Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 B.C.-A.D. 400

HANDBOOK OF CLASSICAL R H E T O R I C IN T H E HELLENISTIC P E R I O D (330 B.C.-A.D. 400)

HANDBOOK OF

CLASSICAL RHETORIC IN THE

HELLENISTIC PERIOD 330 B.C -A.D. 400

Edited

by

STANLEY E. PORTER

Ό

Ο

/

BRILL A C A D E M I C PUBLISHERS, INC. B O S T O N · LEIDEN

2001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Handbook of classical rhetoric in the Hellenistic period, 330 B.C.-A.D. 400/ edited by Stanley E. Porter, p. cm.— Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 - 3 9 1 - 0 4 1 1 7 - 7 1. Greek literature, Hellenistic—History and criticism—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Criticism—Greece—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Rhetoric, A n c i e n t — Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title: Classical rhetoric in the Hellenistic period, 330 B.C.-A.D. 400. II. Porter, Stanley E., 1956PA3083 .H36 2001 808'.00938—dc21 2001035744

ISBN 0 - 3 9 1 - 0 4 1 1 7 - 7 © Copyright

1997

by Koninklijke

Brill NV,

Leiden,

The

Netherlands

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To my Father, a great, humble and loving man

CONTENTS

Preface Introduction

xi xiii

STANLEY E . PORTER

PART I RHETORIC

DEFINED

Chapter 1 : Historical Survey of Rhetoric GEORGE A .

KENNEDY

Chapter 2: The Genres of Rhetoric GEORGE A .

3 43

KENNEDY

Chapter 3: Arrangement

51

WILHELM WUELLNER

Chapter 4: Invention

89

MALCOLM HEATH

Chapter 5: Style GALEN O .

121

ROWE

Chapter 6: Delivery and Memory THOMAS H .

159

OLBRICHT

PART I I RHETORIC IN PRACTICE

Chapter 7: The Episde JEFFREY T .

Chapter 8: Philosophical Prose DIRK M .

195

SCHENKEVELD

Chapter 9: Historical Prose STEFAN

171

REED

REBENICH

265

viii

CONTENTS

Chapter 10: Poetry and Rhetoric

339

RUTH WEBB

Chapter 11: Biography RICHARD A .

371

BURRIDGE

Chapter 12: Oratory and Declamation D . H . BERRY AND MALCOLM

393

HEATH

Chapter 13: Homily and Panegyrical Sermon

421

FOLKER SIEGERT

Chapter 14: T h e Rhetoric of Romance RONALD F .

445

HOCK

Chapter 15: Apocalyptic and Prophetic Literature JONATHAN M .

467

KNIGHT

Chapter 16: Drama and Rhetoric

489

R U T H SCODEL

PART I I I INDIVIDUAL W R I T E R S AND THE RHETORICAL TRADITION

Chapter 17: T h e Gospels and Acts RICHARD A .

BURRIDGE

Chapter 18: Paul of Tarsus and His Letters STANLEY E .

507

533

PORTER

Chapter 19: T h e General New Testament Writings

587

LAURI T H U R É N

Chapter 20: T h e Johannine Writings

609

DENNIS L . STAMPS

Chapter 21: T h e Greek Christian Writers WOLFRAM

KINZIG

Chapter 22: T h e Latin Church Fathers PHILIP E .

633

671

SATTERTHWAITE

Chapter 23: Philo of Alexandria THOMAS M .

CONLEY

695

CONTENTS

Chapter 24: Plutarch

ix

715

HUBERT M . MARTIN, J R .

Chapter 25: The Rhetoric of Josephus DONNA R .

737

RUNNALLS

Chapter 26: Cynics and Rhetoric

755

RONALD F . H O C K

Chapter 27: Translations of the Old Testament I . Greek, J O H N A. L. L E E II. Latin, KEVIN H. L E E

775 784

Chapter 28: Rhetoric in the Christian Apocrypha

793

RICHARD I. PERVO

Chapter 29: The Rhetoric of Inscriptions

807

EDWIN A . J U D G E

Index of Ancient Authors Index of Modern Authors

829 000

PREFACE

This Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period (330 BC-AD 400) has been a long time in the making. It has been an involved and lengthy editorial project, but it has been a very rewarding editorial task as well. I have had the opportunity to expand greatly my intellectual and academic horizons, both in terms of knowledge of writers of the ancient world and their use of rhetoric, and in terms of the scholars who have written on them. Graciousness prevents me from mentioning by name those who, though contractually obligated, backed out at the last moment. I am indeed thankful that in the vast majority of cases others willingly stepped forward to fill necessary gaps. T o a person each of the final contributors has been very cooperative, preparing their work on time and going through the rigours of checking references and completing footnotes. Many of these contributors have offered continuing encouragement to me as well, as they got an inkling of the complexity of the editorial task. Of course, my opinion is severely biased, but I think that the end product more than justifies the incredible amounts of effort that the work in total represents. I can only hope that the final product is as beneficial to those who use it as it has been to those of us who have contributed to its creation. Besides the individual contributors, each of whom deserves much gratitude and thanks, the following deserve special thanks. First, Julian Deahl and Hans van der Meij of Brill Publishers merit special mention. It was Julian who first contacted me about editing a project such as this, but it was Hans who has become an enduring friend. I judge the value of his friendship by his understanding of the hazards that this project has encountered, his gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) nudging to push for completion, and his willingness to run interference with a few authors. Secondly, I wish to thank several institutions who have enabled work on this project to be undertaken, including Trinity Western University in British Columbia, Canada, and Roehampton Institute London, England. Although I was in transition some of the time that this project was being undertaken, each institution provided an excellent environment for my own work, including support of some of the necessary administrative costs of such

XII

PREFACE

a project. In conjunction with this I wish to thank Mr Neil Taylor, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Roehampton Institute London for his direct support of this project. Thirdly, but hardly lasdy, I wish to thank my wife for her enduring and abiding support for me in this and all my work. I cannot say enough, and will not even try. My father has also been a perpetual source of encouragement and support to me in my work. He was my first instructor in the art of rhetoric, and it is to him that I dedicate this volume. The system of abbreviations used in this volume should be explained. T h e references to ancient writers for the most part follow those contained in H. G. Liddell and R. Scott's A Greek-English Lexicon and P. G. W. Glare et al.'s Oxford Latin Dictionary, apart from some abbreviations, such as biblical and related books, that should be selfevident. References to secondary literature employ standard abbreviations employed by English-language or Continental publishers. These can be readily found elsewhere, and it was not thought necessary to reprint a lengthy list here. Whereas general consistency has been sought in editing this volume, the nature of the material and the characteristics of the individual contributors has made flexibility a necessary feature as well. Stanley E. Porter London, May 1996

INTRODUCTION Stanley Ε. Porter

This volume, Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period (330 BC-AD 400), does not require much introduction. Rhetoric is a very important topic in the study of the writings of the Greek and Roman worlds, and a volume in English to introduce the major features of rhetoric and its practitioners should find ready reception. More than that, the study of rhetoric has become a very active topic in a number of scholarly fields. This volume provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging introduction to classical rhetoric as it was practised in the Hellenistic period (330 B C - A D 400). In three sections, this detailed reference volume provides a thorough description and analysis of the standard categories of thought, terminology, and theoretical and historical developments of classical rhetoric, as well as providing useful bibliographies. T h e three sections of essays include, first, definitions of the major categories of rhetoric. Included here are significant essays on the genres of rhetoric, and the categories of arrangement, invention, style, delivery and memory. These are prefaced by a historical survey of ancient rhetoric that provides an overview of the rhetorical literature being discussed throughout the volume. Whereas these topics have all been discussed before, the treatments have the individual stamps of their contributors, and should help in exposing readers to the various ways in which such standard categories of rhetoric can be approached and utilized. T h e second section analyses rhetorical practice according to genre of writing. Some of the genres here have already been subjected to a good amount of rhetorical analysis, such as oratory and declamation. Others of the genres, however, have had very little rhetorical analysis. The contributors in these areas have taken the opportunity to explore previously uncharted territory. There is some very significant work here that will foster much further scholarly analysis, even of those topics that have been treated previously. The third section treats individual writers from a rhetorical perspective. The focus in this section is upon writers of the Hellenistic period, including those of the New Testament and Christian tradition,

XIV

INTRODUCTION

as well as others. Whereas these writers have all been studied before, some of them from rhetorical perspectives, there is also much new work here, as well as much work that challenges previous conclusions. Although there is some overlap in these topics, genres and authors, this can only be an aid to fostering further discussion of these topics. Where specific topics are not discussed, there should be plenty of useful guidance provided elsewhere so that one can at least begin research into a new area of investigation. The intentions of this volume are several, and bear mentioning here. T h e first is to provide a comprehensive and wide-ranging introduction to the field of classical rhetoric in the Hellenistic period. Each essay should give some idea of any consensus among scholars, as well as appreciating diversity and complexity of the subject as discussed and utilized in the ancient and modern worlds. The second is to provide a thorough introduction to the standard categories of thought, terminology, and theoretical writers on the subject, along with its history and development. Each chapter is thoroughly documented and concludes with a useful bibliography. These bibliographies vary in length, but should provide instructive guidance to further reading on the subject. T h e third intention is to provide an assessment of the use of classical rhetorical categories in a representative selection of literary genres and a number of specific writers of the Hellenistic period. These assessments conclude both positively and negatively regarding the applicability of rhetorical analysis, providing many challenges for further research. The fourth is to provide relevant examples of each term defined and analysed, with suitable amounts of primary text as necessary. The fifth and final intention is to suggest areas warranting further research. Perhaps the test of the value of this volume will be the amount of further scholarship that it generates. In developing and writing this volume, the editor, as well as the contributors, have had several projected audiences in mind. Others should feel free to utilize the volume, but the following audiences are being specifically addressed here. T h e first is New Testament scholars. Although there has been increased interest in rhetoric as evidenced in a multitude of recent publications, New Testament scholars have not had a handbook that introduces the categories of rhetoric in terms of their literature. This volume should provide a standard reference work for this large (and growing) group of New Testament scholars. It must be noted that important caveats regarding the use

INTRODUCTION

XV

of rhetoric to study the New Testament are registered in this volume. T h e second audience is scholars of the Hellenistic period. Latinists are familiar with the period of attention, even though it has until fairly recently been neglected by many students of Greek. T h e volume integrates Latin and Greek interests as they focus upon the literature of the Hellenistic period as seen through the eyes of rhetoric. The third is classical scholars. As classical scholars expand the scope of their interests, a work that applies familiar categories to new areas of investigation should be welcome, especially one that integrates classical categories with Hellenistic literary practice. T h e fourth and final audience is patristics scholars. Patristics has proved a useful area of discussion regarding rhetoric. This volume provides a synthesis that places patristic investigation within its larger context in the ancient world.

PART I

RHETORIC

DEFINED

CHAPTER 1

H I S T O R I C A L SURVEY O F R H E T O R I C George A. Kennedy University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

I.

D E F I N I T I O N S OF

RHETORIC

The Greek word ρητορική first occurs in Plato's Gorgias, probably written in the second decade of the fourth century BC. The term is there used by Socrates, and accepted without protest by the sophist Gorgias and his follower Polus, to describe a τέχνη, or art, of public speaking which Gorgias practiced and taught to others and about which Polus had published some written work. In Grg. 453a2 Socrates attributes to Gorgias, and Gorgias accepts, a definition of rhetoric as πειθούς δημιουργός, the "worker of persuasion". Since Socrates initially speaks of "what is called rhetoric" (448d9), the usual view has been that the term was current, if not at the dramatic date of the dialogue in the last quarter of the fifth century, at least by the time of its composition. The word ρητορική does not occur, however, in any surviving fifth-century Greek text, and even in the fourth century it is found almost exclusively in the writings of Plato and Aristode. A more common term in the fifth and fourth centuries was τέχνη λόγων, the "art of words, speech, or discourse". It has been argued that Plato coined "rhetoric", 1 which might be thought to have some negative connotations because of its derivation from ρήτωρ, "speaker", often implying "politician". If so, the development of the arts of language, speech, and reasoning by sophists in the fifth century should be viewed as a wider interest in forms of discourse that did not differentiate political rhetoric as a specific area of study,2 and Plato's use of the word—including Socrates' definition of rhetoric as a form of flattery and a counterpart of cookery, and his claim that it is no true

1 2

Schiappa 1990; cf. Cole 1991:2. Cf. Schiappa 1991:64-85.

4

GEORGE Α. KENNEDY

art since it lacks knowledge (Grg. 464bl~66a6)—is an attempt to distinguish political rhetoric, aiming at persuasion however achieved, from philosophy. Throughout western history there have continued to be those who have distrusted rhetoric as deceit, propaganda, superficial ornamentation, or the empty use of words. 3 Aristotle (Rh. 1:2:1355b25~26) modified the Platonic conception of rhetoric by defining it as "the ability in each [particular] case to see the available means of persuasion". This implies that there exists rhetorical knowledge or theory—what modern critics call "metarhetoric"—which is then applied by a speaker in an intentional, though not always successful, act of persuasion. Rhetoric, in Aristotle's view, is an antistrophos, or "counterpart", to dialectic (1:1:1354a 1 ); dialectic deals with general questions, often in dialogue format, rhetoric with particular issues, usually in a continuous oration. Aristotle's treatment of rhetoric largely limits it to public address before political assemblies, in lawcourts, or at public ceremonies, and in this he is followed by subsequent Greek and Roman writers on rhetoric. T h e question of rhetorical genres will be discussed in the next chapter. Writers on rhetoric after Aristotle offered a variety of definitions, of which Quintilian gives a critical survey in his Institutio oratoria (2:15): some emphasized persuasion as the "end" of rhetoric; others stressed the artistic ability of a speaker on any subject. Some preferred to define the duty or function (έργον, officium) of an orator, as does the author of the Rhetoma ad Herennium (1:2): "the function of an orator is to be able to speak on those matters that have been fixed by law and custom for civic purpose and to secure as far as possible the assent of the audience". Quintilian's own definition (Inst. 2:15:34) is much broader: bene dicendi scientia, or "the knowledge of speaking well", in which "well" refers not only to persuasive argument and stylistic art, but implies moral purpose, for he insists that an orator "cannot speak well unless he is a good man". In popular usage today rhetoric often carries a negative connotation. In scholarly contexts, however, the meanings of rhetoric tend to fall into one or the other of two categories. Viewed historically, as an academic discipline that developed in Greek times, was taught in

3 In antiquity Aristophanes (esp. in Clouds) and other comic poets ridiculed rhetoric for comic effect, but most criticism of rhetoric came from philosophers, often echoing Gorgias. This is especially true in the second century BC; cf. Cic. De or. 1:4648 and 85-89.

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

5

schools throughout the Greco-Roman period, and became, with grammar and dialectic, a part of the trivium in the liberal arts course of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and early modern periods, rhetoric is a system of effective and artistic composition, whether in speech or in writing, originally concerned with public address in civic and religious life, but then adapted to literary composition, including poetry, and to letter-writing (the medieval and renaissance dictamen). By the late Hellenistic period it had developed a traditional set of precepts grouped in five "parts" that recapitulate the act of planning and delivering a speech: invention (planning the content and argument), arrangement (of the contents into a logical sequence and unity), style (the choice and combination of words into clauses, periods, and figures), memory (the use of mnemonic systems to retain the contents in the mind), and delivery (oral expression and gesture). T h e precepts of rhetoric, developed to teach young people how to speak and write effectively in accordance with approved conventions, were then often used as the basis of the criticism and interpretation of texts of all sorts, including poetry and eventually the Christian scriptures. Since effective rhetorical composition was viewed as a conscious, intentional act, rhetorical criticism in this sense has usually focused on discovering the intention of the original author and describing how or to what extent that intention was achieved for the original audience. Although the teaching of classical rhetoric faded in the nineteenth century, it has experienced a revival in the late twentieth, including both a return to the study of classical rhetoric in language instruction 4 and the creation of "new rhetorics" that are at least in part based on classical models. 5 Although Greek and Roman writers differed vociferously about the value of rhetoric and the effect of giving it a leading role in education, the theory of rhetoric expounded from the fourth century BC to the end of antiquity is essentially a unified system of describing and teaching public address, utilizing the same basic categories. Inventional theory was expanded in the Hellenistic period to include stasis theory (the technique of determining the question at issue in a speech), and the theory of style was enlarged to identify certain "virtues", or excellences, some necessary, others appropriate in specific contexts, and a formidable list of figures of speech. There is consider4 5

Cf. Welch 1990. Esp. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958.

6

GEORGE Α. KENNEDY

able variation in detail, as teachers sought to be innovative, and some variation in terminology, but it is possible to speak of a standard system of classical rhetoric, expounded in handbooks and illustrated in practice. 6 A second meaning of rhetoric, found in modern critical writing but not in classical sources, views it as a quality inherent in the use of signs, especially linguistic signs, and in the network of signs that constitute a text.7 The rhetoric of a poem, novel, play, or other artistic composition is thus a matter of how the text works to achieve some effect through its imagery, metaphor, figuration, irony, and narrative voices,8 and also of the cultural, political, and social assumptions that are inherent in the text.9 So viewed, rhetoric is not necessarily a conscious art on the part of the original author, and the aim of such rhetorical criticism is not to reconstruct authorial intent and the effect on the original audience, which cannot be fully known and may be irrelevant, but to discover meaning in the text as received by any reader or to deconstruct the text into the oppositions or ambiguities that in post-modern thought are regarded as always already present in any attempt to control language. Although rhetoric in the sense of an inherent quality in language and texts is logically prior to rhetoric in the sense of the classical system of conceptualized rhetoric, historically the modern meaning developed out of the study of tropes and figures in academic rhetoric from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, primarily in France. Although the word "rhetoric" is a Greek coinage, most ancient cultures had some concept of persuasion and artistic speech or writing and of the differing abilities of speakers. For example, the wisdom text of Ptahhotep, written in Egypt about 2000 BC, offers instruction in "the principle of fine speech". 10 In the Old Testament creation is described as a speech act, "And God said.. . ." (Gen. l:3ff); Moses protests to God that he is not eloquent and God replies by designating Aaron as the orator of the Jews (Exod. 4:10-16); in Prov. 16:21 "pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and

6

The system is set forth in detail in the modern handbooks of Lausberg 1960 and Martin 1974; their indices are invaluable to the student of rhetoric. 7 Cf. Groupe μ 1981. 8 Cf., e.g., Booth 1961. 9 Cf., e.g., Eagleton 1983:194-217. 10 Cf. Fox 1983 and Blythin 1986.

7

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

health to the body"." There are also manuals of speaking from ancient China: for example, Difficulties in the Way of Persuasion by Han Fei Tzu. 12 Classical rhetoric is a specific cultural development of a universal phenomenon of communication that probably has its ultimate natural origin in the instinct of self-preservation common to all creatures 13 and which in tribal and urban societies took on differing conventional forms that seemed capable of being reduced to rules and being taught.

I I . G R E E K R H E T O R I C BEFORE T H E F O U R T H

CENTURY

Greek and Latin writers (e.g., Cic. Brut. 46-48, drawing on Aristode's lost Συναγωγή τεχνών) claim that rhetoric, as they understood it, was "invented" in the second quarter of the fifth century by Corax and Tisias in Sicily. The accounts are confused, and Corax (which means "crow") may well be a nickname for Tisias.14 The contexts in which attempts to teach effective public speaking developed were the administrative and legal system of constitutional governments, which required individual citizens to be able to speak on their own behalf, often before large audiences. This was especially true under the Athenian democracy; it was largely in Athens that rhetorical systems developed and found their practical application. But the rhetorical conventions of any culture are built on audience expectations of what a speech should be and what constitutes valid argument; thus it is not surprising that many of the techniques of rhetoric identified in the fifth and fourth centuries can be found in earlier Greek literature. Aristode constandy quotes examples of rhetoric from Homer, lyric poets, dramatists, and historians who had not studied a system of rhetoric. The Greeks were a highly vocal, argumentative people, and even the earliest Greek literature shows a consciousness of what later came to be called rhetoric. If we wish to provide a name for "rhetoric before rhetoric" probably the best choice is πειθώ, "persuasion", 11

This becomes the basis for the fifteenth-century treatise on Old Testament rhetoric by Judah Messer Leon, The Book of the Honeycomb's Flow, ed. and trans. Rabinowitz 1983. 12 Cf. Oliver 1971:220-33. 13 Cf. Kennedy 1992. 14 Cf. Cole 1992.

8

GEORGE Α. KENNEDY

conceived as a divine force present in language (Hes. Op. 73, Th. 349; Sappho fr. 90, 96, and 200 Campbell; Pi. P. 9:3:9; etc.). Herodotus (8:111) reports that early in the fifth century Themistocles told the Andrians that the Athenians came to them with two great goddesses, Πειθώ τε και Άναγκαίη ("Persuasive Speech and Physical Constraint"), and in the mid-fifth century the poet Eupolis (fr. 94:5) said that Peitho sat on Pericles' lips. Peitho is regularly found in Greek art in company with that more physical persuasive force, Aphrodite, her mother according to Sappho. As already noted, Socrates attributes to Gorgias the definition of rhetoric as πειθούς δημιουργός, the "worker of persuasion": thus the popular view of rhetoric through the classical period as "the art of persuasion". The Iliad, the earliest work of European literature, already shows many of the features of rhetoric that are conceptualized in the later tradition. Formal debates, with extended speeches that can be divided into logical parts, are a feature of both Greek and Trojan assemblies. Skill at speech is something learned (presumably by imitation, not precept): Phoenix has taught Achilles to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds (9:443). There are poor speakers like Thersites, who knows words but not how to put them together effectively (2:213), eloquent speakers like Nestor, "whose voice flowed from his mouth sweeter than honey" (1:249), and recognition that there were different effective styles of speech. For later antiquity (e.g., Aulus Gellius 6:14:7), Nestor was the model of the "middle" or smooth style; Odysseus, whose "words flew like flakes of snow" (3:222), was the model of the grand style, Menelaus, fluent, but using few words (3:214-15), of the plain style. Later Greeks and Romans regularly found models both of thought and style in speeches in the Iliad, especially the three speeches of the embassy to Achilles in book 9 and the pathetic appeal of Priam to Achilles to recover the body of Hector in book 24.15 The conceptualization of a rhetorical system and the definition of rhetorical terms was an aspect of the general development of Greek thought in the classical period, including natural and moral philosophy, medicine, and political theory. It was facilitated by what has come to be known as the "literate revolution" of the late fifth century, the gready increased use of writing in composition and com-

15

Cf. Kennedy 1980:11-14.

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

9

munication. 16 Although an adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet had been introduced into Greece as early as the eighth century BC and written copies of literary texts were in circulation at least by the sixth century, both composition and publication long remained oral. Greater reliance on writing may have developed with the need for communication over distance in the historical events of the fifth century, such as the formation of the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian war. Although the goal of rhetorical teaching and study was effective speech, written texts were basic to its methods. These included the handbooks (τέχναι) that were used by average citizens to gain an understanding of rhetorical methods, and they also included the texts of speeches by sophists and orators that were studied as models of expression. In Plato's Phaedrus we meet a young enthusiast for rhetoric who is studying the written text of a speech attributed to Lysias. Greater use of writing changed the view of language, allowing it to be visualized on a page; it made rereading possible, with comparison between passages; it facilitated logical argument that might be difficult to follow orally, and it is perhaps responsible for the increased use of periodic sentences with numerous subordinate clauses. It contributed to a greater awareness of style and the stylistic possibilities of prose in particular: Greeks became more aware that things could be said in different ways with different emphases and different moral and emotional implications. In Phaedrus (266d5~267d8) Plato gives a survey of "the numerous things found in books written about the art of speech". These are the τέχναι, or handbooks in circulation in the late fifth century, none of which has survived. T h e authors mentioned include Theodorus of Byzantium, Euenus of Paros, Tisias, Polus, Licymnius, and Thrasymachus; some opinions of the sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, and Hippias are also mentioned, though it is doubtful whether they should be regarded as authors of handbooks. It seems clear from the passage, and also from what Aristotle says about τέχναι λόγων in the Rhetoric (3:13:1414a37-b6), that the handbooks set out a structure of a judicial speech consisting of a logical series of parts: a προοίμιον, or introduction; διήγησις, or narrative, with provision for introduction of the evidence of witnesses; πίστις, or proof; and έπίλογος, or summary conclusion; but some of the writers suggested the need for additional parts, which were given technical names. T h e four basic 16

Cf. Havelock 1982; Lenz 1989; T h o m a s 1989, 1992.

10

GEORGE Α. KENNEDY

divisions are regularly found in Greek judicial oratory, less regularly in deliberative and epideictic speeches. Plato's description also suggests that the handbooks contained some information about correct and ornamented word choice and about the expression of emotion (on which see also Arist. Rh. 1:1:1354a 11-21). Aristotle in his Rhetoric criticizes the handbooks for their neglect of logical argument, but at least one form of proof seems to have been illustrated: argument from probability (εικός). The classic example, cited by both Plato (Phdr. 273a-b, where it is attributed to Tisias) and Aristode (Rh. 2:24:1402a 18-20, where it is attributed to Corax), and given developed form in the Third Tetralogy attributed to Antiphon, involves responsibility for starting a brawl between a small man and a large man: the small man can argue that it is improbable that he would have started a fight with someone much larger than himself; the large man can turn this around and argue that because of his size he would be easily blamed as an aggressor and for that reason it is improbable he would have started the fight. Argument from probability, in a variety of forms, is very common in Greek literature of all sorts in the fifth century, not only in oratory but in poetry. A good example is the speech of Creon in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus (583-615) where, in reply to Oedipus's attack on him, he argues that it is improbable that he would have conspired to gain the throne. Argument from probability seems to have appealed to the Greeks in that it was based on an understanding of human nature; conversely, Greek orators often distrusted direct evidence, such as that by witnesses, as easily faked or bribed. Although the early handbooks seem to have set out a model structure for a speech, suggested some forms of argument, and contained information on style, and though they introduced some of the technical vocabulary that became traditional in rhetoric, they should not be regarded as very sophisticated or theoretical treatments. They were probably short, apparendy ephemeral, and in all likelihood more a collection of examples of what might be said than a statement of precepts. It has recently been plausibly suggested that the term τόπος, literally "place" but used to mean a rhetorical topic, came into use to refer to the physical place in a written τέχνη where a "commonplace" could be found to fit a variety of contexts." Teaching rhetoric, often for rather considerable fees, was one of 17

Cf. Cole 1991:88-89.

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

11

the activities of fifth-century sophists, an important aspect of their claim to teach practical wisdom in public and private affairs (cf. Pl. Prt. 319al). As the description of education by Plato's character Protagoras in the dialogue of that name makes clear (Prt. 325e-326c), traditional Greek education (παιδεία) made no attempt to teach original composition or original thought. Sophists, for the first time, taught students how to compose and how to argue, but they did so by the example of their own method of epideixis, discourses on hypothetical issues that demonstrated techniques for students to imitate. At the end of his treatise On Sophistical Refutations (SE 183a-184b) Aristode criticizes the teaching of Gorgias and the sophists as unsystematic: For some of them gave their pupils speeches to learn by heart, speeches which were either rhetorical or consisted of questions and answers, in which both sides thought that the rival arguments were for the most part included. Hence the teaching which they gave their pupils was rapid but unsystematic; for they conceived that they could train their pupils by imparting to them not an art but the results of an art, just as if one should claim to be able to communicate knowledge for the prevention of pain in the feet and then did not teach the cobbler's art and the means of providing suitable foot-gear, but offered a selection of various kinds of shoes; for he has helped to supply his need but has not imparted an art to him. 18

The most famous surviving examples of sophistic model speeches are the Tetralogies attributed to Antiphon (three sets of two speeches for the prosecution and two for the defense in homicide cases)19 and two by Gorgias, The Encomium of Helen and The Defense of Palamedes?0 Gorgias first came to Athens on an embassy from Leontini in Sicily in 427 BC and made an enormous impression there with his remarkable prose style and his clever use of argument. The Helen is divided into the four parts of prooemion, narrative, proof, and epilogue; it argues that Helen must have abandoned Menelaus and gone to Troy with Paris for one of four reasons: either it was fated by the gods, or she was taken by force, or she was seduced by Paris's words, or she was overcome with love for him. Gorgias seeks to prove that whichever was the reason, she is not to be held morally blamable. This is

18

Trans, by Forster 1955:154, with minor changes. Text and translation by Maidment 1941; authorship and date are very controversial. 20 Helen trans, by Kennedy (1991:283-88); Palamedes trans, by Kennedy in Sprague 1972:54-63. 19

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GEORGE Α. KENNEDY

relatively easy to show if fate or force are involved, more challenging in the case of words or love, both of which Gorgias presents as irresistible forces. T h e most famous part of the speech (Hel. 8-14) is the discussion of the power of logos: "Speech is a powerful lord that with the smallest and most invisible body accomplished most godlike works. It can banish fear and remove grief and instill pleasure and enhance pity. . . ." T h e passage as a whole can be taken as expressing the wonder and excitement in the fifth century occasioned by the dawning awareness of the possibilities of rhetoric. Gorgias's prose style is characterized by constant antithesis, word play (paronomasia), and the use of poetic devices. He is fond of balancing clauses with the same number of syllables (isocolon) and of rhyming the last words of clauses or phrases (homoeoteleuton). Such techniques were imitated by others—they can, for example, be found in speeches in Thucydides' History—but the jingling effect was distracting, and fourth-century writers largely abandoned them, seeking instead force and clarity on the principle that the greatest art is to disguise art. The first statement of this principle is found in Aristotle [Rh. 3:2:1404b 18—21). T h e most important successor of the sophists in the fourth century was Isocrates, who, about 390 BC, opened a school in Athens that was intended to supply an understanding of moral and political philosophy and of rhetorical skills to future leaders of Greece. Over the next fifty years it attracted a large number of students. Isocrates was very much a part of the "literate revolution". He was himself ineffective as a public speaker and his "speeches" are written treatises in oratorical form, frequently revised, often lengthy, composed in long periodic sentences, and highly polished. Though they are usually referred to as epideictic, they are often cast in the form of judicial or deliberative orations or of letters. His early programmatic work Against the Sophists (13:16-17) outlines his educational method: I hold that to obtain a knowledge of the elements (ΐδέαι) out of which we make and compose all discourses is not so very difficult if anyone entrusts himself, not to those who make rash promises but to those who have some knowledge of these things. But to choose from these elements those which should be employed for each subject, to join them together, to arrange them properly, and also, not to miss what the occasion demands but appropriately to adorn the whole speech with striking thoughts (ενθυμήματα) and to clothe it in flowing and melodious phrase—these things, I hold, require much study and are the task of a vigorous and imaginative mind: for this, the student must not only have the requisite aptitude, but must learn the different kinds

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

13

of discourse and practise himself in their use; and the teacher, for his part, must so expound the principles of the art with the utmost possible exactness as to leave out nothing that can be taught, and, for the rest, he must in himself set such an example of oratory that the students w h o have taken form under his instruction and are able to pattern themselves after him (μιμήσασθαι) will, from the outset, show in their speaking a degree of grace and charm which is not found in others. 21

This is the earliest passage in which a Greek writer recognizes the stages in composition which became the three major parts of rhetorical theory, invention, arrangement, and style. The thought comes first, it is then arranged logically and finally cast into words and polished. The student learns primarily from imitation (μιμήσις) of approved models, including the teacher's own examples, but apparendy Isocrates also intends to lecture on rhetorical theory. 22 His surviving works, of which the Antidosis is the most important account of his own teaching, present more a philosophy of rhetoric as a method of moral education than a theoretical system, and they lack technical rhetorical vocabulary. Note his use in the passage above of ίδέαι and ένθυμήματα in a non-technical sense. The development of a conceptualized system of rhetoric with principles of composition and a technical vocabulary, beyond what little was to be found in the τέχναι λόγων, was largely the contribution of Plato and Aristode. Although the account of rhetoric found in the Gorgias of Plato is negative, even that dialogue (503a5-b7) suggests that there might be the possibility of a valid, philosophical art of discourse: "a genuine attempt to make the souls of one's fellows as excellent as may be, a striving always to say what is best, whatever the degree of pleasure or pain it may afford the audience. But a rhetoric such as this you have never encountered". A few years later, in the Phaedrus, Plato allows Socrates to outline what would be the major features of a valid art of rhetoric. This is the subject of the second half of the dialogue and is summarized in the following long sentence in 277b5~c6: Until someone knows the truth of each thing about which he speaks or writes and is able to define everything in its o w n species and subspecies to the point of indivisibility, discerning the nature of the soul

21

Trans, by Norlin II 1929:173-75. What Norlin translates "expound the principles of the art" is in the Greek text only "go through (or describe thoroughly) these things". 22

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GEORGE Α. KENNEDY

in accordance with the same method, while discovering the logical category which fits with each nature, and until in a similar way he composes and adorns speech, furnishing variegated and complex speech to a variegated soul and simple speech to a simple soul—not until then will it be possible for speech to exist in an artistic form in so far as the nature of speech is capable of such treatment, neither for instruction nor for persuasion, as has been shown by our entire past discussion.

Rhetoric thus requires knowledge of the subject, knowledge of logical method, and knowledge of the psychology of the audience: it is a ψυχαγωγία, or "leading of the soul", by both reason and emotion (261a7-9). "Probable" argument is only probable if based on a knowledge of truth (260a ~c). Effective discourse requires a unity of its parts: "every discourse, like a living creature, should be so put together that it has its own body and lacks neither head nor feet, middle nor extremities, all composed in such a way that they suit both each other and the whole" (264c2~5). T h e Platonic conception underlies the account of rhetoric that Aristode subsequendy formulated, especially his emphasis on logical method and his division of the artistic means of persuasion into the use by a speaker of ethos, or presentation of his character as trustworthy, logos, or logical argument, and pathos, or awakening the emotion of the audience. Nevertheless, Aristotelian rhetoric is very much a phenomenon of the real world of politics and the lawcourts. Although he often draws examples from poetry, Aristode largely limits the sphere of rhetoric to public address in contemporary assemblies, courts, or ceremonial occasions. Although he puts great emphasis on understanding valid logical argument, he realized that in practice the political, legal, or cultural issues discussed in public speaking usually are matters on which only probabilities can be established. Although he believes that an orator should not seek to persuade an audience of something that is wrong (Rh. 1:1:1354b31), he regarded rhetoric as itself a morally neutral art that suggests "the available means of persuasion" and how to argue on either side of an issue; thus he does not hesitate to describe methods that might be persuasive even if invalid or immoral.

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

III.

G R E E K AND L A T I N

15

ORATORY

Throughout the history of Greek and Roman rhetoric the imitation of classic models was fundamental to instruction in rhetoric. This included study of speeches in the Homeric poems, in Greek drama (especially plays of Euripides, who employs techniques taught by the sophists), in Greek historians, and of course in the orators. T h e speeches in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War are probably the most interesting to the student of the early history of rhetoric; the historian claims (1:22) that in so far as possible he based the speeches on what was actually said, but it was often difficult to know this accurately (political speeches were not usually published until Demosthenes began to do so in the fourth century) and thus he relies on τά δέοντα, what was "needed, appropriate, fitting" to say in the circumstances. The speeches he includes are clearly quite compressed, and as a result often bring out the political issues in a striking way. A particularly good example is the debate between Cleon and Diodotus in 3:37-48, with its sharp focus on the conflict between expediency and justice in determining a policy to deal with the Mitylenean revolt. The most famous speech in Thucydides' work is his version of the Epitaphios, or Funeral Oration, given by Pericles at the ceremony for those who died in the first year of the war (2:35-46), with its highly idealistic presentation of Athens and her culture as the "school of Greece", its emotional account of death in batde, and its relatively chilly consolation for those who are left behind. 23 Pericles both acknowledges and breaks from the conventions of the genre (the traditional topoi are better seen, for example, in the epitaphios by Lysias). O n any ceremonial occasion such as this the major rhetorical challenge to a speaker is how at one and the same time to meet the audience expectations for the traditional form and to make something significant of the occasion by saying something new and striking. Public epideictic oratory, of which epitaphios is one species, was developed in classical Greek times and became important again under the Roman Empire; it was a major element in transmitting traditional values and in educating the populace in those values, but it easily became artificially inflated into praise of rulers and the status quo and frequendy glosses over or rewrites unpleasant historical realities. 23 For an extended discussion of the ideological and rhetorical issues in Greek funeral orations, including this one, see Loraux 1986.

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The extensive surviving corpus of Greek oratory provides an understanding of rhetorical practice in the late fifth and fourth centuries. 24 Although the orators were familiar with the rhetorical handbooks of the time and with the work of sophists, none shows specific influence of the ideas of Plato and Aristotle about rhetoric. Their published speeches, rather, are artistic developments of the oral traditions of speech in Greece within the conventions of public life and the law courts, applied to the challenge of specific situations. At least two orators, Lysias and Demosthenes, rank with the greatest oratorical geniuses of all time, and Isaeus, Isocrates, Aeschines, and Hyperides are worthy contenders for the second rank. They are all important sources for historical information—legal, political, and social—as well as models of eloquence. The fourth century was a period in which attention turned increasingly to individual character and even to the portrayal of personality: it is in the pages of the orators that we first meet real, individual Greeks in the course of their ordinary lives. Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Aeschines also tell us much about themselves; Demosthenes can be fairly said to be the first individual in history whose life we can know in any detail. Since Greek law required that most legal procedures be conducted personally by the principals in the case, and even criminal prosecutions had to be brought by some individual rather than the state, and since individuals involved in criminal trials or litigation often lacked rhetorical training, the profession of logographer, or speechwriter, developed in the late fifth century. Antiphon, Lysias, Isaeus, Isocrates in his early career, Demosthenes, and others wrote speeches for clients to memorize and deliver as best they could in court. Many of these speeches survive, perhaps published by the original author as examples of his skill, perhaps based on a text used by the clients who bought them. 25 The challenge for the speechwriter was to size up the client, organize his case, and present it and him in the most effective way. Lysias in particular is famous for the success of his portrayal of a wide variety of clients in such a way as to make them seem both natural and believable. This quality in his speeches, known in later times as ethopoiia, is a matter of the thought and topics employed, not of the prose style. Among the most celebrated examples are his orations 1, 7, 9, and 21. As a stylist, Lysias became for the

24

Standard works on Greek oratory include those of Blass 1874—80 and Jebb 1893. 25 The latter is argued by Dover 1968:151-61, in the case of Lysias.

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

17

rhetorical schools, and for modern students, the model of the "plain" or "simple" style, characterized by purity of dicdon, clarity of grammatical construction, and restraint in ornamentation by tropes and figures. Demosthenes, in contrast, became the model of the "grand" style, or more accurately the master of every style "harmoniously blended". His distinctive quality is δεινότης, or forcefulness, best seen in his deliberative speeches: the Olynthiacs, the Philippics, and especially On the Crown.26 The classic model of the "middle", or "smooth", style is the orations of Isocrates, with their vast periodic sentences, their avoidance of hiatus (the "gap" occurring when a word ending in a vowel is followed by a word beginning with a vowel), and their rhythmical flow. There is no extant Greek oratory from the last three centuries BC. From the Roman period we have substandal collections of Greek speeches, some actually delivered, others published as epideictic models by rhetors who are representatives of the "Second Sophistic". The most important orators are Dio Chrysostom (late first century AD), Aelius Aristides (mid-second century), and their fourth-century successors, Libanius, Himerius, Synesius, and Themistius. For these orators rhetoric was a fully conceptualized system and their works can be studied in terms of the theory taught in schools of the Hellenistic and Roman period. There is also a development of Christian epideictic oratory in Greek, beginning with Gregory Thaumaturgus in the third century, followed by Eusebius of Caesarea in the early fourth, and attaining its greatest achievements in the work of Gregory of Nazianzus in the mid-fourth century. The Alexandrian grammarian-critics of the third and second centuries BC, Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus, drew up canons of Greek poets, arranged by genres (epic, lyric, tragic, etc.). A canon of the Attic orators also eventually came into existence, best known from the anonymous treatise (probably a work of the second century AD) On the Lives of the Ten Orators that is preserved among the works of Plutarch:27 the ten approved models are Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isaeus, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Hyperides, Lycurgus, and Dinarchus. The beginnings of a canon can be found by the first century BC. Cicero (Brut. 32-37) singles out Isocrates, Lysias, Demosthenes, Hyperides, Aeschines, Lycurgus, Dinarchus, Demades, and Demetrius of Phaleron for special mention. Dionysius 26 57

For a rhetorical analysis of On the Crown see Donnelly 1941. Trans, by Förster 1936.

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of Halicarnassus devotes treatises to Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, and Dinarchus. It was perhaps Dionysius's contemporary, Caecilius of Calacte, who canonized the list in a work of which we know only the title, On the Character [or Style] of the Ten Orators. The texts of the classical Greek orators played a special role as models for imitation in the Atticism movement, a reaction against the perceived decadence of vocabulary, grammar, and style in simple Koine Greek and in florid Asianic oratory. The earliest references to Atdcism are in Brutus and Orator, where Cicero criticizes contemporary Latin orators of the plain style for claiming to be "Attic" and neglecting the variety of styles found in Demosthenes and other Attic orators. Atticism in Greek begins with Dionysius of Halicarnassus and over dme created an anachronistic literary language that dominated the schools and literary composition for centuries. Except for fragments of Cato the Elder and other early Romans, 28 oratory in Latin is represented almost solely by the speeches of Cicero, who knew the theories of the schools well but knew equally well when to rise above pedantic rules. The two speeches that most fully accord with rhetorical rules are De lege Manilla and Pro MiloneP Outside of Cicero's works there are the Panegyric (of Trajan) by Pliny the Younger, the Apology by Apuleius, many examples of declamation, a collection of panegyrics of late Latin emperors, fragmentary orations of Symmachus, and Christian oratory, such as the sermons of Ambrose and Augustine.

IV.

RHETORICAL

SCHOOLS

T h e spread of Greek language and Greek culture throughout the Near East and Mediterranean after the conquests of Alexander the Great brought with it the establishment of rhetorical schools in every urban center. Grammar and rhetoric furnished local inhabitants with an entry into the new civic life and access to the law courts. A system of formal education came into existence in which young people began the study of Greek grammar around the age of seven; a significant number of boys then entered a rhetorical school at the age of twelve to fourteen. They learned some theory from lectures by their 28 29

Cf. Malcovati 1955; discussion in Kennedy 1972:3-102. Rhetorical analysis by Donnelly 1934.

19

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

teacher and practiced exercises in declamation in imitation of his examples. The Romans initially resisted the teaching of rhetoric, expelling Greek teachers in 161 BC and putting an interdiction on teaching rhetoric in Latin in 92 (Suet. De Rhet. 1), but then gave way and Rome became a leading center of rhetoric soon thereafter. Public subsidy of instruction in rhetoric had already begun in some Hellenistic cities. In 71 AD Quintilian was the first person named to a chair in rhetoric in Rome, funded by the emperor. Beginning in the second century AD the emperors required cities throughout the empire to subsidize instruction in grammar and rhetoric, though attendance at school was never required in antiquity. 30

V.

G R E E K AND L A T I N R H E T O R I C A L T R E A T I S E S BEFORE 4 0 0

WRITTEN

AD

Literally hundreds of rhetorical handbooks, plus monographs on specific aspects of rhetoric, were written by rhetoricians, orators, grammarians, philosophers, and enthusiastic amateurs throughout antiquity. Most were ephemeral and are known, if at all, only from incidental references by other writers, especially Quintilian and Diogenes Laertius. Most were original only in the treatment of details; there were frequent professional disputes over categories of stasis or whether something should be regarded as a trope or a figure or other matters; the followers of Apollodorus in the first century BC insisted on the need for all parts of the oration in a standard order, the followers of Theodorus were more flexible about this, more rigid on some other points.31 The more thoughtful works usually begin with a general introduction that alleges a reason for writing another handbook, provides definitions and divisions of the subject, and even engages in philosophical speculation, as did the precocious young Cicero in De inventione. Handbooks differ somewhat in structure; 32 discussion of invention and arrangement in particular posed an organizational problem for the writers: how to combine treatment of the 30

On the history of schools in antiquity see Marrou 1956 and Bonner 1977; on education in Palestine and its effect on Jews and Christians, see Kinneavy 1987:56100. 31 See Kennedy 1972, with bibliography. 3S On the evolution of technical handbooks and the different structures they take, see Fuhrmann 1960.

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GEORGE Α. KENNEDY

three species of rhetoric—-judicial, deliberative, and epideictic—and the parts of an oration without too much repeddon, and where to discuss stasis, forms of argument, and topics. The chief extant works on rhetoric are listed below; important lost works are identified in each period. 1. Aristode (384—322 BC) Rhetoric (Τεχνή ρητορική or Περι ρητορικής). [Ed. Kassel 1976; ed. and trans. Freese 1926; trans, (with extensive notes) Kennedy 1991; commentary on the whole by Cope 1877; commentary on books 1 and 2 by Grimaldi 1980-88] Aristode was a member of Plato's Academy from 367 to 347 BC. Around 355 he began giving a course of lectures on rhetoric; some of the material in the Rhetoric as we have it probably derives from that time. He probably returned to the subject when teaching Alexander the Great around 341 and seems to have revised his text into its present form just before returning to Athens in 335. He then may have used it (there is no specific evidence) as the basis of lectures in his new "Peripatetic" school at the Lyceum. 33 Books 1 - 2 deal with what Aristode (at the end of book 2) calls διάνοια, "thought", in later writers called εϋρεσις, inventio. Book 3 (probably originally a separate work) discusses λέξις (elocutio, "style") and τάξις (divisio, "arrangement"). Aristode thus covers three of what became five parts of rhetoric in later theory, and at the beginning of book 3 has some comments on a fourth part, ΰπόκρισις (actio, "delivery").34 Major problems in interpretation of the work (written at different times and not finally revised) arise from inconsistency in the use of terms, especially πίστις and τόπος, and from the contrast between the very austere, Platonizing view of rhetoric in 1:1 and the much more pragmatic treatment in the rest of the work. Although attempts are sometimes made to read the Rhetoric as ethical and political philosophy, it is probably best viewed, like the Poetics, as essentially a formal analysis of the subject. The most important contributions of Aristode to rhetorical theory are the following: (a) The division (1:2) of πίστεις ("means of persuasion") into ατεχνοι ("non-artistic"), or direct evidence including witnesses, contracts, etc. (which the speaker does not invent but uses), and εντεχνοι ("artistic"), 33 34

See Kennedy 1991:299-305. For a chapter by chapter outline of the whole, see Kennedy 1991:13-22.

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

21

which the speaker invents. The artistic means are then divided into three and only three: the presentation of the speaker's character (ήθος) as trustworthy through what he says in the speech (i.e., not on the basis of an external reputation); the use of valid logical argument (λόγος); the arousal of emotion (πάθος) in the audience. (b) The division (also in 1:2) of logical means of persuasion into παραδείγματα ("examples" used to construct inductive arguments) and ενθυμήματα ("enthymemes", deductive rhetorical syllogisms). An enthymeme is usually only probable, given the subject matter of civic rhetoric; one premise is frequendy omitted as well known to the audience; thus the usual form of an Aristotelian enthymeme is a proposition with a supporting statement. The formal materials of enthymemes are τεκμήρια ("signs") and εικότα ("probabilities"). (c) The theory (also begun in 1:2) of τόποι ("topics"). There are three categories: first, what Aristode calls κοινά, "commonalities", four forms of argument useful in any species of rhetoric: the possible or impossible; past fact; future fact; and magnitude or importance (1:3:7 and 14; 2:19); secondly, what he generally calls ϊδια ("specifics, special [topics]"), the propositions of the various species of knowledge, primarily politics and ethics, used by the speaker, which are discussed in detail in 1:4—14; and thirdly, κοινοί τόποι ("common topics"), logical strategies such as argument from cause to effect, discussed in detail in 2:23. (d) The definition of three and only three genres (or taking oratory as the genre, "species") of rhetoric on the basis of whether or not an audience is a judge and of what (1:3). If the audience makes a judgment about the future the speech is συμβουλευτικόν ("deliberative") and its central issue (in practice a "special" topic) is τό συμφέρον ("the beneficial or advantageous"—the translation "expedient" somewhat distorts Aristode's meaning); if the audience is making a judgment about the past the speech is δικανικόν ("judicial") 35 and the central issue is τό δίκαιον, "the just"; if the audience is not called upon to make a judgment about action the speech is έπιδεικτικόν ("epideictic, demonstrative") and the central issue is τό καλόν ("the honorable"). Each of the species is divided into a positive and negative form: a deliberative speech is either προτροπή ("exhortation") or άποτροπή ("dissuasion"); a judicial speech either κατηγορία 35

The translation forensic is best avoided because of other uses of that word in the USA.

22

GEORGE Α. KENNEDY

("prosecution") or απολογία ("defense"); an epideictic speech either έπαινος ("praise, encomium") or ψόγος ("blame, invective"). The subject matter and special topics of deliberative rhetoric are then discussed in 1:4-8, epideictic in 1:9, and judicial in 1:10-15. (e) The discussion of prose style in 3:2-12, including identification of "clarity" as the "virtue" (αρετή) of style (3:2), and the accounts of simile (είκών) (3:4), metaphor (μεταφορά) (3:2 and 11), appropriateness (3:7), prose rhythm (3:8), periodicity (3:9), and visualization (3:ΙΟΙ 1). Aristode did not develop a theory of tropes and figures of speech, and some of his stylistic terminology (e.g., δγκος, or "expansiveness") did not become standard in the later tradition. There are other features of the Rhetoric that were often ignored by later writers: the great emphasis on logical reasoning, the discussion of the psychology of the emotions (2:2-11), and the analysis of character types (2:12-17). Although for the modern reader Aristode's work is the most important and penetrating ancient discussion of rhetoric, it had relatively little direct influence on the classical tradition: Aristode's lecture notes on rhetoric were not available to the public until the first century BC when his personal library was rediscovered and his treatises edited and published for the first time by Andronicus of Rhodes. By that time important innovations had been made by others, especially the stasis theory of Hermagoras, the theory of figures, and the theory of the kinds or levels of style, possibly first stated by Aristotle's student Theophrastus. The Aristotelian ideas that did come into the common tradition, such as the three species of rhetoric, derive from writings (all now lost) by those who had personally studied with him, especially Theophrastus. 36 Theophrastus's most important contribution was the development of the theory of four virtues of style—correctness, clarity, ornamentation, and propriety— in the treatise Περι λέξεως. These appear in some form in most later discussions.37 2. Rhetoric for Alexander (Rhetorica ad Alexandrum). [Ed. Fuhrmann 1966; trans, by Rackham 1937; discussion by Kennedy 1963, 1994, with bibliography] This is the only other surviving fourth-century rhetorical handbook. On the basis of a reference in Quintilian (3:4:9) it is usually assumed M 37

See Kennedy 1991:305-309. Cf. Stroux 1912.

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF RHETORIC

23

to be by Anaximenes of Lampsacus (ca. 380-320 BC), a writer of historical works who, like Aristotle, had connections with Alexander the Great. The version of the treatise we have begins with a dedicatory letter purporting to be from Aristode to Alexander in reply to his request for a treatment of rhetoric; this is apparently a forgery by some later writer, which resulted in the inclusion of the treatise in the Aristotelian corpus. Rhetoric for Alexander is a rule based handbook, not a collection of examples for imitation, and thus evidence for developments in the teaching of rhetoric by the second half of the fourth century beyond the early technai and the efforts of the sophists. Its relationship to teachings of Aristode, Isocrates, or other writers on rhetoric is problematic. Although it fails to use most Aristotelian technical terminology or definitions (e.g., no definition of rhetoric is provided) and lacks the analytical strength and philosophical qualities of Aristotle's Rhetoric, it is organized over-all in the same way: the subject matter and topics for the separate species of public speaking (Rh. Al. 1-6); forms of rhetorical argument (7-20); some comments on style (2128); and the parts of deliberative, epideictic, and judicial orations (29-37). This may represent the standard structure of the time which Aristotle thus has adopted rather than invented. There are also some similarities to views of Isocrates, or teachings later attributed to him, but the basic approach to the subject is not that of Isocrates. T h e treatise can be described as sophistic in that it outlines techniques of persuasion without any consideration of moral purpose and it consistendy claims that the method it describes is the only proper approach. 3. Hermagoras of Temnos Art of Rhetoric. [For fragments, other evidence, and discussion see Matthes 1958; discussion by Kennedy 1963:303-21] The most important lost Hellenistic handbook was that by Hermagoras of Temnos, written about the middle of the second century BC. Hermagoras expounded a theory of stasis, the determination of the question at issue in a speech. T h e contents can be reconstructed in outline on the basis of discussions of the subject in Cicero, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Quintilian, Augustine, and other later writers. 4. Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) Libri ad Marcum Filium The first Latin rhetorical handbook, according to Quintilian (Inst. 3:1:19), was that by Cato the Elder. It was apparendy part of a

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short encyclopedia that also contained discussion of agriculture and medicine. From it, apparendy, come two famous statements: orator est, Marci fili, vir bonus dicendi pentus ("An orator, son Marcus, is a good man skilled at speaking", quoted by Seneca, Controversiae 1. pr. 9) and rem tene, verba sequentur ("Seize the subject, the words will follow", quoted by Julius Victor, p. 374 in Halm 1863). 5. Rhetorica ad Herennium [Ed. and trans. Caplan 1954] This anonymous Latin handbook (sometimes attributed to an otherwise unknown Cornificius and until the Renaissance thought to be by Cicero) provides the most convenient introduction to classical rhetorical theory, especially in the fine edition with introduction and notes by Caplan. Its chief disadvantage is that at the time of composition (perhaps ca. 85 BC) many Latin terms for Greek rhetorical terminology had not yet been standardized. The author occasionally claims originality in details but seems to have studied with the same teacher as had the young Cicero; some rules for invention are found verbatim in both Cicero's De inventione and Ad Herennium. The latter, however, has the great advantage of also discussing arrangement (Rhet. ad Her. 3:16-18), delivery (3:19-27), memory (3:28-40), and style (book 4), thus giving a picture of the whole subject as taught in the late Hellenistic period, including Hermagoras's stasis theory. The five parts, however, are here not arranged in canonical sequence; the author has deliberately postponed style to a separate book and in a preface to it argues energetically that a rhetorician should create his own example of good style, not borrow them from literature. Parts of the work that are of special interest include discussion of the "five-part argument" (2:27-30), known in Greek as επιχείρημα and representing stylistic amplification of an enthymeme; the discussion of memory (3:28-40), which is the clearest extant summary of the mnemonic system of images and backgrounds; the discussion, with examples, of the grand, middle, and simple style and their defective variants (4:11-16); and the lists of figures of diction, including tropes (not here so called) (3:18-46) and figures of thought (3:47-69). Ad Herennium became one of the basic rhetorical texts in the Middle Ages and was the subject of commentaries.

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6. M. Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) A. De inventione [Ed. and trans. Hubbell 1949; discussion by Kennedy 1972:103-38] This is Cicero's earliest work (ca. 89 BC), based on his study of rhetoric with an unnamed teacher; he planned to discuss all five parts of rhetoric but completed only the two books on invention, treated in book 1 in terms of the parts of a judicial oration and in book 2 in terms of stasis, argument, and topics. The work closely resembles the Rhetorica ad Herennium and shows the influence of Hermagoras. Book 1 opens with a philosophical preface which contains the famous statement existimem sapientiam sine eloquentia parum prodesse civitatibus, eloquentiam vero sine sapientia nimium obesse plerumque, prodesse numquam ("I think wisdom without eloquence has been of little advantage to states, but eloquence without wisdom has too often done much harm and never been advantageous"). T h e preface to book 2 claims that Cicero is not following a single source and gives (2:1:6-8) a brief history of rhetoric. Because it provided a clear summary of the subject, more systematic than Cicero's other rhetorical writings and shorter than Quintilian's, De inventione became a basic rhetorical text for the Middle Ages, more popular even than Rhetoma ad Herennium, and numerous manuscripts survive; commentaries were written by Victorinus (ed. Halm 1863) and by Grillius in late antiquity and by numerous medieval scholars. B. De oratore [Ed. Wilkins, with notes, 1892; ed. Kumaniecki 1969; ed. and trans. Sutton and Rackham 1942; new trans, in preparation by James May et al:, commentary by Leeman etal. in progress 1981-] This philosophical dialogue on the nature of rhetoric and the function of the Roman orator, published in 55 but dramatically set in 95 BC, is Cicero's major work on the subject, but it avoids technical vocabulary. It is the earliest Latin work to show direct knowledge of Aristode's Rhetoric and to adapt some of Aristode's concepts to Roman conditions. The chief speakers are: Crassus, with whom Cicero identifies himself and who argues the need for an orator to have a wide knowledge of politics, philosophy, law, and other subjects; Antonius, who takes a narrower, practical approach; Scaevola, who argues the importance of law; and Caesar Strabo, who discusses wit and humor in 2:217-34. Among influential features of rhetorical theory found in the dialogue are the adaptation of the three Aristotelian

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modes of persuasion (ethos, logos, pathos) into the form: "that we prove our case to be true; that we win over those who are listening; that we call their hearts to what emotion the case demands" (2:115).38 In Orator (69) these are called "duties of an orator" (officia oratoris: probare, delectare,flectere).Also of special interest is the treatment (2:18385) of ethos and pathos as degrees of emotional appeal, the former being calm and persuasive, the latter a more violent stirring of passions. C. De optimo genere dicendi [Ed. and trans. Hubbell 1949] About 46 BC Cicero projected a translation of two speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines; all that he completed was this introduction. D. Partitiones oratoriae [Ed. and trans. Rackham 1942; discussion by Kennedy 1963:328-30] Perhaps about 53 BC Cicero wrote this rhetorical catechism for his son. Its chief interest is that it shows the development of technical vocabulary in Latin and provides a brief survey of all aspects of rhetoric. The vis oratoris, or "faculty of the orator", is discussed first (1-26), then the parts of the oration (27-60) and stasis theory (60138). E. Brutus [Ed. and trans. Hendrickson 1939; ed. with commentary Douglas 1966] Cicero wrote this history of rhetoric and oratory in dialogue form in 46 BC. In addition to its interesting account of historical developments, famous Roman orators, and Cicero's own rhetorical and philosophical education, it presents (Brut. 283-91) his reaction to the Atticism movement of the time, the attempt of Calvus and others to teach a pure and simple style imitating the Attic orator Lysias in reaction to the excesses of Hellenistic Asianism. Cicero saw the Attic orators as models for a variety of styles, and admired especially the ability of Demosthenes to fuse them. 39 The treatise was unknown from late antiquity to the fifteenth century.

38 On the development of theories of ethos and pathos see Gill 1984 and Wisse 1989. 39 Cf. Wooten 1983.

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F. Orator [Ed. and trans. Hubbell 1962; commentary by Sandys 1885] Later in 46 Cicero continued his campaign against Atticism. After an introduction on the concept of an ideal orator and the errors of the Atticists (1-36), he provides a rather uneven survey of rhetorical theory (37-139) and then turns to "composidon" (140-238), with special attention to prose rhythm (168-236). The latter is the most important discussion of the subject in ancient writings on rhetoric. Like the Brutus, the Orator was unknown in the Middle Ages. G. Topica [Ed. and trans. Hubbell 1949] This difficult short work, written in 44 BC, begins as a summary of Aristotelian dialectic, but appears to draw more on Hellenistic sources to discuss such topics of argument as genus, species, similarity, and difference, and adds comments on stasis theory and rhetorical invention. 7. Philodemus (ca. 110-ca. 40 BC) Rhetorica. [Ed. Sudhaus 1892-94; English paraphrase by Hubbell 1920; new ed. and trans, in preparation by Richard Janko et al.] Philodemus was an Epicurean philosopher, living in Italy. Papyri from Herculanean have brought to light portions of his Greek works, including On Poems and On Rhetoric. His method is largely to criticize the views of earlier writers. He limits the art of rhetoric to sophistic or epideictic oratory, which like poetry is useless but gives pleasure. 40 8. Demetrius On Style (De elocutions, Περι ερμηνείας) [Ed. and trans. Roberts 1902, 1927; trans, with notes Grube 1961; discussion by Kennedy 1989:196-98] The author has not been satisfactorily identified with any known Demetrius. The date is very uncertain; since direct use is made of Aristotle's Rhetoric, it was possibly written in the early third century BC when that treatise was available in Athens, but more probably in the first century BC when the Rhetoric was rediscovered and published. The treatise begins abruptly with a discussion of periodic sentences (Eloc. 1-34); the main body of the work identifies and discusses four χαρακτήρες ("characters or kinds") of style, an unusual division

40

For further discussion see Innes 1989.

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otherwise known only from a mention in Philodemus: μεγαλοπρεπής, or "elevated", ισχνός or "plain", γλαφυρός, or "elegant", and δεινός, or "forceful". T o the section on the plain style is added (223-35) a discussion of letter-writing, unusual in rhetorical treatises:41 a letter, the author says, is half of a dialogue, but should be more studied and express character. The four styles are distinguished by thought, diction, and composition (rhythm, periodicity, and figures); some characters of style but not all can be combined. In the Peripatetic tradition, the author emphasizes that style should be appropriate. There are also defective versions of each of the styles: "frigid, arid, affected, and graceless", respectively. Demetrius illustrates his discussion with frequent examples from Greek literature of the classical period. Within the conventional limits of the rhetorical theory of style he is a perceptive literary critic.42 9. Gorgias of Athens, and Rutilius Lupus, Σχήματα λέξεως, or Figures of Speech [Ed. Halm 1863:1-21] In the mid-first century BC a Greek rhetorician named Gorgias wrote a treatise on figures of speech, now lost. A Latin translation by P. Rutilius Lupus has survived. It defines and gives examples of twenty figures of speech, drawn from an unusual range of sources. 10. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (fl. 30 BC) [Ed. Usener-Radermacher V 1899, VI 1904] Dionysius came to Rome after the victory of Augustus in the civil wars; there he wrote a history of early Rome and apparendy taught rhetoric. He is the earliest Greek spokesman of the Atticism movement. Rhetorical works attributed to him are as follows: A. On the Ancient Orators (De Oratoribus Veteribus) and On Thucydides (De Thucydide) [Ed. and trans. Usher I 1974] After a preface on the corruption of style (Asianism) in the Hellenistic period and the Attic revival of his own time, Dionysius devotes one essay each to Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, and Demosthenes, providing a

41

Letter writing is briefly discussed in two Latin handbooks of the fourth or fifth century AD: Julius Victor Ars rhetorica 27 (pp. 447 48 Halm) and anon. Excerpta rhetorica (p. 589 Halm). 42 For further information see Grube 1961.

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brief life of the author and an extended discussion of his style. Subsequendy he added a separate essay on Dinarchus. The essay on Thucydides discusses the historian's treatment of his subject as well as his style. B. Literary Epistles [Ed. and trans. Roberts 1901; Usher II 1985] There are three of these: The First Letter to Ammaeus (.Amm. I) replies to a Peripatetic philosopher who had claimed that Demosthenes learned his art from Aristotle's Rhetoric. Dionysius shows that the historical references in the Rhetoric indicate it post-dated most of Demosthenes' speeches. The Letter to Pompeius (Pomp) defends Dionysius's preference for the style of Demosthenes over that of Plato and discusses the style of classical Greek historians: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Theopompus. T h e Second Letter to Ammaeus (Amm. 2) resumes discussion of the style of Thucydides. C. On Literary Composition [Ed. and trans. Roberts 1910; Usher II 1985] Style as taught in the rhetorical schools was divided into λέξις (dictio, "word choice") and σύνθεσις (compositio), the combination of words into rhythmical clauses, periods, and figures. Dionysius's treatise is a complex discussion of the composition, coining new concepts and terminology and not easily summarized. It is, however, the best surviving account of the effect of the sound of words and larger units on the Greek ear and contains many interesting examples of literary criticism as practiced by a rhetorician. D. On Imitation [Fragmentary work; a sizable portion of the second book is quoted in the Letter to Pompeius. Trans, by Usher II 1985:37399; Greek text of other fragments in Usener-Radermacher VI 1929: 197-217] By the late Hellenistic period imitadon of classic literary models was regarded as the basis for attaining excellence in style. Dionysius defines imitation as "an actualization (ένέργεια) modelling the example by means of inspection"; in contrast, "emulation" (ζήλος) is "an actualization of the soul (of a writer) set in motion at admiration of what seems to be beautiful" (fr. 3). The work surveyed Greek literature, genre by genre, as a source of excellence and imitation, providing a precedent for Quintilian's discussion in Inst. 10:1. Dionysius, in different works, variously employs a concept of three kinds (χαρακτήρες) of style, three "harmonies" of word order, and

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lists of "virtues" of style.43 Some virtues—correctness, clarity, and conciseness—are "necessary", others, including characterization, emotion, sublimity, elegance, etc., are "supplementary". He also describes an historical evolution from a "rugged" style in fifth-century writers to the "smooth" style of Isocrates and the "blended" style of Demosthenes. 44 E. Works Falsely Attributed to Dionysius of Halicamassus [Ed. Usener and Radermacher VI 1929:253-387; chapters 1-7 trans. RussellWilson 1981:362-81] An Ars rhetorica, a composite work by at least two later writers, is preserved with the writings of Dionysius. It consists of seven chapters on forms of epideictic: panegyric, wedding speeches, birthday speeches, addresses to an official, funeral orations, and exhortation to athletes. These are followed by three longer chapters on declamation. 45 11. Caecilius of Calacte (fl. ca. 30 BC) [Fragments ed. Offenloch 1907] An important rhetorician living in Augustan Rome was Caecilius of Calacte; his works are lost, but there are many references to them in later writers. Among other things, he was the author of a treatise on the "sublime" (ΰψος), to which Longinus later replied, and of an influential work on figures of speech. References show him to have been a proponent of the Atticism movement. 46 12. L. Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Elder) (ca. 55 BC-40 AD) Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae, divisiones, colores [Ed. and trans. Winterbottom 1974] Late in life, Seneca the Elder wrote his reminiscences of the rhetorical schools of his youth, with extensive quotations from memory of the clever turns of phrase (sententiae), the divisions of the question at issue (divisiones), and the interpretation of cause and motive (colores) found in the controversial and suasoriae of declaimers he had heard. A series of introductions provide overall estimates of famous speakers of the Augustan period. His work is the best introduction to decla-

43

For discussion see the introductions to Usher's translations (1974, 1985) and Innes 1989:267-72. 44 Cf. Kennedy 1972:342-63. 45 Cf. Russell 1983:36, 72-73. 46 Cf. Kennedy 1972:364-69.

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mation, which had become not only an exercise for students but a fashionable activity for adults.47 13. Aelius Theon (1st century AD) Progymnasmata [Ed. Spengel II 1854: 59-130; trans. Butts 1987] This is the earliest account of the graded exercises in composition taught as introductory to declamation. In fully developed sequence they became: myth or fable, narrative, chreia (development of an anecdote of something said or done), development of a gnomic saying, refutation, confirmation, commonplace, encomium, invective, syncrisis (comparison), personification, ekphrasis (physical description), thesis, and praise or blame of a law.48 T h e exercises are important since they were widely studied and influenced the structure of literary composition in many genres. 14. M. Fabius Quintilianus (ca. 4 0 - c a . 96 AD) A. Institutio oratoria [Ed. Winterbottom 1970; trans. Butler 1920; discussion by Kennedy 1969] Quintilian's Education of the Orator is the fullest account of classical rhetoric, based on his twenty years of teaching the subject and over two years of research in earlier sources. He is not highly innovative, but applies his own good judgment and experience to evaluating the theory and practice of rhetoric as it had developed in Rome, giving the highest authority in both respects to Cicero. T h e "perfect orator" whom Quintilian seeks must above all be a good man; his moral and rhetorical training is to begin immediately after birth, and thus books 1-2 describe the rhetorical environment of the home, primary education, and studies in the grammar school in detail; the discussion of rhetoric proper begins in book 3 with divisions of the subject, the species of oratory (epideictic, deliberative, and judicial), and an introduction to stasis theory (resumed in book 5). The work then proceeds in the traditional order through an account of invention (books 4-6), arrangement (7), style (8-11:1), memory (11:2), and delivery (11:3; the best surviving account of hearing and seeing an ancient speaker). Book 10, however, is unusual: since Quintilian

47 48

Cf. Bonner 1949; Sussman 1978. Cf. Kennedy 1983:60-66.

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believed that style is best cultivated by reading and writing, he inserts (10:1) a famous chapter which reviews Greek and Latin literature, genre by genre, author by author, in terms of their utility for the cultivation of eloquence, and continues with discussion of the function of imitation in cultivating style (10:2), of practice in writing (10:3), of revision (10:4), of various exercises .in composition (10:5), of premeditation (10:6), and of ex tempore speaking (10:7). The final book (12) is also unusual: Quintilian here returns to the moral qualities required of an orator, the need to study philosophy and law, the career of the orator and the cases he will plead, his retirement "while he will still be missed", and finally how hopes for a great orator may yet be fulfilled. Inserted into this discussion is chapter 12:10 on the genera dicendi, the different styles of speaking, including the grand, middle and plain styles, and the issue of Atticism, together with a comparison of styles of speaking to styles of sculpture and painting. In contrast to Tacitus and others of the early empire, Quintilian takes a positive view of the opportunities for rhetoric under the Flavian emperors, to whom he owed his position and fame, but he sought to restrain and discipline the excesses of declamation and to return to a more Ciceronian style. The Institutio was known throughout the Middle Ages primarily in an abridged version; the discovery of the complete work by Poggio Bracciolini in 1416 aroused great interest and made the work a major source on both education and rhetoric for the Renaissance and early modern period. Since Quintilian was a contemporary of the writers of the New Testament it is tempting to use his work as a basis for the study of early Christian rhetoric, but this requires caution in that he describes the secular rhetoric of the capital of the Empire in its most developed form, which is more self-conscious and sophisticated than what can generally be assumed in the provinces. B. Declamations Attributed to Quintilian Two collections of controversiae (exercises on judicial themes) are attributed in medieval manuscripts to Quintilian. The Major Declamations [ed. Hâkanson 1982; trans. Sussman 1987] consist of 19 speeches, composed by teachers of rhetoric during the Roman empire to illustrate artistic treatment of the themes. They are the only extant full Latin specimens. T h e Minor Declamations [ed. Shackleton Bailey 1989; no English trans.] consist of 145 extracts from an original 388 controversiae; their interest is increased by the addition of sermones, short

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comments by teachers on how the theme is best treated. T h e Major Declamations are regarded by virtually all scholars as not the work of Quintilian or his students; it is perhaps possible that some of the Minor Declamations may ultimately derive from his teaching. 49 15. Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 55-ca. 115 AD) Dialogus de oratoribus [Ed. Huebner 1983; trans. Peterson 1970; commentary by Gudeman 1894, 1912] This is a dialogue in the Ciceronian style dealing with the conditions of oratory and the schools of rhetoric in the second half of the first century AD, when, despite Quintilian's optimism, eloquence was widely perceived to be in decline. T h e date of composition has been much debated—perhaps 97 AD.s0 T h e dramatic date is 75 AD. Curiatus Maternus has abandoned oratory and turned to writing tragedies; Vipstanus Messala criticizes the rhetorical schools, with their emphasis on declamation, as decadent; M. Aper celebrates the current age and its achievements in oratory. In conclusion, Maternus claims that the great oratory of the time of Cicero resulted from disorders and dissensions that no longer exist and that the lawcourts now allow the orator less scope for elaborate addresses. The reader is left the impression that even if the Empire does not actively repress freedom of speech, it tends to stifle discussion. 16. Aelius Aristides (117-89 AD) A. On Rhetoric [Ed. and trans. Behr I 1973:278-557] Aristides is the best known representative of the Second Sophistic, a movement which sought to reinvigorate the role of rhetoric in society by relating traditional values of Hellenism to contemporary issues and by restoring the purity of language to the diction and style of Attic Greek of the fourth century BC. He lived in Asia Minor, but traveled to Greece, Egypt, and Rome, delivering and publishing elaborate epideictic speeches, of which fifty-five survive. Among them (Or. 45) is a long treatise entitled On Rhetoric which attempts to answer the criticism of rhetoric in Plato's Gorgias and to demonstrate that rhetoric is an art and expressive of justice and the virtues. 49

Another collection of excerpts from declamations is attributed to Calpurnius Flaccus (2nd cent, AD); trans, by Sussman 1994. 50 Cf. Murgia 1985.

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Β. Pseudo-Aristides [Ed. Spengel II 1854:459-554; no English version; discussion by Schmid 1917-18] Two treatises on rhetoric are preserved with the works of Aristides; they are probably not by him but may date from about the same time. T h e first, On Political Discourse, expounds a theory of style similar to the system of Hermogenes; to this were added, probably by a later writer, additional comments on style, a summary of Or. 29 of Aristides, and a paraphrase of portions of the Iliad. The second treatise, entided On the Simple Style, takes Xenophon as a model for imitation. 17. Anonymus Seguenanus [Ed. and trans, by Dilts-Kennedy 1997] A Greek treatise on the parts of the oration, probably written in the second century AD, was discovered in 1843 by Seguier de St. Brisson in a Paris manuscript. The four standard parts (prooemion, narration, proof, and epilogue) are discussed in terms not only of contents but of arrangement and style. T h e work is of historical value in that it shows the survival in the Empire of a somewhat Aristotelian approach to rhetoric and cites otherwise lost writers, including Apollodorus of Pergamum (1st century BC) and Alexander son of Numenius, author of an influential treatise on figures of speech in the second century AD. 18. Longinus On Sublimity [Ed. with commentary by Russell 1964; trans. Fyfe 1927] This is the best ancient example of the application of rhetorical teaching to literary criticism. The author identifies and illustrates five sources of sublimity (ch. 8): the power of conceiving impressive thoughts (= invention, discussed in 9-15); strong emotion (= rhetorical pathos, not discussed in the work as we have it); and features of style: figures of thought and speech (16-29), nobility of diction (30-38, 43), and composition, including word-order, rhythm, and euphony (39-42). The last chapter (44) considers the causes of the decline of eloquence, attributing it primarily to moral decay rather than political causes. Date of composition and authorship are debatable, with perhaps majority sentiment now inclining to the second century AD and the author conventionally referred to as an otherwise unknown "Longinus". The one surviving manuscript attributes the work first to "Dionysius Longinus", then to "Dionysius or Longinus", the latter meaning Dionysius of Halicarnassus or Cassius Longinus who taught rhetoric in the

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third century. Rediscovery of the treatise in the Renaissance led to the cult of "the sublime" from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. 19. Hermogenes of Tarsus (ca. 161 —? AD) [Ed. Rabe 1913; for trans, see below; discussion by Kennedy 1983:52-103] Hermogenes was a rhetorical prodigy by the age of fifteen, but soon thereafter lost his facility. Five works were attributed to him by the fifth century and, with the substitution of a work by Aphthonius for the treatise on progymnasmata, constituted the standard corpus of Greek rhetorical theory throughout the Byzantine period. Numerous prolegomena and commentaries were subsequendy written to expound their difficulties. A. Progymnasmata [Trans, by Baldwin 1928:23-38] A discussion of the traditional exercises in composition preparatory to study of rhetoric, resembling the accounts by Theon and Aphthonius; it is probably not by Hermogenes. In the fifth century AD a Latin version was made by the grammarian Priscian [text in Halm 1863:551-60, trans, by Miller 1973], B. On Staseis (Stat.) [Trans, and commentary by Heath 1995] An extended account of how to determine the question at issue in preparation of a speech, revising the system of Hermagoras and others in many details. Fourteen "headings" are identified and discussed. C. On Invention [No English trans.] This is probably not by Hermogenes. T h e first two books give a brief account of the prooemion and narration; book 3 lays out a system of proof which differs from other accounts in concept and terminology; in book 4, aspects of style, including figures, are discussed in terms of invention. D. On Ideas, i.e., On "Types" of Style (Id.) [Trans, by Wooten 1987] For most readers, this is the most interesting of Hermogenes' works; it was influential in the West in the Renaissance.51 The subject appears to be an outgrowth of earlier discussion (Theophrastus, Dionysius of

51

Cf. Patterson 1970.

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Halicarnassus, et al.) of virtues and characters of style, which Hermogenes calls ιδέα. Seven larger categories are identified, of which four are divided into sub-headings, making a total of twenty "ideas" of style to be discussed: clarity, divided into purity and distinctness; grandeur, divided into solemnity, asperity, vehemence, brilliance, florescence, and abundance;. beauty; rapidity; character, divided into simplicity, sweetness, subtlety, and modesty; sincerity, including indignation; and finally forcefulness (δεινότης), which is a blending of all and characteristic of the greatest orator, Demosthenes. E. On the Method of Deinotes (Meth.) [No English trans.] This is a rather miscellaneous discussion of some features of style; although not by Hermogenes, it probably dates from his time. The term "method" was favored by Hermogenes to describe the art or theory of rhetoric. 20. Aquila Romanus (3rd cent, AD) De figuris sententiarum et elocutionis [Ed. Halm 1863:22-37; no trans.] Aquilla defines and illustrates (usually from Cicero) forty-six figures of speech. 21. Apsines of Gadara Ars Rhetonca (3rd cent, AD) [Ed. and trans, by Dilts-Kennedy 1997] T h e latest surviving Greek handbook to discuss all parts of rhetoric. It is cast in the traditional form, and intended to provide instruction in declamation. 22. Menander Rhetor (fl. ca. 300 AD) Division of Epideictic Speeches and On Epideictic [Ed. and trans. Russell-Wilson 1981] These are indispensible works for the study of the numerous forms Greek epideictic took in the time of the Roman empire. Although a late work, many of the forms and topics go far back in Greek history. The shorter first treatise discusses prose hymns and encomia; the longer second treatise describes speeches for a variety of social occasions, including the arrival and departure of officials and friends, speeches at weddings, speeches of consolation, and farewell addresses.

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23. Aphthonius (second half of the 4th cent, AD) [Ed. Rabe 1926] This became the standard handbook of preparatory exercises throughout the Byzantine period, replacing that by Theon and that attributed to Hermogenes, and numerous commentaries were written on it. It was translated into Latin by Rudolph Agricola and widely used in Renaissance grammar schools. The writing of rhetorical treatises, including commentaries on the works attributed to Hermogenes, continued vigorously in the fifth and sixth centuries and shows the influence of Neoplatonism. Among the more important writers are Syrianus and Sopatros (see Kennedy 1983:109-32). 24. Aurelius Augustinus (354-430 AD) Saint Augustine taught rhetoric in Carthage, Rome, and Milan before his conversion to Christianity in 386. T h e earlier books of the Confessions give a picture of his own studies and teaching; of his other writings, the most important for the history of rhetoric is De doctnna Christiana [ed. Green 1963; trans. Robertson 1958], begun in 396, completed in 427. After discussing "things" and the interpretation of "signs" in books 1-3, he provides in book 4 an application of secular rhetoric to homiletic preaching, including rhetorical analysis of eloquent sections of the Old and New Testament. 25. Rhetores Latini Minores [Ed. Halm 1863] This is the standard collection of late Latin writing on rhetoric. It includes the treatises on figures by Rutilius Lupus and Aquilla Romanus, listed above, Victorinus's commentary on Cicero's De inventione (4th century AD), handbooks written in the fourth or fifth century by Fortunatianus, Sulpitius Victor, Julius Victor, a handbook attributed to Saint Augustine, the sections on rhetoric from the encyclopedias of the liberal arts by Martianus Capella (5th century), Cassiodorus (6th century), and Isidore of Seville (7th century), and other writings on rhetoric dating from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baldwin, C. S., Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic (New York: Macmillan, 1924). , Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (to 1400) Interpreted from Representative Works (New York: Macmillan, 1928). Behr, C. Α., ed. and trans. Aristides, Panathenaic Oration and In Defence of Oratory (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1973). Blass, F., Die attische Beredsamkeit (3 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1874-80). Blythin, E., The Maxims of Ptahhotpe [Ed.: sic] (Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1986). Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation in the Ijite Republic and Early Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949). , Education in Ancient Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). Booth, W. C., The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). Butler, H. E., ed. and trans. The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian (4 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1920-22). Butts, J. R., ed. and trans. The Progymnasmata ofTheon (Dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1987). Caplan, H., ed. and trans. [Cicero], Ad C. Herennium. De ratione dicendi (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1954). Clarke, M. L., Rhetoric at Rome: A Historical Survey (London: Cohen & West, 1953). Cope, Ε. M., The Rhetoric of Aristotle with a Commentary, revised by J. E. Sandys (3 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1877). Cole, T., The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). , "Who was Corax?", ICS 16 (1992), pp. 65 84. Dilts, M. R., and G. A. Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire (Leiden: Brill, 1997). Donnelly, F. P., Cicero's Milo: A Rhetorical Commentary (New York: Fordham University Press, 1934). , Demosthenes On the Crown, with rhetorical commentary and trans, by F. P. Simpson (New York: Fordham University Press, 1941). Douglas, A. E., ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis, Brutus, with commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). Dover, K.J., Lysias and the Corpus Lysiacum (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). Eagleton, T., Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983). Forster, E. S., ed. and trans. Aristotle, On Sophistical Refutations, etc. (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1955). Fowler, H. N., ed. and trans. Plutarch, Moralia 10 (IJves of the Ten Orators) (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1936). Fox, M. V., "Ancient Egyptian Rhetoric", Rhetorua 1 (1983) pp. 9-22. Freese, J. H., ed. and trans. Aristotle, The "Art" of Rhetoric (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1926). Fuhrmann, M., Das systematische Lehrbuch: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften in der Antike (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960). , ed. Anaximenis, Ars rhetorica (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966). Fyfe, W. H., ed. and trans. Longinus, On the Sublime (LCL, in the vol. with Aristode, Poetics·, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1927). Gill, C., "The Ethos/Pathos Distinction in Rhetorical and Literary Criticism", CQ_

34 (1984), pp. 149-66.

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Green, W. M., ed. Sancti Aureli Augustini, De doctnna, Christiana (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, LXXX, Sect, vi, pars vi: Vienna: Hoelder-PichlerTempsky, 1963). Grimaldi, W. Μ. Α., Aristotle, Rhetoric, A Commentary (2 vols.; New York: Fordham University Press, 1980-88). Groupe μ (Jacques Dubois et al.), A General Rhetoric (trans. P. B. Burrell and Ε. M. Slotkin; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981). Grube, G. Μ. Α., trans. A Greek Critic: Demetrius on Style (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961). , A Greek Critic: Demetrius on Style (with translation) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961). Gudeman, Α., ed. P. Comelii Taciti, Dialogue de oratoribus, with English commentary (Boston: Ginn; revised German ed. 1912; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1894). Halm, K., ed. Rhetores Latini minores (Leipzig: Teubner, 1863). Hâkanson, L., ed. Declamationes XIX minores Quintilian falso ascriptae (Leipzig: Teubner, 1982). Havelock, Ε. Α., The Literate Revolution in Greece and Its Cultural Consequences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). Heath, M., Hermogenes On Issues: Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). Hendrickson, G. L., ed. and trans. Cicero, Brutus (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1962). Hubbell, H. M., trans. "The Rhetorica of Philodemus", Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 23 (1920), pp. 243-382. , ed. and trans. Cicero, De inventione; De optimo genere dicendi; Topica (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1949). , ed. and trans. Cicero, Orator (LCL; with Brutus, ed. and trans. G. L. Hendrickson; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1962). Huebner, H., ed. P. Comelii Taciti, Dialogus de oratoribus (Leipzig: Teubner, 1983). Innés, D. C., "Philodemus" and "Augustan Critics", in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (ed. G. A. Kennedy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 215-19, 245-73. Jebb, R. C., The Attic Orators (2 vols.; 2nd edn.; London: Macmillan, 1893). Kassel, R., ed. Aristotelis, Ars rhetorica (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976). Kennedy, G. Α., The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963). , Quintilian (New York: Twayne, 1969). , The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). , Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980). , Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). , New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). , ed. The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. I. Classical Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). , trans. Aristotle, On Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). , "A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric", Philosophy and Rhetoric 25 (1992), pp. 1-21. , A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Kinneavy, J. L., Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). Kumaniecki, K. F., ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis, De oratore (Leipzig: Teubner, 1969). Lausberg, H., Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft (2 vols.; Munich: Max Hueber, 1960).

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Leeman, A. D. et al. De oratore, Kommentar (Heidelberg: Winter, 1981-). Lenz, T. M., Orality and Literacy in Hellenic Greece (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989). Loraux, N., The Inventions of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City (trans. A. Sheridan; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). Maidment J. K., ed. and trans. The Minor Attic Orators (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1954). Malcovati, Enrica, ed. Oratorum Romanorum fragmenta (Turin: Paravia, 1955). , ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis, Brutus (Leipzig: Teubner, 1970). Marrou, H. I., A History of Education in Antiquity (trans. G. Lamb; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956). Martin, J., Antike Rhetorik: Technik und Methode (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, II, 3; Munich: Beck, 1974). Matthes, D., "Hermagoras von Temnos 1904-1955", Lustrum 3 (1958), pp. 58-214. Miller, J. M. et al., ed. and trans. Readings in Medieval Rhetoric (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973). Murgia, C. E., "Pliny's Letters and the Dialogus", HSCP 89 (1985), pp. 171-206. Nadeau, R. E., "Hermogenes' On Staseis: A Translation with Introduction and Notes", Speech Monographs 31 (1964), pp. 361-424. Norlin, G., ed. and trans. Isocrates (2 vols.; vol. 3 ed. and trans. L. Van Hook 1945; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1928, 1929). Offenloch, Ε., ed. Caecilius Calactinus, Fragmenta (Leipzig: Teubner, 1907). Oliver, R. T., Communication and Culture in Ancient India and China (Syracuse: University of Syracuse Press, 1971). Patterson, A. M., Hermogenes and the Renaissance: Seven Ideas of Style (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970). Perelman, C., and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (trans. J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver 1969; Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1958). Peterson, W., ed. and trans. Dialogue de oratoribus (revised by M. Winterbottom in LCL Tacitus, I; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1970). Rabe, H., ed. Hermogenis, Opera (Leipzig: Teubner, 1913). , ed. Aphthonius, Progymnasmata (Leipzig: Teubner, 1926). Rabinowitz, I., ed. and trans. The Book of the Honeycomb's Flow (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). Rackham, H., ed. and trans. Rhetorica ad Alexandrum (LCL in vol. with Aristotle, Problems II, ed. and trans. W. S. Hett; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1937). , ed. and trans. Cicero, De Oratore, Book III; De fato; Paradoxa Stoicorum; Partitiones oratoriae (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1942). Reis, P., ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orator (Leipzig: Teubner, 1932). Roberts, W. R., ed. and trans. Dionysius of Halicamassus, The Three Literary Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901). , ed. and trans. Demetrius, On Style (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; trans, reprinted in LCL ed. 1927 with Aristotle, Poetics, and Longinus, On the Sublime ed. and trans. W. H. Fyfe; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1902). , ed. and trans. Dionysius of Halicamassus, On Literary Composition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910). Robertson, D. W., Jr., trans. Saint Augustine, On Christine Doctrine (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1958).

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Russell, D. Α., ed. Longinus, On the Sublime, with commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964). , and N. Wilson, trans. Menander Rhetor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). , Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Sandys, J. E., ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis, Orator, with commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1885). Schiappa, E., "Did Plato Coin rhetorike?", AJP 111 (1990), pp. 457-70. , Protagoras and Logos: A Study in Greek Philosophy and Rhetoric (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991). Schmid, W., "Die sogennante Aristidesrhetorik", RhM 72 (1917-18), pp. 113-18, 238-57. Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. Quintiliani, Declamationes minores (Leipzig: Teubner, 1989). Spengel, L., Rhetores Graeci (3 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner; vol. I, pt. 2, revised by C. Hammer 1894; Leipzig: Teubner, 1884-86). Sprague, R. K., ed. The Older Sophists: A Complete Translation by Several Hands of the Fragments (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972). Stroux, J., De Theophrasti virtutibus dicendi (Leipzig: Teubner, 1912). Sudhaus, S., ed. Philodemi, Rhetorica (2 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1892). Sussman, L. Α., The Elder Seneca (Leiden: Brill, 1978). , trans. The Major Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1987). , The Declamations of Calpumius Flaccus: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1994). Sutton, E. W., ed. and trans. Cicero, De oratore, Books I-1I (completed by H. Rackham; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1942). Thomas, R., Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). , Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Usener, H., and L. Radermacher, ed. Dionym Halicamasei, Opuscula (vols. V - V I of complete works; Leipzig: Teubner, 1899, 1904). Usher, S., ed. and trans. Dionysius of Halicamassus, Critical Essays (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1974, 1985). Welch, Κ. E., The Contemporary Reception of Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations of Ancient Discourse (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates, 1990). Wilkins, A. S., ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis, De oratore libri très, with introduction and notes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892). Winterbottom, M., ed. M. Fabi Quintiliani, Lnstitutionis oratoriae libri duodem (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970). , ed. and trans. Seneca, Controversiae and Suasoriae (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1974). Wisse, J., Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1989). Wooten, C. W., Cicero's Philippics and Their Demosthenic Style (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). , trans. Hermogenes On Types of Style (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987).

CHAPTER 2

THE GENRES OF RHETORIC George A. Kennedy University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

Literary and rhetorical genres originate in social contexts where a distinctive form is developed to perform a distinctive function. In the earliest attempt to define rhetoric, Plato makes Socrates say and Gorgias agree (Org. 454e5~6) that rhetoric causes persuasion in the law courts and other assemblies. This concept of two general contexts and thus two genres of public address can be found occasionally throughout the classical period. For example, it probably appeared at the beginning of the original text of Anaximenes' rhetorical handbook, written in the third quarter of the fourth century and known to us in its later form as the Rhetoric for Alexander, for Quintilian (Inst. 3:4:9) attributes to Anaximenes a general division into judicial and deliberative oratory. By the early fourth century BC a number of Greek terms had come into use to describe different kinds of public address and are commonly found. They include: κατηγορία, or accusation; απολογία, or defense; προτρεπτικός (λόγος), or exhortation; αποτρεπτικός (λόγος), or dissuasion; έγκώμιον, or praise; πανηγυρικός (λόγος), or speech at a festival; and έπιτάφιος (λόγος), or funeral oration. The Rhetoric for Alexander (Rh. Al. 1421 b8— 10) identifies seven είδη, or species of political speech: exhortation, dissuasion, eulogy, vituperation, accusation, defense, and investigation. In our version of the text, edited under Aristotelian influence, these have been grouped under three γένη, or genres: demegoric (deliberative), epideictic, and dicanic (judicial). In the third chapter of his lectures On Rhetoric Aristotle sought to classify the kinds of civic discourse on a logical basis, referring to them first as gene, or genres (Rh. I:2:1358a33), then as species (of the genos rhetoric) (Rh. I:3:1358a36). The genre is determined by the audience. The hearer of a speech, Aristotle says, is either a spectator or a judge, and in the latter case a judge either of past or future

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happenings. T h e jury in a court of law judges past actions and is primarily concerned with justice. Members of a political assembly judge future actions in terms of what is advantageous or beneficial to the state. A spectator at a ceremonial speech is concerned with the ability of the speaker and thus not with making a judgment leading to action, but Aristode later (2:18:139lb 17) speaks of the spectator as a "judge" of the speaker. This third genre of speech Aristode regards as concerned with what is honorable, characterized by praise or blame, and primarily referring to the present, though there may be reference to both past and future events. Thus, he says, there are necessarily three genres of rhetoric: συμβουλευτικόν, or deliberative; δικανικόν, or judicial; and έπιδεικτικόν, or demonstrative. Each of these, however, takes one of two stances: deliberative oratory is either exhortation or dissuasion; judicial is either accusation or defense; epideictic is either praise or blame. Praise and deliberation, however, he later says ( 1:9:1367b36—37), are part of a common species, in that what one might propose in deliberation becomes encomia when the form of expression is changed. Generic classification is complicated when a speaker uses the form of one genre for the purpose of another, a phenomenon not mentioned by Aristode. This is a favorite technique of early sophists and later teachers of rhetoric who composed fictive speeches as examples of their artistry. Gorgias's Defense of Palamedes, for example, is not a real judicial speech for someone accused of treason; it is an epideixis of Gorgias's method in argument and style. Isocrates' Antidosis is not, as it purports to be, a speech given in court in response to a suit; it is an imagined response to a legal challenge which he used to answer more general criticism of his career and conduct, and its celebration of speech and Greek paideia makes it predominantly epideictic in tone. His Panegyncus, deliberative in the sense that it offers advice for specific action by the Greeks, was not delivered at a deliberative assembly nor was it given as an epideictic speech at a festival, as the tide suggests. Like most of Isocrates' other "speeches" it was published as a pamphlet. Gorgias's Encomium of Helen presents a different kind of problem in classification. It is again primarily an example of method, but it never really praises Helen, seeking instead to remove the blame commonly heaped upon her. Isocrates in his Helen (10:14) complains that Gorgias's famous speech was not an enkomion but a defense (apologia), thus judicial, not epideictic. Declamation in the Roman period, to be discussed below, took the forms of deliberative

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and judicial oratory, but on imaginary themes, and thus it did not fulfill the function of either of those genres. Since it did not aim at a decision on the part of the audience, by Aristode's definition it would be classified as epideictic. Aristode's theory of three, and only three, genres of rhetoric was accepted by most later classical rhetoricians and often specifically attributed to him, 1 but there were dissenting views. In Cicero's De oratore a feature of the argument between Crassus, who takes the broadest view of rhetoric, and his opponents, is whether rhetoric is restricted to the law courts and assemblies (see 1:16:35, 46-48; 2 : 3 9 43). Quintilian devotes a chapter (Inst. 3:4) to the question of whether there are three or more genres, referring to views of some authorities that there are "innumerable" genres. He agrees with the majority that there are three, though his criteria differ from Aristode's in that he makes the basic division into speeches in the law courts and speeches in other contexts, as had Plato, and he ends (3:4:16) by describing the traditional triad as "easy and neat" rather than true, "for all rely on mutual aid". That is, any one speech may involve deliberative, judicial, and epideictic elements. Although the Aristotelian triad has continued to be fundamental to rhetorical teaching, Aristotle's view of epideictic, based on his observation of public address in Greece, is too narrow for a general theory.2 Epideictic is perhaps best regarded as including any discourse, oral or written, that does not aim at a specific action or decision but seeks to enhance knowledge, understanding, or belief, often through praise or blame, whether of persons, things, or values. It is thus an important feature of cultural or group cohesion. Most religious preaching, except when specifically aimed at a future action on the part of the audience such as receiving baptism or at the judgment of some past action as requiring excommunication or anathema of an heretical doctrine by the church, can be viewed as epideictic. Dionysius of Halicamassus (Comp, passim), Hermogenes (Id. 12), and other later Greek rhetoricians sometimes treat all literature as a form of epideictic, subject to rhetorical analysis at least in terms of style. Although many written discourses, such as episdes, combine features of deliberative, judicial, or epideictic rhetoric, it is often useful to consider the 1

E.g., in Cic. De or. 2:10: See Cic. Irw. 1:7; De or. 1:141; 2:43; Part. Or. 70; Rhet. ad Her. 1:2; Quint. Inst. 2:21:23; 3:3:14-15; Hinks 1936. 2 See Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958:47-57 and Beale 1978.

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dominant rhetorical genre of a work in determining the intent of the author and the effect upon the audience in the original social situadon. T h e eighteenth-century rhetorician George Campbell, at the beginning of his important work The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776), insists that the ends of speaking are four: to enlighten the understanding, to please the imagination, to move the passions, or to influence the will. Any one discourse, according to Campbell, aims over all at only one of these ends and others are present only as secondary means to that. Aristotle complains (Rh. 1:1:1354b22~29) that although deliberadve oratory is finer and of more general interest than judicial, the handbooks of his time discussed only judicial rhetoric (and did that badly). He blames this on the greater opportunity for emotional appeals and irrelevancies in court. Other reasons are likely to be, first, that some understanding of judicial oratory was useful to more people, since Greek law required litigants to speak in their own behalf, whereas no one had to speak in the assembly unless he wanted to, and secondly, that judicial oratory was more easily reduced to rules. Aristode himself discussed deliberative rhetoric in chapters 5 to 8 of the first book of his Rhetoric, epideictic in chapter 9, and judicial in chapters 10 to 15. Most later rhetorical treatises deal primarily with judicial oratory; stasis theory, which takes up much of their discussion, is a method of determining the question at issue in a trial, with only minor application to deliberative or epideictic speeches, and the parts of the oration which are discussed at length in these treatises are the characteristic divisions of a judicial speech. Cicero's De inventione discusses deliberative and epideictic oratory rather briefly at the end of the second book; Rhetorica ad Herennium has a somewhat similar discussion at the beginning of book three. In Quintilian's Institutio oratoria the focus throughout the twelve books is largely on judicial oratory; only chapters 7 and 8 of book 3 are specifically given to epideictic and deliberative forms. Roman rhetoricians instinctively connected rhetoric with the law, which was an institution Rome developed to a high degree of sophistication; there were no native Latin counterparts of Greek epideictic, and by the time of the Empire opportunities for deliberative oratory were somewhat reduced. Greek rhetoricians of the Roman period show a greater interest in the more Hellenic study of philosophy and history. There are Greek handbooks of epideictic but litde later Greek discussion of deliberative forms. Although only three genres are commonly recognized by classical

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rhetoricians, there are other forms of composition that have come to be thought of as distinct rhetorical genres. These can be divided into those that are forms of public address, thus species or sub-genres of the three basic genres, and those that were intended to be read by individuals privately. It must, however, be remembered that literature was generally read aloud in antiquity, sometimes to a group but even by a solitary reader, and was thus "heard" in much the same way as a speech. Public episdes, sent by rulers to their subjects, or the episdes of Saint Paul and other Patristic writers to Greek churches, were surely read aloud in public to audiences. They would then be received as speeches and their authors anticipated this by observing some of the conventions of public address. Other genres of public address included the lectures of philosophers and other teachers to their schools, or sometimes to a public audience; the protrepticus, an exhortation to philosophy or to a moral life,3 is one type of such lectures, the diatribe another. 4 The Dialexeis of Maximus of Tyre are good examples of philosophical lectures of a rhetorical sort from the second century AD. The Jewish midrash and the Christian homily, both based on interpretation of scripture with application to the life of the congregation, are also forms of public address. Though often simple and unpretentious, they fall under the general rubric of epideictic, and John Chrysostom developed their artistic potentialities. The panegyrical sermon as practiced in later antiquity by Gregory Thaumaturgus, Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose, and others is a quite consciously epideictic form, often strongly influenced by the teaching of rhetorical schools. Secular panegyric was a major oratorical form in late antiquity, taught in the schools and practiced throughout the Roman Empire by sophists. Such speeches were sometimes addressed to individuals such as emperors or governors, or to the public assembled on some festival occasion, or were simply staged as displays in the theatre to allow the public to enjoy the artistry of a distinguished sophist. Numerous examples survive in the works of Dio Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides, Libanius, Himerius, Themistius, Synesius, and others. Although flattery, sometimes unabashed flattery of important persons, is a characteristic of this form, the best examples set out ideals of conduct for the edification of the addressee and the wider public. 3 4

See Malherbe 1986. See Stowers 1981.

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Sophistic panegyric was an important factor in preserving and transmitting the values of Hellenism, and though sophists rarely refer direcdy to the new religion, their speeches were an important instrument of pagan resistance to Christianity. In a Christianized form, the genre continued to be practiced throughout the Byzantine period; it is occasionally found in the western Middle Ages and flourished again in renaissance Italy. Sophists and their students also practiced epideictic orations in their schools. The two handbooks of epideictic by Menander Rhetor, perhaps written about the end of the third century AD, describe seven kinds of prose hymns and sixteen other kinds of epideictic, with advice about division of the subject and the appropriate topics to employ. The student then used a knowledge of these conventional forms in speeches on social occasions, including birthdays, weddings, funerals, and the arrival or departure of friends. There are no Latin examples of such speeches and apparently training in them was to be had only in Greek schools. The main activity in the rhetorical schools was declamation, which was ostensibly preparation in deliberative and judicial oratory for a student looking forward to a public career. Declamation lies on the cusp of written and oral composition: students usually wrote out declamations in advance, then memorized and delivered them; teachers and those adults who declaimed as a social pastime for the most part spoke extemporaneously. Quintilian (Inst. 2:4:41) says that practicing fictitious cases in imitation of judicial and deliberative oratory began in Greece about the time of Demetrius of Phaleron (i.e., toward the end of the 4th cent. BC). Cicero (De or. 2:100) implies that declamation was common in Rome by the beginning of the first century BC, but our earliest good account is in the work of the elder Seneca, entided Oratorum et rhetorum sententia, divisiones, colores, written in the second quarter of the first century AD. Declamation itself is not a rhetorical genre; Latin writers specifically divide it into the two genres of deliberative and judicial oratory, called respectively suasoria and controversiae. In the deliberative suasoria the student was asked to address some mythological or historical personage and urge some course of action (e.g., dissuade Agamemnon from sacrificing Iphigenia); in the judicial controversia, the more popular form in Rome, the teacher posits one or more laws, real or imaginary, and then proposes an ambiguous situation. For example, the law provides that a woman who has been raped may choose whether her convicted assailant should be put to death or be forced to marry her. A man rapes two women in one night; the first chooses his death, the second mar-

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riage. The student then composes a speech for one of the parties involved and may invent any additional facts or interpretations at will. Declamation was not a debate, and two speakers did not argue against each other. Greek rhetoricians did not make the distinction between suasoriae and controversiae so sharply and tend to speak of melete (practice) as divided into historical or fictive forms, the latter called plasmata.5 Declamation differs from other public address, first, in that the speaker is not trying to persuade an audience of some policy or the justice of some case but is exercising skills in all the parts of rhetorical theory: invendon, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. It differs also in creating an imagery world, peopled with ravished maidens, pirates, tyrants, fathers who disown sons, wicked stepmothers, and other lurid characters, exciting to adolescent minds, and in encouraging artificiality in both thought and language, which deeply affected literary composition. If we then turn to rhetorical genres found only in written composition, the first to note are the progymnasmata. These are the writing exercises of the advanced stage of the grammar school or the elementary stage of study of rhetoric, as described in the Greek handbooks by or attributed to Theon, Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus (see the descriptions in chapter 1 above). Latin versions of the exercises are described by Quintilian (Inst. 2:4): fable, narrative, chreia, encomium, syncrisis, ekphrasis, etc. There are some literary examples of these genres among the works of Libanius, and some of them were often incorporated into larger works in prose or poetry. Greek epic and historiography from the very beginning in the Homeric poems and the History of Herodotus included speeches, personifications (prosopopoeiae) of what might have been said, composed by the historian. Thucydides describes his method in such speeches in a famous passage early in his History of the Peloponnesian War (1:23). Speeches are of course also found in the Old and New Testaments; those in the book of Acts seem most analogous to speeches in Greek historiography. Most speeches in Greek and Latin historians are deliberative and belong to one of three sub-genres: speeches by a political leader to a council or assembly; speeches by an ambassador to another city's authorities; or speeches by generals to their troops before battle. 6 The best example of epideictic in an historical

5 6

See Russell 1983. See Hansen 1993.

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work is the Funeral Oration by Pericles in Th. 2:5-46. Beginning in Greek in the Hellenistic period and in Latin by the Augustan Age, and continuing through the rest of antiquity, virtually all literary composition, whether in poetry or prose, shows the influence of the study of rhetoric, primarily in style, but sometimes also in invention and arrangement. Grammarians and teachers of rhetoric seem to have viewed artistic prose literature as limited to three genres: oratory, historiography, and artistic examples of philosophical writing such as dialogues. "Canons" for each of these genres, viewed from a stricdy rhetorical point of view, are discussed by Dionysius of Halicamassus in his work On Imitation and by Quintilian in the first chapter of the tenth book of his Institutio oratoria. In the fourth book of De doctnna Christiana Saint Augustine analyzes passages from the prophet Amos and the epistles of Saint Paul as rhetorical forms. In the Middle Ages, though the classical triad is often noted, the three main genres of rhetoric are letter-writing (called dictamen), preaching, and verse composition. Numerous handbooks were written on each subject.7 In the Renaissance and early modem period there are often references to the three genres of the senate, the pulpit, and the bar, an adaptation of the classical triad.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beale, W. H., "Rhetorical Performative Discourse: A New Theory of Epideictic", Philosophy and Rhetoric 11 (1978), pp. 221-46. Campbell, G., The Philosophy of Rhetoric (ed. by L. F. Bitzer 1963; Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1776). Hansen, M. H., "The Battle Exhortation in Ancient Historiography", Historia 42 (1993), pp. 161-78. Hinks, D. A. G., "Tria genera causarum", CQ_ 30 (1936), pp. 170-76. Malherbe, A. J., Moral Exhortation, A Greco-Roman Sourcebook (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986). Murphy, J. J., Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974). Perelman, C., and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (trans, by J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver 1969; Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1958). Russell, D. Α., Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Stowers, S. K., The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981).

7

See Murphy 1974:135-355.

CHAPTER 3

ARRANGEMENT Wilhelm Wuellner Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California, USA

I.

STANDARD C A T E G O R I E S AND

TERMINOLOGY

Arrangement is the ordering of the substance of what was accomplished in the process of εΰρεσις/inventio for the purpose of serving the partiality/utilitas in the discourse's aim. Arrangement is the necessary complement to εΰρεσις/inventio with focus on arrangement of thoughts or ideas, but also of the order and choice of words, both as to their style (λέξνς/elocutio) and their delivery (ϋπόκρισις/atfto)—in terms of their appropriateness (aptum) for the adopted partiality, and in terms of the "parts of speech". The Greeks had several words for arrangement: διάθεσις/διάθεσθαι τον λόγον; οΐκονομία/οίκονομεΐν; τάξις/τάσσειν. The Romans used dispositw/disponere and compositio/componere (on lepos, see Spengel 1863:501 n. 23) for διάθεσις and οικονομία; and ordo for τάξις. The latter is used for the results of one's arranging activity, whether on the level of (1) sentence syntax, the order of words and phrases, or (2) the traditional "parts of speech" (προοίμιον, διήγησις, etc.), (3) the discourse unit as a whole, or (4) even the order of a collection of books (narratives, essays, letters, law codes, poems; even the canonical order of sacred writings). Besides compositio the term structura was also used for the structural order of the parts of the sentence (Scaglione 1972:24-26). What Stemmler (1985; see bibliography under Cardauns 1985) does for an overview of οικονομία, Krings (1941/1982) does for ordo, but without attention paid to rhetoric. The activity of inventing, that is generating, designing an arrangement, is designated by διάθεσις/διάθεσθαι; οΐκονομία/οίκονομεΐν, dispositio/disponere and compositio/componere, as well as another set of terms: the Greek σύνθεσις and the Latin collocatio, and their respective verbs. According to Cardauns (1985:10) "it is certain that Greek rhetorics of the 1 c. BC and later used [οικονομία] as synonym for

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part 2 [of the officia oratoris], what the Greeks called τάξις, in contrast to subject or theme—ΰπόθεσις—on the one hand, and to stylistics— λέξις—on the other" (cf. also Glück 1967, and Stroh 1975). The distincdon between the two aspects of arrangement as process and as product is like the distinction between strategy and tactic in the military arts, a comparison found also in ancient rhetorical handbooks. Nearly all of the terms used for arrangement apply to only one of the two types of arrangement that were recognized: the type which Lausberg (1984:28-32) calls "disposition internal to the discourse", which is the arrangement according to the rules for the "parts of the speech" arising from the orator's first 'έργον/officium: the εϋρεσις/inventio and iudiâum. A quite different type of arrangement is the one Lausberg (1984:33-41) calls "disposition external to the discourse", the type of arrangement determined by utilitas, the accommodation to the circumstances, where the orator uses his judgment to modify the order. All arrangement practices and theories of antiquity revolve around these two pole. While terminology and rhetorical theories that come with it are preoccupied with the first of the two types of arrangement, the second type did also receive a certain degree of attention. In the opening general remarks about the history and development of arrangement in antiquity some special attention will be paid to the cultural and institutional factors which affected both types of disposition.

II. T H E

H I S T O R Y AND D E V E L O P M E N T OF

A R R A N G E M E N T IN A N T I Q U I T Y

In this section we offer an overview of the various approaches to arrangement in rhetoric as primarily an object of scientific, theoretical, critical reflection, beginning with the early Greek sophists, alongside the various institutional settings in which oratory was practiced long before the practice was elevated to the level of an art or science (τέχνη). "Antiquity had rhetoric for a general theory of literature" (Curtius 1973:71): but that is, though an important one, only one side of the whole picture. Such an overview of the history and development of arrangement within the traditions of classical European rhetoric invites comparison and contrast first of all between the Greek (and later Byzantine) or Eastern and the Roman or Western traditions (e.g. the Greek and

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Byzantine scholastic rhetorical theories vs. oratorial practices in Rome, or among Jews and Christians); moreover, comparative critical studies are called for between classical European tradition(s) and ancient non-Western traditions, equally classical, especially those of ancient India and ancient China, or even ancient Israel. (See IV.Β below for brief comments on this area of future reseach.) The history and development of arrangement in classical Western rhetoric will bring us face to face with a variety of cultural, social, and political institutional settings and traditions which change over the centuries and influence both the practice of oratory and the theory of oratory known as rhetoric. Take the political changes in antiquity which affected rhetoric: they range from (1) the time-honored traditions of hereditary aristocracy in early antiquity, to (2) democracy with its development of increasingly purer forms, to (3) the monarchic system of the Hellenistic era, to (4) the Roman Republic at first, then the Imperial regimes in Byzantium in the East and Rome in the West. When we take notice of the discussion about arrangement in Judaism and Christianity of this period of our overview, we need to be mindful that both religions dealt with cultural and political influences wider than the Imperial borders. It will be seen then that arrangement, as one of the "rhetorical propensities, [appears in its development as] neither innate nor immutable, b u t . . . activated by cultural conditions" (E. Black 1980:82). This historical character of rhetorical practices and their theories needs to be kept in sharp focus and seen as relevant also to our own work in this volume. The history and development of arrangement in classical Western rhetoric will have to show both sides of the coin: O n e side is the tradition of arrangement-schemes in practices and theories immanent to the rise and development of certain social, cultural, political institutions (the agora or forum; the academy or school; the law courts [jurisdiction for the forensic genre, but also legislation for deliberative as well as epideictic genres]; the theatre; the religious assemblies; etc.). T h e other side of the coin is made up of the arrangement theories or schemata developed in, by and for the variety of school systems whose origins go gack to the early sophists. O n e manifestation of this system became in due course the εγκύκλιος παιδεία system, the emerging liberal arts, which in turn influenced also centers of religious schooling or emerging academies, both in early Rabbinic, Mishnaic and Talmudic Judaism (Phillips 1959) and in Patristic (Syriac, Greek, Coptic, Latin) Christianity (Neymeyr 1989), some as early as

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the pre-Constantine era. The other school system is the culture of μίμησις/imitatio which fuelled the production of the προγυμνάσματα (Hock-O'Neil 1986), or the culture of declamations which promoted the προγυμνάσματα. More than half of Quintilian's textbook is oriented toward declamation exercises, and it was the "unhealthy air of the schools" in which first the declamations then the προγυμνάσματα flourished, increasingly so since late Republican, early Imperial times (Kroll 1940:1119-24, 1131). Both as traditions of oratorical practices, and as traditions of rhetorical theories or precepts about arrangement, rhetoric in antiquity flourished as a rainbow coalition with a variety of disparate, discrete activities of public life: in forum, courts, schools, but also other areas as indicated above. It is important, however, to call attention to scholarship's long-standing emphasis on the effect of the fusion (or "syncredstic tendencies") generated by the emerging school system(s). For in this syncretism or fusion of rhetoric with grammar, poetics, and philosophy respectively—giving rise to such scholarly categories of "philosophical rhetoric" and "literary rhetoric"—the technical, prescriptive component of rhetoric as a rigid system far overshadows the other component constitutive of ancient rhetoric: the concerns for accommodation to specific situations. Perelman's emphasis on "adaptive order" grows out of those same concerns. It would be a mistake to reduce rhetoric, in practices or theories, to any one of the cultural activities. T o the standard three areas (forum, school, courts) of public life in Greece and Rome (and all the changes each of them underwent, sometimes from one generation to another, let alone over centuries), Fuhrmann (1987:10) adds three other areas where rhetoric was used and studied. One area contributed to rhetoric's fusion with the study of grammar and of poetry: rhetoric's interest in aesthetic values giving rise to a literary rhetoric, whether as linguistic theory, as literary theory, or as literary criticism. Another area contributed to rhetoric's fusion with the study of dialectic, logic, and philosophy, generated by rhetoric's interest in syllogistic argumentation—a fateful legacy which resurfaced in the Ramist reform of rhetoric (see Dickson 1993: ch. 1 on the classical and medieval roots of Ramism). A third area contributed to rhetoric's fusion with interests in psychagogics, that is, personal and spiritual development, given rhetoric's tradidonal interest in the emotions, imagination, and the will, motivation or disposition to action—something which philosophers as well as teachers of religion were equally interested in.

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Whether as part of rhetorical theory, or as part of the art of oral and literary discourse (including the popular literary genres, e.g. novels, letters, sermons, diatribes, etc.), or as part of rhetoric's role in education, concern for arrangement was central to discourse, as it was to music, or architecture (see Spengel 1863:505 n. 27 on Vitruvius Pollio's De architecture 1:2), or other areas, such as religion's literary, liturgical, and legislative arrangement-schemes. It is widely recognized that developments in the study of arrangement ran along two lines: (1) the older sophistic tradition of rules or precepts in the technical handbooks. T h e divisions of arrangement according to the μόρια λόγου/"parts of speech" are historically the earliest framework of technical rhetoric into which other material got inserted, such as Hermagoras's stasis theory, or the Stoic system of dialectics. The first efforts of changing this tradition can be seen in Aristotle's Rhetoric and in the Rhetorica ad. Alexandrum. But the old tradition continues, as in the school of Apollodorus of Pergamum. (2) T h e later Peripatetic tradition of arrangement in accommodation to circumstances; this tradition continued in the school of Theodorus of Gadara (for a comparison and contrast between these two 1st century BC schools of Apollodorus and Theodorus, see Kroll 1940:112425; Kennedy 1980:97). Curtius (1973:501) felt that rhetorical theory in antiquity "had little to say" about arrangement, "and that little was [later] misunderstood". A. Greece 1. General Remarks The use of arrangement in Homer's epics—as in the case of Israel's early epics (Alter 1981)—is proof for Kennedy (1980:14) that inventio, dispositio, elocutio were long in use before they were conceptualized. And, except for the addition of the concerns with statis (which concerns, however, also go back to the 4th century BC), the basic teaching on rhetoric has not basically changed since the fourth century BC which is best exemplified by the common resources in apparent use in the rhetorical schools, especially in those instances where technical definitions are briefly summarized (Kroll 1940:1101) which is often the case with the teaching on arrangement. The framework for discussing τάξις in the oldest rhetorical textbooks (see Plato Phaedrus for the earliest reference) is the schema of the μέρη λόγου. It was the fifth century BC sophists who, as teachers,

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created and coined their own terminology for a theory of rhetoric. In the very first textbooks we note their familiarity already with the methodological resource of definitions of conventional rhetorical concepts (Fuhrmann 1960:126 and n. 6). In connection with Corax's definition of the προοίμιον, Hamberger (1914:38) points out (with reference to Arist. Rh. 3:14:14146 on προοίμιον) that it was the opinion of the earliest rhetoricians that this rhetorical term (perhaps like other terms) had been taken over from ancient Greek musical theory. "The original motivations that determined the outcome of the ancient rhetorical system apparently have (for Scaglione 1972:39) to do with the impact of the musical element of poetic discourse, which became spontaneously applied to p r o s e . . . . " Corax is said to have advocated all of seven parts of speech: προοίμιον, προκατασκευή, προκατάστασις, κατάστασις, άγώνες, παρέκθεσις, έπίλογος (Hamberger; for a critique of this long held view, see Goebel 1983: ch. 3 on disposition). The 0.n/20-schemes attributed to Corax are held by Goebel to be without authority. Antiphon's disposition scheme is similar to the ideal schemes of Gorgias and Anaximenes. But despite Goebel's cridque of the alleged role of Corax in the development of the uses and theory of arrangement, he, too, concludes that rhetorical theory shows a remarkable continuity from its beginnings to the fourth century. In what Kroll called (1940:1131) the unhealthy air of the schools during the Hellenistic and Imperial era, the remarkable continuity of rhetorical theory from its beginnings to the fourth century extended several more centuries by way of the exercises, by way of the imitation of classical models, and by way of the declamations cultivated by teachers and students, either in the form of controversiae, in the tradition of the forensic genre, or in the form of suasoriae, in the tradition of the deliberative or epideictic genre. The connection of the discussion of arrangement with rhetorical genres can be seen in three stages: (1) the exclusive concentration on the forensic genre, beginning with Corax, but best represented by Hermagoras and his status system which only fits forensics; (2) focus on the three genres (on the Greek side, since Aristotle; then Stoics, Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, Menander, the Byzantines; on the Latin side: Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero, Qpintilian, Fortunatianus, Martianus Capella); and (3) the critique of the tripartite genre-system, arising from the growing realization that " . . . a good part of the potential field of rhetoric remained outside the [tripartite] division" (Solmsen, in Stark 1968:339; see the

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critical comments in Cicero and Quintilian). Kroll rightly warns (1940:1132) that the rules of the later handbooks about arrangement, especially in the epideictic genre and its proliferating species, should not be seen as rooted in the earlier Hellenistic era. How significant the precepts for arrangement in epideictic rhetoric were for the emerging genres of ancient biography (Kroll 1940:1128-35) and of the ancient novel (Hägg 1983:105-108) can be seen in the polemics against the Christian Bible as lacking τάξις (see Orig. Cels. 1:62 on the lack of τάξις απαγγελίας "according to the dialectical or rhetorical techniques of the Greeks"; cf. 6:1; see M. Black 1989; and Colson 1913), and the Christian apologetic response emphasizing that persuasion, designed to reach even the ίδιώται and not just society's elite, cannot rely on τα της ρητορικής θεωρήματα (Cels. 6:57) or on literary style and composition (έν πειθοί της φράσει και συνθέσει των λέξεων σοφίας) (Cels. 1:62). Special attention deserves to be paid to the four genres of nonfictional prose in antiquity: philosophical literature, historiography, scientific literature, and epistolography. For two of the four prose genres (philosophy and science) the invention, arrangement, and style considerations became operational there "merely by imitation of the appropriate models, and not by virtue of principles or precepts"; but in the other two (historiography and epistolography) "modest initial efforts were made without hiding the fact that they simply copied traditional rhetorical precepts and applied them, more or less felicitously, to related genres", such as epistolography (Fuhrmann 1987:9). What we will note in the development of rhetorical arrangement, namely the frequent discrepancy between the theorists and the practitioners, was noted also by a student of Greek epistolography: "there is no immediate connection between epistolographic theory and the extant actual letters . . . it is in no way self-evident that epistolary theory influenced epistolary praxis" (Koskenniemi 1956:17). And Kroll (1940:1119, 1122-23) reminds us that epistolography does not appear among the προγυμνάσματα. The highlights of the development of arrangement in the Greek tradition are as follows. 2. The Early Sophists It is generally held (Hamberger 1914) that Corax and his student Tisias in the fifth century BC were the first to set up a theory of

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arrangement, but limited to the arrangement of the parts of forensic oratory: προοίμιον, αγώνες, έπίλογος; but according to Aristotle it had seven parts: προοίμιον, προκατασκευή, προκατάστασις, κατάστασις, αγώνες, παρέκθεσις, έπίλογος. Goebel (1983: ch. 3), however, has found the arrangement schemes attributed to Corax without authority. a. Gorgias T h e excessive arrangement techniques of Gorgias are said to be derived from Eleatic dialectics (Fuhrmann 1960:128-31). The later fourth century guidelines for the arrangement of discourse appear to Fuhrmann (1960:159) as basically the same since the early sophists without additions or deletions. b. Isocrates Isocrates' approach to arrangement remains based on the μέρη λόγου, consisting of προοίμιον, plus or minus πρόθεσις, then διήγησις, πίστις, έπίλογος. What is referred to in scholarship as the Isocratean approach to arrangement is, however, not that of the master himself ("a pedagogical genius, but no systematician"; Fuhrmann 1960:125 n.), but that of the followers of the Isocratean school or tradition. Aristode himself points out (Rh. 3:13-14, 16:1414a—17a) that Isocrates' concern with arrangement was focused mainly on the first two "parts": προοίμιον and διήγησις. T h e target of the Peripatetic critique (Arist. Rh. 3:13-19:1414a-20a) of the Isocratean approach was due to its alleged superficiality and lack of any clear conception of the essential functions of oratory, which for the Peripatetic school are the "proofs". c. Antiphon As a member of the group of "the older sophists", to which also belong Thrasymachus and Theodoras of Byzantium, these theorists linked arrangement with invention as did Corax earlier. The similarity of Antiphon's disposition scheme to the ideal schemes of Gorgias and Anaximenes illustrates the remarkable continuity which theories of arrangement show from their beginnings down to the fourth century. 3. Plato In his Phdr. 257ff., esp. 266c-267d, we have the oldest coherent report of the oldest rhetorical theorists and of their precept-teachings, offering

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a recognizable methodological arsenal of the early rhetoricians. Mindful of the excessive arrangement-schemes of Gorgias and the naive arbitrariness in the arrangement practiced by Lysias, Plato criticizes two aspects of contemporary, pre-Platonic rhetoric: its unreflected routines, and the related practice of formalistic techniques (Fuhrmann 1960:135-37). The μέρη λόγου were the only precepts relevant to arrangement. Lysias is criticized (263e) for not beginning his argument (on the nature of love) with a definition and "finishing] his discourse with that in view" (συνταξάμενος πάντα τον ύστερον λόγον). In 264a Socrates goes on: "[Lysias] . . . does not even begin at the beginning, but undertakes to swim on his back up the current of his discourse from its end [ουδέ άπ' άρχής άλλ' άπό τελευτής έξ ύπτιας άνάπαλιν διανείν έπιχειρεΐτόν λόγον], and begins with what the lover would say at the end to his beloved [και άρχεται άφ' ών πεπαυμένος αν ήδη ό έραστής λέγοι προς τα παιδικά]". The critique of the seeming lack of "any rhetorical reason" (τινά άνάγκην λογογραφικήν, 264b) is based on the premise that "every discourse must be organized, like a living being, with a body of its own, as it were, so as not to be headless or footless, but to have a middle and members, composed in fitting relation to each other and to the whole" (δεΐν πάντα λόγον ώσπερ ζώον συνεστάναι σώμά τι έχοντα αυτόν αύτοΰ, ώστε μήτε άκέφαλον είναι μήτε άπουν, άλλα μέσα τε ε'χειν και άκρα, πρέποντ' άλλήλοις και τω ολω γεγραμμένα, 264c). In 265d Socrates speaks of "two principles" (δυοίν είδοιν): one is that of "perceiving and bringing together in one idea the scattered particulars . . . making clear by definition [εκαστον οριζόμενος δήλον ποιή]. [It is] by this means that discourse acquires clearness and consistency [τό γούν σαφές και τό αύτό αύτώ όμολογούμενον διά ταύτ' εσχεν ειπείν ό λόγος]". The other principle (ετερον είδος) concerns "dividing things again by classes, where the natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of a bad carver" (τό πάλιν κατ' εϊδη δύνασθαι τέμνειν, κατ' άρθρα, ή πέφυκε, και μή έπιχειρεΐν καταγνύναι μέρος μηδέν, κακού μαγείρου τρόπω χρώμενον, 265e). In 266b-268a Socrates professes to be "a lover of these processes of division and bringing together, as aids to speech and thought" (έραστής... τών διαιρέσεων και συναγωγών, ϊν' οίός τε ώ λέγειν τε και φρονειν). While for Socrates rhetoric and dialectic are synonymous (as they are later for the Stoics), he is told by Phaedrus that there are "many things" (μάλα συχνά) besides dialectic when it comes to what is "written in the books on rhetoric"

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(τά γ' έν τοις βιβλίοις τοις περι λόγων τέχνης γεγραμμένοις). By these "many things" Socrates means "the niceties of the art" (τα κομψά της τέχνης), namely, the familiar "parts of speech" as outlined by "the man from Byzantium", Theodorus, a fifth-century BC pupil of Protagoras. The reference made to "correctness of diction" (όρθοέπεια, 268a) appears to be part of the then current discussion of arrangement, though perhaps part of "the little things" (τα μικρά) of the art of rhetoric, passed over by Socrates for the sake of keeping the focus on "what force of art they have and when" (τίνα και πότ' έ'χει την της τέχνης δύναμιν). 4. Aristotle and the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum a. Aristode Like Plato, "Aristotle was consistendy interested in the organic unity of a whole and the realization of its potential; style and arrangement are part of artistic rhetoric" (Kennedy 1980:77). Aristode's approach was born of interactions with Isocrates, Alcidamas (Solmsen, in Stark 1968:184-95), and Theodectes, but not at all with his great contemporary Demosthenes. The three influential features of Aristode's treatment of arrangement in Rh. 3:13-19:1414a~20a are: (1) arrangement gets treated after style, not after inventio; (2) emphasis on only two parts to arrangement (which is the philosophical bent in his Rhetoric), but subsequent handbook tradition ignores it, as does Aristode himself; and (3) arrangement gets applied also to epideictic and deliberative rhetoric. Though Kennedy found it "an important feature . . . that Aristode considers the arrangement not only of judicial but also of [the other two genres]", he criticizes Aristotle (1980:80; as well as criticizing Perelman for his critique of the Peripatetic concern for organic unity in arrangement) for failing "to provide adequately for the mixture of intentions found in actual oratory". According to Hill (1983:69), "no doctrine of speech as organism is expounded in [Aristode's] Rhetoric—in the Poetics, yes, but not in the Rhetoric". The role Aristode could have played in mediating between philosophy and technical or sophistic rhetoric was first realized by Cicero, and in our days by Perelman. Solmsen (Stark 1968:312-49) sees Aristotle (in Rh. 3:13-19:1414a20a) organize "the whole material under categories representing essential qualities or functions of any speech". He sees Aristotle's τέχνη borrowed from Theodectes with whom he disagrees in some respects. Most of 3:13-19 belongs to "the system of the μόρια λόγου type and,

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so far from being characteristic of Aristotle's own approach to rhetoric, may rather be regarded as the first stage in the process of fusion between the two rival traditions [which became] the way in which the ratio Aristotelia left its mark upon the later rhetorical systems" (32327). Aristode had borrowed from the alternative system and discussed the "parts of the speech" under τάξις. Hill (1983:71) finds Aristode's treatment of arrangement according to the four parts of speech persevering "under whatever names they appear" but notes that "Aristode himself was critical of the four-part division and did not choose to organize his Rhetoric along these lines. It is obviously not a subtle way of treating arrangement, and it breaks down as a guide to the analysis of any very complicated production." The later rhetoricians who use the "parts" in the inventio cannot, of course, discuss them again in the dispositio. Thus they must confine themselves in the dispositio to some remarks concerning the length of each of the parts, the sequence of the points to be made, and other subjects of minor importance (Cicero's treatment of dispositio, in De or. 2:307-332, is again an exception since he has not anticipated the discussion of the partes under inventio. T o deal with them under dispositio as he does was in keeping with the original Perpatetic procedure; see 348-49 on "the insistence on the old boundary between inventio and dispositio" [349]). b. Rhetorica ad Alexandrum Like Aristotle's Rhetoric, this work grew out of the rhetorical training praxis in fourth-century Athens. The whole work is organized around three issues: (1) the δυνάμεις/functions or qualities of discourse (1-5); (2) the χρήσεις/practical and proper usefulness (6-28), and (3) the τάξεις or μέθοδοι των λόγων (29-38) on how each of the rhetorical genres (εϊδεα) get arranged organically (τάττειν τους λόγους σωματοειδώς; 28 end). Traditional is the approach to arrangement according to the μέρη, but new in 29-38 is the elaboration of the "parts of rhetoric" according to seven rhetorical genres (an advance over the old sophistic which only focused on the forensic genre): 29-34 on the deliberative genre (sub-divided into προτρεπτικός/άποτρεπτικός = exhortation/dissuasion), see, for example, 31 on τάξις in the narratiopart; 35 on the epideictic genre (subdivided into έγκωμιαστικόν/ κακολογικόν = eulogy/vituperation); 36 on the forensic genre (subdivided into κατηγορικόν/άπολογετικόν = prosecution/defense) on "how we shall construct and arrange these species"; and in 37 the new

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είδος έξετάστικον = investigation. While the rhetorical genres and the "parts of speech" are dealt with in traditional fashion, there is no reflection as yet of the officia. No attempt is made to establish a rational division of the principles of rhetoric, still less to deduce the necessity of such a division (Solmsen, in Stark 1968:315 n. 12). Even so, for Fuhrmann (1960:122) this work shows fully developed all the characteristics of the later handbooks. But instead of, as is customary, deriving the operating principles in this book from SocraticPlatonic and Aristotelian logic, Fuhrmann (1960:123) suggests that these textbook characteristics are the legacy of the sophistic school system, traceable back to Protagoras, Prodicus and Gorgias. Two aspects characterize this work: (1) the sophistic legacy, especially Gorgias, and (2) the application of contemporary philosophy, including a critique of the sophists. Thus a critical examination is required of the relationship between philosophical methodology and sophistic school-praxis (Fuhrmann 1960:132). 5. Hermagoras of Temnos In his six-volume work on the rhetorical arts this late second-century BC rhetorician contributed much to the reform of rhetorical theory, completing "the link between Greek rhetorical theory and Roman rhetoric" (Murphy 1983:82). He approached arrangement not by the μόρια λόγου, but the officia or opera/'έργα rhetoros in the following order: (1) νόησις/intellectio\ (2) εϋρεσιζ,/inventio', (3) οικονομία—with four subdivisions: (a) κρίσις/iudicium, (b) μερισμός/partitio, (c) τάξις/ ordo, (d) λέξις/φράσις/έρμηνεία—; (4) ΰπόκρισις; (5) μνήμη. In the history of arrangement his divisions under οικονομία are new: the two subparts, partitio and ordo, belong closely together, for they deal with the disposition of the subject matter of a given discourse, but with dual focus: the sequence of the parts of the discourse, and the ordering of its most important part, the "proofs". In the fourth of the subdivisions under οικονομία, devoted to λέξις, he has surprisingly little to say; all he stresses are the selection of fitting words and phrases, and their arrangement in the syntax of the sentence. His approach influenced the young Cicero. 6. Epicureans and Stoics The rhetoric of Philodemus, a first-century BC Epicurean, highlights an aspect of the approach to arrangement which has its own history:

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arrangement as the organic whole of a discourse, whether the whole of a sentence unit, or of a given oration, or the whole of a collection of such orations. He insisted that a piece of rhetorical art, like any work of art, can be understood and appreciated only when perceived in the totality of its component parts. The Stoics introduced the concept of syntax into the discussion of the rhetorical arts. Spengel (1863:493 n. 17) noted that the Stoics, according to Fortunatianus, did not produce precise and uniform désignations for arrangement. One of their categorizations of a tripartite scheme of the rhetorical officia (νόησις, εΰρεσις, διάθεσνς) succumbed to the ruling quinquepartite principle. It was in response to logical or dialectical postulates of philosophers and grammarians alike that Stoic linguists, such as Chrysippus, emphasized the notion of a "natural" or "right", that is, logical order. This view of composition first entered the domain of grammar with Priscianus "without forcing the rhetoricians to give up [their categories of arrangement] . . . And it was Priscianus who established the view that the 'right' order is the 'natural', right because natural, and natural because 'logical'. . . [Prior to Priscianus] grammarians, rhetoricians, and stylistic analysts had remained content with the identification of the first and last places in the sentence as the most important because of their weight on the hearer (vis)—ostensibly a psychological [and not logical] approach to the matter" (Scaglione 1972:39). The third-century BC Stoic approach to arrangement can be considered as one of the results (literary rhetoric as the other) of what Fuhrmann (1960:160 n. 1) calls the syncretistic tendencies generated by the school system in antiquity (see also Kroll 1940:1080-90 on rhetorical-philosophical syncretism). Hagius (1979) traces the development of the rules for the "parts of speech" from the early Stoics to the Alexandrian grammarians. In Stoic theory all reflection on arrangement became part of the system of dialectics, as it tended to be in the Socratic-Platonic critique of the sophist tradition; it was also prefigured in Aristotle's highlighting mainly the "proofs" in his discussion of arrangement of the "parts". The sixteenth-century Ramist reform is but a belated echo reverberating through the rhetorical tradition since antiquity, as Dickson (1993) reminds us.

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7. Literary Rhetoric: Rhetoric and Poetics, Grammar, and Literary Criticism T h e rhetorization of poetics in late antiquity was one of the manifestations of the syncretistic tendencies in the ancient school system; it had far-reaching consequences. a. Demetrius (and Epistolography) Demetrius's contribution to arrangement lies in his concerted effort in his περι ερμηνείας (from the second half of the 1st century AD) to deal with each of four (instead of the more familiar three) types (χαρακτήρες) of style (2:36-37): plain (ισχνός), elevated/grand (μεγαλοπρεπής), elegant (γλαφυρός), forcible (δεινός). He does this in terms of the same three headings: diction (λεξις), word-arrangement/appropriate composition (σύγκεισθαι προσφόρως), subject-matter/thought (διανοία). Hence there are sections devoted to the σύνθεσις μεγαλοπρεπής (2:38-74), to σύνθεσις γλαφυρά (3:179-185), to σύνθεσις ισχνή (4:204-208 with an added section on epistolary style and arrangement in 223-235), and to σύνθεσις δεινή (5:241-271). (See Solmsen in Stark 1968:285-311.) As to the role of arrangement in the theoretical reflections on epistolography, the same observadon made about the "parts of speech" as major principle for disposition applies to the arrangement of letters: the basic structure or form of letters remains unchanged by and large, and the same tendency is manifest in dealing with all individual elements in the letter (Koskenniemi 1956:202). The more epistolography gets associated with poetics, the more noticeable is the interest in the continuity of the letter's basic τάξις/dispositio. What evidence there is of rhetoric's influence on epistolography (similar to that on historiography) is, for Fuhrmann (1987:9), merely due to copying rhetorical precepts and applying them to the art of letter writing without notions of arrangement indigenous to it (see also Classen 1992:323-24 on the substantially different orientation in the rhetorical handbooks and the manuals on letter-writing which offer "no particular rule or advice" least of all on the arrangement or structure of letters; on "the common ground between letter and homily", see Kustas 1973:46ff.).

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b. Dionysius Halicamassus About Lysias's arrangement and development (τάξιν και έργασίαν) of discourse Dionysius (in Lys. 15; Isoc. 4) felt that other orators (such as Isocrates, in his use of τάξις και μερισμοί) were superior to Lysias in the arrangement of the material they have invented (οίκονομήσαι τα ευρεθέντα). In his Dem. 51 he divides approaches to discourse into two concerns: what is the subject matter (τό πραγματικόν) and its expression (τό λεκτικόν); the first he assigns to the traditional έργον of εϋρεαις/inventio·, the second to οικονομία or arrangement. And it is the second part that is the most important for him: arrangement (τό οίκονομικόν) of the subject matter on the one hand, and composition (τό συνθετικόν) of the selected style. Demosthenes is his most admired rhetor. But he makes as little use of Cicero's speeches, his contemporary, as Aristotle made use of his contemporary Demosthenes. In his Σύνθεσις ονομάτων 4 he points out that in the arrangement of words in a sentence (he uses σύνθεσις for that) the same words can be used in either misshapen, beggarly, mean ways (άμορφα και ταπεινά και πτωχά) or in sublime, rich and beautiful fashion (υψηλά και πλούσια και καλά). In Σύνθεσις ονομάτων 6 he outlines the three εργα of the science of composition (συνθετική έπιστήμη): (1) determine which σύνθεσις is likely to produce a beautiful and attractive united effect (συζύγιαν); (2) determine how each of the parts which are to be fitted together should be shaped (σχηματισθέν) so as to improve the harmonious appearance of the whole (άρμονίαν); (3) determine whether any modification is required in the material used, that is, on the level of τό οίκονομικόν (e.g. subtraction, addition, alteration) and carry out such changes with a proper view to their future purpose (πρός την μέλλουσαν χρείαν οίκείως έξεργάσασθαι) on the level of τό συνθετικόν. In his Thucydides he develops some other critical categories. T h e arrangement of material (οικονομία) gets subdivided in a new way: (1) διαίρεσις is the general method of arrangement; (2) τάξις refers here only to the adequacy of beginning and end; and (3) έξεργασία is taken as the elaboration of particular events. The theories of evaluation which Dionysius used in his rhetorical treatises are characterized by Schenkeveld (1975:107) as laying claim to the logical basis and structure of the τέχνη of the rhetoricians against their rivals in educational matters, the philosophers—especially the followers of Epicurus—, who maintained that rhetoric had a merely empirical structure.

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c. Ps.-Longinus On the Sublime In 1:4 it is pointed out that skill of invention, and of arrangement and marshalling of facts (τάξιν και οίκονομίαν των πραγμάτων) in a given work shows up not in one or two isolated features, but "in the whole tissue of the composition" (έκ του ολου των λόγων). The efforts of making a case for dignified word order in a composition (as one of five sources for the sublime), is taken as one of the strengths of rhetoric in early Roman Imperial times, in contrast to its simultaneously prevailing weakness as evident in the growing scholastic tendency (flourishing in the unhealthy air of the school system) of regularizing, codifying, and proliferadng precepts (Kennedy 1980:112~ 16 on "Manifestation of Literary Rhetoric"). The strength of Roman rhetoric of that period is seen in the premise of a concept of unity of the material, whether in the concerns for the whole speech; or for the whole of education. 8. Second Sophistic What was true of the early sophists continues with representatives of the Second Sophistic: they tended to stress composition above all else. But the context for sophist and non-sophist rhetoricians alike has changed: their dependence on supportive centers (the municipal centers in the East, e.g. Athens, Smyrna, and Ephesus as the important "sophisdc centers" besides those in Pergamum, Mydlene, Gadara, and others, but not, surprisingly, Syrian Antioch or Alexandria; and, of course, Rome, but there subject to Imperial, and not municipal, patronage), which, in turn, led to the proverbial controversies among the sophists (Bowersock 1969:17-100). Flavius Philostratus (late 2nd/early 3rd century AD) uses τάξις "for nothing more than compositio, σύνθεσις, since this is all he specifically treated", observes Scaglione (1972:23) and adds: "the Sophists had little explicit consciousness of overall composition in the sense of organic structure or plot". Another sophist, Aelius Aristides, found in rhetorical theory of the εργα a reflection of the four cardinal virtues, with τάξις representing σοφροσύνη; εϋρεσις relating to φρόνησις; λέξις to δικαιοσύνη (Spengel 1863:492). 9. Anonymus Seguerianus The novelty in the treatment of the four standard parts of an oradon found in this third-century AD author lies for Kennedy (1972:617)

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in this "that, with the partial exception of the prooemium, the writer considers invention, arrangement, and style as applied to each of these parts". 10. Byzantine Rhetoric With its function as presenting decisions to the public and strengthening the loyalty to church and state through the use of the forms of epideictic, Kennedy (1980:170) sees Byzantine rhetoric making no important contribudon to rhetorical theory. On the role which rhetoric played in creating "the common ground between letter and homily", see Kustas (1973:46ff.); this is an issue equally important to contemporary Mishnaic and Talmudic Judaism. The chief merit of Byzantine rhetoric lies in channeling the legacy of Greek and Roman rhetoric to its late Medieval renaissance and subsequent renaissances of classical rhetoric in the modern world. It is an irony of history worth critical reflection that rhetoric which was "invented in the fifth century BC as an instrument of social and political change, became under the Roman and Byzantine empires a powerful instrument for preservation of the status quo", with its cause or effect relation to theories of arrangement (see IV.C below on areas of future research). B. Rome 1. General Remarks There is a two and a half centuries-long gap in tradition between the earliest Latin textbooks on rhetoric (Rhetorica ad Herennium and early Cicero) and the main Greek texts. In this period the discussion on arrangement ran on two tracks: one going back to the early sophists with their interest in the "parts of speech" as framework for approaching arrangement; the other (first mentioned in the Peripatetic tradition of Aristotle) emphasizing the orator's judgment in modifying the conventions of rhetorical arrangement. As Clarke (1953/ 1968:32) and Kennedy (1972:115) note, when inventio encroaches on the province of dispositio by dealing with the parts of speech under inventio, there is little left that can be said, and was said, in the treatment of arrangement (see under Rhet. ad Her. 3:16-18; Cic. Part. 9 - 1 5 ; De or. 2:307-315; Quint. Inst. 7). Three literary forms emerging in Roman times reflect some of the

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changes in the approach to arrangement: the satura or sermo = ομιλία (Lévy 1993); the subjective elegy (Gelhaus 1973); and the novel (Hägg 1983). Textbook rhetoric was hard put to account for the arrangement in these seemingly disorderly genres. What distinguishes these three distinctly R o m a n literary forms is their formlessness. T h e Romans—at least some of them—wanted their literary forms to be shapeless. Kroll (1940:1134) speaks of the conflict between "the demands of the modern times" and the rhetorical convention (especially as embodied by the "technographers" on the one hand, and the school masters with their progymnasmata exercises and declamation training on the other hand). And part of that conflict was also generated and fuelled by the transition from the old world of orality to the unfolding world of literacy (see O n g 1982; Swearingen 1991). It is here that the discussion of arrangement in ancient rhetoric must account for "the shaping effects of the medium itself on both the communicator and the communicant" (Sloane 1974:804). For Kroll (1940:1104), the change from an oral to written and published oration is twofold: (1) the published version is likely to pay more attention to the aesthetic components, and as such can serve as a model in the school system; and (2) the published version can become a political pamphlet or a legal or religious document. Beside these two points other critical issues demand attention (see IV. Ε below on areas warranting future research). 2. Rhetorica ad Herennium In 1:3 dispositio is mentioned as one of the faculties (officia) which one acquires in three ways: theory (arj/τέχνη), imitation (imitatio/μίμησις), and practice (exercitatio/γυμνασία). The function of arrangement is the ordering and distribution of the matter (ordo et distnbutio rerum) indicating the place each thing is assigned to (demonstrat quid quibus locis sit concolandum). In 3:9:16-18 we find the distinction made between two genera dispositionum: (1) Arrangement generated by the principle of rhetoric (ab institutione artis profectum)—the rules (of the sequence of "the parts of speech") mentioned already in Plato's Phaedrus. This principle was elaborated in book 1 as part of invention. This is a change (also found in Cicero, De inventione) from the Peripatetic tradition which dealt with the "parts" under arrangement. As a result, what is said on arrangement be-

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comes "narrow in scope and rather sterile" (Caplan 1954:xviii). T h e principle informing arrangement is said to apply not only to the discourse as a whole, but also (as set forth already in 2:18:28) to the individual "parts": expositio, ratio/argumentatio, confirmatio, exomatio, conclusio. As we have seen already in Aristotle's Rhetoric 3, the announcement that one wants to deal with arrangement may in fact apply more to the discussion of arrangement in one or the other of the "parts", especially the "proofs", and not with the discourse as a whole. (2) Arrangement generated by accommodation to specific circumstances (ad casum temporis adcommodatum). This genre of arrangement deals with the changes and transpositions (commutationes et translationes) necessitated by the cause itself (ipsa res). Such changes in arrangement are compared with military tactics (3:9:18; cf. Cic. Brut. 139). 3. Cicero

The young Cicero, in his De inventione defined arrangement (1:9) as the distribution of arguments discovered (in the inventio) in the proper order (dispositio est rerum inventarum in ordinem distributio). Arrangement of, and in, the partes orationis (of which he lists six: exordium, narratio, partitio, confirmatio, reprehensio, conclusio) should be considered only after (denique ordinandae) the primary task of the invention of arguments "in proper order" (1:19). Each of the six parts serves a specific function in the whole arrangement. The older Cicero (De or. 1:142) has Crassus qualify the earlier precept by advising the arrangement of the inventive discoveries "not merely in orderly fashion, but with a discriminating eye for the exact weight as it were of each argument" (non solum ordine, sed etiam momento quodam atque iudicio dispensare atque componere) Also the need of modifying or even completely eliminating certain "parts" of the discourse from their prescribed arrangement (first discussed in Inv. 1:30), gets elaborated in De or. 2:307-332 (see 320 on changes in proems; 330 on changes in narratio and peroratio). In his Brut. 139 rhetorician Marcus Antonius compares the arrangement of discourse for greatest force and effectiveness (plurimum proficere et vaelere) with military strategy and tactics. The orator, like a general, arranges his material in the most opportune parts of his discourse (in maxime opportunis orationis partibus collocabantur). In his Or. 15:50 he offers as example of such choices of arrangement (appropriate to the utilitas of the case) the ordering of one's strongest arguments at the beginning and end of the "proofs" with the weaker arguments inserted in the

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middle. As Classen (1985) and others (Stroh 1975) have shown, Cicero's use of arrangement in his speeches is manifold, with the precepts of traditional arrangement skillfully modified. None of Cicero's own oradons can be fully and satisfactorily analyzed "with the categories of the rhetorical system in the sense that an individual oration can be explained as the ad hoc embodiment of what the rhetorical precepts taught" (Leeman 1982:42-43). Comments like this warn us that rhetorical theory, though allegedly derived from praxis in part, and in part serving praxis again (Fuhrmann 1987:7), does not always agree with praxis, or praxis with theory, even if both come from the same person. In De inventione (as in Rhetorica ad Herennium) arrangement gets discussed under "parts of speech" in its relation to inventio, but only with respect to the forensic genre; as to the arrangement in the other two rhetorical genres, the "parts"-approach has not yet been adopted. In his De or. 2:307-332 Cicero has not anticipated the discussion of the partes under inventio. As Spengel (1863:501 n. 23) observed: only where res and verba get combined does arrangement/dispositio come to be discussed in third place, following inventio and elocutio. Kroll (1940:1069) points out that in De oratore and in Oratore the approach to arrangement, in terms of first dealing with the five officia and then the five partes, was the model generally used in the first century BC. All arrangement arises either from the nature of the case, or from the instinct of the speaker, which follows the two genera dispositionum of Rhetorica ad Herennium. In Cicero's reflections on arrangement, as well as the other officia, Fuhrmann (1960:69) sees a tradition already hardened by mannerism, and he accounts for the discernible signs of a philosophical-rhetorical syncretism in the rhetorical handbooks of Cicero and Rhetorica ad Herennium in two ways: (1) the syncretisdc tendencies in the school and education-systems of the times, and (2) Cicero's design for unity of philosophy, rhetoric, and politics as part of the program Cicero had for his own life, a program generated by his personal character (160 n. 1). It was Cicero, not Aristotle, that remained till Renaissance times the most influential force in dealing with rhetoric in general, and with arrangement in particular—even in medieval Jewish rhetoric! 4. Horace At the base of his Ars poetica lies the tripartite (officia, partes, de artifice) textbook-type. His blend of rhetorics and poetics is well represented

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in section 39-44: "The man who chooses his subject with full control [i.e. in his inventio] will not be abandoned by eloquence [Jacundia deseret] or lucidity of arrangement [lucidus ordo]. As to arrangement: its excellence and charm [ordinis virtus et venus] . . . consists in saying at this moment what needs to be said at this moment [iam nunc dicat iam nunc debentia did], and postponing and temporarily omitting a great many things [pleraque différât et praesebs in tempus omittat]" (Russell and Winterbottom 1972:280). 5. Quintilian and Pliny the Younger Quintilian Institutio Oratoria deals in books 1 - 3 with theoretical issues. As with all five officia, arrangement is considered neither "as duties of the oratory [nor] as elements of rhetoric, but [as] parts of the art and not the material" (Meador 1983:161). In 3:3:2 he briefly comments on the importance of dispositio dealing with discourse not only quo modo, but also quo loco. In 3:3:6 he cites Cicero for his claim that the iudicium/judgment function in the inventio phase is indispensible for both dispositio and elocutio\ in 3:3:7, again with reference to Cicero, he sees concerns with subject matter (res) and arrangement as belonging to inventio, concern with the wording and delivery as belonging to elocutio, with memoria acting as custodem omnium. The use of the "parts of speech" as the principle of structure and organization in the section on invention constitutes for Solmsen (in Stark 1968:326) an important departure from the original Peripatetic system—a "contamination" with the Isocratean tradition which is a process that began with Aristotle. Among the developments since Cicero, with tendencies for novelty, he points to the urge for making additions to arrangement (adiecerunt ordinem) besides the standard teaching on dispositio, leaving the student with the impression "as though arrangement was anything else than the marshalling of arguments in the best possible order" (quasi aliud sit dispositio quam rerum ordine quam optimo collocatio). Among the chief developments he refers to are (1) Dio of Prusa, his contemporary (for teaching that all of rhetoric falls into parts only: invention and arrangement, the first concerned with res, the other with verba); (2) Theodorus of Gadara, another contemporary (for having a different view by subsuming elocutio under inventio as one of its two parts, and dealing with arrangement, etc. as the remaining "parts"); (3) Hermagoras (for placing judgment, division, order and everything relating to expression under the heading of economy

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[iudicium, partitonem, ordinem, quaeque sunt elocutionis, subiicit oeconomiae— a word for which Latin has no equivalent; 3:3:9]); (4) some unnamed ones who put memoria even before dispositio; and (5) the many dissenting voices (plures dissenserunt) over the issue whether invention, arrangement, elocution belong to the partes rhetorices or to the opera oratoris. Quintilian sides with Hermagoras against Athenaeus, another contemporary of Quintilian, advocating that the five officia, which include arrangement, belong to the elementa/στοιχεία of rhetoric (3:3:11). For Quintilian, both inventio and dispositio belong to rhetorices propria. In book 4 he starts laying out specific precepts to be used in school exercises (for Kroll 1940:1099 the normal type of the system of schoolrhetoric is to be found in the works of Dionysius Halicamassus). It is good to remind ourselves here that Quintilian was the first teacher of rhetoric at Rome on the Imperial pay roll. What he has to say about arrangement in book 4 and following shows these highlights: (1) A neutral value is put on the merits of the ordo naturalis of the ab initio-technique (with orderly sequences to middle and end) over against the ordo artificialis of the a mediis-approach, as in the dispoûtio in Homer's Odyssey (more Homerico a mediis vel ultimis, 7:10:11). Quadlbauer (1977:75) finds a similar view shortly after Quintilian in Theon. (2) 7:1:42-62 illustrates Quintilian's approach to arrangement with what Kroll (1940:1071) calls an unusually captious treatment of a controversia declamation which proves how anatomy is best taught with a corpse for illustration. (3) Quintilian includes a number of things not usually found under the heading of dispositio. Pliny, a student of Quintilian, warns critics, in his letter to Voconius Romanus (Ep. 3:13:3), not to be solely preoccupied with elocutio, and then exclaims: "If only people would look at least at the arrangement, the transitions, the figures [or figurations] as well! Superb invention [invenire praeclare] and magnificent expression [enuntiare magnifice] are sometimes found also among barbarians [the same topos is found in Jos. 4 7 20:264; Ps.-Longin. On the Sublime 44:3-5]; but only the erudite can arrange with propriety [disponere apte] and give variety to his figures [figurae varie]".

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6. Hermogenes of Tarsus (mid-2nd century AD) In his treatise On Invention, Book 3 he deals with arrangement by using new stasis categories as "ways of ordering the material". His textbook of progymnasmata is designed to help students with the task of arrangement. Like Quintilian before him, "he wrote primarily for . . . the students in the school of declamation" (Kennedy 1980:103-105). Like Apsines's interest in progymnasmata, so did Hermogenes' contribute to the increasingly systematic scholasticism of the rhetoricians in late Imperial Rome (Kroll 1940:1117-19). His concerns for composition (arrangement on the sentence level), as demonstrated in his work On Ideas of Style, continue the efforts of Demetrius, Dionysius Halicamassus, and Apsines (his is the last complete τέχνη in Greek to survive). 7. Rhetores Latini Minores The Latin technical handbooks of the fourth century "subtly alter the classical conception of the subject matter of rhetoric and thereby anticipate some the characteristic developments of later medieval theory" (Leff 1982:72). While the Hellenistic approach, since Hermagoras, tended more and more toward a fixed logic of public argument and dealing with arrangement increasingly without reference to specific audiences, the Latin tradition remained more aware of the need for "adaptive order". In his Institutiones oratoHae (Halm 1863:311-52), Sulpitius Victor "dramatically restmctures the elements of rhetorical theory". The officia of the rhetor are now only three: intellectio, inventio, and dispositio which includes style and delivery. But "neither the elements of disposition nor invention receive more than passing attention" (Leff 1982:74).

III.

A R R A N G E M E N T IN R H E T O R I C A L

THEORY

The survey of the history and development of arrangement in antiquity reveals, at first sight, the colorful diversity in the systems of rhetoric, not to speak of the diversity in the practices of oratory in the various times and places. But on a second, closer look there emerge two groups into which this diversity can be sorted: (1) the original Greek sophistic approach which even those honored who severely criticized the sophists, like Plato, Aristotle, and others. This approach

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viewed all of rhetoric, and so also all matters pertaining to arrangement, with the overriding concern for rhetoric as the art, the τέχνη, of generating persuasion (in contrast to logic's, or dialectic's concern for demonstration). This group differs from (2) the later emerging approach, first noted among the Stoics, and then represented by much of Roman rhetoric since Cato the Elder, which was "decidedly morally oriented" and using moral criteria (Furhmann 1987:12-13). A. The Ancient Technographers What yielded a certain degree of continuity—from the beginning to the fourth century BC "a remarkable continuity" (Goebel 1983)—was the approach taken by the sophists to rhetorical theory as a formal discipline, and that in two respects (Fuhrmann 1987:8; earlier research also spoke of two groups: the Isocratean vs. the Peripatetic types; see Solmsen, in Stark 1968:323; also Kroll 1940:1096-1100 on two types of handbooks or technographers). (1) T h e first is the concern with discourse, its sounds, rhythm, semantic and syntactic means, for discourse above the level of everyday speech (prose as distinct from artful speech = Kunstprosa). At this level, arrangement is closely related to grammar, syntax, and stylistics and was conceptualized and defined in terms of οικονομία/compositio or collocatio of syllables, words, phrases, sentences, periods and cola. T h e development along this line led rhetoric to make common cause with theoretical, technical approaches to grammar and poetics, leaving rhetoric as antiquity's form of literary theory and literary cridcism. (2) Quite distinct is the other formal concern with the techniques of argumentation, that is those structures or arrangements of thoughts and words which either promote or disguise the truth claim. Here the conceptualization of arrangement is focused on the οικονομία/ collocatio of the subject matter (res) or arguments. The development along this line led rhetoric to make common cause with logic or dialectic, which began with the sophists' use of the Eleatic tradition of dialectic, then the pro- and anti-sophistic controversies, led by the Socratic/Platonic Academy, renegotiated by the Peripatetic School, developed in yet other ways by Epicureans and Stoics, till the rhetorical-philosophical syncretism or reconciliation emerged at the dme of Cicero. It is interesting to note that with the first century BC we also see the emergence of the early Rabbinic (middot) "rules"

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for argumentative/interpretative techniques (both as recognizable in the texts as well as applicable to one's dealing with texts) attributed to Hillel (Strack-Stemberger 1982:26-30). Conley (1990:23-24) proposes "at least four different models for rhetoric in antiquity": T h e two operational models of the sophistic (the motivistic model of Gorgias, characterized as "manipulative of audience", and the controversial model of Protagoras/Isocrates, characterized as "seeking consensus"). In response to these two operational models emerged the problematic rhetoric model of the Peripatetic School, characterized as "accommodating to the nature of the problem faced", and the dialectic model of Socrates and Plato. The development of these "at least four different models for rhetoric" influenced the formation of dispositio-schemata, both in theory and practice. The two operadonal models of the sophists—the motivistic model of Gorgias, and the controversial model of Protagoras and Isocrates, also known as the Pre-Aristotelian/Isocratean type—deal with arrangement on the basis of the μόρια λόγου or partes (proem, narratio, etc.) also found in Arist. Rh. 3:13-19:1414a-20a; and in Apsines in the second/third century AD (the latest complete τέχνη in Greek to survive) who is indebted to Hermogenes. This "parts"-type gets subordinated to/fused with the εργα-type (e.g. Cic. Inv.; De or. 2:315-340 where the parts of speech are dealt with in the discussion of dispositio; also in Rhetorica ad Herennium, Qpintilian, and Julius Victor). The problematic rhetoric model of the Peripatetic School (accommodating to the nature of the problem faced) was based on the officia oratoris (εϋρεσις, τάξις, λέξις, etc.) found in Anaximenes, Aristotle (διάθεσις = τάξις already in PI. Phdr. 236a; Arist. Rh. 1:1:13-2:2:1355b), but also in Rhetorica ad Herennium, Qpintilian, and Fortunatianus. This quinquepartite system later developed subdivisions, for each of the five εργα, of λεκτικόν and πραγματικόν, the latter including both εϋρεσις and τάξις. The rhetorical textbooks developed two types (Kroll 1940:10961100 Handbuchtypen\ Fuhrmann 1963:156-88), which started out as separate, then tended to blend, and then again got sharply separated and contrasted (as in Cic. Part. 3-26 officia', 27-60 partes); or have added to officia and partes a third section on de artifice (see Quint. Inst. 12); this tripartite type lies at the basis of Horace's Ars poetica.

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(1) T h e Pre-Aristotelian/Isocratean type, reflecting the two sophistic operational models: Gorgias's "motivistic model" and the "controversial model" of Protagoras and Isocrates. Arrangement is defined here in terms of its parts, ranging from three to seven (as is still the case in the later works of Julias Severianus, Apsines, Rufus, and the Anonymus Seguerianus). (2) The Peripatetic type (Conley's "problematic model"), working with the quinquepartite system of the officia oratoris, with dispositio following inventio, but preceding elocutio, actio, and memoria. Each of the five officia later get further subdivided into έργον πραγματικόν and λεκτικόν; moreover, the tendency grew to view arrangement in its variation within the three distinct rhetorical genres, let alone their proliferating respective species. All these, genres and species, did not lend themselves to being reducible in their respective arrangement schemes to one fixed τέχνη, of one type or another. T h e overall impression one is left with concerning the treatment of arrangement in rhetorical theory has been repeatedly voiced by scholars (e.g. Fuhrmann 1987:78-79) as: "The treatment of arrangement leaves a quite wretched impression", despite or perhaps because of the theory of arrangement, in terms of the five-part subdivisions of dispositio. It become a pedagogical commonplace, once grammar and rhetoric had become part of the school system in late Imperial times, in the era of the έγκυκλιος παιδεία (Conley 1990:30), with grammar and rhetoric running separate but coordinated tracks, along with logic/ dialectic, as fixed parts of the emerging trivium of the "liberal arts" as the required core for all students in the emerging medieval university system. T h e systematic rigor imposed by the school system can only accentuate the impression of wretchedness in the treatments of arrangement in both types of handbooks of rhetorical theory. The grey theory dominating the school discussions of dispositio in the progymnasmata and school declamations stands in contrast to traditions tested by such practitioners as Demosthenes and later Cicero (on Cicero, see Stroh 1975; Classen 1985). Distinguished orators, in forum or court, were a different breed from the teachers of rhetoric in schools and from authors of handbooks of rhetorical theory, though Isocrates earlier, and Cicero later, are the exceptions that prove the rule (Kroll 1940:1066-1069). Two reasons are offered for the wretched state of the results of

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the handbooks' gathered wisdom on arrangement: (1) practical oratory, as well as the prolific growth of various literary and sub-literary genres (e.g. letters, homilies, novels, etc.), had produced a great variety of unique, situation-specific forms (and their indigenous arrangement patterns), about which rhetorical theory was unable to offer anything to anyone who wanted to comprehend the rationale and sophistication of the various and deviant refinements in matters of arrangement (Fuhrmann 1987:79). (2) The other reason cited is "that little was left to be said" once inventio encroached on the domain of dispositio (a) when (as in Rhet. ad Her. 3:16-18, in Cicero, and in Quintilian) the parts of speech came to be treated under inventio, instead of dispositio; and (b) when once it is emphasized "that the arrangement of the speech [may or must] be varied according to circumstances and that the orator should use his judgment" (Clarke 1968:32; Carrino 1959). B. The Case of a Modem Technographer Among the numerous modern attempts at summarizing the highlights of what ancient Western theory of rhetoric taught about arrangement (Martin 1974; Murphy 1983/1994; and others), none is more idiosyncratic than Lausberg's (1963/1984). He offers the following grid of the two constitutive components of the dispositioschemata in antiquity. In his massive earlier work (1960, 2nd edn. 1973), he follows the conventional approach: inventio, the first of the five partes artis, gets elaborately outlined in 146-240 (with nearly all of it [150-240] devoted to the five "parts of speech": exordium, narratio, etc.). This is followed by dispositio (very short: 241-47, with only two categories: ordo naturalis and ordo artificialis)·, then elocutio (very long [248-525] with a long section on compositio, 455-507), and finally two very brief section on the other two "parts". In his shorter, later work (1963/1984) he discusses inventio and the associated "parts of speech" very briefly (25-26), but dispositio at length and idiosyncratically (27-41): (1) Disposition internal to the discourse or text (28-32), that is what selection (έκλοψ\/electio) was made, and what order (τάξις) chosen— of both res and verba—and the means or techniques actually used (χρήσις/Mmy) in the text-external dispositio. Each of the chosen and

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used means or tools has its function. Lausberg considers the study of actually used function-possibilities as a rewarding task for a "literary rhetoric" by documenting a "typology of functions" (§ 46/2). (a) Ordo naturalis, with its beginning, middle, and end (Lausberg 1984:§ 47/1; 1960:§§ 447-451). (b) Ordo artificialis/artificiosus = starting in médias res, or even at the end; use of flashbacks (Lausberg 1984:§ 47/2; 1960:§ 452). The much debated reasons and purposes for the omission of one or the other part of the quinquepardte arrangement of discourse— due to partiality/ utilitas—also belong to the artificial arrangement. (c) T h e text-internal dispositio is (1) determined by the author's iudicium (one of the officia oratoris elaborated in some of the ancient textbooks in connection with, or even prior to, inventio; see Hermagoras and Cicero), and (2) related to the selection and arrangement of the parts into a structural whole. This whole can be perceived—by speaker a n d / o r audience—either as a given whole (§§ 50-54) or as to the possibilities (perhaps even necessides?) for altering the whole (§§ 55-63). The whole and its parts extend to the selection and order of sounds, syllables, words within the limits of the syntax of a given language. (This limit takes on other dimensions when the medium is no longer either oral or manuscript-literary; see below IV.D; or only one's native language; see below IV.B.) The selection and arrangement of ideas (διανοία/rej) offer more options than the verba, but there are limits here, too, which are set by "the milieuconditioned habits of thought" (§ 49/2)—if not, even more so, by "habits of the heart"! Arrangement is exercized in the polarity between the speaker's artistic freedom and the "more or less great constraints of societal [or cultural] norms" (§ 49/3). (d) Arrangement of parts as whole can be found in two types: (1) arrangement in two parts for tension or polarity, contrast or balance (as in thesis/antithesis), or (2) three parts for beginning, middle and end of the whole: whether as ontological, natural, organic unity (Socrates, Plato), or as logical, dialectical unity (Stoic and Epicurean), or as artificial, adaptive unity which is ttft/ztai-appropriate (Aristode, Cicero; see also Perelman 1969:508). By amplifying the middle part of the tripartite arrangement one gets a five part-whole, as in the parts of discourse (proem, narratio, proofs, refutation, epilogue). This quinquepardte system

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greatly influenced the order of the classical handbooks of the rhetorical τέχναι. Chiastic structure or ring-composition is one of the well-known arrangement schemata. (e) Arrangement of the whole in terms of its materia or thema can be done in two ways: (1) the circular whole (§ 56/1) which, in Perelman's terms, is the argumentative situation of the whole which is more than the sum total of the parts of the various argumentative situations that constitute the whole; or (2) the linear whole (§ 5 6 / 2 with its beginning, middle, end). Both linear and circular arrangements can be modified or altered with four alteration categories available: (a) Additions (§ 59): apposition, pleanoasm, amplification etc.; (b) Subtractions (§ 60): as in the omission of one or the other "canonical" parts of speech from the whole; (c) Transmutation (§ 61): as in reversing order, such as chiasm, or placing a part from its expected "normal" position to another position within the whole, as in αναστροφή or ΰπερβατόν; (d) Replacement of some part within the whole by a part not normally considered fitting, as in άντίθεσις, έναλλαγή (§ 62) which is the o.«fro-equivalent to what the major tropes are for elocutio. (2) Disposition external to the text (Lausberg 1984:33-41 = §§ 64-90; Perelman 1969:503). At this point arrangement is seen as closely related to inventio, and to what Perelman calls the rhetorical situation with its adaptive arrangement. Lausberg has the following sub-points for external order: (a) The text-external dispositio is oriented toward partiality (utilitas causae). It is this orientadon which constitutes the ordering principle of the discourse and guarantees its structural unit as a whole (Lausberg 1984:33-41). In 1973 (§ 446) Lausberg defined partiality as the main principle of arrangement. He distinguishes three types of oratorial tactics (Rede-Taktik; 1984:33-34 = § 66): (1) the straightforward tactic (ductus simplex) working with perspicuity as means of expression; (2) the tactic with deceptive approaches of three subtypes (ductus subtilis,figuratus,and obliquus); and (3) the tactic using a mixture of these previous four types (ductus mixtus). (b) Other considerations by which partiality influences the choice of arrangement are: (1) whether the intended effect of the oration is to rely mainly on the cognitive, semantic component

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(λόγος) of persuasion, or to rely on the use of the audiences'/ readers' emotions (the affects in ήθοçjethos and πάθος/pathos; 34— 35 = § 68), or whether the intended effect is best realized by amplification, with four genera amplificationis (35-39 = §§ 71-83), or by exaggeration and alienation, from simple variation to deliberate shock or going against the grain by the arrangement choices (1984:39-41 = §§ 84-90; Drijepondt 1979). Where Lausberg opts for a literary rhetoric in restoring ancient rhetoric to all its rights, Perelman has opted for a more philosophical rhetoric which also seeks to preserve the legacy of antiquity, but with an idiosyncrasy different from Lausberg's. The στάσις or status system, so imporant for ancient technographers of rhetoric in dealing with arrangement in terms of the "parts of speech", especially the proofs, gets renewed recognition in Perelman under a more attractive label, "modalities" in argumentation and its arrangement (Perelman 1969:154-63; see also the work of D'Angelo 1990, and Winterowd 1986; earlier Hovland 1957, Carrino 1959, and Tucker 1963).

IV.

AREAS WARRANTING

FURTHER

RESEARCH

A. The Issue of "Adaptive Order" versus "Ontological Order", "Organic Order", "logical Order" Classical rhetoric spoke of "order" as "organism" or organic whole as reflected (1) in forms of art; and (2) in forms of "the order of nature" (ordo naturae) as found in reality (modus) and the order of priorities, or in numbers (numerus) and the order of distinctions or in weight (pondus) and the order of inclination, as in the military's inclination to be victorious, the ordo invicem (see Krings 1982:51-88). According to Perelman (1969:507-508), this traditional approach to arrangement was and remains a way of "separating the form of the discourse from its content", because it stresses only the formal, technical "relationship between, [but] does not define the nature of, the relations"; it "envisages the speech as something isolated and sufficient in itself". Perelman's plea (1969:508) for substituting "adaptive order" for "ontological order", "organic order", and "logical order" invites a distinction to be made between adaptation (as practiced in the forum, the courts, the schools, etc.) operating either direcdy, or through reflections of the hearer on the question of order. Kennedy (1980:80) in turn criticizes Perelman (for his critique of the Peripatetic concern for

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organic unity in arrangement) for failing "to provide adequately for the mixture of intentions found in actual oratory". B. Comparative Critical Approaches to Arrangement in Western and Nonwestern Rhetoric A century ago scholarship reflected on this issue in terms of the categories of atticism and asianism (see e.g. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, in Stark 1968:350-401) as relevant for the period under consideration in this essay. Relevant also is the traditional comparison and contrast between Athens and Jerusalem (Alexander 1990; Weltin 1987). The comparison and contrast between Greek or Byzantine and Roman rhetoric may be another case in point (see Murphy 1983:80 on the "considerable cultural friction" causing several expulsions of Greek rhetoricians and philosophers from Rome). As a special area warranting further research, currently in its initial phase, attention needs to be called to the critical awareness of the indigenousness of approaches to rhetoric in the Jewish tradition, even within the circle of Hellenistic Judaism, such as Philo of Alexandria (see Conley 1987; see also C. Black II 1988), let alone in the rise and development of Rabbinic Judaism (see Neusner 1992). But the same applies to early Christianity with its adaptations to Greek and Roman rhetoric differing not only in Greek and Byzantine versus Latin patristics (as in the uses of rhetoric in Alexandria [e.g. Clement and Origen], or among the Cappadocian Fathers, or Chrysostom, etc. [see Bowersock 1969 on Eastern cities as sophistic centers], or in the Latin circles of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine, etc.), but also the early vernacular rhetorics of the Syriac or Coptic Fathers (Müller 1956; Neymeyr 1989). Throughout all this, whether in Christianity (Spira 1989), or in Judaism, we need to be aware not only, as we traditionally are, of the influence of Greek and Roman rhetoric on these religious cultures, but also on the reverse: the influences these religious cultures had on rhetorical theory and practices of antiquity. What Kroll (1940:1138) said of early Christian uses of rhetoric could also have been said of early Rabbinic uses of rhetoric: the precepts and rules of the Greek and Roman schools of rhetoric were liberally used as were "all rhetorical arts despite occasional pangs of conscience which were often only faked". There is more to all that, however, than Kroll's glib comment allows. Future research in the

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order and composition of Mishnaic and Talmudic Judaism (Towner 1973; Strack-Stemberger 1982 on the tradition of the middot\ Neusner 1992), of Rabbinic homilies (Bowker 1967; Goldberg 1978), midrashim (Silberman 1982; Stern 1981; Boyarin 1985), but also letters, especially the halakhic type (Taatz 1990; see Kustas 1973:46ff. on "the common ground between letter and homily"), and other forms, or of the varieties of Christian literary culture, must account more adequately for two mixtures: (1) "the mixture of intentions found in actual oratory" (Kennedy in critique of Perelman), and (2) the mixture of rigid rules and situational or cultural accommodation which provided the two guidelines for the study of arrangement in classical Western rhetoric. (For a comparative study of Chinese and Western approaches, see Reding 1985; for a Moslem approach to arrangement, see Sweity 1993.)

C. Arrangement and Institutionalization of Rhetoric One area in which the institutionalization of rhetoric (see Swearingen 1991:116-25) has deeply influenced rhetoric is the school or paideia system administered by municipalities or by a super-regional central agency (Imperial or Papal decree; for "rhetoric in an organizational society managing multiple identities", see Cheney 1991). The same goes for another area: the institutionalization of jurisprudence (Kübler 1920 on Rechtsschulen in antiquity; Stroux 1949) and the comparable formation and development of Rabbinical academies. Another issue related to institutionalization is the study of rhetoric's subtle way of contributing to "the power of the elite establishment" (Kennedy 1980:170 in view of Byzantium) and how this relates to rhetoric's dealing with arrangement and order. For it is, indeed, "ironic that Greek rhetoric, which was 'invented' in the fifth century BC as an instrument of social and political change, became under the Roman and Byzantine empires a powerful instrument for preservation of the status quo" (Kennedy 170 ad n. 29).

D. Arrangement in the Relation between Music and Rhetoric Following the clues offered by early rhetorical theorists themselves who noted certain connections between rhetoric and music, and recognizing the mutual effect the two had on each other over the cen-

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tunes (Buelow 1980) and in different cultures, the study of rhetorical arrangement can profit from the cause or effect relation with music. Such study would focus on the oratorical or musical arrangement on the sentence level of the word- or phrase-order (compositio), as well as on the level of the compositional unit of the respective "parts" (proem = prelude, overture; etc.) and of the compositional unit or genre as a whole (Bonds 1991). What the instrumentation issue is for music, the medium issue is for rhetoric. E. Anangement and the Shaping Effects of the Medium The discussion of arrangement in ancient rhetoric must account for "the shaping effects of the medium itself on both the communicator and the communicant" (Sloane 1974:804; see also O n g 1982; Swearingen 1991). The modern scholar of the oral or literary rhetoric of antiquity must be mindful of both, and not just the first of the two medium changes that affect scholarly work: (1) the transformations that took place in the transition from orality to (manuscript) literacy (Ong 1982); (2) the far-reaching effect on the study of ancient rhetoric in the wake of two veritable quantum leaps produced by two modern mediums: (a) the print culture at the beginning of the modern era, and (b) the electronic audio and video text culture (including the whole corpus of ancient texts) on cassettes and diskettes at the beginning of the postmodern era (Enos 1990; Heim 1988; Lanham 1993; T u m a n 1992).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Texts and Translations Butler, H. E. (ed.), Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria (4 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1920-22). Caplan, H. (ed.), Rhetorica ad Herennium (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1954). Fairclough, H. R. (ed.), Horace, Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica (LCL; London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945). Fowler, H. N. (ed.), Plato, Phaedrus (LCL; London: Heinemann/New York: Macmillan, 1914). Freese, J. H. (ed.), Aristotle, The "Art" of Rhetoric (LCL; London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959). Fyfe, W. H. (ed.), "Longinus" On the Sublime (LCL; London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 119-254.

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Halm, C. (ed.), Rhetores Latini Minores (Leipzig: Teubner, 1863; repr. Frankfurt, 1964). Hubbell, H. M. (ed.), Cicero: De Inventione, De Optimo Genere Oratorum, and Topica (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949). Hendrickson, G. L. and H. M. Hubbell (eds.), Cicero: Brutus. Orator (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952. Leff, M. C., "A Basic Library for a Study of Classical Rhetoric", in Murphy (ed.), 1983/1994, pp. 190-192. Melmoth, W. (ed.), Pliny, Letters (rev. W. M. L. Hutchinson; 2 vols.; LCL; London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1915). Rackham, H. (ed.), Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, Aristotle, Problems (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983). Roberts, W. R. (ed.), Demetrius, On Style (LCL; London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, I960), pp. 255-487. Russell, D. A. and M. Winterbottom (eds.), Ancient Literary Criticism: The Principal Texts in Mew Translations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972, repr. 1982). Spengel, L. (ed.), Rhetores Graeci (3 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1853-56). Sutton, E. W. and H. Rackham (eds.), Cicero: De Oratore; Partitione Oratoriae (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942). Usher, S. (ed.), Dionysius of Halicamassus, The Critical Essays (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1974-85). 1. History and Development Alter, R., The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981). Barwick, K., "Zur Rekonstruktion der Rhetorik des Hermagoras von Temnos", Philologe 109 (1965), pp. 186-218. Black, E., "The Mutability of Rhetoric", in Rhetoric in Transition (ed. Ε. Ε. White; Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980), pp. 71-85. Black, M., "The Use of Rhetorical Terminology in Papias on Mark and Matthew", in New Testament Essays in Honour of David Hill (ed. C. Tuckett; JSNTSup, 37; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1989), pp. 31-41. Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation in the lute Republic and Early Empire (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1969). Bowersock, G. W., Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Cardauns, B., "Zum Begriff der 'oeconomia' in der lateinischen Rhetorik und Dichtungskritik", in T. Stemmler (ed.), Ökonomie: Sprachliche und Literarische Aspekte ânes 2000 Jahre alten Begriffs (Mannheimer Beiträge zur Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, 6. Tübingen: Narr, 1985), pp. 9-18. Carrino, E. M. D., "Conceptions of Dispositio in Ancient Rhetoric" (Diss. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1959). Clarke, M. L., Rhetoric at Rome: A Historical Survey (London: Cohen & West, 1953, 2nd edn., 1968). Classen, C. J., Recht, Rhetorik, Politik: Untersuchungen zu Ciceros rhetorischer Strategie (Darmstadt: Wissenschafdiche Buchgesellschaft, 1985). , "St. Paul's Episdes and Ancient Greek and Roman Rhetoric", Rhetorica 10 (1992), pp. 319-44. Colson, F. Η., "Τάξεις in Papias, The Gospels and the Rhetoric Schools", JTS 14 (1913), pp. 62-69. Conley, T., Rhetoric in the European Tradition (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1990; repr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Curtius, E. R., European Literature and the Lahn Middle Ages (trans. W. R. Trask; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). Dickson, R. E., "Ramism and the Rhetorical Tradition" (doctoral Dissertation, Duke University, 1993).

