Note 73 — Chapter XV

The phrases are to a much greater extent cast in a Greek mould73. The words follow one another in a less natural order. Ornamental epithets, metaphorical phrases, and the substitution of abstract for concrete words, occur much more frequently. Latin poetry creates for itself an artificial diction by assimilating, to a much greater extent than in any earlier work of genius, the long-accumulated wealth of Greek poetry. This was a gain to its resources, opening up and giving expression to a new range of emotions, but a gain against which must be set off a considerable loss of freshness and naïveté.