showing the Greek sentiment concerning the pollution or blood-guiltiness of any man or thing which was the cause of death, whether intentionally or not. Hence the constant subtleties as to the real cause of the event which we find here, and in the speech on the chorister, and which are reported to have occupied the attention of Pericles and Protagoras for hours together. The third tetralogy is a dispute about a homicide during a quarrel. The question argued

is that the accused merely defended himself against the attack of the deceased, who thus succeeded in causing his own death; and moreover, that his wounds not being mortal, he deliberately, and against professional advice, had himself treated by an incompetent physician, who caused the fatal result. All these curious rhetorical exercises are evidently from the same hand, and there have not been wanting attempts to prove them of later date and inferior authorship than that of Antiphon. But there is no reasonable ground for such scepticism. The faults of over-subtlety and of crudeness attributed to them are exactly those which we should expect from his age and character, and their similarity in style, in spite of a few peculiarities, to Antiphon's certain speeches and to Thucydides' history are satisfactory evidence of their genuineness.

$355. I feel much more doubt about the Charge of Poisoning against a Stepmother, which comes first in our MSS. This speech has no doubt many features very similar to the acknowledged pieces, such as the TроkαTασkεvý, or short summary before the narrative of facts, which was usual with Antiphon, and the artificial antitheses and assonances. But it is certain that other rhetors of the same age used these devices. On the other hand, the narrative of the facts obtains a prominence and a picturesqueness in this speech which are foreign to what we know of Antiphon, while the argument is neither forcible nor ingenious, as his arguments are wont to be. There is, moreover, a predominance of pathos in the speech which seems to me strange to him. But the best modern critic, Blass, is not convinced by these objections to reject the speech, and the reader may therefore regard my opinion as having the weight of authority against it.

$356. As the speech about the chorister is on the subject handled in the second tetralogy, so the speech On the Murder of Herodes is in character very similar to that of the first. Herodes was an Athenian, and a relation of the accuser, who became a cleruch at Mitylene after its capture in 427 B.C. While on a journey to Ænos, he left his ship at Methymna by night, apparently in a state of intoxication, and never returned, nor could his body be anywhere discovered. His relatives charged with the murder the only companion of his voyage, a Mitylenaan, who was supposed to be incited by an enemy of Herodes called Lykinos, who also lived at Mitylene. As additional evidence there was adduced a letter supposed to be written by the accused to Lykinos, and the declarations of a slave on board, who was tortured by the relatives, and confessed against the Mitylenean, but was forthwith put to death, having revoked his evidence when he saw that he gained nothing by it. It is in this interesting case, and for a citizen of a subject town, accused with murdering an Athenian citizen, that Antiphon composed his admirable speech. We perceive that the accused had been harshly and unjustly treated. Upon coming to Athens, he had been at once cast into prison, and been refused the alternative of offering bail for his appearance, or of standing a second trial on appeal, though such refusal was illegal. The orator must therefore not only disprove the charge, but overcome a strong bias in the jury, arising from his inferior condition, and the feeling against Mitylene, which had not died away since the memorable crisis described by Thucydides. I will not here pursue the intricacies of the argument, in which there is, as usual, little narrative, but rather a subtle discussing of the probabilities of the case. The trial is interesting in showing the constant and stupid application of torture, and the little faith which was put in slaves' evidence even with this precaution. Moreover, a free man who was on board was also tortured, which seems very strange, and one of the speaker's points is the fact that while the slave confessed and criminated him, the free man would confess nothing.

$357. Particularly interesting is the argument which shows that mere probability is an unsafe guide, especially in capital

cases, and this is illustrated by several cases of false condemnation, where the truth came out afterwards. The conclusion is also very characteristic, as showing the religious character of the Athenian public, to which Antiphon perpetually appeals. The speaker urges that had he been guilty, the gods must have shown their displeasure by unfavourable weather when he was sailing, or unpropitious signs when he was sacrificing with others; whereas the contrary was the case. 2 This and other like appeals in Antiphon's speeches have been used with great simplicity by Blass 3 to prove that the orator was a man of antique sanctity, and an advocate of the national and established religion. We may be sure that the follower of the great sophists, and the master of Thucydides, held no such views. His political career, and the practice of devising clever arguments to sustain the weakness of a bad cause, are anything but the marks of an old-fashioned and conservative piety. But of course Antiphon, as a skilled rhetor, knew the audience he was addressing, and especially in cases of homicide the religious superstitions of the people were very strong, and sustained by a wholesome instinct. Hence he takes the utmost care that his case shall not be ruined by disclosing the least irreverence or scepticism on such matters-the least hint of which would have been to an elderly and sedate jury the strongest ɛikós that the speaker was a lawless and guilty person.