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Drijepondt, H. L. F., Die antike Theorie der varietas: Dynamik und Wechsel im Auf und Ab als Charakteristikum von Stil und Struktur (Spudasmata, 37; Hildesheim/New York: Olms, 1979). Gelhaus, H., Die Prologe des Terenz: Eine Erklärung nach den Lehren von der inventio und dispositio (Heidelberg: Winter, 1972). Glück, M., Priscians Partitiones und ihre Stellung in der spätantiken Schule (Spudasmata, 12; Hildesheim: Olms, 1967). Goebel, G. H., "Early Greek Rhetorical Theory and Practice: Proof and Arrangement in the Speeches of Antiphon and Euripides" (Diss. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1983). Hägg, T., The Novel in Antiquity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983). Hagius, H., "The Stoic Theory of the Parts of Speech" (Diss. New York: Columbia University, 1979). Hamberger, P., Die rednerische Disposition in den alten ΤΕΧΝΗ ΡΗΤΟΡΙΚΗ (Korax, Gorgias, Antiphon) (Rhetorische Studien, 2; Paderborn: Schöningh, 1914). Hill, F., "The Rhetoric of Aristotle", in Murphy 1983/1994 pp. 19-76. Hock, R. F. and Ε. N. O'Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric. I. The Progymnasmata (Adanta: Scholars Press, 1986). Kennedy, G. Α., The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World 300 BC-AD 300 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). , Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition ftom Ancient to Modem Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980). Koskenniemi, H., Studien zur Idee und Phraseologie des griechischen Briefes bis 400 n. Chr. (Helsinki: Akateeminen Kiijakauppa, 1956). Krings, H., Ordo: Philosophisch-historische Grundlegung einer abendländischen Idee (Halle: Niemeyer, 1941; 2nd ed. Hamburg: Meiner, 1982). Kroll, W., "Rhetorik", in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft Sup. 7 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1940), cols. 1039-1138. Kustas, G. L., Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric (Analecta Blatadôn, 17; Thessaloniki, 1973). Leeman, A. D., "The Variety of Classical Rhetoric", in Rhetoric Revalued: Papers from the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (ed. B. Vickers; Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 19; Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), pp. 41-46. Leff, M. C., "The Material of the Art in the Latin Handbooks of the Fourth Century AD", in B. Vickers (ed.), Rhetoric Revalued: Papers ftom the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 19; Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), pp. 71-78. Lévy, C., "La conversation à Rome à la fin de la République: des pratiques sans théorie?", Rhetorica 11 (1993), pp. 399-420. Meador, P.A., "Quintilian and the Institutio oratoria", in Murphy 1983/1994, pp. 151-76. Murphy, J.J. (ed.), A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric (New York, 1972; repr. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1983; rev. edn., 1994). Ochs, D.J., "Cicero's Rhetorical Theory", in Murphy 1983/1994, pp. 90-150. Ong, W., Orality and Uterarcy (New York: Methuen, 1982). Quadlbauer, F., "Lukan im Schema des Ordo naturalis/artificialis: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Lukanbewertung im lateinischen Mittelalter", Grazer Beiträge 6 (1977), pp. 67-105. Scaglione, A. D., The Classical Theory of Compoûtion ftom its Origins to the Present: A Historical Survey (University of North Carolina Studies in Comparative Literature, 53; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972). Schenkeveld, D. M., "Theories of Evaluation in the Rhetorical Treatises of Dionysius of Halicamassus", Museum Philologum Londiniense 1 (1975), pp. 93-107. Sloane, T. O., "Rhetoric: In Literature", The New Encyclopedia Britannica (15th edn.; Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1974), XXVI, pp. 803-808.

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Solmsen, F., "Demetrios Pen Hermeneias und sein Peripatetisches Quellenmaterial", in Stark 1968, pp. 285-311 , "The Aristotelian Tradition in Ancient Rhetoric", in Stark 1968 pp. 312-49. Spengel, L., "Die Definition und Eintheilung der Rhetorik bei den Alten", RhM 18 (1863), pp. 481-526. Stark, R. (ed.), Rhetorika: Schriften zur aristotelischen und hellenistischen Rhetorik (Hildesheim: Olms, 1968). Stroh, W., Taxis und Taktik Die advokative Dispositionskunst in Ciceros Gerichtsreden (Teubner Studienbücher: Philologie; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1975). Swearingen, C.J., Rhetoric and Irony: Westem IJterarcy and Western lies (New York/ Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, "Asianismus und Atticismus", in Stark 1968, pp. 350-401. 2. Rhetorical Theory Carrino, E. M. D., "Conceptions of Dispositio in Ancient Rhetoric" (Diss. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1959). Fuhrmann, M., Das systematische lAr bueh: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften in der Antike (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960). , Die antike Rhetorik Eine Einßihrung (2nd edn.; Artemis Einführungen, 10; Munich and Zurich: Artemis, 1987). Lausberg, H., Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik (Munich: Hueber, 1960; 2nd edn., 1973). , Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik (Munich: Hueber, 1963; 8th edn., 1984). Martin, J., Antike Rhetorik Technik and Methode (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, 2.3; Munich: Beck, 1974). 3. Areas Warranting Further Research Alexander, P. S., "Quid Athenis et Hierosolymis? Rabbinic Midrash and Hermeneutics in the Greco-Roman World", in A Tribute to Geza Vennes: Essays on Jewish and Christian Literature and History (ed. P. R. Davies und R. T. White; JSOTSup, 100; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), pp. 101-24. Black II, C. C., "The Rhetorical Form of the Hellenistic Jewish and Early Christian Sermon: A Response to Lawrence Wills", HTR 81 (1988), pp. 1-18. Bonds, M. E., Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration (Studies in the History of Music, 4; Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1991). Bowker, J. W., "Speeches in Acts: A Study in Proem and Yellamedenu Form", NTS 14 (1967), pp. 96-111. Boyarin, D., "Rhetoric and Interpretation: The Case of the Nimshal", Prooftexts 5 (1985), pp. 269-76. Buelow, G. J., "Rhetoric and Music", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 15 (1980), pp. 793-803. Cheney, G., Rhetoric in an Organizational Society: Managing Multiple Identities (Studies in Rhetoric/Communication; Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991). D'Angelo, F.J., "Tropics of Arrangement. A Theory of Dispositio", Journal of Advanced Composition 10.1 (1990), pp. 101-109. Enos, R. L. (ed.), Oral and Written Communication: Historical Approaches (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990). Goldberg, Α., "Die Peroratio (Hatima) als Kompositionsform der rabbinischen Homilie", Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 8 (1978), pp. 1-22. Heim, M., "The Technological Crisis of Rhetoric", Philosophy and Rhetoric 21 (1988), pp. 48-59.

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Heinemann, J., "Profile of a Midrash: The Art of Composition in Leviticus Rabba", JAAR 39 (1971), pp. 141-50. Hovland, C. I. et al., The Order of Presentation in Persuasion (Yale Studies in Attitude and Communication, 1; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957). Jaffe, M. S., "The 'Midrashic' Proem: Towards the Description of Rabbinic Exegesis", in W. S. Scott Green (ed.), Approaches to Ancient Judaism. IV. Studies in Liturgy, Exegesis and Talmudic Narrative (BJS, 27; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), pp. 95-112. Kübler, Β., "Rechtsschulen", in Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der. classischen Altertumswissenschaft (ed. W. Kroll and Κ. Witte, II.l; Stuttgart: Metzler, 1920), cols. 380-394. Lanham, R. Α., The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Müller, C. D., "Koptische Redekunst und Griechische Rhetorik", L· Muséon 69 (1956), pp. 53-72. Neusner, J., "Why no Science in Judaism?", Shofar 6 (1988), pp. 45-71. , The Bavli's Massive Miscellanies: The Problem of Agglutinative Discourse in the Talmud of Babylonia (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism, 43; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992). Neymeyr, U , Die christlichen Lehrer im zweiten Jahrhundert Ihre Ichrtätigkeit, ihr Selbstverständnis und ihre Geschichte (VCSup, 4; Leiden: Brill, 1989). Perelman, C. and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (trans. J. Wilkinson and P. Wever; Notre Dame/I^ondon: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969). Phillips, G. M., "The Practice of Rhetoric at the Talmudic Academies", Speech Monographs 26 (1959), pp. 37-46. Reding, J.-P., IJIS Fondements philosophiques de la Rhetorique chez les Sophistes Grecs et chez les Sophistes Chinois (Bern: Lang, 1985). Silberman, L. H., "Toward a Rhetoric of Midrash: A Preliminary Account", in R. Polzin and E. Rothman (eds.), The Biblical Mosaic: Changing Perspectives (Semeia Studies; Philadelphia: Fortress/Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982), pp. 15-26. Spira, Α., "The Impact of Christianity on Ancient Rhetoric", StPatr 18.2 (ed. E. A. Livingstone; Kalamazoo: Cistercian Pub./Leuven: Peeters, 1989), pp. 137-53. Stern, D., "Rhetoric and Midrash: The Case of the Mashal", Prooflexts 1 (1981), pp. 261-91. Strack, H. L. and G. Stemberger, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch (7th edn.; Munich: Beck, 1982). Stroux, J., Römische Rechtswissenschaft und Rhetorik (Potsdam: Stichnote, 1949). Sweity, Α., "Al-Juijaanii's Theory of ηα/ζτη [Discourse Arrangement]: A Linguistic Perspective" (Diss. University of Texas at Austin, 1993). Taatz, I., Frühjüdische Briefe: Die paulinischen Briefe im Rahmen der offiziellen religiösen Briefe des Frühjudentums (Novum Testamentum, 16; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990). Towner, W. S., The Rabbinic "Enumeration of Scriptural Examples": A Study of a Rabbinic Pattern of Discourse with Special Reference to Mekhilta d'Rabbi Ishmael (Studia Post Biblica, 22; Leiden: Brill, 1973). Tucker, F. D., "Scientific Rhetorical Adaptation: An Integration of Post-Renaissance Rhetorical, Contemporary Psychological, and Experimental Theories of Rhetorical Dispositio" (Diss. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1963). Tuman, M. (ed.), Literacy Online: The Promise (and Peril) of Reading and Writing with Computers (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992). Weltin, E. G., Athens and Jerusalem: An Interpretive Essay on Christianity and Classical Culture (AAR Studies in Religion, 49; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987). Winterowd, W. R., "Dispositio: The Concept of Form in Discourse", in Composition/ Rhetoric: A Synthesis (Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986), pp. 245-52.

CHAPTER 4

INVENTION Malcolm Heath University of Leeds, England

"Invention" (inventio, εϋρεσις) means "discovery". In rhetoric it designates the discovery of the resources for discursive persuasion latent in any given rhetorical problem. This process of discovery was extensively theorized by ancient rhetoricians. But rhetoric is in essence a practical discipline, and its precepts are tools to be applied in practice. The rhetor's students would not be judged by their ability to articulate a body of theory, but by their ability to compose and deliver speeches and declamations which satisfied the expectations of contemporary audiences. Theory did not exist for its own sake, but as a framework to give guidance in the acquisition and exercise of a particular set of skills. This chapter will therefore emphasize application; following the precedent of ancient handbooks it will use a hypothetical worked example to illustrate the processes and principles of invention in practice. T o identify a suitable theme for our illustration, we may turn to an incident crucial in ancient rhetoricians' perception of the history of their craft. In II. 3:203-24 the Trojan elder Antenor recalls the embassy of Menelaus and Odysseus before the onset of hostilities, when the Greeks offered peace if the Trojans would return Helen; he contrasts the two envoys' rhetorical styles.1 In the fourth century AD, Libanius composed declamations representing the speeches of Menelaus and Odysseus; an anonymous declamation of uncertain (but later) date replies to Menelaus in the person of Paris; and (striking evidence of the long life of the classical rhetorical tradidon) the beginning of the fifteenth century yields a fragment of a reply to Odysseus

1

On ancient perceptions of Homeric rhetoric, see L. Radermacher, Artium Scnptores (SB Vienna, 227.3; 1951), pp. 3-10; G. A. Kennedy, "The Ancient Dispute over Rhetoric in Homer", AJP 78 (1957), pp. 23-35; M. Heath, "Στάσις-theory in Homeric Commentary", Mnemosyne 46 (1993), pp. 356-63.

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in the person of Antenor composed by the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus. 2 Drafting a complete reply for Antenor will offer a variety of perspectives on invention. So let this be our theme: "After thé speeches of Menelaus and Odysseus, Antenor advises the Trojans not to concede the Greek demands". 3 O u r approach to the subject must be selective. Invention was theorized in many different ways over the centuries. Indeed, even contemporary rhetoricians might give conflicting accounts of it. Hermogenes, for example, rejects the concepts of class and mode which were conventional in the rhetorical teaching of his day; even so fundamental a principle as stasis could be dismissed as drivel (at the risk, admittedly, of incurring ridicule).4 This diversity precludes a single all-embracing synthesis; and an exhaustive catalogue of variants would vasdy exceed the scope of the present chapter. 5 I have chosen to focus primarily on theories of invention current in the Greek-speaking world from the middle of the second century AD onward—the period in which the treatment of stasis, a key tool in invention, achieved its most sophisticated form. No comprehensive synthesis, comparable to that of Quintilian, survives from this period; so my account will be a composite one, drawing eclectically on a number of different sources. 6 T h e notes will provide pointers for readers who wish to explore related treatments from earlier periods.

2 lib. Deel. 3-4 (V, pp. 199 221, 228-86 Foerster); C. Bevegni, "Anonymi Declamatw Paridis ad Senatum Troianum", SI FC 3 (1986), pp. 274-92; Manuel Palaeologus's fragment was first published by J. F. Boissonade, Anecdota Graeca (Paris 1830; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1962), II, pp. 308-309, and is reprinted in Foerster's edition of Libanius (V, pp. 226-27). 3 According to Livy (1:1:1) Antenor "always" advocated the return of Helen; but when he does so in II. 7:347-53 (in very changed circumstances from the time of the Greek embassy) Paris's reply (esp. 357-58) could be taken as evidence of his earlier support. The mythological material concerning Troy used in the rest of this chapter can be found most conveniently in Apollodorus (Bibl. 2:5:9, 2:6:4; Epit. 3-5): text and trans. J. G. Frazer (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1921); cf. T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), esp. pp. 400-402, 557-661. 4 On class and mode see nn. 22-23 below. For the rejection of jfaju-theory in favour of unstructured improvization by the third- or early fourth-century rhetor Phrynichus, and the ridicule it incurred, see Syrian. 2:3:23-5:14 Rabe; Prolegomenon Sylloge 364:14-367:12 Rabe; cf. D . M . Schenkeveld, "The Philosopher Aquila", CQ_ 41 (1991), pp. 493-94. 5 J. Martin, Antike Rhetorik (Munich: Beck, 1974) devotes 196 dense pages to invention; even so his account is not all-embracing, and its juxtaposition of Aristotelian, Hellenistic and late classical material lacks historical perspective. 6 I have drawn largely, but not exclusively, on Hermogenes On Stasis: text

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There will be two stages in our discussion. First we shall consider the resources which the rhetorician could use in a preliminary analysis of his theme. 7 We shall then attempt to produce an oudine of the case as a whole, at the same time illustrating more selectively techniques for the detailed articulation of individual arguments. At this second stage we shall find that invention is inextricably linked with questions of arrangement, since the principles of invention are specific to the standard parts of a speech—prologue, narrative, argument and epilogue. Ancient handbooks on invention were often organized on this basis, for good practical reasons; 8 we must follow their lead.

I. A

PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF T H E

THEME

The basic components of any rhetorical situation are person and act; 9 the analysis of our theme should start with these. First among the persons of whom we must take account is our speaker, Antenor. He is a Trojan elder; he therefore brings into play a set of assumptions about old men. 10 Long experience may have made him wise; it will certainly have made him cautious. This persona will strengthen our case, since the advocacy of a hard line carries more weight when advanced with the judicious caution of experience than it would in the mouth of a hot-headed youth. O n the other hand, rhetorical techniques which a younger, more impetuous speaker could use without giving a bad impression must be avoided; H. Rabe (Leipzig: Teubner, 1913); trans, and commentary M. Heath, Hermogenes On Issues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); [Hermogenes] On Invention (text in Rabe), together with the treatises of Apsines and the Anonymus Seguerianus: text L. Spengel and C. Hammer, Rhetores Graeci, 1.2 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1894). Sopater's Division of (Questions illustrates how the theoretical apparatus was used in practice: text in RG, VIII, pp. 2~385 Walz; commentary: D. C. Innes and M. Winterbottom, Sopatros the Rhetor (BICS Sup., 48; London: ICS, 1988). The scholia to Demosthenes (much, though not all, of the material may derive from a commentary by the thirdcentury rhetor Menander of Laodicea, more familiar in connection with epideictic oratory: n. 25) illustrate its use as an interpretative tool: text M. R. Dilts, Scholia Demosthenica (2 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1983-86). 7 For this analytical phase (νόησις) see Zeno ap. Sulp. Vict. 315:5-319:35 Halm; cf. Prolegomenon Sylloge 60:21-61:12, 69:1-6, 175:16-177:7, 199:25-202:8; [Augustine] 137:4-6 Halm. 8 E.g. [Hermogenes] On Invention, Apsines, and Anonymus Seguerianus. On the "contamination" of invention and disposition in Hellenistic rhetoric see J. Wisse, Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1989), pp. 77-78, 83-92. 9 Hermog. Stat. 29:7-31:18; Quint. Inst. 5:10:23. 10 Cf. Arist. Rh. 1389b 13—90a24; Hör. Ars 169-78.

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for example, open invective might suggest a malicious and vindictive old man. This point is important, since both the persons to whom Antenor is replying offer scope for invective. Menelaus, on his own admission, is a cuckold; closer inspection reveals that his family background is an unsavoury mess of incest and butchery. Odysseus is a lying bastard (that is to say, of doubtful parentage and notorious for tricks and false tales). These openings may be useful if approached obliquely; but the character of Antenor restrains us from exuberant exploitadon of their potential. O u r speech is addressed to a Trojan audience. What state of mind are they in? Here we should clarify one feature of the assumed background to the debate. Homer does not specify the exact timing of the embassy; Libanius follows Herodotus (2:118) in supposing that the Greek army had already landed in Trojan territory when the embassy was sent. This way of proceeding might seem provocative and offensive to the Trojans; the fact can surely be turned to our advantage. But the Trojans will also be apprehensive in view of the size of the Greek army, and they will recollect that Troy has been sacked once before (by Heracles); so we must convince them that they are able to win the war. We must also convince them that there is something worth their fighting for; if they believe that the war would be fought simply to defend an adulterous relationship between Paris and Helen it will be harder to induce them to undertake its hardships and dangers. This has brought us to the last, and most problematic, person in our theme. Paris is a crucial element in the theme, since his bringing Helen to Troy has provoked the present crisis. His reputation is extremely unfavourable; we must try to counter the conventional prejudice against him. But it is not only the person of Paris which presents a challenge. Paris has to be handled carefully in respect also of act, the other basic component of the rhetorical situation; taken at face value, running off with another man's wife is despicable behaviour. But should we take these actions at face value? A hostile account of what happened, put about by Paris's enemies, ought not to be swallowed uncritically. At this point, therefore, it may be helpful to make a detour through the early stages of an ancient rhetorician's training, to see how it would have equipped him to bring critical scrudny to bear on an opponent's version of events. T h e first stage of the course in rhetoric was a series of preliminary

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exercises (προγυμνάσματα)." These introduced the student to certain basic concepts, and gave practice in handling piecemeal techniques which would subsequently be brought together in composing declamations and speeches. One of the earlier exercises in the programme was narration, which taught the student to present a clear, concise and plausible account of events. A little way further into the programme, the paired exercises of refutation (άνασκευή) and confirmation (κατασκευή) brought the student back to narrative, and taught him to take a critical view of it. According to Aphthonius a refutation should begin by discrediting those who tell the story; then the story itself is briefly recounted, and shown to suffer from one or more of a variety of flaws: it might be unclear, implausible, impossible, inconsistent, improper or inexpedient. 12 How might we set about this exercise with reference to the story of Paris's abduction of Helen? 13 Discrediting those who tell the story is easy. For the most part, it is poets who tell the story; they, certainly, are its source. But "poets tell many lies" (Sol. fr. 29). More particularly, the story is told by Homer and other Greek poets, who have a vested interest in giving their narrrative an anti-Trojan bias. 14 Since they are not objective witnesses, their story must be treated with caution. O u r next step is to consider the essential elements of the story. Three goddesses chose Paris to arbitrate a dispute between them; they then tried to bribe their chosen arbitrator; Paris, allowing his " Modern discussions include G. A. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 53-70; S. F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 250-76; D. L. Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), pp. 177-212; R. F. Hock and Ε. N. O'Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric (Adanta: Scholars Press, 1986), pp. 9-22; G. Anderson, The Second Sophistic (London: Roudedge, 1993), pp. 47-53. 12 Aphth. Prog. 10:9-19 Rabe; cf. [Hermog.] Prog. 11:1-20. 13 Note that none of the προγυμνάσματα (with the exception of ηθοποιία) required the student to adopt a specified individual point of view; so in this refutation, and in the encomium below, we are conducting a preliminary investigation into the material of our theme, and not yet attempting to adopt the persona of Antenor. There is therefore no problem of anachronism in the references to Homer and to subsequent events in the story of Troy. For an excellent example of the application of the techniques of refutation on a large scale see Dio Chrysostom's Trojan Discourse, which "proves" that the Greeks did not take Troy; Isocrates' Encomium of Helen is also relevant. 14 Homer was often perceived as a philhellene in ancient commentary (e.g. sch. BT II. 2:674-75); see N.J. Richardson, "Literary Criticism in the Exegetical Scholia to the Iliad", CQ. 30 (1980), pp. 273-74; B. Hainsworth on II. 10:13-14.

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judgment to be influenced by these bribes, found Helen a more attractive inducement than the offer of military or political success; his elopement with Helen was therefore a pay-off for his adjudication in favour of Aphrodite. This story falls apart at every point. First, it presupposes that the gods are both corrupt (since they offered bribes) and foolish (since they chose as their arbitrator a man who is himself both corrupt and foolish); this is an extremely improper assumption. It cannot be conceded that the goddesses offered Paris bribes; nor that an arbitrator worthy of divine approval would have been open to bribery. Secondly, the adjudication in favour of Aphrodite makes it implausible to suppose that Paris was influenced by the alleged bribes. Hera promised mastery of all Asia—an offer which might well have appealed to a prince of Troy; Athene promised to make him invincible in batde—an offer which might have appealed to a young warrior; Aphrodite promised him a single mortal woman—but what inducement was that for a man who was already the lover of the goddess Oenone? Thirdly, Aphrodite was half-sister to Helen (daughter of Zeus and Leda); it is neither plausible nor proper to suppose that she would embroil her own sister in immorality and scandal. But it is entirely credible that she would have been offended by the relationship with Menelaus (a man polluted by his family's terrible history) and that she would have wished (with her father's approval) to sever that connection and bring about Helen's marriage to someone more worthy—someone whose virtue was so outstanding that he had been chosen to arbitrate between the goddesses. Taken in this way, the story is wholly consistent; the original version makes no sense at all. So much for our refutation of the story of Paris. We may note that the student has learned a number of useful techniques in the course of this exercise. Most obviously, it offers practice in the critical analysis of narrative; this is an important skill in the handling of (in particular) judicial speeches, in which it is often necessary to cast doubt on the opponent's account of events. Secondly, the exercise accustoms the student to the handling of a prescribed formal structure, with a prologue, narrative and argument. The internal organization of the argument is determined by the order of events in the story. In fact, the student is offered two alternative models for organizing his material: Aphthonius illustrates refutation by telling the story as a whole and then giving the criticisms en masse; his confirmation

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tells the same story piecemeal and defends each step of the story before moving on to the next. 15 Thirdly, the exercise introduces the student to the use of topics (τόποι); these are not arguments but (literally) "places" where we can look for arguments. The topics of refutation are the criteria already stated—clarity, plausibility, possibility, consistency, propriety and expediency; each stage of the story can be tested to see whether it is faulty in respect of any of these qualities. We shall see in due course that the use of topics as a guide and stimulus to invention is a fundamental rhetorical technique. In confirmation and refutation the student seeks to demonstrate a conclusion. But demonstration is only one of the key abilities that an aspiring orator must acquire; he also needs a mastery of amplification (αΰξησις), a term which designates the techniques used to increase the perceived importance of some fact that is taken as given. 16 For example, a prosecutor may wish to show that the defendant is guilty of murder; but he will also wish to awaken and reinforce the jury's sense that murder is a terrible crime which deserves to be treated with the utmost severity. Amplification, too, was included in the programme of elementary exercises. In the exercise called common topic (κοινός τόπος), for example, the student was trained to elaborate on generalizations applicable to any instance of a given category; later on the student would be taught to incorporate common topics into the epilogue of speeches and declamations in order to incite the jury against the person just shown to be a murderer, adulterer, tyrant or whatever the case requires. Another exercise in amplification was encomium (έγκώμιον), in which the student takes as given the good qualities attributed to a particular person and seeks to exhibit them in a way which will excite or increase the audience's admiration. The subject of encomium was not always a person; a place or an abstract quality such as courage might also be prescribed. But praise of a person was the standard form, and the topics of encomium were accordingly designed to provide a comprehensive basis for the assessment of personal attributes. This means that they have an application beyond the exercise of encomium itself; whenever an argument based on person is needed

15

For these two patterns see Arist. Rh. 1416bl6-26; Rh. Al. 1438b 14-29; Cic. Irw. 1:30; Alexander son of Numenius ap. Anon. Seg. 129-33. 16 Amplification: e.g. Rhet. ad Her. 2:47-49; Cic. Inv. 1:100-105, Part. 52-53; Quint. Inst. 8:4. Cf. Martin, Antike Rhetorik, pp. 153-58.

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the topics of encomium can be used as a guide to invention. Different handbooks give somewhat different lists of encomiastic topics; but the range of variation is limited. 17 Standard doctrine would include the subject's origin (nationality, citizenship, ancestry and parentage); birth (were there, for example, striking indications of divine favour?), nurture and education; chosen life-style (επιτηδεύματα); achievements, illustrating qualities of soul (especially the cardinal virtues: piety, courage, justice and wisdom) and of body (beauty, strength) and the possession of external goods (friends, wealth, influence). Encomium too has a simple formal structure. In refutation the topics are applied in a sequence determined by the order of events in the story; in encomium the topics follow a set order, framed by a prologue and epilogue. An additional element in this structure, placed before the epilogue, is a comparison (σύγκρισις) designed to enhance the amplification. Indeed, comparison is such an important technique for amplification that it formed an exercise in its own right; after practising encomium and its counterpart invective (ψόγος), the student would be required in comparison to amplify the excellence of one person by exhibiting his superiority to others who might be thought his equals, or his equality to some acknowledged paragon. 18 In an encomium of Paris we might make his dubious reputation the basis for our prologue. We should take care not to offer an explicitly argued defence of Paris; encomium is an exercise in amplification, not in argumentation. 19 But we might remark, in anticipation of our praise, that his qualities are so outstanding as to silence even the sustained malicious criticism to which he has been exposed. Turning to his origin, we will point out that he was a prince of Troy, a city founded by gods. He was descended from Zeus through his ancestor Dardanus; and his father Priam had raised Troy from the depths of misfortune after its sack by Heracles and had made it 17

This summary draws on Aphth. Prog. 21:20-22:11; [Hermog.] Prog. 15:18-17:4; Men.Rh. 420:10-31 Spengel; cf. Quint. Inst. 5:10:23-31. Hermog. Stat. 46:8-24 illustrates the use of the topics of encomium in judicial argument about motive. See further T. C. Burgess, Epideictic literature (Chicago Studies in Classical Philology, 3; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902), pp. 119-27; D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson, Menander Rhetor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. xxv-xxix. 18 Aphth. Prog. 31:6-32; [Hermog.] Prog. 18:15-20:5. Cf. Men.Rh. 372:21-25, 377:2-9 etc. 19 For the contrast between encomium and apologia see Theon Prog. 112:8-13 Spengel (quoting Isocr. Helen [10] 14). Cf. Nicol. Prog. 53:6-19 Feiten; Quint. Inst. 3:7:6.

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the head of an empire so powerful that it could withstand the united efforts of all Greece for ten years. Anyone who doubts the nobility of his birth need only look at his brother Hector, whose piety and martial prowess are conceded even by Homer, though he (as a Greek poet) was a hostile witness and prone to slander Trojans. As to his birth, we will not wish to give weight to the omen which prompted his parents to expose him as an infant; we will try instead to turn its sequel to our advantage. We could say that, although his parents took fright over a dream which his mother had in the stress of pregnancy, nevertheless divine providence took care of him, ensuring that he was suckled by a she-bear. A shepherd, seeing in this miracle a sign of the gods' favour, was moved by piety and compassion to take up the child and rear him as his own. There can be no doubt that this pious and compassionate fosterfather would have taken pains to teach the child his own reverence for the gods and for justice. Moreover, although Paris did not enjoy the advantage of being reared in an imperial court like his brothers, he triumphed over adversity and gave ever clearer proofs of his innate qualities as he grew to maturity. His courage and strength were shown when he routed a band of catde-raiders. The name Alexander ("defender") was given to honour this victory; thus he became by right of battle what he was by right of birth—an honoured leader and protector of his people. In the end the status accorded to him by popular acclaim was recognized at court as well. Paris proved himself in competition against his brothers; they had trained in athletics all their lives but he, relying on innate excellence alone, outdid all of them in the games. In this way he was acknowledged as the king's son. Turning to his physical person, everyone concedes that he surpassed other men in beauty—beauty radiant enough to win the love of a goddess. But he was not an effeminate weakling; raised in country ways, he proved himself as a fighter and as an athlete he was victorious over the strongest and swiftest of his peers. Physical strength was combined with strength of character. Hector paid tribute to his bravery when he said, "No one in all fairness could belittle your success in battle, as you are a brave fighter" (II. 6:521-22)—and Hector said this when he was angry with his brother, and might well have tried to belittle his qualities. Events confirmed Hector's words: it was Paris who avenged his brother's death, killing the strongest and bravest of the Greeks. Divine testimony concurs.

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When a dispute arose between the three goddesses Paris was chosen to judge between them. Zeus would not have entrusted his own wife's honour to the judgment of someone dishonest or foolish; so this appointment provides compelling testimony to Paris's wisdom and integrity. So does the way in which he discharged the commission. Faced with such a task an ordinary person would have been overwhelmed with terror and confusion; Paris calmly made a true judgment without fear or favour. Each of the goddesses is due primacy of honour in her own sphere: Hera is the most regal, Athene is the most martial; but Paris was charged with awarding the prize to the most beautiful, and this is what he did. T o whom, then, should we compare Paris? Achilles, too, was beautiful—indeed, he boasted of his beauty (II. 21:108); he was also a great warrior. But Paris was the greater: he never put on girl's clothes to evade military service, as Achilles did; nor did Achilles display self-control and wisdom such that he was chosen to judge divine disputes. And on the field of battle, it was Paris who prevailed. So we should pay no attention to the voice of malice and envy, but recognize and strive to emulate the virtues of Paris, whose excellence we have only begun to describe. I could tell you too how leading a small fleet of fugitives he captured the flourishing city of Sidon, and how . . .—but the subject is inexhaustible, and space is limited. We should now return to our main theme, and proceed further with its preliminary analysis. First, then, to which class (είδος) should we assign it? The question is ambiguous. In one sense "class" may refer to the familiar classification of rhetorical themes according to their context and function as judicial, deliberative or epideictic.20 In this sense, the theme is clearly deliberative; it is addressed to the Trojans taking counsel about their future actions with respect to Helen. However, the need to defend Paris against the accusation that he has eloped with Menelaus's wife gives the theme a quasi-judicial element as well; we shall consider the implications of this more closely in due course. Another, less familiar, sense of "class" in ancient rhetoric categorized themes according to the dominant means of persuasion. A speaker typically wishes to persuade his audience that something is the case; to this end, rational argument may be employed. However, rhetorical persuasion looks for more than an abstract assent; some 20

E.g. Arist. Rh. 1358a36-b8; Rhet. ad Her. 1:2; Cic. Inv. 1:7; Quint. Inst. 3:4.

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action is expected of the audience (even if it is only the casting of a vote). If the speaker wishes to incite his audience to an acdve response, he may seek to arouse their emotions. But the audience is more likely to be receptive to rational or emotional appeal if they regard the speaker with confidence and goodwill; to this end, the projection of an attractive and trustworthy character will be useful. So we have three basic means of persuasion: argument, emotion and character. 21 The extent to which we draw on each of these will depend on the nature of the case, and a different balance between them will imply a different approach to invention. It may therefore be helpful to distinguish themes of the "practical" (πραγματικόν) class, which invite a treatment oriented primarily towards objective facts and therefore dependent largely on the resource of argument, from themes which invite a treatment based primarily on character or on emotion. 22 The situation premised in our theme has some scope for emodve rhetoric, firing the Trojan sense of indignation at the presence of a hostile army in their territory; but it would be out of keeping with the character of our speaker to rely too heavily on emotional appeal. O n the other hand, although the speaker's character will add weight to his advocacy of war, that is no more than a subsidiary to the speech's main persuasive effort. Reasoned argument is needed if we are to refute the charge against Paris, and to show that the war can be won and that fighting the war will best serve Trojan interests. So our theme is of the practical class; it will emphasize rational argument, making moderate and restrained use of emotional appeal. A further principle of classification is mode (τρόπος). Mode categorizes themes according to the opportunities and difficulties they present to the speaker in managing the relationship with his audience. Ideally one would wish to speak to a theme that is honourable, weighty, plausible and readily intelligible; in other modes, where the subject 21 On the three means of persuasion see Arist. Rh. 1356al-*20; D.H. Lys. 19 (30:2131:2 Usener-Radermacher); Quint. Inst. 5:8:3; Anon. Seg. 198; Minucianus 340:6-7 Spengel-Hammer. A binary classification (as practical or emotional) is found in Cic. Brut. 89; Quint. Inst. 6:1:1; Anon. Seg. 203; RG, IV, p. 417:12-26 Walz. On the orator's three tasks: Cic. De or. 2:115, Brut. 185; Quint. Inst. 3:5:2. Cf. W . W . Fortenbaugh, "Benevolentiam conciliare and animos permovere", Rhetorica 6 (1988), pp. 25973; Wisse, Ethos and Pathos. 22 Class is variously treated by Zeno ap. Sulp. Vict. 316:3-22; Syrian. 2:42:1143:23; RG, IV, pp. 182:8-183:14, 190:12-18; VII, p. 165:17-24; Fortunatianus 88-89 Halm. Hermog. Stat. 34:16-35:14 rejects this concept of class and that of mode (n. 23) on the implausible grounds that it has implications only for the style of the composition.

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has a discreditable aspect or is in some respect trivial or paradoxical or hard to follow, additional care must be taken (especially at the beginning of the speech) to make the audience sympathetic and attentive. 23 In our present theme we have a distinguished speaker defending a person and act of questionable repute; the mode is therefore ambiguous (άμφίδοξον). Theory suggests that we will need to work harder, in the prologue especially, to secure the audience's goodwill in this mode; and we must introduce the creditable part of the theme before its discreditable aspects.24 By far the most important step in the analysis is to identify the stasis or issue (στάσις, constitutif), status) of the theme. This would not be necessary in preparing an epideictic speech. The correct treatment of epideictic themes can be grasped quite easily; there is a limited range of social occasions which may call for a formal honorific address, and the basic pattern of encomium can be adapted readily to suit each type of occasion. 25 But forensic and deliberative oratory are more complex. Superficially similar situations may have an utterly different underlying logical structure; for example, an accusation of murder in which the facts are contested will need to be handled in a very different way from an accusation of murder countered by a claim of justification. The theory of stasis seeks to classify themes according to the underlying nature of the dispute. T h e most influential contributor to j/ajù-theory in the early Hellenistic period was Hermagoras of Temnos. 26 Hermagoras distinguished between logical and legal disputes; the latter, turning on the interpretation of a law, will, contract or other document with legal force, fall outside the scope of the system. Stasis applies only to logical 23 For various treatments of mode see Cic. Inv. 1:20-21; Rhet. ad Her. 1:5; Quint. Inst. 4:1:40-41; Zeno αρ. Sulp. Vict. 316:23-317:31; RG, IV, pp. 188:6-189:29; [Augustine] 147:18-151:4 (= Hermagoras fr. 23a); Fortunatianus 109:2-10 (using the term σχήμα). 24 See Cic. Inv. 1:21; Rhet. ad Her. 1:6; Quint. Inst. 4:1:41; Sulp. Vict. 317:7-14. 25 Examples of model adaptations can be found in the treatises on epideictic attributed to Menander of Laodicea; text, trans, and commentary in RussellWilson, Menander Rhetor. 26 D. Matthes, "Hermagoras von Temnos", Ijistrum 3 (1958), pp. 58-214; fragments D. Matthes (Leipzig: Teubner, 1962). The roots of the theory are much older: see Rh. Al. 1427a23-30; Arist. Rh. 1373b38-4al7, 1417b21-27 (with Quint. Inst. 3:6:49); cf. W. N. Thompson, "Stasis in Aristotle's Rhetoric", Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972), pp. 134-41 = Κ. V. Erickson (ed.), Aristotle: The Classical Heritage of Rhetoric (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1974), pp. 266-77.

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disputes—that is, to those concerned with aspects of the facts. These disputes might be concerned with the fact itself (the stasis of conjecture: did this man cause his colleague's death?), or with the categorization of acknowledged facts (definition: is it murder if one knowingly subjects an unstable colleague to a degree of stress sufficient to induce his suicide?), or with their evaluation (quality: was it justifiable to induce the colleague's suicide in the given circumstances?). Alternatively (a controversial addition to the system) the defence might contest the procedural validity of the prosecution. 27 For Hermagoras stasis was one key component in a more elaborate diagnostic apparatus. 28 Take the case of Orestes. He is charged with matricide and claims justification; so the question (ζήτημα) arises, whether Orestes was justified in killing his mother. The stasis of the case is therefore quality; the facts and their categorization are agreed, but the two parties contest their evaluation. We must next ask the grounds on which the defence claims justification (the αϊτιον); in this case, it is the fact that Orestes' mother had killed his father. T h e prosecution, while accepting that this was a crime which deserved to be punished, denies that it warranted matricide; Clytaemnestra deserved to die, but it was not for her son to kill her. So it is now possible to define with precision the point to be decided by the jury (the κρινόμενον): was the fact that Clytaemnestra had killed his father sufficient to justify Orestes in killing his own mother? Knowing the point on which the dispute will be decided we can try to identify the crucial line of argument (the συνέχον) for the defence, and the two parties can set to work to confirm or undermine that crucial argument. This elaborate apparatus was not free of internal tensions and practical problems, and it subsequently underwent a complex evolution.29 By the second century AD its main terms had been redeployed; now a charge (αϊτιον: Orestes killed his mother) is countered by the

27

For this innovation and its critics see Cic. Inv. 1:16; Quint. Inst. 3:6:60. This account is based on Cic. Inv. 1:18-19; cf. Quint. Inst. 3:6:56-61. Not all scholars accept that Cicero gives an accurate account of Hermagoras's theory; for discussion see M. Heath, "The Substructure of Starts-theory from Hermagoras to Hermogenes", CQ_ 44 (1994), pp. 114-29, esp. 115-21. 29 On the subsequent history of Hermagoras's diagnostic model see Heath, "Substructure". For a variety of theories of stasis see Rhet. ad Her. 1:18-27, 2:2-26; Cic. Inv. 1:10-19, 2:12-end, De or. 1:139-40, 2:104-13, Part. 98-108, Top. 93-96; Quint. Inst. 3:6 (with J. Adamietz ad toe.), 7:2-10. Cf. R. Nadeau, "Classical Systems of Stases in Greek: Hermagoras to Hermogenes", GRBS 2 (1959), pp. 53-71; E. Holtsmark, "Quintilian on Status: A Progymnasma", Hermes 96 (1968), pp. 356-68. 28

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crucial argument of the defence (συνέχον: the killing was justified because she had killed his father); and these give rise to the point for adjudication (κρινόμενον: was the killing justified?). This simplified system was of little practical use; Hermogenes tacitly abandons it. By way of compensation, theorists had by now developed detailed and extremely sophisticated analyses of the most effective strategy for handling each kind of dispute. T h e division (διαίρεσις) of a stasis into its constituent heads of argument (κεφάλαια) provided the speaker with a ready-made outline of his case.30 T h e division defines an appropriately ordered series of steps which the speaker may follow in developing his argument; the speaker's task is to give the argument concrete form by relating its abstractly formulated heads to the particular circumstances of the case in hand. T h e overall articulation of 5toiy-theory had also changed by this date. T h e distinction between logical and legal disputes had been absorbed into the system; this, together with the promotion of what had previously been subdivisions of the stasis of quality, created the thirteen-iiayw system which enjoyed canonical status in later antiquity. In this system, a dispute may be concerned with fact, definition or quality. Qualitative disputes may be logical (turning on the evaluation of facts) or legal (turning on the interpretation of a document). Logical disputes may be concerned with the evaluation of past or future actions. If they are concerned with past actions, the dispute is juridical. In these cases it may be maintained that the act in question was legitimate per se; or, conceding its prima facie illegitimacy, it may be argued that it was justifiable, or at least excusable, in the given circumstances—because of its beneficial consequences, because the victim deserved it, because a third party was responsible, or because of other mitigating factors. Logical disputes concerned with the evaluation of future actions are practical (a stasis which corresponds roughly to the deliberative class). Legal disputes may turn on a conflict between the literal meaning of a document and its spirit; on the extension of a document's application to cases which it does not explicitly cover; on a conflict between two laws; or on an ambi-

30 It is important to note that the same term may designate both a head and a stasis; e.g. άντίληψις (asserting that an act is legitimate per se) is the decisive head in the division of the stasis to which it gives its name, but also plays a supporting role in several other staseis. The division of each stasis is a different selection and arrangement of items drawn from a limited pool of possible arguments.

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guity in the construction of a single law. Finally, the defence may contest the validity of the proceedings. Thus we have the thirteenstasis system: conjecture (στοχασμός); definition (ορος); counterplea (άντίληψις); the four kinds of counterposition (άντίθεσις)—that is, counterstatement (άντίστασις), counteraccusation (άντέγκλημα), transference (μετάστασις), and mitigation (συγγνώμη); the practical stasis (πραγματική); the four legal staseis—that is, letter and intent (ρητόν και διάνοια), assimilation (συλλογισμός), conflict of law (άντινομία), and ambiguity (άμφιβολία); objection (μετάληψις). Each of these was furnished with a division indicating the most effective strategy for that kind of dispute.31 Our present theme is concerned with whether or not the Trojans should return Helen; so it seeks to make a qualitative assessment of a future act and falls under the practical stasis. This will give us a key to the handling of the argument at the next level of analysis.

II.

M A P P I N G OUT THE

CASE

A. Prologue The prologue's primary function is to establish the desired relationship with one's audience; this is generally held to entail rendering them attentive, receptive and well-disposed.32 T o this end the speaker may exploit favourable aspects of the theme, or seek to disarm unfavourable ones. There are generally held to be four topics from which appropriate material may be derived: the speaker, the opponent, the audience, and the subject-matter. Where the speaker is an advocate (as we have seen, Antenor must function in part as an advocate for Paris) both the speaker and the person on whose behalf he speaks may provide material for the prologue. The prologue is usually conceived in our period as composed of a number of distinct

31

Details of Hermogenes' divisions are given in Heath, Hermogenes; for brief expositions of Jtaîtî-theory in this period see D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 40-73; Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric, pp. 73-86; for a more extensive collection of material see L. Calboli Montefusco, La dottrina degli status nella retorica greca e romana (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1986). 32 On the prologue: Cic. Inv. 1:20-26; Rhet. ad Her. 1:6-8; Quint. Inst. 4:1; Anon. Seg. 1-39; Aps. Rh. 217:2-242:11; [Hermog.] Inv. 93:4-108:17.

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units, or proems, each based on a different topic or a different application of a topic. Some rhetoricians set a limit at three proems, although this was not universally accepted. 33 In the present case the subject-matter offers a weighty opening: we are concerned with war and peace, and hence with the security of the homeland. Our earlier comments on the theme's ambiguous mode indicate that we will wish to highlight Antenor himself in order to stake a claim on the audience's attention; Paris should be kept in the background until we are ready to mount an explicit defence of his conduct. We noted also that the ambiguous theme puts a premium on winning the audience's goodwill; our opponents' shortcomings are worthy of consideration in this connection, since odium raised against them may contribute to goodwill towards us.34 Odysseus's eloquence is a source of suspicion, and the mismatch between the Greeks' conciliatory words and the aggression apparent in their behaviour (sending an army first, envoys second) may fuel a hostile response. But we must bear in mind Antenor's character, and avoid launching an overt attack on the opposition; any criticism should be "figured" (έσχηματισμένος)—that is, conveyed obliquely under the guise of saying something else.35 Having identified promising topics for the prologue, we must find a way to articulate them in more detail. One approach is to generate each proem from a simple underlying scheme: a proposition (πρότασις) is advanced together with a supporting argument (κατασκευή), and a conclusion (συμπέρασμα) is derived from them. 36 Since the prologue's function is to manage our relationship with the audience, the conclusion is in effect a cue to guide the audience's response to what they are going to hear. 37 Thus the three topics we have identified could be worked out along these lines: 33

See the conflicting views in the scholia to D. 18:8, 12 (27a d, 31 b e , 43a); [D.H.] Rh. 368:4-6 Usener-Radermacher; Men.Rh. 369:13-16. 34 Cic. Inv. 1:22; Rhet. ad Her. 1:8. 35 On figured speech see Quint. Inst. 9:2:67-98; [Hermog.] Inv. 204:16-210:8; [D.H.] Rh. 295-385, with K. Schöpsdau, "Untersuchungen zur Anlage und Entstehung der beiden Pseudodionysianischen Traktate περί έσχηματισμένων", RhM 118 (1975), pp. 83-123. Cf. J. Penndorff, "De sermone figurato quaestio rhetorica", Leipziger Studien zur classischen Philologie 20 (1902), pp. 169-94. 36 This three-colon analysis is common in the scholia to Demosthenes (e.g. 24:5 [18a]) and Aeschines (e.g. 1:3 [8, 9 and 13 Dilts]). 37 Hence the term άξίωσις (also άπόδοσις) is used for συμπέρασμα in [Hermog.] Inv. 106:15-108:17 (cf. RG, VII, pp. 68:18-70:9). In this scheme the proem can be completed, when a panegyrical effect is sought, by a fourth colon (βάσις), which

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[1st proem, based on subject] T h e question we are discussing is one of the utmost importance (πρότασις): the security of our homeland is at stake (κατασκευή). So (συμπέρασμα) we should not give way to anger if anything that the Greeks have said or done seems offensive, but deliberate calmly and carefully whether to accede to their request and return Helen. [2nd proem, based on speaker] I have some claim to know what I am talking about (πρότασις), since I have lived a long time and know about peace and war from experience (κατασκευή). I would therefore ask you (συμπέρασμα) to pay attention to what I say, however much I fall short of my guests in eloquence. [3rd proem, based on opponents] Odysseus's reputation as a speaker has gone before him; but Menelaus is especially to be congratulated for his eloquence (πρότασις)—no one else could have persuaded me that the arrival of a foreign army in our territory was not a hostile act (κατασκευή). We must therefore (συμπέρασμα) examine what has been said with great care, seeking what is in the best interests of our country, with due regard to the demands of justice and honour. We may note in passing that a brief προκατασκευή has been included at the end of the final topic, foreshadowing what will prove to be the main heads of argument. 38

B. Nanatwe After the prologue in the standard structure of a speech comes narrative.39 But do we need to narrate? Most ancient rhetoricians agreed that the narrative was not needed in all cases;40 indeed, the only

cites the underlying facts of the theme as the grounds of the άξίωσις; thus the first proem below might end: ". . . So (άξίωσις) we should not give way to anger if anything that the Greeks have said or done seems offensive, but deliberate calmly and carefully whether to accede to their request and return Helen, whom (βάσις) they claim Paris has stolen from her lawful husband". 38 On the προκατασκευή (also πρόθεσις, propositio): Anon. Seg. 161-68; [Hermog.] Inv. 126:16-131:24; Quint. Inst. 4:4:1. Normally it would come after the narrative, but the position is variable. 39 On the narrative: Cic. Inv. 1:27-30; Rhet. ad Her. 1:12-16; Quint. Inst. 4:2; Anon. Seg. 40-142; Aps. Rh. 249:15-260:16; [Hermog.] Inv. 119:20-125:21. 40 Arist. Rh. 1416b 16-17b20; Cic. Inv. 1:30, De or. 2:330; Aps. Rh. 250:12-16; Anon. Seg. 113-20; Quint. Inst. 4:2:4-8.

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indispensable part of a speech is argument. 41 Some held that narrative was unnecessary in deliberative oratory, since the facts would be known to the audience in advance. 42 This can hardly be regarded as a universal rule; and we must remember that our theme has a quasijudicial aspect (defending Paris's behaviour) as well as a deliberative one. In Libanius's declamation Menelaus does narrate, as does Paris in the anonymous reply. But Menelaus and Paris were direct participants in the events; in our theme Antenor is in no better position to know the facts than are most of his audience, and facts generally known to the audience do not need to be narrated. So the present case does conform to the principle that narrative is dispensable in a deliberative speech. C. Argument It is in the argument that itam-theory proves its worth. As we have seen, the division of each stasis into heads provides an outline strategy for handling a dispute of that kind. The practical stasis is divided according to the heads of purpose (τελικά κεφάλαια). These are a checklist of the criteria by which an action can be assessed. There were various versions of this list; a basic one would have us ask whether the action proposed is legal, just, advantageous, feasible and honourable. 43 But we should not apply this list mechanically. A division is not to be seen as a rigid prescription; it offers a framework to guide and stimulate invention, but the speaker must also exercise judgment in selecting the heads relevant to the particular theme in hand. 44 In our present theme, for example, there is no question of law (or of its unwritten counterpart, custom) at issue; but justice, advantage, feasibility and honour will all feature. The head of justice is necessary if we are to have any effective response to the main thrust of our opponents' argument. If Helen was and is Menelaus's legitimate wife, justice would demand acquiescence in the Greek request for her return; the refusal of this request 41

Quint. Inst. 5 praef. 5. Anon. Seg. 26-36, 113-28, criticizes the school of Apollodorus for its insistence on rigid adherence to the standard structure of a speech (cf. Sen. Con. 2:1:36). 42 [D.H.] Rh. 369:20-24; cf. Arist. Rh. 1417bl2-20; Quint. Inst. 3:8:10-11. 43 Hermog. Stat. 76:3-79:16; Aps. Rh. 291:3-296:12; [D.H.] Rh. 370:20-371:1. 44 On the exercise of judgment see Hermog. Stat. 30:3-9, 44:1-20, 78:10-21; [D.H.] Rh. 363:11-20; Quint. Inst. 2:13:2; and cf. η. 51.

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would be a manifest injustice. It is here, therefore, that the quasijudicial aspect of the theme comes into play; nested within the practical stasis there will be a subordinate juridical stasis determined by the defence which we elect to offer on Paris's behalf. 45 In Libanius the ambassadors anticipate two distinct lines of juridical argument. One is a counterplea (άντίληψις): Paris might claim that it was legitimate to plunder Menelaus, who was an enemy (Deel. 3:18-22). As theory requires, 46 Menelaus counters this argument with an objection (μετάληψις), a head which concedes the general principle but maintains that the circumstances of the act in question remove it from that principle's scope. Here it is the manner of Paris's plundering of Menelaus which explodes the defence; to accept and betray hospitality is not a proper way of prosecuting enmity. T h e second defence, anticipated by Odysseus, is a counteraccusation (άντέγκλημα): the Greeks began the sequence of abductions with Europa and Medea (Deel. 4:20-35). Our earlier examination of the story of Paris suggests a more radical line of defence: we shall deny the truth of the Greek account of what happened. The dispute will then be one of fact, and the stasis conjecture. 47 A model argumentative strategy for handling conjectural cases can be found in the division set out by theorists like Hermogenes. 48 T h e defence may begin by protesting against the validity of the proceedings (παραγραφικόν). This is a skirmishing tactic, designed only to sow doubts in the jury's mind; if there were substantive grounds for a formal challenge to proceedings they would have to be argued out in detail and the case would be treated under a different stasis, μετάληψις. The argument proper begins with an examination of the witnesses (έλέγχων άπαίτησις); if there are witnesses (or other forms of

45

Hermog. Stat. 77:3-5; RG, VII, pp. 781:8-782:18. Hermog. Stat. 48:10-14. 47 Strictly, the stasis is the species of conjecture known as incident conjecture (έμπίπτων στοχασμός), on which see Hermog. Stat. 56:24—57:11. The innocent gloss which the defence will place on Paris's behaviour rests on factual claims concerning the status of Helen which the other party would dispute; so a subsidiary conjectural question arises at this point. In a properly judicial theme this incident conjectural question would need to be argued out as well; since our "jury" is well-disposed and the opposition will not have a chance to dispute the claims, we can perhaps safely pass it over. 48 Hermog. Stat. 43:16-53:13; cf. Zeno ap. Sulp. Vict. 325:19-327:7. For less developed treatments of conjecture cf. Cic. Inv. 2:14-51; Rhet. ad Her. 2:3-12; Quint. Inst. 7:2:27-50. 46

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non-technical proof) 49 the defence will have to undermine their credit; if there are not, their absence can be exploited to cast doubt on the accusation. Then, to determine the intrinsic likelihood of the alleged crime, the defendant's motive (βούλησις) and capacity (δύναμις) are examined. T h e prosecution will also analyse the sequence of events (τα άπ' αρχής άχρι τέλους), trying to show how the undisputed facts in the case cohere with and uphold the disputed claim that the defendant committed the alleged crime. The defendant (applying, perhaps, the skills practised in refutation) will try to rebut this analysis and pick holes in the prosecution's construction of events. He also has a series of arguments concerning the undisputed facts which have been adduced as signs of his guilt: he will maintain that they are innocent in themselves (a counterplea, or άντίληψις, to which as we have seen the prosecution will respond with an objection, or μετάληψις); that they are open to an explanation which does not imply the alleged crime (a transposition of cause, μετάθεσις της αιτίας); and that so far from implying it they point in quite the other direction—had he been guilty, he would certainly not have drawn suspicion on himself by acting in that way (a persuasive defence, πιθανή άπολογία). Once the argument has been completed, the speaker will take the qualities of the individuals involved in the case and consider them in general terms (common quality, or κοινή ποιότης), using common topics to stir up helpful emotions such as indignation or (for the defence) pity; this is part of the epilogue, or at least leads into it.50 Again, we must exercise judgment in applying the division. Not all of the heads are relevant to the defence of Paris. There is no doubt that he had the capacity to run away with Helen. Moreover, none of the overt and agreed facts would have been different had he done so; so we cannot use a persuasive defence to invert the signs of guilt alleged by the prosecution and make them into signs of the defendant's innocence. Hermogenes suggests a weaker substitute, in which it is argued that the facts are "not convertible": if he were guilty he would have done this, but his doing this does not entail his guilt. But the substitution would not greatly strengthen our case. Common quality,

49

For the contrast between technical and non-technical proofs (εμτεχνοι and ατεχνοι, often rendered "artificial" and "inartificial") see (e.g.) Arist. Rh. 1355b35-40; Quint. Inst. 5:1; Anon. Seg. 188-91; Aps. Rh. 260:18-261:15. 50 For the theoretical debate on this point see RG, IV, pp. 536:23-537:10, 542:1921; VII, pp. 442:11-443:14, 446:20-448:4.

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which is (or is interwoven with) the epilogue, is also superfluous in what is only one part of a larger argument. T h e order, as well as the selection, of heads needs to be considered. Theory seeks to formulate in the division the natural order— that is, the way of conducting the argument that is best in principle; but it is recognized that the constraints of a particular situation will sometimes make a departure from the norm advantageous in practice.51 It is particularly relevant to note here that a variety of opinion existed about the proper position of the counterplea. Hermogenes' order allows the defence to approach a climactic assertion by way of an effectively controlled escalation: the acts in question are not illegal; they have an innocent explanation; indeed they refute the allegation based on them. But some rhetoricians thought it better to place the counterplea after the transposition of cause, since it might seem provocative to claim the freedom to perform allegedly incriminating acts before it has been shown that they are susceptible to an innocent explanation. 52 In the present case this view has some force; the acknowledged facts are on the face of it so scandalous as to demand careful preparatory treatment. But our argument under the head of justice is still only an abstract template; we have yet to see how it can be given concrete form. The use of topics to guide invention was introduced earlier; this technique will now help us to begin putting flesh on our case. At this stage we only need a very basic list of topics, the elements of circumstance (περιστατικά): person, act, time, place, manner and cause. 53 Thus the παραγραφικόν, which claims that the Greeks are acting unjusdy in bringing their accusation against Paris, can be stated in terms of person: the Greeks are acting both as accusers and as jury, which is unjust. Time, too, is relevant: the Greeks, who have

51 On natural order (τάξις) and artificial order, or economy (οικονομία), see Rhet. ad Her. 3:16-17; Cic. De or. 2:307-309; Quint. Inst. 3:3:8, 7:10:11-13; Zeno ap. Sulp. Vict. 320:9-20. 52 For this dispute see RG, IV, pp. 313:20-314:13, 373:29-374:10; V, pp. 121:24122:12; VII, pp. 257:16-22, 299:20-301:5, 315:10-19; Zeno (ap. Sulp. Vict. 325:27, 326:30-32) places counterplea first, but says that it is not always used. 53 For circumstance in general see Quint. Inst. 5:10:32-52, cf. 3:5:17-18; [Augusdne] 141:8-142:14 (= Hermagoras fr. 7); Hermog. Stat. 42:22-43:3, 45:20-46:3, 47:9-11. For this application see [Hermog.] Inv. 140:10-147:15 (we will return to the larger context of this passage below: n. 66); cf. (e.g.) RG, IV, p. 316:2-23, V, pp. 123:6-124:10, correcting Hermogenes' less comprehensive account of the possible grounds for a παραγραφικόν (Stat. 44:1-11).

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already put an army in the field and delivered an ultimatum without allowing Paris's defence to be heard, have prejudged the case. The demand for witnesses (έλεγχων άπαίτησις) can be argued out in terms of cause, act and person. The testimony of witnesses is needed because it provides a vital safeguard against malicious accusation and miscarriages of justice; in this case, above all, witnesses are needed to support the accusation in view of the seriousness of the charge and the unblemished record of the person accused. Since Menelaus has produced no witnesses we have only the accuser's assertions about what actually happened, and this is not enough; so we have to make our own assessment of the plausibility of the charge. This brings us to motive (βούλησις), which draws primarily on person: Paris's manifold virtues make crime abhorrent to him. Our encomium will provide material here; we might mention, for example, the innate virtue he inherits from his father Priam, the influence of his upbringing and the testimony to his integrity and good sense given by the gods in choosing him as judge. But act, manner, time, place and cause all reinforce the claim: it is impossible to believe that a person of Paris's good character committed a crime so unprincipled, in such a treacherous and underhand manner, above all when he was a guest in Menelaus's house. And what was the incitement which allegedly caused him to do this? A mortal woman: yet Paris had been the partner of a goddess. We may draw on our earlier sketch of a refutation of the story of Paris to undo the sequence of events (τα άπ' αρχής άχρι τέλους) alleged by the Greeks, and also to show that Paris's bringing Helen to Troy has an innocent explanation (μετάθεσις της αιτίας): when Aphrodite promised Helen to Paris she was acting in accordance with the will of Zeus, who wished to secure another marriage for his daughter (a display of tactful reluctance to explain why Zeus found fault with her existing husband will convey our opinion of Menelaus without descending to overt invective). The άντίληψις follows: Paris has done nothing wrong in bringing Helen to Troy. This argument is based on the person of Zeus: as Helen's father Zeus had the authority to give his daughter to anyone he chose.54 Having established the justice of our position, we move on to the other heads. The order in which we use them is for us to determine. The division of conjecture, as of most other staseis, establishes a natural 54

For the father's right see D. 41:4; Men. Epit. 655-60; pap. Didot I; Rhet. ad Her. 2:38.

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order for the heads through which the argument is to be pursued; but the order of the heads of purpose in the practical stasis is more fluid.55 In the present case, justice and feasibility are basic to our case; until it has been shown that jusdce does not require acquiescence in the Greek demands, and that it is possible to win the war that will ensue on a rejection of those demands, there is little to be gained from considering other points. So the next head after justice will be feasibility: can the war be won? At least four of the elements of circumstance bring to light considerations which make a Trojan victory likely. O u r vindication of Paris permits an argument based on cause: the Greeks do not have justice on their side; the Trojans, fighting to defend their homeland and justice, will be well-motivated and confident of divine support. T h a t the Trojans are fighting to defend their homeland permits an argument from place: the Trojans will always have a secure refuge; the Greeks must endure the privations of a prolonged siege in a precarious and uncomfortable encampment. The effect of this on their morale is important, in view of the argument from person: the Greeks are a reluctant army, compelled to go to war by oath; they are therefore poorly motivated. An argument based on time supports our case: they have come to Troy after the fiasco of their landing in Mysia; this is not a promising start to their campaign. Feasibility has here been handled directly; that is, this head will take the form of an assertion of the feasibility of resistance, together with supporting arguments based on a variety of circumstances. A common alternative technique is to use a hypothetical objection as a point of departure. A counterposition (άντίθεσις), which here means an argument attributed to the opposition, will introduce the head; the speaker's own contentions are then set out as a solution (λύσις) to the opponent's objection. 56 In the present case, the head of advantage could well arise as an άντίθεσις: although the war can be won, it is not in the Trojan interest

55

Different rhetoricians took different views on the best ordering principle (e.g. whether it is better to proceed from a stronger head to a weaker one or vice versa: RG, VII, p. 613:16-24; cf. Quint. Inst. 5:12:14). 56 άντίθεσις and λύσις: Aps. Rh. 260:18-279:17. [Hermog.] Inv. 133:24-136:19 uses the terms ύποφορά and άνθυποφορά; but the latter term is applied to a form of objection, midway between άντίθεσις and άντιπΐπτον (η. 67), in scholia on D. 1:14 (105c), 2:9 (64c), 3:34 (154b), 5:24 (37), 20:3 (14b) etc. This is a good example of the instability of rhetoric's technical terminology.

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to fight over a woman; the cost of compromise is negligible, and is far from counterbalancing the disadvantages of war. Here we must consider the different forms of λύσις available to us. The principal ones are ενστασις and άντιπαράστασις. 57 These are, respecdvely, an outright rejection of the opposing position, and a qualified acceptance combined with an attempt to show that the desired consequences do not follow; the two arguments can be combined, in either order. The use of άντιπαράστασις may seem problematic in the present context. Advantage is so much the basic point at issue in deliberative argument 58 that it goes against the grain to concede, even hypothetically, that the course of action we are proposing is disadvantageous. If we are to consider doing this a powerful counterweight is necessary. Another of the heads of purpose might suffice, since one head may appear as a solution to another. So honour provides a promising basis for the άντιπαράστασις; it would certainly be shameful to give way to threats of force when justice does not demand it. We will say, then, that even if it is true that the disadvantages of war outweigh the cost of acquiescence, it would be shameful to surrender. T h e ενστασις will follow. T o show that fighting the war is not disadvantageous we will have to argue that acquiescence in the Greek demands would risk graver consequences than the hardships entailed by war. O n e point to consider is the impact which a dishonourable display of weakness would have on the allies: they would lose confidence in the Trojans, and Troy's empire would begin to dissolve. There is a third kind of λύσις, the "forcible" argument (βίαιον);59 in this the opponent's point is turned back on itself, its apparent strength being exploited to our advantage. Here the disproportion to which the objector draws attention between the hardships of war and the triviality of its cause shows that the alleged cause is no more than a pretext; the Greeks are not so foolish as to embark on a war for no better reason than this. The very fact that this is not a sufficient reason for fighting a war proves that the Greeks have some other aim in threatening to start it; they are using the pretext of a just war 57

[Hermog.] Inv. 136:20-138:13; Hermog. Stat. 48:14-49:6, 76:17-77:2; Sopater RG, VIII, pp. 163:28-164:2; with a different terminology, Aps. Rh. 268:21-269:2. 58 Arist. Rh. 1358b20~29; Rhet. ad Her. 3:3; Cic. De or. 2:334; Quint. Inst. 3:4:14. 59 [Hermog.] Inv. 138:15-140:8; cf. the λύσις κατά περιτροπήν in Aps. Rh. 269:17— 270:3; Sopater RG, VIII, p. 132:7-8. The technique is associated especially with Demosthenes: see scholia on D. 1:21 (140c-d), 19:134 (291a), 21:103 (352), 21:114 (401).

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in the hope of intimidating the Trojans into a concession that will undermine the confidence of their allies and weaken their empire. Surrender would on this account be dangerous as well as disgraceful. Having mapped out the overall structure of the argument we must consider its articuladon at a more detailed level. T h e three-colon scheme which we used in the prologue also has an application in the argument. In the Rhetorica ad Herennium, drawing on an earlier Hellenistic Greek source, the form of rhetorical argument known as epicheireme (έπιχείρημα)60 is conceived as an elaboration of an underlying scheme comprising a premise (propositio or expositio), a supporting reason (ratio), and a conclusion drawn from the combination of the two (complexio). For example: Odysseus had a motive to kill Ajax (propositio): for he wanted to remove an enemy, whom he feared (ratio); so Odysseus, wanting to remove this threat, had a motive to kill Ajax (complexio).61 This pattern corresponds to the first of Quintilian's three patterns for the epicheireme. Quintilian's second pattern is a close variant; the complexio is not in this instance identical to the propositio, but it is effectively equivalent to it. For example: death means nothing to us; for what has been dissolved lacks sense; and what lacks sense means nothing to us.62 In mapping out the argument we proceeded from the abstract division of the stasis to a more concrete formulation in terms of the elements of circumstance. In doing this we were converting the underlying heads into potential epicheiremes. T h e άντίληψις which

60

Rhetorical terminology in this area is extremely inconsistent (Quint. Inst. 5:10: 1-7 illustrates the problem). The technical terms έπιχείρημα and ένθύμημα are applied in a bewildering variety of ways in different sources; a full survey of the variants would be lengthy and unilluminating. Cf. Martin, Antike Rhetorik, pp. 102106; W. Kroll, Dos Epicheirema (SB Vienna, 216.2; 1936); F. Solmsen, "The Aristotelian Tradition in Ancient Rhetoric", AJP 62 (1941), pp. 35-50, 169-90, esp. 169-78. 61 Rhet. ad Her. 2:27-30 (cf. 2:2 for the Greek term). In this illustration the author is working out the head of motive for a declamation theme (a case of conjecture) in which Odysseus is found next to Ajax's corpse holding a bloody sword and is charged with his murder: cf. Rhet. ad Her. 1:18, 1:27; Cic. Inv. 1:11, 1:92; Quint. Inst. 4:2: 13-14. 62 Quint. Inst. 5:14:10-11. The third pattern (living organisms are superior to inanimate objects; nothing is superior to the world; so the world is a living organism) is more like a syllogism, and corresponds to the model of the epicheireme in Cic. Irw. 1:57-61; but Quintilian notes (5:14:12) that it could be reformulated in accordance with the first pattern (the world is a living organism; for living organisms are superior to inanimate objects, and nothing is superior to the world; so the world is a living organism). Matthes, "Hermagoras", pp. 204-207 implausibly tries to assimilate the models found in Rhetorica ad Herennium and Cicero De Inventione.

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concluded the quasi-judicial defence of Paris will provide a simple illustration: Paris has done nothing wrong in bringing Helen to Troy (propositio); for Zeus undoubtedly had the authority to give his daughter to anyone he chose (ratio)·, so Paris is blameless (complexio). But these bare bones of an argument must be fleshed out further if they are to be placed before an audience with any hope of holding their attention and gaining their assent; a greater degree of elaboration is required. So the full structure of the epicheireme in the Rhetorica ad Herennium comprises five parts: the ratio is supported by additional considerations adduced to corroborate it (rationis confirmatio); this in turn is subjected to enrichment and embellishment (exomatio).63 Thus the ratio which establishes Odysseus's motive for killing Ajax—that he wished to remove an enemy—can be corroborated by reference to Odysseus's acute perception of the threat which Ajax posed to him, and by his proven readiness (as in the case of Palamedes) to take ruthless action to dispose of his enemies; this is the rationis confirmatio. T h e exomatio gives examples (avarice, the lust for power and so on) to illustrate the general principle that people are induced to commit crimes by the advantage they hope to gain; it makes a comparison between the upright and heroic Ajax and the devious and cowardly Odysseus to highlight the nature of their enmity (σύγκρισις, as we noted earlier, is a technique of amplification practised in the rhetorician's elementary training); and it concludes with imagery drawn from the behaviour of wild animals. None of these embellishments offer proof of Odysseus's motive in stricdy logical terms; but they help to make the speaker's point more vivid and compelling. This model can be applied to our άντίληψις. Paris has done nothing wrong in bringing Helen to Troy, for Zeus undoubtedly had the authority to give his daughter to anyone he chose; this is a right which any father may exercise over his daughter. If even human fathers have this right, the rights of the father of gods and men cannot be any less. Suppose that the god at Delphi were to order someone to divorce his wife and allow her to remarry; would anyone claim that the oracle should be ignored, or that the new husband should be prosecuted for receiving the god's gift? So Paris is blameless, and the accusation against him cannot be sustained.

63

The rationis confirmatio is essential (but from another point of view can be seen as part of the ratio: cf. Quint. Inst. 5:14:7-8); the exomatio and complexio can be omitted: Rhet. ad Her. 2:30.

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In this illustration the exomatio is based on an argument from lesser (human) to greater (divine), and on a hypothetical example.64 In finding corroborative arguments and embellishing them a richer store of topics than we used in determining the oudine of our argument will be helpful; in the exomatio, in particular, topics involving comparison are important. 65 A later theorist, whose model we followed earlier in converting heads into potential epicheiremes using the elements of circumstance, makes the comparative topics a distinguishing feature in the next stage of his multi-layered approach to the evolution of arguments. The abstract head yields an epicheireme through the application of the elements of circumstance; to the epicheireme is added a development (έργασία) which makes use of a comparison, an example, or an argument from the lesser, the greater, the equal or the opposite; the whole complex is then rounded off with an enthymeme (ένθυμημα), a pointed expression designed to highlight the thrust of the comparison. 66 We do not have space to demonstrate how every part of our argument could be worked out on this model, but we may return briefly to the head of feasibility as a final illustration. There is one further technical point to consider first. A speaker must always be alert to points which run contrary to his case (άντιπίπτοντα) and take care to disarm them. 67 Our preliminary analysis identified two points likely to make the Trojan audience anxious about the prospect of war, both of which constitute potential weaknesses in our argument for the likelihood of a Trojan victory. O n e is the knowledge that Troy has been sacked once before; the sense of vulnerability to which this gives rise might be disarmed by drawing a contrast between past and present. The other concern is the immense size of the Greek army; they outnumber the Trojans by more than ten to one (II. 2:119-30). The Trojan allies offset this numerical superiority in some measure 64

On arguments καθ'ύπόθεσιν see Quint. Inst. 5:10:95-99; Aps. Rh. 273:18-274:20; Ruf.Rh. 405:12-14, 405:28-406:5 Spengel-Hammer. 65 For fuller lists of topics see (e.g.) Arist. Rh. 2:23; Cic. Inv. 1:34-49, De or. 2:15373, Top.\ Quint. Inst. 5:10:20-99; Anon. Seg. 169-81; Minuc. 343-51. Cf. Martin, Antike Rhetorik, pp. 107-19. For συγκριτικοί τόποι see scholia on D. 24:112 (222), 24:204 (371b-c); Sopater RG, VIII, p. 88:13; cf. Quint. Inst. 5:10:86. 66 [Hermog.] Inv. 140:9-148:15 (epicheireme), 148:16-150:15 (εργασία); 150:16154:8 (enthymeme); cf. n. 53 above. For the varied usage of the term ένθυμημα (n. 60) see e.g. Anon. Seg. 157-59. 67 Aps. Rh. 224:8-226:14, 238:4-14, 240:12-20, 246:6-12, 251:3-9; scholia on D. 1:14 (105c), 2:1 (lc) etc.

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(II. 2:130-33), and they must therefore be given a prominent place. But it is always good if a strong point in the opposing position can be turned against itself, as happens in the "forcible" species of solution. Thucydides' remarks on the logistical problems involved in maintaining such a large army in the field suggest a way to achieve this inversion (Th. 1:11; cf. Hdt. 7:49). . We decided earlier that, since feasibility was to come after our rebuttal of the charge against Paris, the argument from cause would be the basis for the first of the epicheiremes under this head: the Trojans can win the war because they have justice on their side and their enemies do not. This proposition is established by the fact that the Greeks have attacked on a false pretext; by contrast, the Trojans will be fighting in defence of their homeland. An argument from the opposite can be used for embellishment here, helping incidentally to disarm one of the άντιπίπτοντα: when Laomedon cheated his benefactors, the city was sacked by Heracles; now that Troy is ruled by Priam, a just and pious king, under whom the city enjoys divine favour (as the gift of Helen to Paris shows), it can look to the gods for protection. T h e city's history proves that injustice does not prosper: so the Trojans can face an unjust enemy with confidence. We proceed to place: the Trojans can win the war because it will be fought on their home ground. In confirmation we could remind the audience that the city is protected by the Palladium. A comparison of the prospects for the defenders, always in reach of a secure refuge, and for the invaders, facing years of hardship in a precarious and uncomfortable encampment, might provide suitable embellishment (cf. A. Ag. 555-66; E. Tr. 386-93). Next, person: the Trojans can win the war because they face a poorly motivated enemy. T h e proof is that they undertook the war reluctantly, because they were compelled by oath. A particularly pointed example is to hand to enrich the argument: Odysseus, whose speech has no doubt stressed the hopelessness of the Trojan cause, pretended to be mad in an attempt to avoid service; his actions are a better measure of his confidence than are his words. An enemy reluctant to embark on the war will be eager to abandon it once they experience its fruidess hardships. At this point, however, the worry concerning the size of the Greek army must be faced. The size of the Greek army does not make them invincible: the Trojans have allies to offset their superiority (a catalogue, drawing on II. 2:816-77, may help to add impressiveness at this point). Moreover, the size of the Greek army is itself a weak-

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ness; so many troops cannot be supported in the field for very long. In deploying force on such a scale the Greek commanders are gambling on a quick, decisive victory; they know, perhaps, that the morale of their reluctant army is too fragile to sustain the hardships of a prolonged campaign. But we have already seen that a quick victory is not within their grasp, provided that the defenders are resolute. In any case, the size of the enemy army is not the decisive factor, so much as its quality. Heracles was able to capture Troy with only a small force: he had a just cause, as the Greeks do not; and he was a renowned sacker of cities (he took Orchomenus, Oechalia, Elis, Pylos and Sparta) as Troy's present enemies are not. The final epicheireme under the head of feasibility supports that last observation. This is an argument from time: the Trojans can have confidence in their ability to win the war because the Greeks have already suffered defeat: they were repulsed in their invasion of Mysia. An argument from the lesser to the greater immediately springs to mind: the Mysians are just one contingent among the Trojan allies (//. 2:858); if the Greeks cannot beat a single contingent of the Trojan army, how can they beat the whole?

D. Epilogue The chief functions of the epilogue are to recapitulate the main points of our argument and to incite the emotional response which will finally carry the audience along with us.68 T h e recapitulation in the present case will come round in the end to the last point we made in the head of advantage, which deduced a covert and hostile intention on the part of the Greeks from the inadequacy of their overt casus belli. This Greek duplicity is at one with the hypocrisy of opening negotiations when their army is already in the field; here we have a good basis on which to build indignation against our opponents. Further examples of Greek treachery would help to show that this behaviour is consistent with their whole character; Jason's visit to Colchis might be mentioned, and we could invite our audience to reflect on the fact that the Greeks are led by sons of Atreus. We will amplify our condemnation of the Greeks' behaviour in the manner of a common topic; but, as always,

68

On the epilogue: Cic. Inv. 1:98-109; Rhet. ad Her. 2:47-50; Quint. Inst. 6:1-2; Anon. Seg. 198-253; Aps. Rh. 296:13-329:23.

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we must remember the dignity and restraint which our persona demands, and be measured in our condemnation. T h e epilogue will also contain a call to action, drawing once more on the heads of purpose. T h e appeal which we have already made to honour could be developed further: the Trojans should act in a manner worthy of their glorious past, and defend their rights and their honour. As for the Greeks, if they are serious when they invoke justice, then they themselves should act jusdy. The παραγραφικόν which began the defence of Paris points the way here: instead of prejudging the case the Greeks should withdraw and submit their claim to arbitration. We will of course be careful to propose an arbitrator who is neutral, in the sense of being non-belligerent, but who can be trusted to favour the Trojans. T h e obvious candidate, in view of his uncommon respect for the rights of host and guest (which the Greeks claim to have been violated), is the Thracian king Polymestor.

III.

CONCLUSION

If we were to return to the argument and continue the process of elaboration through the whole case the task of invention would be complete. But we would still be very far from having produced a finished declamation. We have been content up to now to state and elaborate our arguments without any pretence at stylistic polish; the apology which one ancient writer on invention offered for the manner in which his examples were expressed is apposite: "Do not worry about the baldness of the style: since my aim has been the primarily didactic one of technical exposition, I have stripped away the power of discourse, presenting the ideas naked for greater clarity".69 Philostratus (KS1 604) tells us that the second-century rhetor Phoenix of Thessaly, although skilled in invention, composed in a disjointed style, lacking rhythm; in his compositions the facts were set out with no suit of verbal clothes to cover their nakedness, and for this reason he was thought better suited to teaching beginners. The polishing of students' style was work for the most advanced teachers; expression was, in fact, the most advanced and demanding element of rhetorical study. 70 But that is another story. 69 ,0

[Hermog.] Inv. 94:22-95:1. Hermog. Slat. 35:10-12; cf. Quint. Inst. 8 praef. 13-14.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burgess, T. C., Epideictic literature (Chicago Studies in Classical Philology, 3; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902). Calboli Montefusco, L., La dottnna degli status nella retorica greca e romana (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1986). Heath, M., "The Substructure of S&uu-theory from Hermagoras to Hermogenes", CQ.44 (1994), pp. 114-29. , Hermogenes On Issues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Kennedy, G. Α., Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). Kroll, W., Dos Epicheirema (SB Vienna 216:2; 1936). Martin, J., Antike Rhetorik (Munich: Beck, 1974). Matthes, D., "Hermagoras von Temnos", Ijistrum 3 (1958), pp. 58-214. Russell, D. Α., Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). , and N. G. Wilson, Menander Rhetor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). Solmsen, F., "The Aristotelian Tradition in Ancient Rhetoric", AJP 62 (1941), pp. 35-50, 169-90. Wisse, J., Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1989).

CHAFfER 5

STYLE Galen O. Rowe University of Idaho, Moscow, USA

Of classical rhetoric's five duties, the one concerning style (λεξις/ elocutio) has had an especially pervasive and lasting influence.' At least three reasons account for this influence. First, classical rhetoric supplies a rich nomenclature encompassing most of the important stylistic phenomena found in any language. Not to mention other stylisdc terms, there are names for more than 60 tropes and figures identified by rhetoricians from the fifth century BC through to the early Chrisdan era. Secondly, the ancient precepts on style apply to any verbal expression and not simply to that which is used to persuade. These precepts inform poetry as well as prose, historical writings, philosophical essays, and letters as well as political and forensic speeches. Thirdly, classical rhetoric has established criteria for judging style that are sufficiently flexible to allow for changing tastes and requirements. In fact, the criteria, the so-called virtues (άρεταί/virtutes) of correctness, clarity, ornamentation, and propriety, form the basis of the entire classical theory. 1

For general and deep background on the theory of style according to classical rhetoric see the following works: H. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik (2 vols.; Munich: Max Hueber, 1960), I, pp. 248-525. Although Lausberg's work has flaws (see A. E. Douglas's review in CR 12 [1963], pp. 246-47), it is the most complete and systematic source of stylistic terms and definitions presented by the ancient rhetoricians. The serious student will also wish to consult R. Volkmann, Die Rhetorik der Griechen und Römer (Leipzig: Teubner, 1885; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1963), pp. 393-562, especially for the excellent examples of tropes and figures; and J. Martin, Antike Rhetorik (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, Ii.3; Munich: Beck, 1974), pp. 245-345, particularly as a response to Lausberg. Recommended for later Greek and Latin style are E. Norden, Antike Kunstprosa (2 vols.; Berlin: Teubner, 1909, 1915 [Nachträge]; repr. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1958) and G. A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modem Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980). Of fundamental importance to the stylistic aspect of the New Testament are J. Weiss, Beiträge zur paulinischen Rhetorik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1897) and R. Bultmann, Der Stil der Paulinischen Predigt und die kynisch-stoische Diatribe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910).

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I. VIRTUE

1: C O R R E C T N E S S

T h e first and basic stylistic virtue, correctness, involves rhetoric in grammar, since "correctness" in this case means the correct use of the speaker's language; however, rather than subsuming the entire subject of grammar within their domain, the ancient rhetoricians focus on the common errors, or vices, of grammar that speakers ought to avoid. Because of their common and recurrent nature the vices can be regarded as standard grammatical shapes, or "figures" (σχήματα/ figurae), falling into two classes—barbarisms and solecisms. Barbarisms encompass the unintendonal alteration of single words by the addition, omission, transposition, or substitution of sounds or syllables or letters. An example of barbarism through addition would be the grammatical figure prothesis, in which a letter or syllable is added to the beginning of a word (e.g., gruit, a mispronunciation of ruit). Barbarism through omission would include aphaeresis, in which a beginning pordon of the word is left off (e.g., Verg. A. 6:620 temnere, instead of contemnere). A transpositional barbarism is leriquum, instead of reliquum, in which all the necessary letters are included but some are in the wrong positions. Finally, an example of barbarism through substitution would be bobis instead of the correct vobis. As the word, "barbarism" (from the Greek word for "foreigner"), indicates, the incorrect alteration of words is assumed to have occurred through ignorance or lapse; however, when authors intentionally alter a word's correct sound or spelling, the alteration receives the designation metaplasm. Poets, especially, resort to metaplasm either to satisfy the metrical demands of their verses (metn causa)—for example, Virgil's use in A. 1:26 of repostum instead of the correct repositum in order to avoid an excess of short syllables—or to achieve a special effect, as with the archaic gnatus rather than natus. If "barbarism" designates the distortion of single words, the term "solecism" is applied to a grammatical error that occurs through the faulty combination of words. Like barbarism, solecism has the four classifications of addition, omission, transposition, and substitution. A type of solecism through addition would be pleonasm—for example, adhuc nondum factum est ("to this point it has not yet been done"), where either adhuc ("to this point") or nondum ("not yet") suffices. The omission of a necessary word or phrase is called ellipsis, such as cui pharetra ex auro (Verg. A. 4:138, "to whom a quiver of gold"), which is missing the word erat (meaning in this context "belonged"). A sole-

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cism through transposition occurs when the sequence of words differs from the sequence of thought, as in quibus de rebus ("which about things", instead of "about which things"). This solecism is called anastrophe. Finally, solecism through substitution occurs when a word that is inappropriate to the context is substituted for another that properly belongs. Among several possible substitutional solecisms, one could cite such common errors as the substitution of one part of speech for another—an adjective for an adverb ("good" instead of "well") or mismatches of gender, number, or case. In fact, however, authors may employ solecisms just as intentionally as they would barbarisms; and in these instances solecisms cease to be grammatical figures/vices and partake of the virtue of ornament as rhetorical figures. For example, the vice of redundancy, pleonasm, is employed to great effect as a rhetorical figure by the orator Demosthenes and is regarded as an important characteristic of his style.2 Again, hyperbaton, a solecism through transposition, frequently and sometimes elaborately occurs in all ancient writers. T h e only difference between a solecism and a rhetorical figure is the author's intendon.

II.

VIRTUE 2:

CLARITY

Clarity follows correctness in the order of stylistic virtues; but the ancient rhetoricians do not elaborate this virtue to the same degree as correctness. They understand the object of clarity to be the immediate apprehension of the speaker's remarks even by inattentive readers or listeners. As in the case of correctness, they discern two areas where clarity could be achieved or lost—in the selection of single words and in the combination of words. Regarding the former, it is the speaker's task to select the word which is the first to designate an object or an idea and which through constant use has become the appropriate word (verbum proprium). Types of inappropriate words include the improper synonym, the word removed from usage, the made-up word, the word familiar to certain regions, and technical

2 D.H. Dem. 50 and 58. See also C. W. Wooten, "Dionysius of Halicamassus and Hermogenes on the Style of Demosthenes", AJP 110 (1989), pp. 576-88, and G. Rowe, "The Many Facets of Hybris in Demosthenes' Against Meidias", AJP 114 (1993), pp. 397-406.

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jargon. In combinations of words clarity is achieved by maintaining words in their correct order, by completing the thought without excessive postponement, and by not saying too much or too little; however, as in the case of correctness, vices may be committed against clarity in the name of some other stylistic virtue, such as ornamentation or propriety.

III.

VIRTUE 3:

ORNAMENTATION

By far the most elaborated of style's four main virtues is ornamentation or, as Quintilian (Inst. 8 : 3 : 2 ) designates it, cultus et omatus— "elegance and adornment". In general, ornamentation functions to please the listeners, thus making them attentive and disposed to believe the speaker. Specifically, it contributes several different features to the verbal expression—strength, polish, acuity, abundance, gaiety, delight, precision, variety, and clarity—depending on the type of ornament employed. As with the virtue of correctness, the virtue of ornament applies to either single words or words in combination. Ornamenting single words requires the speaker to substitute for the customary expression another word or group of words that conveys not only the meaning but also a specific feature of the meaning, such as the nine listed above. For single words there are three classes of substitutions from which to choose—archaisms, neologisms, and tropes. An archaism would be any word regarded as old-fashioned but not so obsolete as to be obscure. Neologisms, "new words", are the speaker's own creations, which he produces from a phenomenon's sound (onomatopoeia) or by derivation from other words. As useful as the first two classes may be, it is the third class, that of tropes, that ancient rhetorical theory pays the most attention.

A. Tropes O n e can hardly overestimate the importance of the trope as an element of style. Tropes extend, expand, or change the meaning of words as no other rhetorical device. The word, "trope", in Greek means "turn", somewhat as in "turn of phrase". In Latin the term is modus elocutionis—"manner of speaking". Quintilian (Inst. 8:6:1) defines the trope as "a change of a word or phrase from its proper

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meaning into another for the sake of effect". For example, the trope known as metaphor occurs when the word, lion, is used to designate a person. One could say that the subject, a person, has had its meaning changed from that of a man to that of a lion, perhaps in order to stress the person's ferocity. This extreme transference from one meaning to another is brought about by the intent of the speaker/ writer and made intelligible to the listener/reader by the context in which the trope is contained. Every trope constitutes an impropriety, because a trope by definition causes a deviation from the proper meaning of the word; however, the propriety of literalness as a goal becomes subordinated to the effect that the speaker/writer hopes to achieve. A trope, moreover, does not stand completely in defiance of correct meaning. To be effective it must bear a certain semantic relationship to its subject. Aristotle (Po. 21:7:1457b), who uses the term metaphor to apply to all tropes, identifies four possible semantic relationships between a trope and its subject. First there is the relationship from genus to species, as in "my ship is at anchor there", because "is" is the broader category of "moored", the specifically appropriate term for the status of the ship. Second is the relationship from species to genus, as in "Odysseus has accomplished ten thousand noble deeds", where the specific number, ten thousand, stands for the generic idea of a large number. A third relationship, from species to species, is exemplified in the phrases, "with bronze sword having drawn out his life", and "cutting out with unyielding bronze", where "drawn out" is used for "cutting out" and vice versa, since both meanings are species of removing. Finally, there is the relationship by analogy. For example, the shield could be called Ares' cup or the cup, Dionysus's shield, since one implement has the same importance to one god as the other implement has to the other god. The number of ornaments recognized as tropes varies from a conservative nine to forty-one or more; 3 and Quintilian (Inst. 8:6:1) reports that an irresolvable conflict raged among grammarians and philosophers as to the correct number and classification. One reason for the dispute is the often tenuous distinction between certain tropes and figures, such that what one rhetorician regards as a trope appears to another as a figure—and vice versa. T h e first extant, detailed

3

The number 41 comes from a combination of Tryphon περιτροπών, and a later addition to it, the 'Ανωνύμου περί ποιητικών τρόπων. See L. Spengel (ed.), Rhetores Graeci (Leipzig: Teubner, 1853-56), III, pp. 189-213.

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classification of tropes, that by Tryphon (during the reign of Augustus), contains fourteen different tropes. Isidore and Beda each recognize thirteen. T h e selection that follows is based on Lausberg's classification;4 however, instead of following Lausberg's practice of using, as the main terms, the Latin words found in Quintilian, I have in most instances used the traditionally more common Greek words and supplied alternative Greek and Latin terms in parentheses. 5 1. Metaphor (μεταφορά, translatio): A metaphor is a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea but used in place of another in such a way that it suggests a likeness or an analogy between them. έγώ είμι 6 άρτος της ζωής. (John 6:35) "I am the bread of life". Quae iacerent in tenebris omnia, nisi literarum lumen accederet. (Cic. Arch. 6:14) "These [examples] would all lie in darkness, if the light of literature were not brought to bear". Note: Of the two metaphors, the "darkness [of ignorance]" and the "light of literature", the second makes both the metaphor ("light") and its subject ("literature") explicit, whereas the first ("darkness") causes the reader to infer the subject as "ignorance". It therefore is not always the case that the subject of the metaphor is not made explicit. 2. Metonymy (μετωνυμία, ϋπαλλαγή, denominatio): Metonymy is the name of one thing applied to another with which it is closely associated. "που δ' αλες; που τράπεζα; που σπονδαί;" (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:189) '"But where is the salt, where the table, where the libations [that we shared]?'" Note: The objects mentioned here are parts of the convivial feast and symbolize the bonds and trust of friendship that the speaker protests have been violated.

4

Lausberg, Handbuch, I, pp. 282-307. Many of the examples of tropes and figures cited below are from my own gleanings; however, for examples of tropes and figures in patristic writings I am especially indebted to several monographs published in Catholic University of America Patristic Studies (Washington, DC), including T. Ameringer, "The Stylistic Influence of the Second Sophistic on the Panegyrical Sermons of St. John Chrysostom" (vol. 5, 1921); J. Campbell, "The Influence of the Second Sophistic on the Style of the Sermons of Saint Basil the Great" (vol. 2, 1922), and W. Parsons, "A Study of the Vocabulary and Rhetoric of the Letters of Saint Augustine" (vol. 22, 1930). For Gregory of Nazianzus see R. Ruether, Gregory ofNazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). 5

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Venen iam et Libero reliquum tempus deberi arbitrabatur. (Cic. Ver. 5:11:27) "He was already thinking that the rest of his time was owed to Venus and Bacchus". Note: "Venus" and "Bacchus" are associated with the pursuits of love-making and drinking. The deities are mentioned instead of the pursuits in order to emphasize Verres' religious-like devotion to carnal pleasures. 3. Synecdoche (συνεκδοχή, pars pro toto, intellectio): Synecdoche occurs when a part of something is signified by the whole or the whole is signified by its part. ώ κακή κεφαλή. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:313) "Ο wicked head\" Note: This synecdoche represents the whole person of Aeschines by a part, the head. Huic urbi ferro ignique minitantur. (Cic. Phil. 11:14:37) "They threaten this city with iron and withfire".Note: "Iron" and "fire", synecdoches from the whole, represent "sword" and "conflagration", specific uses of the two elements. 4. Emphasis (εμφασις): Emphasis indicates a special or greater meaning than the word by itself contains and is usually conveyed through the context or by vocal stress. εις ϊππον κατεβαίνομεν. (Horn. Od. 11:523) "We descended into the horse". Note: The word, "descended", emphasizes the great depth of the wooden horse. Iacuitque per antrum. (Verg. A. 3:63) "He lay through the cave". Note: The word, "through" (per), cannot receive vocal stress because in Virgil's poetic meter it is an unstressed syllable; however, the context would normally require the word "in". "Through" stresses the cyclops's unusual size. 5. Periphrasis (περίφρασις, circumitio, circumlocutio): Periphrasis is saying in many words what might be expressed in one or roundabout what might be put directly. ού περι ών έδιδάσκομεν εκάστοτε την μάθησιν έποιεΐσθε. (Th. 1:68) "You were not always making a lesson from what we were teaching". Note: The periphrasis, "making a lesson", is used instead of "learning". Providebam animo, Quintes, remoto Catilina non mihi esse P. Lentuli somnum nec L. Cassi adipes nec fumsam C. Cethegi temeritatem pertimescendam. (Cic. Catil. 3:7:16) "I foresaw in my mind, Citizens, that with the removal of Catiline I would not have to fear the sleep of Publius Lentulus, the corpulence of Lucius Cassius, and the mad rashness of Gaius Cathegus". Note: As "foresaw" in

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this context can only apply to mental activity, the inclusion of "in my mind" is unnecessary. This periphrasis is found elsewhere in Cicero and in other classical Latin writers. The remaining italicized expressions are of the type cited by some rhetoricians as. periphrases; however, they are also examples of synecdoche. 6. Antonomasia (άντονομασία, pronominatio): Antonomasia is the substitution of an appellative, usually a nickname or descriptive epithet, for a proper name. ό δέ παραδιδούς αυτόν εδωκεν αύτοΐς σημεΐον. (Matt. 26:48) "And the one who was betraying him gave them a sign". Note: Matthew uses antonomasia to emphasize Judas's special role. An vero in Syria diutius est ilia Semiramis retinenda? (Cic. Consil. 4:9) "But really must that Semiramis be retained in Syria any longer?" Note: The notoriously licentious queen of Assyria is what Cicero calls the profligate Roman governor, Aulus Gabinius. 7. Hyperbole (υπερβολή, superlatio): Hyperbole is a fitting exaggeration of the truth in order to make something appear greater or smaller than it is. θάττον γαρ αν του αϊματος ή λόγου μεταδοΰναί τινι. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:254) "He would rather have allowed someone to share his blood than his speech [to Philip]". Note: Here Demosthenes pokes fun at Aeschines, his inveterate foe, for his love of performing speeches, especially before distinguished listeners, such as Philip. Ecquod iudicium Romae tam dissolutum, tam perditum, tam nummariura fore putasti, quo ex iudicio te ulla Salus servare posset? (Cic. Ver. 5:3:131) "Did you think that any court at Rome would be so careless, so corrupt, so venal that any goddess of salvation could save you from judgment?" 8. Litotes (λιτότης, άντεναντίωσις, άντίφρασις, exadverm): Litotes is the emphatic affirmation of something by denying its opposite. μετήν γαρ αν και έμοι τούτου τάγαθού ούκ ελάχιστον μέρος. (Lys. Against Eratosthenes 12:22) "For I would have not the slightest [= the greatest] share of this good". Non facile hanc tantam molem mali a cervicibus vestris depulissem. (Cic. Catil. 3:7:17) "Not easily [= with difficulty] would I have cast from your shoulders this great burden of evil". 9. Irony (ειρωνεία, illusio): Irony is the use of words which in the context convey a contrary meaning.

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ό καλός κάγαθός ούτος ού μόνον φετο δείν λέγειν και γράφειν ούκ έξόν, άλλα και παρά τους νόμους ταΰτα ποιεΐν. (D. Against Androtion 22:32) " This fine and good man not only thought it necessary to speak and to propose when he was out of order but also to do so contrary to the laws". Nos autem vin fortes satis facere rei publicae videmur, si istius furorem ac tela vitemus. (Cic. Catil. 1:1:2) "But we, brave men, think that we do enough for the republic if we avoid the madness and weapons of the fellow".

B.

Flures

Whereas tropes result from changing single words or expressions, the shaping of groups of words belongs to the category of figures, sometimes called schemes. Ancient rhetoricians recognized two categories of figures—figures of words, that is words arranged in certain patterns, and figures of thought, in which the meanings of the word groups have standard intellectual and emotional shapes, such as questions and exclamations. Although no one knows who originated the term, "figure", Quintilian (Inst. 2:13:9; 9:1:11) explains it as a metaphor from the human body or from pictures and statues of the human body. A statement seemingly without figuration resembles the body in a state of rest, perhaps even of lifelessness. T h e figured statement, on the other hand, like the body posed in an activity, is an active expression conveying vitality and affecting the listener in certain ways. 1. Word Figures Word figures belong to three basic categories—those resulting from (1) addition, (2) omission, and (3) transposition. Figures of addition include all forms of repetition of the sound, word, or combination of sounds and words, as well as other forms of recurrence. Figures of omission result from the absence of words normally essential to the syntax. Figures of transposition are deliberate changes in the normal order of words. a. Figures of addition (1) Epanalepsis (έπανάληψις, geminatio)·. Epanalepsis is the repetition of a word (or group of words) within the same clause.

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άλλ' ούκ εστίν, οΰκ εστίν οπωςήμάρτετ', άνδρες Αθηναίοι. (D. On the Crown 18:208)

"But it is not possible, it is not possible that you erred, men of Athens". Audite, audite, patres conscripti, et cognoscite rei publicae volnera. (Cic. Phil. 2:17:43) "Usten, listen, Conscript Fathers, and recognize the republic's wounds!" (2) Anadiplosis (άναδίπλωσις, παλιλλογία, reduplicatio): Anadiplosis is the repetition of a word (or group of words), which ends a clause, at the beginning of the next clause. 7

Ω Τριάς αγία, και προσκυνητή, και μακρόθυμε! μακρόθυμος γαρ ή έπι τοσούτον άνασχομένη των σε τεμνόντων. (Gr. Naz. Or. 23 [MPG 35:1165B]) "Ο Holy Trinity, both venerable and long-suffering! Ijong-suffering, indeed, are you who so long endure those who persecute you." Hie tarnen vivit. Vivit? immo vero etiam in senatum venit. (Cic. Catil. 1:1:2)

"And yet this man lives. Lives? Why, he even comes into the senate." (3) Climax (κλίμαξ, gradatio): Climax is an ascending order of thought through successive phrases, in which the last word of the preceding phrase is repeated as the first word of the next phrase. The effect is that of climbing a ladder, which is the English meaning of the Greek word, "climax". ή θλίψις ύπομονήν κατεργάζεται, ή δέ υπομονή δοκιμήν, ή δε δοκιμή έλπίδα· ή δέ έλπίς ού καταισχύνει. (Rom. 5:3-5) "Affliction produces patience; and patience, proof·, and proof, hope; and hope does not put one to shame". Haec testimonia animae quanto vera tanto simplicia, quanto simplicia tanto vulgana, quanto vulgana tanto communia, quanto communia, tanto naturalia, quanto naturalia, tanto divina. (Tert. Test. anim. 5) "This witness of the soul is as true as it is simple, as simple as it is ordinary, as ordinary as it is shared, as shared as it is natural, as natural as it is divine". (4) Prosapodosis (προσαπόδοσις, έπαναδίπλωσις, κύκλος, redditio): Prosapodosis is the use of the same word or group of words at the beginning and at the end of a clause or sentence. ούδέ φοβεΐ με Φίλιππος, αν τα παρ' υμών υγιαίνη, άλλ' εί παρ' ύμίν άδεια γενήσεται τοις παρ' έκείνου μισθαρνεΐν βουλομένοις . . . ταΰτα φοβεΐ με. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:289) "Philip does not frighten me, if matters on your part are sound; but if with you there will be indulgence to those who wish to be in his hire . . . that is what frightens me."

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Ferro, inquit, ferro. (Cic. Caec. 9:24) '"By the sword,' he says, 'by the sword.'''" Note: This use of prosapodosis achieves emphasis but also inserts an ambiguity. Is the repetition of ferro due to the speaker whom Cicero quotes (as I have indicated by quotation marks) or to Cicero himself? (5) Anaphora (αναφορά, έπαναφορά, repetitio): Anaphora occurs when successive clauses begin with the same word or group of words. μακάριοι οί πτωχοί τω πνεύματι, οτι αυτών έστιν ή βασιλεία τών ουρανών, μακάριοι οί πενθοΰντες, οτι αύτοί παρακληθήσονται. μακάριοι οί πραείς, οτι αύτοί κληρονομήσουσιν την γην. κτλ. (Matt. 5:3-5) "Blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, because they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, because they will inherit the earth." Note: This famous passage gives an example of interlocking anaphoras. Vigilat iste, ut laudet medicum liberatus; vigilat ille, ut blasphemet iudicem condemnatus. Vigilat iste, mentibus piis fervens et lucescens, vigilat ille, dentibus suis frendens et tabescens. (Aug. Sern. 219 [MPL 38:1088]) "The one stays awake, so that he might praise the doctor for his cure; the other stays awake, so that he might revile the judge for his conviction. The one stays awake with pious mind churning and glowing; the other stays awake with teeth gnashing and with wasting." Note: Although vigilat establishes the dominant tone of anaphora, there are many repetitions of rhythms and sounds within each clause. (6) Antistrophe (άντιστροφή, έπιφορά, ΰποφορά, conversio): Antistrophe is the repetition of the same word at the end of successive clauses. οτε ήμην νήπιος, έλάλουν ώς νήπιος, έφρόνουν ώς νήπιος, έλογιζόμην ώς νήπιος. (1 Cor. 13:11)

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child". Doletis très exercitus populi Romani interfectos: interfecit Antonius. Desideratis clarissimos civis: eos quoque vobis eripuit Antonius. Auctoritas huius ordinis adflicta est: adflixit Antonius. (Cic. Phil. 2:22:55) "You grieve that three armies of the Roman people have been destroyed: they were destroyed by Antony. You long for your most distinguished citizens: these, too, have been taken from you by Antony. The authority of our order has been assailed. It was assailed by Antony." (7) Symploche (συμπλοκή, κοινότης, σύνθεσις, communie, complexio, conexum)·. Symploche is the repetidon of the same beginning word(s) and the same ending word(s) in a succession of clauses. ό σπείρων φειδομένως φειδομένως καί θερίσει, και 6 σπείρων έπ' ευλογίαις έπ' εύλογίαις καί θερίσει. (2 Cor. 9:6)

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"He who sows sparingly, sparingly will he also reap, and he who sows bountifully, bountifully will he also reap".

Discemit me fides mea, discemit me oratio mea, discemit me iustitia mea. (Aug. Epist. 214:3) "My faith distinguishes me, my speech distinguishes me, my justice distinguishes me (8) Paronomasia (παρονομασία, παρήχησις, annominatio): Paronomasia is a pun, a play on words which sound nearly the same but have distincdy different meanings. Ιέναι δέ τοις έχθροΐς όμόσε μή φρονήματι μόνον, άλλα καί καταφρονήματι

(Th. 2:62) "[You must] meet the enemy not only with confidence [φρονήματι] but also with contempt [καταφρονήματι, i.e., contempt for the enemy]". Ego autem iudices veros et z^ritate severos magis intueor. (Aug. Epist. 143:4) "But I look upon judges who are true and, because of their truth, severe". Note: The pun, which defies translation, centers on s everos ("severe"), which contains within itself the word veros ("true"). (9) Traductio (traductio): Traductio is a play on different meanings of the same word or on different words which have the same spelling. πολύ αν τις αληθέστερα τυγχάνοι λέγων, εί φαίη τότε τήν άρχήν αύτοΐς γεγενήσθαι των συμφορών, οτε τήν αρχήν της θαλάττης παρελάμβανον. (Isoc. On the Peace 8:101) Far more truthfully would a person be speaking, if he should say that then proved to be for them the beginning [αρχήν] of misfortunes, when they assumed the rule [αρχήν] of the sea. Nonne hoc indicant, tantas esse iniurias ut multo maluerint de suo more decedere quam de tuis moribus non dicere? (Cic. Ver. 2:64:155) "Do they not signal this, that the injustices are so great that they much prefer to depart from their own custom than not to speak about your character?" Note: The same word in the singular (more) means "custom"; but in the plural (moribus) it means "character". (10) Polyptoton (πολύπτωτον, μεταβολή): Polyptoton is the repetition of a noun or pronoun in different cases at the beginnings of successive clauses. When pronouns change not only their endings but their entire spellings the term metabole is applied. The Greek example is that of polyptoton; the Latin, metabole. Δημοσθένης υπέστη Φιλίππω· Δημοσθένους πένης μεν 6 βίος, μεγάλη δ' ή παρρησία· Δημοσθένει πολλών διδομένων ούδέν οΰτε πλήθος οΰτε κάλλος άξιον έφάνη προδοσίας· Δημοσθένην 'Αλέξανδρος έ ξ ή τ ε ι . . . άδίκως τε άπέθανες, ω Δημοσθένες. (Hdn. On Figures, Spengel, III, p. 97:10)

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"Demosthenes submitted to Philip; Demosthenes' life was that of a poor man, but his candor was great; to Demosthenes, although many tried to bribe him, nothing, neither wealth nor beauty, seemed worth treason; Demosthenes Alexander demanded; unjusdy did you die, Demosthenes". Note: This highly artificial example of polyptoton manages to use all five cases of the proper noun. To signed the conclusion, moreover, it places the last use of "Demosthenes" at the end rather than at the beginning of its clause. Quod autem tempus veneni dandi illo die, ilia frequentia? Per quem porro datum? Unde sumptum? quae porro interceptio poculi? cur non de integro autem datum? (Cic. For Cluentius 60:167) "But what chance of giving the poison on that day, in that crowd? Through whom moreover was it given? Whence was it gotten? What then was the meaning of that interception of the cup? Why nevertheless was it not given again?" (11) Metaclisis (μετάκλισις, παρηγμένον, declinatio): Metaclisis is the repeated use of the same word, with different inflections, elsewhere than at the beginnings of successive clauses. καί έγενόμην τοις Ίουδαίοις ώς 'Ιουδαίος, Υνα 'Ιουδαίους κερδήσω. ( 1 Cor. 9:20) "And I became to the Jews as a Jew, so that I might gain Jews". Felix es talis fideliter cogitando, amando felicior, et ideo eris felicisdma consequendo. (Aug. Epist. 267) "Happy is such as you for thinking faithfully, and happier for loving, and so you will be happiest for attaining". (12) Synonymia (συνωνυμία, communie nominis, disiunctio): Synonymia is the repeddon of a thought in synonymous terms.

τοϋτο παραιρεϊται την θρασύτητα την τούτων, τοΰτ' αποστρέφει την γλώτταν, έμφράττει τό στόμα, άγχει, σιωπάν ποιεί. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:208) "This takes away their boldness, this twists back their tongues, blocks their mout chokes, makes them nient". Abiit, excesnt, evasit, erupit. (Cic. Catil. 2:1:1) "He has gone away, withdrawn, escaped, broken out". (13) Diaphora (διαφορά, άντιμετάθεσις, άντίστασις, πλοκή, σύγκρισις, distinctio): Diaphora is the repeated use of the same word, which acquires added or different significance in the repetition. ό δη τους χρόνους τούτους άναιρών της οϊα παρ' ήμίν έστι πολιτείας, ού χρόνους άνήρηκεν ούτος, ου, άλλα τα πράγμαθ' απλώς άφήρηται. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:186)

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"The person who takes away these moments from a government such as exists with us has not taken away moments, no, but has taken away the whole business". Cum eis facta pax non erit pax, sed pactio sewitutis. (Cic. Phil. 12:6:14) "Peace made with them will not be peace, but a pact of slavery." Note: When diaphora occurs in a dialogue in such a way that the word is repeated by a different speaker, it has the designation, anaclasis (άνάκλασις, reftexio). Quintilian (Inst. 9:3:68) gives the often quoted example: cum Proculeius quereretur de filio, quod is mortem suam exspectaret, et ille dixisset se non exspectare. "immo", inquit, "rogo expectes". "When Proculeius was complaining about his son, that he was waiting for his death, and the latter had said that he was not waiting. 'No', he said, 7 ask that you wait'". (14) Diaeresis (διαίρεσις, distributio): Diaeresis occurs when certain specified roles are assigned among several parts of a whole or several members of a group. ή KO ν δε τω μεν μήτηρ, τω δέ αδελφή, τω δε γυνή καί παίδες. (And. On the Mysteries 1:48) "There came to one a mother, to another a sister, and to another, wife and children". Habet excusationem vel pietatis vel necessitatis vel aetatis. Si voluit accusare, pietati tribuo, si iussus est, necessitate si speravit aliquid, puentiae. (Cic. Cael. 1) "He has the excuse either of dutijulness or of necessity or of age. If he wished to accuse, I attribute it to dutifiilness·, if he was ordered, to necessity] if he expected something, to adolescence." (15) Epitheton (έπίθετον, appositum): Epitheton is an attributive addition to a substantive, such as an adjective or an appositive. καί τον τοΰτο ποιήσοντ' έμισθώσατο, τον μιαρόν καί λίαν ευχερή, τον κονιορτόν Εύκτήμονα. (D. Against Meidias 21:103) "And the person he hired to do this was the corrupt and too compliant one, the dirty Euctemon". Scelestum, di immortales! ac nefarium facinus atque eius modi quo uno malefkio scelera omnia complexa esse videantur. (Cic. S. Rose. 37) "A criminal, Ye Gods, and wicked deed and of that kind where all crimes seem encompassed in one evil act". (16) Polysyndeton (πολυσύνδετον, συνάφεια): Polysyndeton is the repeated use of conjunctions. πέπεισμαι γαρ οτι οΰτε θάνατος οΰτε ζωή οΰτε άγγελοι οΰτε άρχαί οΰτε ένεστώτα οΰτε μέλλοντα οΰτε δυνάμεις οΰτε ΰψωμα οΰτε βάθος οΰτε τις κτίσις

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έτερα δυνήσεται ημάς χωρίσαι από της αγάπης του θεοΰ της έν Χριστώ 'Ιησοΰ τω κυρίφ ημών. (Rom. 8:38-39) "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor powers nor present nor future nor forces nor heights nor depths nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our lord". Seu de caelo exciperis seu de terra conciperis sen numeris seu atomis concinnaris seu cum corpore incipis seu post corpus induceris, undeunde et quoquo modo hominem facis animal rationale sensus et scientiae capacissimum. (Tert. Mart. 1) " Whether you are taken from the sky or conceived from the earth or moved by numbers or by atoms or begin with the body or after you have taken on the body, no matter whence, no matter how, you make a person, a rational animal most capable of feeling and of knowledge". b. Figures of omission (1) Ellipsis (ελλειψις, detractio, omissio)·. Ellipsis is the omission of essendal grammatical details. ταύτάδεταΰτ' Άργεΐοι. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:262) "The Argives [said] this same thing". Unde maior Caesari metus. (Tac. Ann. 1:60:1) "Whence [there was] greater fear for Caesar". (2) Zeugma (ζεΰγμα, άπό κοίνου, έπεζευγμένον, συλλήψις, adnexio, ligatio): Zeugma is the use of a word in one phrase which must be understood in other, parallel phrases in order to complete their meanings (simple zeugma), as in the Greek example, below. Sometimes the word to be understood must be modified in meaning or syntax in order to suit the remaining phrases (complicated zeugma or syllepsis), as in the Latin example. άν μεν τοίνυν προς τήν εύφημίαν αύτοΰ τών λόγων άποβλέπητε, έξαπατηθήσεσθε, ώσπερ καί πρότερον, εάν δ' εις τήν φύσιν καί τήν άλήθειαν, ούκ έξαπατηθήσεσθε. (Aeschin. Against Ctesiphon 168) "Ifyou regard his fine-sounding words, you will be deceived just as before; but if [you regard] his nature and the truth, you will not be deceived". Quibus non modo non orbari, sed etiam augeri senectus solet. (Cic. Sen. 17) " Of these old age not only is usually not deprived, but even increased [by these]". Note: The use of "quibus" in the first clause is ablative of separation with "orbari", translated with "of", while in the second clause it must be supplied as an ablative of material with "augeri", translated with "by".

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(3) Asyndeton (άσύνδετον, solutum): Asyndeton is the omission of conjunctions between coordinate members of the same sentence. πεπληρωμένους πάση άδικίςι [καί] προνηρία [καί] πλεονεξία [καί] κακία. (Rom. 1:29) "Filled with all injustice [and] wickedness [and] greed [and] evil". Aurum, pallorem terrae; [et] argentum, livorem terrae; [et] honorem, temporis fumum. (Aug. Sern. 191:19:5) "Gold, earth's pale color; [and] silver, earth's blue color; [and] honor, the smoke of time". c. Figures of transposition (1) Anastrophe (αναστροφή, reversio): Anastrophe is the reversal of the normal sequence of two words immediately following each other. άνδρί γε λογίζεσθαι τοιούτων πέρι οϊω έόντι. (Hdt. 2:22) "At least to a man able to reason these things regarding [= regarding these things]". Quam ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? (Cic. Catil. 1:1:1) " What to end [= to what end] will that unbridled audacity of yours flaunt itself?" (2) Hyperbaton (ΰπερβατόν, traiectio, transgressio): Hyperbaton is the separation of two words, which syntactically belong together, through the insertion of a word or group of words not belonging immediately in this place. ούκ όφείλομεν νομίζειν [τό θείον είναι ομοιον] χρυσφ ή άργύρω ή λίθφ, χαράγματι τέχνης καί ένθυμήσεως ανθρώπου, τό θείον είναι ομοιον. (Acts 17:29) "We ought not think that [the divine is like] to gold or silver or stone, the imprint of man's art and thought, the divine is like". Fragiiis in altum cymba processit. (Jerome Ep. 14:10) "Fragile into the deep the craft advanced". (Instead of, "The fragile craft advanced into the deep".) (3) Synchesis (σύγχυσις, mixtura): Synchesis ("interlacing") is an elaborate form of hyperbaton, in which each of the related elements of one syntactic group tends to be separated by elements of another syntactic group. πολλών [Α] άξιους [Β], ώ Ζεΰ καί πάντες θεοί [C], θανάτων [Α] λόγους [Β], (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:16) "Ο Zeus and All You Gods [C], words [Β] worthy [Β] of many [A]

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deaths [A]". Note: The synchesis has the interlacing arrangement of ABC AB. Quantum [A] meas [B] déprimât [C] oneris [D] impositi [D] massa [Ε] cervices [B]. (Sidon. 6:1:5) "How much [A] the weight [E] of imposed [D] burden [D] depresses [C] my [B] shoulders [E]". Note: The interlacing arrangement yields the pattern, ABCDDEB, in which the same letters would normally go together. (4) Isocolon (ίσοκωλόν, πάρισον, παρίσωσις, parimembre): Isocolon consists of the succession of two or more coordinate clauses, which tend to have the same construction and length (measured by number of words or syllables). περί των αύτών πολλαχώς έχηγησασθοα, [ 13 syllables] καί τά τε μεγάλα ταπεινά ποιήσαι, [12 syllables] καί τοις μικροΐς μέγεθος περιθεΐναι. [11 syllables] (Isoc. Panegyric 4:39) "To expound many times on the same subject, and to make great matters trivial, and to invest magnitude with details". Si nulla inertiae infamia, [8 syllables] nulla superbiae turpitudo, [10 syllables] nulla inhumanitatis culpa [9 syllables] suscipitur, ego vero libenter desino. (Cic. Mur. 9) "If no disgrace for indolence, no shame for arrogance, no blame for cruelty is incurred, I readily cease". (5) Chiasmus (χιασμός): Chiasmus is a feature of isocolon in which the second of two coordinate clauses reverses the order of the first. ημέρα [Α] ού φωτίζεται [Β], ρήγνυνται [Β] πέτραι [Α] σχίζεται [Β] καταπέτασμα [Α], τά θεμέλια της γης [Α] σείεται [Β]. (Hippol. Haer. 18:8:2) "The light of day does not shine, shattered are the rocks; Rent is the veil, the foundations of the earth are shaken." Note: This example contains two chiasmuses arranged chiastically; that is, the order of the second (verb-noun-noun-verb) is the reverse of the first (noun-verb-verbnoun)—ABBA and BAAB. Cognitu [A] inutile [B] aut difficile [B] perceptu [A], (Macr. praef. llf.) "To learn [A] useless [B] or difficult [B] to understand [A]". (6) Homoeoteleuton (όμοιοτέλευτον): Homoeoteleuton is a feature of isocolon in which coordinate clauses end in words that have the same inflections and sounds.

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βίαι ήρπάσβη καί άνόμως έβιάσθη καί αδίκως ύβρίσθη (Gorg. Hei 7) "By force was she seized and lawlessly was she violated and unjustly was she assaulted". Çhii nullum convivium renuerit, qui in hortis fuerit, qui unguenta sumpimi, qui Baias viderit. (Cic. Cael. 11) "Who refused no party, who was in the garden, who wore perfume, who saw Baiae." Note: This is an example in which the stylistic figure appears irretrievably lost in translation. (7) Homoeoptoton (όμοιόπτωτον, simile casibus): Homoeoptoton consists of the frequent repetition of the same grammatical case within one period/sentence; however, according to some rhetoricians, it is the conclusion of successive cola with the same case form, hence another feature of isocolon. The Greek example illustrates the former definition; the Latin, the latter. οϋτω πάντας έσπούδαζεν είσαγαγεϊν εις την βασιλείαν, θεραπεύων, παρακαλων, ύπισχνούμενος, ευχόμενος, ίκετεύων. (Chrys. Laud. Paul. 3 [MPO 50:485:24]). "So eager was he to lead all into the kingdom, healing, exhorting, promising praying, beseeching". Hoc nec dici brevius, nec audiri laetius, nec intellegi grandius, nec agi fructuonus. (Aug. Epist. 41:1) "This [cannot] be said more briefly, nor heard more joyfully, nor understood more abundantly, nor done more productively". 2. Thought Figures Unlike figures of words, most figures of thought do not readily fall into the categories of addition, omission, and transposition. In fact, ancient rhetoricians do not agree on how thought figures ought to be classified; and several of them make no attempt to do so. Thought figures, or shapes, lack the concreteness of word figures, in which the words have specific spellings and positions relative to each other. As Cicero (De or. 3:52:200) points out, if one changes the words, the word figure is destroyed; but the thought figure can persist regardless of the words one uses to express it. Modern treatments show the same tentativeness and variety as the ancients in classifying thought figures. The classification here is based upon, but does not completely follow, that of Lausberg. 6 It consists of two main categories—figures focused upon the audience and figures focused upon the subject. 6

Lausberg, Handbuch, I, pp. 37-455.

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a. Figures focused upon the audience 1. Figures of address (a) Deesis (δέησις, obsecratio, obtestatio): Deesis is an impassioned request made in the name of a god or a special person or a sacred object. παρακαλώ ούν υμάς, αδελφοί, δια τών οϊκτιρμών του θεοΰ, παραστησαι τά σώματα υμών θυσίαν ζώσαν άγίαν εύάρεστον τω θεώ. (Rom. 12:1) "I therefore exhort you, brothers, through the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God". Sed earn [voluntatem vestram], per deos immortalis! deponite deponite! (Cic. Catil. 4:1:1) "But that [goodwill of yours], by the immortal gods! Lay [it] aside!" (b) Parrhesia (παρρησία, licentia): Parrhesia is claiming to use candor, which by appearing to risk the good will of the audience instead is intended to strengthen it due to the speaker's courage in speaking the truth. ού μην οίμαι δεΐν την ιδίαν άσφάλειαν σκοποΰνθ' ΰποστείλασθαι περί ών ΰμΐν συμφέρειν ηγούμαι. (D. Olynthiacs I 1:16:1) "I certainly think that I must not, out of concern for my own safety, misrepresent what I consider to be in your best interests". Non deest rei publicae consilium neque auctoritas huius ordinis: nos, nos, dico aperte, consules desumus. (Cic. Catil. 1:1:3) "There is not lacking to the republic the counsel and the authority of this order: we, we—I say it openly—the consuls are lacking". (c) Apostrophe (άποστροφή, aversio): Apostrophe is turning from the general audience to address a specific group or person. διό άναπολόγητος εί, ώ άνθρωπε πάς 6 κρίνων. (Rom. 2:1) "Therefore you have no defense, Sir, everyone of you who judges". Consiste in medio, anima! (Tert. Mart. 1) "Take your stand in the middle, soul". 2. Figures of question (a) Erotesis (έρώτησις, έρώτημα, interrogatio): Erotesis is an affirmative proposition stated in the form of a question to which the answer is obvious. ού δια τοΰτο πλανάσθε μή είδότες τάς γραφάς μηδέ την δύναμιν του θεοΰ; (Mark 12:24) "Is it not for this reason that you err, not knowing the scriptures or the power of God?"

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Nonne extremam pati fortunam paratos proiecit ille? (Caes. Civ. 2:32:8) "Did he not abandon you, though you were prepared to endure ultimate misfortune?" (b) Pusma (πύσμα, quaesitum, percontatio)·. Pusma is a question which demands an answer other than "yes" or "no". τί γαρ δήποτε Μοιροκλεα μεν έκρινες; (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:293) "Well, why in fact were you putting Moerocles on trial?" Qpousque patieris, Caesar, non adesse caput rei publicae? (Tac. Ann. 1:13:4) "How long, Caesar, will you allow the republic not to have a head?" (c) Aitiologia (αιτιολογία, άπόκρισις, άπόφαις, έξετασμός, exquisitio, subiectio): Aitiologia is an imaginary dialogue in the form of questions and answers: καί τίν', ώ προς των θεών, εξετ' ειπείν πρόφασιν δικαίαν ή καλήν; οτι νή Δί' ασελγής έστι και βδελυρός- ταΰτα γάρ έστι τάληθη· άλλα μισείν όφείλετ', άνδρες 'Αθηναίοι, δήπου τους τοιούτους μάλλον ή σωζειν. άλλ' οτι πλούσιος έστιν· άλλα τοΰτό γε τής ϋβρεως αύτοΰ σχεδόν αίτιον εΰρήσετ' δν. (D. Against Meidias 21:98) "And, by the gods, what just or fine pretext will you have to utter? That, by Zeus, he is insolent and disgusting. Yes, that is true; but, men of Athens, you ought to hate such men as this rather than save them. It is because he is wealthy. But this you will discover is precisely the cause of his insolence". Patrem occidit Sex. Roscius. Qui homo? Adulescentulus corruptus et ab hominibus nequam inductus? Annos natus maior quadraginta. (Cic. S. Rose. 14:39) "Sextus Roscius killed his father. What kind of a fellow is he? A corrupt and good-for-nothing lad under somebody's influence? Older than forty years". (d) Aporia (απορία, διαπόρησις, dubitatio): Aporia is a state of feigned helplessness, in which the speaker seeks advice as to how to proceed and poses alternatives, none of which appears desirable. σκοπώ μεν ούν εγωγε, ώ άνδρες, πόθεν χρή άρξασθαι τής άπολογίας, πότερον εκ τών τελευταίων [λόγων], ώς παρανόμως με ένέδειξαν, ή περί του ψηφίσματος του Ίσοτιμίδου, ώς άκυρόν έστιν . . . (Andoc. On the Mysteries 8:1)

"I am considering, gendemen, whence to begin my defense, whether from the last speeches, how unlawfully they indicted me, or concerning Isotimides' decree, how invalid it i s . . . " Iam vero virtuti Cn. Pompei quae potest oratio par inveniri? Qpid est quod quisquam aut illo dignum aut vobis novum aut cuiquam inauditum possit adferre? (Cic. On the Imperium of Gnaeus Pompey 11:29)

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"But really, what speech can be composed equal to the qualities of Gnaeus Pompey? What is there that anyone can offer that is worthy of him or new to you or unheard of to anyone?" (e) Anacoenosis (άνακοίνωσις, communicatio): Anacoenosis differs from aporia, in that the speaker does not ask (either the audience or his adversary) for advice about his speech but about an acdon (past, present or future) taken in the case. τίνος ουν ει συ ζημίας άξιος τυχείν, ώ της 'Ελλάδος άλειτήριε; (Aeschin.

Against Ctesiphon 131) "Well then, what punishment do you deserve to get, Ο bane of Greece?" Sed quam longe videtur a carcere atque a vinculis abesse debere qui se ipse iam dignum custodia iudicarit? (Cic. Catil. 1:8:19) "But how long should one be free from prison and shackles who has already judged himself worthy of a guard?" b. Figures focused upon the subject (1) Semandc figures (a) Orismus (ορισμός, άφηίήο, finitio): Orismus is a definition which supports the speaker's case but is not therefore contrary to common opinion. τον ούν εις τινα τούτων των χορευτών ή τών χορηγών ΰβρίζοντ' έπ' έχθρα, καί ταϋτ' έν αύτφ τφ άγώνι καί έν τω του θεοΰ ίερώ, τοΰτον άλλο τι πλην άσεβεϊν φήσομεν; (D. Against Meidias 21:55) "When a person assaults one of the chorus or choral directors out of enmity and does this during the competition and in the shrine of the god, what else shall we call this except impiety?" Nam idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est. (Sal. Cat. 20) "For to want the same thing and to not want the same thing, this, in short, is sound friendship". (b) Epanorthosis (έπανόρθωσις, έπιδιόρθωσις, έπιτίμησις, μετάνοια, ΰπαλλαγή, correctio): Epanorthosis is the correction or improvement of a remark immediately recognized by the speaker as unsuitable. ή μεν φωνή του προστάγματος μικρά, μάλλον δέ ούδέ φωνή, άλλα ροπή μόνον καί ορμή τοΰ θελήματος. (Bas. Hex. 7:63C) "The voice of the command is small, rather not even a voice but a nod, only, and an inclination of the will." Ille autem novit, sub cuius oculis loquor, immo sub cuius oculis cogito. (Aug. Semι. 339 c. 1 [MPG 38:1480]) "But He, under whose eyes I speak, knows—nay, under whose eyes I think".

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(c) Prodiorthosis (προδιόρθωσις, προθεράπευσις, praecedens correctio): Prodiorthosis is an attempt to prepare the audience for a shocking or offensive statement. βούλομαί τι καί παράδοξον ειπείν · καί μου προς Διός καί θεών μηδείς την υπερβολήν θαυμάση, ά λ λ α μετ'εύνοίας δ λέγω θεωρησάτω. (D. On the Crown 18:199)

"I wish to say something surprising; and, by Zeus and the gods, let nobody marvel at this extreme statement but attend with goodwill what I say". Veremur nos, Romani, et, si ita vultis, etiam timemus. (Liv. 39:37:17) "We are concerned, Romans; and, if you will, we are even afraid". (d) Antithesis (άντίθεσις, άντίθετον, contentio, contraposition): Antithesis consists of the juxtaposition of opposite meanings. και θεραπεύεται μεν τό ύψηλόν, άτιμάζεται δέ τό Θεώ ταπεινούμενον. (Gr. Naz. Or. 3 [MPG 35:520]) "That which is raised on high receives honor, but that which abases itself to God, is dishonored". Non littera qua iubetur, sed spiritu quo donatur, non ergo meritis operands hominis sed largientis gratia salvatoris. (Aug. Epist. 196:6) "Not by the letter by which a command is issued, but by the spirit by which a gift is given; not therefore by the merits of man working, but by the grace of the savior giving lavishly". (e) Prosapodosis (προσαπόδοσις, regressio): Prosapodosis is a statement about two or more elements, which are elaborated in separate disdnguishing clauses. και πορνείας έλεγεν, ώ γη καί θεοί, δυοΐν μεν κηδεσταΐν παρεστηκότοιν, οΰς ίδόντες αν ΰμείς άνακράγοιτε, Νικίου τε του βδελυροί», ö έαντόν έμίσθωσεν εις Α'ίγυπτον Χαβρία, καί του καταράτου Κυρηβίωνος, δς έν ταΐς πομπαΐς άνευ του προσώπου κωμάζει. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:287)

"And he was talking about fornication, ye earth and gods, with his two inlaws standing beside him, the sight of whom would make you cry out in protest—Nicias the loathsome, who hired himself to Chabrias bound for Egypt, and the accursed Cyrebion, who prances in the parades without a mask". Nactus est primum consules eos, quorum alter res ad scribendum maxumas, alter cum res gestas, tum etiam Studium atque aures adhibere posset. (Cic. Arch. 5) "He first obtained an audience with those consuls, of whom the one could contribute the greatest exploits for writing and the other not only exploits but even interest and discernment".

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(f) Antimetabole (άντιμεταβολή, commutatio): Antimetabole consists in the confrontation of a thought and its reverse through the repetition of the same words with switched grammatical functions. τό σάββατον δια τόν ανθρωπον έγένετο και ούχ ό άνθρωπος δια τό σάββατον · (Mark 2:27) "The Sabbath happened for the sake of man and not man for the sake of the Sabbath". praecavendo vanissime quibus parcunt et parcendo ineptissime quibus praecavent. (Tert. Castit. 1) Admonishing most idly those whom they spare and sparing most ineffectually those whom they admonish. (g) Oxymoron (όξύμωρον): Oxymoron is a paradoxical statement combining two terms, which in ordinary usage are contraries. ή της άνισότητος ίσότης (Gr. Naz. Or. 28:30) "The equality of inequality" Ad dei liberam servitutem (Aug. Epist. 126:7) "To God's free servitude" (2) Affective figures (a) Exclamatio (exclamatio, έκφώνησις): Exclamatio is an abrupt utterance, usually isolated in its context by grammar and vocal stress and conveying a strong emotion, such as pity or indignation. "Ω πιναροΰ σώματος και ένδύματος! (Gr. Naz. Or. 8:14) "Ο squalid body and garment!" Ο tempora! Ο mores! (Cic. Catil. 1:2) "O the times! Ο the character!" Note: This famous quotation is often translated as "O the character of the times" and offered as an example of the thought figure, hendiadys (εν δια δυοΐν), in which one of two coordinate elements is made subordinate in thought to the other. Hendiadys, however, is not mentioned as a figure in extant ancient rhetoric and only makes its first appearance in Late Latin. (b) Enargeia (ενάργεια, διατύπωσις, ΰποτύπωσις, depictio, descriptio, imaginatio, repraesentatio): Enargeia is the description of a situation or action as though it were present. θέαμα δεινόν, ώ άνδρες Αθηναίοι, και έλεινόν· οτε γάρ νυν έπορενόμεθ' εις Δελφούς, έξ άνάγκης ήν όραν ήμΐν πάντα ταύτα, οικίας κατεσκαμμένας, τείχη περιηρημένα, χώραν έρημον τών έν ήλικίςι, γύναια δέ καί παιδάρι' όλίγα καί πρεσβύτας άνθρώπους οικτρούς- (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:65) "A terrible spectacle, gentlemen of Athens, and pitiful. For when we were on our way to Delphi, we could not help seeing the whole scene—

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houses demolished, walls razed, the country deserted of those in their prime, just a few women and children and miserable old men". Sedebat in rostris conlega tuus, amictus toga purpurea, in sella aurea, coronatus. Escendis, accedis ad sellam. . . . Diadema ostendis. Gemitus toto foro. (Cic. Phil. 2:34:85) "He was seated on the rostra, that colleague of yours, clad in a purple toga, on a golden chair, wearing a wreath. You ascend. You approach the chair. You show the diadem. There's a groan from the whole forum". (c) Sermocinatio (sermocinatio, διάλογος, ηθοποιία, μίμησις, moralis confîctio): Sermocinatio is the creation (not quotation) of statements, conversations, soliloquies, or unexpressed thoughts attributed to normal persons, real or imagined. ταΰτα δη παρέξεται νυν ούτος λέγων ώς 'αυτός έπηνεσεν ημάς, αυτός είστία τους πρέσβεις,'τό πότ'ού διορίζων. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:235) "That is what my opponent will now present, saying, 'he himself praised us, he himself entertained the ambassadors', not specifying when". Fugitur unitas ut hue maritus illuc uxor conveniat; dicat ille "mecum tene unitatem quia ego sum vir tuus"; respondeat ilia: "ibi moror, ubi est pater meus." (Aug. Epist. 108:17) "Unity is put to flight so that one thing suits the husband, another thing the wife, so that he says, 'keep unity with me because I am your husband', but she replies, Ί stay where my father is'". (d) Prosopopoiia (προσωποποιΐα, fictio personae): Prosopopoiia is the attribution of speech and personality to non-human things. ταΰτ' ούχί βοά καί λέγει οτι χρήματ' εϊληφεν Αισχίνης καί πονηρός έστιν αργυρίου συνεχώς; (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:119) "Do not these facts call out and say that Aeschines took a bribe and is constandy a scoundrel for money?" Quae patria tecum, Catilina, sic agit et quodam modo tacita loquitur: nullum iam aliquot annis facinus exstitit nisi per te, nullum flagitium sine te. (Cic. Catil. 1:7:18) "This country deals with you, Catiline, like this and somehow though silent speaks: 'For several years no crime has arisen except through you, no outrage without you'". (e) Epimone (έπιμονή, commoratio, expolitio): Epimone is the repetition of a thought either in the same words but with changed vocal inflection or in synonyms, which while conveying the same basic idea nevertheless add nuance to it.

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τι λύετε τάξιν έπαινουμένην; τί βιάζεσθε γλώσσαν νόμω δουλεύσαν; τί προκαλεΐσθε λόγον εϊκοντα πνεύματι; τί την κεφαλήν άφέντες, έπί τούς πόδας έσπεύσατε; (Gr. Naz. Or. 16:1 [MPG 35:936]) "Why are you destroying the approved order? Why do you force a tongue that is bound by law? Why do you provoke the word when it yields to the spirit? Why, dismissing the head, do you hasten to the feet?" Note: The synonymous expressions are designed to show that the speaker, a mere youth, should not be asked to speak when his father is silent. Vides quam sit varia vitae commutabilisque ratio, quam vaga volubilisque fortuna, quantae infidelitates in amicitiis, quam ad tempus aptae simulationes, quantae in periculis fugae proximorum, quantae timiditates. (Cic. Mil. 26:69) "You see how varied and changeable is life's way, how errant and capricious is fortune, how many violations of trust in friendships, how pretenses are suited to the moment, how many desertions in danger by associates, how many examples of timidity". (f) Simile (similitudo, comparatio): Simile is an explicit comparison between the speaker's subject and a fact of natural life and of general (not historically fixed) human experience. τοΰτο τό ψήφισμα τόν τότε τη πόλει περιστάντα κίνδυνον παρελθείν ώσπερ νέφος. (D. On the Crown 18:188) "This decree [caused] the danger then surrounding the city to pass by like a cloud". An corpus solum sit homo, aliquo modo se habens ad animam sicut poculum ad potionem? (Aug. Civ. 19:3:23) "Or is man solely body, relating to the soul somehow as the cup to the drink?" (g) Metabasis (μετάβασις, aversio): Metabasis is an abrupt change of subject or a return to the subject from a digression. είτ'ώ—τί άν ειπών σέ τις όρθώς προσείποι; (D. On the Crown 18:26) "Well, Ο—what, if he were to speak, could someone rightly call you?" Redeo nunc ad te, Caeli, vicissim ac mihi auctoritatem patriam severitatemque suscipio. (Cic. Cael. 16:37) "I now return to you, Caelius, and I assume my fatherly authority and severity". (3) Dialectical figures (a) Synoeciosis (συνοικείωσις, conciliatio): Synoeciosis is the exploitation of an opponent's argument to one's own advantage.

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καίτοι πώς ούκ άτοπον έστιν, ώ βουλή, τούτον αν, εί μέν έπ' άστράβης όχούμενον έώρα με, σιωπάν (τί γαρ αν καί ελεγεν;), οτι δ' έπί τους ήτημένους 'ίππους αναβαίνω, πειράσθαι πείθειν υμάς ώς δυνατός είμι; καί οτι μέν δυοΐν βακτηρίαιν χρώμαι, τών άλλων μια χρωμένων, μή κατηγορεΐν ώς καί τούτο τών δυναμένων έστίν οτι δ' έπί τους ίππους αναβαίνω, τεκμηρίω χρήσθαι πρός υμάς ώς είμι τών δυναμένων; οΐς έγώ δια την αύτήν αΐτίαν αμφοτέροις χρώμαι. (Lys. On Behalf of the Cripple 24:23) "And yet how is it not improper, Council, for him, if he saw me riding in a soft saddle, to keep silent (for what would he say?), but because I ride borrowed horses to try to persuade you that I am not disabled; and because I use two crutches, when others use one, to claim that this, too, is a sign of those who are able?" Interdum mihi videos, Eruci, una mercede duas res adsequi velle, nos iudicio perfundere, accusare autem eos ipsos a quibus mercedem accepisti. (Cic. Rose. 29:80) "Sometimes, Erucius, I think that for one fee you wish to achieve two objectives—to agitate us with a trial, but to bring accusations against the very people who are paying your fee." (b) Proparaskeue (προπαρασκευή, προυπεργασία, praemunitio, praeparatio): Proparaskeue occurs when the speaker prepares the audience to attend, in a special way, a course of argument that he is about to present. καίτοι, εί νουν είχες, περί γε τής φιάλης της άνατεθείσης οΰτ' άν Εύξένιππον ήτιώ, οΰτ' άν άλλον λόγον ούδένα ένταΰθα έποιήσω· ού γάρ άρμόττει. διά τί; καί μου τόν λόγον, ώ άνδρες δικασταί, άκούσατε, δν μέλλω λέγειν. (Hyp. Eux. 23) "And yet, if you had good sense, you would not be charging Euxenippus for dedicating the cup nor would you have offered any other argument on this point. You are not being consistent. Do you ask why? Will you please listen, judges, to the account that I am about to give?" Paulo longius exordium rei demonstrandae petam. quod quaeso, iudices, ne moleste patiamini; principiis enim cognitis multo facilius extrema intellegetis. (Cic. Clu. 4:11) "I shall make a rather long introduction to my defense; and I ask you not to hold it against me. For once you have learned the beginnings, you will much more easily understand the end". (c) Synchoresis (συγχώρησις, παρομολογία, concessio): Synchoresis is an admission of the truth of an opponent's argument, which is subsequendy shown to have no damaging effect on one's case. καί νή Δί' έγωγε καί τους παρά του Φιλίππου πρέσβεις έξένισα, καί πάνυ γ', ώ άνδρες Αθηναίοι, λαμπρώς. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:235) "And yes, by Zeus, I did entertain the ambassadors from Philip, and quite splendidly, too, Men of Athens".

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At enim postea scimus et vidimus esse hunc in illius etiam amicis. Quis negat? (Cic. Cael. 4:10) "As to the fact that afterwards we have seen and recognized my client among the friends of that person: Who denies it?" (d) Epitrope (έπιτροπη, permissio): Epitrope occurs when the speaker pretends to allow, even to dare, someone (the judges or one's opponent) to decide or to act independendy of or contrary to the speaker's position. περί ών δ' άν τις άντιλέγη τούτων, άναστάς έν τφ έμώ ϋδατι είπάτω. (D. Οτι the Fraudulent Embassy 19:57) "If anyone takes issue with this, let him stand up and speak on my allotted time". Quae cum ita sint, Catilina, perge quo coepisti, egredere aliquando ex urbe; patent portae: proficiscere. (Cic. Catil. 1:5:10) "Since this is so, Catiline, proceed where you have begun; at last get out of the city; the gates are open; depart!" (4) Figures according to the four categories of change: figures through addition (a) Parenthesis (παρένθεσις, παρέμπτωσις, interpositio): Parenthesis is the insertion of a grammatically independent phrase within a sentence. άπο δέ τών δοκούντων είναί τι—όποιοι ποτε ήσαν ούδέν μοι διαφέρει· πρόσωπον 6 θεός άνθρωπου ού λαμβάνει—έμοί γάρ οί δοκοΰντες ούδέν προσανέθεντο. (Gal. 2:6-7) "As for those who seemed to be something—what sort they were makes no difference to me; God does not go by a person's appearance—for those who seemed something contributed nothing to me". Primum igitur acta Caesaris servanda censeo, non quo probem—quis enim id quidem potest?—sed quia rationem habendam maxime arbitror pacis atque oti. (Cic. Phil. 1:7:16) "First, I recommend that Caesar's acts be maintained, not because I approve of them—indeed, who can do that?—but because I especially believe that we must take thought for peace and quiet". (b) Aetiologia (αιτιολογία): Aetiologia is the attachment of a reason to a main statement. (This aetiologia should not be confused with the question figure, above, p. 140, c.) ούκ άθυμητέον, ώ άνδρες Αθηναίοι, τοις παρούσι, ούδ' εί πάνυ φαύλως έχειν δοκεΐ. δ γάρ έστι χείριστον αύτών έκ του παρεληλυθότος χρόνου, τούτο προς τά μέλλοντα βέλτιστον υπάρχει. (D. Philippic I 4:2) "We must not despair, Gentlemen of Athens, over the present situation, not even if it appears most sorry. For that which is worst about it belongs to the past; this which is best pertains to the future".

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Nam si quis minorem gloriae fructum putat ex Graecis versibus percipi quam ex Latinis, vehementer errat, propterea quod Graeca leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus, Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane, continentur. (Cic. Arch. 10:23) "If anyone thinks less glory is gained from Greek poetry than from Latin, he gready errs, because Greek is read in almost every nation, whereas Latin is confined to its own, admittedly small, borders". (c) Gnome (γνώμη, sententia): Gnome is a truism or a maxim used to support a specific point. Χρή δέ τους άνδρας τους αγαθούς έν τοις τοιούτοις καιροΐς φαίνεσθαι διαφέροντας · αί μέν γάρ εύτυχίαι και τοις φαύλχης τών ανθρώπων τάς κακίας συγκρύπτουσιν, αί δέ δυσπραξίαι ταχέως καταφανείς ποιούσιν όποιοι τίνες έ'καστοι τυγχάνουσιν δντες. (Isoc. Archidamus 6:101-102) "It is in rimes such as these that brave men must distinguish themselves. For good fortune hides the failures even of sorry men; but adversity quickly makes clear the qualities of each individual". Si vita nostra in aliquas insidias, si in vim et in tela aut latronum aut inimicorum incidisset, omnis honesta ratio esset expediendae salutis. Silent enim leges inter arma nec se expectari iubent, cum ei qui exspectare velit ante iniusta poena luenda sit quam iusta repetenda. (Cic. Mil. 4:10-11) "If we had encountered some treachery, some armed violence from brigands or enemies, every means of securing our safety would be honorable. For the laws are silent in battle; nor do they expect to be obeyed, when he who wishes to obey must pay an unjust penalty rather than receive his just due". (d) Epiphonema (έπιφώνημα): Epiphonema is a statement, often in the form of an exclamation, that concludes a line of argument or makes a comment about what has been narrated. οϋτως έκφρονας, ώ άνδρες Αθηναίοι, καί παραπλήγας τό δωροδοκεΐν ποιεί. (D. On the Fraudulent Embassy 19:267) "So mindless and foolish does bribery make people". Nundabantur haec eadem Curioni, sed aliquamdiu fides fieri non poterat: tantam habebat suarum rerum fiduciam. (Caes. Civ. 2:37) "This same information was given to Curio, but for some time he could not believe it. So much confidence did he have in his own position". (5) Figures according to the four categories of change: figures through omission (a) Epitrochasmus (έπιτροχασμός, percursio): Epitrochasmus is the brief enumeration of subjects or events, each of which would otherwise

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deserve a prolonged treatment. The subjects or events are presented as though they were the headings of a comprehensive oudine. άλλ' έφ' Έλλήσποντον οϊχεταν, πρότερον ήκεν έπ' Άμβρακίαν, ΤΗλιν έχει τηλικαύτην πόλιν έν Πελοποννήσφ, Μεγάροις έπεβούλευσεν πρώην. (D. Philippic III 9:27)

"He proceeds against the Hellespont; previously he arrived against Ambracia; he holds Elis, important as it is in the Peloponnese; yesterday he had designs upon the Megarians". Quid proxima, quid superiore nocte egeris, ubi fueris, quos convocaveris, quid consilii ceperis, quem nostrum ignorare arbitraris? (Cic. Catil. 1:1:1) "Who of us, do you think, does not know what you did last night, what the night before, where you were, whom you called together, what plan you adopted?" (b) Paraleipsis (παράλειψις, occultatio, omissio, praetmtio, praetermissio): Paraleipsis is the speaker's stated intendon to omit certain subjects, which he nevertheless mentions in passing. καί τί δει λέγειν τών λοιπών παθών τον δχλον; τάς δυσκολίας του ήθους; τό εύπαρόξυντον; τό μεμψίμοιρον; τό όξύρροπον τής ψυχής; (Bas. Against the Drunks 125A) "And why must one mendon the host of other maladies? The peevishness of character? The tendency to be provoked? The querulousness? The temperamental state of the soul?" Nam ut omittam quod mecum nosti quam sit tremendum de periurio divinum iudicium. (Aug. Epist. 125:4) "For I shall not mention what you know as well as I, how to be feared is the divine judgment against peijury". (c) Aposiopesis (άποσιώπησις, Interruptio, obticentia, reticentia): Aposiopesis is the abrupt breaking off of a thought, before it has been completely expressed. ού γάρ έστιν ϊσον νυν έμοί τής παρ' υμών εύνοιας διαμαρτείν καί τούτω μή έλείν τήν γραφήν, άλλ' έμοί μέν—ού βούλομαι δυσχερές ειπείν ούδέν άρχόμενος του λόγου (D. On the Crown 18:3) "For it is not the same thing for me to lose your goodwill and for him not to win his case; but for me—I do not wish to begin my speech by saying something annoying". Si iacens vobiscum aliquid ageret, audirem fortasse: quamquam—sed hoc malo dicere, audirem. (Cic. Phil. 12:2:4) "If contritely he would propose some arrangement with you, perhaps I would listen, although—but I prefer to say this: I would listen".

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(6) Figures according to the four categories of change: figures through transposidon Hysterologia (ΰστερολογία, ύστερον πρότερον): Hysterologia is a statement in which what would logically be said first is said last and what would logically be said last is said first. άπεληλυθότων δέ τών Λακεδαιμονίων καί προησθημένων την άπάτην (D. On

the Fraudulent Embassy 19:50) "When the Lacedaemonians had departed and had seen through the deceit". Statuerat et deliberaverat. (Cic. Ver. 1:1:1) "He had decided and deliberated".

(7) Figures according to the four categories of change: figures through substitution As in the case of trope, where a word or brief phrase is changed from its proper meaning into another meaning in order to achieve a certain effect, so this category designates thought (or sentence) figures in which one thought may be expressed through another, dissimilar thought. T h e chief difference between a trope proper, or word trope, and a sentence figure through substitution, or thought trope, is that of extension. A trope proper is conveyed through one or a few words, whereas a thought trope extends over a complex of words, sometimes over an entire literary work. This difference, however, is elusive. The terms irony, emphasis, synecdoche, and hyperbole designate both word tropes and thought tropes. O n the other hand, two protracted tropes, allegory and enigma, would seem most appropriate to the category of thought tropes. Allegory (αλληγορία) is an extended statement in which each named object or event is intended to suggest an abstract idea or force. Enigma (αίνιγμα) is a riddle, expressing truth under impossible combinations.

C. Composition In addition to describing the specific kinds of ornamentation, ancient rhetoricians treated the broader aspects of composition under various topics which include (1) the basic types of composition, (2) the period and its basic parts, (3) the sequence of words, and (4) prose rhythm.

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1. Basic Types of Composition The rhetoricians describe three types, or styles, of composition—the loose style (διαλελυμένη λέξις, oratio soluta), the running style (είρομένη λέξις, oratio perpetua), and the complicated style (λέξις κατεστραμμένη, oratio vincta atque contexta). Any one of these styles may characterize a certain author or work, or all three may be present, to varying degrees, in one work. T h e loose style is the least premeditated, least artisdc, and the most natural style of putting words together. As the descriptives, διαλελυμένη and soluta, indicate, a certain looseness of syntax characterizes this style. It is likely to prevail in spontaneous situations, such as conversations, where the words receive utterance as they occur and without much regard to the niceties of grammar and style. The second type, the running or strung-on style, is expression in a straight line. Although the statements may be syntactically coherent and exhibit some ornamentation, they occur paratactically and in the natural sequence of the events or ideas that they express. There are relatively few subordinate clauses in the running style; and subordination, or hypotaxis, when it occurs, tends not to exceed the first degree and is easily detached from the main statement. Not a vehicle for an intellectual development of ideas, the running style is the style of narrative, and as such it has its most skilled practitioners among historians, especially Herodotus, and in orators, like Lysias, who emphasize the narrative parts of the oration. Finally, the complicated style, not only because it contains elaborate sentences called periods but also because the total expression has the period's shape and complexity, is also known as the periodic style. T o understand the nature of this shape and complexity one needs to understand the period itself. 2. The Period and Its Basic Parts Despite some differences of opinion, ancient rhetoricians generally agree that the expressive structure known as the period possesses four characteristics. The first is length, as measured by the number of words that the period contains. Although it can be quite small, the period is the largest unit of expression within a composition; and it is usually thought of as elaborate and lengthy. Certain rhetoricians limit its size to the number of words that can be uttered in a single breath or to the degree of complexity that the audience can grasp; but to modern readers, at least, some of the most famous periods in

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ancient prose seem to exceed these limits—for examples, the opening statement of Demosthenes' On the Crown or of Cicero's For Archias. The second characteristic is complexity, usually achieved through various types of hypotaxis, such as causal, relative, or conditional clauses. T h e subordination can develop as far as the third or fourth degree. T h e third characteristic is expressed by the term itself. "Period", περίοδος in Greek, means "coming around in a circuit" or "coming around to the starting point". The period evokes the image of a circular path because the ideas presented at its beginning are only completely understood at the end, when they have been integrated with each other into one conclusive context, as in Quintilian's (Inst. 9:4:19) term, oratio vincta atque contexta. The ancient critic Demetrius (.Eloc. 2:29) compares the speaker of a period to a runner in a stadium, who understands that he will return whence he has started. The idea of the circle also suggests the tension, a kind of sensus suspensio, that develops between the introduction of the incomplete thoughts at the beginning and their integration and completion at the end, much like the protasis and apodosis of a conditional sentence. The circle connotes the idea of self-containment and independence from timeridden and linear developments which continue without end. It is thus that the complicated, or periodic, style has its reason for being and distinguishes itself from the running style of narrative. Rhythm, the fourth characteristic of the periodic style, will receive detailed attention below. T h e period consists of two subordinate parts—the colon (κώλον/ membrum) and the comma (κόμμα/caesum or incisum). Although some rhetoricians recognize only the colon and others give conflicting definitions for either of the two parts, one can conceive of their relationship in terms of degree of subordination, relative length, and completeness of thought within an elaborate period. Regarding the first, as the colon is subordinate to the period, so the comma is subordinate to the colon. Consequendy, the colon is the longer of the two and comes closer to conveying a complete thought. Demetrius (Eloc. 2:2) illustrates the relationship of the colon to the period by comparing it to the relationship of the finger to the hand. Presumably one may extrapolate by comparing the comma to a section or joint of a finger. T o establish other than these relative criteria seems to encounter disagreement or inconsistency. Qpintilian (Inst. 9:4:123) believes that the colon can be further distinguished from the comma by having a rhythmical close (clausula); however, this criterion does

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not square with every known definition of the colon and with every prose author's use of rhythm. 3. The Sequence of Words Three major considerations determine the sequence of words in composition—order (ordo), juncture (iunctura), and rhythm (numerus). T h e first, order, is of two kinds—natural and correct. Natural order is that which nature or convention seems to dictate, such as spring before summer or men before women. Also regarded as a natural order is the modus per incrementa, or law of growing members, which places the shortest of coordinate words or clauses first, followed by successively longer ones. The same law of growth applies to ideas of strength or importance. A passage from Cicero (Phil. 2:25:63), tu istis faucibus, istis latenbus, ista gladiatoria totius corporis firmitate ("you, with that jaw of yours, that chest, that gladiator's strength of your whole body"), illustrates both aspects of the modus per incrementa. Correct order, on the other hand, assumes that various parts of speech have certain specified positions within a sentence. In Latin, for example, the position of the verb at the end of the sentence has, for some practitioners, the force of a grammatical rule. Hence to place the verb anywhere except at the end of the sentence violates the correct order. The second consideration, juncture, concerns the effect that words have upon each other by contact. Several successive words of the same part of speech can seem tedious to the listener. Juncture can detrimentally affect the sound of words in succession by unintentionally producing offensive meanings and thus become the vice known as cacemphaton (κακέμφατον). It can also produce unpleasant sounds, such as in structura aspera, a harsh sounding combination of consonants, or in structura hiulca, the gaping of the mouth in hiatus when a word ending in a vowel precedes a word beginning in a vowel. The orator Isocrates, for example, is famous for his avoidance of hiatus. Finally, the speaker must be constandy alert to the effect that combining words has upon the rhythm of his composition. A succession of several monosyllabic words or of too many short or long syllables disrupts the desired rhythmic flow. T h e orator Demosthenes rarely allows more than two short syllables to sound in succession.

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4. Prose Rhythm (Numerus) Although one usually associates the study of rhythm with poetry rather than with prose, rhythm is an essential property of all verbal expression; and even in casual conversation the speaker's choice of words will sometimes depend upon which combination produces the most satisfactory alternation of short and long sounds. Several of the greatest practitioners of prose, especially among the orators, imposed upon their compositions certain rhythmical constraints, which subsequendy were observed and discussed by ancient critics, beginning with the sophist Thrasymachus in the late fifth century BC. Even so, there is a clear distinction to be made between the use of rhythm in poetry and that in prose. While both forms accept the "foot" as the basic rhythmic unit, poetry imposes upon the entire composition a uniform arrangement of certain feet, which is called meter. Prose, as a rule, reveals no similarly consistent and pervasive arrangement of feet. Instead, it will be found to employ short combinations of feet at important points within a single period. By far the most important of these points is the period's end, or clausula, since certain rhythms reinforce the sense of ending or completion in the meaning. Some rhetoricians also advocate the use of combinations of feet at the beginning of the period and at the ends (clausulae) of cola, although of a different kind than the ones ending a period.7 In selecting rhythms prose artists follow three rules. First, the end of a period must not sound, rhythmically, like the end of a poetic verse; however, it may sound like the beginning of a poetic verse. Secondly, there must be a variety of long and short syllables and not an excess of either kind in any clausula; and the rhythmical patterns of successive clausulae must vary. Thirdly, and finally, although there must not be an excess of either long or short sounds in any clausula, the long sounds will outnumber the short sounds in order to achieve a braking effect on the momentum of the period.

IV.

VIRTUE 4:

PROPRIETY

Propriety, the fourth and final stylistic virtue, is achieved when all the parts of an oration harmoniously merge into one organic whole 1

Lausberg, Handbuch, I, pp. 491-503, supplies an exhaustive list of clausulae. See

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and the whole exacdy fits the occasion. Defined in this way, propriety encompasses the entirety of ancient rhetoric and, as a stylistic virtue, overlaps the three previous virtues of correctness, clarity, and ornament. In their comments about propriety the rhetoricians discuss not so much the means to achieve the virtue as the vices to be avoided in its pursuit. The virtue of correctness, for example, is achieved through the avoidance of the vices of barbarisms and solecisms; and the virtue of clarity results from the absence of such vices as jargon, hyperbaton, meiosis, and pleonasm. Several of these vices, the absence of which constitutes propriety, have already been described; however, three additional stylisdc vices deserve mendon. T h e first, amphibolia (αμφιβολία), is a type of obscurity, created by the combination of words, that presents the listener with a choice of two different meanings, for example, certum est Antonium praecedere eloquentia Crasstim, in which either Antonium or Crassum could be the subject of the infinidve. Secondly, kakozelia (κακοζηλία) is a kind of stylistic overkill, any affectatious use of stylistic ornament. Finally, psychron (ψυχρόν), "frigidity", occurs as the obviously inappropriate disparity between the language selected and the idea it was meant to express or as a mismatch between language and literary genre—using the words of comedy, for example, in a tragedy. Somewhat related to propriety is the discussion of kinds of style (genera dicendi), which proceeds from the perception that different speakers, occasions, types of speeches, and parts within a speech, require different kinds (genera or χαρακτήρες) or levels of stylistic intensity. Ancient rhetoricians and critics generally agree on three such kinds or levels, the plain (χαρακτήρ ισχνός, genus subtile), the medium or flowery (χαρακτήρ μέσον, άνθηρόν; genus medium, floridum), and the grand (χαρακτήρ άδρόν, genus grande atque robustum); however, one of the leading proponents of this approach, Demetrius, or the author of On Style (Eloc), advocates four—the plain (ισχνός), the grand (μεγαλοπρεπής), the elegant (γλαφυρός), and the forceful (δεινός). Whether three or four in number, the levels are variously discussed by various rhetoricians according to such criteria as (1) the subject to be addressed, (2) the speaker's goal in addressing the subject, (3) the peculiar qualities or virtues contributed by each, (4) the amount of tropes or metaphors to be employed, (5) the models or examples also E. Siebenborn, "Herkunft und Entwicklung des Terminus Periodos", Historiographia Linguistica 13 (1986), pp. 403-23.

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(whether of speeches or orators), (6) the range of variety permitted, and (7) the defects or vices to which each level is susceptible. Thus, for example, the plain style would be appropriate to (a) narrative or proof, (b) teaching or demonstrating, (c) a respectful and disinterested demeanor, (d) avoidance of metaphors or highly figurative expression, (e) the speech of Menelaus in the Iliad (3:214—15) or Cicero's For Legaùus-, (f) it would not be uniformly plain but allow a selecdve use of ornament, and (g) it is susceptible to the vice of aridity. One could almost extrapolate from this example the remaining two or three levels, since they simply represent degrees of stylistic intensity. In fact, however, the kinds or levels of style constitute not so much a doctrine of rhetoric as a convenient means of comparing styles.8 Finally, another means of describing styles deserves brief mention— the dichotomy of Atticism versus Asianism. Actually more than a dichotomy, Atticism versus Asianism stands for a controversy that began in the first century BC, when certain Greek orators appeared to have departed from the purity of diction and style that prevailed in the glorious period of Attic oratory, the fourth century. These orators were called Asianists, because orators of Asia Minor seemed especially decadent in their use of the Greek language. The term became popular in Rome to distinguish the purist users of Latin (Atticists) from those who seemed to have corrupted it in certain ways (Asianists). Although usually the Atticist label connoted approval, it occasionally assumed a pejorative connotation for styles that seemed excessively pure and traditional. Asianism, on the other hand, was not a consistendy negative term, especially if the Asianist, like Cicero's worthy adversary Hortensius, enjoyed success. It is difficult to develop a substantial list of criteria for either style. The chief distinctions tend to be those of purity in diction and conservatism in ornament in Atticism versus their opposites in Asianism. 9

8

See also C. Milovanovic-Barham, "Three Levels of Style in Augustine of Hippo and Gregory of Nazianzus", Rhetorica 11 (1993), pp. 1-25. 9 Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, I, p. 126, presents a detailed description of Asianism. See also U. Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, "Asianismus und Attizismus", Hermes 35 (1900), pp. Iff.

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CONCLUSION

Although the theory of style, as it was developed and transmitted by sophists, philosophers, rhetoricians, and critics over several centuries, may seem to our age somewhat limited in insights, it has nevertheless proved to be indispensable to any discussion about verbal expression in modern times. Classical rhetoric has supplied the nomenclature that has made it possible to describe the formal characteristics of verbal expression, and it has established the four virtues—correctness, clarity, ornament, and propriety—which after 2,500 years remain the valid criteria of any style.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bultmann, R., Der Stil der Paulinischen Predigt und die kynisch-stoische Diatribe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910). Kennedy, G., The Art of Persuasion in Greece (London: Roudedge and Kegan Paul, 1963). , Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980). Lausberg, H., Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik (2 vols.; Munich: Hueber, 1960). Martin, J., Antike Rhetorik (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, 2:3; Munich: Beck, 1974). Norden, E., Die antike Kunstprosa (2 vols.; Berlin: Teubner, 1909; Nachtrage, 1915). Radermacher, L., Artium scriptores (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (philosophisch-historische Klasse) Sitzungsberichte, 227; 3rd edn.; Vienna: Rudolf M. Rohrer, 1951). Spengel, L. (ed.), Rhetores Grata (3 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1853-56). Weiss, J., Beiträge zur paulinischen Rhetorik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1897).

CHAPTER 6

DELIVERY AND M E M O R Y Thomas H. Olbricht Peppcrdine University, California, USA

According to the Rhetorica ad Herennium, published about 80 BC, the five parts of rhetoric are: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.1 Aristode in The Rhetoric discussed the first three, but focused on invention. "There are three things which require special attention in regard to speech: first, the sources of proofs, secondly, style; and thirdly, the arrangement of the parts of the speech." 2 He mentioned delivery briefly in book 3 in the section on style. O n the other parts he recognized predecessors, but in regard to delivery he wrote that it "is of the greatest importance, but has not yet been treated by anyone". 3 A contemporary of Aristotle, Theophrastus, wrote a significant treatise which is no longer extant. Concerning the emergence of the five part canon of rhetoric, Harry Caplan wrote, T h e pre-Aristotelian rhetoric, represented by the Rhet. ad Alexandrian, treated the first three (without classifying them); Aristotle would add Delivery . . . , and his pupil Theophrastus did so. When precisely in the Hellenistic period Memory was added as a fifth division by the Rhodian or the Pergamene school, we do not know. 4

Aristode believed that both poetry and rhetoric are concerned with delivery, implying that both were to be presented orally. He focused first on voice, pointing out that by the emotion in the voice different

1

Rhet. ad Ha. 1:3. Though the Rhetorica ad Herennium placed memory before delivery, I will follow the now traditional order. 2 Arist. Rh. 3:1. This and subsequent translations are from J. H. Freese, Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoru (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 345. 3 Arist. Rh. 3:3. He only discussed delivery for about a page and a half, sections 4—7. See R. L. Enos, Greek Rhetoric before Aristotle (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1993) and T. Cole, The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). 4 H. Caplan, Rhetorica Ad Herennium (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 6.

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moods can be set.5 The three voice qualities are volume, harmony, and rhythm. He designated as "vulgar" concern for delivery, no doubt thereby disclosing the importance he attached to it.6 But since delivery carries the day in persuasion, attention must be directed to it. He was content, however, to let the actors spell out specific guidelines. He declared that written composition was the most precise. "The epideictic style is especially suited to written compositions, for its function is reading; and next to it comes the forensic style."7 The public debates required a different approach. These debates may make a great impression orally, but sound silly when read. They contain asyndeta and frequent word repetition. 8 Since New Testament episdes were written to be read aloud to the assembled believers, it may be that their style was more that of public debate rather than of the precision demanded of the law court and on ceremonial occasions. T h e next major work on rhetoric is the Rhetorica ad Herennium. Throughout medieval times the Rhetorica ad Herennium was attributed to Cicero, but now it is commonly believed to be by a contemporary of Cicero. 9 While many rhetorical works were written by the Greeks after Aristode, few have survived. One manner of assessing the period is through the Rhetorica ad Herennium. According to Kennedy, ". . . it is exceedingly helpful in gaining a general notion of developments in the two hundred and fifty years after Aristotle's Rhetoric".10 Concerning the functions of memory and delivery, the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium stated, "Memory is the firm retention in the mind of the matter, word and arrangement. Delivery is the graceful regulation of voice, countenance, and gesture."" T h e author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium despaired as to whether he could adequately set out the rules for delivery, concluding that they were better taught by actual demonstration than by verbal 5

Arist. Rh. 3:4. Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse (trans. G. A. Kennedy; New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 6 Arist. Rh. 3:5. 7 Arist. Rh. 3:12:6. 8 Arist. Rh. 3:12:3. See also R. Nadeau, "Delivery in Ancient Times", Quarterly Journal of Speech 50 (1964), pp. 54, 55; and R. P. Sonkowsky, "An Aspect of Delivery in Ancient Rhetorical Thought", TAPA 90 (1959), pp. 256-74. Reprinted in Aristotle: The Classical Heritage of Rhetoric (ed. Κ. V. Erickson; Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1974), pp. 251-66. 9 Caplan, Rhetorica Ad Herennium, pp. viii-xiv. 10 G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 264. 11 Rhet. ad Her. 1:3.

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description. But since no one had elaborated on the subject, he set out to construct a new perspective. He divided delivery into voice quality and physical movement. 12 He believed that superior vocal technique gave attention to volume, stability, and flexibility. In addition, the speaker needed to vary the voice at the beginning and end of each speech in a manner compatible with the differing kinds of material. For example, when narrating, the proper approach is "the Narrative Conversational Tone": . . . varied intonations are necessary, so that we seem to recount everything just as it took place. Our delivery will be somewhat rapid w h e n we narrate what we wish to show was done vigorously, and it will be slower when we narrate something else done in leisurely fashion. 13

In addition, the author depicted ways of employing gestures so as to respond to the moods and ideas expressed. "For the Pathetic Tone of Amplification, one ought to slap one's thigh and beat one's head, and sometimes to use a calm and uniform gesticulation and a sad and disturbed expression." 14 T h e outcome of these variations should be that the technique not call attention to itself, but to the ideas and emotions. "Good delivery ensures that what the orator is saying seems to come from his heart." It is in regard to memory that the Rhetorica ad Herennium made a unique contribution. 15 It is not clear whether the author's ideas are his own or whether he borrowed them from earlier rhetoricians. Nevertheless, he was the first to put them down in a manuscript which is still extant. Memory, the author argued, consisted of an artificial quality or came entirely from nature. T h e artificial memory can be enhanced through the employment of backgrounds and images. In order to remember a series of items they should be set in a vivid, uncluttered background. Order was important, but good memory did not require that items be recalled only first to last or from front to 12

Rhet. ad Her. 3:20. On this rhetoric see J. Martin, Antike Rhetorik (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft; Munich: Beck, 1974), vol. II; T. M. Conley, Rhetoric in the European Tradition (New York: Longman, 1990), pp. 29-50. 13 Rhet. ad Her. 3:24. 14 Rhet. ad Her. 3:27. 15 G. B. Mathews, "Augustine on Speaking from Memory", American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1965), pp. 157-60; W. W. Meissner, "A Historical Note on Retention", Journal of Germanic Philology 59 (1958), pp. 229-36; D. E. Hargis, "Memory in Rhetoric", Southern Speech Communication Journal 17 (1951), pp. 114-24; W. E. Hoogestraat, "Memory: The Lost Canon?", Quarterly Journal of Speech 46 (1960), pp. 141-47; F. A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966).

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back. 16 A good memory scheme should include the recall of items at will regardless of order. T h e images employed should be correlative to the items. Though certain rhetoricians highlighted a series of images so as to recall the important words, he felt a "dictionary of images" too complex to be helpful. He argued against the position that words themselves were to be memorized. He believed that the images selected should aid the natural memory with the result that, "art will supplement nature". 17 Cicero's earliest work on rhetoric, written about 87 BC, and therefore contemporary with the Rhetorica ad Herennium was De inventione.'8 In this work Cicero defined memory and delivery, but offered little more. "Memory is the firm mental grasp of matter and words. Delivery is the control of voice and body in a manner suitable to the dignity of the subject matter and the style."19 It is commonly presumed that Cicero intended to carry this work through the five canons, but only completed a discussion of invention. In a later work, Partitiones oratoria, which Cicero prepared for his son about 45 BC, he expanded delivery and memory in summary fashion. 20 It was in De oratore, commonly recognized as Cicero's finest statement on rhetoric, that his detailed comments were set out, but even then they were not as extensive as in the Rhetorica ad Herennium.2I Cicero reported that he finished De oratore in 55 BC. Manuscripts were available a year or two later. Cicero highlighted the importance of delivery, as did his predecessors, but he decried the manner in which instruction on the item had been taken over by the actors. He argued that "reality beats imitation in everything". 22 According to Cicero the thoughts of the speaker are conveyed through the words, but the emotions are con-

16

Rhet. ad Her. 3:30. Rhet. ad Her. 3:34. See G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 123-26. 18 My references are to Cicero De Inventione (trans. H. M. Hubbell; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949). For bibliography on Cicero's rhetorical works see A. Douglas, "The Intellectual Background of Cicero's Rhetorica", ANRW (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1973). 19 Cic. Inv. 1:9. 20 Cic. Part. 25, 26. The work was to be similar to the ancient handbooks for school boys. 21 My comments refer to Cicero, De Oratore (trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967). In addition to the documents considered here Cicero also discussed delivery in Brut. 8:34, 17:55, 37:142, and 80:278; Or. 17:55-18:60; and Off. 1:37, 37:133. 22 Cic. De or. 3:215. 17

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veyed through delivery. The guidelines for delivery therefore focused on exhibiting the various emotions: For delivery is wholly the concern of the feelings, and these are mirrored by the face and the body capable of producing as many indications and variations as there are emotions, and there is nobody who can produce the same effect with the eyes shut.23 T h e voice is the most important aspect of delivery. T h e voice must center upon the natural level, and constantly engage in alternation, variadon and change. 24 Cicero did not offer specific instructions for the different genre of speeches as did the Rhetoma ad Herennium. Cicero's comments on memory are much like those of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, but not as lengthy. He reported that Simonides of Ceos invented the science of mnemonics. 25 Cicero declared that memory consisted of establishing a background and employing images. He explained "background" in reporting a story in which Simonides was dining at the house of Scopas in Thessaly. As they finished eadng, two messengers appeared at the door, urgently requesting that Simonides come out so they could speak with him. As soon as he exited the roof collapsed crushing Scopas along with his relatives. Later when friends arrived to dig them out they could not identify specific bodies as the result of the damage: Simonides was enabled by his recollection of the place in which each of them had been reclining at table to identify them for separate interment; and that this circumstance suggested to him the discovery of the truth that the best aid to clearness of memory consists in orderly arrangement. He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty must select localities and form mental images of the facts they wish to remember and store those images in the localities. . . .26 Cicero believed that the chief origin of memory was nature, but he declared that in employing a backdrop upon which images were located, even the most dull-witted could profit. He believed that the senses provided the most vivid pictures and among these the keenest 23 Cic. De or. 3:221. On details see also, "For nature has assigned to every emotion a particular look and tone of voice and bearing of its own; and the whole of a person's frame and every look on his face and utterance of his voice are like the strings of a harp, and sound according as they are struck by each successive emotion" (3:216). 24 Cic. De or. 3:225-27. 25 Cic. De or. 2:351. 26 Cic. De or. 2:353, 354.

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was sight. What is heard is reinforced when accompanied by a visual background. He maintained that memorizing words was less essential but nevertheless of value. Facility at memory may be limited in the normal population but certain people possess superhuman powers in remembering words. 27 Sonkowsky argued that pre-planning of delivery and memory were for Cicero a part of the speaker's advanced preparation, and were endemically as much a part of the oration in both anticipation and presentation as the words of the speech. 28 T h e most comprehensive work on rhetoric from the ancient world was the Institutio oratoria of Quintilian, written about AD 95.29 In the view of Conley, "The Institutes... is one of the fullest records of rhetorical lore in the Isocratean-Ciceronian tradition ever written, as it covers in 12 books a program of education from the cradle to the grave". 30 Clearly Quintilian presented the most extended analysis on delivery and memory extant. T h e perspectives of Quintilian on delivery are much the same as those of Cicero, but he elaborated much more on the rules. He did so because of his commitment that " . . . we cannot hope to attain perfection unless nature is assisted by study".31 He concluded, however, that nature was the most influential. He was careful to distinguish the teaching of delivery by the rhetor, from that of those who trained actors. He argued that outstanding delivery carried the day over superior ideas. Quintilian developed his thoughts on delivery in two parts, the first regarding the voice and the second, the body or gestures. The voice must have both the proper quantity and quality.32 Keeping the superior voice in form requires speaking daily. Utterances are to be "fluent, clear, pleasant and 'urbane'". 3 3 T h e voice is to vary according to the subjects at hand. Quintilian was more detailed and explicit in these regards than his predecessors. O n gestures and bodily approaches he provided much additional expansion. He offered intricate instruction 27

Cic. De or. 2:357-60. Sonkowsky, "An Aspect of Delivery", 259-61. 29 G. A. Kennedy, Quintilian (New York: Twayne, 1969); U. Maier-Eichhorn, Die Gestikulation in Quintilians Rhetorik (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1989). 30 Conley, Rhetoric in the European Tradition, p. 38. 31 Quint. Inst. 11:3:4. Quoted from The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian (trans. H. E. Buder; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), IV, p. 249. 32 Inst. 11:3:15. 33 Inst. 11:3:30. 28

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on movements of the head, the eyebrows, the hands, and the clothes worn. The following example exhibits the specificity: T h e following gesture is admirably adapted to accompany modest language: the thumb and the next three fingers are gendy converged to a point and the hand is carried to the neighborhood of the mouth or chest, then relaxed palm downwards and slightly advanced. 3 4

Bodily motion is to vary according to the type of speech, as well as to the different parts within the speech. Consequently, in panegyric, funeral orations excepted, in returning thanks, exhortations and the like, the delivery must be luxuriant, magnificent, and grand. O n the other hand, in funeral or consolatory speeches, together with most of those in defence of accused persons, the delivery will be melancholy and subdued. W h e n we speak in the senate, it will be authoritative, when we address the people, dignified, and when we are pleading in private cases, restrained. 35

Delivery also required adaptation to the personality of the speaker. Quintilian in effect agreed with the statement that the rule for effective speaking is that there are no rules. In other words Quintilian, as well as the rest of the ancient rhetoricians, held that rules are always situational. 36 Based on their perspective it seems dangerous to be adamant in rhetorical criticism as to the rules that appertain to a specific text. Inasmuch as biblical critics form conclusions based upon alleged digressions in biblical documents, it seems appropriate to set forth Quintilian's observations: Digresùons, as a rule are characterized by gentleness, calm and placidity, as, for example, in Cicero's description of the Rape of Proserpine, his picture of Sicily, or his panegyric of Pompey. For naturally passages which deal with subjects lying outside the main question in dispute demand a less combative tone. 37

While Quintilian's depiction may not hold true in every case, his criterion should at least be considered in making distinctions in regard to digressions. Quintilian's observations on memory advance little beyond Cicero, though he provides more detail. He tells the story of Simonides in 34 35 36 37

Inst. Inst. Inst. Inst.

11:3:96. 11:3:153. 11:3:161-84. 11:3:164.

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fuller form. He pointed out that Plato decried the advent of writing on the grounds that memory was thereby set aside, a disaster especially to speakers, inasmuch as in their case an outstanding memory is a great asset.38 He too argued for placing ideas in a spatial setting, for example, the various rooms of a house, so as to keep them sorted out and in order. 39 He also recommended that it is better to read aloud the material to be memorized: T h e question has been raised as to whether we should learn by heart in silence; it would be best to do so, save for the fact that under such circumstances the mind is apt to become indolent, with the result that other thoughts break in. For this reason the mind should be kept alert by the sound of the voice, so that the memory may derive assistance from the double effort of speaking and listening. 40

This observation, it seems, implies that one might read silendy, which sheds light on the argument of some, that reading was always aloud even as late as the time of Augustine. 41 Most ancient rhetoricians recommended that as the orator prepared a speech he should at the same time devise appropriate vocal and physical responses. Likewise, as the speech is prepared, attention should be given to images that not only help the speaker recall his train of thought, but in addition, help the audience retain the same. A differendy nuanced exegesis might accrue from contemplating delivery and memory. 42 The materials in the New Testament were no doubt written in anticipation that they would be read aloud. What if at some stage in trying to understand the text the critic read aloud while at the same time visualizing appropriate vocal and physical responses to the text? Then the exegete might go through the text once again, seeking depictions which highlighted local color and image. According to the Rhetorica ad Herennium, memory assisted both the author and the audience. Through incorporation of this added dimension in exegesis, new insights might accrue in respect to continuities and nuances. 38

Inst. 11:2:9. Inst. 11:2:20-26. 40 Inst. 11:2:33. 41 On this discussion see P. Achtemeier, "Omen verbum sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment", JBL 109 (1990), pp. 3-27; R.J. Starr, "Reading Aloud: Lectores and Rome Reading", CJ 86 (1991), pp. 337-43; and F. D. Gilliard, "More Silent Reading in Antiquity: Non Omne Verbum Sonat", JBL (1993), pp. 689-94. 42 On the manner in which memory theories may have influenced ancient texts see W. H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), and especially his bibliography, pp. 227-47. 39

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Achtemeier, P., "Omen verbum sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment", JBL 109 (1990), pp. 3-27. Cole, T., The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). Conley, T. M., Rhetoric in the European Tradition (New York: Longman, 1990). Enos, R. L., Greek Rhetoric before Aristotle (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1993). Gilliard, F. D., "More Silent Reading in Antiquity: Non Omne Verbum Sonat', JBL 112 (1993), pp. 689-94. Hargis, D.E., "Memory in Rhetoric", SSCJ 17 (1951), pp. 114-24. Hoogestraat, W. E., "Memory: The Lost Canon?", Quarterly Journal of Speech 46 (1960), pp. 141-47. Kelber, W. H., The Oral and the Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983). Kennedy, G. Α., The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963). , The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World 300 BC-AD 300 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). , Quintilian (New York: Twayne, 1969). Maier-Eichhorn, U , Die Gestikulation in Quintilians Rhetorik (Frankfurt: Lang, 1989). Martin, J., Antike Rhetorik (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft; Munich: Beck, 1974). Mathews, G. B., "Augustine on Speaking from Memory", APQ_ 2 (1965), pp. 157-60. Meissner, W. W., "A Historical Note on Retention", Journal of Germanic Philology 59 (1958), pp. 229-36. Nadeau, R., "Delivery in Ancient Time", Quarterly Journal of Speech 50 (1964), pp. 54-55. Sonkowsky, R. P., "An Aspect of Delivery in Ancient Rhetorical Thought", ΤΑΡΑ 90 (1959), pp. 256-74. Starr, R.J., "Reading Aloud: Lectores and Rome Reading", CJ 86 (1991), pp. 337 43. Yates, F. Α., The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966).

