χλευασμός. 192 7. Scoffing, satire. Lat. derisio, illusio. χλευάζειν 270 3.
χορδή. 122 23. String, note. Lat. chorda.
χορεῖος. 170 17, 184 11. Choree. Lat. choreus. The metrical foot ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ. In 170 18 the reading τρίβραχυς πούς (τροχαῖος πούς F) seems to be a gloss. The term χορεῖος is applied to the trochee more commonly than to the tribrach. The Epitome (c. 17) gives χορεῖος (without addition).
χρεία. 104 21, 198 2. Use, practical work. Lat. usus. Cp. de Demosth. c. 45, de Thucyd. c. 55. There may also be some notion of practical need, stress: cp. ἐν χρείᾳ δορός (Soph. Aj. 963) and ὑπὸ τῆς χρείας αὐτῆς (schol. on Hom. Odyss. viii. 163).
χρεμετισμός. 158 14. Neighing, whinnying. Lat. hinnitus.
χρῆμα. 158 2. Object. Lat. res ipsa. Cp. note on supra.
χρόνοι. 130 1, 164 5, 204 22 (lit. ‘does not divide the times’), 210 19, 216 18, 234 4, 244 19, 264 4. Times, time-intervals, time-spaces, rests, pauses. Lat. tempora, morae. So in 128 15 χρόνους = ‘the length of syllables,’ and in 130 7 ἐν τοῖς χρόνοις τῶν μορίων = ‘in the duration of words,’ ‘in quantity.’ χρόνων = ‘tenses,’ 108 5; χρόνιος = diuturnus, 202 23; χρονίζειν = immorari, 164 12.
χρῶμα. 88 12, 198 14. Colour. Lat. color. In 198 14 χρώμασιν should be retained (in place of Usener’s χρήμασιν) in the sense of ‘ornaments’; the ornaments in question being μέλος εὐγενές, ῥυθμὸς ἀξιωματικός, μεταβολὴ μεγαλοπρεπής (136 11, where compare τὸ πᾶσι τούτοις παρακολουθοῦν πρέπον with τοῖς ἄλλοις χρώμασιν ἅπασι παρεῖναι δεῖ τὸ πρέπον in 198 14). Compare too de Demosth. c. 22 κοσμοῦντος ἅπαντα καὶ χρωματίζοντος τῇ πρεπούσῃ ὑποκρίσει ἧς δεινότατος ἀσκητὴς ἐγένετο, and the use of χρῶμα (or χρώματα) in de Isaeo c. 4 and de Thucyd. c. 42. Photius (Bibl. Cod. 214) has ἔστι δὲ ἡ φράσις τῷ ἀνδρὶ σαφὴς μὲν καὶ καθαρὰ καὶ σπουδῇ φιλοσόφῳ πρέπουσα, οὐ μήν γε τοῖς κεκαλλωπισμένοις καὶ περιττοῖς ἐξωραϊζομένη χρώμασι καὶ ποικίλμασι τῆς ῥητορείας. Similarly color in Quintil. x. 1. 116, and Cic. de Orat. iii. 25. 100. The stage at which the χρῶμα would best be introduced in a historical work is suggested in a passage of Lucian (de conscrib. hist. 48): καὶ ἐπειδὰν ἀθροίσῃ ἅπαντα ἢ τὰ πλεῖστα, πρῶτα μὲν ὑπόμνημά τι συνυφαινέτω αὐτῶν καὶ σῶμα ποιείτω ἀκαλλὲς ἔτι καὶ ἀδιάρθρωτον· εἶτα ἐπιθεὶς τὴν τάξιν ἐπαγέτω τὸ κάλλος καὶ χρωννύτω (i.e. ‘tinge’) τῇ λέξει καὶ σχηματιζέτω καὶ ῥυθμιζέτω. But might it not be more truly said that a great historian like Gibbon has his χρῶμα from the beginning, — from the moment when he stands in the Forum and conceives his vast theme? It is in fact one aspect of his inspiration.
