Chapter 31: Colloquial Idioms

… most nourishing and fertile,
and that line of Anacreon’s:
No longer do I tum for the Thracian filly.

In the same way, this passage from Theopompus is to be praised; in my opinion, he has put it most expressively because of the proportion, which Caecilius (I don’t understand why) downgrades. Theopompus says:

Philip was powerful at stomaching things.

Such a colloquial idiom by its own nature is sometimes more clearly suggestive than an ornamental effect: you see, it is understood at once as coming from common life, and what is familiar is more convincing. Now, then, in the case of a man who prevails by enduring shameful and sordid things patiently and with pleasure for the sake of his acquisitiveness, the phrase “stomaching things” is most vividly envisioned. 2. The Herodotean expressions also have, in a way, the same effect:

Cleomenes, being mad, hacked his flesh to bits with a dagger until, making mincemeat of his whole body, he perished,

and

Pythes fought on the ship until he was butchered.

These things almost brush against the edge of vulgarity but because of their expressiveness are not vulgar.