[Niall_Livingstone]_A_Commentary_on_Isocrates'_Busiris

22 INTRODUCTIONonce perfected, was used with great consistency throughout his career;Busiris is thus remarkable in showing striking variations of style withina very short compass.Neglect of this internal variation has led to an inadequate accountof Busiris in Stephen Usher's authoritative work on Isocrates' style.Usher's verdict is that Busiris exemplifies Isocrates' 'mature epideicticstyle' as found in Panegyricus, except that the average period lengthis much less; he relates the use of less complex periods to Isocrates'promise of brevity and his statement that the theme does not admit(Bus. 9). He suggests further that, if period length is themajor stylistic difference between Busiris and Panegyricus, we may inferthat complex periodicity is for Isocrates the supreme distinguishingmark of serious oratory.Usher in fact overstates the average 'shortness' of periods in Busiris. 44The figure he gives for his index of period length would ally Busirismore with the forensic speeches than with any other epideictic work;the corrected figure, while confirming that periods in Busiris aresignificantly shorter on average than in, say, the Panegyricus, restoresit to its place among the epideictic works, with longer periods thanTo Nicocles and Nicocles.These averages are of limited value, however, in view of the variationwithin the work. Periods in the Epilogue are extremely short;those in the Prologue and Encomium are much longer; the Defencefalls somewhere in between. 45 In general, the Encomium has the44 The overstatement arises from numerical errors. Usher's method is to list thenumber of occurrences of each stylistic feature in which he is interested, the numberof Teubner pages of text, and, as an index of comparison, the equivalent numberof occurrences in 25 Teubner pages (i.e. no. of occurrences no. of pages x25). Thus in the case of periods a higher index means more, and hence shorter,periods. For Busiris, Usher gives the number of periods as 70, the number of pagesas 10.5, and the comparative index as 189. This last figure must be an error ofcalculation, because 70 10.5 x 25 = 167. This is still not the correct figure,though, because the number of pages in Busiris is in fact not 10.5, but a little morethan 11.5: so the correct index is 70 11.5 x 25 = 152. Compare this with Usher'sfigures for some other works: Euth. 205, Helen 136, Paneg. 114, ad Nic. 182, Nic. 180,Archid. 145, Antid. 127. Usher's error as to the number of pages in Busiris obviouslyaffects his indices for all stylistic features; his conclusion that it represents the 'matureepideictic style' still holds, but most be modified to take account of variation withinthe work.4jIndices using Usher's method (bearing in mind that these are very short samplesof text): Prologue 109, Encomium 135, Defence 158, Epilogue 234. (Prologue:10 periods in 2.3 pages, 10 -s- 2.3 x 25 = 109; Encomium: 26 periods in 4.8 pages,