On the Sublime - active 1st century Longinus (read novels website .TXT) 📗

Ammonius.—Alexandrian grammarian, carried on the school of Aristarchus previously to the reign of Augustus. The allusion here is to a work on the passages in which Plato has imitated Homer. (Suidas, s.v.; Schol. on Hom. Il. ix. 540, quoted by Jahn.)

Amphikrates.—Author of a book On Famous Men, referred to by Athenaeus, xiii. 576, G, and Diog. Laert. ii. 101. C. Muller, Hist. Gr. Fragm. iv. p. 300, considers him to be the Athenian rhetorician who, according to Plutarch (Lucullus, c. 22), retired to Seleucia, and closed his life at the Court of Kleopatra, daughter of Mithridates and wife of Tigranes (Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft). Plutarch tells a story illustrative of his arrogance. Being asked by the Seleucians to open a school of rhetoric, he replied, “A dish is not large enough for a dolphin” (ὡς οὐδὲ λεκάνη δελφῖνα χωροίη), v. Luculli, c. 22, quoted by Pearce.

Aristeas.—A name involved in a mist of fable. According to Suidas he was a contemporary of Kroesus, though Herodotus assigns to him a much remoter antiquity. The latter authority describes him as visiting the northern peoples of Europe and recording his travels in an epic poem, a fragment of which is given here by Longinus. The passage before us appears to be intended as the words of some Arimaspian, who, as belonging to a remote inland race, expresses his astonishment that any men could be found bold enough to commit themselves to the mercy of the sea, and tries to describe the terror of human beings placed in such a situation (Pearce ad. l.; Abicht on Hdt. iv. 12; Suidas, s.v.)

Bakchylides, nephew and pupil of the great Simonides, flourished about 460 B.C. He followed his uncle to the Court of Hiero at Syracuse, and enjoyed the patronage of that despot. After Hiero’s death he returned to his home in Keos; but finding himself discontented with the mode of life pursued in a free Greek community, for which his experiences at Hiero’s Court may well have disqualified him, he retired to Peloponnesus, where he died. His works comprise specimens of almost every kind of lyric composition, as practised by the Greeks of his time. Horace is said to have imitated him in his Prophecy of Nereus, c. I. xv. (Pauly, as above). So far as we can judge from what remains of his works, he was distinguished rather by elegance than by force. A considerable fragment on the Blessings of Peace has been translated by Mr. J. A. Symonds in his work on the Greek poets. He is made the subject of a very bitter allusion by Pindar (Ol. ii. s. fin. c. Schol.) We may suppose that the stern and lofty spirit of Pindar had little sympathy with the “tearful” (Catullus, xxxviii.) strains of Simonides or his imitators.

Caecilius, a native of Kale Akte in Sicily, and hence known as Caecilius Kalaktinus, lived in Rome at the time of Augustus. He is mentioned with distinction as a learned Greek rhetorician and grammarian, and was the author of numerous works, frequently referred to by Plutarch and other later writers. He may be regarded as one of the most distinguished Greek rhetoricians of his time. His works, all of which have perished, comprised, among many others, commentaries on Antipho and Lysias; several treatises on Demosthenes, among which is a dissertation on the genuine and spurious speeches, and another comparing that orator with Cicero; “On the Distinction between Athenian and Asiatic Eloquence”; and the work on the Sublime, referred to by Longinus (Pauly). The criticism of Longinus on the above work may be thus summed up: Caecilius is censured (1) as failing to rise to the dignity of his subject; (2) as missing the cardinal points; and (3) as failing in practical utility. He wastes his energy in tedious attempts to define the Sublime, but does not tell us how it is to be attained (I. i.) He is further blamed for omitting to deal with the Pathetic (VIII. i. sqq.) He allows only two metaphors to be employed together in the same passage (XXXII. ii.) He extols Lysias as a far greater writer than Plato (ib. viii.), and is a bitter assailant of Plato’s style (ib.) On the whole, he seems to have been a cold and uninspired critic, finding his chief pleasure in minute verbal details, and incapable of rising to an elevated and extensive view of his subject.

