Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/478

45G history of the CHAPTER XXXI. § 1. Imporf !»ncc of prose at this period. § 2. Oratory at Athens rendered neces- sary by the democi'atical form of government. § 3. Themistocles ; Pericles : power of their oratory. § 4. Characteristics of their oratory in relation to their opinions and modes of thought. § 5. Form and style of their speeches. § 1. We have seen both tragedy and comedy in their latter days gradu- ally sinking into prose ; and this has shown us that prose was the most powerful instrument in the literature of the time, and has made us the more curious to investigate its tendency, its progress, and its de- velopemcnt. The cultivation of prose belongs almost entirely to the period which intervened between the Persian war and the time of Alexander the Great. Before this time every attempt at prose composition was either so little removed from the colloquial style of the day, as to forfeit all claim to be considered as a written language, properly so called : or else owed all its charms and splendour to an imitation of the diction and the forms of words found in poetry, which attained to completeness and maturity many hundred years before the rise of a prose literature. In considering the history of Attic prose, we propose to give a view of the general character of the works of the prose writers, and their relation to the circumstances of the Athenian people, to their intellectual energy and elasticity, and to the mixture of reason and passion which was so con- spicuous among them. But it is obvious that it will not be possible to do this without carefully examining the contents, the subjects, and the practical and theoretical objects of these works. We may distinguish three epochs in the general history of Attic prose, from Pericles to Alexander the Great : the first that of Pericles himself, Antiphon, and Thucydides ; the second, that of Lysias, Isocrates, and Plato ; the third, that of Demosthenes, yEschines, and Demades. The sequel will show why we have selected these names. Two widely different causes co-operated in introducing the first epoch : — Athenian politics and Sicilian sophistry. We must first take a view of these two causes. § 2. Since the time of Solon, the most distinguished statesmen 'of Athens had formed some general views with regard to the destination of their native city, based upon a profound consideration of the external relations and internal resources of Attica, and the peculiar capabilities of the inhabitants. An extension of the democracy, industry, and trade, and, above all, the sovereignty of the sea, were the primary objects which those statesmen proposed to themselves. Some peculiar views