page 81 note 1 πικρόν for αύστηρόν is evidence for the antiquity of this piece of criticism (v. Jebb, , Trach. Int. p. xlvi.)Google Scholar. The meaning is: ‘After I had played out the bombast of Aeschylus, and then the pungency and artificiality of my own style of composition, I discovered the form of expression which contains the highest degree of Ethos and is the best.’ That is no commonplace of the critical tradition. The ancient Life of Sophocles makes the obvious remark that he learnt tragedy in the school of Aeschylus, and gives the normal view of antiquity when it says that ‘he is called $$n$$δ$$v$$ς.’ It is his sweetness that earns him the name of the Attic bee. He has ἡ$$δονήν θαυμαστήν καὶ μεγαλοπρέπειαν. Just as in life he was ε$$u$$κóλος, so in his style. Dio Chrysostom says that he had neither the αύθαδ$$ε$$ς καὶ ἀπλοῦν of Aeschylus, nor the ἀκριβἑς καὶ δριμὺ καì πολιτικόν of Euripides, words which sufficiently indicate the relation between the normal stylistic criticism and the Frogs of Aristophanes. Dionysius Halicarnensis and others admit that he sometimes falls into ἀνωμαλία, but no one, when once the traditional criticisms were fixed, was likely to suggest that the blessed Sophocles had at any stage been πικρός or αύστηρός. Pindar, Aeschylus, Thucydides, are ‘austere.’ Euripides and Isocrates are ‘smooth.’ But Sophocles, like Homer, has the perfect style, ‘harmoniously blended,’ εǚκατον. Dion. Hal. de uerb. comp. XXI.-XXIV.
