revealed most definitely and most largely in the Æneid
because Vergil, besides being one of the greatest of poets,
was so studious a craftsman as to choose from all the
ancient experience the most vital ways of narrative. His-
torically the New Comedy seems more significant than
the Old; and the same consideration has included not only
Ovid, but even Seneca. These analyses of ancient achieve-
ment are made complementary to ancient theory by being
strictly limited to composition.

All the authors chosen have been already expounded
and translated, some of them again and again, but rather
as philosophers, or as orators, or as men of letters, or
simply as Greeks or Romans, than as writers on composi-
tion. Yet composition was not only one of the greatest
ancient achievements; it was a constant preoccupation
and a consistent technic. No other body of technic is
more thorough and comprehensive than ancient rhetoric;
and few have been so generally recognized. Every writer
had it in mind; and since commentators have often had
in mind something else, I have felt myself bound always
to explore the technical connotations of the originals, and
usually to retranslate. Verification is facilitated by exact
citation, and comparative study by the indexes. What
may thus serve incidentally as a book of reference is pri-
marily, however, a progressive exposition from ideas
through principles to details. The Greek philosophy of
rhetoric is confirmed and applied in the great period of
Rome by the most influential orator of history. Aris-
totle's theory and Cicero's vindication put us in the best
position to comprehend the method and the detail of
Quintilian. This in turn guides appreciation of that abun-
dant study of style which is exemplified typically in Diony-
sius of Halicarnassus and illuminated by the genius who

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