XXXIII. EPHORUS (Jacοby FGrHist. 70) 1. Theo Progymn. 2, p. 71, 19 Sp.: συγγνώμης δʼ ἄξιον, ὅταν εἰς ἐκεῖνά τις ἐμπέσῃ ποτὲ τὰ μέτρα, ἅπερ ἔχει ὁμοιότητα πρὸς τὸ πεζόν, οἷόν ἐστι τὸ ἰαμβικόν· διὸ καὶ πάντες οἱ συγγραφεῖς ἄκοντες ἐμπίπτουσιν εἰς τὸ γένος τοῦτο. ὁ γοῦν Ἔφορος ἐν τῷ περὶ λέξεως διʼ αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἀπαγορεύοντος λόγου, μὴ τῇ ἐνρύθμῳ χρῆσθαι διαλέκτῳ, εὐθὺς ἐν ἀρχῇ στίχον εἴρηκεν εἰπών· πάλιν δὲ περὶ τῆς ἐνρύθμου διέξειμι.
2. Cic. orat. 57, 191: sequitur ergο, ut, qui maxume cadant in orationem aptam numeri, videndum sit. sunt enim qui iambicum putent, quod sit orationis simillimus, qua de causa fieri, ut is potissimum propter similitudinem veritatis adhibeatur in fabulis, quod ille dactylicus numerus hexametrorum magni eloquentiae sit accommodatior. Ephorus autem, levis ipse orator, sed profectus ex optuma disciplina, paeana sequitur aut dactylum, fugit autem spondeum et trochaeum. quod enim paean habeat tris brevis, dactylus autem duas, brevitate et celeritate syllabarum labi putat verba proclivius contraque accidere in spondeo et trochaeo, quod alter e longis constaret, alter e brevibus, fieri alteram nimis incitatam, alteram nimis tardam orationem, neutram temperatam. 3 fieri ut is L: ratione A 8 quo (i. e. quοm) A 10 fieret
3. Quint. inst. 9, 4, 87: licet igitur paeana sequatur Ephorus, inventum a Thrasimacho, probatum ab Aristotele, dactylumque ut temperatos brevibus ac longis, fugiat <spondeum et> trοchaeum, alterius tarditate nimia, alterius celeritate damnata…
4. Cic. orat. 57, 194: Ephorus vero ne spondeum quidem, quem fugit, intellegit esse aequalem dactylo, quem probat; syllabis enim metiendos pedes, non intervallis existimat; quod idem facit in trochaeo, qui temporibus et intervallis est par iambο, sed eo vitiosas in oratione, si ponatur extremus, quod verba melius in syllabas longiores cadunt. Trochaeum intellege tribrachyn, cf. Dion. Hal. opuscul. vol. II praef. p. V.
5. Ibid. 64, 218: iam paean, quod pluris habeat syllabas quam tris, numerus a quibusdam, non pes habetur; est quidem, ut inter omnis constat antiquos, Aristotelen Theophrastum Theοdecten Ephorum, unus aptissimus orationi vel orienti vel mediae: putant illi etiam cadenti. F. Leo, Herm. 24, 286. Quint. inst. 9, 4, 95 sq.
6. Philod. περὶ ποιημ. VI 185, 25. 186, 1: ἴσως δʼ Ἔφορον ἀξιοῖ πρ[ὸς τ]ὰ ε<ὐ>ρυθμότ[ατα] * * ἀποτελεῖσθα[ι τὴν] λειοτάτην, οὐχ ὅτι τὴν δυνατὴν μεθοδεύεσθαι τέρψιν. Suppleas fere πρὸς τὰ εὐρυθμότατα <ἐξεργάσασθαι τὴν λέξιν διὰ τὸ δεῖν>
7. [Sergii] Explanatio in Donatum I (Gr. L. ΙV 531, 17 sq. K.): (quartae prosodiae i. e. περισπωμένης) plura sunt vocabula. Ammonius... ὀξύβαριν vocat, Ephorus autem Cymaeus περίσπασιν. Adiecit fragmentis Jacoby. De rebus mere grammaticis hos scriptores egisse docent Protagorae, Prodici, Hippiae exempla.
8. Schol. BT Homeri Il. H 185: οὐχ οἱ αὐτοὶ γὰρ ἦσαν παρὰ πᾶσι τοῖς Ἑλλησι χαρακτῆρες. διάφορα δὲ καὶ τὰ τῶν στοιχείων ὀνόματα ὡς τὸ σάν. Καλλίστρατος δὲ ὁ Σάμιος ἐπὶ τῶν Πελοποννησιακῶν ταύτην μετήνεγκε τὴν γραμματικὴν καὶ παρέδωκεν Ἀθηναίοις ἐπί ἄρχοντος Εὐκλείδου, ὡς φησιν Ἔφορος.
