Mimesis in Greek Historical Theory

Author(s): Vivienne Gray

Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 108, No. 3 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 467-486
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 MIMESIS IN GREEK HISTORICAL THEORY

Mimesis, which can be literally translated as "imitation," though

that is often unhelpful, has a wide range of technical meanings in the
world of ancient literary criticism. To begin with, there is the imitation
of model authors practised by students of rhetoric in order to master the
virtues of good style, but this is not the concern of my paper. More im-
portantly, mimesis is used to describe what an artist or poet does in cre-
ating his work. Plato uses it in this way, saying that the artist or poet
"imitates" phenomena of the real world in his work, and that the poet
"imitates" in a special sense when he impersonates a character, as in
drama. For Plato, such mimesis cannot capture reality, because that
resides only in his Forms, so that it remains mere counterfeit, but Aris-
totle, who also uses mimesis of the process and product of art and po-
etry, disagreed with Plato about the question of reality. He claimed that
poetry represented a universal truth, and distinguished it from history
in this respect.'
This use of mimesis in poetry and the arts is well known. What is
not well known is the use of mimesis to describe what the historian does
in creating his history. In spite of Aristotle's expressed distinction be-
tween poetry and history (based on the distinction between mimetic and
non-mimetic literature), by the first century B.C. at the latest, and prob-
ably much earlier, history was being described as an imitative art. This
has not been generally appreciated, nor has the evidence been properly
assembled to establish the meaning of mimesis in historical theory. The
use of the word by the third century B.C. writer, Duris of Samus, who is
the one author who has been detected using it in an historical context, is
treated in isolation, without knowledge of the rest of the evidence. So
that it is said:
There appears to be no evidence for the use of the word as a technical
term in historical theory in any other author but Duris,2
See C. O. Brink, "Tragic History and Aristotle's School," PCPS 6 (1960) 14-19,
for the distinction between poetry and history. D. A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity
(London 1981) surveys the principal meanings of mimesis in literary theory, 99-113. An-
cient critics could use the word in a variety of senses. For example, Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus, one of the writers discussed in this paper, uses it of the imitation of model
authors (see his On Imitation) and of the imitation of the real world, which is a desirable
literary technique, and is the subject of this paper.
2F. W. Walbank, Polybius (California 1972) 36, n. 18.
American Journal of Philology 108(1987) 467 486 ? 1987 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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468 VIVIENNE GRAY

and the meanings proposed for mimesis are inadequate as a result. This
has led to special confusion in the discussion of the nature of 'tragic
history', where Duris' mimesis plays a key role.3 Even where the other
evidence does present itself, as is the case in the quite recent and quite
specialised commentary on the essay by Dionysius of Halicarnassus on
Thucydides, in which mimesis is clearly used to describe the writing of
history, the implications of the word remain unexplored.4 Mimesis
needs to be more widely recognised as a technical term in ancient histor-
ical theory and its meaning needs to be more precisely defined by proper
assemblage of the most relevant evidence.
I begin with the author of the essay on Thucydides mentioned
above, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing in the first century B.C., who
provides us with clear evidence of the use of the term and its meaning.5
In his ad Pompeium Geminum 18 (776) he says plainly that the 'imita-
tion of characters and emotions' (ie60v TEKCinta60v uiIt)olcq)is one of the
virtues of historical prose style, adding that Herodotus was better at the
imitation of characters and Thucydides at the imitation of emotions.6
This is a clear case of mimesis as a technical term in historical theory. Its
meaning is revealed in Dionysius' other technical uses of the term, one
of which occurs in his essay on Thucydides mentioned above (45).
There, in spite of his earlier remark that Thucydides excelled in the
imitation of emotion, he criticises him for occasional lapses of imitation
in respect of both character and emotion. His criticism concerns the
speeches in Thucydides. Dionysius is provoked by some of the argu-
ments in some of the speeches which he considers inappropriate for the
characters who are delivering them and the circumstances in which they
find themselves. For example, he argues (44-45) that it was inappro-
priate that Pericles should be portrayed reprimanding the Athenians
for their outburst of anger against him (Thuc. 2.60-65). That went
against the rule that the historian should create arguments 'appropriate
to the events, the characters, the circumstances and all other relevant

3Seebelow, 1 ff.
4W. K. Pritchett, Dionysiusof Halicarnassuson Thucydides(California1975)
129, on chapter45.
50n Dionysius,see S. F. Bonner, Dionysiusof Halicarnassus(Cambridge1939)
and G. M. A. Grube, The Greekand Roman Critics(Toronto 1965) 207-30. For the
translationsof Dionysiusthat follow, and translationsof other authorsin this paper, I
haveused Loeb translationswhereavailable,adaptingthem wheretheyseem unsatisfac-
tory. Whereunavailable,I have used my own.
6Forthe meaningsof ethos and pathos, see Grube(n. 5 above)291-92, and DH,
de Lysia, 19.

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 MIMESIS IN GREEK HISTORICAL THEORY 469

factors' rTpoObrp oLq Kai TOlq

(ToiC rtpdypaoLv ... nrpoorfKOVTa Kai ;TOlq
Katpolq Kai TOiq aAAtOLqanraotv). Pericles should have been made to
mollify them, as would have been appropriate for one who was like a
defendant in a trial, in danger of deposition and worse. He sums up:
This would have been the proper procedure for a historian who sought to
imitate reality (TOiuTO
yap rv rnp:nov TO)pIpsIicOatpouAopv cpouyypa-
(tEl TrV 6AX0elaVv).
Mimesis is clearly used here as a technical term in historical theory and
it is achieved by observance of the rule of propriety of argument in com-
posing speeches.
Dionysius goes on to discuss improprieties of style in the speeches
of Pericles (Thuc. 2.60-65) and Hermocrates (Thuc. 6.77-80), using
the same standard as he applied to argument and drawing attention to
embellishments of style which he considers quite inappropriate for the
public assemblies in which they were delivered (49, 50). He cites elabo-
rate figures of speech, like the following paronomasiai:

