A Study of the Type of the Greek Hpitaphios 



with Special Reference to the 



Oration in Thucvdicles. 



DAVID H. HOLMES. 



This study is an outgrowth of a more special investigation into 

 the genuineness of the Epitaphios of Lysias, a much disputed sub- 

 ject, but none the less interesting because it has received more or 

 less attention throughout the history of classical study. There is 

 a feeling no\v-a-days that it is bad classical form to treat a subject 

 which has once been treated. Indeed, this feeling has been so 

 alive as to have induced a search for the ''new and novel", which 

 has at times been followed by results either heterodoxical or quite 

 wide of the niark. At any rate, keenly conscious of this classical 

 cant, I have felt the necessity of creating an excuse for dar- 

 ing to stud}' again a subject so much studied, and in m}' Index 

 Lxsiacus (Bonn 1895) I have endeavored to furnish such an excuse 

 in the means which it affords of more accurately deciding some 

 internal questions as to whether or not Lysias wrote the speech 

 which bears his name. One of the outgrowths of this study is the 

 present paper, and, like most outgrowths, it is lacking somewhat 

 in unity of purpose. This is especiall)' visible in the partial stylis- 

 tic comparison based on participle and finite verb, a comparison 

 which was not carried out further by reason of the limitations of 

 space as well as of inclination. Yet so far as I know there is no 

 study which exactly covers the same ground with this, and while it 

 is in a certain sense a compilation of facts, it will be found not 

 wholly lacking in originality of treatment. The literature bearing 

 on the subject is too extensive to admit of enumeration here. 



I shall, therefore, first consider the different representatives of 

 the Epitaphios historically, its significance and its type. I shall 

 next consider the oration given in Thucydides in particular. 

 Finally, 1 shall endeavor to draw a conclusion as to the relation 

 which this oration sustains to the history of Thucydides and to the 

 oration actually delived by Pericles. 



(21i)) KAN. UNIV. QU.\K. Vol.. IV, N<». 4. .\PKII., 18i«), 