9. Polyb. XII. 28, 11: (Ephorus) κατὰ δέ τινα συντυχίαν εὐχαριστότατα καὶ πιθανώτατα περὶ τῆς συγκρίσεως εἴρηκε τῆς τῶν ἱστοριογράφων καὶ λογογράφων. Ad rem explicandam addimus Philodemi rhet. I 48, 23 S.: οὐκ αὐτοτελῆ δʼ ἐκτεθείκασιν, καίπερ ἐπιβάλλοντος, οὐδὲ τὴν ἀπόδειξιν τὴν ὑπὲρ τοῦ τὴν σοφιστικὴν περὶ τὰς [λoγο]γραφίας καὶ τὰς ἐπιδείξεις τέχνην ὑπάρχειν. De historici opere Ephorum verba fecisse etiam e Polybii XII 27, 7 apparet: ὁ μὲν γὰρ Ἔφορός φησιν, εἱ δυνατὸν ἦν αὐτοὺς παρεῖναι πᾶσι τοῖς πράγμασι, ταύτην ἂν διαφέρειν πολὺ τῶν <ἄλλων> ἐμπειριῶν. Ipse quidem ab Heraclidarum reditu historiam scribere exorsus, logographos imprοbasse videtur, quod mythos historiae insererent.
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XXXIII. Ephorus
1. Theon, Preliminary Exercises: It is forgivable when one falls into those metres that bear some similarity to prose, such as iambs; so much so that all writers fall unwittingly into this last metre. Ephoros, for instance, says in his book On Expression, in the very part where he prohibits using versified speech, right in the very first clause: ‘I shall speak of versified speech again.’
2. Cicero, Orator 57.191: It follows, therefore, that we need to look into which metres best fit a proper speech. Some think it is the iamb, since it is closest to natural speech, which is allegedly the reason why it is used in tales more than any other, to emulate truth; whereas the dactylic hexameter is more apt for magniloquence. Ephorus, however, an orator who is himself light-hearted, but coms from a very good school, follows the paean or the dactyl but avoids the spondee and trochee. For he thinks that since the paean has three short syllables, the dactyl two, the words slide down more steeply due to the shortness and speed of the syllables, while the opposite happens with the spondee and trochee: since one consists of long syllables, the other of short ones, one kind of speech becomes too hasty, the other too slow, neither moderate.
3. Quintilian 9.4.87: Ephorus follows the paean, which was invented by Thrasymachus and approved of by Aristotle, as well as the dactyl, because these metres are balanced through short and long syllables, but avoids the spondee and the trochee, rejecting the one as too slow, the other as too fast. 4. Cicero, Orator 57.194: Ephorus does not understand that the spondee, which he avoids, is equivalent to the dactyl, which he approves of; for he thinks we should measure a foot by syllables and not by pauses. He does the same with the trochee (here: tribrachys), which is equivalent to the iamb in lengths and pauses, but flawed in a speech if put at the end, since it is better for words to end in longer syllables. Cf. Dion. Hal. opuscul. vol. 2 Preface. p. V.
5. Cicero, Orator 64.218: The paean is by now regarded by some to be a metre, not a foot, because it has more than three syllables. It is, as all the ancients – Aristotle, Theophrastus, Theodectes, Ephorus – agree, the most apt by far for either the beginning or the middle of a speech; they even thought it was for the end, too. F. Leo, Herm. 24, 286; Quint. 9.4.95 f.
6. Philodemus, On Poems: He probably judges that Ephoros achieves the best rhythm in the smoothest way, not to speak of his going after whatever pleasure is possible. You might fill the lacuna with something like ‘makes his style as rhythmical as possible because one must end in the smoothest possible way.’
7. Pseudo-Sergius interpretation on Donatus, I: For the fourth accentuation [that is, the one pronounced with a circumflex] there are many words. Ammonius […] calls it oxybaris, Ephorus of Cymae perispasis. Jacoby adds this to his collection of fragments. That these writers dealt merely with grammatical issues is shown through the example of Protagoras, Prodicus and Hippias.
8. Scholion BT on Homer, Iliad 8.185: The Greeks did not have the same letters everywhere. The names of the letters themselves were different, like the san [instead of ‘sigma’]. Callistratus of Samos brought over the writing system at the time of the Peloponnesian war and gave it to the Athenians during the archonship of Euclides, as Ephoros writes.
9. Polybius 12.28.11: And it so happens that his (Ephorus) most elegant and convincing digression is on this very subject of a comparison between historians and speech-writers. To explain this statement, we add Philodemus On Rhetoric 1.48, 23 S.: ‘Neither did they expound as autonomous (although it would have been consistent) the proof of the thesis that the sophistic art is about writing speeches and making demonstrations.’ That Ephorus spoke also about the work of the historian is apparent also from Polybius 12.27.7: ‘Ephorus writes that if it were possible for them to see with their own eyes all that happens, history would be entirely different from all other empirical sciences.’ He himself appears to have written historiography, starting from the return of the Heraclidae, and to have scolded the speechwriters for inserting myths into history. |