again, one may quote, (note 143) ka< toÊtvn t<<n efirhmdeg.nvn pÒllÉ ên tiw eÏroi poldeg.mia t[[ordfeminine]] fÊsei: [[paragraph]]ni tÉ [[section]]n aÈto>w [dÉ] élgÊnesya[[currency]] te mçllon, [[section]]jÚn [[yen]]ttv[i], ka< [[section]]lãttv [[yen]]desyai, [[section]]jÚn ple[[currency]]vm ka< kak<<w pãsxein, [[section]]jÚn mØ pãsxein. In these two typical passages the author's constant reliance on short antithetical clauses needs no comment, but it is worth observing that he is thus led to emphasize single words with that starkness which has often been observed in the style of Thucydides or of the Tetralogies. Again, though his thought often falls into completely balanced clauses, such symmetry seems to be less a mannerism with him than an inevitable result partly of his struggle for clarity, partly of the similar sounds and number of syllables in the Greek endings. For, like Thucydides and unlike Gorgias, he at other times neglects perfect symmetry, as if he valued it not for itself but for its usefulness. And if in this respect his style differs from that of Gorgias, so in a [141. Cf. fg. A, col. 2.30-col. 3.18.
[142. The author continues with the longer passage quoted above, pp. 99-100.
[143. Fg. A, col. 5.13-24, continued by the passage quoted on p. 106 above.]
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larger sense does the nature of the tract itself. We have little reason to believe that Gorgias often wrote on speculative and scientific subjects; even his Per< toË mØ ^ntow has been regarded as both early and essentially light. (note 144) Rather, one seems to see in the ÉAlÆyeia the same rationalistic spirit of such a work as Protagoras' ÉAlÆyeia u katabãllontew, the first sentence of which has already been cited (note 145) as an example of this same (as one might call it) clarifiing use of antithesis. If so, then this work ofAntiphon, as the indications of its date suggest, must seem to derive in style as well as in spirit from the earlier sophistic movement which antedated the arrival of Gorgias in Athens by some twenty years.Thus the argument of this section, except for one concluding point, is at an end. It has been impossible, it is true, to discuss in detail the very real resemblances of thought or language between Antiphon and Thucydides or to analyze the latter's style for resemblances other than those briefly suggested in passing. But such an analysis, even if it had been attempted, would not perhaps have yielded the fullest evidence, especially in regard to the speeches, because these two works of Antiphon, the one probably an epideixis and the other an ÍpÒmnhma, differ in kind from any speech of Thucydides. It would perhaps be fair to say that the style of a public oration would stand somewhere between the exuberant sententiousness of the former and the cool logic of the latter, and would thus mitigate the divergent extremes of each. The aforementioned debates of tragedy, for instance, reveal in the clarity of their argumentation some- thing of the logical spirit and antithetical method of the ÍpÒmnhma, while at the same time their language is far more varied and their movement less intense. Now, as I [144. H. Gomperz, Sophistik und Rhetorik (Leipzig 1912) 1-35.
[145. Page 70.]
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have tried to show, (note 146) we have no reason to believe that the oratory of the latter half of the fifth century was specific in content, and concerned, like the speeches of Lysias or most modern oratory, with separate and unique circumstances. Rather, the very arguments from what is likely or profitable or just and the practice both of the tragedians and of Thucydides suggest that men were then primarily concerned with classes of events and the broader aspects of thought, in the light of which they considered specific events. In other words, a peculiar mark of fifth-century thought was its capacity for general ideas, a capacity by no means unnatural even to uneducated audiences in times of great change and opportunity, as the sermons of early Protestantism and the writings of the French and American revolutions clearly show. But if in its manner of reasoning and its concern with broad generalizations, public oratory thus probably did not greatly differ from the debates of tragedy or from these tracts of Antiphon, then it is hard to believe that the antithetical style, which in both these classes of works is merely the vehicle of abstract thought, was unknown to oratory. On the contrary, considering the unity and alertness of Athenian life, we must rather believe that oratory revealed the stylistic and intellectual influences of the early sophists as much as any other class of writings, perhaps more than any other, since the sophists were from the first teachers of oratory. Thus it must appear natural that even the speeches of Thucydides' first books should abound in generalizations couched in antitheses.This conclusion leads to a final point concerning the remoter origins of the antithetical style. Diels, (note 147) believing [146. Above, chap. 1 pp. 34-35, 52-53. Cf. A. Croiset, Thucydide, p. 101, "de là l'obligation d'aller chaque fois au fond des choses et d'épuiser, pour ainsi dire, la théorie du sujet en question. Ce charactère tient aussi au telnps: l`éloquence devait alors être abscraite, parce que les idées générales n'avaient pas encore été formulées."