iurl povrTjlaTl opvov aAAaGKQi KTacapovrOVaOTi (46)

ou A?ovTiVOUq 3BouAXasoaKaTOIKiCalaAA'rlpaq puaAAovESoIKioai (48)
and calls them "frigid, not conveying emotion (rn6oq) but artificiality"
(48). Since impropriety lies at the heart of the failure of mimesis in argu-
ment above, this stylistic impropriety must also be a failure of mimesis
in style, both contributing to the failure of mimesis overall.
Dionysius' "imitation of reality" in his essay on Thucydides encom-
passes his 'imitation of character and emotion' referred to in his letter to
Pompeius Geminus. It was the character of Pericles that Thucydides
failed to imitate by using inappropriate arguments in the speech he
wrote for Pericles. He did not sound like a man in danger of his life.
And it is the emotions of Pericles and Hermocrates that he failed to
imitate by using inappropriate language in their speeches. This is made
quite plain in Dionysius' explicit reference to lack of pathos at 48.
Dionysius' view on Thucydides seems to be that he does excel in the imi-
tation of emotion, as he said in his letter to Pompeius Geminus and ad-
mits even in the course of the essay in question, but there are occasional
lapses.
The meaning of mimesis in history is the recreation of reality, en-
compassing recreation of both character and emotion. In real life, men
like Pericles, in danger of their lives, do not reprimand their "jury."
Neither should they do so in literature. In real life, men conveying emo-
tion do not employ elaborate figures of speech (or so Dionysius be-

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470 VIVIENNE GRAY

lieved). Neither should they do so in literature. The means by which the

recreation of life is to be achieved is the observance of the rule of propri-
ety, based on observation of what men do in real life. It will emerge that
ancient literary critics are unanimous in this definition of historical mi-
mesis, even though they may differ in their subjective estimates of the
level of mimesis the various historians achieved.
The reason why Dionysius connects propriety of argument and
style so closely with imitation of life in history is that he believes propri-
ety is a law of nature inherent in all things (De Comp. Verb. 135). It is
therefore a vital characteristic of life. For example, it is inherent in the
natural speech of ordinary men in real life, in that they normally adapt
their language to reflect the emotions they feel and the sorts of things
they are describing. He makes the point thus (De Comp. Verb. 136),
with particular reference to their order of words:
Men who are angry or rejoicing, in mourning or in fear, or in some other
sort of state than an unpleasant one, as when we reflect that there is noth-
ing that disturbs or aggrieves us, do not employ the same order of words.
The same men in the same state of mind, when they describe events they
witness, do not employ the same order of words for all events.

Thus, when the writer of history adopts the same rule of propriety,
adapting argument and style to subject matter, he is "imitating" what
men do in real life, or "imitating" life itself.
Dionysius is not the only writer, nor the passage on Thucydides the
only passage, in which mimesis is used as a technical term in historical
theory. In his work, On Sublimity 22.1, with reference to the histories of
Herodotus and Thucydides in particular, the literary critic called
Longinus7 says that "imitation of the effects of nature" is achieved by
the best writers, who imitate what men do in real life and adapt the
language of their characters in speeches to the emotions those charac-
ters are experiencing. This is the same sort of mimesis as in Dionysius,
and is similarly achieved by adapting order of thought and word.
Longinus says:
Just as people who are really angry or frightened or worried or who are
carried away from time to time by jealousy or any other feelings -there
are countless emotions, more than one can say-often put forward one
point and then spring off to another with various illogical interpolations,

70n Longinus, see Grube (n. 5 above) 340-53.

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 MIMESISIN GREEKHISTORICAL THEORY 471

and then wheel round again to their original position, while, under the
stress of their excitement, like a ship before a veering wind, they lay their
thoughts and words first on one tack then another, and keep altering the
natural sequence into innumerable variations-so, too, the best prose
writers by the use of inversions imitate the effects of nature for the same
effect (oUTWnrapa TOIcapioTolc ouuyypaPsual 6td TCOV Ounspp3aTwv /'
r (Puoe0q spyQa psTaaQ).
lipIqoiterTi T Tfq

Longinus then offers the speech of Dionysius of Phocaea (Her. 6.11) as

an example of such mimesis. He points out that Dionysius' fear is re-
flected in the transposition of 'men of Ionia' from the beginning of the
speech to after the statement of his fear, which was overwhelming him.
He also transposes his explanations of why the men must face hardship
to before his statement that they must face hardship. This confused
thought order 'imitated' the sort of language a person would use in real
life if he were faced with such a fear as that faced by Dionysius of Pho-
caea. In this way Herodotus 'imitated' nature, or the effects of nature.
This sort of mimesis is the same as that described by Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus, with a slight variation of terminology, where 'reality' is re-
placed by 'the effects of nature'. They share a common view of historical
mimesis, even though they make different judgements about the degree
of mimesis that can be detected in Herodotus and Thucydides.
Dionysius uses mimesis of Thucydides' speeches, Longinus of both
Herodotus' and Thucydides' speeches, that is, of speeches in history in
general. They both also use it of lawcourt speeches. In his essay on Ly-
sias, Dionysius says Lysias is the example par excellence of a speechwri-
ter who 'imitated life' in his speeches. The student who wishes to become
an 'imitator of nature' ((q)P6usq pPITriCq)is encouraged to follow Lysias
in his choice and order of words, because Lysias imitated the natural
way of speaking employed by the ordinary man when composing his
speeches.8 In his essay on Isaeus, comparing him with Lysias, he com-
ments:

Any reader of Lysias' narratives would suppose that no art or dishonesty

had gone into their composition, but that they are written in accordance
with nature and truth. He would not know that this illusion is itself the
product of an art whose greatest achievement was to imitate nature
(pulprioaoQat Trlv q)>otv).9

SDH, de Lysia, 8. Cp. 4.

9Ibid, de Isaeo, 16.

