[A Greek who taught rhetoric in Rome, Dionysius was a prominent literary figure and the author of Roman Antiquities, a history of Rome from its origins to the First Punic War, and Scripta rhetorica, a collection of letters and essays on literary criticism valued for its thorough analysis and comparative method. In the following excerpt from his On Thucydides, Dionysius comments on what he views as some positive and negative attributes of the historian's style. Since the exact date of composition for this piece is unknown, Dionysius's death date has been used as the essay date.]

[Thucydides] was unwilling either to confine his history to a single region as did Hellanicus, or to elaborate into a single work the achievements of Greeks and barbarians in every land, as did Herodotus; but scorning the former as trifling and petty and of little value to the readers, and rejecting the latter as too comprehensive to fall within the purview of the human mind, if one would be very exact, he selected a single war, the war that was waged between the Athenians and Peloponnesians, and gave his attention to writing about this. Since he was physically robust and sound of mind, living through the duration of the war, he put together his narrative not from chance rumors but on the basis of personal experience, in cases where he was present himself, and on information from the most knowledgeable people, where he was in the dark as a result of his exile. In this way, then, he differed from the historians before him, and I say this since he chose a subject which neither consists entirely of one member (monokolon) nor is divided into many irreconcilable parts. Moreover, he did not insert anything of the mythical into his history, and he refused to divert his history to practice deception and magic upon the masses, as all the historians before him had done, telling of Lamias issuing from the earth in woods and glens, and of amphibious nymphs arising from Tartarus and swimming through the seas, partly shaped like beasts, and having intercourse with human beings; telling also about demi-gods, the offspring of mortals and gods, and many other stories that seem incredible and very foolish to our times.

I have not been led to say these things by the desire to censure those writers, since, on the contrary, I have much indulgence towards them for mentioning the fictions of myths when writing national and local history. For among all men alike there are preserved some records of both national and local traditions … which children have received from their parents and have taken care to hand down to their children in turn and they have insisted that those who wished to publish them should record them as they have received them from their elders. These historians, then, were compelled to embellish their local histories by such mythical digressions. On the other hand, it was not suitable for Thucydides, who chose just one subject in which he participated, to mix theatrical enticements with the narrative, or to practice the deceit against readers which those compilations customarily exhibited, but to be useful. …

Philosophers and rhetoricians, if not all of them, yet most of them, bear witness to Thucydides that he has been most careful of the truth, the high-priestess of which we desire history to be. He adds nothing to the facts that should not be added, and takes nothing there-from, nor does he take advantage of his position as a writer, but he adheres to his purpose without wavering, leaving no room for criticism, and abstaining from envy and flattery of every kind, particularly in his appreciation of men of merit. For in the first book, when he makes mention of Themistocles, he unstintingly mentions all of his good qualities, and in the second book in the discussion of the statesmanship of Pericles, he pronounces a eulogy such as was worthy of a man whose reputation has penetrated everywhere. Likewise, when he was compelled to speak about Demosthenes the general, Nicias the son of Niceratus, Alcibiades the son of Clinias, and other generals and speakers, he has spoken so as to give each man his due. To cite examples is unnecessary to readers of his history. This then is what may be said about the historian's success in connection with the treatment of his subject-matter—points that are good and worthy of imitation.

The defects of Thucydidean workmanship and the features that are criticized by some persons relate to the more technical side of his subject matter, what is called the economy of the discourse, something that is desirable in all kinds of writing, whether one chooses philosophical or oratorical subjects. The matter in question has to do with the division (diairesis), order (taxis) and development (exergasia). …

There are many … portions throughout the whole history that one may find either to have been worked out with the most consummate elaboration and that admit of neither addition nor subtraction, or else to have been carelessly skimmed over and to present not the slightest suggestion of … skill, and this is especially true of his harangues and dialogues and other pieces of oratory. In his anxiety for these, he seems to have left his history incomplete. Such, too, is the view of Cratippus, who flourished at the same time as he, and who collected the matter passed over by him, for he says that not only have the speeches been an impediment to the narrative, but they are also annoying to the hearers. At any rate he maintains that Thucydides noticed this and so put no speech in the closing portions of his history, though there were many events in Ionia and many events at Athens that called for the use of dialogues and harangues. Certainly, if one compares the first and eighth books with each other, they would not seem to form part of the same plan nor to be the work of the same genius. The one book comprising a few, small events is full of oratory, whereas the other embracing many great events shows a scarcity of public speeches.

