NOTICES OF BOOKS 203

mention the attribution of this quality to Lysias and about half the work being concerned with ch. 9,
Isaeus (Dion. Hal. De Lys. 7, De Isae. 3): by describing Buhler generally deals with thought and connexion of
it as 'particularly important in the criticism of argument first and linguistic, textual and other details
historians' he seems to discount its desirability for the thereafter, an arrangement which will be followed in
narrative sections of speeches. His description of the reviewing his work.
use of verbs of violent action in asyndeton as 'a For most English readers 'Longinus' is an ex-
mannerism with Xenophon' (p. 134) is an exaggera- ceptional phenomenon, isolated in content and
tion : the reviewer knows only the four examples which approach as in time. Many who have read 'Long-
he cites. More characteristic of Xenophon is his inus' have not read much else of late Greek, and the
use of polysyndeton to portray confusion or lively little ancient literary criticism commonly read is very
action (e.g. Anab. 2.3.28, 3.4.35, 5.2.15). Russell different in tone and manner from 'Longinus'. But
does not include this effect of polysyndeton in his note Buhler is familiar with not only the highways but also
on p. 136, though it is found in many passages of the byways of Greek criticism and of late Greek
vivid narrative (e.g. Demos. De Corona 169, Lysias writing, and from Byzantine scholars and commen-
1.17). In his discussion of the Sicilian origins of tators in particular, and from many other sources too,
rhetoric (pp. 185-6), he quotes Aristotle's explana- he shows that much of 'Longinus" material was com-
tion, that it arose through the development of demo- monplace, his quotations and examples, though not
cracies there, but does not quote Cicero's additional always his application of them, often being traditional.
suggestion in Brutus 46 (though he cites it as a parallel Buhler employs painstaking analysis to show precisely
passage), that it may have received stimulation from where 'Longinus' is original, e.g. 10.6: the Aratos-
the large number of lawsuits concerned with the passage was much used, but only 'Longinus' censures
restitution of property that followed the expulsion of it (p. 78), or, more important for the understanding
the tyrants. It is surprising to find no reference in of 'Longinus' ' attitude to literature, 13.2: 'imitation'
the notes on ch. 41 to Dion. Hal.'s illustration of is for 'Longinus' not copying what earlier authors
effeminate style in Comp. Verb. 18. said but by imaginative insight writing as they would
When a bibliography is described as 'selective' it is have written in the circumstances of the imitator
perhaps unreasonable to note any but the most (p. 86). Sometimes Buhler unearths an element of
glaring omissions. None of the following can be so originality which is scarcely significant. Thus on the
called, and they are noted only because Russell's Homeric theomachy (9.7), even if it were certain
selection is otherwise so comprehensive. They are that, as Buhler maintains, 'Longinus' rejects allegori-
Halm's Rhetores Latini Minores, Ernesti's Lexicon sation of Homer (p. 29), that interpretation, while
Technologiae Graecorum Rhetoricae, D. L. Clarke's putting him out of line with other ancient commen-
Rhetoric in Graeco-Roman Education, Denniston's Greektators on the passage, merely puts him in line with
Literary Criticism and Roberts's Greek Rhetoric and Plato. Again in 13.2 (p. 91) nhr\aia.^ovaa (of the
Literary Criticism (the last two containing useful, ifPythia and the tripod) is only a politer alternative for
short, chapters on L.); and the new Orationis Ratio by the explicit 'sitting on' of other writers; the word can
A. D. Leeman. imply very close contact and its use here is stylistically,
All the above criticisms are of a minor character, not factually, significant.
and some may perhaps be discounted as subjective. On two broad questions touched on by Buhler, his
This edition is a most important contribution to the views possibly call for qualification. First, the idea of
study of ancient literary criticism, and one which no artistic or other development was not so rare or rudi-
library or individual who is interested in this in- mentary as Buhler (pp. 49-50), following accepted
creasingly popular branch of classical studies can beliefs, makes out: it depends where you look for it.
afford to be without. Misprints are negligible, and To the detail that Accius ap. Aul. Gell. xiii 2.5 refers
the presentation is in the best traditions of the to the ripening of fruit, not the maturing of wine,
Clarendon Press. should be added that Buhler would find the wine-
S. USHER. metaphor elaborately worked out in Cicero Brutus
Royal Holloway College, University of London. 287, and of course the idea of development pervades
that work. There is also the question of Latin
influence on late Greek, mentioned by Buhler on
pp. 115 and 125. He rejects the notion. The
BUHLER (W.) Beitrage zur Erklarung der Schrift reviewer, claiming no expertise on this topic, would
vom Erhabenen. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck yet record a strong impression that, whether detailed
& Ruprecht. 1964. Pp. 159. DM 19.80. Latinisms can be proved or not, there is often a Latin
Biihler's book on 'Longinus' both demands and flavour in late Greek, most noticeable in those writers
repays careful reading. The reader who works who would naturally have close acquaintance with
patiently through sentences and paragraphs labyrin- things Roman, and a consequent conviction that when
thine with parenthetic reference, cross-reference, and 'Longinus' arouses such suspicions it is no refutation
quotation, will find that it has important things to of them to cite parallels from Polybius or Dionysius.
say. In his detailed and learned analysis of the We pass to the smaller details. Here again
thought and language of a number of crucial passages, Buhler is sometimes over-elaborate. To take one
204 NOTICES OF BOOKS
example, his interpretation of 10.4: nMov avdog exei entertaining than the onslaught by Norden (Antike
ra Xey6[ieva fj diog (p. 77) is so obviously right Kunstprosa pp. 79 ff.), it is appreciably more useful.