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472 VIVIENNE GRAY

This amounts to an imitation of character rather than emotion. In one

of his speeches Lysias produced "the original type of young, ordinary,
0
retiring citizen, differing in no way from the well known reality."
Longinus does not differentiate between historical and rhetorical
mimesis, either. He detected mimesis in Herodotus' speech for Diony-
sius of Phocaea and explained it as a product of an arrangement of
words and thoughts proper to the emotion being portrayed, especially
through the use of inversions of thought. Previous to that, in the same
work and virtually the same section, On Sublimity 18, he described mi-
mesis in the orator Demosthenes, and that was also produced by certain
figures of speech, not inversions this time, but the figure of speech of
question and answer. The effect of this, once more, was vividness. He
says:
For emotion is always more telling when it seems not to be premeditated
by the speaker but to be born of the moment; and this way of questioning
and answering oneself 'imitates' spontaneous emotion (pIPslTat TOU
nradouqcT6 eliKalpov).
Here we are clearly dealing with Dionysius' Td)V rnae9)v piprlctq referred
to in his letter to Pompeius. Mimesis, as Dionysius showed, involved pro-
priety of argument as well as style, but it is to be expected that in works
of literary criticism which concentrate on style, like Longinus', it will be
stylistic propriety that will be uppermost. In fact, most of the passages
on mimesis still to be discussed will concern only stylistic propriety, but
it must be kept in mind that mimesis can cover argument as well.
These passages from Dionysius and Longinus call for imitation of
character and emotion in history, but they are concerned only with
speeches. What of historical narrative and description, where the histo-
rian was dealing with writing that did not involve impersonation of the
character and emotions of the historical character experiencing them?
This too, the answer may be given, involved mimesis through observ-
ance of the rule of propriety. Longinus offers an example of narrative
description which he says failed to produce the required effect of mime-
sis, and this mimesis turns out to be the same sort of mimesis examined
hitherto, namely, the mimesis that consists in observance of the rule of
propriety, of the stylistic kind. He says Theopompus failed to "imitate
nature" (ptplsiacal TIV ... (6UOV) in his narrative description of the
gifts sent to the Persian King for his descent into Egypt (On Sublimity,

"0Ibid, de Isaeo, 15.

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 MIMESIS IN GREEK HISTORICAL THEORY 473

43). The historian's failure of imitation consisted in the choice of words,

which were inappropriate for the subject matter, in that they were too
vulgar for such a magnificent display. Theopompus had used common
words like 'bags and spices and sacks' (rouq OBuaKOuq KatiTQ apTUpaTa
Kaiid cOQKKia) which, says Longinus, were more appropriate to a cook-
shop than a royal description of the King's gifts. Such impropriety rep-
resented a failure to imitate nature because nature herself always ob-
served propriety:
One ought not in elevated passages to have recourse to what is sordid or
contemptible, except under the pressure of extreme necessity, but the
proper course is to suit the words to the dignity of the subject and thus
imitate nature, the artist that created man. Nature did not place in full
view our dishonourable parts nor the drains that purge our whole frame,
but as far as possible concealed them, and, as Xenophon says, thrust their
channels into the furthest background, for fear of spoiling the beauty of
the whole figure. (43.5)

Longinus again reveals here his common bond with Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus. Both believed that propriety was a law of nature inherent in
all things, and both based their demands for imitation in history writing
on this belief. Mimesis in history amounted to observance of that law of
nature in literature.
In this case, as in others, one sort of imitation implied others.
While the historian could imitate nature by observing propriety, he was
also at the same time imitating real life, insofar as men in real life, in
their ordinary speech, observed the rule or propriety in a similar way.
The effect of such mimesis could be ethical or pathetic, depending on
whether it involved representation of character or emotion. So mimesis
of nature and life involved mimesis of character and emotion. This sort
of mimesis was required of both rhetoric and history, and, within his-
tory, of both speeches and narrative, in the first of which the character
and emotion belonged to the speaker, and in the second of which the
character and emotion belonged to the historian himself. To take the
passage of Theopompus as an example, the character and emotion ap-
propriate to the subject matter was that of an observer wondering at the
magnificence of what he saw laid out before him, and the rule of propri-
ety demanded that this wonder be 'imitated' in the description the
writer gave of that magnificence. The same rule of propriety had to be
observed, whether the wonder was that of a persona in the history or of
the historian himself. This, then, is some indication of what is involved
in historical mimesis.

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474 VIVIENNE GRAY

Prose writing could be even more directly imitative than this, how-
ever. Longinus says that in his speech against Meidias Demosthenes
"does just the same as the aggressor" in describing an act of aggression,
that is, he 'mimics' the act in his writing. The mimesis is again achieved
by stylistic means, especially the use of asyndeta and repetition, which
mimic the repeated, abrupt, and sharp violence of the blows struck by
the aggressor. This mimicry is evident even in translation (On Subl.,
20.2):
... by his gesture, his looks, his voice, when he strikes to insult, when he
strikes like an enemy, when he strikes with his fists, when he strikes you
like a slave.
Demosthenes does just the same as the aggressor, he belabours the
minds of the audience with blow after blow. This sort of writing is
clearly within the bounds of mimesis of the sort involving propriety. The
style proper to a description of violence is one that imitates the act of
violence. Mimicry like this was required of rhetoric by Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus as well as Longinus, and it was characteristically grounded in
observance of the rule of propriety. For instance, in the passage on pro-
priety in the work on composition (De Comp. Verb. 136), Dionysius says
that men in real life tend to observe propriety and "mimic" or "imitate"
the events they describe:
The same men in the same state of mind, when they describe the events
they happen to take part in, do not employ the same arrangement of
words for all events, but they become imitators of the events, even in
point of arrangement of words, doing nothing artfully but being led to
this naturally.
Men in real life use language proper to the events they describe, and
good poets and orators, says Dionysius, should do likewise (De Comp.
Verb. 137):

Observing this, the good poet and orator must be an imitator of the
events he describes, not only in his choice of words, but in his arrange-
ment of them.
We might add, by extension, since Dionysius elsewhere applies this the-
ory of mimesis both to rhetoric and to history, for example in his essays
on Lysias and Thucydides, that writers of history could also be included
in this rule.
Dionysius clarifies what he means by this rhetorical and poetic,
and probably also historical, mimesis by a poetic example from Homer.

