The Apology (Liber Apologeticus)

CHAP. II.

be used by eastern story-tellers; almost every noun has an epithet, and frequently both are diminutives;¹ the galliambics of Catullus, if printed in the shape of prose, would give no bad idea of the rythm of several passages in Apuleius. The same remarks apply, in rather a less degree, to his philosophical works, and in all these the most obsolete archaisms meet us at every step; but in the apology, and (of course) the Florida,² it is evident that he has considered it necessary to discard this fashion in a measure, and to use more the language of every-day life. But even here obsolete words are very numerous. I have observed that this is a character which is common to all the writers in question, but it is not peculiar to them; it appears as strongly in Aulus Gellius (who certainly had the excuse of his subject) as in any of them; it seems the character not of the school or the country, but of the age. Another very striking feature in the African writers is their bombastic style, which has even been distinguished by the title of tumor Africanus African swelling/bombast, and unquestionably it prevails to a greater or less degree,—least in Lactantius, greatest in Arnobius—throughout them all. But, like the archaisms, it is no peculiar note of an African; Ammianus exceeds all of them in luxuriance of style or inflated language.³ The difference between

¹ The constant use of these forms (v. Heusing. ad Cic. Off. I. 13. 3.) might perhaps seem peculiar to African Latin, but, though Tertullian employs them a good deal (see p. 158), yet Arnobius but seldom uses them.

² The Florida are a collection of striking passages from speeches of Apuleius, a kind of Elegant Extracts, probably compiled by some admirer of the author, and now all that we possess of the original compositions.

³ I would not omit to mention the great familiarity which all these writers display with the Roman poets, and I allude less to the copious quotations of Lactantius than to the almost insensible allusions of the others, which intimate not only their own perfect