P A R T II

R H E T O R I C IN P R A C T I C E

CHAPTER 7

T H E EPISTLE Jeffrey T. Reed Issaquah, Washington, USA

I.

INTRODUCTION

Episdes1 and rhetorical speeches were two of the most significant genres of communication during the classical and Hellenistic eras. Despite their importance, they served somewhat different purposes. Rhetorical speeches were primarily intended for the law courts and public arena, 2 typically with the audience in full view of the speaker and with some persuasive goal in mind. Letters primarily served the task of bridging spatial distance separating communicants, originating in administrative practices but soon finding a place in personal correspondence. The resulting multi-functional nature of letters begs the question whether rhetorical practices were employed in letter writing—a debate taken up by the Ciceronians and humanists during the medieval era. 3 T h e very flexibility of the epistolary genre allowed for the possibility of rhetorical influence. But did this actually occur, either in theory or in practice? The following study suggests ways in which rhetoric was and was not employed in letter writing, citing evidence from the rhetorical and epistolary theorists 4 and actual letters. The various "species" as well as three of the five categories of rhetorical practice (inventio, dispositio, elocutio) provide a 1 No semantic distinction between "episüe" and "letter" is intended in this study. Greek terminology made no such distinction; so M. L. Stirewalt, Studies in Ancient Greek Epistolography (SBLRBS, 27; Adanta: Scholars Press, 1993), p. 87. 2 D.J. Ochs, "Cicero's Rhetorical Theory", in A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric (ed. J.J. Murphy; Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1983), p. 96. 3 J. R. Henderson, "Erasmus on the Art of Letter-Writing", in Renaissance Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Renaissance Rhetoric (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 331-55. 4 By "epistolary theorist" I include the authors of the epistolary handbooks as well as those learned letter writers who make less systematic (sometimes casual) comments about letter writing.

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useful outline for the investigation.5 Finally, attention is given to actual letters which apparently employ a rhetorical structure.

II.

R H E T O R I C A L T Y P E S (SPECIES) IN EPISTLES

Oral and literary genres are functional, that is, they develop conventional forms and patterns of language appropriate to the basic situational function they serve. Ancient rhetorical speech—a genre of argumentation—was typically divided into three sub-genres (or registers): judicial, deliberative, and epideictic. In general, judicial speech operated in the courtroom, deliberative speech in the political assembly, and epideictic speech in the public arena (frequently at ceremonial occasions). "Did something happen or not?" was an essential question scrutinized by judicial speech, often being answered with physical evidence. "Is it more beneficial to do this or that?" was the question explored by deliberative speech. "Should something be praised or blamed?" was the question discussed by epideictic speech. Are these three types of spoken genres found in ancient episdes? In order to probe this question, it is first necessary to discuss ancient attempts to classify various types of letters. In contrast to the oral, face-to-face context of most ancient rhetoric,6 the epistolary genre was occasioned by situations where one or more individuals, spatially separated, wished to communicate. 7 Writing to C. Scribonius Curio in 53 BC, Cicero describes this essential function of letters: 5 Memory (memoria) and delivery (pronuntiatio) had little, if any, relevance for letter writing; cf. De componendis et omandis epistolis of Giovanni Sulpizio of Veroli (Rome, 1491), cited by Henderson, "Erasmus", p. 337. 6 Speech was the primary medium of rhetoric (i.e. primary rhetoric; G. A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular TraditionfromAncient to Modem Times [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980], pp. 4-5); rhetoric was "the art of the rhetor,—the speaker's (the public speaker's) art" (W. Rhys Roberts, Greek Rhetoric and Literary Criticism [New York: Longmans, 1928], p. 22). Nonetheless, other written mediums were influenced by rhetorical principles: e.g. "Plutarch's Lives and Moralia ... the commentaries of Philo of Alexandria, the discourses of Dio Chrysostom, and the letters of Seneca"; cf. Β. Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg-Fortress, 1990), p. 30. Cicero and Seneca note the dialogical nature of letter writing (Cic. Att. 8:14:1; 9:10:1; 12:53; Sen. Ep. 75:1). These are secondary mediums of classical rhetoric, however, being mosdy influenced by stylistic choices (Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, p. 5). 7 Cf. the epistolary definition of J. L. White, "The Greek Documentary Letter Tradition Third Century BC to Third Century AD", Semeia 22 (1981), p. 91. Besides

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That there are many kinds of letters you are well aware; there is one kind, however, about which there can be no mistake—for indeed letter writing was invented just in order that we might inform those at a distance if there were anything which it was important for them or for ourselves that they should know (Fam. 2:4:1). Cicero goes on to speak of letters which are "intimate and humorous" and letters which are "austere and serious". 8 He differentiates between public and private letters: "You see, I have one way of writing what I think will be read by those only to whom I address my letter, and another way of writing what I think will be read by many" (Fam. 15:21:4). Elsewhere, Cicero mentions informative letters, domestic letters, letters of commendation, letters of solace, and letters promising assistance (Fam. 2:4:1; 4:13:1; 5:5:1); but his comments are casual and do not reflect an elaborate system. Philostratus (Ep. 2:257:29258:28 [3rd century AD]), although providing only a partial list, mentions letters giving (δίδοντες) or requesting (δεόμενοι) something, agreeing (ξυγχωροΰντες) or disagreeing (μή . . . ) on some issue, attacking (καθαπτόμενοι) someone or defending (άπολογούμενοι) the writer, and expressing affection (έρώντες). In a letter to Gnaeus Pompeius, Dionysius of Halicamassus describes a letter, which he had received from a friend, as έπιστολήν τ ι ν α . . . εύπαίδευτον "an educated letter". 9 In his categorization of the five characters of rational discourse (οί του λόγου χαρακτήρες), Apollonius of Tyana (Ep. 19; 1st century AD) includes the philosopher (φιλόσοφος), historian (ιστορικός), advocate (δικανικός), writer of episdes (έπιστολικός), and commentator (ΰπομνηματικός). The authors of "letter-essays" such as The Martyrdom of Polycarp, 2 Maccabees, and those of Epicurus, Dionysius of Halicamassus, Plutarch, preferred the term λόγος rather than έπιστολή to classify their writings.10 The most comprehensive attempts to classify letters are the epistolary handbooks. T h e one falsely attributed to

this primary function, the letter was used for a host of other purposes (e.g. letters of friendship, letters of praise and blame, letters of recommendation, letters of petition, and administrative letters). 8 Cicero's typology conflates one function of the genre—viz. to inform—with the primary occasion of the genre—viz. to bridge the spatial gap between people. Many of his own letters in Epistulae ad Familiares combine the function of conveying political information about himself and/or the recipient in either a formal or an informal manner. 9 W. Rhys Roberts, Dionysius of Halicamassus: The Three literary Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901), p. 89. 10 Stirewalt, Studies, pp. 18-20, 86.

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Demetrius of Phalerum, Τύποι Επιστολικοί (2nd century BC-3rd century AD), details twenty-one types of letters. In addition, the epistolary handbook falsely attributed to Libanius (another edition is attributed to Proclus), Έπιστολιμαίοι Χαρακτήρες (4th century-6th century AD), delineates forty-one types of letters." Each type serves different, although at times overlapping, functions which involve different relationships between the communicants and, thus, require different styles of writing. T h e above abbreviated list of ancient typologies reveals the difficulty of any modern attempt to classify what could and could not constitute the secondary function of a letter. If a text indicates (usually at the beginning) that it is written between two or more spatially separated individuals (real or imaginary), the body of the letter might contain anything. Ancient typologies were practical, that is, they served the needs of professional letter writers. Thus, they were flexible and allowed the individual to handle a variety of situations with a variety of types of letters.12 Therefore, it is not surprising that some of the epistolary types parallel the three sub-genres of rhetoric. Such functional parallels do not necessarily indicate, however, that an author patterned his or her letter after the rhetorical handbooks. Rather, the similarities may simply be due to culturally-shared means of argumentation. In other words, argumentation is universal as well as particular. Groups within the society (e.g. rhetors and philosophers) may have developed and classified ways of "persuading others" to serve their own needs. Thus, fondions of judicial, deliberative, and epideictic "species" of rhetoric would likely have been used in various literary contexts such as the letter. This functional overlap between the rhetorical species and

" For a brief introduction (including dating), texts and translations of the two handbooks as well as other works on epistolary theory see A.J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists (SBLSBS, 19; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1988); the handbooks were written for advanced epistolary students or more likely professional letter writers (pp. 6~7). The Τύποι, which originated in Egypt, had only marginal influence on actual letter writing in Egypt—the resemblance may, however, be the influence of letter writing practices on the handbook; cf. C. W. Keyes, "The Greek Letter of Introduction", AJP 56 (1935), p. 44, who says it had "litde influence on Greek letter writing in Egypt" and Malherbe, Epistolary Theorists, p. 4, who notes that "many similarities between it and Egyptian papyrus letters can be identified... but this cannot be taken to prove that this particular manual significandy influenced actual practice". This makes it difficult to draw conclusions from this epistolary handbook about the indirect influence of rhetorical theory on letter writing. 12 Ps.-Demetr. (Τύποι 'Επιστολικοί 1:22-24) notes the flexibility of the epistolary genre and the possibility of further developments to the epistolary typologies.

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epistolary types is demonstrated in the epistolary theorists. With respect to the possibility of a "judicial letter", perhaps the "accusing" (κατηγορικός) letter comes nearest, but the parallels may only be functional and there is no mention of a courtroom setting. 13 In rebuttal to the "accusing" letter, someone might employ the "apologetic" (απολογητικός) letter to ward off an indictment. 14 Again this type of letter clearly did not replace the courtroom rhetoric nor, more importandy, does this type speak of "inventing" or "ordering" such a letter according to rhetorical conventions. A deliberative type of rhetoric is mentioned in the epistolary theorists. Pseudo-Demetrius speaks of "advisory" (συμβουλευτικός) letters, which are used to "impel [someone] to something (προτρέπωμεν έπί τι) or dissuade [someone] from something (άποτρέπωμεν από τίνος)".15 Pseudo-Libanius categorizes the same type of letter as "paraenetic" (παραινετική). " T h e paraenetic type of letter is that in which we impel someone by urging him to pursue something or to avoid something. Paraenesis is divided into two parts: encouragement (προτροπήν) and dissuasion (άποτροπήν).'"6 It is difficult to know if this theorist's terminology has been borrowed directly from the rhetorical handbooks. The divergent language suggests otherwise. Even if it has, the fact remains that nothing else is said about the "rhetorical" nature of such letters. Once again, the parallel between the epistolary types and the rhetorical species may only be functional. Of the three rhetorical subgenres, the epideictic type is most at home among the epistolary theorists.17 Several of Pseudo-Libanius's epistolary types resemble Quintilian's categorization of epideictic rhetoric (Inst. 3:4:3), for example, the "praising" (έπαινετικός) and "blaming" (μεμπτικός) letters. In

13 Ps.-Demetr. Τύποι 'Επιστολικοί 17. Cf. the "blaming" (μεμπτικη) letter in Ps.Lib. Έπιστολιμαΐοι Χαρακτήρες 6 and the "counter-accusing" (άντεγκληματικη) letter in Έπιστολιμαΐοι Χαρακτήρες 22. 14 Ps.-Demetr. Τύποι 'Επιστολικοί 18. 15 Ps.-Demetr. Τύποι'Επιστολικοί 11. 16 Ps.-Lib. Έπιστολιμαΐοι Χαρακτήρες 5. The author does attempt to differentiate the paraenetic from the advisory type of letter, stating that the latter assumes a counter-argument (i.e. someone who needs to be persuaded) whereas the former does not. Both types of letters, nonetheless, parallel deliberative rhetoric in that they speak of what is beneficial and harmful. 17 Cf. S. Κ. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), p. 27. Of the three species of rhetoric, epideictic was most at home in written discourse. "Epideictic oratory, such as that of Isocrates, was coming more and more to be a pamphlet, not a speech; in theme and occasion it had never been so restricted as the other branches of oratory" (Roberts, Greek Rhetoric, p. 55).

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sum, the terminology used by the epistolary theorists suggests some type of relationship with the rhetorical handbooks. Whether the precise nature of this relationship is direct or indirect, it is clear that the epistolary theorists were not limited by the three genera of the rhetorical handbooks. Letter writing demanded a much more flexible typology in order to handle, a wide array of situations. In conclusion, it is reasonable to surmise that ancient letter writers could conceptualize an epistle in terms of "accusation or defense", "expediency or non-expediency", and "praise or blame" without necessarily being limited to the genera of the rhetorical handbooks. 18 Such letters were likely argumentative speech acts practiced in everyday communication. Epideictic was the most suitable of the three to the epistolary genre, but I would concur with J . L. White (but on a broader scale) that "the j u d i c i a l . . . and the deliberative . . . were not the traditions upon which ancient letter writers depended, at least not through the first two or three centuries of the Christian era". 19 A fundamental distinction between the epistolary and rhetorical genera is that the former were relegated to spatially-separated communication, limiting the extent to which they could parallel the typical oral, face-to-face context of judicial, deliberative, and epideictic speech. Some of the epistolary typologies at least functionally parallel the three rhetorical species, yet the epistolary theorists were not bound by a formal "rhetorical" agenda for letter writing.

III.

R H E T O R I C A L INVENTION IN EPISTLES

Rhetorical invention (inventio) concerns the speaker's attempt to select or find (εϋρεσις) valid arguments to render a thesis plausible.20 This could be accomplished, first of all, by determining the "status" or "issue" to be resolved, asking questions about the fact, definition, and nature of the issue under discussion. Another means of invention was the use of "topoi" (topics) or "commonplaces" both com-

18

Not until the 16th century did Erasmus categorize letters according to deliberative, demonstrative, and judicial species, adding to this a fourth category, familiare (Henderson, "Erasmus", p. 355). 19 J. L. White, "A Discussion of light from Ancient Letters", Biblical Research Bulletin 32 (1987), p. 52. 20 The author of Έπιστολιμαΐοι Χαρακτήρες uses the Greek technical term εϋρεσιν for inventio in his example of a letter of "inquiry" (82).

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mon (e.g. division, consequence, cause-effect, definition) and special (e.g. customary maxims, proverbs, oracles, citations, figures of speech, and stock metaphors). Did letter writers invent the content and argument of a letter by these means of rhetorical invention? The general principle of rhetorical invention is not limited by the theories of rhetors but is a phenomenon of language use in general. Thus, as with the species of rhetoric treated above, it should be no surprise that epistolary theorists and letter writers discuss how to create epistolary topics. Demetrius (Eloc. 230) notes the existence of topics or "matter" appropriate only for the letter (πράγματα τινα επιστολικά), citing Aristode in support of this: "I have not written to you on this subject, since it was not fitted for a letter" (Fr. 620). He goes on to discuss literary conventions appropriate for letters: proverbs (παροιμίαι; Eloc. 232) and logical proofs (αποδείξεις; Eloc. 233). In contrast, he states that it is inappropriate to employ clever types of argumentation (σοφίσματα) in letters: "If anybody might write a skilful argument (σοφίσματα) or questions of natural history in a letter, he indeed writes, but not a letter" (Eloc. 232). In one of his sample letters, Pseudo-Demetrius (Τύποι Επιστολικοί 4) cites the maxim "Know yourself" (τό γνώθι σαυτόν). Gregory of Nazianzus approves of the graceful style of letter writing, avoiding the unadorned (άκόσμητα) style "which allows for no pithy sayings, proverbs or apophthegms, witticisms or enigmas", but he warns against "the undue use of these devices" (Ep. 51:5). He tentatively adheres to the use of tropes (but only if done so sparingly and without seriousness) and to the use of antitheses, parisoses and isocola (Ep. 51:6).21 Pseudo-Libanius explains how topics should be used in letters: "Mentioning works of history (ιστοριών) and fables (μύθων) will bring charm to letters, as will the use of venerable works (παλαιών συγγραμμάτων), well-aimed proverbs (παροιμιών εύστοχων), and philosophers' dogmas (φιλοσόφων δογμάτων), but they are not to be used in an argumentative manner" (Έπιστολιμαΐοι Χαρακτήρες 50). Some letter writers speak of the process of inventio involved in composing a letter. Cicero tells of his difficulty in choosing a topic to write about: "I have been asking myself for some time past what I had best write to you; but not only does no definite theme suggest itself, but even the conventional style of letter writing does not appeal 21 Although Gregory of Nazianzus is discussing "style" per se, the elements of style he discusses are part of the inventio process.

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to me" (Fam. 4:13:1); he was looking for a topic appropriate for "these times of ours in its gloom and melancholy". In a letter to Atticus, Cicero finds himself in a similar dilemma: "Though now I rest only so long as I am writing to you or reading your letters, still I am in want of subject matter" (Att. 9:4:1). Cicero realizes that letters need not have one particular subject matter, or any for that matter. Letters written as friendly correspondence reveal this particularly well. "I have begun to write to you something or other without any definite subject, so that I may have a sort of talk with you" (Att. 9:10:1). This "friendly" aspect of the epistolary genre had its own set of topoi (cf. Cicero's "free and easy topics of friendly correspondence" in Att. 9:4:1). H. Koskenniemi detects three special topoi of friendly letters: maintaining friendship (.Philophronesis), bridging the spatial gap through the sender's presence (Parusia), and carrying on a dialogue with the recipient (Homilia).22 Regarding parusia, a function typifying the epistolary genre, he states, "Es wird nämlich als die wichtigste Aufgabe des Briefes angesehen, eine Form eben dieses Zusammenlebens während einer Zeit räumlicher Trennung darzustellen, d.h. die απουσία zur παρ ουσία machen". 23 Other possible topoi of the epistolary genre include health wishes, prayer formulas, disclosure formulas, and closing greetings. These conventions developed apart from rhetorical concerns, but not necessarily without "argumentative" functions. In sum, the epistolary theorists stressed the importance of carefully selecting the topic of one's letter based on the epistolary situation. That is, they show concern that the writer "invent" or compose a letter appropriate for the occasion or issue at hand. This concern at least functionally parallels the process of inventio treated in the rhetorical handbooks. Indeed, the sample letters provided by the epistolary theorists serve as a type of "special topoi" which could be used by professional letter writers to invent their own letters. Nevertheless, the epistolary topoi were not limited by rhetorical concerns, and the relationship between the two genres may be treated in terms of common practices of human communication.

22

H. Koskenniemi, Studien zur Idee und Phraseologie des griechischen Briefes bis 400 n. Chr. (Annales Academiae Scientarium Fennicae; Helsinki: Akateeminen Kiijakauppa, 1956), pp. 35-46. 23 Koskenniemi, Studien, p. 38.

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R H E T O R I C A L A R R A N G E M E N T IN EPISTLES

After selecting the type of speech to be delivered, and "inventing" the subject matter, the rhetor proceeded to arrange the material into the best possible order. Rhetorical arrangement (dispositio) often consisted of four sections in the following order: exordium (introduction); narratio (the statement of the facts of the case); confirmatio (proof); and peroratio (conclusion).24 T h e epistolary theorists say nothing about arranging letters according to this standard rhetorical convention. What they do say, instead, conforms to the standard pattern of letter writing. In part, the reason epistolary theorists do not prescribe rhetorical arrangements to epistolary structures is because letters had their own long-established, structural conventions. Therefore, before suggesting any parallels between epistolary structure and rhetorical arrangement, a cursory discussion of epistolary structure is in order. There are three standard conventions found in the majority of letters: opening, body and closing.25 These are best understood as spatial locations in the letter which are filled by epistolary formulas. The body, for example, could be filled with a petition, a marriage contract, or a commendation. T h e opening could include, among other things, a health wish, greeting, or thanksgiving formula. T h e obligatory elements of the opening include the superscription (i.e. from whom the letter is sent; e.g. Άντώνις Λόνγος) and the adscription (i.e. to whom the letter is sent; e.g. τη μητρί). Apart from these formulas, other elements used in the opening are discretionary. 26 Even

24

To these categories, other rhetorical theorists (e.g. the author of Ad Herennium) add the divisio (oudine of the steps in the argument), which follows the narratio, and the confiitatio (refutation of the opposing arguments), which follows the confirmatio. Another common part was the propositio, the essential proposition of the speech. 25 This description of letters is not solely a modern one. The ancients also recognized that certain elements belonged in certain positions of the letter. For example, Seneca recalls the traditional use of the health wish: "The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime. They would add to the opening words of a letter: 'If you are well, it is well; I also am well'" (Ep. 15:1). Pseudo-Libanius speaks of the proper way to begin a letter: "So-and-so to So-and-so, greeting" ό δείνα τω δεινι χαίρειν (Έπιστολιμαΐοι Χαραχτηρες 51). 26 Two types of letters—"Questions to the Oracle" and "Letters of Invitation"— often omit the superscription and/or adscription, "since the correspondence was usually local and delivered to the door by a messenger" (J. L. White, "Epistolary Formulas and Cliches in Greek Papyrus Letters", SBLSP 2 [1978], p. 294); see e.g. the invitation in P.Oxy. 1484 (2nd or 3rd century AD): έρωτςι σε 'Απολλώνιος δειπνήσαι; and the question to the oracle in P.Fay. 133 (58 AD): Σοκωννωκυννΐ θεώι μεγάλομαγάλωι. In these cases, the lack of the superscription and/or adscription does

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the commonly employed salutation (e.g. χαίρειν) is sometimes omitted from the opening, especially in formal contexts (e.g. pedtions, complaints). With respect to the body, a host of epistolary materials could fill this slot. Nevertheless, the slot had to be filled.27 The common epistolary closing of the letter (e.g. ερρωσο) is not stricdy obligatory, since it is frequendy absent from letters, especially official and business letters.28 Most letters, however, used various formulas to signal the end of the communicadve process (e.g. closing greetings). J . L. White provides a helpful functional definition of these three sequences in ancient letters. In the opening and closing, "the keeping-in-touch aspect of letter writing (maintenance of contact), which reveals the general character of the correspondents' relationship toward each other, comes to expression". 29 In the body, stock phrases express the circumstances which motivated the message of the letter. The bulk of the body, however, varies according to the epistolary skills and needs of the particular author. Another way of looking at the opening, body, and closing is that the opening establishes who the participants of communicadon are and the nature of their immediate relationship, the body advances the information or requests/ commands which the sender wants to communicate, and the closing signals the end of the communicative process, often involving language that again establishes the immediate relationship between sender and recipient. There is no inherent one-to-one correspondence between the epistolary opening, body, and closing and the exordium, narratio, confirmatio, not negate the obligatory nature of the formulas; rather, the written formulas would be replaced by oral ones in order to fulfil the obligatory function of identifying the communicants (cf. C.-H. Kim, "The Papyrus Invitation", JBL 94 [1975], p. 397). Nevertheless, omission of the addressee and recipient is rare, and White ("Epistolary Formulas and Cliches", p. 294) righdy notes that "it can be demonstrated in almost every instance, however, that these anomalous forms are the result of the letter being either a first draft or copy". 27 Although White ("Documentary Letter Tradition", p. 92) notes that "the only epistolary element which can not be omitted from a letter is the opening", this is only the case for formulaic elements, not for the spatial locations in the letter. Even "family letters", which White claims "often have no specific body", have communicative elements which fill the position of the body. In other words, there are no letters that simply have a prescript. Instead, every letter contains some communicative element after the prescript. However, what fills this region of the body varies, although patterns exist (e.g. petitions, letters of commendation). 28 F. X.J. Exler, The Form of the Ancient Greek Letter of the Epistolary Papyn (3rd century BC~3rd century AD): A Study in Greek Epistolography (repr. Chicago: Ares, 1976), pp. 69, 71. 29 J. L. White, Light from Ancient Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), p. 219.

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and peroratio. In fact, epistolary conventions used in actual letters seem to resist a dispoûtio classification. If a letter does contain an explicit rhetorical arrangement (e.g. the letters of Demosthenes), then epistolary conventions are at a minimum and are distinct from the four rhetorical parts. Furthermore, epistolary theorists do not speak of epistolary arrangement in rhetorical terms. In Τύποι Επιστολικοί, the author first describes the method by which he has constructed his work. He has set out to describe the various "styles" ("ways of writing") of letters and what distinguishes each style from the other. 30 He then provides a sample of each type, demonstrating how each is arranged (της εκάστου γένους τάξεως). Although his term for "arrangement" parallels that of the rhetorical handbooks (τάξις, Lat. dispositio), the twenty-one letters exemplified in his epistolary handbook are not arranged according to a rhetorical dispositio. What the author means by arrangement instead has to do with the language and function of each kind of letter, for example, friendly letters are filled with "friendly" language, which appropriately reflect the relationship between the communicants. What the author does not do is construct examples with a four-part rhetorical schema. Regarding epistolary openings and closings, even Julius Victor, who advocates the use of rhetorical convention in letters (specifically, "official" letters), maintains that "the openings and conclusions of letters . . . should be written according to customary practice" (Rh. 27:8-9). He espouses no theory for employing an exordium or peroratio in these parts of the letter. Finally, to speak of the propositio of a letter is dubious since letters often develop more than one "theme"—a feature of their "conversational" nature. 31 Despite these differences, certain functional parallels do exist between standard epistolary arrangement and rhetorical arrangement. In the same way that epistolary openings function to expose the general nature of the relationship between the sender and the recipient (be it positive or negative), so also the exordium serves to generate a positive relationship of trust and compliance between the speaker and listener, that is, to build ethos. The same may be said of the epistolary closing and the peroratio. O n e type of letter in particular created

30

Cicero is apparently familiar with the various classifications of letters, specifically mentioning a "letter of exhortation" which he had previously written (Fam. 4:9:1). 31 An exception to this may be found in several of Pliny's letters (61-112 AD), in which he often uses a standardized opening to state the "subject" of the letter.

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ethos, the friendly type (φιλικός).32 Because the epistolary body was open to various mediums of communication, the possibility always exists for finding a rhetorical arrangement here; nevertheless, it is worth nodng that the theorists do not expound upon a use of dispositio structure in the body of letters. Epistolary closing expressions as "I wrote these things to you . . . " also slightly parallel the recapitulatio function of the peroratio; however, such expressions occur throughout the body of the letter. Finally, there seems to be no functional parallel between the epistolary closing and the enumeratio. In summary, the three standard epistolary components (opening, body, closing) share some similarity with the four principal parts of rhetorical arrangement (exordium, narratio, confirmatio, peroratio). But the slight similarity is only functional, not formal. In other words, there is no inherent formal relationship between the basic theory of epistolary structure and the technical teachings about rhetorical arrangement. T h e similarities may be explained by the fact that language is often used pragmatically in different genres to do similar things. More importandy, the epistolary theorists and letter writers say nothing explicit about structuring letters according to a rhetorical arrangement.

V.

R H E T O R I C A L S T Y L E IN EPISTLES

T h e rhetorician's concern for style (λέξις, elocutio) was also the epistolary theorist's concern. 33 This primarily involved questions of grammar, syntax, and choice of words. Clarity, figures of speech, metaphors, periodic and continuous syntax, and citations, to name a few, were also discussed under the rubric of style. The epistolary theorists were aware of rhetorical practices and even debated the use of distinctively rhetorical styles in letters.34 Indeed, epistolary theorists and letter writers show signs of rhetorical influence mosdy in the area of style. For example, although royal letters are largely "uninfluenced by the rhetorical schools", 35 some of them do exhibit features of style

32

Ps.-Demetr. Τύποι Επιστολικοί 1. For Aristotle (Rh. 3:1-12), "style" entailed the "way of expressing" something through the choice of words or arrangement of clauses, in contrast to the "content" of the message. 34 See also the discussion of rhetorical invention above. 35 C. Bradford Welles, Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Penoé A Study in Greek Epigraphy (repr. Chicago: Ares, 1974), p. 42. Welles goes on to state, "This neglect 33

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characteristic of rhetorical practice (e.g. antitheses, triads, homoeoteleuton, chiasmus, litotes).36 Many of the imaginary letters37 also employ stylistic features found in ancient literary and rhetorical practices. For example, Alciphron (dubbed "The Rhetor") composed imaginary letters purportedly written by fishermen, farmers, prostitutes, and parasites. In several of these the author cites and borrows from other literature (especially from classical authors). T h e letters attributed to Aelian (entitled έκ τών Αιλιανού άγροικικών επιστολών) also echo the voices of the classical era (e.g. Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Demosthenes, and Menander). One of the more thorough discussions of epistolary style is the treatise attributed to Demetrius of Phalerum, De Elocutione (Περί Ερμηνείας), which discusses the "style" (χαρακτήρ) appropriate for letter writing. It shows some dependence on the third book of Aristode's Rhetoric (Eloc. 11). Initially, Demetrius advocates writing letters according to the "plain" (ίσχνότητος) style (Eloc. 223), which is one of four kinds or "characters" of styles—elevated (μεγαλοπρεπής), elegant (γλαφυρός), plain (ισχνός), and forceful (δεινός).38 Later, he summarizes that the letter should be a compound of the graceful (χαρίεντος) and plain (ισχνού) styles.39 T h e plain style lacks "ornament and oratorical device", 40 suggesting that the author did not readily conflate

of rhetoric is in general characteristic of the royal letters, not only of the purely administrative notes but also of texts of a more 'diplomatic' character" (p. 46); contrast H. Peter, Der Brief in der römischen Literatur: Literargeschichtliche Untersuchungen und Zusammenfassung (Abh. der Königlichen Säschsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, phil.hist. Klasse, 20.3; Leipzig: Teubner, 1901), who argues for a much closer dependence of epistolary theory on rhetorical theory. 56 See the letters in Welles, Correspondence·. Ptolemy II to Miletus (14), Antiochus II to Erythrae (15), Seleucus II to Miletus (22), Ziaelas of Bithynia to Cos (25), Ptolemy IV to a provincial governor (30). 37 Imaginary letters resemble little the purposes and practices of most Greco-Roman letter writing. They are clearly "literary" in tone and substance. Cf. the love letters of Philostratus (ΈπιστολαΙ Έρωτικαί), which lack all of the common epistolary elements. 38 These four kinds of style represent only one theory on the subject. Another theory, developed by Dionysius of Halicamassus and later continued by Hermogenes, combines various qualities and virtues of style (e.g. clarity, grandeur, beauty, vigour, ethos, verity, and gravity) into a more complex scheme (Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, p. 104). 39 It appears that by "graceful" he is referring to the heightened style that one should use to write letters to states or royal personages, which he has just mentioned in 234. However, it may also be the same "graceful" style which he describes under the section on the "elegant" style (128-89). 40 Roberts, Greek Rhetoric, p. 68. Roberts also notes that "when he [Demetrius] refers to 'rhetoricians' there is sometimes a shade of irony or contempt" (p. 68).

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the epistolary and rhetorical styles. For example, he maintains that "it is absurd to build up periods, as if you were writing not a letter but a speech (δίκην) for the law courts" (Eloc. 229). He is most concerned that letters be written with clarity and fitness, two features of the plain style. Similarly, Gregory of Nazianzus warns against the abuse of an overly rhetorical style: When the birds were disputing about who should be king, and they came together, each adorned in his own way, the greatest adornment of the eagle was that he did not think that he was beautiful. It is this unadorned quality, which is as close to nature as possible, that must especially be preserved in letters (Ep. 51:7; cf. also 5-6). Seneca as well attempts to distance the letter writer from the orator, without denying the applicability of argumentation to letters: Even if I were arguing a point, I should not stamp my foot, or toss my arms about, or raise my voice; but I should leave that sort of thing to the orator, and should be content to have conveyed my feelings toward you without having either embellished them or lowered their dignity (Ep. 75:2).41 Here again we see an emphasis on using a plain, direct style in letters without any of the embellishments employed in oratory. This "plain" style is particularly relevant in "friendly" letters where maintaining friendship was done not just by writing letters but by the way in which one wrote the letter. Various other opinions existed concerning the appropriate epistolary style. As to the length of letters, Demetrius argues for concise ones (Eloc. 228);42 he was not supported by Pseudo-Libanius (Έπιστολιμαΐοι Χαρακτήρες 50). "Clarity" of style (σαφήνεια) in letter writing was esteemed by many (Gr. Naz. Ep. 51:4; Ps.-Lib. Έπιστολιμαΐοι Χαρακτήρες 48-49, quoting Philostratus of Lemnos). For example, Gregory of Nazianzus avows: "As to clarity (σαφήνειας), everyone knows that one should avoid proselike (λογοειδές) style so far as possible, and rather incline towards the conversadonal (λαλικόν)" (Ep. 51:4). His basis for this assertion follows:

41

In another letter Seneca mentions his preference for philosophy over speechmaking (Ep. 14:11). 42 He uses the term συγγράμματα rather than έπιστολαί to refer to "so-called" letters (such as several of Plato's letters and that of Thucydides) which are, according to him, too long and stilted in expression (Eloc. 228).

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Stated briefly, the best and most beautiful letter is written so that it is persuasive to both the educated and uneducated, appearing to the former as written on the popular level and to the latter as above that level, and being immediately understandable (Ep. 51:4). Although much more could be said about epistolary style (e.g. use of asyndeton, novel expressions, direct address, compliments and jesting), the standard principle of epistolary style seems to be that there was no stricdy endorsed stylistic theory. However, a few principles seem to have existed. Theorists generally agree that letters should be written in a style most appropriate for the situation (cf. Cic. Fam. 15:21:4). This generally involved a style characteristic of dialogue and everyday speech (Cic. Fam. 7:32:3; 9:21:1; Sen. Ep. 75:1; Demetr. Eloc. 223), that is, a style conducive to bridging the spatial gap between the sender and the recipient and to creating a face-to-face atmosphere. Seneca speaks of a friendly, not artificial, setting in which he writes letters: "I prefer that my letters should be just what my conversation would be if you and I were sitting in one another's company or taking walks together—spontaneous and easy; for my letters have nothing strained or artificial about them" (Ep. 75:1—2).43 Similarly, classical theory distinguished the sermo (ordinary language) of the letter from the contentio (formal speech) of the oration. 44 Furthermore, much of the discussion of style by rhetoricians (e.g. whether to use the dactyl, iambus, or paean as the basic ingredient of rhythm) is absent from epistolary stylistic theory, again probably because of the "plain" style that should be used in letters. In summary, two features of epistolary style most parallel rhetorical discussions: clarity and appropriateness for the situation. Nevertheless, the letter writers and theorists (even those well versed in rhetoric) still differentiate between the epistolary style and rhetorical style.45 The fundamental difference was a result of the epistolary situation (viz. spatial separation), as Julius Victor identifies:

43

Contrast Pliny the Younger's letters which tend to be prose exercises on various subjects, many of which were directed to a public audience (Ep. 1:1). 44 Henderson, "Erasmus", p. 334. In his Commentana epistolarum conficiendarum (Pforzheim, 1509), Heinrich Bebel appealed to classical sources to prove that a letter should not be written in oratorical style but in Latin sermo (cited by Henderson, "Erasmus", p. 340). 45 Quint. Inst. 9:4:19-22 also sets the epistolary style apart from the rhetorical. According to him, the former should have a "looser texture" (as in dialogue, sermone) and the latter a more closely connected style (Inst. 9:4:23).

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When there is no need to hide anything from others, avoid obscurity more painstakingly in letters than you do in speeches and conversation. For although you can ask someone who is speaking unclearly to elucidate his point, it is impossible to do so in correspondence when the other is absent (Rh. 27:19-21). Consequendy, a mixture of rhetorical and epistolary styles was not encouraged by some. Cicero states this pointedly in a letter penned to L. Papirius Paetus: How do I strike you in my letters? Don't I seem to talk to you in the language of common folk? For I don't always adopt the same style. What similarity is there between a letter, and a speech in court or at a public meeting? Why even in law-cases I am not in the habit of dealing with all of them in the same style (Fam. 9:21:1).

VI.

RHETORICAL

EPISTLES?

The above study reveals epistolary and rhetorical theorists' resistance to marrying the episde and oration. 46 Theory and practice do not always harmonize, however. If the epistolary genre is defined functionally as the communication between spatially separated individuals (absentis ad absentem colloquium)—which is necessary to account for actual letters (e.g. private, official, public, novelistic, magical, scientific, literary-critical, erotic, poetic, introductory, heavenly)—then it is difficult to imagine that the classical rhetorical conventions were never employed in actual letters. Perhaps the best extant examples of "rhetorical letters" come from the eminent orator himself, Demosthenes, or someone writing under his name. 47 Epistles 1-4 are set in the fourth century BC during Demosthenes' exile and the oncoming "Lamian" war to overthrow Mace-

46 This resistance was later advocated by classical purists, the medieval Ciceronians, who confined the epistolary genre to the limits of the familiar letter and desired to "purge humanist epistolography of all vestiges of the ars dictaminis" (Henderson, "Erasmus", p. 332). The ars dictaminis divided the letter according to the structure of classical oration, adding the salutatio which distinguished it as the epistolary genre: salutatio, exordium (or captatio benevolentiae), narratio, petitio, and conclusio. 47 The authenticity of the letters has been debated; but for persuasive arguments in favour of the authenticity of letters 1-4 see J. A. Goldstein, The Letters of Demosthenes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), esp. his rhetorical commentary on them on pp. 133-81.

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donian dominadon over Greece. 48 The letters were deemed significant enough to be preserved throughout the Hellenistic and Byzantine eras. Plutarch (Lives 20), Quintilian (Inst. 10:1:107), and Cicero (Brut. 121, Or. 15) knew of and were perhaps influenced by Demosthenes' epistolary style. Modern scholars generally classify the letters according to one of four genres: a rhetorical exercise treating the theme "What would Demosthenes have written to the Athenians from exile?"; a historical novel in the form of a collection of letters (Briefroman); a creation of a rhetorical historian or biographer; or political propaganda. 49 In any case, the texts are an attempt to defend Demosthenes' career. 50 They are in the form of a letter only because he is in exile (Ep. 1:2-4; 3:1:35); otherwise, they consist of self-apology and advice to the public. As letters, they lack the many epistolary formulas and the style of the "familiar" letters (familiares) and instead may be categorized as negotiates, to which Julius Victor claims the canons of rhetoric apply (Rh. 27). T h e prescripts take the f o r m ΔΗΜΟΣΘΕΝΗΣ THI ΒΟΥΛΗI ΚΑΙ ΤΩΙ ΔΗΜΩΙ XAIPEIN ( " D e m o s -

thenes to the Council and Assembly, greetings"), setting the stage for the epistolary body in which Demosthenes attempts to persuade his audience on a particular subject. Ep. 2 is an example of the forensicepideictic genre of self-apology, perhaps repeating much of the defence given at his trial. J . Goldstein has analysed them according to the partes orationis. T h e main body of the letter consists of (1) a prooemium written in the indignant tone of one who had been wronged but at the same time appealing to the audience's good will through flattery (2:1-2); (2) a propoûtio calling the Athenians to exonerate him (2:3); (3) a confirmatio favourably portraying the career of Demosthenes according to the so-called rhetorical topics of τελικά κεφάλαια— the propositio is just, lawful, expedient, honourable, pleasant, easy to accomplish or, if difficult, possible and necessary (2:4-20); (4) an epilogue reiterating the appeal for exoneration and containing pathetic amplification and a final appeal to their good will (2:21—26).51 T h e closing farewell (ευτυχείτε) is as terse as the prescript. Another illustrative example of a "rhetorical letter" is the first letter 48

Letters 5-6 (one to Heracleodorus and the other to the Council and Assembly) are relatively short and resemble more so an attempt at interpersonal dialogue. 49 Goldstein, Letters, pp. 31-34. 50 For similar letters of defence see PI. Ep. 1 and Aeschin. Ep. 11 and 12. 51 Hermog. Id. 1:7; 2:8 and Ps.-Arist. Rh. 1:45, 47 interpret letters 2 and 3 in

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of Dionysius of Halicamassus to Ammaeus—a lengthy argument advocating that Demosthenes did not learn the rules of rhetoric from Aristode.52 Like most "literary" letters, the prescript is terse: ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΣ ΑΜΜΑΙΩΙ ΤΩΙ ΦΙΛΤΑΤΩΙ ΠΛΕΙΣΤΑ XAIPEIN ("Dionysius to the beloved

Ammaeus, many greetings"). Dionysius, in response to the request of Ammaeus, sets forth arguments (Amm. 2:6 ποιήσαι τους λόγους) which convinced him that Aristotle did not write his Rhetoric until Demosthenes had reached his prime and had already delivered most of his speeches. Consequently, Demosthenes was not dependent on the former's rules of rhetoric, as someone had suggested to Ammaeus (Amm. 1:6). He ends his letter claiming to have proved his point (ίκανώς άποδεδείχθαι νομίζω), viz. Demosthenes did not base his speeches on Aristode's rhetorical theory. Unlike the letters of Demosthenes, this letter is written to an individual. There is, then, no reason to suggest that letters employing rhetorical conventions are only written to plural audiences. Like the letters of Demosthenes, it lacks the various epistolary formulas found in most personal letters. Letters like those of Demosthenes and Dionysius of Halicamassus, however, represent only a small portion of the extant epistolary literature. Most letters do not reveal a rhetorical structure, nor are they as long as these. Nevertheless, even brief, "non-literary" letters require persuasive devices to accomplish their goals. For example, in P. Ryl. 116 (194 AD), a copy of a complaint (έγκλήματος) by Saprion, the author writes to Heraclides, narrating how his mother and an accomplice assaulted him in order to "deprive me of my own property". After narrating the "facts" of the event he requests Heraclides to file his petition so that it may be used as evidence (προς μαρτυρίαν) in a later trial. In other letters, several epistolary formulas are used with persuasive functions: (1) disclosure formulas reveal the author's reason for writing; (2) statements of reassurance and concern appeal to the pathos of the reader; (3) statements used to persuade, coerce, or threaten seek the reader's obedience concerning important (often business) matters. 53 The "rhetoric" of such letters, however, is probably

terms of their rhetorical style. For a more detailed rhetorical analysis of this letter see Goldstein, Letters, pp. 158-66. 52 Cf. also his second letter to Ammaeus and his letter to Gnaeus Pompeius. The former is a polemic against an excessive admiration and imitation of Plato's style; the latter is a polemic against a similar attitude towards the style of Thucydides. 53 See White, Light, pp. 204-208.

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not dependent upon rhetorical theory; they more likely represent a type of "universal" rhetoric prevalent at the time and still functionally found in other communicadve forms today. The above examples demonstrate that letter writing was at least pardy influenced by rhetorical conventions. Despite epistolary and rhetorical theorists' attempts to discourage such practices, various reasons prevented their complete success. First, the flexibility of the epistolary genre allowed for its conflation with other genres. Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the Latin poet, demonstrated this with his invention of the letter poem. He admired the "personal" nature of the letter: "The poem as letter allows a privacy of speech, and a certain confidentiality of tone that other genres tend to repel". 54 Some of Plutarch's letters (e.g. Ep. 6:464 περί ευθυμίας and 13:1012 περί της έν Τιμαίω ψυχογονίας) are similar in content with his other moral writings, also demonstrating a mixed genre. T h e Corpus Hippocraticum contains various kinds of propagandistic, pseudepigraphic letters, of which letters 10-17 are in the form of novels relating Hippocrates' visit to Democritus. 55 In other Hippocratic letters, treatises (λόγοι) were sent with a letter (18-19, 20-21) or incorporated into the letter (21).56 Much later, Erasmus—somewhat confined by the narrow classical definition of the letter as a conversation between separated friends—distinguished the epistolary genre from others in terms of its flexibility of style}1 This flexibility resulted in an array of letter-types such as official letters, philosophical letters, magical letters, letters from heaven, and erotic letters. Secondly, the epistolary genre originated in an oral and, consequendy, a rhetorical environment—viz. the official correspondence of royalty. The official letter usually accompanied the oral message of a herald or embassy. For example, one author notes that "Menodorus, whom you sent to me, gave me your letter . . . and spoke himself at considerable length on the matters concerning which he said he had instructions". 58 Thus, M. Stirewalt righdy claims that "in dealing with the city state, the popular assembly,

54

S. Hamill, "Epistolary Poetry", Northwest Review 19 (1981), pp. 228 34. For a critical edition and introduction see Hippocrates: Pseudepigraphic Writings, ed. and trans. W. D. Smith (Studies in Ancient Medicine, 2; Leiden: Brill, 1990). 56 E.g. άπέσταλκα δέ σοι τον περί μανίης λόγον (18:12-13) and άπέσταλκα δέ σοι και αΰτός τόν περί έλλεβορισμού λόγον (20:28-29). 57 Henderson, "Erasmus", p. 355. 58 Welles, Royal Correspondence, no. 58. 55

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and public forensic activity, the official administrative, diplomatic letter was a rhetorical product". 5 9 However, while the official letter had ties to forensic practices, the personal letter evolved independently of such influences. Thirdly, educational exercises—practised at least by the time of the second century BC—promoted the use of rhetorical conventions in letters. 60 For example, the use of chreiai in pithy letters was a popular practice, as in the syllogistic letter: [Brutus] to the people of Pergamon I hear that you have sent financial aid to Donobellas. If you did this willingly, you admit to wrongdoing; if unwillingly, prove it by giving to me willingly [Cic. Brut. I]. 61

Students could exercise their rhetorical style by writing letters under the name of celebrated persons of the past (e.g. Alexander, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Isocrates, Hippocrates, and Euripides). 62 Consequently, pseudonymous letters, more so than authentic letters, often exhibit rhetorical practices. Such examples should not obscure the fact that the majority of letters discovered from the Hellenistic period do not lend themselves to classical rhetorical analysis. Nevertheless, a careful reading of the extant texts reveals that rhetorical conventions were at times employed in letters. 63 Indeed, some ancient scholars analysed letters in terms of rhetoric, 64 leaving the possibility that they may be analysed similarly today as well, yet with methodological caution.

VII.

CONCLUSION

T h e above survey of Greco-Roman rhetoricians, epistolary theorists, and letter writers (personal, official, and literary) reveals both simi59

Stirewalt, Studies, p. 9. For examples see Stirewalt, Studies, pp. 20-24; cf. J. Sykutris, "Epistolographie", in Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft Supplement 5 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche, 1924), cols. 210-13. 61 Cited in Stirewalt, Studies, p. 50. 62 J. Schneider, "Brief", in RAC II (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersman, 1954), cols. 573-74. 63 The letters of the New Testament have received renewed attention as to their rhetorical nature. For a useful treatment of this issue with bibliography see D. Watson and A. Hauser, Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible: A Comprehensive Bibliography with Notes on History and Method (Leiden: Brill, 1994). 64 Dionysius Halicamassus (Th. 42) judged the letter of Nicias in Thucydides and the letters of Plato according to the canons of oratory. 60

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larities and differences between epistolary and rhetorical practices. O n the one hand, epistolary theorists and letter writers often dissuade the writer from using rhetorical conventions. T h e manuals on letter wridng do not deal with the officia oratoris or the partes orationis as set forth in the rhetorical handbooks; instead, they list a wide array of letter-types and the style appropriate for their use. In addition, a systematic theory of how to write a "rhetorical letter" is lacking in the rhetorical handbooks; the few remarks on letter writing that do exist are mostly on matters of style, and often those which contrast rhetorical and epistolary style.65 As S. K. Stowers observes, "The letter-writing tradition was essentially independent of rhetoric". 66 C . J . Classen puts it in more disjunctive terms: "Rhetoric (oratory) and epistolography were regarded as two different fields in antiquity, and it seems advisable, therefore, to stay within the elaboration and presentation of their respective theory". 67 O n the other hand, rhetorical conventions are clearly found in letters—a result of the epistolary genre's flexibility—but rarely in a systematic manner governing the entire letter such as the letters of Demosthenes. There are also several functional parallels between the two genres, but the epistolary theorists do not develop these in a formal, methodical manner; thus, the similarity may only be a result of "universal" principles of argumentation. T o be more precise, inventio and especially elocutio seem to have influenced marginally the theories and actual practice of letter writing. The three species of rhetoric were too limited to provide a model for letter writing, but their functions are often represented in actual letters. Rhetorical dispositio seems to have had little, if any, influence on theory or practice. Despite the presence of rhetorical conventions in the epistolary genre, two observations based on the literary evidence suggest that the rhetorical and epistolary genres were not readily merged, either in theory or in practice. First, up until the fourth century AD (Julius Victor Ars Rhetorica)68 letter writing was not treated as part of a systematic rhetorical theory, and even here it is relegated to an appendix alongside the de sermodnatione.

65

Debate over the appropriate use of style in letter writing does imply, however, that some may have been writing letters with an "oratorical" style. 66 Stowers, Letter Writing, p. 52. 67 C.J. Classen, "St Paul's Episdes and Ancient Greek and Roman Rhetoric", in Rhetoric and the New Testament (ed. S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht; JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), pp. 288-89. 68 Even here, Julius Victor suggests that rhetorical rules only be applied to "official" (negotiates) letters, i.e. letters which are official and serious in nature.

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So A.J. Malherbe concludes: "It is thus clear that letter writing was of interest to rhetoricians, but it appears only gradually to have attached itself to their rhetorical systems".69 Secondly, there appears to be a general principle that letters displaying rhetorical influence lack many of the optional epistolary formulas found in the personal letters (e.g. prayer, thanksgiving, disclosure formulas, closing greetings)—an observable difference between literary and personal letters.70 Conversely, letters replete with epistolary formulas lack full-blown rhetorical conventions. In sum, the rhetorical and epistolary genres may have been betrothed, but they were never wed. Nevertheless, classical and modern theories of rhetoric, when used judiciously and mosdy descriptively, may often provide heuristic tools for the analysis and understanding of ancient letters.71

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berger, Κ., "Hellenistischen Gattungen im Neuen Testament", ANRW 11.25.2 (ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 1031-1432. Goldstein, J. Α., The Letters of Demosthenes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968). Koskenniemi, H., Studien zur Idee und Phraseologie des griechischen Briefes bis 400 n. Chr. (Annales Academiae Scientarium Fennicae; Helsinki: Akateeminen Kiijakauppa, 1956). Malherbe, A.J., Ancient Epistolary Theorists (SBLSBS, 19; Missoula, Μ'Γ: Scholars Press, 1988). Peter, Η., Der Brief in der römischen Literatur: Iitérargeschichtliche Untersuchungen und Zusammenfassung (Abhandlungen der Königlichen Säschsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, philologisch-historische Klasse, 20.3; Leipzig: Teubner, 1901). Roberts, W. R., Greek Rhetoric and literary Criticism (New York: Longmans, 1928). Schneider, J., "Brief", in Reallexicon fur Antike und Christentum II (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersman, 1954), cols. 564-85.

69 Malherbe, Epistolary Theorists, p. 3. This gradual interplay between the two genres is also reflected in the increased rhetorical interest of the Έπιστολιμαΐοι, written somedme between the fourth and sixth centuries AD (p. 5). 70 Sykutris ("Epistolographie", col. 188) mentions a specific difference between literary and private letters: "Ein wichtiges Unterscheidungskriterion liegt m. Ε. darin, daß in einer persönlich adressierten Schrift der Name des Empfängers gleich am Anfang nach den ersten Worten im Vokativ genannt wird; das findet sich aber in einem Brief nicht". 71 Modern critical theories of argumentation useful in the study of ancient letters include C. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, La nouvelle rhétorique: Traité de l'argumentation (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958); S. Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958); J. Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (2 vols.; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981).

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Stirewalt, M. L., Studies in Ancient Greek Epistolography (SBLRBS, 27; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993). Stowers, S. K., Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986). Sykutris, J., "Epistolographie", in Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft Supplement 5 (Stuttgart: J. Β. Metzlersche, 1924), cols. 185-220. Welles, C. B., Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period: A Study in Greek Epigraphy (repr. Chicago: Ares, 1974).

CHAPTER 8

PHILOSOPHICAL PROSE Dirk M. Schenkeveld Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

I.

INTRODUCTION

In the Hellenistic and Roman period philosophical treatises in the widest sense were written in multifarious forms and styles and for various purposes. Here, attention will be paid to prose wridngs, and poems such as Cleanthes' Hymn to £eus and Lucretius's De rerum natura or Proclus's Hymns and Manilius's Astronomicon will be left out of consideration. The latter category requires a different approach and to discuss these texts in this contribution would gready exceed the limits of size.1 The approach to philosophical prose taken here is that of form, rather than purpose. By form I mean dialogue, diatribe and thesis, but also ego-documents and technical writings such as the handbook, isagoge, the longer πραγματεία and commentary. The goals or purposes of these texts may be pure instruction for the beginner or the more advanced student, but may also be consolatory, protrepdc and paraenetic or of some other kind. It turns out that the approach by form is more manageable but for one exception: a separate section is reserved for protreptic and paraenesis. This has come about because division of assignments has the genre of Letters (Epistolary style) discussed elsewhere, and Epicurus's paraenetic episde could easily have gone unnoticed. Inclusion of technical writings serves as a reminder that not all prose is Kunstprosa, to borrow Norden's term, but even there we may find traces of rhetorical influence.

1 Originally, I had promised to make two contributions, one on the philosophical treatise and one on Stoic philosophers. Because, however, the style of Stoic philosophers is not different from that of other philosophers in this period it was more convenient to discuss texts of philosophers together with texts on philosophical subjects all together in one contribution.

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O n e decision had to be taken whose outcome will not be to everyone's satisfaction. It concerns the question of which texts by which authors will be included, and which left aside. The answer to this question is intricately linked to the matter of what a philosophical text is. Here I have opted for the solution that texts written by authors generally recognized as having been philosophers,. such as Epicurus and Plotinus, have to be included but also texts on philosophical subjects, even when their authors are not accepted as genuine philosophers, must also be included. No one will expect exclusion of Cicero's philosophical dialogues from this discussion, and the same goes for several treatises by Plutarch of Chaeronea—but what about the moral diatribes of Dio of Prusa, whose claim of a conversion to philosophy is very much in doubt? Lucian of Samosata makes a similar claim and is he a philosopher? I have decided to be liberal and included texts on philosophical subjects written by non-philosophers. Separate sections on matters concerning the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric lead the discussion proper. 2 What must count as influence from oratorical practice and rhetorical theory, is often difficult to ascertain. In general, it can be said that from the start of the Hellenistic period onwards most authors underwent training in rhetoric and even when they reject rhetoric's claims we may still reckon with some influence. The easiest to detect is stylistic technique, particularly when this comes forward in Gorgianic schemata and similar rhetorical figures. Avoidance of hiatus is another detector but some negligence in this respect may be due to obedience to the rule that the style of a dialogue should not be as exact as that of a speech. Cicero, to take another example, says that prose dialogue should not be rhythmical but in late antiquity we see, for example, Themistius follow new contemporary rules of clausula. Thus, even outward appearance is not always a trustworthy guide. Inner structure and argumentation are less evident indicators of rhetorical influence because a clear structuring of one's thought is very much a matter of philosophy. And, of course, the great examples of the pre-Hellenistic age for the dialogue, like Plato and Aristode, do not make a decision any easier. If necessary, I have said something about the structure of the texts in this contribution without, however, always suggesting that a particular ordering is due

2

Most translations come from LCL editions, although some are by my hand. In some cases I have slighdy changed translations of other scholars.

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to rhetorical training. But the subject of the thesis requires, of course, some discussion of this aspect. In general, more attention is being given to outward appearances. In this way this contribution deals with "secondary" rhetoric as formulated by George Kennedy. 3

I I . T H E D I S P U T E BETWEEN P H I L O S O P H Y AND

RHETORIC

In other sections of this Handbook the antagonism between rhetoric and philosophy has already been alluded to to some extent but here the main points of this dispute will be highlighted, now in order to give the reader a better understanding of the issues involved when rhetoric is found to be used by philosophers in their treatises. T h e relations between the two disciplines are never uncomplicated; from Plato and Isocrates onwards there is always some controversy; the participants may keep silent for a long period and then again voice their objections and refutations aloud. At no time is it taken for granted that a philosopher would also be a rhetorician, and vice versa; some explanation is always expected to be given. The dispute has had at least two active periods: in the fourth century BC with Plato and Isocrates as its main participants; and from about 160 to about 40 BC, when most philosophical schools join in the debate. From the first two centuries AD we meet with the same arguments in the works of men like Quintilian and Sextus, and although they may represent a renaissance of the debate, they may also be a literary tradition with no connections to the debate. 4 This may especially be true for Quintilian because already in the first century BC Cicero had advocated some sort of reconciliation and he is Quintilian's great example. Another phase, again one of reconciliation, involves the rhetorical and philosophical practice and writings 3

G. A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modem Times (London: Croom Helm, 1980), p. 5. 4 G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 321-30; J. Barnes, "Is Rhetoric an Art?", Darg Newsletter 2 (1986), pp. 2-22; L. Pernot, La rhétorique de l'éloge dans le monde gréco-romain (Coll. Etud. Augustin. Série Antiquité, 138; Paris: Inst. d'Etud. Augustin., 1993), pp. 493-605 andj. Wisse, Welsprekendheid enfilosofiebij Cicero: Studies en commentaar bij Cicero, De oratore 3, 19-37a; 52-95 (Diss. Amsterdam 1994; now published in A. D. Leeman, H. Pinkster et ai, M. Tullius Cicero, De Oratore libri III: Kommentar [vol. 4; Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1996), pp. 14-26. Wisse convincingly argues in favour of the debate continuing up to 40 BC and not already ending about 100 (thus e.g. Barnes).

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of the philosophers-orators of the Second Sophistic, a movement starting at the end of the first century, reaching a climax in the second, and after a period of decline having a revival in the fourth century AD. T h e final stage occurs at the end of the period covered in this Handbook when in the commentaries of the neoplatonists and the late introductions to rhetoric another attempt is made to reconcile both disciplines. Plato's objections to contemporary rhetoric are that it is just a collection of recipes, not a well-ordered system; moreover, its practitioners do not try to educate their audience, are not interested in its psychology and only say what is pleasing to their listeners. Plato's main disapproval, therefore, turns on the lack of moral goals in rhetoric. 5 In his Phaedrus he views the possibility of a right kind of rhetoric, which is wholly subordinated to philosophy, focuses on the psychology of the audience and eloquendy voices its tenets. Consequendy, Plato is not opposed to an eloquent style as such. 6 In his Rhetoric Aristode follows Plato in asking for knowledge of the audience's psyche but keeps the actual (im)morality of rhetoric away from his analysis of possible uses of rhetorical arguments. In this way he adopts a neutral stance vis-à-vis possible rhetorical practice. On the other hand, he requires that its practitioners have to be truthful. 7 Isocrates, finally, calls his own brand of rhetoric φιλοσοφία and maintains that it is "a wisdom in practical affairs resulting in high moral consciousness and equated with mastery of the rhetorical technique". 8 In the Hellenistic period the debate on the status of rhetoric got a new impetus when rhetorical studies had a renaissance. Oratory had lost some parts of its domain but was still very much important in the daily life of the poleis. For unknown reasons, however, teaching in rhetoric steeply declined until the start of the second century BC. Then the teachers of rhetoric, now called σοφισταί, had a high rating because they instructed aspiring politicians.9 The same goal was professed by philosophers and hence there was a revival of the quarrel 5

Grg. 462b-66a. Phd. 89c-91c. 7 Pernot, Rhétorique, pp. 515-19, who after other scholars calls Aristotle's stance "amorale". 8 Kennedy, Art of Persuasion, p. 178. 9 Phld. Rh. 1:223:11-16 reports the rhetoricians' claim that τό μητέρα τών μαθημάτων και τών τεχνών είναι. . . την ρητορικήν and Hermagoras defines the subject matter of rhetoric as being πολιτικά ζητήματα, that is, questions concerning the polis and all its citizens. 6

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on the art of rhetoric. 10 T o this end, rhetoricians included in their system training in θέσεις, quaestiones infinitae (see chapter 4 above), a matter from Aristode onwards reserved, as it were, for philosophers. The main challenge to rhetoric is that it is not an art or expertise (τέχνη). Additional arguments are that it is not useful for it does not make individuals or states happy and that an orator is often constrained to defend criminals. Moreover, one can be a good orator without formal training and, conversely, many instructors of rhetoric are poor speakers. Finally, the aspect of knowing the listeners' psyche is too often neglected. But the chief point of attack still is that rhetoric is not an organized body of knowledge and lacks its own domain," and therefore the rhetorician is not an artist (τεχνικός).12 Thus the debate turns on the question whether one with Aristotle accepts rhetoric as an art even though like dialectic it does not belong to a specific field of knowledge, or rejects his argument. The participants involve members of all schools of philosophy but one cannot say that one specific school always remains friendly or hostile towards rhetoric. Thus Peripatetics like Theophrastus and Demetrius of Phaleron actively develop rhetorical theory but in the second century Critolaus with his pupils reject rhetoric. 13 Epicurus and his followers oppose rhetoric as being useless, which hostility should be seen within the framework of an adversity against all contemporary παιδεία, 14 but Zeno of Sidon and his pupil Philodemus are sympathetic to a τέχνη σοφιστική, which concerns written and impromptu speeches of an epideictic kind, although with more orthodox Epicureans they still maintain that this art is not competent in instruction in forensic and symbouleutic oratory. 15 For the Stoics rhetoric is part of their philosophical system—they take over most of the traditional theory and, significandy, extend Theophrastus's list of four άρεταί τής λέξεως with one more, συντομία, brevity, but neglect to find a place for the audience in their system. It may also be indicative of their preferences that next to forensic and symbouleutic 10 Traditionally the revival is connected with the Athenian embassy of three philosophers to Rome in 155 BC (Cic. De or. 1:155). Cicero reports debates on this subject held in the late second century by Charmadas the Academic and the rhetorician Metrodorus. " The well known Stoic definition of τέχνη, accepted by many others. 12 Phld. Rh. 2:28:2-15; S. Ε. M. 2:910. 13 F. Wehrli, Die Schule des Aristoteles (2nd edn.; Basel: Schwabe, 1966), X, p. 125. 14 S. Ε. M. 1:1. 15 Phld. Rh. 1:7:9-29; 2:22:7-20 etc.

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oratory they call the third one not epideictic (display oratory), as Aristode did, but encomiastic. 16 Rhetoric is even called a science, έπιστήμη χοΰ εύ λέγειν, but in their view this, and other, sciences can only be practised well by the infallible σοφός.17 This view makes it possible for Diogenes of Babylon to propose a Stoic theory of eloquence and at the same dme to oppose common rhetoric of his day. 18 Apart from this, the Stoic orator aspires to a very sober style, though not without some embellishments although these are to him mere appendages. Therefore, Cicero despises Stoic oratory. 19 Finally, the Academy produces many fierce opponents to rhetoric, like Cameades and Charmadas, the latter especially being known from Cicero's De oratore (1:84-93). But Philo of Larissa is said to have introduced rhetoric in the Academy curriculum, 20 which fact, however, is to be interpreted as an attack against the rhetoricians. 21 Nevertheless, Philo's rhetorical instruction probably is very much like that of rhetorical schools, though he offers a classification of θέσεις which is absent from the ordinary theory. Reconciliation between the two disciplines is attempted by Cicero in his De oratore, where he proposes the ideal of the orator perfectus, who combines extensive knowledge of philosophy with perfect mastering of rhetorical techniques and attitudes. Dionysius of Halicamassus is less demanding and after Isocrates calls his rhetoric ρητορικη φιλόσοφος or φιλοσοφία πολιτιιαΓ|.22 In the first centuries AD a revival of the old dispute may have come about, although the material in our sources, Quintilian and Sextus, is mostly traditional. 23 This revival, or rehashing of old arguments, does not contribute anything substantial to the dispute and can be omitted from discussion here. As to the attempts at reconciliation in late antiquity, neoplatonic commentators, who are also very much interested in rhetoric, have to reconcile Plato's stringent arguments against rhetoric with their own interests. T h u s Olympiodorus (middle 6th century) admits that 16

D. L. 7:41-42, 142. D. L. 7:142; Cic. De or. 3:65; S. Ε. M. 2:6. 18 Diog. Bab. Stoic, β. 99, 125, 107 (Stoic., Ill, p. 210). 19 Fin. 4:7. 20 Tusc. 2:9; De or. 3:110. 21 Wisse, Welsprekendheid, p. 23. 22 Oral. Vett. 1:1:2-5. Cf. E. Galba, Dionysius and the History of Archaic Rome (Sather Class. Lectures, 56; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), ch. 2. 23 Barnes, "Is Rhetoric an Art?", n. 20. 17

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Socrates' definition of rhetoric in the Gorgias as a form of flattery is in itself right but Socrates is talking about popular rhetoric. True rhetoric is divine and can only be practised by first becoming a philosopher. 24 Similar distinctions between kinds of rhetoric are found in the so-called Prolegomena, introductions of later Greek teachers of rhetoric to their lectures, which start in the fourth century. 25 By means of these distinctions it is possible for them to save both Plato, who is talking about a different kind of rhetoric, and their own rhetoric. 26 This endeavour of saving rhetoric has a forerunner in chapters 8 and 9 of De Platane of Apuleius of Madaura (born ca. AD 125).27 Using a series of phrases from the Phaedrus and the Gorgias he makes a case for good rhetoric. 28 Apuleius's attempt can be connected with the Second Sophistic movement, which produced a lot of sophistphilosophers or philosophical sophists.29 Many of these call themselves both σοφιστής and φιλόσοφος, and a famous sophist like Favorinus of Arelate (Aries) (1st/2nd century) addresses in his lectures and conversations questions of natural philosophy, Stoic logic and epistemology, ethics, the tropes of Pyrrho and even writes on the life-style of philosophers. Nevertheless, Philostratus deigns him worthy of the tide of sophist.30 Aelius Aristides (ca. 117-189) does not reconcile both disciplines and strongly defends rhetoric by attacking Plato. 31 But Philostratus distinguishes between pure sophists, primarily teachers of rhetoric and proficient in declamadon, and the philosophical sophists, who use oratory to expound their views on political, moral, or aesthetic subjects. A prime example of this group is Dio Chrysostom of Prusa. Their status as philosophers is usually doubted and German scholars have initiated the denigrating designation of Halbphilosophen

24

Olympiodorus In Platonis Gorgiam commentant (ed. L. G. Westerink; Leipzig: Teubner, 1970), p. 33. Cf. G. A. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 129-32. 25 Collected by H. Rabe in Prolegomenon Sylloge (Leipzig: Teubner, 1931; repr. 1995). Cf. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric, pp. 116-22. 26 E.g. The Prolegomenon of Marcellinus, in Rabe, Prolegomenon Sylloge, pp. 281-83. 27 Ed. P. Thomas, Apuleius III. De philosophia libn (BT; 1908). 28 J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 333. 29 See now G. A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 230-56. 30 KS 491. M. W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 131-32. 31 In On Rhetoric, trans, in C. A. Behr, Aelius Aristides: The Complete Works (Leiden: Brill, 1981-86).

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but one should not forget that their contemporaries commonly accepted them as being philosophers also. This history of an ancient dispute shows a gradual reconciliation between philosophy and rhetoric, having its culmination in Cicero's magnificent ideal of the orator perfectus, to be continued by Quintilian, and in the commentaries of the Neoplatonists. In accordance with this picture we may expect that in the course of antiquity philosophical treatises show influence from rhetoric to a gradually increasing extent. This expectation is also based on the consideration that from about 200/150 BC onwards authors of any repute would have had some training in rhetoric, this being one of the standard disciplines taught in the εγκύκλιος παιδεία.

I I I . J U D G M E N T S ON P H I L O S O P H I C A L STYLES AND STYLES O F

PHILOSOPHERS

Both philosophers and non-philosophers in antiquity left statements on the styles to be used by philosophers and on their actual styles. Thus Epicurus's condemnadon of rhetoric and dialectic implies avoidance of ornate style and all he asks for is clarity (σαφήνεια),32 whereas among their five virtues of style the Stoics include ornament but only in so far as it is compatible with brevity and avoids vulgarity.33 From this passage and from Cicero Off. 1:132 some scholars have deduced a specifically Stoic theory of style, which very much influenced Roman authors. 34 But this attempt belongs to the early twentieth century tendency to detect everywhere Stoic ideas and influence. As far as the texts discussed in this whole section are concerned, one cannot detect stylistic traits which mark off Stoic authors from those of other schools. Judgments of non-philosophers, specifically those of rhetoricians, are seldom enthusiastic. These authors may well have an axe to grind

32

D. L. 9:13 and Quint. Inst. 2:17:15. D. L. 7:59. Cf. C. Atherton, "The Failure of Stoic Rhetoric", CQ, 38 (1988), pp. 392-427. 34 E.g. C. N . Smiley, "Ladnitas and Ε Λ Λ Η Ν Ι Σ Μ Ο Σ . The Influence of the Stoic Theory of Style as Shown in the Writings of Dionysius, Quintilian....", Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Philol. and Lit. Ser. 3 (1906), pp. 205-72. The pages on Stoic theory of style in M. L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. I. Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (2nd edn.; Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 56 60 are disappointing. 33

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and one should always take into account the circumstances under which their statements are expressed; nevertheless, these judgments often offer a fascinating view of the reactions of non-specialist readers of philosophical writings. In the prologue of book two of the Tusculanae disputationes Cicero polemically describes the style of works written by Epicurean Romans. They claim to be indifferent to definition, arrangement, precision and style and that their works do not afford any pleasure at all.35 The Epicurean L. Manlius Torquatus, a friend of Cicero, even apologizes for this lack of ornament in Epicurus's works. But Cicero can be more friendly and praise Epicurus for expressing his meaning adequately and giving a plain intelligible statement. In other words, Cicero commends Epicurus for his σαφήνεια and ελληνισμός. 36 But such a favourable judgment is not to be found when Dionysius of Halicamassus refers to Epicurean writings; he mendons the "choir of Epicureans" who care nothing for literary composition, 37 and whereas Aelius Theon censures Epicurus for writing excessively rhythmical prose, 38 Athenaeus stresses his lack of prose rhythm. 39 The style of Stoics was also not considered to be attractive. O n e common complaint is that their writings are often obscure. Their definitions are exact but often use many notions in a way opposed to common language. They are therefore guilty of faults against ελληνισμός and σαφήνεια, the very first two virtutes dicendi\ Their style is dry, and in general completely useless for an orator. 40 For philosophical wridngs Cicero makes an excepdon for Panaedus, who strives for perspicuitas and even embellishes his works. But Panaetius apparendy imitates the style of Academics and Peripatetics and rejects the Stoic crabbedness. 41 The style of the two latter schools is very much praised by Cicero. Their works are said to be written with charm and fullness of presentation. 42 35

Tusc. 2:7-8, cf. Ac. post. 1:5. A. D. Leeman, Orationis Ratio: The Stylistic Theories and Practice of the Roman Orators, Historians and Philosophers (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1963), pp. 201-203. 3 ' Comp. 24, p. 122:8ff. Usener-Radermacher. 38 Prog, in RG, II, p. 71:7 Spengel. See now Aelius Theon, Progymnasmata (ed. and trans. M. Patillon; Budé; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1997). 39 5:187c. These and other judgments in H. Usener, Epicurea (Leipzig: Teubner, 1887), pp. 88-90. 40 De or. 3:66. Cf. Wisse, Welsprekendheid, a.l. for parallels. 41 De fin. 4:79. Leeman, Orationis Ratio, pp. 204-205. 42 Brut. 120-21. 36

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IV.

P R O T R E P T I C AND PARAENESIS

Α.

ϋφηύιοηΛ

The philosophic protreptic 43 (λόγος προτρεπτικός,44 exhortatio)45 is one of the few literary genres recognized as such by ancient philosophers, like Posidonius and Philo of Larissa.46 In the fourth century BC it has as its aim a change of conduct in the readers or the characters in a text (usually in the field of ethics) or, in a stricter sense, to win someone for philosophy. These aims may be expressed explicitly (e.g. [Plato], Alcibiades I) or implicidy (PI. Phd. 64a4-69e5 with its unvoiced conclusion that philosophy is necessary in order to attain happiness). From the Hellenistic period onwards, the wider aim of changing a person's conduct is mainly found in the diatribe (section VI below), whereas the protreptic is concerned with converting a person to the study of philosophy. A distinction is often made between protreptic as giving general arguments for changing one's conduct and paraenesis, which consists of a series of concrete rules of conduct. 47 T h e difference between the two types seems related to two stages the prospective student has to go through: first he must be won for philosophy, then he is told how to continue his new life. T h e latter distinction, though found in Posidonius's classification, is often ignored in antiquity, and not always maintained in modern studies either. T h e need to proselytize is felt by all schools of philosophy and we know of protreptics written by Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans and other philosophers, and called as such. All Hellenistic protreptics 43

Literature: P. Hartlich, De exhortationum a Graecis Romanisque scriptarum historia et indole (Leipz. Stud. z. class. Phil., 11; Leipzig, 1889), pp. 207-336; S. R. Slings, A Commentary on the Platonic Clitophon (Amsterdam: Acad. Pers, 1981), pp. 69-106; M. D.Jordan, "Ancient Philosophic Protreptic", RhetoHca 4 (1986), pp. 309-34 and S. R. Slings, "Protreptic in Ancient Theories of Philosophical Literature", in J. R. Abbenes, S. R. Slings and I. Sluiter (eds.), Greek Rhetoric after Aristotle: A Collection of Papers in Honour of D.M. Schenkeveld (Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1995), pp. 173-92. 44 Also called παραινετικός, υποθετικός or by other designations. 45 In rhetoric the word has the more general sense of "persuasion", in contrast with αποτροπή, "dissuasion", e.g. Arist. Rh. I:3:1358b9. Protreptic is not exclusively restricted to philosophy, for any admonition to apply oneself to any other discipline (music, medicine, rhetoric) can be called thus. 46 Posidonius: Sen. Ep. 95:1; Philo: Stob. 2:7:2. 47 Slings, Commentary, pp. 70-73.

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explicitly called thus are now lost.48 However, Epicurus's third letter is nowadays often called a protreptic, though not having this designation, and we have it in its complete form. Along with this are De mundo ascribed to Aristode and some texts of Philodemus. From the Roman period we have Themistius's Προτρεπτικός Νικομηδεΰσιν εις φιλοσοφίαν and Iamblichus's Protreptikos. Protrepdcs appear in various forms, such as discourse (Aristode), letter (Epicurus), dialogue (Cicero's Hortensius), anthology (Iamblichus), but, as far as we know, there is no favourite form. 49 The very aim of protreptic, to win over someone to study philosophy, α ρήοή makes the view probable that this kind of text uses persuasive techniques found in rhetoric. The addressee of the message is an outsider, or, at least, someone not yet wholly dedicated to philosophy, and therefore bland exposition of what philosophy is about will run the risk of not persuading the other person. For many protreptics from the Hellenistic and later periods we cannot test this statement because of the lack of relevant texts in their original form. Thus Augustine's enthusiasm for Cicero's Hortensius50 may be quite understandable in view of Cicero being the author but we only have a few fragments which may justify Augustine's reaction. This dialogue ended, in the manner of Aristotle's Protrepticus (Fr. Β 110),51 with an impressive peroration: Quapropter, ut aliquando terminetur oratio, si aut exstingui tranquille volumus cum in his artibus vixerimus, aut si ex hac in aliam haud paulo meliorem domum sine mora demigrare, in his studiis omnis opera et cura ponenda est, 52

but most fragments consist of individual words, which cannot give a strong basis for a stylistic judgment.

48

For the situation in the 4th cent, BC see Slings Commentary, pp. 78-83. A useful survey is in T. C. Burgess, Epideictic literature (Stud, in Class. Phil., 3; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902), pp. 229-31. 49 Protreptic or paraenetic parts of texts belonging to a different type are not discussed here. 50 Beat. vita. 4; Conf. 3:4:7: librum . . . Ciceronis, cuius linguam fere omnes admirantur. 51 Düring: ή φιλοσοφητέον . . . η . . . άπιτεον. 52 Aug. Τήη. 14:19:26 = Fr. 115 GriUi (Naples, 1968) = Fr. 100 in L. StraumeZimmermann, Ciceros Hortensius (Europ. Hochschulschr., 15.9; Bern: Lang, 1976).

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Β. Examples 1. A text very much kindred to protrepdc is the third letter Epicurus (341-270) 53 writes to Menoeceus. Almost nothing is known about this man, although from 10:123 (α δέ συνεχώς παρήγγελλον)54 it appears that Epicurus has been in touch with him several times, and in another context "sons of Menoeceus" are mentioned, who may well be sons of the same person. 55 Together with two other letters this letter is preserved because Diogenes Laertius presents these three as containing the epitome of Epicurus's philosophy. 56 It starts with an admonition to study philosophy during one's whole life. Therefore, one should exercise oneself (μελετάν) in the things which bring happiness. After this prologue Epicurus addresses Menoeceus directly and tells him to do and exercise himself in what Epicurus often told him, holding them to be the elements of the right life. He then goes through those elements, viz. right opinions concerning the gods, no fear of death, knowledge about desires and pleasure, having a simple life and knowing that prudence (φρόνησις) is the beginning of all this and the best thing, for teaching us to lead a happy life. He ends by summarizing the happy life of the one who knows all these things and then comes back to his first admonitions: Ταΰτα ούν καί τά τούτοις συγγενή μελέτα προς σεαυτόν ημέρας και νυκτός πρός τόν ομοιον σεαυτφ, και ουδέποτε οΰθ' ϋπαρ οϋτ' δναρ διαταραχθήση, ζήση δε ώς θεός έν άνθρώποις. ούθέν γαρ έ'οικε θνήτφ ζώφ ζών άνθρωπος έν άθανάτοις άγαθοΐς (10:135). Meditate therefore on these things and things akin to them during the day by yourself and at night with the like of you, and never shall you be disturbed waking or asleep, but you shall live like a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal blessings, is not like a mortal being.

It is tempting to see this letter as an example of protreptic, especially because it starts with the admonition to study philosophy, and nowadays this view has been expressed more than once.57 However, there 53

D. L. 10:122-135. Separate edn. in, e.g., P. von der Miihll, Epicurus: Epistulae très et ratae sententiae (Bibl. Teub.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1922). Trans. C. Bailey, Epicurus: The Extant Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1970). 54 Books containing instructions often have as their tide παραγγέλματα, "precepts": e.g. Plutarch's παραγγέλματα πολιτικά. 55 Phld. Adv. soph. fr. I6 13-15 (ed. Sbordone; Naples: Loffredo, 1947). 56 D. L. 10:28. 57 H. Steckel, "Epikuros", RE Sup. 11 (1968), cols. 621-22; W. Schmid, "Epikuros",

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seems to be no need for Epicurus to persuade Menoeceus to begin with philosophical studies but to instruct him how to do so. This letter has therefore a slighdy different character. It starts as a protreptic by its general admonition to spend one's life in studying philosophy 58 but then it switches to a more paraenetic form by giving concrete advice on which subjects Menoeceus should meditate. These concern the same topics as the first Κύριαι Δόξαι and what is expressed in the so-called Τετραφάρμακος, "the fourfold remedy", containing the essential message of Epicurean ethics: άφοβον ό θεός, άνύποπτον ό θάνατος, και τάγαθόν μέν εΰκτητον, τό δέ δεινόν εΰεκκαρτέρητον. God presents no fear, death no worries. And while good is readily attainable, evil is readily obdurable. 59

The third letter, in contrast with its two companions, has a disdncdy literary character. T h e very first lines (10:122) contain many instances of anaphora and antithesis: Μήτε νέος τις ών μελλέτω φιλοσοφείν, μήτε γέρων υπάρχων κοπιάτω φιλοσοφών· οΰτε γάρ άωρος ουδείς έστιν οΰτε πάρωρος πρός τό κατά ψυχήν ύγιαϊνον. [. . .] ώστε φιλοσοφητέον καί νέω καί γέροντι, τφ μέν οπως γηράσκων νεάζη τοις άγαθοίς δια τήν χάριν τών γεγονότων, τω δέ οπως νέος άμα καί παλαιάς ή δια τήν άφοβίαν τών μελλόντων. Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, let no one when he is old grow weary of studying philosophy. For no one can c o m e too early or too late to secure the health of his soul. [ . . . . ] Wherefore both when young and old a man must study philosophy, so that as he grows old he may be young in blessings through the grateful recollection of what has been, and so that in youth he may be old as well since he will know no fear of what is to come.

Similar, but now also with homoeoteleuton, is the following part: ώστε μάταιος ό λέγων δεδιέναι τον θάνατον ούχ οτι λυπήσει παρών, άλλ' οτι λυπεί μέλλων. Ö γάρ παρόν ούχ ένοχλεΐ, προσδοκώμενον κενώς λυπεί (10:125). RAC 5 (1962), cols. 691-95 and S. Κ. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (LEC; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), p. 116, but from Usener (Epicurea, pp. xli-xliii) onwards scholars tend to ignore or neglect this view. 58 Thus, too, Hartlich, Exhortationum, and C. Diano, in C. Diano and G. Serra, Epicure: Scritti morali (I Classici della Bur L, 621; Milan: Rizzoli, 1987), p. 129. 59 Phld. Adv. soph. col. 4:9-14 (ed. Sbordone).

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S o that the man speaks idly w h o says to fear death not because it will be painful w h e n it comes, but because it is painful in anticipation.

These ornamental expressions with a prose rhythm of their own 60 occur in short phrases, especially when Epicurus summarizes what he has said before or introduces what he goes on to say. Initially, Epicurus by means of imperatives (five times in 10:123-24) and similar forms (two times in 10:127) tells Menoeceus what, and how, to envisage, but after this he goes on by expounding what "we" Epicureans think and keeps to this mode until the final paragraph, which reverts to the imperadve. For the rest the letter develops its exposition in a tranquil way, thereby avoiding complex arguments and technical jargon, whereas one time only we meet with a striking metaphor: λύεται ό της ψυχής χειμών (10:128).61 Hiatus is absent almost everywhere, apart from some cases but these come under the category of admissible hiatus. 62 The peroration is a summary of the good life of the wise man and is put into the form of a rhetorical question ("Who is in your opinion superior than the man who ...?"), in which every point to be made comes in the form of a participle in the genitive dependent on "than the man who . . . " (10:133-34). The first instances sufficiendy show the structure of the whole clause: τίνα νομίζεις είναι κρείττονα του καί περί θεών οσια δοξάζοντος καί περί θανάτου δια παντός άφόβως έχοντος καί τό τής φύσεως έπιλελογισμένου τέλος κτλ. For, indeed, w h o d o you think is a better man than he w h o holds reverent opinions concerning the gods, and is at all times free from fear of death . . .,

whereas it ends thus: κρείττον είναι νομίζοντος εύλογίστως άτυχείν ή άλογίστως ε ύ τ υ χ ε ΐ ν βέλτιον γάρ έν ταΐς πράξεσι τό καλώς κριθέν όρθωθηναι δια ταύτην

60

Ε. Norden, Agnostos Theos (Leipzig: Teubner, 1912), p. 93, n. 2 analyses some

lines. 61

In his Κύριαι Δόξαι, a collection of aphorisms, Epicurus has a pleasing gift of metaphor. 62 Usener, Epicurea, p. xli.

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He therefore thinks it better to be unfortunate in reasonable action than to prosper in unreason. For it is better in a man's actions that what is well chosen should fail, rather than that what is ill chosen should be successful owing to chance,

after which come the words quoted above. . The two other letters differ considerably from this letter in style and manner of presentation, 63 and the best that Cicero can praise in Epicurus's writings does not go beyond that they can be clear and have correct Greek. 64 But this letter has much more. T h e reason is found in the aim of the letter, viz. to persuade Menoeceus to meditate and thus reach the level of the happy philosopher. 2. The pseudo-aristotelian Περί κόσμου, a text written between 350 and 250 BC,65 and authorship of which is still under debate, 66 begins by stadng the author's admiration of philosophy, specifically its theological part in the cosmos. He dedicates what follows to Alexander the Great, who is also interested in these matters. From here onwards the text contains a systematic account of the cosmos and God. Though the subject is itself lofty, it is still a surprise to have here a treatise written in a high-flown style. T h e amount of poetical words is high, the use of synonyms to express one idea is frequent, and isocolon and homoeoteleuton, anaphora and figura etymologica are found more than once. Famous is the comparison between the power of the deity and that of the Great King in Persia. The way this is introduced is indicative of the style of the treadse in general: Κρείττον ούν ΰπολαβειν, δ καί πρέπον έστι και θεώ μάλιστα άρμόζον, ώς ή έν ουρανώ δύναμις ιδρυμένη καί τοις πλείστον άφεστηκόσιν, ώς έ'νι γε ειπείν, καί σύμπασιν αίτιος γίνεται σωτηρίας, μάλλον ή ώς διήκουσα καί φοιτώσα ενθα μή καλόν μηδέ εϋσχημον αύτουργεί τά έπί γης. Τοΰτο μέν γάρ ούδέ άνθρώπων ήγεμόσιν άρμόττει [ . . . ] , άλλ' οίον έπί του μεγάλου βασιλέως ιστορείται. It is therefore better, even as it is more seemly and befitting for God, to suppose that the power which is established in the heavens is the cause of permanence even in those things which are furthest removed

63

This may be due to their contents, viz. physical theories. See section III above. 65 D. M. Schenkeveld, "Language and Style of the Aristotelian De Mundo. . .", Elenchos 12 (1991), pp. 221-55. 66 G. Reale and A. P. Bos, II Trattato sul Cosmo per Alessandro attribuito ad Aristotele (Milan: Centra di ricerche di metafisica, 1995). Text: W. L. Lorimer, Aristotelis De Mundo (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1933); trans. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (ed. J. Barnes; Bollingen Series, 71.2; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). 54

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from it, as w e might say, and indeed in everything, rather than to hold that it passes forth and travels to and fro to places which become and befit it not and personally administers the affairs of this earth. For indeed, to superintend any and every operation does not become even the rulers a m o n g mankind [. . .] but rather they should act as it is recorded was done in the time of the Great King.

This treatise can best be classified as a protreptic text. The whole introductory chapter is one encomium of philosophy, in which the author expresses his pity for authors dealing with such mundane subjects as places and rivers of the earth, whereas to speak about the cosmos is much loftier. Not only in this way does he exhort others to do philosophy of the cosmos but at the end he explicitly exhorts Alexander to do so. It is in accordance with its protreptic character that several times the author indicates that he only gives the main points. According to Festugière this shows that the text belongs to the isagogic genre but a different explanation seems preferable. 67 3. Among the texts preserved on papyrus in Herculaneum is one which belongs to a specific paraenetic type. In his Περι του καθ' "Ομηρον άγαθοΰ βασιλέως (De bono rege secundum Homerum)68 Philodemus offers his patronus Piso an exposition of the correct behaviour of kings and commanders in Homer's epics, but Homer's text is merely a source of ideas which—and this is Philodemus's paraenesis—should be applied by a patronus to his clims.69 Its style is said to be accordingly more limpid and selective than in other writings of Philodemus but one may doubt this statement. An example is col. 24: άπό δή τούτου αύστηρόν μέν δ ι α σ κ ε ι ν καί άρμονικόν, έφ' μη δεσποτικην

άναχωρήσαντες πάλι τά σπουδαία βασιλεΐ παραινώμενκαί τραχύ τι έθος καί πικρόν έχθαίρειν καί πραότητα δ' έπιείκειαν καί τό βασιλέως ήμερον καί σχέσεως οσον πλείστον, ώς φοροΰντα προς ευσταθή μοναρχίαν καί φόβω δυναστείαν.

Turning away from this subject (of royal behaviour at banquets) let us give again serious recommendations to the king: to hate harsh and rough and bitter comportment, and practise gentleness as well as fairness and royal mildness and a harmonious behaviour, as much as possible, for these are things which bring him to a firmly established monarchy and not to a tyranny based on fear. 67

A.J. Festugière, La révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste. II. Le Dieu cosmique (Etud. bibliques; 2nd edn.; Paris: Lecoffre, 1949), ch. 14. 68 Ed. T. Dorandi, Il buon re secondo Omero (La scuola di Epicuro, 3; Naples: Bibliopolis, 1982). 69 Dorandi, Omero, pp. 33-47 with a discussion of different interpretations of this much mutilated text.

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4. Porphyry (AD 234-301/5), the famous Neoplatonist, married, when already old, a widow with seven children. In 303 he was on a long voyage and wrote a long letter to his wife Marcella. It is at first a consolatory letter, but from ch. 11 onwards becomes a kind of paraenesis. 70 Porphyry instructs her in what philosophy teaches and what she should think upon. The letter, as we have it, ends with advice on how to conduct herself towards her house slaves, but the original contained more. It is true that nowhere in the letter do we find expressions reminding us of the protreptic vocabulary, and it may be wrong to deal with the letter under this heading. T h e salient point in this kind of paraenesis is that it is a string of wise sayings, many of which are known from anthologies.71 As has been demonstrated by Pötscher, the various sayings are geared to build up arguments, which could also be put into syllogisms.72 Moreover, Porphyry's bridge-passages have a force of their own, for example in a passage with assonance created by identical word-endings (ch. 27): κατανοητέον ούν πρώτον σοι τόν της φύσεως νόμον, άπό δέ τούτου άναβατέον έπί τόν θείον, δς καί τόν της φύσεως διέταξε νόμον. άφ' ών ορμώμενη ούδαμοΰ εύλαβήση τόν εγγραφον. First you should consider nature's law and rise from there to the divine law, which ordered nature's law. Starting from these you'll not be afraid of the written law.

5. The Protreptikos of Iamblichus (4th cent, AD) has as its title προτρεπτικός εις φιλοσοφίαν, "protreptic to philosophy", and is the second volume of a ten-volume collection called Συναγωγή Πυθαγορικη, "the Pythagorean Sequence". 73 T h e Protreptikos is a collection of extracts from previous philosophers, thereby enabling scholars to reconstruct Aristotle's work of that name. 74 It culminates in a secdon on Pythagorean symbols and prohibitions. All the various parts 70

Ed. E. des Places, Porphyre, Vie de Pythagore, Lettre à Marcella (CUF; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982). 71 Des Places, Prophyre, pp. 94-100. 72 W. Pötscher, Porphyries, Προς Μαρκέλλαν (Phil. Ant., 15; Leiden: Brill, 1969), pp. 3ff. 73 J. Dillon, lamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis dialogos commentanorum fragmenta (Phil. Ant., 23; Leiden: Brill, 1973), pp. 19-20. 74 Sen. Ep. 90 contains, according to Jordan, "Ancient Philosophic Protreptic", p. 311 and other scholars, a paraphrasis as well as a correction of the protreptic of Posidonius, but this view, which stems from the early 19th century, is wrong; see K. Reinhardt, "Poseidonios von Apameia", RE s.v. col. 805, although Poseidonius did write a "Protreptikos" (Frs. 1-3 Edelstein-Kidd).

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are linked by passages written by Iamblichus himself, who also writes the introducdon. Since the abstracts come from pre-Hellenisdc philosophers and the introduction is written in the common expository style of philosophical works of late antiquity, we may well skip this example of protreptic, except for its interest as to the disposition of the whole work. 75 In order to approach the doctrines of Pythagoras and his students one should begin with a common preparation, which consists of a selection of materials coming from every school of philosophy. T h e principle ordering this approach is not uniform nor easy to detect. Iamblichus tends to abbreviate his quotations, thereby reducing the protreptic structures to something which is like Pythagorean symbols, the subject he discusses in the last chapter. The plan of the original work is totally obscured so that all stress is laid on individual pieces of protreptic wisdom. Taken in this way Iamblichus's principle of ordering has everything to do with his own philosophical approach to Pythagorean wisdom. 6. A final example is a Protreptic towards philosophy for the people of Nicomedia by the rhetor and philosopher Themistius (ca. AD 317-388). 76 His ninth oration is also called προτρεπτικός, but this is an admonitory oration to the young prince Valentinianus and contains an exposition of the virtues of a commander 77 as well as much praise for the Emperor Valens. 78 The twenty-fourth oration shows how loosely the designation προτρεπτικός can be used for it does not exhort the Nicomedians to study philosophy, unless implicidy. Themistius wishes to prove that philosophy should be coupled with the grace and sweetness of rhetoric to have an impact on its audience. Both philosophy and rhetoric are described as persons with their distinct stature, habits and clothes, and the mixture of philosophy and rhetoric is depicted as a chorus of young men dancing harmoniously. The orator develops this theme by quoting and explaining many passages from clas-

75

Jordan, "Ancient Philosophic Protrepdc", pp. 326-27. G. Downey and A. F. Norman, Themistii orationes quae supersunt (3 vols.; Bibl. Teub.; Leipzig-Stuttgart: Teubner, 1965-74); W. Stegemann, "Themistios" (2), RE 2:10 (1934), cols. 1642-1680, esp. 1663-64 and 1672-76. 77 In this respect it joins the group of Fürstenspiegel texts, begun by Xenophon's Cyropaedia. 78 Hartlich, Exhortationum, pp. 326-29 distinguishes both orations as being respectively protrepticus rhetoricus (Or. 9) and philosophicus (Or. 24). The rhetorical protreptic (= not an exhortation to rhetoric, thus Jordan, "Ancient Philosophic Protreptic", p. 312) is an admonition to virtues no one will disagree with, whereas the philosophical one may elicit protest. 76

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sical writers. The philosophy one finds here is of the same general ethical kind as in non-philosophical orations. Plato is very often quoted or referred to. Though Themistius also published paraphrases of Aristotelian works, in his orations he almost nowhere quotes this philosopher. Obviously he thinks Plato's ethics more at home in orations for a greater public. In other words, as a true rhetorician the orator has his public in mind when composing his works. Themistius's style79 is that of the orators of his time: often long orations, in which a clear dispositio is not his first concern. But this feature may well be there by design in order to attain the simplicity (αφέλεια) advocated by rhetorical handbooks. He avoids monotony by introducing anecdotes, examples, and stories. Important is his avoidance of hiatus in his public orations whereas his talks often admit it. Themistius is one of the first writers to observe the basic rule of early Byzantine prose (Meyer's Law) on the clausula, that between the last two accents of a sentence there are two or four non-accented syllables, as appears from the lines containing the main theme of this oration (p. 101:11-17 Downey-Norman): ούκ έστι χαρίτων έ'ρημος παντελώς ή φιλοσοφίας αυλή, ούδέ άποσκηνοΰσιν αί θεαί πόρρω τών ημετέρων μουσείων, οΰδ' αν στήσαιμέν ποτε ΰμΐν χορόν άμοιροΰντα σώφονος ηδονής, ά λ λ α την Άφροδίτην άεί συμπλέκειν ταΐς Μούσαις προθυμησόμεθα · άδελφαί γάρ άλλήλων καί τήν κοινωνίαν άσπάζονται. T h e hall of philosophy is not wholly void of graces, and the goddesses do not encamp apart from our schools of philosophy, nor would we ever put up for you a chorus not sharing in temperate pleasure either, but we always wish to combine Aphrodite and the Muses; being sisters they welcome togetherness also.

V.

DIALOGUE80

A. Plato and Aristotle The dialogues of Plato have very much influenced our thoughts on what a dialogue is, but their literary greatness and important contents ' 9 Stegemann, "Themistios", cols. 1672-76. Dialogue is here restricted to a literary form of conversation in which two or more participants discuss one or more problems put forward by one participant, 80

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may easily make us forget that this kind of philosophical dialogue neither is the only possible one, nor was the only type in the fifth and fourth centuries BC.81 Socrates' pupils like Antisthenes and Aeschines write their kind of Socratic dialogue, but not much of these has survived. In Xenophon's Memorabilia we read many short dialogues and his Symposium is another example of this type. Further, Plato's dialogues are not uniform: apart from the difference between his dramatic or mimetic dialogues (e.g. Meno) and the reported ones, in which someone reports a dialogue (e.g. Phaedo), a gradual evolution is noticeable, by which the last dialogue, the Laws, has nothing more of the vividness and directness of the early dialogues. Now the participants most of the time give their exposition in a kind of monologue, interrupted at time by one of the other speakers. In the earlier dialogues Socrates confesses his own ignorance, gradually exposes that of his partners (ελεγχος) and brings them towards further research (προτρεπτικός). T h e participants try by a combined effort to further their knowledge, and none of them imposes his own view without being challenged. Gradually, however, this combined action starts to disappear together with the immediately appealing characterization of the participants, and the colourful description of the scenery— and Socrates is even absent from the discussion in Plato's last dialogue. Aristotle's dialogues, preserved in fragments only, have a distinctly different character. Thus, for Περί φιλοσοφίας it is likely that it contained three books, each introduced by a prooemium and in which the author himself (Aristotle) was one of the participants in the discussion: Plato's "anonymity" has been abandoned. These persons present their views in lengthy antithetic expositions, and in some dialogues Aristotle has the role of the main character, deciding on the problem put forward. 82 This kind of dialogue is to all appearances continued in the writings of Peripatetics, like Theophrastus and which discussion dominates the whole, or the main part, of the conversation. See also E. W. B. Hess-Lüttich, "Dialogos", Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993-), II, pp. 606-21. 81 R. Hirzel, Der Dialog: Ein literarhistorischer Versuch (2 vols.; Leipzig: Hirzel, 1895); F. Wehrli, "Dialog", LAW ( 1965) cols. 724-25; G. Schmid, "Dialogus", dKP 2 (1967), cols. 1575-77 (with references and literature). 82 Hirzel, Dialog, I, pp. 272-300, whose views have been accepted by most scholars. With Leeman-Pinkster, Cicero, I, pp. 6 7 - 6 9 one may query Hirzel's interpretation of the words Aristotelio more (Fam. 1:9:23) as meaning "längere mit einander abwechselnde Reden der einzelner Gesprächspersonen" (p. 276 n. 2) and rather take them as not looking at Aristotelian dialogues but at his method of instruction (disputalio in utramque partem).

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Heraclides of Pontus, but also in those of other Hellenistic philosophers. We know of a considerable number of dialogue writers in this period but almost always have to guess at their contents, let alone their style.83 B. Pseudoplatonic Dialogues Plato's dialogue tradition continues in the pseudoplatonic dialogues. Among these the shorter ones (Kurzdialoge),84 written between 350 and the first or second century AD, constitute together with genuine short dialogues of Plato a class of their own. 85 They show the development of Academic philosophy in that their Socrates evolves from the protreptic and aporetic participant through a more dogmatic stage towards a sceptic who propagates έποχή or an admirer of Pythagoras. 86 Often the interlocutor is anonymous, and in the three discussions of the Demodocus everyone is so. There is no description of a scenic background or other circumstances, which fact together with anonymity may be due to a wish to stress the universal validity of what is said. The theme of the discussion is usually immediately submitted and there is a clearly structured composition, ending with a summarizing phrase. The three dialogues in the Demodocus87 have much in common: each time a narrator (Socrates, apparently) reports a discussion he has witnessed, and in which the result is a call for further investigation. Before this the dialogues unfold by means of antilogies when someone attacks a popular truth taken for granted by someone else, but the narrator ends by confessing that he is not convinced of the truth of either's views. In this way the author shows his scepticism. A selection from the third dialogue gives an impression of what has been said: 'Ανθρώπου τις κατηγορεί εύήθειαν οτι ταχέως καί τοις τυχοΰσιν άνθρώποις λέγουσι πιστεύοι. Πολίταις μέν γάρ και οίκείοις λέγουσι πιστεύειν εικός 83

Hirzel, Dialog, I, pp. 272-421. Sisyphus, De iusto, De virtute, Alcyon. Demodocus consists of two parts by different authors: (1) a symbouleudc speech and (2) three very short reported dilalogues. 85 Slings, CommenUiry, pp. 33-39. 86 C. YV. Müller, Die Kurzdialoge der Appendix platonica (Studia et test, ant., 17; Munich: Fink, 1975), pp. 327-29 and the review by S. R. Slings, Mnemosyne 31 (1978), pp. 211-14. 87 From the 3rd/2d cent, BC, cf. Müller, Kurzdialoge, p. 271. Text: Burnet's Plato, V. 84

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έστι· τοιούτοις δ' άνθρώποις ους οΰτε είδεν οΰτε ήκουσε πρότερον αυτών, πιστεύειν [ . . . ] , ήλιθιότητος σημεΐον ού σμικρόν είναι. Καί τών παρόντων τις έ'φη· Έγώ δέ ωμην σε τόν ταχύ καί του τυχόντος αν αίσθανόμενον πολλού νομίζειν άξιον είναι μάλλον ή τόν βραδέως (385c2~d3). S o m e o n e accused another of simplicity because he was inclined to promptly put faith in what persons he did not know intimately told him. For, he said, it is reasonable to trust what your fellow-citizens and your friends say, but to put faith in such people you've neither met nor heard before [ . . . ] , that is not a small sign of silliness. O n e of the m e n present there said: "But I thought you hold the opinion that the man w h o quickly understands something is of more value than one w h o does so slowly".

T h e narrator ends thus (386c5-9): Ταΰτ' ούν λεγόντων αύτών ήπόρουν τίσι ποτέ δει πιστεύειν καί τίσιν οΰ, καί πότερον τοις πιστοίς καί τοις είδόσι περί ών λέγουσιν ή τοις οίκείοις καί τοις γνωρίμοις. Περί τούτων ούν πώς συ νομίζεις; While they were speaking thus I was at a loss concerning w h o are to be trusted and w h o not, and whether these are those that deserve trust and know what they are talking about, or one's friends and acquaintances. About this then, what do you think?

T h e narrator finally addresses the man to whom he reports the discussion thus suggesting that they will continue this discussion, but as a true sceptic he gives no hint whatsoever that they will succeed where others failed. These dialogues have been connected 88 to the χρεία (chreia, or anecdote), known as one of the school exercises in rhetoric (progymnasmata)I. This connection has no sense in so far as these dialogues, short though they may be, have more than anecdotal meaning. A chreia is to be used as a short tale in order to illustrate an acdon, a habit, or something else. These dialogues, it is true, can be put in a context of illustrating Socrates' sceptical approach, like the dialogues in Xenophon's Memorabilia, but they are too long and have too much argument just to serve as illustration.

C. Cicero After the Hellenistic period the philosophical dialogue had its renaissance, first in Rome and later elsewhere. In Rome, Cicero was the 88

Müller, Kurzdialoge, pp. 270 and 322, after Hirzel, Dialog, I, pp. 145-46.

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prime representative of this type of writing, and, because almost the whole of Cicero's philosophical writing is still extant, a somewhat lengthy discussion here is in order. Cicero introduced philosophy in Latin literature, an achievement of prime importance for Western philosophy. Here is not the place to sketch his reasons for doing so and to give an account of his philosophical ideas; after giving general information stress must here be put on the linguistic and rhetorical aspects of his philosophical dialogues, for both are closely related. 89 The reason why Cicero prefers the dialogue form to that of a treatise is to be found not only in the Greek tradition (see above on the Greek dialogue) but also in the scope the dialogue gives to Cicero to show his abilities as a writer. Moreover, dialogues with their informality of conversation (sermo) are more in tune with the urbanity of the participants who all belong to the same social class.90 He censures the books written in Latin by Epicureans for their lack of disposition and ornateness 91 and praises Academic and Peripatetic philosophers for their suavitas and copia, even sometimes their granditas, sublimity.92 It is true, in his Orator he asks for a more moderate style in a philosophical work, more of a civilized conversation (sermo) than oratory. There he characterizes this style as follows: mollis est enim oratio philosophorum et umbratilis, nec sententiis nec verbis instructa popularibus, nec vincta numeris, sed soluta liberius; nihil iratum habet, nihil invidum, nihil atrox, nihil miserabile, nihil astutum. casta verecunda, virgo incorrupta quodammodo. The style of philosophers is gentle and academic; it has no equipment of words or phrases that catch the popular fancy; it is not arranged in rhythmical periods, but is loose in structure; there is no anger in it, no hatred, no ferocity, no pathos, no shrewdness; it might be called a chaste, pure and modest virgin.93 The difference between the two statements can be explained by their context, that of a discussion on differences between styles of oratory and philosophy (Orator) and that of an exposition focused on different philosophical styles (Brutus). But Cicero refuses to keep the two styles 89

J. Ferguson, "Cicero's Contribution to Philosophy", in E. Paratore (ed.), Cotlana di Studi Ciceroniani, II (Roma: Centra di studi Cicer., 1962), pp. 99— 111. 90 Modern discussion of various aspects in the introductory chapters by LeemanPinkster, Cicero, I. 91 Tusc. 2:7-8. 92 Brut. 120-21. 93 Or. 62-64.

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completely apart as far as his own philosophical works are concerned. For he tries to bring philosophy to rhetoric and vice versa, as his own De oratore witnesses. Cicero lists his books on philosophical subjects in De divinatione, prologue to the second book. Commonly scholars distinguish two periods of philosophical activity,94 the first occurring around 55 BC, when he writes De republica, in which his famous Somnium Scipionis stands, De legibus and De oratore, combining a philosophical approach with a discussion of rhetoric. The second period (46-3 BC) is the more important one, in which he publishes Academici libn, De finibus bonorum et malorum, Tusculanae disputationes, De natura deorum, De divinatione, De fato, Cato maior de senectute, Laelius de amicitia and De officiis, all of which are still extant, whereas of other books not mentioned here we have fragments only. Only De officiis does not have a dialogue form; all other writings have. The discussions are either reported (reported dialogues), some even in the form of a two-layered report, or directly put forward as in drama (dramatic or mimetic dialogues). In accordance with Plato's approach in his Politeia and Nomoi Cicero's De republica contains a discussion held by Scipio Africanus Minor and his friends as reported to Cicero and his brother by Publius Rutilius Rufus when they were spending some days at his house in Smyrna. The De legibus, however, immediately starts as in drama with one of the participants making remarks. 95 T h e latter method of presentation is more commodious, as he himself puts it, for it saves him the frequent use of inquam and inquit.96 Tusculanae disputationes (likewise De fato) stands apart from other dialogues in so far as it is not a report on a conversation but that of a schola, a form of systematic instruction. Cicero sojourns with several friends in Tusculum and ponere iubebam, de quo quis audire vellet; at id sedens aut ambulans disputabam ( 1:4). Various general statements, theseis, are put forward and discussed by Cicero. A big difference with dialogues is that someone puts forward a point to be discussed but is almost silent for the rest.97 Cicero introduces the participants in the discussion as standing for 94

Cf. Leeman-Pinkster, Cicero, I, pp. 17-21 on the common view that these philosophical activities are the result of his forced absence from politics. 95 Hirzel, Dialog, I, pp. 47Iff. and 524ff. 96 Lael. 1:3, on the model of Plato's Theaet. 97 Tusc. 1:7-8, 2:9; cf. Fin. 2:2.

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different viewpoints. The (main) participants are at liberty to expound their views to a considerable length (disputatio). Thus in De natura deorum the Epicurean Velleius explains Epicurean physics, including theology, in the first book, the Stoic Balbus that of his school in the second one, whereas Cotta, representing the Sceptic Academy, after refuting the Epicurean views in book 1, needs the whole third book to combat the Stoic doctrine. Other persons may be present in order to listen only (thus Cicero in this dialogue) or to ask pertinent questions which help to develop the dialogue, but often such individuals are absent. The dialogues may be set in earlier times, thus for De natura deorum a date between 77 and 75 is given, whereas Cicero writes this work in 45 BC; but contemporary discussions can also be reflected, for example De legibus gives a picture of a discussion held by his brother Quintus, his friend Atdcus and himself on his estate at Aipinum. Here the place of discussion changes several times—it starts in a grove, soon changes to the bank of the nearby Liris and later the speakers go to an island in another river. T h e Tusculanae disputationes are said to reflect five days of discussion held in J u n e 1620, 46 BC. A regular feature of most of Cicero's philosophical and other dialogues is the presence of a prologue and arrangement by books. A division in books is already present in Aristotle's dialogues, who also prefaced each book with a prologue. 98 Cicero's arrangement often coincides with temporal indications, such as that it is evening and time to interrupt the discussion, which is taken up again the following morning and occupies another book. 99 The use of prologues enables Cicero to discuss the importance a n d / o r complexity of the subject, or to vent his views on philosophy in general. At the same time it offers him the possibility of dedicating his work to a friend and explaining why he does so, thus praising this dedicatee. O n e difficulty inherent to this kind of prologue is how to manage the transition to the subject to be dealt with in the dialogue proper. 100 In the Tusculanae disputationes this transition comes rather smoothly, for Cicero first announces and defends his intention to present philosophy in Latin and stresses his view that to do so involves a certain

98

Cic. Att. 4:16:2. Hirzel, Dialog, I, pp. 297- 300. 100 M. Pohlenz, Ciceros Tusc. Disp. It. υ (Leipzig-Berlin: Teubner, 1912), I, pp. 22-23. 99

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ornate and full style. He had formerly trained in orations, in his old age he does so in philosophical discussions. An example is what he has done when sojourning in Tusculum. In De natura deorum, on the other hand, his declared intention is to write on the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of gods. He first discusses several views, goes on to state that it is his duty to public life to expound philosophy to his fellow-countrymen and then comes back to his intention given at the start of the prologue. There is wide diversity of opinion on his subject and this fact must have its impact on those who think that they possess certain knowledge. He then continues: This has often struck me, but it did so with especial force on one occasion, w h e n the topic of the immortal gods was made the subject of a very searching and thorough discussion at the house of my friend Gaius Cotta. It was the Latin Festival, and . . . (1:15).

Prologues to later books may continue the approach taken up in the first prologue or develop a different theme. Thus in the prologue to the second book of De divinatione Cicero presents us with his "autobibliography", but both proems to books 1 and 2 of Tusculanae disputationes deal with Cicero's justification of his involvement in philosophy. Many of these features of the prologues and the dialogues proper can be explained as due to Cicero's reading of Greek models. However, and here enters the aspect of rhetoric, he expressly states that there is a close relationship between rhetoric and philosophy and that the best exposition of philosophy follows rules of rhetoric in using an ornate, rich and varied language (see above). Cicero is very much aware of the stylistic demands of the dialogue, the kind of literature which abhors dry expositions, full of technical jargon. Such an approach may do very well in τέχναι, artes, handbooks, but must be kept away from dialogues. These are sermones, "free discussions between cultured amateurs and litérateurs", 101 therefore characterized by humanitas, urbanitas and dissimulation02 However, as Cicero admits, almost all philosophy was developed by Greeks. Transposition of their ideas and thoughts into Latin entails creating a philosophical terminology in Latin.103 Three types of remedies are applied: Latinization of Greek words (e.g. philosophia), 101

Leeman, Orationis ratio, p. 209. Leeman-Pinkster, Cicero, I, pp. 80-84. 103 Leeman, Orationis ratio, pp. 206ff.; A. Michel, "Rhétorique et philosophie dans les traités de Cicéron", ANRW 1.3 (1973), pp. 139-208. 102

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use of existing words in a special sense (sapiens for ό σοφός) and derivation from Latin stems (essentia for ούσία). In contrast to some of his friends, Cicero restricts himself in applying these remedies and rejects some verba novata, such as spectra for Greek εϊδωλα when imagines is perfecdy suitable.104 He avoids pedantic subtilitas, uses therefore sometimes the same word for different notions and likes to vary his vocabulary or to render one Greek word by two in Latin. The problem of sentence construction, where the Greek language benefits from the infinitive with article and a freer use of participles than Latin, is not really solved, for cumbrous circumlocutions and many subordinate clauses have to be used.105 In these matters Cicero evidendy adheres to his own rhetorical ideas of what is proper language: clear, conforming to the rules of Latin, and moderately ornate. Accordingly, not much attention is given to prose rhythm; the painstaking use of the clausula is even rejected for philosophical style,106 and beautifully arranged periods are used sparingly. Sometimes, however, especially in the prologues, Cicero writes in a more grandiose manner. For example, in the laus philosophiae (Tusc. 5:5) he admits a kind of prose hymn: (philosophia): cuius in sinum cum a primis temporibus aetatis nostra voluntas studiumque nos compulisset, his gravissimis casibus in eundem portum, ex quo eramus egressi, magna iactati tempestate confugimus. Ο vitae philosophia dux, ο virtutis indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Quid non modo nos, sed omnino vita hominum sine te potuisset! T u urbes peperisti, tu dissipatos homines in societatem vitae convocasti, tu eos inter se primo domiciliis, deinde coniugiis, tum litterarum et vocum communione iunxist, tu inventrix legum, tu magistra morum et disciplinae fuisti. Ad te confugimus. a te opem petimus, tibi nos, ut antea magna ex parte, sic nunc penitus totosque tradimus. 107 From my earliest years my wishes and interests drove me to her bosom, and in these grievous misfortunes, tossed by a great storm, I have taken refuge in that same harbour from which I had taken my departure. Ο Philosophy, guide to life, searcher out of Virtue, expeller of vices!

104

Fam. 15:19:1 and Fin. 1:21. Cf. also R. Poncelet, Cicéron traducteur de Platon (Paris: Boccard, 1957). 106 Or. 64. 107 Trans, in A. E. Douglas, Cicero: Tuscutan Disputations II & V (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1990). Rhythmical analysis in W. Primmer, Cicero numerosus: Studien zum ant. Prosarhythmus (SB Oest. Ak. Wiss., phil.-hist. Kl., 257; Vienna: Böhlaus, 1968), p. 324. 105

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What could not only I but human life in general have achieved without you? Y o u created cities, you brought scattered human beings together in c o m m u n a l living, you joined them to each other, first with dwellings, then with marriage, then c o m m o n bonds of writing and speech. Y o u were the inventress of laws, you the instructress in morals and ordered living. In you we look for refuge, from you we seek help, to you I surrender myself, as formerly in large measure, so now utterly and completely.

Similarly, in Somnium Scipionis Cicero often uses poetical vocabulary in harmony with the tenor of Scipio's vision of the heavenly spheres.108 It has been often noticed that Cicero likes to deal to with a subject by having participants of the discussion respectively arguing in favour and against a particular view, but also one person can argue both sides. This method of dicere in utramque partem Cicero connects with Aristode and the Academy. A related method is that of arguing against any opinion held by someone else (contra id quod quisque se sentire dixisset disputare) and for this method the Academics Arcesilaus and Carneades are said to be responsible.109 Both methods serve to produce a sharper insight into the matter under discussion but also are useful to Sceptics as an instrument and an expression of their scepticism.110 Cicero, moreover, thinks it necessary for an orator to pracdce both techniques and did so himself from an early age onwards. T h e view to be discussed has the form of a statement, which is either a general question (quaestio infinita, θέσις, e.g. "Should one remain in one's country when under tyranny?") or a specific one (quaestio finita, ύπόθεσις, e.g. "Should Cicero remain in Rome now that Caesar dominates it?"). 1 " Though some rhetoricians claim theseis for rhetoric, they are the proper subject for philosophers and accordingly claimed by them. 112 Cicero's method in Tusculanae disputationes, therefore, of proposing a general statement, for example malum mihi videtur esse mors (1:9), and then discussing the various aspects of this opinion, should be seen not as due to his rhetorical approach of

108

Cf. De or. 3:152iT. De or. 3:80; N.D. 1:11, but in De or. 2:161 Carneades is also associated with the first method. 110 Wisse, Welsprekendhàd, on De or. 3:80; J. Wisse, Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1989), pp. 169 and 177. 111 Cf. Att. 9:4:1-3. 112 De or. 3:109-10. 109

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philosophy but as a consequence of the training in philosophy he received from Philo of Larisa and other philosophers. Of course, his own oratorical experience influenced his handling of these theseis and of philosophical themes in general.

D. Later Latin Dialogues Cicero's attempt to introduce his form of the philosophical dialogue into Latin literature did not have much success. In the next generation L. Annaeus Seneca (AD 1-65) not only chose to follow a completely different style but also produced twelve treatises, called dialog. in our MS tradition, which, however, have nothing to do with the format of those of Cicero. It has been claimed that these Senecan writings may better be called "diatribes" and that Seneca called them dialogi using an acceptable Latin equivalent for the Greek διάλεξις. 113 Indeed, in one work only, De tranquillitate animi, there is a very superficial appearance of a dialogue when Serenus starts by describing his lack of tranquility of mind and asks Seneca for some medicine. Seneca responds by expounding his views and counsel in one long monologue of over 30 Teubner pages. In all other so-called dialogues, including De benφciis and De clementia, which fall outside the collection of 12 dialog., Seneca immediately starts by addressing someone else, but there is no sign of a report of a conversation; the someone else is absent and is like the recipient of a letter. For this absence of a dialogue situation I think it better to discuss the Senecan dialogi in the section on diatribe and dialexis. The last dialogue on the Latin side to be discussed here is the Consolatio philosophiae of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (ca. 4 8 0 524). When in prison he composed a dialogue between Lady Philosophia and himself. Philosophy consoles him by discussing many philosophical, especially moral, problems by means of tenets held by various schools (Cynic, Stoic, Peripatetic and (neo-)Platonist). T h e absence of Christian theology is remarkable in view of Boethius's defence of neo-chalcidian theology elsewhere, but explainable by the 113 E.g. by H. Dahlmann, L. Annaeus Seneca. De brevitate vitae (Munich: Hueber, 1949), p. 367. Support for this view can be found in the use of διαλέγεσθαι = to practise the type of dialexis in opposition to practising declamation by Philostratus, for example. See B. Schouler, Libanios. Discours moraux (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1973), p. 23.

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view that philosophy deals with the nature around us, theology with doctrines delivered by divine revelation." 4 The dialogue form allows Boethius to have himself put questions to Philosophy, to raise objections and to assent, but the main part is reserved for Philosophy's exposidons. All these are given in a quiet way, but sometimes a true dialogue of question and answer introduces a sense of variety. Variety is also achieved by the introduction of many poems, sometimes when Philosophy is done with a problem, at other times when she alleviates the tension by summarizing her argument in verse form. This mixture of prose and poetry has been brought back to the Menippean satire, a genre practised by Varro, Lucian and others, but now put to use for a philosophical and serious subject." 5

E. Later Greek Dialogues O n the Greek side the philosophical dialogue made a come back in the Imperial period. For his philosophical and other writings Plutarch sixteen times chooses a dialogue form and Dio of Prusa also has some full-blown dialogues, be it very small ones. Plutarch" 6 follows Plato's example in having both mimetic and reported dialogues, but he does not have dialogues consisting of a rapid interchange of question and answer, only those made up of a series of developed speeches. T h e less plausible answers come first and are refuted in the course of the later speeches. This strategy is fully comprehensible, for after the right or most probable" 7 solution has been given all strain and anxiety have vanished and no one is waiting for another wrong explanation. Plato follows this course in his Symposium and other authors imitate him. Sometimes Plutarch's dialogues begin with a genuine dialogue but after a few pages this form is abandoned and one participant has the floor up till the end of the conversation. If there is a continuous and true conversation, Plutarch is able to give a lively portrait of its characters and he also keeps his eye on the environ-

114 P. Merlan, "Boethius", IA W (Zich-Stuttgart: Artemis, 1965); LCL edition of Boethius, pp. x-xii. 115 Hirzel, Dialog, II, pp. 347-48. 116 Hirzel, Dialog, II, pp. 124-238; K. Ziegler, "Plutarchos von Chaironea", RE 21 (1951), cols. 890-93; 2nd edn. (1964), cols. 253-55; D. A. Russell, Plutarch (London: Duckworth, 1973), pp. 34-41. Ed. F. C. Babbitt et ai, Plutarch's Moralia (16 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1927-36). 117 This alternative is often the one Plutarch chooses because of his scepticism (Ziegler, "Plutarchos", p. 253).

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ment. Another Platonic trait is the presence of an eschatological myth in De genio Socratis and two other dialogues. Novel in comparison with Plato's dialogues such as the Phaedo is the intricate interplay in two dialogues (De genio Socratis and Amatonus) between the subject of the discussion and the setting. Thus in the first dialogue the liberation of Thebes from the Spartan occupation in 379 BC forms the background against which the conversation of the conspirators and exiles in the house of Simmias, now an old man, takes place. At the same time there is a line of narrative about a stranger staying near the tomb of the Pythagorean Lysis. Developments in the two plots punctuate the discussions." 8 In the Amatonus a narrated love-affair gives rise to a philosophical discussion on love." 9 Here Plutarch's son Autoboulos reports a conversation held several years ago by his father and some friends in the neighbourhood of Thespiae. 120 There is a big commotion in the town because a certain Ismenodora, a beautiful but widowed woman, wishes to marry Bacchon, also beautiful but rather young. Bacchon leaves the decision to two older relatives, who consult Plutarch and his friends on this matter. A discussion between the adherents and the opponents of pederasty first develops, which is interrupted by the message that the widow has abducted the young man. Several participants now leave and Plutarch and his friends now discuss other aspects of Eros. In a part now lost they move away in the direction of the town and Plutarch is the principal speaker, defending conjugal love rather than homosexual love. The group is now reaching Thespiae and gets the news that Ismenodora and Bacchon have come to an agreement and that the wedding is already under way. Russell rightly compares this dialogue with its novel-like setting to the first book of the novelist Achilles Tatius and states that the dialogue made a contribution to the development of the novel.121 In his treatises as well as in his dialogues Plutarch heavily relies on earlier authorities. Thus in the Amatonus an enormous number of quotations from poets is found and, of course, Plato's Symposium is referred to once and again. Stories are taken from various sources to

118

Full discussion in Russell, Plutarch, pp. 36-41. R. Flacelière, Plutarque, Dialogue sur l'Amour (Ann. de l'Univ. de Lyon iii, 21; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1953); W. C. Helmbold, Plutarch's Moralia, LCL, IX. 120 Plato's Sympoùum has a similar beginning. 121 Russell, PluUirch, p. 35. But in modern literature on the ancient novel Plutarch's dialogue is not mentioned at all. 119

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demonstrate particular points. In this way one may see this dialogue as a depository of views on love. Nevertheless from the end one gathers that though defending both homosexual and conjugal love as equally important Plutarch really advocates the latter, and thus takes a stance different from the Master. 122 Another point of difference is that Eros is undoubtedly a God, no longer a daemon, as in the Symposium. Plutarch seems to wish to identify Eros with the intelligible archetype of the Sun, and thus T h e good in Republic 6.123 This part of the dialogue also offers a good example of Plutarch's calm style with often long periods, avoidance of hiatus, and rhythmical cola in an Atticistic Greek, full of poetical words which seem to have gone into Atticistic prose and with an abundance of two words expressing one thought (lhendiadyoin) as well as comparisons. 124 One example must suffice. It comes from Amatonus (Mor. 765D-F): Τά μέν ούν πολλά ποιηταί προσπαίζοντες έοίκασι τφ θεφ γράφειν περί αύτοΰ καί αδειν έπικωμάζοντες, όλίγα δέ εϊρηται μετά σπουδής αύτοις, εϊτε κατά νουν καί λογισμόν εϊτε συν θεφ της αληθείας άψαμένοις· ών εν έστι καί τό περί της γενέσεως δεινότατον θέων < τ ό ν > γέννατ' εύπέδιλλος "Iρις χρυσοκόμα Ζεφύρω μίγεισα [Alcaeus fr. 8 Diehl = 327 Campbell LCL), εί μη τι καί υμάς άναπεπείκασιν οί γραμματικοί, λέγοντες προς το ποικίλον του πάθους καί τό άναθηρόν γεγονέναι την είκασίαν. N o w generally poets w h o write or sing of the god seem to be making fun of him or carousing in a drunken revel; but they have some serious productions to their credit, either because they have taken careful thought, or else by the god's help they have really grasped the truth. O n e such concerns his birth: Most fearful of the gods W h o m fair-sandalled Iris bore T o Zephyrus of the golden h a i r — unless y o u have let yourselves be persuaded by literary critics w h o affirm that the imagery symbolizes the variegated brilliance of the emotion (trans. Helmbold LCL).

Dio of Prusa (Chrysostomus) composes twelve discourses in the form of a mimetic dialogue between Dio, the teacher, and one of his pupils, 122

Ziegler, "Plutarchos", col. 161 and Flacelière, Plutarque, pp. 25-27. Cf. D. Babut, Plutarque et le Stoïcisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1969), pp. 108-12 on the view that Plutarch's ideas on conjugal love are taken from Stoic sources. 123 J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp.

200-201. 124

Ziegler, "Plutarchos", cols. 294-301; Russell, Plutarch, ch. 2.

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who remains anonymous. 125 Sometimes an external object or incident brings about the conversation, thus in Or. 21, " O n Beauty", Dio is led by the sight of the statue of a handsome youth to express regret that beauty among males is dying out because it is unappreciated, while that of females is increasing. In Or. 23, "That the wise man is fortunate and happy", Dio immediately starts by putdng a question to his pupil. The young man mosdy answers with "Certainly" and other non-impressive statements but he can also be critical and, for instance, declare that Euripides' view of the continuously unhappy state of man is nonsense—a statement easy to make for Euripides is often quoted by ancient authors as expressing ridiculous ideas. As in other ancient dialogues, the wrong ideas are put forward first and the better one comes at the end. In this dialogue the pupil objects to the view that guiding spirits, if divine, can be wicked. Dio admits that up to now he has maintained the popular opinion but now will give the right philosophical (= Stoic) view: only the wise man is happy because listening to the guiding spirit, which is good and wise. Dio's style in dialogues is quite different from that of Plutarch. The calmness of the latter have given place to much shorter sentences, hiatus is allowed where Plutarch shuns it, but first and foremost a real conversation does not take place: the master instructs the pupil. Moreover, these dialogues are much shorter (but the second and fourth orations on kingship and delivered before Trajan in Rome consist, apart from an introduction, of dialogues between Philip and his son Alexander and Alexander and Diogenes respectively and are equally as long as Plutarch's). My example comes from Or. 23:10: έπεί φέρε, εί ούν ήγείσθε τό δαιμόνιον θείον καί άγαθόν καί μηδενί κακού μηδενός αίτιον, πώς φάτε γίγνεσθαι κακοδαίμονα άνθρωπον; ή οταν μη προσέχωσι μηδέ πείθονται τώ δαιμονίω άγαθώ οντι; ώσπερ εί νομίζοιμεν τους ιατρούς άπαντας άγαθούς είναι δια τά της τέχνης καί μηδένα αύτών πονηρόν ίατρόν μηδέ β λ α β ε ρ ό ν , τών δέ καμνόντων κακώς τ ι ν α ς πράττοντας βλέποιμεν καί βλαπτομένους έν ταΐς νόσοις- δήλον οτι τούτους άν φαΐμεν μη έθέλειν τά προσταττόμενα ποιεΐν, τους δέ πειθομένους άνάγκη καλώς άπαλλάττειν· καί δ τι άν γίγνοιτο ούκ άν θαυμάζοι τις. For just consider: If you really believe that the guiding spirit is divine and good and the author of no evil to anyone, h o w d o you explain a man's becoming unfortunate, that is, unhappy? O r does that happens

125

Hirzel, Dialog, II, pp. 84-119; H. von Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa (Berlin, 1898). Ed. J. W. Cohoon and L. Crosby (5 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1932-51).

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w h e n he does not heed or obey his guiding spirit, this being good? It is just as if we should think that all physicians are good in the matters of their profession and that none of them is a bad physician or harmful, but yet should see some of their patients doing poorly and suffering harm in their illnesses; evidently we should say that they refuse to obey orders and that such patients as do obey cannot but come through well; and nothing that should happen to them would surprise anyone (trans. C o h o o n LCL).

Dio's strength is to be found not in his dialogues but in his orations.

F. The Influence of Ekphrasis In the first or second century AD, the dialogue genre undergoes a further change when the unknown author of the Κέβητος Πίναξ (Tabula Cebetis)m joins the characteristics of a dialogue with those of an ekphrasis. The I, together with a friend, look at an enigmatic picture in a temple of Kronos and in an ensuing dialogue a venerable old man explains the picture with its four enclosures, symbolizing the ways of life. Whereas the explanation takes the form of an erotapokrisis, one participant by means of his questions being the prompter of the other who supplies all information, 127 at the end a real dialogue on the meaning of the picture comes about. The ekphrasism as a literary device is much practised by rhetoricians and well known from some of Lucian's dialogues and especially the introduction of Achilles Tatius's romance Leucippe and Clitophon, with the relevant picture of a love story. Now this device is used to propagate moral ideas, and personification and allegorization of virtues and vices are applied. Prodicus's story about Heracles on the crossroads129 is, of course, also influential. This new approach of presenting moral paraenesis heavily leans on literary examples; one of these may be the admittance of hiatus at numerous places, perhaps in order to show the looseness and friendliness of the conversation. Plutarch would not have approved but Cicero applauded.

126

J. T. Fitzgerald and L. M. White, The Tabula of Cebes (Texts and Trans., GraecoRoman Religion Series, 7; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983). 127 H. Dörrie and H. Dörries, "Erotapokriseis", RAC, VI, cols. 342-70. This method differs from that adopted by, e.g., Dio (see above) in so far as there the I (Dio) by his questions and information keeps the conversation in motion. 128 G. Downey, "Ekphrasis", RAC IV (1959), cols. 923ff. 129 Xen. Mem. 2:1:21-34.

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G. Lucian It is interesting to observe how in some of his dialogues Lucian of Samosata (ca. 120-180) 130 comes back to that type of Platonic dialogue in which short questions and answers abound. Lucian explores the possibilities of many types of literature and in dialogues like Hermotimos he adopts the Socratic manner. This text has been seen as a serious and eloquent defense of scepticism,131 but as so often in Lucian's oeuvre, one may suppose that the critical observer Lucian has found another subject to ridicule. At any rate, in Hermotimos the claims made for the lifelong study of philosophy are systematically undermined by Hermotimos's interlocutor, Lycinus, who acts as a second Socrates. At the end Hermotimos has undergone a conversion and promises to lay down his philosopher's dress and appearance and to behave as an ordinary man. T h e speaking parts of Hermotimos tend to be smaller towards the end when Lycinus gendy but inexorably demolishes all pretensions of philosophers. Typical of Lycinus's attack is his down to earth manner, for example in 16 when Lycinus asks Hermotimos to teach him how we can distinguish the best philosophy: EPM. έγώ σοι φράσω. έώρων τους πλείστους έπ' αύτήν ορμώντας ώστε εΐκαζον άμείνω είναι αύτήν. ΛΥΚ. πόσφ τινί πλείους τών Επικούρειων ή Πλατωνικών ή Περιπατητικών; ήρίθμησας γάρ δηλαδή αύτούς καθάπερ έν ταΐς χειροτονίαις; ΕΡΜ. άλλ' ούκ ήρίθμησα έγωγε, εΐκαζον δέ. ΛΥΚ. ώς ούκ έθέλεις διδάξαι με άλλα εξαπατάς, δς περί τών τοιούτων είκασμφ φής καί πλήθει κρΐναι άποκρυπτόμενος λέγειν πρός με τάληθές. - I will tell you. I saw that most people took to this one, so I guessed it was the best. - H o w many more Stoics are there than Epicureans or Platonists or Peripatetics? You obviously took a count of them as in a show of hands. - I didn't count. I made an estimate. - So you are not prepared to teach me. You are cheating when you tell me you decide such a matter by guesswork and weight of numbers. You are hiding the truth from me (trans. Kilburn LCL).

130

Luciani opera (ed. M. D. Macleod; 4 vols.; OCT; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 197287). Trans. A. M. Harmon et al. (8 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1913-1967). 131 H.-G. Nesselrath, "Kaiserzeidiches Skeptizismus in platonischem Gewand: Lukians 'Hermotimos'", ANRW \1.36:5 (1992), pp. 3451-82.

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Lucian's style here and elsewhere in dialogues is in keeping with the general stylistic ideals of dialogue writers: no contentio (άγων) but sermo (διάλογος, διάλεξις). Dialogues do not offer the chance to show stylistic brilliance. Rules of rhetoric forbid such a show.

VI.

D I A T R I B E AND D I A L E X I S

A. Introduction At the end of the nineteenth century scholars started to use the term "diatribe" for a group of "lectures or discourses on a moral theme, marked by a combination of seriousness with humour and a certain vividness and immediacy in language". 132 In doing so they were under the impression of continuing ancient usage of the Greek word διατριβή. 133 Since then the debate on what a diatribe is and is not, on its relation to ancient terms and on its origins has continued until today and consensus on all points has not come about. 134 A huge bone of contention is the problem of whether diatribe in the modern sense and defined as above is equivalent to what the Greeks and Romans called διατριβή, or not—alternatively, θέσις παραινετική and διάλεξις have been proposed 135 —and, if so, whether the diatribe is first and foremost a product of school lectures or a discourse for a bigger

132

Russell, Plutarch, p. 29. In ancient Greek διατριβή has several meanings, among which are pertinent here "a (philosophical) school", "teaching done in such a school", "a work in which this teaching is written down" and, in a wider sense, "a philosophical treatise", based on a course of lectures. 134 The first occurrence is in Usener, Epicurea, p. lxix. See for the history of the debate E. G. Schmidt, "Diatribai", dKP 2 (1957), cols. 1577-78; T. Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe": Eine vergleichende Stilinterpretation (Münster: Aschendorff, 1987), pp. 1-54. 135 Only recent studies are mendoned. Equivalent to (a certain kind of) διατριβή: S. Κ. Stowers, "Diatribe", Historiches Wörterbuch des Rhetorik (ed. G. Ueding; Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994), cols. 627-33, repeating his The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (SBLDS, 57; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), and followed by New Testament scholars in North America. Not equivalent: Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", after many other scholars. Comparable to θέσις παραινετική: H. Throm, Die Thesis: Ein Bätrag zu ihrer Entstehung und Geschichte (Rhet. Stud., 17; Paderborn: Schöningh, 1932), pp. 77, 149, followed by Β. Ρ. Wallach, Lucretius and the Diatribe Against the Fear of Death (Mnemosyne Sup., 40; Leiden: Brill, 1976). Equivalent to (a kind of) philosophical διάλεξις: B. Schouler, Ubanios. Discours moraux (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1973), pp. 30-37 and (with restrictions) Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", p. 19. 133

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audience of laymen (with little or no knowledge of philosophy). Here is not the proper place to try to give a definite answer, if such a task were possible, for much depends on the starting point one chooses. It would be, however, unwise to overlook that in both classical and New Testament studies diatribe in a modern sense has been widely accepted and to ignore the usefulness of this term. 136 "Diatribe" in the modern sense represents a distinct tradition of works of a particular kind in antiquity. Commonly works (all or some) of Bion of Borysthenes, Teles, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom are seen as examples of this kind of diatribe, 137 and this course is followed here, be it with some misgivings about the status of Dio as a philosopher. 138 The diatribe can be seen as the paraenetic counterpart of the protreptic (see section IV), in so far as it aims to bring its public to a better way of life by means of concrete lessons. Another presupposition of this type is its continuity; not one lecture but a series, in which several themes are developed and the addressee is supposed to go through several stages of moral development. 139 Usually the audience consists of a teacher's pupils or a somewhat larger group, but not a huge crowd, although exceptions occur. Diatribe is not restricted to one school of thought, though Cynics and Stoics, as far as we know, use this method to a greater extent than Epicureans and Academics. It is a typical product of the Hellenisdc schools with their insistence on individual happiness. Some famous teachers using the diatribe are wandering philosophers (e.g. Bion) but this trait is not as typical as many scholars have thought. 140 Neither is it correct to characterize the diatribe as the product of philosophy being popularized for laymen (populärphilosophische Vorträge), especially not when by this designation one implies mass propaganda. Many lectures of Epictetus would not be understood by a big audience and the same is true for many dialexeis of Maximus of Tyrus. 141

136 Q n e m a y c o m p a r e other instances of scholars introducing ancient terms in a new sense while not thinking so, e.g. Droysen's "Hellenismus". 137 A depressing list of many more works called diatribe (or diatribe-like) in Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", pp. 34-35. 138 Authors using elements of the diatribe style (e.g. Philo of Alexandria) are not discussed here. 139 Th; s characterization is in accordance with the ancient use of σχολαί and διατριβαί, e.g. Cic. Tusc. 3:34:81. 140 E.g. Festugière, Révélation, II, p. 288. See now D. Aune, The New Testament in its literaiy Environment (LEC; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), pp. 199ff. 141 Schouler, Ubanios, pp. 34-35.

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Is the modern diatribe identical to the ancient διάλεξις? The latter word is used for philosophical works, dialogues, lectures and sophistic introductory causeries (προλαλιαί),142 and scholars often equate the modern diatribe with the kind of dialexis which is a lecture or oration, meant for a bigger audience and dealing with philosophical matters in a more popular way. The dubious aspect of Populärphilosophie aside, the equation does not appear to be wrong, provided one stresses the aspect of lecture more than that of oration and also accepts its restriction to ethical subjects. The lectures of Epictetus are also called διαλέξεις, just like those of Maximus of Tyrus, and not all of these concern a moral theme. Accordingly, not all of these dialexeis are to be classified as diatribes. 143

B. Features of the Diatribe As a philosophical discourse the diatribe is full of common rhetoric: direct address to imaginary participants, short dialogues with questions and answers. In the Socratic manner known from fourth-century dialogues, the author leads a participant into self contradiction or has him take up an absurd position, whereafter he corrects him in a stern way. The victim is always nameless, very often a fictive participant. Rhetorical questions are usual, and so are vocatives ("Man", "you fool"), whereas the syntax is simple because of short phrases and ellipses. Effective figures of isocolon, parallelismus and antithesis are favoured, irony and sarcasm plentiful, and maxims, anecdotes and comparisons popular. Difficult philosophical subjects are absent, and thus physics and logic are most times not discussed and sometimes even mentioned with contempt. All stress is laid on ethics and because diatribes have the intention to bring people to a better way of life, poverty versus luxury is discussed, or self-control versus licence, but also fear of death, the position of the gods, being young or old, emotions and passions.

142

O. Halbauer, De diatribis Epicteti (Leipzig: Teubner, 1911); Schouler, Ubanios pp. 22-37; Pemot, Rhétorique, pp. 558-68; Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", pp. 17-19. 143 As to the identification of θέσις see section VII.

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C. Bion of Boiysthenes Bion o f Borysthenes (ca. 3 3 5 ca. 2 4 5 BC) is the first p h i l o s o p h e r k n o w n to h a v e held s u c h lectures. 1 4 4 H e a d o p t e d the life o f a w a n d e r i n g p h i l o s o p h e r after a c q u i r i n g his p h i l o s o p h i c a l e d u c a t i o n in A t h e n s at four different schools ( A c a d e m y , C y n i c s , C y r e n a i c s a n d

Peripatos).

H e w r o t e m a n y notes o f his lectures (υπομνήματα, also

[probably]

called διατριβαί). H e did n o t practice the d i a l o g u e f o r m but t h e lecture, b o t h for pupils a n d for a larger public. T h o u g h his actual w o r k s are lost, the fragments, especially t h o s e p r e s e r v e d b y the C y n i c w r i t e r T e l e s , give s o m e idea o f f o r m a n d c o n t e n t . O n e o f the l o n g e r fragm e n t s m a k e s this clear: 1 4 5 Διό και ει λάβοι, φησίν ό Βίων, φωνήν τά πράγματα, öv τρόπον καί ημείς, καί δύναιτο δικαιολογείσθαι, ούκ άν εϊποι, φησίν, ώσπερ οίκέτης πρός τόν κύριον έφ' ιερόν καθίσας δικαιολογείται "τί μοι μάχη; μή τί σοι κέκλοφα; ού πάν τό προσταττόμενον υπό σου ποιώ; ού τήν άποφοράν εύτάκτως σοι φέρω;" καί ή πενία < ά ν > ε'ίποι πρός τόν έγκαλοΰντα ", τί μοι μάχη; μή καλού τίνος δι' έμέ στερίσκη; μή σωφροσύνης; μή δικαιοσύνης; άνδρείας; άλλα μή τών άναγκαίων ένδεής εί; ή ού μεσταί μέν αί οδοί λαχάνων, πλήρεις δέ αί κρήναι ϋδατος; ούκ εύνάς σοι τοσαύτας παρέχω όπόση γη; καί στρωμνάς φύλλα; ή ούκ εύφραίνεσθαι μετ' έμού ούκ έστιν; ή ούχ όρφς γράδια φυστήν φαγόντα τερετίζοντα; ή ούκ δψον άδάπανον καί άτρύφερον παρασκευάζω σοι τήν πειναν; ή ούχ ό πεινών ήδιστα έσθίει καί ήκιστα όψου δείται; καί ό διψών ήδιστα πίνει καί ήκιστα τό μή παρόν ποτόν άναμένει;. . . ." εί ταύτα λέγοι ή πενία, τί άν έχοις άντειπεΐν; έγώ μέν γάρ < ά ν > δοκώ άφωνος γενέσθαι. When things would have a voice, Bion says, just like us, and would be able to plead their case, just like a slave sitting at the house altar pleads his case before his master, <saying:>, he says, "why d o you quarrel with me? I have stolen nothing, did I? I do everything you order me, don't I? I regularly hand over the money I earn, don't I?" Just so poverty can say to the man who brings charges against her: "Man, why do you quarrel with me? Through me you are robbed of nothing beautiful, are you? Not of self-control; not of righteousness; not of bravery, is it? You're not missing any necessary thing, are you? Is it not so that the roads are full of vegetables, the sources full of water? D o I not procure as many beds as the earth is big? And leaves

144 J. F. Kindstrand, Bion of Boiysthenes: A Collection of the Fragments with Introduction and Commentary (Studia graeca Upsal., 11; Uppsala: Almqvist & Wicksell, 1976), pp. 40-41. 145 Fr. 17 Kindstrand (= Stob. 3:1:98, pp. 38:14-40:4).

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as bedding? O n e can enjoy oneself with me, is it not so? Don't you see old w o m e n humming when eating pastries? Don't I give you hunger as food without costs and luxury and doesn't a hungry man eat with gusto and he doesn't in the least need sauces? Doesn't a thirsty man drink with gusto and he doesn't in the least await drink that is not here?". . . If poverty says this, what would you say against her? I think I would become speechless.

The personificadon of the abstract concept of poverty, the comparison with an every-day occurrence of the slave fleeing to the housealtar and the materials of common simple life are combined in order to advocate the αυτάρκεια, satisfaction with what one has. The whole turns thus into a eulogy of poverty. The style is lively because of the dialogue poverty has with us, rhetorical questions abound, and comparisons are dear to Bion. Figures such as anaphora, word play, antithesis, isocolon and parallelism occur often. All rhetorical devices are used in order to get the attention of his audience. 146 Larger fragments of Bion's writings are almost exclusively known from quotations in the diatribes of Teles of Megara (?, 3rd cent.), a Cynic philosopher who intersperses his discourse with very many quotations from Bion, Crates and other authors, as we can ascertain from the significant fragments of his writings. He starts with a proposition which he attacks or unfolds.147 Thus the fourth fragment 148 commences with an opinion of some pupil(?): "I think that possession of money sets one free from scarcity and poverty", to which Teles immediately counters with: Και πώς; ούχ οράς ένίους κεκτημένους μέν πολλά ώς δοκούσιν, ού χρωμένους δέ τούτοις δι' άνελευθερίαν καί ρυπαρίαν; άλλ' ώσπερ Πρίαμος ούδ' έ'τλη εζεσθαι έπί θρόνου πολλών κατά οίκον έόντων, άλλά χαμαί έκάθητο κυλινδόμενος κατά κόπρον, οϋτως έ'νιοι πολλών υπαρχόντων αύτοίς δι' άνελευθερίαν ούδενός γεύονται ούδέ άπτονται· άλλά πλείω οί μύς κατεσθίουσι καί οί μύρμηκες ή αύτοί.

146 Kindstrand, Bion, pp. 25-39, who also (pp. 39-55) discusses the stylistic background of Bion (similarities to the new, "Asiatic" style and Cynic influence) as well as ancient cridcism of this style. 147 Ed. O. Hense, Teletis reliquiae (2nd edn.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1909). A French translation of Teles's περί αύταρκείας (Hense ii) in Festugière, Révélation, II, pp. 59297, a German one in W. Capelle, Epiktet, Teles und Musonius: Wege zum glückseligen Leben (Bibl. der Alten Welt, Griech. Reihe. Stoa und Stoiker, 3; Zieh: Artemis, 1948), pp. 219-25. 148 Hense, Teletis, p. 33.

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H o w do you mean? Don't you see that some people have a lot of money, as it seems, but do not use it because of illiberality and sordidness of mind? No, just like Priam did not dare to be seated on his throne, "though there was much in his house", but sat on the ground "wallowing in dirt", in the same way some people though having much at their disposal do not taste anything nor touch it. Really, mice and ants eat more than they.

The next fragment starts in the same way149 and treats the statement that "poverty is an obstacle to philosophizing, but richness is useful for it". By means of direct questions ("or don't you see t h a t . . .") Teles offers objections till he comes to this one: "Or, again, don't you see that rich people because of having more business are prevented from having leisure (and studying), whereas the poor man, who does not know what he can do, comes to philosophy?". At this moment Teles tells an illustrative story, told by Zeno about the Cynic Crates, who sitting at the shoemaker's was reading Aristode's Protreptic. In this work Aristotle writes to king Themison that he has more external goods than anyone else to take up philosophy, and a good reputation as well. When he was reading this, the shoemaker listened attentively, at the same time continuing his repairs. Therefore Crates said to him: "I think I shall address a protreptic to you, Philiscus, for you have more things at your disposal than the man for whom Aristode wrote his work".

D. Musonius Rufiis In the first century AD the Roman eques and Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus taught at Rome, with an interruption because of banishment by Nero. Epictetus was one of his pupils. Musonius's lectures have been written down by his pupil Lucius, who seems to have condensed them. 150 Musonius's lectures and talks are different from those of Bion and Teles. Fr. 17 starts with a question of an old man about the best provision (έφόδιον, viaticum) for an old man on his path of life and Musonius's answer is "to live systematically and according to nature". This statement is then developed, first by a proof from animal life,

149

Hense, Teletis, pp. 45ff. Ed. O. Hense, C. Musonii reliquiae (Leizpig: Teubner, 1905); A. Geytenbeek, Musonius Rufus and the Greek Diatribe (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1963). 150

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thereafter by references to human virtues, by which man is comparable to gods. After more proofs it is concluded that this kind of life is the best guarantee for happiness. It ends by a short refutadon of the view that richness gives the best solace in one's old age. The way the original statement is being developed, as well as the refutation at the end of a possible alternative, makes it possible to view this fragment as an example of a thesis. This conclusion is strengthened by the didactic and quiet tone of the discourse, and the absence of imaginary dialogue and objections,151 the suggestion at the end excepted. However, the part of refutation is very slight, and does not concern the main statement but an alternative. Therefore, one may be content with the usual classification of Musonius's works under diatribe, 152 and accept the customary explanation that because of the editorial work done by Musonius's pupil Lucius many a trait of the original vividness has been lost. Because of this uncertainty it is hazardous to quote from existent fragments in order to demonstrate Musonius's style. One example must suffice, an anecdote, or chreia, showing the foolishness of a non-philosopher. T h e context is that fear of death makes old age miserable (Fr. 17:92 Hense): ώσπερ άμέλει teat ό ρήτωρ Ισοκράτης άνεμωλογησατο. φασι γάρ έκεΐνον, έρωτησαντός τίνος οπως διάγει, ειπείν, οτι "οϋτως ώσπερ εικός τόν ένενήκοντα μέν γέροντα έτη, κακών δέ έσχατον νομίζοντα είναι τόν θάνατον", καίτοι πώς έκείνφ τι παιδείας μετην ή γνώσεως τών άληθών, δς ύπελάμβανεν είναι κακόν τό έξ άνάγκης έπόμενον βίω τφ άρίστφ; εϊ γε άριστος βίος ό του άγαθού άνδρός, πέρας δέ καί τούτου θάνατος.

For instance, also the rhetor Isocrates has admitted this. For, when asked by someone how he was spending his life, he answered, the story goes: "In the way one can expect from a ninety years old man who thinks death the worst thing". What share in culture or knowledge of truly good or bad things can this man have had, when he took as a bad thing that which necessarily comes after the best life? If, at least, one agrees that the best life is that of the good man and death the end of this life also.

151

Differently Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", pp. 151-54. Thus Geytenbeek, Musonius Rufus, and Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", pp. 125-57. 152

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Ε. Seneca Lucius Annaeus Seneca (AD 1-65) was born in Cordoba, Spain, but soon came to Rome, where he was educated. His father was Seneca the Elder, or Rhetor, who in his Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae, divisiones, colores recalls the declamations he heard in his youth. The younger Seneca thus became acquainted with school declamations, and two out of his three teachers of philosophy were former declaimers. Seneca was famous for his senatorial orations, and was even appointed to give the young Nero a rhetorical training. His philosophical allegiance was confessedly Stoic. He wrote tragedies, orations, letters, dialogues and a work on physics.153 His philosophical prose is found first in a collection of 12 Dialog,154 to be supplemented by De clementia and De beneficiis, and that of 124 Epistulae morales, allegedly written to his younger friend Lucilius, both of these types of books dealing with ethics. Then comes the Naturales quaestiones on the most elevated part of Stoic philosophy, the study of the cosmos. ' 55 This work will not be thoroughly discussed here, though it may be of some interest for the theme of this Handbook. 156 It is sufficient to point out the personal point of view Seneca often takes up in this work and the dialogue he maintains with his addressee and his readers. Seneca obviously tries to avoid the dry manner of handbooks, perhaps also because of the importance of the subject. In the preface to book 1 he stresses its utilitas for it makes man aware of his own unimportance and the greatness of God. Therefore, the author frequently inserts moralizing digressions, which he may introduce a n d / o r conclude as such. O n the whole this work is much livelier than, for example, Pliny's Naturales historiae. Already a first reading of Naturales quaestiones shows peculiarities of Seneca's style,157 for which he becomes famous, or notorious, if one follows Quintilian's depreciatory analysis.158 Quintilian praises Seneca for his denunciations of vice and striking general reflections but

153

K. Abel, "Seneca. Leben und Leistung", ANRW 11.32:2 (1985), pp. 656-702. These dialog} do not have the formal characteristics of dialogues but rather of diatribes. For this reason they are discussed here. 155 Nat. 1, praef. 1 and 3, praef. 1. 156 On Naturales Quaestiones see C. Codoner, "La physique de Sénèque: Ordonnance et structure des "Naturales Quaestiones", ANRW 11.36:3 (1989), pp. 1779-1822. 157 Cf. A. L. Motto, Seneca (TYVAS, 268; New York: Twayne, 1973), pp. 109-28. 158 Inst. 10:1:125-31, esp. 129-30. 154

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censures his love of oblique expression and ruptured sentences (sententiae minutissimae) and calls his style corrupta and teeming with attractive vices. This judgment has everything to do with a classicisdc return to the classical Roman writers, primarily Cicero. Indeed, whereas Cicero and his contemporaries build long periods, Seneca and other writers of Imperial Ladn show an accumulation of short sentences, because they strive after spontaneity, directness and fluency.159 This looseness of sentence-building facilitates the emergence of pithy, epigrammatic expressions, as is witnessed by the following quotation where Seneca says what he wishes to prove of himself: H o c unum tibi adprobarc vellem, omnia me ilia sentire, quae dicerem, nec tantum sentire sed amare . . . non mehercules ieiuna esse et arida volo, quae de rebus tam magnis dicentur. neque enim philosophia ingenio renuntiat. haec sit propositi nostri summa: quod sentimus loquamur, quod loquimur sentiamus: concordet sermo cum vita. 160 I should like to convince you entirely of this one fact—that I feel whatever I say, that I not only feel it, but am wedded to it. . . . I do not, by Hercules, wish that what will be said on such important matters is jejune and dry. For philosophy does not renounce natural ability. . . . Let this be the kernel of my idea: let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.

This style owes much to an idea of a New Style which comes up after Cicero and is represented by Papirius Fabianus, a rhetorician turned to Stoic philosophy, who taught Seneca. Seneca defends him to Lucilius, who thinks that Fabianus's style is not vigorous enough, too loose in word-order and therefore lacking in emotional directness,161 and pleads for a more moderate view in stylistics. Nevertheless, much of Seneca's philosophical prose comes close to an oratorical style and thus shows influence from rhetoric. Also interesting is the fact that Seneca breaks through the restraints of the various classical styles of granditas, exilitas and acntas. Everyday expressions mingle with poetical words, metaphors and neologisms. Rhetorical figures, such as antithesis, homoeoteleuton, anaphora, paraprosdokian and antimetabole, abound and classical word-order is often given up.162

159

Leeman, Orationis ratio, p. 264. Ep. 75:3-4: Note the prose rhythm in these sententiae and the figure of antimetabole. 161 Ep. 100. Extensive discussion in Leeman, Orationis ratio, pp. 261-71. 162 Cf. A. Bourgery, Sénèque prosateur (Paris: η.p., 1922) and G. Mazzoli, "Le 'Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium' di Seneca. Valore letterario e filosofico", ANRW 11.36:3 (1989), pp. 1863-69. 160

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Seneca is fond of paradoxes, personification, vivid descriptions and striking comparisons. He always maintains, both in his Epistulae and in his Dialog., a personal style of addressing his addressee. Whereas Cicero would have his characters describe in an objective way and by means of many third person verbal forms their point of view, Seneca has a speaking and ex tempore style of brief, often striking sentences (style coupé) with relatively many first and second person forms. In the disposition of his works also such a rhetorical influence can be found, although one should not forget that trained philosophers are also used to developing their thoughts. Thus some scholars analyse many Senecan dialogues along the rhetorical plan of exordium etc., but this method is rejected by others. 163 One has the impression that Seneca starts with blocking out the main headings to be treated in a given book and then goes on to develop his thoughts in the framework of each heading. Even then often much order in the argument cannot be detected, to quote a common complaint. 164 This criticism is said to have a forerunner in the statement of the emperor Caligula on Seneca's writings: harena sine calce ("sand without lime"),165 but this statement looks at a supposed ephemeral value of these works. Discourse analysis has now shown that Seneca expects his reader to cooperate and to pick up the hints he gives.166 A close relationship between Senecan dialogi and the diatribe has been observed by many scholars and even been made the main and only formative factor of his style, though influence from the declamatio can also be detected. At any rate, a discussion of his dialogi in this section on diatribe does more justice to their typicality than in that on the dialogue.167 These texts have in common that there always is an addressee who is not an unknown person as in earlier diatribes but a person called by his/her name. In contrast with his Letters to Lucilius, the mood of these texts is quieter and more placid and the 163

Cf. J.-M. André, "Sénèque: 'De brevitate vitae'.. . 'De otio'", ANRW 11.36:3 (1989), pp. 1724-78. 164 E.J. Kenney and W. V. Clausen, Cambridge History of Classical Literature. II. Latin Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 516. 165 Suet. Cal. 53. 166 A. M. Bolkestein, "Zand zonder kalk: Cohesie en het proza van Seneca", Lampas 19 (1986), pp. 298-307. 167 Cf. A. L. Motto and J. Clark, Essays on Seneca (Stud. z. klass. Philol., 79; Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 1993), chs. I, V and XIII. Discussion of separate dialogues in ANRW 11.36:3 (1989).

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vividness of the diatribes is maintained only to a certain degree. Seneca's ruptured sentences are still present. In all, one has the feeling that he is not imitating the earlier diatribe but instead tries to make it a genre of its own, which he may have called dialogus. An example comes from (Dial. 2 De constantia sapientis) 4:1: "Quid ergo? non erit aliquis qui sapienti facere temptet iniuriam?" temptabit, sed non perventuram ad eum; maiore enim intervallo a contactu inferiorum abductus est, quam ut ulla vis noxia usque ad ilium vires suas perferat. etiam cum potentes et imperio editi et consensu serviendum validi nocere intendent, tam citra sapientiam omnes eorum impetus deficient, quam quae nervo tormentisve in ahum exprimuntur, cum extra visum exilierint, citra caelum tamen flectuntur. "What then?" you say; "will there be no one who will attempt to do the wise man injury?" Yes, the attempt will be made, but the injury will not reach him. For the distance which separates him from contact with his inferiors is so great that no baneful force can extend its power all the way to him. Even when the mighty, exalted by authority and powerful in the support of their servitors, strive to injure him, all their assaults on wisdom will fall as short of their mark as do the missiles shot on high by bowstring or catapult, which though they leap beyond our vision, yet curve downwards this side of heaven (LCL).

Seneca's theoretical views on style and composition are of great interest too but belong to a different section.168 F. Epictetus Epictetus (ca. AD 55-ca. AD 135) was a slave, who was allowed by his master to attend the lectures of Musonius. Manumitted, he taught at Nicopolis in Epirus after Domitian banished him from Rome in 89. Flavius Arrianus edited his lectures, which had been taken down in shorthand, and published these Διατριβαί in eight books,169 out of which we have four. Arrianus also summarizes the main points of Epictetus's philosophy in a compendium, called Έγχειρίδιον, one of the most influential booklets ever written. 170 Epictetus was a teacher 168

Cf. Leeman, Orationis ratio, pp. 260 83. Also called σχολαί, διαλέξεις, ύπομνημονεΰματα. By itself, the title does not indicate that these pieces are diatribes in the modern sense. 170 Ed. maior H. Schenkl, Epictetus (2nd edn.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1916). Eng. ed. and trans. W. A. Oldfather (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1925-28). Good survey in L. Spanneut, "Epiktet", A4C(1962), cols. 599-681. 169

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of philosophy for persons who later would have a career in politics and administration. Nevertheless, his program was a demanding one for the pupils had to read and learn the books of the great Stoics and answer questions about these works; another task was to develop various themes put up as problems and, finally, to exercise in practice what they learnt.171 The place of his Διατριβαί in this system is much disputed; it is often asserted that they were a complement to Epictetus's regular teaching, which has not survived. Other scholars, on the contrary, think that this regular teaching mainly consisted of these lectures which as Διατριβαί survived.172 At any rate, in his lectures Epictetus deals with all aspects of Stoic philosophy and thus he can devote a whole lecture to the usefulness of equivocal premises, hypothetical arguments and such like (1:7), and demonstrates in another one that the study of logic is indispensable (1:17). Accordingly, his diatribes are explicitly argumentative and didacdc, more often than those of Bion and Teles. At the same time, Epictetus does not neglect the well-known method of interrogating imaginary opponents and also uses the rhetorical features mendoned above. An example comes from 1:28, where he contends that sense-impression (φαντασία) is the measure of man's every acdon, righdy or wrongly, and continues as follows (11-14): ώστε καί τά οϋτω μεγάλα καί δεινά εργα ταύτη ν έχει την άρχην, τό φαινόμενον; ταύτην ούδ' άλλην. ή Ίλιάς ούδέν έστιν ή φαντασία καί χρήσις φαντασιών, έφάνη τω Αλεξάνδρα) άπάγειν τοΰ Μενελάου την γυναίκα, έφάνη τη Ε λ έ ν η άκολουθησαι αύτώ. εί ούν έφάνη τφ Μενελάφ παθείν οτι κέρδος έστι τοιαύτης γυναικός στερηθηναι, τί άν έγένετο; άπολώλει ή Ίλιάς ού μόνον ά λ λ ά καί ή 'Οδύσσεια.—Έκ τοιούτου ούν μικρού πράγματος ήρτηται τά τηλικαύτα;—Τίνα δέ καί λέγεις τά τηλικαύτα; πολέμους . . . καί κατασκαφάς πόλεων; καί τί μέγα έχει ταύτα;—Ούδέν; So you conclude that such great and terrible things have their origin in this—the impression of one's senses? In this and nothing else. T h e Iliad is nothing but a sense-impression and a poet's use of senseimpressions. There came to Alexander an impression to carry off the wife of Menelaus, and an impression to Helen to follow him. N o w if an impression had led Menelaus to feel that it was a gain to be deprived of such a wife, what would have happened? W e should have lost not merely the Iliad, but the Odyssey as well.—Then do matters of such 171 B. Hijmans, A skêsis: Notes on Epictetus' Educational System (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1959). 175 Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", pp. 160-61.

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great import depend upon one that is so small?—But what do you mean by "matters of such great import"? W a r s . . . and destruction of cities? And what is there great in all this?—What, nothing great in this? (trans. Oldfather LCL).

A favourite device of Epictetus is to put a series of short questions and short answers without connecting words (asyndeton), for example (3:3:18): τί γάρ έστι τό κλαίειν καί οίμώζειν; δόγμα, τί δυστυχία; δόγμα, τί στάσις, τί διχόνοια, τί μέμψις, τί κατηγορία, τί άσέβεια, τί φλυαρία; ταύτα πάντα δόγματά έστι καί άλλο ούδέν καί δόγματα περί τών άπροαιρέτων ώς όντων άγαθών καί κακών. Why, what is weeping and sighing? A judgment. What is misfortune? A judgment. What are strife, disagreement, faultfinding, accusing, impiety, foolishness? They are all judgments, and that, too, judgments about things that lie outside the province of moral purpose, assumed to be good or evil.

But polysyndeton is also used, for example (3:12:43): όρέγεσθαι δ' ή έκκλίνειν ή όρμάν ή άφορμάν ή παρασκευάζεσθαι ή προτίθεσθαι τίς ύμών δύναται μή λαβών φαντασίαν λυσιτελούς ή μή καθήκοντος;—ούδείς But to desire, or to avoid, or to choose, or to refuse, or to prepare, or to set something before yourself—what man among you can do these things without first conceiving an impression of what is profitable, or what is not fitting?—No one,

and repetition often occurs (1:27:9): καί πού φύγω τόν θάνατον; μηνύσατέ μοι τήν χώραν, μηνύσατε άνθρώπους, εις ους άπέλθω, εις ους ού παραβάλλει, μηνύσατε έπαοιδήν. And where can I go to escape death? Show me the country, show me the people to whom I may go, upon whom death does not come; show me a magic charm against it.

Use of these devices does not automadcally make Epictetus a perfect orator. He ignores smooth composition without hiatus, often admits anacolutha and similar signs of careless wording. He uses many popular or vulgar words to express his thoughts. In 3:9:14 he has people accusing him of admitting solecisms and barbarisms into his lectures and he does not care. Such carelessness contributes to the

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impression of vividness the diatribe gives, and can therefore be seen as due to the wish for effectiveness. G. Dio of Prusa According to Synesius, Dio of Prusa (ca. AD 40-after 110) was converted from "sophistic" to philosophy because of his experiences in exile and, consequendy, he criticizes Philostratus for including Dio among the sophists whose lives he describes. 173 Philostratus speaks of Dio as one of those philosophers who expound their theories with ease and fluency and are therefore called "sophists" without being so. Whereas to Philostratus Dio combines philosophy with sophistic oratory, Synesius keeps the two features apart, considers them even incongruous and, one may surmise, for this reason he must posit that there were two different stages in Dio's life.174 In his own orations175 Dio alludes to something like a conversion undergone during his exile (Or. 13) but here the literary mode of expression suggests a less drastic interpretation. In all, most scholars now agree that Dio was trained as an orator (his nickname is "Chrysostomus", or the Golden-Tongued) and kept being so but gradually showed an inclination to convey moralistic messages to the intellectuals in the cities he visited.176 His philosophical oudook is Stoic, as is the case for many of his contemporaries, though he also owes a debt to the Cynics. He was a pupil of Musonius Rufus, who also taught Epictetus. Though there is enough reason not to discuss his works in this part on philosophers, some discussion is not out of place here.177

173 Synesius, Dio, or on Living by his Example. The relevant parts are found in the LCL Dio by H. Lamar Crosby (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1951), V, pp. 365ff.; Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists (ed. W. C. Wright; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1921), pp. 17-23. 174 C. P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Loeb Class. Monographs; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 8-12. 175 Ed. G. de Budé, Dionis Prusaensis Opera (Leipzig: Teubner, 1916-19). Eng. trans, in J. W. Cohoon-H. L. Crosby (5 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1932-51). General discussion in G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 566 82. 176 D. A. Russell, Dio Chrysostom. Orations vii, xii, xxxvi (Cambridge Greek and Latin Class.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 3-7; B. F. Harris, "Dio of Prusa: A Survey of Recent Work", ANRW 11.33:5 (1991), pp. 3860-63. 177 An interesting typology of all his writings in P. Desideri, "Tipologia e varietà di funzione comunicativa degli scritti dionei", ANRW 11.33:5 (1991), pp. 3903-59.

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T h e orations and discourses of Dio may be divided into three classes—sophistic, political, and moral. In the last group we have the orations entided: "Diogenes or O n Tyranny" or some other addition.178 These orations contain a long story of what the Cynic Diogenes did or said at one time and draws moral lessons from this story. The oration flows forth smoothly and almost nowhere do we find the characteristics of a diatribe. Different are the works discussing slavery, beauty, kingship, philosophy and such subjects, in which large parts are reserved for a dialogue between two speakers or contain dialogue exclusively.179 Many works are classified as diatribes by earlier scholars. 180 These discourses are very different from those discussed above and their change is attributed to a desire to lend them a more regular and definite rhetorical composition in order to bring them nearer to classical Attic prose. Dio's classicistic reworking of the diatribe is followed by later authors, such as Maximus of Tyre and Themistius. 181 However this may be, these "diatribes" have lost much of the immediacy of earlier examples. A few times only do we find the method of questions applied, such as in Or. 64: τί ούν οί τύραννοι μέγα φρονοΰσιν έπί τοις τείχεσι; τί δε 'Αμφίων αδει; τί δέ Διόκης πονεί; τί δέ Σεμίραμις οικοδομεί, τί δέ ό 'Απόλλων μισθαρνεΐ; τί δέ μετά τού λέοντος Μήλης τό τείχος περιέρχεται; κρατήσει γαρ Μήδων Κύρος καί Βαβυλωνίων Ζώπυρος καί Σάρδεων Μάρδος καί Τροίας ό ϊππος. Why, then, are tyrants proud of their ramparts? Why does Amphion sing, why does Dioces toil, why does Semiramis build, why Apollo work for hire, why does Meies together with his lion encompass the wall? For Cyrus will master the Medes, Zopyros the Babylonians, a Mardian Sardis, and the horse Troy!

H. Plutarch Plutarch (of Chaeronea) (ca. AD 45-after 120) uses the format of the diatribe more than once in his philosophical works of a popular 178

Or. 6 and 8, 9, 10. Or. 13, 14, 21, 23, 30 and some among the group 55-80. 180 E.g. W. Christ-W. Schmid-O. Stählin, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (Hdb. klass. Alt., 7.2.1; 5th edn.; Munich: Beck, 1911), pp. 278-79: 14-17, 19-20, 22, 24, 26-27, 52-58, 62-66, 68-69, 71-73, 75-76 and 78-80. 181 Christ-Schmid-Stählin, Geschichte, p. 279. A. Lesky, (Geschichte der griechischen Literatur 3rd edn.; Bern: Francke, 1971), p. 933 speaks of "die veredelte Form der Diatribe". 179

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type.182 One instance is that entitled περι του μή δείν δανείζεσθαι, "On borrowing" (Mor. 827D-32A). This diatribe consists of repeated warnings against running into debt, enlivened by numerous examples and anecdotes. Imagined interruptions, rhetorical questions, direct addresses to the audience, and striking word-arrangements are characteristic. There is a certain vulgar vigour in the imagery and the theme is unusual. In contrast to Dio's diatribes this one is very lively, for example 829F: . . . ένδεικνύμενον τοις προχείρως δανειζομένοις, οσην εχει τό πράγμα αίσχύνην καί άνελευθερίαν καί οτι τό δανείζεσθαι τής έσχατης αφροσύνης καί μαλακίας έστίν. έχεις; μή δανείση, ού γάρ απορείς, ούκ έχεις; μή δανείση, ού γάρ έκτίσεις. κατ' ιδίαν δ' οϋτως έκατέραν σκοπώμεν. . . . I am pointing out to those who are too ready to become borrowers how much disgrace and servility there is in the practice and that borrowing is an act of extreme folly and weakness. Have you money? D o not borrow, for you are not in need. Have you no money? D o not borrow, for you will not be able to pay. Let us look at each of these two alternatives separately (trans. Fowler LCL).

The ensuing discussion of the two alternatives is not a theoretical one but starts from anecdotes and develops the message contained therein. I. Maximus of Tyre The last author to be discussed here, Maximus of Tyre (second part of the 2nd cent.), was active in Rome under the emperor Commodus, but also elsewhere. In antiquity he was called "a Platonic philosopher" but to us he is more a rhetorician who handles philosophical subjects for an audience of πεπαιδευμένοι, cognoscenti. His orations or lectures are called Διαλέξεις, out of which we have 41.183 In these Maximus is dealing with questions such as "Who is God according to Plato" (11), "Whether, if Divination exists, there is Free Will" (13) or the problem of evil (41). T o students of ancient philosophy these 182

Ed. C. Hubert et al., Plutarchus, Moralia (Leipzig: Teubner, 1908); Babbitt et at., Plutarch's Moralin (LCL). Survey: K. Ziegler, "Plutarchos von Chaironeia", RE (1951), cols. 636-962 (2nd edn.; Stuttgart: Druckenmüller, 1964) and Russell, Plutarch. Various useful articles are in ANRW 11.33:6. 183 Ed. M. B. Trapp, Maximus Tyrius, Dissertatwrus (Stuttgart-Leipzig: Teubner, 1994); trans. M. B. Trapp, Maximus of Tyre, The Philosophical Orations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).

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discourses contain much of interest for the general background of second-century Platonism and its place in educated circles.184 T h e way he builds up his dialexeis usually is to approach slowly and by means of literary references to his proper subject, to discuss without explicidy taking up a position, thereby liberally telling stories, giving historical examples and quoting many authors, and to end with an uplifting conclusion. 183 T o approach one's subject in this way reminds the reader of Plutarch's method in many of his works. In 15 and 16 Maximus enters into the question "which is the better life, the active or the contemplative one?". In the first discourse the defender of the active life is imagined to give his speech, whereas in the second one the contemplative philosopher, here exemplified by Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, maintains his point of view. At the end Maximus concludes that each life has its advantages and disadvantages. In the eleventh oration he investigates Plato's teachings about God. 186 This subject is worthy of investigation but in order to understand Plato's dialogues one needs a technique which will assay what has been found with the light of reason. What follows gives some idea of Maximus's style (3): Ει ούν εροιτο ημάς ή τέχνη φωνήν λαβούσα, πότερα τοίνυν ούχ ηγούμεθα αύτοί τι είναι θείον έν τη φύσει ούδέ έχοντες καθάπαξ έννοιαν θεού άμφισβητούμεν περί Πλάτωνος, ή αύτοί τινας έχοντες οικείας δόξας έ'τερ' άττα ηγούμεθα παρά ταύτας δοξάζειν έκεΐνον, κάτα ήμών φασκόντων έχειν, άξίωσαι άποκρίνασθαι όποιον τινα ηγούμεθα είναι τόν θεόν; τί τοίνυν άν άποκρινοίμεθα; οτι έστιν ό θεός γυρός έν ώμοιιν, μελανόχροος, ούλοκάρηνος; καταγέλαστος ή άπόκρισις, κάν εί μειζόνως χαρακτηρίζοις τόν Δία, κυανάς μέν όφρύας, χρυσάς δέ χαίτας, έλελιζόμενον δέ ΰπ' αύτών τόν ούρανόν. If this technique had a voice and were to ask us whether, in our dispute over Plato, we ourselves have no belief in the existence of a divine element in Nature and no conception of God at all, or whether, while entertaining notions of our own, we imagine Plato to hold different beliefs that contradict them; and if when we replied that we do have notions of our own, it were to demand that we say what we think God is like, what would our answer be? That God is 184

Dillon, Middle Platonists, pp. 399 400. B. P. Reardon, Courants littéraires grecs des II' et III' siècles après J.-C. (Ann. lit. de l'Univ. de Nantes, 3; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1971), pp. 200-205. 186 Analysis in Festugière, Révélation, IV, pp. 109-15. In his translation, Trapp discusses parallels from contemporary philosophical treatises as well as the interest in this lecture from the fourteenth century onwards. 185

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Round shouldered, dark in complexion, with curling hair? [Od. 19:246] What a ridiculous response, even if you were to offer a more impressive characterization of Zeus—raven brows, golden hair and heaven shaking at his nod (trans. Trapp).

Rather long periods with much hypotaxis, not always easy to grasp, but most times elegantly construed, and apt quotations, interesting stories and comparisons, and vivid descriptions—all these are at home in these orations. Are they the product of the professional rhetor (sophist) who is also a philosopher, or the other way round? In this period it does not really matter how we classify men like Maximus. T o his contemporaries he may well have been a φιλόσοφος, but this term is often used in a loose sense.187 Whatever the answer may be, the Dialexeis of Maximus, the Diatnbae of Epictetus and many other works discussed in this section show a use of rhetoric geared towards an audience willing to be persuaded to change their views and to be instructed.

VII.

THESIS

A. Dffinition A philosophical thesis (θέσις, quaestio infinita)m is first and foremost a proposition fit for discussion, that is, it belongs to the class of ένδοξα, statements which are not of necessity true. This proposition is of a general kind and will be discussed by the method of in utramque partem, of confirmation and refutation (κατασκευή, ανασκευή). The treatment itself of the proposition is also called θέσις. There is no fixed form and thus theseis are found presented in the form of a dialogue (Cicero Tusculanae disputationes is the most famous example), a treatise or essay (many works of Philo of Alexandria or Plutarch), or cast into a speech (Cic. Parad. 1), or any other format. The genre has its origins in Aristotle's school but is very much practised in other schools, witness the tide θέσεις found in the lists of works of Zeno and Chrysippus or 187 Plutarch, e.g., uses it as an equivalent of φιλόλογος; thus in MOT. 612C, a θέσις on the question, whether one should philosophize when at a symposium. 188 Fundamental is Throm, Die Thesis', see also D. T. Runia, "Philo's De aetemitate mundi", VC 35 (1981), pp. 105-51 esp. 112-19; M. L. Clarke, "The Thesis in the Roman Rhetorical Schools of the Republic", CQ, 45 (1951), pp. 159-66; and J. Mansfeld, "Doxography and Dialectic", ANRW 11.36:4 (1990), pp. 3193-3208.

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the reports on the members of the Academy. In rhetorical theory the discussion of a proposition referring to specific persons or events (περιστάσεις, drcumstantiae) is named ύπόθεσις (quaestiofinita).Philosophical schools use the thesis as a pedagogic method, and their introduction into the curriculum of rhetoricians under the progymnasmatam is a source of great irritation to the philosophers. In epideictic rhetoric the use of theseis is recommended and several examples of such an oratory still exist.190 A clear distinction between diatribe and thesis has not often been made, also because proponents of the diatribe in the modern sense tend to neglect the thesis. Consequently, many philosophical works labelled nowadays as diatribes may be put under the class of theseis as well.191 This comes about because a diatribe most times focuses on one theme, which can be put as a proposition, as in the thesis. But a thesis is not restricted qua format, as we have seen. As to diatribes possibly being theses, the criterion here will be the degree of tightness (thesis) or looseness of argumentation, coupled with vividness and informality of language (diatribe). Moreover, diatribes always concern an ethical subject, theseis also other themes. Phenomena such as introduction of imaginary or real opponents (φησί τις, inquit aliquis), quotations, examples and comparisons, are not strong enough indications for the label of diatribe, because these also occur in works called theseis by ancient authors.

B. Plutarch A clear example of a thesis is Plutarch's discussion of the question "whether fire or water is more useful" (Mor. 955D-958E). 192 After a short survey of thinkers who support either side of the proposition Plutarch continues to discuss possible arguments pro and contra. A first set of these plead in favour of the proposition that water is more useful than fire, at the same time anticipating and refuting the oppo-

189

E.g. Aelius Theon Progymnasmata (RG, II, pp. 120-28 Spengel; Progymnasmata, pp. 82-94 ed. Patillon); Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors, pp. 60-65. 190 Pemot, Rhétorique, pp. 597-98. 191 Throm, Die Thesis, pp. 77-79, but see Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", pp. 17-19. 192 Text at Helmbold, LCL, XII, pp. 290-307. Discussion in Runia, "Philo's De aetemitate mundi", pp. 114-15.