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 MIMESIS IN GREEK HISTORICAL THEORY 475

He says that Homer's description of the labour of Sisyphus was a mime-

sis of events in that the long syllables predominating in his chosen vo-
cabulary 'imitate' the arduous effort Sisyphus had to make in rolling his
stone uphill, an effect enhanced by a predominance of one or two sylla-
ble words and the contrivance of hiatus, as well as other rhythmical de-
vices.1l Use of language proper to the effort of Sisyphus is the key to the
mimesis, and such usage, perhaps without the same advantage of rhyth-
mical manipulation, was well within the grasp of the careful writer of
rhetoric and history. It is, in fact, very similar to the effect achieved by
Demosthenes in his description of aggression. It seems that mimesis ap-
plied indiscriminately to a very wide range of writing, both prose and
poetry. Moreover, this use of mimesis to describe the vivid effect
achieved by observance of propriety was not an invention of the first
century B.C. Duris of Samus, several centuries before Dionysius, appears
to be using the compound in precisely the same way and of
KplLpsiao9atl
precisely the same poet as Dionysius.12 Duris criticised the simile in Iliad
21.257-262, which compared the flood of the river Scamander to the
act of garden irrigation, claiming that the comparison was inappro-
priate, in that the objects of comparison were unequal in dignity; but he
acknowledged that this escaped the attention of the readers because of
the mimesis of the act of irrigation (TaQUTa 6t (<T)> TTVEV TOLqKIrTIOLq
u6ppaywyiav KptpiiSloQa Avavedvel ncoq TOuq avaylyvoCKOVTaq). An
examination of the description of the act of irrigation reveals the same
effects that Dionysius was several centuries later to refer to again as mi-
mesis. For instance, the effort involved in swinging the mattock in order
to clear away obstructions is imitated in the balanced phrases of the
line:

Xspoi plQKEAAavXJov,QpapnlpSe XIXUaTQa

pdAAXov (259)
the effort being reinforced by homoeoteleuton. The obstruction of the
large pebbles to the flow of water is also imitated, especially in the run
over and weighty line:
TOU pIV TS?npopoVTOq UinOitprtiSieq arnacoa
OxAeuvTat. (260/1)

" DH, de Comp. Verb., 137ff. Russell (n. 1 above) 54, and Grube (n. 5 above) 219
both comment on this passage.
12For a balanced view of Duris, R. B. Kebric, In the Shadow of Macedon: Duris
of Samus. Historia, Einz. Heft 29 (Wiesbaden 1977). For the passage, Jacoby FGH 76 F.
89.

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476 VIVIENNE GRAY

Finally, dactyls and short words imitate the water beginning to run as
the way is cleared, and eventually outstripping its guide with its acceler-
ation:
TO 56 T' tKa KaGTCLt3OpVOV KeXapuoeL
Xopco) ev rnpoaAsI. L?ea6ve 6: TS Kai TOVayovTa. (261/2)

There is no other obvious explanation of what Duris could mean by mi-

mesis apart from this. Duris and Dionysius are working within the same
tradition of Homeric criticism.
Duris also applied the standard of mimesis to writers of history. In
a fragment probably taken from the first book of his History and in-
cluded in his Bibliotheca entry on Theopompus of Chius by Photius of
Constantinople, Duris criticised the historians Ephorus and Theopom-
pus for their lack of mimesis in the following words:13
ELPopoc 5 Kai OsEnopnoq TiOVysVOpIVoV nAeloTOv dneAsXsi(eo(rav.
oUTs Yap ItplosCEq p'eCTAapov ou65spjia OUTS i6lOVrlq ev T) papdoat,
QUTOU5s TOUypd)?EV IpVOV SnnspieAl9Oqaav.

Ephorus and Theopompus fell very short of the events.

They achieved no piprlatqs or pleasure in their presentation,
but cultivated only TOypdoIesv.

The statement has aroused a great deal of controversy about the mean-
ings of pipiotrla and "pleasure" and To yp6(pslv, so that it may be called
highly controversial. For the moment, it is the meaning of mimesis that
concerns us. It has been generally thought to refer to what is called
"tragic history" which aims to arouse 'pleasure' through the representa-
tion of emotional subject matter. Duris is supposed to have written such
history himself and demanded it of others.14 Many have identified
Duris' mimesis with the epic and tragic mimesis of Aristotle's Poetics,
and some have taken this to extremes, saying that Duris was demanding
that history take on the restricted subject matter and logically ordered
plot of Aristotelian tragedy and epic, and produce catharsis through the

l3Jacoby, FGH 76 F. 1.
14The literature on this brief fragment of Duris is enormous. K. Meister reviews
the history of the controversy in his Historische Kritik bei Polybios (Wiesbaden 1975)
109-26. K. Sacks, Polybius on the Writing of History (California 1981) 144-70 also gives
a summary of the main views. Most recently, see C. W. Fornara, The Nature of History
in Ancient Greece and Rome (California 1983) 124-34. His comments on Historical Am-
plification, 134-36, are also relevant, though stylistic matters need to be further empha-
sised.

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 MIMESISIN GREEKHISTORICAL THEORY 477

emotions of pity and fear, as tragedy and epic did.'5 The identification
of Duris' mimesis with that of Aristotle's Poetics has the merit of being
based on a well known technical use of the term, even if Aristotle ex-
pressly refused to apply it to historical theory. Others have proposed
meanings for mimesis in Duris that are quite unattested as technical
terms elsewhere, in any sort of theory.'6 But the continuing controversy
demonstrates the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence produced so far.
The identification with the mimesis of the Poetics seem to have been
abandoned, but there is no substitute context offered which might
clearly establish the precise meaning of mimesis as a technical term in
historical theory. The interpretations of it amount to mere surmise.17
This is not to say that the general drift of opinion about its meaning is
incorrect; it does produce a sensation of life in history. But the means
whereby the sensation is to be achieved have not been understood.
There has been a tendency to stress content or organisation as the means
of its achievement, but this is certainly misleading.18 It seems to me that
it is propriety, the literary virtue of writing appropriately to the subject
matter, that is at the heart of Duris' mimesis and the sensation it cre-
ates, and this is based on the collection of evidence presented in this
paper, which demonstrates that there is such a well attested meaning of
the word as a technical term in historical theory. It also should be noted
that the effect produced by such imitation, as we have seen, is not neces-
sarily violent emotion. For example, the imitation of character could

