order to throw a stronger emphasis on the word which is the key-note to the thought; and in this again he is seen to be writing for readers, not for hearers[1]. Thirdly, the strings of clauses, forming periods of a somewhat loose and inartistic kind, are longer with Thucydides than with Antiphon, and this because Thucydides is striving to express ideas of a more complex nature[2]. The originality and the striking interest of the historian's style consists, in fact, in this, that we see a vigorous mind in the very act of struggling to mould a language of magnificent but immature capabilities. Sometimes the direction of the thought changes in the moment that it is being uttered[3]. Then arise obscurities which have their source in the intense effort of Thucydides to be clear at each successive moment—to say exactly what he means at that moment. The strong consciousness of logical coherence then makes him heedless of formal coherence. The student of
- ↑ E.g. iii. 39, μετὰ τῶν πολεμιωτάτων ἡμᾶς στάντες διαφθεῖραι: i. 33, γενήσεται δὲ . . . καλὴ ἡ ξυντυχία κατὰ πολλὰ τῆς ἡμετέρας χρείας: vi. 82, οὓς ξυγγενεῖς φασιν ὄντας ἡμᾶς Συρακόσιοι δεδουλῶσθαι: v. 91, ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ νῦν τοὺς λόγους ἐροῦμεν τῆς ἡμετέρας πόλεως.
- ↑ E.g. such a sentence as that in Antiphon v. 21, ἡ μὲν πρόφασις ἑκατέρῳ—ἀποθανεῖν αὐτὸν τὸν Ἡρώδην, may be compared in general structure with Thuc. vi. 82, ἡμεῖς γὰρ Ἴωνες ὄντες . . . Συρακόσιοι δεδουλῶσθαι, but the latter has a much longer series of clauses. In Thucydides the transition from a simple string of clauses to a period properly so called is commonly made by the insertion of explanatory parentheses introduced with γάρ.
- ↑ E.g. vii. 42, τοῖς Συρακουσίοις . . . κατάληξις ἐγένετο . . . ὁρῶντες, κ.τ.λ. Cp. iii. 36, vi. 24, iv. 108, etc.
