Book 12
10.64
For Homer himself assigns to Menelaus Mil. iii. 214. The words which Quintilian translates by non deerrare verbhis are οὐδ᾽ ἀφαμαρτοεπής, no stumbler in speech, rather than correct in speech. an eloquence, terse and pleasing, exact (for that is what is meant by making no errors in words ) and devoid of all redundance, which qualities are virtues of the first type: and he says that from the lips of Nestor Il. i. 249. flowed speech sweeter than honey, than which assuredly we can conceive no greater delight: but when he seeks to express the supreme gift of eloquence possessed by Ulysses Il. iii. 221. he gives a mighty voice and a vehemence of oratory equal to the snows of winter in the abundance and the vigour of its words.
10.65
With him then, he says, no mortal will contend, and men shall look upon him as on a god. A blend of Il. iii. 223 and Od. viii. 173. It is this force and impetuosity that Eupolis admires in Pericles, this that Aristophanes Aeh. 530. Then in his wrath Pericles the Olympian lightened and thundered and threw all Greece into confusion. compares to the thunderbolt, this that is the power of true eloquence.
10.66
But eloquence cannot be confined even to these three forms of style. For just as the third style is intermediate between the grand and the plain style, so each of these three are separated by interspaces which are occupied by intermediate styles compounded of the two which he on either side.