'5These include Schwarz, Scheller, and Strasburger. See Meister (above) 109-12.
16These include Ullman, who favoured an Isocratean origin for "tragic history,"
but without pointing to such a use of the term mimesis in Isocrates; Walbank (n. 2
above), who believed that mimesis in his sense occurred only in Duris and nowhere else;
Meister, who thought that mimesis meant 'veracity', again without a supporting context.
See Meister, 110-11 for the survey. Fornara (n. 14 above) concentrates on the meaning of
"pleasure" rather than mimesis and so avoids having to find a parallel usage for mimesis,
but he confesses to the tenuousness of his argument that it implies the effects of reversals
in history, e.g., 126-27.
17Sacks (n. 14 above) accepts the view of Walbank. Fornara (ibid.) says that his
own view is a "refinement" on that of Walbank: 131, n. 53, though he insists that
Walbank is too dismissive of the novelty of Duris' theory, 131-32, and wants to retain
some relationship with Aristotle's poetic theory, 124. But any close connexion with Aris-
totle is rejected, 125-26. We are left with no parallel usages of mimesis to support their
new theories.
'8Walbank stresses content. He defines mimesis in Duris as a "vivid and emotional
presentation of events" (Polybius 35), produced by a liking for "sensational and emo-
tional situations" (35 n. 17). He is said to be interested in the "emotional aspect of human
affairs" (39). Fornara (n. 14 above) stresses organization as well, with his emphasis on the
reversals of Fortune in history.

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-178 VIVIENNE GRAY

produce a quiet effect where the character depicted was an ordinary

young man. The imitation of emotion would lend itself to more col-
oured emotional effect, but Dionysius can envisage quiet moods lending
themselves to imitation, as well as the emotions of shock, horror, anger
and pity. The Homeric imitations of the labours of Sisyphus, and of
garden irrigation remind one of the possibilities. While the reader
might have been moved by the description of the flood of the river Sca-
mander, it is the description of irrigation to which the word mimesis
applies, and the effect of this was simply the pleasure of having an ordi-
nary activity recreated in literature. It is wrong to assume automatically
that Duris has strong emotion in mind when he refers to historical mi-
mesis. The range of imitative effects is broader than that. They are not
all "tragic."
If Duris does mean mimesis in the sense familiar to us from Diony-
sius and Longinus, the 'writing' (To ypda(stv) that he says Ephorus and
Theopompus cultivated 'exclusively' (up6vov) must be something that
produced non-imitative writing. It is likely to be itself a technical term,
since it is in the company of another technical term, mimesis. And there
is evidence to this effect. Aristotle identifies a "written" prose style (Ae-
LIqypaPL)tK), which he characterizes as an 'epideictic' style (irlp?v oUV
TnL6leKTLlK ASLtq yPQaLKw00T'a). He says it is suited for reading rather
than for live delivery.19 He opposes it to the 'contest' style (Astic
ayA)VlOTlKfr), divided into deliberative and forensic types, which has a
greater resemblance to real speech and is characterised by figures of
speech like asyndeton and repetition. He says this is suited for live deliv-
ery and acting.20 The "written" style is technically defined as the epi-
deictic or "display" style of oratory. This may be at the heart of Duris'
reference to "writing" in his comment on Ephorus and Theopompus.
In his work, On Style (223-26), the critic called Demetrius devel-
oped the distinction Aristotle had made between the "written" and the
"contest" style.21 In his discussion of the different prose styles of the let-
ter and the dialogue, he identified the letter style as the "written" style
and the dialogue style as the "contest" style, using the same terminology
as Aristotle. The example of the "contest" style he offers is from Plato's
Euthydemus dialogue and it is characterised by Aristotle's figure of rep-

19Aristotle, Rhet. 3.12.1; 6.

20Ibid., 3.12.1-5.
21The date of Demetrius is uncertain. Grube (n. 5 above) puts him in the third
century B.C. 110-21, but Russell (n. 1 above) puts him in the first, 40. Grube discusses
this passage from Demetrius on 117.

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 MIMESIS IN GREEK HISTORICAL THEORY 479

etition, as well as disjointed sentence structure.22 The example of the

"written" style he offers is from Aristotle's letter to Antipater and it is
characterised by an extremely artificial word order.23 This seems to be
one of the principal characteristics of the epideictic style, which Aristo-
tle equates with the "written" style. Demetrius also calls this "written"
style "epideictic" (225). The real advance Demetrius makes over Aristo-
tle is that he calls the 'contest' style mimesis because of its resemblance
to natural speech in point of word order. He says that the dialogue style
"imitates" speech, whereas the letter style does not. Dialogue 'imitates a
man speaking off the cuff (6 pev yap ituslTral auTooXcSt6LovTa),
whereas the letter 'is written and is sent in some way as a gift' (ri 5e
ypcdpETal KOa6)pov rVtEunIaT Is Tp6nov Tv). The imitative style, he
says, 'is not so suited to a written piece as to a contest' (T6 piITt7TlKOVOU
ypac/po7OUTW(qOOiKSOV wcq yQVoq, oiov -cq ev To Eu6ruBp P...).
'Such imitative style', he adds (eppTlvsia Kai ipriarlq) would be suitable
for an actor rather than 'written letters' ( ypa(popuvalC sretLnToAac). It
is clear from these quotations that Demetrius is opposing the "contest"
or "imitative" style of the dialogue to the "written" style of the letter,
and is thus reproducing the opposition made by Duris before him. It is
difficult to believe that they are opposing the same words, "writing" and
"imitation," and yet not employing them in a similar sort of way. In
fact, the definition of mimesis in Dionysius and the others has prepared
us for Demetrius' definition. At the heart of both their definitions is the
rule that prose style should imitate natural speech where this is appro-
priate. It was appropriate in dialogue, so dialogue is imitative, but it
was less appropriate in the letter. The technical meaning of "writing" in
Duris must be associated with the "written style" of Demetrius and of
Aristotle. It seems to be a particular style of writing that may be called
epideictic and is characterised by artificiality, being a style that no man
would naturally use in real life, that is, non-imitative style. This is the
opposite of mimesis in the sense discovered in Dionysius and Longinus,
and it makes sense of the opposition of "imitation" and "writing" in
Duris. He is saying that Ephorus and Theopompus did not employ an
imitative style, but wrote exclusively in the artificial, epideictic style.
In fact, this meaning of "writing" must be in Duris' mind, since it
is one of the criticisms of Ephorus and Theopompus he could make that
22N.B., especially the repetition of Tiq
Lv ..... TirIv ...
23N.B., for example this word order:
ei 65 np6q ndQoaq olxsTaQ yYaq(uyaq aiOTeS Pi KaTdyeLV, 65rAov (jb Toloys
OUTOq
eiq "AtLouKQTSAeEiVPouAopevoLt ou65siCq
(P6voq.

