were not impatient to arrive at the end; and he could therefore complete every separate portion of the history, as if it were an independent narrative. He knew that he had in store other more attractive and striking events; yet he did not hurry his course, as he dwelt with equal pleasure on everything that he had seen or heard. In this manner, the stream of his Ionic language flows on with a charming facility. The character of his style (as is natural in mere narration) is to connect the different sentences loosely together, with many phrases for the purpose of introducing, recapitulating, or repeating a subject. These phrases are characteristic of oral discourse, which requires such contrivances, in order to prevent the speaker, or the hearer, from losing the thread of the story. In this, as in other respects, the language of Herodotus closely approximates to oral narration; of all varieties of prose, it is the furthest removed from a written style. Long sentences, formed of several clauses, are for the most part confined to speeches, where reasons and objections are compared, conditions are stated, and their consequences developed. But it must be confessed that where the logical connexion of different propositions is to be expressed, Herodotus mostly shows a want of skill, and produces no distinct conception of the mutual relations of the several members of the argument. But, with all these defects, his style must be considered as the perfection of the unperiodic style (the λέξις εἰρομένη), the only style employed by his predecessors, the logographers[1]. To these is to be added the tone of the Ionic dialect,—which Herodotus, although by birth a Dorian, adopted from the historians who preceded him[2],—with its uncontracted terminations, its accumulated vowels, and its soft forms. These various elements conspire to render the work of Herodotus a production as harmonious and as perfect in its kind as any human work can be.
- ↑ Demetrius de Elocutione, § 12.
- ↑ Nevertheless, according to Hermogenes, p. 513, the Ionic dialect of Hecatæus is alone quite pure; and the dialect of Herodotus is mixed with other expressions.