1 § 69, sq. Ηδη δ' ἔγωγε καὶ πρότερον ἀκοῇ ἐπίσταμαι γεγονός, τοῦτο μὲν τοὺς ἀποθανόντας τοῦτο δὲ τοὺς ἀποκτείναντας οὐχ εὑρηθέντας αὐτίκα Ἐφιάλτην τὸν ὑμέτερον πολίτην οὐδέπω νῦν εὕρηνται οἱ ἀποκτείναντες

τοῦτο δ ̓ ἐντὸς οὐ πολλοῦ χρόνου παῖς ἐζήτησεν οὐδὲ δώδεκα ἔτη γεγονὼς τὸν δεσπότην ἀποκτεῖναι· καὶ εἰ μὴ φοβηθείς, ὡς ἀνεβόησεν, ἐγκαταλιπὼν τὴν μάχαιραν ἐν τῇ σφαγῇ ἄχετο φεύγων ἀλλ ̓ ἐτόλμησε μεῖναι, ἀπώλοντ ̓ ἂν οἱ ἔνδον ὄντες ἅπαντες· οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἂν ᾤετο τὸν παῖδα τολμῆσαί ποτε τοῦτο. He adds a curious condemnation of all the Hellenotamiæ on a false charge, when only one escaped through the delay of his sentence.

2 From the fact of Andocides (De Myst. §§ 137-9) urging similar points in favour of his own innocence, I infer that it was a commonplace at Athens to argue that fair weather was a proof of favour from the gods, and that a sea voyage was supposed to afford them a peculiarly convenient opportunity for punishing the guilty.

AB. i. 135.

§ 358. Though the subject-matter of Antiphon's speeches is not without interest, there can be little doubt that the most important feature about him, especially in a history of Greek literature, is his form. For he is the earliest master of that artificial and technical prose, which reached its climax in Demosthenes, and which is one of the most remarkable developments of the genius of the race. Nor is there any department of Greek Literature so foreign to modern taste' or to modern ideas. We would willingly attribute all the minute analysis of sentences in Greek orations to the barren subtlety of the rhetors of Roman times, and believe that the old orators scorned to compose in gyves and fetters, and study the syllables of their periods, and the prosody of them, as if they were writing poetry. But all these details seem to have been handed down in the réxva which each of them published, and Antiphon's was not the least-known among them. It seems that every sentence was to be weighed and measured in these orations, which were indeed not long but yet very intricate, and which were constructed with so close an adherence to rules, both in matter and in form, that we cannot imagine any parallel now-a-days. Not even French prose, the most polished and artificial organ of thought in modern Europe, can compare with Greek rhetoric in this respect. The Greek orator composed in periods, each of which was divided into one or more κλa, or members, four being the major limit. These cola implied one another in construction, and were summed up or completed by the last member, which was longer and weightier in sound than the rest. This is the kатεσтρаμμévη Xés, of which Antiphon is the earliest official representative, though Gorgias was probably its originator, and there are not wanting examples of it in Herodotus. The relative length of the cola, their cadence, their ending syllables--all these matters were made subject to rules. Antiphon, standing at the opening of this peculiar study, has by no means attained all its refinements; he often offends against the canons of the Roman critics by allowing the natural course of expression to carry him away. But this is only in comparison with later Attic eloquence. In comparison with our eloquence, we per

ceive at once a stiff and artificial tone about him, enhanced by the antique flavour of his language, wherein he and Thucydides affected the old and unusual, in contrast to the beautiful spoken Attic of their day. I will not trouble the reader by going into more minute details on these technical points, which rather injure than help our enjoyment of Attic prose, but recommend the full discussion in Blass' chapter on Antiphon, with the special tracts to which he refers. In an official history of Greek oratory these are essential details, however dry and uninteresting they may be to the general student.

To us moderns much of the force of Antiphon consists perhaps in his having not refined his style into complete accordance with these technical laws. The austere harmony which we find in him and in Thucydides is far more impressive than the smooth harmony of Isocrates.2 This character is sustained by his choice of words, which are dignified and often poetical without the excess of metaphors censured in Gorgias. He uses the older σo, though it had been already replaced by rr, and the expression τοῦτο μέν—τοῦτο δέ, so common in Herodotus but abandoned in later Attic prose. As to the method of his orations, we notice that the arrangement is simple and natural. After a proem, he throws in a sort of πрOKATAσKEVÝ, to prepare the mind for the narrative of facts which follows. But here is his weak point, particularly as compared with Lysias, while his strength lies in argument, especially in the urging and retorting of à priori probable proofs. He reiterates, however, a good deal, and comes back on points already argued. Besides

1 Thus, while such writers as Dionysius and Demetrius are constantly showing anacolutha in the use of particles (μév repeated, or without dé, or vice versa, &c.), we are rather struck with such sentences as this: èyà d' ἡγοῦμαι πολὺ ἀνιοσιώτερον εἶναι ἀφεῖναι τοῦ τεθνεῶτος τὴν τιμωρίαν, ἄλλως τε καὶ τοῦ μὲν ἐκ προβουλῆς ἀκουσίως ἀποθάνοντος, τῆς δὲ ἐκουσίως ἐκ προνοίας ἀποκτεινάσης (i. 5)—or this : οὐ γὰρ δίκαιον οὔτ ̓ ἔργῳ ἁμαρτόντα διὰ ῥήματα σωθῆναι, οὔτ ̓ ἔργῳ ὀρθῶς πράξαντα διὰ ῥήματα ἀπολέσθαι· τὸ μὲν νὰρ ῥῆμα τῆς γλώσσης ἁμάρτημά ἐστι, τὸ δὲ ἔργον τῆς γνώμης. And yet this latter is found fault with by the critics for having the last clause too short, and nothing corresponding to ἁμάρτημά ἐστι !

2 We have no better word than harmony to use here for the Greek appovia, which is not at all the same in meaning.