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480 VIVIENNE GRAY

was fully valid and generally accepted. Ephorus and Theopompus did
write in a "written" style. Their styles were especially marked by that
artificiality of word order that Demetrius offers in the letter from Aris-
totle to Antipater. Not only this, but later critics regularly attacked
Theopompus in particular for his artificiality of expression. Demetrius
himself singled out the famous but frigid description of the immorality
of the court of Philip of Macedon, that they were "men slayers in nature
but men harlots in lifestyle" and "were called comrades but were in fact
courtesans" (On Style, 27):
u TVv6v(
av6poo(6volt iv VTE
vx, advpon6pvoi T p v raQV.
TpO6TOV
Kai SKaAouvToOPeV T-aipol, rlacv 6e STalpal,

Demetrius comments on the artificiality of the phrase, especially the use

of the figures of homoeoteleuton, antithesis, and paronomasia. This was
typical of some of his stylistic excesses. Demetrius goes on to link this
artificiality with what amounts to lack of mimesis. He says that, "Anger
needs no art; in such invectives the wording should be simple, and, in a
manner, impromptu." This is a plea for mimesis of the way men natu-
rally express their anger. He adds that such artificiality is inappropriate
for the portrayal of emotions and characters (Tn608eo Kai r/9eoi),
thereby confirming that he is speaking of mimesis in the sense known to
us from Dionysius and Longinus. It is these same figures of speech that
lay at the heart of Thucydides' failure of mimesis according to Dionysius
(p. 468 above). Another critic, Porphyrius, described the artificiality of
Theopompus' adaptation of Xenophon's account of the conversation
between Agesilaus and Pharnabazus in the Hellenica in such a way as to
suggest that Theopompus failed to adapt the language of his speakers to
their character and emotions. He may be attacking the impropriety of
argument as well, though the major impression we have is of an attack
on style. He says:
The account of the meeting between Pharnabazus and Agesilaus through
the agency of Apollophanes of Cyzicus and their peace talks with each
other, which Xenophon described with great charm and most appropri-
ately for them both (npen6vTXq apqoiv), Theopompus, in the Eleventh
Book of his Hellenica, rendered dull and lifeless and empty. In his at-
tempt to introduce force and elaboration of language through his theft,
and to make a display (enrt16iKvuo0at)he seems slow and dragging and
like one hesitating, destroying the life and energy of Xenophon.24

'4SeeJacoby, FGH 115, F. 21.

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 MIMESIS IN GREEK HISTORICAL THEORY 481

Theopompus failed to observe the rule of stylistic propriety, which was a

failure of mimesis. The cause of it was his notoriously artificial writing,
which we recognise as Duris' "written" style. It was language such as no
man in real life would ever use, and, more than this, Theopompus ap-
pears to have used it exclusively and unvaryingly. That means that, even
if it might capture a mood of immense and solemn dignity, it failed to
capture or "imitate" the great variety of moods which the historian was
bound to capture in describing the variety of men's experiences. It is his
exclusive use of this non-imitative style that Duris seems to be attacking
when he said that Ephorus and Theopompus cultivated "only" the writ-
ten style.25 In fact, Dionysius of Halicarnassus attacks the style of Isocra-
tes, who was the inspiration for Theopompus' epideictic style, for pre-
cisely the same inability to capture the manifold variety of human
character and experience. He says (de Isoc. 13):
I found the same figures of speech used in all his speeches, so that, al-
though in many cases the treatment was skilful, the overall effect was
completely incongruous, because the language did not accord with the
underlying nature of his characters.
In all justice, we probably cannot say that the style of Ephorus, whom
Duris also attacks, was entirely the same as Theopompus', though he
had also been inspired by Isocrates. In fact his style lacks show quality
and is simply pedestrian. But Duris was probably right to imply that he
never varied his style much, so that this would contribute to his failure
to imitate, which relied on the variety of language implicit in the ob-
servance of the rule of propriety.26
There is one final example of the use of the term mimesis as a
technical term in historical theory that merits attention. This is the
statement by the first century B.c. historian Diodorus Siculus, on the

25The style of Theopompus was uniformly grand. This is the point Dionysius
made in his letter to Pompeius Geminus 9-10. Even a brief survey of the fragments col-
lected byJacoby shows this aspect of his style. Dionysius, de Comp. Verb. 134, attacks the
style of the pupils of Isocrates, i.e., Ephorus, Theopompus, and others, for this same lack
of stylistic variation. They employed no other style but the grand one.
"6SeeJacoby, FGH 70, T. 24, 26 on the style of Ephorus. He is implicitly attacked
for lack of stylistic variation in the passage from Dionysius, de Comp. Verb. 134. It is
difficult to judge his style overall, since the extant fragments are so meagre, but it shows
no variety. However, it does not seem so nearly frigid as the style of Theopompus. Per-
haps Duris can be forgiven for accusing them as a pair for a fault that was more typical of
Theopompus than Ephorus. They were, after all, closely associated as the pupils of Iso-
crates and were commonly said to exhibit a similar style derived from his.