[147. "Gorgias und Empedokles," Sitzungsber. d. Berl. Akad. (1844) 343-68.]
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that Gorgias discovered antithetical prose, sought his model in the verse of Empedocles; Norden, as has been said, sought it in the sentences of Heraclitus, and Navarre in the early tragedies of Sophocles, though, as they agreed, Greek from the first readily lent itself to such effects of balance and contrast. Now in perhaps no part of early literature are these effects more marked than in the gn<<mai of Homer and especially of Theognis. The hexameter readily expressed antithesis in such lines asoÈk égayÚn polukoiran[[currency]]h: eÂw ko[[currency]]ranow [[paragraph]]stv (B 204)orafidomdeg.nvn éndr<<n pldeg.onew sãoi +/-cents pdeg.fantai,feugÒntvn dÉ oÎtÉ ír kldeg.ow ^rnutai oÎte tiw élkÆ (E 531-32).Even more so did the pentameter, in which the pause at the middle of the line seems naturally to induce a balance of expression. One could cite many such lines from the elegists as these of Theognis and Solon,oÎte går ín pÒnton spe[[currency]]rvn bayÁ lÆion ém"woÎte kakoÁw eÔ dr<<n eÔ pãlin éntilãboiw(Theogn. 107-8)orxrÆmata mcentsn da[[currency]]mvn ka< pagkãk[[florin]] éndr< d[[currency]]dvsin,KÊrnÉ: éret[[infinity]]w dÉ Ùl[[currency]]goiw éndrãsi mo>rÉ ßpetai(Theogn. 149-50)ore[[perthousand]]nai dcents glukÁn oede f[[currency]]loisÉ, [[section]]xyro>so dcents pikrÒn,to>si mcentsn afido>on, to>si dcents deinÚn fide>n(Solon 1.5-6).Now, as was argued in the last paragraph, the oratory of the fifth century was undoubtedly much given to generalization. Certainly it could not be denied that the speeches of Thucydides, the debates of tragedy, and the fragments of the sophist Antiphon contain many abstract and general passages and that in these passages antithesis is most marked.
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Thus, in the new edition of his Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (I, 2, 483), Schmid could describe the style of Sophocles as gnomic, though at the same time it is antithetical. Hence, rather than follow Diels, Norden, or Navarre in seeking the model of the antithetical style in one or another author, it would seem more natural to suppose that, partly through the native logic of their tongue and partly for clarity's sake, the Greeks from the first associated antithesis with those generalizations which were renewed from age to age in the form of gn<<mai. Then when, after the middle of the fifth century, prose increasingly supplanted verse as the vehicle of serious thought, it in turn fell heir to the older tradition of gnomic antithesis and carried it further, both because the tradition was firmly established and because the generalizations of prose were more complex and hence more in need of analysis. Thus, though the early sophists evolved their setentious and antithetical style to emulate the dignity of gnomic verse, prose soon so surpassed its model in balance and trenchancy, that Sophocles and Euripides, in curtailing the chorus in favor of debates and orations more in keeping with the rational spirit of their age, at the same time affected a more balanced and sententious style than had been used by earlier poets. It is this style that inspired the fragments of the sophist Antiphon and, so it has been argued, the oratory known to Thucydides at the outbreak of the war and later taken by him as the basis of the speeches in his History. Gorgias' part in the development of the style seems therefore much less great than has been supposed. It is possible that he evolved his strict antithetical manner in Sicily some years before 427 and that other sophists carried his teachings to Athens before he actually came. It is more probable that he neither discovered the antithetical style nor brought it into general use, but
[[112]]
merely pressed it, so to speak, to its illogical conclusion, seeking in every detail and by every means a symmetry and balance of expression which his predecessors had used with greater moderation and largely for the sake of clarity.
