Book II - Wilbourhall.org

m.] STYLE OF THUCYDIDES, lihis mouth, was to secure a satisfactory discussion ofmatters of statepeople.before they were voted upon by theFor he knew that an accurate knowledge ofwhat was to be decided by the vote was of thefirstimportance now that the popular assembly controlledthe destinies of the state. How far Pericles consciouslygave a literary character to his speecheswe do not know. But the inevitable result wasthat political oratory became both more literaryand more poetical. For, as soon as a speech isthought out and reduced to writing, it is raisedabove the level of ordinary conversation; and, assoon as popular appeals or attempts to rousethe passions of a national assembly are carefullypremeditated, the way is at once opened to theemployment of poetry.About two years after the death of Pericles, that isin 427 B.C., the impulse which he had thus given toprose composition received a new stimulus throughthe visit to Athens of Gorgias of Leontini. Gorgiashad discovered the fact that prose was based onpoetry, and that it was, though unconsciously, followingin the footsteps of epic. By the aid of thisdiscovery he had developed a system of prose compositionin which he consciously imitated some ofthe characteristics of poetry.Neither the unfamiliardiction nor the running style of epic were suited tothe popular assembly. Yet oratory could not bedebased to the level of street conversation.In ordertherefore to give an air of distinction to oratory,Gorgias imported into it the rhythm without themetre of verse, and introduced certain artifices which