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site view. A second set, introduced by the transitional sentence, τί πρός τουναντίον άν τις εντεύθεν έχων λέγοι ("what could anyone find to say on the other side from this point on?"), reviews the arguments favouring the view that fire is more useful. Although Plutarch does not offer a definite solution, it may well be that he favours the second proposition. One argument for this view is that rhetorically speaking, a defence which comes second is stronger than the first one, which tends to be forgotten. Moreover, the arguments in the second part are more philosophically orientated and look stronger. "The sequences of arguments are joined together by introductory phrases and connecting particles, but there is no attempt to construct a logically coherent and consistent sequence of argument". 193 This trait is characteristic of the other examples of both diatribe and thesis discussed so far in this chapter. This apparent looseness of thought has given scholars many headaches but under the surface one can often detect a well-reasoned argument, for example in the case of Epictetus's Diatribae.m When comparing this thesis to the example of a diatribe of Plutarch one is struck by the greater degree of calm reasoning in the thesis. Liveliness is sparingly sought by questions, anecdotes are almost absent, and all interest is put in the argumentation.

C. Dio of Prusa One of Dio's discourses (Or. 27) is entitled Διατριβή ή περί τών έν συμποσίφ ("A short talk on what takes place at a symposium").195 It is a description of various types of men attending symposia or festival games. It starts with a proposition: οί άνθρωποι γίγνονται κασταφανεΐς οποίαν έχουσι διάνοιαν έ'καστος έν ταΐς πανηγύρεσιν ούχ ήττον ή έν τοις συμποσίοις, πλήν οτι ποικιλώτερον τό τών πανηγύρεων καί χρόνου πλείονος. T h e qualities of mind and character of individual m e n stand revealed at our national festivals no less than at symposia, except that at festivals the revelation is more varied and extends over a longer period of time.

193

Runia, "Philo's De aetemilate mundi", p. 115. Cf. the analysis of 1:18 in S. R. Slings, "Epictetus and Socrates", Lampas 16 (1983), pp. 65-85. 195 LCL, II. 194

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Dio first discusses the behaviour of participants at a symposium, then goes on to do the same for those at festivals. The last type to be discussed is the philosopher, who has as much trouble in attracting the audience's attention as a physician. It is foolish therefore for people to neglect the assistance of philosophers and physicians. The comparison between philosopher and physician is a popular one in protreptic and other philosophical literature. T h e way Dio starts and the manner in which he develops his proposition make classification under theseis preferable, the Greek title saying nothing about the distinction between diatribe and thesis. Another thesis is Or. 23, a dialogue between Dio, the teacher, and one of his pupils on the question whether man is fortunate and happy or not. 196 This device frees Dio from introducing objections by imaginary opponents because now the pupil does so, although sparingly. Sometimes even Dio himself suggests possible disagreement, but on the whole in this dialogue Dio hastens to arrive at his conclusion that the wise man is happy. 197

D. Cicero Quite different in style is Cicero's handling of Stoic propositions in his Paradoxa Stoicorum. He tells his addressee M. Brutus that he has transposed the usual θέσεις of the schools into the form of rhetorical exercises. For example, the Stoic paradox οτι μόνος ό σοφός έλεύθερος και πας άφρων δούλος is discussed as concerning a certain military commander, but Cicero soon turns to a more general deliberation. 198 He imagines his audience as consisting of prudentissimi, not uncultured persons, and in a prooemium startles them by putting before them the problem (Parad. 33): Laudetur vero hie imperator aut etiam < t a m > appelletur aut hoc nomine putetur. Imperator q u o m o d o , aut cui tandem hie libero imperabit, qui non potest cupiditatibus suis imperare? Refrenet primum libidines, . . ., tum incipiat aliis imperare, cum ipsis improbissimis dominis,

196

A subject also mentioned as fit for theseis by Alex. Aphr. In Top. 176:10. Ed. with trans, in LCL, II. 197 Or. 42 is endded διάλεξις, but this is an alternative of προλαλιά. 198 Parad. 5 (ed. H. Rackham, Cicero, De oratore, II). Stylistic analysis in M. V. Ronnick, Cicero's "Paradoxa Stoicorum": A Commentary, an Interpretation and a Study of its Influence (St. z. kl. Phil., 62; Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 1991), pp. 45-50.

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dedecori ac turpitudini, parere desierit: dum quidem his oboediet, non modo imperator, sed liber habendus omnino non erit. It may be that this man is praised as a general, or even hailed "imperator", and judged worthy of this title. But in what sense is he a general? What free person will be in command, who cannot regulate his own appetites? Let him, first of all, restrain his desires, . . . Let him begin to give orders to others only when he himself has ceased to obey the most shameless of masters, disgrace and indecency. So long as he shows obedience to these, not only ought he not be considered a general but in no circumstances even a free man (trans. Ronnick). This brings him to the very proposition dictum est igitur ab eruditissimis viris nisi sapientem liberum esse neminem. He first discusses what libertas is and concludes that "the capability to live as one wishes" is only viable for the wise man and that therefore omnes improbi servi (sc. sunt). This point is now developed for the aspects of family life, works of arts, inheritances, offices and commands; in all these cases people are led by fear of loss. All fear is servitude (Parad. 41): An non est omnis metus servitus? Quid valet igitur ilia eloquentissimi viri, L. Crassi, copiosa magis quam sapiens oratio: "Eripite nos ex Servitute"—Quae est ista servitus tam claro homini tamque nobili? Omnis animi debilitati et humilis et fracti timiditas servitus est—"nolite sinere nos cuiquam servire"—In libertatem vindicari vult? Minime; quid enim adiumgit?—"nisi vobis universis"—Dominum mutare, non liber esse vult- "quibus et possumus et debemus"? Isn't all fear slavery? What import then does that speech, more fluent than wise, of L. Crassus, a man of the greatest eloquence, have? "Save us from slavery". What sort of slavery is that, in the case of such a famous and well-born man? All the cowardice of a weak, lowly and broken soul is slavery. "Do not permit us to serve anyone". Does he really want to be emancipated? Not at all, for what does he add? "Except to all of you for whom we are both able and obliged to be". He wants to change his master, not be free. Shortly hereafter, Cicero ends thus: Sed haec hactenus. Ille videat quo modo imperator esse possit, cum eum ne liberum quidem esse ratio et V e r i t a s ipsa convincat. But enough of this. Let that man reflect on how he can be a commander, when reason and truth itself prove that he is not even free. This exercise does not prove explicidy that only the wise man is happy but does so more by implication; the main point is rather that the unwise are slaves, not free. Throughout the oration Cicero asks

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rhetorical questions, and especially in the part on works of art someone is presented as making objections. Historical examples are put forward and, at the end, analysis of a clause from a famous speech is given. T h e oratorical format is clearly visible. Cicero sets great store by theseis and reproaches rhetoricians that they neglect to train their pupils in this genre. When banned by Caesar's dictatorial regime from official duties he had time to devote himself to theseis, in order not to succumb entirely to low spirits. The themes he chooses are applicable to the present political situation, and in a letter to his friend Atticus he mentions some. Significantly, he quotes these in Greek: 199 Ei μενετεον έν τή πατρίδι τυραννουμένης αύτης. Ei παντι τρόπω τυραννίδος κατάλυσιν πραγματευτέον, καν μέλλη δια τοΰτο περι τών όλων ή πόλις κινδυνεύσειν. Εί εύλαβητέον τόν καταλύοντα, μή αύτός αϊρηται 200 and six more. The way he may have handled these themes can be seen from the examples discussed above. 201

VIII.

EGO-DOCUMENTS

This category is put here by necessity because Marcus Aurelius's twelve books To Himself (Τά πρός εαυτόν, often called Meditations) are unique and do not come under any of the other headings. At the same time, the category consists of this one text only, although its method belongs to a Stoic type of meditation. 202 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180) was emperor from 161-180.203 He got an education in rhetoric from Fronto and although Marcus turned away from rhetoric later on, these two kept a correspondence, parts of which have been preserved. In one of these Marcus praises 199

Att. 9:4. 200 "Whether one should remain in one's country, even under a tyranny. Whether any means are lawful to abolish a tyranny, even if they endanger the existence of the State. Whether one ought to take care that one who tries to abolish it may not rise too high himself." 201 For the theseis in Tusculanae disputationes see the secdon on dialogue. 202 Together with St Augusdne's Confessions, but this text is outside the framework of this contribution. 203 Marcus Aurelius, Ad se ipsum libH XII (ed. J. Dalfen; Bibl. Teub.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1979). Trans, in I. Edman, Marcus Aurelius and his Times (Roslyn, NY: W.J. Black, 1945) and in C. R. Haines, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1916). Biography: A. Birley, Marcus Aurelius (exp. edn.; London: Batsford, 1987).

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a speech of Fronto and does so in a full-blown rhetorical vein with Gorgianic schemes and other trappings. 204 He learnt philosophy from Q. Junius Rusticus, who lured him away from oratory, and from Claudius Severus and Sextus of Chaeronea, who brought him to a knowledge of Stoic ideas. Moreover, influence of Epictetus's Diatnbae is very much present. Marcus never became a full-blown Stoic philosopher but fully sympathized with this school of thought. 205 At the end of his life, when campaigning, he wrote down a kind of diary— his personal commonplace book—which also contains recollections. It is unlikely that the emperor had any intention of bringing these Meditations into circulation, but by some unknown factor they came to be transmitted. The first book consists of seventeen expressions of gradtude to relations and the gods, for example: "From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper". It is interesting to observe that his indebtedness to Alexander, the grammarian, concerns a gende attitude to those who utter incorrect expressions but that his indebtedness to Fronto does not mention specific rhetorical subjects. The remaining books contain varied observations on power and life, moral homilies addressed to himself, in which his Stoicism is apparent. At first look, this kind of personal jotting scarcely invites him to adopt rhetorical techniques. 206 However, there is a definite tradition in Imperial Stoicism of meditatio, training in directing one's soul by means of meditation, and reflection is much helped by using sententiae, exempta, as well as other rhetorical devices.207 It is even possible to reconstruct a theory of meditation from the writings of Seneca and Epictetus. But whereas these writers offer a methodology, Marcus's Meditations stand apart in showing the practice. Epictetus tells one what to do when in the morning one rises from his bed (3:3:14): εύθυς ορθρου προελθών δν αν ϊδης, δν αν ακούσης έξέταζε, άποκρίνου ώς προς ερώτημα, τί είδες; καλόν ή καλήν; επάγε τόν κανόνα, άπροαίρετον ή προαιρετικόν; άπροαίρετον αίρε εξω.

204 205

Leeman, Orationis ratio, p. 367, cf. p. 379. Ε. Asmis, "The Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius", ANRW 11.36:3 (1989), pp. 2228-

2252. 206

The Meditations are not discussed in Norden's Kunstprosa. R.J. Newman, "Cotidie meditare. Theory and Practice of the meditatio in Imperial Stoicism", ANRW 11.36:3 (1989), pp. 1473-1517, esp. 1506-15. 207

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Go out of the house at early dawn, and no matter whom you see or whom you hear, examine him and then answer as you would to a question. What did you see? A handsome man or a handsome woman. Apply the rule. Is it outside the province of moral purpose, or inside? Outside. Away with it (trans. Oldfather LCL). Marcus, on the other hand, has his own "morning thoughts" (5:1): "Ορθρου οταν δυσόκνως έξεγείρη, πρόχειρον έστω, οτι έπί ανθρώπου έργον εγείρομαι· έτι ούν δυσκολαίνω, εί πορεύομαι έπί τό ποιεΐν, ών ένεκεν γέγονα καί ών χάριν προήγμαι εις τόν κόσμον; ή έπί τούτο κατεσεύασμαι, 'ίνα κατακείμενος έν στρωματίοις έμαυτόν θάλπω; "άλλά τούτο ήδιον". προς τό ήδεσθαι ούν γέγονας; όλως δέ πρός πείσιν, ού πρός ένέργειαν; ού βλέπεις τά φυτάρια, τά στρουθάρια, τους μύρμηκας, τους άράχνας, τάς μέλισσας τό 'ίδιον ποιούσας, τό καθ' αύτάς συγκοσμούσας κόσμον; έπειτα συ ού θέλεις τά άνθρωικά ποιεΐν; ού τρέχεις έπί τό κατά την φύσιν; "άλλά δει καί άναπαύεσθαι". δει- φημί κάγώ. έδωκε μέντοι καί τούτου μέτρα ή φύσις κτλ.

Whenever in the morning you rise unwillingly, let this thought be with you: "I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am about to do the things for which I was brought into the world? Or was I made to lie under the bedclothes and keep myself warm?" "But that is more pleasant", you say. Do you live then to take your pleasure, or in general for passivity, not for activity? Do you not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, helping to give order to the ordered world as far as their own part goes? And then you are unwilling to do the work of a human being, you are not eager to do what belongs to your nature? "But I must have rest also". You must; I too say so. But nature has fixed bounds to this etc. (trans. Edman, adapted). This kind of dialogue Marcus will have heard from speakers of diatribe in Rome and known from earlier literature. It is not polished and, for example, admits hiatus freely; however, his training in rhetoric and philosophy helps him to express his thoughts in a lucid and well-ordered way, and especially the shorter maxims are closely related to rhetorical sententiae.208

2oe

Asmis, "Stoicism", pp. 2232-34.

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WRITINGS

Α. Οφηίίιοη The heading of "technical wridngs" comprises all those works in which their authors offer information of a philosophical kind in the way of pure and direct instruction, to all appearances without any thought for embellishment, alleviation, variety or some other persuasive technique. They mosdy have the form of a treatise or introduction and can be dedicated to an individual person or addressed to a pupil, but this feature is not obligatory. These texts, one might argue, do not deserve to be discussed in this part on rhetoric and philosophy and this view is not wholly wrong. However, it may be of interest to look at this type of text as writings which try to put over a message in whatever way and then detect which methods are used. Whether these belong to rhetoric or not, is then another matter. The list of texts is impressively long: Chrysippus, for instance, is credited with over 150 tides and that list is still incomplete; we have fragments of over 30 writings by Philodemus; and for Porphyry we know of over 65 tides. Very many texts are lost, many still extant. T h e classification of the texts is diverse for commentaries, handbooks, treatises, doxographies, introductory texts, even many biographies, and other types belong to this group. A few of these demand our attention. Most ancient tides of these texts give little or no indication of the genre of texts they announce. Thus titles like σχολαί and διατριβαί merely state that their texts represent in writing lectures, talks, conversations held in the classroom. They have been written down occasionally by the teacher himself but often by his pupils, who often fashion the text. We may think of Arrianus editing Epictetus's διατριβαί, or of Porphyry doing the same for Plotinus's writings and lectures, but also Philodemus speaks of his writings as often based on the teachings of his master Zeno. 209 Epictetus's διατριβαί are also called υπομνήματα (commentarii), which term, for example, refers to notes jotted down and collected and to treatises or commentaries, 210 for example, those of Proclus to Platonic texts. Treatises can also

209 210

Schmeller, Paulus und die "Diatribe", pp. 9-12. LSJ s.v. II.3 and 5.

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have πραγματεία as their title and this too is related to the original treatment of a subject. Σύγγραμμα is another vague title, and in calling his Περί τής έν Τιμαίω ψυχογονίας (De animae procreatione in Timaeo) an αναγραφή (Mor. 1012B), Plutarch may intend no more than indicating a type of treatise, whereas it is more of a commentary. But έξήγησις (commentary), εισαγωγή (introduction), επιτομή (summary), στοιχείωσις (elementary exposition), ύποτύπωσις (outiine) and βίος (life, biography) give somewhat more to go on. 2 " B. Introductory Texts T h e first category is that of the introductory texts, είσαγωγαί.212 In the philosophical schools of late antiquity teachers prepare their pupils for the study of the important texts of Plato and Aristotle by first discussing a few preliminary questions, such as the theme of the work to be studied, its utility, etc. T h e title of these preparatory texts explains their introductory status: e.g. τά προ της αναγνώσεως τών του Πλάτωνος διαλόγων. Thrasyllus (1st century AD) is one of the first ancient scholars known to have written such an introduction to Democritus and Plato, coupled with a bios and a list of their writings. We still have isagogic texts written by Porphyry and Proclus, whereas the late commentaries on Aristode start with this type of question. Apart from the interest the methodical approach of a text offers, the isagogic writings are rhetorically important because they query the obscurity (ασάφεια, obscuntas) of the text to be studied. Notwithstanding clarity always being recognized as a necessary virtue of style, because of the authority of its author (e.g. Aristotle), obscurity now becomes a virtue of its own, at least its character of being a vice (κακία, Vitium dicendi) is no longer stressed. The obscurity becomes excused because of the difficulty of the subject a n d / o r the public the Master wrote for consists of cognoscenti. Outside philosophical contexts, especially in later rhetorical theory, obscurity is very much valued. 213

211

See LSJ s.w. For literary texts with specific titles, see the foregoing sections. J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena: Questions to be Solved before the Study of an Author, or a Text (Phil, ant., 61; Leiden: Brill, 1994). 213 G. L. Kustas, Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric (Analecta Vlatadon, 17; Thessaloniki: Patriarch. Institute for Patr. Studies, 1973), pp. 63-100. 212

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C. Philodemus The aridity of many of Aristode's treatises is often attractive because of the preciseness of language and argument. In a similar way, Philodemus's writings may at times appeal for the forcefulness of his attacks on opponents. 214 Repeatedly one suspects that when he gives quotations from the text of a victim under attack he deliberately takes these out of their context in order to have them fit his onslaught. In a different situation he even adjusts the texts of the founders of the school, Epicurus and Metrodorus—he calls them "The M e n " (άνδρες)—to prove that even they appreciate epideictic oratory. 215 As to the style of his writings, "they frequently display the crabbed qualities of Epicurus at his worst, and one can only conclude that literary elegance was the last quality expected from technical writing at this time".216 This severe criticism of a modern scholar is borne out by reading a few pages of Philodemus. One example of a very simple type must suffice and the reader is invited to imagine with what enthusiasm Plutarch would have seized the opportunity to treat this kind of subject-matter (Phld. Sign. 4):217 και σπάνια δ' έστιν παρ' ήμίν ένια, καθάπερ ό γενόμενος ήμίπηχυς άνθρωπος έν Ά λ ε ξ α ν δ ρ ε ί α ι κεφαλήν δέ κολοσσικήν έχων έφ' ής έσφυροκόπουν, δν έπεδείκνυον οί ταρειχευταί, καί ό γαμηθείς ώς πάρθενος έν Έπιδαύρωι κάπειτα γενόμενος άνήρ [follow some more examples], εί δ' ούν έξήλθεν τά προκείμενα πάνθ' ά είθίσμεθα καί ούκ έστιν ομοια, έχομεν ζητείν εϊ τι καί τούτων, ύπέρ ών συντιθέμεθα τήν σημείωσιν, οτι ούκ έστιν.

There are also in our experience some infrequent occurrences, as for example the man in Alexandria half a cubit high, with a colossal head that could be beaten with a hammer, who used to be exhibited by the embalmers; the person in Epidaurus, who was married as a young woman and then became a man. [. . .] If these things go beyond all 214

A general survey in E. Asmis, "Philodemus' Epicureanism", ANRW 11.36:4 (1990), pp. 2369-2406. 215 K. Goudriaan, "Van Eerste naar Tweede Sofistiek", in S. R. Slings and I. Sluiter (eds.), OPHELOS (Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1988), pp. 21-39. 216 A. A. Long, "Post-Aristotelian Philosophy", in P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox (eds.), The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. I. Greek Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 629, who observers, righdy, that prose style and language of technical treatises have been so little studied that it is extremely difficult to make comparative assessments. 217 Text and trans, in Philodemus On Methods of Inference (ed. P. H. and E. A. De Lacy; La Scuola di Epicuro, I; rev. edn.; Naples: Bibliopolis, 1978).

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that we are familiar with and are not similar, we may ask whether any of those things about which we make inferences may also be exceptional.

Epicurus and Philodemus do not stand alone, for the quotations from Chrysippus's writings by, for example, Plutarch and Galen 218 show the same characteristics. In general, one can say that the technical treatise of philosophers (υπόμνημα, πραγματεία) does not aim at persuasion by its style. Consequendy, the need for commentaries which explain these treatises very soon springs up, for example in the case of those of Epicurus or Stoics like Zeno. 219 Notwithstanding the arid character of these πραγματεΐαι in general, their authors sometimes rise to an unexpected level of spiritedness. Thus in the fifth book of his Περί ρητορικής (On Rhetoric) Philodemus compares the wretched life of a politician with that of the philosopher and through the factualness of the presentation of his opponent's ideas and that of his own arguments one feels that Philodemus is closely involved in the subject (Rh. 5:8):220 ούκ άγανακτούσιν, εί καθάπερ ποιμένος πρόβατα καί βουκόλου βόες ούτως άφρονες φαύλω προσέσχον, άλλά τοις ολίγοις άρέσκοντα λέγειν αίρούνται τά τε ά λ λ α καί τά περί της τών πολλών διαθέσεως, έργφ δ' άμυνούν πλείστον άποδιδόασιν ούδέ δουλεύοντες άθρόοις αύτοΐς ενός εκάστου βουλεύονται κυριεύειν. T h e philosophers are not vexed if people, like foolish sheep or cattle, attend to an inferior, but are satisfied that what they say, particularly about the attitude of the c o m m o n people, shall please the few; and in action they are most blameless, nor do they as slaves of all, try to rule everything for themselves. 221

A curious document is the monumental inscription a certain Diogenes (ca. AD 120) had inscribed on the walls of a stoa in his native town Oenoanda in Lycia, by which he wanted to instruct his fellow-citizens in Epicurus's philosophy in order to dispel their fear of death and of the gods. Large fragments have been preserved 222 and these show a

218

In Stoic., II. Mansfeld, Prolegomena, p. 156. 220 Philodemus, Vol. rhet. (ed. S. Sudhaus; Leipzig: Teubner, 1892-96), I, pp. 237-38. 221 Trans. Η. M. Hubbell, The Rhetorica of Philodemus (Trans. Connecticut Acad, of Arts and Sc., 23; New Haven: Connecticut Academy, 1920), p. 312. 222 Ed. C. W. Chilton, Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Fragments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971). Latest ed. (non vidi) by M. F. Smith, Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Epicurean Inscription (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1993). 219

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great love and concern for his fellow-men. T h e inscription consists of a dedication, several letters, his testament and texts on Epicurean physics and ethics. Use of rhetorical devices is found in many hyperbata and avoidance of hiatus, which may be connected with caring for the clausula.223 I give one passage from his text on physics (fr. 8, cols, ii-iii Chilton): τόν γούν ήλιον ΰπολαμβάνουσιν οϋτως είναι ταπεινόν, ώσπερ φαίνεται, μή όντα οϋτως ταπεινόν. εί γαρ ήν οϋτως, ένπυρίζεσθαι τήν γην έδει καί τά έπ' αύτής πάντα πράγματα, τήν ούν άπόφασιν όρώμεν αύτού ταπεινήν, ά λ λ ' όχι αύτόν. πλήν τούτο μέν παρενβεβλήσθω. περί δ' άνατολών ήδη λέγωμεν καί δύσεων καί τών έφεξής, έκεινο προθέντες οτι τόν ζητούντά τι περί τών άδήλων, άν βλέπη τους τού δυνατού τρόπους πλείστους, περί τούδέ τίνος μόνου τολμηρόν καταποφαίνεσθαι. μάντεως γάρ μαλλόν έστι τό τοιούτον ή άνδρός σοφού.

at any rate, they assume the sun to be as low as it appears whereas it is not as low as that, for if it were the earth and all things upon it must have caught fire. It is its appearance (?), therefore, which we see low in the sky and not the sun itself; but this is by the way. Let us now speak about risings and settings and matters connected with these first making this point, that it is rash for the inquirer into obscure subjects if he sees a number of possible explanations to pronounce categorically about only one. Such is more the method of a soothsayer rather than a wise man. Even in the expository treatises on physics and ethics Diogenes does not forget his readers at the walls. His manner is gende and he tries to persuade his audience of the blessings of Epicurean philosophy. It may come as a surprise that several of Philodemus's writings have been classified as diatribes.224 This was done because Philodemus often reproduces what he has learned from the lectures (σχολαί, διατριβαί) of his teacher Zeno. 225 However, this typification has been connected with the use of diatribe in the modern sense and wrongly extended. 226 Consequently, it is better to keep Philodemean texts in this section.

523

R. Philippson, "Diogenes", RE Sup. 5 (1931), col. 170. R. Philippson, "Philodemos", RE 19.2 (1938), cols. 2467ff. 225 See C.J. Vooys, Lexicon Philodemeum (Purmerend-Amsterdam: Muusses-Swets, 1934-1941), s.w. 226 Cf. M. Gigante, Ricerchefilodemee(Naples: Macchiaroli, 1969), pp. 43-46 and what I have said in the section on diatribe. 224

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D. Impend Period Factual exposition is the main characteristic of most treatises of the Imperial Period. L. Annaeus Cornutus, a nephew of Seneca the philosopher and a Stoic himself (ca. AD 60), is in all probability the author of the έπιδρομή τών κατά τών Ελλήνων θεολογίαν παραδεδομένων, a short survey written for a young boy about what the ancient philosophers, especially Stoics, have said about the cosmos and the gods, their names, epithets, cults and myths. The book has no literary value and is mainly interesting because of its etymological approach to names and epithets. By means of bringing back the original form of names, Stoics discover more easily their meaning, which never gets changed. 227 In contrast with Cornutus, Heraclitus the author of 'Ομηρικά Προβλήματα (1st century AD ?) adopts a definitely allegorical reading of the ancient poetry, especially Homer's. 228 In this case the author has an axe to grind for he must prove that Homer was not irreverent to the gods and that what in his poems may look impious can be sanitized by allegorical explanation. In the first chapter and at other places Heraclitus eloquendy attacks people like Plato and other detractors, for example in All. 3 and 4: Ei δ' άμαθώς τίνες άνθρωποι τήν 'Ομηρικήν άλληγορίαν άγνοούσιν ούδ' εις τά μύχια τής έκείνου σοφίας καταβεβήκασιν, άλλ' άβασάνιστός αύτοΐς ή τής άληθείας κρίσις έρριπται, καί τό φιλοσόφως ρηθέν ούκ είδότες, δ μυθικώς δοκεΐ πλάσαι προσαρμονίζουσιν, ούτοι μέν έρρέτωσαν, ημείς δ' οϊ τών άβεβήλων έντός περιρραντηρίων ήγνίσμεθα, σεμνήν ύπό νόμω τών ποιημάτων τήν άλήθειαν ίχνεύωμεν. Έρρίφθω δέ Πλάτων ό κόλαξ καί 'Ομήρου συκοφάντης, ένδοξον άπό τής ιδίας πολιτείας τόν φυγάδα προπέμπων. [. . .] Ούδ' Επικούρου φροντίς ήμΐν, κτλ.

Perhaps there are people who, because of ignorance, do not understand Homer's allegorical language and have not gone to the deepest corners of his wisdom; they may even have rejected without due examination the truth and not understanding what is said philosophically keep to what the poet seems to have made in a mythical way. These people, let them begone. But we who have purified ourselves from the sacred vessels (at the entrance to Homer's sanctuary), let us under the 227

Ed. C. Lang (Bibl. Teub.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1881). A.A. Long, "Stoic Readings on Homer", in R. Lamberton and J.J. Keaney (eds.), Homer's Ancient Readers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 41-66, esp. 53-56, who righdy stresses the difference between the etymological and the allegorical approach. 228 Ed. F. Buffière, Allegories d'Homère (Paris: CUF, 1962).

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melody of the poems look at the traces of the august truth. But away with Plato, the flatterer and accuser of Homer, who sends away from his own Politeia the famous exile. [. ..] Nor do we have care for Epicurus either. Herclitus has written carefully, thus he deliberately avoids hiatus. Nevertheless, it is wrong to put him down as a mere rhetorician. His treatise fits in very well with that of other gens cultivés of his time. Sallusdus, living in the fourth century and helping the emperor Julian, wrote a small treadse Περί θεών και κόσμου, a kind of isagoge. He first illustrates the correct attitude of students of theology and then explains the tenets about immutability and other properties of God and gods, the immortality of the soul and, finally, the afterlife. The booklet has a strict regularity, and is written in a very simple style, apparently in order to keep the reader's attention to its subject, though in accordance with the demands of late prose Sallustius generally avoids hiatus and follows rules about accented prose rhythm. 229 But at the end of a long exposition he ends by praying (17:10):230 Τοσαΰτα καί πρός τους ίσχυροτέρων αποδείξεων δεομένους είπόντες αυτόν ήμΐν εύχόμεθα ι'λεων τόν Κόσμον γενέσθαι. Having said so much in answer to those w h o required stronger proofs I pray that the universe may itself be propitious to me.

Occasionally, thus, the treatise reaches a higher level. This also happens when by means of chiasm or, conversely, parallelism Sallustius highlights a specific point.231 Similarly, the lectures and writings of Plotinus, though also sometimes seen as diatribes and thus connected to a Cynic tradition of literature, 232 have their place in this section. They are extremely difficult to understand but this is the consequence of the abstractedness of Plotinus's thought. Some of these texts are lectures intended for his devotees only with a more elevated style and many images and metaphors, whereas his instructional texts (Lehrschriflen) are mainly written in a simple style. But when writing about the One and the Intelligible World, Plotinus can adopt solemn language commensurate 229 Sallustius, Concerning the Gods and the Universe (prol. and trans, by A. D. Nock; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1966), pp. cix-ciii. 230 Ed. G. Rochefort, Saloustios, Des Dieux et du Monde (Paris: CUF, 1960). 231 Rochefort, Saloustios, pp. xxx-xxxii. 232 R. Helm, "Kynismus", RE 12 (1925), col. 18.

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to the subject matter. 233 It has also been observed that in order to express his ideas on difficult items Plotinus repeatedly uses metaphors and images. 234 E. Apuleius of Madaura O n the Ladn side some attention must be given to the philosophical works235 of Apuleius of Madaura (born ca. AD 125) because of the contrast in style between most of these texts and his most famous work, the novel Metamorphoses, and his rhetorical writings, such as Apologia pro se de magia liber, apart from his translation and adaptation of the pseudo-aristotelian De mundo. Apuleius's De Piatone et eius dogmate first offers some information on Plato's life and then informs the reader of his philosophy. It is a purely informative exposition, in the same vein as the booklet on logic, Περί ερμηνείας. However, in De deo Socratis Apuleius assumes the stance of an orator and a philosopher and he delivers a speech on the daimonion of Socrates.236 The text is much livelier than the other works mentioned and Apuleius throughout the speech keeps his audience in mind. Platonic doctrines form the backbone of his discourse and quotations from many poets are interwoven into the argument. In keeping with the subject and the occasion this oration is more sedate than his apology,237 though more animated parts occur, for example in Soc. 21: Et nihil aeque miror quam, cum omnes et cupiant optime vivere et sciant non alia re quam animo vivi nec fieri posse quin, ut optime vivas, animus colendus sit, tamen animum suum non colant. At si quis velit acriter cernere, oculi curandi sunt, quibus cernitur; si velis perniciter currere, pedes curandi sunt, quibus curritur; indem si pugillare valde velis, bracchia vegetanda sunt, quibus pugillatur. similiter in omnibus ceteris membris sua cuique cura pro studio est. Quod cum omnes facile perspiciant, nequeo satis mecum reputare et proinde, ut res est, admirari cur non etiam animum suum ratione excolant. 233 H.-R. Schwyzer, "Plotinos" (Sonderausg. RE; Munich: Druckenmüller, 1978), cols. 527-30. 234 R. Ferwerda, La signification des images et des métaphores dans ία pensée de Plotin (Groningen: Wolters, 1985). 235 Survey in B. L. Hijmans, Jr., "Apuleius, Philosophus Platonicus", AHRW 11.36:1 (1987), pp. 395-475. 236 Ed. J. Beaujeu, Apulée: Opuscules philosophiques et fragments (Paris: CUF, 1973). 237 Dillon, Middle Platonists, pp. 309ff. speaks of "Apuleius' most florid rhetorical style" used in this speech but this goes too far.

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Nothing bothers me more than the following consideration: All people wish to live the best life and know that they live by nothing else than the soul and that it is impossible to live the best life without cultivating their soul. Nevertheless, they do not cultivate their soul. Now, if one wishes to have sharp eyesight, one should take care of one's eyes by which one sees; if you wish to run fast, you should take care of your feet, by which you run; in the same way, if you wish to be a strong boxer, you should strengthen your arms, with which one is boxing. Similarly, for all other limbs there is a proper care for each according to its purpose. All people see this clearly and without any difficulty; this being so, I cannot stop to consider and, therefore, as is natural, to wonder why they do not also take care of their soul with help of reason.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnim, H., Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa (Berlin, 1898). Atherton, C., "The Failure of Stoic Rhetoric", CQ.38 (1988), pp. 392-427. Barnes, J., "Is Rhetoric an Art?", Darg Newsletter 2 (1986), pp. 2-22. Birley, Α., Marcus Aurelius (London: Batsford, 1987). Dillon, J., The Middle Platonists (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977). Geytenbeek, Α., Musonius Rufus and the Greek Diatribe (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1963). Haase, H. (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin: de Gruyter), esp. the articles in vols. 1.3 (1973); 11.32:2 (1985); 33:5 (1991); 36 (1987-92). Hartlich, P., De exhortationum a Graecis Romanisque scriptarum historia et indole (Leipzig, 1889). Hirzel, R., Der Dialog (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1895). Jones, C. P., The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978). Jordan, M. D., "Ancient Philosophie Protreptic", Rhetorica 4 (1986), pp. 309-34. Kennedy, G. Α., A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). , Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modem Times (London: Croom Helm, 1980). Kustas, G. L., Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric (Thessaloniki: Patriarch. Institute, 1973). Leeman, A. D., Orationis Ratio: The Stylistic Theories and Practice of the Roman Orators, Historians and Philosophers (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1963). Mansfeld, J., Prolegomena: Questions to be Settled before the Study of an Author (Leiden: Brill, 1994). Motto, A. L. and J. Clark, Essays on Seneca (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 1993). Müller, C. W., Die Kurzdialoge der Appendix Platonica (Munich: Fink, 1975). Norden, Ε., Die antike Kunstprosa (Darmstadt: Wissenschafdiche Buchgesellschaft, 1958). Pernot, L., La rhétorique de l'éloge dans le monde gréco-romain (Paris: Inst. d'Etud. August., 1993). Reardon, B. P., Courants littéraires des II' et III' siècles après J. C. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1971). Russell, D. Α., Plutarch (London: Duckworth, 1973). Schmeller, T., Paulus und die "Diatribe" (Münster: Aschendorff, 1987). Slings, S. R., "Protreptic in Ancient Theories of Philosophical Literature", in J. G.

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Abbenes, S. R. Slings and I. Sluiter (eds.), Greek Rhetoric after Aristotle (Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1995), pp. 173-192. Stowers, S. K., Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986). Throm, H., Die Thesis (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1932).

CHAPTER 9

HISTORICAL PROSE Stefan Rebenich University of Mannheim, Germany

I

In the first century BC, Dionysius of Halicamassus already laments that a whole day would not suffice to enumerate all the Greek authors who had written historical works after the death of Alexander. 1 In fact, the rich historical production of the fourth century continued without a break in the Hellenistic age. 2 A host of names have come down to us, but with the exception of the Histories of Polybius the original works are lost. However, the content and rhetorical structure of quite a number of them can be reconstructed from the compilations of later periods, above all from Diodorus Siculus, who wrote in the time of Augustus, from the Lives of Plutarch (about AD 100), and from Imperial and Byzandne authors who made use of Hellenisdc historians. 3 Dionysius moreover criticizes the linguistic shortcomings of the post-classical historical writing, and adduces as crown witnesses in particular Phylarchus, Duris and Polybius. This sweeping judgment however fails to recognize the divergent lines of development and takes no notice of the different models which can be identified in Greek historiography from the fourth century on. Thus Polybius himself brings against Phylarchus, 4 a historian of the third century BC, the reproach that he had betrayed the proper task of historical 1

D.H. Comp. 4:30. On the earlier Greek historians, who are not discussed in this survey, cf. the general surveys and resources mentioned in the bibliographical appendix. 3 There is a detailed listing of the individual historians in W. von Christ and W. Schmid, Geschichte der griechischen Uteratur, 11:1 (HAW, 7.2.1; 6th edn.; Munich 1920), pp. 204ff. The standard edition is by F. Jacoby in FGrHist (see bibliographical appendix). 4 On Phylarchus cf. T. W. Africa, Phylarchus and the Spartan Revolution (Berkeley-Los Angeles 1961); E. Gabba, "Studi su Filarco", Athenaeum 35 (1957), pp. 3-55 and 193-239; J. Kroymann, RE Sup. 8 (1956), pp. 471-89; P. Pédech, Trois historiens méconnus: Théopompe, Duris, Phylarque (Paris 1989). 2

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writing. 5 T h e efforts of the historian ought not to be directed towards winning the attention of the public through the narration of sensational occurrences (τερατεία). Again, it was not proper for a historian—in contrast to a tragedian—to interpolate fine speeches such as might perhaps have been delivered, or to recount the subsidiary circumstances which accompanied the events. Rather it was his duty to record exclusively what actually (κατ' άλήθειαν) happened and what was really said, even if it was a question of quite ordinary things. For the aim of history writing and that of tragedy were opposed to one another: the task of the tragic poet was to thrill and charm (έκπλήξαι καί ψυχαγωγησαι) his hearers for the moment by using the most plausible words, that of the historian was to instruct and convince (διδάξαι καί πεΐσαι) for all time those who were desirous of learning, through his portrayal of the actual events and speeches. Even if Polybius's judgment is distorted by his Achaean patriotism, directed against the pro-Spartan historical writing practised by Phylarchus, 6 the extant fragments 7 from Phylarchus's main work let it be clearly seen that here an attempt was made to present history in a more lively and vivid fashion through the dramatic presentation of events of secondary importance and through the depicting of scenes which aroused horror and compassion. In fact the author of the "Histories", which dealt in 28 books with the period from Pyrrhus's march against the Peloponnese (272 BC) down to the death of the last Spartan king Cleomenes III (220/219 BC), speculates about the emotional stirrings of his readers (ελεος, φόβος, συμπάθεια). But Polybius's clear criticism of Phylarchus's manner of presentation is at the same time his answer to the depreciation of historical writing over against tragic poetry, which goes back to Aristode. In the ninth chapter of his Poetics, Aristotle had specified that the historian and the poet are distinguished by the fact that the one narrates what had happened (τά γενόμενα), the other what might—according to probability or necessity—have happened. Poetry therefore was both more philosophical and more significant than historical writing. For poetry, according to Aristode, "speaks rather of the general, history of the particular (ή μέν γαρ ποίησις μάλλον τα καθ' ολου, ή δ' Ιστορία τα καθ' εκαστον λέγει)".8 5 6 7 8

Plb. 2:56:8-12. Cf. Κ. Meister, Historische Kritik bet Polybios (Wiesbaden 1975), pp. 93ff. FGrHist 81. Arist. Po. 1451 b6f. On this much discussed passage cf. above all H. Baldry,

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This devaluation of historical writing from the mouth of the Stagirite must, as many scholars, with Eduard Schwartz, 9 have argued, have been the reason why in the school of Aristotle (the "Peripatos") people set about bringing historiography closer to tragedy, indeed blending the two literary genres, in order to give to historical writing that element of the general by which poetry was distinguished. This was done by the so-called "tragic", "dramatic" or "peripatetic" writing of history, which Aristotle's disciple Theophrastus gave a theoretical basis in his (no longer extant) Περί ιστορίας ("On the Writing of History") 10 and his pupil Duris of Samos (ca. 340-270 BC) and the latter's successor Phylarchus translated into practice. Here we may mention not only Polybius's criticism of Phylarchus, but also that of Plutarch, who in his "Life of Themistocles" rejects the dramatizing of a report with tragic methods in the writing of history.11 According to the dominant view among scholars,12 Duris in his historical

"The Interpretation of Poetics, ch. IX", Phronesis 2 (1960), pp. 159-77; H. Erbse, "Aristoteles über Tragödie und Geschichtsschreibung (zum neunten Kapitel der aristotelischen Poetik)", in Bonner Festgabe Johannes Straub zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht (Bonn 1977), pp. 127-36; Κ. von Fritz, "Entstehung und Inhalt des neunten Kapitels von Aristoteles' Poetik", in Festschrift E. Karpp zum 70. Geburtstag (Hamburg 1958), pp. 67-91 = idem, Antike und moderne Tragödie (Berlin 1962), pp. 430-57; idem, "Die Bedeutung des Aristoteles für die Geschichtsschreibung", in Histoire et historiens dans l'Antiquité (Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt, 4; Vandoeuvres-Geneva 1956), pp. 8 5 145 = idem, Schriften zur griechischen und römischen Verfassungstheorie und Geschichtsschreibung (Berlin-New York 1976), pp. 256-87; S. Gastaldi, Poesia e Historia nella Poetica Aristotelica (Rendiconti dell'Istituto Lombardo. Classe di Lettere e di Scienze Morali e Storiche, 107; 1973), pp. 202-42; H.J. Horn, "Zum neunten Kapitel der aristotelischen Poetik", RhM 131 (1988), pp. 113-36; B. A. Kyrkos, "Der tragische Mythos und die Geschichte bei Aristoteles", Philosophia 1 (1971), pp. 315-38; S. L. Radt, "Aristoteles und die Tragödie", Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, 24 (1971), pp. 189-205; G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, "Aristode on History and Poetry (Poetics 9, 1451 a 36- b l 1)", in The Ancient Historian and His Materials: Essays in Honour of C. E. Stevens on his Seventieth Birthday (London 1975), pp. 45-58; F. Walbank, "History and Tragedy", Historia 9 (1960), pp. 2 1 6 34; R. Zoepffel, Historia und Geschichte bei Aristoteles (Abh. Akad. Wiss. Heidelberg, Phil.-hist. Klasse, 2; 1975). 9 E. Schwartz, Fünf Vorträge über den griechischen Roman (2nd edn.; Berlin 1943), pp. 123ff.; idem, RE 5.2 (1905), p. 1855, s.v. Duris. Cf. Jacoby in the commentary on FGrHist 76 F 1. 10 The Greek, Ladn and Arabic texts of Theophrastus are now available in a voluminous new compendium: Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought and Influence, ed. and trans. W. W. Fortenbaugh et al. (2 vols.; Leiden 1992). Further editions and literature in O. Regenbogen, RE Sup. 7 (1940), pp. 1354— 1562 and F. Wehrli in H. Flashar (ed.), Grundriß der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie der Antike (vol. 3; Stuttgart 1983), pp. 474-522. 11 Plu. Them. 32:4. 12 The literature on the "tragic" or "peripatetic" writing of history is legion. In addition to the studies of Walbank and von Fritz mentioned in note 8 the following

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works13 carried over the Aristotelian doctrine of style and poetics into the wridng of history, and interpreted the two terms μίμησις ("imitation") and ηδονή ("pleasure, delight") according to the Aristotelian theory of tragedy as dramatic vividness and the entertainment of the reader. F. W. Walbank above all has taken a stance against tracing the tragic writing of history back to Aristode, and has emphasized the common roots of tragedy and history in the "pre-Hellenistic" and "pre-Aristotelian" epic.14 While H. Strasburger understood the μίμησις demanded by Duris as the "imitation of reality as in a stageplay" 15 and stressed the realism of the historian, who introduced ήδονή in the Aristotelian sense as a means of κάθαρσις, of purification of the soul, K. Meister turned against the influence of Aristode on Duris and his successors; in theory they pursued the goal of depicting reality faithfully in their works (μίμησις), but in practice they frequendy exaggerated and falsified the events, since they were oriented to the sensational, to captivate the public. Hence Meister prefers the concept "mimetic" rather than "tragic" history writing, and speaks with reference to the practice of history writing of "sensational history". 16 Actually, there are repeatedly to be found in the genre of Hellenistic history writing represented by Duris and Phylarchus stylistic topoi

presentations are important, and at the same time give a good survey of the sometimes complex scholarly discussion: A. Hepperle, Beobachtungen zur Erzähltechnik im tragischhistorischen Roman der Penpatetiker: Ein Stil- und quellenkritischer Beitrag zur hellenistischen historiographischen Literatur (Diss. Heidelberg 1954); G. Marasco, "Ctesia, Dinone, 'Eraclide di Cuma e le origini della storiografia tragica'", SIFC 81 (1988), pp. 4867; Κ. Meister, Historische Kritik bei Polybios (Wiesbaden 1975), pp. 109ff (Polybius und die "Tragische Geschichtsschreibung"); H.-D. Richter, Untersuchungen zur hellenistischen Historiographie: Die Vorlagen des Pempeius Trogus fiir die Darstellungen zur nachalexandrinischen hellenistischen Geschichte (lust. 13-40) (Frankfurt/M. 1987), pp. 38ff.; K. Sacks, Polybius on the Writing of History (Berkeley 1977), pp. 144ff.;J. Seibert, Dos Zeitalter der Diadochen (Darmstadt 1983), pp. 15ff.; N. Zeger, Wesen und Ursprung der tragischen Geschichtsschreibung (Diss. Hamburg 1959). 13

FGrHist 76. In addition to the "Annals of the Samians" and the "History of Agathocles", the chief historiographical work by Duris was a "Macedonian History" in at least 23 books, which reached from the death of King Amyntas in 370/68 BC to the death of Lysimachus in 281 BC and was marked by anti-Macedonian tendencies. Fundamental for Duris is E. Schwartz, RE 5.2 (1905), pp. 1853-56 = idem, GG, pp. 27-31; cf. in addition R. B. Kebric, In the Shadow of Macedon: Duris of Samos (Wiesbaden 1977); K. Meister in CAH 7.1 (1984), pp. 384ff und 574ff.; L. A. Okin, Studies on Duris of Samos (Diss. University of California 1974); Pédech (see note 4); L. Torraco, Duride di Samo. La maschera scenica nella storiografia ellenistica (Salerno 1988). 14 Historia 9 (1960), pp. 216-34; cf idem, Polybius (Berkeley 1972), pp. 34ff. 15 Die Wesensbestimmung der Geschichte durch die antike Geschichtsschmbung (SB Wiss. Gesell, der J . W . Goethe Universität Frankfurt, 5; Wiesbaden 1966), p. 78. 16 Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung (Stuttgart-Berlin-Cologne 1990), pp. 95ff.

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and narrative elements which have as their purpose to entertain the reader in an appealing fashion. Among these are the topical description of the clothing and hair-style of the historical actors, 17 phenomenal occurrences,18 curious animal stories,19 anecdotes 20 and love stories.21 Climaxes, surprising turns of events and the element of suspense can also be observed. Sagas, fables and legends, but also νόμιμα Ελληνικά καί βαρβαρικά and verses from the poets, which the later doxographers transcribed, are freely strewn through the narrative. The model for this well thought out and skilfully composed abundance of material is the history writing of Herodotus of Halicamassus. The "rhetorical" writing of history is to be distinguished from the "tragic". In this connection it is well to bear in mind that, from the time of the epoch-making appearance of the orator Gorgias of Leontini in Athens in the year 427 BC, rhetoric—in part in rivalry with philosophy and poetry—gained an ever greater influence in numerous areas of public and cultural life, and consequendy also had a strong effect upon the writing of history.22 Above all the rhetorical school of the Athenian orator Isocrates (436-338 BC), founded about 390 BC, left its mark on numerous politicians, orators, poets and historians. Significandy, Cicero compares this school with the Trojan Horse, from which none but leaders emerged. 23 Isocrates' artistically developed period, characterized by an elegant rhythm and a strict avoidance of hiatus, also influenced many generations of historians who had enjoyed a literary and rhetorical education. 24 Through teachers of rhetoric, historical knowledge became part of the educational canon which was imparted to the city elite of the Greek world in their schooldays. At the same time the teachers of rhetoric carried over their own literary and stylistic qualities into the writing of history, and opened it up for literary re-shaping. Hence attention was paid 17

FGrHist 76 F 12, 14, 24, 49, 50, 60, 70. FGrHist 76 F 54, 87; FGrHist 81 F 10, 17, 35. 19 FGrHist 76 F 7, 47; FGrHist 81 F 4, 26, 27, 28, 38, 61. 20 FGrHist 76 F 3, 37, 50, 51, 53, 63, 69, 84, 93, 96; FGrHist 81 F 12, 21, 40, 41, 75. 21 FGrHist 76 F 2, 10, 11, 17, 18, 21, 47, 69; FGrHist 81 F 21, 24, 30, 32, 70, 71, 81. 22 Cf. D . S . 12:53:Iff. 23 Cic. De or. 2:94. 24 Β. Meißner, Historiker zwischen Polis und Königshof: Studien zur Stellung der Geschichtsschreiber in der griechischen Gesellschafl in spätklassischer und friihhellenistischer ^F-t (Göttingen 1992), pp. 93ff. and 146 has recendy warned against over-emphasis on the direct influence of Isocrates on Greek historiography. 18

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above all to the stylistic shaping of a historical work, yet without losing sight of didactic, moral and political concerns. Among the leading representatives of this rhetorical history writing are Ephorus of Cyme, Theopompus of Chios and Anaximenes of Lampsacus. Polybius righdy treated Ephorus (ca. 400-330 BC)25 from Cyme in Aeolia as his only real precursor in the field of universal history;26 he considers him "admirable both because of his style and also his handling of the material and the richness of his thought; he has a special eloquence in his digressions and in the sentences he has formulated himself and, to put it briefly, when he makes a statement that goes beyond the theme". 27 The extant fragments of the "Historiai", written probably between 350 and 334 BC, in fact prove that Ephorus laid great store on the stylistic shaping of his work and on an artistic language, although in ancient times his style was judged by many to be "flat, sluggish and void of tension", 28 since he renounced such Gorgian figures of speech as antithesis, isocola (sentences with equal members), homoioteleuta (similar endings), parisa (balanced clauses), etc., and distanced himself from the concentration of historiography on the δεινόν and the θαυμαστόν. 29 O n the other hand, admiring tribute was paid to the structure of the extensive work, which was wideranging both in time and in its themes. For Ephorus had arranged his books not as an annalist but rather κατά γένος, according to subject areas, in order to be able to describe occurrences at one and the same scene of action over a long period of time. However, he made use to a large extent of the stylistic device of the doublet, that is, he 25

FGrHist 70. E. Schwartz, RE 6 (1907), pp. 1-16 = idem, GG, pp. 3-26; J. M. Alonso-Nunez, The Emergence of Universal Historiographyfromthe Fourth to the Second Centuries BC, Studio Hellenistica 30 (1990), pp. 173-92; G. L. Barber, The Historian Ephorus (Cambridge 1935); P. Bürde, Untersuchungen zur antiken Unwersalgeschichtsschreibung (Munich 1974), pp. 43ff.; F. Carrata, "Sulla composizione delle Storie di Eforo", AAT 81/82 (1947/49), pp. 147-60; W. Connor, Studies in Ephorus and Other Sources for the Cause of the Peloponnesian War (Diss. Princeton 1961); R. Drews, "Ephorus and History Written κατά γένος", AJP 84 (1963), pp. 244-55; idem, "Ephorus' κατά γένος History Revisited", Hermes 104 (1976), pp. 497-98; K.B.J. Herbert, Ephorus in Plutarch's Lives (Diss. Harvard 1954); A. E. Kalischek, De Ephoro et Theopompo Isocratis discipulis (Diss. Münster 1913); G. Schepens, "Historiographical Problems in Ephoros", in Historiographia antiqua: Commentationes Lovanienses in honorem W. Peremans septuagenani editae (Louvain 1977), pp. 95fF.; idem, "Ephore sur la valeur de l'autopsie", AncSoc 1 (1970), pp. 163-73. 26 Plb. 5:33:2 (FGrHist 70 Τ 7). 27 Plb. 12:28:10 [FGrHist 70 Τ 23). 28 Cf. Suda s.v. Ephoros (FGrHist 70 Τ 28a). 29 Str. 7:39 (FGrHist 70 F 42).

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repeated at various places particular descriptions or events. 30 T h e reliability of his reporting also was already doubted by several ancient critics; thus Polybius complains that the portrayals of batdes, and particularly the descriptions of land battles, were "laughable", since they were written "entirely without experience and without his ever having seen a batde". 31 In Plutarch it is said: "As for the rhetorical efforts and grand periods of Ephorus, Theopompus and Anaximenes, which they present as delivered after they have armed and drawn up the armies for batde, one can only say: 'Nobody speaks such nonsense near the iron' (i.e. before the battle)". 32 In addition, further important elements of historical presentation such as speeches, inscriptions and documents were reproduced inaccurately and in a manner remote from reality. T h e first universal historian of antiquity was in fact a "bookworm", who took extracts from the sources available, put them together, and transposed them into an agreeable uniform style. In contrast to Ephorus, Theopompus of Chios (378/77 BC-after 320 BC)33 was regarded as stylistically brilliant and politically involved. T h e telling saying was in circulation in the ancient world that Isocrates had once said of his two pupils that Ephorus needed the whip, Theopompus the bridle. 34 According to his own testimony, he was initially active as an orator, and ranked with Isocrates and Theodectes among the most famous orators in Greece; he is said to have composed 20,000 lines in all, and there was no important town in Greece in 30

Thus Plb. 6:46:10 already makes the criticism that the presentations of the Cretan and the Spartan constitutions—if one leaves aside the proper names—are almost identical. On the difficulties for the student of antiquity which result from this way of working, cf. S. Lauffer, "Die Diodordublette XV 38 = XV 50 über die Friedensschlüsse zu Sparta 374 und 371", Historia 8 (1959), pp. 315-48 and K. Meister, Die Ungeschichtlichkeit des Kalliasftiedens und deren historische Folgen (Wiesbaden 1982). 31 Plb. 12:25:3 (FGrHist 70 Τ 20). 32 Plut. Mor. 803b (FGrHist 70 Τ 21). 33 FGrHist 115. G. Bonamente, "La storiografia di Teopompo tra classicità ed ellenismo", AIIS 4 (1973/75), pp. 1-86; I. Α. F. Bruce, "Theopompus and Classical Greek Historiography", Η & Τ 9 (1970), pp. 86-109; W. R. Connor, Theopompus and Fifth-Century Athens (Cambridge, MA 1968); A. M. Flower, Theopompus of Chius: History and Rhetoric in the Fourth Century B.C. (Oxford 1994); K. von Fritz, "Die politische Tendenz in Theopomps Geschichtsschreibung", AuA 4 (1954), pp. 45-64; Ε. Meyer, Theopomps Hellenika (Halle 1909); Pédech (as note 4); A. Momigliano, "Studi sulla storiografia greca del IV secolo a.C. I: Teopompo", RFIC 9 (1931), pp. 230-42 and 335-53 = idem, La storiografia greca (Turin 1982), pp. 174-203; idem, "La storia di Eforo e le Elleniche di Teopompo", RFIC 63 (1935), pp. 180-204; K. R. Reed, Theopompus of Chius: History and Oratory in the Fourth Century (Diss. University of California, Berkeley 1976); W. Schranz, Theopomps Philippika (Diss. Freiburg 1922). 34 Vit. Isoc. 3 (FGrHist 70 Τ 28b).

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which he had not won great renown with his speeches. His historical work was however even more extensive, and is said to have comprised 150,000 lines.35 His chief works are the Ελληνικά, the "Greek History", which continued the historical work of Thucydides and in 12 books presented the period from 411 to 394 BC, and the Φιλιππικά, the "History of Philip" in 58 books, in which Theopompus according to his own statement described "the deeds of the Greeks and barbarians"; 36 it was accordingly a comprehensive work of universal history, at the central point of which stood Philip II of Macedon. 37 The "Philippica" included an abundance of digressions, which contained topographical, geographical, ethnographical, cultural-historical and mythological as well as political information; ample space was likewise given to marvellous phenomena and fantastic stories.38 With this understanding of history writing Theopompus stands in the tradition of Herodotus. Although his descriptions of batdes and his commanders' speeches, like those of Ephorus, found no favour with ancient critics,39 his style, shot through with numerous Gorgian figures, ranked as altogether exemplary. Dionysius of Halicamassus esteemed not only his great care and the exactness that rested on personal research. He praised especially Theopompus's ability "in every course of action not only to see and express what is visible to the multitude, but also to seek out the hidden causes of the actions, and the motives of those acting, and the feelings in their hearts, which the multitude cannot easily know, and to reveal all the secrets both of apparent virtue and of undetected vice".40 His style, Dionysius con35

FGrHist 115 F 25 (Phot. Rib I. 176). FGrHist 115 F 25. Cf. on this the prologue to Herodotus's "Histories". 37 The question whether Theopompus is to be identified with the author of the so-called "Hellenica from Oxyrhynchus", as for example E. Meyer, R. Laqueur, E. Ruschenbusch and G. A. Lehmann affirmed, cannot be entered into here. The "Hellenica from Oxyrhynchus" (FGrHist 66) consist of two groups of papyrus fragments, which report on what took place in the Decelean War, especially on the sea batde at Notium in 4 0 7 / 6 BC, and on various events in the years 397-395 BC. The work probably began with the year 411 BC (the end point of Thucydides' history) and extended at least to 395 BC. The author writes a simple style, inserts numerous digressions, and—at least in the extant parts—reproduces no speeches. Others have wished to identify him with Ephorus, Androtion, Daimachus and Cratippus. Cf. on this the editions of M. Chambers (Stuttgart-Leipzig 1993) and P. R. McKechnie and S.J. Kern (Warminster 1988, with translation and commentary), as well as the commentaries of I. A. F. Bruce (Cambridge 1967) and H. R. Breitenbach, RE Sup. 12 (1970), pp. 383-426 with literature. 38 Cf. for example FGrHist 115 F 75. 39 FGrHist 115 Τ 32f. 40 D.H. Pomp. 6 [FGrHist 115 Τ 20a 7). 36

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tinues, resembles most that of Isocrates. His manner of speech is pure, he employs the words in common use, is clear, elevated, noble, often also splendid, and his writing is distinguished by a harmonious balance and a pleasing and gende flow. In some cases his λέξις deviates from the Isocratean style through bitterness and tension, namely when Theopompus gives way to his passions; this is especially the case when he blames towns or commanders for wicked policies or unrighteous actions, which he often does—here he attains to the rhetorical power of a Demosthenes. But "if in those passages over which he has taken the greatest trouble he had paid less attention to the blending of vowels (i.e. avoiding hiatus), the rhythmic cadence of periods and the uniformity of constructions, then he would probably have expressed himself far better than in fact he did". 41 For many ancient readers, however, the strongly rhetorical style, linked with an excessive moral appraisal, was a stumbling-block. [Pseudo-]Demetrius, a critic of probably the Hellenistic period, emphatically warns in his " O n Style" against the use of overdrawn antitheses and assonances, such as Theopompus had used in an oft-cited example, since they did not give any force to the speech, but rather made it laboured and often even frigid. T h e listener who directs his attention to a περισσοτεχνία of this kind ("excessive artificiality"), or rather κακοτεχνΐ3 ("bad art"), is carried beyond that sense of emotion to attain which is yet properly the task of the rhetorical figures.42 The lexicographer Pollux in the period of the empire criticizes the neologisms formed by Theopompus, "non-citizens" (άπολίται), "friendless" (άφέταιροι), "degenerate Athenians" (ΆπαΟηναιοι) and "the disinherited son" (άποκήρυκτος).43 Nevertheless his language and style on the whole followed the conventions usual at the time and reflected the literary and rhetorical training of the author. If one considers the later influence of Theopompus, he ranks among the most influential and most read Greek historians; the orator Dio Chrysostom about AD 100 does not hesitate to accord him the second place after Thucydides. 44 Anaximenes of Lampsacus (ca. 380-320 BC)45 likewise counts among the chief representatives of the rhetoricizing writing of history; in 41

D. H. Pomp. 6 (FGrHist 115 Τ 20a 9f.) (LCL translation). Cf. FGrHist 115 Τ 44 with F 225a and b. On the background cf. Norden, pp. 126ff. 43 Poll. 3:58 and 4:93 (FGrHist 115 F 338f.). 44 D. Chr. 18:10 (FGrHist 115 Τ 45). 45 FGrHist 72. On him cf. P. A. Brunt, "Anaximenes and King Alexander I of 42

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antiquity he was always regarded in the first place as an orator and sophist. A twelve-volume work is mendoned under the tide "Hellenica" or "First History", which covered Greek and Persian history from the creation of gods and men to the battle of Mantinea and the death of Epaminondas (362 BC). In addition there are two works of contemporary history, a History of Philip II in at least eight books and a work " O n Alexander". 46 The tides "Hellenica" and "Philippica" alone betray his rivalry with Theopompus. 47 Although his contemporary Theocritus of Chios describes Anaximenes' rhetoric as "a stream of words, but a mere droplet of thought", 48 he was included in the canon of the ten most important Greek historians. 49 The few extant fragments seem to confirm his rhetorical skill. His example in addition bears witness to the dominant influence which rhetoric exercised in the fourth century on the writing of history and other literary genres. Dionysius of Halicamassus is of the opinion that Anaximenes wished to be perfect in every sphere, as historian, interpreter of poetry, composer of rhetorical manuals, author of deliberative and forensic speeches—"but in fact he was perfect in none of these spheres, but weak and unconvincing". 50

II In view of the great events of the time of Alexander, it is not surprising that numerous authors set about composing historiographical works, either as early as the Macedonian king's lifetime or soon after his death. Often they had participated in his expedition into Asia, and in their descriptions could draw upon their own observations.51 Here we must distinguish between historians commissioned Macedon", JHS 96 (1976), pp. 151-53; P. Wendland, Anaximenes von Lampsakos (Berlin 1905). 46 Cf. FGrHist 72 Τ 14 and 27. 47 Cf. FGrHist 72 Τ 6 (5). 48 FGrHist 72 Τ 25 (Stob. Flor. 3:36:20). 49 FGrHist 72 Τ 31. 50 D.H. Is. 19 (FGrHist 72 Τ 13). 51 On the individual Alexander historians cf. the corresponding articles by E. Schwartz, F. Jacoby and others in RE, as well as Jacoby's commentary in FGrHist. In general reference may be made to: H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (vol. 2; Munich 1926); T. S. Brown, The Greek Historians (Lexington 1973), pp. 124ff.; P. Goukowsky, Essai sur les origines du mythe d'Alexandre (336-270 av. J. C.) (2 vols.; Nancy 1979/81); idem, "Die Alexanderhistoriker", in J. M. Alonso-Nunez

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by Alexander in person to set down his deeds, such as Callisthenes of Olynthus 52 and the Anaximenes already mentioned, and those authors who found themselves fulfilling some function in the king's retinue and of their own accord felt themselves called to write about Alexander, as for example Chares of Mytilene, 53 the είσαγγελεύς (the royal master of ceremonies), Nearchus of Crete, 54 the commander of the fleet, Onesicritus of Astypalaea, 55 the helmsman of Alexander's flagship, Ptolemy the royal bodyguard and later king of Egypt, 56 Aristobulus of Cassandreia, 57 who accompanied the expedition as an engineer and architect, and Ephippus of Olynthus, 58 who was active in Egypt as "overseer over the mercenaries". The works of the authors mentioned are generally extant only in fragments, and have to be laboriously reconstructed from the later tradition. We can however clearly recognize the uncommon dynamism of the Alexander historiography, which produced a host of very diverse works in which every possible way of presenting history was pressed into service and put to the test. In his chief work "The Deeds of Alexander", which because of his execution in 327 BC remained unfinished, Callisthenes (ca. 3 7 0 327 BC), the nephew and for many years collaborator of Aristode and a contemporary of Theopompus and Ephorus, aimed at the educated public of Greece. Numerous digressions on geographical, historical and archaeological themes, 59 as well as on natural science, served as did a strongly rhetorical composition to loosen up and adorn

(ed.), Geschichtsbild und Geschichtsdenken im Altertum (Darmstadt 1991), pp. 136-65; N. G. L. Hammond, Three Historians of Alexander the Great, the So-Called Vulgate Authors Diodoros, Justin, Curtius (Cambridge 1963); K. Meister, "Das Bild Alexanders des Großen in der Historiographie seiner Zeit", in Festschrift R. Werner (Xenia, 22; Konstanz 1989), pp. 63-79; L. Pearson, The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great (New York 1960; reprint 1963); P. Pédech, Historiens compagnons d'Alexandre (Callisthène-Onésiaite-NéarqueAristoboule) (Paris 1984); F. Schachermeyer, Alexander der Große: Das Problem seiner Persönlichkeit und seines Wirkens (Vienna 1973), pp. 149fT.; J. Seibert, Alexander der Große (Darmstadt 1972), pp. Iff.; W. Will, Alexander der Große (Stuttgart 1986), pp. 11 ff. The studies mentioned list both the older literature and also investigations into the individual historians. 55 FGrHist 124. » FGrHist 125. 54 FGrHist 133. 55 FGrHist 134. 56 FGrHist 138. 57 FGrHist 139. 58 FGrHist 126. 59 FGrHist 124 F 25, 28, 29, 30, 33, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 53, 54.

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the work. From the extant fragments it is in addition clear that he set his historical writing at the service of the Macedonian king, and subordinated his description of the events to propagandist purposes. 60 Strabo already accused Callisthenes of κολακεία, and beyond that criticized the excesses in the tragic style (προστραγωδειν). The author aimed in fact at producing emotion and passion, such as was otherwise conveyed to the public by the performance of tragedies, and it has therefore been conjectured with a certain plausibility that the "tragic" historical writing which first comes clearly to the fore in the following century had in him a precursor. At any rate Callisthenes discussed questions of historiographical theory and came to the conclusion that "whoever attempts to write anything may not lose sight of the person, but must shape the speeches in a manner appropriate both to the person and to the circumstances". 61 In consequence Callisthenes also availed himself of the literary device of verbatim speeches for the characterizing of individual persons; in this he evidendy went beyond the earlier usage practised by Thucydides. In the remnants of other court historians one may learn to recognize parts of popular romantic accounts of the deeds of Alexander. They are written from the perspective of a world fundamentally changed through Alexander's conquests. Of another kind was the work of Onesicritus (ca. 373~ca. 305 BC), allegedly a pupil of Diogenes, who presented the events from a Cynic perspective. Alexander became an έν οπλοις φιλόσοφος, a philosopher in arms, who mediated Greek philosophy and culture to the inhabited world. 62 It is to Onesicritus that those stories go back which present Alexander in dialogue with Indian Brahmins and Yogis, the gymnosophists; for their part, they act and speak like perfect Cynics, and have at their disposal the wisdom of the older philosophical tradition. Even if Strabo cast doubt on Onesicritus's trustworthiness, when he declared that all the Alexander historians had preferred the marvellous to the truth, but Onesicritus appeared to have surpassed them all in his delight in sensation (τερατολογία),63 it is still to be emphasized, with more recent studies,64 that in his work it is a question of a kind of historical

60

Cf. for example his report on Alexander's journey to the oracle of Ammon in the year 332-331 BC (FGrHist 124 F 14a = Str. 17:1:43). 61 FGrHist 124 F 44. 62 FGrHist 134 F 17 (Str. 15:1:63-65). 63 FGrHist 134 Τ 10 = Str. 15:1:28; cf. FGrHist 134 Τ 12 = Gell. 9:4:1-3. 64 Cf. for example Pearson Lost Histories (note 51), pp. 831T.; Schachermeyer

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romance, in which historiography and a philosophical Utopia entered into a peculiar union. T h e deeds of Alexander were enhanced into the marvellous and sublime by Aristobulus 65 and Clitarchus of Alexandria; 66 in particular Clitarchus's twelve-volume "History of Alexander", which began with the king's ascent to the throne and ended with his death and of which only 36 fragments are extant, enduringly painted the portrait of Alexander for later ages and already prefigured some central elements of the Hellenistic Alexander legend. In antiquity he already ranked as a notorious liar. Cicero significandy reckons him among the orators "to whom it is permitted to spread abroad lies in their historical works, that they may be able to portray something more vividly",67 and Quintilian opines: Clitarchi probatur ingenium, fides infamatur ("Clitarchus's talent is approved, but his trustworthiness is impugned"). 68 A master of stylistic composition, Clitarchus wished to impress his readers and hold them in suspense through an unusually figurative and artistic language. More important than the Alexander historians was Hieronymus of Cardia (ca. 360-after 260 BC)69 the historian of the wars of the Diadochi; as chief of staff to Eumenes, one of the generals contending for the succession to Alexander, he had first-hand experience of the events. In the tradition of Thucydides he was concerned to give a reliable and correct description of what happened, and refrained from both the exaggerations of the rhetorical and the inventions of the "tragic" history writing of his time. He wrote a sober style, free from flourishes, took over traditional forms of presentation, and freely inserted speeches into his work. His precise description of Alexander the Great's funeral carriage may rank as a model example of ekphrasis (description).70 The Alexander historiography of the close of the fourth century,

Alexander der Große (note 51), pp. 151-52; W. W. Tarn, Alexander der Große (Darmstadt 1968; original English version in 2 vols., Cambridge 1948), pp. 208-209 and 261. 65 FGrHist 139. 66 FGrHist 137. 67 FGrHist 137 Τ 7 = Cic. Brut. 42. 68 FGrHist 137 Τ 6 = Quint. Inst. 10:1:74 (LCL translation). 69 FGrHist 154. The fundamental work is F. Jacoby, RE 8.2 (1913), pp. 154060 = idem, GH, pp. 245-55. In addition the following may be mentioned among more recent studies: S. Hornblower, Hieronymos of Cardia (Oxford 1981); G. A. Lehmann, "Der 'Lamische Krieg' und die 'Freiheit der Hellenen'. Überlegungen zur hieronymianischen Tradition", %PE 73 (1988), pp. 121-49 and I. L. Merker, "Diodorus Siculus and Hieronymus of Cardia", AHB 2 (1988), pp. 90-93. Cf. also the literature on the historians of the Diadochi mentioned in note 12 (esp. Richter and Seibert). 70 FGrHist 154 F 2 (Ath. 12:540).

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which was expressly oriented to personality and almost throughout highly tendentious, was moulded by the two main streams of Hellenistic historiography, the "tragic" and the "rhetorical", which became more and more dominant. These two streams however did not develop in isolation from one another. As the Alexander historians already show, the linguistic and stylistic shaping of the individual historical works does not stand in any fixed relationship with particular tendencies of historical presentation. Basically people strove for unity of composition, yet without avoiding inconsistencies. Descriptions of battles, digressions of the most varied content, ekphraseis and the free reproduction of letters and official documents were all popular. T o characterize the participants, speeches were inserted, sometimes also explicidy moral judgments. Pretentious periods were constructed according to the rules of stylistic prose, and great stress was laid on the avoidance of hiatus. At the same time description of the facts and investigation of the causes, which were the hall-marks of Thucydidean history, receded into the background.

Ill

Under the influence of literary rhetoric, the late classical and above all the Hellenistic writing of history71 developed formally into greater linguistic power of expression. The Asianism which made its appearance as a rhetorical fashion in the third century, and to which for example Hegesias of Magnesia shows himself indebted in his History of Alexander, 72 scarcely formed any school in historiography. 73 In their presentation of historical events the writers of history took into consideration ever more frequently the results of contemporary sci-

71

Cf. on this, besides R. Scheller, De hellenistica historiae conscribendae arte (Diss. Leipzig 1911), J. Lens Tuero, "Historiografia helenisdca", in Unidady pluralidad 1 (Madrid 1983), pp. 305-50; H. D. Richter, Untersuchungen zur hellenistischen Historiographie: Die Vorlagen des Pompeius Trogusfiirdie Darstellungen zur nachalexandmischen hellenistischen Geschichte (lust. 13-40) (Frankfurt/M. 1987); K. Sacks, "Rhetoric and Speeches in Hellenistic Historiography", Athenaeum 64 (1986), pp. 383-95; J. Seibert, Das Zeitalter der Diadochen (Darmstadt 1983); Ε. Will, "Comment on écrit l'histoire hellénistique", Historia 27 (1978), pp. 65-82; G. Wirth, "Hellenistische Geschichtsschreibung", in H. H. Schmitt and E. Vogt (eds.), Kleines Wörterbuch des Hellenismus (Wiesbaden 1988), pp. 205-30 with further literature. 72 FGrHist 142. 73 Cf. Str. 14:41:1; Cic. Brut. 286; Gell. 9:4:3.

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ences, and at the same time created a large number of literary subcategories. Beside the impressive series of representatives of universal and contemporary history there stood hundreds of authors who cultivated the most diverse subsidiary and special fields of history writing. Thus scientific chronology, 74 the evaluation of the many local lists of officials and calendar systems, found its compilers in the most significant savant of Hellenism, Eratosthenes, 75 who taught in the Museum at Alexandria in the third century, in the Athenian Apollodorus (2nd century BC),76 who was also prominent as the author of a learned commentary on the catalogue of ships in the Iliad, and in Castor, 77 who was active in Rome as a freedman of Sulla. T h e number of those who devoted themselves to local history is beyond any survey. At that time there was no town or region without its own historian. For one thing there were authors who with an antiquarian purpose dealt with legal and cultic traditions, festal customs, architectural monuments, and other such matters; here people relied on a thoroughly critical scientific method, which evaluated all the evidence from archive material and inscriptions through proper names down to anecdotes. This local research came to its fullest bloom in the Athens of the fourth and third centuries, where the series of the so-called Atthidographers begins with Hellanicus of Lesbos, 78 a contemporary of Thucydides, and extends through Clidemus 79 and Androtion 80 (middle of 4th century BC) down to Philochorus 8 ' (3rd century BC). The Attic writing of local history reached its high point in the last-named author, who put forward a work which themadcally was unusually many-sided. 82 For another, there came into being comprehensive accounts of the history of particular towns 74

Cf. E.J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World (2nd edn.; London 1981); E. Manni, Fasti ellenistici e romani (Kokalos Sup., 1; Palermo 1961); O. Regenbogen, RE 20.2 (1950), pp. 1462-1466, s.v. Eratosthenes; W. Sontheimer, RE 9A.2 (1967), pp. 2455-2477, s.v. Zeitrechnung. 75 FGrHist 241. 76 FGrHist 244. 77 FGrHist 250. 78 FGrHist 4 F 171-72; 323a. 79 FGrHist 323. 80 FGrHist 324. 81 FGrHist 328. 82 It was the researches of F. Jacoby that first properly appreciated the significance of the Atthidographers for the later tradition, cf. FGrHist Illb (suppl.), A Commentary on the Ancient Historians of Athens, vol. 1: text, vol. 2: notes (Leiden 1954); idem, Atthis: The Local Chronicles of Athens (Oxford 1949); L. Pearson, The Local Historians of Attica (Oxford 1942, 2nd edn., 1981); P. Harding, "Atthis and Politeia", Histona 26

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or regions, which were usually worked up from existing literary models and often included a mythical pre-history. T h e boundaries between this genuine local and regional historiography, which was in every way intended to satisfy literary and stylistic demands, and a learned and antiquarian entertainment and "text-book" literature are fluid. Numerous Hellenistic antiquarians and savants, who put out more or less original collections of material on the history of Greek provinces and cities, on famous personalities, on festivals, sacrificial offerings, the games, and a host of other themes, are known to us by name. Here we may mention Polemon from Ilium in Asia Minor, who at the beginning of the second century BC published various writings of geographical description which rested on his own researches; he bore the nickname "Stelokopas", because he pounced upon stone inscriptions like a hungry man on a good meal. 83 A special place among all the local historians belongs to Timaeus (ca. 350 BC-after 260 BC)84 from Tauromenion (the modern Taormina) in Sicily. H e spent fifty years of his life as a political exile in Athens, where in the libraries he composed the 68 books of his history of Sicily and lower Italy from the beginnings to the start of the First Punic W a r . T h e work was of fundamental importance for later authors, and settled the image of the Greek West in Greek literature down to the time of Augustus. His gathering up and re-working of all the information available to him about the geography and history of the western Mediterranean area, 85 his detailed consideration—for the first time—of R o m a n history, his independent researches in the field of chronology, 86 his synthesis of diverse historiographical genres (1977), pp. 148-60; E. Ruschenbusch, "Atthis und Politeia", Hermes 109 (1981), pp. 316-26; P.J. Rhodes, "The Atthidographers", Studia Hellenistica 30 (1990), pp. 73-81. 83 FHG III, pp. 108-48. On the epithet στηλοκόπας cf. Herodicus ap. Ath. 6:234d. On his person and work cf. Κ. Deichgräber, RE 21.2 (1952), pp. 1288-1320. 84 FGrHist 566. Cf. R. Laqueur, RE 6A.1 (1936), pp. 1076-1203; T. S. Brown, Timaeus of Tauromenium (Berkeley-Los Angeles 1958); K. Meister, Die sizilische Geschichte bei Diodor (Diss. Munich 1967); A. Momigliano, "Atene nel III secolo a.C. e la scoperta di Roma nelle Storie di Timeo di Tauromenio", RSI 71 (1959), pp. 529-56 = idem, Terzo contribute (Rome 1966), pp. 23-53 = La stonogrqfia greca (Turin 1982), pp. 225ff. = Storia e storiografa antica (Bologna 1987), pp. 97-126; L. Pearson, The Greek Historians of the West: Timaeus and his Predecessors (Philological Monographs of the American Philological Associadon, 35; Adanta 1987); G. de Sanctis, Ricerche sulla storiografia siceliota (Palermo 1958); R. Vattuone, Ricerche su Timeo: La "pueritia" di Agatocle (Florence 1982); F. W. Walbank, "The Historians of Greek Sicily", Kokalos 14/15 (1968/69), pp. 476-98. 85 Cf. FGrHist 566 F 7 (Plb. 12:28a:3). 86 From Timaeus's pen comes also a chronological handbook with the title

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and his critical debate with his predecessors all ensure him a prominent place among the historians between Ephorus and Polybius. T h e ancient judgments about Timaeus, like the modern, are however not uniform. His admirers praised the scientific rigour of the bookish scholar, his critics grew heated over the manifest rhetorical shaping of the work. Diodorus for example praised Timaeus's exactness in chronological questions, his great experience and his almost completely factual reporting, but disapproved of his excessive tendency to censure. 87 Cicero comes to the conclusion that of all Greek historians, including Herodotus and Thucydides, Timaeus possessed the highest culture and, so far as fullness of content and variety of thought were concerned, the greatest riches; his style too was finely elaborated. 88 In the Brutus he names Timaeus as an apt example for a particular form of the Asiatic style, characterized by richness in polished, rounded and agreeable turns of phrase and less by weighty and impressive sentences.89 Timaeus however experienced the sharpest criticism from the mouth of Polybius, who devoted a large part of his twelfth book to discussion of his predecessor and in this connection set forth his own historiographical premisses. Polybius takes Timaeus to task for his sometimes immoderate polemic, his sensationalist presentation, his δεισιδαιμονία, the superstitious fear of the divine, and above all for his "book-learning", that is, his lack of practical political and military experience. While Timaeus brought accusations against others with great rhetorical skill, his own performance was "full of dreams, prodigies, incredible tales and, to put it shortiy, craven superstition (δεισιδαιμονίας άγεννοΰς) and womanish love of the sensational (τερατείας γυναικώδους)". 90 Polybius's sharp attack on the speeches inserted by Timaeus belongs in the same context. 91 He had concerned himself neither with the exact wording nor with a reproduction of the speeches faithful to the content, but had freely

"Olympionicae", in which he lists the victors in the Olympic games with other eponymous figures in synchronistic order, cf. FGrHist 566 F 10 (Plb. 12:ll:lff.). 87 Cf. FGrHist 566 F 11, 12 and F 124. 88 Cic. De or. 2:58 = FGrHist 566 Τ 20: quantum iudicare possum Longe eruditisûmus et rerum copia et sententiarum varietate abundantisûmus et ipsa compositione verborum non impolitus magnam eloquentiam ad smbendum attulit. Nepos also (Ale. 11) reckons Timaeus alongside Thucydides and Theopompus among the gravisnmé historici. 89 Cic. Brut. 325 = FGrHist 566 Τ 21. 90 FGrHist 566 Τ 19 = Plb. 12:24:5; cf. Τ 19 = Plb. 12:12b. 91 FGrHist 566 Τ 19 = Plb. 12:25a and 25i. On Timaeus's speeches cf. recendy L. Pearson, "The Speeches in Timaeus' History", AJP 107 (1986), pp. 350-68.

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invented them, after the manner of a student of rhetoric working at some particular theme. At the same time, Polybius reports on Timaeus's outpourings in the prologue of his sixth book, on the differences between the epideictic art of speaking and historiography. 92 Here Timaeus turned vigorously against the view held by many, that the composition of epideictic speeches presupposed a greater talent, more energetic labour, and a higher training than the writing of history. 93 Among Timaeus's stylistic peculiarities we may mention also his partiality for noting synchronizations. 94 T h e criticism of the conception and style of Timaeus's historical work makes it clear that he drew upon various literary and historiographical inspirations, and is not simply to be reckoned to the rhetorical or the "tragic" writing of history. His example also underlines the point that it will not do to assign the individual historians of the Hellenistic period unequivocally to one of the main streams of contemporary historiography. For in line with the expectations of their readers, the several conceptions of historiography began at an early date to overlap, and many historians unite in their works the characteristics both of rhetorical and of "tragic" history writing. According to the testimony of Cicero, Clitarchus, who wrote a history of Alexander at the end of the fourth century, already adorned his presentation of the deeds of the Macedonian king "in rhetorical and tragic fashion" (rhetonce et tragice ornare).95 The expansion of the geographical horizon following the conquests of Alexander and the manifold new relations with foreign peoples reawakened the interest in the historical tradition of hitherto unknown regions of the world, once so lively in Herodotus and his predeces-

92

FGrHist 566 F 7 = Plb. 12:28a:If.: "First of all he (Timaeus) says that the difference between history writing and epideictic oratory is as great as that between houses actually built and furnished and the places and objects which appear on stage scenery. Secondly he affirms that the collection of material for history writing represents a greater work than the whole study of epideicdc rhetoric." 93 Ephorus had already taken a stand against this opinion, cf. FGrHist 70 F 111. 94 Cf. FGrHist 566 F 105, where it is said that Euripides came into the world on the day of the battle of Salamis, and died on the very day on which the elder Dionysius was born, "while Tyche [. . .] at the same time carried off the forger of tragic sufferings and introduced the tragic hero". In FGrHist 566 F 150a we may read that Alexander was born in the very night in which the temple of Artemis at Ephesus was burnt down; Timaeus adds that this was not surprising because Artemis, since she wanted to be present at the confinement of Olympias, was absent from her house. 95 FGrHist 137 F 34 = Cic. Brut. 43.

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sors. Already in the early third century the Egyptian Manetho 96 and the Babylonian Berossus97 each published a history of his country in Greek, which had as its target the educated public in the Greek cities. Hecataeus of Abdera, 98 a contemporary of the poet Callimachus, wrote a geographical account and history of Egypt adorned with novelistic elements. Like the Peripatetics Theophrastus and Clearchus earlier, he was also interested in the Jewish people, their scripturally codified religion, understood as a "philosophy", and the political system in Judaea. Other peoples like the Parthians, the Ethiopians or the Celtic Galatians were described in the same fashion. T h e compilations of Alexander, 99 who bore the epithet Polyhistor and worked in Rome in the first half of the first century BC, were a compendium of such ethnographic and horographic literature which frequendy exhibited fictitious elements, paradoxes and miracle stories. T h e material excerpted by him was worked over by later authors, and enduringly stamped Roman ideas about foreign peoples in the imperial period.

96

FGrHist 609; cf. the edition by W. G. Waddell (LCL; London-Cambridge, MA 1940); R. Laqueur, RE 14 (1928), pp. 1060-1101; H. Kees, RE 3A.1 (1927), pp. 1234f. s.v. Sothisbuch; Ο. K. Armayor, "Herodotus' Influence on Manethon and the Implications for Egyptology", CB 61 (1985), pp. 7-10; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1 (Oxford 1972), pp. 505ff.; W. Helck, Untersuchungen zu Manetho und den Ägyptischen Königslisten (Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde Ägyptens, 18; Berlin 1956); D. Mendels, "The Polemical Character of Manetho's Aegyptiaca", Studio Hellenistica 30 (1990), pp. 91-100; D. B. Redford, Pharaonic King-lists, Annals and Day-Books (Ontario 1986). 97 FGrHist 680; cf. Ε. Schwartz, RE 3.1 (1897), pp. 309-16 = idem, GG, pp. 18999; J. Boncquet, "Berossus en de griekse geschiedschrijvers over Mesopotamie", Kleio 10 (1980), pp. 22-28; R. Drews, "The Babylonian Chronicles and Berossus", Iraq 37 (1975), pp. 39-55; A. Kuhrt, "Berossus' Babyloniaka and Seleucid Rule in Babylonia", in idem, and S. Sherwin-White (eds.), Hellenism in the East (Berkeley 1987), pp. 32ff.; C. F. Lehmann-Haupt, "Neue Studien zu Berossos", Klio 22 (1929), pp. 125-60; P. Schnabel, Berossos und die babylonisch-hellenistische Literatur (Leipzig 1923). 98 FGrHist 264; cf. F. Jacoby, RE 7 (1912), pp. 2 7 5 0 - 6 9 = idem, GH, pp. 227-37; F. H. Diamond, Hecataeus of Abdera: A New Historical Approach (Diss. Univ. of California, Los Angeles 1974); P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1 (Oxford 1972), pp. 496fT.; W. Spoerri, Späthellenistische Berichte übtτ Welt, Kultur und Götter (Schweizerische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft, 9; Basel 1959); idem, RAC 14 (1988), pp. 2 7 5 310, s.v. Hekataios (with detailed bibliography). 99 FGrHist 273; Cf. Ε. Schwartz, RE 1.2 (1894), pp. 1449-1452 = idem, GG, pp. 240-44.

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IV T h e first Greek who made the rise of Rome as the dominant power in the Mediterranean world into the central theme of a world history was the Arcadian Polybius of Megalopolis (ca. 200-ca. 120 BC). 1 0 0 In the Achaean League he rose to be "Hipparch", commander of the cavalry, and thus occupied the second highest position within the League. After the Roman victory over the Macedonian king Perseus at Pydna (167 BC) he was deported to Rome as a hostage with other prominent Greeks. In the house of Aemilius Paullus he became the tutor and friend of P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus (Scipio the Younger), the first important Philhellene in the Roman aristocracy. After seventeen years Polybius returned to his homeland, but a little later in Scipio's retinue took part in the campaign which led in 146 BC to the destruction of Carthage. In contrast to his minor writings, which are completely lost, the first five of a total of forty books of his major work, the great universal history ("Histories"), dealing with the period from 220 to 145/144 BC, have survived complete in direct manuscript tradition, and of the remainder large parts have come down to us in Byzantine collections of excerpts. This is the only Hellenistic work of history of which a considerable part has survived. 100

The standard edition is that of T. Büttner-Wobst (2 vols.; Leipzig 1889-1904 [several reprints]). Among bilingual editions may be mentioned those by W. R. Paton (6 vols.; LCL; London-Cambridge, MA 1922-1927 [several reprints]) and by P. Pédech, I.J. Foucault, R. WeU, C. Nicolet (8 vols.; Bude; Paris 1961-82). F. W. Walbank has written the fundamental commentary in three volumes (A Historical Commentary on Polybios [Oxford 1957-79]). From the abundant literature may be mentioned J. Boncquet, "Polybius on the Critical Evaluation of Historians", AncSoc 13/14 (1982/83), pp. 277-91; K. Ziegler, RE 21.2 (1952), pp. 1440-1578; A . M . Eckstein, Moral Vision in the "Histories" of Polybius (Berkeley 1995); K. F. Eisen, Polybiosinterpretationen (Heidelberg 1966); K. von Fritz, The Theory of Mixed Constitution in Antiquity (New York 1954); M. Geizer, "Über die Arbeitsweise des Polybios", SHAW 1956.3 = idem, Kleine Schriften, III (Wiesbaden 1964), pp. 161-90; R. Koerner, Polybios als Kritiker früherer Historiker (Diss. Jena 1957); R. Laqueur, Polybios (Leipzig 1913); G. A. Lehmann, Untersuchungen zur historischen Glaubwürdigkeit des Polybios (Münster 1967); K. Meister, Historische Kritik bei Polybios (Wiesbaden 1975); E. Mione, Polibio (Padua 1949); D. Musti, "Polibio negli studi deU'ultimo ventennio", ANRW 1.2 (1972), pp. 1114-1181; idem, Polibio e l'imperialismo romano (Naples 1978); S. Mohm, Untersuchungen ZU den historiographischen Anschauungen des Polybios (Diss. Saarbrücken 1977); P. Pédech, La méthode historique de Polybe (Paris 1964); Κ. Ε. Petzold, Studien zur Methode des Polybios und zu ihrer historischen Auswertung (Munich 1969); Polybe (Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt, 20; Vandoeuvres-Geneva 1974); Sacks, Polybios (note 12); G. Schepens, "'Έμφασις und ένάργεια in Polybios' Geschichtstheorie", RSA 5 (1975), pp. 185-200; Κ. Stiewe and N. Holzberg (eds.), Polybios (Darmstadt 1982) (pp. 439ff.: "Bibliographie 1970-1980"); F.W. Walbank, Polybios (note 14); idem, "Polybios' Sicht der Ver-

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According to the concept which he himself coined, Polybius seeks to practise "pragmatic history writing" (πραγματική Ιστορία), that is, the deeds (πράξεις) of peoples, cities and dynasties are to be set forth for the politically interested reader. 101 The indispensable presupposition for this kind of historiography is the detailed study of the sources, exact knowledge of the topographical and geographical data, and practical political and military experience (έμπειρία). With this requirement Polybius clearly sets himself apart from the "book-learned" Ephorus, Theopompus and above all Timaeus, who upheld the view that for the historian the attentive study of earlier works of history was sufficient.102 Polybius—in agreement with Thucydides—sees the aims of history writing in the establishing of the truth, the recognition of the causes, and the resultant insight into historical issues. Consequently for Polybius, in this too not unlike Thucydides, the concrete utility of pragmatic history writing lies in the communication of political (and military) relationships and in the instruction of the reader. However, unlike Thucydides, who as a rule allows things to speak for themselves, Polybius "like a pedantic schoolmaster felt it necessary to drive home every precept yielded by the narrative with uplifted forefinger and at length". 103 He firmly distanced himself from the "tragic" writing of history, which impresses readers for the moment, but then disappoints them, since the narrative which at first carries them along cannot hold its own against a critical narrative oriented towards the facts.104 In his criticism of Phylarchus he emphasizes that a presentation aimed at sensation and effect falsifies the truth and obliterates the boundary between tragedy and history.105 T h e historian therefore must strive not for έκπληξις ("strong emotion") but for recognition of the truth. This however presupposes a treatment in terms of universal history, since only such a treatment can provide a satisfying explanation of the whole; monographs on the other hand can always

gangenheit", Gymnasium 97 (1990), pp. 15-30; C. Wooten, "The Speeches of Polybios. An Insight into the Nature of Hellenistic Historiography", AJP 95 (1974), pp. 235-51. 101 Cf. the prologue to Book 9. 105 Plb. 12:25ff. 103 K. Ziegler, RE 21.2, p. 1552. 104 Cf. for example Plb. 15:36. 105 Plb. 2:56ff.; cf. also 3:47-48 (anonymous historian on Hannibal), 7:7 (historian on Hiero of Syracuse), 12:24:5 (Timaeus), 16:12 (Theopompus).

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illuminate only individual aspects.106 Finally Polybius reproaches the rhetorical writing of history because it is not oriented to the historical truth, but to rhetorical and stylistic principles; thus Timaeus freely invented his speeches, and showed no concern either for the exact wording or for an accurate reproducdon of the sense.107 In point of fact, Polybius's critique of method is directed against the main streams of Hellenistic historiography that were acknowledged in his time. Consequently he made Thucydides' demands on the reproduction of speeches108 his own. Like all ancient historians, Polybius also took over the practice, usual since Herodotus and perfected by Thucydides, of introducing direct or indirect speeches into his presentation and with their aid interpreting historical occurrences. Altogether about fifty speeches can be identified, sometimes in the form of twin speeches but for the most part only in meagre extracts. Here Polybius describes it as the specific task of the historian "to ascertain the speeches which were actually delivered, of whatever kind they were". 109 Although in theory, and specifically in his polemical digressions, he makes an energetic plea for the verbatim reproduction of what was said, he actually follows the policy of Thucydides, in that he lets the speaker say τά καιριώτατα και πραγματικώτατα, what is necessary and appropriate in the given situation.110 Polybius's language is the κοινή current at the time. 1 " In phonology and morphology, in syntax and in grammar, he is not essentially different from Attic, but he is in vocabulary and phraseology. Artificially compounded verbs, long participial and infinitive constructions, ponderous prepositional phrases, frequent references back and tautologies underline his concern to reproduce what happened in accordance with the facts, precisely and beyond misunderstanding, and to set himself apart even in external form from the other programmes of contemporary historiography, conceived only from literary points 106

Cf. for example Plb. l:3:3ff.; 3:32; 7:7; 8:4; 29:12. Plb. 12:25a; cf. 36:1:2. 108 Th. 1:22:1. 109 Plb. 12:12b: I; cf. 12:25i:8; 2:56:10; 36:1:7. 110 Plb. 36:1:7. Cf. χα δέοντα in Th. 1:22:1. On the speeches in Polybius cf. esp. K. Ziegler, RE 21.2, pp. 1524-27 also Kennedy, pp. 32ff. and Sacks (as note 12), pp. 79ff. On the recasdng of the speeches, letters and documents reproduced by ancient historians, Norden pp. 68ff. is still worth reading. 111 On the language and style of Polybius cf. M. Dubuisson, Le latin de Polybe: Les implications historiques d'un cas de bilinguisme (Paris 1985); J. A. Foucault, Recherches sur la langue et le style de Polybe (Paris 1972); Norden, pp. 152ff. and K. Ziegler, RE 21.2, pp. 1569-72 with older literature. ,07

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of view. His excessively correct style, not always lucid but free from flourishes, is akin to the Hellenistic official language known to us from numerous papyri and inscriptions. T o this belongs also the avoidance of hiatus, which was strictly observed by Polybius." 2 If he sets the concrete profit and instruction of his reader at the centre of his concern, and describes the effort to captivate and entertain the reader as secondary, 113 he still had regard for literary conventions: he inserts citations from the poets, familiar sayings, parables and metaphors, to satisfy the demands for a pleasing style and for the beauty of his presentation (τό τερπνόν). Yet however much Polybius was esteemed as a historian in antiquity, as a stylist he did not count. Cicero, who calls him pmtissimus rerum milium*14 and bonus auctor in pnmis,Ub does not mention him in a single word in those passages where he speaks of the literary side of historical writing. Dionysius of Halicamassus finally reckons him among those historians whom nobody could read to the end. 116

V

Hellenistic history writing is characterized by a multiplicity of historiographie genres and by the high skill of its formal shaping. T h e author could choose between different courses, or combine individual elements. The "rhetorical" writing of history strove, after the Isocratean model, for stylistically artistic shaping, the "tragic" sought to present the events pictorially and graphically, and the "pragmatic" postulated a sober investigation of the facts and their causes. With all their differences, these streams had it in common that the authors were all concerned for a fastidious formal shaping. T o this belonged—as already in classical times—the clear arrangement and disposition of the work and the use of conventional materials. Thus at the beginning stood the prologue, in which as a rule were to be found autobio112

Cf. T. Büttner-Wobst, "Der Hiatus nach dem Artikel bei Polybios", Philologus 16 (1903), pp. 541-62. 113 Thus at 16:17:9-10 he criricizes the historian Zeno of Rhodes, because like many other historians he had taken less care over the investigation of the facts and the appropriate handling of the material than over the elegance of his style; cf. further 1:4:11; 2:56:10ff.; 6:2:8; 9:1-2; 10:27:8; 11:18a; 12:25b; 25g. 114 Cic. Rep. 1:34; Cf. 2:27. 115 Cic. Off. 3:113. 116 D.H. Comp. 4:30.

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graphical information about the author, an indication of the greatness and importance of the theme, notes on historical method and on the intention of the work. Within the presentation, descriptions of batdes, individual historical scenes, ekphraseis, digressions, concluding evaluations of historical personages, and not least the verbatim speeches were frequendy given a telling form. Here the historians generally did not limit themselves to a simple stringing together of events, but sought, as W. Schadewalt has apdy put it for Herodotus, to produce "a living, organic whole", in that they subordinated the abundance of reports and information to one "great organizing theme of composition, a main line"." 7 In Hellenism the influence of rhetorical training grew increasingly strong over the whole of prose literature, and consequendy on historical writing also. There was no historical work for which its author raised any literary claims which was not judged wholly or predominandy from a stylistic and rhetorical point of view, instead of according to its content. This becomes most evident in the so-called "rhetorical" writing of history, which in line with the programme of the school founded by Isocrates integrated historiography into rhetoric and reduced it to the function of a normative stylistic model. Even the increasing influence of philosophical schools, above all the Peripatetic, did not counter the widespread opinion that artistic delight (τέρψις)—alongside profit (ωφέλεια)—was the pre-eminent aim of historical writing. For the rest, the almost complete loss of Hellenistic history writing, as of other genres of Hellenistic literature, is due to the fact that literary taste had fundamentally changed in the second half of the first century BC. Since the prose authors of the third to the first centuries no longer ranked as models of style, there was at most an antiquarian interest in the history of literature to justify reading them. T h e Hellenistic historians, who mosdy came from the urban upper classes, received their education and their training within the framework of the polis. Here the emphasis lay upon rhetorical and literary instruction, and the rhetorical tuition, with its declamation themes borrowed from "classical" history, demanded historical studies." 8 There

117

W. Schadewaldt, Die Anfange der Geschichtsschreibung bei den Griechen. Herodot, Thukydides (Tübinger Vorlesungen, 2; Frankfurt 1982), pp. 141-42. 118 Cf. Hose, pp. 5ff.; Meißner (as note 24) and R. Nicolai, La storiogra/ia nell'educazione antica (Pisa 1992).

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was no development of an independent historical curriculum, nor were there any professional historians. Among the writers of history we find quite varied vocations, but politicians, military men, philosophers, sophists, teachers of rhetoric and literary scholars predominate. That these authors for the most part gave political instruction the second place behind literary enjoyment, and sought to meet a desire for fastidious entertainment, had its reasons not only in literary and rhetorical convention but also in a radical change in the world of the Hellenistic states. As a historian, one could no longer achieve publicity and success on the venerable principle of communicating political insights: in the face of the great Hellenistic kingdoms with their small elite of governors and functionaries, the circle of those who bore political responsibility and took an active part in political life more and more decreased. T h e historian therefore had to recount in lively fashion events beyond his reach, and qualify ethically the personalities involved. It is no accident that Polybius revives and energetically stresses the advantages of a writing of history that is true to the facts and seeks for the causes." 9 After the destruction of the Macedonian kingdom the Greek city state experienced a brief false flowering, which fostered hopes of political independence. Polybius countered his countrymen's dreams of freedom with a precise analysis of the factors which led to the collapse of their old world, and the reasons which ensured the rise of Rome to be the dominant power. From this there followed of necessity the insight that one must come to terms with the real balance of power, and that meant: with Roman hegemony in the Mediterranean region.

VI With Polybius, Rome had entered into the foreground of history writing. The thread of his work was picked up by the Stoic philosopher Posidonius of Apamea (ca. 135-51 BC),120 who in 52 books 119

Plb. 3:4:3ff. Cf. FGrHist 87, also L. Edelstein and I. G. Kidd, Posidonius 1: The Fragments, 2: The Commentary (Cambridge 1989) and W. Theiler, Poseidonios. Die Fragmente, 1: Texte, 2: Erläuterungen (Berlin 1982); Κ. Reinhardt, Poseidonios (Munich 1921); idem, RE 22.1 (1953), pp. 558-826; Κ. von Fritz, "Poseidonios als Historiker", in Historiographia antiqua: Commentationes Lovanienses in honorem W. Peremans septuagenam editae (Leuven 1977), pp. 163-93; M. Laffranque, Poseidonios d'Apamé (Paris 1965); J. Malitz, Die Historien 120

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described the period from 145 down to the eighties of the first century BC. For him, even more than for Polybius, universal history meant the history of the Roman empire. Posidonius not only dealt with political and military history, but equally took into consideration economic, social, cultural, ethnological, geographical and religious aspects, as well as natural science. The aim of his historical work consisted in comprehending all the historically acdve forces, which according to the Stoic conception were interpreted as parts of an allembracing whole. Since he linked together philosophical ethics and the writing of history, he was specially interested in questions of "social history", and from his pen there comes an account, as detailed as it is cridcal, of the many slave revolts of the late second and early first century BC.121 Still, he stands entirely on the side of the conservative senatorial aristocracy, and condemns the social reformers from Tiberius Gracchus to Marius and Cinna. 122 Here Posidonius understood how to set the historical events before our eyes in an uncommonly lively and graphic manner, and to present his detailed material, in conformity with the principles of rhetorical historiography, in a fastidious literary fashion. 123 Strabo expressly highlights the fact that Posidonius did not refrain from the customary ρητορεία, rather he was even enthusiastically fond of the ΰπερβολαί.124 Cicero also esteems him as a rhetoricizing historian. 125 With the expansion and consolidation of the Imperium Romanum, the need grew for the writing of world history from a Roman perspective. Hence several Greek authors set forth presentations of universal history in the second half of the first century BC. Here should be mentioned above all Timagenes of Alexandria,' 26 who came to Rome as a prisoner of war in 55 BC and in addition to many other des Poseidonios (Munich 1983); K. Schmidt, Kosmologische Aspekte im Geschichtswerk des Poseidonios (Güttingen 1980); H. G. Thuemmel, "Poseidonios und die Geschichte", Klio 66 (1984), pp. 558-61. 121 On the close interweaving of the social with the economic and political problems, cf. H. Strasburger, "Poseidonios on the Problems of the Roman Empire", JRS 55 (1965), pp. 4 0 - 5 3 = idem, Studien zur Alten Geschichte, II (Hildesheim-New York 1982), pp. 920-45 (German version). 122 Cf. e.g. FGrHist 87 F 45 and 110-112. 123 One need only read the appealing speech with which the philosopher Athenion wins the Athenians for Mithridates: FGrHist 87 F 36. 124 Str. 3:2:9 (= FGrHist 87 F 47). 125 Cic. Att. 2:1:2 (= FGrHist 87 Τ 9). 126 FGrHist 88. Cf. M. Sordi, "Timagene di Alessandria: uno storico ellenocentrico e filobarbarico", ANRW 11.30:1 (1982), pp. 775-97 with further literature.

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writings published a work critical of Rome with the title " O n the Kings", which probably extended down to the time of Caesar; Nicolaus of Damascus (ca. 64 BC to shortly after the birth of Christ),127 who at the instigation of King Herod composed a world history in 144 books; the well-known geographer Strabo of Amaseia (ca. 64 B C - A D 27),128 whose universal history bore the tide υπομνήματα ιστορικά and consisted of 47 books; and Diodorus from Agyrion in Sicily,129 who in the second half of the first century BC wrote his 40-volume world history (Βιβλιοθήκη Ιστορική), which extended from the origin of the world down to 6 0 / 5 9 BC.130 Books 1 to 5 and 11 to 20 have survived; the content of the remaining books can be reconstructed from fragments, especially the Constantinian excerpts. For the several periods Diodorus used earlier authors who seemed to him reliable, and where more than one version was available he made a compilation. 131 In his manner of working, the form and content of the sources he reworked remain as a rule transparent. For his account of Hellenistic 127

FGrHist 90. On his person and work cf. R. Laqueur, RE 17.1 (1936), pp. 362424; more recent literature in M. Toher, The Βίος Καίσαρος of Nicolaus of Damascus: An Historiographical Analysis (Diss. Brown Univ. Providence 1985). 128 On his historical work cf. FGrHist 91 and E. Honigmann, RE 4A. 1 (1931), pp. 85-90. Further literature in F. Lasserre, "Strabon devant l'Empire romain", ANRW 11.30:1 (1982), pp. 867 96. 129 Among editions may be mentioned: F. Vogel and C. T. Fischer (5 vols.; 3rd edn.; Leipzig 1888-1906), which however extends only to book 20; for books 21ff., cf. the three editions of L. Dindorf and C. Müller (1828-1868) as well as the complete edition by C. Oldfather, C. L. Sherman, C. Bradford Welles, R. M. Geer, F. R. Walton (12 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA-London 1933-67). Literature: E. Schwartz, RE 5.1 (1903), pp. 663-704 = idem, GG, pp. 35-97; F. Càssola, "Diodoro e la storia romana", ANRW 11.30:1 (1982), pp. 724-73 (survey of research); J. L. Ferrary, Philhellénisme et impérialisme (Rome 1988); E. Galvagno, C. Molè Ventura (eds.), Mito, storia, tradizione. Diodoro Siculo e la storiografia classica (Catania 1991); G. Perl, Kritische Untersuchungen zu Diodors römischer Jahreszählung (Berlin 1957); K. S. Sacks, Diodorus Siculus and the First Century (Princeton 1990); W. Spoerri, Späthellenistische Berichte über Welt, Kultur und Götter: Untersuchungen zu Diodor von Sizilien (Basel 1959); idem, "Diodorea", MH 48 (1991), pp. 310-19; G. Wirth, Diodor und das Ende des Hellenismus: Mutmaßungen zu einem fast unbekannten Historiker (Vienna 1993). 130 On the structure and chronology of the work cf. D. S. l:4:6ff. 131 The question what models Diodorus used is still controversial among scholars. The single-source theory which goes back to H. Nissen (Kritische Untersuchungen über die Quellen der vierten und fünften Dekade des Livius [Berlin 1863]), according to which Diodorus copied and abridged Polybius, modernizing his language, is increasingly criticized. At the same time those voices grow stronger which emphasise Diodorus's independence and value as author and source, and turn against the verdict of T. Mommsen, who attacked the "incredible ingenuousness and even more incredible unscrupulousness of this most wretched of all writers" (Die römische Chronologie bis auf Caesar [2nd edn.; Berlin 1859], p. 125). On the history of research cf. J. Seibert, Das Zeitalter der Diadochen (Darmstadt 1983), pp. 27fT.

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history he followed Timaeus, Polybius, Hieronymus of Cardia and Posidonius, for knowledge of whom the fragments recovered from the "Historical Library" are our main source. Diodorus deals with events from the mythical period down to the first Olympiad in 776 BC arranged according to themadc areas; thereafter he structures what took place in annalisdc and synchronic fashion, bringing together according to particular years events spatially remote from one another in the inhabited world. 132 Here he did not shrink from dismembering proceedings which extended over several years and distribudng them among particular years, or again adducing them wholly under one year. As his chronological scaffolding Diodorus probably used a Hellenistic chronography, which he combined with the Roman consular lists. He wrote a uniform, easily readable and comprehensible style133 and in contrast to many other Hellenistic historians—apart from jusdfied exceptions—renounced the insertion in his account of lengthy verbadm speeches, since he felt these obtrusive. In full agreement with the "tragic" writing of history, he turned against so great an expansion of the share allotted to the speeches, in number and in compass, that the flow of the narrative suffered from too many interruptions and the organic harmony was destroyed. However, he declined to renounce rhetorical inlays altogether in his history, in order not to rob historical writing of its ποικιλία, its richness in variety.134

VII A new stylistic trend, in conscious opposition to Hellenism and its motley variety of possible styles, began with Dionysius of Halicarnassus,' 35 who came to Rome in 30 BC. This looked back to Isocrates 132

Cf. for example D. S. 11:1:1 on the year 480 BC: "Under the Athenian archon Calliades, the Romans named Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius Tricostus as consuls; among the Eleans the 75th Olympiad was celebrated, in which the Syracusan Astylus was victor in the 'stadion'". 133 Cf. J. Palm, Über Sprache und Stil des Diodoros von Sizilien (Lund 1955). 134 Cf. D. S. 20:1:1-2:2. The prologue to book 20 possibly goes back to Duris, cf. e.g. M. Kunz, £ur Beurteilung der Proömien Diodors historischer Bibliothek (Diss. Zürich 1935), pp. lOOff. 135 The standard edition of the text of the "Antiquitates Romanae" is that of C. Jacoby (4 vols.; Leipzig 1885-1905) and the other works were published by H. Usener and L. Radermacher (Leipzig 1899-1929). E. Cary has published a bilingual edition of the "Roman Antiquities" in LCL (7 vols.; London-Cambridge, MA, 1937-50), the "Critical Essays" are edited in LCL by S. Usher (1974/85). Cf. further

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as its example, and set classical Attic prose as the absolute model of style. Dionysius, at the same time the first theorist of the Atdcizing reaction, composed some monographs on individual Attic orators and on special rhetorical problems, as well as a Roman history in 20 books, which served as a historiographical example of the new style. Books 1 to 10 have survived complete, book 11 with many gaps, and the remainder in fragments. The content of the "Roman Antiquities" (Ρωμαϊκή αρχαιολογία), which was published in 7 BC,136 was the history of Rome from primaeval times to the outbreak of the First Punic War in 264 BC, with which, as he indicates, the detailed Greek presentations of Roman history begin.137 According to his own testimony, Dionysius seeks to combine the various historiographical genres, in order to satisfy both the politically active reader and the one whose interests were theoretical and philosophical, as well as those who wished to beguile their time with some attractive historical reading.138 He did not however carry out any independent research into the facts and causes, but wrote his history as an orator, attractively stylizing and transposing to literary effect the information which he gathered from his sources, which were mainly annalistic. His language reflects the purism of the first Atticists, but his choice of words still bears a strongly Hellenistic stamp. Numerous speeches are incorporated into the work; they evidently conformed with his rhetorical tenets and frequently link up with Thucydides, Xenophon,

E. Schwartz, RE 5.1 (1903), pp. 934-61 = idem, GG, pp., 319-60; L. Radermacher, RE 5.1 (1903), pp. 961-71; S. F. Bonner, The Literary Treatises of Dionysius of Halicamassus: A Study in the Development of Critical Method (Cambridge 1939); C. W. Bowersock, Augustus and the Greek World (Oxford 1965), pp. 130fF.; M. Egger, Denys d'Halicamasse: Essai sur la critique littéraire et la rhétorique chez les Grecs au siècle d'Auguste (Paris 1902); S. Ek, Herodotismen in der Archäologie des Dionys von Halikamaß (Lund 1942); E. Gabba, "La 'Storia di Roma arcaica' di Dionigi d'Alicarnasso", ANRW 11.30:1 (1982), pp. 7 9 9 816; Ε. Gaida, Die Schlachtenschilderungen in den Antiquitates Romanae des Dionysios von Halikamaß (Diss. Breslau 1934); H. Hill, "Dionysius of Halikarnassus and the Origins of Rome", JRS 51 (1961), pp. 68 93; A. Hurst, "Un critique grec dans la Rome d'Auguste: Denys d'Halicamasse", 4/VRWIL30:l (1982), pp. 839-65; Kennedy, pp. 342ff.; D. Marin, "Dionisio di Alicarnasso e il latino", in Hommages à M. Renard (Brussels 1969), pp. 597-607; P. Martin, "Le dessein de Denys d'Halicamasse dans les Antiquités Romaines et sa conception de l'histoire à travers sa préface du livre I", Caesarodunum 4 (1969), pp. 198-202; K. S. Sacks, "Historiography in the Rhetorical Works of Dionysius of Halicamassus", Athenaeum 61 (1983), pp. 65-87; S. Usher, "The Style of Dionysius of Halicamassus in the 'Antiquitates Romanae'", ANRW 11.30:1 (1982), pp. 817-38 with detailed references to older literature. 136 D.H. 1:3:4. 13 ' D.H. 1:8:1-2. Dionysius at this point naturally alludes to Polybius. 138 D.H. 1:8:3.

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Demosthenes and Isocrates. From the third book on, a third of the entire text is assigned to speeches. Over and above this, his discussion of Thucydides (περί του Θουκυδίδου χαρακτηρος) had an influence on the theory of historiography in the Hellenistic-Roman period; in his stylistic criticism he speaks of history as the priestess of Truth. 139 T h e "Roman Antiquities", as a Greek presentation of the oldest Roman history, had a style-shaping effect not simply because the author, as he himself thought, surpassed his predecessors, 140 but because the Attic style here represented achieved a quick success and the educated public turned away from the traditions of literary prose hitherto in vogue. It was scarcely by chance that this harking back to the language and style of an idealized antiquity took place precisely at the moment when with Egypt the last independent part of the world of the Greek cities came under Roman domination. The heritage of classical Greece was now brought into the bilingual culture of the Imperium Romanum. In content, language and style, Atticism was intimately associated with this turning back to the past, which was idealized and admired. T h e Greek history writing of the imperial period also was more and more oriented towards the models of a great bygone age, and practised the Atticizing mode. Stylistic classicism went hand in hand with compilation in matters of content. Here it was not only historians and antiquarians, but also grammarians and lexicographers, orators and teachers in the gymnasium, writers of military works and travel guides, authors of novels and of biographies, who now communicated historical, geographical and ethnographical information, anecdotes, paradoxes, wonder stories and παραδείγματα.141 The sophist Lucian of Samosata (ca. AD 120-180) in his critical work "How One Should Write History" (Πώς δει ίστορίαν συγγράφειν; De histona conscHbenda)H2 turned against contemporary history writing and its eccen-

139

D.H. Th. 8. D.H. Pomp. 3:7; cf. 1:8:3. 141 On this the following are still worth reading: E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer (2nd edn.; Leipzig 1900), pp. 349ff.; Norden, pp. 35Iff. and W. Schmid, Der Atticismus in seinen Hauptvertretem von Dionynus von Halikamass bis auf den zweiten Philostratus (5 vols.; Stuttgart 1887-97). On the historical background cf. generally G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford 1969). 142 An English-Greek edition was provided by K. Kilburn (LCL; Cambridge, MALondon 1959); H. Homeyer (Munich 1965) has published a German-Greek edition with introduction and commentary. Cf. G. Avenarius, Lukians Schrift zur Geschichtsschreibung (Meisenheim 1956). Further literature on Lucian in M. D. Macleod, "Lucianic 140

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tricities. The style and tenor of the work are didacdc and moralizing, and recall the philosophical and rhetorical diatribe. T h e starting point is a violent polemic against the descriptions of the Parthian War under Lucius Verus which Lucian claims to have heard from some archaizing historians in Ionia and Achaea. 143 He firmly emphasizes that the boundaries between history writing on the one side and encomium and romance on the other must be observed. After a detailed cridcism of particulars, he sets out general historiographical rules. T o be able to observe these successfully, however, the historian must bring with him two main qualities: political understanding (σύνεσις πολιτική) and the power of expression (δύναμις ερμηνευτική).144 Practical military and political experience had not only been enjoined by Polybius and other Hellenistic authors such as Theopompus, but had already been presupposed by Thucydides. In fact Lucian, who defends a form of history writing appropriate to the content and not rhetorically embellished, knows himself indebted to Thucydides. For his work begins with an allusion to Thucydides, unmistakable for those in the know, and ends in the epilogue with a reminiscence of the famous aphorism in 1:22:4: "History should be written in that spirit, with truthfulness and an eye to future expectations rather than with adulation and a view to the pleasure of present praise". 145 The certainly numerous imitators of Thucydides 146 had in Lucian's eyes sinned against this commandment, and are therefore criticized harshly and at length.147 In his two books Verae Historiae, Lucian also attacks rhetorical adornment and literary excess as historical methods,

Studies since 1930...", ANRW 11.34:2 (1994), pp. 1362-1421 and G. Anderson, "Lucian: Tradition versus Reality", ANRW 11.34:2 pp. 1422-47. On the Historia Conscnbenda cf. now A. Georgiadou and D. H.J. Larmour, "Lucian and Historiography: 'De Historia Conscribenda' and 'Verae Historiae'", ANRW 11.34:2 (1994), pp. 1448-1509 (with bibliography). 143 On this cf. Κ. Strobel, "Zeitgeschichte unter den Antoninen: Die Historiker des Partherkrieges des Lucius Verus", ANRW 11.34:2 (1994), pp. 1315-60. 144 Lucian Hist. Consa. 34. 145 Lucian Hist. Consa. 63 (LCL translation). Cf. Th. 1:22:4: "Whoever shall wish to have a clear view both of the events which have happened and of those which will some day, in all human probability, happen again in the same or a similar way—for these to adjudge my history profitable will be enough for me. And, indeed, it has been composed not as a prize essay to be heard for the moment, but as a possession for all time" (LCL translation). 146 Cf. H. G. Strebel, Watung und Wirkung des thukydideischen Geschichtswakes in da griechisch-römischen Literatur (Diss. Munich 1935), esp. pp. 64ff. and O. Luschnat, RE Sup. 12 (1970), pp. 1085-1354, s.v. Thukydides, esp. pp. 1299ff. 147 Lucian Hist. Consa. 15:19:26.

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exaggerating in parody the fantastic inventions of the adventure novels. This witty insight into the historiographical practice and discussion of style at that time is to be seen against the background of the steadily growing influence of rhetoric. Lucian's resumption of the Hellenistic discussion of theory was no accident. For historians in the proper sense, who described a period or a historical personality, were the exception right down to the period of the Antonines.

VIII In the early empire and at the beginning of its middle period, there was a preponderance of monograph presentations on ethnography and horography, composed after Hellenistic models; these two genres certainly enjoyed a second flowering.148 Flavius Arrianus 149 (ca. AD 95-ca. 175) from Nicomedian Bithynia also showed himself indebted to this tradition. As a protégé of the emperor Hadrian 150 he rose to the rank οΪ consul suffectus and for six years (ca. AD 131-137) governed the province of Cappadocia. Arrian composed ethnographical and historical treatises like the eight-volume "Bithyniaca", the "Parthica" in 17 books, which contains a report on Trajan's Parthian wars, and the "Alanica", which portrays in detail the Roman conflicts with the Alans in AD 134/5. In addition, however, he composed an "Anabasis of Alexander" in seven books, the title and number of books reflect146

I mention here only the Samian Horoi of Potamon of Mytilene (FGrHist 147), the Tyrrhenica and Carckedoniaca of the emperor Claudius (FGrHist 276), the Aegyptiaca of Apion and of Chaeremon of Alexandria (FGrHist 616; 618), the Getica of Dio of Prusa (,FGrHist 707) and of Trajan's personal physician Crito (FGrHist 200) and the Phoenuica of Philo of Byblus (FGrHist 802-824). 149 Two-volume edition by A. G. Roos, revised by G. Wirth (2nd edn.; Leipzig 1967-68); English-Greek edition of the Anabasis and the Indica by Ε. I. Robson (LCL; Cambridge, MA-London 1929-39) (revised text and translation with new introduction and notes by P.A. Brunt, 1976-83). The fragments are in FGrHist 156. Cf. further E. Schwartz, RE 2.1 (1895), pp. 1230-47 = idem, GG, pp. 130-55; A. B. Bosworth, From Arrian to Alexander: Studies in Historical Interpretation (Oxford 1988); A. Breebaart, Enige hutonografische aspecten van Arrianus' Anabasis Alexandri (Diss. Leiden 1960); J. Seibert, Alexander der Große (Darmstadt 1972), pp. 38-40; P.A. Städter, Arrian of Nicomedia (Chapel Hill 1980); H. Tonnet, Recherches sur Arrien, sa personnalité et ses écrits Atticistes (Amsterdam 1988). Reference may be made also to the contributions by A. B. Bosworth, A. Silberman and A. M. Devine in ANRW 11.34:1 (1993), pp. 226-337. 150 On the background cf. in general J. M. André, "Hadrien littérateur et protecteur des lettres", ANRW 11.34:1 (1993), pp. 583-611 and S.A. Stertz, Semper in omnibus varius: "The Emperor Hadrian and Intellectuals", ANRW 11.34:1, pp. 612-28 with further literature.

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ing a reminiscence of Xenophon, an "Indica", which as a supplement to the "Anabasis" gives an ethnographical and geographical survey of Indian history and of Nearchus's voyage of discovery, and a ten-volume history of the events after Alexander's death (τά μετ' Άλέξανδρον). The earliest extant work of Arrian is a Penplous of the Euxine Sea. T o this we may add biographical, philosophical and military writings. His avowed model in content and style was Xenophon, and in fact he more than once emphasizes that he wished to be a νέος Ξενοφών or new Xenophon. 151 Consequently he strove for a simple Attic without rhetorical exaggerations. 152 He is perfectly prepared—like his classical models—to leave hiatus at certain places. He is critical of miracle stories and paradoxes, 153 reproduces speeches concisely—frequently in paraphrase— 154 is concerned for a factual description of military affairs, and following Xenophon's example renounces the division and numbering of books. O n occasion a moralizing trait stands out in his history writing. T h e "Indica", possibly through some connection with Nearchus, one of his sources, is composed in the Ionic dialect.155 Arrian's historiographical writings, above all his presentations of the history of Alexander, are more than mere exercises in style, and contrast pleasantly with the formal trifling of contemporary archaizing authors. As we owe to Arrian's compilations from earlier authors a history of Alexander, so we are indebted to Appian of Alexandria (about AD 95-165) 156 for a history of the Roman wars. Appian was acdve as an

151

Arr. Peripl.M.Eux. 1:1:12; 5:25:1; Tact. 29:8; Cyn. 1:4. On his language cf. also K. Latte, Ein neues Arrianftagment (Nachrichten von der Akad. d. Wiss. in Göttingen, Phil.-hist. Klasse; 1950), pp. 23-27. 153 Cf. e.g. An. 5:1:2; 5:5:3; 6:ll:2ff.; 6:28:lff.; 7:15:6. 154 Cf. An. 3:9:5fr.; 5:1:5-6; 5:19:2; 7:1:6; 7:2:2ff. 155 Cf. A. G. Roos, "De Arriani dialecto ionica", Mnemosyne 55 (1927), pp. 23-45, also in general F. G. Allinson, "Pseudo-Ionism in the Second Century AD.", AJP 1 (1886), pp. 203-17 and E. Manni, "Asinio Quadrato e l'Arcaismo Erodoteo nel III secolo D. C.", in Gedenkschüft F. Ferrero (Turin 1971), pp. 191-201. 156 The last critical edition of Appian was edited by P. Viereck and A. G. Roos (Leipzig 1905/1939) on the basis of the edition published by L. Mendelssohn (Leipzig 1879-81). H. White has provided an English-Greek edition in LCL (4 vols.; Cambridge, MA 1912-13). For a long time scholars have pursued above all the question of the sources Appian used in his history, and ever more complex stemmata have been proposed, cf. for example E. Schwartz, RE 3.2 (1899), pp. 1684 1722 = idem, GG, pp. 361-91. In the process the literary quality of the work and Appian's talents as a writer have to some extent been neglected. On new approaches and controversies cf. the articles by K. Brodersen, I. Hahn, F.J. Gomez Espelosin, C. G. Leidl, G. Marasco, B. C. McGing and D. Magnino in ANRW 11.34:1 (1993), pp. 339-554 with detailed bibliography, also K. Brodersen, Appians Abriß der Seleuhdengeschichte (Syriake 152

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advocate in Rome under Hadrian and a friend of Fronto, the champion of Latin archaism. His "Roman History" ('Ρωμαϊκά), comprising 24 books, was subdivided according to individual thematic areas. In the preface, which offers a comparison of the Imperium Romanum with the other world empires 157 and a survey of the contents, Appian expresses himself at length on the construction of his presentation, which departed from the usual synchronistic form. During his work he had been compelled, like a wanderer, to hasten from one people to another and back again, so that finally he resolved to set forth the history of each people from the moment when it came into conflict with the Romans, as a self-contained account without consideration of the events taking place at the same time in other places, and to give to each a separate title.158 A necessary consequence of this structural principle is that again and again we come across repetitions, cross-references and recapitulations. The work, of which the prologue, books 6 to 8, parts of book 9 and books 11 to 17 are extant, covers the whole of Roman history down to the present. Among the parts handed down complete are the 'Ιβηρική (6), the Άννιβαϊκή (7), the Λιβυκή (8), the Συριακή (11), the Μιθριδάτειος (12), the 'Ιλλυρική (second part of book 9) and the books about the Civil Wars (13-17), introduced by five prefaces of their own. The original disposition of the material κατά έθνος probably goes back to the example of Herodotus, whom Appian follows in several linguistic and stylistic respects.159 Appian writes a clear, flowing and easily readable style, and is distinguished in particular by a well thought out and independent arrangement of the material. The factors which in his view conditioned the rise of Rome into a world empire are to be made clear by the choice and ordering of the events. His procedure shows itself in full agreement with the theory of Dionysius of Halicamassus, according to which the beginning and end of a work ought to be exacdy planned, in order to yield a complete whole:160 the beginning

45, 232-70, 369): Text und Kommentar (Munich 1989); idem, Appians Antiochike (Syriake 1, 1-44, 232): Text und Kommentar (Munich 1991); G. Gowing, The Triumvirat Narrative of Appian and Cassius Dio (Ann Arbor 1992); Hose, pp. 142ff.; J. van der Leest, Appian and the Writing of the Roman History (Diss. Toronto 1988 [microfiche]). 157 On parallel passages cf. W. Gernentz, Laudes Romae (Diss Rostock 1918), pp. 99ff. 158 Cf. App. Praef 12-14. 159 Cf. e.g. A. Zerdik, Quaestiones Appianeae (Diss. Kiel 1886), pp. 3-48. 160 Cf. D. H. Pomp. 3:9ff.

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and end of the several books are clearly marked, telling details like variegated descriptions of battles and anecdotal narratives are so selected that weariness never overtakes the reader, the ordering of events is not chronological but thematic, and the author does not refrain from ethical appraisal. In the shaping of his "Roman History" Appian has regard for what the rhetorically educated reader particularly expected from the genre of historiography. A little more than half a century after Appian, another Bithynian became a historian of the Roman empire: Cassius Dio Cocceianus from Nicaea (ca. AD 155-ca. 235).161 As son of a Roman senator he made a career in the imperial government, and in AD 229 held his second consulship along with the emperor Severus Alexander, then 21 years old. His chief work, on which he worked for twelve years after a ten-year period in the collecting of material (roughly from AD 196 to 216), was his "Roman History" ('Ρωμαϊκή ιστορία) in 80 books, which—divided into decads and pentads—extended from the early Roman period down to AD 229. Today only books 36 to 60 are extant, dealing with the period from 68 BC to AD 47; in addition there are extensive Byzantine excerpts. The work is arranged annalistically, and accordingly follows the main part of the sources adduced by Cassius Dio. Yet the author seeks to combine what belongs together in space and time. He professes a conception of historiography according to which the writing of history has to communicate only what is essential, and should not aspire to any detailed or novelistically embellished narrative of events.162 Long speeches are frequendy inserted into the presentation, and in these Dio occasionally puts his own reflections and ideas into the mouth of historical personalities; a particularly instructive example is the discussion

161 The fundamental edition was published by U. P. Boissevain (5 vols.; Berlin 1895-1931; reprint 1955-69); cf. in addition the editions b y j . Melber (3 vols.; Leipzig 1890-1928) and E. Cary (with English translation: 9 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MALondon 1914-26). On Cassius Dio cf. Ε. Schwartz, RE 3.2 (1899), pp. 1684-1722 = idem, GG, pp. 394-50; B. Baldwin, "Historiography in the Second Century. Predecessors of Dio Cassius", Klio 68 (1986), pp. 479-86; R. Bering-Stachewski, Römische Zeitgeschichte bei Cassius Dio (Diss. Bochum 1981); J. Bleicken, "Der politische Standpunkt Dios gegenüber der Monarchie", Hermes 90 (1962), pp. 444-67; Gowing (as note 156); Hose, pp. 356ff.; F. Kolb, Literarische Beziehungen zwischen Cassius Dio, Herodian und der Historia Augusta (Bonn 1972); B. Manuwald, Cassius Dio und Augustus (Munich 1979); F. Millar, A Study of Cassius Dio (Oxford 1964); Norden, pp. 395ff. and the contributions announced for ANRW 11.32:3. 162 D . C . 46:35:1.

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between Agrippa and Maecenas on the merits of the republican and the monarchical forms of state, in which Maecenas puts forward thoughts on the reform of the contemporary autocracy. 163 Firmly rooted in the tradidon of the senatorial writing of history in the imperial period, Dio had also gone to school with Thucydides. Thus he transferred to Caesar and the Romans properties of thinking about power such as Thucydides had illustrated from Pericles and the Athenians.164 In his analysis of the Augustan principate also he followed the celebrated analysis of the Periclean state leadership by Thucydides, who characterized it in the words that in name it was a democracy, but in reality it was a question of rule by the foremost citizen.165 In so far as he shines his light behind the republican facade of the principate, in order to highlight the monarchic character of the Augustan system, he throws into relief the opposition between appearance and reality; but all too often this distinction remains shallow and superficial. 166 Despite the indisputable "classicizing" points of contact with the Thucydidean conception of historiography, it should not be overlooked that for all his theoretical rejection of them Dio still made use of stylistic methods of the "tragic" writing of history167 and of the rhetorical tradition. When at the beginning of his work he says that he is not accustomed to make use of digressions (έκβολαι του λόγου),168 and then in practice proceeds quite differently,169 we may conclude that the current historiographical theory rejected the insertion of digressions, but Dio was either unwilling or not in a position to come to terms with this. Other pieces of rhetorical embellishment do not stand in isolation in his work: although he sought in the tradition of Thucydides to investigate facts and their causes and to provide political instruction, he none the less responded to the need for entertainment among rhetorically educated readers, who expected colourful and vivid descriptions of catastrophes 170 and

163

D. C. 52:2-40. D. C. 38:36:2-3; 37:3-4; 38:1. 165 Th. 2:65:9. 166 Cf. for example D. C. 39:19:2; 41:7:2; 43:9:2; 47:35:5; 50:4:5; 51:9:5; 59:20:3. 167 A. Piatkowslti, "L'influence de l'historiographie tragique sur la narration de Dion Cassius", in Actes de la XIV Conférence Internationale d'Etudes Classiques. Eirene 1972 (Amsterdam 1975), pp. 263-69. 168 D. C. 7, F 32. 169 Cf. for example 39:49 (Rhine) and 39:50 (Britain). 170 One need compare only his portrayed of the burning of Rome in 52:16:1164

18:1.

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battles,171 appealing character sketches172 and dramatic scenes.173 In language also he took pains to conform to the Atticizing conventions, and schooled himself from appropriate models. 174 In short: Cassius Dio has bequeathed to us κεκαλλιεπημένοι λόγοι.175 Although from the point of view of the history of style and genre Cassius Dio's "Roman History" fits seamlessly into the development of Greek historiography in the imperial age, in terms of content it marks a clear caesura. Among the succeeding soldier emperors there was no historian who would have drawn such a sober and realistic portrait of the history of the Roman empire. Herodian (about AD 180-250), 176 who was likewise active in Roman public service, composed a "History of the Empire after Marcus" (Τής μετά Μάρκον βασιλείας ιστορία) in eight books, which describes the period from the death of Marcus Aurelius (AD 180) to the accession of Gordian III (AD 238) without digging very deep but in a quite absorbing way. Herodian righdy understood the Roman history of his period as the history of the emperors and rival emperors, and attempts to delineate the crisis of the empire with rhetorical and dramatic methods. 177 As his introduction allows us to recognize, he too finds his place in 171

Cf. J. Melber, "Des Cassius Dio Bericht über die Seeschlacht des D. Brutus gegen die Veneter", in Commentationes Woelfflianae (Leipzig 1891), pp. 291-97; D. Harrington, "Cassius Dio as a Military Historian", Acta Clasnca 20 (1977), pp. 159-65; G. Β. Townend, "Some Rhetorical Batde-Pictures in Dio", Hermes 92 (1964), pp. 467-81, as well as Gowing (as note 156), pp. 209ff. 172 Cf. C. Questa, "Tecnica biografica e tecnica annalistica nei 11. LIII-LXIII de Cassio Dione", StudUrb N.S. Β 31 (1957), pp. 37-53. I7S Cf. the chapter on the surrender of King Vercingetorix and his last meeting with Caesar in 40:41. Cf. J. Melber, Der Bericht des Cassius Dio über die gallischen Kriege Caesars (Munich Programme 1891). 174 Cf. D. C. 55:12:5: 'Ελλήνων τινές, ών τά βιβλία έπί τφ άττικίζειν άναγιγνώσκομεν. 175 Cf. D. C. F 1:2: "I trust, moreover, that if I have used a fine style (κεκαλλιεπημένοι λόγοι), so far as the subject matter permitted, no one will on this account question the truthfulness of the narrative, as has happened in the case of some writers". 176 Editions have been published by C. Stavenhagen (Leipzig 1922) and C. R. Whittaker (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA-London 1969/70). Cf. further F. Altheim, Literatur und Gesellschaft im ausgehenden Altertum (Halle 1948), pp. 165ff.; E. Dopp, RE 8.1 (1912), pp. 954-59; Ε. Hohl, Kaiser Commodus und Herodian (SDAW; 1954); Kolb (as note 161); J. Kreutzer, De Herodiano rerum romanarum scnptore (Diss. Bonn 1881); E. Volckmann, De Herodiani vita scriptisfideque(Königsberg 1859), also J. Zürcher, Commodus: Ein Beitrag zur Kritik der Historien Herodians (Leipzig 1868). New contributions on Herodian are announced for ANRW 11.34:4. 177 Cf. for example the description of Commodus's wild-beast fights and appearances as a gladiator (1:15) and the bloodbath which Caracalla organized among the adherents of his murdered brother Geta (4:6), as well as the characterizing of the emperor Elagabalus (5:5:8). Speeches, aphorisms and learned digressions also are not lacking.

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the great number of the imitators of Thucydides. 178 His Atticizing language fits well with his stylistic claims.179 Although in his prologue, as might be expected, he engages in polemic against those historians who did not strive for the truth, but concerned themselves solely with language and style, he yet seeks to give variety of form to his own work through the conventional mention of paradoxes and wonders. 180 He loosened up his description with more than thirty speeches. The undeniable popularity of his history, which found many readers and imitators in the following period, also underlines the appreciation of its style. In the ninth century the Byzantine scholar Photius still praised the agreeable style and the rhetorical balance of this artistically wrought work.181

IX T h e historians who followed, down to the end of the Roman empire, likewise stand in the classicist and rhetorical tradition. We may mention here by name P. Herennius Dexippus from Athens (ca. AD 210-ca. 275),182 Eunapius of Sardis (about AD 345-420), 183 Olympiodorus from Thebes in Egypt (first half of fifth century)184 and the last pagan historian Zosimus, who towards the end of the fifth century wrote his "New History" (Νέα ιστορία) in order to produce the historical proof that the victory of the Christian God had been the cause of the decline of the empire. 185 As a result of their rhetorical 178 Cf. F.J. Stein, Dexippus et Herodianus rerum scriptores quatenus Thucydidem secuti sunt (Diss. Bonn 1957). 179 Hdn. 1:1:3. 180 Cf. Hdn. 1:1:4: τύχας ποικίλας and βίους παραδόξους; 1:1:5: πολλά καί ποικίλα ήνεγκε καί θαύματος άξια. 181 Phot. Bibl. 99. 182 FGrHist 100. 183 FHG IV, pp. 7ff. 184 FHG IV, pp. 57ff. 185 As a collection of the fragments of historians from late antiquity, use should be made—in addition to Miiller's FHG—of R. C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus (2 vols.; Liverpool 1981-83), with translation and commentary. On Zosimus cf. now the bilingual annotated edition by F. Paschoud (5 vols.; Budé; Paris 1971-89) as well as the German translation and commentary by O. Veh and S. Rebenich (Stuttgart 1990). English translations of Zosimus have been published by J.J. Buchanan and H. T. Davis (San Antonio 1967) as well as by R. T. Ridley (Canberra 1982). In the annotated editions and translations there is also abundant literature on the historiography of late antiquity. Cf. further F. Paschoud, RE 10A (1972), pp. 785 841 s.v.

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training all these historians, like their predecessors in the imperial period before them, had at their disposal a rich reservoir of stereotypes, clichés, examples, paradoxes and other elements of style and composidon. As the historians came to terms with the contemporary theories of history writing, so the language and style of their works as a rule corresponded with contemporary taste. Here it was precisely the imitation of classical authors, ζήλος τών αρχαίων in Lucian's words,186 and above all of Thucydides, that was normative, although there were different opinions as to the extent to which language and style ought to correspond to the much-admired Attic models. Many archaizing passages and turns of phrase may however have been borrowed from rhetorical handbooks, and not from the original sources. Battles had to be described according to specific patterns, 187 and so too the characterizing of personalities and the choice of examples and paradoxes. Moralizing sententiae, antiquarian, ethnographical or geographical digressions, etymological and archaeological information, brief dramatic exchanges of words and longer addresses could be introduced into the presentation for literary adornment, according to fixed rhetorical principles. Yet the Greek historiography of late andquity does not present any stylistic uniformity. T h e authors throughout reserved to themselves individual liberties in the shaping of their work. Zosimus for example, who seeks to continue Polybius, makes use of a simple style without unnecessary rhetorical ornament, and even renounces the much-favoured speeches and debates. In style and language one cannot imagine a greater contrast to Eunapius, whom he copied out over large stretches. Photius calls Zosimus's manner of expression concise, clear and lucid, and not without charm. 188 However, even our modern judgments regarding the rhetorical style of ancient authors are dependent on individual and timeconditioned criteria, as may be seen from the judgments about Dexippus, whose style, praised by Phodus, 189 was condemned by B. G. Niebuhr, extolled by E. Norden and censured as obscure and affected by E. Schwartz. 190

Zosimos; idem, Cinq études sur Zpsime (Paris 1975) and B. Baldwin, "Greek Historiography in Late Rome and Early Byzandum", Hellenica 33 (1981), pp. 51-65. 186 Lucian Hist.Conscr. 34. 187 Cf. Lucian Hist.Conscr. 49. 188 Phot. Bibl. 98. 189 Phot. Bibl. 82. 190 B. G. Niebuhr in CSHB I, p. xvii; Norden, p. 398; E. Schwartz, RE 5.1 (1930), p. 293 = idem, GG, p. 290.

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X

From the third century BC, Jewish historiography also made use of the Greek language as a means for its intellectual self-assertion. For example, Demetrius the Chronographer in the third century BC put together a comprehensive outline of Jewish history with the title περί τών έν 'Ιουδαία βασιλέων. He was followed in the second century by Eupolemus. Artapanus, who lived in Egypt, attempted in a work περί 'Ιουδαίων to combine Jewish cultural history with an apologetic for Judaism, while Cleodemus sought to harmonize the Jewish primal history with Greek mythology. The five books of Maccabean history by Jason of Cyrene appear to have been the basis of 2 Maccabees, which is composed wholly in the style of the "tragic" Hellenistic history writing. 191 T h e questions and debates addressed in these works were not laid to rest down to Flavius Josephus (AD 37/38 to beginning of 2nd century), who stands at the end of Jewish historiography in andquity. 192 As a Pharisee and member of a priesdy family in Jerusalem, he is just as much marked by the Palestinian and Old Testament historical tradition as he is indebted, as a Hellenistic Jew who was the protégé of the Flavian emperors and sought to communicate to the Romans the history of his people, to Hellenisdc histo-

191

Cf. FGrHist 722 (Demetrius); 723 (Eupolemus); 726 (Artapanus); 182 (Jason). Cf. in general R. Doran, "The Jewish Hellenistic Historians before Josephus", ANRW II.20:1 (1987), pp. 246-97. 192 Editions: B. Niese (7 vols.; Leipzig 1885-97; reprint 1955); S.A. Naber (4 vols.; Leipzig 1888 93); H. St.J. Thackeray, R. Marcus, A. Wikgren, L H. Feldman (10 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA-London 1926 65). Cf. in addition G. Hölscher, RE 9.2 (1916), pp. 1934-2000; P. Bilde, Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome: His Life, his Works and their Importance (Sheffield 1988); S.J. D. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian (Leiden 1979); L. H. Feldman, "Flavius Josephus Revisited. The Man, his Writings, his Significance", ANRW 11.21:2 (1984), pp. 763-862; idem, 'Josephus and Modern Scholarship", ANRW 11.21:2 (1984), pp. 1937-80; M. Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus: Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palaestinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jh. v. Chr. (3rd edn.; Tübingen 1988; ET London 1974); T. Rajack, Josephus: The Historian and his Society (London 1983); A. Schallt (ed.), £ur Josephus-Forschung (Darmstadt 1973); H. Schreckenberger, Bibliographie zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden 1968); idem, Die Flavius-Josephus-Tradition in Antike und Mittelalter (Leiden 1972); idem, Rezeptionsgeschichtliche und textkritische Forschungen zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden 1977); E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC-AD 135), a new English version rev. and aug. by G. Vermes, F. Millar, M. Black (3 vols, in 4; Edinburgh 1973-87), esp. I, pp. 41ff.; 489ff. and III. 1, pp. 186; 545-46; S. Schwartz, Josephus andjudaean Politics (Leiden 1990); H. St.J. Thackeray, Josephus, the Man and the Historian (New York 1929); W. C. van Unnik, Flavius Josephus als historischer Schriftsteller (Heidelberg 1978).

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riography.193 His historiographical method is manifestly influenced both by Jewish apologetic and by the pragmatic writing of history, especially the theoretical conception of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Personal experience and the possibility of verification are the presuppositions, αλήθεια and ακρίβεια the aims of his presentation; 194 he seeks "to add nothing, and to leave nothing out". 195 With such stipulations Josephus sets himself in the tradition initiated by Thucydides. Whether he had himself read Thucydides, and other classical authors whom he cites, or quotes the relevant phrases at second hand, may be left an open question. Josephus was thoroughly conversant with the literary language of his time, and for the educated public availed himself of the linguistic, stylistic and compositional instruments which late Hellenistic historiography, highly differentiated methodically and in literary and rhetorical terms, placed at his disposal. He is concerned for a dramatic stylizing of events, adorns his presentation after the manner of profane Greek historians with fastidiously elaborated speeches,196 makes long addresses out of brief words of Scripture, portrays in detail battles, localities and military matters, explains and assesses the behaviour and conduct of individual personalities, inserts novelistic episodes, and uses aphorisms, parables and rhetorical figures of every kind.197 Worthy of special mention are the numerous documents and original sources which Josephus inserts in his seven-volume Jewish War and above all in his twenty-volume Jewish Antiquities.198 At the end of the Antiquities it is said: "I may now at the end of my history say with confidence that with the best will in the world no other man, whether Jew or alien, would have been able to produce the content of this work so accurately for the Greeks. For as my

193 Qf ρ Collomp, "La place de Josèphe dans la technique de l'historiographie hellénistique", Etudes historiques de la Faculté des lettres de Strasbourg (Vol. 106: Mélanges 1945; Paris 1947), pp. 81-92. 194 J. BJ 1:6, 17, 22, 26, 30; 7:454-55; AJ 1:1. 195 JAJ 1:17. 196 On the role of the speeches cf. Ο. Michel, "Die Rettung Israels und die Rolle Roms nach den Reden im 'Bellum Iudaicum'. Analysen und Perspektiven", ANRW 11.21:2 (1984), pp. 945-76. 197 Cf. on this still Β. Brüne, Flavius Josephus und seine Schriften in ihrem Verhältnis zum Judentum, zur griechisch-römischen Welt und zum Christentume (Gütersloh 1913); H. Drüner, Untersuchungen über Josephus (Diss. Marburg 1896); W. Hornbostel, De Flavii Iosephi studiis rhetoricis (Diss. Halle 1912); G. Schmidt, "De Flavii Iosephi elocutione", Jahrbuch fir Philologie Sup. 19 (1894), pp. 341-550; A. Wolff, De Flavii Iosephi belli Iudaia scriptoris studiis rhetoricis (Diss. Halle 1908). 198 Cf. on this G. Hölscher, RE 9.2 (1916), pp. 1976 and 1990.

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countrymen could bear me witness that I have excelled in the sciences of my native land, so have I also concerned myself in depth with the Greek language and thoroughly learned its rules, although the fluent speaking of it is made impossible for me by the custom of my homeland. For among us those are not specially regarded who are versed in many languages, and lay store upon beauty in expression, since this skill ranks as commonplace not only for the free but even for the slaves [. . .].'""

XI Christian historiography likewise, in methods, systems and forms of presentation, went back in considerable measure to Hellenistic Greek models. The New Testament book of Acts200 already stands in the tradition of Hellenistic history writing. The individual books of Luke's double work, the Gospel and Acts, are clearly separated from one another by their prefaces. 201 According to the title πράξεις άποστόλων, attested since the close of the second century, the author—following

199

J. 4 7 20:12. Cf. F. F. Bruce, "The Acts of the Apostles: Historical Record or Theological Reconstruction?", ANRW 11.25:3 (1985), pp. 2569-2603; H.J. Cadbury, The Style and literary Method of Luke, Part 1: The Diction of hike and Acts (Cambridge, MA 1920); H. Conzelmann, Die Mitte der %eit (Tübingen 1954; 6th edn. 1977; ET The Theology of Saint Luke, London 1960); D. Daube, "Neglected Nuances of Exposition in LukeActs", ANRW 11.25:3 (1985), pp. 2329-56; M. Dibelius, Aufsätze zur Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen 1951; 2nd edn. 1953; ET Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, London 1956); D. Dormeyer, Das Neue Testament im Rahmen der antiken Literaturgeschichte: Eine Einfuhrung (Darmstadt 1993), pp. 228ff.; A. Ehrhardt, ITie Acts of the Apostles (Manchester 1964); Β. Gärtner, The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation (Uppsala 1955); M. D. Goulder, Type and History in the Acts (London 1964); E. Haenchen, Die Apostelgeschichte (16th edn.; Göttingen 1977; ET Oxford 1971); Α. von Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte (Leipzig 1908; ET The Acts of the Apostles, London 1909); M. Hengel, Zur urchristlichen Geschichtsschreibung (2nd edn.; Stuttgart 1984); E. Meyer, Ursprung und Anfange des Christentums (3 vols.; Stuttgart-Berlin 1921-23), esp. I, pp. 1-59 and III; R. Morgenthaler, Die lukanische Geschichtsschreibung als Zeugnt^ Gestalt und Gehalt der Kunst des Lukas (2 vols.; Zürich-Basel 1948); E. Norden, Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (Leipzig-Berlin 1913; 2nd edn. 1929); E. Plümacher, Lukas als hellenistischer Geschichtsschreiber (Göttingen 1972); M. Simon, St. Stephen and the Hellenists in the Primitive Church (London 1958); E. Trocmé, Le "Livre des Actes" et l'Histoire (Paris 1957); U. Wilckens, Die Missionsreden der Apostelgeschichte (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1961; 3rd edn. 1974); M. Wilcox, The Semitisms of Acts (Oxford 1965). Further literature, above all lists of research reports, bibliographies and commentaries, in E. Plümacher, TRE 3 (1978), pp. 483-528 and A. Weiser, LThK3 1 (1993), pp. 862-63. 200

201

Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-8.

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Hellenistic models202 and entirely in the sense of Polybius203—seeks in his history to depict the deeds and words of the persons involved. The subject of Acts is the spread of the word of Jesus from the primidve community in Jerusalem to the very centre of the Imperium Romanum, and here Paul especially, as apostle of the risen Christ and the driving force of the Gentile mission, stands at the central point. The carefully wrought speeches of Peter, Paul and others, in accordance with Thucydidean requirements, are adapted to the given situation and interpret the events.204 T h e author, a hellenistically educated Gentile Christian of the post-apostolic period, knows very well how to tell a dramatic and absorbing story, and observes the literary elements of contemporary Graeco-pagan as well as GraecoJewish history writing. T h e so-called "We-passages" 205 probably do not show the author as a companion of Paul, but are rather a literary device of which Luke makes use, pardy in accordance with convention and partly at the instance of his sources. In the later apocryphal Acts of Apostles206 the almost "classical" form of the Lukan history writing was given up. It was now the model of the 202

Cf. for example the πράξεις Αλεξάνδρου by Callisthenes of Olynthus from the fourth century BC (FGrHist 124), the books περί Άννίβου πράξεων by Sosylus of Lacedaemon from the second century (FGrHist 176) and Philostratus's account of the life of Apollonius, cf. on this also R. Reitzenstein, Hellenistische WundererZählungen (Leipzig 1906), pp. 40ff. 203 Cf. Plb. 1:1:1; 9:1:5-6. 204 Cf. for example Stephen's speech before the Sanhédrin, Acts 7:2-53, and Paul's speech on the Areopagus, Acts 17:22-31. M. Dibelius, Die Reden der Apostelgeschichte und die antike Geschichtsschreibung (SBAH 1949) = idem, Aufsätze zur Apostelgeschichte (as note 200), pp. 120 -62 was the first to point out the indirect imitation of Thucydides by the author of Acts. 205 Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16. Cf. J. Wehnen, Die Wir-Passagen der Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen 1989). 206 The New Testament apocrypha are edited in a German translation by E. Hennecke and W. Schneemelcher (2 vols.; 5th edn.; Tubingen 1987/89; ET Cambridge 1991/1992); see also J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford 1993). A new series in the Corpus Christianorum: Series Apocryphorum is in process of appearing; cf. especially E. Junod and J.-D. Kaestli (eds.), Acta Johannis (2 vols.; Turnhout 1983) andJ.-M. Prieur, Acta Andreae (2 vols.; Turnhout 1989). A list of the standard editions and further bibliographical references will be found in R. McL. Wilson, TRE 3 (1978), pp. 341-81; E. Plümacher, RE Sup. 15 (1978), pp. 11-70; J. B. Bauer, LThK3 1 (1993), p. 864. Cf. further M. Geerard, Clavis apocryphorum Novi Testamenti (Turnhout 1992). In addition reference may be made to the contributions of E. Junod and J. D. Kaesdi in ANRW 11.25:6 (1988), pp. 4 2 9 3 - 4 3 6 2 (Acts of John), G. Poupon ANRW 11.25:6 (1988), pp. 4 3 6 3 - 8 3 (Acts of Peter), J. M. Prieur ANRW 11.25:6 (1988), pp. 4384-4414 (Acts of Andrew), Y. Tissot ANRW 11.25:6, pp. 4415-30 (Acts of Thomas) and F. Bovon ANRW 11.25:6, (1988), pp. 4431-4527 (Acts of Philip).

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ancient romance that shaped the presentation of the apostle's life. T h e five great Acts of the second and third centuries, those of John, Peter, Paul, Andrew and Thomas, are witnesses to a popular edifying literature for entertainment which stands close to the Hellenistic novel and the philosophical aretalogy. From a historiographical point of view, Acts had no successors.207

XII Like all genres of Roman literature, except for satire,208 historiography also showed its debt to the legacy of the Greeks. Herodotus, 207

The chronographical and universal history presentations of Christian authors, as well as the Church history writing founded by Eusebius of Caesarea, are not a theme of this study. It may however be remarked that with Eusebius's Εκκλησιαστική ιστορία standards were set for the composition and stylistic shaping of the succeeding Christian historical works, which paid heed to the fact that the new genus sought to differentiate itself in formal terms also from the pagan Greek historiography. Here belong the preference for a language oriented towards the elevated κοινή (instead of the classicist Attic), the neglect of speeches in favour of long quotations of documents and sources, the restraint in presenting political and military events, and the abundance of Scriptural quotations. As to literature for a first orientation, we may mention: W. Adler, Time Immemorial: Archaic Historiography and its Sources in Christian ChronographyfromJulius Ajricanus to George Syncellus (Washington, DC 1989); G. F. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius (2nd edn.; Macon 1986); B. Croke and A. Emmett (eds.), History and Historians in Late Antiquity (Sydney 1983); B. Croke, A. Emmett Nobbs, R. Mordey (eds.), Reading the Past in Late Antiquity (Canberra 1990); G. C. Hansen, "Griechische und lateinische Geschichtsschreibung in der Spätantike", Klio 66 (1984), pp. 605-14; G. Α. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton 1983), pp. 186ff.; B. Kötting, Christentum und heidnische Opposition am Ende des 4. Jahrhunderts (Münster 1961 ); T. Marcus, Zpsimus, Orosius and Their Tradition: Comparative Studies in Pagan and Christian Historiography (Diss. New York University 1974); A. Momigliano, "Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century", in idem (ed.), The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford 1963), pp. 79-99; P. Meinhold, Geschichte der kirchlichen Historiographie I (Freiburg 1967); A. A. Mosshammer, The Chronicle of Eusebius and the Greek Chronographie Tradition (London 1979); F. Overbeck, Über die Anfange der Kirchengeschichtsschreibung (Programm Basel 1892; reprint Darmstadt 1965); K. Rosen, Über heidnisches und christliches Geschichtsdenken in der Spätantike (Munich 1982); M. Sordi, "Deila storiografia classica alla storiografia cristiana", CCC 3 (1982), pp. 7-29; idem, La storiografia ecclesiastica nella tarda antichita: Atti del Convegno tenuto in Erice (3~8 XII 1978) (Messina 1980); J. Straub, Regeneratio Imperii: Aufsätze über Roms Kaisertum und Reich im Spiegel der heidnischen und christlichen Publizistik (2 vols.; Darmstadt 1972/86); idem, Heidnische Geschichtsapologetik in der christlichen Spätantike (Bonn 1963); F. Vittinghoff, "Zum geschichdichen Selbstverständnis der Spätantike", 198 (1964), pp. 52974; F. Winkelmann, "Die Kirchengeschichtswerke im oströmischen Reich", Byzantinoslavica 37 (1976), pp. 1-10 and 172-90; idem, Euseb von Kaisareia: Der Vater der Kirchengeschichte (Berlin 1991); idem, RAC 15 (1991), pp. 724-65 (with Literature). 208

Quint. Inst. 10:1:93.

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Xenophon and above all Thucydides had a direct or indirect influence upon Roman historians. Above all the Hellenistic writing of history, the "tragic", the rhetorical and the pragmatic, continued to work in Roman historiography in manifold refractions and combinations. The earliest Roman historians normally wrote not in Latin but in Greek. If in the period of the Hannibalic Wars Q. Fabius Pictor on the Roman side had begun to present Roman history in the Greek language, in the first century BC the writers were Greek: Socrates described the Civil Wars, Heraclides of Megara, Teucrus of Cyzicus and Metrodorus of Scepsis the wars against Mithridates VI of Pontus, Empylus of Rhodes and Olympus the events relating to the murder of Caesar, and Caecilius of Cale Acte the Slave Wars. 209 T h e real founder of Latin history writing is M. Porcius Cato (234-149 BC). His chief historical work, the Origines in seven books,210 deals in the first three books with the development of Rome from the beginnings to the end of the period of the kings, and with the early history of the other Italian cities and peoples; the remaining four are devoted to Roman history from the First Punic War down to 149 BC, and begin with a new prologue. T h e extant fragments allow us to recognize the Greek elements of the genre, since local history, wonder stories, digressions and etymologies are all present; the tide origines also points to the Greek foundation stories, the κτίσεις. T h e narrative, which combines historical presentation and personal comment, does not proceed after the manner of a chronicle, but rather capitulatim, that is, it was limited to the main events and composed

209

FGrHist 809, HRR I, pp. 5-39 (Fabius Pictor); FGrHist 192 (Socrates); FGrHist 187 (Heraclides); FGrHist 274 (Teucrus); FGrHist 184 (Metrodorus); FGrHist 191 (Empylus); FGrHist 198 (Olympus); FGrHist 183 (Caecilius). On this and on what follows cf. Ε. Badian, "The Early Historians", in T. A. Dorey (ed.), Latin Historians (London 1966), pp. 1-38; F. Börner, "Thematik und Krise der römischen Geschichtsschreibung im 2. Jh. v. Chr.", Historia 2 (1953/54), pp. 189-209; M. Geizer, "Die Anfange der römischen Geschichtsschreibung", Hermes 69 (1934), pp. 46-55 = idem, Kleine Schuften, III (Wiesbaden 1964), pp. 51-103; idem, "Nochmals über den Anfang der römischen Geschichtsschreibung", Hermes 82 (1954), pp. 342-48 = Kleine Schriften, pp. 104-10; Klingner, pp. 34ff. and 66ff.; A. Klotz, Lwius und seine Vorgänger (Leipzig 1940/41); W. B. Lebek, Verba prisca: Die Anfänge des Archaisierens in der lateinischen Beredsamkeit und Geschichtsschreibung (Göttingen 1970); Peter, pp. 273-338; E. Rawson, "The First Latin Annalists", Latomus 35 (1976), pp. 689-717; D. Timpe, "Fabius Pictor und die Anfange der römischen Historiographie", ANRW 1.2 (1972), pp. 928-69; idem, "Erwägungen zur jüngeren Annalistik", A & A 25 (1979), pp. 97-119; T. P. Wiseman, "The Credibility of the Roman Annalists", LCM 8 (1983), pp. 20-22. 210 HRR I, pp. CXXVII-CLXIV, 55-97; cf. the edidons of the fragments by H. Jordan (Leipzig 1860; reprint 1966), pp. 1-30 and O. Schönburger (Munich 1980), pp. 180-213 with German translation and notes.

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according to subject areas. 2 ' 1 In the introduction there are striking archaisms, such as the plural ques; in addition we can note archaic duplications, heaping up of synonyms, and formulae of devotional, legal and official language. Despite the proverbial brevitas Catonis one should not overlook the rhetorical elements of Cato's prose style.212 T h e aim of the Origines is the moral instruction and guidance of the reader through outstanding examples, like that military tribune who deserves to be called a Roman Leonidas. 213 Although Cato did not develop any historiographical theory of his own, his work stamped Roman history writing precisely by its raising an exemplary individual deed for the res publica into an absolute ethical norm. The Roman state, so Cato leads us to understand, is superior to all other states because it was created not by individuals but by many and over a longer period of time. 214 In the prologue to the fourth book Cato clearly distances himself from the mere compiling of records: "I have no pleasure in writing what stands upon the board in the house of the Pondfex Maximus, how often grain was dear, how often darkness or anything else obscured the light of the moon or the sun". 215 Yet it was precisely the annals which emerged from the pontifical records that were the specific element in Roman history writing. The founder of the annales, the recording of facts ab urbe condita in the manner of a chronicle, was the Fabius Pictor already mentioned, who was for all that possessed of considerable qualities as a narrator. 216 He had a fondness for ethnographical evidence, religious ceremonies, anecdotes and antiquarian information. But the Hellenistic formal elements here merged with the Roman thinking in terms of examples, and with the propagandist glorification of the gentes. This combination was to remain the special mark of Roman historiography. After Fabius a series of senators also compiled Greek annals, 217 while 2,1

Cf. Nep. Ca. 3:4: "Atque haec omnia capitulatim sunt dicta". Cf. for example A. Traglia, "Osservazioni su Catone prosatore", in Hommages à H. Bardon (Brussels 1985), pp. 344-59. 2,3 HRR I, F 83 (= Gell. 3:7:2-3). 214 Cic. Rep. 2:2. 215 HRR I, F 77 (= Gell. 2:28:6). 216 Cf. P. Bung, Q. Fabius Pictor, der erste römische Annalist. Untersuchungen über Aufbau, Stil und Inhalt seines Geschichtswerks an Hand von Polybios / - / / (Diss. Cologne 1950); Κ. Hanell, "Zur Problematik der älteren römischen Geschichtsschreibung", in Histoire et historiens dans l'Antiquité (Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt, 4; Vandoeuvres-Geneva 1956), pp. 147-70; J. Poucet, "L'amplification narrative dans l'évolution de la geste de Romulus", ACD 17/18 (1981/82), pp. 175-87. 217 Cf. for example Cincius Alimentus (HRR I, pp. 40-43; FGrHist 810); C. Acilius 212

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L. Cassius Hemina, a contemporary of Cato, ranks as the oldest Latin annalist.218 Only among the authors of the Sullan period (the socalled "later annalists") do we find annalists who—like Claudius Quadrigius or Valerius Antias 219 —did not belong to the senatorial class, but probably came from the Italian municipal aristocracy or from the equestrian order and wrote as clients of particular senators. Consciously harking back to the annalistic tradition, they represented Rome as the central point of history. The characteristic marks of the annalistic approach are presentation according to years and "archaeology"; but the annalistic schema can be loosened up by the insertion of letters, speeches and anecdotes. Also frequent is the separation of res inlemae and res externae. The annalistic presentation is also followed by the res gestae, which neglect the presentation of the early period and pay more detailed attention to contemporary history; its first representative is Sempronius Asellio (about 160-190 BC), who concerned himself after the manner of Polybian and pragmatic historiography with analytic investigation of facts and their causes. 220 The historiae, which likewise follow the annalistic structure, lack the "archaeology" altogether; the author limits himself to contemporary history alone. Their founder was L. Cornelius Sisenna,221 praetor in the year 70 BC. His historiographie model was according to Cicero the historian of Alexander, Clitarchus; 222 in his Historiae, as the fragments still show, the emotive, sensation-working devices of Hellenistic history writing were put to use, a dramatic style of narration, digressions, descriptions of battles, speeches and dreams. His style combines fashionable Asianic undercurrents with archaizing elements; thus archaic turns of phrase stand alongside neologisms. His prose is rich in variety, original and colourful. While res gestae and historiae in principle preserve the annalistic manner of presentation and—like the annales—seek to set out history continuously, historical monographs group the material round a central (HRR I, pp. 48-52; FGrHist 813) and A. Postumius Albinus (HRR I, p. 53; FGrHist 812). 218 HRR I, pp. CLV-CLXXIII, 98-111. 219 HRR I, pp. 205-37 and 238-73. On this cf. also W. Schibel, Sprachbehandlung und Darstellungsweise in römischer Prosa. Claudius Quadriganus, Limis, Aulus Gellius (Amsterdam 1971). 220 HRR I, pp. 143-47. Cf. esp. F 1-2 (= Gell. 5:18:8-9). 221 HRR I, pp. 276-97; cf. Ε. Rawson, "L. Cornelius Sisenna and the Early First Century BC", CQ, 73 (1979), pp. 327-46. 222 Cf. Cic. Leg. 1:7.

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theme. T h e orator and jurist L. Coelius Antipater, 223 who, following Hellenistic models, describes the Second Punic War in seven books (published after 121 BC), ranks as the first Latin representative of this genre. He made use of dramatic and of rhetorical devices; his language is stilted and his style Asianic: small rhythmic cola, unusual words, refined hyperbata. Cicero does indeed ascribe to him the merit of having surpassed his predecessors, yet—with an eye on Greek history writing—he complains that Coelius "did not set off his narrative with any variety of reflections, or give finish to his work by his marshalling of words and a smooth and unvarying flow of style".224 This characterization is thoroughly apposite: on the one hand Coelius used a rhetorical device like hyperbaton so awkwardly that he excuses himself for it in the foreword; 225 on the other, he deserves to be appreciated as a pioneer who in constructive interaction with Hellenistic historiography compiled the first historical monograph in the Latin tongue.

XIII T o the forms of history writing so far mentioned we may add the universal history, which differentiated the material geographically, the epitome or "short history", which is attested from the first century BC, and the commentarius, which has roots both in the Roman and in the Greek world. The history writing of republican Rome accordingly reflects the whole variety of Hellenistic historical literature. It has consequently at first no uniform character as a genre, but embraces a host of different forms and elements, which may be combined with one another. Language and style too are scarcely uniform. Occasionally phrases from lower levels of language do indeed appear, 226 but the style of the Roman epic, which is likewise historically oriented, also had an influence on the Roman historians, as occasional poetic elements in Cato and Coelius for example show. Others prefer the ponderous Latin official style, while others again follow the fashionable Asianic rhetoric. At the centre of historical interest stand

223

HRR I, pp. 158-77; W. Hermann, Die Historien des Coelius Antipater: Fragmente und Kommentar (Meisenheim 1979). 224 Cic. De or. 2:54 (LCL translation). 225 Cf. HRR I, F 1 (= Cic. Or. 229). 226 Cf. Lebek, Verba prisca (note 209).

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primal history and contemporary history, which—with very few exceptions227—is tailored to fit Rome.

XIV C.Julius Caesar ( 1 0 0 - 4 4 BC)228 raised the commentarius into a literary form. 229 In his commentant on the Gallic Wars, Greek and Roman 227 The single exception among the annalists is Cato, who in the fourth book of his Origines describes the origin of Carthage and characterizes the Carthaginian mixed constitution. 228 F. E. Adcock, Caesar as Man of Letters (Cambrige 1956); W. T. Avery, "Caesar, the Man of Letters", CW 50 (1956/57), pp. 26-28; F. Börner, "Der Commentarius: Zur Vorgeschichte und literarischen Form der Schriften Caesars", Hermes 81 (1953), pp. 210-50; J. H. Collins, "Caesar as a Political Propagandist", ANRWU (1972), pp. 922-66; J. D. Craig, "The General Reflection in Caesar's Commentaries", CR 45 (1931), pp. 107-10; H. Dallmann, "Caesars Rede für die Bithynier", Hermes 73 (1938), pp. 341-46; K. Deichgräber, "Elegantia Caesaris: Zu Cäsars Reden und Commentarii", Gymnasium 57 (1950), pp. 112-23; P. T. Eden, "Caesar's Style: Inheritance versus Intelligence", Glotta 40 (1962), pp. 74-117; H. Gesche, Caesar (Darmstadt 1976); M. Geizer, "Caesar als Historiker", in idem, Kleine Schuften, II (Wiesbaden 1963), pp. 307-35; H.J. Glücklich, Caesar als Erzählstratege (AU, 33.5; 1990); W. Görler, "Die Veränderung des Erzählerstandpunktes in Caesars Bellum Gallicum", Poetica 8 (1976), pp. 95-119; H. C. Gotoff, "Towards a Practical Criticism of Caesar's Prose Style", ICS 9 (1984), pp. 1-18; L. Holtz, C. Julius Caesar quo usus sit in orationibus dicendi genere (Jena 1913); Kennedy, pp. 283ff.; Klingner, 90ff.; A. Klotz, Caesarstudien (Leipzig 1910); J. Kroymann, "Caesar und das Corpus Caesarianum in der neueren Forschung: Gesamtbibliographie 1945-1970", ANRW 1.3 (1973), pp. 457-87; Ε. Mensching, Caesars Bellum Gallicum: Eine Einfiihrung (Frankfurt 1988); F.-H. Mutschier, Erzählstil und Propaganda in Caesars Kommentarien (Heidelberg 1975); Norden, pp. 209fT; H. Oppermann, Caesar—Der Schriftsteller und sein Werk (Leipzig 1933); G. Pascucci, "Interpretazione linguistica e stilistica del Caesare autentico", ANRW 1.3 (1973), pp. 4 8 8 - 5 2 2 = idem, Scntti scelti (Florence 1983), pp. 653-87; idem, "I mezzi espressivi stilistici di Cesare nel processo di deformazione storica dei Commentarii", SCO 6 (1957), pp. 134-74; Α. V. Premerstein, RE 4.1 (1901), pp. 726-59, s.v. commentarii; L. Radista, "Julius Caesar and his Writings", ANRW 1.3 (1973), pp. 417-56; M. Rambaud, L'art de deformation historique dans les commentaires de César (Paris 1952; 2nd edn. 1966); idem, "César et la rhétorique", in Colloque sur la rhétorique, Caesarodunum 14 bis (1979), pp. 19-39; D. Rasmussen, Caesars Commentarii: Stil und Stilwandel am Beispiel der direkten Rede (Göttingen 1963); idem (ed.), Caesar (Darmstadt 1967); W. Richter, Caesar als Darsteller seiner Taten: Eine Einfuhrung (Heidelberg 1977); O. Seel, Caesarstudien (Stuttgart 1967); K. Stiewe, "Wahrheit und Rhetorik in Caesars Bellum Gallicum", WJA 2 (1976), pp. 149-63; G. Walser, Caesar und die Germanen: Studien zur politischen Tendenz römischer Feldzugsberichte, I (Wiesbaden 1956); M. F. Williams, "Caesar's Bibracte Narrative and the Aims of Caesarian Style", ICS 10 (1985), pp. 215-26. The number of editions and translations is legion; we need mention here only the Teubner editions of the Bellum Gallicum by A. Klotz (2nd edn.; 1952), O. Seel (1961) and W. Hering (2nd edn.; 1992) as well as that of the Bellum Civile by A. Klotz (2nd edn.; 1950, with supplements by W. Trillitzsch 1964, reprint 1992). 229

Cf. already Cic. Brut. 262; Hirt. Gal. 8, praef. 3-7.

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traditions of style and genre are combined. In the confusion of the declining republic there were many commentarii or, as they were called in Greek, υπομνήματα, that is, private records of Roman officials about their administration and their conduct in life. Thus Q. Lutatius Catulus wrote about his consulate (102 BC) and his achievements in the service of the state in Latin, 230 and Cicero sent a Greek hypomnema about the high point of his career to friends and acquaintances. 231 These "reminiscences", which were part of the internal political debates of the senatorial aristocracy, are to be distinguished from the proconsular reports to the senate, the so-called litterae. But the Roman commentarius came closer to the style of the elevated history writing which strove for an enlivening of what had happened, and took over elements of the epideictic prose of Isocrates and of the "dramatic" stylizing of the expedition reports from the circle of Alexander the Great. Caesar latched on to this. He too had his fame and reputation to defend when he resolved to compile the commentarii. He created a new commentary style, and introduced other elements of literary historiography into this genre. Thus in all his digressions on Britain, Gaul and Germany he takes his place in the succession of Greek ethnography, especially that of Posidonius.232 Yet he also learned from Xenophon: as with Xenophon, the prologue is lacking in Caesar, his commentarii like Xenophon's Hypomnemata comprise seven books, in selfdescription he makes use of the third person, and the style strives for objective simplicity. The presentation gains in liveliness from book to book. T h e portion allotted to the direct speeches increases from the fourth book to the seventh, and this ascent culminates in the great address of the Avernian Critognatus. 233 The gradual increase in the direct speeches, which can also be observed in the bellum civile, is not only to be explained by the development of Caesar's style, but also points to the artistic shaping and rhetorical structuring of his literary

230

Cic. Brut. 132. Cic. Att. 1:19:10; 1:20:6. 232 Caes. Gal. 5:12-14; 6:11-28. With F. Beckmann, Geographie und Ethnographie in Caesars Bellum Gallicum (Dortmund 1930), H. Oppermann, "Zu den geographischen Exkursen in Caesars Bellum Gallicum", Hermes 68 (1933), pp. 182-95; D. Rasmussen, "Das Autonomwerden des geographisch-ethnographischen Elements in den Exkursen", in idem, Caesars Commentarii (as note 228), pp. 79-104 = idem (ed.), Caesar (as note 228), pp. 339-71 and others, I start from the assumpdon of the authenticity of the digressions. Cf. further N. Holzberg, "Die ethnographischen Exkurse in Caesars Bellum Gallicum als erzählstrategisches Mittel", Anregung 33 (1987), pp. 85-98. 233 Caes. Gal. 7:77:2-16; cf. 5:30; 7:30, 38, 50. 231

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work. Further methods of allowing the reader to participate in the events are the description of the commander's reflections and the appearance on the scene of particular persons. 234 T h e author also has a brilliant understanding of how to dramatize episodes effectively, in order to present himself as the dominant personality. 235 In fact competition with the historians was far from Caesar's mind. T h e very choice of the genre makes it clear that his work was not intended to be measured by the standards which were applied to historiae. Thus there is no prologue, in the first four books the indirect speeches usual in the commentaùus are the rule, and Caesar portrays what happened always from his perspective. His readers are above all to learn, as it were to experience by proxy, the deliberations as a result of which he took precautions and made his decisions. The use of literary methods is accordingly subordinated to the aim of the author's political self-presentation. For Caesar's handling of language, his purism is characteristic. He understood how to write in a masterly, simple and yet artistic fashion, nihil est enim in historia pura et inlustri brevitate dulcius was Cicero's laudatory comment. 236 T o attain this admired brevity and charm required "the greatest devotion and conscientiousness", and Caesar himself worked through recondite and unusual writings in order to perfect his style.237 E. Norden has described the result: "In one's joy over a Caesarian period, thought through with logical consistency and built up with a lapidary power of language, one has more or less a standard for one's own feeling for Roman vigour, energy of will, and greatness". 238 With Caesar's commentant it was however not yet clear which road Roman history writing was to follow. T h e answer was given by C. Sallustius Crispus (86-35/34 BC).239 His five-volume Historiae, which 2,4

On this see H. A. Gärtner, Beobachtungen zu Bauelementen in der antiken Historiographie, besonders bei Livius und Caesar (Wiesbaden 1975). 235 Cf. for example Caes. Gal. 2:19-27 and W. Görler, "Ein Darstellungsprinzip Caesars. Zur Technik der Peripetie und ihrer Vorbereitung im Bellum Gallicum", Hermes 105 (1977), pp. 307-31. 236 Cic. Brut. 262. 237 Cic. Brut. 252. 238 E. Norden, Die römische Uteratur (6th edn.; Leipzig 1961), p. 48. 239 Cf. W. Avenarius, "Sallust und der rhetorische Schulunterricht", RIL 8 9 / 9 0 (1956), pp. 343-52; C. Becker, "Sallust", ANRW 1.3 (1973), pp. 720-54; W. Bloch, Bedeutungszusammenhänge und Bedeutungsverschiebungen als inhaltliche Stilmittel bei Sallust (Berne 1971); K. Büchner, Sallust (2nd edn.; Heidelberg 1982); F. Egermann, Die Prooemien zu den Werken des Sallust (SAWW, 214.3; Vienna 1932); Kennedy, pp. 292ff.; F. Giancotti, Strutture delle monografie di Sallustio e di Tacito (Messina 1971); B. Hessen,

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was thought of as a continuation of Sisenna's work, begins with the year of Sulla's death (78 BC) and extends down to the year 67 BC. From this work four speeches, two letters and about 500 fragments are extant. 240 With his Bellum Catilinae, which depicts the course of the Catilinarian conspiracy in 63 BC and enquires into its occasion and causes, and his Bellum Iugurthinum, which has for its subject the war with the Numidian k i n g j u g u r t h a (111-105 BC), Sallust brought out two historical monographs, 241 the style of which was stamped by Thucydides, whose terse brevity the Roman historian sought to emulate. Quintilian later set him on a level with his Greek precursor. 242 In all three works, as might be expected in a genre marked by the Thucydidean stamp, there are a prologue, an "archaeology" 243 and also a great speech at the beginning, in both monographs a political

Der historische Infinitiv im Wandel der Darstellungstechnik Sallusts (Frankfurt 1984); K. Latte, Sallust (Leipzig 1905) = V. Pöschl (ed.), Sallust (see below), pp. 401-60; Lebek, Verba prisca (note 209); A. D. Leeman, "Sallusts Prologe und seine Auffassung von der Historiographie", Mnemosyne 7 (1954), pp. 323~39 und 8 (1955), pp. 38-48; idem, "Formen sallustischer Geschichtsschreibung", Gymnasium 74 (1967), pp. 108-15; Norden, pp. 200ff.; U. Paananen, Sallust's Politico-Social Terminology: Its Use and Biographical Significance (Helsinki 1972); P. Perrochat, Les modèles grecs de Salluste (Paris 1949); V. Pöschl, Grundwerte römischer Staatsgesinnung in den Geschichtswerken des Sallust (Berlin 1940); idem (ed.), Sallust (2nd edn.; Darmstadt 1981); W. Richter, "Der Manierismus des Sallust und die Sprache der römischen Historiographie", ANRW 1.3 (1973), pp. 755-80; T. F. Scanion, Spes frustrata: A Reading of Sallust (Heidelberg 1987); W. Schur, Sallust als Historiker (Stuttgart 1934); E. Skard, "Zur sprachlichen Entwicklung des Sallust", SO 39 (1964), pp. 13-37; W. Steidle, Sallusts historische Monographien: Themenwahl und Geschichtsbild (Wiesbaden 1958); R. Syme, Sallust (Berkeley 1964); R. Ullmann, La technique des discours dans Salluste, Tite-live et Tacite (Oslo 1927); Woodman, pp. 117ff. 240 Cf. the annotated edition by B. Maurenbrecher (2 vols.; Leipzig 1891/93; reprint 1967). Cf. D. Flach, "Die Vorrede zu Sallusts Historien in neuer Rekonstruktion", Philologus 117 (1973), pp. 76-86 and G. Petrone, "Per una ricostruzione del proemio delle Historiae di Sallustio"; Pan 4 (1976), pp. 59-67. 241 Cf. the edition by A. Kurfess (3rd edn.; Leipzig 1957; reprint 1992). The following commentaries are important: K. Vretska (Heidelberg 1976), P. McGushin (Leiden 1977) a n d j . T. Ramsey (Adanta 1984, with text) on Cat. E. Köstermann (Heidelberg 1971) and G. M. Paul (Liverpool 1984) on Jug. Cf. Κ. Büchner, Der Aufbau von Sallusts Bellum Jugurthinum (Wiesbaden 1953); G. B. A. Fletcher, "On Sallust's Bellum Catilinae", Latomus 40 (1981), pp. 580-88; Β. Latta, "Der Wandel in Sallusts Geschichtsauffassung vom Bellum Catilinae zum Bellum Iugurthinum", Maia 39 (1987), pp. 271-88; G. Ledworuski, Historiographische Widersprüche in der Monographie Sallusts zur Catilinarischen Verschwörung (Diss. Berlin 1992 = Frankfurt 1994); A . D . Leeman, Aufbau und Absicht von Sallusts Bellum Jugurthinum (Amsterdam 1957); K. Vretska, Studien zu Sallusts Bellum Jugurthinum (SAWW, 229.4; 1955). 242

Quint. Inst. 10:1:101; on the theme cf. T. F. Scanlon, The Influence of Thucydides on Sallust (Heidelberg 1980) with the older literature. 243 Cf. the impressive separation of the idealized primal period from the morally degenerate present in Cat. 6 - 1 3 .