(nMov=/xdUxn>, and the meaning is that the utterance No less disarming is Grube's recognition of the diffi-
has dvQog, not Seog) that he scarcely needs so much culty of drawing the boundaries of his subject; he is
space to prove earlier commentators on the point inevitably diverted from time to time into discussion
wrong. But generally the complexity of argument of education, rhetoric and literary trends: perhaps he
and elaboration of references is helpful to readers might even have gone further, and told us something,
who know 'Longinus' but little of the kind of Greek for example, of Cicero's own assessments of Lucretius
writing with which in thought and language he is to and the Neoterics. But in general Grube talks about
be compared. Thus even the brief demonstration of the right things, and in general he says the right
the odd abruptness of 13.3: Errjaijppog en npoxepov things about them.
Kal 6 'Apxttoxog, KXX. is a useful reminder of one What is a little disappointing is that this reliability
feature of 'Longinus' ' style. does not extend to detail. It is particularly important
Buhler's textual comments are judicious. While in a book not requiring any knowledge of Greek and
his own conjectures are sometimes pleasing, e.g. Latin (ix) that the translations should be accurate.
27.3 (p. 130): read Kal <ravq xpirag v.s.q. > aTtoXmelv, Yet every now and then (e.g. Cicero Brutus 51 on
he is on the whole a conservative critic. He makes, p. 122 and Suetonius Gramm. 1 on p. 150) we are
however, a less convincing case for iprj/xov/Lievov given exceedingly casual versions: and inaccuracies of
(9- : 3) (P- 65) than for an apposition at 20.1 (p. 124): translation have sometimes led Grube to point to
rd elg TOP Metdiav . . . rd davvdera. difficulties that are not there, as at p. 290 n. 2
It will be clear that Buhler's book represents a type (novissime in Quintilian ii 10.1 means 'last': see
of exact and detailed scholarship often criticised in Austin on xii pr. 3). A technical term is badly
our day. But Biihler shows that it can be valuable misunderstood on pp. 285 and 295: 'appropriateness'
and exciting. The reader soon comes to realise that is not discussed in Quintilian viii 2—it is proprietas that
Buhler's 'Longinus', the perceptive and gifted worker is in question there, under the heading of perspicuitas.
within a traditional field, is an even greater critic The schema of the four virtues of elocutio steps beyond
than the isolated and somewhat freakish genius of the eighth book, for ornatus covers ix and TO npenov
the conventional picture, and certainly a more sharply comes in xi 1 (as Grube himself says on p. 303). And
defined personality. the context of Quintilian i 5.56 shows that he does
A. E. DOUGLAS. not contradict himself (see p. 295 n. 1) on Pataivinitas
University of Southampton. (any more than he uses of Livy the collocation
clarissima candor attributed to him on p. 302).
On further detailed points: p. 42 'All we have of
that kind . . .' There is a good deal more evidence
GRUBE (G. M. A.) The Greek and Roman for the contents of the Teyyr] of 'Isocrates': a reference
critics. London: Methuen. 1965. Pp. xi + to L. Radermacher's Artium Scriptores would be useful
372. £2 10s. here and elsewhere. P. 141 rd npayfiaza in the
A replacement for J. W. H. Atkins' readable but schema of the Tractatus Coislinianus hardly='situa-
often strangely misleading Literary Criticism in Antiquity tion' . The contrast OLTW rfjg Xi^ewgjdnd TCUV npay/idrcov
(1934) has long been overdue. Professor Grube is the verba/res contrast elsewhere correctly explained
now follows up a series of notable translations and by Grube (p. 189 with n. 3). P. 155 'Elsewhere
articles in connexion with literary criticism by giving [Terence] says that the flatterer and the braggart in
us 'a clear and reliable account of what the Greeks his own Eunuch do not derive from Naevius' or
and the Romans said about literature' (ix). Where Plautus' comedies of the same name, but from the
possible, Grube keeps close to ancient critical texts, Colax of Menander'. The plays of Naevius and
and reduces background material and comment to a Plautus were surely both called Colax also (Eunuch.
minimum. That is not to say that he ignores 19 ff.). P. 178 'A truly startling change . . . occurs
secondary sources—there is an excellent bibliography, in De oratore 1,130 where the three duties are said to
and much helpful sign-posting in the footnotes: but he be decere, movere, delectare'. But Cicero is there finding
does not pander to them, and shows a healthy scorn parallels between excellence in oratory and acting;
for elaborate theories that form 'an inverted pyramid docere is therefore not mentioned. P. 184 Was rhythm
of scholarly conjectures resting upon one point which in Latin prose 'largely developed by Cicero himself' ?
is a fallacy' (p. 341). Hence, for example, the P. 232 Horace does not quote Ennius at Sat. i 4.60-1 to
exceedingly cautious treatment of Theophrastus, who prove that 'great poetry remains great when its
is perhaps rather unlucky to have the canon of the metre is broken up'. P. 233 n. 3 The eight lines
four stylistic aperal denied to him (p. 107). There is prefacing Horace Sat. i 10 do not 'occur in all the
a lot to be said in this field for such care, though it manuscripts'. P. 234 'Lucilius himself, and Ennius
tends to make a sombre rather than an exciting book: as well, never hesitated to criticise their predecessors'.
especially as Grube shows exemplary courtesy to But Horace Sat. i 10.53-5, here paraphrased by
critics old and new. But while his assessment, for Grube, is saying that Lucilius criticised Ennius.
01
instance, of Dionysius of Halicarnassus may be less P- 3 '[Quintilian at x 1.99] goes on to say Terence