III. — On the ALKavLKo<; Aoyo? m Euripides. 



By JAMES T. LEES. 



The study of Greek eloquence and oratory has attracted 

 many of the best minds of the ancient and of the modern 

 world. Aristotle, in his Ars Rhetorica, was the first to 

 enter the field, but he tries to cover too much ground, for he 

 ranges over nearly the wjiole of Greek literature from Homer 

 down. Dionysios of Halikarnassos, of the first century b.c, 

 in his work entitled irepX tmv ap^alcov prjTopwv v7ropvi]pLaTLa- 

 jxoi, wrote a series of criticisms on the best Greek orators. 

 Unfortunately, half of this work is lost ; but the sections 

 which have been preserved are worthy of careful study, 

 especially his remarks on Lysias. Many writers since Dio- 

 nysios, both in the days of the Greek grammarians and in 

 modern times, have touched upon various phases of the 

 subject. But from the time of the accomplished professor 

 of rhetoric, Dio Chrysostomos, of the first and second cen- 

 turies of the Christian era, down to the middle of the present 

 century, no careful and scientific treatment of the subject 

 was presented to the world. The treatment of the subject in 

 Miiller and Donaldson, ' History of the Literature of Ancient 

 Greece, 1858,' is little more than a mere sketch. Wester- 

 mann's 'Geschichte der Griechischen Beredsamkeit ' is prac- 

 tically a bibliotheca of references. It was reserved for Dr. 

 F. Blass, in (i) 'Die Attische Beredsamkeit von Gorgias bis 

 zu Lysias,' Leipzig, 1868, and (2) 'Isokrates und Isaios,' 1874, 

 as well as for Professor R. C. Jebb, in ' The Attic Orators 

 from Antiphon to Isaeos,' 2 vols., London, 1876, to make a 

 careful and systematic study of this very important division 

 of Greek prose literature. 



University Studies, Vol. I., No. 4, July, 1892. 3^7 