χρωματικός. 194 7, 196 3. Chromatic. Lat. chromaticus. For the chromatic scale see note on 194 7.
χώρα. 144 13. Room, space. Lat. locus, spatium. χωρίον in 126 6 = ‘distance,’ ‘interval.’
ψιλός. 130 5, 148 7, 12 (bis), 18, 19, 150 3, 9, 154 2, 250 12, 254 1. Bare, smooth, unaspirated. Lat. lenis. So ψιλότης 148 21. See s.v. δασύς supra, with the reference there given to A. J. Ellis’ pamphlet. In 148 7 Ellis takes ‘smooth’ to mean ‘unaccompanied by voice, but in this case possibly not mute.’ In 130 5 the ‘ordinary’ voice, the voice ‘pure and simple’ (or ‘without addition’), is meant: c 2, 250 12, 254 1. So ἐν τοῖς ψιλοῖς λόγοις Aristot. Rhet. iii. 2. 3, and “nuda oratio” Cic. Orat. 55. 183.
ψοφοειδής. 162 15. Sounding. Lat. sonans. If the term is technical, it may perhaps be translated by fricative; it can hardly be so wide as consonantal.
ψόφος. 138 7, 8, 9, 12, 146 4, 222 2. A sound, a noise. Lat. sonus, strepitus. The consonants (litterae consonantes) are called ψόφοι, as contrasted with the φωνήεντα γράμματα.
ψῦγμα. 202 26. Inhalation. Lat. respiratio. Used particularly of the ‘catch of the breath’ (interspiratio) between one word and another. [ψῦγμα must, of course, be distinguished from ψῆγμα: cp. Long. .]
ᾠδή. 124 16, 22, 148 1, 224 21, 278 8. Song, lay, ode. Lat. cantus, carmen. So ᾠδικός = vocal (of the voice accompanied by music), 126 16, 130 5.
ὤρα. 78 12. Care, heed. Lat. cura. Cp. Hesychius: ὥρα ... ψιλῶς δὲ φροντίς, ἐπιμέλεια· ὅθεν ὀλίγωρον (i.e. ‘a poco curante,’ ‘a Hippocleides’) λέγομεν τὸν ὀλίγην ἔχοντα φροντίδα. In 78 12 M has γρ φροντίδα in the margin.
ὥρα. 120 20, 124 12, 162 1. Freshness, bloom, beauty. Lat. venustas, flos. Fr. fraîcheur. Cp. Ep. ad Cn. Pomp. c. 2 (quoted from de Demosth. c. 5: in reference to Plato’s style ὅ τε πίνος ὁ τῆς ἀρχαιότητος ἠρέμα αὐτῇ καὶ λεληθότως ἐπιτρέχει ἱλαρόν τέ τι καὶ τεθηλὸς καὶ μεστὸν ὥρας ἄνθος ἀναδίδωσι, καὶ ὥσπερ ἀπὸ τῶν εὐωδεστάτων λειμώνων αὔρα τις ἡδεῖα ἐξ αὐτῆς φέρεται). — In 68 14 and 76 6 ὥρα = ‘time,’ ‘season.’
ὡραϊσμός. 66 18. Adornment, elegance. Lat. elegantia.