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digression, and in the Catilina in addition a debate with controversial speeches. In the Iugurtha the fact that it deals with an external war offered fewer links with the Thucydidean tradition, such as the portrayals of battles and the treatment of internal and external political interdependence. Sallust's central theme, the moral and political decay of the Roman state, and in particular of the nobility, positively demanded comparison with Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Yet it would be wrong to think of Sallust's imitation of Thucydides as absolute. What linked him with Thucydides was above all that he relentlessly exposed the motives of human conduct and mercilessly unmasked the hypocrisy of opportunistic politicians. Sallust's development as a writer from work to work implies also an expanding of the circle of his models. We can identify an abundance of Hellenistic historiographical techniques; the combining of anecdotal elements and sententiae in the narrative of Micipsa and his sons is characteristic;244 the last words of Cyrus in Xenophon may have served as a stimulus for the king's speech. 245 The geographical digressions in the Iugurtha and in the Historiae recall Posidonius, as do the idealizing of the simple life of the primitive society246 and the idea that external threat had a salutary effect upon the Romans. 247 Sallust's fondness for detailed characterizations, 248 moral reflections, aphorisms and extended comparison of personalities 249 is influenced by the rhetoricizing and moralizing tradition. Other tools in his literary technique are prologues,250 speeches, letters,251 digressions, the shaping of scenes,

244

Jug. 9-11. X. Cyr. 8:7, esp. 13ff. 246 Cat. 2:1; 9:1. 247 Cf. D.S. 34:33. 248 Cf. for example Cat. 43-83 Metellus (63-83 together with Marius); Marius (83-114); Sulla (95-114 together with Marius). On this, cf. A. La Penna, "II ritratto paradossale da Silla a Petronio", RFIC 104 (1976), pp. 270-93; K. Vretska, "Bemerkungen zum Bau der Charakteristik bei Sallust", SO 31 (1955), pp. 105-18; G. Wille, "Der Mariusexkurs Kap. 63 im Aufbau von Sallusts Bellum Iugurthinum", in Festschrift K. Vretska (Heidelberg 1970), pp. 304-31. 249 Cf. for example the comparison between Caesar and Cato in Cat. 53-54. 250 On the structure of the prologues cf. A. D. Leeman, Form und Sinn: Studien zur römischen Literatur (Frankfurt 1985), pp. 77ff. as well as generally E. Tiffou, Essai sur la pensée morale de Salluste à la lumière de ses prologues (Paris 1974). 251 Pompeius Trogus (F 172 Seel = lust. 38:3:11) already noted that Sallust inserted more or less freely invented speeches to characterize persons. On the famous speech of Marius in Jug. 85 cf. A. Klinz, "Die große Rede des Marius (lug. 85) und ihre Bedeutung für das Geschichtsbild des Sallust", AU 11.5 (1968), pp. 76-90. 245

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and denouements. 252 Marius demonstrates his deficient rhetorical training in a speech masterfully shaped by Sallust.253 After the manner of his Hellenistic models Sallust likewise emphasizes the role of chance, and strikingly portrays emotions. 254 However, he refrains from the excesses of the rhetorical and dramatic writing of history, and for example in battle scenes abstains from the gory details.255 The lively portrayal of the panic in Rome, the moving description of the field of corpses after the victory over Catiline, and the narrative of the sacrificial death of the Philaenus brothers from Carthage, which recalls Herodotus, are sufficient evidence that Sallust was quite prepared to make concessions to his readers' desire for edification. 256 As in his conception of history and history writing, so in his literary technique several streams flow together. His most important Roman model was Cato the Elder, whom he calls, at the beginning of the Historiae, Romani generis disertissimus. In shaping his own style Sallust looked back to the Censor, and thereby at the same time canonized Cato's way of writing as the standard style for Latin historiography. T h e moralizing attitude with which Sallust deplores the decline of the old Roman virtues likewise derives from Cato (and is rather foreign to Thucydides). Numerous borrowings from Cato, but also from the epic, enrich Sallust's stock of words, which is marked by archaisms; 257 varietas and brevitas258 characterize his prose, as do stylisdc precision, 259 richness of language and expressive words. He combines Atticizing clarity with great wealth of language. The linguistic presentation is to do justice to the status of the themes: facta dictis exaequanda.260 Thus he avoids empty political clichés, because 252

Cf. e.g. Cat. 36:4-39:5; Jug. 41-42. Jug. 85. 254 Cf. e.g. Cat. 15:4-5; Jug. 70:1; 71 : Iff.; 72:2. 255 Cf. for example the terse statements in Jug. 51:1. 256 Cat. 31:1-3; 61; Jug. 79. 257 Maurenbrecher's edition of the Histories is fundamental for discussion of Sallust's language. Cf. further G. Carboli, "I modelli dell'arcaismo. M. Porcius Catone", AION(lmg) 8 (1986), pp. 37-69; S. Koster, "Poetisches bei Sallust", in idem, Tessera: Sechs Beiträge zur Poesie und poetischen Theorie der Antike (Erlangen 1983), pp. 55-68 and E. Skard, Sallust und seine Vorgänger (Oslo 1956). 258 Cf. Quint. Inst. 4:2:45; 9:3:12; 10:2:17 as well as A. Klinz, "Brevitas Sallustiana", Anregung 28 (1982), pp. 181-87. 259 Classification of the stylistic methods in W. Kroll, "Die Sprache des Sallust", Glotta 15 (1927), pp. 280-305. 260 Cat. 3:2; cf. W. Suerbaum, "Sallust über die Schwierigkeiten, Geschichte zu schreiben (Catil. 3, 2)", in W. Hörmann (ed.), Gegenwart der Antike (Munich 1974), pp. 83-103. 253

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they had long lost their real significance.261 T h e political misuse of language is for him a further symptom of the general decline. In this area Sallust's linguistic and literary and his political convictions come together. For this reason Sallust did not make things easy with his writing: et sane manifestus est etiam ex opere ipso labor,262 As a stylist Sallust at first met with rejection. Livy, like Augustus, criticized his archaisms, 263 the Atticist historian Asinius Pollio (76 BCAD 5) his imitation of Cato 264 and Pompeius Trogus his speeches. 265 Only after Velleius Paterculus, who imitates him, and Quintilian, is he esteemed as aemulus Thucydidis.266 Martial extols him as the first Roman historian267 and Suetonius in De viris illustnbus deals with him in the first place among the writers of history.268 Tacitus finally calls him rerum Romanorumflorentissimusauctor.269 That archaists like Fronto and Gellius valued him goes without saying.270 Before Cicero however Sallust would have found no favour, had he had to stand before his judgment. In his review of the growth of Roman history writing Cicero had assigned Cato's Origines, Sallust's model, to the inidal stages, while Coelius Antipater, Licinius Macer and Cornelius Sisenna appeared to him to have reached a higher level.271 He himself in his rhetorical writings oudined a literary theory of history writing, according to which it is an opus oratonum.272 T h e ascertaining of the historical truth is indeed a basic requirement, but the chief demand is not

261

Cf. Cat. 52:11 with reference to Caesar's advocacy of mildness: "We have long since lost the true names for things". On vera vocabula rerum cf. Th. 3:82:4 as well as K. Büchner, "Vera vocabula rerum amisimus", Hommages à R. Schilling (Paris 1983), pp. 235-61. 262 Quint. Inst. 10:3:8. 263 Livy ap. Sen. Con. 9:1:14; Suet. Aug. 86:1:3. 264 Asinius Pollio ap. Suet. Gram. 10; Gel. 10:26:1 (cf. Quint. Inst. 8:3:29). Of Pollio's 17 volume Histories, dealing with contemporary history from 60 BC, practically nothing has survived (cf. HRR II, pp. 67-70); he himself wrote a "harsh and dry" style (Tac. Dial. 21:7), so that one might have thought that as an author he was a generation older than Cicero (Quint. Inst. 10:1:113). Cf. J. H. Schmalz, Über den Sprachgebrauch des Asinius Pollio (2nd edn.; Munich 1890); Ε. Wölfflin, "Über die Latinität des Asinius Pollio", ALL 6 (1889), pp. 85-106 as well as G. Zecchini, "Asinio Pollione: Dall'attivitä politica alla riflessione storiografica", ANRW 11.32:2 (1982), pp. 265-1296. 265 Pompeius Trogus ap. Iust. 38:3:11. 266 Veil. 2:36:2; Quint. Inst. 10:1:101 (cf. 2:5:19). 267 Mart. 14:191. 268 G. Funaioli, RE 1A.2 (1920), p. 1949. 269 Tac. Ann. 3:30:1. 270 Cf. e.g. Fro. p. 134 van den Hout; Gell. 9:14:26; 18:4:1. 271 Cic. Leg. 1:6-7; De or. 2:52-54. 272 Cf. Leg. 1:5.

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for research but for the artistic shaping of the material. 273 It should entertain the reader, instruct him through examples, and be politically effective. History as testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae and nuntia vetustatis can attain to immortality only through the voice of the speaker. 274

XV T h e task imposed by Cicero on the language of history writing was fulfilled by T . Livius from Padua (59 B C ? ~ A D 17).275 His historical

273

Cf. esp. De or. 2:62 64. Cic. De or. 2.36. On Cicero's conception of historiography cf. P. A. Brunt, "Cicero and Historiography", in Miscellanea di studi classici in onore di Eugenia Manni, I (Rome 1979), pp. 311-40; F. H. Colson, "Some Considerations as to the Influence of Rhetoric on History", PCA 14 (1917), pp. 149-73; J. F. D'Alton, Roman Literary Theory and Criticism: A Study in Tendencies (London-New York 1931), pp. 49Iff.; P. Defourny, "Histoire et éloquence d'après Cicéron", LEC 21 (1953), pp. 156-66; H. Henze, Quomodo Cicero de historia eiusque auctoribus ludicavent (Diss. Jena 1899); A. P. Kelley, Historiography in Cicero (Diss. University of Pennsylvania 1969); Kennedy, pp. 295ΑΓ.; 239ff. and 253ff.; W. Kroll, Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart 1924), pp. 87ff. and 331ff.; A. D. Leeman, "L'historiographie dans le 'De oratore' de Cicéron", BAGB (1985), III, pp. 280-88; idem, Form (as note 250), pp. 27ff.; idem, Orationis ratio (Amsterdam 1963), pp. 168ff.; A. Michel, Rhétorique et philosophie chez Cicéron (Paris 1960); idem, "Rhétorique et philosophie dans les traités de Cicéron", AïïRWl.S (1973), pp. 139-208; K. E. Petzold, "Cicero und Historie", Chiron 2 (1972), pp. 253-76; M. Rambaud, Cicéron et l'histoire (Paris 1953); E. Rawson, "Cicero the Historian and Cicero the Antiquarian", JRS 62 (1972), pp. 33-45; K. A. Sinkovich, "Cicero Historicus", RSC 22 (1974), pp. 164-75; I. Trencsényi-Waldapfel, "Poésie et réalité historique dans la théorie et la pratique littéraire de Cicéron", Ann. Univ. Scient. Budap. (Sect. Philol.), pp. 2 (1960), pp. 3-18; B. L. Ullmann, "History and Tragedy", TAPA 73 (1942), pp. 25-53; Woodman, pp. 70ff. 274

275

Editions by W. Weissenborn and M. Müller (10 vols, with commentary; Berlin 1880-1924; reprint 1962); R. S. Conway, C. F. Walters, S . K . J o h n s o n , Α. H. McDonald (Books 1-35; 5 vols.; Oxford 1914-65); Β. Ο. Foster, F. G. Moore, Ε. T. Sage, A. C. Schilesinger (10 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA-London 1919-59; several reprints); the edition in 34 volumes planned by J. Bayet and others (Budé) is still in process of appearing (Paris 1947ff.). For separate editions, commentaries and literature cf. the relevant papers and bibliographical articles in ANRW 11.30:2 (1982), pp. 899-1263. Reference may be made in particular to E. Burck (ed.), Wege zu Livius (3rd edn.; Darmstadt 1977); idem, Das Geschichtswerk des livius (Heidelberg 1992); J. Dangel, La phrase oratoire chez Tite-Uve (Paris 1982); T. A. Dorey (ed.), Livy (London 1971); J. Fries, Der Zweikampf: Historische und literarische Aspekte seiner Darstellung bei T. Livius (Meisenheim 1985); Gärtner (as note 234); F. Hellmann, Livius-Interpretationen (Berlin 1939); KJingner, pp. 458ff.; A. Klotz, RE 13.1 (1926), pp. 816-52; idem, Livius und seine Vorgänger (3 vols.; Leipzig 1940-41); E. Lefèvre and E. Olshausen (eds.), Livius: Werk und Rezeption. Festschrift E. Burck (Munich 1983); Κ. Lindemann, Beobachtungen zur livianischen Periodenkunst (Diss. Marburg 1964); T.J. Luce, Livy: The

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work Ab urbe condita deals with Roman history from the beginnings to the death of Drusus in 9 BC. Of an original 142 rolls only books 1-10 and 21-45 have survived. The remainder is known to us from lists of contents (pmochae), extracts (epitomae) or fragments. Livy offers his readers two different formal principles of arrangement, with a structure in decads or pentads and an annalistic principle. 276 Other compositional elements also serve as aids to orientation. Thus at the beginning of every year Livy mentions the installation of officials, the assignment of the provinces, and the distribution of the troops, enumerates the prodigies, and refers to embassies. Then follow the expeditions and details about elections. Recurrent themes (Leitmotive) are an important means of giving the account a narrative unity. Thus in chapters 1-21 of the second book libertas stands at the central point, and the concluding part of the book then deals with the threat to libertas through internal political discordia. The coherence of the work, in composition and in terms of thought, is enhanced by the description of significant events like speeches, explanations of wars, batdes and triumphs in prominent places. Here Livy, following the "tragic" history writing, strives for dramatic presentation, in order to stir the reader. 277 However, he does not invent any new scenes and speeches, and only rarely gives way to the pathetic portrayal of horrible and ghasdy incidents.278 Livy frequently gives prominence to dialogues and individual achievements, in order to lend clarity (evidentia; ένάργεια) to his presentation. 279 Direct and indirect characterization of persons is to be found, 280 as is the literary technique of syncrisis (comparison).281 Livy's historical work is successfully concerned for the refinements which Cicero had demanded: artistic arrangement of words, variety

Composition of his History (Princeton 1977); T.J. Moore, Artistry and Ideology: Livy's Vocabulary of Virtue (Frankfurt 1989); Norden, pp. 234ff.; K.-E. Petzold, Du Eröffnung des zweiten Römisch-Makedonischen Krieges: Untersuchungen zur spätannalistischen Topik bei Livius (Berlin 1940; 2nd edn.; Darmstadt 1968); Schibel (as note 219); Η. Tränkle, Cato in der vierten und fünften Dekade des Livius (AAWM; 1971); idem, Livius und Polybios (Basel 1977); P. G. Walsh, Lay: His Historical Aims and Methods (Cambridge 1961); G. Wille, Der Auflau des livianischen Geschichtswerks (Amsterdam 1973); Woodman, pp. 128ff. 276 Cf. Liv. 43:13:2, where he himself speaks of his annales. 277 Fundamental on this is E. Burck, Die Erzählungskunst des T. Livius (2nd edn.; Berlin 1964). 278 Cf. for example 22:51:5-9. 279 Cf. for example 7:9:6-7:10:4; 31:18. 280 E.g. 21:4:3-9 (Hannibal); 39:40:4-12 (Cato). 281 Cf. the comparison between Papirius Cursor and Alexander the Great in 9:16:19-19:17 as well as that between Fabius Cunctator and Minucius in 22:27-29.

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in stylistic colouring, and a smooth even flow of language. 282 The influence of the annalists and of Ennius is just as demonstrable as that of Augustan authors. Following Cicero's precepts, Livy avoided the proverbial sharpness of the judgment tone, and refrained from damaging points. T h e historian too must preserve gravitas and dignitas in his presentadon. Since history writing is the task of the orator, direct speeches play an important role in Livy.283 He works out political controversies with speech and counter-speech, and sketches a picture of the person and the historical situation. 284 With his impressive and comprehensive presentation of Roman history, linguistically and stylistically polished, Livy met with so much approval that he soon ranked as the second classic of Roman historiography after Sallust. Asinius Pollio, the confirmed purist, did indeed believe that he could identify a Paduan thread, a certain Patavinitas, in his manner of expression. 285 But at most the emperor Caligula agreed with this opinion. 286 Quintilian however in his introduction for the budding orator relativized Pollio's judgment, and without the slightest reservation advised the beginner to read Livy rather than Sallust.287 Even Livy might occasionally overload his sentences, as happened

282 On Livy's language and style, which at the beginning of his history show the strongest idiosyncracies, cf. H. Aili, "Livy's Language. A Critical Survey of Research", ANRW 11.30:2 (1982), pp. 1122-1147 (with literature on the language and syntax, on the vocabulary, and on the speeches in Livy's history). Still fundamental are L. Kühnast, Die Hauptpunkte der livianischen Syntax. Für das Bedürfnis der Schule entworfen (2nd edn.; Berlin 1872) and O. Riemann, Etudes sur la langue et la grammaire de TiteLive (2nd edn.; Paris 1885); the results of these works are confirmed by H. Aili, The Prose Rhythm of Sallust and Lay (Stockholm 1979); A. H. McDonald, "The Style of Livy", JÄS47 (1957), pp. 155-72; J. Dangel, "Le mot, support de lecture des clausules cicéroniennes et liviennes", REL 62 (1984), pp. 386-415; J. M. Gleason, Studies in Livy's Language (Diss. Harvard 1969); cf. HSP 74 (1970), pp. 336-37; Kennedy, pp. 420ff.; D. K. Smith, "The Styles of Sallust and Livy. Defining Terms", CB 61 (1985), pp. 79-83; H. Tränkle, "Beobachtungen und Erwägungen zum Wandel der livianischen Sprache", WS NF 2 (1968), pp. 103-52; T. Viljamaa, Infinitive of Narration in Iky: A Study in Narrative Technique (Turku 1983). 283 On the speeches cf. H. V. Canter, "Livy the Orator", CJ 9 (1913/14), pp. 24-34; idem, "Rhetorical Elements in Livy's Direct Speeches", AJP 38 (1917), pp. 125-51 and 39 (1918), pp. 44-64; K. Gries, "Livy's Use of Dramatic Speech", AJP 70 (1949), pp. 118-41; A. Lambert, Die indirekte Rede als künstlerisches Stilmittel des Livius (Zürich 1946); R. Ulimann, Etude sur le style des discours de Tite-Live (Oslo 1929). 284 Cf. the debate between Fabius Cunctator and Scipio Africanus in 28:40-44, which shows elements of the Thucydidean style of speech; on this see B. S. Rodgers, "Great Expeditions. Livy on Thucydides", TAPA 116 (1986), pp. 335-52. 285 Quint. Inst. 8:1:3; 1:5:56. 286 Suet. Cal. 34:4. 287 Quint. Inst. 2:5:19.

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for example when he said that "The ambassadors, having failed to obtain peace, went back home, whence they had come". 288 Quintilian saw in such sentences rare aberrations, which did not do any damage either to clarity and intelligibility or to Livy's ladea ubertas.289 Although Livy had not gone to school with any Greek model, as Sallust had with Thucydides, Quintilian compared him with a classic of Greek historiography, namely Herodotus. 290 But Livy could match Herodotus only as a writer, not as historiae auctor. in the portrayal of events (in narrando) Livy combined "wonderful charm" with "the most luminous clarity", in the shaping of official speeches and commanders' addresses (in contionibus) he showed himself "more eloquent than can be expressed in words". Livy's success also reflects the political changes at the beginning of the period of the Principate. 291 As in the Greek east when the great Hellenistic empires arose, so now in Rome the number of the citizens who participated in important political decisions steadily declined. As a result the expectations for a historical work shifted: people wanted to be entertained rather than instructed, the political utility which Sallust had still written into his pages gave way to literary enjoyment. At the same time the demands which an educated public now posed for historiography increased. Livy, a non-senator and provincial, met these expectations with a finished style and a sure mastery of language. In his work the Roman annalistic tradition reached its fulfilment.

XVI The historians of the Julio-Claudian era adorned their works with rhetorical figures and availed themselves of the narrative techniques of rhetoric. This is shown also by the Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV of Pompeius Trogus, 292 who had Gallic ancestors and probably 288

Quint. Inst. 8:3:53 = Liv. F 75 Weißenborn/Müller (LCL translation). Quint. Inst. 2:5:19; 10:1:32. Cf. F. Quadlbauer, "Livi lactea ubertas—Bemerkungen zu einer quintilianischen Formel und ihrer Nachwirkung", in Lefèvre and Olshausen (eds.), Livius (as note 275), pp. 347-66. 290 Quint. Inst. 10:1:101-2. 291 Cf. W. Hoffmann, "Livius und die römische Geschichtsschreibung", A & A 4 (1954), pp. 170-86. 292 Edition by Ο. Seel (Leipzig 1935; 2nd edn. Stuttgart 1972); cf. J. M. AlonsoNunez, "An Augustan World History. The Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus", 289

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worked under Tiberius. He compiled the first universal history in Latin in 44 books, which survive only in Justinus's epitome. Roman history down to 20 BC is only dealt with in the last two books, while in the central place (books 7-40) stand the Macedonian monarchy and the empires of the Diadochi, which merge into the Roman empire. Among Trogus's historiographical techniques, following Hellenistic models, are digressions of geographical and ethnographical content and prologues; a striking feature in his rhetorically elevated style is his aversion to direct speeches. In the Augustan period the senatorial writing of history had still retained something of its old freedom. Cremutius Cordus 293 for example "did not indeed speak ill about Caesar and Augustus, but did not show any unusual respect for them". 294 Augustus even sat among the listeners as he read from his historical work.295 The climate however grew perceptibly worse. The same Cremutius in AD 25, at the instance of Sejanus, had to answer for himself before the senatorial court, because in his history he had praised Brutus and called Cassius the last Roman. Thereafter he was forced to take his own life. His books were confiscated and publicly burnt. 296 The history of the JulioClaudian emperors was "falsified from fear, so long as they flourished, but written with a fresh hatred after they were dead". 297 A historian typical of the time, with clear encomiastic traits, is Velleius Paterculus, 298 born about 20 BC, who under Tiberius compiled a twoG & R 34 (1987), pp. 56-72; idem, La Historia universal de Pompeyo Trogo. Coordenadas espacialesy temporales (Madrid 1992); L. Ferrero, Struttura e metodo dell'Epitome di Giustino (Turin 1957); G. Forni and M. G. Angeli Bertinelli, "Pompeo Trogo come fonte di storia", ANRW 11.30:2 (1982), pp. 1298-1362; A. Klotz, RE 21.2 (1952), pp. 230013 (Nr. 142); H. D. Richter, Untersuchungen zur hellenistischen Historiographie. Die Vorlagen des Pompeius Trogus fur du Darstellung der nachalexandnnischen hellenistischen Geschichte (lust. 13-40) (Frankfurt 1987); O. Seel, Die Praefatio des Pompeius Trogus (Erlangen 1955); idem, Eine römische Weltgeschichte: Studien zum Text der Epitome des Iustinus und zur Historik des Pompeius Trogus (Nürnberg 1972); idem, "Pompeius Trogus und das Problem der Universalgeschichte", ANRW 11.30:2 (1982), pp. 1363-1423; R. Urban, '"Gallisches Bewußtsein' und 'Romkritik' bei Pompeius Trogus", ANRW 11.30:2 (1982), pp. 1424-43. 293 HRR II, pp. 87-90. 294 D. C. 57:24:3. 295 Suet. Tib. 61:3. 296 Tac. Ann. 4:34. Some copies could however be saved, so that under Caligula an "expurgated" new edition appeared (Quint. Inst. 10:1:104; Suet. Cal. 16:1). Cf. W. Speyer, Biichervemichtung und Zensur des Geistes bei Heiden, Juden und Christen (Stuttgart 1981), pp. 65 and 87-88. 297 Tac. Ann. 1:1:2. 298 Editions: R. Ellis (Oxford 1898; 2nd edn. 1928); J. Hellegouarc'h (2 vols.;

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volume "Roman History". The first book deals in 18 chapters with the period from the end of the Trojan War to 146 BC, the second contains 131 chapters and presents in increasing detail the span from 146 BC to the time of Velleius, culminating in a panegyric on Tiberius. 299 In similar fashion to Livy's annalistic procedure, Velleius holds to the chronological sequence and depicts alternately events in Italy and abroad. Terse dramatic presentations alternate with rhetorically stylized, loosely attached sections. Through the fact that he groups what happened around personalities, his work also has biographical features. His rhetorical training shows itself in an abundance of examples, which are likewise found in Livy, and in the frequent use of antitheses, variations, rhythmic ends to sentences, characterizations of individuals and syncriseis. Also to the Tiberian period belong the Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus, arranged according to subject-groups; he compiled this rhetorical collection of exempla for continuous reading for a fastidious literary public. The exemplum does not strive for historical truth, but is intended to stimulate to delectio and admiratio. Valerius adopted the casuistic employment of the example in forensic rhetoric; later authors follow him in the stereotyped use of the canonized historical examples. 300

Budé; Paris 1982); cf. the annotated edition of the section 2 : 4 1 9 3 by A.J. Woodman (Cambridge 1977). Cf. further E. Bolaffi, De Vetleiano sermone et quibusdam dicendi generis quaestionibus selectis (Pisauri 1925); idem, "Tre storiografi latini del I secolo d. C.: Velleio Patercolo, Valerio Massimo, Curzio Rufo", GIF 13 (1960), pp. 336-45; L. Castiglioni, "Alcune osservazioni a Velleio Patercolo", RAL 8.7.5-10 (1931), pp. 268-73; F. Delia Corte, "I giudizi letterari di Velleio Patercolo", RFIC NS 15 (1937), pp. 154-59; A. De Vivo, "Luxuria e mos maiorum. Indirizzi programmatici della storiografia velleiana", Vichiana 13 (1984), pp. 249-64; A. Dihle, RE 8A.1 (1955), pp. 637-59; C. Kuntze, Zur Darstellung des Kaisers Tiberius und seiner Zeit bei Velleius Paterculus (Frankfurt 1985); D.J. McGonagle, Rhetorik and Biography in Velleius Paterculus (Diss. Ohio State Univ. 1970), cf. DA 31 (1971), p. 3528A; F. Portalupi, "Osservazioni sullo stile di Velleio Paterculo", CCC 8 (1987), pp. 39-57; J. R. Starr, A Literary Introduction to Velleius Paterculus (Diss. Princeton 1978), cf. DA 39 (1979), p. 5491 A; idem, "Velleius' Literary Techniques in the Organization of his History", TAPA 110 (1980), pp. 2 8 7 301; idem, "The Scope and the Genre of Velleius History", CQ NS 31 (1981), pp. 162-74; H.J. W. Verhaak, Velleius Paterculus en de rhetoriek van zijn tjid (Diss. Nijmegen 1954); A.J. Woodman, "Questions of Date, Genre, and Style in Velleius: Some Literary Answers", CQ, NS 25 (1975), pp. 272-305; idem, "Sallustian Influence on Velleius Paterculus", in J. Bibauw (ed.), Hommages à M. Renard, I (Bruxelles 1969), pp. 785-99. Futher literature in J. Hellegouarc'h, "Etat présent des travaux sur l'Histoire Romaine de Velléius Paterculus", ANRW 11.32:1 (1984), pp. 404-36. 299 On the unusual but consciously chosen form cf. Veil. 1:14:1; 1:16:1 and J. Hellegouarc'h, "Lire et comprende. Quelques remarques sur le texte de l'Histoire romaine de Velleius Paterculus", REL 54 (1976), pp. 239-56, here 240. 300 On this cf. R. Honstetter, Exemplum zwischen Rhetorik und Literatur: Zur gattungs-

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From the first century AD we need only mention the history of Alexander by Curtius Rufus (Historiae Alexandra Magni Macedonis), an account written in the historiographical tradition of Hellenism with clear novelistic features which attests the reality of the Alexander myth in the imperial period. T h e work is enlivened by numerous speeches, which throw its rhetorical character into special relief, and by a dramatic stylizing of what took place.301 All the remaining historical works from the first century are lost: the Annales of Festenella, oriented towards cultural history, the presentation of Cremutius Cordus already mentioned, the continuation of Livy's historical work by Aufidius Bassus, who in addition dealt with the German wars of the Augustan period, the contemporary histories of the emperor Claudius, the elder Seneca and the elder Pliny, who wrote 20 books bella Germaniae302 and a history a fine Aufidi Bassi extending to Vespasian, and the historical works of Servilius Nonianus, Cluvius Rufus and Fabius Rusticus. 303

XVII T h e high point and the conclusion of early imperial history writing is embodied in P. (?) Cornelius Tacitus (about AD 55-115), who as consul in AD 98 began with the biography of his father-in-law Agricola and his Germania, and then went on to deal with the period from

geschichtlichen Sonderstellung von Valerius Maximus und Augustinus (Diss. Constance 1977) and G. Maslakov, "Valerius Maximus and Roman Historiography. A Study of the Exempla Tradition", ANRW 11.32:1 (1984), pp. 437-96 with further literature. We may add W. M. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility (London 1992). 301 Of the original ten books, the first two are missing, as are the beginning of the third, the end of the fifth, the beginning of the sixth, and parts of the tenth. Proposals for the dating of Q. Curtius Rufus range from Augustus to Theodosius; very probably he wrote in the first century AD (under Vespasian?). Cf. H. Bödefeld, Untersuchungen zur Datierung der Alexandergeschichte des Curtius Rufus (Diss. Düsseldorf 1982); Hammond, Three Historians (note 51); Ν. Holzberg, Hellenistisches und Römisches in der Philippos-Episode bei Curtius Rußis (3, 5, 1~6, 20) (Munich 1988); R. Porod, Der Literat Curtius. Tradition und Neugestaltung: %ur Frage der Eigenständigkeit des Schriftstellers Curtius (Graz 1987); W. Rutz, "Zur Erzählkunst des Q. Curtius Rufus", ANRW 11.32:4 (1986), pp. 2329-57; Seibert, Alexander der Große (note 51), pp. 29-34 with further literature. 302 On this cf. also K. Sallman, "Der Traum des Historikers: Zu den 'Bella Germaniae' des Plinius und zur julisch-claudischen Geschichtsschreibung", ANRW 11.32:1 (1984), pp. 578-601. 303 Cf. HRR II, pp. CVIIIIff. and 79ff.

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AD 14 to 96 in his Histories and Annals, written under Trajan and Hadrian. 304 The Histories are devoted to contemporary history from the beginning of the Year of the Four Emperors to the assassination of Domitian; the extant parts, from book 1 to the opening of the fifth book, relate to the years AD 69/70. The Annals (Ab excessu Divi Augusti) recount the history of the Julio-Claudian house from Tiberius to Nero; still extant are books 1-4, the opening of book 5, book 6 (but without a beginning) and books 11-16 with lacunae at the beginning and end. In his presentation Tacitus remained an "annalist", and accordingly rooted in the tradition of Roman historiography; he fully acknowledged the laws of the genre coined by Sallust and Livy. The annalisdc principle is the reason why at the beginning of every year the names of the consules ordinam are noted; then follow the deeds of the emperor, military events, meetings of the senate, occurrences in the city of Rome and the deaths of prominent personalities. Tacitus does deplore the necessity of separating proceedings which belong closely together, because they took place in different years, 305 but nonetheless he disregards the pattern only in exceptional cases.306 Yet it is not the division of years but rather Tacitus's conscious shaping that is decisive for the arrangement of the material. T h e art of the

304

To open up research into Tacitus, now beyond any survey, cf. the detailed studies, surveys of research and bibliographical articles in ANRW 11.33:2 (1990), ANRW 11.33:3 (1990), ANRW 11.33:4 (1991) and ANRW 11.33:5 (1991). Among comprehensive surveys the following may be mentioned: E. Aubrion, Rhétorique et histoire chez Tacite (Metz 1985); I. Borzsâk, RE Sup. 11 (1968), pp. 373-512; K. Büchner, Tacitus und Ausklang, Studien zur römischen Uteratur, IV (Wiesbaden 1964); D. Flach, Tacitus und die Tradition der antiken Geschichtsschreibung (Göttingen 1973); J. Ginsburg, Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus (New York 1981); H. Heubner, Studien zur Darstellungskunst des Tacitus (Hist. 1,12~2,51) (Würzburg 1935); Klingner, pp. 483ff. und 504ff.; Leeman, Form (as note 250), pp. 305ff. und 317ff.; V. Pöschl (ed.), Tacitus (2nd edn.; Darmstadt 1986); G. Radke (ed.), Politik und literarische Kunst im Werk des Tadtus (Stuttgart 1971); U. Rademacher, Die Bildkunst des Tacitus (Hildesheim 1975); R. Syme, Tadtus (2 vols.; Oxford 1958); idem, Ten Studies in Tadtus (Oxford 1970); M. Vielberg, Pßichte, Werte, Ideale: Eine Untersuchung zu den Wertvorstellungen des Tadtus (Stuttgart 1987); G. Wille, Der Aufbau der Werke des Tacitus (Amsterdam 1983); Woodman, pp. 160ff. From the flood of editions (and translations) we may mention: Ann. H. Furneaux (2 vols., text and commentary; 2nd edn.; Oxford 1896/1916); K. Nipperdey and G. Andresen (2 vols., text and commentary; 11th edn./6th edn.; Berlin 1915/1908); W. Heubner (Stuttgart 1983), cf. also the commentary by E. Koestermann (4 vols.; Heidelberg 1963-68). Hist. C. D. Fisher (Oxford 1911); H. Heubner (Stuttgart 1978); W. Heraeus (2 vols., text and commentary; 5th edn./ 4th edn.; Leipzig 1904/1899), commentary by H. Heubner (5 vols., vol. 5 with W. Fauth; Heidelberg 1963-1982); Ger., Ag., Dial. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Ogilvie (Oxford 1975). 305 Ann. 4:71; 12:40. 306 E.g. Ann. 12:40; 15:48, 50.

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composition, the increasing, contrasting or anticipatory arrangement, assigns to each happening the function that is due to it in the work as a whole. Again and again Tacitus works with illuminating contrasts: the usurpation by the energetic Flavians is blended into the sluggish victory march of the Vitellians, to relativize it.307 The stubborn silence of a prostitute is set against the cowardly treason of the senators.308 Frequently the antagonism between two persons determines the presentation. Dominant in the Agricola is the tension between the protagonist and Domitian, in the first books of the Annals that between Germanicus and Tiberius, in the later between Nero and Corbulo, in the Histories between Galba, who represents the old Roman virtus, and Otho, who is a "worthy" successor of Nero. Particularly expressive is the actualizing of historiographical models and traditions in the styling of personalities. Thus Tacitus harks back to the Alexander motif, in order to characterize Agricola and Germanicus.309 Yet the description of persons is never stereotyped, individual traits are not denied, and space is given to apposite psychological interpretations. Letters and both direct and indirect speeches likewise serve for the characterizing of persons and situations.310 T h e capacity for the scenic shaping of a historical event becomes clear precisely in particular episodes from the Year of the Four Emperors. 311 Dramatically constructed complexes of action and impressive portraits of character are harmoniously linked together. In great things as in small the literary and linguistic elements of historiography are skilfully united with one another, in order to set forth the real factors in historical change. 307

Hùt. 2:74-86. Ann. 15:51. 309 Cf. already Norden, pp. 337-38, as well as I. Borzsâk, "Alexander der Große als Muster taciteischer Heldendarstellung", (iymnasium 89 (1982), pp. 37-56 and L. W. Rudand, "The Tacitean Germanicus. Suggestions for a Re-Evaluation", RhM 30 (1987), pp. 153-64 with further literature. 3.0 J. Ginsburg, "Speech and Allusion in Tacitus, Annals 3, 49-51 and 14, 48-49", AJP 107 (1986), pp. 525-41; G. A. Harrer, "Senatorial Speeches and Letters in Tacitus' Annals", SPh 15 (1918), pp. 333-43; B. Maier, "Othos Rede an die Prätorianer. Gedanken zu Tacitus, hist. 1, 37-38", Anregung 31 (1985), pp. 168-73; R. H. Martin, "The Speech of Curtius Montanus: Tacitus, Histories 4.42", JRS 57 (1967), pp. 109-14; N. P. Miller, "Dramatic Speech in Tacitus", AJ Ρ 85 (1964), pp. 279-96; D. C. A. Shotter, "The Debate on Augustus: Tacitus, Annals 1.9-10", Mnemosyne 20 (1967), pp. 171-74. Reference may also be made to the interpretation of the Percennius speech at Ann. 1:16-17 in E. Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Garden City, NY 1957), pp. 29ff. 3.1 Cf. Hist. 2:70; 2:89; 3:67-68; 3:843-44. 308

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Consciously setting himself apart from the Flavian writing of history, Tacitus seeks to write sine ira et studio, and accordingly adheres to the principles of discovering the truth and of impartiality. 312 T o this end he created a stylistic prose which Pliny described as σεμνώς:313 Tacitus combines a piquant, extremely terse and pictorial style314 with archaic and poetic turns of phrase, new combinations of words, inconcinnities and antitheses.315 His manner of writing developed ever more sharply from work to work, and attains the high point of its individuality in the first six books of the Annals. T h e style, language and composition of Tacitus's work are placed at the service of his historiographie aim, the perception that Principate and freedom are incompatible.

XVIII With Tacitus the style of historiography stamped by Sallust reached its climax. With him at the same time the senatorial writing of history came to an end. T h e rhetorical training of the high imperial period wished for concise handbooks like the outline of Florus or the annalistic introduction of Granius Licinianus. In the first half of the second century, probably during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, L. Annaeus Florus316 gave a survey of the external and internal wars 312

Hist. 1:1; Ann. 1:1. Plin. Ep. 2:11:17. 3.4 B.-R. Voss, Der pointierte Stil des Tacitus (Münster 1963). 3.5 Cf. J. Hellegouarc'h, "Le style de Tacite: bilan et perspectives", ANRW 11.33:4 (1991), pp. 2385-2453, as well as the contributions published in the same volume by J. Dangel, "Les structures de la phrase oratoire chez Tacite: Etude syntaxique, rythmique et métrique", ibid., pp. 2454-2538; D. Longrée, "La phrase à rallonge chez Tacite", ibid., 2539-2580; S. Borzsâk, "Tacitus—ein Manierist?", ibid., pp. 25812596; E. Aubrion, "L'eloquenda de Tacite et sa fides d'historien", ibid., pp. 2 5 9 7 2688; R. G. Tanner, "The Development of Thought and Style in Tacitus", ibid., pp. 2689-2751; M. Billerbeck, "Die dramatische Kunst des Tacitus", ibid., 27522771; Ε. Keitel, "The Structure and Function of Speeches in Tacitus' Histories I III", ibid., pp. 2772-2794; P. Sinclair, "Rhetorical Generalizations in Annales 1-6. A Review of the Problem of Innuendo and Tacitus' Integrity", ibid., pp. 2795-2831; A. Malissard, "Le décor dans les 'Histoires' et les 'Annales'. Du stéréotype à l'intention signifiante", ibid., pp. 2832-2878 and M. Giua, "Paesaggio, natura, ambiente, come elementi strutturali délia storiografia di Tacito", ibid., pp. 2879-2902. On the language and style of the Annales cf. the survey in W. Suerbaum, "Zweiundvierzig Jahre Tacitus-Forschung: Systematische Gesamtbibliographie zu Tacitus' Annales 1939-1980", ANRW 11.33:2 (1990), pp. 1032-1476, here 1292-1323. 3.6 Editions: E. Malcovati (Rome 1938; 2nd edn. 1972); P. Jal (2 vols.; Budé; 313

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which Rome had conducted from the beginnings of the city to the time of Augustus. T o this were added descriptions of the siege and capture of cities, mirabilia, scenic presentations, individual characterizations and geographical and ethnographical digressions. A language rich in imagery, a diction close to poetry, the frequent use of figures of sound and sense, all make it clear that Florus wished to write more than a mere school-book. His presentation of history is not a historical work, but an opus oratonum conforming to the Ciceronian ideal, which seeks to reproduce Roman history rhetonce et tragice.317 Whether his periodizing of history according to "ages of life" goes back to the elder or the younger Seneca is a matter of debate. 318 Granius Licinianus 319 put out a factual compendium, interspersed with source-critical notes and inserts about cultural history, in which the material was epitomized in order according to years. The pretentious literary surveys, which fused together diverse historiographical elements, sought to impress the educated elite of the western half of the empire. This circle of readers found edification also in collections of historical exempta and studied dry compendia for school instruction like the Liber memonalis of Ampelius.320 At the same time interest grew in biographies of emperors, such as Suetonius had put forth about AD 120. In the high imperial period the rhetorical elements,

Paris 1967); E. S. Forster (LCL, together with Cornelius Nepos; Cambridge, MALondon 1929). Cf. V. Alba, IM concepciôn historiogrâfica de Lucio Anneo Floro (Madrid 1953); J. M. Alonso-Nûnez, Die politische und soziale Ideologie des Geschichtsschreibers Florus (Bonn 1983); L. Bessone, "Floro: un retore storico e poeta", ANRW 11.34:1 (1993), pp. 80-117; C. Facchini Tosi, II proemio di Floro: La struttura concetuale e formale (Bologna 1990); Hose, pp. 53fT.; A. Klotz, "Der zweite Punische Krieg bei Florus", RAM 89 (1940), pp. 114 27; S. Lilliedahl, Florusstudieru Beiträge zur Kenntnis des rhetorischen Stils der Silbernen Latimtät (Lund-Leipzig 1928); Norden II, pp. 598ff.; R. Sieger, "Der Stil des Historikers Florus", WS 51 (1933), pp. 95-108; P. Steinmetz, Untersuchungen zur römischen Literatur des zweiten Jahrhunderts nach Christi Geburt (Wiesbaden 1982), pp. 12Iff.; P. Zancan, Floro e Livio (Padua 1942). On the background cf. also S. Jannaccone, "Appunti per una storia délia storiografia retorica nel II secolo", GIF 14 (1961), pp. 289-307. 317 Cic. Leg. 1:5; Brut. 43; cf. Woodman, pp. 98ff. 318 Cf. Lact. Inst. 7:15:14fF. as well as J. M. Alonso-Nunez, The Ages of Rome (Amsterdam 1982); L. Castiglioni, "Lattanzio e le Storie de Seneca Padre", RFIC 56 (1928), pp. 454—75; R. Haussier, "Vom Ursprung und Wandel des Lebensaltervergleichs", Hermes 92 (1964), pp. 313-41. 319 Editions by M. Flemisch (Leipzig 1904; reprinted Stuttgart 1967) and N. Criniti (Leipzig 1981). For further reading cf. Ν. Criniti and Granio Liciniano, ΑΛΚΗ711.34:1 (1993), pp. 119-205. 320 The suggestions for dating range from the second to the fourth or fifth century. On Ampelius and his work cf. HLL 5, § 530.

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on the one hand, penetrated ever more strongly into history writing, so far as it was intended to serve for instruction and for training;321 on the other hand Suetonius through his biographies of the Caesars, which were in part in competition with historiography, made the relatively simple style of the grammaticus presentable for fastidious readers. Justin's epitome from the universal history of Pompeius Trogus probably still belongs in the third century. He mingled excerpts with accounts of the content, and concentrated on exempta. The third century may, like the early imperial period and late antiquity, have possessed Livy's historical work in an abridged version of its own.322 In the fourth century the high government officials Sextus Aurelius Victor, 323 Eutropius 324 and (Rufius) Festus325 continued the tradition of the historical oudine, ever more biographically structured. The brevity desired by the public now became a norm for the genre: 326 brevemfiericlementia tua praecepit.32? The Annales of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, a senator and high official of the empire, show that in the circles of the pagan aristocracy also old forms of historiography were nurtured. 328 It was however Ammianus Marcellinus, 329 born about AD 330 in

321

On this cf. now Hose, pp. 5ff. and R. Nicolai, IM. storiografia netl'educazione antica (Pisa 1992) with further literature. 322 Cf. HLL 5, § 533.1. 323 HLL 5, § 537. Cf. now also J. Fugmann, Königszeit und frühe Republik in der Schrift "De viris ilkistnbus Romae" Quellenkritisch-historische Untersuchungen 1. Königszeit (Frankfurt 1990). 324 HLL 5, § 538. 325 HLL 5, § 539.1. 326 Cf. also Rhet. Lat. Min. 588. 327 Ruf. Fest. 1. 328 Cf. W. Schlumberger, "Die verlorenen Annalen des Nicomachus Flavianus. Ein Werk über die Geschichte der römischen Republik oder Kaiserzeit", BHAC 1982/83 (Bonn 1985), pp. 305-29. 329 Editions by W. Seyfarth, L. Jacob-Karau, I. Ulmann (2 vols.; Leipzig 1978) a n d j . C. Rolfe (3 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA-London 1935-39). The Budé edition, on which so far E. Gallatier, J. Fontaine, G. Sabbah and M. A. Marie have been working, is not yet complete (Paris 1968ff.). Cf. further N.J. E. Austin, Ammianus on Warfare. Investigation into Ammianus' Military Knowledge (Brussels 1979); N. Bitter, Kampschilderungen bet Ammianus Marcellinus (Bonn 1976); R. C. Blockley, Ammianus MarceUinus: A Study of his Historiography and Political Thought (Brussels 1975); K. Bringmann, "Ammianus Marcellinus als spätantiker römischer Historiker", A & A 19 (1973), pp. 44—60; G. Calboli, "Ammian und die Geschichtsschreibung seiner Zeit", in Festschrift R. Muth (Innsbruck 1983), pp. 33-53; H. Cichocka, "Die Konzeption des Exkurses im Geschichtswerk des Ammianus Marcellinus", Eos 63 (1975), pp. 329-40; C.J. Classen, "Greek and Roman in Ammianus Marcellinus' History", MusAft 1 (1972), pp. 39-47; A. Demandt, Zeitkritik und Geschichtsbild im Werk Ammians (Bonn 1965);

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Antioch, who first overcame the almost three hundred year old crisis in Roman history writing, which more and more spent itself in collections of exempla and in compendia. In his Res gestae, compiled shortly before AD 400, Ammianus as "a former soldier and a Greek"330 glorified Rome, the old capital of the empire and the seat of the senate. This rhetorically educated Greek chose Latin as the medium of his historical presentation. His syntax and style are however influenced by his Greek mother-tongue, as is shown for example by his frequent use of all the participles (including present and future). In his use of the moods and tenses too he often goes against Latin usage.331 He begins his history with Nerva, and thus continues the work of Tacitus, from whom he also draws stylistic inspiration.332 The linguistic influence of the Histories is especially perceptible at the beginning of books. In addition he avails himself of the terminology created by Sallust and Livy. In line with the usage of his time, biography also influences his literary technique. His historical presentation combines the chronological principle with the geographical; the very abundance of the scenes of action already makes the annalistic principle obsolete. As already to some extent in Tacitus, the material is structured accord-

H. Drexler, Ammianstudien (Hildesheim 1974); J. Fontaine, "Ammien Marcellin, historien romantique", BAGB (1969), pp. 417-35; H. Gärtner, Einige Überlegungen zur kaisazeitlichen Panegyrik und zu Ammians Charakteristik des Kaisers Julian (AAWM; 1968); H. Hagendahl, Studio Ammianea (Diss. Uppsala 1921); A. Helttula, "Post depositum militiae munus. Official Phraseology in Ammianus Marcellinus", ArctosSup. 2 (1985), pp. 41-56; M. Kautt-Bender, Vielfalt und Funktion der Darstellungselemente in den Res gestae des Ammianus Marcellinus (Heidelberg 1991); J. F. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammnianus (London 1989); A. Momigliano, "The Lonely Historian Ammianus Marcellinus", ASNP 4 (1974), pp. 1239-1407; K.-G. Neumann, Taciteisches im Werk des Ammianus Marcellinus (Munich 1987); S. M. Oberhelman, "The Provenance of the Style of Ammianus Marcellinus", QJJCC N.s. 27.3 (1987), pp. 79-89; W. Richter, "Die Darstellung der Hunnen bei Ammianus Marcellinus (31,2,1-11)", Historia 23 (1974), pp. 343-77; Κ. Rosen, Ammianus Marcellinus (Darmstadt 1982); G. Sabbah, La méthode d'Ammien Marcellin. Recherches sur la construction du discours historique dans les Res gestae (Paris 1978); C. Samberger, Die Kaiserbiographie in den Res gestae des Ammianus Marcellinus. Eine Untersuchung zur Komposition der ammianischen Geschichtsschreibung (Berlin 1968); R. Seager, Ammianus Marcellinus: Seven Studies in his Language and Thought (Missouri 1986); R. Syme, Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (Oxford 1968); H. Tränkle, "Ammianus Marcellinus als römischer Geschichtsschreiber", A & A 11 (1962), pp. 21-33; J. Vogt, Ammianus Marcellinus als erzählender Geschichtsschreiber der Spätzeit (AAWM; 1963). 330 Amm. Marc. 31:16:9. 331 Cf. already Norden II, p. 648. 332 R. C. Blockley, "Tacitean Influences upon Ammianus", Latomus 32 (1973), pp. 63-78; A. Borzsâk, "Von Tacitus zu Ammian", AAntHung 24 (1976), pp. 357-68; D. Flach, "Von Tacitus zu Ammian", Historia 21 (1972), pp. 333-50; L. E. Wilshire, "Did Ammianus Write a Continuation of Tacitus?", ÇJ 68 (1972/73), pp. 221-27.

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ing to content and for dramatic effect. The descriptions of batdes are carefully organized into preparation, conflict, flight and pursuit, and outcome; in his portrayals rhetorical methods and dramatic effect are not ruled out.333 Digressions and anecdotic inserts334 are not lacking, as are dreams, portents and prophecies. The speeches are shaped artistically and in accordance with the ancient historiographical tradition.335 Yet Ammianus does not follow the appointed rules in every respect, but is perfectly prepared to take liberties in composition, style and language. Departing from the traditional history writing, he introduces into his work rather more frequent digressions, geographical and ethnographical, religious, astronomical and relating to the natural sciences;336 he narrates in the "we-form", and takes liberties with his word arrangement. 337 He avoids neither neologisms nor Greek citations338 nor unusual metaphors. 339 The Res gestae in 31 books, of which only the last 18 are extant (covering the years AD 353-378), show themselves indebted to the old ideal of Veritas.3*0 At the close of the fourth century AD the pagan Ammianus still vouches, with great suggestive power and moral impetus, for the combination of fortuna and virtus as the real cause of the greatness of Rome. 341 At the end of his history he calls upon his successors: procudere linguas ad maiores moneo stilos,342 The sentence was to die away unheard.

333

Cf. e.g. the portrayal of the battle at Strasbourg (357) in 16:12. E.g. 16:5:11-12; 16:10:16; 22:4:9; 29:3:3-4. 335 Cf. Julian's last address in 25:3:15ff. 336 Cf. already T. Mommsen, "Ammians Geographica", Hermes 16 (1881), pp. 602-36, here 635-36 = idem, Gesammelte Schriften, VII (Berlin 1909), pp. 393-425, here 424-25, as well as U. Richter, "Die Funktion der Digressionen im Werk Ammians", WJA 15 (1989), pp. 209-22 and A. Emmett, "Introductions and Conclusions to Digressions in Ammianus Marcellinus", MPhL 5 (1981), pp. 15-33. 337 At the end of part of a sentence, or of individual sentences, the position of the words is however conditioned by the rhythm of the sentence, which at the end of the fourth century, in contrast to classical literature, depended not on the quantity of syllables but on the word-accent, cf. A. M. Harmon, The Clausula in Ammianus Marcellinus (New Haven 1910). 338 Cf. for example 17:4:17ff.; 21:14:1; 25:4:17; 31:1. 339 Cf. F. W. Jenkins, "Theatrical Metaphors in Ammianus Marcellinus", Eranos 85 (1987), pp. 55-63 and I. Ulmann, Metaphern in den Res gestae des Ammianus Marcellinus (Diss. Berlin 1975). 340 31:16:9. 341 14:6:3. 342 31:16:9. 334

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

APPENDIX

Significant literature on the individual authors will be found in the relevant footnotes. Reference is made only in exceptional cases to entries in encyclopaedias of antiquity and articles in literary histories. Special mention may be made of the more recent studies in literary history: P. E. Easterling, B. W. Knox, E.J. Kenney, W. V. Clausen (eds.), The

Cambridge History of Classical Literature (2 vols, in 9; Cambridge 1982-89): L. Canfora, Storia della letteratura greca (Bari 1986); A. Dihle, Griechische Literaturgeschichte: Von Homer bis zum Hellenismus (2nd edn.; Munich 1991); A. Lesky, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (3rd edn.; Berne-Munich 1971 [= Munich 1993]); M. von Albrecht, Geschichte der römischen Literatur (2 vols.; 2nd edn.; Munich 1994); HLL 5. T h e following older histories of literature should however be particularly singled out:

W. Schmid and W. Stählin, Griechische Literatur (HAW 7, I 1-5; 7th edn.; Munich 1929-48), II 1 - 2 (6th edn.; Munich 1920-25); M. von Schanz,

C. Hosius, G. Krüger, Geschichte der römischen Literatur bis zum Gesetzgebungswer des Kaisers Justinian (HAW, 8; 5 vols. l s t - 4 t h edns.; Munich 1914-35); W. S.

Teuffei, Geschichte der römischen Literatur. Neu bearbeitet von W. Kroll und F. Skuts (3 vols.; 6 / 7 t h edn.; Leipzig 1913-20); E. Norden, Die römische Literatur. Mit

Anhang: Die lateinische Literatur im Übergang vom Altertum zum Mittelalter (6th edn.; Leipzig 1961); F. Leo, Geschichte der römischen Literatur. I. Die archaische Literatur (Berlin 1913). These studies offer copious observations on language, style and literary technique, and cite older literature in detail. In addition the collections of basic contributions on ancient historiography by A. Momig-

liano in Primo-nono contribute alia storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico (Rom 1955-92) and H. Strasburger in Studien zur Alten Geschichte (vol. 2; HildesheimN e w York 1982) should also be consulted. Finally, numerous articles important for the theme are to be found in G. Ueding (ed.), Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik (Tübingen 1992ff.). T h e basis for any work with the ancient historians is provided—alongside the editions and commentaries—by the great collections of fragments by C. and T. Müller (FHG), F. Jacoby (FGrHist) and H. Peter (HRR). Express reference should be made to the articles on the historians in the Pauly-

Wissowa Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (RE). To a large extent they are not superseded even today. T h e articles by E. Schwartz have been collected and published under the tide Griechische Geschichtsschreiber (GG) and those by F. Jacoby under the title Griechische Historiker (GH). T h e abbreviations for journals mosdy follow those suggested by the Année Philologique. In addition the following works are cited in an abbreviated form: FGrHist = F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin-Leiden 1926-58). Of this standard collection Parts I (Genealogy, Mythography), II (Universal and Contemporary History, Chronography) and III (Ethnography und Horography) have so far appeared; they contain the fragments of 856 historians and Jacoby's commentary on 607. In addition to the Testimonia (T) = witnesses to life and work, and the Fragments (F), the philological and historical commentaries are an indispensable tool. Jacoby was unable to complete Parts IIIc (Commentary), IV (Biography, History of Literature and Antiquarian Literature), V (Geography)

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and VI (Unidentifiable Authors, Theory und Method of History Writing), with fragments of an estimated 150 further authors, before his death in 1957; Parts IIIc-V are now being worked on by various editors, and will be published by Brill (Leiden). So far the first fascicle of Part IIIc, edited by C. W. Fornara, is available (1994). FHG = Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (ed. C. and T. Müller; 5 vols.; Paris 184173). HLL 5 = Handbuch der lateinischen Uteratur der Antike 5: R. Herzog (ed.), Restauration und Erneuerung 284-374 n. Chr. (Munich 1989). Hose = M. Hose, Erneuerung der Vergangenheit: Die Historiker im Imperium Romanum von Florus bis Casstus Dio (Stuttgart-Leipzig 1994). HRR - Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae (ed. H. Peter; vol. 1; 2nd edn.; Leipzig 1914); (vol. 2; Leipzig 1906); reprinted with bibliography by J. Kroymann (Stuttgart 1967). Jacoby, GH = F. Jacoby, Griechische Historiker (Stuttgart 1956; 2nd edn. 1970). Kennedy = G. Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton 1972). Klingner = F. Klingner, Römische Geisteswelt. Essays zur lateinischen Uteratur (5th edn.; Munich 1965). LThK3 = Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche (3rd edn.; Freiburg 1994ff.). Norden = E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa vom 6. Jh. v. Chr. bis in die %eit der Renaissance (2 vols.; 3rd edn.; Leipzig 1898, 1915). Reference is made throughout to the first volume, except where noted. Peter = H. Peter, Wahrheit und Kunst. Geschichtsschreibung und Plagiat im klassischen Altertum (Leipzig 1911; reprint 1965). RAC = Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum (Stuttgart 1950ff.). RE = Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart 18931980). Schwartz, GG = E. Schwartz, Griechische Geschichtsschreiber (Leipzig 1957). TRE = Theologische Realenzyklopädie (Berlin 1976ff.). Woodman = A.J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography. Four Studies (London 1988). On Woodman's central hypothesis, that ancient historiography was an integral part of forensic rhetoric, and accordingly fictional literature, cf. T.J. Luce in Phoenix 43 (1989), pp. 174-77; M. Vielberg in GGA 224 (1992), pp. 33-40 and T. P. Wiseman in CR 38 (1988), pp. 262-64. Literature General J. M. Alonso-Nunez (ed.), Geschichtsbild und Geschichtsdenken im altertum (Darmstadt 1991); Α. B. Breebart, "Weltgeschichte als Thema der antiken Geschichtsschreibung", AHN 1 (1966), pp. 1-21; idem, Clio and Antiquity. History and Historiography of the Greek and Roman World (Oxford 1977); A. Cameron (ed.), History as Text: The Writing of Ancient Historiography (London 1989); L. Canfora, Teorie e tecnica delta storiografta classica (Bari 1974); idem, Totalità e selezione nella storiografta classica (Bari 1972); H. V. Canter, "Excursus in Greek and Roman Historians", PQ_8 (1929), pp. 233-47; F. H. Colson, "Some Considerations as to the Influence of Rhetoric upon History", PCA 14 (1917), pp. 149-73; L. Cracco-Ruggini (ed.), Storia e storiografta sul mondo antico. Omaggio a A. Momigliano (Como 1989); L'exemplum et le modèle de comportement dans le discours antique et médiéval (MEFRA, 92.1; Rome 1980); D. Earl, "Prologue-form in Ancient Historiography", ANRW 1.2 (1972), pp. 842-56; M. I. Finley, Ancient History: Evidence and Models (London 1985); idem, The Use and Abuse of History (London 1975); C. W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley 1983); B. Gentili and G. Cerri, Le teorie del discorso storico nel pensiero greco e la storiografta romana arcaica (Rome 1975); M. Grant, The Ancient Historians (London 1970); idem, Greek and Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation (London 1995); The Greek

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Historians: Literature and History. Festschrift A. E. Raubitschek (Saratoga, CA 1985); Histoire et historiens dans l'Antiquité (Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt, 4; Vandoeuvres-Geneva 1956); B. Hopf (ed.), Antike Historiographie in literaturwissenschaftlicher Sicht (Mannheim 1981); H. Howald, Vom Geist antiker Geschichtsschreibung (Munich-Berlin 1944); Β. Levick (ed.), The Ancient Historian and His Materials: Essays in Honour of C. E. Stevens on his Seventieth Birthday (Farnborough 1975); H. Lieberich, Studien zu den Proömien in der griechischen und byzantinischen Geschichtsschmbung (2 Parts; Programm Munich 1899-1900); S. Mazzarino, II pensiero storico classico (3 vols.; 5th edn.; Rome 1973); A. Momigliano, Essays in Ancient and Modem Historiography (Oxford 1977); idem, Storia e storiografia antica (Bologna 1987); idem, Studies in Historiography (London 1966); idem, Sui fondamenti della storia antica (Turin 1984); R. Müller, "Zum Verhältnis von narrativen und strukturellen Elementen in der antiken Geschichtsschreibung", Storia della storiografia 10 (1986), pp. 25-35; R. Nicolai, La storiografia nell'educazione antica (Pisa 1992); idem, I racconti di Clio: Tecniche narrative della storiografia (Pisa 1989); M. Sordi, Storiografia e propaganda (Milan 1975); H. Strasburger, Die Wesensbestimmung der Geschichte durch die antike Geschichtsschreibung (Wiesbaden 1966; 3rd edn. 1975); K. Treu, "Roman und Geschichtsschreibung", Klio 66 (1984), pp. 456-59; H. Verdin et al. (eds.), Purposes of History in Greek Historiographyftomthe 4th to the 2nd Centuries BC (Studia Hellenistica, 30; Louvain 1990); F. Wehrli, "Die Geschichtsschreibung im Lichte der antiken Theorie", in Eumusia: Festschrift für E. Howald (Zürich 1947), pp. 54-72 = idem, Theoria und Humanitas (Zürich-Munich 1972), pp. 132-44; T. P. Wiseman, Clio's Cosmetics (Leicester 1979); H. Wolter, "Geschichtliche Bildung im Rahmen der artes liberales", in J. Koch (ed.), Artes liberales: Von der antiken Bildung zur Wissenschaft des Mittelalters (Leiden-Cologne 1959), pp. 50-83. Greek Ν. Austin, The Greek Historians (New York 1969); M. Braun, Griechischer Roman und hellenistische Geschichtsschreibung (Frankfurt 1934); idem, History and Romance in GraecoOriental Literature (Oxford 1938); T. S. Brown, The Greek Historians (Lexington 1973); J. B. Bury, The Ancient Greek Historians (London 1909; reprint 1958); K. Deichgräber, "Das griechische Geschichtsbild in seiner Entwicklung zur wissenschaftlichen Historiographie", in Der listenspinnende Trug des Gottes (Göttingen 1960), pp. 7-56; A. Dihle, Studien zur griechischen Biographie (Göttingen 1956); M. I. Finley, The Greek Historians (London 1959); Κ. von Fritz, Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung. I. Von den Anfangen bis Thukydides (Berlin 1967); S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford 1994); F. Jacoby, Abhandlungen zur griechischen Geschichtsschreibung (ed. H. Bloch; Leiden 1956); O. Lendle, Einführung in die griechische Geschichtsschreibung. Von Hekataios bis Zonmos (Darmstadt 1992); K. Meister, Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Hellenismus (Stuttgart-Berlin-Cologne 1990); Α. Momigliano, La storiografia greca (Turin 1982); idem, "Greek Historiography", Η & Τ Π (1978), pp. 1-28; G. Musti (ed.), Ια storiografia greca (Rome-Bari 1979); G. Nenci, "II motivo dell'autopsia nella storiografia greca", SCO 3 (1953), pp. 14-46; M. Nouhaud, L'utilisation de l'histoire par les orateurs attiques (Paris 1982); A. Passerini, "La Τρυφή nella storiografia greca", SFIC II (1934), pp. 35f.; L. Pearson, "Real and Conventional Persons in Greek History", JHI 15 (1954), pp. 130-54; R. Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererzählungen (Leipzig 1906); D. Roussel, Les historiens grecs (Paris 1975); G. de Sanctis, Studi di storia della storiografia greca (Florence 1951); Ricerche di storiografia antica. I. Ricerche di storiografia antica greca di età romana (Pisa 1979); A.J. Toynbee, Greek Historical Thought (2nd edn.; New York 1952); L. Voit, Δεινότης: Ein antiker Stilbegriff (Diss. Munich 1934); H. D. Wesdake, Essays on Greek Historians and Greek History (Manchester 1969).

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Roman J. F. D'Alton, Roman Literary Theory and Criticism (London-New York 1931); J. P. Chausserie-Laprée, L'expression narrative chez les historiens latins: Histoire d'un style (Paris 1969); T. A. Dorey (ed.), Latin Historians (London 1966); E. Evans, "Roman Descriptions of Personal Appearance in History and Biography", HSP 46 (1935), pp. 43-84; E. Cizek, "Les genres de l'historiographie latine", Faventia 7.2 (1985), pp. 15-33; D. Flach, Einführung in die römische Geschichtschreibung (2nd edn.; Darmstadt 1992); J. Hellegouarc'h, Le vocabulaire latin des relations et des partis politique sous la république (Paris 1963; 2nd edn. 1972); E. Herkommer, Die Topoi in den Proömien der römischen Geschichtswerke (Diss. Tübingen 1968); H. Peter, Die geschichtliche Literatur über die Kaiserzeit bis Theodosius 1. (Leipzig 1897); M. Laistner, The Greater Roman Historians (Berkeley 1947); A. D. Leeman, Orationis Ratio: The Stylistic Theories and Practice of the Roman Orators, Historians, and Philosophers (2 vols.; Amsterdam 1963); idem, Form und Sinn: Studien zur römischen Uteratur (Frankfurt 1985); idem, "Le genre et le style historique à Rome: théorie et pratique", REL 33 (1955), pp. 183-208; J. Z. Lichanski, "Historiographie et théorie de la rhétorique de l'antiquité au moyen âge", Europa Orientalis 5 (1986), pp. 21-48; A. La Penna, Aspetti del pensiero storico latino (Turin 1978); V. Pöschl, "Die römische Auffassung von der Geschichte", Gymnasium 63 (1956), pp. 190 206; idem (ed.), Römische Geschichtsschreibung (Darmstadt 1969); T. P. Wiseman, Historiography and Imagination: Eight Essays on Roman Culture (Exeter 1994).

Translated by R. M c L .

WILSON

CHAPTER 10

P O E T R Y AND R H E T O R I C Ruth Webb Princeton University, New Jersey, USA

I.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter will consider the relationship between rhetoric and various genres of verse writing in Greek and Latin. The interaction between rhetoric and poetry is complex and varies greatly between genres and over time. In general, however, during the period covered by this volume, poetry shows the increasing influence of rhetorical genres and rhetorical expression, culminating in the verse panegyrics of the later Roman empire. 1 Several factors contributed to this development, including the nature and aims of the educational curriculum and the rise of epideictic oratory under the Roman empire. The influence was not simply one exerted by rhetoric upon poetry; the developments in epideictic oratory brought rhetoric increasingly close to poetry in its themes and verbal resources. 2

II.

P O E T I C S AND R H E T O R I C : A N C I E N T AND M O D E R N

DEFINITIONS

The romantic rejection of rhetoric has been highly influential in modern discussions of the relationship between rhetoric and poetry. In post-romantic criticism rhetoric and poetry have tended to be seen as diametrically opposed: poetry belongs to the domain of emotion, of expression of the personal, whereas rhetoric is directed towards 1 See below on Claudian and, for the period after that covered by this survey, Corippus, Laudes Justiniani (ed. A. Cameron; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976). 2 See T. C. Burgess, Epideictic literature (Studies in Classical Philology, 3; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902), pp. 166-95, M. Roberts, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 38-65 and the remarks of E. L. Bowie, "Greek Sophists and Greek Poetry in the Second Sophistic", ANRW 11.33:1 (1989), pp. 210-14.

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the audience, concerned with the vehicle more than with content. "Rhetoric" and "rhetorical" are thus frequently used to connote artificiality and insincerity, in contrast to the true poet's authentic expression of moods and feelings.3 This antithesis between poetry and rhetoric underlies many influential assessments of ancient literature. Not surprisingly the influence of rhetoric has been seen as a major cause of "decline" in Roman poetry from the Augustan period to the Silver Age. 4 Such judgments derive from a period at which the classical system of rhetorical education was in decline. But ancient assessments of poetry and rhetoric reveal a very different point of view. In a remark attributed to Theophrastus, poetry and rhetoric are both considered to be directed towards the audience (in contrast to philosophy which is directed towards its subject matter). 5 Poetry, moreover, had always shared certain functions with epideictic rhetoric, such as the public praise of rulers and patrons in works originally composed for a particular audience on a particular occasion. The panegyrical poets of late antiquity were following a long tradition and the epideictic orators of the Roman period were also in many ways heir to the earlier poets. 6 More recent critical trends have done much to close the gap between poetics and rhetoric. Critical approaches based on linguistics have stressed the verbal and communicative aspects of poetry. Like rhetoric, poetry involves the formal use of language. 7 Similarly, the

3

See, for example, H. H. Hudson, "Rhetoric and Poetry", in R. F. Howes (ed.), Historical Studies of Rhetoric and Rhetoricians (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1961), pp. 370-79; W. S. Howell, "Rhetoric and Poetics: A Plea for the Recognition of Two Literatures", in L. Wallach (ed.), The Classical Tradition: Literary and Historical Studies in Honor of Harry Caplan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966), pp. 370-79; see also the comments of S. G. Nugent, "Ausonius' Late-Antique Poetics", in A.J. Boyle (ed.), The Imperial Muse: Ramus Essays on Roman Literature of the Empire, Flavian Epicist to Claudian (Bendigo: Aureal Publications, 1990), p. 239. 4 G. Williams, Change and Decline: Roman Literature in the Early Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), esp. pp. 266-71. 5 Theophrastus frs. 6 4 - 6 5 in Opera quae supersunt omnia (ed. F. Wimmer; Paris: Didot, 1866; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1964). 6 See L. Pernot, La rhétorique de l'éloge (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1994), pp. 635-37. 7 See, for example, G. B. Conte, The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 45-46: "Rhetoric has the role of 'reifying' language—of making it exist without a direct relation to things.. . . Rhetorical figures are therefore not 'additional structures' to poetic discourse . . . but in fact the only means of distancing language." For an analysis of

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belief in poetic "sincerity" has been modified by the idea of the poetic persona, the character deliberately adopted by the poet as much as by the orator. 8 Appreciation of the role of genre in the composition of and response to poetry has also served to close the gap between poetry and rhetoric or to suggest new approaches emphasizing the common cultural and educational background to the oratory and poetry of particular periods. 9 In the wake of these critical developments, a broad usage of the term "rhetoric" has grown up in literary criticism to designate the internal codes used by a work or genre. In this survey, however, I will be looking for points of contact between ancient rhetoric, as defined in treatises and as practised, and poetry. Ancient definitions of rhetoric suggest various approaches to the problem of its relationship to poetry. Aristotle's Rhetoric stresses logical argumentation as the domain of the rhetorician. Aristotle is echoed by Cicero in De or. 2:27:115, who stresses persuasion as the aim of rhetoric and identifies the means as proof, winning over the audience and moving them. Persuasive rhetoric of this type can be found in poetry in various guises: in representations of speeches in epic, or in works which aim to win over an audience such as didactic poetry, or satire.10 Already in Homer, characters' speeches show some consistent structural features which could be termed loosely "rhetorical" although rhetoric did not yet exist as a codified art. It is in the "rhetorical epic" of the Roman period that the formal rhetorical training of authors such as Lucan and Statius is clearly felt. However, the broader definition of rhetoric to be found in ancient writers suggests a more extensive range of contact with poetry. In the Orator (69) Cicero gives a slightly different version of the orator's duties. T h e eloquent man, he says, is the one who can not only difference in function between figures in poetry and in rhetoric, see G. Williams, Figures of Thought in Roman Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). 8 On the question of "sincerity" in Roman love lyrics see D. F. Kennedy, The Arts of Love: Five Studies in the Discourse of Roman Love Elegy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 1-23; P. Veyne, Roman Erotic Elegy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 31-49. 9 F. Cairns, Generic Competition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1972). Cairns' approach has generated vigorous debate. For some responses see Menander Rhetor, On Epideictic (ed. D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. xxxi-xxxiv and J. Griffin, Latin Poets and Roman Life (London: Duckworth, 1985), pp. 48-64. 10 For this approach see G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 384-419.

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prove his case (probare) and win over his audience (fiectere) but also please them (delectare), an aesthetic concern which brings the rhetor closer to the poet." Aristotle, in the Rhetoric (3:1:5), had considered that pleasing or causing pain to an audience was stricdy something to be avoided in rhetoric, but conceded that it was rendered necessary by the corruption of the audience. This was the function of delivery and style (λέξις/lexis), precisely those aspects of rhetoric which he saw as closest to poetry, and to drama in particular. Quintilian (Inst. 2:15:38) broadens the definition of rhetoric sdll further when he gives his approval to the definition "the art of speaking well": bene dicendi scientia. In the De oratore Cicero states this affinity clearly, noting that the poet is almost equal to the orator in the use of ornaments. 12 Aristode recognized that both poetry and prose needed to use distancing effects to distinguish them from ordinary language (Rh. 3:2:2-3). There were, however, important differences: the prose writer had to exercise more restraint than the poet. He should not use long epithets, which result in frigidity in rhetoric (Rh. 3:3:1). Aristode notes, however, that certain sophists, including Gorgias, infringed this rule, indicating how in some areas the boundaries between poetry and epideictic were, in practice, always fluid. Comparison with Aristode's treatment of λέξις/fem in the Poetics shows that the difference between the two was felt to reside in the degree to which poets and orators made use of the expressive resources of language. 13 Quintilian's emphasis on pathos, often exemplified by Virgil in the Institutio oratoria, brings rhetoric still closer to poetry. 14 His insistence, for example, that the orator must himself feel the emotions he is trying to convey to the audience (Inst. 6:2:27-28; cf. Cic. De or. 1:44— 47) is paralleled in Horace's famous advice to the poet in the Ars poetica: "if you want me to cry, mourn first yourself" si vis me flere, dolendum est/primum ipse tibi (102-103). 15

" See E. Fantham, "The Growth of Literature and Criticism at Rome", in G. A. Kennedy (ed.), Classical Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 232. 12 Cic. De or. 1:16:70: est enim finitimus oratori poeta, numeris astrictior paulo verborum autem licentia liberior, multis vero omandi generibus socius ac paene par. 13 See Aristode, La Poétique (trans, and commentary R. Dupont-Roc and J. Lallot; Paris: Seuil, 1980), pp. 307-11. 14 See E. Fantham, "Latin Criticism of the Early Empire", in Kennedy (ed.), Classical Criticism, p. 287. 15 Translation D. A. Russell in D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom (eds.), Classical Literary Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 100.

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Some areas of potential rhetorical influence upon poetry are therefore argumentation, style and the arousal of the emotions. Argumentation is a characteristically rhetorical procedure and its presence in poetry can be seen as a borrowing from rhetoric. However, in the other areas the precise nature of the relationship between poetry and rhetoric is more complex and often difficult to assess. Rhetoricians throughout antiquity recognized that poetry had preceded artistic prose and noted that prose-writers had in fact borrowed from poetry. Aristotle (Rh. 3:1:8) attributes the beginnings of the study and development of style in language (λέξις/lexis) to the poets. T h e innovations of Gorgias consisted to a great extent in adapting poetic language to the medium of prose. 16 T o move from the level of language to that of genre, Menander Rhetor identifies certain types of epideictic speech as having been "invented" by Homer and the archaic poets. Thus Sappho is credited with the invention of the epithalamium and Homer with that of the monody and συντακτικός/ syntaktikos.'7 Menander's observations reflect the fact that many of the epideictic genres which developed in prose during the Hellenistic and Roman periods did have their origins in poetry. The treatment of poetry by ancient critics points to certain shared areas of technique: figures of speech and vivid representation in language. One particular resource shared by poet and orator alike is metaphor, which is discussed by Aristotle in the Poetics (21-22:14561459) as well as in the Rhetoric (3:2:7-13), where examples are cited from dramatic, lyric and epic poetry. Rhetoricians of later periods made liberal use of poetic examples in their discussions of this and other figures of speech. Quintilian's Institutio oratorio makes use of a wealth of examples drawn from poetry. 18 He uses quotations from Virgil and Horace, alongside Cicero, in his discussion of figures such as antonomasia (Inst. 8:6:29), synecdoche (8:6:21-22), and metonymy (8:6:23), and in his discussion of the choice of words (8:2:15-20). Μίμησις (mimesis) is key to Aristotle's definition of poetry and is by no means absent from rhetoric. As Aristotle points out in the Poetics (6:22-23:1450b), the μίμησις of intellect (διάνοια/dianoia) belongs to rhetoric. In Rh. 3:7 he emphasizes the need for speech to be appro16

O. Navarre, Essai sur la rhétorique grecque avant Aristote (Paris: Hachette, 1900), pp. 92-111. 17 Men.Rh. 434:11-18 and 430:12-28. 18 D. Joly, "Rhétorique et poésie d'après Γ'Institution oratoire'", in R. Chevallier (ed.), Colloque sur la rhétorique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1979), pp. 101-13.

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priate to the character of the speaker. This skill, essential when the orator was composing speeches to be delivered by the client, was developed in later periods through the exercise of προσωποποιία/ prosopopoeia (also called ηθοποιία/ethopoeia), one of the more advanced of the Progymnasmata. It was essential to the art of declamadon in which, as Quintilian (Inst. 3:8:51) pointed out, speakers had to assume as many roles as comic actors, and a useful skill for the poet, as Quintilian and Theon (1st century BC) both remark. 19 Horace (Ars. 156-78) also refers to the necessity of fitting speech and behaviour to character. Interest in the depiction of character is evident of course in New Comedy and is one of the qualities which led Quintilian (Inst. 10:1:69) to single out Menander as a model for the orator. Hellenistic poetry also contains lively portrayals of characters in action and in conversation: the bourgeois Syracusan women of Theocritus, Idyll 16, or the courtesans, pimps and schoolmaster of Herodas's Mimes. But another form of μίμησις shared by poetry and rhetoric is the representation of an action, person or place through narration or description. 20 The idea of ενάργεια/enargeia (Latin evidentia) "vividness" in verbal representation took on great importance in Hellenistic and Roman rhetorical theory. 21 The orator, whether forensic or epideictic, should aim to make his audience "see" his subject matter in their mind's eye. This technique was developed through the elementary exercise of εκφρασις/ekphrasis (Latin desmptw), in which Homer and Virgil were cited alongside the historians as models.22 The doctrines of ενάργεια/ enargeia, as recorded by Greek and Latin critics, have served as a key to understanding the notions of realism underlying Hellenistic poetry.23 Ancient critics were aware however of the boundary which should 19

Theon, Progymnasmata in Rhetores graeci (ed. L. Spengel; Leipzig, Teubner, 1865), II, p. 60; Quint. Inst. 3:8:49. 20 In the Poetics, Aristode concentrates on the μίμησις/mimesis of action. See D. A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity (London: Duckworth, 1981), pp. 106-107. As Russell also points out (p. 100) Aristode neglects description of objects or mental states. 21 The term is not found in Aristode who instead uses ένάργειa/energeia for the quality which makes metaphors appeal to the mind's eye, in Rh. 3:11:2. On ενάργεια/ energeia and its connection with vividness, see A. Morpurgo-Tagliabue, linguistica e stilistica di Aristotele (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1967), pp. 256-66. 22 See Theon, Progymnasmata, pp. 118-19; Quint. Inst. 8:3:63 cites Virgil as a model of enargeia. 23 See G. Zanker, "Enargeia in the Ancient Criticism of Poetry", RhM 124 (1981), pp. 297-311 and Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A Literature and its Audience (London: Croom Helm, 1987).

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be observed between the use of description in rhetoric and poetry. Ps.-Dionysius of Halicarnassus complains of the undue influence of poetry in the declaimers' descriptive excesses.24 However, Longinus is alone in suggesting a fundamental difference between the use of vivid appeals to the mind's eye (φαντασία/phantasia) in poetry and in rhetoric. In poetry the result should be εκπληξις/ekplexis, a striking impact upon the audience, whereas the rhetor should direct his use of the powers of visualization towards the creation of ένάργειa/enargeia, which, in combination with argumentation, will effect persuasion. 25 Rhetoric and poetry were thus considered by ancient critics to have many aspects in common, making the identification of boundaries an important but vexed question. Distinctions mentioned include, naturally, metre, the formality of which is contrasted with prose rhythm, 26 but also the organization of subject matter, an area in which greater licence was allowed to poets, as epideictic orators themselves noted. 27 In addition to general considerations of this kind, a further important consideration is the cultural background of the poets, in particular the role of rhetoric in education. In the period under discussion rhetoric came to dominate the curriculum and represented the principal formal training in composition available in the schools. Authors of rhetorical treatises naturally tried to claim that their precepts were valuable for future poets as well as orators: Maximus of Tyre went so far as to claim that his rhetorical teaching could provide all the skills necessary for the composition of poetry, except for metre. 28 Several Latin poets refer to their own rhetorical studies, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and Ovid's early training in declamation is recorded by Seneca. 29

24

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Opuscula (ed. H. Usener and L. Radermacher; Leipzig: Teubner, 1929), II, p. 372. See also D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 2. 25 Longinus, On the Sublime (ed. D. A. Rusell; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 15:2 and 9. 26 See, for example, Cic. Or. 227; Aristode, La Poétique, pp. 307-11. 27 See Isoc. (Evagoras) 9:9-11; Pernot, La rhétorique de l'éloge, pp. 636-37 and D. A. Russell, "Aristides and the Prose Hymn", in idem (ed.), Antonine literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 199-219. 28 Maximus of Tyre, Philosophumenon (ed. H. Hobein; Leipzig: Teubner, 1910), 1:7g. See E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert V. Chr. bis in die £eit der Renaissance (Leipzig: Teubner, 1909), p. 886. In general see D. L. Clarke, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), pp. 17-23. 29 Verg. Cat. 5; Ov. Tr. 4:10; Mart. 9:73:7-8; Ausonius's collection of poems on The Professors of Bordeaux commemorates colleagues and teachers. On the possible

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Poetry itself was studied in the earlier stages of the curriculum, as a preliminary to rhetoric and was very much at the service of rhetoric in the schools. Apart from providing examples of figures of speech as mentioned above, poetic texts often furnished the subject matter for the Progymnasmata with which the study of rhetoric began. In Libanius's model Progymnasmata (4th century AD), subjects for the exercises έγκώμιον/encomium and ψόγος/psogos (blame), κατασκευή/ kataskeue (confirmation) and σύγκρισις/synkrisis were drawn from the tales of the Trojan War. His εγκώμια./encomia on Diomedes, Odysseus, Achilles and Thersites make special reference to their Homeric source as an element of the praise. 30 Aphthonius cites Hecuba after the fall of Troy and Achilles on the death of Patroclus as suitable subjects for ήθοποιία/ethopoeia.M One additional exercise discussed by Theon in the introduction to his Progymnasmata involved paraphrasing passages from poetry in prose; as examples Theon identifies passages in Demosthenes and Aeschines as "paraphrases" of Homer (II. 1:593-94). 32 Certain of the Progymnasmata forms found their way into the poetic repertoire. T h e cases of εκφρασις/ekphrasis and ifionoua/ethopoeia are particularly complex since these were the exercises which were most attached to poetry in the first place. Theon, in the introduction to his Progymnasmata, singles out the composition of ήθοποιίαι/ethopoeiae as useful to the poet and singles out Homer and Euripides as models, suggesting that the future poet should study poetry through the lens of rhetoric. The effect of rhetorical training in εκφρασις/ekphrasis may be seen in the increasing tendency in late antique poets to present descriptive passages within longer works as discrete tableau or as highly developed set-pieces. Similarly, the habit of composing ήθοποιίαι/ethopoeiae in the schools may lie behind poetic speeches in the words of mythological characters such as Ovid's Heroides, or the epigrams of the Greek Anthology, such as 7:137-38 in the words of Hector (in which the hero is depicted as showing concern for his posthumous reputation and anxiety that the Greeks will not have influence of education on Catullus see M.J. Granarolo, "Catulle 'rhéteur'?" in Chevallier (ed.), Colloque sur la rhétorique, pp. 41-49. 30 Libanius, Progymnasmata, pp. 216-51 (εγκώμια/encomia)·, pp. 282-96 (ψόγοι/psogoi of Achilles and Hector); pp. 334—42 {συγκρίσεις/synknseu of Ajax and Achilles, Achilles and Diomedes); pp. 138-154 (κατασκευαί/kataskeuai on the arms of Achilles, the wrath of Achilles and on Locrian Ajax). See note 31. 31 Libanius, Progymnasmata in Opera, VIII (ed. R. Foerster; Leipzig: Teubner, 1915); Aphthonius, Progymnasmata (ed. H. Rabe; Leipzig: Teubner, 1926). 32 Theon, Progymnasmata, pp. 62-63.

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raised a sufficient monument to him). One verse ηθοποιία/ethopoeia with a strong link to the schools is a hexameter speech of Zeus to Helios criticizing the latter for allowing Phaethon to use his chariot, introduced by the standard progymnasmata formula: "what words would χ say upon y event". The verses were probably performed at the Capitoline Games in AD 94 by the eleven-year old Q. Sulpicius, to be later inscribed on his tomb. 33 The nature of the exercise may also have influenced the development of the form from a speech addressed to a specific character (as in Ovid's Heroides) to an address to an unspecified audience. 34 A particularly complex case is that of fable, or μΰθος/muthos, which had a long prehistory as an independent genre before becoming one of the progymnasmata. Fable began as a prose form, a simple narrative recounting an event illustrating a moral point. T h e first collection of fables in Greek, attributed to Aesop, was made in the late fourth century BC by Demetrius of Phalerum. They were intended for use in speeches, as Aristode illustrates in Rh. 2:20:5. The composidon of a fable was the first exercise attempted by students beginning their studies of rhetoric and Quintilian (Inst. 2:4:4) records that the grammarians were beginning to encroach on the rhetors' territory by teaching fable. In the first century AD, versified versions were composed by Phaedrus (a Greek writing in Latin) and Babrius (an Italian writing in Greek). The latter found a Latin imitator in Avianus, who addressed his collection to Theodosius. These verse fables remained close to their rhetorical origins, Phaedrus even complains (4:7ff.) that certain writers do not accept his work as poetry. 35 The cases of these Progymnasmata illustrate the complexity of the interaction between poetry and rhetoric encouraged by the rhetorical training of the schools. The skills developed by exercises such as the Progymnasmata, often illustrated by examples drawn from poetry, could be applied by poets and orators alike, but the rhetorical bias of the school exercises may eventually have affected their employment in poetry. It seems likely that the habit of analyzing poetry in terms of

33

Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta (ed. G. Kaibel; Berlin: G. Reiner, 1878), no. 618. See A. Hardie, Statins and the Sitvae: Poets, Patrons and Epideixis in the GraecoRoman World (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1983), p. 75. 34 A. Cameron, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 266. 35 See the introduction to Babrius and Phaedrus, Fables (ed. and trans. Β. E. Perry; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965).

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rhetorical figures and genres may also have had an effect upon the development of poetry in the Roman period. Just how rhetorical traits were sought, and found, in poetic models is shown in, for example, Quintilian's discussion of examples of deliberative and forensic oratory in the Homeric embassy to Achilles in Iliad 9 (part of the Latin rhetorician's extensive survey of Greek and Latin poets).36 T h e treatise on whether Virgil was an orator or poet written in the second century AD by P. Annius Florus has been lost except for the introduction which gives no idea of the arguments used.37 But much later, at the turn of the fifth century, Macrobius included a discussion of the same question in the fourth book of his Saturnalia, ending with the conclusion (5:1) that Virgil is no less eminent as an orator than as a poet. Here, the participants in the discussion identify as rhetorical Virgil's use of vivid imagery (4:1) and his arousal of emotion, particularly in speeches by characters (4:2) such as Juno, Dido and Priam. These speeches are made effective by the use of short sentences and changes of figures employed. Juno's speech at A. 7:293-322 is singled out for analysis of its logical structure. A further source of emotive power are the vivid depictions of persons and their circumstances (4:3), an aspect of Virigilian epic which these characters choose to regard as rhetorical rather than purely poetic. Such ancient responses cannot, of course, give any indication of the extent of rhetorical influence in a given author's work, but they do indicate one way in which poetry was read in later antiquity by future poets and orators alike.38 T h e interaction of poetry and rhetoric in the schools has several consequences for the development of poetic practice in the Roman period, and for our understanding of the extent of rhetorical influence in a given author's work. A general influence of rhetorical training in inventio as well as elocutio has been traced in the Augustan poets, in commonplaces such as Virgil's comparison of city and country in the Georgj.cs or the arguments against sea-travel found in Propertius (3:7).39 Virgil's Aeneid, composed by an author whose own rhetorical training took place

36

Quint. Inst. 10:1:47. P. Annius Florus, Vergilius Orator an Poeta in L. Annaeus Florus, Epitomae (ed. O. Rossbach; Leipzig: Teubner, 1896), pp. 183-87. 38 Russell, Criticism in Antiquity, pp. 115-17 and E. Fantham, "Ladn Criticism of the Early Empire", in Kennedy (ed.), Classical Criticism, pp. 288-89. 39 Verg. G. 2:458-74, cf. Quint. Inst. 2:4:24. On Propertius see M. Hubbard, Propertius (London: Duckworth, 1974), p. 23. 37

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before the rise in popularity of declamation (see below), provides a contrast both to the later "rhetorical" epics and to its Hellenistic predecessor, the Argonautica.w T h e proportion of direct speech in the Aeneid is high whereas Apollonius of Rhodes, in contrast, tends to use indirect speech. Virgil's characters express themselves with a degree of formality in style and structure as in Dido's nocturnal soliloquy (A. 4:534-52) in which she reviews the possibilities open to her. Comparison with Virgil's Hellenistic model, Medea's soliloquy in Apollonius's Argonautica 3:772-801, emphasizes the systematic manner in which Dido formulates and then rejects each alternative. In her final words she reviews her own achievements (A. 4:653-58) and laments her lost hopes for the future in a brief but poignant reminiscence of the topoi of funerary orations. In the most emotive speeches such as Dido's to Aeneas in 4:305-30 and 365-87 or Juno's to Venus in 10:18-62 rhetorical questions abound. 41 T h e speech of the Greek Sinon (A. 2:69-194), persuading the Trojans to accept the wooden horse, uses appeals to pity and a highly plausible narration to capture the audience's attention. The speech as reported, however, is broken up at various points by Aeneas's account of the audience's reaction, a device which both increases the reader's impression of Sinon's persuasive arts and ensures that this speech, like the others, remains firmly anchored in its narrative context.

III.

DECLAMATION

The school exercise which seems to have had the greatest influence upon Roman poetry, and on literary taste in general, was declamation.42 The Elder Seneca's Controversies and Suasonae give an idea of 40

Kennedy, Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, pp. 388-95; M. Clarke, "Rhetorical Influences in the Aeneid", G & R 18 (1949), pp. 14-27. G. Highet, The Speeches in Vergil's Aeneid (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), tends to play down the presence of rhetoric in Virgil. For comparison with later epic poets see H. C. Lipscomb, "Aspects of the Speech in Vergil and the Later Roman Epic", Classical Weekly 2 (1908-1909), pp. 114-17 and Cameron, Claudian, p. 266. On Apollonius see P. Toohey, "Epic and Rhetoric", in I. Worthington (ed.), Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (London: Roudedge, 1994), p. 162. 41 Clarke, "Rhetorical Influences in the Aeneid", pp. 24—25, finds them used more frequendy than in Homer. 42 On declamation in general see S. F. Bonner, Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949) and D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Philostratus's Lives

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the type of melodramatic themes pupils might be called upon to discuss, involving rape, fatricide, pirates, adultery and torture. Seneca also gives us a portrait of the young Ovid's rhetorical training which has provoked much discussion of the influence of declamation upon his poetry. In theory, declamation provided a training in argumentation and in the analysis of questions according to status theory. It is clear, however, that speakers and audiences alike were equally, if not more, interested in the manner of presentation and the achievement of striking effects, to relieve the tedium of school exercises or to arouse interest in a case which was either far removed in time or totally fictive. This tendency brought declamation closer to epideictic than to the deliberative and judicial speeches for which suasoriae and controversiae were ostensibly a preparation. (Quint. Inst. 3:8:69 complains of the tendency among declaimers to indulge in invecdve rather than attempt persuasion.) Among the stylistic devices encouraged by declamation were the aphorism or sententia, hyperbole, dramatic apostrophes and appeals. 43 Although several modern studies have concentrated upon the impact of declamation upon Ovid and Silver Latin poets, ancient critics detected rather the influence of poetry in the declaimer's indulgence in description and other types of imagery, such as the simile. The complaints of Pseudo-Dionysius and Longinus about undue poetic influence in such speeches were noted above. The contrary view is presented in Tacitus's Dialogus de oratoribus (20), by Marcus Aper, the defender of contemporary rhetoric, who identifies brilliant sententiae and "passages resplendent with out-of-the-way poetic colouring" as the hallmark of contemporary taste and extols as models Virgil, Horace and Lucan. 44 Sen. Suas. 3:4-5 illustrates what he saw as the pitfalls of ill-considered "poetic colouring", recording how, in an attempt to please Maecenas, Arellius Fuscus worked an adaptation of Virgil's description of the moon at G. 1:427-29 into a speech concerning Agamemnon and Iphigeneia. Seneca contrasts the unfortunate adaptation to the elegant brevity of Virgil's poetry. of the Sophists shows how the Greek orators of the Second Sophistic also developed this exercise into a performance art in its own right, but the small quantity of Greek poetry surviving from this period makes it difficult to judge its impact. 43 Bonner, Roman Declamation, pp. 69-70. 44 Tacitus, Dialogus (ed. D. Bo; Turin: G. B. Paravia, 1974) 20:4-5: . . . stve sensus aliquis arguta et brevi sententia effulsit, sine locus exquisito et poetico cultu enituit. exigitur enim iam ab oratore etiam poeticam decor, non Adi aut Pacuvii vetemo inquinatus, sed ex Horatii et Vergilii et Lucani sacrano prolatus. Translation by M. Winterbottom in Russell and Winterbottom (eds.), Classical literary Criticism, p. 124.

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A. Ovid and Declamation It is with Ovid (43 Bc-ca. AD 18) that rhetoric is usually said to have made its impact on R o m a n poetry, although Ovid himself recounts his rejection of a public career and identifies himself clearly as a poet. 45 His own education in the declamation schools is unusually well documented by Seneca. Seneca clearly identifies the impact of one aspect of Ovid's rhetorical training upon his poetry, stating that he adapted phrases from his favourite orator, Latro (Con. 2:2:8). As with descriptions, however, the process was reciprocal for Seneca also records that Publius Vinicius recommended that speakers, when inventing sententiae, keep in mind Ov. Met. 12:607-608 on the death of Achilles.46 Seneca notes however, in Con. 2:2:12, that Ovid disliked the argumentation of the controversiae and preferred suasoriae, which allowed him to develop the depiction of ethos. This was skill which he displayed in the Heroides, poems which could be described as a type of poetic ethopoeia although, unlike some later authors of rhetorical character sketches, Ovid rarely forgets the dramatic situation of his heroines. 47 The Metamorphoses constitute a very different kind of epic from the Aeneid: a series of episodes put together by means of a dazzling variety of narrative techniques. One method noted and criticized by Quintilian (Inst. 4:1:77) was the use of a sententia to effect a transition from one section to another. T h e taste for discrete episodes and constantly shifting points of view may have been encouraged by declamation. 48 The bizarre happenings which make up the subject matter are presented in vivid descriptions. 49 Sometimes these passages

45

See Kennedy, Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, p. 405; T. F. Higham, "Ovid and Rhetoric", in Ν. I. Herescu (ed.), Ovidiana (Paris: Wetteren, 1958), pp. 32-48; A. F. Sabot, Ovide, poète de l'amour dans ses oeuvres de jeunesse ([Paris]: Ophrys, 1976), pp. 217-348; A. Arcellaschi, "Sur un itinéraire ovidien de la 'declamation' à la 'recitatio'", in Chevallier (ed.), Colloque sur la rhétorique, pp. 71-94; P. Galand-Hallyn, "Corinne et Sappho: elocutio et inventio dans les Amours et les Héroïdes d'Ovide", Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé (1991), pp. 336-58; Ov. Tr. 4:10:21-26. 46 Quod Priamus gaudere senex post Hectora posset,/hoc fuit. Sen. Con. 3:7 also records an anecdote about a speaker who expressed an idea so close to Met. 8:878 that he was accused of stealing from Ovid. 47 See Sabot, Ovide, poète de l'amour, pp. 229-35. 48 See Lucan, De Bello Civili (ed. E. Fantham; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 16. 49 For a comparison of Ovid's descriptive techniques in the Metamorphoses with those of the Greek sophist Philostratus, see S. Viarre, L'Image et la pensée dans les "Metamorphoses" d'Ovide (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), pp. 123-28.

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focus on the macabre, recalling the tastes of the declaimers. The story of Procne and Philomela, for example, with its themes of rape and torture, provided opportunities which Ovid fully exploited, describing Philomela's severed tongue still quivering as it lay on the ground (Inst. 6:555-60). The rhetorical tour de force of the Metamorphoses is the debate between Ajax and Ulysses over the arms of Achilles at the beginning of book 13 (5-381). 50 This episode was a favourite theme in rhetorical exercises.51 ("Ajax" was the term used by Juvenal [7:115] to designate a speaker in the law-courts.) It is also the subject of epigrams in the Greek Anthology, including one, by the Hellenistic poet Antipater of Sidon, in which the arms themselves speak out in a dramatic prosopopoeia.52 Ovid's Ajax begins and, despite his claim that his deeds speak for themselves, proceeds to present his case in a carefully structured manner. He appeals to his ancestry and his father's exploits before comparing his own achievements to those of Ulysses. He amplifies this comparison by speaking as if Hector were present on the battlefield: Hector adest secumque deos in proelia ducit ("Here is Hector and he brings the gods with him into battle"). 53 Nor is he averse to witty sententiae as in line 97: atque Aiax armis, non Aiaci arma petuntur "The arms seek Ajax, not Ajax the arms". Ulysses gives a lengthy response in which he refutes his opponent's arguments, combining justifications of his actions with emotional appeals to the memory of Achilles. Ovid depicts not just the speech, but also the gestures, in what may be a tongue in cheek portrayal of contemporary declaimers. Before beginning his speech Ulysses remains still, his eyes downcast, a detail taken from Horn. II. 3:217, a passage which Quintilian (Inst. 11:3:157-58) recommended as a model for the Roman orator. Upon mentioning the dead Achilles in his exordium Ovid's Ulysses makes as if to wipe the tears from his eyes, during his narration he displays his own wounds as proof of his 50

See Ovid, Metamorphoses XII XIII (commentary F. Börner; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1982), ad loc. 51 The Rhetorica ad Herennium uses the suicide of Ajax to illustrate types of issue; see, for example, 1:11:18. Libanius wrote a model confirmatio on the theme of the judgment of the arms; see Libanius, Opera, VIII, p. 140; see also Fronto, Ad Marcum Antoninum de orationibus, 8 in Epistulae (ed. M. P.J. Van Den Hout; Leipzig: Teubner, 1988), p. 156. 52 Greek Anthology 7:145-46. 53 Cf. in Ulysses' response lines 216-17 ecce Iovis monitu deceptus imagine somnum/rex iubet incepti curam dimittere belli.

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courage in battle and he ends with a dramatic gesture towards the statue of Minerva, claiming that she is the only other worthy recipient of the arms of Achilles.54 B. Lucan and Declamation Like Ovid, Lucan (AD 39-65), grandson of the Elder Seneca, was faced with the challenge of composing epic poetry in the wake of Virgil. He chose the civil war, a subject of epic and tragic proportions from the recent history of Rome. The resulting Bellum civile or Pharsalia is generally considered a prime example of the "rhetorical epic" of the Silver Age. It was this quality which ensured Lucan's enormous influence in the Middle Ages. The rhetorical nature of Lucan's work was noted by his contemporaries; Quintilian's judgment is well known (Inst. 10:1:90): Lucanus ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus ("Lucan is fiery and passionate and remarkable for the grandeur of his general reflections [sententiae], but, to be frank, I consider that he is more suitable for imitation by the orator than the poet"). In the next century, the judgment of Marcus Cornelius Fronto (ca. AD 100-ca. AD 166) was less favourable. He cites Lucan in his criticism of Seneca and his rhetorical school, noting in particular the practice of reworking the same thought in different ways. In his analysis of the opening of the Bellum civile he complains that in the first seven lines Lucan does nothing other than paraphrase the words bella plus quam civilia ("wars worse than civil"). Fronto goes on to contrast Lucan with Apollonius Rhodius, whose ability to convey five distinct facts in fewer lines is praised. 55 The influence of Lucan's rhetorical training is evident in his taste for sententiae, his speeches, hyperbolic descriptions, love of paradox and the macabre and frequent use of apostrophe. 56 The latter may account for Quintilian's comment on his "fiery passion". The poet 54 Ov. Met. 13:380-81: aut si mihi non datis arma/huic date et ostendit signum fatale Minenae. 55 Fronto, Ad Marcum Antoninum de Orationibus, 5-7, in Epistulae, p. 155. See F. Ahl, The Poet Lucan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976), p. 75. 56 See W. Rutz, "Lucan und die Rhetorik", in Lucain (Entretiens Hardt, 15; Vandoeuvres-Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1970), pp. 235-57 and S. F. Bonner, "Lucan and the Declamation Schools", AJP 87 (1966), pp. 257-89.

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addresses his audience direcdy or breaks into the narration in order to address the protagonists. In the introduction, it is the Roman people in general who are asked (1:8): quis fiiror, o cives, quae tanta licentia ferri? (In the A. 6:832-35 the similarly impassioned denunciation of civil war is put into the mouth of Anchises and addressed to Aeneas, thus remaining integral to the characterization and to the narrative.) Lengthy apostrophes to Thessaly and to Egypt, lands which were scenes of disaster for Pompey's campaign, form the perorations to books 7 and 8 respectively. Lucan similarly makes use of emotive prosopopoeiae such as the personification of Rome which appears to Caesar before the crossing of the Rubicon (1:186-92). Notable are the speeches which show clearly the influence of the declamation schools, in which the characters and events of the civil war provided well-rehearsed themes. 57 Lucan is not afraid to place one speech in the mouth of Cicero himself (contrary to historical fact) at 7:68-85. Lucan's rhetorical training also prepared him for the composition of dramatic descriptions. Storms were one of the subjects for εκφρασις/ ekphrasis cited in the Greek Progymnasmata and, as Seneca shows, featured frequently in declamations. Lucan's storm in book 5 of the Bellum civile reaches apocalyptic proportions. 58 Comparison with Virgil's technique in the Aeneid, in which, for example, the account of the storm in book 1 is kept firmly subordinate to the main narrative, underlines the extent to which Lucan elaborates his subject matter to produce the greatest possible effect. The taste for paradox (for example in the account of Marcia's remarriage to Cato Lucan insists on the absence of the normal wedding rites and the presence of signs of mourning) 59 and horror in Lucan recall the striking effects sought after by declaimers to retain the attention of their audience. Their use can, however, be justified aesthetically within the context of a poem which seeks to express the horror of civil war. 60 Other examples of "rhetorical epic" revert to mythological themes. The Thebaid of Statius (ca. AD 45-ca. AD 96) is rich in speeches which

57

See Lucan, De Bello Civili, II, p. 15; Sanford, "Lucan and his Roman Critics". On the classification of Lucan's speeches in general, see M. Morford, The Poet Lucan: Studies in Rhetorical Epic (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), pp. 1-12. 58 On Lucan's storms see Morford, The Poet Lucan, pp. 32-36. 59 Luc. 2:350-80. 60 C. Martindale, "Paradox, Hyperbole and Literary Novelty in Lucan's Bellum Civile", BICS 23 (1976), pp. 45-72.

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can be classified according to rhetorical types.61 The Posthomaica of Quintus Smyrnaeus (fl. ca. AD 400), written in epic language, is the only surviving example of rhetorical epic in Greek from the period covered by this volume. 62 This epic contains passages comparable to the rhetorical exercises of the schools, including, the obligatory εκφρασις/ekphrasis of a storm (14:488-589), έγκώμιο\/encomium and invective. Certain of the lengthy speeches again recall themes familiar from the schools, such as the debate between Ajax and Odysseus in book 5. An interesting example of a pair of deliberative speeches is provided by the debate among the Trojan women, at the beginning of the poem, as to whether they should join the fighting. Those in favour present the example of the Amazons, arguing from nature that women are like men; from the circumstances, that they have nothing to lose and finally that it is more honourable to die than to submit to slavery (1:409-35). These points are carefully refuted by the opposing side with counterclaims that the Amazons are warlike from training, not by nature, that Penthesilea is unlike them in that she may be a goddess, and, with a final irony, that the men will save them (1:451-74). The development of epic thus shows the increasing impact of rhetorical training, in particular in declamation which rivalled poetry as a performance art in its own right. But poetry also contributed to the development of declamation, particularly in the composition of descriptive passages as the comments of ancient critics suggest. The authors of rhetorical epics are therefore heir to a dual tradition represented by both earlier poetic models and contemporary rhetorical practice. 63

IV.

DIDACTIC

POETRY

Didactic poetry as a genre shares with rhetoric the need to consider its audience and, often, to persuade. Like epic, the genre predates the development of a formal art of rhetoric, but later writers used 61

For a full analysis see W.J. Dominik, Speech and Rhetoric in Statius' Thebaid (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1994). 62 See Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica (ed. F. Vian; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1963), I, p. xxxviii. 63 See the conclusions of Dominik, Speech and Rhetoric in Statius' Thebaid, pp. 272-74.

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rhetorical techniques. T h e structure of Ovid's irreverent didactic poem, the Ars Amatoria, has even been compared to the arrangement of rhetorical treatises; the advice on finding a woman being parallel to inventio.6* Lucredus (ca. 95-ca. 55 BC) is often said to use methods of argumentation which are visual rather than logical in his De rerum natural A neglect of rhetoric would be in keeping with what is known of the views of Epicurus, but Philodemus, another Epicurean, was willing to accept epideictic rhetoric as an art. 66 Lucretius himself uses techniques which can loosely be termed "rhetorical" to move and persuade his audience, placing his subject matter "before the eyes" of the reader, addressing and questioning the reader, answering imaginary objections and constructing his arguments carefully, point by point. 67 Lucretius also makes use of the rhetorical genre of the diatribe, a type of θέσις/thesis in which a moral question is discussed and elaborated. 68 T h e genre was developed by Bion of Borysthenes (325255 BC) who made full use of rhetorical devices in his discussion of ordinary ethical problems. The polemical message of the diatribe was conveyed through examples, characterization and parody. Lucretius's extended argument against the fear of death in book 3 has been linked with this genre. Among the techniques he uses to ridicule common opinion are parodies of funerary speeches and their τόποι/ topoi (lines 894-908), and a προσωποποιia/ prosopopoeia of Nature herself (lines 933-49).

V.

S A T I R E AND INVECTIVE

Also related to the diatribe are satire and invective. According to Quintilian (Inst. 10:1:95), the oldest form of the genre was the "Menippean" satire, characterized by a mixture of prose and verse. Examples survive in Petronius's Satyricon and in Seneca's Apocolocyntosis, with its 64 E.J. Kenney, "Nequitiae poeta", in N.J. Herescu (ed.), Ovidiana (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1958), p. 209. 65 E. Asmis, "Rhetoric and Reason in Lucredus", AJP 104 (1983), p. 36. 66 Asmis, "Rhetoric and Reason in Lucretius", p. 38; D. Innes, "Philodemus", in Kennedy (ed.), Classical Criticism, p. 218. 67 See Asmis, "Rhetoric and Reason in Lucretius", and C.J. Classen, "Poetry and Rhetoric in Lucretius", TAPA 99 (1968), pp. 77-118. 68 On the diatribe see B. Wallach, Luaetius and the Diatribe (Mnemosyne Supplement, 40; Leiden: Brill, 1976) and Lucretius, De rerum natura III (ed. E.J. Kenney; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 17-19.

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parodie verse funerary oration for Claudius (12:3).69 Horace considered his Satires or Sermones to be closer to prose than to poetry. He writes in S. 1:4:41-42 neque si qui scùbat, uti nos,/sermoni propiora, pûtes hunc esse poetam ("Nor, if a man wrote, as I do, in a style rather close to prose, would you count him as a poet"). 70 Such experimentation with generic boundaries is characteristic of Horace's poetry; in this case there may be some influence of theories of prose style current in the early republic.71 A different approach to satire is presented in work of Juvenal (fl. ca. AD 110-130). He abandons the pretence of conversation to concentrate on a display of indignation directed against his contemporary society. Juvenal's Satires do not spare orators, even Quintilian himself, placing the poet firmly within the literary milieu of his day and providing us with a darkly humorous depiction of contemporary practice. The 7th Satire in particular presents us with a vivid caricature of contemporary orators and of the declamation schools. Juvenal's Satires have been likened to the declaimers' suasoriae.72 In particular, the 6th Satire, directed against women, with a wealth of exempla, could be seen as an elaborate reply to the favourite rhetorical thesis whether or not to marry. However, Juvenal's works do not follow entirely such categorizations. Rather, the influence of his rhetorical training is to be found in his general aim, the arousal of indignatio which was one of the emotions most useful to the orator trying to stir up his audience against the opposition, and in the techniques which he uses to achieve that end. 73 His language is given dramatic urgency by figures such as rhetorical questions, apostrophe and anaphora, and the use of vivid evocations of the scenes of contemporary society.74 As noted above, Quintilian complained of the tendency of declaimers to indulge in invective rather than argumentation. The ψόγος/psogos or vituperatio of the Progymnasmata was defined as a negative έγκώμιον/ 69 On Menippean Satire see Seneca, Apocolyntosis (ed. P. T. Eden; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 13-17. 70 Translation from Horace, Satires and Epistles (trans. N. Rudd; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), p. 56. 71 See K. Freudenberg, The Walking Muse: Horace on the Theory of Satire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 72 E.J. Kenney, "Juvenal: Satirist or Rhetorician?", Lat 22 (1963), pp. 704-20. J. De Decker, Juvenalis declamans (Ghent: University of Ghent, 1913). 73 Anderson, "Juvenal and Quintilian". 74 On Juvenal's style see E. Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (London: Athlone Press, 1980), pp. 36-48.

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encomium, using the same τόποι/topoi to criticize rather than praise. A striking example of a vituperatio, used to depict a negative exemplum, is the figure of Alexander the Great at the beginning of the tenth book of Lucan's Bellum civile. T h e passage is introduced by the account of Caesar's visit to Alexander's tomb and lists Alexander's deeds in order to criticize his imperial ambition (and thus that of Caesar). The importance of Alexander as a heroic figure in literature makes this into an exercise in paradox, comparable to the model ψόγος/psogos of the hero Achilles (or, inversely, the έγκώμιον/encomium of the lowly Thersites) examples of which are preserved in a later rhetorical source, Libanius's Progymnasmata.75 Mart. 6:64 is a relatively long poem against another poet, possibly Statius. 76 Martial mocks the poet's race and parentage and describes his education with ironic praise. T h e most elaborate and sustained invectives in Latin poetry are the works of Claudian (ca. AD 370-404) directed against the polidcal opponents of Stilicho: the eunuch Eutropius and the rebel praetorian prefect, Rufinus. 77 Of these, only In Rufinum 1 follows the pattern of the psogos, but the poet fuses epic and rhetoric, presenting the topoi within a narrative framework. 78 Rufinus's birth and upbringing are depicted as the work of the Furies, who are shown debating in the Underworld at the beginning of the poem (lines 25-122). Rufinus's criminal achievements are amplified to arouse pity and indignation (e.g. sons are said to have been slaughtered before their father's eyes) (lines 176-256). T h e combat with Stilicho (himself compared to the heroes of mythology), presented as a struggle between virtue and vice, provides the comparison which culminates in two lines of antitheses addressed to the hero: iugulare minatur: tu prohibes; ditem spoliât: tu reddis egenti; eruit: instauras; accendit proelia: vincis [Rufinus] threatens slaughter, thou stayest his hand; he robs the rich, thou givest back to the poor; he overthrows, thou restorest; he sets wars afoot, thou winnest them.79 75

Libanius, Progymnasmata, pp. 243-51 (εγκώμιον/encomium of Thersites) and pp. 282-96 (ψόγοι/psogoi of Achilles and Hector). 76 Hardie, Statius and the Silvae, p. 57. 77 On the background see Cameron, Claudian and H. L. Levy, "Themes of Encomium and Invective in Claudian", TAPA 89 (1958), pp. 336-47. 78 Cameron, Claudian, pp. 255-56. 79 Claudian, In Rufinum, 1:297-300. Translation from Claudian, Works (trans. M. Platnauer; LCL; London: Heinemann, 1922).

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Claudian thus makes use of the licence to make gods consort with humans which Isocrates and later Aelius Aristides identified as one of the advantages of the poets, in contrast with orators. 80 T h e combination of epideictic topoi with a supernatural epic framework allows him to expand his material to great effect.

VI.

P O E T R Y AND E P I D E I C T I C

RHETORIC

Epideictic orators always recognized the primacy of poetry in the domain of praise: Isocrates begins the Evagoras (9:9-11) with a discussion of the difficulty of writing an έγκώμιον/encomium in prose, which lacks the metre and the verbal and narrative licence of poetry. Since Pindar, poets had praised the deeds and families of famous men. Epic eulogies of individuals are recorded from the end of the classical period and the patronage of the Hellenistic courts encouraged large and small-scale poetic έγκώμια/encomia™ Festivals and games provided the occasion for eulogies of cities.82 In the first century BC prose competitions in oratory were introduced into the festivals. It appears to be at about this time that poetic eulogy of cities disappeared and that orators began to adopt genres, such as the hymn and the epithalamium, which had previously been the exclusive domain of poets. 83 The seventeenth Idyll of Theocritus (ca. 310-250 BC), an encomium for Ptolemy, represents a fusion of rhetorical τόπον/topoi with epic language. The poem opens with a comparison with Zeus, first among the immortals as Ptolemy is first among men. T h e poet expresses his inability to choose a starting place (τί πρώτον καταλέξω; έπει πάρα μυρία ειπείν) and settles for the standard scheme of ancestry, praise of his country and enumeration of his dominions and his wealth, praise for his generosity and piety. The marriage customs of the Ptolemies allowed the poet to conclude with a graceful comparison of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, his sister and wife, with Zeus and 80

Isoc. (Evagoras) 9:9; Aristides, Hymn to Sarapis; see Russell, "Aristides and the Prose Hymn", p. 202. 81 Hardie, Statins and the Silvae, pp. 15-30 and p. 87; Pernot, La rhétorique de l'éloge, p. 637. 82 Hardie, Statius and the Silvae, pp. 20-21. 83 Hardie, Statius and the Silvae, p. 21; Russell, "Aristeides and the Prose Hymn" and "Rhetors at the Wedding", Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 205 (1979), pp. 104-17.

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Hera. Idyll 17 shows many correspondances to Menander Rhetor's instructions for the basilikos logos (βασιλικός λόγος) in its themes and some of the details of the treatment—the opening aporia for example and the inclusion of mythological parallels.84 Other poedc εγκώμια/encomia make similar use of τόποι/topoi corresponding to Menander's prescriptions. The panegyric of Messalla included in the corpus of poems ascribed to Tibullus (ca. 48-19 BC) elaborates on the theme of ancestry, claiming that simply having famous forebears is not sufficient for Messalla, and amplifies the account of his achievements by the introduction of a mythological comparison with Nestor and Ulysses. In a step towards the interaction of gods and men found in later epideictic poetry, the author imagines Jupiter listening as Mesalla becomes consul, a scene evoked in an elaborate tableau (lines 118-34). The ending of the panegyric returns to the traditional domain of poetry with the poet's fanciful claim that even after his own metamorphosis he will continue to sing Messalla's praise. Another anonymous verse panegyric, the Laus Pisonis probably dating to the middle of the first century AD confines mythological references to comparisons illustrating the subject's valour and eloquence. T h e case of Theocritus's poetic έγκώμιον/encomium illustrates some of the problems involved in assessing the relationship between poetry and epideictic rhetoric. O u r principal source for the latter, Menander Rhetor, dates from the fourth century AD, much later than the vast majority of poems which could be compared to its precepts. Moreover, the poedc origin of several of the genres discussed by Menander makes it difficult to identify particular features as a sign of rhetorical influence, rather than of poetic tradition. The detailed use of Menander's schemata in the interpretation of earlier poetry is therefore highly problematic. 85 But such studies highlight the importance of an awareness of genre in general in ancient responses to poetry and underline the common ground shared by poets and rhetors. In the case of poets of Menander's own time, such as Claudian, the comparison with the precepts for the basilikos logos, for example, serves to highlight the freedom with which the panegyric poet treated

84

For a full analysis and comparison with Menander Rhetor's prescriptions see Cairns, Generic Composition, pp. 105-108. 85 See note 9 above.

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his material. The fragment of an unknown Greek poet of the same period who claims that he is following the rules of the έγκώμιον/ encomium closely is, to judge from the surviving works, an exception. 86 Claudian's Panegyric on the Fourth Consulate of Honorius, for example, uses various dramatic devices to present the topoi of praise. 87 In accordance with the young age of the subject, the section on education and upbringing is expanded and dramatized by placing a long section of advice to Honorius in the mouth of his father, Theodosius (lines 214-418). The account of the achievements of a young boy posed a challenge, a problem which Claudian resolved by depicting Honorius as impatient to put his father's precepts into practice in a brief speech which interrupts his father's words (lines 352-69). The poet thus combines the topoi of the basilikos logos with a dramatic presentation in which the main characters are both actors and addressees. Several of the other types of epideictic speech discussed by Menander Rhetor have their verse equivalents in the occasional poetry of Statius. His Silvae contain examples of epithalamia, propemptika and monodies as well as other poems in praise of buildings or artifacts which can be paralled in Greek epideictic rhetoric. 88 Sib). 1:5 on the baths of Claudius Etruscus is comparable to Lucian's (more restrained) Hippias or the Bath; the descriptions of villas such as that of Manilius Vopiscus in Silv. 1:3 or that of Pollius Felix in Silv. 2:2, can be compared to the rhetorical έκφράσεις/ekphraseis of buildings of which Lucian's The Hall is a particularly complex example. As has been pointed out, the descriptive poems of Statius, which use description in the service of έγκώμιον /encomium, need not depend directly on the school progymnasmata, in which εκφρασις/ekphrasis was practised as a free-standing description. 89 However, the school exercise itself was, in principle, merely a preparation for the descriptive passages which an 86 E. Heitsch, Die griechischen Dichtelfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeil (vol. 1; Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, 49; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), fr. 27. See Cameron, Claudian, p. 254 and A. Garzya, "Retorica e realtà nella poesia tardoantica", in La Poesia Tardoantica: tra retorica, teologia e politica (Messina: Centro di Studi Umanistici, 1984), p. 21. 87 See Claudian, Panegyric on the Fourth Consulate of Honorius (trans, and commentary W. Barr; Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1981). 88 See Hardie, Statius and the Silvae·, S. T. Newmyer, The Silvae of Statius: Structure and Theme (Leiden: Brill, 1979), pp. 10-44 and A.-M. Taisne, "Stace et la rhétorique", in Chevallier (ed.), Colloque sur la rhétorique, pp. 115-28. 89 Newmyer, The Silvae of Statius, pp. 39-40.

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orator might interweave into a full-scale speech of any sort, exactly as Statius does in these poems. 90 The Silvae contain several examples of lamentation for the dead. Menander recognizes three types of speech concerned with death: the formal, public επιτάφιοc,/epitaphios with its sections of encomium, the more private and intensely emotional μονωδία/monodia derived, as its name suggests, from a lament sung by one person, and the speech of consolation or παραμυθητικός/ paramuthetikos.91 Although Sib. 5:5, on the death of Statius's own adopted son, is entitled Epicedion (idendfied by Ps.-Dionysius as a poetic version of the επιτάφιος/ epitaphios) this unfinished lament corresponds to Menander's prescriptions for the μονωδία/monodia?2 It is highly personal and dramatic, containing intense expressions of grief combined with complaints against the divine powers, as mentioned by Menander; the poet moves from present desolation (1-65) to the past, to praise of the dead boy (66-87). T h e incomplete state of the poem leaves open the question of whether Statius would have gone on to consider the future life which the boy might have led, as in Menander Rhetor's prescriptions (435) or in the parody of the τόποι/topoi of such speeches in Lucian Lud. 13. Indeed, the fact that Menander's comments on the μονωδία/monodia correspond so closely to sections of earlier Latin poetic lamentation, such as the examples noted above or the Ps.-Ovidian Consolatio ad Liviam (1st century AD), suggests that Menander may himself have drawn on poetic sources.93 O n a lighter note, Statius's Silvae also include a parodie epicedion (2:4) addressed to a parrot. This poem belongs to a tradition of poetic laments for animals such as Catullus (3), Ovid (Am. 2:6, also on a parrot), and the mock sepulchral epigrams of the Greek Anthology, written as if for the tombs of partridges, locusts and dolphins (9:189-216). But the idea of adapting topoi from human to animal subjects also recalls the paradoxical encomia of the sophists, such as Lucian's Encomium of the fly. T h e έπιθαλάμιος/epithalamium, also originally a poetic genre, was 90 Men.Rh. 220-22, for example, recommends the description of temples or statues in the Sminthiac oration. 91 Ps.-Dionysius includes all three under the heading έπιτάφιος/epitaphios. 92 Ps.-Dionysius of Halicamassus, On Epideictic, in Dionysius of Halicamassus, Opuscula, II, p. 278. On Statius's tides see Newmyer, The Silvae of the Statius, p. 19. 93 See Ad Liviam de Morte Drusi (ed. H. Schoonhoven; Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1992), p. 14.

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adopted by orators, perhaps as early as the first century BC.94 But the orators created rules which in turn influenced poetic treatments. T h e treatises by Menander Rhetor and Ps.-Dionysius treat this genre and both distinguish two types of wedding speech: the first, the γαμήλιος/ gamelios or έπιθαλάμιος/epithalamios, is more formal, dwelling on the nature of marriage and the origins of the couple, 95 while the other, entitled κατευναστικός/kateunastikos by Menander and έπιθαλάμιος/ epithalamios by Ps.-Dionysius, was delivered at the bridal chamber. 96 T h e prescriptions include praise of the couple, their families, achievements and appearance; and consideration of their origins, evocation of the setting, discussion of the institution of marriage richly illustrated with examples drawn from mythology, description of the surroundings and exhortations to live in harmony and to bear children. Certain of these elements, such as the exhortation to produce children, are present in Catullus's wedding songs, a detail which is of course no indication of rhetorical influence. 97 The έπιθαλάμια/ epithalamia of Statius and Claudian, however, seem to show knowledge of textbook treatments, although both authors retain their poetic licence, arranging their compositions along narrative lines, rather than following topical treatments or developing arguments, and expanding the brief description of divinities into elaborate tableaux or scenes in which the gods interact with the human participants. Silv. 1:2 on the marriage of Lucius Arruntius Stella and Violentilla, includes the description of the bride (lines 113-18) and the bridegroom's achievements (lines 170-81) ending with a prayer for the birth of children (lines 266-77). However, the mythological passages, instead of being used as exempla subordinate to the main structure of the speech, form a framework in themselves. In a reminiscence of epic, we see a dialogue of the gods in which Amor describes Stella's love for Violentilla and begs Venus to arrange the marriage. T h e exhortation to marry is addressed to the bride by the goddess herself and it is she who pronounces the praise of both partners. 98 Thus

94 Hardie, Statius and the Silvae, pp. 98-99; Russell, "Rhetors at the Wedding", pp. 104—17. 95 Men.Rh. 399:11-405:14, Ps.-Dionysius, On Epideictic in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Opuscula, II, pp. 260-66. 96 Ps.-Dionysius, On Epideictic, p. 269; Men.Rh. 405. 97 See A. L. Wheeler, "Tradition in the Epithalamium", AJP 51 (1930), pp. 20523 and Newmyer, The Silvae of Statius, p. 29. 98 See Hardie, Statius and the Silvae, pp. 111-15.

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Statius fuses epideictic with epic, weaving the topoi of the wedding speech into a mythological framework. Claudian followed Statius's use of mythological figures as major participants in the action in his Epithalamium for the emperor Honorius's wedding to Sdlicho's daughter, Maria, in 398. The importance of the bride's family is emphasized by the soldiers' song in which the bride's father takes centre stage and which provides a dynasdc background to the closing wish for the couple to produce children. T h e influence of rhetorical developments can perhaps be seen in the elaborate series of ekphraseis in which Venus and her abode are presented." Claudian's poetry retains the repertoire of classical mythology despite the fact that the persons concerned were Christian. 100 In contrast, other Christian poets adapted the familiar genres to the new requirements of their religion.101 In Latin, the work of Paulinus of Nola (AD 353-431) contains examples of familiar genres—epithalamium, propemptikon and consolatio—adapted to the Christian context. Paulinus is also known to have composed a prose panegyric on the emperor Theodosius. 102 Poem 25, composed in Sapphic metre for the wedding of Julian of Eclanum and Titia, evokes the pagan deities and the trappings of non-Christian wedding celebrations only in order to dismiss them as unsuitable for the present occasion. Rebecca provides a biblical exemplum for the bride (while the figure of Herodias's daughter, Salome, is made to represent all that she should avoid). T h e poem develops into a drade against vain adornment worthy of Tertullian and in sharp contrast to the sensual descriptions of other epithalamia. The traditional exhortation to live in harmony is couched in terms of Chrisdan doctrine, and in place of reference to future children, the couple are exhorted to live as brother and sister. (This severely ascetic wedding poem appears to have had no immediate followers.) Poem 17 is a propemptikon in Sapphic metre addressed to the missionary bishop Nicetas which shares topoi with its classical prede-

99

See Cameron, Claudian, pp. 271-72; Roberts, "The Use of Myth in Latin Epithalamia", pp. 328-35; I. Gualandri, "Aspetti dell'ekphrasis in età tardo-andca", in Testa e immagine nell'alto medioevo (Setdmane di studio, 41; Spoleto: Centra Italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1994), pp. 308-309. 100 Cameron, Claudian, p. 194. 101 See Roberts, The Jeweled Style, pp. 122-47. 102 See MacCormack, "Latin Prose Panegyrics", pp. 170-71.

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cessors.103 The description of the sea and the countries through which his addressee will pass is extended, often lyrical, and interspersed with praise for the Christian God. 104 T h e mythological escorts mentioned by Menander, such as Proteus and Glaucus, are again replaced by biblical equivalents, in this case Raphael and the Angels. Paulinus also weaves praise for Nicetas's achievements into this section by contrasting the former savagery of the regions with the peace brought by Nicetas's missionary activity.105 In poem 31, addressed to a couple who have lost their young son, Celsus, Paulinus adapts the consolatory genre to Christian doctrine, including a passage on the resurrection of Christ in which the sceptical questions of an imaginary objector are addressed. Expressions of grief are mingled with joy at the thought that the boy is now in heaven, prompting a rather startling piece of word-play on the name Celsus ("elevated" or "noble"): previously the name was simply a sign of his family and origins, now it expresses his place "in excelsis". Paulinus's poems represent an adaptation of the techniques and structures of epideictic poetry to the demands of Christianity which is comparable to the Cappadocian Fathers' use of the prose epideictic of the Greek orators of the Roman period. 106 Among the techniques of rhetoric used to great effect by Christian poets and orators alike is the use of vivid description or narration to paint a word-picture of events, making them come alive before the eyes of the audience as in the rhetoricians' definition of ekphrasis. Paulinus of Nola's poems (15 and 16) on Saint Felix combine encomiastic topoi of ancestry, origins and achievements with passages of vivid narration, recounting his miraculous escapes from persecution and further enlivened by the poet's apostrophes to the persecutors and invectives against them. But it is the poems of Prudentius which make the most striking use of such vivid narration, as in the scenes of martyrdom described in the Peristephanon. In particular, Prudentius's poem on the martyrdom of Hippolytus presents the events as if they were depicted in a painting. The device, which serves to 103

See Cairns, Generic Composition, pp. 115-16. Cf. Men.Rh. 399. 105 Paulinus of Nola, Camina (ed. G. de Härtel; Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1894), 17:21821: invii montes pnus et cruenti/nunc tegut versus monachos latrones/pads alumnos. 106 On Gregory Nazianzus's poetry see M. Pellegrino, La poena di S. Gregono Nazianzeno (Milan: Università Cattolica di Milano, 1932) and R. R. Ruether, Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). 104

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underline and to signal the vividness of the account can be paralleled in Greek prose writers of the Second Sophistic, in Philostratus's Imagines and, later, in the account of the martyrdom of St Euphemia by Asterius of Amaseia (late 4th century).107 The influence of declamation, both directly and indirectly transmitted through Lucan's poetry, may be detected in the vivid depictions of violence and torture in this and other poems of the Peristephanon.108 T h e poetry of Prudentius illustrates the complex range of models available to poets of his age. These included earlier poets, with their various degrees of rhetorical influence, but also the products of the poet's own rhetorical training and cultural background. These works also show clearly how the techniques and genres developed by poets and orators throughout the preceding centuries could be adapted to the demands of Christian writers and audiences.

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Joly, D., "Rhétorique et poésie d'après ["Institution oratoire'", in Chevallier (ed.) Colloque sur la rhétorique, pp. 101-13. Kennedy, D. F., The Arts of Love: Five Studies in the Discourse of Roman Love Elegy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Kennedy, G. Α., The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). (ed.), Classical Criticism (- The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, I) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Kenney, E.J., 'Juvenal: Satirist or Rhetorician?", Lat 22 (1963), pp. 704-20. , "Nequitiae poeta", in N.J. Herescu (ed.), Ovidiana (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1958). Libanius, Progymnasmata, in Opera (vol. 8; ed. R. Foerster; Leipzig: Teubner, 1915). Lipscomb, H. C., "Aspects of the Speech in Vergil and the Later Roman Epic", Classical Weekly 2 (1908-1909), pp. 114-17. Lucretius, De rerum natura III (ed. E.J. Kenney; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971). MacCormack, S., "Latin Prose Panegyrics" in T. A. Dorey (ed.), Empire and Aftermath (Silver Ladn, 2; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975). Marrou, H., A History of Education in Antiquity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956). Martindale, C. Α., "Paradox, Hyperbole and Literary Novelty in Lucan's De Bello CM", BICS 23 (1976), pp. 45-72. Maximus of Tyre, Philosophumenon (ed. H. Hobein; Leipzig: Teubner, 1910). Menander Rhetor, On Epidactic (ed. and trans. D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). Morford, M. O., The Poet Lucan: Studies in Rhetorical Epic (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967). Morpurgo-Tagliabue, Α., linguistica e stilistica di Aristotele (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1967). Navarre, O., Essai sur la rhétorique grecque avant Aristote (Paris: Hachette, 1900). Newmyer, S. T., The Silvae of Statius: Structure and Theme (Leiden: Brill, 1979). Norden, Ε., Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert V. Chr. bis in die £eit der Renaissance (Leipzig: Teubner, 1909). Nugent, S. G., "Ausonius' Late Antique Poetics", in A.J. Boyle (ed.), The Imperial Muse: Ramus Essays on Roman literature of the Empire, Flavian Epicists to Claudian (Bendigo: Aureal Publications, 1990). Ovid, Metamorphoses XII-XIII (commentary F. Börner; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1982). , Metamorphoses (trans. M. Innes; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955). Palmer, A.-M., Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Paulinus of Nola, Carmina (ed. G. de Härtel; Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1894). Pellegrino, M., La poesia di S. Gregorio Naz.ianz.eno (Milan: Università Cattolica del sacro cuore, 1932). Pernot, L., La rhétorique de l'éloge dans le monde gréco-romain (Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 1994). Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica (ed. F. Vian; 3 vols.; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 196369). Roberts, M., The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). , "The Use of Myth in Latin Epithalamia from Statius to Venantius Fortunatus", TAPA 119 (1989), pp. 321-48. Ruether, R. R., Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Russell, D. Α., "Rhetors at the Wedding", Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 205 (1979), pp. 104-17.

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, Criticism in Antiquity (London: Duckworth, 1981). , Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). , "Aristides and the Prose Hymn", in idem (ed.) Antonine Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 199-219. Rutz, W., "Lucan und die Rhetorik", in Ijucain (Entretiens Hardt, 15; VandœvresGeneva: Fondation Hardt, 1970), pp. 235-57. Sabot, A. F., Ovide, poète de l'amour dans ses oeuvres de jeunesse ([Paris]: Ophrys, 1976). Sanford, E. M., "Lucan and his Roman Critics", CP 26 (1931), pp. 233-57. Seneca, Apocolyntosis (ed. P. T. Eden; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Tacitus, Dialogus (ed. D. Bo; Turin: G. B. Paravia, 1974). Taisne, A.-M., "Stace et la rhétorique", in Chevallier (ed.) Colloque sur la rhétorique, pp. 115-28. Theophrastus, Opera quae supersunt omnia (ed. F. Wimmer; Paris: Didot, 1986; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1964). Toohey, P., "Epic and Rhetoric", in I. Worthington (ed.), Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (London: Roudedge, 1994), pp. 153-75. Veyne, P., Roman Erotic Elegy: Love, Poetry and the West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). Viarre, S., L'Image et la pensée dans les "Metamorphoses" d'Ovide (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964). Wallach, Β., Lucretius and the Diatribe (Mnemosyne Supplement, 40; Leiden: Brill, 1976). Wheeler, A. L., "Tradition in the Epithalamium", AJP 51 (1930), pp. 205-23. Williams, G., Change and Decline: Roman Literature in the Early Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). , Figures of Thought in Roman Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980). Zanker, G., "Enargeia in the Ancient Criticism of Poetry", RhM 124 (1981), pp. 297-311. , Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A literature and its Audience (London: Croom Helm, 1987).

CHAPTER 11

BIOGRAPHY Richard A. Burridge King's College, London, England

I. INTRODUCTION—RHETORIC,

B I O G R A P H Y AND

GENRE1

T h e definition of rhetoric, ρητορική, has been a matter of dispute and discussion since its inception. As Kennedy points out, 2 it is first used in Plato's Gorgias to describe the technique, or art, of public speaking. In a society like classical Athens, where public speaking was the main mode of communication in assemblies, law courts, formal state occasions and so forth, the "art of words", τέχνη λόγων, was crucial. In its broadest sense then, rhetoric covers all that is involved in verbal communication including composition, style, form and content. On the other hand, Socrates and Gorgias define rhetoric more narrowly as the "work of persuasion", πειθούς δημιουργός (Grg. 453a2). In its broadest sense, rhetoric applies to all forms of writing or speaking; in its narrower meaning, it applies to those works specifically intended to persuade or convince an audience. This distinction lies behind much of the debate about rhetoric from ancient times to today. Thus Plato tends to contrast rhetoric negatively as sophistic persuasion for personal gain rather than the purer pursuit of truth and knowledge through philosophy. O n the other hand, Isocrates has a much broader concept of rhetoric, while Aristotle sought to explain and define it. The debate continued through the work of Cicero and Quintilian, while the teaching of rhetoric formed a major part of ancient education. What is clear is that rhetoric had a tremendous influence through-

1

For fuller discussion of the genre and examples of ancient biography, see R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 2 In his Chapter 1, p. 3 above; see also G. A. Kennedy, A New Histoiy of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 1.

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out the whole of the Graeco-Roman world and culture. Modern rhetorical criticism is a means of analysing texts to discover, if possible, something of the author's original intention, but certainly how the text affects readers, especially how it would have been heard by the original audience. It can be applied particularly to speeches and other texts intended to persuade an audience. However, the broader sense of rhetoric means that we can also use it to consider the argument and style, form and content of other texts, such as ancient biography, which may not necessarily have had a particular intention to persuade. Modern literary criticism makes use of Roman Jakobson's communication theory that all communication requires a sender, message and receiver. In literary terms, this means author, text and reader. For communication to take place successfully, it is essential that both sender and receiver use the same code. In other words, to interpret ancient texts we need to understand rhetoric in its broadest sense, namely, all the literary conventions and expectations which would have been used by the original authors and readers. Chief among these is genre: what is the nature of the literature under consideration? Aristode's concern for classification reflects the importance of genre. Equally, the Alexandrian grammarians were concerned for genre, drawing up lists of writers, arranged by genre—poets (and the different types within this wider category), orators, historians and so forth. A proper understanding of genre is necessary for communication to take place. T h e later rhetorical handbooks are similarly concerned with genre, and often arranged by genre. Thus genre is an important place to start for any discussion of rhetoric, both the genre of particular passages or parts of a work and also, more importandy, the genre of the whole. 3 This is especially so for those genres, like biography, which are not obviously rhetorical in the strictest sense. However, a warning note must be sounded here about the relationship of rhetorical theory and literary practice. Classical authors sometimes discuss the genre and form of their work in a prologue or preface, while rhetorical handbooks, particularly the later ones, will list the rules for each genre and the sorts of things each example should contain. When it actually comes to literary composition however, these oudines and rules are often disregarded. For example, Horace wrote much on literary theory in his Ars Poetica and else3

See further, Kennedy's Chapter 2 above on "The Genres of Rhetoric".

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where, but his poems (especially the most successful ones) reveal something quite different. Thus R. K. Hack's analysis shows that "the laws of the lyric genre upheld by Horace the critic are definitely annulled by Horace the poet". 4 Similarly, Plutarch gives a famous introduction to his life of Alexander in which he contrasts biography with history: history is concerned with famous actions and great events, whereas biography is interested in people's character, often revealed by "little things", πράγμα βραχύ (Alex. 1:1-3). This would suggest ample opportunity for rhetorical influence in persuading the audience about the subject's character one way or another, particularly in the light of the influence of encomium upon biography. However, closer attention to Plutarch's actual practice in the Parallel Lives, reveals that some of them are very historical and some quite rhetorical. In the case of Alexander, his comments are better seen as explaining why he has to omit so much material about his great subject. Thus Pelling concludes, "A writer's programmatic statements can sometimes be a poor guide to his work, and some Lives fit Plutarch's theory better than others". 5 This is further compounded by the fact that biography was not discussed in rhetorical handbooks. It was not a major genre recognized and dealt with by Aristotle, nor was it, nor its writers, covered in the list of those genres useful for those wanting to become orators according to Quintilian, genera ipsa lectionum, quae praecipue convenire intendentibus ut oratoresfiantexistemem (Inst. 10:1:45). As we show below, its subsequent development drew on other genres and its use of rhetoric depends on the particular situation of each Life. Furthermore, the very term biographia does not appear until Damascius's "Life of Isidorus", written in the fifth century AD, but only preserved in the ninthcentury writer, Photius. We should be cautious of using the term "biography", therefore, and beware of modern concepts and understandings of the genre. In Plutarch's contrast with history (ιστορία), he says that he is writing "lives" (βίους, Alex. 1:2). So we shall use the term "life" to reflect this ancient preference for bios or vita. The classical period was one of great mixing and development of genres. There was a lot of interplay and overlap between genres, particularly with works at the edges of one genre and influenced by 4

R. K. Hack, "The Doctrine of Literary Forms", HSCP 27 (1916), pp. 1-65, quotation from p. 31. 5 C. B. R. Pelling, "Plutarch's Adaptation of His Source Material", JHS 100 (1980), pp. 127-40, quotation from p. 139.

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another. 6 In assessing the importance of rhetoric for ancient Lives, we need to remember the relationship of bios to neighbouring genres. Bios as a genre was influenced by a number of genera proxima, such as philosophical writings, political polemic, religious discourse, but especially history and encomium. Rhetoric was important to both of these latter, but in different ways. Thus rhetoric in the narrower sense of persuasion was clearly vital to encomium, as oratory designed to persuade the audience of the praiseworthy nature of the subject; thus rhetoric would affect every part of an encomium, its form and structure, its content and style. This may be true of certain parts of historiography, notably the speeches often included, but its form, content and structure are determined by wider concerns. Rhetoric in its broader sense would of course influence the language and style of the work. Since bios is a flexible genre, influenced by both historiography and encomium, we may expect to find rhetoric affecting it. While the primary purpose of bioi may not have been rhetorical in the strict sense of persuasion, it is inevitable that there will be rhetorical influence, at least in arrangement and style of most bioi, and in specific rhetorical forms and patterns in those Lives which seek to persuade the reader to take a certain view of the subject. In this study, therefore, we first need to outline the development of ancient lives as a genre, and then see how rhetoric affected their writing.

II.

A N O V E R V I E W O F THE

LITERATURE

The origins of ancient Greek biography are much disputed among classicists.7 The interest in the heroes and bards of literary antiquity combined with speeches, sayings, letters, diaries and travelogues are brought together in the fourth century under the influence of both 6

On the mixing and ovedap of genres, see further L. E. Rossi, "I Generi Letterari e Lo Loro Leggi Scritte e Non Scritte Nelle Letterature Classiche", BICS 18 (1971), pp. 69-94; and W. Kroll, "Die Kreuzung der Gattungen", ch. 9 of his Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1964; reprint of 1924 edn.), pp. 204-24. 7 For full accounts of the development of ancient biography, see F. Leo, Die griechischrömische Biographie nach ihm literarischen Form (Leipzig: Teubner, 1901); A. Dihle, Studien zur griechischen Biographie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956); D. R. Stuart, Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1928); A. Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); J. Geiger, Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985).

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philosophical individualism and rhetoric to produce the first examples of what appear to be bioi. Isocrates claims to be the first to praise someone in a prose encomium, ανδρός άρετην δια λόγων έγκωμιάζειν, contrasting his work with both poetry and philosophy (Evagoras [9] 8). He was a teacher of rhetoric and philosophy who also acted as a speech-writer. The Evagoras is one of three Cyprian Orations, composed 3 7 4 - 3 6 5 BC. A S a funeral eulogy about the dead king delivered in front of his son Nicocles, it is clearly a piece of rhetoric. However, it became very influential as a model for later bioi. The first to follow this path was Xenophon, in his Agesilaus composed ca. 360 BC. As an account of Agesilaus, king of Sparta, under whom Xenophon had served, it both follows the rhetoric of Isocrates in its basic form and structure, but also includes more historical material in its content, some of which overlaps with Xenophon's historical work, the Hellenica. In addition to rhetoric and historiography, the third major influence on early bioi was that of philosophical schools. Biographical materials such as anecdotes, stories and speeches abound in the work of both Plato and Aristode, but it was Aristoxenus, annoyed at not succeeding Aristode, who wrote what is sometimes considered the first bios proper, namely an account of Socrates to show all his faults. He wrote bioi of other philosophers also, as did many others in the philosophical schools over the following decades, such as Clearchus and Dicaearchus of Messene. This interest in the lives of philosophers continued into the third century, complemented by biographical works about Philip of Macedon and Alexander. At Alexandria, the development of the libraries and the need for classifying literature led to collections of lives of philosophers and writers by people like Hermippus, Sotion and Satyrus. The earliest surviving example of a work actually called "bios" is Satyrus's account of Euripides, taken from book 6 of his βίων αναγραφή, which exists in a fragmentary state as P.Oxy. 1 1 7 6 . 8 Thus Greek biography grows out of rhetoric in its narrower sense and continues to be influenced by it, both in terms of style and content and in the purpose to persuade the audience to take a particular view of the subject. However, bioi are also indebted to philosophy and historiography and reveal their influence in numerous examples. The origins of Roman biography also lie in various other forms 8

Oxyrhynchus PapyH, IX (ed. A. S. Hunt; London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1912), pp. 124-82.

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of literature. Concern for the ancestors and for tradition and precedent was basic to the Roman mind. Epitaphs, inscriptions and the funeral laudation also contributed biographical material. While the initial Greek intention may have been praise or blame through rhetoric, for the Romans the motive was exemplary—to emulate the exempta maiorum. Biography proper starts to appear towards the end of the Republic. Varro's Imagines (ca. 44 BC) provided 700 epigrams to accompany portraits of famous Romans. During the middle of the first century BC, Cornelius Nepos produced the first collection of lives in his De Viris Illustnbus. Autobiographical memoirs, often produced by a trusted slave-secretary, also contributed to the genre, such as those by Tiro for Cicero. Rhetorical praise and blame can be seen in the development of literature about Cato. Cato the Younger committed suicide at Utica in 46 BC when Julius Caesar was at the gates. He quickly became a symbol of Republicanism, with Cicero producing a panegyric in his honour and Caesar a reply, the Anti-Cato. Thrasea Paetus wrote a life of Cato as a protest under Nero; as a result he was ordered to commit suicide. However, at the end of the first century AD, Plutarch used these lives without their rhetorical and polemical intent as sources for his Cato Minor, one of his Parallel Lives. This is a good example of how rhetoric affects various ancient Lives differently. In the Parallel lives, Plutarch fuses the Greek and Roman biographical, rhetorical, historical and philosophical traditions to set famous Greeks and Romans side by side with a formal rhetorical comparison, σύγκρισις. Twenty two pairs still survive today. Throughout the first century AD, political biography grew at Rome, and in particular that of the emperors. Augustus composed his Res Gestae, while Nicolas of Damascus wrote a Life of Augustus. Under the oppressions of Tiberius, Nero and Domitian the biographical subgenre of exitus illustnum virorum, the accounts of individuals' patient suffering and death at the hands of the tyrant, became fashionable. An alternative use of writing a life for political praise can be seen in Tacitus's vita (ca. AD 98) of his father-in-law, Agricola, governor of Britain under Domitian, in which Tacitus defends the way he and Agricola and others functioned under the tyrant. Tacitus's concern for rhetoric can be well illustrated from his own Dialogus de oratonbus.9 Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars (ca. AD 120), on the other hand, are written more 9

See Kennedy's account of this in Chapter 1, p. 33 above.

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to entertain with their anecdotes and scandal than for strictly rhetorical purposes. Philosophical and religious biography also developed through this period. Philo's Life of Moses is perhaps the least allegorical and most Greek of all his works. The structure of the work with Moses' life being discussed topically as king, lawgiver, priest and prophet is quite similar to the works of Isocrates and Xenophon, and thus rhetorical influence can be seen here too. T h e Gospels also have much in common with ancient bioi in their depictions of Jesus, as is demonstrated elsewhere in this volume. 10 The most important second-century writer was Lucian, the philosophical satirist. A travelling sophist, Lucian tends to use his rhetorical training more for entertainment than for persuasion. Nonetheless, his ability is clear from the formal rhetorical exercises in his corpus (such as The Tyrannicide) and the warm-up orations, προλαλίαι. His biographical works include Demonax, Nignnus and Alexander the False Prophet. Philosophical biography continues into the third century with the important compendium by Diogenes Laertius of the bioi of philosophers, incorporating extracts from many previous writers now lost. Philostratus wrote his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, which includes influence from historiography, romance, travelogue and the novel, as well as rhetoric. Several lives of Pythagoras were written, such as those by Iamblichus and Porphyry. Lives became important in the paganChristian debates of the late third and early fourth centuries with Porphyry's Plotinus and Eusebius's Origen.11 This philosophical-religious interest plays a major role in the shift of the genre into the hagiography and lives of the next few centuries and mediaeval period, such as those about Charlemagne and St. Francis. From this rapid overview, it is obvious that rhetoric in the narrower sense had a large and direct effect on the development of ancient bioi. It begins with Isocrates and the use of the encomium. Significant writers of bioi such as Plutarch, Tacitus and Lucian were also known for their rhetorical training and writing. We should expect to find rhetoric influencing both the form and the content of their works. Also, this survey has made it clear that many bioi were written to persuade an audience to take a certain view of the 10

See the separate chapter on the Gospels, Chapter 17 below. See P. Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983) for further discussion of this period. 11

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subject, and rhetorical techniques were used for this purpose in the broader sense. However, we should be wary of transferring the conventions of rhetoric direct to bioi. Thus Aristotle classifies rhetoric into three species depending on the purpose: a deliberative speech expects the audience to make a judgment about the future, to exhort or dissuade them concerning an action; the judicial is to persuade them about the past using polemic or apologetic; and the epideictic intends praise or blame, particularly on ceremonial occasions (Rh. 1:3). Bioi, however, will not fit easily into this scheme. Even something as rhetorical as Isocrates' Evagoras is both judicial in its defence of Evagoras and epideicdc in its praise of him at his son's succession. Similarly, the Cato lives did not only defend or attack him (judicial), but sought to influence the audience to take a particular approach to the imperial household (deliberative). However, Plutarch's overriding moral purpose in his Parallel Lives moves his Cato, using similar material, more into epideictic. The mediating position of bios between other genres, particularly history and encomium, also shows that the effect of rhetoric on a work's content can vary. Thus, Xenophon's Agesilaus is closer to encomium, and the author chooses to ignore here certain aspects of his subject's conduct and failings which he includes in his more balanced assessment in the historiographical Hellenica. On the other hand, Plutarch's Alexander, because of its moral purpose, is much more balanced in content and assessment than Plutarch's two eulogies on his fortune or virtue (De Alexandn Magni fortuna aut virtute), which Hamilton considers "are 'epideictic display-pieces', devoid of any serious purpose". 12 We must therefore expect to find a large amount of rhetorical influence, in its broader sense, on ancient lives, but be careful about forcing them into the rules and conventions of rhetoric proper.

III.

ARRANGEMENT

Given this flexible interplay between rhetoric and bioi, it is best to begin the more detailed analysis with what was considered the second part of classical rhetoric, namely arrangement, usually termed 12

J. R. Hamilton, Plutarch Alexander: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

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τάξις or dispositio. This refers to the organization of a speech into its various parts, usually four in number: the introduction, προοίμιον, followed by narration of the factual details, διήγησις, then the proof with the arguments to persuade the audience, πίστις, and finally the conclusion and final appeal, έπίλογος. Even within formal oratory, this structure could be varied, with one of the sections being omitted, as narration was sometimes not needed in deliberative speeches, or with other sections, digressions or headings being added as necessary. Isocrates' Evagoras shows this development from the formal structure. It has both a formal introduction (9:1-11) and conclusion (9:7381). The bulk of the work is a narrative of Evagoras's background (9:12-20), early years and rise (9:21-32) and his military campaigns (9:51-64), interspersed with evaluation of his deeds and virtues (9:3350) and character (9:65-72). The latter sections might be seen as a kind of πίστις. Xenophon's Agesilaus is even closer: the introduction includes the early years (1:1-5) and moves swiftly into a narrative of the Persian campaign of 396-394 BC (1:6-2:16) and other campaigns and deeds over the longer period of 394-360 (2:17-31); the final third of the work is a discussion of his virtues (3-10) leading to the conclusion (11). However, after these two early rhetorical examples, most bioi follow a basic chronological arrangement, beginning with the subject's birth, or often just his arrival on the public scene, and ending with his death. The intervening material can be arranged chronologically, particularly for soldiers or politicians (Agricola, Cato Minor), but often it deals with the subject topically. Thus Satyrus looks at Euripides' style in one section and his views on philosophy and women in others. Suetonius equally has only the barest chronological outline, preferring to cover the emperors in topical sections such as foreign campaigns, home administration, virtues and vices, and so forth. Lucian's Demonax is very loosely arranged: the introduction includes a brief mention of his birth and education and it ends with an equally brief treatment of his death, while the bulk of the work is a loose string of anecdotes and sayings. Generally, ancient lives were works written in continuous prose narrative, of medium length fitting onto one scroll, or two or three to a scroll (i.e. 5,000-20,000 words) with a bare chronological arrangement 1969), p. xxxi; see pp. xxiii-xxxiii and lxii-lxvi for further discussion of the relationship of the bios to the speeches.

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including the insertions of sections of material arranged topically. The biographical concentration on the subject affects both the arrangement on the micro level of sentences and syntax and also the macro level of the whole work. Since the subject of the verb is the subject of the whole sentence, analysis of the subjects of verbs can reveal the subject of a paragraph, a section or a whole work. Such analysis of the distribution of verbal subjects in ancient bioi shows the dominance by the hero of even the syntax: usually he is the subject of a quarter to a third of the verbs, often with a further similar proportion placed on his lips in quotations, sayings or speeches.13 The material is also arranged so that the scale, setting and focus are concentrated on the subject: thus although Atticus lived through the civil war, its great events and characters are only mentioned in passing by Nepos, depending on how they affected his subject, while Plutarch similarly concentrates on things from the perspective of Caesar, Pompey or Cato in their respective Lives. Similarly, the arrangement of the material does not have to be even-handed in its allocation of space. Thus one main campaign occupies a large part of the Agesilaus (1:6-2:16, Persia, 396-394 BC) and the Agricola (chs. 29-39, Möns Graupius, AD 84). This arrangement allows the writer to display the character of the subject at a crucial period. For similar reasons, the account of the person's last days and death is often given extended treatment, as in the Cato Minor (chs. 56-73) or Life of Apollonius (VA 7-8). Thus in terms of the arrangement of the whole work, the structure of bioi moves away from the formal rhetorical oudine to a looser sequence varying according to the needs of each life. However, the various literary units which make up the whole still reflect their rhetorical background. T h e rhetorical purpose of the prologue, προοίμιον, was to establish the speaker's relationship with his audience, to win their goodwill and understanding for what will follow. Such prologues are by no means confined to oratory, but can also be found in many other genres, notably history. As a formal encomium, it is not surprising that Isocrates begins with a prologue addressed to Evagoras's son, Nicocles, in which he explains the great honour done to the dead by

13

For full analysis and results, see Burridge, What Are the Gospels? pp. 114—16, 134-35, 162-63 and the computer charts in the Appendix, pp. 261-70.

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such a speech, even more than statues and games, and he builds up the tension by contrasting the poetic praise of epic heroes with the much more difficult task of praising someone in prose (9:1-11). Xenophon only has a single sentence of introduction, but it too points out the difficulty of the task; nonetheless, it must be attempted (δμως δ' έγχειρητέον) on the grounds that it would not be proper (ούγαραν καλώς εχοι) for such a good man to go without praise (Ages. 1:1). Such a proposition (πρότασις) followed by supporting argument (κατασκευή) is a typical rhetorical sequence. Philo, Lucian and Philostratus all have similar prologues explaining their purpose in writing and contrasting their hero with other philosophers ( Vit. Mos. 1:1; Demon. 1-2; VA 1:1-3). Tacitus not only contrasts the difficulties of his task and the depths of the present with the glories of the past, but also introduces his theme of apologetic for Agricola with praise for the new imperial regime under Nerva and Trajan (Agr. 1~3). However, not all bioi began with such a rhetorical prologue: other writers, including Nepos, Suetonius and some of Plutarch's Parallel Lives will begin straight into the material. Classical education included training in preliminary rhetorical exercises, προγυμνάσματα. Examples of these schoolboy exercises can be found in the handbooks of Theon, Hermogenes and others. However, these also provided some of the building blocks or literary units out of which bioi, like other forms of ancient writing, were constructed. One such exercise involved a χρεία, an anecdote involving a pithy saying or action attributed to a famous person. T h e student's task was to work it out with elaboration of the story, setting or meaning (εργασία). Such anecdotes and sayings form the stuff of bioi. Thus the bulk of the Demonax is comprised of little stories giving a setting and preliminary conversation which allows the sage to come out with his maxim: for example, the poor orator told to practise by Demonax explained that he was always declaiming to himself, only to be informed that it was no wonder he spoke like that when he used such a fool for his listener (μωρώ άκροατη χρώμενος, Demon. 36). While few other bioi string anecdotes together in quite this loose fashion, they all make use of such stories and sayings in arranging their material. The development of a "narrative" (διήγημα or διήγησις) was another rhetorical exercise which is commonly used in the arrangement of material within bioi. The construction of speeches for famous people from the past explaining their actions or advising them was another typical rhetorical

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exercise. Speeches formed an important part of most prose genres in the ancient world, and bioi are no exception. Thus Tacitus devotes a substantial portion of the Agricola to two set piece orations by the native leader, Calgacus, and Agricola himself prior to the central batde of Möns Graupius (.Agr. 30-34). Similarly, Philostratus devotes large parts of the Apollonius of Tyana to speeches and discourses between his sage and other philosophers. Finally, the epilogue in formal rhetoric is meant to recapitulate the major points of the speech and arouse the desired response from the audience. Most bioi conclude with an account of the subject's death, burial and subsequent events or honours, but do so in a way which sums up their lives. Thus, Tacitus's account of Agricola's death reflects the central opposition between the hero and the emperor, which is then followed by a formal apostrophe addressed to his dead father-in-law and a final rhetorical flourish for his memory {Agr. 4 3 46). Similar rhetorical epilogues can be found, not surprisingly, at the end of Isocrates' Evagoras and Xenophon's Agesilaus. Less rhetorical bioi also end with the death and its accompanying events, as in Suetonius or Philostratus. Plutarch ends many of his pairs of Parallel Lives with a formal comparison, σύγκρισις, between the two subjects, another standard rhetorical school exercise.14

IV.

INVENTION

If arrangement is principally concerned with the structure and literary form of the work, the first of the classical parts of rhetoric, εϋρεσις, or inventio, concentrates on the content. Usually translated as "invention", both the Greek and Latin words mean finding out or discovery, rather than invention in the sense of "making things up", although doubtless that happened too! It involves thinking through the subject matter, clarifying what is the key issue, στάσις or status, and discovering the best way of persuading the audience. Various proofs or witnesses or pieces of evidence need to be discovered and presented to the audience. Other means of persuasion are more rhetorical, involving presenting the subject's character (ήθος) through a logical argument (λόγος) and awakening emotion (πάθος) in the audience. 14 See further A. Wardman, Plutarch's "Lives" (London: Paul Elek, 1974), pp. 23444; D. A. Russell, "On Reading Plutarch's Lives", G & R 13 (1966), pp. 150-51.

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Clearly, not all of these elements can be transferred direct from the courtroom or assembly hall to bios—such as witnesses. Nonetheless, there were particular "places" (τόποι in Greek, giving us "topics") a speaker might look where he might find some evidence to support his case. Thus in refutation he would look at the plausibility or clarity of the opponents' argument. T o build up the subject's character, he would look at various places for relevant information. These "topics" were most clearly worked out for encomium, and the rhetorical handbooks provide lists, including the subject's origin, citizenship and ancestry; birth, childhood and education; great deeds or achievements; his virtues, and so forth. All of these become important for the discovery or invention of material for bioi. Nepos shows this clearly at the start of his life of Epamonidas: "We shall talk first about his ancestry, next of his education and his teachers, then about his habits and traits of character and anything else which is worth remembering; then finally about his deeds, which many place before the virtues of his mind" (De viris illustnbus XV: Epam. 1:4). Naturally, not all bioi used all the topics, but we can illustrate them from across the range of ancient lives. Most bioi begin with mention of the subject's ancestry or heritage. Isocrates traces Evagoras's family back through the Trojan War to Zeus (Isoc. 9:12-20), while Xenophon takes Agesilaus back to Heracles (Ages. 1:2-4). Suetonius always begins with the emperor's family, as does Tacitus for Agricola. Philo, Lucian and Philostratus mention their subject's city and country. There are remarkably few good birth stories: Philo has the familiar story of Moses and the bulrushes ( Vît. Mos. 1:8-17), while Philostratus recounts Apollonius's mother's vision of Proteus just before the birth, which was itself attended by dancing swans (VA 1:4-5)! Education is covered with a brief sentence or two, mentioning specific teachers if relevant, and there are occasional boyhood stories intended to prefigure the adult, such as the four year old Cato being held out of the window by his father's enemy but refusing to be frightened (Plut. Cat. Mi. 2). The great deeds and achievements of the subject form the bulk of the narrative, and vary according to the subject. Thus for a statesman like Evagoras they include government in peace (Isoc. 9:40-50) and conduct of war (51-64), while for a private person like Atticus it means conducting one's financial affairs throughout the civil war and still being friends with everyone (Nepos Att. 6-12)! Suetonius deals with the achievements of each emperor in sections. For a philosopher

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like Demonax, his greatness is seen more in his clever sayings and anecdotes (Demon. 12-62), while Apollonius's includes his miracles (e.g. VA 7:38). The subject's virtues usually emerge through his deeds, although Isocrates, Xenophon and Suetonius give them separate sections of analysis. Finally, the hero's death is a good place, τόπος, to look for evidence of his character. It gets extended treatment in Satyrus with the story of Euripides being attacked by King Archelaus's hunting dogs (Vit. Eur. Fr. 39:21) and in Tacitus's account of Agricola's final illness and death, with the suspicions of Domitian 's implication in it [Agr. 43). Plutarch gives a very detailed description of Cato's last supper with his friends, the bungled suicide attempt and his eventual death and final honours (Cat. Mi. 66-71); Alexander's illness and death are narrated more briefly (Alex. 75), while Caesar's assassination gives Plutarch more scope (Caes. 63-68). Thus writers of bioi were able to look at a wide range of "places" to discover their material and to make selections from these topics. The variation among them in their use of particular τόποι also demonstrates the rhetorical use of amplification, αϋξησις. By dealing with a certain topic or event in more detail, or by emphasizing it, the writer stresses the importance of it in persuading the audience to accept his view of the subject. We have already noted the detailed treatment given to the death in certain lives, and previously we saw how Tacitus and Xenophon chose to amplify one battle or campaign to occupy over a quarter of their respective works. T h e depiction of character, ήθος, is crucial in rhetoric, according to Aristotle (Rh. 1:2:4). This includes both the audience's trust in the character of the speaker, as well as his understanding of the character of the audience. In judicial or epideictic rhetoric, the speaker will have to convince the audience about the character of another person, to attack or defend, praise or blame them. The progymnasmata included exercises in preparing praise (έγκώμιον) or blame (ψόγος) about a person. Since bios attempts to convey the author's view of his subject, we may expect rhetorical influence on this part of invention also. However, we must note two differences about the ancients' approach to character. While modern writing, including biography, is interested in the development of a person's individual character or personality, the ancients were more interested in someone's moral character, often seen as fairly fixed, rather than developing, and typical

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or even stereotypical.15 Thus Isocrates' depiction of Evagoras is stereotypical of the good king, as we might expect from a formal encomium, while Tacitus's account of Agricola's loyalty and skill has much of the stock character about it. While some of Nepos's description of Atticus's character traits (e.g. Att. 13) reads too good to be true, the picture which emerges through the stories is of a more real person. Something similar happens between Lucian's direct comments on Demonax (Demon. 10) and the anecdotes. Plutarch follows Aristode's concern for moral character, making his subjects examples of virtue or vice; while it is possible for someone's character to unfold during a life, Plutarch does find it difficult to cope with a good person turning evil, as with Philip or Sertorius. A true virtue based on reason (άρετην ειλικρινή και κατά λόγον) cannot be turned into its opposite (πρός τουναντίον); it is not impossible (ούκ αδύνατον) that good intentions and natures (προαιρέσεις καί φύσεις χρηστάς) might change their character (συμμεταβαλείν τό ήθος) as a result of great misfortunes (Sert. 10).16 Furthermore, while we are used to direct character analysis and assessment, the ancients preferred to depict it by more indirect means, revealing through the narration of their deeds and words: "actions are signs of character" (Arist. Rh. 1:9:33). Xenophon agrees that Agesilaus's qualities will emerge from his deeds (άπό γαρ τών έργων, Ages. 1:6). Plutarch's famous contrast of bios with history pointed out that someone's character is often revealed more by the little things than by great events (Alex. 1:1-3) and in the Cato Minor he talks of small signs of character (τα μικρά τών ήθών σημεία) revealing the soul (24:1). Some passages of direct analysis do occur, especially under the influence of encomium, as in Tacitus's final praise of Agricola after his death (Agr. 44—46) or in the formal comparisons in Plutarch's Parallel Lives. Generally however, writers of bioi build up the character of their subject through the narrative: thus Agricola is shown to be fair in governing the Britons (Agr. 19) and brilliant in military strategy and leadership (20), accepting the personal blows of fate (29) and remaining true to himself even in the quiet of retirement at

15

See C. Gill, "The Character-Personality Distinction", in Characterization and Individuality in Greek literature (ed. C. B. R. Pelling; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 1-31. 16 See further Russell, "On Reading Plutarch's Lives", pp. 144-47.

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Rome (40-42). Tacitus is able to persuade us of the truth of his view of Agricola at the end of the book (46) because of all this character building earlier in the narrative. Here, then, the influence of rhetoric upon bioi is clear.

V.

STYLE

Now that invention has helped us to discover the content of a work and arrangement has clarified the structure, we come to the third main part, style, λέξις or elocutio. There were four main virtues put forward by Aristotle's successor Theophrastus in his On Style and later picked up by Cicero and Quintilian: correctness or purity of language, in either Greek (έλληνισμός) or Latin (Latinitas); clarity (τό σαφές); ornamentation (κατασκευή) including tropes, metaphor, figures of speech, aspects of composition; and propriety (τό πρέπον), adapting the style to the character of the speaker, subject or audience. There was a range of possible styles, often characterized as three types, the grand (αδρός), middle (μέσος), or plain (ισχνός). As before, such considerations apply directly to rhetoric as formal oratory. However, since the writers of bioi were mosdy trained in rhetoric, we might expect to find its influence in their works. First we must note the virtue of propriety: while a high flown style might be appropriate for a major speech, something else may be demanded in a bios. Furthermore, bios as a genre is found across a wide variety of social settings from the high-brow dinner party to the popular street corner, and therefore the style changes accordingly. Therefore we shall look at some of the main writers in turn to illustrate this briefly. Isocrates and Xenophon write formal encomia in a clear rhetorical style, following Gorgias. Isocrates laments that he is unable to use in prose all the embellishments (κόσμοι), metre and rhythm of the poets (9:8-11), but this is itself a rhetorical device to enhance his work! In fact, he writes in a pure and clear prose style, with good use of rhythm within carefully balanced periods. Thus the opening sentence addressed to Nicocles spans some twenty lines, full of subclauses and participle phrases, yet never becoming confused (9:1-3). This demonstrates his fondness for balance (παρίσωσις) of both words and phrases, using lots of "not only, but also" (ού μόνον, άλλα καί) and contrast (μεν . . . δέ). Xenophon's style is quite natural and became a model of simplicity for later Atticists, as well as being praised by

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Quintilian (Inst. 10:1:82). In his account of Agesilaus's virtues (itself modelled upon Gorgias), we find more of a flourish; there are a lot of rhetorical questions addressed to the audience (e.g. on his handling of money, Ages. 4:1-4) and the use of tropes (e.g. ού μην ϋπνω γε δεσπότη, Ages. 5:2). Satyrus's fragments have a smooth style, avoiding hiatus and showing good literary awareness in his discussion of Euripides' own style, yet at the same time the anecdotal stories and the general level show that his intended audience is at a more popular level. Nepos writes quite plainly in short, simple sentences using a limited vocabulary and few figures of speech. Philo is quite capable of a high rhetorical style, fusing his Jewish background with the best of Hellenistic philosophy and literature. Nonetheless, in his opening contrast between himself and others (itself a typical rhetorical device for the prologue!), he is scathing about Greek writers who have ignored Moses and have expressed evil matters in good style, σπουδάζοντες τα κακά καλώς άπαγγέλλειν (Vit. Mos. 1:3). Accordingly, the Moses is written in a more accessible style, with much less use of allegory than in his other works, making the style more appropriate to reach a wider audience. Tacitus was well trained in rhetoric and this is seen in the Agricola which was his first work. He is clearly influenced by Cicero in the more rhetorical prologue and epilogue and by Livy and Sallust in the narrative sections. Here we find the beginning of the stylistic development which would culminate in the lofty nature of his history, the Annals. He is fond of synonyms (e.g. quiete et otio, Agr. 6:3; formant ac figuram, 46:3) and uses many rhetorical devices, such as the apostrophe of the hero at the end (tu vero felix, Agricola, 45:3), alliteration and anaphora. He is fond of the historical infinitive which helps the narrative to move along quickly. Unlike Isocrates, he prefers imbalance, using different constructions in paired clauses or even prepositional phrases (e.g. temeritate aut per ignaviam, 41:2). One rhetorical feature showing the intention of public readings is his habit of concluding sections with pithy sententiae to give "pause for applause", such as Calgacus's damning indictment of Roman pacification, solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (30:5).17 His contemporary, Suetonius, uses quite a different style, simple yet precise, using technical language and quotation from his sources as is fitting for a scholar working in

17 For a full discussion of the style of the Agricola, see R. M. Ogilvie (ed.), Comelii Taciti De Vita Agricolae (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 21-31.

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the official archives. The simpler language plus the anecdotes of life in the imperial family are more appropriate for Suetonius's wider audience, while Tacitus's style reflects his intended market among the polidcal upper class. Back in Greek, Plutarch avoided the contemporary trend of recreating classical Attic style, preferring to use Koiné, albeit somewhat literary in form. 18 He uses the optative (typical of Atticism) sparingly. He avoids hiatus, and writes in a clear style, easier to read than Tacitus. Tropes and similes are rather limited, while the frequent use of asyndeton at the beginning of sentences brings pace to the narrative. He uses a dramatic vividness in description, such as the argument between Alexander and his father, Philip (Alex. 9:3-5), or the murder of Caesar (Caes. 66). T h e despair of the detailed description of Cato's last meal and suicide is offset by the climax of the romande image of his statue standing by the sea side, sword in hand (άνδριάς έφέστηκεν αύτοΰ ξιφήρης, Cat. Mi. 71:2). Lucian writes in a clear and simple style, as is appropriate for oratory designed to entertain a wider audience. Rhetorical techniques are more obvious in the opening section about Demonax's life and character (Demon. 1-11), but the rest of the work is taken up with short pithy anecdotes. Philostratus similarly is aiming for a wider audience and this is reflected in his style. T h e vast size of the Life of Apollonius (82,000 words) allows him scope for variation of style appropriate for the different secdons, such as philosophical speeches (e.g. VA 6:10-14) or his formal speech of defence before the emperor which was not allowed to be delivered (8:7). Thus bioi contain a wide range of styles, each being appropriate for the intended audience and the subject and reflecting the training of the authors, from the simple sentences of Nepos to the lofty language of Tacitus, from the rhetoric of Isocrates to the pithy stories of Lucian.

VI.

D E L I V E R Y AND M E M O R Y

The fourth and fifth parts of rhetoric are concerned with memory and delivery. Although Aristotle had little to say on these aspects, 18 See further Hamilton, Alexander, pp. lxvi lxix, and Wardman, Plutarch's "Lives", pp. 221-34.

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they were covered fully by later rhetoricians from Theophrastus to Cicero. Because they cover the process of memorizing a previously composed text and then delivering it as a speech, they are obviously of less relevance to written genres like bios. For the sake of completeness, however, we will apply them briefly to our examples. As a speech writer and orator, Isocrates would have been very conversant with both memory and delivery. As we have seen throughout this chapter, because the Evagoras is both an oral encomium and also the precursor of bios, it is here that we find the clearest relationship with rhetoric. Right from the opening address to Nicocles through to the epilogue exhorting him to be a worthy successor to his father, the oral nature of the work and the concomitant necessity for memory and delivery are clear. Similarly, Lucian as a sophistic performer and entertainer has to pay regard in the composition of the Demonax to its eventual public performance. T h e stringing together of the anecdotes, which could become tedious when read simply as a list, lends itself to easy listening. Xenophon follows Isocrates as a model, but it is not clear that Agesilaus was actually intended for oral delivery. It was probably composed shortly after the king's death as a form of apologetic and a wider audience is sought. Tacitus seems to have expected the Agricola to be read aloud, because of the pithy sententiae and the rhetorical flourishes. It was quite common for written works to be published by being read after dinner in Roman society. At 7,000 words, the Agricola is the right length to be read at a single sitting—although its arrangement in sections would permit delivery in smaller portions. Plutarch's work was probably also designed to be read (aloud?) within the circle of Q . Sosius Senecio (to whom it is dedicated) but clearly Plutarch is hoping for a wider readership to stimulate his compatriot Greeks to enter public life. Similarly, Philostratus claims to have been commissioned by the empress Julia Domna to write for her circle, yet the desire to correct widespread ignorance about Apollonius presumes a wider readership (VA 1:2-3). It is not obvious that Satyrus, Nepos, Philo, or Suetonius write for any particular occasion but for a general readership, and so memory and delivery do not apply here.

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VII.

CONCLUSION

From this brief survey, we have seen that ancient biography is a genre which grew out of rhetoric in its narrower sense, but which was also influenced by other neighbouring genres such as historiography. Bioi and vitae were widespread across the ancient world and spanned a variety of different social settings and levels. Some examples, such as Isocrates' Evagoras, were an expression of formal oratory and thus show the greatest influence of the parts and rules of rhetoric. Others were written by authors such as Tacitus and Plutarch, trained in rhetoric who, while composing their bioi according to the expectations and conventions of this genre, still made use of rhetoric throughout the work. Finally, even those examples furthest from rhetoric in the narrower sense can still benefit from rhetorical criticism and analysis as a way of understanding the effect they were designed to have upon their wider audience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, G., Studies in Lucian's Comic Fiction (Mnemosyne Sup., 43; Leiden: Brill, 1976). , Philostratus: Biography and Belles Lettres in the Third Century AD (Ixjndon: Groom Helm, 1986). Anderson, J. K., Xenophon (London: Duckworth, 1974). Arrighetti, G. (ed.), Satiro, Vita di Euripide (Studi Classici e Orientali, 13; Pisa: Libreria Goliardica, 1964). Baldwin, B., Studies in Lucian (Toronto: Hakkert, 1973). , Suetonius (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1983). Bowie, E. L., "Apollonius of Tyana: Tradition and Reality", ANRW 11.16:2 (1978), pp. 1652-99. Burridge, R. Α., What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (SNTSMS, 70; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Cox, P., Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). Dihle, Α., Studien zur griechischen Biographie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956). Dorey, T. A. (ed.), Latin Biography (London: Roudedge & Kegan Paul, 1967). Forster, E. S. (ed.), Isocrates: Cyprian Orations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912). Geiger, J., Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (Historia Einzelschriften, 47; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985). Goodenough, E. R., An Introduction to Philo Judaeus (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962). Hamilton, J. R. (ed.), Plutarch Alexander: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). Horsfall, N. (ed.), Cornelius Nepos: A Selection, including the Lives of Cato and Atticus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). Jones, C. P., Plutarch and Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971). , Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).

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Leo, F., Die griechisch-römische Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form (Leipzig: Teubner, 1901). Martin, R., Tadtus (London: Batsford, 1981). Momigliano, Α., The Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971). Ogilvie, R. M., and I. A. Richmond (eds.), Comelii Taciti De Vita Agricolae (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967). Pelling, C. B. R., "Aspects of Plutarch's Characterization", ICS 13:2 (1988), pp. 257-74. (ed.), Plutarch: life of Antony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). (cd.), Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Russell, D. Α., Plutarch (London: Duckworth, 1972). , "On Reading Plutarch's Lives", G & R 13 (1966), pp. 139-54. Steidle, W., Sueton und die antike Biographie (Munich: Beck, 1963). Stuart, D. R., Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1928). Wallace-Hadrill, Α., Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars (London: Duckworth, 1983). Wardman, Α., Plutarch's "lives" (London: Paul Elek, 1974). West, S., "Satyrus: Peripatetic or Alexandrian?", GRBS 15 (1974), pp. 279-87.

CHAPTER 12

O R A T O R Y AND D E C L A M A T I O N D. H. Berry and Malcolm Heath University of Leeds, England

From the beginning rhetoric and oratory have enjoyed a special relationship, being respectively the theoretical and the practical branches of the art of persuasion. Throughout the period covered by this book, their relationship was symbiotic: practice influenced theory, which in turn fed back into practice. The importance of oratory in civic life elevated rhetoric to a position of dominance in education, and, as the other chapters in this section illustrate, this led to the infusion of rhetoric into all other literary genres. But however widely its influence spread, rhetoric was developed in the first place to serve the purposes of oratory, and oratory always remained its primary raison d'être. Rhetoric is thus of far greater importance for oratory than for any other genre. A comprehensive account of the use of rhetoric in oratory would require a study of oratory in its entirety from at least the time of Aristotle onwards, and would not be feasible within the scope of the present work. In this chapter, therefore, we have simply attempted to illustrate some aspects of the practical outworking of Hellenistic and later Graeco-Roman rhetoric in oratory through a selection of varied examples. We begin at the point at which Hellenistic rhetorical theory first made an impact on the oratory of Rome. Rome's exposure to Greek cultural influences began in earnest after her defeat of Macedon in 197 BC. Greek embassies were continually visiting Rome, and "after hearing the Greek orators . . . our people burned with an incredible desire to speak" (Cic. De or. 1:14). However, the first orator of note, the elder M. Porcius Cato 1 (234-149 BC), was an avowed opponent 1

On Cato see G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, 300 BC-AD 300 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 38-60; M. von Albrecht, Masters of Roman ProsefromCato to Apuleius: Interpretative Studies (trans. N. Adkin; Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1989), pp. 1-32.