Eratosthenes, a native of Cyrene, born in 275 B.C.; appointed by Ptolemy III. Euergetes as the successor of Kallimachus in the post of librarian in the great library of Alexandria. He was the teacher of Aristophanes of Byzantium, and his fame as a man of learning is testified by the various fanciful titles which were conferred on him, such as “The Pentathlete,” “The second Plato,” etc. His great work was a treatise on geography (Lübker).

Gorgias of Leontini, according to some authorities a pupil of Empedokles, came, when already advanced in years, as ambassador from his native city to ask help against Syracuse (427 B.C.) Here he attracted notice by a novel style of eloquence. Some time after he settled permanently in Greece, wandering from city to city, and acquiring wealth and fame by practising and teaching rhetoric. We find him last in Larissa, where he died at the age of a hundred in 375 B.C. As a teacher of eloquence Gorgias belongs to what is known as the Sicilian school, in which he followed the steps of his predecessors, Korax and Tisias. At the time when this school arose the Greek ear was still accustomed to the rhythm and beat of poetry, and the whole rhetorical system of the Gorgian school (compare the phrases γοργίεια σχήματα, γοργιάζειν) is built on a poetical plan (Lübker, Reallexikon des classischen Alterthums). Hermogenes, as quoted by Jahn, appears to classify him among the “hollow pedants” (ὑπόξυλοι σοφισταί), “who,” he says, “talk of vultures as ‘living tombs,’ to which they themselves would best be committed, and indulge in many other such frigid conceits.” (With the metaphor censured by Longinus compare Achilles Tatius, III. v. 50, ed. Didot.) See also Plato, Phaedrus, 267, A.

Hegesias of Magnesia, rhetorician and historian, contemporary of Timaeus (300 B.C.) He belongs to the period of the decline of Greek learning, and Cicero treats him as the representative of the decline of taste. His style was harsh and broken in character, and a parody on the Old Attic. He wrote a life of Alexander the Great, of which Plutarch (Alexander, c. 3) gives the following specimen: “On the day of Alexander’s birth the temple of Artemis in Ephesus was burnt down, a coincidence which occasions Hegesias to utter a conceit frigid enough to extinguish the conflagration. ‘It was natural,’ he says, ‘that the temple should be burnt down, as Artemis was engaged with bringing Alexander into the world’” (Pauly, with the references).

Hekataeus of Miletus, the logographer; born in 549 B.C., died soon after the battle of Plataea. He was the author of two works—(1) περίοδος γῆς; and (2) γενεηλογίαι. The Periodos deals in two books, first with Europe, then with Asia and Libya. The quotation in the text is from his genealogies (Lübker).

Ion of Chios, poet, historian, and philosopher, highly distinguished among his contemporaries, and mentioned by Strabo among the celebrated men of the island. He won the tragic prize at Athens in 452 B.C., and Aristophanes (Peace, 421 B.C.) speaks of him as already dead. He was not less celebrated as an elegiac poet, and we still possess some specimens of his elegies, which are characterised by an Anacreontic spirit, a cheerful, joyous tone, and even by a certain degree of inspiration. He wrote also Skolia, Hymns, and Epigrams, and was a pretty voluminous writer in prose (Pauly). Compare the Scholiast on Ar. Peace, 801.

Kallisthenes of Olynthus, a near relative of Aristotle; born in 360, and educated by the philosopher as fellow-pupil with Alexander, afterwards the Great. He subsequently visited Athens, where he enjoyed the friendship of Theophrastus, and devoted himself to history and natural philosophy. He afterwards accompanied Alexander on his Asiatic expedition, but soon became obnoxious to the tyrant on account of his independent and manly bearing, which he carried even to the extreme of rudeness and arrogance. He at last excited the enmity of Alexander to such a degree that the latter took the opportunity afforded by the conspiracy of Hermolaus, in which Kallisthenes was accused of participating, to rid himself of his former school companion, whom he caused to be put to death. He was the author of various historical and scientific works. Of the latter two