IV
A few words should be added m summary and in apology: in summary, because the foregoing argument has necessarily often strayed from the original question, how far Thucydides' style is representative of his age, and it will therefore be useful to return briefly to the subject in conclusion; in apology, because, as Dr. Jan Ros (note 148) has made clear, the traits of symmetry and balance have doubtless been overemphasized. Dr. Ros pointed out that Thucydides' style relies on three main elements, symmetry, variety (metabolÆ), and departure from normal idiom ([[section]]jallagÆ), and in treating the second of these, he had no difficulty in showing how the historian repeatedly softens a too rigorous balance by any one of a number of means tending to variety, for instance, by varying the construction of parallel clauses or by using a synonym instead of repeating a word. He explained the practice by showing that metabolÆ (poikil[[currency]]a) was regarded in antiquity as essential to an artistic style. Now Aristotle similarly emphasizes the importance of unusual and poetic words, (note 149) and, if the argument of the two preceding pages has any merit, then antithesis, associated as it was with the style of gnomic generalization, also sub- served the effect of dignity. In other words, to say that Thucydides sought symmetry and variety of expression and boldness of idiom is merely to say that, for the most part, [148. For reference, see n. 8.
[149. Rhet. III 7.11. Unusual diction played an even greater part in fifth-century prose (Rhet. III 1.8-10, 2.5).]
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he followed the contemporary standards of artistic prose. Hence it is somewhat surprising when at the end of his monograph (note 150) Dr. Ros speaks of Thucydides' style as unique, and, though that judgment was based on his study of variety, still it naturally leads back to the main subject of this essay. For, as Dr. Ros observes, the principle of variety is merely, as it were, the obverse of the principle of symmetry, its purpose being to add subtlety and richness to an otherwise uniformly balanced style. It is therefore to be expected that the two practices would be found side by side and that when the one became widespread, so would the other.In fact, as I tried to show in reviewing Dr. Ros's book, (note 151) the variety which he observes in the History is equally marked in Antiphon's Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw. There is no need of repeating the evidence here; it is enough to say that Antiphon too alters his constructions, uses synonyms, and varies tense, mood, and number very much in the manner of the historian. Similarly, a list of such variations compiled from the Medea was sufficient to show that metabolÆ played its part beside antithesis and balance in the later tragic style which, it has been argued, was much infiuenced by the writings of the early sophists. Moreover, Antiphon's diction, like that of the sophists, included both the poetic and Ionic forms of tragedy and the newer but equally striking terminology of science. Hence it seems beyond question that, broadly speaking, Thucydides subscribed to the standards of artistic prose common during his early manhood, standards which, on the one hand, aimed at the dignity of new and searching generalizations and, on the other, embraced the unusual and varied diction of verse and [150. Pages 458-63.
[151. AJP 61 (1940) 96-102.]
[[114]]
science in a way quite foreign to the purer but more limited prose of the fourth century.Yet, as Hermogenes remarked, (note 152) Thucydides' abstractness has something in common with the style of the ÉAlÆyeia, which, however, as a technical work, quite lacks richness and variety but directs its balanced clauses almost wholly to the reason alone. Now in discussing Dr. Ros's book, I ventured to suggest that Thucydides did not seek variety for itself but had it, as it were, thrust upon him by what he conceived to be the nature of his task, namely, to observe the most rigorous and detailed accuracy and, at the same time, to set forth the broader aspects and underlying laws of political behavior. In other words, his History seeks to ally the specific and the general in a way not attempted in the purely abstract ÉAlÆyeia, and thus it is cast ma style far more complex and subtle than the latter's, though, on the other hand, its underlying purpose has unquestionably something of the scientific ÍpÒmnhma. Thus one could say that Thucydides employs the freer usages of artistic prose, as exemplified in the Per< ÑOmono[[currency]]aw, for an end which resembles, though it far transcends, that of the ÉAlÆyeia. And insofar as his purpose seems to have been unique, one could perhaps say that his style (being far more varied than that of the usual ÍpÒmnhma or, conversely, more abstract than that of the epideixis) is likewise unique. Yet in making such a statement, one must remember that the elements of Thucydides' style--its symmetry, its variety, its boldness of diction--were fully consonant with the sophistic prose which he knew in Athens before his exile, and that his individuality consists merely in his use of these elements, in his blending, as it were, the styles of the ÍpÒmnhma and the epideixis. [152. See above, pp. 91-92.]