APPENDIX A/ OBSCURITY IN GREEK
The natural lucidity of the Greek language is sometimes assumed by its modern admirers to extend to all the writings of Greek authors. But the ancients themselves made no such extravagant claims. They might praise Lysias as a model of clearness; but they knew well the difficulties, of subject matter or expression, to be met with not only in Heracleitus or Lycophron, but in masters so great as Pindar, Aeschylus, Thucydides, and the author of that excellent definition which sees in lucidity a fundamental virtue of style — Aristotle himself. Thucydides (to take one writer only out of this group of four) is taxed with obscurity by critics other than Dionysius. Marcellinus, although not otherwise in entire agreement with Dionysius, attributes this particular defect to Thucydides and regards it as deliberate: ἀσαφῶς δὲ λέγων ἐπίτηδες, ἵνα μὴ πᾶσιν εἴη βατὸς μηδὲ εὐτελὴς φαίνηται παντὶ τῷ βουλομένῳ νοούμενος εὐχερῶς, ἀλλὰ τοῖς λίαν σοφοῖς δοκιμαζόμενος παρὰ τούτοις θαυμάζηται ... τὸ δὲ τῆς συνθέσεως τραχύτητος μεστὸν καὶ ἐμβριθὲς καὶ ὑπερβατικόν, ἐνίοτε δὲ ἀσαφές ... ἀσαφὴς τὴν διάνοιαν διὰ τὸ ὑπερβατοῖς χαίρειν (Marcell. Vita Thucyd. §§ 35, 50, 56). An epigram in the Greek Anthology is pitched in the same key: —
ὦ φίλος, εἰ σοφὸς εἶ, λάβε μ’ ἐς χέρας· εἰ δέ γε πάμπαν
νῆϊς ἔφυς Μουσέων, ῥίψον ἃ μὴ νοέεις.
εἰμὶ δέ γ’ οὐ πάντεσσι βατός· παῦροι δ’ ἀγάσαντο
Θουκυδίδην Ὀλόρου, Κεκροπίδην τὸ γένος.
Anth. Pal. ix. 583.
And Cicero, in a more uncompromising way, condemns the Speeches as scarcely intelligible: “ipsae illae contiones ita multas habent obscuras abditasque sententias, vix ut intellegantur; quod est in oratione civili vitium vel maximum” (Cic. Orat. 9. 30).
Obscurity in matter and obscurity in expression are intimately allied. Euripides, in the Frogs, says of Aeschylus that he was obscure in setting forth his plots (ἀσαφὴς γὰ
ρ ἦν ἐν τῇ φράσει τῶν πραγμάτων, Aristoph. Ran. 1122). Dionysius attributes to Lysias, as compared with Thucydides and Demosthenes, a lucidity which embraces matter as well as expression and treats words as the servants of thought: τρίτην ἀρετὴν ἀποφαίνομαι περὶ τὸν ἄνδρα τὴν σαφήνειαν, οὐ μόνον τὴν ἐν τοῖς ὀνόμασιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν· ἔστι γάρ τις καὶ πραγματικὴ σαφήνεια οὐ πολλοῖς γνώριμος. τεκμαίρομαι δέ, ὅτι τῆς μὲν Θουκυδίδου λέξεως καὶ Δημοσθένους, οἳ δεινότατοι πράγματα ἐξειπεῖν ἐγένοντο, πολλὰ δυσείκαστά ἐστιν ἡμῖν καὶ ἀσαφῆ καὶ δεόμενα ἐξηγητῶν ... τούτου δὲ αἴτιον, ὅτι οὐ τοῖς ὀνόμασι δουλεύει τὰ πράγματα παρ’ αὐτῷ [sc. Λυσίᾳ], τοῖς δὲ πράγμασιν ἀκολουθεῖ τὰ ὀνόματα (de Lysia, c. 4). So far as the two can be separated, it is with wording rather than with subject matter that the present appendix is concerned.
One principal cause of obscurity is the anxious search for brevity. Dionysius sees this, especially in regard to Thucydides; and “brevis esse laboro, | obscurus fio” has many an analogue in his critical pages (e.g. ἀσαφὲς γίνεται τὸ βραχύ and διὰ τὸ τάχος τῆς ἀπαγγελίας ἀσαφὴς ἡ λέξις γίνεται, de Thucyd. c. 24 and Ep. ii. ad Amm. c. 2). At the same time, he does not seem to concede enough to the claims of brevity in C.V. 118 1, 2, where it is not simply a question of ‘offending the ear,’ or of ‘spoiling the metre,’ or even of ‘charm.’ The two lines there quoted from Sophocles have something of that πολύνους βραχυλογία which has been justly attributed to Thucydides.
