3 Thucydides surpasses all other writers in the bold use of this figure, even breaking up sentences which are by their nature absolutely one and indivisible. But nowhere do we find it so unsparingly employed as in Demosthenes, who though not so daring in his manner of using it as the elder writer is very happy in giving to his speeches by frequent transpositions the lively air of unstudied debate. Moreover, he drags, as it were, his audience with him into the perils of a long inverted clause.
4 He often begins to say something, then leaves the thought in suspense, meanwhile thrusting in between, in a position apparently foreign and unnatural, some extraneous matters, one upon another, and having thus made his hearers fear lest the whole discourse should break down, and forced them into eager sympathy with the danger of the speaker, when he is nearly at the end of a period he adds just at the right moment, _i.e._ when it is least expected, the point which they have been waiting for so long. And thus by the very boldness and hazard of his inversions he produces a much more astounding effect. I forbear to cite examples, as they are too numerous to require it.
The juxtaposition of different cases, the enumeration of particulars, and the use of contrast and climax, all, as you know, add much vigour, and give beauty and great elevation and life to a style. The diction also gains greatly in diversity and movement by changes of case, time, person, number, and gender.
2 With regard to change of number: not only is the style improved by the use of those words which, though singular in form, are found on inspection to be plural in meaning, as in the lines--
“A countless host dispersed along the sand With joyous cries the shoal of tunny hailed,”
but it is more worthy of observation that plurals for singulars sometimes fall with a more impressive dignity, rousing the imagination by the mere sense of vast number.
3 Such is the effect of those words of Oedipus in Sophocles--
“Oh fatal, fatal ties! Ye gave us birth, and we being born ye sowed The self-same seed, and gave the world to view Sons, brothers, sires, domestic murder foul, Brides, mothers, wives.... Ay, ye laid bare The blackest, deepest place where Shame can dwell.”[1]