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of Hellenism, and it is unclear to what extent his speeches (he published more than 150, but only fragments survive) are indebted to Greek theory. His guiding principle rem tene, verba sequentur ("hold to the subject, the words will follow", ap. Jul. Vict. 374 Halm) seems to imply a rejection of rhetorical teaching; but Cato is said to have written on rhetoric (Quint. Inst. 3:1:19). The evidence of the fragments themselves is inconclusive. Anaphora, praetentio and rhetorical questions are found (Aulus Gellius speaks of Cato's employment of "all the arms and assistance of rhetorical teaching" [6:3:52]); but use of such devices need not imply Greek influence. However, it would be surprising if Cato had not been conversant at least to some extent with Greek rhetorical theory. T h e patriotic, anti-Greek pose which it pleased him to assume could signify no more than that he spoke from experience. T h e case of C. Sempronius Gracchus 2 (154-121 BC) is less ambiguous, because he is known to have studied under Menelaus of Marathus (Cic. Brut. 100); his elder brother Tiberius also had a Greek teacher, Diophanes of Mytilene (Brut. 104). Gaius's Greek training is evident in his most famous fragment, in his use of dilemma: "Where can I take myself in my wretchedness? Where can I turn? T o the Capitol? But it is steeped in my brother's blood. T o my home? T o see my poor mother weeping and prostrate?" (fr. 61 Malcovati). The closest parallel to this passage is E. Med. 502-505: "Where now can I turn? T o my father's house, and the land which I betrayed to come with you? O r to Pelias' wretched daughters? They would give me a fine welcome, who murdered their father!" Greek rhetors sometimes illustrated their points with quotations from the poets, and it has been plausibly suggested that Gracchus was introduced to the Euripides passage in the course of his rhetorical training. 3 Gracchus's words apparendy drew tears from his enemies (Cic. De or. 3:214). When Cicero used a similar, but more elaborate, dilemma at Mur. 88-89 (63 BC), his intention was perhaps that the jury should recall that Gaius Gracchus had said something similar just before his death,

2

On C. Gracchus see Kennedy, Art of Rhetoric, pp. 76-79; Albrecht, Masters of Roman Prose, pp. 33-53. On his dilemma see M. Bonnet, "Le dilemme de C. Gracchus", REA 8 (1906), pp. 4 0 - 4 6 ; E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa (2 vols.; 2nd edn.; Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1909), I, Nachträge, pp. 10-11; C. P. Craig, Form as Argument in Cicero's Speeches: A Study of Dilemma (APA American Classical Studies, 31; Adanta: Scholars Press, 1993), pp. 24-25. 3 Albrecht, Masters of Roman Prose, p. 49.

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and that their pity for Gracchus should move them to vote for Murena's acquittal—which they did. It is significant that the rhetors who taught the Gracchi, Menelaus and Diophanes, were both Asiatic Greeks. T h e florid and artificial manner of speaking which was the dominant style of the Hellenistic period was particularly associated with the orators of Asia Minor, such as Hegesias of Magnesia in the third century and the brothers Hierocles and Menecles of Alabanda in the second. Their speeches no longer exist, but a specimen of the Hellenistic style survives in the inscription on the first-century BC monument of Antiochus I of Commagene (again, in Asia Minor): 4 When I determined to establish, nigh unto the thrones celestial, the edifice of this sacred structure, imperishable from time's defilement, wherein this corporeal body, having fulfilled its life-time in felicity, and having wafted my blessed spirit to the celestial thrones of Oromasdos, may take its slumber for the aeons of eternity. . . .

In the 40s BC there was a reaction against the Hellenistic style, which was dismissed as "Asiatic" (or "Asianist", when perpetrated by Romans).5 Its opponents, who described themselves as "Atticists", looked back to the Attic orators of the fourth century, taking them as models for imitation and capitalizing on their fame. The word "Asiatic" (Asiaticus) first appears as a literary term in Cicero's Brutus (46 BC), where two types of Asianism are distinguished (325), the pointed and the periodic. The pointed style was characterized by symmetry and concinnity. Neat, balanced clauses of sententious import were carefully arranged to please the ear with a superficial charm. This manner of composition had a history stretching back to Gorgias, and was later to exert an influence on the prose of the early empire. The other style, the periodic, lacked the elaborate symmetry of the pointed style but compensated for it by a sense of movement and impetuosity. This is the style of the inscription of Antiochus: highflown and bombastic, with elaborate periodic structure, and with the endings of clauses or "cola" conforming to certain preferred metrical patterns, known 4

Translated by R. G. M. Nisbet, "The Speeches", in T. A. Dorey (ed.), Cicero (London: Rouüedge, 1964), pp. 51-52. For the complete text see Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, I, pp. 141-45. 5 On "Asianism" see U. v. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, "Asianismus und Atticismus", Hermes 35 (1900), pp. 1-52; F. W. Blass, Die Rhythmen der asianischen und römischen Kunstprosa (Leipzig: Deichen, 1905); Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, I, pp. 131-52, 218-21; A.D. Leeman, Orationis Ratio (2 vols.; Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1963), pp. 91-111.

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as "clausulae". Q. Hortensius Hortalus (114-50 BC), Cicero's contemporary and oratorical rival, is usually considered Rome's chief exponent of Asianism; he was, Cicero says (Brut. 326), a master of both types. But the popularity of Atticism in the early empire ensured that his speeches, like those of all the other Roman orators prior to Cicero, were lost to posterity. With M. Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), then, we reach the first orator since Hellenistic rhetorical theory reached its maturity whose speeches still survive. Moreover, Cicero was unique in being not only an orator of the first rank, but also a rhetorical theorist in his own right. Like Hortensius, he was an orator in the Asianist tradition. As a boy he was not allowed to study under the rhetorician L. Plotius Gallus: he had to have Greek teachers. Later, in 81, he attended the lectures of Molon of Rhodes, who was visiting Rome (Cic. Brut. 307, 312), and in 79-77 he studied abroad under the leading rhetoricians of Greece and Asia Minor, again including Molon (Brut. 313-16). Although he later laid stress on the restraining influence which Molon had had on his style,6 there is no escaping the fact that his rhetorical training, and consequendy the oratory of at least his earlier career, was typically Asianist; for instance, the prose rhythm which pervades all of Cicero's speeches is a hallmark of Asianist oratory. 7 Nevertheless, he did not make Hortensius's mistake of failing to move with the times. Certainly, he refused at the end of his life to abandon his own characteristic style for one which would have satisfied his Atticist critics. But, unlike Hortensius, he did succeed as he grew older in curbing some of his Asianist tendencies, which he was then able to pass off as youthful exuberance. In 80 BC, shordy before his period of study abroad, Cicero took on his first criminal case, a defence of Sex. Roscius of Ameria in Umbria. Roscius's father of the same name had been murdered on a visit to Rome, but his thirteen estates had not passed to the son.

6

See J. C. Davies, "Molon's Influence on Cicero", CQ, 18 (1968), pp. 303-14. On prose rhythm see T. Zielinski, Das Clauselgesetz in Ciceros Reden (Philologus Sup., 9.4; 1904); H. Bornecque, Les Clausules Métriques Latines (Lille: Université de Lille, 1907); W. H. Shewring, "Prose-Rhythm and the Comparadve Method", CQ, 24 (1930), pp. 164-73 and 25 (1931), pp. 12-22; E. Fraenkel, Leseproben aus Reden Ciceros und Catos (Sussidi Eruditi, 22; Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1968); W. H. Shewring and K.J. Dover in Oxford Classical Dictionary (2nd edn.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 888-90; H. Aili, The Prose Rhythm of Sallust and Livy (Stud. Lat. Stockholm., 24; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1979); R. G. M. Nisbet in Ε. M. Craik (ed.), "Owls to Athens": Essays on Classical Subjects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 349-59. 7

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Instead, two of his relations, T . Roscius Magnus and T. Roscius Capito, had entered into a conspiracy with Chrysogonus, a powerful freedman of the dictator Sulla, with the result that the dead man's name was posthumously entered into the lists of the proscribed, and his property sold for a pittance to Chrysogonus, the two Titi Roscii each duly receiving their share. When young Roscius attempted to recover his property and clear his father's name, his enemies sought to remove him by the ingenious means of accusing him of his father's murder. He therefore went for help to his father's patron Caecilia Metella, whose relations included one of the consuls of 80, both the future consuls of 79, and Sulla's ex-wife. But whatever assistance these prominent nobles may have given, they did not venture to speak for Roscius in court: either they did not dare risk offending Sulla, or else (less probably) the case was beneath their notice. Instead, it was Cicero who undertook the defence, and with his Pro Roscio Amenno he exposed the conspiracy of the opposition in spectacular fashion and secured his client's acquittal. 8 It is not known what became of the property; but Chrysogonus is never heard of again. Cicero became famous overnight. The defence of a man accused of parricide was precisely the type of case for which Cicero had been well prepared by his rhetorical education: the murder of parents is mentioned twice in De Inventione (2:48, 149), the rhetorical treatise which he had written as a teenager ten or so years earlier. It is not surprising, then, that the speech is handled in a manner which smacks of the declamation schools. Take, for instance, the famous passage in which Cicero enlarges upon the traditional punishment for parricides, viz. to be sewn up in a sack together with a dog, a cock, a viper and a monkey, and cast into the sea (72): For what is so accessible as breath to the living, earth to the dead, the sea to those tossed on the waves, the land to those cast ashore? Yet these men live, while they can, without being able to draw breath

8

Cicero, Pro Sexto Roscio Amenno: text in A. C. Clark, Orationes, I (OCT; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905); trans. J. H. Freese, Cicero, VI (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1930); commentary G. Landgraf (2nd edn.; Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1914). Bibliography: Craig, Form as Argument, pp. 2745 with further bibliography (27 n. 1), to which add Nisbet, "Speeches", pp. 49-53; T. E. Kinsey, "The Dates of the Pro Roscio Amenno and pro Quinctio", Mnemosyne 20 (1967), pp. 61-67; R.J. Seager, "The Political Significance of Cicero's Pro Roscio", LCM 7 (1982), pp. 10-12; T. E. Kinsey, "The Political Insignificance of Cicero's Pro Roscio", LCM 7 (1982), pp. 39-40.

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from the heavens; they die, without earth touching their bones; they are tossed by the waves, without ever being cleansed; finally they are cast ashore, dead, without finding a resting-place even on the rocks.

T h e topic itself and the way it is amplified seem to be derived from declamation, and the passage later proved a favourite with the declaimers. 9 With its artificial antitheses, it is also a good example of Cicero's Asianism; it was well received at the time, when Asianism was in fashion, but Cicero in old age considered it immature (Or. 107). However, the passage should not be regarded simply as show. As Quintilian points out (Inst. 9:2:53), the technique which Cicero adopts is that by which an orator emphasizes the horror of the crime alleged in order to make it seem incredible that his client could have committed it. According to stasis theory, Pro Roscio falls under the constitutio coniecturalis, that is to say Cicero denies that Roscius committed the murder. It would also have been possible for him to make use of the constitutio definitiva, and argue that if the elder Roscius had been proscribed, then his killing was legal. This option of a second line of defence was one which, as we shall see, Cicero did take up in his published Pro Milone. But it was clearly inappropriate in the case of Roscius. It was patently not the case that the elder Roscius had been proscribed (127-28), and to imply otherwise would not only have damaged the son's chances of recovering his inheritance (as he surely wished to do: hence the argument at 127 that technically the property has not been sold at all), it would also have suggested that perhaps Roscius did after all kill his father. The structure of Pro Roscio follows rhetorical precept fairly closely. The exordium ( 1—14·) is lengthy and elaborate, Cicero's normal practice in his earlier speeches. A narratio follows (15-29), after which there is a short digression (29-34). The partitio (35-36) is conventional: Cicero announces that he will consider in turn the dangers facing his client, viz. the charge of the accuser C. Erucius, the audacity of the Titi Roscii and the power of Chrysogonus. The only major structural irregularity is that the confirmatio and reprehensio are inverted. Cicero was to do this again in his Pro Sulla (62 BC); here in Pro Roscio the

9

M. Winterbottom, "Schoolroom and Courtroom", in B. Vickers (ed.), Rhetoric Revalued (Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 19; New York: Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), p. 60.

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reason for the inversion is that he wanted his corfirmatio to consist of an attack on the Titi Roscii and Chrysogonus, and obviously he was able to do this only once he had disposed of the charge brought by Erucius. The charge of parricide is therefore cleared away first in the reprehensio (37-82), and after that Cicero moves to the offensive with the confirmatio (in two parts, 83-123 and 124-142). The speech ends with a conclusio (143-154) in which the enumeratio is omitted and the indignatio and conquestio are combined. 10 Both the bringing forward of the reprehensio and the omission of the enumeratio are indications that Cicero did not consider the charge a strong one. The aim of the exordium was to render one's hearers favourably disposed, attentive and receptive." Cicero in 80 BC was a young man of no importance, without the auctontas he was later to acquire. His first priority therefore was to make the jury pay serious attention to what he was saying. He does this in the first sentence by pointing to a curious feature of the trial: that although there are many distinguished nobles present in support of Roscius, not one of them is actually speaking in his defence. The reason for this state of affairs, Cicero goes on to say, is that if the nobles were to speak, their words would be interpreted as an attack on the current régime: only a man like Cicero is insignificant enough to take on a case of such political sensitivity and hope to escape reprisals. After this, Cicero suddenly makes a sensational revelation: he says that the prosecution have not mentioned the real reason for the trial, which is to ensure that Chrysogonus, "arguably the most powerful man in our country" (6), may retain the property of the defendant's father, valued at six million sesterces (a vast sum), which he has acquired illegally. Later in the speech Cicero describes the effect which this announcement had on the court (60): I saw that [Erucius] was joking and paying no attention, until I n a m e d Chrysogonus. As soon as I mentioned the name, instantly Erucius jumped up, apparently astonished. I realised what had pricked him. I named Chrysogonus a second and a third time. After that m e n did not stop running this way and that to inform Chrysogonus, I take it, that there was in the state a man who was daring to speak out contrary to his will. . . .

10 11

Cf. Cic. Inv. 1:98-109; Rhet. ad Her. 2:47-50. E.g. Cic. Irw. 1:20-23; Rhet. ad Her. 1:6-8; Quint. Inst. 4:1:5.

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In this way Cicero succeeded spectacularly both in attracting the jurors' attention and in securing their goodwill: by presenting himself as a David opposing a Goliath, he wins sympathy for himself and arouses odium against the prosecution. 12 The exordium continues with some flattery of the jurors and ends with a florid, Asianist passage in which Cicero warns them that, unless they show severity towards criminals (i.e. his opponents) by acquitting his client, soon murders will be committed not only in secret but openly, in front of the tribunal, at their very feet (12). T h e narratio provides further revelations, and Cicero implies that the two Titi Roscii, Magnus and Capito, who profited from the elder Roscius's death, were actually responsible for it. Cicero describes how the assassin, a certain Mallius Glaucia, travelled hotfoot to Amena to present Capito with the dagger; our suspicion that at least the detail of the dagger is an invention seems to be confirmed by its omission at 96-118, where the narratio is gone over again and inferences are drawn from it. The narratio is clear and, on the whole, plausible, in accordance with rhetorical precept; the characterization of Magnus and Capito as gladiators (17; cf. 118) is also in keeping with the rhetorical tradition of invective. Cicero is at pains in the narratio and throughout the speech (6, 2122, 25, 91, 110, 127, 130-31) to emphasize that Chrysogonus's illegal acquisition of the dead man's property took place without Sulla's knowledge: "although Sulla is fortunate [felix, a pun on Sulla's assumed name] . . . no one can be so fortunate as not to have in a large household some dishonest slave or freedman" (22). Later, in the confirmatio, Cicero is more outspoken: just as men do not hold Jupiter responsible for natural disasters, although he is all-powerful, so Sulla is not to blame for the disasters which have occurred under his rule (131). Instead, it is underlings like Chrysogonus who are to blame. T h e technique of dissociation is a common one in oratory; it is used, for instance, at Cael. 10-14 (56 BC), where Cicero is required to play down as far as possible his client's association with the revolutionary Catiline. In Pro Roscio Cicero is concerned to isolate Chrysogonus by driving a wedge between the ruler and his subordinates. We shall see Libanius adopting a similar strategy later. T h e reprehensio consists of a series of arguments from probability designed to prove that Roscius had neither a motive for nor the 12

Cf. Rhet. ad Her. 1:8.

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means of killing his father. 13 Starting with the probabile ex vita, Cicero characterizes his client as an honest and straightforward countryman who would have been incapable of committing such a crime. In the arguments which follow, rhetorical exempla (64-65, 69-70), reductio ad absurdum (74), praetentio (75) and concessio (76) are all brought into play. Nor does Cicero fail to include the commonplace on the evidence of slaves (77-78, 119-21). The slaves of the dead man have been handed over to Chrysogonus, who refuses to give them up for examination. This allows Cicero to excite pity for Roscius, who is unable either to prove his innocence by this means or even to hold an enquiry himself into the death of his father. At the end of the reprehensio, Cicero dismisses the remaining charges by saying that they are stock charges which have no bearing on the case in hand: Erucius, he says, "seemed to me to be rehearsing (declamare) them from a different speech which he was getting up against some other defendant" (82). The confirmatio is technically an άντικατηγορία, an attempt to fix the responsibility for the crime onto another person, 14 in this case Magnus, who was one of the prosecutors. Cicero invokes the famous principle of L. Cassius Longinus (consul in 127 BC) cui bono?, that is, "who stood to gain?" (84-88). He assumes that the murder must have been committed by either his client or Magnus, and applies the principle cui bono? to show that it must have been Magnus: Magnus had both the motive and the opportunity. The events of the narratio are gone over again, but this time the guilt of Magnus and Capito is made explicit, and the effect is completed by the use of ένάργεια or vivid description (98). The effectiveness of the way in which the murder is depicted once in the narratio, but without the killer being identified, and then a second time later on, with the killer revealed and all the circumstantial details explained, is reflected in the frequency with which this technique is used in modern detective films. The conclusio to the speech contains a passionate appeal for pity. Roscius has lost his inheritance: is he also to lose his life? T h e pathos is increased by the strange but presumably effective device by which Cicero speaks in Roscius's persona (145, also earlier at 32, 94).15 Here again we see the artificial contrasts of the Asianist manner: 13

For the standard topoi of conjecture see Cic. Inv. 2:14-51; Rhet. ad Her. 2:3-12. Quint. Inst. 3:10:4, 7:2:9. 15 See J. M. May, Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), pp. 24, 26-27, 30. 14

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You possess my estates, I live on the compassion of others: I yield, because I am resigned and because I must. My house is open to you, but shut to me: I bear it. You have the use of my large household, I have not a single slave: I put up with it and think it bearable.

Cicero closes the speech by reminding the jury of the support of the nobles and then, typically, providing a brief reflection on the wider implications of the case. Having examined one of Cicero's first speeches in some detail, it may be instructive to turn now to one of his last, Pro Milone, delivered in 52 BC and published in a revised form probably in 51.16 The reader who comes to Pro Milone from Pro Roscio will notice first that many of the Asianist features of the earlier speech (but not prose rhythm) have been abandoned. But what is perhaps more remarkable, although usually taken for granted, is the similarity between the two speeches in the way in which the situation—a defence of a client in a court of law—is approached. Cicero's judicial speeches conform to a type which is remarkably consistent over a thirty year period, and the most important reason for this consistency is the dominating influence of rhetoric. T . Annius Milo was one of a number of politicians in the 50s who made use of gang violence to achieve their ends. Another was Milo's principal enemy, P. Clodius Pulcher. After five years of fighting, Clodius was killed by Milo's gang at a chance encounter on the Appian Way in January 52. Cicero supported Milo unquesdoningly: Clodius had been responsible for his exile in 58, whereas Milo had worked for his recall the following year. When Milo was put on trial under special procedures in April 52, Cicero spoke for his friend, but failed to secure his acquittal. Some months later he published a substantially revised version of the speech (pardy in order to counter 16 Cicero, Pro T. Annio Milone: text in A. C. Clark, Orationes, II (OCT; 2nd edn.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918); trans. Ν. H. Watts, Cicero, XIV (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1931); commentaries A.C. Clark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1895) and F. P. Donnelly (New York: Fordham University, 1934). Bibliography: J. N. Setde, "The Trial of Milo and the Other pro Milone", TAPA 94 (1963), pp. 268-80; Nisbet, "Speeches", pp. 69-72; Kennedy, Art of Rhetoric, pp. 230-35; A. W. Lintott, "Cicero and Milo", JRS 64 (1974), pp. 62-78; J. S. Ruebel, "The Trial of Milo in 52 BC: A Chronological Study", TAPA 109 (1979), pp. 231-49; A . M . Stone, "Pro Milone: Cicero's Second Thoughts", Antichthon 14 (1980), pp. 88-111; May, Trials, pp. 129-40; J. Axer, "Gladiator's Death: Some Aspects of Rhetorical Technique in Cicero's Speech pro Milone", Eos 77 (1989), pp. 31-43; D. H. Berry, "Pompey's Legal Knowledge—Or Lack of It: Cic. Mil. 70 and the Date of pro Milone", Historia 42 (1993), pp. 502-504.

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a pirate version of the original, which remained in circulation for some centuries). This revised version is our Pro Milone. Milo read it in exile and generously told Cicero that it would have produced an acquittal (Dio 40:54:3). The speech was quickly acclaimed as a masterpiece (Asc. 42 C; Quint. Inst. 6:5:10). When Cicero came to defend Milo, he had to decide the stasis on which to base his speech. The senate in its wisdom had pronounced that an ambush (insidiae) had taken place.17 If it could be shown that it was Clodius who had ambushed Milo, then the killing would be a legitimate act of self-defence (7-11); Cicero therefore decided to concentrate on this question of fact, and to use the constitutio coniecturalis}8 There were some at the time who thought that it would have been more appropriate to use the constitutio generalis, and argue that the murder was justified by the public interest; Brutus wrote up and circulated a hypothetical speech on these lines (Asc. 41 C; Quint. Inst. 3:6:93, 10:1:23, 10:5:20). But if Clodius's removal had been in the public interest, then prosecution in the courts, not murder, would have been the proper response (Asc. 41 C). Cicero therefore based his speech instead on the self-defence argument, claiming, untruthfully, that Clodius had ambushed Milo with the intention of murdering him. But when he revised his speech at a later date, he added a substantial section based on the public interest defence (72-91); this section is described at 92 as being extra causam ("outside the case"). The revised Pro Milone which we possess therefore contains both of the possible lines of defence, arranged in a twofold pattern which is common in Cicero: "Milo did not set out deliberately to kill Clodius (it was self-defence); but had he done so, it would have been justified (by the public interest)".19 Later rhetoricians applied the terms ενστασις and άντιπαράστασις to the two parts of such an argument; we shall examine this technique further when we turn to Lucian's Disinherited Son. 17

Stone, "Pro Milone", pp. 91-95. Since the defence rests on a claim that the killing was justified, the case as a whole is sometimes assigned to the constitutio deßnitiva; but this would presuppose agreement about the facts (Cic. Inv. 1:11). Ancient rhetoricians were themselves exercised by the complex technical problem in jiam-theory posed by the analysis of this and similar cases (Quint. Inst. 3:11:15-17, with M. Heath, "The Substructure of Stasis-Theory from Hermagoras to Hermogenes", CQ_44 [1994], pp. 122-23); but in purely practical terms, Cicero's conduct of the argument conforms entirely to the constitutio coniecturalis (for which see n. 13 above). 19 Cf. Quint. Inst. 4:5:13-17, 6:5:10 (on Mil.)·, 7:1:16 (on Rab. Perd.). 18

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Cicero published his speeches, among other reasons, to educate the young (Att. 2:1:3, 4:2:2; Brut. 123), and when he revised Pro Milone he turned it into a rhetorical set-piece. The speech can be analysed in rhetorical terms in the minutest detail;20 some scholars have even found its formal perfection wearisome. But Cicero was always ready to deviate from rhetorical precept when the circumstances of the case required, and Pro Milone is no exception. After a short exordium (1—6), he immediately proceeds to a series of arguments (7-23) designed to counter certain assumptions (praeiudicia) prejudicial to Milo's case, viz. that killing even in self-defence is wrong, and that Pompey and the senate expect a conviction. T o include such material before the narratio (24-29) was unusual; it was necessary because of the weakness and difficulty of the case. After the narratio the partitio is omitted, and the argumentative core of the speech is not divided into confirmatio and reprehensio: instead, the division is between the self-defence argument which Cicero used at the trial (30-71) and the public interest defence (pars extra causam) which he did not (72-91). The speech ends with a conclusio (92-105) in which the enumeratio is omitted; this is perhaps another indication of the weakness of the case. In Pro Milone Cicero's willingness to depart from the textbooks is scarcely less striking than his adherence to them. His praeiudicia section in particular won the admiration of Quintilian (Inst. 4:2:25, 6:5:10). In the exordium of Pro Milone, Cicero secures the attention of his audience, as he did in Pro Roscio, by referring to an unusual feature of the trial: then it was the silence of the nobles, now it is the presence of soldiers in the court. He makes much of his fear of the soldiers, in order to win the sympathy of his hearers and secure their goodwill. It was in fact at the request of the defence that the soldiers attended the trial (Asc. 40-41C), but this difficulty is circumvented by a clever paradox: "even my release from fear has something frightening about it" (2). Cicero was no doubt alarmed by the sight of soldiers, but he was more frightened still by the shouts of the Clodians, which made him speak without his usual self-confidence (Asc. 42 C):21 in the speech he published, the reference to his fear serves retrospec20

See A . C . Clark's commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1895), pp. xlix-lvii. 21 The assertion of Plutarch [Cic. 35:4) and Dio (40:54:2) that Cicero said no more than a few words before retiring is refuted by the existence in antiquity of the pirate version of the original trial speech (Asc. 42 C; Quint. Inst. 4:3:17, 9:2:54; schal. Bob. 112, 173 Stangl).

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tively as an apology for his nervousness at the trial. The third aim of the exordium, to render one's hearers receptive, was to be achieved by a brief outline of the case; Cicero satisfies this requirement when he announces that he will prove that Clodius plotted to murder Milo (6). If we pass over the narratio, which since Quintilian (Inst. 4:2:57-59) has often been appreciated, we come to the constitutio causae (30-31), which introduces the argumentation. Cicero states that the question to be decided is which of the two men, Milo or Clodius, plotted against the other (31; cf. 6, 23). As at Pro Roscio 84-88, the principle cui bono? is invoked (32), and Cicero argues that Clodius had many motives to murder his opponent, while Milo had none (probabile ex causa, 32-35). The probabile ex vita follows (36-43), cast as a σύγκρισις or comparison of the two men. Clodius was always violent, Milo ever peace-loving: it must therefore have been Clodius who plotted against Milo. After this there is a series of arguments based on the circumstantial details which Cicero mentioned, but did not argue from, in the narratio·. he argues from the day, the time of day, the place and the circumstances of the killing, exactly as prescribed by the rhetorical handbooks (44—56).22 As in Pro Roscio, ένάργεια is used (54). At 57-60 the commonplace on the evidence of slaves makes its appearance. Milo freed his slaves, obviously so that they could not be examined; but Cicero ingeniously argues that he freed them in gratitude for saving his life. Clodius's slaves, on the other hand, did undergo examination, and Cicero uses ridicule to undermine their version of events (Quint. Inst. 8:3:22). After a transitional passage (61-63) and the commonplace on rumours (64-66), the argumentation is brought to a close with a further transitional passage (67-71) and the pars extra causam (72-91). Both of these latter passages are written on a high stylistic level with extensive use of apostrophe (6768), prosopopoeia (69, 72-75) and, importantly, religion (83-86). The conclmio continues in the same vein: like 72-91, it seems to belong to the time of the revision, rather than of the trial.23 It consists of a lengthy appeal to pity which derives much of its power from Cicero's unequivocal identification of his own situation with that of his client: the extended prosopopoeia (93-98) and the references to Cicero's own exile reinforce the effect. At his trial Milo refused to 22 23

Cic. Inv. 1:38-43; in the constitutio coniecturalis: 2:39-42, cf. Rhet. ad Her. 2:7. Stone, "Pro Milone", pp. 96, 109.

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abase himself in the way that Roman custom expected (Plut. Cic. 35:4), and in his appeal Cicero therefore does his best to compensate for a client who, he claims, was too brave to beg (92). The speech ends with Cicero unable to speak for tears, while Milo, like a Stoic, remains dry-eyed (95, 101, 105). Scholars have sometimes commented on the sense of unreality in the speech, particularly in the latter part (72-105). 24 In contrast to Pro Roscio, where the danger faced by the defendant seems immediate and real, one has the sense in the conclusio to Pro Milone (for example at 93) that events have moved on, and that Milo has some time since gone into exile, his case lost. Inasmuch as it is a revision of what was said at the trial, our Pro Milone is a hypothetical speech, like the alternative defence which Brutus composed or the replies to this and other speeches of Cicero written by the declaimer L. Cestius Pius in the Augustan era (Sen. Con. 3. praef. 14-17; Quint. Inst. 10:5:20). Milo himself is no longer relevant, except as a subject for oratorical display. At least Cicero sent to him, in exile, a copy of the speech he wrote (Dio 40:54:2-4). The composition of hypothetical or imitation speeches is a practice which had very early antecedents; indeed, such compositions probably provided the earliest vehicle for the transmission of rhetorical theory. 25 Antiphon's Tetralogies and the Helen and Palamedes of Gorgias are notable instances from the classical period. Subsequently it became the basis of rhetorical education in the guise of the pracUcal exercise of declamation (the Greek term was μελέτη, meaning simply "exercise"): students were required to speak to a specified set of circumstances, either fictitious or based on history or myth, as one might in a real judicial or deliberative context. 26 Ancient historians of rhetoric traced the origins of declamation as they practised it to 24

W. R. Johnson, Luxuriance and Economy: Cicero and the Alien Style (University of California Publications: Classical Studies, 6; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 37; May, Trials, p. 140. 25 For demonstration texts and early rhetoric see T. Cole, The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 71-112. 26 On Greek declamation D.A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), is outstanding; on Roman declamation S. F. Bonner, Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), although in some respects outdated, is still valuable. On the educational use of declamation see S. F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 277-327; D. L. Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), pp. 213-61. Winterbottom,

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the late fourth or early third century BC.27 Polybius's sarcastic comparison of the speeches in Timaeus's history to a schoolboy's attempt to compose an exercise "according to the rule-book" 28 (12:26:9, cf. 12:25a:5) attests to the use of declamation in Greek schools of the second century. By the following century the practice had reached Rome. Many of the hypothetical cases cited as illustrations in Cicero's De Inventorie and the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium (both dependent on Hellenistic Greek rhetoric) are attested as themes for declamation in later sources. It is clear that themes of this type were already set to students as practical exercises from Cicero's remarks at De or. 2:100. The theme mentioned here is one in which the defendant has heroically repelled an assault on a besieged city, although it was illegal for him as a foreigner to go onto the city walls—a standard illustration of conflict between the letter and intent of the law. Cicero records elsewhere his own devotion to the practice of declamation in his student days (Brut. 309-10; Tusc. 1:7). Subsequently he came to believe that orators would receive a more rigorous training from the more abstract exercise called thesis, in which general questions were handled without reference to specific circumstance. For example, the question of whether the law must be obeyed to the letter might be argued abstractly, without reference to a particular violation of a particular law. In October 54 BC (the year after the composition of De oratore) Cicero reported on his twelve year old nephew's studies with the rhetor Paeonius to the absent father. He mentions in particular the boy's enthusiasm for declamation; despite his own reservations about the exercise, and his hope of eventually winning young Quintus over to his own "more scholarly and abstract" method of instruction, Cicero was content to allow him to continue on his present course for the time being: "the boy seems to find the declamatory mode attractive and agreeable. We have been through it ourselves, so let us allow him to follow in our footsteps" ( d fr. 3:3:4).

"Schoolroom", pp. 59-70, discusses the relationship between school exercises and the demands of genuine speaking. 27 Philostr. KS 481; Quint. Inst. 2:4:41. On the development of declamation see J. Fairweather, Seneca the Elder (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 104-31. 28 For this sense of παραγγελματικώς cf. D . H . Comp. 22 (98:17 Usener-Radermacher), [Longin.] 2:1.

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T h e faintly nostalgic note which Cicero strikes is even more evident in the younger Pliny: "what is more delightful in maturity than what gave most pleasure in one's youth?" (Ep. 2:3:6). Pliny, a distinguished forensic orator and in the Panegyric author of an epideictic speech much admired in antiquity, made this remark in the course of an enthusiastic report of the ex tempore displays of declamation given by a visiting Greek rhetor, Isaeus (known to us also from Philostr. KS1 514). Professional rhetoricians like Isaeus gave public performances to large and enthusiastic audiences; speaking impromptu to themes proposed by the audience gave them an opportunity to display their virtuoso skills. Given the intense rivalry between the rhetoricians, these public displays often had a sharply competitive edge, as is clear from many anecdotes in the elder Seneca, Philostratus and Eunapius. 29 As well as declaiming for their pupils and in public, rhetoricians also composed and circulated carefully polished written treatments of declamation themes. Many who were not teachers of rhetoric continued to declaim in adulthood and, like Pliny, to take a connoisseur's interest in the practice. Thus declamation, as well as being an educational tool, was also a hobby, a public entertainment, a competitive sport, and a literary genre. T h e element of competition and display could be thought to compromise the educational use of declamation, since it distanced the exercise from the realities of oratorical practice; this offered declamation's hostile critics an easy if superficial line of objection.30 Quintilian's practical experience as a teacher of rhetoric (Pliny studied with him: Ep. 2:14:9, 6:6:3) yields a more balanced view of the problem; he cadis for faithfulness to reality, but is willing to allow scope for youthful exuberance and to make moderate concessions to declamation's impulse towards brilliance and display (Inst. 2:10).

29

On the contexts and occasions of declamation see Russell, Greek Declamation, pp. 74-86; G. Anderson, "The Pepaideumenos in Action: Sophists and their Oudook in the Early Roman Empire", ANRW 11.33:1 (1989), pp. 29-208, esp. 89-104. Seneca: text and trans. M. Winterbottom (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1974); see Fairweather, Seneca; L. A. Sussman, "The Elder Seneca and Declamation", ANRW 11.32:1 (1974), pp. 557-77. Philostratus: text and trans. W. C. Wright (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1922); see G. Anderson, Philostratus: Biography and Belles-Lettres in the Third Century AD (London: Croom Helm, 1986). Eunapius: text G. Giangrande (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico, 1956); trans. W. C. Wright, LCL; see R. Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1990). 30 Petr. Sat. 1-4; Tac. Dial. 35; Sen. Con. 3. praef. 12-15.

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This epideictic element is much in evidence in the elder Seneca's collection of declamations. He gives brief analyses of various themes, and mentions the main lines of argument used by different declaimers; but the attention which he lavishes, ostensibly in deference to his sons' tastes, on isolated epigrams and highlights has helped to foster the misconception that declamation was in essence a matter of superficial and incoherent fireworks. The Major Declamations falsely attributed to Quintilian, a collection of nineteen complete declamations of uncertain date, and the excerpts from Calpurnius Flaccus's declamations, are also somewhat showy. A clearer view of the educational use of declamation can be gained from the Minor Declamations attributed to (and certainly influenced by) Quintilian. Here a teacher intersperses advice on the handling of each theme with model declamations and passages for his pupils to imitate; Quintilian recommends this combination of precept and example in the teaching of beginners (Inst. 2:6).31 T o illustrate declamation, we may take one of the themes in Seneca's collection (Con. 4:5): A father disinherited his son. The disinherited son studied medicine. His father fell ill, and the doctors said he could not be cured; his son cured him, and was reinstated. Later, his stepmother fell ill; the doctors gave up hope. The father asks the son to treat his stepmother. He refuses and is disinherited; he replies. Disinheritance is a popular motif in declamation. Conflict between father and son, and deviations from paternal love and filial duty, invite a highly charged treatment attractive (as we noted in Pro Roscio) to declaimers. Moreover, the assumed law is conveniently vague: the requirement of judicial review implies a limit to the father's powers but does not define it, compelling the declaimer to use the technical resources of rhetoric to establish the equity of his character's position. Certain complicating factors give this theme additional interest. The son's former disinheritance creates a presumption of moral delinquency, which is balanced by the circumstances of his return to favour. 31

[Quint.] Minor Declamations: text and commentary M. Winterbottom (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984); see also J. Dingel, Scholastica Materia- Untersuchungen zu den Declamationes Minores und da Institutio Oratoria Quintilians (UALG, 30; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988). [Quint.] Major Declamations: text L. Hâkanson (Leipzig: Teubner, 1982); trans. L. A. Sussman (Studien zur klassischen Philologie, 27; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1987). Calpurnius Flaccus: text, trans, and commentary L. A. Sussman (Mnemosyne Sup., 133; Leiden: Brill, 1994). Seneca: see n. 29 above.

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Conflict between stepchild and stepmother is a commonplace of declamation (Quintilian refers to "stepmothers more cruel than any in tragedy", Inst. 2:10:5), and there is scope for the son to argue that his father's renewed hostility is the product of a malicious wife's influence; but there is a corresponding risk that a display of hostility towards her will raise questions about the son's own motives in refusing to treat her, and Seneca advises against attacking her. We are fortunate to have, as well as Seneca's selected highlights and hints, a complete treatment of this theme by a Greek rhetor; the circumstances of Lucian's Disinherited Son differ only in that the illness in each case is specified as insanity. An examination of Lucian's declamation will illustrate how some of the techniques of argument recommended by mature Greek rhetorical theory could be applied in declamatory practice. 32 T h e first thing a declaimer would do in analysing such a theme is to determine its stasis. The son will argue that there was good reason for his refusal to treat his stepmother (the other doctors' opinion will support a claim that the illness was incurable), and thus that his father has no reasonable grounds for disinheriting him; the case is therefore one of άντίληψις (in Latin, qualitas absoluta). This stasis is based on a contention that the act or acts for which someone has been charged are legitimate per se.More specifically, the case falls within a sub-class of άντίληψις in which the assertion of legitimacy is based on the norms of art or professional expertise,34 since the son will claim to have withheld treatment in accordance with his professional judgment. When we turn to the argumentative core of the speech we find that the άντίληψις proper (20-31) is preceded by arguments to the effect that his father cannot disinherit him on any ground at all (8-19). Thus the argument has the twofold structure which we have already met in Pro Milone: outright denial (ενστασις) is paired with a 32

Lucian: text M. D. Macleod, Luciani Opera, III (OCT; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980); trans. A. M. Harmon, Lucian, III (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1936). His Tyrannicide is translated and briefly analysed in M. Heath, Hermogenes On Issues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 33 Hermog. Stat. 65:9-71:17; Heath's translation and commentary supply supporting material for this and subsequent references to Hermogenes' treatise on stasis. Lucian's treatment is much simpler than Hermogenes' division, and is closer to the recommendations of Zeno (a Greek rhetor probably of the 2nd century AD and somewhat earlier than Hermogenes) as recorded by Sulpicius Victor (344-45 Halm). 34 See e.g. RG, IV, pp. 584:12-585:6 Walz; contrast VII, p. 197:8-14.

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rebuttal based on its qualified acceptance (άντιπαράστασις).35 The order and relative weight of these two arguments are variable. For example, a charge of homicide may be met with the argument "I did not kill him; but if I had, it would have been legal", or (conversely) "if I had killed him, it would have been legal; but in fact I did not". The order in which the two contentions are deployed depends on their relative cogency. Here ενστασις (the denial that his father has the right to disinherit) cannot sustain the main weight of argument because it has no explicit support in law; it is advanced, therefore, as a παραγραφικόν, a preliminary argument designed to undermine the opposing case by way of preparation. 36 T h e main weight of argument is therefore carried by the άντιπαράστασις, which in this case is the άντίληψις proper (i.e. the contention that, even if the father has the right to disinherit, he does not have the right to disinherit on these grounds). The preliminary argument in turn has two parts, based on the two basic components of the rhetorical situation, act and person. 37 With reference to act, the son argues (8-12) that it is impossible to reimpose a disinheritance once it has been revoked; in the absence of any explicit legal basis, this claim rests on analogies (for example, that one could not revoke the manumission of a slave) of questionable force. With reference to person, the son claims immunity from disinheritance because he is his father's benefactor (13-19). Here the father's anger at the refusal to treat his wife can be neady turned against itself: if a cure is of such importance, his own cure should not be made of no account (14). The magnitude of the benefaction is then developed at length (16-18); the use of sustained amplification to bring the παραγραφικά to a climax also conforms to theory. 38

35

Hermog. Stat. 48:14-49:6, 76:17-77:2; [Hermog.] Inv. 136:20-138:13; cf. n. 19 above, and Quint. Inst. 7:1:21, which recommends tactics similar to Lucian's in another disinheritance theme. 36 See Hermog. Stat. 44:1-20, and (in άνιίληψις) 65:14—66:6. Were there a legal basis for a formal objection to the proceedings (as e.g. in the theme discussed in Sen. Con. 3:4) the stasis would be μετάληψις (in Latin, translatio): see Hermog. Stat. 42:5-43:8, 44:11-20. This is how the scholia to Lucian (213:24-25 Rabe) classify the declamation, presumably misled by Lucian's skilful presentation of the παραγραφικά (as was J. Bompaire, Lucien écrivain: Imitation et création [Paris: E. de Bocard, 1958], pp. 242-45, who identifies the stasis as legal in a confused discussion). 37 Hermog. Stat. 29:7-31:18; for this way of classifying παραγραφικά: RG, VII, p. 484:14-23 Walz. 38 Hermog. Stat. 66:13-67:1.

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The lack of an explicit legal basis for this section is addressed in various ways. The son has remained loyal to the father who ill-treated him; the father's continuing hostility is therefore contrary to nature, and unnatural harshness must be an abuse of the law (18-19). Moreover, maltreatment of a benefactor is itself against the law (19). Earlier (10) the legislator has been pictured complaining that the father's changes of mind mean that the laws are being enforced and annulled at will; the vividness of the prosopopoeia may distract the listener from the weakness of the argument. T h e section is introduced with a show of making reference to the law (8), although the law in question offers no particular support for the argument that the father has no right to disinherit, and establishes only the son's right to challenge the disinheritance in court. But the possibility of judicial review does prove that the father's powers are subject to restriction, a point on which the son's whole case depends; Lucian accordingly returns to this idea when (after a clear, concise summary of his παραγραφικά) he introduces the άντίληψις proper (20). This begins (21) with a step-by-step analysis of the situation (the argument "from beginning to end"), 39 which establishes that his behaviour since reinstatement has carried no grounds for blame other than the refusal to treat his stepmother. Having focused on this crucial point, the argument adopts a familiar twofold structure: the son was not obliged to obey his father's order even if it had been possible (22-25); but in fact it was not possible (26-31). The first stage is presented in a lucid series of steps. Disobedience is not an offence when an order lies outside the authority of the one who gives it; the exercise of professional judgment is not subject to a father's authority, as a series of examples shows (22); this is true above all of the medical profession, both because of its intrinsic dignity (23) and because in this instance it was acquired by the son on his own initiative and without the help of the father who at the time disowned him (24); that he freely chose to exercise his skill for his father's sake cannot be made grounds for compulsion in another case (25). The second stage is cast as a lengthy quasi-technical exposition of the physiological grounds for believing the stepmother's illness to be incurable; this ostentatious display of medical expertise powerfully reinforces the contention that a doctor's professional judgment cannot justify a layman in complaining against him. 39

Hermog. Stat. 47:8-48:2 (τά άπ' αρχής άχρι τέλους).

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The son's emphasis on his professional expertise is one of many aspects of the argument which were carefully prepared in the first part of the declamation. The prologue (1—2), as well as reminding the jury that the father is playing the always suspect role of the habitual litigant, insists that the son is being attacked for an exercise of professional judgment: "What could be more absurd than to give treatment under orders, in accordance not with the powers of the profession, but with the desires of my father?" The end of the prologue concisely foreshadows the speech's central argument: "I do not think that it is just to disown a man who declines at the outset to promise what he cannot perform" (2). The narrative (3-7) begins by passing lighdy over the potential embarrassment of the first disinheritance (3): the son's subsequent behaviour shows that the original charges were untrue, and his unprotesting acceptance of the first disinheritance attests therefore to his sense of filial obedience. This point of character is reflected again in the son's decision to take up medicine, prompted (he says) by fear for his father's sanity. Unreasonable anger, which the prologue portrayed as a disease parallel to the madness, here becomes its forerunner and symptom; this idea will later provide the speech with a pointed conclusion. T h e account (3-5) of the son's medical studies, and of his diagnosis and treatment of the father's illness, prepares the way for the later emphasis on his professional competence; the cure and subsequent rejoicing prepares for the later amplification of the son's status as benefactor to his would-be disinheritor. When he refuses to treat the stepmother, the father's reaction is presented with an emphasis on his lack of medical understanding (7) which prepares for the later contrast between layman and expert. One feature of this narrative which might occasion surprise is a reference to those, not identified, who were displeased by the father's recovery (5). We noted earlier that Seneca advises against attacking the stepmother, for fear of calling the son's motives into question. Lucian does indeed avoid an open attack, paying tribute to the stepmother's virtue ("she was a good woman", 2) and stressing her delight at the father's recovery. But is it by mere chance that the displeasure of persons unspecified is mentioned immediately before the onset of the stepmother's madness? O r that attention is drawn to her particular antipathy to doctors (6)? O r that a list of possible causes of unjustified disinheritance ends with the influence of a "hostile female" (8)? Towards the end of the speech the insinuations become

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more pronounced: among the causes of madness which especially afflict women are "excessive hatred of someone, or jealousy of an enemy who is prospering, or grief of some sort, or anger" (30); disingenuously the son conjectures that "it may be that something has grieved her recently, for she, of course, hated no one at all" (31). Finally, under the guise of explaining why he would have been reluctant to treat her even if the case had not been hopeless (there would have been suspicion of foul play had he failed), the initial tribute to the stepmother is defdy undercut: "you are aware that everybody thinks that all stepmothers entertain some hatred of their stepsons, even if they are good women . . ." (31). Thus it is implied that the woman's madness results from resentment of her husband's recovery and jealousy of her stepson, and that his father was incited against him by a resentful and jealous woman as she lapsed into insanity; but these suggestions are made with such tactful indirection that there are no grounds for taking offence at the son's attitude or impugning his motives. The epilogue is brief (32). There is a concise recapitulation of the main argument (the wife's case is hopeless, and refusal to treat her is reasonable), and a display of the son's character and good intentions.40 His filial concern leads into a final warning that the father, by indulging an unreasonable antagonism towards his son, risks a recurrence of the madness which followed the first disinheritance— taking up an idea foreshadowed in the prologue and narrative secdons to give the speech a neatly pointed ending. Lucian's approach to declamation has a characteristic lightness of touch; this is even more in evidence in his Tyrannicide, with its many tongue-in-cheek moments. T h e works of his more distinguished contemporary, Aelius Arisddes, demand to be taken far more earnesdy; no one who has worked through his densely argued and densely expressed declamations will be surprised to read of his distaste for extemporization (Philostr. KS 582-83). 41 A further perspective is pro-

40 Quality and intention in epilogue: Hermog. Stat. 61:6-20 (with 67:18-19). Recapitulation: e.g. Cic. Inv. 1:98; Anon. Seg. 210-21. 41 Aristides: the declamations are in F. W. Lenz and C. A. Behr (eds.), Aristidis Opera, I (Leiden: Brill, 1976-80); trans. C. A. Behr, P. Aelius Aristides: The Complété Works (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1981-86). The Fifth Leuctnan is translated and briefly analysed in Heath, Hermogenes·, for his Sicilian declamations see L. Pernot, Les Discours Siciliens d'Aelius Aristide (New York: Arno Press, 1981).

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vided by Sopater's Division of Questions;42 dating from (probably) the fourth century, this text gives detailed analyses of many declamation themes in a manner comparable to, but more technical and detailed than, the Minor Declamations ascribed to Quintilian. From the fourth century we also have what is probably the best corpus of declamations to survive from antiquity, those of Libanius; modern readers have found his wit and powers of characterization attractive, and Eunapius's disparaging remarks (FS 496) about his strictly technical competence seem groundless. 43 Libanius's rhetorical expertise was not employed only in teaching and display. He was actively involved in the life of his city; his address to the Christian emperor Theodosius In Defence of the Temples has an even broader horizon. It was not written for public delivery; more probably it was intended for private readings and circulation to a limited audience. 44 It is nonetheless a powerful plea for a cause to which Libanius was deeply committed, and there is no reason to doubt that he hoped to influence public policy. We can see therefore how the techniques practised and displayed in declamation could have practical application in late antiquity. Theory identifies four standard topics for a proem: speaker, audience, opposition and theme. 45 The theme, a defence of pagan temples 42

Sopater: text in RG, VIII, pp. 2 - 3 8 5 Walz; commentary: D. C. Innes and M. Winterbottom, Sopatros the Rhetor (BICS Sup., 48; London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1988). 43 Libanius's declamations fill vols. 5 - 7 of R. Foerster's Teubner edition (190323); selected declamations are translated in Heath, Hermogenes, and D. A. Russell, libanius: Imaginary Speeches (London: Duckworth, 1996). A selection of other works is translated by A. F. Norman, libanius: Selected Works (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1969-77) and libanius: Autobiography and Selected Letters (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1992). See A. F. Norman (ed.), libanius' Autobiography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965); G. A. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 1 5 0 - 6 3 . 44 On the circulation of Libanius's speeches see P. Peut, "Recherches sur la publication et la diffusion des discours de Libanius", Historia 5 (1956), pp. 479-509; J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 26-31. P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), pp. 3 0 - 3 1 , 35-70, gives a balanced account of the importance of rhetoric in late antiquity. On the closure of temples see F. R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianisation, I (Religion in the Graeco-Roman World, 115.1; Leiden: Brill, 1993), pp. 108-47. Text and trans, of In Defence of the Temples (Oration 30) in Libanius, LCL, II, pp. 7 2 151; commentary: R. Van Loy, "Le 'Pro Templis' de Libanius", Byzantion 8 (1933), pp. 7-39, 389-404. 45

E.g. Cic. Inv. 1:22; Rhet. ad Her. 1:8; Anon. Seg. 1.

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to a Christian emperor, is a sensitive one; so Libanius draws on the other three topics to secure his addressee's goodwill. First he establishes his credentials as an adviser worth listening to: his recommendations have met with a favourable response in the past, and since he owes a personal debt of gratitude to the emperor his goodwill is assured (1). T h e second topic, the audience, is introduced (and the theme disclosed) with an allusion to the traditional pose of the riskrunning, and therefore selfless and reliable, adviser: "To many it will appear that I am courting much danger by embarking upon an address to you about the temples and the need for them not to be abused as they are now" (2); but Libanius simultaneously distances himself from this idea by praising Theodosius's gendeness and restraint. Thus Libanius deftly casts himself as a wise, well-intentioned and candid (but inoffensive) adviser, and offers Theodosius the complementary role of the tolerant and receptive addressee. Opposing advisers are shut out of this comfortable relationship, and receive only brief disparagement (3). A narrative exposition of the background is to follow, but Libanius sets the context with a preliminary statement (προκατάστασις)46 which traces the establishment of temples back to its origins in primitive man's recognition of divine goodwill (4), and links traditional religion to the rise of Rome and her civilizing mission (5). The narrative proper begins with a review of religious policy from Constantine to Theodosius (6-7); Libanius's aim is to clarify the state of the law, carefully distinguishing the pagan practices that are banned from those still permitted. A profession of loyalty ("we do not so much lament what we have lost as show gratitude for the concession we have obtained") heightens the contrast between the emperor's tolerance and the violence actually done to pagans (8); like Cicero in Pro Roscio, Libanius is careful to distance the ruler from the object of his attack. The suppression of pagan temples is most common in the countryside; a passionate section marked by striking imagery ("wherever they tear out a temple from an estate, that estate is blinded and lies murdered. Temples, Sire, are the soul of the countryside . ..") sets out the devastating effect of religious repression on rural life, and hence on the imperial revenue (9-10). This establishes the importance of Libanius's theme; a section of further amplification follows. The 46 [Hermog.] Inv. 108:20-119:19; Anon. Seg. 58; Aps. 242:13-249:14 SpengelHammer.

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key image here is of war, worked out (since the Christians' claim to be making war on the temples is a pretext for robbery) in terms of invasion, siege, sack and looting; such actions by his own subjects contradict the emperor's elaborate measures to defend the empire against its external enemies. Thus a transformation of this passage's main image is used to bring the expository section of the speech to a pointed conclusion: the persecutors "are making war on your policy" (14). The argumentative core of the speech follows. Deliberative oratory is normally based on the "heads of purpose" (τελικά κεφάλαια);47 here Libanius concetrates on the heads of legality and usefulness. The overt structure of this section is provided by a series of arguments in which a point attributed to the opposition (άντίθεσις) is countered with its solution (λύσις).48 The first άντίθεσις introduces the heading of legality (νόμιμον): "The assertion is, of course, that they are punishing those who offer sacrifice and so contravene the law that bans it" (15). Libanius's response takes the common twofold form: the assertion is denied (ενστασις), and then shown to be irrelevant even if true (άντιπαράστασις). T o deny that illegal sacrifices are offered raises a question of fact, and thus touches on the stasis of conjecture; some of its standard headings can be discerned in Libanius's conduct of the argument. 49 First, motive (βούλησις): the peasantry would not presume to disobey the emperor (15). Then the demand for evidence (έλέγχων άπαίτησις): there are no witnesses (16). In the heading known as transposition of cause (μετάθεσις της αιτίας) an innocent explanation is offered for actions that the opposition would regard as incriminating; here it is argued that the accusations are based not on illegal sacrifice, but on rustic festivities permitted by law (17-19). There is also a variant on the persuasive defence (πιθανή άπολογία). This head normally argues that the defendant, if guilty, would not have acted as he did (his actions have incurred suspicion, which he would have been careful to avoid had he really committed the crime). Here the argument is reversed: if the defendants really were guilty it is the accusers who would have acted in another way, by bringing a capital charge (19). 47 Hermog. Stat. 76:3-79:16; Aps. 291:3-296:12 Spengel-Hammer; [D.H.] Rh. 370:20-371:1 Usener-Radermacher. 48 See Aps. 260:18-279:17 Spengel-Hammer. 49 See Hermog. Stat. 46:8-47:7 (modve), 45:1-46:7 (demand for evidence), 49:750:19 (transposition of cause), 50:20-52:5 (persuasive defence).

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This inversion of a standard topic of conjecture throws the accusers onto the defensive. A further άντίθεσις puts forward a defence: the Christians refrain from bringing capital charges because they oppose the death-penalty (20). The suggestion that the Christians were moved by humane feeling evokes a passionate attack on the acts of Christian cruelty which refute it (not, however, so passionate that Libanius forgets his art: note the paralepsis, "I forebear to mention . .."). A second άντίθεσις, referring to the teachings of Scripture (21), is refuted by a concrete example of Christian violence, the destruction of a statue of Asclepius at Beroea (22—23); the case is significant because the statue was not an object of cult, so the claim to be punishing illegal sacrifices cannot stand. At this point the denial of illegal sacrifice is complete; a local epilogue (24) inverts the original άντίθεσις (15), showing that it is those who destroy temples who are acting illegally. But even if the claim of illegal sacrifice were true, the proper reaction would be to invoke due legal process (25-26). As often, the άντιπαράστασις seizes on one circumstantial aspect of the actions in question; here objection is made to the illegal manner in which the Christians have acted (μετάληψις άπό τρόπου).50 In developing this section Libanius introduces in a subsidiary way another of the heads of purpose, advantage (συμφέρον). The alleged object of the illegal procedure is to force conversions, but coercion is counterproductive because it simply reinforces pagan conviction; this is why Theodosius has wisely adopted a policy of tolerance (27). The conversions alleged in a further άντίθεσις (28) are dismissed as insincere and pointless (29). T h e next άντίθεσις introduces the second main heading, that of usefulness (χρήσιμον). After a brief proem restating the pose of the fearless adviser (30), Libanius advances four aguments against the claim that the abolition of temples is beneficial: the rise of Rome, and other exempla from myth and classical history, show the efficacy of pagan religion (31-32); Libanius's opponents show that they accept the usefulness of pagan cult by allowing its continuation in Rome and Alexandria (33-36); a comparison (σύγκρισις) of the fates of Constantine and his family with that of Julian shows that the suppression of pagan worship is bad policy (37-41); and it is foolish to

50 Objection (μετάληψις) always identifies a circumstance of the action which renders it illegitimate: see e.g. Hermog. Stat. 42:22-43:8; RG, IV, pp. 377:25-378:3 Walz.

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destroy valuable buildings which could be put to non-cult use (4243). A striking image used earlier in the speech (9) reappears in the development of this last point ("Do not let us think it a crime to cut off a man's hand and a credit to gouge out the eyes of cities"), along with a string of analogies ("Any man who hurls his purse into the sea is out of his mind; if the pilot cuts the cable on which the safety of his ship depends, or bids the sailor jettison his oar, he would be thought a lunatic . . ."). T h e epilogue begins by disclaiming any attack on the emperor himself (44). Libanius abruptly introduces a brief description (εκφρασις) of a now ruined temple, climaxing with a paradox: because it is gone, this beautiful sight gives pain to those who have seen it and joy to those who have not (45). But Theodosius was not to blame; the blame lies with an unnamed official (probably the prefect Cynegius). T h e idea of bad advisers was slipped into the narrative (7, on Constantius), and is now elaborated in a way that picks up the reference to opponents in the proem (3). Abuse (διαβολή) of the opposition as self-interested advisers (48-49) is followed by a close analysis of the contradictions in their position (50-51). By shifting the blame onto the emperor's advisers, Libanius can achieve the separation between Theodosius and the object of his attack which is crucial to the success of his appeal. He goes on to highlight the emperor's chosen policy of tolerance by contrasting it with the intolerance he eschews (52~53). The wedge thus driven between the emperor and the opposition allows the conclusion to combine a profession of loyalty with a warning of violent resistance if the attack on temples is allowed to continue: such resistance would be both self-defence and a defence of the law (54). This speech was composed in the late 380s.51 In 391 Theodosius closed the temples and banned pagan cult.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949). Clark, D. L., Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957). 51

P. Petit, "Sur la date du 'Pro Templis' de Libanius", Byzantion 21 (1951), pp. 285-310, argues for 386; Liebeschuetz, Antioch, p. 30 places it in 388 or later, arguing that Cynegius could not have been attacked in this way while still in office.

420

D. H. BERRY AND MALCOLM HEATH

Clarke, M. L., Rhetoric at Rome: A Historical Survey (rev. D. H. Berry; 3rd edn.; London: Cohen & West, 1996). Classen, C. J., Recht-Rhetorik-Politik Untersuchungen zu Ciceros rhetorischer Strategie (Darmstadt: Wissenschafdiche Buchgesellschaft, 1985). Cole, T., The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). Craig, C. P., Form as Argument in Cicero's Speeches: A Study of Dilemma (APA American Classical Studies, 31; Adanta: Scholars Press, 1993). Dingel, J., Scholastica Materia: Untersuchungen zu den Declamationes Minores und der Institutio Oratoria Quintilians (UALG, 30; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988). Fairweather, J., Seneca the Elder (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Heath, M., Hermogenes On Issues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Kennedy, G. Α., The Art of Persuasion in Greece (London: Roudedge, 1963). , The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, 300 BC-AD 300 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). , Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). Leeman, A. D., Orationis Ratio (2 vols.; Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1963). Russell, D. Α., Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Stroh, W., Taxis und Taktik: Die advokatische Dispositionskunst in Ciceros Gerichtsreden (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1975). Winterbottom, M., "Schoolroom and Courtroom", in B. Vickers (ed.), Rhetoric Revalued (Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 19; New York: Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), pp. 59-70.

CHAPTER 13

H O M I L Y AND PANEGYRICAL S E R M O N * Folker Siegert Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum, Münster University, Germany

I.

DEFINITIONS

There is no specific term for "sermon" in the classical languages. The Greek ομιλία and the Latin sermo, both meaning "conversation", may be used to refer to a religious speech, but more often they do not bear this meaning. We are dealing with a phenomenon which made its way gradually into ancient culture from its fringes. Teachers of rhetoric, as they were normally pagans, did not take note of it; so it does not appear in their terminology. "Sermon" may be defined as "public explanation of a sacred doctrine or a sacred text", with its Sitz im Leben being worship. It is a remarkable fact of the history of religions that of all religious cults known in antiquity, only Jewish worship as it took place outside the Temple in the synagogues—and Christian worship which imitated it—demanded a speaker's rhetorical activity. Ancient religious celebrations normally kept worship separate from teaching. Religious cult, including the worship done in the Jerusalem Temple, consisted of processions, performing symbolic acts, singing, praying, burning incense, slaughtering animals for sacrifice (in paganism also: observing prodigies), and so on. There was no occasion for teaching. 1 In order to adapt rhetorical terminology to the known phenomena of public religious teaching, the following distinctions may be made:

* Thanks are due to Mr. Ross McDonald, to Mr. Martin Dorn, and to the editor of this volume for correcting this chapter. 1 When no services were going on, temples may have served as a place for teaching: see the setting of Plutarch's fythical Dialogues, one of Dio Chrysostom's Orations (36), etc. But this does not define a specific text type.

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Speeches on Religious Matters

Speeches explaining a Sacred Doctrine/Text in a Liturgical Setting (sermon)

Professional Level (mass communication, literature)

(A) Religious Panegyric

(C) Panegyrical Sermon

Colloquial Level (private or classroom communicadon)

(B) Religious Diatribe

(D) Homily

Used by

Most Ancient Religions

Judaism and Christianity only

Examples for (A): Dio Chrysostom Or. 36 (on Zeus); Aelius Aristides (frequendy praising Asclepius); 4 Maccabees Examples for (B): Epictetus Dissertations; LXX: Letter of Jeremiah;2 New Testament: Epistle of James. Examples for (C): Ps.-Philo On Jonah; On Samson·, Melito On the Passah;3 Examples for (D): Origen's Homilies on Old and New Testament texts;4 J o h n Chrysostom On Genesis, On the Psalms; Pope Gregory I Homilies on the Gospels. This chapter will be about cases (C) and (D).

II.

THE

P R O B L E M OF

ORALITY

The requirement of orality that is assumed with the liturgical setting of cases (C) and (D) poses some problems, since there were smooth transitions between oral and literary communication. Even if we take for granted that orators practically never read from a manuscript, 5 2

This short text (pp. 766-70 in vol. II of Rahlfs's Septuagint edition), even though it uses prose rhythm, lacks many other features of a formal speech, esp. exordium and peroratio. 3 This text, also called Passah Homily, is not a homily in the sense to be defined here. 4 Other text types chosen by the same author (τόμοι, σχόλια) are exegetical handbooks; the έκλογαί (selecta) are extracts from these. 5 Before a small group of pupils they might do so (e.g. Porph. Plot. 15, referring to an orator Diophanes). Another exception from the rule might be motivated by the audience's express wish to hear an encore (Cic. De or. 3:56 § 213, referring to Aeschines).

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there remain at least three possibilities of how oral delivery may be linked to a written text (which alone is known to us): (1) the text may have been written in advance in order to be memorized and delivered, (2) it may have been taken down in shorthand at the time of delivery, (3) it may have been written down afterwards, from memory. 6 As these eventualities are irrelevant for invention, disposition and elocution, ancient manuals rarely distinguish oral from written communication. The problem with our sources, however, is not to determine when an oral text was written down, but to establish whether it ever was an oral text. According to our definition, a given text can only be labelled a "sermon" if it may have (or even must have) served as part of a religious ceremony with the function of explaining some of the doctrines underlying that ceremony. 7 This requirement is not easily met in any of the New Testament writings, including their supposed oral components. Luke 4:16-21 mentions Jesus preaching in the synagogue at Capernaum; but of his sermon the Evangelist gives only a summary in one single phrase (v. 21). The Epistle to the Romans may have originated from several oral diatribes of its author: 1:18-4:25, chs. 5-8, chs. 9 - 1 1 ; but they have been transformed into a fairly homogeneous epistolary unit. Many pericopae of the New Testament may have served as liturgical lessons, as did all of the epistles (cf. 1 Thess. 5:27; Col. 4:16); but then they were not sermons. Hebrews may be an exception: this rhetoricallystyled text with its balanced constructions and its frequent rhythms meets the requirements of orality; it is more a sermon than a lesson.8 In a kind of appendix it is called a λόγος. . . παρακλήσεως (13:22; cf. Acts 13:15).

6

As to the memorizing capacities of well-trained persons in antiquity, cf. H. Blum, Die antike Mnemotechnik (repr. Hildesheim and New York: Olms, 1969). The 3rdcentury AD orator Prohaeresius was celebrated for being able to repeat an improvised speech verbatim a second time (Eun. KS 10:4:5-10:5:4). 7 According to this standard, a book like 4 Maccabees is rather a literary diatribe than a sermon: contra J. Freudenthal, Die Flavius Josephus beigelegte Schrift über die Herrschaft der Vernunft (IV Makkabäerbuch), eine Predigt aus dem ersten nachchristlichen Jahrhundert, untersucht (Breslau: Schleuer, 1869). The merits of Freudenthal's analyses, however, must be acknowledged. For more than one century Freudenthal was the last author to write on our subject with full knowledge of the sources. 8 As is well known, the epistolary character of this writing is only due to some (later?) appendices, from 13:18 onwards.

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The vertical distinction in the above scheme allows us to single out a trait that distinguishes Judaism and Christianity from their Hellenistic background. (C) is a specialization of (A) as (D) is a specialization of (B). Both rely on the intellectual bias of the Jewish-Christian tradition. O n e could be tempted to add as a further requirement for the right-hand column above its being based on a sacred text. This would provide us with an even clearer distinction between Hellenistic religion and its Jewish-Christian counterpart. But there are also nonexegetical sermons; 9 and whether a biblical text has been read beforehand cannot always be determined. Paul often quotes and even explains Old Testament texts, but he does not preach on any of these. His writings belong to written (epistolary) diatribe. 10 In the book of Acts, where Paul is reported to have spoken in synagogue services (Acts 9:20; 13:5, 15-41; 14:1-3; 16:1314; 17:10-12, 17; 18:4, 19; 19:8), he never acts as commentator on a scriptural pericope. He rather speaks at the end, where greetings from community to community are appropriate; and he makes use of this occasion to extend his role to something quite different. Later on, when Christian worship had developed its forms, Paul's letters as well as the writings reporting the life and teaching of Jesus came to be part of Scripture; sermons were held on these texts. For the earliest period of Christianity we should make a distinction between "missionary proclamation" and "artistic sermon". 11 With the emergence of Christian sacred rooms in the (second and)12 third century the latter came to replace the former. The only thing which was reminiscent of the simplicity of Christian origins was the homily, on which cf. below, section IX. Thus, religious speeches based on a text are a Jewish innovation taken over by Christians. Greek paganism had developed an art of interpreting religious texts, especially Homer on the one hand, 13 with

9

Examples may be found in sections VIII and IX, below. Philo's diatribes sometimes are of a high rhetorical density which makes one think of oral delivery, e.g. in Plant. 139-end. 10 On this genre, see S. K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (SBLDS, 57; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), esp. p. 117. " See C. Schneider, Geistesgeschichte des antiken Christentums, II (Munich: Beck, 1954), p. 3. In Schneider's terminology: missionarische Volkspredigt vs. rhetorische Kultpredigt. 12 Melito's panegyric presupposes a large hall owned by or let to the community; however there is no archaeological evidence to inform us further. 13 Two manuals of this art have survived: Heraclitus the Stoic Quaestiones Homericae, and Ps.-Plutarch De Homero. Of similar content is Cornutus Theologiae Graecae compen-

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the art of public speaking called "rhetoric" on the other; but in the pagan world they rarely combined. On occasion, a sophist like the second-century orator Dio Chrysostom might base a moral teaching on a passage of Homer (Or. 57, on II. 1:260-74). In Hellenism there were myths, there were ιεροί λόγοι (occasionally read but never published), 14 and there was religious philosophy and oratory; but there was nothing like a "sacred doctrine". It is sufficient, therefore, to define "sermon" as an exposition either of a sacred text or of a sacred doctrine, delivered in a liturgical setting. This presents us with a historical paradox. The Jews and their religion were a marginal phenomenon in the Graeco-Roman world. They probably had no access to the places and institutions of public communication, at least not for the transmission of their religious message. They had to create their own auditoria in erecting synagogues. For Christians, the means of publicly proclaiming their message called the gospel were likewise restricted, and even more so after their expulsion from the synagogues. T h e horizontal distinction in our scheme adopts a properly rhetorical point of view, being a distinction of stylistic levels. The plain style is excluded from the upper level (A, C) just as the grand style is not called for in the lower (B, D). T h e domain of rhetoric proper, of course, is the upper level. Here are to be placed the activities of well-trained persons, orators and their pupils. It is a recent innovation that rhetoric, especially the New Rhetoric, serves also as a tool for analysing the phenomena of the lower level. Using the distinction of styles, we may more clearly discern the degree of commitment to Hellenistic culture, and we may also assess the possible size of the audience. As to the commitment to Hellenistic culture, this may vary even within paganism. The Cynics, whose dium. For details, see my article "Early Jewish Interpretation in a Hellenistic Style", sect. 1: "Homer and Moses", in M. Saebe (ed.), Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, I (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), pp. 130— 98 (130-41). On ancient conventions of quoting Homer, see C. D. Stanley, "Paul and Homer: Greek and Roman Citation Practice in the First Century AD", NovT 32 (1990), pp. 48-78. 14 E.g., Aeschines was employed by his mother to read sacred scrolls at celebrations (D. 18:259, cf. 19:199). As regards publishing policy, poetic and other paraphrases of the myths were frequent, but the texts themselves were kept hidden. The Isis myth is never told entirely in any Egyptian source. Plutarch, who was not a priest of Isis, but of Apollo, was the first to publish it in a kind of unofficial account (De I side et Osiride).

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behaviour and teaching have considerable affinities to that of Jesus, despised ornate speech and a formal social setting. As regards the size of the audience, it should be kept in mind that public communication—in a period long before the invention of the microphone, the transmission of images, etc.—required high artistic skills, just as television does today. T h e colloquial style was not fit for speaking in a theatre or for mastering the acoustic problems of a market place. The contrary holds true for the musical treat of "Asianic" rhetorical delivery. 15 Thus religious harangue—labelled as λόγος, έγκώμιον, or πανήγυρνς—found its counterpart within Hellenistic Judaism and within the Christian Church. This is what is called a panegyrical sermon. One of its oldest surviving specimens terms itself an έγκώμιον (Ps.-Philo On Samson 10; cf. λόγος, On Samson 4,16 and the verbs used in Ps.-Philo On Jonah, proem). The fact that both texts are part of a liturgy, being the explanation of a sacred text read beforehand, is not specified in these terms. This is why it is better to use the modern term "panegyrical sermon".

III.

' P R O C L A M A T I O N ' AND

'HOMILY'

T h e modern endeavour to define what can be called a "sermon" in Graeco-Roman antiquity would be incomplete without a discussion of some terms which were current during the period itself. In translating the New Testament, κηρύσσειν has often been rendered "to preach"; but this word cannot be taken in our specific sense. Κηρύσσειν means "to proclaim": a sovereign's words are repeated aloud. This excludes by definition the rhetorical effort of embellishment, amplification, etc., let alone interpretation. Ancient sources associate a κήρυξ ("herald") with a trumpet, 17 which is significant: in 15

Thus, Asianism is not as extravagant as it would seem from reading its texts silendy. See F. Siegert, Drei hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten, II (WUNT, 61; Tübingen: Mohr, 1992), pp. 31-36, and below. 16 Terms must be retranslated; the words found in the only exisdng Armenian version (see below) are nelborean and ban, respectively. 17 It was already known to the 2nd-century AD author Artemidorus who states: "heralding means the same thing as blowing a trumpet", τό δέ κηρύσσειν τά αύτά τω σαλπίζειν σημαίνει (Oniromticon libn 1:56). In Latin, ceryx could mean a trumpet player; see A. Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs chrétiens (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955; repr. 1986) s.v. ceryx.

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antiquity trumpets were not an instrument of music, but a means of (magically) distorting and amplifying the human voice. Ancient trumpeters did not "interpret" music, any more than heralds interpreted a message.18 Jonah did not preach to the Ninevites, but just proclaimed one sentence (Jon. 3:4b; verb: έκήρυξεν); he delivered a κήρυγμα (Q/Luke 11:32). In the New Testament the word λόγος is rarely or never used with reference to a formal speech.19 T h e so-called "Sermon" on the Mount consists of sayings, but it is not a speech; see Matt. 7:28: "When Jesus had finished these words . . . " (τους λόγους τούτους). Peter's Pentecost address is ρήματα (Acts 2:14). Later on, in the Church Fathers' writings, λόγος = oratio is a more or less clear alternative to ομιλία = sermo, a term to which we may now turn. Whereas a religious speech on the stylistic level of a panegyric was labelled as (one kind of) λόγος, its modest counterpart on the level of a diatribe came to be termed ομιλία—our homily. T h e idea conveyed by that term is that of a "conversation" of a religious leader with a group of persons which he knows personally: 20 thus X. Mem. 1:2:6 (of a Sophist's teaching), the Jewish Epistle of Aristeas 171 (with reference to the High Priest giving instructions to a group of visitors), and other writers; cf. the verb όμιλείν in Acts 20:11 (of Paul)21 and όμιλίαν ποιείσθαι in Jos. Vit. 222. Later on it was the Christians who used it to refer to an address dealing with religious matters: thus Ign. Polyc. 5:1 (όμιλίαν ποιείσθαι), Theophilus of Antioch, Origen, John Chrysostom, and many others. The refusal to use fine rhetoric on the part of those who would perhaps have been able to use it—the Cynics in particular—testifies to their aloofness from a society which they criticized. The low style of the early Christian message has been interpreted that way;22 and there is no doubt that Christians of the second generation, such as Luke and the author of Hebrews, are more "conformed" and accul18

"Kerygmatic theology", thus, is a contradiction in terms, since "heralding" means not to do intellectual work. 19 The meaning "speech" may be present, e.g., in Acts 13:15 (λόγος παρακλήσεως). 20 Ε. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jh. v. Chr. (2 vols.; 7th edn.; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1974), pp. 541-42. 21 Elsewhere in Acts, the synonym διαλέγεσθαι is used for Paul's teaching activity. 22 G. Dorival, "Cyniques et chrétiens au temps des Pères grecs", in Valeurs dans le Stoïcisme: Du Portique à nos jours (Textes rassemblés en hommage à Michel Spanneut par Michel Soetard; Lille 1993), pp. 57-88, in particular pp. 59 (bibliography) and 79.

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turated to Hellenism as is, for example, the Apostle Paul.23 In this sense Paul's scorn of rhetoric (1 Cor. 1:17, 20; 2:4-5, 13 etc.) could be termed "cynical". With respect to the paltriness and intellectual mediocrity of many utterances of second-century Christianity, however, it may be asked to what degree rhetorical restraint was based on voluntary discretion. Wasn't the Christian mission from its very inception dependent upon the use of the available means of communication? In line with Matt. 28:18-20 is the fact that the bishops soon became rhetoricians—or, to put it more exacdy, that Christian rhetoricians became bishops. In this respect, Gnosticism was quicker than Catholic Christianity. Clem. Str. 6:6:52:3 quotes a περί φίλων ομιλία by the Gnostic Valentinus. T h e few quotations he gives from this text may be embarrassing for our definitional purposes, as they are of a highly rhetorical character, using prose rhythms. 24 Moreover, the text is qualified not as a speech, but as a writing (κατά λεξιν γράφει), and its tide suggests that it was not concerned with interpreting a biblical text. There is little to support our definition given above. For an explanation, the fact may be recalled that ομιλία was not a well-defined term: in the very rhetorical fragment attached to the Epistle to Diognetus (chs. 11-12) it is the Word himself (Λόγος without article) "who communicates (ομιλεί) by what means he wants and when he wants" (11:7). It is rather the Latin usage which restricted homilia to "popular" ways of speaking, as may be seen from Blaise's dictionary. 25 For the purposes of the present Handbook the narrower definition will be retained (cf. η. 3).

IV.

A N T E C E D E N T S T O T H E A R T OF P R E A C H I N G IN T H E H E B R E W AND G R E E K

SCRIPTURES

It has been stated above that sermons are an innovation due to ancient Judaism, especially to Greek-speaking Judaism. In the Bible of both Testaments there may be found references to persons speaking on a 23

This may be seen in the use (or non-use on the part of Paul) of prose rhythms: cf. F. Siegert, "Mass Communication and Prose Rhythm in Luke-Acts", in S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1993), pp. 42-58. 24 Cf. Norden, Kunstprosa, II, pp. 545-47. 25 Blaise, Dictionnaire, p. 392 (quoting Hilary, Jerome, Augustine, Isidore).

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sacred text (especially Ezra the scribe in Neh. 9), but we do not know whether these performances were "speeches" (λόγοι) in the rhetorical sense of the term, nor whether the biblical narrator considers them to be so. The first question, at least, may safely be denied, as the cultural and social requirements for a Semitic parallel to Greek oratory were not present. O n e of the proofs of the superiority of Hellenism, after all, was public λόγος, including its social and architectural requirements. There is a marked distance between Jesus sitting in a boat and "teaching" the people with parables and logia (a Greek word meaning "prose oracles"), and an orator pronouncing a well-organized speech. The refinement of mass communication, which so deeply characterizes the epoch of Graeco-Roman Hellenism, was part of an urban civilization. Judaic civilization, however, was mainly rural. Jerusalem, its religious centre, was known for its Temple, the sacrifices, and the treasure, but not for its exploits in the domains of oratory or literature. The theatre erected by Herod I does not seem to have been important, being alien to Jewish religion and lifestyle,26 and litde is known of the library in which Nicolaus of Damascus, Herod's pagan court historian, wrote his (now lost) 144 books of history. No Jewish citizen of Jerusalem is known to have been an orator. 27 Josephus, to be sure, styles himself as such,28 and it may be safely held that the Judaean kings were able to pronounce, in Aramaic, an address to the people. One may compare Peter's speech in Acts 2:1436 (cf. III above) and Paul's Aramaic address to the crowds of Jerusalem in Acts 22:1-21. These were local events that do not prove that there was an Aramaic art of oratory comparable to what was called Ελληνισμός. The Greek writings which Josephus composed with the assistance of a secretary 29 are one thing, and his Aramaic perfor26 This theatre is mentioned by Jos. AJ 15:268. It may have served as an auditorium for political proclamations like that reported in Acts 12:20-22. 27 All that can be said of Hellenistic culture in Jerusalem has been said by M. Hengel, The "Hellenization" ofJudaea in the First Century after Christ (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989), pp. 260-65. Significandy, his main examples are persons of doubtful or no commitment to Judaism: Herod the Great, Nicolaus of Damascus, and the orator Tertullus (Acts 24:1-8). 28 E.g., BJ 5:362-419. 29 How far did Josephus's Hellenism go? His priest colleagues in Jerusalem thought him able to speak before the Roman emperor as head of their embassy (Jos. BJ 2:81). Later on, however, when Josephus lived in Rome composing his historical works, he chose to charge a secretary with the improvement of his style, and he admits never to have learned the correct pronunciation of Greek (Αρ. 1:50).

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mance in front of the walls of burning Jerusalem is another. In all of Hebrew and Aramaic literature there is nothing that resembles a Greek λόγος.30 Jesus eschewed the cities of his homeland. Even though he had contacts with paganism, he did not take up the challenge of Hellenism, except negatively.31 Two of the group of the Twelve bear Greek names (Philip and Andrew), and according to John 12:20-22 they were bilingual. Besides this, there is not much to note. Sepphoris, which was a centre in Galilee, is not mentioned in the New Testament; 32 Caesarea Philippi and Caesarea Maritima are passed over in Jesus' itinerary. In Tiberias, where there was one of the largest synagogues of his time, he did not speak; and his disputes in the Jerusalem Temple are not examples of oratory. The έξουσία ("authority") of his teaching has nothing to do with rhetorical δεινότης or "impressiveness". T h e same holds true for the aposde Paul, even though he was perfectly bilingual, speaking "Hebrew" (Aramaic) as well as Greek. He was an able teacher and debator, 33 but not an orator. In his native town Tarsus there was a famous school of rhetoric, but he does not seem to have attended it. There are no traces of professional rhetoric in his letters, as he rightly claims himself (1 Cor. 2:1-5), 34 not without some pride. 30

The Aramaic mê'mrê' of Ephrem, later on, were poems. The Syriac "grand style" of this preacher makes a synthesis of Hellenistic oratory and Semidc metrics. A historical presupposition for this is the existence of Greek panegyrical sermons. 31 See his warnings against the Herodians, Mark 3:6; cf. Mark 12:13 par. A. Paul, 'Jésus de Nazareth, le méditerranéen", Foi et vie 72 no. 5 (= Cahier biblique, 32), pp. 101-11 overstates his case when he treats Jesus and his disciples as "Herodians" (p. 109) in a socio-cultural sense. 32 This fact is all the more astonishing as that city, which lies four miles away from Nazareth, cannot have failed to make its impression on Jesus. It was towered over by a pagan temple and a theatre: see R. A. Batey, Jesus and the Forgotten City, New Light on Sepphoris and the Urban World ofJesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991). There are no means of knowing whether Jesus ever attended ceremonies in or near one of these buildings; the present writer is much less ready to believe it than is Batey. As regards public teaching in Sepphoris, Batey plausibly says (p. 158): "Antipas would view any popular leader with suspicion. As Jesus' acclaim grew, Sepphoris would be a precarious setting for his proclamation of the arrival of the kingdom of God." 33

On Paul's training, Greek (basic education in Tarsus) and Hebrew (advanced studies in Jerusalem, with Gamaliel I), and on his probable function as a teacher of halakah to Greek-speaking Jewish immigrants, see M. Hengel and R. Deines, "Der vorchristliche Paulus", in M. Hengel and U. Heckel (eds.), Paulus und das antike Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991), pp. 177-293, esp. p. 265. ET: The Pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1994). 34 As to Paul's "rhetoric", I have attempted a non-biased assessment in my Argumentation bei Paulus, gezeigt an Rom 9-11 (WUNT, 34; Tübingen: Mohr, 1985), pp.

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In the provinces of Asia Minor Paul was occasionally admired as an incarnation of Hermes (Acts 14:12), and passages like Romans 9 - 1 1 or 2 Corinthians 6 may be impressive through their dialectical skill or their emotionality. In Corinth the Christians admitted that "his letters are impressive and moving"; but they added that "his actual presence is feeble and his speaking beneath contempt" (2 Cor. 10:10, trans. Phillips). Paul's failure on the Areopagus (Acts 17:32; cf. 17:18)35 illustrates the same point: Paul's oral delivery was deficient, be it by some corporeal shortcoming, or be it by lack of professional skill. This seems not to be the case for Paul's companion Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria whom Luke qualifies as άνήρ λόγιος ("a man versed in speech", Acts 18:24). Unfortunately we do not have much information about his person or his success as a speaker (w. 24-28; cf. 1 Cor. 1:21; 3:4ff.; 4:6). But we do have sufficient information on Jewish culture in Alexandria. 36 In the entire New Testament the only writers trained to cope with the requirements of mass communication are the author of Hebrews, who might well have been a professional orator, the author of the Episde of James, and Luke as a literary man. But in order to spot the origin of Christian homiletics we have to turn our attention to the centres of diaspora Judaism. Let us now speak of the synagogue in general and of Alexandria in particular.

V.

T H E " I N T E L L I G E N T W O R S H I P " OF T H E AND ITS C H R I S T I A N

SYNAGOGUE

IMITATION

When Paul summoned the Roman Christians to render by their lives a λογική λατρεία (Rom. 12:1),37 he alluded to an ideal of worship

242-54. What is mostly admired in Paul is his "natural" eloquence. That is, even though he is able to construct long anaphoras (e.g. 2 Cor. 6:4-10), he does not use prose rhythm; and even though he masters a large variety of particles, his syntax is rather poor: no free optative, no future participle, few periods in the rhetorical sense of the term. 35 For a rhetorical comment on this much discussed text see Siegert, "Mass Communication and Prose Rhythm in Luke-Acts", pp. 55-56. 36 Η. I. Bell, Cults and Creeds in Greco-Roman Egypt (Forwood Lectures 1952; repr. Chicago: Ares, 1975), esp. pp. 25-49; D. Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 37 "Living sacrifice" (RSV, NEB, Phillips) is too feeble a translation. The Greek means also a "reasonable sacrifice", a "sacrifice by and according to the logos".

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which had been developed in theory by Pythagorean and Stoic Philosophers, but put into liturgical practice by Judaism alone. The Pythagoreans were against bloodshed, in profane life as well as in the cult. Blood does not establish good relations with the divine, their criticism held; but prayer of a pure heart and a righteous, pure life will do so. They used the oxymoron άναίμακτος βωμός ("unbloody altar") to denote this ideal. 38 In calling a similar thing a λογική λατρεία Paul evokes also the Stoic λόγος, who was believed to be the intermediary (in both directions) between the divine and the mortals. Logos was revelation and prayer as well. When the synagogue worship had evolved—its origins lie perhaps as early as in the Babylonian exile,39 where no sacrificial atonement was available—Alexandrian Jewish apologists did not fail to recognize its modernity by philosophical standards. Philo (born ca. 15/ 10 BC) praises the Jewish Legislator for having instituted the Sabbath as a day of learning for everybody: He required them to assemble in the same place on these seventh days, and sitting together in a respectful and orderly manner hear the laws read so that none should be ignorant of them. And indeed they do always assemble and sit together, most of them in silence except when it is the practice to add something to signify approval of what is read. But some priest who is present or one of the elders reads the holy laws to them and expounds them point by point fill about the late afternoon, when they depart having gained both expert knowledge of the holy laws and considerable advance in piety.40 Such was the Sitz im Leben of the Jewish art of preaching. There were synagogues throughout the Jewish diaspora; there also were synagogues in the mainland up to the walls of the Jerusalem Temple. T h e largest of all synagogues was in Alexandria; it will be described in the next secdon. 38

Pythagoras, according to D. L. 8:22 (echoed by Philostr. VA 1:1). A collection of similar statements, mosdy taken from Porphyry De Abstinentia has been brought together by Eus. P.E. 4:11-16. 39 J. Parkes, The Foundations ofJudaism and Christianity (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, I960), pp. 12-17, 70-77; M. Hengel, "Proseuche und Synagoge: Jüdische Gemeinde, Gotteshaus und Gottesdienst in der Diaspora und in Palästina", in G. Jeremias, H.-W. Kuhn and H. Stegemann (eds.), Tradition und Glaube: Das frühe Christentum in seiner Umwelt. Festgabe für K. G. Kuhn zum 65. Geburtstag (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), pp. 157-84. 40 Fragment from Philo's Hypothetica preserved in Eus. P.E. 8:7:12-13. I quote the trans, of F. H. Colson in the LCL Philo, IX (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1941), pp. 431-33. Injosephus's works, cf. Ap. 2:175, etc.

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In Philo's writings there are clear traces of the existence of the annual cycle of Torah lessons such as the Rabbis have transmitted it to our day.41 Whether there already was a list of selected lessons from the (Former and Latter) Prophets cannot be proved, but there is evidence in favour of a positive answer. 42 Of till Graeco-Roman religions, Judaism alone managed to develop a non-sacrificial monotheistic cult. Most philosophers professed a theoretical monotheism; but there were no means of establishing a cult that corresponded to their lofty ideas. Jewish "philosophy", however, put it into practice not only on the level of everyday behaviour, but also in worship. Synagogue worship consisted of singing psalms and hymns, praying, reading the T o r a h — a n d explaining the Torah lesson (the parashah of Rabbinic terminology) or the lesson associated with it (the haftarah). Philo, as it appears from his own writings, spent his life teaching Torah. We cannot be sure but we can reasonably suppose that he engaged personally in the job of preaching. At any rate he would not have been the only person capable of doing so. In Apostolic times Christian worship had only one model: the Jewish synagogue service. The eucharist was added, 43 so that the sermon was no longer at the end of the celebration. Other elements (taken, e.g., from mystery cults) modified it without denying its intellectual (λογικός) character.

VI.

ALEXANDRIA: A

C E N T R E OF J E W I S H

ELOQUENCE

Alexandria, founded in 331 BC by Alexander himself, soon became one of the largest cities of antiquity. It housed the richest library of the Hellenistic-Roman period, and it was the home of numerous world-renowned scholars and literary men such as Euclid, Herophilus, and Ptolemaeus on the one hand and Aristarchus, Callimachus, and Theocritus on the other. The indigenous Egyptians, as well as the Jews who soon came to setde there, had no citizens' rights, but—as

41

The statements of R. Marcus in his LCL edition of Philo's Questions on Genesis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1953), pp. xiiiXV, have been confirmed by J. R. Royse, "The Original Structure of Philo's Quaestiones", StudPhil 4 (1976-77), pp. 41-78. These lessons, called parasha (pi. parashiot), covered the whole of the Pentateuch. 42 2 Macc. 15:9; 4 Macc. 18:10-19; Luke 4:16ff.; Acts 13:15 and 13:27. Note that both sermons dealt with in VII (below) are on haftarot of the existing Rabbinical list. 43 The oldest proof text for the two-fold structure is Just. 1 Apol. 65.

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for the Jews—a certain amount of self-administration. Alexandria was the seat of the Ptolemaic kings, none of whom understood the language of their Pharaonic predecessors. In Roman times, when Egypt had become the emperor's personal property, Alexandria was distinguished from the province of Egypt as Alexandria ad Aegyptum. This city may well have been the cradle of the art of preaching, at least so far as rhetorically refined preaching is concerned. One of her five quarters, numbered Δ, was assigned to the Jews; but Jews were also living all over the city.44 They only spoke Greek (hence the Septuagint translation) and wanted to count with the Greek, and not the Egyptian, inhabitants of the city.45 Their Greek culture was far in advance of all we know of Roman, Antiochian, and other Jewish populations. Aristobulus, the anonymous author of the Letter of Aristeas, and Philo the Jewish philosopher became their most famous exponents. As to Philo, in a kind of double identity he claimed to be a citizen of a Greek city, which was his πατρίς, and to belong to a people whose "metropolis" was Jerusalem. 46 In Alexandria stood the largest synagogue known in antiquity. This building was called a διπλόστοον47 because of its five naves which were divided by two double rows of columns. T h e Tosephta tells us there was an assistant standing on its bimah (βήμα) charged to give a signal with a cloth after a prayer so that the assembly would say "amen". 48 This building may have been the very place where the earliest panegyrical sermons known to us were first given.

44 When in AD 38 anti-Jewish riots forced the city's Jews to leave all other places and to crowd together in their own quarter, this area came to be the first ghetto known in history. 45 This may be a question of privileges, esp. of citizenship (which they always wanted, but never obtained), rather than a question of cultural pride. We may surmise, however, strong differences between the Alexandrian Jewish bourgeoisie and their more plebeian counterpart. There is a sharp contrast between Philo and the ps.-Philonic sermons on the one hand and the Alexandrian Jewish populace on the other: whereas the former advocated Providence, the latter resorted to revolt and Messianic war. 46 Leg. Gai. 281; cf. Flacc. 46. 4 ' Term only preserved in Hebrew transcription: diflostyan. 48 Tosephta, Sukka 4:6; quoted in German by H. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, IV. 1 (Munich: Beck, 1928 and reprints), p. 122, lit. g. At Tiberias in Palestine there was a copy of this synagogue.

HOMILY AND PANEGYRICAL SERMON

VII.

SPECIMENS O F H E L L E N I S T I C J E W I S H THE

S E R M O N S ON JONAH

AND ON

435

ELOQUENCE: SAMSON

Much speculation on the origins of the art of preaching 49 is hampered by ignorance of the only existing examples, the Jewish panegyrical sermons On Jonah and On Samson. Published in 1826 from manuscripts of the only surviving Armenian translation, 50 they were soon forgotten, perhaps due to philological difficulties, but also due to their very rhetorical character which did not appeal to the historians of religion until recently.51 There is now a German translation;52 a French one is being prepared for the Sources chrétiennes. As a date, Philo's lifetime seems most likely. T h e content, however, clearly disproves Philonic authorship: there is no allegorizing, no "modern" cosmology and science drawn upon, no speculation on divine names, etc. The Sitz im lieben for De Iona probably is the afternoon of Tom Kippur (if we may rely on the Rabbinic liturgical calendar—see V above); De Sampsone, which is on Judg. 13:2-14:19, would fit with the Sabbath on which the law of the Nazirites (Num. 4:217:89) was read. Among the most striking features of these "period pieces" of Asianic eloquence may be named the absence of any exclusivism or esoterism and a marked sense of humour. These are fanciful, imaginative masterpieces of narrative preaching—rather long by modern standards 49

For a survey of current opinions, s e e j . A. Overman, "Homily Form (Hellenistic and Early Christian)", The Anchor Bible Dictionary, III (New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 280-82; M. Sachot, "Homilie", RAC, X V (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1994), cols. 148-75 (with a full bibliography on cols. 172-75). These articles need to be rewritten, at least in part. 50 Philonis Judaei paralipomena Armena [sic], ed. J. B. Aucher (Auigereanc') (Venice: San Lazzaro, 1826), pp. 549-612 (Armenian Text with Latin trans.). An only Armenian re-edition of De Iona was done by H. Lewy, The Pseudo-Philonic De Jona, part I (no more published) (Studies and Documents, 7; London: Christophers, 1936). In quoting De Iona, we use Lewy's paragraph numbers; De Sampsone is quoted according to the (not numbered) paragraphs of Aucher's edition. 51 Besides this, there were emotional factors at work. A century ago, a professor as influential as Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff discarded Jacob Freudenthal's stimulating analyses of Hellenistic Jewish writings (including our texts) in order to promote the Cynic philosopher Teles (3rd century BC!) as a model for Christian public communication. For details, see Siegert, Hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten, II, p. 2. 52 Hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten, I (WUNT, 20; Tübingen: Mohr, 1980). The third "sermon" counted in this tide is a fragment from Philo (De Deo), the oral character of which has been contested and is no longer defended by the present writer. Another fragment of half a page, also dealing with Jonah, will be mentioned below, IX.

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(about 30 printed pages each), but never tiresome. Their author is an expert of the grand style, even more than the author of 3 Maccabees (with which there are notable parallels of language and imagery) and more than Philo. Its copia verborum is evident, and the use of various flourishes and prose rhythms can be proved even though the transmitted text is only a translation. (Fortunately, it is a mechanical one, a kind of linguistic mimicry.) Quotations from Scripture (i.e., Septuagint) 53 are rare, due perhaps to the low stylistic level of the Septuagint version. 54 There is one reference to a previous reading of the text to the community (De Iona 67). Unlike Philo, this preacher does not use allegorical hermeneutics. He is all the more successful in the rhetorical amplification of his text. His difference from Rabbinical midrash lies inter alia in the very skilled psychological observation and motivation to the characters'— and even God's—behaviour. Every detail in Scripture is made plausible, except those which the orator tacitly omits (e.g., many of Samson's curious exploits among the Philistines). The sermons are rich in ethos and pathos passages. De Iona relies more on the former, and De Sampsone on the latter: curiously, De Iona advocates openness towards heathens, Jonah's warning of the Ninevites being a sign of God's general philanthropy, whereas in De Sampsone the αλλόφυλοι (this is the Philistines' name in the LXX) deserve no compassion whatsoever. O n e of the sermons, De Sampsone, bears in its transmitted tide the notice that it has been improvised: the Armenian term 55 corresponds to αυτοσχέδιος or αύτοσχεδίαστος (λόγος). This is quite plausible if we take account of the highly developed art of rhetorical improvization in all of classical antiquity. There are some inconsistencies in De Sampsone itself and a certain lack of structure which may be typical of improvizing. 56 As is the rule in most of ancient religious discourse, no reference is made to the hearers' historical situation. In antiquity a good sermon was not an attempt at speaking "concretely" in the modern sense of

53

In the case of De Sampsone, the text vacillates between the versions of codex A and codex B. No account is taken of the Hebrew original. 54 Quoting Homer, as is immensely often done in Hellenistic literature, yields quite a different sound! The texts should not be read, but heard. 55 aranc' patrastowt'ean. 56 For details, see my commentary in Hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten, II, pp. 38-39. On improvizing in Christian homilies, see IX, below.

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the term; it was rather a music of words that moved one away as much as possible from everyday concerns. The pseudo-Philonic sermons propagate their message by means of Greek notions and values. In De Iona it is God's philanthropy and the ineluctable constraint of his vocation; in De Sampsone it is the virtue of temperance (!) and of righteousness that the hero illustrates by his life. However, the speaker admits that of the six spiritual gifts of Isa. 11:2 his hero only received wisdom and strength (De Sampsone 24). There is no apocalyptic material in these sermons, but a strong emphasis on natural theology and on Providence, which ranks the preacher among the upper class.57 There is no jurisprudence either, as in most of Philo's exegeses and in Rabbinic literature. Instead, the imagery of the Greek Heracles legends penetrates the account of Jonah's adventure in the sea monster and the other account of Samson's prowess. The conceptual framework is largely Stoic: it consists of God's providence and philanthropy, the notion of a cosmic polis, the notion of σωτηρία meaning "preservation" (rather than "rescue"), and other elements in the domain of ethics. In De Sampsone 9 - 1 1 there is a curious reflection on the angel's way of communicating with Samson's timid father Manoah. Using a rhetorical notion, the preacher extols the έπιείκεια ("mildness, fairness, condescension") of the heavenly messenger. Outside Armenian literature there are no traces of an impact of these two masterpieces of synagogal eloquence. But against the background of Philo's and Josephus's descriptions of synagogue worship (cf. V above) they are what can be expected. One may wonder where the preacher got his excellent training, since we do not know of any ancient Jewish school of rhetoric. We may wonder even more where he got his practice, because nearly all opportunities of speaking in public would involve compromises with polytheism. Wealthy Jewish families probably resorted to private teachers.

VIII.

P A N E G Y R I C A L S E R M O N IN T H E

CHURCH

We noted already (IV above) that there was little opportunity for Christian missionaries' public oratory in Apostolic or post-Apostolic times. It had no Sitz im Leben. Peter proclaiming the gospel in Solomon's 57

For this sociological point of view see M. Hengel, "Messianische Hoffnung und politischer 'Radikalismus' in der 'jüdisch-hellenistischen Diaspora'", in D. Hellholm

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Colonnades (Acts 3:11-4:4; cf. 5:12)58 was impeded, and Paul's efforts to do the same on the Areopagus—a rare occasion—met with a failure. Synagogues were notoriously reluctant. The School of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9-10) in Ephesus gave Paul some relief. From his letters we may imagine the way he explained the new doctrine in such a setting; it was the typical situation of diatribe, but not the one of public oratory. Christian mission was not so much a public event as a naive reading of the Acts of the Apostles would have us believe.59 There is no means of knowing what Apollos's teaching in the synagogue of Ephesus (Acts 18:24—25)—certainly not a modest building—was like. The first documents of formal Christian oratory appear from 160/70 onwards. These are the following: Melito On the Passah (Περι Πάσχα)60 is a panegyric of ca. 30 pages in rhythmical prose, rich in rhymes and other effects. Stylistically it is very typical of "Asianic" oratory: there are no periods in the classical sense;61 instead, there are hammering repetitions of short structures (cola). This speech was destined for the celebration of the (quartodeciman) Easter night. It is clearly for oral delivery; so one might wonder where late second-century Asian Christians got a hall large enough to celebrate their rite with a formal encomium. Its content recalls and amplifies the Exodus event by a host of allegorical and typological associations. Its very emotional style leads up to treating the execution of Jesus as a "murder" (φόνος, 96).62 Other panegyrics by Melito have been preserved in fragmentary form. 63 (ed.), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983), pp. 655-86, esp. p. 666. 58 Cf. Jesus disputing with Jews in the same locality, John 10:22ff. 59 See Siegert, "Mass Communication". 60 The 4th century papyrus belonging to the Chester Beatty collection was first edited by C. Bonner, The Homily on the Passion (Studies and Documents, 12; London, Christophers, 1940), with ET; more recent and more complete editions are: Méliton de Sardes: Sur la Pâque et fragments (ed. O. Perler; SC, 123; Paris: Cerf, 1966); Melito of Sardis, On Pascha and Fragments: Texts and Translations (ed. by S. G. Hall; OECT; Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979). 61 A "period" as it is cultivated by the Attic orators is a long and well-balanced sentence, variegated by different means of co-ordination and subordination. Christian examples for its "Asianic" counterpart are given by O. Perler in the Introduction to his edition, Méliton de Sardes, p. 27. 62 The moral overtone of ό θεός πεφόνευται (96) is anything but innocent: it is one more step towards the medieval accusation of the Jews being "murderers of God". 63 Frs. 9-11 (Hall's edn.) are in the same style as On the Passah. The longest fragment, entided On soul and body (nr. 13 Hall = pp. 86-96 [ET], cf. pp. xxxivxxxvii) has only been transmitted in Syriac, Coptic and Georgian translations and adaptations. They will be the subject of a major publication by Gregor Worst.

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For the present purpose it may be noted that Melito's marked hostility towards the Jews tends to conceal the fact that he is deeply indebted to them, as a theologian no less than as an orator. T h e same holds true for the fragment of a similar harangue which has been transcribed on the margin of the New Testament codex 1739 at Acts 7:51.64 Ps.-Hippolytus On the Epiphany (Εις τα αγία θεοφάνεια)65 is a casual sermon for a baptism, based on the pericope of the baptism of Jesus (Matt. 3:13-17). Prose rhythms and other embellishments are regularly used. The hermeneutic of this piece is similar to that of Melito. In the Latin church the oldest existing panegyric may be an Adversus Iudaeos66 attributed to Cyprian of Carthage. This is a counterpart of Melito's Passah speech, maybe its conscious imitation. Its contents and tendency are very similar, and its style is nearly identical to that of Melito, though less accomplished. The piece is rather short and probably incomplete. It may be dated about AD 200. Adolf Harnack believed the oldest Latin sermon was the invective Against Dice Players (Adversus aleatores) and re-edited it as a piece of the late second century. 67 The language of the text is not vulgar Latin, 64 G. Zuntz, "A Piece of Early Christian Rhetoric in the New Testament Manuscript 1739", JTS 47 (1946), pp. 69-74; reissued in the author's Opuscula Selecta (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972), pp. 284-90. The fragment consists of 14 cola, two of which are biblical quotations. Zuntz is inclined to date it in Melito's day; stylistically it is an even less developed example of Christian Asianism. 65 Text edited by H. Achelis in Hippolytus: Werke, 1.2 (GCS; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1897), pp. 255-63. Norden's doubts about authorship (Kunstprosa, II, p. 547) are due to the fact that he has no knowledge of the ps.-Philonic sermons and of the Melito papyri. His chronology needs to be readjusted. 66 Note that this kind of title is due to the conventions of ancient librarians. Edition Pseudo-Cyprian, Adversus Iudaeos, Gegen die Judenchristen, die älteste lateinische Predigt (ed. D. van Damme; Paradosis, 22; Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitätsverlag, 1969). Van Damme's assertion (pp. 31 and 88) that it was a sermon on a pericope of the Latin Diatessaron is clearly wrong: he himself gives as textual basis Matt. 21:3346/22:1-14, i.e. two parables which follow one another in Matthew, but not in the Diatessaron. The Lukan influences need a different explanation. 67 Der pseudocyprianische Tractat De aleatonbus, die älteste erhaltene lateinische christliche Schrift, ein Werk des Bischofs Victor I (saec. II.) (TU, 5:1; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1888). For a discussion of this much contested attribution, see Harnack himself in his Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius (vol. 2.2; 2nd edn.; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1958 [repr. from the 1904 edn.]), pp. 370-81. Note that Harnack does not inquire into the rhetorical quality of the text; he constandy terms it a "tractate". In vol. 1.2 of his Geschichte (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1958 frepr. from the 1893 edn.]), p. 719, he calls it simultaneously a Schüft (Predigt). As to the date, Hugo (Hal) Koch more probably places the text in the 3rd century AD because it presupposes the genuine writings of Cyprian: see his Cyprianische Untersuchungen (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 4; Bonn: Marcus/Weber 1926), pp. 77-78.

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but corrupt rhetorical Latin, and there are clear traces of Asianism. T h e frequent quotations from biblical and apocryphal literature, however, are a Christian feature which does not conform with classical standards of the grand style. (It does not conform with the canonical Bible either.) We may call the text a "hortatory address"; it lies somewhere between 2 Clement and Melito. Let us come back to Greek examples. At the end of the Epistle to Diognetus68 (11-12), the peroratio of an anonymous speech has been attached whose speaker qualifies himself as a disciple of the Aposdes and his activity as όμιλείν (11 at the beginning). His style is marked by "Asianic" short cola, rhymes, and prose rhythms. The verb όμιλείν obviously does not refer to a "homily" in the sense defined here (III above), but to oral delivery. Diogn. 11:5 gives a clue as to the original liturgical setting in the feast of Epiphany. From the writings of Clement of Alexandria (who died before AD 215) we may mention Quis dives sahetur, a sermon covering about 30 printed pages. 69 Its proem resembles in content and terminology 70 the one of De Iona. In the following exposition of Mark 10:17-31, however, there is much quoting, mosdy from the New Testament, and the stylistic ambition ceases to some extent. The diction comes near to that of the New Testament episdes or to that of an exegetical homily (cf. IX below). Later on, the Church Fathers' volumes abound with panegyrics to celebrate Christian feasts or Saints. John Chrysostom, Severian of Gabala, the Cappadocian Fathers, Basilius of Seleucia and many others were trained rhetors—not to speak of their Latin counterparts, especially Augustine. It is a significant fact that in the fourth century AD, the Antiochian rhetor Libanius, a notorious gentile, had the pagan Eunapius as pupil, as well as the son of the Jewish patriarch and Christians like J o h n Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus. Later

68 The Epistle to Diognetus: The Greek Text with Introduction, Translation and Notes (ed. H. G. Meecham; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1949). Another ET by J. A. Kleist in ACW, VI (New York/Ramsey, NJ: Newman, 1948), pp. 125-47, 210-11 (notes), an older one by K. Lake in The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1912-13), II, pp. 347-79. 69 Clemens Alexandrinus, Werke, III (ed. Ο. Stählin; GCS; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909), pp. 159-91. 70 Clement begins his sermon by comparing himself negatively with "those who gratify the rich with panegyrical speeches" (εγκωμιαστικοί λόγοι). In this proem, at least, he rivals them by intricate syntax and frequent prose rhythms.

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441

on, Jewish culture divorced from Hellenism, whereas Christian culture, being associated with political power, did not.

I X . J E W I S H AND C H R I S T I A N

HOMILY

In III above we defined "homily" as an address to an audience with which the speaker is familiar. Its antecedents are dialogues on an intellectual level. In Ps.-Plutarch, Minos, king of Crete, "spoke" with Zeus (όμιλείν) in order to obtain the wisdom required for his legislation; the text goes on: ή δ'ομιλία νόμων μάθησιςήν ("their conversation was learning jurisprudence"). 71 In one of Plutarch's genuine treatises Minos is called a ομιλητής και μαθητής of the Great God. 72 The Letter of Aristeas, a second century BC Jewish pseudepigraphon already cited, gives a literary example of such a "conversation" in 128-171 : A group of visitors to Jerusalem receive some teaching by the High Priest. These paragraphs are marked by considerable hermeneutical efforts to get a symbolic meaning for awkward food and purity laws. There is no stylistic ambition; the text meets perfecdy with the definition of diatribe. In fact, it is a diatribe conveying religious doctrine in a sacred place (but not during a service). We may easily imagine similar efforts in ancient synagogue services where there was a need to make the Torah lessons understandable and acceptable to a public composed of Jews and heathens (the socalled God-fearers). For the Christian Church, the scene of Luke 24:14-49 73 became a model of "homiletics". The oldest surviving texts, however, which might be called a homily are reminiscent of the hortatory ("paraenetic") conclusions of the Pauline letters. Justin Martyr (1 Apol. 65-67) and Tertullian (Apol. 39) mention "exhortations" (δια λόγου νουθεσία, exhortationes) as a part of the Christian worship. A much quoted example is the so-called 2 Clement (2nd century AD),74 chs. 1-18. It is a moral exhortation, in Greek, abounding with 71

Ps.-Plutarch, De Homero (ed. J. F. Kindstrand; Leipzig: Teubner, 1990), § 175. Plut. MOT. 776E, quoting Ps.-Pl. Minos 319D, which is a comment on Od. 19:179. 73 Note the verb όμιλείν in w . 14 and 15. The scene ends up in a private house. 74 ET by C. C. Richardson in the Library of Christian Classics, I (Philadelphia, London: Westminster Press, 1953), pp. 183-202; cf. The Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (ed. T. W. Crafer; London: SPCK, 1921) and Lake, Apostolic Fathers, I, pp. 123-63. Critical study: K. P. Donfried, The Setting of Second Clement in Early Christianity (NovTSup, 38; Leiden: Brill, 1974). 72

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biblical quotations (Old Testament and New Testament), but devoid of rhetoric. It is structured by associations; there is no main text discernible. Chs. 19-20 o f t h a t "episde" have led to confusion, since 19:1 speaks of a delivery of that exhortation (literally intercession, εντευξις) by reading. But both of these chapters are clearly an appendix made for the repeated use of the text. 75 A sub-species of homily is exegetical homilies, or homilies in the narrower sense of the term. 76 Once again we have to speak of a Jewish innovation. Philo was proud of the diligence with which a synagogue teacher would "expound point by point" the holy laws: καθ'εκαστον έξηγείται.77 Christian exegesis in all its facets is nothing but Jewish exegesis modified by the new hermeneutical viewpoints that derived from the unique role of Christ. 78 Along with Ps.-Philo's De Iona, another Jewish fragment bearing the same title has been transmitted which may be cited here. 79 It is remarkable for quoting Jon. 1:8, 1:11 and 1:12 in the space of half a page. If all of this speech followed the biblical text as closely, it may count as an early—or even the earliest—example of an exegetical homily. Other "homilies" by Christian scholars and bishops, especially Origen and J o h n Chrysostom, are nothing but a running commentary, taken down in shorthand from oral delivery. Being a kind of diatribe, they do not affect the grand style, except perhaps in the proem. Catechesis and liturgical sermon become undisdnguishable. At other occasions, such as Saints' days and Christian feasts, John Chrysostom is able to use all the resources of the grand style and to deliver a formal panegyric.

75 See Siegert, Hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten, II, pp. 17-18 and above, II, as to exceptional situations in which a speech would be read. Such a change of the Sitz im Leben and of the text type alike is nothing exceptional if we compare it with the conversion of (Pauline and other) letters into parts of Sacred Scripture. 76 According to E. Öffner, Der Zweite Klemensbrief, Moralerziehung und Moralismus in der ältesten christlichen Moralpredigt (Diss. University of Erlangen-Nürnberg 1976/1982), p. 56, this definition is due to Philipp Melanchthon. 77 See the quotation from his Hypothetica, section V, above. 78 On these, cf. 2 Cor. 3:12-18. 79 P. 612 in Aucher's edn.; cf. Siegert, Hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten, I, pp. 49-50 and II, pp. 51-52, 227-29.

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As to the art of improvization, already mentioned with reference to the synagogue (De Sampsone), there are clear traces of it in Christian sources too. We may conveniendy conclude this account by citing the scene transmitted in Origen's homily on the witch at Endor (1 Sam. 28:3-25). 80 Four pericopae have been read, and Origen asks the bishop which pericope to choose for an exposition. The bishop gives a sign, and Origen begins with the Endor pericope. This is a difficult text indeed; yet it should be said that it was much discussed at that period. Origen had solutions to the exegetical problems in his mind; he proposes them by improvizing much in the style of Clement of Alexandria's Quis dives salvetur. Much of Origen's and others' homilies (όμιλίαι, tractatus)81 may be due to similar situations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Norden, Ε., Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jh. v. Chr. bis in die Zeit der Renaissance (2 vols.; 7th edn. [reprint of the 2nd and 3rd edn. of 1909 and 1915]; Darmstadt: Wissenschafdiche Buchgesellschaft, 1974). Schneider, C., Geistesgeschichte des antiken Christentums, II (Munich: Beck, 1954). Siegert, F., Drei hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten: Ps.-Philon, "Über Jona", "Über Simson" und "Über die Gottesbezeichnung 'wohltätig verzehrendes Feuer'". I. Übersetzung aus dem Armenischen und sprachliche Erläuterungen (WUNT, 20; Tübingen: Mohr, 1980). , Drei hellenistisch-jüdische Predigten: Ps.-Philon, "Über Jona", "Über Jona" (Fragment) und "Über Simson". II. Kommentar nebst Beobachtungen zur hellenistischen Vorgeschichte der Bibelhermeneutik (WUNT, 61; Tübingen: Mohr, 1992). , "Mass Communication and Prose Rhythm in Luke-Acts", in S. Ε. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1993), pp. 42-58. , et al. (trans.), Pseudo-Philon, Panégyriques synagogaux. Sur Jonas, Sur Samson (SC, 435; Paris: Cerf, in preparation). Stowers, S. K., The Diatribe and Paul's Utter to the Romans (SBLDS, 57; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981). , "Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching: The Circumstances of Paul's Preaching Activity", NovT 26 (1984), pp. 59 82.

80 A recent edition is Origene, Eustazio, Gregorio di Nissa, IM Maga di Endor (ed. M. Simonetti; Biblioteca patristica, 15; Florence: Nardini, 1989). 81 On other text types used by Origen, see n. 4, above.

CHAPTER 14

THE RHETORIC OF ROMANCE Ronald F. Hock University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

The ancient romances, long neglected and frequendy despised by classical specialists, are now attracting the attention of ever increasing numbers of scholars. In fact, the romances have become "one of the hottest properties in town", 1 as E. L. Bowie and S.J. Harrison put it in their review of scholarship on the ancient novel over the last twenty five years.2

I . T H E A N C I E N T R O M A N C E S AND R E L A T E D

FICTION

The romances, to put it briefly, are typically stories about two extraordinarily beautiful young people who fall in love, but who, before they can live happily ever after, must overcome various temptations, hardships, and humiliations. 3 Five such stories have survived intact 1 E. L. Bowie and S.J. Harrison, "The Romance of the Novel", JRS 83 (1993), pp. 159-78 (quotadon on p. 159). 2 For their excellent review of this scholarship, see Bowie and Harrison, "Romance", esp. pp. 161-66. Current scholarship is regularly collected, and often annotated, in G. Schmeling's indispensable The Petronian Society Newsletter (=PSN), now in its twenty-fifth year. B. P. Reardon is preparing a comprehensive review of scholarship, to be published in Lustrum and due out in 1995 or 1996 (see Bowie and Harrison, "Romance", p. 161). 3 The best single volume introduction to the romances is usually considered to be T. Hägg, The Novel in Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). But two recent volumes deserve mendon: J. R. Morgan and R. Stoneman (eds.), Greek Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context (New York: Roudedge, 1994), and N. Holzberg, The Ancient Novel· An Introduction (New York: Roudedge, 1995). Among earlier accounts, see esp. E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer (3rd edn.; Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1914); Β. Ε. Perry, The Ancient Romances: A Literary-Historical Account of their Origins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967); and B. P. Reardon, Courants littéraires grecs des II' et III' siècles après J.-C. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1971), pp. 309403. For short introductions, see B. P. Reardon, "The Greek Novel", Phoenix 23 (1969), pp. 291-309, and E. L. Bowie, "The Greek Novel", in P. Easterling and B. Knox

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and are readily available now in English in a single volume, Collected Ancient Greek Novels, edited by B. P. Reardon. 4 The earliest romance is Chariton's Callirhoe, which was composed during the middle or late first century AD.5 T h e second century, which T . Hägg has called "the great century of this genre", 6 supplies three more romances: Xenophon of Ephesus's Ephesian Tale, from the early second century; 7 Achilles Tadus's Leuappe and Clitophon, from mid century; 8 and Longus's Daphnis and Chloe, from late in the second century. 9 Later still is Heliodorus's Ethiopian Story, which is dated either to the mid-third century or, more likely, to the fourth. 10

(eds.), The Cambridge History of Classical literature. I. Greek literature ( New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 683-99. 4 See B. P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 5 For dating Chariton to the mid-first century, see K. Plepelits (ed. and trans.), Chanton von Aphrodisias, Kallirhoe (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersmann, 1976), pp. 4—9. For a late first or early second century dating, see C. Ruiz-Montero, "Aspects of the Vocabulary of Chariton of Aphrodisias", CQ. 41 (1991), pp. 484 89. For the text of this romance, see W. Blake (ed.), Charitonis Aphrodisiensis de Chaereas et Callirhoe Amatorium Narrationum libri octo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938). This text is long out-of-date, but new editions are, or soon will be, available. The Budé has been recendy revised by A. Billault (ed. and trans.), Chariton, Le Roman de Chairéas et Callirhoe (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1989), and a Teubner edidon by B. P. Reardon is announced (see Bowie and Harrison, "Romance", pp. 161-62). In addition, a LCL edition by G. P. Goold is now available: Chariton, Callirhoe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). For a survey of the issues regarding Chariton's romance, see C. Ruiz-Montero, "Chariton von Aphrodisias: Ein Uberblick", ANRW 11.34:2 (1994), pp. 1006-54. 6 Hägg, Novel, p. 20. 7 On the dating of Xenophon's romance, see H. Gärtner, "Xenophon von Ephesos", RE 9A2 (1967), cols. 2055-89, esp. 2086-87. The text of this romance used in this study is A. Papanikolaou (ed.), Xenophontis Ephesii Ephesiacorum libri V de Amoribus Anthiae et Abrocomae (Leipzig: Teubner, 1973). For a survey of the issues regarding Xenophon's romance, see, besides Gärtner's standard article, C. RuizMontero, "Xenophon von Ephesos: Ein Überblick", ANRW 11.34:2 (1994), pp. 10881138. 8 On the dating of Achilles Tatius's romance, which was once assigned to the late second century (so, for example, Reardon, Courants, p. 334 n. 56), see now W. H. Willis, "The Robinson-Cologne Papyrus of Achilles Tatius", GRBS 31 (1990), pp. 73-102, who says that the papyrus fragments require a date "no later than the middle of the second century" (p. 76). The text of this romance used in this study is J.-P. Garnaud (ed.), Achille Tatius d'Alexandrie, Le Roman de Leucippé et Clitophon (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1991). 9 On Longus's date, see R. L. Hunter, A Study of Daphnis and Chloe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 3-15. The text of this romance used in this study is M. D. Reeve (ed.), Longus, Daphnis et Chloe (2nd edn.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1986). New editions by E. Bowie and J. R. Morgan are in preparation (see PSN 23 [1993], p. 14). 10 Scholars have tended to favor the fourth century over the third (see, for example, Reardon, Courants, p. 334 n. 57, and G. Sandy, Heliodorus [Boston: Twayne, 1982],

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In addition to these complete romances, many other romances are known in part—some merely by title," others through later summaries, 12 and still others in fragmentary form on papyrus from the sands of Egypt.13 Thanks especially to the papyrus discoveries, the number of romances is now over twenty and will undoubtedly continue to grow. Unfortunately, however, these papyrus fragments are too small to provide anything but glimpses of the characters and plots involved, although enough remains to suggest a diversity in theme, style, and taste in ancient fiction that would not be apparent without them. 14 This diversity has prompted scholars to view the five extant romances less in isolation as a distinct genre and more "as a member of a large and various family of fictional genres". 15 Consequently, many other examples of fiction, more or less similar to the romances, are now placed alongside the standard romances for purposes of comparison and analysis. T h e Reardon volume, for example, includes pseudo-Lucian's The Ass, Lucian's True Story, and pseudo-Callisthenes' Alexander Romance,16 But this list is far from complete, as Reardon himself readily admits,17 since one would surely include the Latin

pp. 1-5), and recendy their position has been decisively upheld by G. W. Bowersock, Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 48-50. The text used in this study is I. Bekker (ed.), Heliodori Aethiopicorum hbn decern (Leipzig: Teubner, 1855). The best introduction to the issues involved with this longest and most sophisticated romance is through a series of articles by J. R. Morgan; see esp. "History, Romance, and Realism in Heliodorus", Class.Ant. 1 (1982), pp. 221 — 65; "A Sense of the Ending: The Conclusion of Heliodoros' Aithiopika", TAPA 119 (1989), pp. 299-320; "The Story of Knemon in Heliodorus' Aithiopika", JHS 109 (1989), pp. 99-113; and "Reader and Audiences in the Aithiopika of Heliodoros", GCN 4 (1992), pp. 85-103. 11 See, for example, the reference to Araspes the Lover of Pantheia, ascribed by some to the sophist Dionysius of Miletus, in Philostr. KS1 524, on which see Perry, Romances, pp. 168-69. For others, see Rohde, Der griechische Roman, pp. 346-48. 12 See, for example, the summary of The Wonders beyond Thüle in Phot. Bib I. 166 (2:140-49 Henry), translated in Reardon (ed.), Greek Novels, pp. 775-82. 13 The most important fragments of romances are translated in Reardon (ed.), Greek Novels, pp. 799-827: Ninus, A Phoenician Story, Metiochus and Parthenope, Iolaus, Sesonchosis, Herpyllis, Chione, and Calligone. See also R. Kussl (ed.), Papyrusfragmente griechischer Romane (Tübingen: Narr, 1991), and S. A. Stevens and J.J. Winkler (eds.), Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 14 On the diversity of fiction documented by the papyrus discoveries, see G. Sandy, "New Pages of Greek Fiction", in Morgan and Stoneman (eds.), Greek Fiction, pp. 130-45, esp. pp. 144-45. 15 See J. R. Morgan, "Introduction", in Morgan and Stoneman (eds.), Greek Fiction, pp. 1-9, esp. pp. 4—9 (quotation from p. 9). 16 See Reardon (ed.), Greek Novels, pp. 589-620, 621-49, and 650-735. 17 See further Reardon (ed.), Greek Novels, pp. 3-5.

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version of The Ass, namely Apuleius's Metamorphoses.'8 In addition, there are epistolary novels like The Letters of Chion,19 pastoral narratives like Dio Chrysostom's so-called Hunters of Euboea (= Or. 7:1-80), 20 popular works like The Life of Aesop,21 not to mention various examples of Jewish and early Christian fiction.22 For the purposes of this study, however, it is impracticable to include such an expansive list of fiction. Consequently, the focus will be on the rhetoric of the five extant romances, with reference to the fragments and related forms of fiction brought in where appropriate.

II.

S C H O L A R S H I P ON THE

ROMANCES

T h e romances may well be one of the hottest properties in town, as has been noted, but the rhetoric of the romances is not one of the hot topics. 23 Interest, instead, centers on literary analysis, as Bowie and Harrison recognize: "Scholars . . . have started to take the novels seriously as literature".24 Consequently, sustained and sophisticated analyses have been appearing with regularity which investigate the romances for their literary allusions, literary structure and style, and narrative technique 25 as well as for their construction of love that 18

See G. Sandy, "Apuleius' Metamorphoses and the Ancient Novel", ANRW 11.34:2 (1994), pp. 1511-74. 19 On Chion, see D. Konstan and P. Mitsis, "Chion of Heraclea: A Philosophical Novel in Letters", Apeiron 23 (1990), pp. 257-79, and P. Rosenmeyer, "The Epistolary Novel", in Morgan and Stoneman (eds.), Greek Fiction, pp. 146-65, esp. pp. 152-62. 20 See D. A. Russell (ed.), Dio Chrysostom: Orations VII, XII, XXXVI (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 29-61 (text) and pp. 109-58 (commentary). 21 See N. Holzberg, "Ein vergessener griechischer Schelmenroman: Die fikdonale Äsop-vita des 2 / 3 Jahrhunderts", Anregung 38 (1992), pp. 390-403. 22 For excellent surveys, see L. M. Wills, "The Jewish Novellas", and R. I. Pervo, "Early Christian Fiction", in Morgan and Stoneman (eds.), Greek Fiction, pp. 223-38 and pp. 239-54 respectively. 23 A perusal of any issue of PSN in, say, the last ten years will clearly demonstrate how rare are articles, much less monographs, on rhetoric and romance. 24 Bowie and Harrison, "Romance", p. 159 (my italics). 25 T o cite but a few outstanding examples of literary analysis: G. Anderson, The Novel in the Graeco-Roman World (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1984); B. P. Reardon, The Form of Greek Romance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); and J. N. O'Sullivan, Xenophon of Ephesus: His Compositional Technique and the Birth of the Novel (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995) (non vidi; cf. PSN 25 [1995], p. 12). An earlier and influential literary study is T. Hägg, Narrative Technique in Ancient Greek Romances: Studies of Chariton, Xenophon Ephesius, and Achilles Tatius (Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen, 1971).

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distinguishes the romance from other forms of literature. 26 Besides literary concerns, scholars are also turning to sociological ones, given the increasing recognition of the romances as products of their society. Accordingly, scholars are searching the novels for data about the social and economic history of the early Roman empire. 27

III.

R H E T O R I C AND

ROMANCE

A. Previous Scholarship The situation is very different, however, when it comes to seeing the romances as a part of the intellectual life of the early empire. Scholarly interest here is sporadic and superficial. T o be sure, scholars have long recognized that the romances were mostly written at a time when Greek literature and especially Greek rhetoric were the dominant academic disciplines, a period we still call, as it was then, the Second Sophistic.28 E. Rohde, for example, saw the authors of romances as drawing directly on their experiences in rhetorical school, 26

See D. Konstan, Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). See also P. Toohey, "Love, Lovesickness, and Melancholia", ICS 17 (1992), pp. 265-86. 27 Scholars have long recognized the value of the romances for social and economic history. See, for example, A. Scarcella, "Les structures socio-économiques du roman de Xénophon d'Éphèse", REG 90 (1977), pp. 249-62; F. Millar, "The World of the Golden Ass", JRS 101 (1981), pp. 63-75; S. Said, "La société rurale dans le roman grec; ou, la campagne vue de la ville", in E. Frézouls (ed.), Sociétés urbaines, sociétés rurales dans l'Asie Mineure et la Syrie hellénistiques et romaines (Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1987), pp. 149-71; H. Kloft, "Imagination und Realität: Verlegungen zur Wirtschaftsstruktur des Romans Daphnis und Chloe", GCN 2 (1989), pp. 45-61; C. Ruiz-Montero, "Cariton de Afrodisias y el Mundo Real", in P. Liviabella Furiani and Α. M. Scarcella (eds.), Piccolo Mondo Antico: Appunti sulle Donne, gli Amon, i Costumi, il Mondo Reale nel Romanzo Antico (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1989), pp. 107-49; M.-F. Basiez, "L'idée de noblese dans les romans grecs", DHA 16 (1990), pp. 115-28; K. Hopkins, "Novel Evidence for Roman Slavery", Ρ & Ρ 138 (1993), pp. 3-27; and B. Egger, "Women and Marriage in the Greek Novels: The Boundaries of Romance", in J. Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 260-80. 28 For the term, see Philostr. FS 480-81. On the Second Sophistic, see G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), whose views have been modified by E. L. Bowie, "The Importance of Sophists", rCS 27 (1982), pp. 29-59. See also D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); G. Anderson, The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire (New York: Roudedge, 1993); and P.A. Brunt, "The Bubble of the Second Sophistic", BICS 41 (1994), pp. 25-52.

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pointing to the declamatory themes of suffering and love they had learned there, to the rhetorical ήθοποιίαι they used to express emotion, and to the stereotyped characters they adopted from their school readings. 29 K. Barwick denied such a direct link between romance and the classroom, but he nevertheless provided an extensive and valuable discussion of the definitions and sub-types of narrative found in rhetorical textbooks and identified the romances as belonging to sub-type διηγήματα πλασματικά. 30 And ever since scholars have continued to acknowledge the background of the Second Sophistic for the romances, so that G. Anderson can say with confidence that there is "no doubt about the association of rhetoric and romance". 31 This association is especially apparent in the standard distinction between pre-sophistic and sophistic romances. T o the latter belong those by Achilles Tatius, Longus, and Heliodorus, to the former, those by Chariton and Xenophon of Ephesus. 32 The distinction rests on several differences between these two groups, but principally on the number and complexity of the rhetorical passages that appear in the "sophistic trinity"—in particular εκφράσεις, or descriptions, and court-room speeches. This distinction, however, must not be drawn too sharply, as the differences between the two groups are more differences of degree than of kind. At any rate, scholars today point to various rhetorical features in all the romances. Anderson puts it best: "The sophistic Eros is not just quiver and arrows and a bare bottom; there is a satchel crammed with progymnasmata as well".33 And yet, despite the widespread acknowledgment of the important relation between rhetoric and the romances, little has been done to clarify this relation beyond listing various rhetorical features in the romances. Two reasons account for this situation. First, many scholars express a contempt for ancient rhetoric. The contempt begins with Rohde 34 and finds renewed expression in subsequent scholarship on the romances. J . Helms, for example, is particularly contemptuous: 29

See Rohde, Der griechische Roman, pp. 336-60. See K. Barwick, "Die Gliederung der Narratio in der rhetorischen Theorie und ihre Bedeutung fur die Geschichte des antiken Romans", Hermes 63 (1928), pp. 261-87. 31 See Anderson, Ancient Fiction, p. 43. 32 On this widely accepted distinction, see, for example, Perry, Ancient Romances, pp. 108-24, and Hägg, Novel, pp. 34-35. 33 Anderson, Second Sophistic, p. 170. 34 See Rohde, Der griechische Roman, pp. 337, 340, 353, and 356. 30

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"One can see in the romance the hand of the sophist-rhetoricians at work. . . . The romances are full of their activity: fanciful descriptions, irrelevancies, emotional arguments, pathetic outpouring of grief, innumerable thoughts of suicide, etc., and much of this clothed in longwinded, bombastic, and irrelevant speeches or monologues." 35 And others are hardly less kind, as one scholar speaks of "the regularly torturous Greek" of the many descriptions in Achilles Tatius, 36 and another lays at the rhetorician's door the "temptation to overindulgence, bad taste, and facile cliché" that so characterizes the romances. 37 Secondly, if contempt were not enough, rhetoric's perceived uselessness deters still others from investigating rhetoric in the romances more thoroughly. This uselessness derives from scholars' concern more for literary function than literary form, as is evident in S. Bartsch's monograph on descriptions in Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus. 38 T o be sure, she summarizes the discussions of εκχρρασις in the Progymnasmata and shows that the descriptions in the romances "conform well to the suggestions advanced in the handbooks", 39 but her real interest is in "the role of the novels' descriptive passages in their relation to the narratives". For this task, she concludes, the Progymnasmata "are not entirely helpful". 40 Similarly, Reardon's sustained and insightful analysis of romance only touches on rhetoric since, he claims, ancient rhetoric is not an adequate basis for literary analysis.41 T h e consequence of this contempt for rhetoric and its alleged uselessness for literary analysis is that discussions of rhetoric in the romances, even when they do occur, tend to be brief, unreliable, and content with mere identification and classification of rhetorical passages rather than with any real analysis of them. One example must suffice: Anderson gives a brief discussion of the short speeches made by Dorcon and Daphnis in hopes of receiving a kiss from Chloe as the prize (see Longus 1:16). After quoting a part of Daphnis's speech, Anderson comments as follows: 35 See J. Helms, Character Portrayal in the Romance of Chariton (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), p. 15. 36 See Reardon, Form, p. 123. 37 See Anderson, Ancient Fiction, p. 43. 38 See S. Bartsch, Decoding the Ancient Novel: The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). 39 See Bartsch, Decoding, pp. 7-13. 40 Bartsch, Decoding, p. 13. 41 See Reardon, Form, p. 153.

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T h e student of rhetoric would have been able to classify [Daphnis's reply] as a kataskeuê, a refutation-speech, demolishing the argument of Dorcon that "cowherds are better than g o a t h e r d s " , . . . and he would have been able to consider this speech and Dorcon's together as a syncrisis, a comparison exercise, between cowherd and goatherd. H e should also have been able to identify it as an adoxon: sheep and goats are normally beneath the notice of rhetoric. 42

But at this point Anderson becomes dismissive of any further rhetorical analysis when he says that such discussion "is only a matter of routine technical analysis". 43 H e then moves on to a fuller and more astute literary analysis of this passage, noting, for example, its Theocritean allusions and its being "a vital element in the plot". 44 But such a quick dismissal hardly does justice to the rhetorical dimensions of the passage. Daphnis's reply may function in the story as a refutation, although the word for "refutation" is ανασκευή, not κατασκευή. Moreover, Daphnis's speech is not, formally speaking, a refutation at all, but a σύγκρισις, or comparison, as is Dorcon's initial speech. These speeches do not use the κεφάλαια, or headings, of a refutation, but rather those of comparison, which are the same as those of yet another progymnasma: έγκώμιον, or encomium. The narrative context of the speeches is beauty (1:15:4), so that both Dorcon and Daphnis focus on comparisons of their appearance, but both also depend heavily on the encomiastic κεφάλαιον known as άνατροφή, or "upbringing". Dorcon ends his comparison of himself with Daphnis by pointing to the latter's having been nursed by a goat, supposedly to Daphnis's discredit (16:2). Daphnis, however, immediately takes up this κεφάλαιον and compares his άνατροφή with that of Zeus, turning Dorcon's slur into a reason for pride (16:3: άνέθρεψεν). He also ends his speech on this same κεφάλαιον by reminding Chloe of her similar άνατροφή, since she had been nursed by a sheep (16:5). Moreover, the speeches are hardly about an adoxon, for rural subjects were frequently selected as subjects for σύγκρισις. 45 Finally, readers would have appreciated Longus's rhetorical ability to argue both sides of an issue, composing persuasive speeches, first for Dorcon, then for Daphnis.

42

Anderson, Ancient Fiction, p. 44. Anderson, Ancient Fiction, p. 44. 44 See Anderson, Ancient Fiction, pp. 44-45 (quotation on p. 45). 45 See, for example, Nicolaus's συγκρίσεις of sailing and farming as well as of several plants: the olive tree and date-palm, the olive and grapevine, and incense and laurel (see Prog. 10 [1:365-66, 368-69, 370-71, and 372-73 Walz]). 43

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Clearly, then, sustained, sophisticated, and sympathetic analyses of rhetoric in the romances are a desideratum. Some scholars, to be sure, are delving more deeply into the subject of rhetoric in the romances, particularly into the rhetorical style of the romances and their use of progymnasmata. For example, R. Hunter notes various ways in which Longus was indebted to the rhetorical tradition, but he is especially detailed in his investigation of Longus's style, which he sees as conforming to Hermogenes' stylistic category of γλυκυτης, or sweetness;46 C. Hernandez Lara likewise investigates style, although he studies Chariton's Greek and looks to his rhetorical figures, rhythmical clausulae, and Atticizing vocabulary; 47 A. Billault focuses on the έκφράσεις of works of art in the romances and notes how they are related to the rhetorical school curriculum and to the rhetorically informed culture of the early empire, particularly its demand for a verbal response to beauty; 48 and C. Ruiz-Montero surveys Chariton's and Xenophon's use of various progymnasmata. 49 These studies, as insightful as they are, however, are only suggestive of the kind of work that needs to be done at the monographic level.50 Consequendy, only another preliminary survey is possible here. Specifically, two topics will be addressed: the pre-rhetorical and rhetorical stages of education and their influence on conventions of thought in the romances, particularly in Chariton and Xenophon of Ephesus, as they are often seen to be less influenced by rhetoric.

B. Romance and the Progymnasmata Rhetorical education began with instruction in style and composition from manuals known as Progymnasmata.5I Four such manuals are extant, 46

See Hunter, Daphnis and Chloe, pp. 92-98. See C. Hernandez Lara, "Rhetorical Aspects of Chariton of Aphrodisias", GIF 42 (1990), pp. 267-74. 48 See A. Billault, "L'inspiration des εκφράσεις d'oeuvres d'art chez les romanciers grecs", Rhetorica 8 (1990), pp. 153-60. 49 See C. Ruiz-Montero, "Cariton de Afrodisias y los Ejericios prepartorios de Elio Teôn", in L. Ferreres (ed.), Trebalts en honor de Virgilio Bejarano (Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universität de Barcelona, 1991), pp. 709-13; much the same material is repeated in her "Chariton von Aphrodisias", pp. 1041-44. For Xenophon, see her "Xenophon von Ephesus", pp. 1112-14. 50 For a model invesdgation relating rhetoric to Byzantine literature and art, see H. Maguire, Art and Eloquence in Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). 51 The best discussion of the Progymnasmata, even if focused on the Byzantine period, is that by H. Hunger in Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner (2 vols.; 47

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those by Aelius Theon of Alexandria (late first century),52 Hermogenes of Tarsus (late second century), 53 Aphthonius of Antioch (late fourth century),54 and ι licolaus of Myra (fifth century).55 These manuals contain a graded series of compositional exercises, whose number and order varied slighdy, but in their standard Aphthonian form they are fourteen, in this order: (1) μύθος (fable), (2) διήγημα (narrative), (3) χρεία (anecdote), (4) γνώμη (maxim), (5) ανασκευή (refutation), (6) κατασκευή (confirmation), (7) κοινός τόπος (general topic), (8) έγκώμιον (encomium), (9) ψόγος (vituperation), (10) σύγκρισις (comparison), (11) ήθοποιία (speech-in-character), (12) έ'κφρασις (description), (13) θέσις (thesis), and (14) νόμου εισφορά (proposal of a law). Each exercise is defined, divided into sub-types, sometimes differentiated from similar exercises, and to varying degrees provided with instructions on its structure and style, although in Aphthonius's Progymnasmata a complete sample composition for each exercise is provided. The value of these progymnasmata for reading the romances is Munich: Beck, 1978), I, pp. 92-120. See also H. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft (2nd edn.; Munich: Hueber, 1973), pp. 532-45; S. F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 250-76; and G. A. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 54—66. Cf. also R. F. Hock and Ε. N. O'Neil (eds.), The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric. I. The Progymnasmata (Adanta: Scholars Press, 1986), pp. 10-22. 52 For the text, see C. Walz (ed.), Rhetores Graeci (9 vols.; Tübingen: Cottae, 183236), I, pp. 145-257, or L. Spengel (ed.), Rhetores Graeci (3 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1853-56), II, pp. 59-130. Subsequent references to Theon will be to Walz's edition. On Theon, see W. Stegemann, "Theon (5)", RE 5A (1934), cols. 2037-54. Cf. also Hock and O'Neil, Progymnasmata, pp. 63-66. 53 For the text, see H. Rabe (ed.), Hermogenis Opera (Rhetores Graeci, 6; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1913), pp. 1-27. English translation in C. Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (New York: Macmillan, 1928), pp. 232-38. On Hermogenes, see H. Rabe, "Nachrichten über das Leben des Hermogenes", RhM 62 (1907), pp. 247-62, and L. Radermacher, "Hermogenes (22)", RE 8 (1912), cols. 865-77. Cf. also Hock and O'Neil, Progymnasmata, pp. 155-60. 54 For the text, see H. Rabe (ed.), Aphthonii Progymnasmata (Rhetores Graeci, 10; Leipzig: Teubner, 1926), pp. 1-51. English translation in P.P. Matsen et al. (eds.), Readings from Classical Rhetoric (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), pp. 267-88 (this translation is a revision of that by R. Nadeau in Speech Monographs 19 [1952], pp. 264-85). On Aphthonius, see J. Brzoska, "Aphthonius (1)", RE 1 (1884), cols. 2797-2800. Cf. also Hock and O'Neil, Progymnasmata, pp. 211-16. Also of value are the Byzantine commentators on Aphthonius, esp. John of Sardis and John Doxapatres; texts in H. Rabe (ed.), Ioannes Sardianus commentanum in Aphthonium (Rhetores Graeci, 15; Leipzig: Teubner, 1928), and Walz (ed.), Rhetores Graeci, II, pp. 81-564. 55 For the text, see J. Feiten (ed.), Mcolai Progymnasmata (Rhetores Graeci, 11; Leipzig: Teubner, 1913), pp. 1-79. On Nicolaus, see W. Stegemann, "Nicolaus (21)", RE 17 (1936), cols. 424-57. Cf. also Hock and O'Neil, Progymnasmata, pp. 237-39.

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immense, as knowledge of them helps us to recover some of the conventions of thought that governed both writer and reader. This knowledge is especially relevant now, given scholars' increasing appreciation of the intellectual sophistication of both groups. They are rejecting former claims about their lack of sophistication56 and emphasizing instead their extensive literary and rhetorical education. 57 Thus Reardon is correct to speak even of Chariton as "nourished on rhetorical exercises", and S. Stephens concludes that writers of romance "expected from their readers the sophistication gained from at least some rhetorical education". It is not possible to discuss all the progymnasmata here. Consequently, attention will be directed to two of the more advanced progymnasmata, since they are particularly frequent in the romances and thus demonstrate the education and erudition of writer and readers alike. The two exercises are numbers eleven and twelve in the traditional sequence: speech-in-character (ηθοποιία) and description (εκφρασις). 'Ηθοποιία occurs coundess times in the romances, as was noted long ago by Rohde. Indeed, he regarded ηθοποιία as the sophistic heart of the romances. Unfortunately, he was less interested in analyzing the form than in attacking it as being merely lovers' pathetic emotional outbursts which he saw as symptomatic of the moral and spiritual decay of the early empire. 58 Happily, scholars since Rohde have not picked up on his dire assessment, but their discussions of ηθοποιία have also been surprisingly slight for so central a form in this literary genre. T o be sure, they note its presence in the romances, 59 but progress will only occur when analysis of the examples of this progymnasma in the romances is carried out in terms of the discussions of ήθοποιία in the Progymnasmata. The Progymnasmata define ήθοποιία as an "imitation of the character of the person in question", to use Hermogenes' definition.60 Admittedly, 56

See, for example, Perry, Ancient Romances, pp. 40, 56, 98. Hägg (Novel, pp. 9 0 101) still accepts Perry's view, at least for the pre-sophistic romances. " See most recently the complementary studies of S. A. Stephens, "Who Read Ancient Novels?", and E. Bowie, "The Readership of Greek Novels in the Ancient World", in Tatum (ed.), Ancient Novel, pp. 405-18 and 435-59 respecdvely. 58 See Rohde, Der griechische Roman, pp. 353-56. 59 See, for example, Hägg, Novel, p. 107; Hunter, Daphnis and. Chloe, p. 67; and especially Ruiz-Montero, "Canton de Afrodisias", p. 712, and "Xenophon von Ephesus", p. 1112. 60 See Hermog. Prog. 9 (p. 20:7-8 Rabe). Cf. the similar definitions of Aphth. Prog. 11 (p. 34:2-3 Rabe), and Nicol. Prog. 10 (p. 64:1-3 Feiten). Theon's definition,

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this definition is concise to the point of obscurity, but its meaning becomes clear enough from the subsequent discussion, especially from the topics suggested for students to use when composing this progymnasma. Theon, for example, suggests these topics: What words a husband would say to his wife as he was about to go on a journey, and what words a general would say to his soldiers in the face of dangers. 61 In other words, ήθοποιία asks the student to capture in speech a person's character as it would be revealed in a specific circumstance. Various distinctions are drawn regarding ήθοποιίαι, but the one that is important for us is the tripartite division into those that express primarily disposition (ήθικαί), emotion (παθητικαί), or both (μικταί).62 Aphthonius illustrates these sub-types as follows: ήθικαί: what words a man of the interior would say on first seeing the sea; παθητικαί: what words Hecuba would say as Troy lay in ruins; and μικταί: what words Achilles would say over a fallen Patroclus as he decides to go to war. 63 Composing an ήθοποιία, moreover, involved following a definite structure. As early as Hermogenes we find a temporal structure, divided according to the three times in this sequence: present, past, and future. 64 Aphthonius also has this structure, 65 but Nicolaus adds a slight change, proposing this sequence: present, past, present, and future. 66 Hermogenes, as usual, only hints at what might be said for each time: the difficulties of the present situation, then a contrast with the happiness of the past, and finally a fearful anticipation of an even worse future. 67 Aphthonius, however, provides a complete model of an ήθοποιία which gives us a better indication of what

however, departs significandy, using, for example, the word προσωποποιία instead of ήθοποιία (see Prog. 10 [I, p. 234:11-13 Walz]); indeed, Theon's enure discussion of this progymnasma differs in many ways from those of the others. On this "most important of the progymnasmata" (Russell, Declamation, p. 11), see esp. Hunger, Literatur, I, pp. 108-16. 61 Theon Prog. 10 (I, p. 235:13-15 Walz). 62 See Hermog. Prog. 9 (p. 21:10-11 Rabe); Aphth. Prog. 11 (p. 35:1-2 Rabe); and Nicol. Prog. 10 (p. 64:14-15 Feiten). Theon does not have this tripartite scheme. 63 Aphth. Prog. 11 (p. 35:2-10 Rabe). 64 See Hermog. Prog. 9 (p. 21:19-20 Rabe). 65 See Aphth. Prog. 11 (p. 35:13-14 Rabe). 66 See Nicol. Prog. 10 (pp. 65:11-66:9 Feiten). 67 See Hermog. Prog. 9 (pp. 21:19-22:3 Rabe).

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might be said. His model is an emotional ήθοποιία: "What words Niobe would say as her children lay dead". 68 Finally, stylistic instructions for an ήθοποιία vary from the brief comments in Hermogenes and Aphthonius 69 to the fuller treatment in Theon. He emphasizes that language should reflect the person's age, gender, social status, role, disposition, and nationality. For example, a young person's speech should be a combination of simplicity and self-control, whereas an older man's should reflect knowledge and experience. 70 With these instructions in mind we can turn to the romances and their use of ήθοποιίαι. The ήθοποιία is an ideal progymnasma for use in the romances, given the frequency of the characters, both major and minor, to face some calamitous situation and reveal their character in speech. Consequently, the emotional ήθοποιία is especially common in the romances, and the temporal structure is frequently evident, although the narrative context sometimes makes complete conformity difficult, since information that might otherwise have been included in an independent ήθοποιία has already been supplied in the immediate narrative context. Nevertheless, various examples of ήθοποιίαι in the romances are still remarkably close to the instructions offered in the Progymnasmata. In Xenophon of Ephesus's Ephesian Tale such examples are sufficiently short for easy quotation. In one case the minor but memorable character Manto, having failed to seduce the hero Habrocomes, gets revenge by telling her father that he had attempted to rape her. She speaks to her father, using the present, past, and future structure of an ήθοποιία. She says: Father, have mercy on your daughter w h o has been humiliated by a slave. T h e seemingly chaste Habrocomes attempted to take away m y virginity, and he was being treacherous toward you as well when he said that he loved me. It is your duty, therefore, to exact a suitable punishment from him for such insolence. But if you give your daughter as a "bride" to your slaves, I will straight-off kill myself (2:5:6-7).

68 69 70

See Aphth. Prog. 11 (pp. 35:15-36:20 Rabe). See Hermog. Prog. 10 (p. 22:4-5 Rabe), and Aphth. Prog. 11 (p. 35:11-13). See Theon Prog. 8 (I, p. 236:1-16 Walz).

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In another case the heroine Anthia, faced with sale to a brothelkeeper, reflects on her situation and likewise keeps to the temporal structure of an ηθοποιία. She says: Ο my treacherous beauty! Ο my hapless figure! Why do you stay around to harass me? W h y do you continue to be the cause of so many evils to me? D i d not the burials, the murders, the chains, and the brigand dens satisfy you? S o o n I will even be standing before a brothel, and a brothelkeeper will compel me to lose the chastity that I have preserved for Habrocomes until n o w (5:5:5).

There are other ήθοποιίαι in Xenophon, not to mention the other romances, 71 but a final example from Chariton will have to suffice. In this instance the heroine Callirhoe, having been kidnapped from Syracuse and taken to Miletus, now finds herself on the way to Babylon. As she is about to cross the Euphrates River into interior Asia, she reflects on the momentous crossing and expresses herself in an ήθοποιία that once again uses the temporal sequence of present, past, and future, although, given the imminent crossing, she reflects on both the immediate future and the more distant future. She says: Baneful T y c h e , you persist in doing battle with one woman. It was you w h o locked me up in a tomb while I was still alive, and it was you w h o got me out, although it was not out of mercy but in order to deliver m e over to brigands. T h e n the sea and Theron effected my exile. I, the daughter of Hermocrates, was sold into slavery! And what is more burdensome to m e than exile is that I became the object of a man's love, in order that, although Chaereas was alive, I might be married to another. But n o w you begrudge m e even this situation, for no longer are you banishing me to Ionia, a foreign land, to be sure, but still Greek. You gave m e a land where I had a great consolation, namely, I sit beside the sea. N o w , though, you are hurling m e beyond my familiar surroundings, and I am being banished from the culture of my homeland. I a m being taken beyond the Euphrates, and I, an islander, am being shut up in a barbaric interior where there is no longer any sea. What ship sailing out of Sicily will I any longer expect to see? I will even be taken from your tomb, Chaereas. W h o will pour out libadons for you, dearly beloved? Henceforth, Bactra and Susa will be my home

71

See, for example, X.Eph. 3:5:2-4; 4:6:6-7; and 5:10:8. See also Chariton 6:6: 3-5; Ach. Tat. 4:9:4-7; and Hid. 1:8.

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and tomb. I will cross over you, Euphrates, just once. I fear not so much the length of the journey as that I might even there appear beautiful to someone (5:1:4—7).

What makes this ήθοποιία so interesting is that Chariton seems to be alluding to a well-known ήθοποιία from the schools: What words a person of the interior would say on first seeing the sea.72 Readers would no doubt realize, however, that Callirhoe's ήθοποιία is in fact a deliberate inversion of the school example and formulate her ήθοποιία as follows: What words a person of the sea would say on first entering the interior. A subtle but unmistakable reference to the rhetorical tradition that only an educated person, a πεπαιδευμένος, would have appreciated. The second progymnasma has attracted the most attention of scholars: εκφρασις, or description. Beginning with Rohde and continuing up to the present day, scholars have often cited examples of description in the romances. 73 As we have seen, Bartsch in particular has addressed the many descriptions in Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus. She challenges the usual negative assessment of the descriptions as "unimportant rhetorical trivia . . . which to our taste disfigure Leucippe and Clitophon and the Ethiopica", to cite only Reardon's view.74 Instead, Bartsch says that "the use of descriptive passages in the novels . . . should be considered against the backdrop of the rhetorical and literary practices of their own epoch, not merely dismissed from our own". 75 Accordingly, she starts her reassessment with a review of the discussions of εκφρασις in the Progymnasmata.76 Her review is cut short, however, as she soon discovers that the Progymnasmata do not address her own concern for the literary function of descriptions within the romances as a whole.77 Consequently, the discussions in the Progymnasmata are soon left behind in her analysis of the descriptions in

72 See Aphth. Prog. 11 (p. 35:5-6 Rabe). See also Hermog. Prog. 9 (p. 21:12-13 Rabe) and Doxapatres (II, p. 500:30-31 Walz). 73 Rohde, Der griechische Roman, pp. 150-52. See, for example, Anderson, Second Sophistic, pp. 144—55; Ruiz-Montero, "Chariton von Aphrodisias", p. 1043, and "Xenophon von Ephesus", p. 1112. 74 For other dismissals of descriptions, see Bartsch, Decoding, pp. 3-5. Her quotation of Reardon's view comes comes from his famous 1969 article, "Greek Novel", p. 308. His views have changed little since then (see Form, pp. 87, 110, 123, 153, 159). 75 Bartsch, Decoding, p. 6. 76 See Bartsch, Decoding, pp. 7-13. 77 See Bartsch, Decoding, p. 13.

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Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus. There is still much to learn, however, from ancient discussions of this progymnasma, particularly in terms of form. The definition of εκχρρασις does not change from Theon to Nicolaus. It is "a descriptive composition that brings what is being disclosed vividly before the eyes". 78 T h e key word here is "vividly" (έναργώς), about which Nicolaus has this comment: "The word έναργώς is added to the definition because it especially distinguishes description from narrative. Narrative provides a mere exposition of events, whereas description tries to turn auditors into spectators." 79 T h e subjects of εκφρασις are varied, and, as Bartsch points out, the romances contain examples of all of them. Aphthonius gives this list: persons, events, times, places, irrational creatures, and plants, and illustrations in the romances are not hard to find: Xenophon of Ephesus describes a person, the heroine Anthia (1:2:5-6); Chariton, an event, the burial of Callirhoe (1:6:2-5); Longus a time, the seasons of the year (1:9:1; 23:1-2; 3:3); Xenophon, a place, Anthia's and Habrocomes' bridal chamber (1:8:1), Heliodorus; an irrational animal, the giraffe (10:27:1-4); and Longus, the various plants of Dionysophanes' garden (4:2).80 Specific instructions for composing έκφράσεις are provided, too. Aphthonius says that έκφράσεις of persons should move from the head to the foot; 81 Hermogenes, that έκφράσεις of events should proceed from what happened before the event, to what happened during the event, to what consequences followed the event;82 and Theon adds that έκφράσεις of places, times, procedures, and persons might also have judgments as to their beauty, utility, or pleasure. 83 78

Theon Prog. 11 (I, p. 239:11-12 Walz); Cf. also Hermog. Prog. 10 (p. 22:8-9 Rabe); Aphth. Prog. 12 (p. 36:22-23 Rabe); and Nicol. Prog. 11 (p. 68:8-9 Feiten). On this progymnasma, see further G. Downey, "Ekphrasis", RAC 4 (1959), cols. 921-43, esp. cols. 922-32, and Hunger, Literatur, I, pp. 116-17. 79 Nicol. Prog. 11 (p. 68:9-12 Feiten). 80 Full listing for Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus in Bartsch, Decoding, pp. 12-13 n. 12. Descriptions are fewer in the other romances. See, for example, Chariton's descriptions of the burial of Callirhoe (1:6:2-5), the hunting party of King Artaxerxes (6:4:1-6), and the siege of Tyre (7:4:1-10). The fragment of Herpyllis contains a description of a storm and shipwreck (see Reardon [ed.], Greek Novels, pp. 822-23). 81 Aphth. Prog. (p. 37:9-10 Rabe). See also Nicol. Prog. 12 (p. 69:15-16 Feiten). 82 Hermog. Prog. 10 (pp. 22:19-23:1 Rabe). Hermogenes goes on to explain this sequence using the example of war: "First, we will speak about what precedes a war—the raising of an army, the expenses, and the fearful anticipation; then the engagement, the sacrifices, the deaths; and then the songs of the victors, and the tears of the defeated and their enslavement" (p. 23:1-6). 83 See Theon Prog. 11 (I, pp. 241:18-242:1 Walz).

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One example of how these instructions are reflected in the romances must suffice. Xenophon's εκφρασις of Anthia is organized around the movement from head to foot, along with an emphasis on her beauty. He says: At the head of the group of maidens was Anthia, the daughter o f Megamedes and Evippe, both of Ephesus. Anthia's beauty was something to behold and far surpassed that of the other maidens. She was fourteen years old, and her body was blooming like a flower into womanly shapeliness, and her outfit only added to her beauty. Her hair was blonde; some of it was braided, but much of it was hanging loose and moved at the stirring of the breeze. Her eyes were lively, now joyful like a young girl's, now terrifying like a chaste woman's. She was dressed in a purple tunic, girded to the knee and hanging loose over the arms, a fawnskin was wrapped around her, a quiver was fastened at her shoulder with arrows as weapons. She was carrying javelins, and dogs followed at her feet (1:2:5-6).

C. Romance and Rhetoric Once students had completed the series of progymnasmata, they were prepared to move on to rhetoric proper. At this stage students were taught the three branches of oratory: advisory (συμβουλευτικών), judicial (δικανικόν), and celebratory (έγκωμιαστικόν). Manuals of rhetoric define each branch and subdivide them into subtypes: the advisory into persuasive (προτρεπτικόν) and dissuasive (άποτρεπτικόν), the judicial into prosecution (κατηγορικόν) and defense (άπολογητικόν), and the celebratory into praise (έγκώμιον) and blame (ψόγος). Special attention is given to the parts of a speech, such as those for a judicial speech: introduction (προοίμιον), narrative (διήγησις), proof (πίστις or άπόδειξις), and conclusion (έπίλογος).84

84

In addition to the familiar rhetorical manuals—Aristode's Rhetoric, the Rhetorica ad Alexandrian, Cicero's De inventione, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, and Quintilian's Institutio oratoria, all of which are readily available in the LCL, see also the works of Hermogenes, esp. those on stasis and on style (= Hermogenis opera, pp. 28-92 and 213-413 Rabe respectively). Translation of the former in R. Nadeau, "Hermogenes on Stases: A Translation with an Introduction", Speech Monographs 31 (1964), pp. 361-424, esp. pp. 389-419; translation of the latter in C. W. Wooten (trans.), Hermogenes, On Types of Style (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987). See also the minor manuals, such as those by Apsines, the Anonymus Seguerianus, and Rufus of Perinthus, whose texts are in L. Spengel and C. Hammer (eds.), Rhetores Graeci (vol. 1, part 2; Leipzig: Teubner, 1894), pp. 217-329, 352-98, and 399-407 respectively.

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Knowledge of the branches of rhetoric as well as the instructions for composing the various parts of a speech can be assumed for the writers of romance. Indeed, what Anderson says of Achilles Tatius, namely that he "has set himself the task of making the whole rhetorical curriculum relevant to romance", 85 is true of the others as well. The evidence is varied and pervasive—various declamatory conventions, 86 stylistic preferences for Gorgianic balance and a love of antithesis and paradox, 87 and even the characterization of Eros himself as a sophist (Longus 4:18:1; cf. Ach. Tat. 5:27:4). Still, the most obvious place to recognize rhetorical conventions is in the many trials that take place in the romances. Again, Anderson: "No extant ancient novel is without some form of court-room case where school rhetoric can be practised with a vengeance." 88 He cites specifically the lengthy trials in Achilles Tatius (5:17:9-8:8:14), but even in rural Lesbos Longus has Daphnis put on trial, complete with judge, speeches for the prosecution and defense, and tears (2:15:1-16:3). But it is especially Chariton who delights in judicial settings and speeches, since he brings several of his characters to trial—Chaereas (1:5:2-6:1), Theron (3:4:7-18), and Mithridates (5:4:7-8:8). T h e last trial, that between Dionysius and Mithridates, commands our attention, as Chariton pulls no rhetorical stops in his narration of this trial, since it is central to the overall plot. T o set the scene: The trial arises because Dionysius, Callirhoe's second husband, suspects Mithridates of having designs on his wife. The suspicion arose after a letter from Chaereas to Callirhoe via Mithridates' slaves was intercepted and delivered instead to Dionysius. Dionysius presumed that Chaereas was dead, since he had helped Callirhoe construct a tomb—a cenotaph, to be sure—for him. Consequentiy, he could only conclude that Mithridates was the author of the letter and had designs

85

Anderson, Ancient Fiction, p. 46. See, for example, King Artaxerxes offering Dionysius Callirhoe as his αριστεία, or reward for military service (Chariton 7:5:15; cf. Russell, Declamation, pp. 24—27); Chaereas using the legal strategy of προσαγγελία, or self-incrimination (1:5:4-5; cf. Ach. Tat. 7:7:2-6; cf. Russell, Declamation, pp. 35-37); Mithridates raising a παραγραφή, or legal objection (Chariton 5:7:3-4; cf. Russell, Declamation, p. 38 n. 100); and Anthia seeking συγγνώμη, or a pardon because of extenuating circumstances (X.Eph. 5:7:9; 9:10; cf. Russell, Declamation, p. 59). 87 For Gorgianic style in Longus, see Hunter, Daphnis and Chloe, p. 90. For an example of antithesis, see Chariton 2:9:2-6, and Reardon, Form, pp. 156-57; for paradox, see Chariton 4:1:12, and Anderson, Second Sophistic, p. 155. 88 Anderson, Second Sophistic, p. 66. 86

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on Callirhoe as well. Dionysius communicated his suspicions to the great king, Artaxerxes, and the latter summoned both principals to Babylon for trial (see 4:4:5-6:8). Once the principals arrive in Babylon the trial takes over as the city, Chariton says, becomes one big court (5:4:4). O n the day of the trial Chariton's narrative pace slows down as he carefully describes the courtroom (5:4:5-6), the entrance of Dionysius and Mithridates (5:4:7), and the preliminary maneuvering on Mithridates' part which results in another day's delay so that Callirhoe herself might be present (5:4:8-13). On the next day the trial finally begins as Dionysius the plaintiff prosecutes Mithridates for adultery (5:6:1-10). He had gotten up early that morning to practise his speech (5:5:6), a tactic that Quintilian considers a necessity, given the expectations of judges for carefully crafted and well presented speeches (see Inst. 4:1:57). At any rate, Chariton quotes Dionysius's prosecution speech and Mithridates' defense speech in full. Both speeches deserve careful analysis, although only a beginning is possible here. Dionysius's speech, for example, has all the parts of a judicial speech (using Blake's page and line numbers for greater precision): introduction (p. 76, lines 1-19), narrative (p. 76, line 19—p. 77, line 5), proof (p. 77, lines 6-11), and conclusion (p. 77, lines 11-15). Dionysius begins his introduction, for example, as follows: "I am grateful to you, Ο King, for the honor which you have shown to me, to the virtue of self-control, and to the marriages of all. For you have not allowed a private citizen to be plotted against by a public official. Rather, you have summoned us here in order that you might avenge the lust and insolence directed against me and so prevent such behavior directed toward others" (1). Even this opening portion of the introduction prompts several rhetorical observations. Dionysius has already fulfilled the goal of an introduction, namely of securing the attention and good will of the judge. 89 The rhetorical manuals offer many ways to compose an introduction, including focusing on the judge, as Dionysius does. 90 89 On the purpose of the introduction, see, for example, Quint. Inst. 4:1:5; Ruf. Rh. 4 (pp. 399:17-400:3 Spengel-Hammer); and Anon. Seg. 5 (353:4-13 SpengelHammer). For the introduction in general, see the especially detailed discussion of Quintilian {Inst. 4:1:1-79). 90 For example, Rufus of Perinthus divides introductions into those based on persons and those based on the case before the court; five persons are identified, the judge

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The technical term for Dionysius's address to the judge is captatio benevolentiae, in which the speaker opens his speech with praise of the judge. 91 Quintilian advises, however, that this praise cannot be general but is to be ded specifically to the case (Inst. 4:1:16). Dionysius's praise conforms to this advice, as he praises specifically Artaxerxes' commitments to the virtue of self-control and to the institution of marriage, both of which are important to the charge of adultery that Dionysius will later make. More subtle but clearly deliberate is Dionysius's use of the phrase "lust and insolence" (τήν άσέλγειαν και ΰβριν) (5:6:1). This phrase comes from an introduction to a speech of Demosthenes, an introduction, moreover, that served as a model in the rhetorical manuals. 92 The other parts of Dionysius's speech deserve comment, not to mention Mithridates' speech with its dramatic use in the conclusion of calling the dead to witness (5:7:10; cf. Quint. Inst. 4:1:28). But no amount of analysis of rhetorical style, forms, and rules will touch the profound rhetorical ethos of the romances. Specifically, the romances seem to share the anthropological significance of rhetoric that sophists attached to their discipline. This significance becomes apparent from a comparison between the three branches of oratory and the like numbered parts of the soul. This comparison appears in several rhetorical prolegomena whose Byzantine dates must be acknowledged but which nevertheless state explicidy what, I submit, is implicit during the second sophistic when the romances were written. One prolegomenon reads as follows: T h e r e are three parts of the soul: rational, emotional, and appetitive. There are also three branches of oratory: advisory, judicial, and celebratory. Accordingly, the advisory speech is analogous to the rational part of the soul, for just as reason is in us to steer us to what is good, so also the advisory branch dissuades us from what is bad and persuades us to what is good. T h e judicial speech is analogous to the emotional part of the soul, for emotion is a seething of the blood around the heart because of a yearning for retaliation. And by means of the judicial speech again we defend ourselves and retaliate against those who earlier

being third: the speaker, opponent, judge, clients, and gods (see Ruf. Rh. 5 - 8 [pp. 400:3-401:3 Spengel-Hammer]). 91 See further B. Winter, "The Importance of the Captatio Benevolentiae in the Speeches of Tertullus and Paul in Acts", JTS 42 (1991), pp. 505-31, esp. pp. 507-15. 92 See D. 21:1, cited by Ruf. Rh. 5 (p. 400:10-13 Spengel-Hammer), and Anon. Seg. 7 (353:20-21 Spengel-Hammer).

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had injured us or treated us unjusdy. A n d the celebratory speech is analogous to the appetitive, for just as desire has the g o o d as its e n d , so also the e n d of the celebratory speech is the good. 9 3

In other words, the consequence of mastering the three branches of oratory is not merely becoming a trained rhetor or even a sophist, but the way of becoming human, as it is only through skill at composing and presenting all three kinds of speeches that a person can give full expression to his soul and hence can be human in the fullest sense of the word. Given the amount and centrality of speech in the romances, it therefore becomes clear that their characters—whether Chaereas, Anthia, Melite, Dionysophanes, or Charicles—are not only rhetorically adept but human in terms of their rhetorical culture: ready and able to speak eloquently in whatever situation may arise.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, G., The Novel in the Graeco-Roman World (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1984). , The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire (New York: Roudedge, 1993). Bartsch, S., Decoding the Ancient Novel: The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). Barwick, K., "Die Gliederung der Narratio in der rhetorischen Theorie und ihre Bedeutung für die Geschichte des antiken Romans", Hermes 63 (1928), pp. 261-87. Billault, Α., "L'inspiration des εκφράσεις d'oeuvres d'art chez les romanciers grecs", Rhetorica 8 (1990), pp. 153-60. Bowie, E. L., "The Readership of Greek Novels in the Ancient World", i n j . Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 435-59. Hernandez Lara, C., "Rhetorical Aspects of Chariton of Aphrodisias", GIF 42 (1990), pp. 267-74. Hunter, R. L., A Study of Daphnis and Chloe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Reardon, B. P., The Form of Greek Romance (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). Rohde, E., Der griechische Roman und Seine Vorläufer (3rd edn.; Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1914). Ruiz-Montero, C., "Caritôn de Afrodisias y los Ejerüios prepartorios de Elio Teôn", in L. Ferreres (ed). Treballs en honor de virgilio Bejamo (Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universität de Barcelona, 1991), pp. 709-13. Russell, D., Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Stevens, S. Α., "Who Read Ancient Novels?", in J. Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 405-18. 93

See H. Rabe (ed.), Prolegomenon Sylloge (Rhetores Graeci, 14; Leipzig: Teubner, 1936), p. 170; cf. also pp. 74, 286, 347-48.

CHAPTER 15

APOCALYPTIC AND P R O P H E T I C L I T E R A T U R E Jonathan M. Knight Cambridge, England

I.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter offers an introduction to the kind of rhetoric that we encounter in the apocalyptic literature. T h e question of what constitutes "apocalyptic literature" has been much discussed in the past and must form part of a preliminary survey of the material. It is clearly impossible, given the restriction of space, to examine all the apocalypses with the attention to detail that would be desirable. I shall therefore focus on a representative selection of texts, most but not all of them Chrisdan. Certain themes tend to recur in the literature (e.g. eschatology, including punishment for sinners). A short survey will show at least something of the nature of apocalyptic rhetoric. The texts which I shall examine are 1 Enoch, Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Ascension of Isaiah.

I I . T H E N A T U R E OF THE

GENRE

The origins of the "apocalyptic tradition" in Israel are disputed. It is generally agreed that the early parts of 1 Enoch predate the book of Daniel and were written perhaps in the third century BC. This was not the first appearance of an unprecedented form of speculation but the remoulding of something that had deeper roots in Israelite culture. There are two main schools of thought as to how apocalyptic first arose in Israel. Paul Hanson thinks that a visionary group became displaced in the post-exilic period and turned to a transcendental form of eschatology to deal with problems posed by the dominance of the priestly class.1 Hanson's thesis however has been held 1

P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).

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vulnerable at several points, not least in his exegesis of certain passages from deutero-Zechariah. 2 An alternative approach holds that the emergence of apocalyptic was bound up with "mantic wisdom"—the broad range of divinization techniques found throughout the Ancient Near East through which human beings tried to make contact with the heavenly world. 3 Prognostication played an important role in manticism: knowing what the gods willed helped people to make decisions about their future behaviour, so that it had an ethical strand. Seeing the origins of apocalyptic as broader than the transcendentalization of eschatology explains an important feature of the literary genre, the apocalypse. 4 Although eschatology is a major theme of these writings—sometimes the major theme—researchers must take account of the fact that in several writings eschatology is only a marginal theme, and a number of non-eschatological sections in the extant apocalypses reveals an altogether wider range of interests held by the apocalyptic writers, including astronomy, meteorology, uranography and angelology.5 In this sense, perhaps, the Jewish apocalyptists should be seen as early scientists, speculative observers of the universe, and not simply as doom-laden prophets of gloom. This is to argue for a broader definition of "apocalyptic" than is presented in some secondary literature. This observation about the diversity of the apocalyptic interest in Judaism defines the search for rhetorical elements in the apocalyptic literature. What rhetoric there is reveals not only pessimism at points about the state of the world but also much about the speculative joys of knowledge and the different ways in which it can be applied, with ethical admonition an important feature of the genre. There is a good example of this in the early chapters of 1 Enoch (see below) where the insignificance of the secrets revealed by the Fallen Watch2

See K.J. A. Larkin, The Eschatology of Second ζechariah (Kampen: Kok, 1994). This position has been stated by H.-P. Müller, "Mantische Weisheit und Apokalyptik", Supplement to Vetus Testamentum 22 (1972), pp. 268ff. See also J.J. Collins, "The Court Tales in Daniel and the Development of Apocalyptic", JBL 94 (1975), pp. 218ff.; and A. L. Oppenheim, The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near Exist (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1956). A seminal text in this area was G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (ET London: SCM Press, 1972). 4 There is an excellent morphology of the apocalypse genre in Semeia 14 (1979), edited by J.J. Collins. 5 This point is made by M. E. Stone in his article "Lists of Revealed Things in Apocalyptic Literature", in F. M. Cross (ed.), Magnalia Dei (New York: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 414ff. 3

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ers is contrasted with the unprecedented disclosures made to Enoch on his heavenly journey, where a whole variety of information is presented. T h e relation between this wide-ranging revelatory interest and ethical admonition is an important feature of apocalyptic rhetoric.

I I I . T H E PURPOSES O F A P O C A L Y P T I C

LITERATURE

Like the problem of the literary genre, the question of why the apocalypses were written has prompted much discussion. This question can be answered in full only by a study of all the apocalypses, but it is unlikely that a general theory that such literature universally originated from situations of crisis will prove satisfactory. The hypothesis that apocalyptic was the prerogative of the marginalized alone is belied by the actual evidence. Recent studies of millenarianism (the hope for immediate supernatural intervention) isolate the factor of relative (rather than absolute) deprivation as a significant malaise. 6 T h e widespread belief that Revelation originated in a situation of persecution must reckon with some significant criticism.7 Nor is the literature that of the lower social orders. A work like the Ascension of Isaiah, which came to birth in the activity of a prophetic school, presupposes both educational and intellectual resources which were hardly those of an illiterate peasant circle. This text's eulogizing of poverty (e.g. Asc. Isa. 2:7-11) should not be taken to indicate that its authors were actually the flotsam and jetsam of Syrian society. T h e Jewish and Christian apocalyptists were learned people, as their wideranging material shows.

6

See D. Aberle, "A Note on Relative Deprivation Theory as Applied to Millenarian and Other Cult Movements", in S. Thrupp (ed.), Millennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study (Comparative Studies in Society and History Sup., 2; The Hague: Mouton, 1962), pp. 209-14. 7 See the work of L. L. Thompson reported below.

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IV.

SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE

A. 1 Enoch T h e Ethiopie Apocalypse of Enoch (1 Enoch) is a collection of individual units, said by Milik to have been shaped into Pentateuchal form, 8 which was written perhaps between the third century BC and AD 100 (depending on the date of the Similitudes, 1 En. 37-71). 9 The opening chapters (1-5) set the agenda for the rest of the work. 1:2 mendons the revelation of heavenly mysteries, which are held appropriate for the eschatological generation. 1:3 reasserts the biblical hope for God's final appearance when judgment would be followed by peace for the righteous. Chs. 2 - 5 confirm the author's interests as broader than eschatology by commenting on a variety of natural phenomena. Important use is made in 1 Enoch of the story of the Fallen Watchers.10 This was the narrative, found in Genesis 6, in which the "sons of God" (i.e. angels) descended from heaven for intercourse with human women. 1 Enoch 6ff. develops this story and makes Enoch function as a mediator between God and the Watchers. The retelling has a rhetorical as well as an haggadic impact. After Enoch was told to pronounce the Watchers' fate (chs. 12-15), we find the comment that the Watchers had revealed only the "rejected mysteries" (16:3). T h e meaning of this statement appears from chs. 17ff. where Enoch makes two tours through the universe and sees a variety of secrets. The retelling of the Watchers' story emphasizes the exclusivity of Enoch's revelation, which contrasts by the device of heavenly ascension with the false attempt to discover information through the descent of rebellious angels. Enoch is made to comment in 19.3: "I

β

J. T. Milik, "Problèmes de la Littérature Hénochique", HTR 64 (1971), pp. 333-78. Milik was anticipated in this view by G. Dix, "The Enochic Pentateuch", JTS os 27 (1925), pp. 29-42. 9 The date of the Similitudes is a thorny problem for research. Only this part of the Enochic writing has failed to appear so far among the Qumran writings. It perhaps comes from the first century AD. See further J. T. Milik, Ten Tears of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (trans. J. Strugnell; London: SCM Press, 1959); J. C. Hindley, "Towards a Date for the Similitudes of Enoch", NTS 14 (1968), pp. 55165; and M. A. Knibb, "The Date of the Parables of Enoch", NTS 25 (1978-79), pp. 345ff. 10 This story was a popular one in Jewish literature. Its use is examined by L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1947), I, pp. 147ff. (notes in volume V).

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saw the vision of the end of everything alone; and none among human beings will see as I have seen". This is a rhetorical justification of the author's thirst for wide-ranging and authoritative knowledge which makes the point that it can only be gained by an act of revelation in accordance with the divine will. The chronological setting of the early chapters of 1 Enoch at the beginning of the Jewish apocalyptic tradition gives this remark added significance. It substantiates the belief that Jewish apocalyptic wisdom was superior to any other wisdom, especially that of more powerful bodies, because it was directly revealed by the will of the one true God. We must acknowledge two distinct features in this material. Not only is eschatological information accessed but the workings of heavenly bodies (e.g. sun, moon and wind) are rudimentarily discussed. I. Gruenwald has shown that there is an intrinsic connection between these two elements of knowledge in apocalyptic literature." In this respect 1 En. represents an important difference of perspective from the book of J o b which had set a limit on the boundaries of human knowledge. Its author proscribed both scientific and theodictic speculation. 12 1 Enoch 1-36 has the rhetorical purpose of declaring that this ban no longer applied and that such information was the legitimate topic of reflection by Jewish writers. Once it had become proper to discern the workings of the wind and the rain, questions about the meaning of human existence and the morality of perceived behaviour could be asked as well. T o be sure, there remains the caveat of 1 En. 19:3 that such questioning was done only by a worthy of old. But the pseudepigraphy has a thin veneer: 13 the text demonstrates a reflection about human destiny and behaviour which matches the author's calendrical and proto-scientific observation. 1 Enoch places both sets of topics on the agenda of the Jewish wisdom tradition. Chs. 37-71 ("the Similitudes of Enoch") are the most perplexing part of 1 Enoch. Two sources have been fused together in this section to describe how a mediator, who is called both "the Son of M a n " and "the Elect One", occupied the throne of God to dispense judgment " Apocalyptic and Merkabah Mysticism (Leiden: Brill, 1978), pp. 3ff. 12 See e.g. Job 11:7-8. 13 An important study of pseudepigraphy in the ancient world is the collecdon edited by N. Brox, Pseudepigraphie in der heidnischen und jüdisch-christlichen Antike (Darmstadt: Wissenschafdiche, 1977). On the pseudonymous setting of apocalyptic literature, see D. G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1986), pp. 73-102.