But too many words may be just as fatal to clearness as too few. As Aristotle says (Rhet. iii. 12. 6), lucidity is imperilled when a style is prolix, no less than when it is condensed. A disjointed and rambling diffuseness is condemned by Demetrius (de Eloc. § 192); and Dionysius (Ep. ii. ad Amm. c. 15) remarks that numerous parentheses make the meaning hard to follow (... αἱ μεταξὺ παρεμπτώσεις πολλαὶ γινόμεναι καὶ μόλις ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος ἀφικνούμεναι, δι’ ἃς ἡ φράσις δυσπαρακολούθητος γίνεται).
It is, however, the arrangement of words (even more than their number, large or small) that contributes to lucidity or its opposite. Quintilian (ix. 4. 32) says “amphiboliam quoque fieri vitiosa locatione verborum, nemo est qui nesciat”; and certainly the importance of a right order, in its bearing on clearness, is very great even in the highly inflected languages. Elsewhere (viii. 2. 16) Quintilian gives some good examples of ambiguities to be avoided: “vitanda est in primis ambiguitas, non haec solum, de cuius genere supra dictum est, quae incertum intellectum facit, ut Chremetem audivi percussisse Demean, sed illa quoque, quae, etiamsi turbare non potest sensum, in idem tamen verborum vitium incidit, ut si quis dicat, visum a se hominem librum scribentem. nam etiamsi librum ab homine scribi patet, male tamen composuerit feceritque ambiguum, quantum in ipso fuit.” Quintilian’s ideal is a fine one, but it is not always possible to attain it in Latin or in Greek. The freedom of the classical word-order, so desirable on other grounds, stands in the way here.
Illustrations of a certain degree of ambiguity will be found in some instances of the dependent genitive in Greek, as used especially in Thucydides. Thucydides usually places the dependent genitive before the noun on which it depends. As, however, his rule is not invariable, it cannot be said that in all the following examples (which are designedly of a promiscuous character) the reader is absolved, as Quintilian evidently thinks he should be, from making his conception of the general sense help in determining the grammatical construction: —
(1) καὶ μετὰ τῆς ἥσσονος ἅμα ἐλπίδος ὀλίγων ἡμερῶν ἕνεκα μεγάλου μισθοῦ δόσεως ἐκείνοις ξυναγωνίζεσθαι, Thucyd. i. 143.
(2) εἴ τις ὑπομένοι καὶ μὴ φόβῳ ῥοθίου καὶ νεῶν δεινότητος κατάπλου ὑποχωροίη, iv. 10.
(3) Κερκυραῖοι δὲ μετὰ τῆς ξυμμαχίας τῆς αἰτήσεως καὶ ταῦτα πιστεύοντες ἐχυρὰ ὑμῖν παρέξεσθαι ἀπέστειλαν ἡμᾶς, i. 32.
(4) οἵπερ τῶν ὁλκάδων ἕνεκα τῆς ἐς Σικελίαν κομιδῆς ἀνθώρμουν πρὸς τὰς ἐν Ναυπάκτῳ ναῦς, vii. 34.
(5) ἄπιστα μὲν ἴσως, ὥσπερ καὶ ἄλλοι τινές, δόξω ὑμῖν περὶ τοῦ ἐπίπλου τῆς ἀληθείας λέγειν, vi. 33.
(6) τά τε τῆς ἀντιμιμήσεως αὐτῶν τῆς παρασκευῆς ἡμῶν τῷ μὲν ἡμετέρῳ τρόπῳ ξυνήθη τέ ἐστι κτλ., vii. 67.
(7) τοὺς γὰρ ἂν ψιλοὺς τοὺς σφῶν καὶ τὸν ὄχλον τῶν Συρακοσίων τοὺς ἱππέας πολλοὺς ὄντας, σφίσι δ’ οὐ παρόντων ἱππέων, βλάπτειν ἂν μεγάλα, vi. 64.
(8) καὶ τοῦ Κλέωνος καίπερ μανιώδης οὖσα ἡ ὑπόσχεσις ἀπέβη, iv. 39.
(9) καὶ τριήρης τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἁλίσκεται τῶν Ἀθηναίων ὑπὸ τῶν Συρακοσίων ἐφορμοῦσα τῷ λιμένι, vii. 3.