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482 VIVIENNE GRAY

capacity of written history to 'imitate events'. It is commonly thought

that the passage in which the statement occurs is attributable to Duris,
and it is for this reason that I introduce it here (D.S. 20.43):27
At this point one might censure the art of history, when he observes that
in life many different actions are consummated at the same time, but
that it is necessary for those who record them to interrupt the narrative
and to parcel out different times to simultaneous events contrary to na-
ture, with the result that, although the actual experience of the events
contains the truth, yet the written record, deprived of such power, while
'imitating' the events, falls far short of arranging them as they really were
(pipiaeloai pUv Ta ysysvrlp:va, noAu 6: AsiTrrtsoai TTlq aATrl0ou
6iaQeoesa)).
Here the problem is that the means whereby the 'imitation of events' is
to be achieved is left unclear, so that we must guess at its precise nature.
The opposition between "imitation" and "truth" suggests that this "imi-
tation" is not the same as the imitation being pursued in this paper, but
is the common opposition of "counterfeit" or "second hand reality" to
"true reality," which is found in Plato:

rtoppwapa rTouTou aAtqouc rl pILrlTIKrileTL (Rep. 598B)

Ei6CAOU apETfq eival KQLTO)VaAAv

IptIqTiTSq Tfq 6'
onepi WV TOLouoLV,
aArqesiac oux anTeGoea (Rep. 600C)
I am inclined to doubt that it has any special technical sense. If it has, it
does not seem to have any apparent connexion with the terms used by
Dionysius and Longinus. The circumstantial evidence does lead us to
believe that Duris is Diodorus' source for this part of his work. Duris
wrote about Agathocles, which is Diodorus' subject at this point, and he
referred to the story of Lamia, which Diodorus tells at 20.41 (cp. Duris
F. 17). But the evidence is slight, as so often in the business of Quel-
lenkritik, and in any case the focus of Diodorus' use of "imitation" is
different from the focus of Duris' use of it in his first fragment. In
Diodorus "imitation" is opposed to "truth." In Duris' criticism of
Ephorus and Theopompus, "imitation" is opposed to "writing," and
that opposition confirms that the meaning of "imitation" is that famil-
iar to us from Dionysius and Longinus.
The only objection that can be made to this is that Duris wrote his
first fragment several centuries before Dionysius and Longinus, and this
may mean that he uses mimesis in history in quite a different sense from

27Kebric (n. 12 above) 40 and 77, comments on this passage.

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 MIMESIS IN GREEK HISTORICAL THEORY 483

them. But this objection is difficult to sustain. There is a continuity in

the way Duris and Dionysius use mimesis as a term of poetic theory.
Their concept of imitative poetry, firmly based on observance of the
rule of stylistic propriety, is a shared one, if we judge by their criticisms
of the poetry of Homer. It may have been that this did not apply to their
concept of imitation in history but several arguments suggest otherwise.
The first is based on the terminology Duris employs in his criticism of
Ephorus and Theopompus, which remains similar from Duris to Diony-
sius and other writers of Dionysius' day, and suggests that the basic con-
cept also remains the same. For example, the 'imitation of events'
pipUrlanoTw(v ysvopevWv, formed from the first and second parts of
Duris' comment, is echoed in Dionysius' ptpuiQaaoaio Ta ylvO6eva de-
scription of Homeric poetry.28 The connexion Duris makes between
"imitation" and "pleasure" is echoed in Dionysius' commendation in
Lysias of his 'pleasure of composition of words, which imitates the ordi-
nary man' (rl Tqfl ouves(3ecq TWDV ovopdaTWv 160ov1ilIpoup,evrlC TOV
iL5lWTTJv).29 Even Duris' use of ppda4etv for stylistic composition can be
attested in Dionysius.30 His opposition of "imitation" and "writing" can
be attested in Demetrius.
These similarities are not accidental but are a product of their
common heritage. The tradition of literary criticism in which Dionysius
and Demetrius are writing is a fourth and third century B.C. tradition.
Demetrius may indeed have actually lived about that time,31 but, along
with Dionysius, he was in any case deeply indebted to the ideas about
literature formed in that period by the Peripatetic school under Aristo-
tle and Theophrastus.32 Longinus was a more independent critic, but
he also shares some of the basic Peripatetic principles of literary criti-
cism. It was this tradition and this school of thought that was alleged to
have been an important influence on Duris as well, and he was said to
have been a pupil of Theophrastus.33 Thus, though the centuries may
separate them, these writers are united by their common tradition, and
this explains the similarity of their terminology. They had, of course,
developed and refined the principles of stylistic criticism set down by
28DH, de Comp. Verb., 141.
29Ibid, de Lysia, 13.
s3Ibid, de Isoc., 13.
31Grube (n. 5 above) believed that Demetrius' date was
early Hellenistic. See n. 21
above.
32See Grube (n. 5 above) for the Peripatetic connexions of Demetrius and Diony-
sius.
33Jacoby,FGH 76, T. 1 and 2.

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484 VIVIENNE GRAY

Aristotle and Theophrastus, and their terminology too, but they still
followed their basic beliefs, one of which was that the chief virtue of
style was that it should be appropriate to the characters and the subject
matter in hand (Aristotle Rhet. 3.12.6). Dionysius, Demetrius, and
Longinus all accept this basic principle, as is clear from the passages
examined in this paper, where the virtue of propriety lay at the heart of
mimesis. Moreover, it was passed directly to Dionysius through
Theophrastus, and this can be seen in passages where Dionysius not only
quotes Theophrastus but also bases his literary judgements on those of
Theophrastus. For example, in de Lysia 14 Dionysius quotes Theo-
phrastus' judgement, though he does not agree with it, that Lysias
aimed at artificiality rather than realism in his speeches. Theophrastus
was particularly hostile to Lysias' use of elaborate figures of speech,
which he considered inappropriate for the serious types of speech he was
writing. He says:
It is inappropriate for a speaker who is concerned with matters of impor-
tance to indulge in word play and destroy the emotional effect by the
style.