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against the sinners. 14 The opening chapters of the Similitudes give a clue to the rhetorical purpose of this section. 37:2 ("This is the beginning of the words of Wisdom") shows its status in part as wisdom literature. As with earlier examples of that genre, much of the author's purpose is theodicdc. He deals with the familiar problem of why good people suffer and bad people prosper. The answer offered is an eschatological one: the time would come when the righteous would be vindicated and the ungodly judged for their sins (38:1). Inasmuch as the text allows us to detect targets of polemic, these appear as the "rulers and princes" (38:4) "and the kings and rulers" (38:5). It is difficult not to see here a reference to the Roman provincial administration and its puppets. The hope is voiced that the righteous (i.e. the faithful in Israel) would gain the upper hand (39:5) which would result in a form of immortality (39:3-8). This hope can be paralleled in a variety of Jewish writings. T h e eschatology has both a "thisworldly" and an "other-worldly" dimension and it is difficult in places to discriminate precisely between them. 15 What is however certain is that the presence of the Son of Man-Elect One with God in heaven serves as a symbol of hope for those who felt powerless before these ungodly. Although the arrangement of material in the Similitudes is sometimes difficult to follow, the collocation of images has a cumulative force and repeats the basic theme, which is found in the first division of 1 Enoch, that those who did wrong would be punished (evidendy against what was perceived at present). This punishment is presented in visionary form as a heavenly event glimpsed by the seer and thus as "real" although it had not yet filtered down into human affairs. The apocalypticism serves to authenticate the belief that it would assuredly come about in human experience. 1 Enoch 72-82 is perhaps the most "scientific" part of the work and shows the inter-relation of wide-ranging knowledge and eschatology which is a feature of 1 Enoch. Chs. 72-74 constitute detailed astronomical observation, which doubdess had a prehistory behind

14

This section of the text is examined by E. Sjeberg, Der Menschensohn im äthiopischen Henochbuch (Lund: Gleerup, 1946); J. Theisohn, Der auserwählte Richter (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975); and D. W. Suter, Tradition and Composition in the Parables of Enoch (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975). The association between an angel and the throne of God in Jewish literature is examined by C. C. Rowland, The Open Heaven (London: SPCK, 1982), pp. 94ff. 15 See the essay by J.J. Collins, "Apocalyptic Eschatology as the Transcendence of Death", CBQ 36 (1974), pp. 21-43.

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their use here. 16 This material was intended for literary rather than oral effect (in distinction here to the book of Revelation). Chs. 7 9 81 show the conclusion which the author draws from the ability to speculate scientifically. This is the availability of authoritative information about the fate of sinners. 80:2 compares them to the winter: their days were cut short. Even nature would harden against them given their veneration of the stars as divine (80:7-8—clearly a reference to pagan worship). 81:3-4 links God's ordering of creation to his patience with human frailty. We should not under-estimate the rhetorical significance of the heavenly ledgers which are mentioned in 81:1-2. Given the work's interest in post-mortem punishment, the connection between righteous living now and security or retribution after death assumes a great importance. T h e presentation of detailed astronomical information as a revealed mystery authenticates the ethical call. The ledgers are both an encouragement to righteous living and a warning of the consequences of doing otherwise. Judgment, too, is the theme of chs. 83-90. This section uses the device of the apocalyptic historical review (a prominent feature also in Daniel) to assert that the future would bring about a change in readers' experience, when the Messiah would sit on his throne and open the heavenly ledgers (90:20).17 This part of the work anticipates the transformation of Israel and the restoration of the Temple (90:29). The rhetoric falls into the familiar pattern of denunciation and promise which corresponds to the distinction between righteous and sinners. It draws on a complex of eschatological traditions to exhort people at a time when it was implied that the religious leaders were tempted by religious a n d / o r ethical laxity. 1 Enoch concludes with Enoch's admonition to his children (i.e. his disciples). This reiterates the demand to live righteously (91:4), the meaning of which (alongside the earlier hints) is given by the comment about holding things in common with the heathen (91:9). This part of the work confirms that the "sinners" were prosperous people; 96: 5-6, for instance, mentions their lavish feasts.18 It was addressed to 16

See J. C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1984), pp. 91-104. 17 On the apocalyptic historical review, see J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), pp. 153ff. 18 On this part of the work, see the essay by G. W. Nickelsburg, "Social Aspects of Palestinian Jewish Apocalypticism", in D. Hellholm (ed.), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1983), pp. 656ff.

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readers who had cause to resent the prosperity of others. The canon of relative deprivation no doubt applies. We should not necessarily make a direct connection between the author's language and his own situation. T h e message of the apocalypse, notwithstanding, is clear: the righteous would triumph and sinners perish however things seemed at present. When the work is read in full, the rhetorical purpose of the Watchers' story in the early chapters is thrown into relief. This had the effect, in its immediate context, of highlighting the value of the knowledge which Enoch was given through revelation. In the wider context of the apocalypse, the Watchers appear as the archetypal sinners who were responsible for the first act of wrongdoing (arguments based on Genesis 1-2 do not feature here). Their fate served to show what would happen to others who walked in their path. In the author's rhetorical distinction between righteous and sinners, the Watchers purvey a false wisdom, with the hint in ch. 8 that they shared the vices of the foreign nations. By contrast Enoch, the archetypal wise and righteous man, was granted authoritative information not previously discerned by the Jewish intellect.19 Much interesting work remains to be done in clarifying the understanding of "righteousness" as used in this text and the identity of those who it is claimed possess it.20 T h e fact that the term is nowhere defined suggests that the work was written for people who knew what it meant and were learning to see themselves as a discrete group within Judaism at the time. They are doubtless to be identified with the Hasidim who were responsible for the book of Daniel and for the formation of the Qumran community. 21 B. Revelation The book of Revelation is the best-known Christian apocalypse. 22 Debate has waged about its authorship and date. The New Testament Apocalypse has been set both in the aftermath of the Neronian

19

On Enoch as a typical figure in apocalyptic literature, see VanderKam, Enoch. E. P. Sanders has made a valuable start in his book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1977), pp. 346-62. 21 The early history of the Hasidim is explored by M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (ET London: SCM Press, 1974), I, pp. 175ff. (notes in volume II). 22 But there is significandy no chapter on Revelation in the standard work of 20

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persecution (AD 69), and also (I think with greater plausibility) in the reign of Domitian in the early 90s of the first century. T h e second date is complicated by the problem of deciding whether there was a Domitianic persecution at this time. The most recent research has argued that there was not and that the epithet dominus atque deus was attributed to Domitian by flatterers and not demanded by the emperor of himself.23 Revelation is best seen as the attempt to create awareness of a crisis amongst readers who the author thought were much too comfortable in Asian urban life at the time. This view, proposed by Thompson, contradicts the earlier belief that Revelation was addressed to the specific context of persecution. It involves seeing the frequent references to martyrdom as symbolic rather than prompted by very recent events. T h e Neronian persecution (AD 64) remained a vivid memory for Christians at the end of the New Testament period (cf. Asc. Isa. 4:3). Twenty years later, when Pliny was governor of Bithynia, Christians would indeed be punished because they held the name of Christ (see Pliny Ep. 10:96-97). Martyrdom was the ultimate fate which awaited those who voiced ideological opposition to Rome. The author of Revelation quite conceivably recognized this fact and dramatized the expectation as the final indication of what discipleship to Christ might mean. It is important to recognize that the martyrdom material in Revelation can bear more than one interpretation. It might for instance be addressed to those whom the author judged insufficiently prepared to face it because they had integrated too well into pagan society. T h e spectre of martyrdom, which was an unmistakable one, was used more than anything else to demonstrate the incompatibility of Christian and pagan lifestyles. We can identify the nature of the rhetoric in Revelation but its function and purpose are less easy to describe because we know less than we would like to about the historical setting of the Apocalypse and its recipient churches. One important point must be noted about the rhetorical impact of the New Testament Apocalypse. In contrast to 1 Enoch, Revelation

G. A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). 23 L. L. Thompson, The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), esp. pp. 104-106; see also A. Y. Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), esp. pp. 84ff., 14-1 fF. There is valuable material too in E. Schüssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgement (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), esp. pp. 18Iff.

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was written to be declamed and not originally to be read (1:3). In this context we must consider the peculiar Greek of the Apocalypse. J o h n seems deliberately to have used a style that was different from the language of formal documents to make the point that readers must stand their distance from the conventions of their social world. This spoken impact formed part of the seer's rhetorical strategy. T h e opening passage shows John's understanding of his message. Its focus was Jesus Christ, its origin in God. 1:3 lends an eschatological dimension to the rhetoric: those who acted on the revelation would be blessed because the time was near (cf. 22:20). The focus is sharpened by the appearance of the heavenly Christ in 1:12-16. This makes the point that the message of Revelation was determined by the Christian belief in two divine powers. The sacrifice of the Lamb is a powerful theme in the work. The Lamb accompanies God (1:17-18), stands next to his throne (5:6) and shares his worship (ch. 5 and elsewhere). The prominence of this theme does much to explain the martyrdom language in the Apocalypse. It was because Christ had suffered to the point of death that Revelation, in company with other New Testament writings (e.g. Mark 8:34), reminds its readers not to shun a similar fate. T h e language derives more from the Christian tradition of imitatio Christi than it does from the actual situation of the readers. With a situation that the seer thought should be characterized by suffering the future glory of the Messiah's earthly reign is contrasted. The future conquest of enemies is presented as a present reality through the device of apocalyptic revelation. The heavenly chorus plays a significant role in this revelation of mysteries. The chorus announces the victory of God (e.g. 14:7) as if to present the future appearance of the kingdom as a "mopping-up" operation which had already been demonstrated in heaven. The apocalyptic perspective permits the disclosure of an authoritative view of reality through which the author hoped to effect a change in his readers' lives. The paraenesis gains its effect by the claim to have been received directly from Christ, whose victory had made the demonic forces impotent. The Letters to the Seven Churches (chs. 2-3) have sometimes been overlooked in the interpretation of the Apocalypse but they are in fact crucial to it. T h e seer argues persuasively for the position that he recommends to his readers. The Letters introduce the actual situation which he addressed and set the matrix within which all the later symbolism must be interpreted. The material is cleverly presented. In all probability the seven churches mentioned have repre-

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sentative rather than exclusive significance. The same problem is mentioned in more than one church. That situation is introduced allusively at first. John criticizes the Nicolaitans (2:6) and those who claimed to be Jews but were not (2:9). This raises interest and prompts the readers to consider how the symbols corresponded to their situation. Such interest is increased when the Nicolaitans are mentioned again (2:15) in company with the disciples of Balaam (2:14). At this point the veil is lifted: the Balaamites are said to have taught the Israelites to practise fornication and to eat meat which had been sacrificed to idols. This is the first interpreted symbol in the Apocalypse. The fact that the same information is repeated in 2:20, in connection with the teaching of Jezebel, suggests that the seer is disclosing the grounds of his displeasure with the recipient churches. Christians there were evidently adopting a "compromise" position with regard to their social world in which the practice of attending banquets, with their tacit acceptance of the Roman pantheon, was enjoyed by the wealthier members. John—who differs in this respect from Paul (1 Cor. 8)—thought this an abomination, probably because it contravened ethical standards which Judaism held dear (cf. Acts 15:29). This information, which shines through the symbolism, sets the tone for the whole Apocalypse. T h e seer's criticism of the existing order, dominated as it was by Roman customs and beliefs, is set within a context where Christians were asked to be suspicious of involvement with it on the grounds that this represented compromise with demonic activity. Far from being an introductory insertion, the Letters provide a rhetorical introduction to the Apocalypse where the seer's position is disclosed in advance. The reference to the single martyr Antipas in 2:13 is an important indication that social accommodation and not persecution was the critical issue. The Letters have the style of oral proclamation as befits the first use of the Apocalypse (cf. 1:3). All have a similar rhetorical structure but differ in points of form and content. 24 Each has an introduction which affirms that the message came directly from Christ. This accounts for the authoritative "I know", a further common feature, which grounds the seer's pronouncement in divine authority as befits the apocalyptic setting. The Letters' function is paranetic and hortatory. They warn of the dangers that attended social compromise 24

See the study of D. E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 275ff.

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and undergird this message by frequent references to biblical sinners. They demonstrate that punishment would follow compromise but that those who persisted would share the Messiah's kingdom. The ethical admonidon has an eschatological basis as in other literature, notably in Jude. The Letters conclude with the formula, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches". 25 This further authenticated the author's message by claiming the Spirit's authority for it. The Apocalypse proper begins with the vision of the throne of God (chs. 4-5). This was a traditional item in apocalypses as we can see from 1 Enoch 14.26 That tradition is here put to a particular use. The harmony of the heavenly court-room contrasts throughout the Apocalypse with the disordered state of the human world. This is significant because the seer reveals the victory of God over all opponents which first-century Christianity connected with the eschatological future (cf. 1 Cor. 15). J o h n describes the realization of this victory on earth in chs. 20-22 of the Apocalypse. The vision of the heavenly court encourages readers to see in the disclosure of the heavenly mysteries an indication of the exclusive loyalty that was needed to share the Messiah's kingdom. The prominent dualism of the Apocalypse is related to this aim. Compromise with the world was not possible for the Christian because to compromise was to concede the authority of Satan who would be destroyed along with his forces in the eschatological climax (ch. 20). O n e mistakes the purpose of Revelation's rhetoric if it is seen as an attempt to overthrow the established order as such. Early Christian writers often combined a fervent millenarianism with a resigned acceptance of the existing state of affairs. This was because eschatological victory was seen as a divine and not a human task. Revelation's purpose was not to overthrow the status quo but to change readers' attitudes towards it. John—like his readers—believed that a decisive change was impending and he used this eschatological conviction to undergird his ethical admonition. That combination of ideological resistance and eschatological hope provides the foundation for the symbolism in chs. 7-19 of the Apocalypse. The keyword throughout is "conquering" (e.g. 12:11). "Conquering" means adopting the seer's recommended pattern of behaviour. It is con25 26

Cf. Matt. 11:5. There is an Old Testament background in Ezek. 12:2. For the background see 1 Kgs 22:19, Ezek. 1:26-27 and Isa. 6: Iff.

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nected with the promise of earthly reward in terms of the future kingdom. Those who were sealed—which in ch. 7 includes the whole Christian body and neither simply the martyrs nor the adult male warriors—must live the kind of lives by which their special status was demonstrated in the refusal to compromise with the demonic order. Revelation creates the picture of a crisis by its negative attitude to the world in order to inculcate this attitude of resistance. T h e hostile portrait of Rome in chs. 13 and 17 presents the ruling state as a demonic power to encourage a sense of distance from its conventions. Much has been made of the eschatological prediction in ch. 20— particularly the assertion of 20:4 that the martyrs would enjoy exceptional benefits—but it would be wrong to interpret this material outside the symbolic matrix created by the earlier chapters of the Apocalypse. The hope for a transformed earthly state is attested elsewhere in Jewish and Christian literature (e.g. 4 Ezra 7; Rom. 8:1825).27 The purpose of this section is to remind readers that only those who saw the present order as demonic and who changed their behaviour towards it would share the promised kingdom. It would also be wrong to see a resurrectional hierarchy in this chapter as many commentators have done. What distinctions there are concern the readers' response to the message and the lifestyle which in consequence they adopted. T h e renewal of heaven and earth in ch. 21 was expected to set the seal on the understanding of the church's role as it is presented in this way. The nature of Revelation's symbolism, which elevates the description of life in Asian urban Christianity to the level of a cosmic drama, is a rhetorical appeal to consider the identity of Christianity at the end of the first century. 28 Around this time the author of 1 Clement (ch. 23) records the scepticism of some that the promised parousia would ever take place. Revelation gives no indication that its readers were worried by this problem but the problem nevertheless explains the force of the rhetoric and the nature of the situation to which it was addressed. The increasing demise of the original Christian generation (cf. Mark 9:1) must have caused uncertainty about the 27

The Jewish and Christian apocalyptic roots of millenarianism are briefly examined by N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 19-29. There is a discussion of the post-apostolic evidence in H. Bietenhard, "The Millennial Hope in the Early Church", SJT 6 (1953), pp. 12-30. 28 See Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation, pp. 181ff.

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position that Christians were to adopt in a world order that was proving to be durable. Perhaps the author thought that compromise would mean that Christianity became yet another cult subsumed under Roman pantheistic beliefs. At stake was the issue of Christian distinctiveness, compounded by the fact that the Christians no longer enjoyed the protection afforded by long precedent to the Jews. We see something of this tendency in the attitude of the Christians revealed twenty years later in Pliny's letter to Trajan for whom the demand for momentary religious compliance was a profound issue of conscience. That explains why the seer of Revelation should write as he does. There is in fact no necessary theological contrast with the eirenicism of Romans 13 once eschatological hope is seen as a divine and not a human task. What contrast there is with Romans stems from the recognition that Christianity must begin to find a permanent place in the world and the debate about ethics and status which this brought with it. This approach to Revelation must be considered in conjunction with the acknowledgment that Revelation's hope for divine intervention is a realistic one and not simply a rhetorical device to encourage the readers. We have here a text characterized by uncertainty about the future but also by the desire not to be found wanting in view of the expected eschatological judgment.

C. The Shepherd of Hermas The Shepherd (or Pastor) of Hermas is a Roman Christian work which was written between AD 90 and 135.29 It was a popular text and divides into three sections: Visions, Mandates (Commandments) and Similitudes (Parables). It opens with the appearance of a heavenly mediator, first of all an old woman (who loses her age to appear as a bride in the Fourth Vision), and later an angel in the form of a shepherd from whom the work takes its name. The date and critical history of the work have been felt problematic and Hermas was perhaps overworked in the course of transmission. 30 29 See G. F. Snyder, The Shepherd of Hermas, vol. 6 in R. M. Grant (ed.), The Apostolic Fathers: A New Translation and Commentary (London: SCM Press, 1968). There is important discussion of the text in C. Osiek, Rich and Poor in the Shepherd of Hermas (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1983); and J. H. Jeffers, Conflict at Rome: Social Order and Hierarchy in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Augsburg-Fortress, 1991), pp. 21-24, 106-20. 30 See the discussion of this issue in Jeffers, Conflict, pp. 106-14.

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The theme of the Visions is the Christian discipline of penance. In the Third Vision the woman introduces the image of the tower, explaining that the church was still in process of construction and that ill-shaped stones (in this context, sinners who rejected penance) must be excluded from the building. T h e author uses a variety of techniques to recommend penance as a spiritual discipline in a climate where the problem of sin after baptism (and thus also the understanding of baptism) was under review.31 The fourth Vision uses traditional apocalyptic imagery to describe forthcoming persecution under the motif of a dragon who was unable to harm the faithful despite his power. In the fifth Vision, the Shepherd appears to pronounce his Mandates and Similitudes (some have seen a literary seam here). The rhetorical purpose of assigning this material to visionary experience was to guarantee the origin and reliability of the teaching as we have seen also in the case of Revelation. The twelve Mandates have the form of an abbreviated moral code. Whilst there are similar examples in Judaism (the Qumran Manual of Discipline is an example), this sustained exposition presupposes the author's view that Christianity now enjoyed a sufficiently permanent place in the world to warrant legislation of this kind. This is particularly obvious in the fourth Mandate which deals with the problem of adultery and whose casuistry looks as if it has been developed from the text of Matthew's Gospel. In the Mandates much use is made of the diatribe form. The diatribe was a type of philosophical discourse employed by a teacher to address (or rebuke) his students and to refute their objections to his teaching. 32 The purpose of this device was to couch maxims, not always with definite Christian content, in the confines of a familiar genre, which was evidently recognized and no doubt appreciated in the Roman Church at the time. Like the Mandates, the Similitudes also convey moral teaching. The second Similitude helps to show the social circle from which Hermas emerged. While the contrast between rich and poor is a feature of much Christian literature, we find here no real criticism of the rich. Hermas was written for readers who included well-placed people and for a situation where it was felt appropriate to encourage 31

Snyder thinks that this reflects the dispute between Hippolytus and Callistus (see his Shepherd of Hermas, p. 22). 32 See further Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 155-56. He cites the work of S. K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981).

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the poor to think they would receive help if they prayed for their benefactors. The thought is well-constructed but pragmatic, introduced by the parable of the elm and the vine which reveals the author's agricultural background. Hermas takes this to mean that the rich, distracted with their business affairs, did not have as much time for religion as the poor and could therefore benefit from the poor man's intercession just as the poor man benefited from his charity in a mutual exchange of benefits. This amounts to a rhetorical justification of social divisions which evidendy came from someone who desired or had enjoyed upward social mobility.33 Hermas mentions the fact that he had been a slave (Vis. 1:1:1) but the likelihood is that he was a freedman. Though a commentator like Jeffers identifies him as a farm labourer, and comments on his limited education, 34 we should not under-estimate his ability at writing apocalyptic literature. He fleshes out the apocalypse form with material drawn from popular philosophy and shows himself able to construct an argument. His theme (that of penance) has somedmes been regarded as dreary but his manner of exposition is not. The work has much to tell us about the nature of Roman Christianity in the immediate post-apostolic period. D. The Ascension of Isaiah 35 With the Ascension of Isaiah we reach a text which in all probability was addressed to a situation of persecution. We must speak of a development between the first and the second century in this. The evidence for a Roman persecution of the Christians under Domidan is scanty. T h e setting of the Ascension of Isaiah is illustrated by the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan mentioned already in this article. T h e description of Roman imperialism in Asc. Isa. 4 reflects a knowledge of what de Ste. Croix has called "the sacrifice test" which was first used against the Christians at that time (ca. AD 112).36 33

In Vis. 3:6:7 Hermas says that, after he gained his freedom, he had become "rich" but had then lost his wealth. 34 JefTers, Conflict, pp. 22-23. 35 This text has been substantially neglected in the present century. A new critical edition was published in 1995 in the Corpus Christianorum series edited by P. Bettiolo. See also my own The Ascension of Isaiah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). 36 G. de Ste. Croix, "Why were the Early Christians Persecuted?", Past and. Present 26 (1963). The "sacrifice test" is the procedure described by Pliny in his Ep. 10:96 whereby accused Christians were required to recite a prayer to the gods, make

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The Ascension of Isaiah is thus a neglected response to the issue of persecution by the Romans. Its author encouraged the readers not to baulk at martyrdom if it became inevitable but not to seek it voluntarily as we know that some Christians did in the second century. The work breathes the spirit of alienation among its readers, who were evidendy a circle of Christian prophets. They felt estranged in their dealings with Jews, with the church leaders and the Roman provincial administration. We may briefly consider the reasons for this sense of isolation. T h e three groups are introduced in ascending order of importance. Against the Jews there is perhaps nothing more than the traditional hostility displayed by primitive Christianity towards its parent religion, but the author of the Ascension of Isaiah does imply that Moses lacked religious insight (3:8-10; 4:21-22). The church leaders are criticized in 3:21-31 for their overbearing attitude towards the prophets. T h e author complains that they jockeyed for position (3:21) and ignored the voice of the Spirit (3:26-27). Behind this stands the shift from charismatic to institutional authority in early Christianity as the authority of the apostles, which had stood unchallenged in the first century (see 1 Cor. 12:28; Didache 11 and 13),37 was replaced by the ministerial orders who were appointed on the principle of succession and not personal authority. The Ascension of Isaiah was written by prophets who had seen their power eroded in this way. This issue is related to the question of persecution. T h e author implies that only the prophets would stand firm, as if he thought that others would compromise on the issue of the sacrifice test (which Pliny notes that some Christians did). Perhaps rumours of impending persecution had begun to spread in Syria, fuelled no doubt by the martyrdom of Ignatius in AD 110. The author encourages his readers to escape detection (2:7-11; 5:13) but not to shrink from punishment if it came their way. The work's rhetoric is thus oriented to the attempt to persuade readers to remain loyal to their prophetic vocation despite the various challenges launched on this position. The work's seven-storied cosmology is an important element in the rhetoric. 38 The Ascension of supplication with incense and wine to the imperial statue and to curse Christ. On the precursors of the "sacrifice test", see W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), pp. 135-36. 37 G. Friedrich, in his article "Prophetes", in G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (eds.), in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), VI, pp. 859-61, notes the importance of the Didache evidence. 38 But cf. Paul's remarks in 2 Cor. 12.

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Isaiah preserves the Jewish belief in a plurality of heavens which is abandoned in Revelation and Hermas. One of the reasons why this was retained was to emphasize the distinction between Beliar—the demon who inhabited the firmament and incarnated himself as Nero— and the true God whom the heavenly Christ had revealed when he descended to earth (see below on chs. 6-11). The author implies that the prophets alone were faithful disciples of the true God and that all others—Christians apparendy included—had been seduced into serving Beliar. T h e ethical dualism thus has more explicit cosmological implications than is the case with Revelation. This cosmology is both a projection of hope and an indication of eschatological hope. In contrast to other Christian literature (but in anticipation of Gnosticism) the author of the Ascension of Isaiah expects that the righteous would ascend to a heavenly immortality after the millenarian kingdom (4:17). This is to reinterpret what first-century Christianity believed about the future along more transcendent lines as if earth were viewed with disfavour as the final place of salvation. The Ascension of Isaiah must in this be distinguished from the eschatology of later writers such as Justin and Tertullian but it anticipates in one sense the "recapitulation" theme which features in Irenaeus. The revelation of the heavenly mysteries is precisely a revelation of the future eschatological state, which the author thought would be a heavenly one. T h e Ascension of Isaiah opens with a description of how Hezekiah warned Manasseh about his future behaviour (ch. 1). The warning had no effect; Manasseh did bad deeds on his accession. Ch. 2 explains that Sammael-Beliar (i.e. Satan) dwelt in him and ordered things so. Isaiah formed a wilderness community in protest at such lawlessness (2:7-11). This passage, set in the narrative form, is a veiled admonition to readers to withdraw when Satan—in the form of the Roman government—came looking for them (cf. 5:13). The author eulogizes the prophetic community which withdrew from the world and persevered with its apocalypticism despite hardship. The prophets are presented as isolated figures; 4:13 says that this experience of marginalization would last until the parousia. In 5:13 Isaiah sent his disciples to Tyre and Sidon with the words "for me alone God has mixed the cup". This implies that the readers were not to seek out martyrdom for themselves. It is implied that, if they did, there would be nobody left to preserve the unadulterated tradition of Christianity which the author thought the prophets alone possessed (3:21). A feature of the author's rhetoric is the way he encourages a sense

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of distance from all other groups as if he feared contamination or religious compromise. The Jews are distanced in 3:6-10 where Belchira criticizes Isaiah for predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and for claiming more knowledge than Moses. Belchira's status as a false prophet (3:1) means that Isaiah's position is vindicated. There is the hint that the fall of Jerusalem (AD 70) was in accordance with the divine will and that, unthinkably for a Jew, a prophet was preferred to the lawgiver. The list of inspired writings in 4:21-22 similarly fails to mention the Torah as if the author did not think it came into that category. We have here also the beginnings of the hint, which would be developed later in Gnosticism, that Moses was not the authoritative figure whom Judaism had thought. The next group to be criticized are the leaders of the church. This is done in 3:21-31. The leaders are presented as ambitious people motivated by desire for office. They repressed the prophets and possibly opposed the author personally (3:31). Again, there is a precedent for the later Gnosticism in the author's attempt to challenge the authority of church officials. This part of the Ascension of Isaiah is remarkable for its "anti-ecclesiastical" stance which also anticipates Montanism in its insistence that the Spirit must be allowed to speak freely through the prophets. The material about Rome in ch. 4 undoubtedly reveals the occasion for the apocalypse. Two sources have been fused together at this point: the myth of Nero redivivus, which is familiar from other literature, and the notion of Beliar's descent from the firmament which holds tradition in common with Revelation ch. 12. The author combines this material to present Rome as the embodiment of demonic forces which made blasphemous demands of the Christians. Ch. 4 is followed by the description of Isaiah's martyrdom in ch. 5. T h e progress of thought is intentional: the author presents Isaiah as an example of someone who refused to compromise and who preferred martyrdom to the demand to worship Beliar. This theme is balanced by 5:13 as noted already where the disciples of Isaiah are discouraged from following their master's example. T h e attitude to martyrdom in the Ascension of Isaiah is thus a moderate one which uses the tradition of eschatological displacement (cf. 4:13) to argue for caution on the issue. The first half of the Ascension of Isaiah has a futurist eschatology. The author expects the Beloved One to return in a short space of time (4:14-18) to drag Beliar to Gehenna and to usher in his

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millenarian kingdom (with the qualification noted about 4:17). The rhetorical use to which eschatological hope is put is one of the most interesting features of the early Christian apocalypses. We find in the Ascension of Isaiah the hope for imminent vindication combined with a sense of isolation and superstition about judgment in an increasingly marginalized group. As with Revelation this presentation of the eschatological hope is not merely rhetorical. The eschatology gains its force from its strong belief in the return of Christ which pervades all early Christian literature. The Ascension of Isaiah falls rather obviously into two halves. Chs. 6-11 are a self-contained section which describes Isaiah's heavenly ascension and his vision of the Beloved One's victory over Beliar. It is certainly to be doubted whether the situation addressed in the second half is a different one despite the textual problems at this point in the apocalypse. This part of the text is distinctive for its lack of futurist eschatology to match 4:14-18. Instead, we find an apocalypdc vision where an interest in Christology dominates the scene. The author picks up New Testament expressions of Christology, such as 1 Pet. 3:22 which he evidently knew, and uses them to support his description of the descent of Christ into the world and his return to heaven. There are concessions to docedsm at this point (11:2-22) but the birth and death of Jesus are both held to be real events. The crucial moment in the author's understanding is the crucifixion of Jesus which is described allusively in 10:14—15 as the moment when the mediator secured his victory over Beliar. The rhetorical purpose of chs. 6-11 is to disclose an understanding of the atonement in which Jesus defeated cosmic powers on the cross. This is presented to readers in the form of revealed knowledge. The author intended them to impact on their situation by encouraging them to act as if it were true in their dealings with wider society even though they belonged to a marginal group. No single social model for action (withdrawal-integradon) is proposed, probably because it was not certain how things would turn out. Readers are however assured that they would receive heavenly immortality if they remained true to their prophetic calling which is the essential theme of the apocalypse.

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CONCLUSION

This short study has considered the rhetoric found in the apocalyptic literature by appeal to selected texts. Given that apocalyptic is bound up with the revelation of heavenly mysteries, including but not exclusively eschatology, apocalyptic rhetoric is founded on the belief that authoritative information can be discerned through heavenly revelation. This is presented to readers, often in conjunction with an ethical appeal, as knowledge whose authority can sustain a significant change in perspective. It must be said that there are no firm canons for describing the rhetorical characteristics of apocalyptic literature beyond the general considerations presented here about the use of symbolism and the variety of authenticating devices through which the integrity of the revealed knowledge is secured. A full answer to the question will depend on a study of all the available literature. Gruenwald's point however deserves repetition. This is that there is an intrinsic connection between scientific and theological speculation in the apocalypses. Apocalyptic offered the development of human knowledge by more-than-human insight. This is the distinguishing feature of the apocalypses and it explains the rhetorical purpose of this literature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aberle, D., "A Note on Relative Deprivation Theory as Applied to Millenarian and Other Cult Movements", in S. Thrupp (ed.), Millennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study (Comparative Studies in Society and History Sup., 2; The Hague: Mouton, 1962), pp. 209-14. Aune, D.E., Prophecy in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983). Bietenhard, H., "The Millennial Hope in the Early Church", SJT 6 (1953), pp. 12-30. Brox, N., Pseudepigraphie in der heidnischen und jüdisch-christlichen Antike (Darmstadt: Wissenschafdiche, 1977). Cohn, N., The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). Collins, A. Y., Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). Collins, J. J., "Apocalyptic Eschatology as the Transcendence of Death", CBQ_ 36 (1974), pp. 21-43. , "The Court Tales in Daniel and the Development of Apocalyptic", JBL 94 (1975), pp. 218ff. , The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977). (ed.), "Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre", Semeia 14 (1979). Dix, G., "The Enochic Pentateuch", JTS os 27 (1925), pp. 29-42. Frend, W. H. C., Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965).

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Friedrich, G., "Prophetes", in G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), VI, pp. 859-61. Ginzberg, L., The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1947). Gruenwald, I., Apocalyptic and Merkabah Mysticism (Leiden: Brill, 1978). Hanson, P. D., The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975). Hengel, M., Judaism and Hellenism (ET London: SCM Press, 1974). Hindley, J. C., "Towards a Date for the SimUitudes of Enoch", NTS 14 (1968), pp. 551-65. Jeffers, J. H., Conflict at Rome: Social Order and Hierarchy in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Augsburg-Fortress, 1991). Kennedy, G. Α., New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). Knibb, Μ. Α., "The Date of the Parables of Enoch", NTS 25 (1978-79), pp. 345ff. Knight, J. M., The Ascension of Isaiah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). Larkin, K.J. Α., The Eschatology of Second Zechariah (Kampen: Kok, 1994). Meade, D. G., Pseudonymity and Canon (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1986). Milik, J. T., Ten Tears of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (ET by J. Strugnell; London: SCM Press, 1959). , "Problèmes de la Littérature Hénochique", HTR 64 (1971), pp. 333-78. Müller, H.-P., "Mantische Weisheit und Apokalyptik", Supplement to Vêtus Testamentum 22 (1972). Nickelsburg, G. W., "Social Aspects of Palestinian Jewish Apocalypticism", in D. Hellholm (ed.), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1983), pp. 656ff. Oppenheim, A. L., The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1956). Osiek, C., Rich and Poor in the Shepherd of Hermas (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1983). von Rad, G., Wisdom in Israel (ET London: SCM Press, 1972). Rowland, C. C., The Open Heaven (London: SPCK, 1982). de Ste. Croix, G., "Why were the Early Christians Persecuted?", Past and Present 26 (1963). Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1977). Schüssler Fiorenza, E., The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgement (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). Sjoberg, E., Der Menschensohn im äthiopischen Henochbuch (Lund: Gleerup, 1946). Snyder, G. F., The Shepherd of Hermas, vol. 6 in R. M. Grant (ed.), The Apostolic Fathers: A New Translation and Commentary (London: SCM Press, 1968). Stone, M. E., "Lists of Revealed Things in Apocalyptic Literature", in F. M. Cross (ed.), Magnolia Dei (New York: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 414ff. Stowers, S. K , The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981). Suter, D. W., Tradition and Composition in the Parables of Enoch (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975). Theisohn, J., Der auserwählte Richter (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975). Thompson, L. L., The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). VanderKam, J. C., Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1984).

CHAPTER 16

DRAMA AND R H E T O R I C Ruth Scodel University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

Drama may reflect rhetoric in three general ways. In style, dramatists often borrow figures from rhetoric. Often, though, it is hard to distinguish tricks of style that genuinely come from rhetorical practice from those that belong to poetic tradition, since all ancient drama is in verse. The devices that elevate style originated in verse, and rhetoric created rules for using them in prose. Nonetheless, sometimes it is clear that rhetorical style has influenced poetry. When Sophocles combines a sharp antithesis with end-rhyme and isocolon, as in Ant. 555 (σύ μεν γαρ εϊλου ζην, έγώ δε κατθανεΐν), the similarity to Gorgianic rhetoric is too strong to ignore. Secondly, the dramatists sometimes borrow and develop the commonplaces and arguments of the rhetoricians; not only language but content can have a rhetorical tone. These influences are often easier to identify. Sometimes dramatic characters even deliver speeches fully organized according to the rules for orations. Finally, drama directly represents and critiques rhetoric as such. Characters directly comment on each others' ways of speaking, or on their own, or on the power of rhetoric; dramas depict characters in the process of trying to use or resist rhetoric. Furthermore, the limits on how dramatists use rhetoric are themselves revealing, showing how dramatic and rhetorical decorum intersect. Influence, however, is not all one-sided. From the fifth century onward, drama and rhetoric were deeply intertwined, each affecting the other. In the tragedy of the early fifth century, before the development of sophistic rhetoric, civic speech is a positive force. Although Aeschylus also represents personified Persuasion in the style of archaic poetry, as a dangerous divinity closely associated with Aphrodite, when the King speaks to his people in Aeschylus's Suppliants, and Athena mollifies the Erinyes in Eumenides, public speech serves as a force of

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political cohesion. 1 Language, properly deployed, can be a medium that reduces bad emotion and advances truth and order. Tragedy itself, whatever its questionings of the social and religious order, brought Athenians together in a common experience. With its prestige and emotional power, tragedy provided the model to which the first rhetoricians aspired. The tragic audience, wellexperienced in appreciating turns of language and new twists on familiar topics, was well-prepared to appreciate rhetoric: Cleon in Thucydides complains that the Athenians judge debates in the assembly as if they were spectators of a sophistic display (3:38:4-7). Gorgias borrowed stylistic devices from poetry, using rhyme, alliteration, antithesis, and balanced clauses to heighten prose. Early Greek rhetoric did not yet have systematic theories. Its most important self-presentations were not treatises, but pieces for public display that presented the hodgepodge of stylistic tricks and new types of argument. Its most important contribution lay in the very claims it made for itself. Gorgias claimed the powers of poetry for language in general. Sophistic rhetorical teaching emphasized the possibility of arguing both sides of every issue and divorced persuasiveness from truth, and at least implied that verbal persuasion had no limits: the ideal speaker would be able to persuade anyone of anything. This early rhetoric had two distinct tendencies. It developed rational forms of argument, especially argument from probability, which could be applied as needed to varying situations, but at the same time it borrowed from poetry devices for appealing to non-rational fears and desires, and defined its powers as magical. 2 Because the early rhetoricians were sophists or belonged to sophistic circles, learning the art of speaking could not be separated from learning other sophistic studies. The distinction between nature and culture was a potentially useful topos, allowing actions which violated one to be defended in terms of the other, but it was also the basis of extensive critical thought directed at existing customs and institutions. 3 So the first opponents and critics of early rhetoric fear 1

R. G. A. Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), esp. pp. 113-14. 2 J. de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 3-22. T. Cole, The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 146-47, argues that Gorgias's description of the power of logos does not refer to his own art; but tragedy shows that the claims of rhetoric were understood this way. 3 See G. B. Kerford, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) pp. 111-30.

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above all its potential for destroying the established order, whether by inventing criticisms of conventional practices or by allowing skilled speakers to seduce their hearers into ignoring their moral beliefs. Aristophanes satirizes the new rhetoric at every level, from the linguistic coinages popular among trendy young speakers to the loss of traditional ethics in the face of a rhetorical training that taught its students how to disprove anything without providing positive values to replace what was lost. Tragedy quickly adapted the argument from probability. Creon in Sophocles' Oedipus argues that no sensible man in his position would try to overthrow the king, since he enjoys power without its burdens (583-602); Euripides' Hippolytus argues that he had no reason to rape Phaedra (Hipp. 1008-20), especially since she was not the most beautiful of all women. Arguments from probability are oddly ironic in tragedy. The audience does not doubt Creon's innocence, yet his arguments seem to prove that nobody in his position would ever attempt to overthrow the king, and history shows that this is false; Hippolytus implies that no man would ever prefer a less beautiful woman if a more attractive one were available. Tragedy both borrows and criticizes; these characters are driven to the argument from probability because it is so difficult to prove innocence. T h e formal debates, agones, of tragedy are especially striking as responses to contemporary rhetoric. Opposing pairs of speeches were the standard practice of the courts and a prominent exercise in sophistic rhetoric. Euripides, with his liking for making formal components visible, tends to make his formal agones easily recognizable as separate elements. Though the debates are usually thematically important for the dramas in which they appear, they are not always fully in character. Hecuba in Trojan Women, for example, shows herself surprisingly current in fifth-century arguments about the gods. Their naturalistic motivation is also sometimes weak: it is as if where in reality a brief exchange of insults would occur, the participants instead expound their reasoning. In Suppliants, Theseus takes time to answer a Theban herald's disparagement of democracy and praise of oligarchy with a pro-democratic reply (426-62). Euripides thus sets off the debates from the rest of the action; these are set-pieces that invite the audience to evaluate them rhetorically. The debate form demands that the "wrong" side receive the best arguments the poet can invent, and tragic debates show structures and forms of argument developed by forensic oratory. Euripides' agonal speeches have

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formal prooemia, and Orestes' argument (Or. 564—71) that to leave his mother unpunished would invite wives to murder their husbands is parallel to the argument Lysias gives Euphiletus that if he is convicted of murder for killing an adulterer, adulterers will know that their behavior is condoned, and burglars will pretend to be adulterers (1:36). T h e tragic audience clearly enjoyed rhetorical display, but it is controversial in modern criticism.4 Fifth-century drama did not absorb the new rhetoric uncritically, however. By the late fifth century, both tragedy and comedy were obsessed with the power of language. Aristophanes' Clouds takes the new rhetoric at its own valuation. In its individual elements, sophistic training is ridiculous. Socrates the sophist teaches astronomy and contempt for the gods, geometry, grammar, and metrics, and all of it is silly at best and highly impious at worst. Yet the arguments of T h e Unjust Argument and of the sophistically educated Pheidippides are unanswerable. The Just Argument surrenders. When Pheidippides proves that it is just for him to beat his parents, his father can only rush out to burn down Socrates' school. Somehow, no matter how absurd the intellectual basis of sophistic rhetoric may be, characters within the play do not end up laughing at it, but must either yield or reply with brute force. Comments on how terrible it is that fine language can serve evil causes are a Euripidean cliché. Euripides' Medea and Hippolytus both demonstrate the terrible power of persuasive speech to convince people to act against their own interests and to overcome scruples. Creon knows that Medea is dangerous, yet the pity her language creates in him makes him yield to her plea for one day to prepare for exile (348-54). Even though Phaedra attacks the Nurse for using clever arguments to defend an immoral position, she is easily deceived once the Nurse pretends to have a morally acceptable way to help. Phoenissae, on the other hand, shows the ineffectiveness of argument in preventing violent conflict: Jocasta's attempt to reconcile her warring sons by negotiation fails, as each son simply presents a well-argued position from which he will not budge (452637). Both Euripides and Sophocles thus seem ambivalent about the real power of rhetoric. Rational or rationalizing arguments are not actually very persuasive in the poets. Speakers in an agon do not per4 There is an excellent treatment of rhetoric and the agon in M. Lloyd, The Agon in Euripides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 19-36.

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suade each other. While a chorus may comment that each side has some validity, or that each speaker has gone too far, the characters themselves do not compromise, but condnue with an exchange of insults that leaves them more estranged (in Ale. 708-40, for example). Just as in an Athenian lawcourt the jury had, in effect, to accept one side over another, and could not compromise about either verdict or penalty, when an agon has a judge, he simply accepts one speaker's version in a way that rarely seems satisfactory if truth is the object. The Agamemnon of Hecuba (1240-51) rejects Polymestor's claim to have murdered Polydorus as a goodwill gesture towards the Greeks, and refuses to punish Hecuba for taking vengeance, but he does not comment on whether the vengeance was actually just. Well-meaning, well-argued persuasion often fails. Sophocles' Philoctetes refuses to go to Troy even after his friend Neoptolemus proves that it would be in his own best interest in every way. Only the deified Heracles can convince Philoctetes. In Oedipus at Colonus, when Antigone manages to persuade her father to hear the plea of his son, the result is that Oedipus curses Polynices even more terribly than before, and we are carefully reminded that the destruction of Polynices will cause the death of the innocent Antigone too. Menelaus in The Trojan Women is persuaded by Hecuba's arguments that Helen is guilty and deserves death, but when Hecuba warns him of her sexual appeal, the audience is reminded that he did not kill her after all (1036-59). When rhetoric in tragedy of the late fifth century is successful, it is nearly always destructive. Odysseus, the emblematic rhetorician, shows the development. In Sophocles' early Ajax (probably 440s), Odysseus is an admirable character. Although Ajax and his friends imagine him as a manipulative speaker, pursuing only his own interest, he appeals to conventional moral values in persuading Agamemnon to allow Ajax to be buried. The Odysseus of tragedies from the years of the Peloponnesian War believes in nothing, but his ability to persuade is almost limidess. Sophocles shows him corrupting the innocent but ambitious Neoptolemus in Philoctetes; Philoctetes wins the young man over not with argument, but with the sight of his sufferings, with physical contact, and with Neoptolemus's own inherent virtue. Although traditional values defeat clever rhetoric, it is a very close thing. Euripides uses Odysseus in plays in which human sacrifice becomes the issue to test whether crowds recognize any moral limits. In Hecuba he easily persuades the Greek army to sacrifice Polyxena (even though he owes his life to her mother Hecuba), while in Iphigeneia

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at Aulis, Agamemnon feels that he cannot escape sacrificing his daughter, because Odysseus will use the mob against him (522-35). In Euripides' Hecuba (814-19), the protagonist complains, as Agamemnon turns away from her plea for help in avenging her son's murder, that people do not study Persuasion, "the only tyrant among men", and pay to learn it. Ordinarily tragedy is cheerfully anachronistic, and Hecuba's speech is, in fact, fully informed by sophistic thought. She refers, for example, to nomos (custom) as the basis for religion and ideas of right and wrong in the best sophistic style. But Euripides here ironically pretends that as a heroic character she lives in a pre-rhetorical world. Studying rhetoric, it seems, is not actually useful or necessary, for she has already spoken as a rhetoric teacher would have taught her. A moment after she voices her frustration that she has not learned Persuasion, she finally finds the argument that partially moves Agamemnon, by appealing to his sexual relationship with her daughter Cassandra. Rational, general arguments rarely work in tragedy, especially when they support good causes, but appeals to personal interest often succeed; and true persuasion seems not to be learned, but to come from instinct. By the late fifth century, one interesting form of mutual influence between rhetoric and tragedy was on its way to becoming an established genre. Model speeches, delivered before paying audiences, were important forms of teaching and self-advertisement for sophistic rhetoricians. While Antiphon's Tetralogies present contemporary situations, Gorgias began the practice of composing model speeches based on mythological subjects with his Encomium of Helen (really an apology) and Defense of Palamed.es. It is unlikely to be coincidence that Euripides composed tragedies that required speeches on precisely these topics for the same production in 415; some of his Helen's argument closely parallel Gorgias's. 5 Tragedy inspires the rhetoricians, who in turn influence the tragedians. Such speeches continued to be produced in the next century (the surviving examples are the Ajax and Odysseus of Antisthenes) along with the actual rhetorical treatises. Inevitably, the practice of inventing rhetorical arguments for tragic characters must have forced tragedians into constant awareness of their rhetorical possibilities. O n e very successful fourth-century tragedian, Theodectes, was in fact a teacher of rhetoric. But an equal 5

See R. Scodel, The Trojan Trilogy of Euripides (Hypomnemata, 60; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), pp. 80-104.

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effect would be the domestication of the ancient heroes, making them speak and think ever more like everyday Athenians. Surviving examples of the mythological oration, with the great exception of Gorgias's Encomium of Helen, are not extravagant in style or thought. Palamedes is a string of arguments from probability with a very practical turn. The speaker argues, for example, that he would have had trouble betraying the Greeks to enemies with whom he had no common language. The Encomium of Helen, furthermore, is shocking precisely because its argument that Helen should not be blamed if she yielded to sexual desire or to persuasion in abandoning her husband for Paris is so easy to apply in daily life. Isocrates' Helen tries to pay homage to Gorgias's shocking paradox, but his arguments, though clever, are ethically tame. Antisthenes' speeches are relatively straightforward. Ajax denigrates Odysseus for his willingness to abase himself for profit, while Odysseus reveals himself as a proto-Cynic who disregards appearances for the sake of the common good. T h e main effect of the genre may well have been to reinforce the Euripidean tendency to conceive mythological characters as people who had the same concerns as your neighbors, but who happened to live long ago and to be ingenious in argument. Long fragments from fourth-century tragedy are few, while the only tragedy extant which might come from the period, the Rhesus, is of disputed date. Yet insofar as the meager evidence allows for judgment, fourth-century tragedy was not very different from late fifth-century work—at least not from Euripides, whose influence is visible everywhere. Choral songs became independent of the action, acting and production values were more important than before, there was perhaps a tendency to multiply incidents. The surviving tides point mainly to familiar myths, sometimes with an unusual twist. Aristode comments that "the earlier authors made their characters speak politically, but those of today have them speak rhetorically" (Po. 6:23:1450b7). While the remark is hard to interpret, it suggests a development of the Euripidean manner, especially of his agonistic style: characters all tended to use clever language and arguments, and these were developed for their own sake. In fifth-century tragedy, characters generally speak with clear goals; such tragedy is political both in its relevance for the city and for its portrayal of people who speak with political ends. In fourth-century tragedy, characters spoke because they had an interesting subject to speak about. The philosopher Diogenes composed tragedies, presumably in

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part in order to have the opportunity to give speeches defending actions other people considered utterly outrageous (cannibalism in Thyestes, incest in Oedipus).6 If we look for the influence of rhetoric on the only poet of New Comedy of whose work a substantial amount is available, Menander, the picture is complex. O n the one hand, Menandrian comedy is not blatandy "rhetorical" most of the time. Menander's mundane, bourgeois milieu and generally realistic style does not permit many stylistic flights. Furthermore, Menandrian comedy is very tightly built. Apart from certain conventional comic interludes like the cook scene, the plot always moves ahead. There is no room for digressive tirades in which rhetorical skill could have free play. Yet Menander lived in a world in which rhetoric was taken for granted, and he himself is said to have been a student of Theophrastus, who wrote a number of rhetorical treatises. Menander's plays demonstrate how the fourth century had domesticated and rendered useful the radical thought of the fifth. Rhetoric is no longer threatening in Menander as it was in tragedy. Menander's view of rhetoric appears at its most brilliant, perhaps, in Samia, when the young hero, Moschion, is worried about how to convince his father, Demeas, to marry him promptly to the girl next door (who has borne his baby after he raped her): he goes off by himself to practice a speech. Yet when he returns, he has not practiced, but has wasted his time daydreaming about the hoped-for wedding (94—95, 120-27). When he meets Demeas, a new problem has arisen: Demeas is angry with his concubine for keeping her baby (actually Moschion's and the neighbor's). Moschion soothes him by arguing that illegitimate children may be as virtuous as legitimate ones. The argument is of the kind that appears strikingly sophistic in Euripides, but in Menander, it has become almost banal in itself; it stands out not because the idea is striking but because Moschion, like a tragic character, immediately turns an everyday question into an abstract principle: he does not discuss this baby, which Demeas does not want, but the true meaning of illegitimacy (137-42). In Menander's world, a rich young man naturally has rhetorical training of some kind, and his reaction to having to have a difficult conversation is to try to compose a set speech, even though it is his 6

There is a good summary of what is known about fourth-century and Hellenistic tragedy in G. A. Seeck, "Geschichte der griechischen Tragödie", in Das griechische Drama (ed. G. A. Seeck; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1971), pp. 185-98.

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father he needs to convince, not an assembly. At the same time, Menandrian characters are not natural politicians, and Moschion does not succeed in composing his oration. Flights of rhetoric are inappropriate in the Menandrian bourgeois world, so that the possibility of a set speech is evoked only to be rejected. Yet Moschion does have access to a repertory of rhetorical topics; these have become part of everyday thought. The argument is fully in character, though it is out of place. Still, Demeas at first thinks that Moschion must be joking. While the influence of New Comedy on rhetoric was to lie in its least individualized characters and least plausible situations, Menander seems closer to the orators when he is least rhetorical. New Comedy is based on types; characters could be roughly identified within their type by mask alone. Often, and with justice, Menander's characters are associated with those of Theophrastus's Characters, which describes a series of types (the Superstitious Man, the Flatterer) by cataloging the behaviors each displays. Menander's minor characters have the liveliness of Theophrastus's. Though they are types, they are vivid and meticulously observed, and their flaws are enacted in precisely observed behaviors. More complex Menandrian characters, like the amiable but spoiled Moschion of Samia, though, could also with some justice be compared to those in the speeches of Lysias, which depend for their effect on the jurors' complete acceptance of the characters the speaker creates for himself and those around him: the cripple, the cavalryman, the deceived husband, the embarrassed older man in love. While Aristode's Rhetoric considers the speaker's character only insofar as it must appear to be good if the speech is to be credible (1:2:4:1356a), Dionysius of Halicamassus (Lys. 9-10) praises Lysias for a richer kind of credibility, "appropriateness", which fits the arguments to the speaker and the audience, and for the brevity, clarity, and persuasiveness of his narrative. Usually, however, formal rhetoric stresses appropriateness to a particular situation, not to a speaker's "real" character. Menander, like a skilled forensic speechwriter, presents credible characters economically. Menander shares Theophrastus's moral interest in such defective types as the miser, but he shares with the writer of speeches for the court the need to dramatize character and to create vivid, convincing vignettes. Demeas's narrative of how he overheard Moschion's old nurse reveal that the baby was Moschion's (207-82) is similar to Lysianic narrative in its economy, restriction to an individual and personal viewpoint, and lively use of direct speech. Both authors are both praised in antiquity

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for accurately imitating reality. Menandrian mimesis is close to forensic oratory, but owes little to rhetoric. Rhetorical devices, whether of language or argument, are generally unobtrusive in Menander, since they would not be appropriate for his characters. Formal rhetoric tends to appear along with allusions to tragedy, when Menander self-consciously reminds his audience of comic decorum and self-consciously violates comic limits for comic effect. In Epitrepontes Smicrines is asked by a shepherd, Daos, and a charcoal-burner, Syriscus, to decide a dispute over ownership of the recognition tokens belonging to a baby found by Daos and given to Syriscus. Smicrines comments on the absurdity that slaves in goatskin coats are walking about arguing their disputes (229-30), pointing the audience to the humor of such an agon among lower-class characters. Daos comments on Syriscus's rhetorical ability, and his speech is indeed rich in rhetorical figures, including even the Gorgianic wordplay "This is not εΰρεσις ('finding') but άφαίρησις ('theft')". Syriscus not only speaks like a trained rhetorician, but refers explicidy to tragedy: Smicrines, he says, having seen tragedies, must know how important recognition tokens were to Neleus and Pelias (probably in Sophocles' Tyro). Syriscus's rhetorical skill is the center of his characterization, and the scene can be highly rhetorical precisely because the gap between comic characters and the rhetorical/tragic situation and style is funny. 7 Other passages of unusually rhetorical language in Menander typically appear in monologues and paratragic contexts. Demeas in Samia begins with a grand, tragic apostrophe to the city of Cecrops and the aether, then interrupts himself with an injunction to endure, and begins an argument he describes as "maybe paradoxical, but true", addressed direcdy to the audience (325-56). He thus denies himself an explicitly tragic register (for tragedy never acknowledges the audience), yet continues his speech in a style that is still unusually high for comedy, and openly rhetorical. For example, he refers to his concubine as "my Helen", a kind of mythological comparison that is too poetic for fourth-century orators but used by Antiphon (.Against the Stepmother 17) and later by Cicero (who calls Clodia "the Medea of the Palatine" at Cael. 18:6).8 7

There is an extensive discussion of the rhetorical features of this scene in B. Keulen, Studia ad Arbitrium in Menandn Epitrepontibus Exhibitum (Harlem: Loosjes, 1916), pp. 64-88. 8 On the two monologues of Demeas, see J. Blundell, Menander and the Monologue (.Hypomnemata, 59; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), pp. 37-39.

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We cannot really discuss Hellenistic tragedy, though the genre flourished, because so little survives. T h e fragments of the "Exodus" of Ezekiel, a tragedy about Moses, shows that the influence of Euripides continued to be extraordinarily powerful. Roman drama belongs in a very different social world, but one equally dominated by rhetoric, an influence to which different authors respond differendy. Early Latin poetry (dramatic and not) abounds in some common rhetorical figures, such as emphatic repetition, anaphora, and alliteration; these are also common in the grander passages of early Roman oratory and represent a generalized high/poetic style dependent on "Asiatic" rhetoric. This style, found, though in very different forms, in both the fragments of the tragedies of Ennius and the other early tragedians and in the comedies of Plautus, is extraordinarily expansive.9 Sound often take predominance over exact meaning; since this poetry does not deal in fine lines of argument, a certain lexical carelessness is not a problem. Plautus has a spectacularly broad register, taking everyday spoken Latin with the full range of technical vocabularies, paratragedy, and Greek slang, and combining them with a comic flair in which rhetorical excess is normal and appropriate. In Plautus, the influence of contemporary rhetoric is everywhere, but it is confined to verbal art. Terence, on the other hand, employs a far more constrained style most of the time, keeping close to the norms of actual speech, but reveals his rhetorical education in his prologues. All the comedies of Plautus and Terence were adaptations of Greek originals. Terence's prologues, however, are not based on the plays he translated, but are literary polemics that defend the poet against criticisms that he has improperly combined two Menandrian originals in writing his play or that he has received help in writing from his friends. In Heauton Timoroumenos and Hecyra, the actor who speaks the prologue calls himself an "orator" ("ambassador"). T h e style of the prologues is distinctively more formal and rhetorical than the dialogue, to the point at which some scholars have thought that Terence did not compose them. Even more important than their verbal heightening, however, is their arrangement. All the prologues except Hecyra follow the basic organizational rules for a forensic speech,

9

For Ennius, see H. D. Jocelyn, The Tragedies of Ennius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), pp. 42-43. For Plautus, the fullest discussion is still that of F. Leo, "Analecta Plautina: De figuris sermonis II", in Ausgewählte Kleine Schriften, I (Rome: Edizioni di Storia, 1960), pp. 123-62.

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with an exordium, narrative(s), argument(s), and conclusion. T h e opening serves to create audience goodwill, and depicts the poet as eager to please his audience, but under attack from a malicious enemy. T h e narrative briefly and unemotionally states the facts at issue. The argument shows that Terence has done nothing wrong: he uses the argument from authority, for instance, to claim that earlier and popular authors also "contaminated" their sources. Narrative and argument may be repeated, if more than one criticism is at issue, and defense may become counterattack. T h e conclusion is the most emotionally charged section of the prologue, as rhetorical handbooks advise. The prologues cannot end quite as judicial speeches do, since they must also provide a transition to the following play, but otherwise the Terentian prologue is based throughout on standard rhetorical precepts, in style, order, and arguments. 10 T h e strongest influence of rhetoric on drama, however, and the most important for the history of Western theater, came with Seneca and the tragedy of declamation. Here, once again, drama and rhetoric influenced each other. The practice speeches of rhetorical training became, under the Empire, a public spectacle, and declamation became a highly developed genre independent of its function as training for practical oratory. Declamations were either addressed to historical or legendary characters at moments of decision (suasoria) or forensic speeches (controversiae) taking one side or the other in problems based on set themes. While some of these were based on real cases, many were derived from drama. The type characters and standard situations of Greek New Comedy and its Roman adaptations provided much material for the extravagant subjects of imperial declamations. Quintilian (Inst. 10:1:71) recommends Menander to declaimers. New Comedy often relied on such ready contrasts as an indulgent and a severe father, a spendthrift and a responsible son, and on situations involving the recovery of children exposed or captured by pirates, and these were regular sources of declamatory material. In Seneca's Cont. 1:2, a girl who has been sold by pirates to a brothel but managed (she claims) to remain a virgin, has killed a soldier who tried to rape her and been acquitted; on returning to her home, she seeks to become a priestess. The virginal prostitute is pure New Comedy. Such comic themes entered the rhetorical tradi10

H. Gelhaus, Die Prologe des Terenz: Eine Erklärung nach den Lehren von der iraentio und dispositio (Heidelberg: Winter 1972).

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tion and were lavishly developed in imperial declamadon; through declamation, in turn, they became central to the ancient novel." Comedy was not the only dramatic source for declamation. Sententiae (pointed sayings, often moral aphorisms) from the mimes of Publilius Syrus appear often, and Quintilian's complaint about "magicians and stepmothers crueller than those of tragedy" (Inst. 2:10:5) probably points direcdy to the source of some of the stories of adultery, poisoning, and tyrannicide found in declamations. Imperial declamation was a dramatic and imaginative art. Sometimes, indeed, speakers actually assumed a fictitious character throughout. Even when they did not, declamation was not unlike tragic composition. The speaker was given a situation or a list of unchangeable facts like those of a myth; like the tragedian, the declaimer could give the basic plot any twist imaginable. In the controversia, opposing arguments might be invented in order to be answered, while the bare oudines of the theme were filled in with characters and their desires, feelings, and deliberations. Declaimers aimed at pathetic effect and the representation of emotion, and declamatory rhetoric was exceptionally free with the devices of self-expression: apostrophe, rhetorical questions, imprecation. Since novelty was both desired and difficult to achieve, and since the goal of declamation was the audience's enjoyment, not to convince anyone of anything, declaimers made heavy use not only of ingenious arguments and sententiae, but of opportunities for moralizing digressions and descriptions of nature. Since there was no motive for pretending to naturalness, artificial word-arrangements, word-play, similes, and figures of all kinds could be used in abundance. T h e world of Roman declamation is highly charged, emotionally and linguistically. Seneca grew up among declaimers. His rhetorical training is not manifest only in the stylistic qualities of imperial declamation, though these are everywhere. 12 He uses tropes freely, indulges in many forms of anaphora and paronomasia, and never resists a clever antithesis (Her.F. 513, miserum veta penre, felicem iube), and is regularly hyperbolic: in the Senecan world, storms at sea always reach the stars. Brilliant epigrams are ubiquitous. There are passages of dialogue in which 11 See S. F. Bonner, Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool, 1949), pp. 32-33. 12 See especially H. V. Canter, Rhetorical Elements in the Tragedies of Seneca (University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, 10; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1925).

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one sententia simply responds to another: A. 145-58 is an outstanding example. Clever paradox is the essence of Senecan argument (as when Phyrrus tells Agamemnon at Tr. 204-205, Ilium vicit pater!vos diruistis). Senecan characters also structure their speeches like declaimers. Their typical form of speech is monologue, and like declaimers, they are prone to expanding on moralizing commonplaces (such as the power of Fortune), to rhetorical questions, and to apostrophes and exclamations. The Senecan chorus indulges in profuse descriptions. Seneca was famously damned by his editor, F. Leo, for composing tragoedia rhetorica, and T. S. Eliot similarly commented, "His characters all seem to speak with the same voice, and at the top of it".13 Senecan tragedy no longer meets such unqualified hostility, but its rhetorical nature still makes readers uncomfortable. 14 First, Senecan tragedy is often in oudandishly poor taste, in both language and action. Whether it is the blind Oedipus almost stumbling over his mother's corpse, or the word-play that describes Thyestes' indigestion after he eats his own children, the tragic in Seneca tends to become grotesque, and to offend sensibilities accustomed to the dignity of other forms of tragic drama. Secondly, it is hard to become accustomed to so intensely rhetorical a language that is so divorced from actual persuasion. In the Euripidean agon, while characters may not convince each other, a judge is often present, and if there is not, the audience replaces the judge. Terence becomes rhetorical in his prologues, because he is trying to convince his audience to give his play a fair hearing. Senecan rhetoric is almost completely free of any real connection to persuasion. T o be sure, in scenes between major characters and their confidants the minor figure may deliver a complete suasoria, or an exchange of sententiae may represent an argument (as the one in Agamemnon shows Clytemnestra and her confidante, the Nurse, arguing over whether Clytemnestra needs to kill Agamemnon). But since these are confidant-scenes, they approach interior rather than true dialogue, and in any case other scenes are as rhetorical as 13

F. Leo, Seneca Tragoediae, I (Berlin: Teubner, 1878), pp. 147-59. Eliot is quoted by N. Pratt, Seneca's Drama (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), p. 150. 14 Senecan tragedy has become a fashionable topic, but most recent bibliography emphasizes philosophy more than rhetoric. Commentaries especially useful for Senecan rhetoric are R. Tarrant, Agamemnon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); E. Fantham, Seneca's Troades: A Literary Introduction with Text, Translation, and Commentary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); and J. G. Fitch, Seneca's Hercules Furens (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).

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these, so that there is no sense that Senecan rhetoric is especially appropriate in scenes of attempted persuasion. O n the contrary, rhetoric is primarily a means of self-expression. Rhetoric, in Seneca, is not a way of making language more effective for specific purposes. Rather it has two functions which complement each other. Senecan characters, even though they are not individualized, have a vehement sense of self. Only hyperbolic rhetoric can express their passions, their desire to fill the universe. G. Braden speaks of "a rhetoric of intimidation, drawing strength from a willingness to go farther than anyone else dares". 15 So Senecan characters often seem to be conscious of their own typological status: in Senecan tragedy, proper names and words denoting status (like mater) have a powerful force of their own. In Medea, Medea replies to the Nurse's recital of all she lacks with the boast Medea superest (166), and when she decides to kill her children, she announces Medea nunc sum (910). The mythological Medea is already there for her to become. When Atreus presents Thyestes with the remains of his murdered children, Thyestes responds agnosco jratem. Atreus's brotherliness is identical with his murderousness. Senecan characters obsessively incant their own names. The Senecan character thus approximates the poet or the declaimer in imagining vivid realizations for situations and people that already exist in oudine. If reaching such a traditional, and such an exaggerated self is the goal, rhetoric is the obvious, and only path to achieve it. Yet rhetoric has a controlling as well as an aggressive function. In a chaotic universe, Seneca's characters, overwhelmed by their passions, rely on sententiae and commonplaces because they give at least the appearance of sense. When Hercules decides to live, he announces, eat ad labores hie quoque Herculeos labor:/vivamus (Her.F'. 1316-17); the rhetorical pointing defines his decision, makes sense of it by placing it in a familiar category and linking it to a Heraculean identity. When Medea argues with herself, ira pietatem jugat/et iramque pietas (43-44), or pereant patri,/periere matn (950-51), the antitheses seem to be the only language in which it is possible for her to think. While Euripidean characters often dream of a world without rhetoric, in which values and feelings would be transparent, Senecan drama cannot seriously criticize rhetoric, because there is no position outside it. T h e long 15

G. Braden, Anger's Privilege: Renaissance Tragedy and the Senecan Tradition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 53.

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history of interaction between drama and rhetoric in antiquity ends with a drama in which rhetoric is not only the tool of imitadon, but its only object.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blundell, J., Menander and the Monologue (Hypomnemata, 59; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980). Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool, 1949). Braden, G., Anger's Privilege: Renaissance Tragedy and the Senecan Tradition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985). Buxton, R. G. Α., Persuasion in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Canter, Η. V., Rhetorical Elements in the Tragedies of Seneca (University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, 10; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1925). CoUard, C., "Formal Debates in Euripidean Drama", G & R 22 (1975), pp. 58-71. Conacher, D.J., "Rhetoric and Relevance in Euripidean Drama", AJP 102 (1981), pp. 3-25. Duchemin, J., L'ArûN dans la tragédie grecque (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2nd edn., 1968 [1945]). Gelhaus, H., Die Prologe des Terenz: Eine Erklärung nach den lehren von der inventio und dispositio (Heidelberg: Winter, 1972). Goldhill, S., Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Heath, M., The Poetics of Greek Tragedy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987). Keulen, Β., Studia ad Arbitrium in Menandri Epitrepontibus Exhibitum (Haarlem: Loosjes, 1916). Leo, F., "Analecta Plauüna: De figuris sermonis II", in Ausgewählte Kleine Schriften, I (Rome: Edizioni di Storia, 1960), pp. 123-62. Lloyd, M., The Agon in Euripides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Long, T., "Persuasion and the Aristophanic Agon", TAPA 103 (1972), pp. 285-99. Ober, J., and B. Strauss, "Drama, Political Rhetoric, and the Discourse of Athenian Democracy", in J.J. Winkler and F. I. Zeidin (eds.), Nothing to Do with Dionysus: Athenian Drama in its Social Context ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 237-70. O'Regan, D., Rhetoric, Comedy, and the Violence of Language in Aristophanes' Clouds (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Pratt, N., Seneca's Drama (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Xanthakis-Karamanos, G., "The Influence of Rhetoric on Fourth-Century Tragedy", 29 (1979), pp. 66-76.

P A R T III I N D I V I D U A L

W R I T E R S

R H E T O R I C A L

A N D

T H E

T R A D I T I O N

CHAPTER 17

T H E GOSPELS AND ACTS Richard A. Burridge King's College, London, England

I. INTRODUCTION—GOSPELS,

B I O G R A P H Y AND

RHETORIC

In the earlier chapter on ancient biography, Chapter 11 above, the important connection of genre with rhetoric was demonstrated. Since rhetoric in its narrower sense of "the work of persuasion" applies most to formal oratory, while rhetoric in its broader sense of the "art of words" covers all verbal communication, proper identification of the genre of a work is necessary before we can undertake a rhetorical critical analysis. This is particularly true of the Gospels. Traditionally, the Gospels were viewed as biographies ofJesus. During the nineteenth century, biographies began to explain the character of a great person by considering his or her upbringing, formative years, schooling, psychological development and so on. The Gospels appeared unlike such biographies. During the 1920s, form critics like Karl Ludwig Schmidt and Rudolf Bultmann rejected any notion that the Gospels were biographies: the Gospels appear to have no interest in Jesus' human personality, appearance or character, nor do they tell us anything about the rest of his life, other than his brief public ministry and an extended concentration on his death. Instead, the Gospels were seen as popular folk literature, collections of stories handed down orally over time. Far from being biographies of Jesus, the Gospels were described as sui generis, "unique" forms of literature, 1 and this approach dominated Gospel studies for the next half century or so. However, over recent decades with the rise of redaction criticism and the development of new literary approaches, the writers of the

1

R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1972), see especially pp. 369 74.

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Gospels came to be viewed as both theologians and conscious literary artists. This reopened the question of the genre of the Gospels and their place within the context of first-century literature. Many genres have been proposed, but increasingly the Gospels are again seen as biography. Charles Talbert pioneered this work,2 while David Aune's setting of the New Testament in its literary environment of the first-century Graeco-Roman-Jewish world treats the Gospels as biographies. 3 Richard Burridge has argued the case extensively elsewhere by comparing the Gospels with a range of ancient lives, both earlier and later than the Gospels. 4 Bultmann's mistake was to compare the Gospels with modern biography, hence the differences. However, the comparison demonstrates that the Gospels share many generic features in common with ancient lives, bioi or vitae. They are medium length prose works, portraying the character of one subject through a mixture of similar literary units and topics. The Acts of the Aposdes shares many of these features, except that its focus is upon several significant people in the story of the early Church, rather than just a single person like the Gospels and bioi. Although the Gospels, like bioi, are not formal speeches, we might expect to discover the influence of rhetoric in its broader sense upon them in a manner similar to its effect on bioi. Since the relationship of rhetoric and ancient bioi is itself complex, this chapter on the Gospels will follow the same approach, section by section, as that taken above on biography, and should be read in conjunction with it. Rhetorical criticism of the Gospels has grown rapidly over recent years since Wilder's seminal Early Christian Rhetoric was published in 1964.5 Clearly, the major influence has been the work of George Kennedy, the expert on rhetoric in classical Graeco-Roman literature, who has also turned his attention to the New Testament. 6 Follow-

2

C. H. Talbert, What is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977). 3 D. E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987). 4 R. A. Burridge, What Are The Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); see this passim for more detailed analysis of the generic features of the Gospels. 5 A. N. Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel (London: SCM, 1964). 6 G. A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular TraditionfromAncient to Modem Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).

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ing his lead, many scholars have begun to apply rhetorical criticism to the New Testament, especially to the letters of St. Paul. T h e epistolary genre has obvious connections with rhetoric and such studies have proved useful. However, others have turned their attention to the Gospels, particularly arising out of the work of the SBL Seminar on Pronouncement Stories and the Claremont Chreia Project. Foremost in this development has been the work of Burton Mack and Vernon Robbins, both individually and joindy, 7 although many others have followed them; conferences on rhetoric and the New Testament are held regularly. We have already noted above that rhetoric affected ancient bioi to a greater or lesser extent, depending on whether the bios was ever intended to be delivered as oratory, on the level of rhetorical education of the writer, on the type of bios and on its purpose. Therefore, should we expect to find rhetorical patterns and influence in the Gospels? The answer is likely to depend on the attitude of the writers to Graeco-Roman culture, their educational level and the social setting of the audience. Unfortunately, we do not have any external evidence for any of these variables, and so they must be inferred from the texts. St. Paul's attitude in seen in his claim that he did not preach the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom (ήλθον ού καθ'ΰπεροχήν λόγου ή σοφίας καταγγέλλων ύμίν τό μαρτύριον του θεοΰ), contrasting his message with the wisdom of this age (σοφία του αιώνος τούτου, 1 Cor. 2:1, 6). As Kennedy comments, "This passage may be said to reject the whole of classical philosophy and rhetoric". 8 Of course, as was seen above in the chapter on biography, the contrast with one's predecessors or rivals is itself a deliberate rhetorical ploy! Nonetheless, that Paul is deliberately setting his preaching against the σοφία of rhetoric has been convincingly demonstrated by Litfin. 9 While it is quite reasonable to surmise that both Paul and his Corinthian audience might be expected to have had some rhetorical education, it is less clear that this can be assumed of the writers and audiences of the Gospels. Mark 13:11 tells the early Christians not 7 B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1989); Β. L. Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). 8 Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times, p. 131. 9 D. Litfin, St. Paul's Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric (SNTSMS, 79; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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to worry about preparing defence speeches when on trial (a classic situation for rhetoric proper!) since the Holy Spirit will give them the words to say. This seems to reflect something of Paul's attitude in 1 Corinthians. Wuellner's stress on the "historicity of rhetoric" which reveals "the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem" cautions against applying "a global philosophy of rhetoric" too easily to these texts.10 We must earth our study in what might have been possible in the culture of the evangelists. Primary education in the Graeco-Roman world concentrated on reading and writing, basic literature and mathematics, as well as physical education. Rhetoric appeared at the secondary level during the teens with rhetorical analysis of literature and practice of the preliminary exercises (προγυμνάσματα) as is seen in the handbooks, but full rhetorical training formed the bulk of higher education for future public speakers, lawyers and politicians." For reasons which will emerge below, it is unlikely that the Gospel writers and their audience would have had higher rhetorical training. O n the other hand, a general awareness of rhetoric and of literary training permeated much wider throughout society than just the formal training. Furthermore, much of rhetorical theory was a formalization of natural patterns of argument, which can be found in most human societies. T h e social setting of the evangelists and the first Christian communities has been much discussed. Careful analysis of the New Testament documents by scholars like Meeks and Beavis shows that the audience probably covered a broad range of social strata, but probably not the extreme top or bottom levels.12 A general awareness of Hellenistic culture and education can be assumed, if not higher rhetorical training. This means that it is not unreasonable to study the Gospels carefully for forms of rhetoric in all senses of the word, but we must be cautious about reading off a direct connection between their narrative biographical texts and the formal oratory of the law court or assembly. 10

W. Wuellner, "Biblical Exegesis and the History of Rhetoric", in Rhetoric and the New Testament (ed. S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht; JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993), pp. 502-4. 11 See D. L. Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966) and Η. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (London: Sheed and Ward, 1956). 15 W. A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); M. A. Beavis, Mark's Audience: The Literary and Social Setting of Mark 4.11-12 (JSNTSup, 33; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1989).

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LITERATURE

This chapter is concerned with the first five books of the New Testament, that is, the four canonical Gospels and the Acts of the Aposdes. By the middle of the second century, these four Gospels were circulating as a collection, as is evidenced by Irenaeus's assumption (in Adv. Haer. 3:11:8-9) of the application to them of the four faces of the cherubim—human, lion, ox and eagle—of Ezek. 1:10 and the living creatures of Rev. 4:7 and by Tatian's later attempt to combine them into a mixed account, the Diatessaron. While some of the lost non-canonical Gospels may have shared the biographical form, such as those according to the Nazarenes, Ebionites or Hebrews, others are either collections of sayings (Gospel of Thomas or Philip) or concentrate on Mary, the infancy or Passion stories. Although there is dispute about their dating, it is probable that most or all date from the second century, later than the four canonical examples, to which we now turn. Mark is commonly thought to have been the first of the four canonical Gospels to have been written. While some commentators still accept as possible the tradition that Mark wrote in Rome as the "interpreter" (ερμηνευτής) of Peter's teaching (Eus. Η.Ε. 3:39:15), others locate him in various places around the eastern Mediterranean; the stress on suffering in the Gospel suggests a date during the 60s with the persecutions at Rome under Nero and the horror of the Jewish War in the East, but this is only conjecture. 13 Matthew is notable for its Jewish flavour, but the conclusions to be drawn from this are debated: the most common solution involves a setting in Antioch around the time of the insertion of the "Birkath ha-Minim" into the Jewish liturgy and the separation of church and synagogue around AD 85.14 Luke, and his second volume, Acts, suggests a more Gentile environment, perhaps also in Antioch and again in the mid-80s. 15 The suggestions for the authorship, date and provenance of the fourth Gospel are even more disputed. While early Palestinian traditions may lie behind the Gospel and the influences of Antioch and Alexandria have been discerned, it probably took its final form in Ephesus 13

See R. Guelich, Mark l~8:26 (Dallas: Word, 1989), pp. xxv-xxxii and M. Hooker, Mark (London: A. & C. Black, 1991), pp. 5-8. 14 W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), I, pp. 127-47 discuss all the possibilities. 15 J. A. Fitzmyer, Luke (AB, 28; New York: Doubleday, 1981), pp. 35-62.

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and dates from some time after the destruction of Jerusalem (AD 70) and before about 110, given the fact that the J o h n Rylands fragment from Egypt (φ52) can be dated to about AD 135. The separation of church and synagogue may have played a significant role here also; however, the process of its composition seems to have been highly complex, probably involving several editions.16 Thus the absence of any firm external evidence about the date, provenance or authorship of these documents means that we cannot form any immediate conclusions about their relationship to rhetoric. Nonetheless, the general assumption of the eastern Mediterranean during the last part of the first century places these texts in the cultural melting-pot of a syncretistic pluralism, in which the broader use of rhetoric was widespread. Thus, while none of these texts are to be explained solely in terms of formal rhetoric, it is unlikely that they will show none of its influence. Indeed, it is possible that evidence of rhetorical influence might help with the problem of their literary relationships with each other. It is a well known fact that over 90 per cent of Mark's Gospel is repeated in Matthew with about half of it also appearing in Luke. Although Matthew is placed first in the New Testament, it is usually assumed that Mark wrote first: Matthew and Luke both include much of Mark's content and follow his order, into which they insert other material. If Mark wrote after them, it is hard to see why he left this out. Furthermore, Mark's Greek style is rather primitive, full of Aramaisms and Matthew and Luke tend to "improve" his Greek when they rewrite his sections into their accounts. If it could also be shown that they also write in a more rhetorical form or style, this would be further evidence for Markan priority. In an interesting comparison of some synoptic Gospel parallels with two stories each told differendy in three places by Plutarch (within Lives and Moralia), Robbins demonstrates that the verbal differences reveal "recitation composition" within a rhetorical culture, allowing authors to perform a story anew each time to bring out the particular purpose appropriate to this audience or subject. However, he does not derive anything from this helpful insight about the issue of literary dependence of one version upon another."

16

R. E. Brown, John (AB, 29; New York: Doubleday, 1966), pp. lxvii-civ; G. R. Beasley-Murray, John (Dallas: Word, 1987), pp. lxvi-lxxxi. 17 V. K. Robbins, "Writing in Plutarch and the Gospels", in Persuasive Artistiy (ed. D. F. Watson; JSNTSup, 50; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1991), pp. 142-68.

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Kennedy describes Mark as "radical Christian rhetoric". It is characterized by authoritative assertion of the truth, rather than by logical or reasoned argument, with little use of the enthymeme, the rhetorical deductive proof, introducing with γάρ (for) or οτι (because) the reasons why something is the case. However, Matthew is particularly fond of this, as is seen in the explanations for the Beatitudes, "blessed are . . . , because . . ." (μακάριοι. . . οτι, Matt. 5:3-10). This, together with the rhetorical structure and amplification, suggests to Kennedy that Matthew has taken Mark's earlier account and rewritten it in a rhetorical fashion: "rhetorically, it seems very unlikely that Mark could have used Matthew's account". 18 If Matthew moves Mark into a more rhetorical direction, Luke develops his narrative even more in a biographical manner. With his opening classical Greek periodic Preface (Luke 1:1-4), his historical and geographical structure, and his use of speeches within narrative, Luke shares many of the hallmarks of good historiography. Nonetheless, the constant focus in the Gospel on one individual and his character demonstrates that this is a bios. Acts contains many biographical features in its portrayal of Peter and Paul as well as some shared elements of romance, travelogue and the early novel, but it is probably best seen as a historical monograph about the early Church. While there may be an underlying intent to persuade the audience in both the Gospel and Acts, rhetorical influence is seen here in its broader sense as in other bioi. The opening five papers from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference seek to demonstrate Luke's rhetorical skills from considering specific units (Luke 16:19-31; 10:25-37; Acts 10:1-11:18; 28:16-31) or aspects (rhythm, silence and persuasion) of his work.19 John's Gospel is different again. While it shares the main generic features of bios with the other three, it has a somewhat different atmosphere and style. Gone are the pithy sayings and parables of Jesus, to be replaced by a carefully structured sequence of "signs" and connected discourses, repeating several topics within a limited vocabulary. Rhetorical intention can be seen in the expressed aim to persuade the reader to believe that Jesus is the Christ and Son of God (πιστεύητε οτι Ίησοΰς έστιν ό χριστός ό υιός του θεου, J o h n 20:31). However, it is closer to Mark as radical rhetoric, demanding a response, rather than using closely argued proofs or deductions. 18 19

Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 101-107. Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 1 -99.

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Rhetorical analysis in its broader sense, and in its more modern form encompassing narrative and reader-response criticism,20 will have more success with the fourth Gospel than the narrower definitions of classical oratory. Thus, as we discovered above with ancient biography, we need to be cautious about applying the conventions of classical rhetoric direct to the Gospels and Acts. They are not speeches, nor are they primarily works of persuasion. They may exhibit features of epideictic in an attempt to praise Jesus or blame his opponents, or of judicial rhetoric because of the inclusion of polemic and apologetic, and even be deliberative in their desire that the audience respond with faith in Jesus. Thus rhetoric may influence their overall arrangement and we may find rhetorical forms or patterns affecting certain specific passages or units, especially speeches. However, as with bioi, we need to bear in mind the social setting and level of education of both the evangelists and their audience and be wary of interpreting the Gospels through too restrictive an understanding of rhetoric.

III.

ARRANGEMENT

As above with biography, we shall begin with the second part of rhetoric, arrangement, τάξις or dispositio. This is the organization of a speech into its four main parts: the introduction, προοίμιον; the narration of the details, διήγησις; the proof to persuade the audience, πίστις; and finally the conclusion, επίλογος. We saw that this arrangement could be varied within oratory itself and that while some ancient bioi, particularly those closest to the encomium, had a rough four-part arrangement, in fact there was a great deal of variation depending on the author, the audience and the subject. Some bioi begin with a formal prologue, while others go straight into a brief mention of the birth or the arrival on the public stage; most end with the subject's death told as the climax of his life. In between, the structure is usually a narrative of the subject's life, deeds and words, arranged chronologically for military leaders or politicians, or topically for philosophers or literary writers. 20

See, for example, M. Davies, Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSup, 69; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1992).

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Like bioi, the Gospels are arranged in continuous prose narrative of medium length to fit onto one scroll, from Mark's 11,240 words to Luke's 19,420. We would expect them to begin with Jesus' birth or public arrival and end with his death, with material arranged topically in between in the manner of lives of philosophers. However, since the bios genre is very flexible, we might also expect variation on this pattern—and this is what happens. Mark has a single sentence of introduction before entering direcdy into the narrative with the arrival of J o h n the Baptist, Jesus' baptism and temptation and the beginning of his ministry—all within fifteen verses (Mark 1:1-15)! It is a whirlwind of activity, with the phrase "and immediately" (καί ευθύς) occurring fifteen times in ch. 1 alone (1:10, 12, 18, 20, 21, 23, 28, 29, 30, 42, 43). This pace continues through the first section of ministry and conflict in Galilee up to 8:26. The middle section, including Peter's confession and the transfiguration, is a quieter reflection upon the identity of Jesus (8:2710:52). The third part covers the last week of Jesus' life, entering Jerusalem for his death and resurrection (11:1-16:8). This three-part fast-slow-medium arrangement seems almost closer to sonata form than to oratory! Matthew has a fuller introduction: Jesus' genealogy and family through Joseph leads into two birth and early years stories, the visit of the wise men and the flight into Egypt (Matt. 1-2). The account of the Passion and resurrection forms the epilogue, chs. 26-28. In between, there is a structure of alternating between discourse and narrative: Jesus' teachings are arranged in five main discourses with narrative about Jesus' ministry in between them. This could be seen as a rhetorical oscillation between διήγησις and πίστις, with the sermons as the proof or evidence to explain the ministry. Furthermore, these five discourses seem to be balanced chiastically: the Sermon on the Mount has 107 verses of teaching for the present (chs. 5-7) balanced against the eschatological discourse's 94 verses for the future (chs. 24-25). Matthew 10 has 38 verses on the Church's mission while ch. 18 has 33 verses on the Church's life. This leaves ch. 13, a collection of parables of the kingdom, at the heart of the Gospel. Five is also the number of the books of the Pentateuch, and the sequence of narratives and discourses reveals increasing opposition between Jesus, who teaches from mountains like Moses, and the leaders of Israel, which comes to a climax at the crucifixion. Thus Matthew's arrange-

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ment is not that of classical rhetoric, but seems to blend some of its influence with modfs from his Jewish background. 21 Luke starts with a formal Preface (1:1-4) and an introduction involving birth and childhood stories (1:5-2:52). He terms his writing a διήγησις at the start (1:1) and the bulk of his book is taken up with narrative. Unlike Matthew's rhetorical structure of oscillation between discourse and narrative, Luke has a carefully worked out geographical arrangement: after the opening stories set in Jerusalem (1:5-4:13), the first section covers the ministry in Galilee (4:14-9:50). Then Jesus sets his face for Jerusalem and the middle section forms a travelogue down the Jordan valley through Jericho (9:51-19:27). The book comes to a climax with Jesus' last week, death and resurrection in Jerusalem, and it ends, as it began, in the Temple praising God (19:2824:53). This geographical arrangement continues with Acts: the story carries on in Jerusalem, but follows the programmatic statement of 1:8 with the spread of the Gospel out through Judaea and Samaria to the ends of the earth, moving through Asia Minor, Greece and eventually via the exciting sea journey to Rome itself. Topical material, sayings and sermons are worked into this narrative along the way; often Luke will provide a narrative setting for a Q-saying in the Gospel which Matthew prefers to place into one of his discourses. T h e fourth Gospel has a different arrangement again. There is the high flown prologue (1:1-18) balancing the last chapter, which is probably a later appendix (21). T h e fulcrum at the centre is an interlude at Bethany (chs. 11-12), around which are placed the two major sections of the ministry, involving signs and discourses (1:19-10:42), and the last supper, passion and resurrection narratives, including the farewell discourses (chs. 12-20). Thus it is the narrative of the bios of Jesus which dictates the arrangement, rather than rhetorical structure, although Kennedy tries to show that the farewell discourses of chs. 13-17 follow an epideictic structure. 22 Thus we have different arrangement strategies in each of the Gospels. They do not follow the traditional rhetorical structure, but combine narrative and discourse in a manner typical of the bioi considered in the chapter above. Similarly, they share the generic feature of a deliberate concentration on Jesus: analysis of the subjects of the 21

See D. B. Howell, Matthew's Inclusive Stoiy: A Study in the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel (JSNTSup, 42; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1990) for more analysis. 22 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 72-85.

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verbs shows a very similar arrangement to that found in bioi. Thus Jesus is the subject of about a quarter of Mark's verbs with a further fifth placed on his lips, while he either says or performs over half of John's verbs. 23 Equally, the scale and focus of the narrative are concentrated on Jesus. The disproportionate allocation of about one fifth of the space to the events of Jesus' final days, death and resurrection is also similar to that noted in bioi, especially Plutarch's Cato Minor (56-73) and the Life of Apollonius (7-8). If we now turn to the literary units which make up these arrangements, we can compare them with rhetorical units. As we saw above concerning bioi, in rhetoric the prologue, προοίμιον, is used to establish a relationship with the audience and introduce the subject. Mark begins with a short sentence, αρχή του ευαγγελίου Ίησοΰ Χρίστου (Mark 1:1); some commentators consider that his introduction runs on to v. 8, or 13, or even 15. Whichever it may be, this is not a formal prologue. Like many bioi, Mark enters straight into his narrative with the name of his subject. Matthew begins with Jesus' genealogy, a typical feature of bios; the following stories about the infant Jesus, the wise men and Herod set the theme of the Jewish authorities' failure to recognize the arrival of God in Jesus, who receives instead the worship of Gentiles. Luke also sets his themes of Jesus' ministry among the pious poor and the humble, shepherds, women and so forth; he even has a typical bios feature of the child prefiguring the adult in his story of the twelve-year-old Jesus confounding the teachers in the Temple (1:5-2:52). However, before all these stories, we have the carefully constructed Preface, the nearest we get to a formed προοίμιον in the Gospels (1:1-4). Even this, however, does not follow the rhetorical form, but shares many features with such prefaces in bioi, histories and technical treatises.24 J o h n has a formal prologue, but one which is more of a poetic nature than rhetorical; it certainly sets the stage for the lofty theological reflection which will follow in this Gospel (John 1:1-18). The προγυμνάσματα provide parallels for many of the basic literary units of the Gospels, as they do also for bioi. A typical preliminary exercise was to take an anecdote, χρεία, a pithy saying or action,

23 See Burridge, What Are The Gospels?, Appendix pp. 271-74 for computer charts and statistics. 24 See L. Alexander, The Preface to Luke's Gospel (SNTSMS, 78; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

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and provide an elaboration (έργασία) for it. Ever since the time of form critics like Dibelius, Bultmann and Taylor, the form of the pronouncement story has been noted, particularly the way the story (the details of which might vary in the telling) builds up to the punchline of the actual saying. Mack and Robbins have compared these to the προγυμνάσματα and in particular to the sequence for elaboration of a χρεία in the rhetorical handbooks by Hermogenes and Theon: often the exercise begins with praise or encomium, the chreia and its rationale; this is demonstrated by the refutation of its opposite, arguments from analogy, example or authority leading up to an exhortation. They have applied this method to synoptic stories, such as plucking grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-6; Matt. 12:1-8) and the anointing of Jesus (Mark 14:3-9; Matt. 26:6-13; Luke 7:36-50; J o h n 12:1-8). They have also considered blocks of teaching such as the sayings about foxes and burials (Matt. 8:18-22; Luke 9:51-62) and even sequences of material such as Mark's collection of parables (Mark 4:1-34). From this analysis, they seek to demonstrate how synoptic material is being arranged and elaborated for argument within teaching and preaching; this is nothing less than the creation of a Christian paideia.2b This approach can be illuminating and is a helpful reminder of the use of Gospel stories in argument and debate. Whether all the Gospels' material can be forced into this arrangement is debatable; the influence of other προγυμνάσματα, such as narrative episode, διήγησις or διήγημα, might also be traced. Equally, the impact of Jewish culture on the development of these traditions must be borne in mind. Samuel Byrskog has analysed the amplification, elaboration and transmission of material within Matthew from the perspective of ancient Jewish didactic authority and methods. 26 We can also look for evidence of rhetoric in speeches: the composition of speech-in-character, προσωποποιΐα, was also a key part of rhetorical education, and examples are to be found in most narrative genres, including history and bios. We have already seen that Matthew has arranged Jesus' teachings into five discourses or sermons, balanced through the Gospel. There have been many different analyses

25

Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels. S. Byrskog, Jesus the Only Teacher: Didactic Authority and Transmission in Ancient Israel, Ancient Judaism and the Matthean Community (ConBNT, 24; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1994). 26

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of the Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5-8). Thus Kennedy discovers a rhetorical arrangement of deliberative rhetoric in the classic fourpart form: the Beatitudes constitute the proem (5:3-16); the proposition is that Jesus has come to fulfil the law (5:17-20); the arguments and proof for this make up the bulk (5:21-7:20); 7:21-27 comprises the epilogue and appeal to the audience. 27 O n the other hand, Allison has shown a triadic arrangement: three groups of three Beatitudes (5:3-12) are followed by two groups of three antitheses (5:17-48); the three fold practice of alms, prayer and fasting (6:1-18) leads into a triad on trusting God (6:19-7:12) concluding with three warnings (7:13-27). This triadic structure can be found throughout the whole of the Gospel. 28 Something similar can be seen with Johannine discourse. Kennedy analyses J o h n 13-17 as epideictic rhetoric, with 13:1 as the proem, 13:2-30 as the narration, with 13:31-35 as proposition, followed by the main bulk as consolation with amplification of five main topics. 16:29-33 forms an epilogue to the consolation section, with ch. 17 as the epilogue for the whole discourse. 29 T h e problem is that the whole unit is not a single speech; rather it begins with the narration of the foot washing and last supper, and even the discourse of Jesus is interrupted by the disciples (e.g. 14:5, 8, 22; 16:17-18, 29-30) and betrays evidence of different editions (e.g. 14:31, "Rise, let us go hence", is not acted upon until 18:1). Commentators' analyses of the arrangement are usually affected by their source and composition theories of the Gospel. 30 There are thirty-two speeches in Acts making up a quarter of the work, attributed to most of the main characters. They vary in character from evangelistic addresses to Jews and sympathizers (2:14-40; 3:12-26; 4:8-12; 5:29-32; 10:34-43; 13:16-41) or Gentile pagans (14:14-17; 17:22-31) to farewell discourse (20:17-35) and forensic speeches of defence (22:1-21; 24:10-21; 26:2-23). Traditionally, scholars like Dibelius and Schweizer have compared them with the speeches found in ancient historiography, especially Herodotus and Thucydides, with attention paid to Thucydides' prefatory statement about his

27

Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 39-63; see also B. L. Mack, Rhetoric in the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), pp. 81-85. 28 Davies and Allison, Matthew, I, pp. 58-72. 29 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 73-85. 30 See, for example, Brown, John, pp. 542-47, 581-604.

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speeches in 1:22:1.31 Kennedy combines such approaches with his concern for rhetoric in his analysis of them, differentiating which are kerygmatic, deliberative, judicial, epideicdc and so forth. His conclusion is that the writer is well versed in προσωποποιίαι and quite capable of composing speeches appropriate to the occasion and the audience. 32 Finally, we must come to the epilogue, έπίλογος, designed to recapitulate the major themes and appeal to the audience. We noted above that most bioi end with the subject's death and subsequent honours as the climax of his life. The same is true of the Gospels. Mark's Passion narrative with its single desolate cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (15:34), brings to a climax both his depiction of Jesus as an enigmadc figure often misunderstood and his theology of the presence of God in the midst of pain and suffering; the resurrection narrative with its empty tomb and absent Jesus is similar and the indirect appeal to the readers takes place as they choose whether to hear the women, become disciples and go to meet Jesus in Galilee (16:1-8). Matthew follows Mark's account, but without the dark questions: the cry of desoladon is answered with an earthquake theophany, and the risen Jesus recapitulates the main theme by appearing once again on a mountain to teach his disciples and send them to all the earth (Matt. 27:51-53; 28:16-20). Luke's crucifixion narrative concludes the themes of women (23:27-31), forgiveness for the ordinary people and social outcasts (23:34, 39-43) and Jesus dies, not in desoladon, but committing himself to his Father (23:46); the resurrection shows him once again dining with friends (24:30-31, 36-43) while the ending recapitulates the beginning with praise in the Temple at Jerusalem (24:53). Luke's second volume, Acts, ends with the fulfilment of the geographical programme with Paul in Rome preaching the gospel boldly and unhindered (μετά πάσης παρρησίας άκωλύτως, Acts 28:31). Finally, John's account shows Jesus in control throughout his trial and death, just as he was in his life, so that all can be "accomplished" (τετέλεσται, J o h n 19:30); this

31

M. Dibelius, "The Speeches in Acts and Ancient Historiography", in Studies in the Acts of the Apostles (ed. H. Greeven; New York: Scribners, 1956), pp. 138-85; E. Schweizer, "Concerning the Speeches in Acts", in Studies in Luke-Acts (ed. L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn; New York: Abingdon, 1966), pp. 208-16; S. E. Porter, "Thucydides 1.22.1 and Speeches in Acts: Is There a Thucydidean View?", NovT 32 (1990), pp. 121-42. 32 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 114-40.

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is confirmed by the resurrection accounts of Jesus appearing at will to Mary in her grief, the disciples in their fear, Thomas in his doubts and Peter in his remorse (chs. 20-21). Alone in the Gospels, it concludes with confirmation of the truth of the accounts with witnesses and an appeal to the audience to believe (20:30-31; 21:24-25). Thus, while these endings fulfil the rhetorical functions of formal epilogues, in manner and content they are much more like the endings of other bioi. In conclusion, the arrangement of the Gospels and Acts follows similar patterns to that found above in ancient biography. Rhetorical analysis of both the general structure and the individual units can be helpful, especially for units of anecdotes and speeches, but it is artificial to impose or force rhetorical schemes onto these texts. It is better to see them within the broad genre of bios, showing both GraecoRoman rhetorical influence and also the patterns and methods of Jewish story telling within their syncretistic culture.

IV.

INVENTION

Having devoted considerable attention to arrangement, the second part of rhetorical theory, but perhaps the most important one for both the Gospels and bioi, we come now, as we did above with biography, to the first part, the discovery of the subject matter— εΰρεσις or inventio. The first concern is to establish the key issue, the στάσις or status. Since the Gospel writers chose to write prose narrative accounts exhibiting all the generic features of bios, we can assume that the key issue is the person of Jesus of Nazareth. T h e question, "who is this man?", dominates these texts, with its secondary application to the audience, "what are you going to do about him?" Mark, with his radical Christian rhetoric, just announces right at the start that he is writing the good news of Ίησοΰ Χριστού, with some manuscripts adding the further information υίοΰ θεοΰ ("Son of God"; Mark 1:1). Those who observe his ministry, both the crowds and the disciples, ask the question of what kind of person this is (1:27; 4:41; 6:3). Various incorrect answers are given by the people, and even by Herod (6:1416; 8:28). Jesus' identity is revealed to the audience from the opening verse, and by the Voice from heaven at his baptism and transfiguration (1:11; 9:7), as well as by demons (3:11; 5:7). At the pivot of the

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Gospel, Peter blurts out the answer, but then he is commanded to secrecy (8:29-30). It is only after Jesus is dead that a human being, and a Gentile at that, realizes, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (15:39). T h e openness of the ending passes the question on to the audience. After this rhetorical ploy of Mark's messianic secret, Matthew has the same key issue, but makes Jesus' identity clear from the start with "Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham" (1:1). After the genealogy of 1:1-17, we get further identification from the angel (1:21, 23) and from the wise men (2:2, 11): Jesus is salvation, God with us and he is to be worshipped. Luke similarly makes Jesus' identity clear through his opening stories of the annunciation (2:31-33, 35) and the angel's announcement to the shepherds that he is "a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (2:11). J o h n locates Jesus' identity even further back: he is from the beginning with God and is God, yet dwelling among us (1:1-18). Nonetheless, there is constant speculation through the Gospel about his identity, asking if this could be the Christ (1:19-30; 4:29; 7:1 1-13, 25-27, 4 0 - 4 2 ) . T h e answer is hidden from those who are blinded by disbelief (9:41; 10:24; 12:37), yet open for those who have eyes of faith (1:49; 2:11; 4:42; 6:68-69; 7:31; 9:38; 11:27). After the key issue has been decided upon, the writer has to find "places", τόποι, where he might "discover" useful material for his work. T h e "topics" for encomium were carefully listed in the rhetorical handbooks, and these formed the bulk of the material for bioi, as listed in the chapter above. Often they would begin with the subject's ancestry, family and citizenship. Mark has none of these; in their opening chapters, Matthew and Luke both provide genealogies, stories of the family and mention of the key city of Bethlehem, while John's prologue places Jesus' origins as before the beginning of the world (1:1-18). Matthew uses the infancy stories of the wise men and the flight into Egypt to set up his themes of the opposition of Jewish authorities contrasted with worship by Gentiles (2:1-23), while Luke places the birth among the humble poor (2:1-20) and the pious at worship in the Temple (2:22-39), as well as including the only childhood story, in which the twelve-year old Jesus confounds the teachers with "his understanding and his answers" (έπΐ τη συνέσει και ταΐς άποκρίσεσιν) while he is about his Father's business (έν τοις του πατρός μου, 2:41-50), just as he will when adult—a typical feature of bios literature. J o h n covers all these topics by placing Jesus' origins with God at the beginning (1:1-18).

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The great deeds and words of the protagonist usually form the bulk of a bios and the Gospels are no different. The significance of deeds and words for displaying the character of a religious leader is made clear by Cleopas's comment that Jesus was "a prophet mighty in deed and word" (έν έ'ργω και λόγφ, Luke 24:19). Luke continues to stress this pairing at the start of Acts, explaining that the first volume had been about what "Jesus began to do and teach" (ών ήρξατο 6 Ίησοΰς ποιεΐν και διδάσκειν, Acts 1:1), implying that this second volume would show what he continued "to do and teach" through his followers. As well as the quarter of Acts devoted to speeches, another large part tells of the great deeds done by the apostles, such as Peter (Acts 3:1-10; 5:1-12; 9:36-43), Philip (8:4-13) and Paul (14:8-10; 16:16-18; 19:11-12; 20:9-12; 28:1-6). As regards the balance of these two activities, although Mark regularly describes Jesus as a teacher (e.g. 1:21-22; 4:1-2; 6:6), there is remarkably little teaching and only four parables in this Gospel (4:1-20, 26-29, 30-32; 12:1-12). T h e large amount of teaching in Luke and Matthew, comprising around 40 per cent of the work, is a consequence of their use of "Q,", which seems to have had all teaching and little action or narrative. J o h n combines deeds and words with his "signs", σημεία, as he prefers to call the mighty deeds, followed by discourses. Out of the many signs known to him, he has made a selection for the purpose of persuading the audience to faith (20:30-31). Often they are connected intimately to a discourse, so that the feeding of the multitude is followed by the Bread of Life discourse (6:1-14, 25-59) while the Light of the World discourse (ch. 8) precedes the healing of the blind man (ch. 9). Finally, we saw in bioi that the death was another good place, τόπος, to demonstrate the subject's character. Around a fifth of the Gospels is taken up with Jesus' last days, death and resurrection, all narrated to sum up the different themes of each Gospel, as was shown under Arrangement above. Significandy, Acts does not end with a death, despite the tradition of Paul's death at Rome. Some have seen this as evidence of an early date for Acts or even that the book may have been written as part of the research for his trial;33 however, the ending of the narrative with the Gospel being proclaimed unhindered at Rome brings to a climax the central issue of this monograph, which has been the story of the early Church and the spread of the faith.

33

See F. F. Bruce, Acts of the Apostles (London: Tyndale, 1951), pp. 10-14.

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Amplification, αϋξησις, involves developing at length or repeating a certain theme or idea to ensure that the audience understands its importance. The extended treatment of the death ofJesus shows amplification at work in a manner similar to the long death scenes at the end of certain bioi, such as Cato Minor. Kennedy also sees amplification at work in the extended passages of teaching, such as the Sermon on the Mount, especially the antitheses of 5:21-48 and the warnings of 7:1-5, 7-12, and 15-20. The constant repetition of a few themes and topics in Johannine discourse, especially chs. 14-17, similarly shows the use of amplification, as does the speeches in Acts.34 The classic rhetorical arrangement requires the narrative to be followed by the proofs (πίστεις). In the Gospels, as in other bioi and continuous prose genres, the two are often mixed together. Thus, the author needs to "find", in invention, proofs to demonstrate or confirm his narrative. Miracles were sometimes seen as such evidence, and the evangelists regularly follow a section of narrative or teaching with a reference to Jesus' miracles. Thus the Sermon on the Mount is both preceded and followed by Jesus healing people (4:23-25; 8:1-17). In Luke, Jesus answers the question of John the Baptist as to whether he is the one to come by going out to heal; he then commands John's disciples to tell him what they have "seen and heard" as his proofs (Luke 7:19-23). John's use of "signs", σημεία, for miracles shows their use as indicators of the truth of Jesus' identity as Son of God. Other proofs included witnesses: this could be by an "example" done by a significant person in the past, such as appealing to David's action to justify plucking grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28) or by "citation" of other authorities, as Matthew does regularly, quoting "this was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet" (e.g. 1:22-23; 4:14-16; 12:17-21; 21:4-5). "To bear witness", μαρτυρείν, is one of John's key often repeated words; a succession of people bear witness to Jesus throughout the Gospel from J o h n the Baptist (John 1:6, 34) and the Samaritan woman (4:39) to the writer himself (ό μαρτύρων . . . ό γράψας, 21:24). Luke is at pains to stress to his Gentile audience the witness of the authorities that Jesus himself was not guilty (according to Pilate and Herod, Luke 23:14-15) or innocent (the centurion at the cross, 23:47), and the same is repeatedly declared of Paul (Acts 16:37-39; 18:14-15; 19:37; 23:29; 26:30-31; 28:17-22). 34

Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 55, 61-62 on the Sermon on the Mount; pp. 82-83 on John; pp. 116-39 on Acts.

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Finally, we come to characterization: the Gospel writers develop their characterization of Jesus through indirect narration of his words and deeds in a manner similar to that found in bioi and historiography. We noted above the ancients' interest in character as moral type, rather than personality, and the attempt to depict the incarnation of God is bound to fall short of a realistic human portrait. This is perhaps most true of John's portrayal of Jesus, especially in the placing knowledge of his own pre-existence and equality with God on his lips (e.g. John 6:38, 62; 10:30). Nonetheless, even here a recognizable portrait appears of a supremely confident, yet loving individual. The indirect characterization in the other Gospels provides three distinct portraits from Mark's enigmatic, secretive wonder-worker rushing about, through Matthew's teacher in continuity with Israel to Luke's patient "man for others" concerned for the outcasts and the lost.35 The success of these characterizations beyond the merely stereotypical can be judged by the profound effect their portrayal has had upon our civilization over millennia and the coundess millions who believe that they "know" this person.

V.

STYIE

After invention and arrangement are applied to the content and structure of a work, the third major part of rhetoric is style, λεξις or elocutio. As we saw above with regard to bioi, the four main virtues were correctness or purity of language (ελληνισμός when writing in Greek, avoiding barbarisms), clarity (τό σαφές), ornamentation (κατασκευή) and propriety (τό πρέπον), adapting the style to the character of the speaker, subject or audience. Unfortunately, this aspect is often omitted in contemporary application of rhetorical criticism to the Gospels, probably because their style is rather different from that of the classical orators! Nonetheless, we saw above that bioi were written in a variety of styles appropriate for the wide range of social settings in which bioi were found, from the rhetoric of formal encomium to the simple anecdotes of the sophistic entertainer in the public market place. Mark is often criticized for the poor quality of his Greek style.

35 For detailed consideration of the different Christological portraits in the Gospels, see R. A. Burridge, Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading (London: SPCK, 1994).

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Certainly, it does not possess the virtue of purity in its Greek; it is written in a rough style, showing definite Semitic influence in vocabulary and syntax.36 Unlike pure rhetorical Greek which prized conjunction and the period, Mark's writing has little connection: eighty-eight sections begin paratactically merely with καί (often used incorrectly where δέ would have been better) and there are nineteen examples of asyndeton, no linking at all. Everything happens "immediately" (εύθυς occurs some forty times, as often as in the rest of the New Testament put together) and he drops into the historic present over 150 times, which imparts a pace to the narrative often missed in more "correct" English translations. There is little ornamentation, but he writes clearly and appropriately for a popular, and probably oral, audience. Matthew tends to improve the (im)purity of Mark's Greek, abbreviating the stories and replacing the omnipresent καί with the more acceptable δέ. His grasp of Greek is basically sound, but includes Semitisms. Davies and Allison remind us that he was probably bi- or trilingual, and this is reflected in a competent but unexciting style.37 Nonetheless, his arrangement of the Sermon on the Mount has already shown us some rhetorical ability, and this is reflected in the ornamentation there: there is the anaphora of the repeated "Blessed. . ." in the Beatitudes, which are also a sequence of enthymemes (5:3-10); they conclude by breaking into apostrophe with the sudden shift to the second person, "Blessed are you" (5:11). He continues with rhetorical questions (5:13, 47) and a sequence of antitheses (5:21-48). 38 Luke also improves Mark's style, changing the historic presents into past tenses, eliminating parataxis, preferring δέ or τέ and introducing the balance of μεν . . . δέ. He has a greater command of syntax and vocabulary and is quite capable of composing in different styles, appropriate (πρέπον) to the narrative. He begins with the classical Greek of the Preface (1:1-4), probably the best period in the New Testament, but then he changes into a Septuagintal style for the stories of the conceptions of J o h n the Baptist and Jesus, reflecting Old Testament stories of miraculous conceptions. Similarly, the

36

E. C. Maloney, Semitic Interference on Markau Syntax (SBLDS, 51 ; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980); see also H. C. Kee, Community of the New Age (London: SCM, 1977), pp. 50-54 on Mark's style. 37 Davies and Allison, Matthew, I, pp. 72-96. 38 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 27-28.

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opening chapters of Acts are written in a more Semitic style; some have suggested that this reflects a "Jerusalem" source, but since the style becomes more Greek as the narrative moves away from Jerusalem towards Greece and Rome it is probably a stylisdc device by this author. 39 This facility is also seen in the different stylistic flavours Luke gives to the speeches in Acts to make them appropriate for their different settings and audiences. John's style combines both Semitisms (including terms like Rabbi, Cephas and Messiah, 1:37-42) and Hellenisms typical of contemporary non-literary Koiné. Again, this reflects the bi-/trilingual culture, demonstrated also by his mixture of Jewish and Hellenistic philosophical and religious ideas. The style of the fourth Gospel is easily recognizable and applied uniformly to narrative, discourse and conversation, as is evidenced by the difficulty of determining when Jesus and J o h n the Baptist stop speaking (3:15 or 21, 30 or 36?). There is a limited and repetitive vocabulary, stressing key words like love, truth, life, Father, etc. This provides rhetorical emphasis and amplification to the central themes, along with the use of ornamental tropes like metaphor, with the "I a m " sayings about bread of life, light, good shepherd, door, resurrection and life, way, truth and life, and the vine (6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:!).40 Thus the Gospels are written in a variety of styles, each presumably appropriate for the author or his audience. They vary in the quality and purity of their Greek, reflecting the mixed culture in which they were composed, although Luke in particular shows the ability to write in different styles, both in his narrative and in speeches. Matthew and John demonstrate some basic rhetorical features in their style, but Mark betrays little or no rhetorical education.

V I . D E L I V E R Y AND

MEMORY

T h e fourth and fifth parts of rhetoric deal with memory and delivery. We found above that these did not apply easily to ancient bioi, except for encomia designed to be delivered as a speech. 39

Fitzmyer, Luke, pp. 107-27; A. Plummer, Luke (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901), pp. xli-lxvii. 40 See Brown, John, pp. cxxix-cxxxvii on style and Appendix I on vocabulary, pp. 497-518; also E. Haenchen, John (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 52-66 and Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 26, 73-96 and 108-13.

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Unfortunately, we have no external evidence of the social setting or occasion of the Gospels and so can only infer these elements from the texts. Given the fact that the primary method of publication in the ancient world was a public reading, perhaps at a dinner party, it would not be surprising if these texts also betrayed oral or aural characteristics. Form criticism has demonstrated the oral nature of Gospel pericopae and much has been done on the way the individual units were transmitted through the oral tradition. Lectionary theories about the Gospels suggest that they would have been delivered in small sections during early Christian worship; thus Goulder has suggested that Mark is designed to be read over six months, while Guilding applied the concept to John. 41 However, what about delivering a whole Gospel? The rise of narrative criticism has redirected attention to the Gospels as a single coherent narrative, and the work of Rhoads and Michie in treating Mark as though it were a modern story has been instructive.42 Equally, interest has been aroused by dramatic performances of Mark's Gospel (in the AV) by the English actor, Alec McCowen, which lasts just over an hour and a half. Recent work by Christopher Bryan has combined traditional studies on the oral nature of Mark with its genre as ancient bios. He suggests that Mark's rapid narrative, style and structure all reveal that the text was written to be delivered orally as a continuous whole. 43 If this is so, then the overall arrangements and structures noted in the Gospels, as well as the links and relationships between individual units, would all help in both memory and delivery. Equally, the little summaries at the end of each section in the Gospels (e.g. Matt. 4:23-25; 9:35) and in Acts (6:7; 9:31; 12:24) might mark the end of passages in delivery as do the sententiae in Tacitus. Thus one can imagine the Gospels being delivered, either from memory or by being read aloud, at a single sitting or in large sections over a couple of sessions, within the context of a group of early Christians over a meal, at worship, or both in the context of the

41

M. D. Goulder, Midrash and Lection m Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974) and The Evangelist's Calendar: A Lectionary Explanation of the Development of Scripture (London: SPCK, 1978); A. Guilding, The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960). 42 D. Rhoads and D. Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). 43 C. Bryan, A Preface to Mart Notes on the Gospel in its Literary and Cultural Settings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

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Eucharist or in didactic settings for instruction in the faith. Unfortunately, we have to attempt to reconstruct what kind of community might be the "appropriate" (πρέπον) setting for such texts. Kee has suggested a comparison for the Markan community with apocalyptic groupings like those of Daniel or Qumran, while Beavis has attempted to reconstruct the cultural and educational background of Mark's audience, making links with Hellenistic society. 44 Similar reconstructions have been attempted for Matthew, 45 while versions of the Johannine community are legion!46 Perhaps applying the insights of rhetorical criticism with regard to memory and delivery might help future research here.

VIE

CONCLUSION

Throughout this discussion, we have treated the Gospels within the broader genre of ancient biography, and like bioi, they have revealed a range of rhetorical influence. We have seen that rhetorical theory in its stricter sense applies best to ancient oratory, and we have expressed caution about applying too rigorous a scheme to the Gospels. This is further compounded by the fact that, although some preliminary exercises and basic rhetoric were taught in Hellenistic secondary education, rhetoric proper formed the bulk of ancient higher education—and we need to bear in mind the educational background of the evangelists and their audiences. Analysis of arrangement revealed that the larger structures of the Gospels follow the same basic pattern as bioi, rather than the outlines of a rhetorical speech. However, we did discern some rhetorical influence on the smaller literary units making up the texts. Under invention, we discovered that the Gospels include the same basic τόποι as bioi, originally derived from rhetorical theory for encomium. T h e techniques of invention, such as elaboration, amplification and characterization, can be seen in the composition of the Gospels' material. Consideration of style showed that none of the Gospels were written 44

Kee, Community of the New Age, see especially pp. 77-87; Beavis, Mark's Audience, see especially pp. 13-44. 45 E.g., G. N. Stanton, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1992). 46 See Brown, John, pp. xxiv-li and his Community of the Beloved Disciple (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1979).

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in good rhetorical style, but that some of them have affinities with popular Koiné. Further consideration of the Gospels as written biographical texts designed to be read orally from the perspective of rhetorical delivery and memory might yield future benefit. There has been a recent rush to apply some aspects of rhetoric to the Gospels, particularly as it relates to arrangement and the προγυμνάσματα, especially χρείαι, although the other parts have not received the same attention. If we bring all five elements together, we can begin to form some conclusions. Mark's rough Greek style and his preference for assertive, radical rhetoric rather than argument suggests that it is unlikely that he has had any formal training in Greek rhetoric. It would be surprising if he took the secondary and higher classes in rhetorical composition but had missed the primary linguistic training in the use of καί and δε! Therefore, if one discerns patterns of rhetorical persuasion in Mark's Gospel, it is more likely that these came to him either as unconscious forms of argument common to humankind or through general awareness within his pluralistic culture, in the same way that his awareness of biographical writing seems more of a general pattern picked up at the primary level or from stories at his mother's knee than following specific Greek models. John too possesses this radical rhetoric, but his style and use of discourse are much more advanced than Mark's. Since he appears to combine a wide range of ideas and beliefs from both Jewish and Hellenistic philosophies and belief systems, probably derived from the syncretistic society of Asia Minor, this would probably explain his style and rhetoric also. Luke clearly develops Mark's model more in both a biographical and a historiographical direction in his Gospel and in Acts. Given his command of several different Greek styles and his composition of speeches, it is not unreasonable that he might have had some rhetorical training which emerges in his writing. Similarly, Matthew's additions also move his Gospel closer to bioi; while his style is unexcitingly competent, his arrangement and composition of five main discourses shows definite rhetorical ability, drawing on both the Hellenistic and Jewish backgrounds. The Gospels and Acts emerged from a conjunction of Jewish and Hellenistic religious, philosophical and literary traditions. Composed and delivered in Greek, they can be studied through rhetorical analysis. Provided that they are not subjected to a rigid scheme derived from Isocrates, Aristotle or the rhetorical handbooks (which are often later

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anyway), such analysis, undertaken sensitively across the whole range of rhetoric, should yield great benefit to biblical scholars.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Commentaries Davies, W. D., and D. C. Allison, Matthew (3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988-). Schweizer, Ε., The Good News According to Matthew (London: SPCK, 1976). Guelich, R. Α., Mark 1-8:26 (Dallas: Word, 1989). Hooker, M. D., Mark (London: A. & C. Black, 1991). Schweizer, Ε., The Good News According to Mark (London: SPCK, 1971). Evans, C. F., Saint Luke (London: SCM, 1990). Fitzmyer, J. Α., Luke (AB, 28, 28A; New York: Doubleday, 1981, 1985). Plummer, Α., Luke (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901). Beasley-Murray, G. R , John (Dallas: Word, 1987). Brown, R. E., John (AB, 29, 29A; New York: Doubleday, 1966, 1970). Haenchen, E., John (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). Lindars, B., The Gospel of John (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1972). Bruce, F. F., Acts of the Apostles (London: Tyndale, 1951). Conzelmann, H. L., The Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987). Haenchen, E., The Acts of the Apostles (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971). Other Sources Alexander, L., The Preface to Luke's Gospel (SNTSMS, 78; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Anderson, J. C., and S. D. Moore, Mark and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). Aune, D. E., The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987). Beavis, Μ. Α., Mark's Audience: The Literary and Social Setting of Mark 4.11-12 (JSNTSup, 33; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989). Brown, R. E., Community of the Beloved Disciple (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1979). Bryan, C., A Preface to Mark: Notes on the Gospel in its Literary and Cultural Settings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Burridge, R. Α., What Are The Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). , Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading (London: SPCK, 1994). Clark, D. L., Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966). Davies, M., Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSup, 69; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1992). Dibelius, M., Studies in the Acts of the Apostles (ed. H. Greeven; New York: Scribners, 1956).

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Howell, D. B., Matthew's Inclusive Stoiy: A Study in the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel (JSNTSup, 42; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1990). Keck, L. E., and J. L. Martyn (eds.), Studies in Luke-Acts (New York: Abingdon, 1966). Kee, H. C., Community of the New Age (London: SCM, 1977). Kennedy, G. Α., Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Tunes (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980). , New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). , A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Litfin, D., St. Paul's Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric (SNTSMS, 79; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Mack, B. L., Rhetoric and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). , and V. K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1989). Marrou, Η. I., A History of Education in Antiquity (London: Sheed and Ward, 1956). Meeks, W. Α., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). Porter, S. E., and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1993). Rhoads, D., and D. Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). Stanton, G. N., A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1992). Tannehill, R. C., The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation (2 vols.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1986, 1990). Watson, D. F. (ed.), Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy (JSNTSup, 50; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1991). Wilder, A. N., Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel (London: SCM, 1964).

CHAPTER 18

PAUL O F T A R S U S AND HIS L E T T E R S Stanley E. Porter Roehampton Institute London, England

I . INTRODUCTION: T H E M A N AND HIS L E T T E R S

In the study of rhetoric and the New Testament, in recent times more attention has been given to the Pauline letters than to any other part of the New Testament. 1 In some circles, rhetorical analysis constitutes a standard, independent interpretive model, while in others it constitutes one of several critical tools of historical criticism.2 In the light of the scope of this volume, however, the use of ancient rhetorical categories as applied to the Pauline letters is the subject of analysis. This chapter proceeds in several parts. After an introduction to Paul the man and his letters, part II surveys the variety of ancient rhetorical analyses of the Pauline letters and subjects them to critical scrutiny. Part III analyzes the presuppositions of rhetorical studies of the Pauline letters in terms of ancient rhetorical and epistolary theory. Part IV presents a functional model of rhetorical criticism for the study of the Pauline letters.

A. Paul the Man Kennedy claims that an important dimension of rhetorical criticism is the attempt to discover the intention of the author of the piece of rhetoric under consideration. 3 If this is so (some would disagree), it is 1

D. F. Watson and A.J. Hauser, Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible: A Comprehensive Bibliography with Notes on Histoiy and Method (BI, 4; Leiden: Brill, 1994), esp. pp. 178-202. 2 See D. L. Stamps, "Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament: Ancient and Modern Evaluations of Argumentation", in S. E. Porter and D. Tombs (eds.), Approaches to New Testament Study (JSNTSup, 120; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), esp. pp. 130-35, for a survey of the development of rhetorical criticism in New Testament studies. 3 G. A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), p. 12.

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necessary to understand as much as possible about the background of Paul of Tarsus and his rhetorical training. A major question is whether Paul lived in Tarsus long enough to have availed himself of the Greco-Roman educational system, and even if he did whether he shows any signs in his writings of having learned rhetoric at the schools.4 Tarsus of Cilicia was known as a centre of learning—especially in the areas of philosophy and rhetoric—that may at one time have rivaled Alexandria and Athens (Strabo 14:5:3). Such a Greco-Roman city would have had a three stage educational system, including primary, secondary or grammatical, and tertiary or rhetorical training. Although the lines of demarcation are not clearly drawn, rudimentary training in rhetoric apparently began at the secondary or grammatical level, even though the majority of rhetorical study occurred at the tertiary (or rhetorical) level. It was here that students learned to declaim and completed the variety of rhetorical exercises that we know from the rhetorical handbooks (see chapters 1 and 12 in this volume). 5 In Acts 22:3, when arrested in Jerusalem, Paul is quoted as stadng that he was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, brought up in "this city" and trained under the Jewish teacher Gamaliel. The ambiguous grammar of this statement has aroused endless discussion of whether Paul is saying that he was reared in Tarsus or Jerusalem. In the light of his having been educated under Gamaliel, the context of Paul's remarks, and the syntactical structure, most scholars believe that Paul is stadng that he was brought up in Jerusalem. 6 This would mean that although he may well have been able to receive primary education in Tarsus, he would not have been able to receive secondary or tertiary education, and therefore would have been unable to receive formal rhetorical training in Tarsus. Although many New Testament 4

For two recent discussions of these issues and surveys of the pertinent literature, see J. Fairweather, "The Episde to the Galatians and Classical Rhetoric: Parts 1 & 2", TynBul 45.1 (1994), pp. 23-30; D. Litfin, St Paul's Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric (SNTSMS, 79; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 137-40. One of the best older discussions of Paul's relation to the classical world is still Ε. B. Howell, "St Paul and the Greek World", G & R 11 (1964), pp. 7-29, although few would go as far as he does. 5 On Greco-Roman education, see, for example, D. L. Clark, Rhetoric in GrecoRoman Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), esp. pp. 59-66. 6 On these issues, see M. Hengel with R. Deines, The Pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM Press, 1991), pp. 18-39, although Hengel perhaps overemphasizes the Jewish elements.

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scholars seem to assume that Paul's training under Gamaliel would have been in Jewish law only in order to become a Pharisee, and that this would have excluded training in rhetoric, this may not have been so, however. T h e possible influence of Greco-Roman culture, including rhetoric, on Paul even in Palestine could have been significant. For example, besides there being various public fora where Paul could have been exposed to rhetoric, and contact between Jewish and Greek thinking,7 Daube has argued convincingly that the precepts of Rabbinic exegesis were in fact derived from Greco-Roman rhetoric. 8 Thus it may have been possible for Paul to have received some form of rhetorical training even in Jerusalem. The nature and kind of this education is still subject to question, however. The formal training he would have received would probably have been as rhetoric interpreted through its adaptation by Rabbinic thought, rather than as rhetoric strictly for civic oratorical purposes. Nevertheless, it is still debated by scholars whether Paul displays knowledge of formal training in rhetoric on the basis of his writings. O n the one hand, a few scholars in their rhetorical analyses of the Pauline letters argue that the ease with which they discover rhetorical structures is evidence of some type of formal training in rhetoric. 9 On the other hand, a number of scholars argue that Paul even though he did not receive formal training in rhetoric exemplifies a number of features of rhetoric simply because either he was intelligent and widely travelled enough to have availed himself of informal training in rhetoric or there was sufficient rhetorical influence in the GrecoRoman world of the time to make it plausible that he inadvertendy picked up the rudiments of rhetoric. 10 Although some have argued that Pauline vocabulary indicates formal knowledge of rhetoric, Paul's use of a number of words that are associated with rhetoric—including 7 On this topic, see M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (trans. J. Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), passim but esp. pp. 70-78; The "Hellenization" of Judaea in the First Century after Christ (trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM Press, 1989). 8 See D. Daube, "Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric", HUCA 22 (1949), pp. 239-64. The thesis of his article is the following: "the Rabbinic methods of interpretation derive from Hellenistic rhetoric. Hellenistic rhetoric is at the bottom both of the fundamental ideas, presuppositions, from which the Rabbis proceeded and of the major details of application, the manner in which these ideas were translated into practice" (p. 240). 9 For example, Fairweather, "Galatians and Classical Rhetoric: Parts 1 & 2", p. 36. 10 For example, Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, p. 10, followed by many.

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άλληγορείν (Gal. 4:24), βεβαίωσις and πειθός (Gal. 5:8), μετασχηματίζειν (1 Cor. 4:6), παράκλησις, παραμυθία and their cognates (1 Cor. 14:5; Phil. 1:2; 1 Thess. 2:12), μακαρισμός (Rom. 4:6, 9; Gal. 4:15), δυσφημείν (1 Cor. 4:13), εύφημος (Phil. 4:8), συντέμνειν (Rom. 9:28), ερμηνεία (1 Cor. 12:10; 14:26), άνελεήμων (Rom. 1:31), and έπιβαρείν (1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:8; 2 Cor. 2:5)"—does not prove that Paul was formally trained in rhetoric. These instances reveal intelligent use of the Hellenistic Greek of the time, perhaps with informal acquaintance with some of the terminology of rhetoric, especially since some of this language was used in other than simply rhetorical circles. A feature not often commented upon is the possibility that regardless of Paul's own rhetorical abilities his amanuenses may well have been trained in rhetoric and taken Paul's thoughts and even words and structured them into rhetorical units within his letters. O n the basis of the distinct Pauline voice that resonates throughout his letters, this theory would seem to require that Paul made use of the same amanuensis for most if not all of his writings, an assumption not held by most Pauline scholars. T h e direct evidence from the New Testament regarding Paul's capability as a rhetor is not great. 12 Within Paul's letters themselves, direct statements regarding rhetoric are few. For example, in 1 Cor. 1:17-2:5, esp. 2:1-2, Paul states that he "did not come on the basis of highsounding words (λόγος) or w i s d o m . . . . For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and this one crucified." This statement has been interpreted in several major ways. Some have taken it at face value as a Pauline disclaimer regarding his knowledge of rhetoric, and this is probably true in so far as formal or sophistic training is concerned, as noted above.13 Others however have taken the statement as part of a Pauline rhetorical strategy in the light of his difficulties with the Corinthian church. 14 Whereas some

" For this list and discussion, see C.J. Classen, "Philologische Bemerkungen zur Sprache des Apostels Paulus", Wiener Studien 107-108 (1994-95), pp. 321-35. 12 I here distinguish direct evidence from the kinds of reconstructions of the arrangement of his letters, etc., discussed below. 13 See B. W. Winter, "The Entries and Ethics of Orators and Paul (1 Thessalonians 2:1-12)", TynBul 44.1 (1993), pp. 68-70. 14 On interpretation of this passage, as well as the rest of 1 Corinthians 1-4, see Litfin, St Paul's Theology, esp. pp. 1-18 and 137-262. Litfin probably draws too much of a contrast between rhetoric and Pauline proclamation. See also S. M. Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia: The Rhetorical Situation of 1 Corinthians (SBLDS, 134; Adanta: Scholars Press, 1992).

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at Corinth may well have had formal rhetorical training, especially if they were in some way following Apollos, an Alexandrian, and been concerned to establish their formal qualifications through letters of recommendation, Paul is disclaiming this as a qualification. He does so, according to some, by the use of a variety of rhetorical means, including antithesis (1 Cor. 1:17), anaphora and litotes (1:26), antistrophe (1:26-28), accumulation (2:1-5), enthymemes (2:10), and ethical appeal (ethos).15 Paul also states at 2 Corinthians 10-11 that he was timid when he was with them (2 Cor. 10:1), perhaps indicating that he did not present the kind of physical presence expected of a rhetorician,16 and that he was untrained (ιδιώτης) with regard to words (λόγος) (2 Cor. 11:6). This may well reflect comparison of him with opponents at Corinth in relation to his rhetorical abilities, although it also appears to be evidence for the comparative forcefulness of his letters and the relative unimpressiveness of his physical appearance (see on Acts below). Although Paul cites several pagan authors (e.g. at 1 Cor. 15:3; Tit. 1:12), this slender evidence is insufficient to construct a firm hypothesis regarding Paul's GrecoRoman educational background, including especially his formal rhetorical training. The evidence from the book of Acts must also be considered, although one must be aware that there is scholarly disagreement regarding the validity of using Acts to discuss Paul. In Acts, Paul is seen as a speech-maker (see Acts 13:16-41; 14:15-17; 17:22-31; 20:18-35; 22:1-21; 24:10-21; 26:2-23; 28:17-20). 1 7 T w o speeches are of particular importance. In Acts 14:15-17, Barnabas and Paul on the so-called first missionary journey are hailed by the Lystrans as Zeus and Hermes after a healing miracle that is performed. The reason given in Acts for Paul being called Hermes is that he was the messenger god and Paul appears to have been the chief spokesman. Zeus was a much more imposing member of the pantheon, however, with

15 See J. R. Levison, "Did the Spirit Inspire Rhetoric? An Exploration of George Kennedy's Definidon of Early Christian Rhetoric", in D. F. Watson (ed.), Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy (JSNTSup, 50; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1991), pp. 36-37. 16 Cf. Acts 13:16; 17:22; 21:40; 26:2, where Paul is depicted on several occasions as making the kinds of physical flourishes associated with rhetoricians. 17 See M. Soards, The Speeches in Acts: Their Content, Context, and Concerns (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994). On the two speeches mendoned below, see pp. 88-90 and pp. 95-100.

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Hermes having a secondary and sometimes uncomplimentary status.18 This may be consistent with Paul not having a particularly impressive physical presence (see above). A later church tradition (Acts of Paul and Thecla 3) records that Paul was short, bald, bow-legged, rugged in complexion, long-nosed, and knit-browed, consonant with other hints at descriptions of him in the New Testament, although it is likely that this later account is designed to explain the New Testament. In any case, this description does not go far in establishing Paul's rhetorical ability. T h e second incident is Paul's speech given in Athens, recorded at Acts 17:22-31. Like most if not all of the speeches in Acts, this one is at best only a short summary of what may have been said on the occasion. Therefore, it is highly difficult to analyze it rhetorically as a complete speech by Paul. If anything, its rhetorical structure can only be analyzed as a speech preserved by the author of Acts. In this case, this speech, like all of the speeches in Acts, does not necessarily provide direct access into Paul's rhetorical ability. For this, one must turn to Paul's letters.

B. Paul's Letters Pauline scholarship is divided regarding authorship of the corpus of thirteen letters ascribed to Paul in the New Testament. Whereas some would sdll hold that Paul of Tarsus wrote all thirteen, critical opinion seems to have narrowed this number to seven to ten letters.19 The consensus rejects the so-called Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) as being post-Pauline, perhaps as late as the second century. Scholarly opinion is still very much open, although to varying degrees, regarding such letters as 2 Thessalonians, Colossians and Ephesians. Most scholars accept the major four letters, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians, plus 1 Thessalonians, Philippians and Philemon. Rhetorical categories are applied to these "authentic" letters as if

18 On Zeus and Hermes in the Greek pantheon, see W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and their Gods (Boston: Beacon, 1950), pp. 87-94; W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 156-59. 19 The major debate regarding Pauline authorship began with F. C. Baur. For a history of discussion, see W. G. Kümmel, The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of its Problems (trans. S. MacL. Gilmour and H. C. Kee; Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), pp. 126-43 and pasnm. Any decent introducdon to the New Testament should include debate of these issues. See, for example, W. G. Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament (trans. H. C. Kee; Nashville: Abingdon, 1975), pp. 250-387.

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they came directly from the hand of Paul, even though it is known that the process of Pauline composition may well have been highly complex, combining such factors as the use of an amanuensis (see e.g. Rom. 16:22, where Tertius is mentioned as the writer of the letter; Gal. 6:11; 2 Thess. 2:17),20 and the possibility of multiple letters from different occasions having been incorporated into a single letter (e.g. 2 Corinthians and Philippians, and possibly Romans), among other factors. The questions that this critical situation raises for the study of rhetoric include: in what sense can authorial intention be established and made useful in determining the rhetorical force of a piece of rhetoric, in what ways can pieces of rhetoric be used to reconstruct the situations (historical or otherwise) in which they were written, can documents be analyzed in terms of their rhetorical categories and structures apart from knowledge of their rhetorical situation or rhetorical situations?21 There are also further questions regarding the fact that if the letters mentioned above were not written by Paul they may not have been written by another individual but have developed out of a variety of forces in church contexts. These issues will be addressed below.

II.

PROPOSALS R E G A R D I N G

PAULINE

RHETORIC

Numerous proposals regarding the rhetorical structure and features of various of Paul's letters have been advanced. Whereas there are still analysts of Paul's letters who see rhetorical features as of only secondary importance, not germane to analysis of these examples of genuine letters of the Greco-Roman world,22 in recent times rhetorical 20 On the amanuensis, see E. R. Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul (VVUNT, 2:42; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991). 21 On the concept of rhetorical situation, see D. L. Stamps, "Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation: The Entextualization of the Situation in New Testament Episdes", in S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1993), pp. 193-210; cf. L. Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation", Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968), pp. 1-14; A. Brinton, "Situation in the Theory of Rhetoric", Philosophy and Rhetoric 14 (1981), pp. 234-48. 22 See, for example, J. L. White, The Body of the Greek Letter (SBLDS, 2; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1972); W. G. Doty, Letters in Primitive Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973); H. Hübner, "Der Galaterbrief und das Verhältnis von antiker Rhetorik und Epistolographie", TL£ 109 (1984), pp. 241-50.

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analysis has asserted itself as one of the major forms of Pauline study. Putting aside those who primarily utilize the categories of the New Rhetoric—beyond discussion in this chapter—for those who utilize the categories of ancient rhetoric, there are two major though closely related models. One, represented by Kennedy, 23 approaches the letters as essentially speeches, with the epistolary openings and closings treated as almost incidental features. The other, represented by Betz,24 and following the handbook tradition, wishes to assert the epistolary integrity of the letter but with full consideration of the rhetorical features as well. It will become apparent, however, that neither gives epistolary features their due. For example, one can examine how the epistolary closing is discussed. In some instances it is categorized as a postscript, which in epistolary structure was something that followed the epistolary closing; in others it is overlooked entirely. Whereas Betz and his followers tend to view the study of rhetoric as a part of the historical-critical method, Kennedy and his followers tend to want to wed rhetorical criticism with universal rhetoric. 25 The result of the vying for position between these two schools of thought is that there has been a wealth of literature analyzing the Pauline letters from various rhetorical perspectives, including a number of commentaries (see below), and in most instances little to differentiate their particular approaches. Since many of these proposals are so similar it is unnecessary to separate them for analysis here, nor to attempt to be comprehensive in citation of them. Instead, representative and significant studies are presented. As will be noted below, very little attention has been given to memory and delivery in Pauline rhetorical study. The major reason for this is that these compositions are letters, nonetheless it is somewhat surprising that more attention has not been given to delivery, since these letters were almost assuredly designed to be read before a church congregation. 26 Nevertheless, we do not now have any means of reconstructing the way in which this would have been done.

23

His major work on Paul is contained in his New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism. 24 His major work is found in his Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galalia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979). 25 See Stamps, "Rhetorical Criticism", pp. 136-39. 26 See, for example, P.J. Achtemeier, "Omne Verbum Sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity", JBL 109 (1990), pp. 3-27.

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In the study of Pauline rhetoric, despite the importance of other areas of discussion, major attention has been given to two concerns: the genre or species of rhetoric, that is, whether Paul's letters are forensic, epideictic or deliberative; and arrangement of the parts of the oration. 27 These two areas will be discussed in this section as a way of gaining entry into the major discussion regarding Pauline rhetoric. 28 Although comments will be made attempting to place the analyses within the Greek and Roman rhetorical handbook traditions, it must be remembered that the handbooks were not definitive in their discussions of arrangement. It is also fair to say that only a few of the following analyses attempt to follow one of the traditions or one of the authors faithfully, most of them being consciously eclectic.

A. Galatians The first major modern commentary on a Pauline letter to utilize categories from ancient rhetoric was Betz's on Galatians. His commentary has prompted much further discussion in response to his analysis. Betz proposes that Galatians is an apologetic letter in the tradition of other autobiographical writings in antiquity, such as Demosthenes' "On the Crown", and especially apologetic letters, such as Plato's Epistles. Betz treats rhetorical arrangement within an epistolary framework.29 Thus the letter is outlined as follows:

27 For a conspectus of arrangement of oratorical parts among the rhetorical theorists, see H. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft (Munich: Hueber, 1960), pp. 148-49. 28 Although Pauline rhetoric has been discussed by such noteworthy writers as John Chrysostom (see Fairweather, "Galatians and Classical Rhetoric: Parts 1 & 2", pp. 2-22), Augusdne (Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, p. 11), and Melanchthon (C.J. Classen, "St Paul's Episdes and Ancient Greek and Roman Rhetoric", in Porter and Olbricht [eds.], Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 271-79), I will treat modern analysts. For a brief history of rhetorical analysis of the New Testament, see H. D. Betz, "The Problem of Rhetoric and Theology according to the Aposde Paul", in A. Vanhoye (ed.), L'Apôtre Paul: Personalis, style et conception du ministere (BETL, 73; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986), pp. 16-21; F. W. Hughes, Early Christian Rhetoric and 2 Thessalonians (JSNTSup, 30; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1989), pp. 20-30. 29 Betz, Galatians, esp. pp. 14—25. See also his "The Literary Composition and Function of Paul's Letter to the Galatians", NTS 21 (1974-75), pp. 353-79. Cf. T. Martin, "Apostasy to Paganism: The Rhetorical Stasis of the Galatian Controversy", JBL 114 (1995), pp. 437-61, who believes that Galatians is forensic, but is not a speech.

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I. II. III. IV. V.

Epistolary Prescript (1:1 —5) Exordium (1:6-11) Narratio (1:12-2:14) Propositio (2:15-21) Probatio (3:1-4:31) Digression on the Torah (3:19-25) VI. Exhortatio (5:1-6:10) VII. Epistolary Postscript (Conclusio) (6:11-18) As an apologetic letter, Betz sees Paul writing as if he were in a court of law, defending himself against accusations, what would be labeled forensic or judicial oratory. He further characterizes Paul's letter as an attempt to defend the truth of the gospel. T o do this, according to Betz, Paul marshals a number of different argumentative strategies (or topoi—see below), including experience, Scripture, reference to Abraham, reminder of the past, friendship, and the concept of freedom. Two major structural problems with Betz's analysis have been recognized (his analysis seems to follow the Roman rhetorical theorists most closely although certainly not exactly). The first is that, as he admits, 30 chs. 3 and 4 are problematic, since there is no systematic discussion in the rhetorical handbooks of what he labels the probatio in a forensic speech. 31 Similar problems are found with his analysis of chs. 5 and 6, since exhortation is out of place in a forensic speech.32 There are also several difficulties with the relation of rhetoric and epistolary form. O n e is the problem of equating epistolary with rhetorical structure. Betz appears to place the rhetorical structure over the epistolary structure, with significant overlap including the epistolary closing, apparently mis-labeled as a postscript (since a postscript in a letter was something that followed the closing). The issue of rhetorical and epistolary relations will also be addressed below (section IV). A further difficulty concerns the equation of a forensic or judicial context with the circumstances of the Galatian situation. This raises questions regarding the audience's expectations in receiving the letter and the indications that a formal judicial argument was being made. Lastly, Betz seems to rely quite heavily upon Roman rhetoric, 30

Betz, Galatians, p. 129. On this and other cridcisms, see G. W. Hansen, Abraham in Galatians: Epistolary and Rhetorical Contexts (JSNTSup, 29; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1989), pp. 57-71, esp. 70. 32 See Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, p. 145. 31

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rather than Greek rhetoric (especially that of Aristotle), which may well have been more influential in the Hellenistic world. 33 There have been many direct responses to Betz's work on Galatians, besides the variety of further work that has been inspired by his analysis. Several subsequent treatments of Galatians are worth noting here. The first is by Kennedy. In distinction to Betz, Kennedy sees Galatians as deliberative rhetoric, primarily on the basis of the exhortations of 5:2-6:10. 34 Although he does not label the parts of the oration as clearly as does Betz, Kennedy seems to arrange the letter as follows: I. II. III. IV. V.

Salutation (1:1-5) Proem/Exordium (1:6-10) Proof (1:11-5:1) Exhortation (5:2-6:10) Epilogue (6:11-14)

In a Greek rhetorical theory based analysis, Kennedy argues that the epideictic genre better explains the extended exhortation, a feature that Betz also recognizes, and is able to include portions of narration within the proof (e.g. 1:13-2:14), which is greatly expanded in scope in Kennedy's analysis. Kennedy also notes a number of other features of the proof, including the appeal to Scripture and discussion of the allegory of Sarah and Hagar. In analyzing the same letter, Kennedy has come to very different conclusions than has Betz, with regard to both structure and genre. In terms of structure, Kennedy's is similar in that he also recognizes the epistolary opening, although he overlays the rhetorical structure for the most part on the letter form. He attempts to remedy Betz's major difficulty with chs. 3 and 4 by placing all of this material within the proof, including the narration. He accommodates the difficulty with the exhortation, however, by claiming that the letter falls within a separate genre. T o Kennedy's mind epideictic oratory is a better category to describe the use of exhortation, because of the circumstances dealing with the present conflict over what is in the best interests of the Galatian audience.

33

See T. H. Olbricht, "An Aristotelian Rhetorical Analysis of 1 Thessalonians", in D. L. Balch et al. (eds.), Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays in Honor of A. J. Malherbe (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), p. 221. 34 See Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 144-52, esp. 145.

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In response to the criticism by Kennedy, especially regarding the exhortadve elements, and addressing the defensive elements that perhaps pushed Betz towards his analysis, Hall accepts that the letter is deliberative, and argues for the following Aristotelian arrangement: 35 I. Salutation/Exordium (1:1-5) II. Proposition (1:6-9) III. Proof (1:10-6:10) A. Narration (1:10-2:21) B. Further Headings (3:1-6:10) IV. Epilogue (6:11-18) Despite his endorsement of much of what Betz has done, Hall's analysis is also quite different. For example, he sees the epistolary and rhetorical structures as completely overlapping, so that the exordium corresponds to the epistolary opening and the epilogue to its closing. Unlike Betz and Kennedy, Hall also sees the proposition as stated in a completely different place. What Betz and Kennedy see simply as the exordium is seen by Hall as the proposition, that which establishes the major point to be proven. Despite the letter being deliberative, the exhortative element does not figure significandy in Hall's analysis, either in the oudine or in his discussion. O n the basis of objecting to Betz's analysis of the narratio, Smit sees the events of the narratio not confronting the readers with a legal question but with a choice of action. Hence he concludes that the letter is deliberative. 36 His analysis of the arrangement is as follows (simplified): I. II. III. IV.

Exordium (1:6-12) Narratio (1:12-2:21) Confirmatio (3:1-4:11) Conclusio (4:12-5:12) A. Conquestio (4:12-20) B. Enumeratio (4:21-5:6) C. Indignatio (5:7-12) V. Amplificatio (6:11-18)

35

R. G. Hall, "The Rhetorical Outline for Galatians: A Reconsideration", JBL 106 (1987), pp. 277-87. 36 J. Smit, "The Letter of Paul to the Galatians: A Deliberadve Speech", JVTS 35 (1989), pp. 1-26.

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Two sections of Galatians are missing in Smit's analysis. The first is the epistolary prescript (1:1-5), which he sees as having a solely epistolary function. The second is 5:12-6:10, which he claims presented an unsolvable problem for Betz. According to Smit, and endorsed by others, parenesis has no place within classical rhetoric. 37 In the light of these findings, one could conclude in one of several ways. The obvious conclusion would be that the epistolary prescript and the recognizably parenetic sections indicate that Galatians is not best analyzed as a piece of ancient classical oratory. Smit's conclusion, however, is that Gal. 5:1-6:10 must have been a later addition to the letter/speech. 38 These kinds of inconsistencies seem to run counter to the claims being made for the letter as a piece of ancient rhetoric. Although more recent than the one to follow, it is appropriate here to introduce the outline of Bachmann. Following the work of others before him (rather than faithfully following either the Greek or Roman rhetorical theorists), he rejects the idea that Galatians is forensic rhetoric and argues that it is deliberative. 39 His outline is as follows: I. II. III. IV.

Prescript (1:1-5) Prooimium (1:6-10) Narratio (ends with 2:14b as partitio) (1:11-2:14) Argumentatio (2:15-6:17) A. First Proof (2:15-21) B. Second Proof (3:1-6:17) V. Benediction (6:18)

Although Bachmann argues that the letter is deliberative, the emphasis in the outline is not on exhortation. Bachmann's outline retains only a portion of the epistolary outline by recognizing the prescript, although he includes what would normally fall within the epistolary closing in his argumentatio. Instead he concludes simply with the benediction of 6:18, and a footnote explaining why an oration does not need to have a peroratio. His emphasis upon 2:14b is noteworthy, but this is only a single question, and would appear to require either further development or recognition of its transitionary role. 37

Smit, "Letter of Paul", 4. Smit, "Letter of Paul", p. 9. 39 M. Bachmann, Sunder oder Übertreter: Studien zur Argumentation in Gal 2, 15ff. (WUNT, 59; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1992), esp. pp. 156—60. 38

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A final treatment to summarize here is Longenecker's in his commentary on Galatians. In many ways this commentary both reflects the current state of thinking regarding the relationship of Pauline rhetoric and epistolary structure and gives evidence of the attendant difficulties that result when such categories are mixed. Under the heading of epistolary and rhetorical structures, and after a discussion of epistolary form and features, Longenecker offers a thorough critique of Betz's hypothesis. 40 Although he goes on to note a number of what he calls rhetorical features in Galatians, here he does not offer a thorough discussion of his own analysis of the letter. That must be found in the table of contents of the commentary. According to the table of contents, here is Longenecker's analysis of the letter, with emphasis upon rhetorical structure. I. Salutation (1:1-5) II. Forensic Rhetoric Section (1:6-4:11) A. Exordium (1:6-10) B. Narratio (1:11-2:14) C. Propositio (2:15-21) D. Probatio (3:1-4:11) III. Deliberative Rhetoric Section (4:12-6:10) A. Exhortatio I (4:12-5:12) B. Exhortatio II (5:13-6:10) IV. Subscription (6:11-18) From this analysis, it appears that Longenecker is on the one hand attempting to maintain the letter's epistolary structure (note the salutation and subscription) but on the other hand analyzing the internal contents in terms of two rhetorical structures, the one forensic and the other deliberative. From Longenecker's critique of Betz, it appears that he has attempted to incorporate Kennedy's criticism of Betz into his analysis, while not abandoning Betz's structure (including his highly questionable probatio section). The rhetorical structure appears to bridge the two categories of forensic and deliberative rhetoric. Several questions are raised by this analysis, including questions of what is implied regarding the categories of rhetoric (did many speeches such as this ever exist?), the use of rhetorical structures in nonrhetorical or non-oratorical composition, and the relation of epistolary

40

R. N. Longenecker, Galatians (WBC, 41; Dallas: Word, 1990), esp. pp. c-cxix.

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and rhetorical structure. It is very difficult to figure out the answers to these questions in terms of Longenecker's analysis. B. Thessalonian Letters Not only did Betz's work serve as a catalyst for further work in Galatians, but it had a significant influence on research regarding other Pauline letters as well. Included here are the Thessalonian letters. There are three analyses worth citing (I do not specifically deal with Kennedy's treatment, except as others have responded to him).41 The first is that of Jewett. After claiming that he does not intend to be limited by classical rhetoric but prefers the categories of the New Rhetoric, he engages in an analysis of the Thessalonian letters that looks remarkably like a classical analysis. Rejecdng Kennedy's hypothesis that 1 Thessalonians is deliberative, Jewett claims that it is demonstrative/epideictic since it concentrates on praise and blame. 42 By contrast, in the light of Paul's statements about how the Thessalonians should act in the light of eschatological expectation, Jewett argues that 2 Thessalonians is deliberative rather than demonstrative. He offers the following two arrangements of the letters (simplified for discussion here): 1 Thessalonians I. Exordium (1:1-5) II. Narratio (1:6-3:13) III. Probatio (4:1-5:22) IV. Peroratio (5:23-28)

2 Thessalonians I. Exordium (1:1-12) II. Partitio (2:1-2) III. Probatio (2:3-3:5) IV. Exhortatio (3:6-15) V. Peroratio (3:16-18)

Jewett draws special attention to the narratio section of 1 Thessalonians, which influences his argument for why it is not deliberative rhetoric, and the partitio of 2 Thessalonians, consistent with its being deliberative, as is the exhortatio.

41

See Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 141-44. For a survey of recent theories regarding the genre of 1 Thessalonians, see S. Walton, "What has Aristode to do with Paul? Rhetorical Criricism and 1 Thessalonians", TynBul 46.2 (1995), pp. 233-40. 42 R. Jewett, The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety (FFNT; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), esp. p. 72.

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Worth noting in Jewett's analysis, however, is not only that these are structures very much dependent upon the categories of classical rhetoric (as opposed to the New Rhetoric), especially the Roman theorists, but that epistolary structure has virtually disappeared. Although Jewett claims to be concerned with epistolary structure, this is clearly subordinated to rhetorical structure, for example, in his discussion of the exordium, the epistolary prescript and the thanksgiving in 1 Thessalonians, and the epistolary prescript, thanksgiving and intercessory prayer in 2 Thessalonians. T h e assumption seems to be that the rhetorical exordium could be equated with these two or three epistolary features and in fact takes precedence over them. Besides the implications regarding the relation of epistolary and rhetorical structures, this has implications regarding how the original audience would have responded to the reading of the letter. Hughes in his analysis of 2 Thessalonians agrees with Jewett that the letter is deliberative rhetoric. 43 He does this by an interesting route. After discussion of deliberative rhetoric in the orators, he selects Demosthenes Ep. 1 as a model. O n the basis of Goldstein's hypothesis that Demosthenes' letter is deliberative rhetoric (see below on the relation between ancient rhetoric and epistolary theory) Hughes outlines the letter according to its rhetorical parts. Hughes uses the ability to oudine the letter as proof that rhetoric can be found in ancient letters.44 He uses the same assumptions regarding his analysis of 1 Thessalonians. 45 His arrangements of the parts are as follows (summarized): 1 Thessalonians I. Exordium (1:1-10) II. Narratio (2:1-3:30) III. Partitio (3:11-13) IV. Probatio (4:1-5:3) V. Peroratio (5:4—11) VI. Exhortation (5:12-22) VII. Epistolary Postscript (5:23-28) 43

2 Thessalonians I. Exordium (1:1-12) II. Partitio (2:1-2) III. Probatio (2:3-15) IV. Peroratio (2:16-17) V. Exhortation (3:1-15) VI. Epistolary Postscript

Hughes, Early Christian Rhetoric. This is followed by K. P. Donfried in K. P. Donfried and I. H. Marshall, The Theology of the Shorter Pauline Letters (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 83-84. 44 Hughes, Early Christian Rhetoric, pp. 43-50, relying upon J. A. Goldstein, The Letters of Demosthenes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 176-81. 45 F. W. Hughes, "The Rhetoric of 1 Thessalonians", in R. F. Collins (ed.), The

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Hughes' analysis is worth examining, in terms of both Jewett's previous analysis and the relation of rhetorical and epistolary structures. While of course it is possible that either Hughes or Jewett is wrong in analysis of 1 and 2 Thessalonians (or both may be wrong), what is noteworthy is how different their analyses are. Since Hughes predicates his claim that the letters are deliberative rhetoric on the ability to find a deliberative rhetorical structure in Demosthenes Ep. 1, which implies a reasonably high level of objective analysis, one might well have expected more similar results in comparison of these two analyses of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The radical differences, not just in the length of units but even in the categories themselves, call into question the ability of the categories of rhetorical structure simply to emerge from the text. Also noteworthy is Hughes' approach to epistolary structure. Although he treats the exordium in terms of the epistolary opening in the same way that Jewett does, he defines the peroratio separately and includes an epistolary postscript. As he admits, the last two categories are not usual parts of the oration as defined by the rhetorical handbooks, including the Roman tradition that he tends to follow.46 This is apparendy an admission that at best this is a mixed form of rhetoric combining epistolary and rhetorical features, or at worst that the categories simply do not apply without forcing them. Wanamaker's commentary is the first on the Thessalonian letters that uses rhetorical analysis.47 Wanamaker's discussion of the rhetoric of the Thessalonian correspondence includes discussion of thematic and epistolary features, as well as rhetorical analysis. Following the lead of Jewett and Hughes, he agrees that 1 Thessalonians is demonstrative/epideictic rhetoric and that 2 Thessalonians is deliberative rhetoric. Wanamaker, unlike the others, believes that 2 Thessalonians was written before 1 Thessalonians, and that his rhetorical analysis of the two letters is compatible with this hypothesis (which is not generally held in Pauline scholarship). His arrangements of the two letters are as follows:

Thessalonian Correspondence (BETL, 87; Leuven: Peeters/Leuven University Press, 1990), pp. 94-116. This is followed by Donfried in Donfried and Marshall, Shorter Pauline Letters, pp. 6-7. 44 Hughes, Early Christian Rhetoric, pp. 63, 66. 47 C. A. Wanamaker, Commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990).

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1 Thessalonians I. Epistolary Prescript (1:1) IL Exordium (1:2-10) III. Narratio (2:1-3:10) A. First Part of Narratio (2:1-12) B. Digressio (2:13-16) C. Second Part of Narratio (2:17-3:10) IV. Transitus (3:11-13) V. Probatio (4:1-5:22) VI. Perorado and Epistolary Closing (5:23-28)

2 Thessalonians I. Epistolary Prescript (1:1-2) II. Exordium (1:3-10) III. Partitio (2:1-2) IV. Probatio (2:3-15) A. First Proof (2:3-12) B. Second Proof (2:13-15) V. Peroratio (2:16-17) VI. Exhortatio (3:1-15) VII. Epistolary Closing (3:16-18)

The differences with the previous analyses, even though Wanamaker shares their generic classification, are noteworthy. Concerning 1 Thessalonians, which seems to follow Quintilian, first, Wanamaker makes the transitus a separate part of the structure, whereas Jewett confines it to the narratio. Secondly, Wanamaker maintains epistolary structure by identifying an epistolary prescript and epistolary closing. This means that his definition of the relation of epistolary and rhetorical structure is different from that of Jewett, besides indicating that his concept of the exordium is dissimilar also. Wanamaker, however, introduces an ambiguity when he makes the epistolary opening a separate category, while subsuming the closing with the peroratio. Concerning 2 Thessalonians, his analysis is virtually identical to that of Hughes and subject to the same criticisms (see above). For 2 Thessalonians, Wanamaker differentiates the epistolary closing as having its own structural integrity and being commensurate with the epistolary opening and distinct from the peroratio. This raises further questions regarding the structural integrity of these sections. In a strictly Aristotelian analysis of 1 Thessalonians, Olbricht attempts to do what is rarely done in ancient rhetorical analysis of the New Testament and that is to use consistent terminology (from either Greek or Roman categories, or in terms consistent with a single rhetorical theory).48 He provides the following analysis of the letter:

48

Olbricht, "Aristotelian Rhetorical Analysis", pp. 224-36.

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Prescript (1:1) I. Exordium (1:2-3) II. Statement (1:4-10) III. Proof (2:1-5:11) IV. Epilogue (5:12-24) Postscript (5:25-28) Olbricht follows the lead of many other rhetorical-epistolary scholars by arranging the rhetorical oudine within the prescript and postscript of the letter. Although he maintains a consistent terminology in terms of Aristotle's four categories of arrangement, some might argue that he sacrifices perspicuity of analysis, failing to take advantage of the array of categories available even in the Greco-Roman world. There is a significant shift in the proportions of 1 Thessalonians in Olbricht's analysis, with a far greater amount given to proof and much less to exordium. As with other analysts, the epistolary closing has become a postscript.

C. Corinthian Letters Although there has been much work on the Pauline rhetoric of the Corinthian letters, much of it has been from the standpoint of the New Rhetoric and falls outside the discussion of rhetoric here. 49 But two recent studies have emphasized the connections between Paul's correspondence and the categories of classical rhetoric. In her analysis following the method of Betz, Mitchell argues on the basis of Ps.-Demetrius's use of the word "epideictic" (συμβουλευτικός) to describe one form of letter that the deliberative letter was a specific genre in antiquity, and one that corresponded to deliberative oratory. 50 With this category firmly in place, she defends the deliberative nature of 1 Corinthians, including Paul's use of examples. She argues for the unity of the letter, especially around the use of political topoi or topics aimed at the factionalism of the Corinthian situation. In formulating her categories, Mitchell makes distinctions 49 See, for example, Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia, esp. pp. 71-95; A. C. Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul's Rhetoric (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990). 50 M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Competition of 1 Corinthians (HUT, 28; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991), esp. p. 22.

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between Aristotelian and other categories of rhetoric, and follows Aristode fairly closely. She arranges the parts of the letter as follows (simplified): I. Epistolary Prescript (1:1-3) IL Epistolary Thanksgiving = Proem (1:4-9) III. Epistolary Body, containing Deliberative Argument (1:10-15:58) A. Thesis (= propositio?) (1:10) B. Statement of Facts (= narratio) (1:11-17) C. Proofs (1:18-15:57) D. Conclusion (15:58) IV. Epistolary Closing (16:1-24) Mitchell apparently places the rhetorical structure within the confines of an epistolary structure, although the support for this is minimal apart from reference to Demetrius and the apparent success of previous modern rhetorical analyses. The equation of the epistolary thanksgiving with the proem, but distinguishing the rest of the structure as part of the epistolary body, raises questions regarding the integrity of either level of analysis, as does her analysis of individual rhetorical units. For example, the proofs of 1:18-4:21 are very different from the kinds of proofs in 5 : 1 - 1 1 : 1 , 11:2-14:40 or 15:1-57. In his rhetorical and social-scientific commentary on the Corinthian letters, Witherington, though claiming to follow Kennedy's form of rhetorical analysis over Betz's, is clearly dependent upon Mitchell's work.51 He goes further, however, in maintaining the possibility of many individual rhetorical units within the larger rhetorical structures because Paul's purpose is not to write on a single topic but on several. His arrangement of 1 Corinthians resembles the model of Quintilian and is as follows: I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.

51

Epistolary Prescript (1:1-3) Epistolary Thanksgiving and Exordium (1:4-9) Propositio (1:10) Narratio (1:11-17) Probatio (1:18-16:12) Peroratio (16:13-18) Closing Epistolary Greetings and Remarks (16:19-24)

B. Witherington III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), esp. p. 47.

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Although clearly enclosing the rhetorical structure within the larger framework of the epistolary structure, Witherington's analysis avoids the problem of splitting the epistolary body from the thanksgiving and the proem from the rest of the rhetorical structure. Nevertheless, he introduces his own problem of mixing categories when he labels the second section an epistolary thanksgiving and exordium. He extends the probatio further than does Mitchell, and includes the peroratio where Mitchell simply has the epistolary closing. Although both Mitchell and Witherington analyse the closing portion of the letter similarly, including a repetition of the argument in 16:13-18, their significantly different arrangements of the parts is worth noting. In his discussion of 2 Corinthians, Witherington agrees with Kennedy that the letter is an example of judicial rhetoric, with deliberative argumentation in chs. 8 and 9. However, whereas Kennedy seems to think that 2 Corinthians 8 - 9 was a separate letter (as was 2 Corinthians 10-13),52 Witherington argues for the rhetorical unity of the letter in the light of his rhetorical structure. His arrangement following the Roman handbooks is as follows: I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.

Epistolary Prescript (1:1 —2) Epistolary Thanksgiving and Exordium (1:3-7) Narratio (1:8-2:14) Propositio (2:17) Probatio and Refutatio (3:1-13:4) Peroratio (13:5-10) Closing Epistolary Greetings and Remarks (13:1-13)

Witherington's outline is similar in principle to the one that he offers of 1 Corinthians. Witherington claims that his rhetorical structure establishes rhetorical unity of the letter, but Kennedy using a similar method argues for separate letters. Although in some ways this is no different from other methods used to determine the unity of Pauline letters, it is clear that in and of itself rhetorical criticism does not provide a tool to resolve such issues.

52

See Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, p. 93. See also H. D. Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985); F. W. Hughes, "The Rhetoric of Reconciliation: 2 Corinthians 1:1-2:13 and 7:5-8:24", in Watson (ed.), Persuasive Artistry, pp. 2 4 6 61; and F. Young and D. F. Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (London: SPCK, 1987), pp. 36-40, among others.

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Whereas the above provide rhetorical structural analyses of individual letters, it is noteworthy that recendy Bünker, Standaert, Mack, Mitchell, Smit, Aletd, Watson, and Saw, among others, 53 have offered independent analyses of portions within 1 Corinthians (usually ch. 15), arguing that each of them displays rhetorical unity that points to classification as one of the species of rhetoric. Smit argues that 1 Corinthians 12-14 constitutes a piece of deliberative rhetoric, Bünker that 1 Corinthians 15 is judicial and Watson and Saw that 1 Corinthians 15 is deliberative. It is difficult to know what to make of these analyses. Is it being argued that these chapters are independent orations found within 1 Corinthians, a letter that itself has been analysed according to the categories of classical rhetoric? So far as I can tell partition theories do not usually attend to these analyses. O r is it that using these analytical categories apart from reconstructing a historical situation or context is simply a way of saying that the author has created a coherent argument with beginning, middle and end? T h e value of rhetorical categories to establish this point appears to be unnecessary. T h e value of such studies is difficult to determine, in so far as revealing the profitable use of ancient rhetorical categories in the creation or interpretation of these texts.

D. Philippians Philippians has been an important subject of much discussion in recent rhetorical theory. Although examination of the work of Schenk, who has analysed the rhetorical structure of a portion of Philippians (his letter C), would be merited, here I confine myself to presenting the results of analyses of the entire canonical letter.54 Nevertheless, several

53

See M. Bünker, Briefformular und rhetorische Disposition im 1 .Korintherbrief (GTA, 28; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), pp. 59-72; Β. Standaert, "La rhétorique ancienne dans Saint Paul", in Vanhoye (ed.), L'Apôtre Paul, pp. 79-80; Β. L. Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament (Guides to Biblical Scholarship; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 56-59; Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, pp. 283-91; J.-N. Aletti, "La disposition rhetorique dans les épîtres pauliniennes: Proposition de methode", NTS 38 (1992), pp. 385-401; J. Smit, "Argument and Genre of 1 Corinthians 12~14", in Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 211-30; D. F. Watson, "Paul's Rhetorical Strategy in 1 Corinthians 15", in Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 231-49, followed by Witherington, Conflict and Community, pp. 291-317; I. Saw, Paul's Rhetoric in 1 Corinthians 15: An Analysis Utilizing the Theories of Clasâcal Rhetoric (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1995). 54 See W. Schenk, Die Philipperbriefe des Paulus: Kommentar (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1984), esp. pp. 279-80.

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of these analyses of the entire letter (e.g. those by Watson and Black) seem to contend that their rhetorical analyses argue for the integrity of the letter on the basis of their abilities to find a coherent rhetorical structure. Two points are worth making in response, however. The first is that Schenk appears to be capable of making the same claim for his individual portion. T h e second is that the wide diversity among those who treat the entire letter throws into serious question any claim that ancient rhetorical analysis can arrive at an objective estimation of structure. The first major analysis of the rhetorical structure of Philippians is by Watson, who has had as much influence as any on the question of the relation of Philippians to rhetorical and epistolary structure. In his analysis, he concludes that Philippians is deliberative, designed to advise or dissuade its audience, although he also must admit that 2:19-30 is epideictic.55 His arrangement of the letter is as follows: I. II. III. IV.

Epistolary Prescript (1:1 —2) Exordium (1:3-26) Narratio (1:27-30) Probatio (2:1-3:21) Digressio (2:19-30) V. Peroratio (4:1-20) A. Repetitio (4:1-9) B. Adfectus (4:10-20) VI. Epistolary Postscript (4:21-23) Watson's analysis, which clearly incorporates both the Greek and Roman rhetorical traditions, while apparently placing emphasis upon Quintilian, places the rhetorical analysis within the epistolary structure, although in a way that minimizes the epistolary elements, especially when he suggests that the prescript functions much like the exordium. Within his probatio, Watson introduces three developments of the proposition (2:1-11; 2:12-18; 3:1-21), with the digressio at 2:19-30. This appears to be an attempt to help his claim for the integrity of the letter overcome the notoriously problematic transition at 3:1 to 3:2, with Watson using Cic. De or. 3:53:203 as support for 3:1 as a transition. 56

55 D. F. Watson, "A Rhetorical Analysis of Philippians and its Implications for the Unity Question", NovT 30 (1988), esp. pp. 59-80, with statement on 2:19-30 on p. 60. 56 Watson, "Rhetorical Analysis", p. 72.

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In his treatment of Philippians, Bloomquist uses rhetorical analysis as confirmation of his discussion of the role that Paul plays in the letter to the Philippians. 57 In contrast to his opponents, Paul endorses himself and those like him as examples to the Philippians. Bloomquist is ambivalent regarding the rhetorical species of letters, and although he entertains a mixed genre finally decides for deliberative for Philippians. Bloomquist's arrangement of Philippians is very much in the Roman rhetorical handbook tradition and is as follows: I. II. III. IV. V. VI.

Epistolary Prescript (1:1 —2) Exordium (1:3-11) Narratio (1:12-14) Partitio (1:15-18a) Argumentatio (l:18b-4:7) Peroratio (4:8-20)

Although there is similarity to Watson's analysis with regard to the overall epistolary structure of the letter, there is significant divergence in two respects. T h e first is the apportionment of the various categories, with the exordium, narratio and peroratio seriously reduced in size. T h e second is the use of different categories altogether, with Bloomquist introducing a partitio that would be included within Watson's narratio. Although he shares many of the presuppositions of Watson with regard to his analysis of Philippians, including its deliberative species, Witherington provides still another analysis based upon the Roman rhetorical tradition: 58 I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.

57

Epistolary Prescript (1:1 —2) Epistolary Thanksgiving and Exordium (1:3-11) Epistolary Body introduced and Narratio (1:12-26) Propositio (1:27-30) Probatio (2:1-4:3) Peroratio (4:4-20) Epistolary Greetings and Closing (4:21-23)

L. G. Bloomquist, The Function of Suffering in Philippians (JSNTSup, 78; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1993), pp. 72-138. 58 B. Witherington III, Friendship and Finances in Philippv The Letter of Paul to the Philippians (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994).

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Witherington uses the epistolary frame, but he extends it into his rhetorical analysis. In his analysis the epistolary thanksgiving and exordium are to be equated. Although in some other rhetorical analyses the exordium includes the thanksgiving and more, and whereas in others it only overlaps in part with it, here the two are equated. Further, the epistolary body is introduced with the narratio. In most analyses of letters, the narratio is not seen to overlap with the introduction of the epistolary body, usually falling either before the body or somewhere within the body. The inclusion of a propositio is something that Watson and Bloomquist do not do, while Witherington's probatio is larger than Watson's. In a treatment more devoted to texdinguistics than rhetoric, Black argues that Philippians is a deliberative letter urging church unity. 59 He offers the following oudine: I. II. III. IV.

Epistolary Prescript (1:1-2) Exordium (1:3-11) Narratio (1:12-26) Argumentatio (1:27-3:21) A. Propositio (1:27-30) B. Probatio (2:1-30) C. Refutatio (3:1-21) V. Peroratio (4:1-9) VI. Narratio (4:10-20) VII. Epistolary Postscript (4:21-23) Although Black's analysis appears tidy, there are two major points worth noting. The first is that he places the rhetorical form squarely within the larger category of epistolary analysis. The second is that he repeats the narratio, finding one not only at 1:12-26 but also at 4:10-20. This is unparalleled so far as can be determined in other rhetorical analyses of this letter, and appears to be out of keeping with normal rhetorical arrangement as discussed in the handbooks. There does not appear to be an adequate justification for a further narratio bringing the rhetorical portion of the letter to a close. There is the further complication that this does not appear to be an adequate labeling of this section, which is given to thanks for receipt of a gift. 59

D. A. Black, "The Discourse Structure of Philippians: A Study in Texdinguistics", NovT 37 (1995), esp. pp. 46-49.

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Like portions of the two Corinthian letters, portions of Philippians have also attracted independent rhetorical analysis. In particular, the so-called "hymn" of Phil. 2:6-11 has been analysed. 60 These analyses are inherently problematic due to the unclear nature of this portion of text.

E. Romans Despite the fact that Paul's letter to the Romans has been so widely studied in almost every other regard, the amount of rhetorical study of it has been in keeping with the study of other Pauline letters, if not slightly less than most. Although there have been a number of significant rhetorical studies of portions of the letter (e.g. Elliott, Campbell, etc.),61 there have been only a few studies of the rhetorical structure of the entire letter. The first is by Wuellner, who has done as much as anyone from the standpoint of New Testament studies to revive and encourage rhetorical study of the New Testament. 62 In responding to previous debate regarding the place of the parenetic portions in Romans, Wuellner argues that the reason such debate has been (to his mind) unproductive is that the disputants have not taken rhetorical study into methodological consideration. 63 He claims that such analysis helps to understand the place of the parenetic and other portions within the letter's demonstrative or deliberative argument. His arrangement is as follows:

60

See, for example, C. Basevi and J. Chapa, "Philippians 2:6-11: The Rhetorical Function of a Pauline 'Hymn'", in Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 338-56. 61 See, for example, N. Elliott, The Rhetoric of Romans: Argumentative Constraint and Strategy and Paul's Dialogue with Judaism (JSNTSup, 45; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1990); D. A. Campbell, The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3:21-26 (JSNTSup, 65; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1992). There have also been a number of studies from the standpoint of the New Rhetoric. See, for example, F. Siegert, Argumentation bei Paulus gezeigt an Rom 9-11 (WUNT, 34; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1985). 62 For a bibliography of his works, see Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 19-20. 63 W. Wuellner, "Paul's Rhetoric of Argumentation in Romans: An Alternative to the Donfried-Karris Debate over Romans", in K. P. Donfried (ed.), The Romans Debate: Revised and Expanded Edition (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991 [1977]), pp. 128-46.

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Exordium (1:1-15) Transitus (1:16-17) Confirmado (1:18-15:13) Peroratio (15:14-16:23)

In response to Wuellner's simplified analysis following the Roman rhetorical tradition, one might legitimately wonder whether he has in fact untied the Gordian knot or simply raggedly cut it. Noticeable is the lack of an epistolary structure, with the exordium including the salutation and thanksgiving. 1:16-17 becomes merely a smooth transidon from the exordium to the confirmatio, seemingly underplaying the role that these verses play in most analysis. The vast bulk of the letter remains undifferentiated according to rhetorical categories. Wuellner admits that categories from modern rhetorical theory as opposed to that of the ancients may be necessary to see how the various portions of 1:18-15:13 fit together in the letter. And the peroratio includes a vast array of material. In response to the work of Wuellner, as well as Kennedy and others, and in agreement with their argument that Romans is deliberative rhetoric, Jewett attempts to sketch the argument in a more complete way.64 His arrangement closely follows the Roman rhetorical tradition and is as follows: I. II. III. IV.

Exordium (1:1-12) Narratio (1:13-15) Propositio (1:16-17) Probatio (1:18-15:13) A. Confirmatio (1:18-4:25) B. Exomatio (5:1-8:39) C. Comparado (9:1-11:36) D. Exhortatio (12:1-15:13) V. Peroratio (15:14-16:27)

Jewett has provided an analysis that, according to the categories of rhetorical analysis being examined here, appears to be better than most, in so far as his analysis conforms to analysis of Romans by other means. For example, he differentiates between the exordium and the narratio, with 1:13-15 describing Paul's missionary project

64

R. Jewett, "Following the Argument of Romans", in Donfried (ed.), The Romans Debate, pp. 265-77.

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with regard to Rome. The proposido at 1:16-17 agrees that the major contention of the letter is contained within these verses. Jewett further develops the probatio or proof, including a place for the parenetic or exhortative material. Nevertheless, he does not place the rhetorical structure within an epistolary one. A final proposal is that Romans falls within the category of deliberative (protreptic) rhetoric, designed by Paul to convince the Roman Christians of the "truth of his version of the gospel. . . and to spell out the particular lifestyle and encourage the kind of commitment which Paul thought consistent with his gospel".65 Aune presents the following outline of the letter (adapted for presentation here): I. Epistolary Prescript (1:1-15) II. Examination (1:16-4:25) A. Universal sinfulness and divine impartiality (1:16-2:11) B. God impartially condemns those disobedient to the law (2:12-3:20) C. Justification by faith, not works of the Law (3:21-4:25) III. Life of the insider and the problem of sin (5:1-8:39) A. Justification, reconciliation and comparison of Adam and Christ (5:1-21) B. Conflict between sin and obedience to God (6:1-7:25) C. Life in the Spirit and its rewards (8:1-39) IV. Jewish unbelief and gentile belief as part of God's plan (Chs. 9-11) V. Parenesis (12:1-15:13) VI. Epistolary Postscript (15:14-16:27) Unlike the preceding analysts, Aune attempts to maintain both the epistolary form and the rhetorical structure of the letter. Although he claims to show that Romans is essentially a protreptic speech, almost incidentally with the attached epistolary frame, it is difficult to see on the basis of his oudine in what sense it is a speech, at least in the terms normally used for such analysis. He does not label the

65

D. E. Aune, "Romans as a Logos Protreptikos in the Context of Ancient Religious and Philosophical Propaganda", in M. Hengel and U. Heckel (eds.), Paulus und das antike Judentum (WUNT, 58; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991), esp. p. 92; and idem, "Romans as a Logos Protreptikos", in Donfried (ed.), The Romans Debate, pp. 278-96. See also now A. Guerra, Romans and the Apologetic Tradition: The Purpose, Genre and Audience of Paul's Letter (SNTSMS, 81 ; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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rhetorical parts, but instead labels units of argumentation. In that sense, his analysis might well be argued to be simply analysis of a letter with exhortative force. Although he is convincing that Romans has exhortative force, the oudine he provides is very similar to nonrhetorical assessments of the argumentative structure, and does not prove the protreptic character of Romans. Other rhetorical analyses of the genre or species and arrangement of the Pauline letters could be cited, but enough have been examined above to offer a guide to the range of discussion. There are also numerous studies of smaller units within the individual letters, often ones that assume one of the outlines above or a similar one. The above studies, however, do illustrate several points that must be taken into account with regard to studying the rhetoric of the Pauline letters. First, often quite dissimilar findings result from the analyses. These vary with regard to the genre of rhetoric as well as the arrangement of the rhetorical parts. This should make any interpreter cautious about claims made for rhetorical analysis, especially when they are made in comparison with other forms of analysis. Secondly, there is a wide divergence in the categories used. Some try to be consistent and use, for example, only Aristotelian categories (see Olbricht above). But the norm is for there to be a mix of Greek and Roman categories, often combined in ways that are not found in the ancient handbooks themselves (see Chapter 3 on arrangement). Thirdly, the amount and kind of material placed within the categories often varies significantly. Sometimes there is overlap between analyses of the same book and sometimes there is not. The defenses offered for the categories that are used are often in terms of the perceived function of the particular section of the letter. This is an issue that must be raised below. Fourthly and finally, a recurring stumbling-block appears to be the relationship of rhetorical and epistolary structures. When analysing the Pauline letters, any rhetorical analysis must come to terms with the fact that the Pauline writings are first and foremost letters, no matter what other category of analysis into which they may fit. From the results of arrangement of the parts of the letters, few rhetorical critics apparendy have squarely faced this issue. This too is an issue that must be raised below.

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III.