Similarly in other authors: e.g. καὶ δὴ καὶ τότε τοῦ Θρασυμάχου τὴν ἀπόρρησιν οὐκ ἀπεδέξατο, Plato Rep. ii. 357 A (where, however, the meaning may be “would not accept from Thrasymachus his withdrawal”); and ὣς φάτο, τῷ δ’ ἄρα πατρὸς ὑφ’ ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο, Hom. Il. xxiv. 507; and
τούτων ἐγὼ οὐκ ἔμελλον, ἀνδρὸς οὐδενὸς
φρόνημα δείσασ’, ἐν θεοῖσι τὴν δίκην
δώσειν.
Soph. Antig. 458-60.
If in some of these instances the order is not absolutely unambiguous, still less is it so in other and more miscellaneous extracts about to be given. The writer of artistic prose, as of poetry, has to satisfy claims which are often hard to reconcile: those of clearness, of emphasis, and of euphony. The result may often be a more or less unconscious compromise in which one of the elements prospers at the expense of the others. Euphony, to take that element alone, is expected to please the ear in many different ways — by the avoidance of harsh letters (found singly or in combination), of short syllables in close succession, of monotony in word-terminations, of monotony in every shape and form. Obscurity may well ensue, especially in a literature which does not aid the eye by means of punctuation, capital letters (to denote proper names or the beginning of a sentence), italic type, or division into paragraphs and chapters. To set against these deficiencies, there was the help provided by the reciter or the skilled anagnostes; and it is often interesting to speculate how, by a slight pause or modulation of the voice, a practised reader would be able to remove a seeming ambiguity. In poetry, again, metre would often be an aid to clear delivery, though its exigencies might on the other hand have led to some ambiguities in the actual writing. No careful modern student of a highly-wrought speech, like the Crown of Demosthenes, can have failed to be arrested momentarily, here and there, by some slight ambiguity which, as far as he can judge, might have been removed by an equally slight change in the word-order; and he gains much in the appreciation of Demosthenes if he is thus led to consider what are the subtle laws of rhythm and melody to which an absolutely unimpeachable lucidity has (in however small a degree) given way. He will certainly be led to the conclusion
that, in Greek, good order is by no means the simple thing it may seem when achieved, but rather is the highly complex result of the play of many forces. The following examples, drawn from various authors in poetry and in prose, may be found suggestive. They are of set purpose presented without any attempt at sequence or classification, except that a considerable number of extracts from the de Corona are grouped together: —
(1) καί μοι τὸν υἱόν, εἰ μεμάθηκε τὸν λόγον
ἐκεῖνον, εἴφ’, ὃν ἀρτίως εἰσήγαγες.
Aristoph. Nub. 1148.
(2) ἀλλά μιν αὖτις ἀναρπάξασα θύελλα
πόντον ἐπ’ ἰχθυόεντα φέρεν βαρέα στενάχοντα.
Hom. Odyss. xxiii. 316.
(3) ἠδ’ ὡς εἰς Ἀίδεω δόμον ἤλυθεν εὐρώεντα,
ψυχῇ χρησόμενος Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο,
νηῒ πολυκλήιδι.
id. ib. xxiii. 322.
(4) ὅτι Ἱππίας μὲν πρεσβύτατος ὢν ἦρχε τῶν Πεισιστράτου υἱέων.
Thucyd. i. 20.
Here τῶν Πεισιστράτου υἱέων depends on πρεσβύτατος ὤν, not on ἦρχε.
(5) κράτιστα τοίνυν τῶν παρόντων ἐστὶ νῷν
θεῶν ἰόντε προσπεσεῖν του πρὸς βρέτας.
Aristoph. Eq. 30, 31.
Here the actor would pause slightly after νῷν, at the end of the metrical line.
(6) τοῦτ’ οὖν ἔβλαψα τί δράσας;
id. Ran. 1064.
Careful delivery would make it quite plain that the meaning is: τί οὖν ἔβλαψα, δράσας τοῦτο;
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 142