Theophrastus upholds the principle of propriety, just as Dionysius does,

though they differ in their assessment of Lysias' style. Dionysius reveals
his direct debt to Theophrastus, moreover, when he makes a judgement
on Isocrates that is very similar to the one Theophrastus made on Ly-
sias. He says:

Preciosity is always out of place in serious discussion and in unhappy situ-

ations, and tends to destroy all sympathy for the speaker. (de Isoc. 12)
The 'preciosity' that he criticises as being inappropriate is the use of the
same figures of speech criticised in Lysias' writing by Theophrastus.
Earlier (de Isoc. 3) Dionysius had drawn attention to Isocrates' use of
such figures:
His use of figures is crude and its effect usually frigid; they are either far
fetched or inappropriate to their subject matter.
He cites Theophrastus in the course of this discussion, too. And later,
the result of the use of these figures is said to be to sacrifice realism to
elegance (ibid. 12), the same sacrifice Theophrastus attributed to Ly-
sias, except that there it was a sacrifice to artificiality, another expres-
sion for elegance. The resemblances between Dionysius and Theophras-
tus confirm Dionysius' debt. Criticism of precisely the same sorts of
figures was also the point of Dionysius' criticism of the language of some
of the speeches of Thucydides, with which this paper began, and there,

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 MIMESISIN GREEK HISTORICAL THEORY 485

significantly, they were associated with lack of mimesis. What emerges

is not only Dionysius' link with Theophrastus and their common en-
dorsement of propriety and realism, but also, arising from this,
Theophrastus' link with mimesis as achieved through this endorsement.
Dionysius has clearly taken up Theophrastus' principle of propriety,
and this is the principle that lies at the heart of the sort of mimesis being
examined in this paper. In other words, Theophrastus discussed and
endorsed what amounts to mimesis, even though there is no record of
his using that precise term. It is clear that the thought behind the con-
cept was already developed in the Peripatetic circle by the end of the
fourth century B.c. and certainly by the time Duris was writing. More-
over, there is evidence that at least one of that circle had applied the
rule of propriety to speeches in history by the time Duris was writing.
Callisthenes, relative of Aristotle and contemporary of Alexander the
Great, said of speeches, probably his own, historical ones: 34
A writer must not ignore the character, but compose speeches appropri-
ate to the character and the events.
This rule endorsed by Callisthenes is a large part of what Dionysius and
others were later to refer to as mimesis in history. The person who first
used mimesis to refer to this rule was simply giving a name to a theory
already well developed within the Peripatetic circle. Given that the
fourth century Peripatetics endorsed the rule of propriety in rhetoric
and history, and that later writers who use mimesis to refer to observ-
ance of the rule of propriety in historical writing are associated with the
Peripatetic tradition, that Duris uses mimesis of historical writing and is
associated with the Peripatetics, and that mimesis as the observance of
propriety fits his use of mimesis, it follows that this must be the meaning
of his use of mimesis in his first fragment, and it is likely that the fourth
century Peripatetics were the first to use the term mimesis of this rule.
This proposed meaning for Duris' mimesis is backed up by the circum-
stantial evidence that Theopompus, whom Duris accused of lack of mi-
mesis, certainly was guilty of not always using an appropriate style.
Duris does seem to have practised the mimesis he preached.
Dionysius criticized the artlessness of his style,35 but even the meagre
fragments of his works still extant show definite signs of stylistic mime-
sis. For instance, his description of the extravagance of Demetrius (F.
10) has a vocabulary appropriately grand and exotic. He cannot be con-

34On Callisthenes, L. Pearson, The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great (New
York 1960) 22-49. For his remark on speeches, Jacoby, FGH 124, F. 44.
'3DH, de Comp. Verb. 4.

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486 VIVIENNE GRAY

victed of lack of mimesis, as was Theopompus in the rather similar de-

scription of the gifts sent to the Persian King (p. 472f. above). His adap-
tation of Herodotus' story of the revenge taken by the Athenian women
against the unlucky survivor of the massacre on Aegina (F. 24; Hdt.
5.87.2) contains a striking example of mimesis, in which the pressing
anxiety of the women in asking for news of their menfolk is vividly con-
veyed in the proleptic arrangement of their questioning:
.. . ai pev pTc)CwoaT
TouCq uiouq, ai 65
6v6pac Tiysy6vaoiv, ai 6e TOUC
TOuOa6sAI)ouqc

The arrangement is appropriate to women whose menfolk are upper-

most in their minds. This mimetic effect can be compared to that re-
marked on by Longinus in Herodotean speeches (p. 472 above). It is a
mimesis of emotion.
The evidence suggests that mimesis was being used as a technical
term in Greek historical theory by the beginning of the third century
B.C., when Duris lived and wrote, and that the literary principle it en-
shrined had a long and respectable history, down through Demetrius
and Dionysius to Longinus and later. It was an effect produced by the
best writers, whether they were poets or orators or historians.
The relationship between what is known as "tragic history" and
what is here defined as mimesis is problematic. "Tragic history" is a
product of subject matter rather than style in most current definitions,
whether it is held to involve writing history with a tragic plot construc-
tion, complete with reversals of fortune, or whether it is simply thought
to be the result of choosing generally sensational material for its con-
tent. While this emphasis on content and organisation persists, there
can be no simple identification of "tragic history" and the essentially
stylistic phenomenon of mimesis. However, mimesis does produce sen-
sational effects and could be used to enhance essentially tragic subject
matter. The story Duris tells of the revenge of the women of Athens
(above) is essentially "tragic history" in its most general sense, but the
sensational effect of the subject matter is considerable enhanced by the
stylistic mimesis of their anxiety. This suggests that some part of "tragic
history" might have to be redefined in terms of style rather than con-
tent. Duris' version seems more moving than the Herodotean original,
precisely because of this mimetic quality.

VIVIENNE GRAY
THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

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