I have even thought that in his very speeches the man has given evidence of the same failing, so much so that in dealing with the same subject and on the same occasion he writes some things that he ought not to have said, and omits others that he ought to have said, as, for example, he has done in regard to the city of the Mytilenaeans in the third book. After the capture of the city and the arrival of the captives, whom the general Paches had dispatched to Athens, though two meetings of the ecclesia were held at Athens (Thuc. III.36), our author has omitted as unnecessary the speeches that were made by the leaders of the people at the first of these meetings, in which the demos voted to kill the prisoners and the rest of the Mytilenaeans who had reached manhood, and to enslave the women and children; but the speeches (III.36-49) that dealt with the same subject and that were delivered by the same persons at the later meeting at which the majority experienced a sort of repentance, the historian has admitted as necessary.

And as for the much talked-of funeral speech (II.35-46), which Thucydides recounted in the second book, for what reason, pray, is it placed in this book rather than in another? For whether on the occasion of great disasters that had befallen the city when many brave Athenians had perished in battle it was befitting for the customary lamentations to be made over them, or, by reason of the great services which brought conspicuous renown to the city or added to its power, it was meet for the dead to be honored with the praises of funeral speeches, any book that one might choose would be a more suitable place for the funeral oration than this book. For, in this book, the Athenians who fell during this first invasion of the Peloponnesians were very few in number, and not even these performed any illustrious deeds, as Thucydides himself writes (II.22): After first saying of Pericles that "he watched the city and kept it as quiet as possible, but he continually sent out small numbers of horsemen to keep patrols of the army from sallying forth into the farms near the city and doing damage," he says that a brief cavalry conflict took place "at Phrygia between a single squad of Athenian cavalry accompanied by Thessalians and the Boetian horsemen. In this engagement the Thessalians and Athenians were not worsted until the hoplites came to the assistance of the Boeotians and so they were put to flight and a few of the Thessalians and Athenians were killed. But the dead were recovered on the same day without a truce. And the Peloponnesians erected a trophy on the following day." But in the fourth book (cf. Thuc. IV.9-23, 26-40) the men who fought with Demosthenes at Pylos against a force of the Lacedaemonians, attacking them by land and from the sea and conquering them in both the battles, and who thereby filled the city with boasting, were far superior in numbers and worth to the above-mentioned soldiers. Why then, pray, in the case of the few horsemen who brought neither reputation nor additional power to the city, does the historian open the public graves and introduce the most distinguished leader of the people, Pericles, in the act of reciting that lofty tragic composition; whereas, in honor of the larger number and more valiant who caused the people who declared war against the Athenians to surrender to them, and who were more worthy of obtaining such an honor, he did not compose a funeral oration? To dismiss all the other battles on land and on sea, in which many perished who much more deserved to be honored with the funeral eulogy than those frontier guardsmen of Attica, amounting to about ten or fifteen horsemen, how much more worthy of the funeral lamentations and eulogies were those of the Athenians and allies who met their death in Sicily along with Nicias and Demosthenes in the naval engagements and in the land battles and lastly in that wretched flight, who numbered no less than forty thousand and who were not even able to obtain the customary mode of burial? But the historian was so neglectful of these men that he has even omitted to state that the city went into public mourning and duly made the customary offerings to the shades of those who had died in foreign lands, and appointed as the orator of the occasion the man who was the most competent speaker of the orators of that time. For it was not likely that the Athenians would go into public mourning for the fifteen horsemen, but would not deem worthy of any honor the men that fell in Sicily, among whom … [lacuna] and of the muster-roll of citizens those that perished were more in number than five thousand. But it seems that the historian (for I shall say what I think), desiring to use the personality of Pericles and to put in his mouth the funeral eulogy that he had composed, since the man died in the second year of the war and did not live at the time of any of the disasters that subsequently befell the city, bestowed upon that small and insignificant deed a praise that went far beyond the real worth of the matter. …

I am now going to speak about his style (to lektikon) in which the individuality of the author is most clearly seen. Perhaps it may be necessary in connection with this topic (idea) also, to state in advance into how many parts diction (lexis) is divided and what are the qualities it embraces; then to show without concealing anything what was the state of literary expression when Thucydides received it from his predecessors, and what parts of it were due to his innovations, whether for better or for worse.

That all diction (lexis) is divided into two primary divisions, (1), the choice of the words by which things are designated, and, (2), the composition into larger and smaller groups (lit. parts), and that each of these is subdivided into still other divisions, the choice of the elementary parts of speech (nominal, verbal, and conjunctive, I mean) into literal (kyria) and figurative (tropike) expression, and composition into phrases (kommata), clauses (kola), and periods (periodoi); and that both of these classes (I mean simple and uncompounded words and the combination of these) happen to be capable of assuming certain figures (schemata); and that of the so-called virtues (aretai) some are essential and must be found in every kind of discourse, whilst others are accessory (epithetoi) and receive their peculiar force only when the former are present as a foundation, have been stated by many before. Hence I need not now speak about them, nor state the considerations and rules which are many in number, upon which each of these qualities is based. For these matters also have been most carefully worked out.

