The Historians' History of the World 03

At this time, however, prose did not develop in contrast to poetry; as yet no distinction was made between the two classes of composition. The colloquial language of ordinary life, the lively popular note, was simply adopted by writers of fables, and from the tales of Æsop the maxims of homely wit and wisdom passed into literature. Archilochus was fond of using them, so was Herodotus. Men were so accustomed to learn from the poets that even speculative philosophers set forth their theories in poetic garb, like Xenophanes, who wandered about reciting his doctrines in the form of a rhapsody. The narratives of Herodotus are composed with a view to stirring the listening crowd, and the poetic character of his descriptions is unmistakable. His style flows on with the ease of an epic recitation, his sentences hang together loosely; poet-like he sees around him the audience which he desires to enchant and thrill with the charm of his story. Even in philosophy no attempt was made to reproduce the sequence of ideas in clear and exact terms. The teachings of Heraclitus bore the character of Sibylline oracles; he delighted in figurative language which suggested rather than followed up an idea, and apart from the abstruseness of his thought the construction of his sentences was so far from plain that it was impossible to determine precisely the grammatical sequence of his discourse.

Thus, great as was the wealth of Ionian literature, it had as yet no prose, while other parts of the country were even more backward. Generally speaking, we may say that the distinction between poetry and prose as two separate forms of literature was not recognised by the Greeks till late. We need only recall the hymns of Pindar to see how phrases and ideas of an entirely prosaic order occur side by side with the loftiest flights of poetic imagery. It was reserved for Athenian literature to create a prose style. The language was sufficiently new and supple to take and reproduce the peculiar impress of the Attic spirit; and this, as compared with the Ionic spirit, manifests itself in language, as in garb and manners, by greater simplicity and smoothness of form.

The dialect spoken in Attica occupied a sort of intermediate position among the dialects of the various tribes of Greece, and was therefore admirably fitted to become the medium of communication among all educated Greeks. For, although closely akin to Ionic, the Attic dialect had remained free from many Ionic peculiarities developed in the islands and on the further coast—particularly from the tendency to soften the vowel sounds.

Side by side with the eloquence which subserved political ends and was designed to guide the masses, there developed in Athens the speech of the law courts, which from the outset was more strictly in accordance with regular rules and bore more likeness to a literary exercise, by reason of the rise of a class of writers who composed pleas for others. For it was the law in Attica that every man must conduct his own case, so that even those who had their speeches composed by counsel were themselves obliged to deliver them. Accordingly the personality of the orator, which carried such weight in political speeches, fell completely into the background; he was a mere writer of orations (logographos), and dealt with public instead of private affairs. This kind of oratory entered into much closer relations with sophistry, because the latter aimed at giving the mind such versatility as would enable it to handle with skill any subject presented to it and to discover in each the greatest variety of interesting matter.

A Greek Orator

A peculiar kind of public oration which attained to importance in the Athens of Pericles was the speech in honour of citizens who had fallen in battle. By a special statute which dates from the time of Cimon, a speech of this character was associated with a public funeral; and it was the custom to commission the most approved orator of the day to deliver this funeral oration in the name of the community, as an honourable distinction and acknowledgment of the public services of the deceased. Wordy and elaborate eulogiums did not suit the taste of the time. At such moments, when the citizens felt themselves smitten with grievous loss, it seemed a worthier task to bid them take courage, to turn their mourning into thanksgiving, their sorrow into joy and pride, by holding up before them the lofty interests of the public service for which their fellow citizens had laid down their lives, and to encourage the hearers to the same joyful self sacrifice.