[[115]] Moreover, in regard to the speeches, one must remember that, with the exception of the fragment of Thrasymachus composed a dozen years after Thucydides left Athens, we have no example of a symbouleutic speech of the period covered by the History. One must, therefore, be very slow to assert that the Athenians at least among his speakers could not possibly have spoken in some such way as he says they did, especially when, apart from the general likelihood that a man brought up in Athens would instinctively adopt the manner in use there, we have the following reasons for believing in his essential accuracy. First, Thucydides undoubtedly conceived many of his own ideas in Athens; hence the likelihood exists that he likewise conceived there the general concept of his speeches. Then, many of the ideas and forms of argument actually used in the speeches are attested ofthe period when they were allegedly delivered, a fact which strengthens the previous assumption. Again, the antithetical style, relieved by variety and adorned by poetic and scientific words, was in all probability the creation, not of Gorgias whose mannerisms differ considerably from those of Thucydides, but of earlier sophists whose stylistic teachings are seen both in the prose of the sophist Antiphon and in the earliest extant plays of Sophocles and Euripides. Hence it seems unlikely that the Athenian public, accustomed to the antithetical debates of tragedy, would have expected to hear, or that Pericles, the friend of sophists, would have expected to deliver, a speech, the simple structure of which was merely decked by poeticisms and images.
Then, the practice not merely of Thucydides but of the tragedians (and, one could add, pseudo-Xenophon, although his work is seemingly an ÍpÒmnhma written in a style even simpler than that of the ÉAlÆyeia) (note 153) suggests that the [153. See above, n. 139.]
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Athenians of the fifth century, like other peoples in times of swiftly broadening horizons, preferred those general and inclusive ideas and forms of argument of the sort to which, it has been argued, antithesis was most appropriate both for reasons of clarity and because it was traditionally associated with the style of gnomic generalization. Stylistically such speeches must have combined the scientific abstractness of the ÍpÒmnhma with the richness of the epideixis in some such way as Thucydides suggests. The point is important; for the generalizations of Thucydides' speeches have probably caused more people to doubt their accuracy than any other single element. And yet it is doubtful whether, once prose has become the subject of serious study, it can be expected to be simple and specific in an age of otherwise grandiose art. Certainly, the style of Addison could not have attended the verse of Shakespeare, but a great period of poetry seems naturally to issue in such poetic and complex prose as that of Thucydides' speeches or Milton's pamphlets. (note 154) Finally, as I suggested in my earlier essay, (note 155) the essential uniformity of style in the speeches (Thucydides characterizes his speakers largely by the ideas which they express rather than by their style) must in part at least reflect the actual practice ofa period before marked individuality of speech developed. Only later did Lysias begin the fashion of matching speech to character; before then, a severe and formal type of oratory was doubtless fairly uniform precisely because not even Thrasymachus, with his simpler and more natural diction, wholly evolved a plain style to conffict with the more grandiose.There is no doubt that Thucydides' speeches are more compressed and thus more abstruse than actual speeches [154. Cf W. R. M. Lamb, Clio Enthroned (Cambridge 1914) 308-12.
[155. Above, chap. 1 pp. 4-6, 52-53.]
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would have been. It is equally certain that they look to one another and play a vital part in his actual History. They may in addition be marked to some extent by the individuality which, as was suggested above, inhered in the very nature of the work. But, on the other hand, there is little reason to believe that the style even of the first speeches would have been inconceivable in the time when they purport to have been delivered. On the contrary; even these speeches are probably representative of the style which Thucydides heard about him and himself learned during his early manhood and many years later attempted to recapture in his History.