Which of these features all of Thucydides' predecessors used and which of them they used but slightly, taking up from the beginning as I promised, I shall summarize. For thus one will more accurately recognize the individual style (charakter) of our author. Now I have no means of conjecturing what was the language used by the very ancient writers who are known only by their names, whether they used a style that was plain (lite), unadorned (akosmetos), and had nothing superfluous (perittos), but only what was useful and indispensable, or whether they employed a style that was stately (pompike), dignified (axiomatike) and elaborate (egkataskeuos) and provided with accessory embellishments (kosmoi). For neither have the writings of the majority of them been preserved up to our times, nor are those that have been preserved believed by everybody to belong to those men, among others the works of Cadmus of Miletus and Aristaeus of Proconnesus, and the like. But the authors who lived before the Peloponnesian war and survived up to the time of Thucydides, all of them as a rule followed the same plan, both those who chose the Ionic dialect which flourished more than the others at those times, and those writers who chose the old Attic dialect which showed only a few slight differences from the Ionic. For all these writers … were more concerned about the literal meaning of the words than about their figurative use, and they admitted the latter only to impart flavor (hedysma), as it were, to their style; and as to their composition all of them used the same kind, the plain and unstudied, and in the framing of their words and their thoughts they did not deviate to any considerable extent from the everyday (tetrimmene), current (koine) and familiar manner of diction (dialektos). Now the diction (lexis) of all of these writers possesses the necessary virtues—it is pure (kathara), clear (saphes), and fairly concise (syntomos), each preserving the peculiar idiom (charakter) of the language; but the accessory virtues, which to the largest extent reveal the power of the orator, are not found in their entirety nor in their highest state of development, but only in small numbers and in a slightly developed stage,—I refer to such qualities as sublimity (hypsos), elegance (kalliremosyne), solemnity (semnologia), and splendor (megaloprepeia). Nor does their diction reveal intensity (tonos), nor gravity (baros) nor sentiment (pathos) that arouses the mind, nor a vigorous (erromenon) and combative (enagonion) spirit, which are productive of so-called eloquence (deinotes). with the single exception of Herodotus. This author in the choice of words, in his composition, and in the variety (poikilia) of his figures far surpassed all the others, and made his prose utterance resemble the best kind of poetry, by reason of his persuasiveness (peitho), graces of style (charites), and great charm (hedone). In the greatest and most conspicuous qualities … [Text defective] … Only the qualities of a forensic nature seem to be lacking, whether he was not naturally gifted with these, or, whether in pursuance of a certain design he voluntarily rejected them as unsuited to history.

For the author has not made use of many deliberative or forensic speeches, nor does his strength (alke) consist in imparting the elements of passion (pathainein) and forcefulness (deinopoiein) to his narrative.

Following this author and the others whom I previously mentioned, and recognizing the qualities that each of these authors possessed, Thucydides was the first man to endeavor to introduce into historical composition a certain peculiar style (charakter) and one that had been disregarded by all others. In the choice of his words he preferred a diction that was figurative (tropike), obscure (glottematike), archaic (aperchaiomene), and foreign (xene) in the place of that which was in common use and familiar to the men of his time; in the composition of the smaller and larger divisions he used the dignified (axiomatike), austere (austera), sturdy (stibara), and stable (bebekuia), and one that by the harsh sound of the letters grates roughly on the ears instead of the clear (liguros), soft (malaka), and polished (synexesmene) kind, and one in which there is no clashing of sounds. On the use of figures, in which he desired to differ as far as possible from his predecessors, he bestowed the greatest effort. …

The most conspicuous and characteristic features of the author are his efforts to express the largest number of things in the smallest number of words, and to compress a number of thoughts into one, and his tendency to leave his hearer still expecting to hear something more, all of which things produce a brevity that lacks clearness. To sum it up, there are four instruments, as it were, of Thucydidean diction (lexis): poetical vocabulary (to poietikon ton onomaton), great variety of figures (to polyeides ton schematon), harshness of sound combination (to trachy tes harmonias), and swiftness in saying what he has to say (to tachos ton semasion). Its qualities (chromata) are solidity (striphnon) and compactness (pyknon), pungency (pikron) and harshness (austeron), gravity (embrithes), tendency to inspire awe and fear (deinon kai phoberon), and above all these the power of stirring the emotions (pathetikon). That is about the kind of author Thucydides is as regards the characteristics of his diction (lexis), in which he differed from all the other authors. Now when the author's powers keep pace with his purpose, the success is perfect and marvelous; but when the ability lags behind and the tension (tonos) is not maintained throughout, the rapidity of the narrative makes the diction obscure, and introduces other ugly blemishes. For the author does not throughout his history observe the proper use of foreign and coined words nor the limit to which he may go before he stops, though there are principles regulating their use that are good and binding in every kind of writing.