Sir Richard C. Jebb, The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos

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His use of Figures.

Next to this general characteristic, luxuriance, the special marks of the periodic style in Isokrates depend on his use of figures. In order to see just what Isokrates does here, it will be a help to keep in mind the strict distinction between a ‘trope’ and

‘Trope’ and ‘Figure.’

a ‘figure’ (whether of language or of thought). A trope is the use of a particular word in other than its normal sense—as ‘fire’ for ‘zeal’ (metaphor) or ‘steel’ for ‘sword’ (synekdochê）—to take two of the commonest tropes. A ‘figure’ is an affair of whole clauses or sentences¹. The ‘figure of language’ is a combination of words (each of which may be used in its normal sense) for the artificial expression of an idea—as antithesis. The ‘figure of thought’ depends on no special combination of words, but on an assumed attitude of the speaker's mind—as irony. Now Isokrates rarely uses ‘tropes’ —indeed, his avoidance of them was expressly noticed as a cause of tameness in his diction²; nor— with one exception to be noted presently—does he often use ‘figures of thought.’ But he uses abundantly certain ‘figures of language.’ It was Gorgias who first brought a throng of the ‘figures of

Figures of Language.

language’ into Greek Rhetoric³. In so far as Isokrates saw more clearly than Gorgias where the line falls between prose-rhythm and verse-rhythm, Isokrates moderated the Gorgian use of these figures. On the other hand he established some of them as the distinctive ornaments of the ‘florid’ Rhetoric by developing them artistically within certain limits. The specially Isokratic figures of language are those which depend on a parallelism. These are chiefly three⁴. (1) A parallelism in sense—Antithesis: which may arise either (i) from two words of opposite sense used in the expression of a single idea—‘let the rich give to the poor:’ or (ii) from the contrast of two ideas without contrast of words: ‘he did them good, but they took away his good name;’ or (iii) from the contrast both of ideas and of words—‘he did them good but they did him evil.’ (2) A parallelism in form and size merely between two or more clauses or sentences—Parisôsis. (3) A parallelism of sound—Paromoiôsis: when the latter of two clauses gives to the ear an echo of the former, either in its opening or at its close or throughout⁵.

The idea of all these three ‘figures’ is the same— that idea of mechanical balance in which the craving for symmetry is apt to take refuge when it is not guided by a really flexible instinct or by a spiritual sense of fitness and measure. No one can read Isokrates without feeling with what a leaden weight this elaborately wrought ornament lies on much of his work, often chilling the thought and almost crushing out its life⁶. But a distinction must be noticed between his earlier and his later manner. The

Earlier and later manner of Isokrates.

practical life of Athens had a gradual reflex action on that Sicilian Rhetoric which had been drawn into its sphere; and this was felt even by Isokrates⁷. In the Philippos and still more plainly in the Panathenaikos he intimates that he had outlived much

Figures of Thought.

of his early taste for the ‘figures of language.’ As for those vivid reflections of the speaker's own mood which are called the ‘figures of thought,’ they belonged, generally, to a later and more animated school⁸; the large use of them by Andokides being precisely one of those points which show how little his natural faculty had been tamed to the technical Rhetoric of his day. Least of all were the figures of thought congenial to the smooth and tranquil manner of Isokrates. There is perhaps but one exception; he is fond of the rhetorical question in concluding an argument⁹.