ASSESSMENT OF T H E U S E O F R H E T O R I C A L C A T E G O R I E S T O ANALYSE T H E PAULINE

LETTERS

Discussion of Pauline rhetoric must ask two major questions. The first question is whether in fact Paul was a rhetor, that is, whether he had sufficient formal training to utilize the forms of Greco-Roman rhetoric current in his world, or whether there was sufficient rhetorical influence in this society so that even without formal training he could have gained adequate rhetorical knowledge to enable him to construct rhetorical letters. So far as this study is concerned, there is no clear case to be made for Paul's formal knowledge of rhetoric and thus its formal use in the composition of his letters. At best, he may have had the kind of rhetorical knowledge that any intelligent and widely-travelled citizen of the Hellenistic world would have had. This rhetorical knowledge will be explored below. T h e second question is whether the categories of Greco-Roman rhetoric provide useful tools for understanding the Pauline letters. This question can be broken down into two further questions. The first concerns the relationship in the ancient world between the creation of orations and the writing of letters. The second concerns the legitimacy of the use of categories from ancient rhetoric in the analysis of letters. We must first be concerned with how rhetorical and epistolary theory were related to each other in the minds of the ancients before analysing their use in modern rhetorical study. In order to approach these questions, an analysis of the fundamental assumptions of rhetorical study of Paul's letters must be undertaken. 66 There have been two major forms of support for the hypothesis that the species of rhetoric and the arrangement of the parts can be applied to analysis of a Pauline letter. The first is the one taken by Betz, who argues on the basis of supposed parallels in the ancient world (e.g. Plato's Epistles, and speeches of Isocrates and Demosthenes), and in the light of the handbook tradition, for the applicability of the categories of rhetoric to Paul's letters. As has been noted above, the supposed or apparent success of Betz's analyses

66

The argument presented here retical Justification for Application Literature", in Porter and Olbricht See now also Stamps, "Rhetorical

was first presented in S. E. Porter, "The Theoof Rhetorical Categories to Pauline Epistolary (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 100-22. Criticism", pp. 141-47.

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hardly constitutes proof that the categories are applicable. 67 T h e second and more common form of support relies upon the work of Kennedy. For example, in Longenecker's commentary on Galatians, he states the following: it should not be surprising that a J e w of Tarsus, w h o trained under Gamaliel at Jerusalem, became a convert to the rising messianic m o v e ment called Christianity, took leadership in the extension of that gospel a m o n g gentiles, and wrote pastorally to converts in Asia Minor, would use in Galatians many literary and rhetorical conventions then current in the G r e c o - R o m a n world. "Even if", as G. A. K e n n e d y observes, "he had not studied in a Greek school, there were many handbooks of rhetoric in c o m m o n circulation which he could have seen. H e a n d the evangelists as well would, indeed, have been hard put to escape an awareness of rhetoric as practiced in the culture around them for the rhetorical theory of the schools found its immediate application in almost every form of oral and written communication" (New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism, 10). T h e forms of classical rhetoric were "in the air", and Paul seems to have used them almost unconsciously for his own purposes—as much as he used the rules of Greek grammar. 6 8

Longenecker's argument seems to reflect the following progression: first, there is what appears to be an admission that Paul had not studied in a Greek rhetorical school and therefore could not have learned formal rhetoric in that educational environment; secondly, since there were many rhetorical handbooks in circulation Paul would have come into contact with them, read them, and made use of them in his writing; thirdly, Paul and those like him would have encountered the practice of rhetoric in their culture and applied it to their own writing, even if it were unconscious, in the same way that he used the rules of Greek grammar; and fourthly, this justifies current use of ancient rhetorical categories to analyse Paul's letters. This progress of thought merits brief comment. First, if it is admitted that Paul was not formally trained in rhetoric, a study that required years of work and included much theorizing (as reflected in the handbooks) and practice (as found in the various rhetorical exercises), it is difficult to believe that Paul through haphazard means

67

See criticisms above of Betz's analysis of Galatians and Mitchell's of 1 Corinthians. 68 Longenecker, Galatians, pp. cxii-cxiii. See similarly Wanamaker, Epistles to the Thessalonians, p. 46.

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could have acquired a working knowledge of these categories, much less mastery of them, even if they were "in the air"—at least to the level suggested by the analyses above. Secondly, whereas it is possible to believe (though unlikely) that Paul may have used the rhetorical handbooks in the preparation of his speeches (since that was their purpose—see below in this section), one must ask what evidence there is that principles developed for speeches were thought to be applicable to the writing of letters (to say nothing of direct evidence in Paul's letters for their use). This will be discussed below. Thirdly, noting the point above regarding whether rhetorical categories would have been applied to written letters, one must ask whether the kinds of analyses of rhetoric found in Pauline studies reflect study of unconscious utilization of rhetoric by Paul. Comments by contemporary scholars seem to indicate a hypothesis of clear rhetorical intention behind Paul's various supposed rhetorical moves at all levels, including genre or species, arrangement, and proof. Fourthly, the analogy with Greek language is not very helpful. Although Paul spoke and wrote Greek, and there were perhaps some grammatical treatises available for him to read—of course Greek was widely used in his culture—the kind of Greek found in Paul's letters—for better or for worse—is not the Greek of the orators, and certainly not rulebound, by the conventions of classical or Atticistic style. Fifthly, even if all of these factors were true and Paul did avail himself of some of the conventions of rhetoric in the writing of his letters, this does not mean that rhetorical criticism constitutes a valid analytical tool, or a more valid analytical tool than others, as if these categories of analysis were ones known to the ancients. This must be proved, not assumed. Part of the problem with the last point might have been created by a comment that Kennedy makes, when he states that "Although these categories [the three species of rhetoric] specifically refer to the circumstances of classical civic oratory, they are in fact applicable to all discourse". 69 He goes on to define the species in these terms: "The species is judicial when the author is seeking to persuade the audience to make a judgment about events occurring in the past; it is deliberative when he seeks to persuade them to take some action in the future; it is epideictic when he seeks to persuade them to hold or reaffirm some point of view in the present... ."70 There are several 69 70

Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, p. 19. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, p. 19.

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major issues raised by this statement. T h e first is what is meant by the species being applicable to all discourse. Kennedy appears to be attempting to clarify such a statement when he says that "It is perfecdy possible to utilize the categories of Aristotelian rhetoric to study speech in China, India, Africa. . . ."7I That may be true, but that is not what is meant when one is attempting to analyse ancient texts according to the categories of ancient rhetoric. And that is not the same as saying that ancient letter writers, as writers of one genre, were necessarily influenced by orators or rhetorical theorists. A second issue raised by this last point is the relationship between ancient rhetoric and the New Rhetoric or what might be called universal rhetoric. 72 Like others (such as Wuellner and Longenecker), Kennedy here and elsewhere appears to be unresolved in his mind whether he is speaking of the particularities of ancient Greco-Roman rhetoric (or better rhetorics, since various theorists made various proposals) or rhetoric as the label given to a number of modern categories helpful in the analysis of any purposeful use of language. A third difficulty, and one direcdy related to the definitions offered above in the light of universal rhetoric, is that Kennedy has apparendy provided functional definitions of these categories. In the sense that language is often used to be persuasive and it is often used to persuade for or against some past, present or future action certain "rhetorical" labels may be used (called synchronic rhetorical analysis by Longenecker). This is not to be equated with the direct application of ancient rhetorical theory to ancient texts, as if this was something that the ancients would have been familiar with (called diachronic rhetorical criticism by Longenecker). 73 This raises the necessary question of what theoretical justification there is for employing the categories of classical rhetoric, especially those related to the species and arrangement, to the Pauline letters. Kennedy, Betz and many others, including apparendy those discussed above, suggest even if implicidy that the application of these categories from classical rhetoric to ancient letters was something that the ancients themselves would have been familiar with and would have 71

Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, p. 10. See, for example, C. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (trans. J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver; Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1969). From a biblical studies standpoint, see W. Wuellner, "Hermeneutics and Rhetorics", Scriptum S 3 (1989), pp. 1-54. 73 Longenecker, Galatians, p. cix. 72

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recognized, and that Paul would have intended to use. These kinds of supposition seem to be particularly useful to those who wish to find a firm basis for their analyses, especially if they are trying to appeal to the ancients themselves in order to defend particular views regarding epistolary integrity (see on 2 Corinthians and Philippians above). T h e only way to test such a hypothesis, however, is not to try to judge the apparent success of various epistolary analyses, since a variety of methods might prove useful and insightful (see above), but to see if the ancients themselves through their statements or practices lend any credence to such a means of textual production or analysis. Since the rhetorical handbooks, and the authors who write on such topics, constitute the basis for definition of the categories of rhetorical analysis, and since these offer programmatic statements about the use of such categories, the handbooks themselves are a logical place to look for defense of an established relationship between epistolary and rhetorical forms. When such support is sought, however, it is conspicuously missing. As Malherbe states after his thorough study of ancient epistolary theory, "Epistolary theory in antiquity belonged to the domain of the rhetoricians, but it was not originally part of their theoretical systems. It is absent from the earliest extant rhetorical handbooks, and it only gradually made its way into the genre." 74 He states further, "It is thus clear that letter writing was of interest to rhetoricians, but it appears only gradually to have attached itself to their rhetorical systems".75 These conclusions certainly offer little theoretical justification for the kind of rhetorical analysis that is found in many commentators on the rhetoric of the Pauline letters. A brief survey of the primary sources confirms Malherbe's conclusions. For example, in Demetrius's " O n Style", perhaps as early as the first century BC, the only comments on letters appear in an excursus, the earliest comment of any significance about letter writing. (Although Ps.-Demetrius cites 21 different types of letters, there is no correlation made between these types of letters and the three species of oratory. 76 ) Demetrius's comments are for the most

74

A.J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists (SBLSBS, 19; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), p. 2. 75 Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, p. 3. 76 This is a fundamental flaw in Mitchell's {Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, p. 21 esp. n. 5) and Stowers' work (S. K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986], pp. 51-57). Mitchell, for example, uses the fact that the word for "deliberative" (συμβουλευτικός) in the orators is found in

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part concerning style, and even here there is a contrast between letters and dialogue (Eloc. 223-24), and even more so between conversation and oratory (225). Cicero (1st century BC), although known as a letter writer and commenting upon it, does not appear to be indebted to any epistolary theory, especially since no comment on letter writing appears in any of his works on rhetoric. Seneca (1st century AD) distinguishes what is appropriate to the letter from oratory (Ep. 75:1-2), and shows no knowledge of a theoretical system. Quintilian (1st century AD) mentions the style appropriate to a letter in distinction to that of oratory (Inst. 9:4:19-22). And Philostratus of Lemnos (3rd century AD) defines the style of the letter in terms of Atticism and ordinary speech. It is not until Julius Victor (4th century AD), in an appendix to his Ars rhetorica (27), that letter writing is discussed in a rhetorical handbook, although confined to comments on style.77 Several conclusions can be drawn from this evidence. T h e first is that although categories of ancient rhetoric may have been "in the air" their use in the writing or analysis of letters cannot be substantiated. Although it is possible that some rhetorical practices may have influenced letter writers, many formal rhetorical categories were not apparendy systematically applied to the writing or analysis of letters. The second is that only matters of style appear to have been discussed in any significant or extended way, though not systematically, with letters virtually always mentioned in contrast to oratory. Thirdly, there is little if any theoretical justification in the ancient handbooks for application of the formal categories of the species and arrangement of rhetoric to the writing and analysis of the Pauline letters, the major concern of most contemporary rhetorical analysts of Paul's letters.

IV.

P A U L I N E R H E T O R I C IN P R A C T I C E

The above conclusion does not preclude analysing the Pauline letters in terms of the categories of ancient rhetoric, however, as long as it is kept in mind that these categories probably did not consciously

Ps.-Demetrius's list of letter types. This disregards the fact that this is one of three species of oration but one of 21 types of letter. The common vocabulary gives no indication of the relation between the epistolary and rhetorical types. 77 All of these texts can be conveniendy found in Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists.

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influence the writing of the letters and almost assuredly did not figure in their earliest interpretation. These analyses are one form of analysis that these texts can be subjected to. One must be cautious, however, regarding the claims for certainty made for such interpretations, since they are not necessarily privileged over others. This is not to say, however, that there is no relationship between ancient rhetorical and epistolary theory. Whereas as shown above there is no formal correspondence between the two, this is not to say that a funcdonal correspondence cannot be established. Reed has shown that whereas memory and delivery may have little place in epistolary theory, the rhetorical species, invention or proof, arrangement and style all seem to have functional correspondence in epistolary literature. 78 These functional correspondences are related to the various uses to which the various literary forms were put, and how these uses correlate with their literary structures.

A. Rhetorical Species Since ancient letter writing was highly flexible, as the numerous ancient attempts to categorize letter types reveal (note Ps.-Demetrius's 21 types of letter and Ps.-Libanius's 41),79 and could be applied to a variety of situations in which argumentative or persuasive communication was necessary, it is not surprising that some of these situations might be labeled forensic, demonstrative or deliberative (although the forensic letter is lacking in the ancient epistolary theorists). Demonstrative and deliberative letters—or similar terminology—are found in the ancient epistolary theorists. As noted above, these categories have been used to label the Pauline letters. What is surprising is that, with the large range of labels available from the epistolary theorists, more has not been made of these numerous categories in describing the Pauline letters. Following the article by Aune on the protreptic letter (see above), Guerra makes a convincing case for the persuasive intent of Romans. 80 Although he argues his case well at many points in his 78

J. T. Reed, "Using Ancient Rhetorical Categories to Interpret Paul's Letters: A Question of Genre", in Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 297-314. The following discussion is gready indebted to his work on this topic. 79 See Ps.-Demetr. Τύποι επιστολικοί 11. 22-30 in Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, p. 30; and Ps.-Lib. Έπιστολιμαίοι Χαρακτήρες 4, in Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, p. 66. 80 Guerra, Romans and the Apologetic Tradition, esp. pp. 22-42.

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analysis, the overall impression is that he is right in what he affirms— that is, that Romans is a highly persuasive letter attempting to convince his audience to follow a particular course of behaviour—while wrong in what he denies—that is, that Romans is anything other than a protreptic letter. A letter writer, whether influenced by epistolary theory or not, could draw on a number of different purposes in constructing a letter, especially such a lengthy and involved one as Romans. With many of Paul's letters the same might be said. Hence it is not surprising that one might find various kinds of persuasive intent in these letters, often with significant functional correspondence with the three species of formal rhetoric. This is not to say, however, that Paul was influenced by these categories in any direct way, or that these categories are the best or only categories for analysis of his letters.

B. Arrangement Whereas there are usually four or six major parts to the arrangement of an oration in classical rhetoric (see Chapter 3 on arrangement, as well as the examples cited above, although several of them depart significantly from a consistent model of classical rhetorical analysis),81 there are three formal parts to the ancient letter: opening, body and closing (see Chapter 7 on the epistle). T h e epistolary theorists do not concentrate on discussing the order of these elements. Whether one holds to the three, four or five part Pauline letter— with the thanksgiving and parenesis as separate sections—or not, 82 there are nevertheless functional correspondences between these epistolary parts and those of the oration. 83 For example, the epistolary opening has a number of formal features, such as the greeting and thanksgiving (if one does not include the thanksgiving as a separate section), which are part of performing certain functions in the letter, such as establishing and maintaining contact between the sender and 81

See Lausberg, Handbuch, pp. 148-49 for a synoptic chart of comparison of various rhetorical handbooks. 82 On the Pauline epistolary form, see J. L. White, "Ancient Greek Letters", in D. E. Aune (ed.), Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament (SBLSBS, 21; Adanta: Scholars Press, 1988), esp. pp. 96-100. 83 See, for example, Hughes, Early Christian Rhetoric, pp. 32-43, who defines the parts of the oration in language resembling that of the letter. There is some question of whether he has done this correcdy.

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recipients and clarifying their respective statuses and relationships. It is not surprising that some have wanted to see this as corresponding to the exordium or prooimion, with its function of introducing the speaker to the audience and creating the right environment for communication, including offering some idea of the subject to be discussed. T h e epistolary body—though less formally well defined—typically in the Pauline corpus follows the friendship letter convention, although other letters have a number of different types of financial or other legal functions, etc. The major content of the body is responsible for expressing and developing the major idea or content of the letter. In terms of rhetoric, the letter body performs similar functions to such parts of the oration as the narratio with its recounting of pertinent facts, or the partitio or propositio with its function of stating the major issue at hand, or the probatio or proof with its crucial function of proving the case. It is not surprising, therefore, that rhetorical analyses of Pauline letters often include these rhetorical categories in the epistolary body. Thus for example in Rom 1:18-3:20 Paul uses an argument from natural theology to establish the sinfulness of humanity, which is part of his establishing the case for "the just person by faith shall live" (1:17). Rom 3:21-31 uses an argument concerning justification to address the legal relationship of humanity to God, and the example of Abraham (4:1-25) is in support of this. The epistolary closing could vary, although recent analysis has shown the amount of consistency in the Pauline closing, such as the benediction and closing greetings, designed to conclude the communication. 84 The peroratio or conclusion similarly functions to bring the oration to an end, leaving the right impression with the audience.

C. Invention and Proof Whereas the species of rhetoric and arrangement have been the major areas of discussion in rhetorical study of the Pauline letters, invention merits further attention. This is not because Paul was drawing upon the formal categories of invention (e.g. Aristotle's distinction between non-artistic and artistic proofs), but because there is a certain amount of functional correspondence between rhetorical and

84 See J. A. D. Weima, Neglected Endings: The Significance of the Pauline Letter Closings (JSNTSup, 101; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994).

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epistolary approaches to selecting and developing one's subject. As Reed states, "Invention is not unique to the rhetorical handbooks. . . . It is a phenomenon of argumentation, literature, and language in general." 85 Nevertheless, although epistolary theorists do have something to say about invention in letters, often it is in distinction to that of rhetoric. The tenor of the comments in such epistolary theorists as Demetrius, Gregory of Nazianzus and Ps.-Libanius, while endorsing the use of such things as proverbs or witty or pithy sayings, shuns overly clever or overly adorned argumentation. 86 Thus although concern for invention is shown, the forms of invention are limited. Several examples of invention in the letters are appropriate to note here, including some forms of argumentation. For conven-ience and illustrative value, this discussion is divided into topics or subjects (topoi) of writing and forms of discovery or proof. Discovery is divided further into artistic and inartistic proofs. Paul makes use of a variety of topoi or topics in his writings, including drawing upon some of the standard figures of the ancient world but often developing his own. 87 Whereas the words of Jesus may well have formed the basis for various topics and, it has been argued, did function in this way for the Gospel writers (although I am not convinced that the categories of rhetoric are being correctly applied in these instances), there are surprisingly few words of Jesus in Paul. The noteworthy places where the words of Jesus can be said to have formed the basis of a topos are 1 Cor. 7:10, 9:14, and 11:23. The topics are marriage, work, and the Lord's supper. 88 Various other bases of Paul's topics may be found, and these seem to be suggested by the situations that warrant his letters. Therefore, it is difficult to delimit the sources of his topics, since topics were drawn from a large number of circumstances, many of them no longer able to be recovered. The commentators above, however, offer a number of topoi for consideration. For example, 89 in his commentary 85

Reed, "Using Ancient Rhetorical Categories", p. 301. See Reed, "Using Ancient Rhetorical Categories", pp. 301-302. 87 The topos has been a misunderstood category in analysis of the Pauline letters. SeeJ. C. Brunt, "More on topos as a New Testament Form", JBL 104 (1985), pp. 495-500. 88 For recent discussion of the use of the words of Jesus in Paul, see D. Wenham, PauL· Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 3-7. 89 Not all of these are equally convincing, but they are designed to offer a list of the kinds of topics cited in a range of commentaries on the Pauline letters. 86

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on Galatians, Betz cites proofs for topics such as experience (3:1-5), God's promise to Abraham (3:6-14), common human practice (3:1518), Christian tradition (3:26-4:11), and friendship (4:12-20), among others. 90 In 1 Cor. 1:11-4:21, Mitchell argues that Paul uses a building metaphor as a political topos to encourage unity in his divided church. 91 Watson cites the topics of citizenship (Phil. 1:27-30), humility (2:3, 8; 3:21; 4:12), Christian suffering (1:28-30; 3:10; 4:14), blameless behaviour (1:27-30; 2:15), joyfulness and rejoicing (2:19, 28, 29), and serving others (2:25, 30), among others. 92 In 1 Thess. 4:13-5:11 and 2 Thess. 2:1-12, Paul makes use of the topos of the return of the Lord, among others. This is merely a small sample of the kinds of subjects that Paul discusses. Perhaps more important than the topics themselves is the way in which Paul goes about providing proof for them. The first form of Aristotelian proof is sometimes called artistic or internal proof. This includes appeals to reason (logos), character (ethos), and emotion (pathos). Appeal to reason is made by Paul through a variety of logical strategies, and would include Paul's use of the syllogism and enthymeme. 93 For example, concerning 1 Thessalonians 4, Olbricht notes how dependent Paul's argument is upon enthymemes. Paul uses three major arguments, each with hidden assumptions, often the major or minor premises. Here is how Olbricht reconstructs Paul's syllogistic thought in 1 Thessalonians 4: M All believers share the hope of the Parousia, through Christ's care./ T h e believers w h o have died continue in Christ's care./Therefore, the believers w h o have died share in the Parousia.

90

See Betz, Galatians, pp. 16-23. See Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, pp. 81-111. 92 Watson, "Rhetorical Analysis of Philippians", esp. pp. 67, 72. 93 The book of Romans has recendy been thoroughly and rigorously analysed in terms of its enthymematic structure b y j . D. Moores, Wrestling with Rationality in PauL· Romans 1-8 in a New Perspective (SNTSMS, 82; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Although there is much of value in this analysis for appreciating the structure and complexity of Paul's thought, the use of enthymeme in this work is not the same as that of the rhetoricians. What is meant in Moores' volume is the overall logical structure of Paul's thought, often extending over entire sections, rather than the consensus propositions, often unstated, found in the normal sentences of the text. 94 Olbricht, "Aristotelian Rhetorical Analysis", p. 232. 91

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AD believers will be caught up by Christ to be with G o d . / T h e believers w h o have died will be raised./Therefore, they will be caught up with Christ to be with God. N o one knows the time when Christ will return, so everyone must be r e a d y . / T h e Thessalonians d o not know when Christ will c o m e . / T h e r e fore, the Thessalonians must be ready for the return of Christ.

The exemplum or παράδειγμα is a further form of appeal to logos or reason. The exemplum served as a rhetorical proof through illustration of similarities, from either pardcular to universal or even particular to particular, of a situation or person. 95 T h e most important of Paul's exempla is probably his use of Abraham in Galatians 2 and Romans 4. Although there are differences in how the figure is used in the two passages, and in relation to the citation of Jas. 2:20-24, the common use of the figure of Abraham is significant. As Stowers has explained, Paul's hypothetical interlocutor in Rom. 4:1-2 has introduced a particular way of understanding Abraham that Paul rejects, apparendy because Abraham would have a grounds for boasting, since he merited his reward. Paul responds by offering Abraham as a competing exemplum, but one based upon the relationship between Gen. 15:6 and circumcision in Genesis 17. Rom. 4:9-12 is Paul's attempt to take the particulars of Abraham's case and show that they apply more widely, in fact to both Jew and gentile. Appeal to character occurs when the author establishes credibility often by showing goodwill towards his readers and establishing his own virtue and character. Whereas Galatians and Romans seem to rely heavily upon logos or reason, in 1 Thessalonians, it has been argued by Olbricht, 96 Paul relies heavily upon ethos. In 1 Thessalonians, Olbricht cites numerous examples of Paul establishing his goodwill with his audience and thus establishing his own character. For example, in 1 Thess. 1:2-10 Paul speaks of their being chosen (1:4), their being imitators of him (lit. "us") and of the Lord (1:6), how they became a model (1:7), and how they became known everywhere (1:8). In 1 Thess. 2:1-36 Paul focuses on his own virtue, including how he had suffered and been persecuted (2:2, 9), and how he (lit. "we") was approved of God (2:4), and worked night and day (2:9). 95

S. K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (SBLDS, 57; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), pp. 171-73, esp. 171. 96 Olbricht, "Aristotelian Rhetorical Analysis", pp. 228-29.

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Appeal to emotion plays upon the emotional reactions of the hearers. This is not a typical approach of Paul in his letters. There was a tendency in some rhetorical circles for the use of pathos to verge on bathos, as the appeal to emotion became a manipulative tool, rather than relying upon reason and character. Nevertheless, there are a few statements by Paul that have the ring of pathos about them. For example, in 1 Thess. 2:15 he refers to the Jews as those who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, as well as driving him out. 97 T h e second form of proof, so-called inardstic proof, consists of various external appeals. In Paul these could include a number of devices. For example, at places he appeals to witnesses and evidence. In 1 Cor. 15:3-7, Paul invokes not only the tesdmony of others, here presented in the form of what may be a credal statement or some information passed down to him, but also a list of various authoritative witnesses, such as Peter, the twelve disciples, and others. Another form of proof consists of authoritative quotations. For Paul, these include a number of different sources, especially quotations of Scripture. At various points in his argument, Paul uses the Old Testament as a form of proof. For example, there is perhaps no quotadon more important as a form of proof than the use of Hab. 2:4, cited at Rom. 1:17 to justify his statement regarding righteousness from God and faith. Even in a book written to a significandy gendle audience, such as that at Rome, Paul appeals to the Old Testament numerous times. 98 Paul also on occasion uses the words of pagan writers, such as Menander (Fr. 187) at 1 Cor. 15:33 (possibly Euripides)99 and Epimenides (D.L. 1:110) at Tit. 1:12 (and Aratus Phaen. 5, and Cleanthes Hymn to £eus line 4 at Acts 17:28, if Acts is to be believed). There are also several other forms of inartistic proof, including vice and virtue lists, such as those found in Gal. 5:19-23, and the catalogue of hardships, as in 1 Cor. 4:9-13 and 2 Cor. 2:14-7:4. 100

97

Olbricht, "Aristotelian Rhetorical Analysis", p. 230. The most thorough recent study is by C. D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary literature (SNTSMS, 74; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 99 J. Fairweather, "The Episde to the Galadans and Classical Rhetoric: Part 3", TynBul 45.2 (1994), p. 31. 100 See J. T. Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel: An Examination of the Catalogues of Hardships in the Corinthian Correspondence (SBLDS, 99; AUanta: Scholars Press, 1988). 98

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The Pauline Haustafeln found in, for example, Col. 3:18-4:1 and Eph. 5:22-6:9, are also a form of proof created by appeal to accepted moral precepts, although how the Haustafeln are used in Paul's writings is still debated. 101 Various literary forms have also been proposed as types of Pauline invention. The most important of these is the diatribe. 102 This is not the place to enter into full discussion regarding the nature of GrecoRoman diatribe, except to note that there is a range of opinion regarding its definition and status as a literary type (see Chapter 8). Although the prevailing mood in New Testament studies since the work of Bultmann has been that the diatribe is not a literary type but a style or set of techniques, 103 in classical studies there has been a recent tendency to see the diatribe as a form of popular rhetoric. 104 It is distinguished by its dialogical orientation, in which questions and answers are given by the speaker and his interlocutor (whether hypothetical or real). There are often direct address (apostrophe using the vocative), rhetorical questions, strong objections, 105 the use of imperatives and hortatory subjunctives, and frequent use of parallelism and antitheses, with short and crisp sentences often connected paratactically or with contrastive particles. The exemplum appears quite frequendy as part of this literary form. T h e book of Romans perhaps best displays Paul's use of the diatribe. Elements of the diatribe can be found from 1:18 to the end of ch. 14.106 Passages worth noting are the dialogue between the speaker, presumably Paul, and the several different interlocutors in chs. 2~3. These include any person who judges others (2:1-16) and the Jew (2:17-3:9). The kind of repartee that Paul relies upon reaches its most intense level in

101 See D. L. Balch, "Household Codes", in Aune (ed.), Greco-Roman Literature, pp. 25-50. 102 See S. E. Porter, "The Argument of Romans 5: Can a Rhetorical Question Make a Difference?", JBL 110 (1991), pp. 655-77, esp. 655-61 on the nature of the diatribe. See also Stowers, Diatribe, pp. 7-78; idem, "The Diatribe", in Aune (ed.), Greco-Roman Literature, pp. 71-83. 103 R. Bultmann, Der Stil der paulmischen Predigt und die kynisch-stoische Diatribe (FRLANT, 13; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910). 104 See Porter, "Argument of Romans 5", p. 657. 105 Paul and Epictetus, however, appear to be the only writers of diatribes given to frequent use of μη γένοιτο. See A.J. Malherbe, "Me Genoito in the Diatribe and Paul", in Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 2 5 33. 106 The most obvious places cited are 2:3-4, 21; 3:1-9; 4:1-3, 9-10; 5:1, 6 - 7 , 12-21; 6:1-3, 15; 7:1, 7, 13; 9:14, 19-23; 10:6-8, 14-18; 11:1-7, 11, 15; 14:4.

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3:1-9, whose dialogue can be displayed in this way (abbreviated for reference):107 Interlocutor: What advantage is there in being a J e w , or what value is there in circumcision? Paul: M u c h in every w a y ! . . . Interlocutor: What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Paul: N o t at all! (μή γένοιτο). . . Interlocutor: But if our righteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That G o d is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (Paul inserts a parenthetical c o m m e n t here, illustrating that this is a hypothetical dialogue he has created) Paul: Certainly not! (μή γένοιτο). . . Their condemnation is deserved.

Other characteristics of Paul's diatribe in Romans worth noting briefly are: apostrophe or direct address (2:1, 17), the use of rhetorical questions (see above, and elsewhere in chs. 3 and 4), hortatory subjunctive (5:1; 6:1, 15), parallelism and antithesis (5:12-21), and the exemplum (4:1-25 with Abraham).

D. Style Although invention is mentioned in several places in the epistolary handbooks, style is the primary area of rhetoric to receive extended discussion in them, although the discussion is not systematic and tends to focus upon the relationship between rhetorical and epistolary style. Style is not systematically discussed in the rhetorical handbooks either, and consequently it is difficult to provide a coherent outline of what constitutes Pauline style. Discussion of style has also been hampered by its being treated as merely ornamental (see below), that is, as individual literary features that make little contribution to the substance of a passage. For the ancients, however, it appears that stylistic matters were not simply decorative but were an essential part of how substance was conveyed. 108

107

See the contrasting analysis by S. K. Stowers, "Paul's Dialogue with a Fellow Jew in Romans 3:1-9", CÖQ.46 (1984), pp. 707-22. 108 See Porter, "Theoretical Justification", pp. 116-17.

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Two major areas of style are the most important to discuss here. The first is the levels of style. Most rhetorical handbooks speak in terms of there being three levels of style—complicated or grand style, with complexity associated with the use of periods; running or elegant style, typified by parataxis and associated with narrative; and plain or loose style, typical of spontaneous conversations, without grammatical refinement (cf. Cic. Or. 69; Rhet. ad Her. 4:11-16)—to which Demetrius adds a fourth style, the forcible style, with short sentences typical of dialogue (Eloc. 240-304). (Later theory developed a more complex scheme combining various qualities and virtues of style.)109 Although a given author may use one or more of these styles, even in the same work, it is difficult to typify an author in a way that represents his writing across the entire span of his compositions. Nevertheless, it is probably fair to say that Pauline letters at various places display examples of each of the styles. For example, in Rom. 3:1-9, one could certainly argue that Paul uses the forcible style, since the passage is written in a short and direct dialogical format (cf. also other places in Romans 2~8 and 9-11; although one must be careful in using Demetrius's fourth, forcible style too much, since he was the only one to propose it). This is in fact very similar to the plain style, with its spontaneity of conversation. This is compatible with Demetrius's recommendation that letters use the plain style as if in a dialogue (Eloc. 223), avoiding the language of the court (229). Also part of Pauline style is the intermediate or running style, found not only in narrative passages (e.g. Gal. 1:11-2:11), but also in such passages as Rom. 3:21-26, according to the recent analysis of Campbell. There are only a few possible Pauline passages that use the grand or periodic style (although Campbell notes that Rom. 3:21— 26 has some elements of this style).110 If it is not considered to be a sentence that has got totally beyond the author's control, Eph. 1:314 is perhaps as close to a highly complex period as is found in the Pauline letters, although it is arguable that it does not have the kind of connectedness and rounding off for a truly elegant period (see also Eph. 2:14-18; 3:14-19). m 109

Reed, "Using Ancient Rhetorical Categories", p. 310; cf. G. A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modem Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), p. 104. 110 Campbell, Rhetoric of Righteousness, p. 82. 1,1 For an insightful treatment of periodic style (and more), see J. D. Denniston, Greek Prose Style (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952).

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T h e second level of style is ornamentation. Ornamentation in particular has been slighted in rhetorical analysis, often because it has been equated with only superficial rhetorical flourishes."2 Nevertheless, it is here that Paul is arguably closest to the utilization of ancient rhetorical technique and the interpreter is justified in analysing Paul's letters from an ancient rhetorical standpoint. With regards to ornamentation, Paul clearly displays a number of the standard stylistic features (the following list is taken from Rowe's discussion in Chapter 5 above, where definitions can be found)." 3 This is not to say that Paul had a handbook with these figures listed in it, or even that he would have known the technical name for each of these. These labels are merely convenient ways of describing the kinds of stylistic features found in ancient writing, including Paul's. 1. Tropes. T h e following tropes are found in Paul. Metaphor: Gal. 4:21-31, the so-called allegory of Hagar and Sarah (understanding allegory as simply extended metaphor)" 4 Metonymy: Rom. 5:9, where Paul uses "by his blood" as a métonymie substitute for death (v. 10)115 Synecdoche: 2 Cor. 3:15, where Moses is used to refer to the entire Pentateuch

112

J. E. Botha ("Style in the New Testament: The Need for Serious Reconsideration", JSNT 43 [1991], pp. 71-87) complains that style has been treated in an uninspiring way, with lists of features being given without describing how they are used to establish the larger argument. The following list, although it perpetuates that kind of presentation, is intended to illustrate the stylistic features present in Paul's letters, allowing more sustained analysis of how these features function. I have tried to do this in "Argument of Romans 5", pp. 662-77. 113 For sources that discuss Paul's stylistic techniques, besides Rowe's Chapter 5 in this volume, see especially N. Turner, Style, vol. 4 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek, by J. H. Moulton (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1976), pp. 80-86; F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian literature (trans. R. W. Funk; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 253-63; and E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1898; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968). It is fair to say, however, that the way that style is treated in these works gives the impression that style has little to do with the substance of a passage. Besides Campbell, Rhetoric of Righteousness, esp. pp. 70-101, and Porter, "Argument of Romans 5", pp. 661-77, for analysis of Pauline style, see also M. R. Cosby, "Paul's Persuasive Language in Romans 5", in Watson (ed.), Persuasive Artistry, pp. 209-26; cf. A. H. Snyman, "On Studying the Figures (schemata) in the New Testament", Bib 69 (1988), pp. 93-107. 114 See Fairweather, "Galadans and Classical Rhetoric: Parts 1 & 2", pp. 33-34, on Paul's use of άλληγορούμενα in Gal. 4:24. 115 Cosby, "Paul's Persuasive Language", p. 217.

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Emphasis: Eph. 4:8, with reference to Christ ascending; 4:9 with the contrast of ascending and descending indicating that the word for ascending is the point of emphasis Periphrasis: 2 Cor. 11:21-12:1, where Paul repeatedly boasts of events in his life, rather than saying that boastworthy events in his own life are of no account Antonomasia: Rom. 5:14 referring to "the one to come", that is, Christ, substituting this descriptive phrase for his name 116 Hyperbole: Gal. 1:8, where to make his point regarding the gospel Paul says that, even if an angel were to preach another message, it should be rejected Litotes: Rom. 1:16, where Paul says that he is "not ashamed of the gospel of Christ", when he is in fact saying that he is proud of it Irony: 2 Cor. 11:19-20, where Paul puts down the tolerance and gullibility of the Corinthians by calling them wise 2. Figures. Paul also uses the following figures or groups of words. a. Figures of addition. The first category includes instances where words are added, or figures of addition. Epanalepsis: Phil. 2:8, where the word θάνατος is repeated as a means of emphasizing the abhorrent nature of Christ's death on a cross Anadiplosis: Rom. 8:17: εϊ δε τέκνα, και κληρονόμοι· κληρονόμοι μεν θεοΰ, συγκληρονόμοι δέ Χρίστου ("but if children, even heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ") Climax: Rom. 8:30, where Paul creates a climax that begins with election and climaxes with glorification; cf. also Rom. 5:3-5 Prosapodosis: 1 Cor. 13:8-13, where the clause regarding love begins with ή άγάπη and ends with the same words Anaphora: Rom. 3:22, 24—25, where three clauses begin in succession with διά phrases;" 7 2 Cor. 6:4—10, with phrases beginning with έν nineteen times, διά three times, and ώς seven times Antistrophe: 1 Cor. 13:11, with repetition of the word νήπιος at the end of successive clauses

116 117

Cosby, "Paul's Persuasive Language", p. 221. Campbell, Rhetoric of Righteousness, p. 94.

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Symploche: 2 Cor. 9:6, where ό σπείρων opens two successive sentences, and και θερίσει closes the same sentences Paronomasia: Rom. 2:1, where Paul plays on the similar sounding words "judge" (κρίνεις) and "condemn" (κατακρίνεις);" 8 Phil. 3:2-3, where Paul plays on the words "mudlation" (κατατομή) and "circumcision" (περιτομή) Traductio: Rom 8:2-3, where there is a play on the meaning of the word "law" (νόμος) Polyptoton: Gal. 1:1: ούκ απ' ανθρώπων ούδε δι' άνθρωπου, άλλα δια Ίησοΰ Χρίστου και θεοΰ πατρός ("not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the father")" 9 Metaclisis: 1 Cor. 9:20, where forms of "Jew" (Ιουδαίος) are used Synonymia: Rom. 7:15-16, with phrases τοΰτο πράσσω and τοΰτο ποιώ being used synonymously Diaphora: Rom. 3:21-26, with the phrase δικαιοσύνη του θεοΰ Diaeresis: 1 Cor. 12:7-10, concerning gifts Epitheton: Phil. 2:25: Έπαφρόδιτον τον άδελφόν και συνεργόν και συστρατιώτην ("Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier") Polysyndeton: Rom. 8:38-39, with the repedtion of the negative οΰτε; and Rom. 9:4 with καί b. Figures of omission. The second category of figures includes instances where words are taken out, or figures of omission. Ellipsis: Eph. 5:24 and 2 Cor. 5:13, where the verb is elided; 1 Cor. 10:24, where the pronoun (έκαστος) is unstated Zeugma: 1 Cor. 3:2, where a word for "eat" is unstated, thus linking eating to the verb "drink" Asyndeton: Rom. 1:29, where there is no connecdve such as καί between the various specified evils c. Figures of transposition. The third category includes figures where word order is changed, or figures of transposition. Anastrophe: 1 Cor. 7:27, with use of two forms of λύω Hyperbaton: 1 Thess. 2:13, with inserted καθώς έστιν άληθώς Isocolon: Rom. 3:25b-26a: διά της πίστεως εν τφ αύτοΰ αϊματι εις ενδειξιν της δικαιοσύνης αύτοΰ διά την πάρεσιν τών προγεγονότων αμαρτημάτων έν τη άνοχη τοΰ θεοΰ120 118 119 120

Turner, Style, p. 84. Classen, "St Paul's Epistles", p. 280. See Campbell, Rhetoric of Righteousness, p. 96.

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Chiasmus: Eph. 5:5, around words for "knowing" 121 Homoeoteleuton: Rom. 12:15, with ειν and όντων endings Homoeoptoton: Rom. 12:11-12 with οντες d. Figures of thought. The following figures are not the same as those above, since they concentrate more on thought than the addition, subtraction or transposition of words. (1) Audience. The first category of figures of thought includes figures related to the audience. Some of these are figures where the speaker addresses the audience. Deesis: Rom. 12:1, where an impassioned plea is made through God's mercy to the Romans to present their bodies as living, holy and well pleasing sacrifices to God Parrhesia: Rom. 9:1, where Paul claims to be candid in order to bolster his argument by appearing courageous Apostrophe: Gal. 3:1, where Paul addresses the Galatians direcdy Some of these figures of thought are figures where the speaker questions the audience. Erotesis: Rom. 2:3-4, where Paul is making assertions by using questions Pusma: Rom. 3:1, where Paul asks what advantage there is in being a Jew Aitiologia: Rom. 9:19-20, with an imaginary dialogue in the form of question and answer Aporia: 2 Cor. 3:1, where Paul appeals to the Corinthians Anacoenosis: Phil. 1:22-24, where Paul recounts his choices in front of the Philippians (2) Subject. The second category of figures of thought includes instances related to the subject. Some of these are figures related to meaning, or semantic figures. Orismus: Rom. 4:4, where this is a logically sound definition regarding wages Epanorthosis: Rom. 3:5, where Paul recognizes that some may take offense at his question Prodiorthosis: 2 Cor. 11:1, 16, 21, 23, where Paul corrects his comments in advance, when he thinks that he may offend Epidiorthosis: Rom. 3:5, where Paul issues a subsequent correction to something that he has said 121 S. E. Porter, "ϊστε γινώσκοντες in Ephesians 5, 5: Does Chiasm Solve a Problem?", £ / W 8 1 (1990), pp. 270-76.

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Antithesis: 1 Cor. 1:25-29, with an entire series of antitheses122 Prosapodosis: 1 Cor. 14:1-3, where Paul defines prophecy and tongues Antimetabole: Gal. 2:20, where being crucified with Christ and Paul's no longer living is contrasted with Christ living in him Oxymoron: Rom. 6:8, where death and life are used in a paradoxical way contrary to ordinary usage Some of these are figures related to the effect that they have on the subject, or affective figures. Exclamatio: Paul's repeated use of μή γένοιτο ("may it never be") would qualify as exclamatio Enargeia: Gal. 2:1-11, where Paul describes his confrontation with Cephas Sermocinatio: 1 Cor. 1:12, where Paul creates statements by the Corinthians Prosopopoiia: 1 Cor. 12:12-26, where the body is described as speaking Epimone: Rom. 7:18-20, where Paul repeats the thought regarding his ineffectiveness to do good, despite his intentions Simile: 1 Cor. 3:10, where Paul compares himself to an expert builder Metabasis: Phil. 3:2, where the subject is abrupdy changed, whether one argues for a new letter or not Some of these are figures related to the argument itself, or dialectical figures. Synoeciosis: Rom. 2:17-21, where Paul apparendy uses the argument that Jews made regarding their relationship with God Proparaskeue: Phil. 1:12, wording that Paul uses elsewhere to alert his audience of important statements to follow Synchoresis: Phil. 1:15-18, where news of those preaching from wrong motives is not seen to damage the proclamation of Christ Epitrope: Gal. 3:2, where Paul issues a challenge to the Galatians regarding the gospel (3) Addition. Paul also has figures of thought that correlate with figures of addition. Parenthesis: Gal. 2:6-7, where Paul inserts an editorial comment on those who seem to be something 122

See N. Schneider, Die rhetorische Eigenart der Paulinischen Antithese (HUT, 11; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1970).

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Aetiologia: Rom. 1:16, where the reason for Paul's not being ashamed is given Gnome: 2 Cor. 9:7: God loves a cheerful giver123 Epiphonema: Gal. 3:1, where Paul concludes his characterization of justification as by faith for Jews and gentiles, by labeling the Galatians as ignorant (4) Omission. Paul also has figures of thought that correlate with figures of omission. Epitrochasmus: 1 Cor. 12:7-11, where spiritual gifts are listed but not developed Paraleipsis: Phlm. 19, where Paul states that he does not mention that Philemon owes him his very self Aposiopesis: Rom. 7:24, where Paul appears to break off due to emotion (5) Transposition. Paul also has figures of thought that correlate with figures of transposition. Hysterologia: Eph. 6:12, with "blood and flesh", rather than "flesh and blood" These stylistic figures are important to note, although as stated above it must not be thought that Paul necessarily knew their names or was even conscious that he was using them. In fact, he most likely was not using them formally, as if he had consulted a handbook (and many of them do not correspond exactly to the handbook form), but was manipulating language in the service of his sense. As Classen says, "what matters is not these terms, but the function of the figures thus labeled. They are part of the ornatus, chosen to give special emphasis to what the writer is saying.'" 24 If Paul was able stylistically to embellish his arguments by using stylistic features that were either part of ordinary usage or at the least part of his own usage, this functional correlation calls into question the need for and desirability of using already connotatively loaded rhetorical terms such as these in analysis of his letters, especially since the use of them implies much more regarding Paul's knowledge of the formal categories of ancient rhetoric than can be proved otherwise. 123 See W. T. Wilson, Love without Pretense: Romans 12:9-21 and Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom Literature (WUNT, 2:46; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991), esp. pp. 9-90; cf. R. A. Ramsaran, "More than an Opinion: Paul's Rhetorical Maxim in 1 Corinthians 7:25-26", CBQ 57 (1995), pp. 531-41. 124 Classen, "St Paul's Epistles", pp. 280-81.

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Without belabouring the point, it is possible also to note instances where Paul's style is open to question. Paul has a number of what would have been called barbarisms (errors that focus upon the misuse of single words), such as the odd ετι γάρ in Rom. 5:6, misplaced ομως in 1 Cor. 14:7 and Gal. 3:15, the extra καί in Rom. 9:23, and the possible transposition of the negative in Rom. 3:9 ("not entirely" should be "indeed not"; cf. 1 Cor. 16:12).125 Likewise with regard to solecisms (errors that focus upon the combinations of words), Paul has the object in Rom. 2:8 in the nominative rather than the accusative case, the neuter relative pronoun ö with an antecedent sometimes in the masculine (Eph. 5:5) and sometimes in the feminine (Col. 3:14), and a number of instances of hanging constructions (e.g. Rom. 8:3; Phil. 1:30; Col. 3:16).126

V.

CONCLUSION

Although much more could be and almost certainly will be said regarding classical rhetoric and Paul's letters, this chapter has attempted to set current discussion in an appropriate interpretive context. Most of the previous work has concentrated upon determining the species or genre of rhetoric and describing the arrangement of oratorical parts. As the survey above shows, there is wide diversity regarding these estimations, many of them not apparendy consistent with the conventions of ancient rhetoric or with each other. This calls into question the applicability of these categories to interpretation of Paul's letters, in terms of both their writing and their interpretation. In fact, there is little substantive basis in the ancients themselves for formal rhetorical analysis of Paul's letters (or anyone else's) using ancient rhetorical categories. Instead, functional correlations between the various categories of rhetoric can be found with the various parts of the Pauline letters. These functional correlations, especially in terms of arrangement and invention, provide a way forward in the study of Pauline rhetoric, since they give access to the underlying nature and purpose of argumentation, and the effect that this argumentation may have on the shape of an entire work and its defined audience.

125 126

These examples are from Turner, Style, pp. 85-86. Turner, Style, p. 86.

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It is in the area of style, however, that one is on the firmest footing to investigate Pauline rhetoric in terms of discussion of the ancients. Nevertheless, so long as one is aware of the limits of claims made for Pauline rhetoric, rhetorical categories can be profitably used to interpret Paul's letters.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Betz, H. D., Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979). Hughes, F. W., Early Christian Rhetoric and 2 Thessalonians (JSNTSup, 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989). Kennedy, G. Α., New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). Malherbe, A.J., Ancient Epistolary Theorists (SBLSBS, 19; Adanta: Scholars Press, 1988). Porter, S. E., and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993). Stamps, D. L., "Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament: Ancient and Modern Evaluadons of Argumentation", in S. E. Porter and D. Tombs (eds.), Approaches to New Testament Study (JSNTSup, 120; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 129-69. Stowers, S. K., The Diatribe and Paul's letter to the Romans (SBLDS, 57; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981). Watson, D. F. (ed.), Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy (JSNTSup, 50; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1991). , and A.J. Hauser, Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible: A Comprehensive Bibliography with Notes on History and Method (BI, 4; Leiden: Brill, 1994).

CHAPTER 19

T H E GENERAL NEW T E S T A M E N T W R I T I N G S Lauri Thurén Abo Academy, Finland

I.

INTRODUCTION

The general New Testament writings have common features, which have proven arduous for conventional exegesis. Biblical scholars are wont to discuss most questions in a historical frame of reference, but in the case of the general writings this is difficult. The lack of historical information affects particularly the understanding of their message and theology. A typical question is whether or not they represent "early Catholicism", degenerated from an "original Christianity". However, when different opinions depend heavily on some weakly supported hypotheses about the historical situation, convincing results are difficult to obtain. Instead, such a fixed point of departure endangers the understanding of the signals in the text by excluding alternative readings from the outset.1 Rhetorical criticism2 avoids this problem by focusing on the audience and the situation as these are implied in the letters.3 The theological questions are also seen in a new light when it is comprehended that the authors did not describe their ideologies, but sought to modify the addressees' opinions, attitudes, and behaviour. Only after a text is de-rhetorized by identification of the functions of the different strategies and devices, can the theology behind it be revealed. Furthermore, most of the general writings lack a clear formal structure, and their literary integrity is often questionable. A study of the interactive functions of the sections can however reveal a conventional,

1

It also limits the text's ability to communicate with modern readers. In this article "rhetorical criticism" means a flexible approach, in which both ancient and modern perspectives are utilized. 3 Yet historical knowledge is utilized and the real situation can be inferred. 2

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well-organized rhetorical system behind a seemingly disjointed text. Even dependence between the texts can be discerned. T h e main goal of rhetorical analysis is thus not to describe, but to understand the purpose of different devices, themes, and strategy in the letters. Thus, for example, it is most useful to see the epistolary letter-opening as an integral part of the exordium.4 More generally, study of the developing rhetorical situations (dispositio) not only provides another way of dividing the text, but also helps to illustrate its goal and theme. These two are not idendcal: the main text (propontio and argumentatio) usually discusses the theme. However, the framework reveals the actual goal of the letter.5 This recognition in turn involves the question of the genre of the text. For the general writings it is typical that the letter-body has a deliberative character, but the framework points toward an epideictic genre. 6 T h e general writings have been only tentatively examined with different rhetorically oriented methods. These studies already indicate that the texts can be approached from a fresh, edifying perspective. However, the fact that the letters can be analyzed with ancient terminology proves only its general applicability, not that the author would have been thinking in those rhetorical categories. Some of the features were typical for contemporary culture, but modern studies of rhetoric and argumentation also offer adequate tools for the analysis.7 Therefore handbooks or ancient rhetorical texts will not suffice for more comprehensive research in the future. Moreover, whereas the author of Hebrews has already left behind the basics of rhetoric, some others only show a natural command of oratory.

4

Among modern rhetorical scholars this is a typical point of disagreement concerning most of the general writings. However, like the rest of the exordium, the prescript seeks to create condidons for communication. E.g. the name of an aposde serves the ethos of the author. 5 The reason for writing is usually clearly expressed in the peroratio. If we there find a thesis which is anticipated in the exordium, it is likely to constitute the target of the letter. 6 In order to be useful, these ancient terms need to be generalized. The former means that the audience is persuaded to make a decision about some action in the future, the latter aims at reinforcing existing values and convictions. 7 See L. Thurén, "On Studying Ethical Argumentation and Persuasion in the New Testament", in S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1993), pp. 470-78.

THE GENERAL NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS

II.

589

HEBREWS

Scholars agree about Hebrews' high level of rhetoric; the author's knowledge of contemporary oratory is obvious. 8 However, what this sophistication means in practice remains unclear.

A. Language and Style The Greek is often assessed as the best among the New Testament letters.9 In accordance with classical style, the prose is prominendy rhythmical and the sentence structure carefully modulated. The rich vocabulary includes 150 hapaxes and some philosophical terminology. 10 A wide range of stylistic devices is utilized. Most of them are based on a play with language." Rhetorical imperatives, questions, and flourishes demonstrate sensitivity to the audience. T h e author also likes to decorate the text with vivid metaphors. Although abundant, these devices are purposeful. They are utilized in accordance with classical recommendations to please, stimulate, or shock the audience. 12 They can also emphasize emotionally or ideologically important utterances. Thus the use of synkrisis labels the whole thinking of the author. 13 O n the whole, the rhetorical surface—the language and style— bears witness to a high level of education. This lets us expect an even deeper rhetorical consciousness. It also makes the analysis more difficult, since effective techniques are seldom perceptible.

8

Hebrews has been studied from a rhetorical perspective more than any other general writing. See W. Lane, Hebrews 1~8 (WBC, 47A; Dallas: Word, 1991), pp. lxxv-lxxx. 9 Cf. Ν. Turner, J. H. Moulton: A Grammar of New Testament Greek. IV. Style (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1976), pp. 106-107, who also makes a great effort to find Semitic features in the text (108-12). 10 Turner, Grammar, pp. 106-108; H. W. Attridge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 20-21. " Thus e.g. alliteration and assonance, hendiadys, isocolon, litotes and paronomasia are frequendy used. For a comprehensive study see C. Spicq, L'Épître aux Hébreux (2 vols.; EBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1952-53), I, pp. 361-66. 12 The deinosis in 10:26-31 is typical; see K. Nissilä, Das Hohepriestermotiv im Hebräerbrief (Schriften der Finnischen exegetischen Gesellschaft, 33; Helsinki: Finnish Academy, 1979), pp. 254-55. 13 See C. F. Evans, The Theology of Rhetoric: The Epistle to the Hebrews (London: Dr. Williams's Trust, 1988), pp. 5-19, according to whom it is a typical epideictic feature.

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TOUREN

Β. The Dispositio There are too many types of contradictory division markers for identification of a formal or thematic structure. 14 However, the different stages of the developing rhetorical situation occur in a conventional sequence. 1. 1:1-2:18 Exordium Despite the missing epistolary prescript, 1:1-4 serves as a typical exordium, aimed at creating conditions for communication. It presents the main themes, the superiority of Christ and the new covenant, and the implicit exhortation: the addressees ought to take the message more seriously than did their ancestors (1:1-2). As usual in the general writings, the following section (1:5-2:18) amplifies the primary exordium. T h e implicit exhortation is briefly explained in 2:1~4, but unlike the other writings, a narratio, which would describe the addressees' situation, is totally missing.15 The identification of the propositio depends on how the rhetorical genre is assessed. 2:17-18 states an epideictic goal by presenting Christ's solidarity with the addressees, whereas 3:1 is a deliberative tide, which advises the addressees to consider Christ. 2. 3:1-12:29

Argumentatio

Instead of a clear confirmatio and rejutatio the author amplifies certain topics.16 Rhetorically the text can be divided into epideictic and deliberative passages, which form a balanced structure: 17 [Epideictic Deliberative Epideictic Deliberative

14

1:1-2:18, with a deliberative insert 2:1-4] 3:1-4:16 5:1-10:18, with a deliberative insert 5:11-6:20 10:19-12:29

See e.g. A. Vanhoye, Structure and Message of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Subsidia biblica, 12; Rome: Pontificio Institute Biblico, 1989). According to Attridge, Hebrews, p. 17, "any structural s c h e m e . . . does only partial justice to the complexity of the work". 15 Nissilä, Hebräerbrief, pp. 39-42 and W. G. Übelacker, Der Hebräerbrief als Appell (ConBNT, 21; Lund: Almqvist & Wikseil, 1989), pp. 185-92 see 1:5-2:18 as a narratio. Such part of speech better suits the rhetorical handbooks' favourite genre, the judicial. 16 This is a typical difference between the deliberative and the epideictic genre. 17 Cf. R. Gyllenberg, "Die Komposition des Hebräerbriefs", SEÂ 22-23 (195758), pp. 137-47.

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The parts gradually develop the central topoi of the letter. The epideictic praises the virtues of Christ, while the deliberative draws conclusions for the addressees' life. 3. 13:1-25 Peroratio The closing section combines the two rhetorical genres. It with a practical, outspoken exhortation. Then the theological, tological, and hortatory themes are concluded. The final verses 25 can be seen as a postscriptum, which however is an integral the text.

begins Chris13:20part of

C. The General Rhetorical Situation and Strategy Beside the final greedngs, also the author's sometimes daring attitude toward the addressees indicates that he well knows their specific circumstances. However, the subtle technique and the missing narratio make the situation and the goal of the letter hard to identify. T h e general situation is not presented until in the peroratio. Especially 13:1314 implies that prominent Christian behaviour and confession of Christ cause shame. 18 This situation is anticipated in the beginning, where Christ is presented as an obscure άρχιερεύς της ομολογίας, "the high priest of our confession", who is not ashamed of the addressees but has shared their trials (2:11, 17-3:1). In the argumentatio the themes and the rhetorical situation are gradually modified. By praising the virtues of Christ and life as Christians, but also with threats, the author attempts to make the addressees respect their status so that they also dare to show it. T h e final goal is presented in 13:15-16: the addressees ought to confess God and share the trials of their brethren, viz. maintain the prominent characteristics of their faith. This double goal indicates that the deliberative and epideictic genres not only alternate in the text, but also interact on the ideological level.19 The reinforcement of convictions already held by the addressees and the challenge to put them into practice support each other. Contrary to the other general writings, the paradoxes nature of the 18

10:23-25 presents social and cultic examples of this. Übelacker, Hebräerbrief, and Β. Lindars, "The Rhetorical Structure of Hebrews", NTS 35 (1989), p. 383 assess the letter as deliberative, whereas most scholars classify it as epideictic. T. H. Olbricht, "Hebrews as Amplification", in Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 378-87, suggests that Hebrews is closely akin to a funeral sermon. 19

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issue—the connection between shame and glory—is revealed toward the end of the speech. T h e author's enormous rhetorical and theological effort to reach the goal indicates that the addressees are assumed to be so well educated in the Christian doctrine, maybe also in basic rhetorical techniques, that he has to surpass them in both ways.20 Although its stylistic sensitivity resembles that of James, and there are theological correspondences with 1 Peter, Hebrews outshines both writings.

I I I . JAMES

The letter of James offers a striking example of structural and theological problems, which are difficult to approach with conventional methods. From a rhetorical perspective the letter is a well-organized text, where the author takes high risks in order to reinforce the addressees' rather Pauline pattern of religion.21

A. The Language and. Style Compared with the difficulties of interpretation the text surprises with a great literary consciousness. T h e level of Greek is rather high22 despite some direct, astonishing Semitisms.23 The wide range of stylistic devices bears witness to the author's rhetorical competence. 24 Some are utilized for acoustic or aesthetic reasons, 25 whereas others also aim at a deeper effect on the audience's thinking. For example, the frequent semantic antithesis emphasizes the dissociative goal of the text. A characteristic feature in James is the use of appellative words and imperative forms throughout the text. It indicates that the author 20

This is also insinuated in 5:11-14. See L. Thurén, "Risky Rhetoric in James?", NovT 37 (1995), pp. 262-84. 22 For the controversial discussion see Turner, Grammar, pp. 115-16 and R. A. Martin, Syntax Criticism of Johannine Literature, the Catholic Epistles, and the Gospel Passion Accounts (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1989), pp. 99-108. 23 A. Wifstrand, "Stylistic Problems in the Episdes of James and Peter", ST 1 (1947), p. 176; Turner, Grammar, pp. 117-19. 24 See closer W. Wuellner, "Der Jakobusbrief im Licht der Rhetorik und Textpragmatik", LinBib 43 (1978), pp. 62-63. 25 E.g. the four introductory verses 1:1-4 include alliteratio (v. 2), anadiplosis (w. 3-4), gradatio (w. 3-4), paronomasia (w. 1-2), inclusio (w. 2-4), and antithesis (v. 4). 21

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is very conscious of his audience. Such a non-theoretical style also emphasizes the theme of the text, the connection between conviction and action, by keeping the line between theory and practice as low as possible. The letter has even some traces of a diatribe style,26 which however does not indicate any close familiarity with the diatribe or rhetorical handbooks. 27 T h e fact that James can be analyzed with ancient terminology 28 proves only its general applicability.

B. The Dispositio The text lacks clear structural division markers, which makes the internal cohesion difficult to perceive. 29 However, the parts of speech appear in a conventional sequence. If correcdy understood, the dispositio facilitates a proper interaction between the communicants. Possibly the author avoids clear signals, because in order to be persuaded the addressees must not cognitively identify his rhetorical techniques. 1. 1:1-18 Exordium The first four verses fill the basic functions of the exordium by creating general conditions for communication. Several factors seek after a captatio benevolentiae,30 Verse 2b is a short quasi-narratio. Verses 2 - 4 shows a glimpse of the main theme of the text: the faith is complete only when it has practical results. T h e following verses, 5 - 1 2 , display two such examples, wisdom and speech (w. 5-8), and money and action (w. 9-12). This use of insinuatio separates the exordium from a straight prooemium. 1:13-18 serves as an inclusio for the exordium. 2. 1:19-27

Propositio

The section opens with a reference to the addressees' baptism (w. 19-2la). The actual thesis is found in 1:2lb—22: the addressees ought 26

According to D. F. Watson, this could be a sign of the author's rhetorical competence ("James 2 in Light of Greco-Roman Schemes of Argumentadon", NTS 39 [1993], p. 120). 27 See Wifstrand, "Problems", pp. 177-78. 28 Cf. also Watson, "The Rhetoric of James 3:1-12 and a Classical Pattern of Argumentation", NovT 35 (1993), pp. 48~64. 29 E.g. Wuellner, 'Jakobusbrief", p. 42, finds the propositio in 1:12, whereas E. Baasland, Jakobsbrevet (KNT, 16; Uppsala: EFS, 1992), pp. 177-78, sees it in 1:16-22. 30 Such are the stylistic devices, the ethos of the author (regardless of the question of pseudonymity), and the optimistic tone in general.

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to accept the word and live according to it. The latter exhortation, which is further emphasized, exposes the general question of the relationship between principle and practice, words and deeds, or conviction and action. Immediate arguments for the thesis are presented in 1:23-25. As a peroratio of the section, the thesis is amplified with two examples about the use of speech (v. 26) and money (v. 27). 3. 2:1-5:6 Argumentatio The argumentatio consists of three parts, all of which discuss the double theme of the text. (a) 2:1-26 (money and action) includes a gradatio. Verses 1-7 discusses the topic "rich and poor", or more generally, the question about the social implications of money. The issue is further generalized in w . 8-13. The third part, w . 14—26, is an intentionally absurd climax, which opposes a total rejection of the law and the principle of consistency between conviction and action. Simultaneously it serves as a digression (b) 3:1-4:12 focuses on the question of wisdom and speech, which is illustrated with internal problems among the addressees. This section too is threefold. 3:1-12 discusses the question of speech on the theoretical level, 3:13-18 is general, and 4:1-12 moves the issue on the specific and social level. (c) 4:13-5:6 returns to the first topic of the letter. It condemns first the speech, then the behaviour of the rich. They serve as examples for the whole audience. Finally comes a strong pathos-effect: those who oppose the thoughts of the author are accused of the assassination of the just man, possibly Jesus. 4. 5:7-20

Peroratio

The conventional peroratio consists of two parts. The author repeats the central themes, perseverance and speech, which were presented in the exordium (recapitulatio, w . 7-11), and closes with a final exhortation (conquestio, w . 12—20).

31

See also Wuellner, "Jakobusbrief", pp. 50-51.

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C. The General Rhetorical Situation and Strategy James' goal, presented in the framework of the letter, is to enhance the addressees' convictions so that they hold under pressure. They are motivated with a positive attitude and God's promises, viz. good results of perseverance (1:3-4, 12; 5:7-8, 10-11), the value of which they know (1:3; 5:11). Simultaneously they are warned about nonresistance. In 1:4, 17 the author uses the topos of completeness in order to emphasize continuity in the addressees' life. The letter-body reinforces the grounds of the convictions by presenting and repeating them. The abuse of speech and money exemplifies the main theme, the tension between conviction and action. By reflecting the question from different angles James seeks to persuade the addressees, not so much to choose the right way of living as to follow it.32 Thus the author does not actually convince the addressees concerning his insights;33 nobody is, for example, necessarily implied to represent the idea of faith without works.34 The genre of the text can be defined in different ways. Some minor sections (e.g. 5:1-6) are judicial, the majority come close to the deliberative, and the goal of the whole letter points toward an epideictic genre. The status can be defined as that of quality. 35 T h e level of credibility of the basic issue develops from paradoxes (1:2, 9-10) to endoxos (ch. 5). A closer identification of the exigency remains flexible. Contrary to 1 Peter, James implies problems mostly within the community, but since it lacks historical signals in its canonical form, it fits into various situations. The rhetorical strategy of James is hazardous. The author has estimated the situation so that an impression of speaking frankly and directly, giving commands without explanations and motivations, 36 is the most effective means of persuasion. Maybe he knew his audience

32

Cf. the final appeal in 5:19-20. However, also deep ideological issues, like the reladonship between humanity and God, are discussed throughout the letter. See Baasland, Jakobsbrevet, pp. 180-82. 34 If the interlocutor in 2:18 is rhetorical, the whole theoretical digressio in 2:14— 26 can be seen as an example of how James has been misunderstood. The author is alleged to oppose Paul, but possibly aims in fact at rejecdng a reference to Paul against an original Pauline conception of faith. A close parallel is 2 Pet. 3:15-16, but the strategy of James is more powerful and skillful. 35 So also Watson, "James 2", p. 101, although on somewhat different grounds. 36 They occur especially in the framework of the text. 33

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well enough to dare to address them in an unkind manner. 37 This strategy resembles the function of the disposition: the addressees are either unconsciously affected by the rhetoric or they misunderstand the author fatally. At least later the strategy of James has failed. The formal ambiguities and the lack of the original or even imaginary relationship between the communicants have usually made it difficult to understand (and be appropriately affected by) the text. Despite the very different outcome, the knowledge of rhetoric and the use of the devices resemble those of Hebrews. James has however been far less examined from this angle.

IV.

1 PETER

Compared with other general writings 1 Peter has been traditionally easier to interpret, although similar problems occur. The scholars' unawareness of rhetorical features has, for example, put its literary integrity into question, and a fixation on Pauline theology has obscured the thoughts of the author. In recent years many methods have been applied to the text in order to avoid stagnation in research. Rhetorical criticism challenges the exegete to describe 1 Peter as argumentation so that its form, contents and theology can constitute a balanced picture. A. The Language and Style T h e level of Greek differs somewhat from James. Besides a more cultivated language 1 Peter contains many indirect Semitisms.38 The use of stylistic devices mostly reflects good conventional rhetoric. For instance, antithesis is frequently used in order to differentiate the values of the addressees from those of their neighbours. Some devices are mainly decorative, showing that the text is premeditated and that

37

Cf. 1 Peter, which due to the author's unfamiliarity with the addressees is written in a polite style. 38 See Wifstrand, "Problems", pp. 176-77; Turner, Grammar, pp. 124-30; and N. Brox, Der erste Petrusbrief (EKK, 21; Zürich/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Benziger/Neukirchener, 1979), p. 45.

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the author is interested in stylisdc ornaments. 39 However, contrary to the classical ideal of perspicuitas, the text in 1:13-3:12 is ambiguous, so that many expressions can be interpreted in at least two ways. It has been claimed that this is due to the author's strategy.40 The technique of reasoning is sophisdcated. For example, a reference to God's authority, which per se is poor argumentation according to classical requirements, is always supported with an appeal to general reason.41 Other questionable, but persuasive, means are the constant repetitio, which is interrupted only by a digressio in 3:18-22, and devices like insinuatio, entrapment, and persuasive description,*2 by which the addressees are enticed to follow the author's strategy. Close to them comes irony (4:3). B. The Dispositio 1. 1:1~12 Exordium The author pleases the audience in order to gain its good will (captatio benevolentiae). Since the case is very difficult, an abnormally long exordium is required. Simultaneously the main themes, such as the connection between sufferings and glory, are cautiously presented. 1:6b is a quasinarratio, which briefly shapes the basic situation according to the author's purposes. 2. 1:13-5:7 Argumentatio (a) 1:13-2:10 can be understood either as a prolonged exordium, which only on a second reading of the letter reveals its other nature, or direcdy as the first part of argumentation This is due to many grammatical features. If they are deliberate, they indicate two different rhetorical situations behind the text. As with Hebrews, the proporitio is difficult to identify. 44 39

Such are the use of prepositions in order to form specific structures e.g. in 1:22, and the alliteratio e.g. in 1:4; 2:12; 3:17; 4:4. 40 L. Thurén, The Rhetorical Strategy of 1 Peter (Âbo: Àbo Academy, 1990), pp. 17576. 41 See L. Thurén, Argument and Theology in 1 Peter: The Origins of Christian Paraenesis (JSNTSup, 114; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), p. 205. 42 Thurén, Strategy, p. 137. 43 Thurén, Strategy, pp. 93-125. 44 Depending on how the rhetorical situadon is assessed, the epideictic 1:12 or the deliberative 1:13 serves as the propositio.

598

LAURI THXJRÉN

(b) 2:11-3:12 changes the focus from a theoretical to a more practical level. When the audience is assumed to agree with the author in principle he can make the first general conclusions. (c) 3:13-4:11 and 4:12-5:7 increasingly unify the rhetorical situation so that the problems can be confronted. This explains the striking difference between the latter unit and the exordium; especially in the latter section the audience can be addressed in a new manner, since they are supposed already to have changed their opinions to some extent. 3. 5:8-14

Peroratio

The peroratio, similar to the exordium, is difficult to determine. 4:125:7 already has a peroratory style, but 5:8-14 repeats briefly and with affectus the central goals of the text (recapitulatio), alluded to in the exordium. It also gives the final orders (conquestio). C. The Basic Rhetorical Situation and Strategy 1 Peter contains even less forensic material than the other general writings. Instead, a deliberative genre is well justified. From this point of view the text seeks to persuade the addressees to change their behaviour in the future. However, as is typical of the general writings, its framework suggests that the text is best seen as epideictic. By praising the virtues and value of the Christian faith 1 Peter encourages the addressees to put in practice convictions already held by them; 45 no new information or commands are given. The exhortation is so unspecified that a single, particular exigency cannot be defined. T h e status of the basic issue is problematic. The addressees are implied to have social difficulties, which in turn put the value of their Christian convictions into question. There are two possibilities. T h e status of redefinition means that the author gives a new description of the addressees' situation. In 1:6-7 their sufferings are depicted in a positive light; 5:8 instead overdramatizes the situation. However, the status of quality is more appropriate, if the text is seen as epideictic. In 4:12-13 the author points out that the addressees' sufferings are not something strange. Instead they can rejoice, since the sufferings mean that they will partake in the glory of Christ. Contrary 45

Cf. είδότες in 1:18.

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to Hebrews, the nature of credibility of the issue is paradoxes from the beginning. Life as practicing Christians will bring the addressees a shameful ordeal, but the author attempts to make it glorious and thus worth continuing. These three characteristics help us better to identify the overall rhetorical situation. 1 Peter is written to a composite audience. T h e addressees' implied reactions to the pressure cover a wide range from an "active" verbal and even physical resistance to "passive" assimilation to the surrounding culture. The author sees both solutions as unacceptable, especially in view of missionary work. However, the audience's opposite negative expectations set specific challenges for proper communication. T h e author may seem too soft or too demanding, depending on the addressees' expectations. 46 In order to overcome these obstacles he needs specific rhetorical skills. The process of argumentation is neady escalating. After a joyful but enigmatic start the text gradually develops to clear reasoning, ending at an emotionally loaded appeal. In so doing the author meets the multiple challenge set by the audience implied. The rhetorical technique of 1 Peter, which has not yet been thoroughly examined, is exceeded by its intricate strategy.

V.

2

PETER

Second Peter has often been labelled as an "early Catholic" text. It is also claimed to be written in a swollen style and to consist of loose parts, which are pardy copied from the letter of Jude. 47 However, when the stylistic and structural phenomena are seen as rhetorical devices, the message and the theology behind the text can be better approached. 48

46

These types of audience are textual construcdons. Their connecdon to the historical addressees, be they real or created by the originell author, does not direcdy belong to the agenda of rhetorical research, although some inferences as to the historical situation can be made. 47 For discussion see R.J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (WBC, 50; Waco: Word, 1983), pp. 131-63. 48 See L. Thurén, "Style Never Goes out of Fashion—2 Peter Re-Evaluated", in S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric, Scripture and Theology (JSNTSup, 131; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 329-47.

600

LAURI THXJRÉN

A. The Language and Style Compared with J u d e the text appears artificial. It involves complex sentences. Strange or obscure words are used whenever possible.49 This at least indicates that the author is fond of sophisticated, florid speech. Such a consciousness of language is characteristic of a welleducated, but non-native Greek speaker. 50 A corresponding discernible difference from Jude is that 2 Peter is loaded with forceful, abundant, and obscure expressions and figures.51 This indicates a shift from middle to grand, Asian style, which was very popular at the time. The style of 2 Peter is either empty and pompous, 52 or powerful and elegant, consisting of decorated, cultivated figures.53 However, the main question is not whether the author has "overreached himself in his literary ambition", 54 but whether there is a purpose for this extraordinary use of stylistic devices and the peculiar Greek. T h e choice of style corresponds to the author's general habit of operating with pathos and ethos rather than with logos. This is reasonable, if the addressees are assessed as immune to logical reasoning, or if there are no convincing arguments available. Maybe such an argumentation is not even necessary, if the goal is only to fortify existing attitudes, such as the authority of the aposdes. B. The Dispositio T h e letter is divided into three functional parts using the signal διό (1:12 and 3:14).

49

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, pp. 135-37 analyzes 57 hapaxes, three of which may be formulated by the author himself. 50 Since there are no clear Semitisms, even Latin has been suggested as the author's mother tongue (B. Reicke, The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude [AB, 37; New York: Doubleday, 1964], p. 147). 51 D. F. Watson, Invention, Arrangement, and Style—Rhetorical Criticism of Jude and 2 Peter (SBLDS, 104; Adanta: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 195-97, enumerates some stylistic techniques used in 2 Peter. 52 Cf. Turner, Grammar, pp. 141-42; Reicke, Epistles, pp. 146-47. 53 Cf. Watson, Invention, pp. 145-46. 54 Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, p. 137.

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1. 1:1-11 Exordium 1:1-2 follows epistolary conventions, but belongs rhetorically to the exordium. In 1:3-4 there is a normal captatio benevolentiae\ no opening thanksgiving is found. The addressees' theological insights are described as excellent.55 The connection and solidarity between the communicants are marked with first person plural. The following twofold paraenetical section, 1:5-11, is more problematic. The exordium should also introduce the main theme of the speech, but there is no clear sign of the two topoi of the letter-body, the opponents and the question about the parousia. 2. 1:12-3:13 Argumentatio (a) 1:12-15 includes the propositio and confirmatio. A division marker διό and a conventional letter-body opening formula separate this section from the exordium,56 Steadiness in the given truth (1:12) seems to be the propontio. T h e rest of the chapter deals with the authority and credibility of the author and the Scriptures. (b) 2:1-22 is a rejutatio, which rejects the false teachers. Their speech, way of life, and God's Judgment are connected. This condemnation is amplified with a digressio in w . 10b-22, 57 which closely corresponds to the letter of Jude. (c) 3:1-13 is introduced with a seemingly unnecessary emphasis of the author's ethos (3:1-2). The signal διό and the address "beloved friends" could per se mark the transitio. 58 In the rest of the section the topos of parousia is discussed. 3. 3:14-18

Peroratio

(a) 3:14-16 is a recapitulatio, again signaled with διό, which repeats the topoi introduced in the exordium and discussed later: eagerness (σπουδάσατε, v. 14), escape from transitoriness (άπώλεια, v. 16),59 and parousia (v. 16).60 Again we meet a feature which seems to break a 55

The topoi of remembering and knowing are used throughout the letter. Against Watson, Invention, pp. 99-101, who however recognizes a corresponding phenomenon in Jude 5. 57 Watson, Invention, pp. 114-24. 58 Watson, Invention, pp. 124-26, explains this new opening as a return from the digressio in 2:10b-22. 59 φθορά in 1, 4; both words occur throughout the text. 60 See also Watson, Invention, p. 140. 56

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LAURI THXJRÉN

logical train of thought: the recommendation of Paul (3:15b—16). (b) 3:17-18 is a conquestio, where final exhortation is given, based on the previous argumentation. As in 1:12, the addressees are advised to stay on their firm ground (3:17) contrary to people who do not have one (3:16).61 C. The General Rhetorical Situation and Strategy As in James, the goal of the text should be sought in the framework, which emphasizes eagerness (1:5, 10; 3:14). Secondly, it is useful to search for rhetorically abnormal features in the text. An epistolary formula for presenting the occasion for writing 62 occurs surprisingly in the middle of the letter-body, within an attack on the opponents (3:1). T h e author wants to recommend the apostolic message and the Scriptures. A similar insert is found in the beginning of the argumentatio in 1:12-15. Finally, in the repetitio, where the central idea of the letter ought to be openly presented, the author recommends not Peter's letter but those of Paul (3:15b—16). Obviously the author boosts his own ethos also in order to share a part of it with Paul. The author's striving for a solemn style serves this goal. All this signifies that 2 Peter ultimately aims at increasing adherence to the apostolic interpretation of the Scriptures, but not the authority of a certain apostle as such. This goal fits best the epideictic genre. 63 There are also some judicial sections, where the opponents are attacked with counterarguments. Compared with Jude this is done in a straightforward way, and the opponents are described in more detail. Instead of using a metaphor of a shepherd (Jude 12), 2 Peter assails false teachers and their ideas.64 But even this fits into the epideictic style. T h e basic strategy namely corresponds to that of Jude: the addressees are all the time described as good Christians, who only need some encouragement in their life. The criticism against them is hidden in censure of their opponents. Thereby they are both dissuaded from an unacceptable way of life and reinforced in their positive convictions. 61

For further common features, see Watson, Invention, pp. 140-41. For characteristics see J. L. White, The Body of the Greek Letter (2nd edn.; SBLDS, 2; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1972), pp. 62-63, 97-99. 63 A close ancient type is a farewell-speech. For details, see Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, pp. 131-35. Watson, Invention, pp. 85-87 sees the text as deliberative. 64 E.g. the author does not only generally support the idea of the parousia, but discusses specific arguments against it. 62

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Compared with Jude, the language, style, and rhetorical situation signify that 2 Peter is more specific, exaggerated, and even artificial. It can be assessed as a hermeneutical interpretation of Jude in a different situation. The opposite, to consider Jude as a simplified and generalized version of 2 Peter, does not seem plausible. 65

VI.

JUDE

The lack of historical information has resulted in several different interpretations of Jude. A rhetorical approach enables a fresh reading by focusing on the function of the phenomena and the message on the textual level. However, in the analysis of J u d e rhetoric mosdy serves as a heuristic tool. Direct dependency of school rhetoric is not plausible. A. The Language and Style Although not as sophisticated as 2 Peter, the linguistic level of J u d e is fairly high.66 The sentence construction is simple, but mosdy well designed.67 Various images and expressions are chosen with care. This sensitivity to verbal communication lets us expect even rhetorical consciousness. The linguistic and rhetorical skills of the author are met by his moderate use of stylistic devices.68 Exaggeration is avoided. Most of the stylistic features are used reasonably, so that they serve the goals of the author. 69 Except for the end, J u d e meets Hellenistic epistolary conventions better than any other long episde in the New Testament. It is also designed to be read aloud before an audience. 70

65 E.g. development from false teachers with specific heresies (2:1) to a metaphor used to depict selfishness (Jude 12), or from a recommendation of Peter, Paul, and the Scriptures to a reference to the teaching of the aposdes does not seem feasible. 66 Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, pp. 6-7, provides a thorough investigation of the language of the letter. 67 An exception is the parataxis in v. 11. 68 Watson, Invention, p. 194 enumerates several stylistic features in Jude. 69 Watson, Invention, p. 78 however claims that the accumulative use of amplification with Jewish exempla is somewhat boring. 70 E.g. the exclamatio in v. 11 is surrounded with sentences beginning with corresponding voice: ουτοι-ούαί-ουτοι.

604

LAURI THXJRÉN

Β. The Dispositio 1. 1-4 Exordium This entire section is a conventional exordium, and many factors have their counterparts in the peroratio.71 A positive atmosphere for the following interaction is created, the author and his ethos are presented, central themes are introduced, and the audience is appeased with polite phrases. Verse 4 is a quasi-narratio. In the light of the general rhetorical situation the exordium can be best assessed as an iminuatio despite the seemingly honest and conventional techniques. 2. 5-16

Argumentatio

No propositio is presented. T h e author does not give any real proofs either, 72 but condemns the behaviour and values of the opponents as shameful. T h e strength of the arguments relies on authority. This is bad argumentation in Greek, but typical of Jewish rhetoric. Instead of sophisticated logical structures the author uses amplified exempta, commonly in a threefold pattern ending in a climax.13 T h e whole argumentatio has a corresponding structure. Verses 5 - 7 depicts generally the fate of bad people, attuning the minds of the audience into moral pathos. When the rhetorical situation is thereby changed, w . 8 - 1 3 directs the aversion aroused to the opponents. Then w . 14—16 dramatically concludes their lifestyle and fate. 3. 17-25

Peroratio

This conventional peroratio consists of a recapitulatio (w. 17-19) and a conquestio (w. 20-23). The climax in w . 24—25 concentrates on the pathos74 and shifts the perspective beyond the problems and time to higher spheres.

71

So especially w . 3 and 23, 25. See Watson, Invention, p. 40. Watson, Invention, pp. 48-50 sees 5-10, 11-13 and 14-16 as proofs of the author's case. His view follows the rhetorical handbooks, being thus rather judicial, which does not correspond to the actual nature of Jude. 73 In w . 5 - 7 and 11 there is a simple, in w . 12-13 a double structure. 74 Watson, Invention, pp. 76-77 does not mark the typical threefold climactic structure. 72

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C. The General Rhetorical Situation and. Strategy Both the beginning and the end speak of continuity. This topos appears in the rhetorically central w . 3 and 20. T h e Lord has saved the addressees once, as he once saved his people (απαξ in both w . 3 and 5). Now the addressees need to be consistent and stay within that salvation. This attempt to maintain the addressees' situation, and to confirm values already held by them, comes close to the epideictic genre. 75 The author condemns the opponents in a judicial style, but the addressees are not told to do so. Despite the general exhortation they are not even advised to make any deliberation about some particular course of action. Most of the letter deals with opponents. More clearly than in 2 Peter they are not the target of the text, but utilized in order to achieve the main goal. The criticism is strikingly general and stereotypical.76 However, there are two distinctive features, which indicate that the opponents are not purely theoretical. First, the claim that the opponents "deny" Jesus Christ may not be totally exaggerated, since the name repeatedly occurs in the framework of the text. Secondly, the author is quick to condemn the opponents' speech, especially for its critical nature (w. 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17).77 Such "speech" does not indicate that the opponents are teachers. They may as well represent internal problems, discontent, and criticism. 78 The argumentation is thoroughly dissuasive. In v. 12 "they" attend at "your" meals. In w . 17-21 their life and situation is dramatically contrasted, and finally in v. 23 all contact is forbidden. Thereby the text attempts to protect the addressees from the influence of certain people. 79 Their critical utterances, but possibly also their theology and behaviour, are to be rejected so that the addressees will not be 75

This corresponds to the type of the argumentatio. Against Watson, Invention, pp. 33-37. 76 For this convention, see A. du Toit, "Vilification as a Pragmatic Device in Early Christian Epistolography", Bib 75 (1994), pp. 403-12. 77 Also the word άποδιορίζοντες (v. 19) may mean assigning people to different groups. 78 The phrase "being shepherds for themselves" εαυτούς ποιμαίνοντες (v. 12b) is only a parallel to the prior expression συνευωχούμενοι άφόβως (v. 12a). Further, to characterize them as "infiltrated" or with apocalyptic terms may only aim at decreasing their ethos and dramatizing the situation. 79 An alternative goal for the climactic v. 23 must also be considered: the excommunication of certain people may serve as a necessary shock in order to regain them to the community.

606

LAHR I THURÉN

affected by them. From a sociological point of view, the opponents are used as a "good enemy" in order to emphasize the internal coherence of the addressees. A final step in the rhetorical de-dramatization of the text is provided by an epistolographical notice. The exigency of Jude is usually characterized as sudden, 80 which may be due to a simple misunderstanding. Verse 3 "I have always wanted to write to you about our common wealth, 81 but now I find it necessary to . . . " is but a conventional epistolary phrase, 82 to introduce the issue at hand and to apologize for not writing earlier. Nothing exactly refers to a dramatic change in the situation. 83 T h e rhetorical strategy is simple but skillful. The addressees are depicted as good Christians who are going to oppose the bad enemy. In the argumentatio negative emotions against the enemy are created with a climactic structure. The opponents serve as surrogate targets. Thereby the addressees' opinions are more strongly affected. Compared with the other general writings, especially 2 Peter, the rhetoric of Jude can be characterized as ascetic, but also relaxed. It mostly follows contemporary epistolary and oratorical conventions, but in a flexible way. This plainness is however misleading, as the intricate strategy shows.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Attridge, H. W., A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia: Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989). Baasland, E., Jakobsbrevet (KNT, 16; Uppsala: EFS, 1992). Bauckham, R. J., Jude, 2 Peter (WBC, 50; Waco: Word, 1983). Brox, N., Der erste Petrusbrief (EKK, 21; Zürich/Neukirchen-Vluyn; Benziger/Neukirchener, 1979). Charles, J. D., literary Strategy in the Epistle of Jude (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 1993).

80

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, pp. 30-31. Such view has been opposed on the basis of the polished literary style of the text. 81 ή κοινή σωτηρία is a common secular expression. 82 H. Koskenniemi, Studien zur Idee und Phraseologie des Griechischen Briefes bis 400 n. Chr. (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Β 102.2; Helsinki: Finnish Academy, 1956), p. 78, who however does not notice this in Jude. 83 This description of the rhetorical situation is not just another suggestion for the actual case behind Jude. The clues in the text are used in order to delineate the type of the setting in which Jude was written. Several hermeneutic adaptations can be made on this basis.

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Evans, C. F., The Theology of Rhetoric: The Epistle to the Hebrews (London: Dr. Williams's Trust, 1988). Gyllenberg, R., "Die Komposition des Hebräerbriefs", SEÄ 22-23 (1957-58), pp. 137-47. Koskenniemi, H., Studien zur Idee und Phraseologie des Griechischen Briefes bis 400 n. Chr. (Annales Academiae Scicntiarum Fennicae, Β 102.2; Helsinki: Finnish Academy, 1956). Lane, W. L., Hebrews (2 vols.; WBC, 47AB; Dallas: Word, 1991). Lindars, B., "The Rhetorical Structure of Hebrews", NTS 35 (1989), pp. 382-406. Martin, R. Α., Syntax Criticism of Johannine Literature, the Catholic Epistles, and the Gospel Passion Accounts (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1989). Nissilä, Κ., Das Hohepriestermotiv im Hebräerbrief (Schriften der Finnischen exegetischen Gesellschaft, 33; Helsinki: Finnish Academy, 1979). Reicke, Β., The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude (AB, 37; New York: Doubleday, 1964). Olbricht, T. H., "Hebrews as Amplification", in S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), pp. 375-87. Spicq, C., L'Épître aux Hébreux (2 vols.; EBib· Paris: Gabalda, 1952-53). Thurén, L., The Rhetorical Strategy of 1 Peter (Abo: Âbo Academy, 1990). , "On Studying Ethical Argumentation and Persuasion in the New Testament", in S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), pp. 464-78. , "Risky Rhetoric in James?", NovT 37 (1995), pp. 262-84. , Argument and Theology in 1 Peter: The Origins of Christian Paraenesis (JSNTSup, 114; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). , "Style Never Goes out of Fashion—2 Peter Re-Evaluated", in S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric, Scripture and Theology (JSNTSup, 131; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 329-47. Du Toit, Α., "Vilification as a Pragmatic Device in Early Christian Epistolography", Bib 75 (1994), pp. 403-12. Turner, N., J. H. Moulton: A Grammar of New Testament Greek. IV. Style. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1976). Übelacker, W. G., Der Hebräerbrief als Appell (ConBNT, 21; Lund: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989). Vanhoye, Α., Structure and Message of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Subsidia biblica, 12; Rome: Instituto Pontificio Biblico, 1989). Watson, D. F., Invention, Arrangement, and Style—Rhetorical Criticism of Jude and 2 Peter (SBLDS, 104, Adanta: Scholars Press, 1988). , "James 2 in Light of Greco-Roman Schemes of Argumentation", NTS 39 (1993), pp. 94-121. , "The Rhetoric of James 3:1-12 and a Classical Pattern of Argumentation". NovT 35 (1993), pp. 48-64. White, J. L., The Body of the Greek Letter (2nd edn.; SBLDS, 2; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1972). Wifstrand, Α., "Stylistic Problems in the Episdes of James and Peter", ST 1 (1947), pp. 170-78. Wuellner, W., "Der Jakobusbrief im Licht der Rhetorik und Textpragmatik", LB 43 (1978), pp. 5-66.

CHAPTER 20

THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS Dennis L. Stamps The Queen's Foundation, Birmingham, England

I.

INTRODUCTION

T h e relationship of the Johannine writings—the Gospel of J o h n , 1, 2, 3 John, and Revelation—to the classical Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition is a complex matter. First, any attempt to reconstruct the authorship and historical setting (or more specifically the rhetorical situation)1 of each of these writings is problematic. Secondly, the relationship among the four texts is unclear, both historically and literarily. Thirdly, the wide diversity of text-type or genre including a Gospel, three episdes, and a Christian apocalypse complicates any rhetorical assessment. In the discussion which follows, the first section will examine the provenance for this set of writings, including matters of authorship, place of writing, and order of writing. T h e next three sections will assess the rhetorical nature of the Gospel of John, the three episdes of John, and then the book of Revelation, specifically investigating aspects of Graeco-Roman rhetoric related to arrangement, invention, and style. The final section will offer some concluding critical remarks on the rhetorical nature of the Johannine writings.

1 For a definition and discussion of the rhetorical situation, see L. Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation", Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968), p. 6; G. A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), pp. 34-36; D. L. Stamps, "Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation: The Entextualization of the Situation in New Testament Episdes", in S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (JSNTSup, 90; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1993), pp. 193-210.

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I I . T H E HISTORICAL C O N T E X T OF THE JOHANNINE

WRITINGS

There are several important issues which impact upon any attempt to reconstruct the historical context of the Johannine writings: authorship, place and date of writing, and order of writings. 2 Theories about each of these issues abound. But each issue is important to the assessment of the rhetorical nature of the Johannine writings. Classical Graeco-Roman rhetoric was very much a situational rhetoric, a rhetoric addressed to specific historical contingencies. One important historical contingency is determining the cultural environment and literary traditions associated with the author. Who wrote the Gospel of John, 1, 2, 3 J o h n and Revelation? It is unlikely that there was a single person who is responsible for all of these writings. 3 Equally, it is impossible to substantiate that there was a Johannine school which lies behind the Johannine "tradition". 4 More probably, each writing has a specific author, with some of the writings possibly being edited at a later stage; and each of the writings is probably influenced by a theological tradition that is identified with "John", though a tradition that is not confined to one community or locale.5 Scholarly discussion about the historical and literary nature of the Johannine writings generally separates out the Gospel and the epistles from discussion of Revelation.

2

Introductory issues are discussed in R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (I-XII) (AB, 29; New York: Doubleday, 1966), pp. XXI CXXXVIII; idem, The Epistles ofJohn (AB, 30; Garden City: Doubleday, 1982), pp. 14-115; idem, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979); J. Lieu, The Second and Third Epistles of John: History and Background (Studies of the New Testament and Its World; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986), pp. 125-65. 3 The only likely person who might be identified as the single author is John, the son of Zebedee, the disciple of Jesus mendoned in the synopdc Gospels, but serious reservations on this theory are given by R. B. Edwards, The Johannine Epistles (New Testament Guides; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 47-53. 4 For the use of the terms "school", "tradition", and "community" with regard to the Johannine writings, see Lieu, Second and Third Epistles, pp. 135-65; Brown, Epistles, pp. 69-115; J. Lieu, The Theology of the Johannine Epistles (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 98-110; R. A. Culpepper, The Johannine School (SBLDS, 26; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975); M. Hengel, The Johannine Question (trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM, 1989), pp. 119-35. 5 This perspective is similar to that espoused in Brown, Epistles, pp. 69-115; and Lieu, Second and Third Epistles, pp. 135-65.

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A. The Gospel and the Johannine Epistles The authorship issue is difficult because neither the Gospel of J o h n nor the three episdes name the author. Attributing these writings to "John" stems from the tides given to the Gospel and the episdes in external sources which date back to the second century AD.6 With regard to the Gospel, it is possible that the allusions to the "beloved disciple" in the Gospel of J o h n are a literary device to refer obliquely to the author, with the further possibility that the "beloved disciple" is the Johannine reference to the aposde John, the son of Zebedee, so named in the synoptic tradition. 7 This scenario would correspond to the early external attestation that the Gospel is written by the aposde John. In the end, however, the Gospel of J o h n must be regarded as an anonymous text, and any effort to identify the original author remains historical speculation, no matter how clever the marshalling of evidence internal and external. With regard to the episdes, 1 J o h n is anonymous and efforts to identify its historical author are even more speculative than those for the Gospel of John given the brevity and unclear generic nature of the text. 8 2 and 3 John curiously name the sender as "the elder", ό πρεσβύτερος (2 John 1; 3 J o h n l).9 This is not particularly helpful in any effort to identify the original author. It does cast a doubt over assigning these letters to the apostolic tradition, as one would expect the tide, "aposde", to be used. In the end, even 2 and 3 J o h n are anonymous letters. What the name J o h n seems to indicate in relation to the Gospel and the episdes is some family relationship. There have been extensive efforts which almost convincingly demonstrate that there is both a literary and a theological family resemblance between the Gospel and episdes.10 Explanations which account for this resemblance based

6

Edwards, Johannine Epistles, pp. 47-49. The options for the identity of the beloved disciple are discussed in Brown, Gospel, pp. XCII-XCVIII; R. Bauckham, "The Beloved Disciple as Ideal Author", J&NT 49 (1993), pp. 21-44; K. Quast, Peter and the Beloved Disciple: Figures for a Community in Crisis (JSNTSup, 32: Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1989). 8 On the authorship of 1 John, see Brown, Epistles, pp. 14—35; I. H. Marshall, The Epistles of John (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 42-48. 9 Lieu, Second and Third Epistles, pp. 52-124; Edwards, Johannine Epistles, p. 50. 10 Marshall, Epistles, pp. 31-42; Brown, Epistles, pp. 19-30; cf. Lieu, Second and Third Epistles, pp. 166-229. 7

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on the reconstruction of historical persons and events are manifold." T h e essence of most of these explanations is the positing of some Johannine tradidon which originated near the time of Jesus' life and ministry and which developed over the years. This tradition is identified with a particular Jesus story (Gospel tradition) and with a particular theological interpretation of that Jesus story. A majority of the reconstructions of the Johannine tradition place its later development as preserved in the episdes and in the possible late redaction of the Gospel in Asia Minor, often Ephesus, and date it late in the first century or very early second century AD. Authorial identification follows three main theories. One theory basically identifies the Johannine tradition with the aposde John. 1 2 A second theory identifies the Johannine tradition with J o h n the "elder". 13 A third is essentially a theory of multiple authorship which maintains some core link with a Johannine tradition. 14 A majority of those who hold to the third theory suggest that the author of the Gospel is different from the author or authors of the episdes. No majority view can be stated with regard to the order of these writings. 15 T h e primary debate centres on whether one or all of the episdes predate the publication of the Gospel or vice-versa. A secondary debate is the order of the epistles, particularly whether 1 J o h n comes before or after 2 and 3 John. This debate is complicated because there are three different text-types: Gospel, 2 episdes (2 J o h n and 3 John), and one ambiguous text-type (1 John); and four different occasions or purposes of writing based solely on internal references to the situation of writing in each text. It is hardly understatement to say that the reconstruction of the historical context (and therefore the rhetorical situation) for the Gospel of J o h n and the Johannine episdes is a complicated matter.

" The two most significant viewpoints and surveys of the historical factors behind the Johannine tradition are Brown, Community; and Hengel, Johannine Question. 12 L. Morris, The Gospel According to John (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), pp. 8-30. 13 Hengel, Johannine Question, pp. 74-108. 14 Brown, Epistles, pp. 69-115; Edwards, Johannine Epistles, pp. 55-56; Lieu, Theology, pp. 16-21; S. S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John (WBC, 51; Waco: Word Boob, 1984), p. xxii. 15 Brown, Epistles, pp. 30-35; Edwards, Johannine Epistles, pp. 53-56.

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B. Revelation With regard to authorship, the text of Revelation states that the recipient of the "revelation of Jesus Christ" is J o h n (1:1); that the recipient of the prophecy of the book is J o h n (22:8); and that it is John who writes to the seven churches (1:4, 9). But who is this John? 16 He is described as a "servant" in Rev. 1:1, and a "brother" in Rev. 1:9. There is no explicit attestation that this is the aposde J o h n or the elder referred to in 2 and 3 John. This J o h n is a Christian in exile on Patmos apparently on account of evangelistic work, "on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (1:9). H e has links apparendy with the churches in Asia Minor (Rev. 1:11). Beyond these clues, any definitive identification of the author is speculative. But the provenance of Asia Minor as the place of writing is substantiated by the evidence of the text.17 T h e occasion and date for Revelation are equally difficult to specify.18 The historical allusion to a Christian being exiled to Patmos from Asia Minor gives some specific evidence to work from. While theories abound for positing the specific historical situation behind the writing of Revelation, most theories identify a context of persecution. Most theories place this persecution at the end of the first century AD or sometime early in the second century AD. The relationship of Revelation to the Johannine tradition is more problematic. When the literary and theological criteria which align the Gospel of John and the Johannine episdes to a single tradition are applied to Revelation, the conclusion is ambiguous. 19 But there is enough evidence to suggest the possibility of Revelation being a part of this tradition. 20 Particularly important in this regard are the 16

The authorship of Revelation is discussed in J.J. Gunther, "The Elder John, Author of Reveladon", JSNT 11 (1981), pp. 3-20; R. H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 25-31; E. Schüssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), pp. 86-93. " C.J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in their Local Setting (JSNTSup, 11; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), pp. 12-20, 27-34; Schüssler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, pp. 192-99. 18 E. Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Proclamation Commentaries; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), pp. 117-39; Mounce, Book of Revelation, pp. 31-36; J. M. Court, Revelation (New Testament Guides; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1994), pp. 94-108. 19 Schüssler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, pp. 93-108. 20 Hengel, Johannine Question, pp. 124—35; Brown, Community, p. xxx.

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theological similarities in Christology and the attribution of the text to a Chrisdan authority figure called John who receives direct revelation and prophecy from the exalted Christ. At the least, there may be an effort to align the text of Revelation with the Johannine tradition, whether or not it actually originates in what might be labelled the Johannine tradition.

C. The Historical Context of the Johannine Writings and the Graeco-Roman Rhetorical Tradition The implications of these historical-critical concerns for authorship, date, occasion, and place of writing, for determining the relationship of the Johannine writings to the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition are immense. First, since the specific identity of the author of all five texts commonly associated with the Johannine tradition cannot be firmly established, the ability to reasonably posit the influence of the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition upon the authors is diminished. This is significant. Though the debate over the rhetorical training of Paul continues and though the extent of the Pauline corpus is debated, it is easier to examine the influence of the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition upon Paul because authorial identity can be claimed for at least some Pauline letters and because the biographical details of the author with respect to the ancient rhetorical tradition suggest a possible relationship. 21 If one identifies the Johannine writings with the aposde John, his probable rural Palestinian origins suggests minimal, if any, training and general cultural influence with respect to the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition. If one identifies the Johannine writings with J o h n the elder, then a similar conclusion, though with less certainty, can be made, since it is generally suggested that the "Elder" had Palestinian origins.22 Multiple authorship of the Johannine writings makes it impossible to determine with any certainty the influence of the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition upon the original authors. However, if one places the original authors in Asia Minor and in a major Graeco-Roman city like Ephesus, such influence becomes more probable.

21

For a discussion of Paul and his relationship to the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition, see Chapter 18 in this volume, "Paul of Tarsus and His Letters", by Porter. 22 Hengel, Johannine Question, pp. 109-14.

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Furthermore, since the ability to identify the specific historical occasion for the Johannine writings is problematic, the ability to identify the rhetorical species of a Johannine writing, which is direcdy dependent upon positing a specific rhetorical situation, is also problematic. All in all, based on the issues of historical context, a presentday critic has several significant problems in assessing the relationship of the Johannine writings to the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition.

I I I . ASSESSING THE R H E T O R I C A L N A T U R E O F T H E G O S P E L OF J O H N

Any assessment of the rhetorical nature of the Gospel of J o h n is dependent on and in large part determined by a critic's decision about what kind of rhetorical text John's Gospel is. In many ways, the issue of the kind of rhetorical text is related to that of genre. T h e suggested genre of John's Gospel has ranged from its being sui generis, to a Jewish theodicy based on Scripture, to a Hellenistic biography, to an archetypal narrative. 23 It may be true as G. A. Kennedy asserts that all genres are rhetorical, but the employment of ancient Graeco-Roman rhetoric will be more likely in genres that correspond to the oratorical discourse associated with this rhetorical tradition. 24 It will become clear in the discussion below how the different decisions regarding genre affect the way in which the rhetorical nature of Gospel is assessed. The following discussion attempts, first, to assess the proposals regarding the rhetoric of John's Gospel that have been offered to date, then secondly, to examine the rhetorical practice of the Gospel in relation to the rhetorical categories of species of rhetoric, arrangement, invention, style, delivery and memory.

A. Recent Proposals Regarding the Rhetorical Nature of John's Gospel Looking at the different genre types, identifying the Gospel of J o h n as sui generis tends towards seeing very little use of Graeco-Roman rhetoric in the writing of the Gospel. 25 Generally, positing a sui generis

23 24 25

Each of these options will be explored in detail below. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 10, 19. Hengel, Johannine Question, pp. 102-108.

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genre implies a context of oral instruction originating in the preaching of the Christian community as the genesis of the textual units found in a Gospel. The final form of the Gospel as a whole is equally a unique generic construction which may be influenced by contemporary Jewish and Hellenistic literature, but which is more determined by the need of the community of faith in which and for which the Gospel was written. Reflecting a different theory, M. Davies tides her study of John's Gospel Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel.26 She identifies John's Gospel as a Jewish theodicy based upon Old Testament or scriptural narrative traditions centred on key Old Testament personages such as Moses, Elijah, and so forth. Recognizing that the Greek language of the Gospel possibly implies some contact with the wider concepts and traditions of non-Jewish literature, Davies surveys the possible parallels with Greek philosophy and Hellenistic biography. She concludes that any links are tenuous, though tenuous enough to make the text accessible to Greek readers ignorant of the Jewish scriptural tradition. O n the other hand, the links are so tenuous that Greek readers would find the genre alien and it "would offend their expectations". 27 It is only in the first part of her study, "Aspects of the Rhetoric of the Fourth Gospel", that one finds any reference to rhetoric. Even then, the word "rhetoric" is never used: "The Fourth Gospel attempts to persuade readers to recognize the importance of Jesus of Nazareth". 28 In her analysis of the persuasive techniques of John's Gospel, she makes no reference to any categories of Graeco-Roman rhetoric; in fact, she only appeals to categories of modern literary theory. She does offer an analysis of the style of the Gospel, but again style refers not to anything rhetorical, but primarily to the writer's use of Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin terms. One wonders why she even uses the term, "rhetoric", as one of her primary terms of reference for her study of John's Gospel. Mark Stibbe mirrors many modern approaches to the Fourth Gospel with his analysis of the Gospel as a "literary" narrative. 29 Where he 26

M. Davies, Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSup, 69; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1992). 27 Davies, Rhetoric, p. 104. 28 Davies, Rhetoric, p. 22. 29 M. W. G. Stibbe, John's Gospel (New Testament Readings; London: Roudedge, 1994); also using literary criticism are R. A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel:

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is perhaps distinctive is in his use of the concept of an archetypal narrative for analyzing the Gospel. 30 As one would expect in a study rooted in a literary-critical approach, no concepts of rhetoric are used in his study. Even his chapter on style is completely focused on a literary analysis of narrative style.31 A number of literary studies of John's Gospel employ the term rhetoric, but in every instance it is used to refer to an identifiable literary technique employed by the Gospel writer to accomplish the purpose of writing usually associated with the statement in J o h n 20:31, "These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God" or associated with a general understanding of persuasion. 32 Richard Burridge provides a comprehensive analysis of the generic features of John's Gospel and concludes that it shares many features with Graeco-Roman bioi so that the Gospel should be read and studied as a type of a Hellenistic biography. 33 T h e implications for this generic identification and the rhetorical nature of John's Gospel are spelled out in detail in the chapter on the Gospels and Acts in this volume (Chapter 17). In this regard, Burridge sees little evidence that the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition most commonly identified with oratory influenced the composition of the Fourth Gospel. Yet, he recognizes that a larger concept of rhetoric direcdy linked with the oratorical tradition influenced the contemporaneous Hellenistic literary traditions like biography. Using a concept of universal rhetoric, yet employing only the categories of ancient Graeco-Roman rhetoric, G. A. Kennedy suggests that all the Gospels, at least in terms of arrangement, tend toward an oratorical structure. 34 Yet there is little evidence to substantiate this claim. The fact that one can identify in the Gospels textual units that can be labelled proem, narration, exposition, and epilogue is unlikely the result of any attempt by the original author to construct A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); J. Staley, The Print's First Kiss: A Rhetorical Investigation of the Implied Reader in the Fourth Gospel (SBLDS, 82; Adanta: Scholars Press, 1988). 30 Stibbe, John's Gospel, pp. 62-72. 31 Stibbe, John's Gospel, pp. 73-106. 32 Staley, The Print's First Kiss·, M. Warner, "The Fourth Gospel's Art of Rational Persuasion", in M. Warner (ed.), The Bible as Rhetoric: Studies in Biblical Persuasion and Credibility (Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature; London: Roudedge, 1990), pp. 153-77. 33 R. A. Burridge, What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (SNTSMS, 70; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 220-39. 34 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, p. 97.

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an oration, but more likely due to functional similarity in the construction of effective communicative discourse. 35 When Kennedy actually comes to analyze the rhetorical arrangement of the Gospel of J o h n , he has great difficulty assigning the conventional parts of arrangement to any textual units in John. 3 6 Kennedy's discussion of the rhetoric of John's Gospel is the least clear and least precise of any of his discussions of the four Gospels. Regarding John's prologue (1:1—14), Kennedy cannot decide between identifying it as proem or proposition. 37 He identifies further rhetorical units: 1:15-18; 1:19-28; 1:29-34; 1:35-51; 2:1-3:36; 5:147. He does not identify these units with any particular aspect of arrangement, but discusses their function in relation to aspects of invention. 38 Again, clarity is lacking, and each of these units is seen as a mixture of various kinds of proofs. Kennedy's discussion of the Gospel of J o h n in terms of rhetorical units and ancient rhetorical categories seems to make matters more confusing rather than clarifying the nature and purpose of the text and its argument. In a further study, Kennedy uses Graeco-Roman rhetorical theory to analyze another textual unit within the Gospel of John, J o h n 1317.39 This approach is suspect because by implication it is stating that this textual unit functions like a complete rhetorical "speech" within a larger rhetorical text. But even within a smaller rhetorical unit the problem between narrative and oration is evident. In his study of J o h n 13-17, it is unclear how the speech elements of Jesus' farewell discourse correspond to the purely narrative parts of the text. O n e would struggle to find any ancient speech constructed along the lines of invention and arrangement that Kennedy identifies for John 13-17. More helpful are those studies that take more clearly discrete textual units and assess the argument in rhetorical terms. For instance, Burton Mack's analysis of the argument of Jesus' speech in J o h n 5:30-47, words which Jesus speaks in the context of a larger narrative unit, is insightful. 40 But the application of rhetorical criticism to this 35

See J. T. Reed, "Using Ancient Rhetorical Categories to Interpret Paul's Letters: A Question of Genre", in Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 294-314. 36 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 108-13. 37 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 108-10. 38 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 110-13. 39 Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, pp. 73-85. 40 B. L. Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament (GBS; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 87-88.

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textual unit actually reveals that the "speech" is illogical and unpersuasive in terms of the rules and categories of ancient rhetoric. 41 It seems Mack has used rhetorical criticism to show that the writer was not using classical rhetorical argumentation. In assessing proposals regarding the rhetoric of John's Gospel, one issue keeps emerging. Can the categories of Graeco-Roman rhetoric, which is primarily orientated to speech, be applied to the Gospels, which are narratives? In assessing John's Gospel, it is evident that unless one uses a larger ancient rhetorical tradition like Hellenistic biography, the evidence for the use of Graeco-Roman rhetoric is minimal if not non-existent. Equally, the tendency to use the term, "rhetoric", without a clear definition of what a critic means by it and suitable methodology to evaluate its presence, only complicates the whole rhetorical-critical endeavour.

B. Rhetorical Practice in John's Gospel Aspects of rhetorical practice in John's Gospel have been evaluated in the chapter on the Gospels and Acts in this volume, specifically aspects of genre (species), arrangement, invention, style, and delivery and memory (Chapter 17). Accepting that John's Gospel is a form of ancient Hellenistic biography, there are a few further points which can be made regarding the matter of rhetorical style. There is a good deal that has been written regarding the style of John's Gospel. 42 Much discussion of style focuses on the nature of the Greek and the possibility that the Greek represents an Aramaic original or shows heavy influence from the Hebrew Scriptures. More related to aspects of Greek rhetoric are matters of style associated with ornamentation like tropes and figures of speech. For instance, F. Thielman has illustrated the use of sublimity, obscurity and solemnity in connection with religious themes in Graeco-Roman rhetoric and shown how these stylistic features help explain the nature of

41 Mack, Rhetoric, p. 88, "Reduced to normal rules of reasoning, Johannine argumentation is patendy illogical. If compared with the normal rules of rhetoric, it is not persuasive." 42 Davies, Rhetoric, pp. 265-75; N. Turner, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament. IV. Style (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1976), pp. 64-79; C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John: An Introduction with Commentaiy and Notes on the Greek Text (2nd edn.; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978), pp. 5-11; Brown, Gospel, pp. C X X I X CXXXVII; J. P. Louw, "On Johannine Style", Neot 20 (1986), pp. 5-12.

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religious discourse in John's Gospel. 43 A specific example of sublimity is the use of asyndeton, a feature of Johannine style (i.e., 1:40, 42, 45; 2:17; 4:6, 7; 5:12, 15; 7:32; 8:27; 9:13; 10:21, 22; 11:35, 44; 20:18). Obscurity as an element of rhetorical style may lie behind the abrupt transidons at 5:47-6:1 and 14:31-15:1, transitions that are sometimes explained by the theory that the original pages of the manuscript were mixed up. 44 Solemnity may be the stylistic basis for the universality of some of John's language as in 1:3 and 4:23, and the basis for the use of symbolism and ambiguity. 45 Rhetorical ornamentation in John's Gospel is found in a number of other stylistic features often called tropes. Irony is a prominent feature of rhetorical style in the Gospel of J o h n (i.e., 4:12; 7:35, 42; 8:22; 11:5ο).46 Metaphor as a trope of rhetorical style is also prominent. 47 T h e stylistic use of rhetorical figures of speech is also common in John's Gospel. Chiasm, especially found in J o h n 6:36-40 and 18:2819:16, is one such feature. Note also the poetic parallelism of John's language at 3:11, 18, 20, 21, 4:36, 6:35, 55, 7:34, 8:35, 9:39, 13:16. T h e question remains whether such rhetorical style is a deliberate reflection of rhetorical practice or whether such literary style is a feature of good communication. Either way, rhetorical criticism helps to identify and examine the significance of such stylistic use of language for the persuasive nature of the discourse in John's Gospel.

IV.

ASSESSING T H E R H E T O R I C A L N A T U R E OF T H E JOHANNINE

EPISTLES

T h e Johannine episdes, 1, 2 and 3 John, raise their own specific issues in regard to their relation to Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice. 43

F. Thielman, "The Style of the Fourth Gospel and Ancient Literary Critical Concepts of Religious Discourse", in D. F. Watson (ed.), Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy (JSNTSup, 50; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), pp. 169-83. 44 Thielman, "Style", pp. 180-81. 45 Thielman, "Style", pp. 181-82. 46 P. D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Adanta: John Knox, 1985); J. E. Botha, "The Case of Johannine Irony Reopened I: The Problematic Current Situation", Neot 25 (1991), pp. 209-32; idem, "The Case of Johannine Irony Reopened II: Suggestions, Alternative Approaches", Neot 25 (1991), pp. 221-32. 4 ' Examples of the metaphorical language of John are in Davies, Rhetoric, pp. 162-81, 197-208.

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First is the problem of genre of the Johannine epistles, particularly 1 John. Second is the matter of the relationship between episdes and Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice. A. Introductory Concerns The genre of the Johannine episdes is the first issue which impinges upon any assessment of the rhetorical nature of these texts. 1, 2, and 3 John are generally considered episdes, though the matter is far more complex with 1 J o h n as will be discussed below. W. G. Doty in Letters in Primitive Christianity states, "The first 'letter' of J o h n has completely lost epistolary characteristics, and it is doubtful that it would be called a letter if it had been transmitted apart from 2 and 3 John, which do appear in epistolary form". 48 2 and 3 J o h n are typical Hellenistic letters of the first century, even more so than most of the Pauline letters.49 In terms of length, the Johannine episdes would fill approximately one single page of papyrus, the typical length of a Graeco-Roman private letter. 3 John, based on epistolary convention and form, resembles very much a typical Hellenistic personal letter from an individual to a friend. 50 2 John, while mirroring common epistolary practice for friendly Hellenistic letters, approximates more the adaptation of epistolary practice for Christian letters, resulting in a letter from a Christian leader and his party to a Christian church or churches. 51 1 John lacks any typical Hellenistic epistolary conventions in terms of the opening, greeting, closing, and so forth. Yet in terms of form and function it bears some real similarity to a letter. 52 This very ambiguous relationship to the letter genre has suggested a number of alternative labels: a "brochure", a tract, an encyclical, a sermon or homily, a "paper". 53 Most importandy in terms of genre, 1 J o h n 48

W. G. Doty, Letters in Primitive Christianity (GBS; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973), p. 70. 49 Lieu, Second and Third Epistles, pp. 37-51. 50 Edwards, Johannine Epistles, pp. 23-25. 51 Edwards, Johannine Epistles, p. 26; J. L. White, "New Testament Epistolary Literature in the Framework of Ancient Epistolography", ANRW 11.25:2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 1730-56. 52 F. O. Francis, "The Form and Function of the Opening and Closing Paragraphs of James and 1 John", ZNW 61 (1970), pp. 110-26. 53 The genre of 1 John is explored in Brown, Epistles, pp. 86-92; Edwards, Johannine Epistles, pp. 34—38; Smalley, I, 2, 3 John, p. xxxiii.

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presents itself as a written text making distinct use of the verb γράφω approximately 13 times to signal the form of communication, "I am writing to you" or "I write to you", a feature which obviates the labels reflecting an oral nature like sermon or homily. In addition, the text is explicitly situational, being written by an unnamed individual (the change from first person plural to first person singular at 2:1 is similar to the practice found in 1 Thess. 3:5) to an unidentified audience (see especially 2:12-14), an aspect which mitigates labels implying an encyclical nature. Overall, from the textual evidence it appears that the identification of the text with a written form of communication and its ambiguous epistolary nature distinguish the discourse from the oratorical character of Graeco-Roman rhetorical theory and practice. The relationship between Graeco-Roman epistolary practice and Graeco-Roman rhetorical theory and practice has been a subject of much contention in recent New Testament rhetorical criticism.54 No matter how a critic decides the relationship, it is an important methodological issue which clouds any assessment of the rhetorical nature of the Johannine epistles. If, as it seems, there was a theoretical and practical distinction between oratorical rhetoric and letter writing in both form and style, then any analysis of the Johannine epistles (especially 2 and 3 John) according the rubrics of Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice is more heuristic than indicative of the original literary composition.

B. Recent Proposals Regarding the Rhetorical Nature of the Johannine Epistles The most sustained rhetorical-critical analyses of the Johannine episdes are by Duane Watson who draws heavily on the theory of G. A. Kennedy's manual, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism,55

54

S. E. Porter, "The Theoretical Justification for Application of Rhetorical Categories to Pauline Epistolary Literature", in Porter and Olbricht (eds.), Rhetoric and the New Testament, pp. 100-22; D. L. Stamps, "Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament: Ancient and Modern Evaluations of Argumentation", in S. E. Porter and D. Tombs (eds.), Approaches to New Testament Study (JSNTSup, 120; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1995), pp. 141-48. 55 D. F. Watson, "1 John 2:12-14 as Distribute, Conduplicatio, and Expolitio: A Rhetorical Understanding", JSNT 35 (1989), pp. 97-110; idem, "A Rhetorical Analysis of 2 John According to Greco-Roman Convention", NTS 35 (1989), pp. 104-30;

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Watson identifies the rhetorical situation of 1 John as a letter written by an authoritative member of the Johannine Community to a distant community of loyal followers because the Community has recendy suffered a schism over Christology and ethics, with the result that a secessionist group is seeking to influence the wider Johannine community. 56 The species of rhetoric for the letter, according to Watson, is epideictic in that it is written primarily to increase the audience's allegiance to values they already hold. 57 Watson argues that the primary feature of the rhetorical invention and style found in 1 J o h n is amplification. 58 While no complete arrangement of the text is given, Watson suggests that 1:1-4 is the exordium, 1:5 begins the probatio, and 5:13-21 is the peroratio. 59 With regard to 2 John, Watson reconstructs a rhetorical situation related to that which underlies all three episdes.60 The secessionists from the Elder or Presbyter's church are visiting other Johannine communities and espousing a high Christology which underplays the humanity of Jesus, thereby undermining the significance of Jesus' earthly life. All of this, from the Presbyter's viewpoint, could result in moral indifference in one's lifestyle, an indifference that is specifically rebutted by the mandate to love. In 2 J o h n the Elder writes to the church or churches, which are metaphorically designated by the expression "the elect lady and her children", to persuade them against the Christology proclaimed by the secessionists and its moral consequences. Accordingly, Watson identifies the rhetorical species of 2 John as deliberative, and he equally identifies 2 John as a paraenetic letter, commenting that this type of letter is usually deliberative. 61 The suggested arrangement of 2 J o h n is as follows: epistolary prescript, w . 1-3; exordium, v. 4; narratio, v. 5; probatio, w . 6-11; peroratio, v. 12; epistolary closing, v. 13.62 The primary stylistic feature is repetition. 63 idem, "A Rhetorical Analysis of 3 John: A Study in Epistolary Rhetoric", CBQ_ 51 (1989), pp. 479-501; idem, "Amplification Techniques in 1 John: The Interaction of Rhetorical Style and Invention", J&NT 51 (1993), pp. 99-123. See also H.-J. Klauck, "Zur rhetorischen Analyse der Johannesbriefe", ZMW 81 (1990), pp. 205-24. 56 Watson, "Amplification", p. 118. 57 Watson, "Amplification", pp. 118-23. 58 Watson, "Amplification", pp. 122-23. 59 Watson, "Amplification", p. 120. 60 Watson, "Rhetorical Analysis of 2 John", pp 105-108. 61 Watson, "Rhetorical Analysis of 2 John", pp. 109-10. 62 Watson, "Rhetorical Analysis of 2 John", pp. 110-29. 63 Watson, "Rhetorical Analysis of 2 John", p. 130.

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In an article which is nearly a duplication of his analysis of 2 J o h n except the verse numbers are changed, Watson offers a rhetorical analysis of 3 John. 6 4 Accepting again the general rhetorical situation as oudined above, the exigence of 3 John is specifically "the refusal of Diotrephes, a new and ambitious leader of a Johannine church, to extend hospitality to travelling missionary brethren of the Johannine Community". 65 T h e Elder writes to encourage Gaius to adhere to the value of hospitality, specifically when Demetrius arrives, and to discredit Diotrephes as a danger to the church. Watson labels 3 J o h n from an epistolary perspective as a mixed letter; from a rhetorical perspective, epideictic rhetoric. 66 The rhetorical arrangement is suggested as: prescript, v. 1; exordium, w . 2-4; narratio, w . 5-6; probatio, w . 7-12; peroratio, w . 13-14; postscript, v. 15.67 The invention is primarily amplification by repetition. The stylistic features include pariosis (v. 11), antithesis and contrast (w. 5-8, 9 - 1 0 , 11), parallelism (v. 11), and homoeoteleuton (v. II). 68

C. Rhetorical Practice in the Johannine Epistles Watson has offered a fairly thorough rhetorical analysis of the Johannine epistles based on Graeco-Roman rhetorical convention. It only remains to offer a critique of his analysis and add a few additional insights. First, Watson's analysis pinpoints the tension between the literary convention of Hellenistic letters and Graeco-Roman oratorical rhetoric. For example, epistolary opening and closing conventions do not fit with the typical elements of rhetorical arrangement. Watson recognizes this in such statements as: "Although not a recognized element of arrangement in ancient rhetoric, the praescriptio of a letter often functions like an exordium";69 "Choosing to write rather than visit, the Presbyter has conformed his rhetoric to the letter genre. The body-opening, the body-middle, and the body-closing are made to function like the exordium-narratio, probatio, and the peroratio respectively

64 65 66 67 68 69

Watson, Watson, Watson, Watson, Watson, Watson,

"Rhetorical "Rhetorical "Rhetorical "Rhetorical "Rhetorical "Rhetorical

Analysis Analysis Analysis Analysis Analysis Analysis

of of of of of of

3 John", 3 John", 3 John", 3 John", 3 John", 2 John",

pp. 479-501. p. 481. pp. 484-85. pp. 486-500. p. 501. p. 113.

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as a logical outgrowth of their shared functions." 70 According to Watson's analysis of 2 and 3 John, the rhetorical presentation is within an epistolary frame. Watson's analysis suggests that the intended genre is clearly rhetorical, but the literary features are distinctly epistolary. Since, as others have shown, there was no general practice of employing Graeco-Roman rhetoric as the basis for epistolary discourse, Watson begs too many questions to imply that the letter is composed according to the conventions of Graeco-Roman rhetoric. Rather, it is more likely that Watson has detected shared communication functions between letters and Graeco-Roman rhetoric which allows an analysis based on Graeco-Roman rhetorical convention. In this case, Watson's rhetorical analysis is insightful in highlighting the manner and style of argumentation but not in identifying the intended genre, structure and literary features of the Johannine epistles. Watson's analysis is illuminating when he uses aspects of rhetorical invention and style to highlight the patterns of persuasion within the discourse of the letter. Yet, even this level of analysis lacks subtlety because Watson's analysis implies that the rhetorical conventions which he identifies are the intended choice of the author, with the result that the identification of the rhetorical convention is presented as the only correct interpretative option. In terms of rhetorical style, the epistles are certainly distinctive. The limited vocabulary, the recurrent use of initial phrases, the repetition and development of key themes—all of these are marks of Johannine style.71 There is a consensus that the style of the epistles shows significant influence from Hebrew and Aramaic: "What is certain is that his style is far removed from that usual in Greek or Hellenistic literature". 72 However, determining that the vocabulary, grammar, syntax and employment of literary devices in the Johannine epistles are based on Semitic influence is a tenuous and doubtful linguistic pursuit. 73 All three letters are written in Koine Greek, 2 and

70

Watson, "Rhetorical Analysis of 3 John", p. 500. Discussions of Johannine style can be found in R. Schnackenburg, The Johannine Epistles: Introduction and Commentary (trans. R. and I. Fuller; Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, 1992), pp. 6-11; Turner, Style, pp. 132-38; Brown, Epistles, pp. 20-25. 72 Schnackenburg, Johannine Epistles, p. 8. 73 The important discussion which casts doubt over the whole grammatical enterprise that seeks to determine Semitic influence is S. E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood (Studies in Biblical Greek, 1; New York: Peter Lang, 1989), pp. 111-56. 71

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3 J o h n are definitely based on Hellenistic epistolary practice, and the identifiable stylistic devices are ones found in Hellenistic literature— all this suggests that the author is comfortable in the Greek language and its larger milieu. The most prominent stylistic devices are repetition and the use of antithesis.74 Other stylistic features noted include parallelism, anaphora, variation and association.75 Watson catalogues a wide variety of amplification techniques in 1 John, and he detects a range of rhetorical devices and figures in 2 and 3 J o h n in his rhetorical analysis of the letters. In a particularly difficult passage, 1 J o h n 2:12-14, Watson attempts to solve the interpretative issues by detecting the rhetorical figures distnbutio, conduplicatio, and expolitio.76 The presence of such stylistic devices shows the linguistic artistry of the author, but it does not prove that the author was intentionally employing the techniques of Graeco-Roman oratory to embellish the argument of these three letters.

V.

ASSESSING THE R H E T O R I C A L N A T U R E OF R E V E L A T I O N

Assessing the relationship of Revelation to Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice has several complicating factors. First is the matter of genre. Second is the matter of the distincdy literary nature of the discourse. These matters will be explored first before evaluating recent rhetorical analyses of Revelation and assessing rhetorical practice in Revelation.

A. Introductory Concerns Determining the genre of Revelation has been a perplexing assignment for biblical scholars.77 The matter is complicated by the opening of Revelation itself which aligns the text with at least three genres:

74

Schnackenburg, Johannine Epistles, pp. 7-8. Schnackenburg, Johannine Epistles, pp. 7 8. 76 Watson, "1 John 2:12-14", pp. 97-110. 77 On the genre of Revelation, see R. Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 1-17; Mounce, Book of Revelation, pp. 18-25; D . E . Aune, "The Apocalypse of John and the Problem of Genre", Semeia 36 (1986), pp. 65-96; Schüssler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, pp. 133-57; G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), pp. 12-29. 75

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apocalypse (1:1), prophecy (1:3 and 22:18-19), and the Christian epistle (1:4-6 and 22:20-21). In addition, Revelation employs other forms of literature throughout the discourse like hymns, vice and virtue lists, and epistolary forms. 78 Several leading interpreters of Revelation have identified the genre as a revelatory prophetic letter. 79 If this generic identification is somewhat accurate it distances the text from any generic discourse associated with the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition. Corresponding to the matter of genre is the distinctly literary nature of Revelation. First, the epistolary frame (1:4—6 and 22:20-21) places the discourse into a particular literary convention. Secondly, the prophetic instruction (1:11), "write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches", creates a literary context for the discourse. Thirdly, one of the distinguishing characteristics of an apocalypse is a narrative framework, which accurately describes the way the visions are recounted in Rev. 4:l-22:7. 80 These explicit alignments of the discourse with three distinct literary modes once again distance the text from traditional Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice. Perhaps the distinct literary nature of the discourse needs to be countered by the assumed orality for the delivery of the text. In the opening verses, the author assumes a situation where the text is read aloud: "Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written therein" (1:3). This oral context may simply be a feature of the epistolary situation in which letters were written to be read at a later time and in another location. But associating the oral reading of the text with a blessing for the reader and the audience and associating the reading with prophecy suggests something more than an epistolary situation. 81 78

D. E. Aune, The New Testament in Its literary Environment (LEC, 8; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), pp. 242-43; J. L. Bailey and L. D. Vander Broek, literary Forms in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1992), pp. 202-203; Court, Revelation, pp. 83-84. 79 Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation, p. 23; cf. Aune, New Testament, p. 240. 80 Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation, pp. 24—26, 31-35. 81 Schüssler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, pp. 166-80, analyzes the complex literary composidon of Revelation to demonstrate that it is unlike typical apocalypses or prophecy. Aune, New Testament, pp. 245-46, suggests the functional purpose of Revelation: "First, the work is constructed like a maze concealing the central revelatory message (expressed in most complete form in Rev. 21:6-8). Second, explanations of the visions are few and far between (1:20; 7:13-17; 17:6b—18); the hearers must use their imaginations to understand them. These two factors together legitimate the Apocalypse, for the hearers can experience for themselves the revelatory experience narrated by John".

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However, recognizing the orality of the delivery of the text does not necessarily mean the text is aligned with Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice. Overall, even despite the recognized oral context for reading the text, the distinct nature of the genre and of the literary context distinguishes the book of Revelation from Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice.

B. Recent Proposals Regarding the Rhetorical Nature of Revelation There have been few rhetorical-critical analyses of Revelation according to traditional Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice. The only comprehensive rhetorical analysis of Revelation in recent biblical criticism has been the work of E. Schüssler Fiorenza. 82 However, though she utilizes rhetorical insights based on Hellenistic rhetorical practice, she does not analyze Revelation according to traditional Graeco-Roman rhetorical conventions. Rather, she develops an eclectic interpretative approach which combines historical, social, rhetorical, ethical and theological criticism—what she calls theo-ethical rhetoric. 83 She is interested in using all means of critical insight to explore the persuasive power of the text. In her rhetorical analysis Schüssler Fiorenza uses some of the essential aspects of rhetorical theory to interpret the book of Revelation. She identifies the rhetorical exigence as tribulation. 84 The genre of Revelation is a revelatory prophetic letter which employs all three species of rhetoric in its overall persuasive strategy.85 In terms of the arrangement of Revelation, Schüssler Fiorenza identifies a chiastic pattern of narrative movement that is more dramatic and thematic than logical or linear: 86 A Β C D

82 83 84 85 86

1:1-8: Prologue and Epistolary Greeting 1:9-3:22: Rhetorical Situation in the Cities of Asia Minor 4:1-9:21 ; 11:15-19: Opening the Sealed Scroll—Exodus Plagues 10:1-15:4: T h e Bitter-Sweet Scroll—"War" against the Community

Schüssler Schüssler Schüssler Schüssler Schüssler

Fiorenza, Fiorenza, Fiorenza, Fiorenza, Fiorenza,

Book of Revelation; idem, Revelation. Revelation, pp. 117-39, esp. pp. 117-19. Revelation, pp. 124—29. Revelation, p. 26. Revelation, pp. 35-36.

THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS

C' B' A1

629

15:5-19:10: Exodus from the Oppression of Babylon/Rome 19:11-22:9: Liberation from Evil and God's World-City 22:10-21: Epilogue and Epistolary Frame.

In terms of invention and style, she sees the text working primarily in mythic symbolization or mythopoetic language. 87 It is not a reasoned book in terms of employing rhetorical tropes and figures for proof, but a text which seeks imaginative participation and emotional response through the evocative and persuasive power of its symbolic language. As is evident, Schüssler Fiorenza does not employ traditional Graeco-Roman rhetorical categories to analyze the rhetorical nature of Revelation. C. Rhetorical Practice in the Book of Revelation What kind of text or literary work is Revelation and how does it correspond to the literary environment at the end of the first century AD? The literary profile of Revelation is distinct and complex. Though it aligns itself in generic features with Jewish revelatory literature like apocalypses, it has distinctive adaptations which set it apart from the generic mainstream. 88 Though it employs dimensions of the biblical prophetic tradition, it is clearly Christian prophecy which veers off into new modes of oracular form to present the inspired message latent in the visionary experience of the author. 89 And though the whole of the text is set within the Christian epistolary tradition which gives it a specific epistolary situational context, it freely adapts epistolary convention at every turn to communicate its prophetic revelation to its audience. This distinctive and complex literary nature of Revelation makes it difficult to relate to Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice. It is often argued that though Revelation is thoroughly Christian, it echoes in language and style the Old Testament and other Jewish intertestamental literature: "Although J o h n knows how to write proper Greek, he writes the whole book in a Hebraizing idiom that gives its language a hieratic, traditional character. Moreover, he never quotes or exegetes the Hebrew Bible or any of his other sources but uses 87 88 89

Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation, pp. 26-31. Bauckham, Theology, pp. 5-12; Mounce, Book of Revelation, pp. 23-25. Schüssler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, pp. 168-70; Bauckham, Theolog)), pp. 2-5.

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them as 'language' and 'models'." 90 But while it is easy to find correspondence between Revelation and contemporaneous Jewish literature, it is important in terms of Graeco-Roman rhetoric to explore its reladonship to Graeco-Roman literature and tradition. There is a literary tradition of Hellenistic revelatory literature based on the oracle, a short pronouncement of two to four lines in prose or poetry (enthymeme). 91 Though oracles where primarily oral, some occasions demanded they be written down. Besides the one-off written record of oracles, there were several literary traditions related to oracles, oracle collections, oracular discourse, and oracular dialogues.92 Another kind of Hellenistic revelatory literature was vision or dream reports. 93 But any distinct correspondence between Revelation and any of these literary traditions is not obvious, though oracular discourse and vision reports bear some similarity. The distinctive literary nature of Revelation in relation to Hellenistic literature once again distances the work from the probable influence of the Graeco-Roman rhetorical tradition. If the literary nature of Revelation bears little if any correspondence with Graeco-Roman rhetorical literature, it is unlikely one will find distinct aspects of rhetorical convention in terms of arrangement, invention and style. With respect to arrangement, D. Aune echoes many commentators when he remarks, "The Apocalypse of John is more structurally complex than any other Jewish or Christian apocalypse, and has yet to be satisfactorily analyzed". 94 Aune does detect three formal digressions in Rev. 11:18—14:20.93 However, the interplay between vision narrative, prophetic oracles and hymnic units creates a textual arrangement that seems undecipherable, though theories abound. Revelation does not utilize aspects of classical rhetorical invention. The manner of argumentation is peculiar to the distinctive nature of the literary form, a revelatory prophetic letter. More work is needed to evaluate the distinctive aspect of "proof" utilized in this particular form of Christian discourse. 90

Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation, p. 29. The concept of the language of Revelation as a "Hebraizing idiom" is questioned by S. E. Porter, "The Language of the Apocalypse in Recent Discussion", NTS 35 (1989), pp. 582-603. 91 Aune, New Testament, pp. 235-36. 92 Aune, New Testament, pp. 236-37. 93 Aune, New Testament, pp. 237-38. 94 Aune, New Testament, p. 241. 95 Aune, New Testament, p. 242.

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Similarly, there is much work that can be done to evaluate the stylistic devices and features of the persuasive style of Revelation. One may label stylistic devices and figures according to Graeco-Roman rhetorical convention, but it is doubtful that there is any deliberate imitation at the level of actual practice. In summary, there is little if any discernable correspondence between Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice and the discourse of Revelation.

VI.

C R I T I C A L CONCLUSIONS ON T H E R E L A T I O N S H I P

BETWEEN

G R A E C O - R O M A N R H E T O R I C A L P R A C T I C E AND T H E JOHANNINE

LITERATURE

Assessing the relationship between Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice and the Johannine literature is a complex matter. With regard to the historical context or to aspects of the rhetorical situation, the Johannine literature presents a real problem with regard to authorship. The Johannine literature is essentially anonymous, therefore it is difficult to identify the cultural milieu of the author(s) so that one can assert the probable influence of Hellenistic rhetorical practice. In terms of literary form or genre, none of the Johannine literature corresponds to the typical Hellenistic literature commonly associated with Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice. The Gospel of J o h n is a form of Bios·, 1, 2 and 3 J o h n are in the epistolary genre; and Revelation is a Christian apocalypse or a revelatory prophetic letter. In examining the structure of each work as a whole, there is nothing to suggest the deliberate employment of arrangement, invention and style according to Graeco-Roman rhetoric so that one can definitely specify the species of rhetoric. T h e Johannine episdes may be more easily analyzed by Graeco-Roman rhetorical convention, but the issue of whether epistolary discourse was distinct from oratorical practice is crucial and clouds the rhetorical-critical analyses of Watson and others on the episdes. Similarly, Graeco-Roman rhetorical convention may provide ways of evaluating the persuasive nature of small textual units in the Johannine literature especially with regards to aspects of style, but this is more heuristic than indicative of the probable intention of the author(s), and reveals the correspondence of communicative form and function between oratorical rhetoric and other kinds of discourse.

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If any rhetorical-critical analysis of the Johannine literature seems promising, it is the eclectic approach of E. Schüssler Fiorenza. She utilizes aspects of Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice to highlight the persuasive nature of Revelation without specifically identifying the textual features with particular Graeco-Roman rhetorical convention. In this way she preserves the distinctive nature of Revelation, but still uncovers the persuasive character of the discourse. In the end, its seems the Johannine literature has no obvious literary features which deliberately or intentionally reflect Graeco-Roman rhetorical practice.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aune, D. E., The New Testament in Its literary Environment (LEC, 8; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987). Brown, R. E., The Gospel According to John (AB, 29, 29A; New York: Doubleday, 1966). , The Epistles of John (AB, 30; Garden City: Doubleday, 1982). ' Court, J. M., Revelation (New Testament Guides; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994). Davies, M., Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSup, 69; Sheffield: J S O T Press, 1992). Edwards, R. B., The Johannine Epistles (New Testament Guides; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996). Hengel, M., The Johannine Question (trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM, 1989). Kennedy, G. Α., New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). Lieu, J., The Second and Third Epistles of John (Studies of the New Testament and Its World; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986). Schüssler Fiorenza, E., The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). , Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Proclamation Commentaries; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). Stibbe, M. W. G., John's Gospel (New Testament Readings; London: Roudedge, 1994). Watson, D. F., "1 John 2:12-14 as Distributio, Conduplicatio, and Expolitio: A Rhetorical Understanding", JSNT 35 (1989), pp. 97-110. , "A Rhetorical Analysis of 2 John According to Greco-Roman Convention", NTS 35 (1989), pp. 104-30. , "A Rhetorical Analysis of 3 John: A Study in Epistolary Rhetoric", CBQ_ 51 (1989), pp. 479-501. , "Amplification Techniques in 1 John: The Interaction of Rhetorical Style and Invention", JSNT 51 (1993), pp. 99-123. , and A.J. Hauser, Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible: A Comprehensive Bibliography with Notes on History and Method (BI, 4; Leiden: Brill, 1994).

CHAPTER 21

THE GREEK CHRISTIAN WRITERS Wolfram Kinzig University of Bonn, Germany

T o give, in one short chapter, a survey of the relationship between the Greek Christian writers and ancient rhetoric resembles Phileas Fogg's voyage around the world in eighty days. The literature which is dealt with in these pages comprises more than sixty tomes in Migne's Patrobgia Graeca or more than five thousand works according to Maurits Geerard's Clavis Patrum Graecorum. The topic under discussion can, therefore, only be oudined in the broadest possible terms. 1 In addition, given the limitations of space, instead of giving a chronological 1

There are only two scholars this century who have attempted to give general surveys of the area in question. The starting-point for all modern research remains Eduard Norden's classical study on Antike Kunstprosa, first published in 1898 (Norden 1915 [1958]). More recendy, George Kennedy has written a History of Rhetoric that also includes Christian writers (cf. Kennedy 1972: esp. 607-13; 1983: esp. 180-264; cf. also 1980:132-60; 1989; 1994:257-70). In addition, Christoph Klock in his doctoral dissertation covers much of the ground dealt with in this chapter (Klock 1987; cf. 1981). A useful collection of sources is Sider 1983. I have seen neither Memoli 1979 nor La narrativa cristiana antica 1995. The relationship between rhetoric and Christianity as a whole is also the subject of numerous studies by Antonio Quacquarelli (cf. e.g. Quacquarelli 1960; 1971; 1982; 1988; 1992). There are also short surveys of our subject, the best ones by Wifstrand (1967:28-48) and by Sevcenko (1980). Cf. in addition Burgess 1902:240-44; Puech 1928-30: II, pp. 1-5, 110-21, 227-34, 315-25; III, pp. 34-41 and pasnm·, Christ-Schmid-Stählin 1924 (1961):943-56 and passim·, Clarke 1953:148-57; Musurillo 1957; Jaeger 1962: esp. 68-85; Hunger 1965:334—45; Beck 1969; Hunger 1972; Eisenhut 1974:73-81; Maguire 1981:9-21; Hunger 1981; Wilson 1983:8-12; Simonetti 1985; Kaster 1988:70-95; Auxentios 1989; Treu 1992; Anderson 1993:205-13; Auksi 1995: esp. 144-73. Cf. also Hunger 1978: I, pp. 63-196 for the later period. A historical grammar that also includes a discussion of Christian language and rhetoric is Triantaphyllide 1938. These authors notwithstanding, there are only monographs and articles on individual aspects of Christian rhetoric. The literature dealing with the various literary genres is found in the relevant chapters of this Handbook. A useful bibliography is also included in Berger 1984. In addition, many problems relating to the topic under discussion are dealt with in the relevant entries of the Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik (ed. G. Ueding; Tübingen 1992ff., 2 vols, so far). The article "Chrisdiche Rhetorik, Β. I. Antike" by G. Otto is, however, unsatisfactory (Otto 1992). As regards early Byzantine oratory Hunger's survey is well informed (Hunger 1994).

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account, which would necessarily remain superficial, it appears preferable to adopt a systematic approach. I shall, therefore, first discuss the attitudes of the Greek Christian writers vis-à-vis biblical style. Secondly, I will outline theories of style in their writings. In the third section I shall take a closer look at their rhetorical practice. Finally, I shall give information on the immediate effect Christian preaching had on the audience, followed by some reflections as regards the social and political impact of ecclesiastical oratory.

I

Christianity, although an off-shoot of Palestinian Judaism, began to flourish in a Greek-speaking environment in which a thorough knowledge of the rules of classical rhetoric formed part of a good education. Even though the aposde Paul, relying solely on the truth of his message, dismissed training in the art of speaking as unnecessary (cf. 2 Cor. 11:6; cf. also 1 Cor. 1:17; 2:1-5:13, etc.), the early Christians, driven by a missionary zeal quite unknown in antiquity, were soon confronted with the problem as to how to communicate their religious message to a target audience educated according to the standards and norms of Greek paideia. T h e style of the writings in which this message was contained formed part of this problem. As soon as cultured pagans became aware of the new sect trying to seek converts from among their midst they pointed out, not without some malice, that the writings on which the Christians based their claim for religious superiority were written in the simple and unrefined Greek of provincial fishermen, peasants and tax-collectors and did not con-

By far the most important literary genre within the Greek-speaking church is the sermon or the homily on which cf. Schian 1904:627-39; Kerr 1942; Niebergall 1955:210-27; Ruiz 1956; Schneyer 1968; Loi 1970; Schütz 1972:8-23; Delcorno 1974; Smith 1974:73-107; Klock 1981; Wills 1984; Carrol 1984; Delia Torre 1984; Müller 1986; Black II 1988; Cunningham 1989; Olivar 1991; Grégoire 1992; Berger 1992; Sachot 1994; Schäublin 1994; Mühlenberg-van Oort 1994; Viciano 1996: 392-93, and above Chapter 13. Other important genres used by the Greek Chrisdan writers include the funeral oration (cf. Mossay 1966; McCauley 1968; Soffel 1974: esp. 78 89; Caimi Danelli 1979), the episde (cf. above Chapter 7 and below n. 21), the diatribe (cf. Capelle-Marrou 1957; Stowers 1981), the enkomion (cf. Payr 1962; Vallozza 1994), the dialogue (cf. Hoffmann 1966; Voss 1970) and catechesis (cf. Loi 1970; Naldini 1985; Cocchini 1994). On ekphrasis as part of Christian oratory cf. Downey 1959, on paraenesis Gammie 1990 and on antithesis Hunger 1984. For works on individual authors cf. the following notes.

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form to the rules of what was generally recognized as polished style.2 This was not, however, a problem which the Greek-speaking Christians were only confronted with from outside. The more Christianity climbed the social ladder, the more its propagandists, most of whom had by now themselves received a classical education, became aware of the rhetorical shortcomings of the gospel message. Many authors, therefore, such as Tatian, Origen, J o h n Chrysostom, Isidore of Pelusium, Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret, admitted the linguistic and stylistic flaws of the Bible, but argued that in order to make converts the new religion had to use a simple style comprehensible to everybody. 3 In addition they insisted that at the heart of the Christian message lay truth, not stylistic beauty, and that it was precisely this truth in all its simplicity that gave the Christian message its power of persuasion. Basil of Caesarea, for example, wrote to his friend, the pagan rhetor Libanius: "But for us, admirable sir, we associate with Moses and Elias and such blessed men, who communicate their thoughts to us in a barbaric tongue, and it is what we learn from them that we give utterance to—in substance true, though in style unlearned, as indeed these present words show. For even if we did learn something from you, time has caused us to forget it." 4 Less frequendy the biblical style was defended as a sign of artistic perfection. 5 Occasionally, the New Testament authors were even

2 On what follows cf. Norden 1915 (1958): II, pp. 516-25; Auksi 1995: esp. pp. 98ff., 167-73. On the vulgarity of the Greek of the New Testament cf., e.g., Or. Cels. 1:62; Juin. Imp. Ep. 90 (Bidez); Isid. Pel. Epp. 4:27, 28, 30, 67; Cyr. Juin. 7 (MPG 76:853C); Thdt. Affect, prooem. 1; 1:9; 5:64. Cf. also Vergote 1938:1321-23; Friedrich 1978:21-22; Kaster 1988:19 η. 24 with further references. 3 Cf., e.g., Tat. Oral. 29; Or. Cels. 1:62; Chiys. Horn, in I Cor. 3:4 (MPG 61:27f.); Isid. Pel. Ep. 4:67; Cyr. Jo. 5:8:30 (MPG 73:849D-853B); Thdt. Affect. 5:60-64, 67, 76; 8:1-4. Cf. also Norden 1915 (1958): 516-28; Fuchs 1954: cols. 351-52; Kustas 1973:37-38. The third-century discussion on the authorship of the Apocalypse of John centered on the grammar and style of the writing in comparison with those of the Evangelist which were considered more elegant; cf. Colson 1923/24. 4 Ep. 339 quoted after Kustas 1973:38 (the genuineness of the letter is, however, in doubt). Cf. also Tat. Orat. 29; Or. Cels. 1:62; Gr. Nyss. Eun. 1:18-19; Chrys. in Ps 109 exp. 5 (MPG 55:273); lud. et gent. 5; Sac. 4:6-7 (on which Staats 1992); Isid. Pel. Ep. 4:67, 91; Thdt. Affect. 5:60-64, 76; 8:1-4; 9:6, 20. 5 On what follows cf. Norden 1915 (1958): II, pp. 526-28. On the Hebrew Bible cf., e.g., Or. Cels. 7:59; Eus. Caesarea P.E. 11:5:6; Jerome Praef. in chron. Eus. (Helm2 3:19-4:7). There was even a tradition according to which parts of the Hebrew Bible had been written in pentameters, hexameters and other verse; cf. Or. In cat. Ps. 118, w . 1-2 (Harl-Dorival I, p. 188:25-28); Eus. P.E. 11:5:7; Jerome Praef. in chron. Eus. (Helm2 4:4-7); Jerome Ep. 53:8; Cyr. Juin. 7 (MPG 76:837D-840A = Juin. Imp. Galil. fr. 53 [Masaracchia]). This tradition goes back to Jewish apologetics; cf., e.g., Jos. AJ 2:346; 4:303; 7:305.

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depicted as men of letters. If we go a little beyond the chronological limits of our invesdgadon, the fifth century church historian Socrates, for example, pointed out that the aposde Paul had known The Oracles of Epimenides (cf. Tit. 1:12), had been acquainted with The Phenomena by Aratus (cf. Acts 17:28) and was conversant with the tragedies of Euripides (1 Cor. 15:33).6 Curiously enough, there is even one example where Moses' literary skills are praised in a pagan work.7

II This ambiguity in assessing the qualities of biblical style is then also found among Christian writers when they come to discuss theories of style. T h e analysis of these discussions is, however, frought with difficulties. In order to reconstruct Christian theories of style we are dependent on remarks scattered all over the literature of the period in question. As regards methodology, it follows from this that attention must be paid to the genre, the purpose and the addressee of each individual work, since as in antiquity the style of a writing is largely dependent on these aspects (see below), so are comments about style. The fact that no manuals of Greek Christian oratory have come down to us is no whim of history, but rather in itself a sign that in Christianity priorities differed from those of pagan rhetoric. Oratory was no longer regarded as of value in itself. However, the conclusions drawn from this assessment differed widely. The attitude of the early Christians towards rhetoric thus runs parallel to and is to a certain extent dependent upon their attitude towards pagan culture and education in general. 8 On the one hand there was a group which rejected Greek culture and education and, therefore, also rhetoric, 6

Soc. H.E. 3:16:23-26. The last verse is, in fact, probably by Menander and not Euripides (fr. 218 Kock = 187 Koerte). 7 On sublimity 9:9: Ταύτη καί ό των 'Ιουδαίων θεσμοθέτης, ούχ ό τυχών άνήρ, έπειδη την του θείου δύναμιν κατά την άξίαν έχώρησε κάξέφηνεν, εύθύς έν τη εισβολή γράψας των νόμων "εΐπεν ό θεός", φησί,—τί; "γενέσθω φώς, καί έγενετο· γενέσθω γη, καί έγένετο" (Russell, pp. 11:26-27:3). It is disputed, however, whether the passage is genuine. If so, it cannot be influenced by Christian views on the subject, since the treatise was probably written before 19 AD (cf. Kennedy 1972:370-72). For a Jewish view on biblical style cf. Philo Dei Pot. Ins. 79. 8 The literature on this topic is vast. For references cf. Sevcenko 1980:53 note and Klock 1987:56 where Laistner 1951; Pellegrino 1954 (non vidi); Riche 1980: esp. 595-97; Lemerle 1986; Pack 1989 (who quotes many further references in his footnotes) and Gonzalez Blanco-Blazquez Martinez 1990 could be added.

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which was the cornerstone of this education, and relied entirely on the spiritual force of Christianity. This negative attitude is already found in the second century in the apologist Tatian's Oration against the Greeks? In the fourth century Epiphanius of Salamis is another representative of this school of thought. 10 At the other end of the spectrum were those authors who attempted to create a synthesis of Greek philosophy and eloquence and the Christian message of salvation. As Isidore of Pelusium at the end of our period put it: " T h e language of the divine wisdom is ordinary but its content is as high as the sky; of external wisdom the style is brilliant but its outcome is meagre. If one could have the content of the one and the style of the other, one would be judged most wise, for beauty of speech can be an instrument of the supramundane wisdom." 11 Perhaps the most striking examples of this synthesis are Apollinaris of Laodicea and his father of the same name. When the emperor Julian forbade Christians to teach Greek literature, 12 some reacted by creating biblical poetry and drama, thus trying to replace the pagan school texts that served as a basis for Christian rhetorical and literary education. Apollinaris senior, who was himself a grammarian, is said to have translated the Pentateuch into heroic verse and to have composed biblical tragedies. In doing this "he employed all kinds of verse, that no form of expression peculiar to the Greek language might be unheard of to the Christians". 13 His son, well-trained in eloquence, expounded the writings of the New Testament "in the way of dialogue, as Plato among the Greeks had done". 14 These attempts at creating a literature that could match the pagan examples were, however, doomed to failure, partly because Julian's school law 9

Cf. Tat. Oral. 22-28. Cf. Schneemelcher 1962: cols. 923-25; Dummer 1977:74-75. Cf. also Didasc. apost. 1:6 (Funk) = 2 (Connolly) = Const. App. 1:6:1-6, where the reading of pagan books is censured. Resistance against pagan education was particularly strong in certain monastic circles; cf., e.g., Ath. V. Anion. 77 and Stockmeier 1967 (1983): 131-33. In addition cf. Fuchs 1954: col. 351; Fuchs 1962: col. 391; Marrou 1965: 458-60. 11 Ep. 5:281 (MPG 78-.1500D), trans. Kustas 1973:38 (slighdy altered). 12 Julian's school law has created an enormous scholarly literature. Cf. among the most recent treatments Klein 1981. 13 Soc. H.E. 3:16:4: Καί παντί μέτρφ ρυθμικφ έχρήτο, οπως âv μηδεις τρόπος τής Έλληνικης γλώττης τοις Χριστιανοίς άνήκοος ή (trans. NPNF). 14 Soc. H.E. 3:16:5: Ό δέ νεώτερος Απολινάριος, εύ πρός το λέγειν παρεσκευασμένος, τα ευαγγέλια καί τα αποστολικά δόγματα έν τύπψ διαλόγων έξέθετο, καθά και Πλάτων παρ' "Ελλησιν. Cf. also Socr. H.E. 2:46 and Soz. H E . 5:18; 6:25 with a slighdy different account. For further discussion cf. Pack 1989:255 n. 140. 10

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was soon rescinded and the status quo ante restored and partly because their authors fell into disrepute. 15 None of the works mentioned have survived. T h e very fact, however, that Julian in his attempt at restoring traditional religion felt it necessary to enact such a law shows that the study of pagan authors formed an integral part of Christian education. Basil of Caesarea even dedicated a treatise precisely to this problem (Ad adolescentes).'6 T o be precise: in the East there was no such thing as a Christian education system; rather the Christians adopted the classical three tier system, that is, "primary school" under the paidagogos, "secondary school" with the grammaticus, and, finally, "higher education" with the sophist who taught the art of rhetoric. 17 This pragmatic approach by the mainstream church was defended by saying that the Aposde when dealing with the pagans in Romans 1 had not explicidy forbidden to study the classical authors, but left it to the discretion of those who wished to do so. In addition, it was maintained that, whilst the Scriptures contained everything pertaining to the doctrines and the practice of the true religion, they were silent about the art of reasoning which was necessary in order to refute the enemies of the truth. For this apologetic task, it was claimed, the Christians had to be skilled in the weapons of their adversaries. Although, therefore, the study of classical literature was in fact encouraged, it was emphasized at the same time that Christians should beware "not to adopt their sentiments", but by testing them should "reject the evil, but retain all that is good and true: for good wherever it is found, is a property of truth". 18 In this concern for truth the Christians found themselves in agreement with earlier Stoics whose rhetorical ideas they consequently adopted. 19 The Stoics, however,

15 The younger Apollinaris was condemned as a heretic at the Council of Constantinople in 381. 16 Editions by Boulenger 1935; Wilson 1975; Naldini 1984. A rhetorical analysis is found in Cazeaux 1980. Cf. also Saddington 1965; Herter 1970; Lamberz 1979; Fortin 1981. 17 On classical education cf. Marrou 1965:218-322, 389-421; Clarke 1971:11929; Bonner 1977; Liebeschuetz 1991: cols. 862-64. On the lack of a Christian education system cf. Marrou 1965:460-62; Clarke 1971:119; Ruhbach 1974; and esp. Pack 1989 with full bibliography. 18 Socr. H.E. 3:16:22: Καί έν τω κτάσθαι μή τα των πολεμίων φρονώμεν, άλλα τό μέν κακόν έκτρεπώμεθα, τό δε καλόν καί την άλήθειαν εχοντες, πάντα προσλαμβάνωμεν δοκιμάζοντες· τό γαρ καλόν, ενθα âv fj, ϊδιον της αληθείας έστίν. 19 On what follows cf. esp. Kustas 1973:27-62; Klock 1987:117-19, both citing further references.

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had defined the art of rhetoric as "the skill of speaking well" (έπιστήμη του ευ (όρθιος) λέγειν) by which they had meant the skill of "speaking the truth" (τό άληθη λέγειν). Rhetoric, however, could only achieve this purpose when based on "clarity" (σαφήνεια) as the highest virtue of "style" (λέξις). As a result of this emphasis on truth and clarity and given the fact that the Greek Bible hardly stood up to the refined literary tastes of the period, those authors who openly advocated a sublime style (σεμνότης) were in a minority. 20 Most opposed the "sophistries" of pagan orators and called for stylistic simplicity, αφέλεια. 21 As Synesius of Cyrene put it with mild irony: "God does not care for divinely inspired style. The spirit of god overlooks petty details in writing." 22 In particular, John Chrysostom championed a simple homiletic style.23 Yet the ideal of αφέλεια, just as that of σεμνότης, was taken from pagan rhetorical theory, especially Hermogenes, "during later antiquity, Byzantine times, and the Renaissance [. . .] probably the most read and most influential Greek rhetorician". 24 Other writers, such as Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea, reacted to this demand for "speaking the truth" by gradually abolishing the differences between the traditional stylistic ideals. They maintained that, in principle, Christians could use all literary genres and styles as long as they were appropriate (πρέπον, οίκεΐον and πρόσφορον) to the subject. 25 In addition, the listener had to profit from it. J o h n Chrysostom, 20

Cf., e.g., Isidore of Pelusium in the continuation of the passage quoted in n. 11. Furthermore Norden 1915 (1958): II, pp. 533-34. 51 Cf., e.g., Clem. Str. 1:22:4-5, 39-42, 46-49; Gr. Thaum. Pan. Or. 7:102-108; Bas. (?) Ep. 339 quoted above p. 635; Gr. Nyss. Eun. 1:18-19; Gr. Naz. Carm. 2:1:12, 11. 284-308 (MPG 37:1186-1188); Cyr. Horn, pasch. 4:3 (MPG 77:460B-C); Cyr. Chr. un (MPG 75.1253C-1255A). Furthermore Norden 1915 (1958): II, pp. 529-32. This was true, in particular, for the style of the letter; cf. Gr. Naz. Ep. 51 and Hunger 1965:388-89; Kustas 1973:44-54; Klock 1987:136 and above Chapter 7. There was some disagreement, however, whether this implied a rejecdon of a polished style altogether; cf., e.g., the statements by Tat. Orat. 27:3: Τί δ' αν ώφελήσειε λεξις 'Αττική (Whittaker, p. 52:13) or by Gr. Thaum. Pan. Or. 7:107: Ού κατά τάς καλών ρητόρων κρίσεις, εϊ τι Έλλησί τε καί βάρβαρόν έστι τη φωνη· τό μικρόν τοΰτο καί ούκ άναγκαίον μάθημα (Crouzel ρ. 140:87-89) as opposed to Gr. Naz. Carm. 2:2:4, 11. 62-64: Ούκ ολίγον δε//γραμματικη ξύουσα λόγον καί βάρβαρον ήχήν, //'Ελλάδος εύγενέος γλώσσης επίκουρος άριστη (MPG 37:1510). 22 Ούδέν μέλει τώ θεώ θεοφορήτου λέξεως, πνεύμα θείον ύπερορφ μικρολογίαν συγγραφικην (Horn. 1 [Terzaghi 280:7-9]). 23 Cf., e.g., Sac. 4:6; cf. also Oppugn. 3:11. 24 Kennedy 1972:619. 25 For Gregory of Nyssa cf., e.g., Klock 1987:55 and n. 16; for Basil of Caesarea cf. Kustas 1981:252-54. Cf. also Kustas 1973:41.

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somewhat at variance with his predilection for simplicity just mentioned, expressed this latter principle in another work like this: "When we have the care of the sick, we must not set before them a meal prepared at haphazard, but a variety of dishes, so that the patient may choose what suits his taste. [ . . . ] Thus we should proceed in the spiritual repasts. Since we are weak, the sermon must be varied and embellished; it must contain comparison, examples, elaborate periods, and the like, so that we may select what will profit our soul."26 As regards rhetorical theory, therefore, the Christian orators did not hesitate to adopt pagan theorems and ideas, as long as they suited their needs and were regarded as useful (χρήσιμος);27 and these needs differed markedly from those of their pagan predecessors and contemporaries in that they consisted in proclaiming the message of salvation in Christ. T o illustrate this kind of approach in what follows I quote a passage from the Panegyric on Basil in which its author Gregory of Nazianzus extols the virtues of Greek paideia: I take it as admitted by men of sense that the first of those things at our disposal that are good is education (παίδευσις); and not only this our more notable (εύγενέστεραν) form of it which disregards rhetorical ornament and glory (πάν τό έν λόγοις κομψον και φιλότιμον άτιμάζουσα) and holds to salvation and beauty in the objects of our contemplation, but even that external culture which many Christians ill-judgingly abhor as treacherous and dangerous and keeping us far from God. For as we ought not to neglect the heavens and earth and air and all such things, because some have wrongly seized upon them who honoured God's works instead of God, but to reap from them all that is useful (χρήσιμον) for our life and enjoyment, while we avoid their dangers, not raising creation, as foolish men do in revolt against the creator, but from the works of nature apprehending the worker [cf. Rom. 1:20, 25], and, as the divine apostle says, bringing into captivity every thought to Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 10:5); and again, as we know that neither fire, nor food, nor iron, nor any other of the elements is of itself most useful or most harmful (χρησιμώτατον ή βλαβερώτατον), except according to the will of those who use it (just as we have compounded healthful drugs from certain of the reptiles)—so from secular literature we have received principles of enquiry and speculation (έξεταστικόν καί θεωρητικόν), while 26

Proph. obscurit. 1:1 (MPG 56:165), quoted after Kennedy 1980:145 with alterations. Cf., e.g., Bas. Leg. lib. gent. 4; Amph. Seleuc. 33-61, esp. 38 48. For this principle of χ ρ ή σ ^ Γ Gnilka 1984/93, esp. vol. I. Gnilka's strong ideological bias, however, has provoked a heated scholarly controversy. As regards the first volume cf. the reviews listed in Pack 1989:228 n. 93. The second volume of this work is even more problematic than the first; cf. especially the review by Markus Vinzent in %KG 106 (1995), pp. 133-37. 27

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we have rejected their idolatry, terror and pit of destruction. Nay, even these have aided us in our religion by our perception of the contrast between what is worse and what is better, and by gaining strength for our doctrine from the weakness of theirs. We must not then dishonour education, because some men are pleased to do so, but rather suppose such men to be boorish and uneducated (σκαιούς καί απαίδευτους), desiring all men as to be as they themselves are in order to hide themselves in the general and escape the detection of their want of culture (άπαιδευσίας).28 Given this practical emphasis on paideia, it comes as no surprise, then, that occasionally arguments of style were also used in innerChristian debate to discredit theological opponents. T h e most famous example is found in the first of the twelve books Against Eunomius by Gregory of Nyssa, written in 380/381 AD. In his criticism of the famous Neo-Arian bishop Gregory falls back on the polemic that had been developed centuries previously by Atticist authors against Isocratean rhetoric and "Asianism". 29

Ill

How were these theoretical utterances put into practice? As regards the first three centuries, the picture remains blurred. This is pardy due to a lack of comprehensive comparative studies, especially as regards the late first and second centuries (both Kennedy and Klock in their most recent surveys concentrate on the fourth century).30 Thus the specific features of the rhetoric of neither the Apostolic Fathers nor the Apologists nor Irenaeus or Hippolytus have received the scholarly attention they deserve.31 More importantly, however, early 28 Gr. Naz. Or. 43:11 (trans. NPNF, altered). Cf. also Or. 36:4. This use of pagan education and rhetoric was based on the idea that these were gifts of God's creation. Cf. Kustas 1981:278 and n. 216. 29 Cf. esp. Gr. Nyss. Eun. 1:11-17. The passage is analyzed in Klock 1987:14558; cf. also Norden 1915 (1958):558-62 and Diekamp 1909. For further references for this kind of polemic cf. Klock 1987:113 n. 173 and 147, n. 61. 30 Kennedy mentions the first three centuries only in passing (cf. 1972:607-13; 1980:120-41; 1983:180-86); as regards the early period, Klock mainly deals with the more general problem of Christianity and pagan paideia (cf. 1987:56-76). Cf., moreover, KJeinert 1889; Norden 1915 (1958):510-12, 545-50; Clarke 1953:14857; Reardon 1971:275-308. 31 Most literary studies have so far concentrated on the unity and literary form of these writings, on their sources (as indicators for their authors' education) and on their language (for the Apostolic Fathers in general cf. Reinhold 1898 and Bartelink

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Christianity, which only gradually separated from Judaism, first had to define its place vis-à-vis Greek culture, so that the literature of this period displays both Jewish and Greek influence and, therefore, yields "a confusingly varied picture". 32 In this respect, particular mention must be made of the so-called Apologists.33 The term designates a number of Christian authors of the second century who defended the Christian faith against attacks from their pagan contemporaries. Greek apologists in this sense, whose writings are partly or fully preserved, are Quadratus, Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Melito, Athenagoras and Theophilus of Antioch. They all wrote at a time when the legal position of the new religious groups was unclear and the Christians were under continuous threat from their pagan environment. T h e apologists wrote in various styles and literary genres, among which mention must be made of the Apology, a fictional forensic defence which may have originated in petitions to the Roman emperor(s) 34 and displays the features typical of the γένος δικανικόν. (Further examples survive in the Acts and Passions of the Christian martyrs.) 35 In addition, there were tracts called Orations to/ against the Greeks/ Pagans the precise Sitz im Leben of which is unclear. T h e individual rhetorical strategies of these authors vary considerably. Some of them harshly attack anything non-Christian, whereas others seek to accommodate pagan ideas and concepts. In practice many of these tracts go beyond pure apologetics and also serve protreptic and missionary purposes. They attempt to "translate" the

1952), but only very few on the rhetorical strategies employed. On 1 Clement cf. Wehofer 1901:137-217; Mees 1971; Schneider 1994:13-16; on 2 Clement cf. Wehofer 1901:102-37; Donfried 1974; Wengst 1984:210-17; Baasland 1993; on the Shepherd of Hermas cf. Link 1888; Wehofer 1901:43-56; Deemter 1929; Puech 1935; von Ström 1936; Demaray 1940; White 1973; Hilhorst 1976; Hilhorst 1988: esp. cols. 684-87; Brox 1991: esp. 33-55; on the Didache cf. Niederwimmer 1989: esp. 11-15; on the Epistle of Barnabas cf. Wehofer 1901:56-102; Schille 1958; Wengst 1984:11014; Carleton Paget 1994; on Polycarp cf. Bauer 1995: esp. 12. On Papias cf. Kürzinger 1983 (with bibliography); Black 1989. On Ignatius of Antioch cf. Perler 1949; Riesenfeld 1961; Sieben 1978; Schoedel 1985: esp. 7-9; Fischer 1986:120-22. On Irenaeus cf. Schoedel 1959; Jaschke 1987: esp. 259. On Hippolytus cf. Schölten 1991: esp. cols. 530-32. On the style of the Easter Homily (erroneously) ascribed to Hippolytus cf. Cantalamessa 1967:335-67; Visonà 1988:158-81. 32 Klock 1987:115. Cf. also Fabricius 1967:195-97. 33 On the Apologists in general cf. Geffcken 1907; Puech 1912; Pellegrino 1947 (I); Pellegrino 1947 (II); Joly 1973; Grant 1986; Grant 1988: esp. 54-55, 101-102, 115-18, 144; 178-79, 191; Keresztes 1990; Rizzi 1991; Fredouille 1992; Rizzi 1993; Schölten 1993. 34 Cf. Wooten 1973; Kinzig 1989; Schoedel 1989. 35 Cf., e.g., M. Apollon. 4 - 6 (cf. also 14-44); M. Pion. 4 (cf. also 12-14). Cf., moreover, Musurillo 1972: L LVII.

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Christian faith into Greek philosophical categories and thus to make it acceptable to the pagan élite. Given as a whole, however, it appears that, as regards their rhetorical skills, the Greek Christian writers of the second century do not reach the standards set by their pagan contemporaries. 36 T h e reasons for this are unclear. According to an explanation that is frequendy put forward, the early Christian writers did not originate from the social élite and had, therefore, no access to good education. But this is sheer guess-work, since until the fourth century there is litde evidence as regards the education of Greek Christian writers. We know that, from very early on, there were Christian διδάσκαλοι and Christian schools, but their precise function and character are largely uncertain. 37 In addition, we have to beware of oversimplification. Some writers such as Justin, 38 Tatian 39 and Theophilus 40 did receive a philosophical a n d / o r rhetorical education (and worked as Christian teachers).41 From the carefully devised structure of the Supplicatio and of the treatise On the Resurrection of the Dead of Athenagoras, one may conclude that their author, too, had a rhetorical training and exercised a teaching function. 42 And Melito's Paschal Homily displays in its exuberant and yet stylistically carefully crafted hyperbole all the hallmarks of "Asianism" and provides a splendid example of the gradual Christianization of the γένος έπιδεικτικόν. 43 Even more complex is the picture as regards what one could broadly call narrative literature, that is, the apocryphal or pseudonymous Acts, Gospels and Apocalypses as conveniendy collected in the two volumes 36

Cf. esp. Wifstrand 1967:34-42; Fabricius 1967:195. Cf. Pack 1989:190-98; Neymeyr 1989. Regarding the so-called "catechetical school" of Alexandria, cf. now Schölten 1995:37, who prefers to call this institution a "theologische Hochschule" of the Alexandrian church. 38 On Justin Martyr cf. Wehofer 1897; Hubik 1912; Keresztes 1965; Hoflmann 1966:10-28; Chadwick 1966:9-23; Voss 1970:26-39, 322-25; Holfelder 1977; Alfonsi 1979; Stander 1986/87; Munier 1987; Munier 1988; Guerra 1992; Munier 1994: esp. 29-55. 39 On Tatian cf. Fiebig 1901; Puech 1903: esp. 4-36; Heiler 1909; Whittaker 1975; Di Cristina 1991 (inon vidi); McGehee 1993. 40 On Theophilus cf. Grant 1959. 41 Cf. Neymeyr 1989:16-35 (on Justin), 182-95 (on Tatian). 42 On Athenagoras cf. Geffcken 1907:155-238; Scivoletto 1960; Malherbe 1969; Schoedel 1979; Neymeyr 1989:195-200; Pouderon 1989: esp. 303-25; Pouderon 1992:65-68, 211-13. 43 Cf. Wellesz 1943; Wifstrand 1948; Perler 1966: esp. 24-29; White 1967; Haiton 1970; Smit Sibinga 1970; Hall 1971; Brioso 1972; McDonald 1975; Hall 1992. An anonymous fragment of a second century (?) Christian sermon bearing a certain resemblance to Melito's Paschal Homily is found in cod. Athon. Lavr. 184 Β 64; cf. the discussion in Zuntz 1946. 37

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by Hennecke-Schneemelcher 44 and the Acts and Passions of Martyrs.45 They often contain highly stylized speeches that invite further rhetorical analysis.46 T h e situation gradually changes in the third century. It is no coincidence that the emergence of a Christian rhetoric of some note runs parallel with the development of a Christian philosophy. Just as Chrisdan philosophy had to reach the high level of conceptual sophistication developed in contemporary Middle and Neoplatonism, if it wanted to make substantial inroads into the pagan élite, Christian rhetoric, too, needed further refinement, since during this period the "rhetoricization" of pagan literature made itself felt and ever more genres of literature (including e.g. legal texts) began to be stylized according to what was regarded "good style".47 One of the breedinggrounds for both Christian rhetoric and Christian philosophy was the school of Alexandria 48 and its main protagonists Clement 49 and Origen. 50 Around 238, one of Origen's pupils, Gregory Thaumaturgus, composed the first example of a Christian farewell speech (λόγος συντακτικός) in honour of his teacher. 51 However, this development was not confined to Alexandria. The Epistle to Diognetus, the "'pearl' of second century apologetic, nay even of Christian antiquity", 52 the pseudo-Justinian Cohortatio ad Graecos53 (the precise dates and prov-

44 Cf. Hennecke-Schneemelcher 1991/92. They also list the relevant literature. Cf., moreover, Kaestli 1981. 45 Cf. the collections by Musurillo 1972 and Atti e Passioni dei Martin 1987. Cf., moreover, Prießnig 1924; Delehaye 1966. 46 Cf. above n. 35 and Cameron 1991:89-119 with further literature. 47 Cf. Fuchs 1929 (1971). 48 On this school, the precise nature of which is far from clear, cf. esp. Neymeyr 1989:40-105; Pack 1989:195-98; Liebeschuetz 1991: cols. 898-900; Schölten 1995 (cf. also η. 37 above). 49 On Clement cf. Scham 1913; Mossbacher 1931; Tengblad 1932; Pohlenz 1943; Quacquarelli 1956; Marrou-Harl 1960: esp. 66-86, 98-105; Chadwick 1966:31-65; Steneker 1967; Wagner 1968; Bracken 1981; Galloni 1986: esp. 3-49. 50 On Origen cf. Borst 1913; Chadwick 1966:66-123; Knauber 1968; Voss 1970:79-85; Cox 1986; Toijesen 1986'; Monaci Castagno 1987; Neuschäfer 1987; Lienhard 1989; Junod 1994; Perrone 1994. 51 Cf. Brinkmann 1901; Kennedy 1980:140-41; Crouzel 1983: esp. cols. 783-84. Editions by Koetschau 1894; Crouzel 1969. On Gregory's style cf. also Hoffmann 1966:59-67; Voss 1970:86-90; Marotta 1971. 52 On the Epistle to Diognetus cf. Marrou 1951:92-95; Tanner 1984; Wengst 1984:291-93; Blanchetière 1989; Rizzi 1989. The quotation in Marrou 1951:89: "'perle' de l'apologétique du IIe siècle, voire de l'antiquité chrétienne". 53 Cf. Riedweg 1994: I, pp. 156-59. On the literature attributed to Justin cf. also Riedweg 1996 (sub prelo).

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enances of both these writings are uncertain) and the Symposium by Methodius of Olympus 54 (a dialogue based on the Platonic model) are other products of this period that display a certain rhetorical quality. Most of the modern research, however, has concentrated on the writers and preachers of the fourth century, the so-called "Golden Age of Greek Patristic Literature". 55 As during the course of the fourth century the church gradually moved from being a persecuted sect to becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, it faced an evergrowing influx of converts. The power within society shifted from the old pagan élite, the wealthy municipal upperclass in the provinces, the curiales, to the new Christian clergy. In reality, however, even though the institutions that controlled and influenced relations between the emperor and his subjects had changed, their social composition often had not. In many places, the same groups who had previously wielded power continued to do so with only minor variations. "Like stones shaken in a sieve, the upper classes of the cities took on a new complexion: the Christian bishop and his clergy were more prominent than before. But the same stones remained, if redistributed in a different pattern." 56 At the same time, even though there had been Christian schools as early as the middle of the second century, as I mentioned above, the church failed to develop a genuinely Christian system of education. As a result, Christianity accepted the educational standards and norms of pagan society. These standards and norms, however, were undergoing a considerable change. In the fourth century the movement called the Second Sophistic reached its peak in orators like Themistius in Constantinople and Libanius in Antioch. T h e ability to polish one's speech in a rhetorical fashion became the hallmark of paideia.57 This development inevitably left its traces in the Christian literature of the period as well. Among Libanius's pupils there were Basil, who in later life was to become bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and John, later called

54

Cf. Martin 1931:286-89; Lazzati 1937; Alfonsi 1943; Buchheit 1956; Buchheit 1958:90-113 and passim·, Hoffmann 1966:67-83, 109-30; Voss 1970:91-134, 33438; Williams 1992. 55 This is the tide of the third volume of Johannes Quasten's Patrology (Westminster, MD 1960). 56 Brown 1992:119. Cf. also Eck 1978; Raster 1988:74-75; Pack 1989:233-35 and n. 104 (where further literature is quoted). 57 Cf. Brown 1992:35-70.

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"the Golden-mouthed" (χρυσόστομος), subsequendy patriarch of Constantinople. Other theological authorities of the century such as Basil's brother Gregory of Nyssa and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus likewise received a sound rhetorical education. It comes, therefore, as no surprise that their writings, albeit to a varying degree, display all the features of the Second Sophistic.58 Of course, here, too, one has to be wary of undue generalizations. T h e preachers who were trained to speak in the manner of the Cappadocian Fathers were probably in a small minority. Even a theologian of the stature of Athanasius of Alexandria cannot compare with their rhetorical skills.59 And yet at the end of the period under discussion we find bishops who considered it important to compose their sermons and letters in an elegant and polished style in a surprisingly large number of provincial cities of various sizes. Among these one could mention Amphilochius of Iconium, 60 Asterius of Amaseia, 61 Synesius of Cyrene 62 or Isidore of Pelusium, 63 to name but four. Even though there is, therefore, in the secondary literature a broad 58 On Gregory of Nazianzus cf. Hürth 1907; Donders 1909; Guignet 1911 (I); Guignet 1911 (II); Focken 1911; Malin 1929; Fleury 1930: esp. 55-99; Skimina 1931; Poynton 1933; Gallay 1933; Henry 1943; Lercher 1949; Wyß 1949; Lefherz 1958; Mossay 1966; McCauley 1968; Ruether 1969; Mossay 1970; Beck 1977; Kertsch 1980; Wyß 1983: esp. cols. 798-808; Etdinger 1989; Kertsch 1992. On Basil of Caesarea cf. Büttner 1909; Trunk 1911; Maas 1912 (II); Deferrari 1917/18; Campbell 1922; Jacks 1922; Schemmel 1922; Way 1927; Hengsberg 1957; Casevitz 1981; Kustas 1981. Cf. also above η. 16. On Gregory of Nyssa cf. Bauer 1892; Méridier 1906; Maas 1912 (I); Pasquali 1923; Owen 1925; Stein 1928; Hoey 1930; Langerbeck 1957; Spira 1966; Hoffmann 1966:130-35; Daniélou 1966; Marotta 1967; Marotta 1970; Alexandre 1970; Voss 1970:175-86, 341-43; Mann 1977; Esper 1979; Caimi Daneiii 1979; Klock 1981; Drobner 1982; Canévet 1983; Esper 1984; Klock 1987; Illanes Maestre 1988; Kertsch 1988; Kobusch 1988; Mann 1988; Viciano 1988; Meissner 1991. For further literature cf. Altenburger-Mann 1988:344-45. On the Cappadocian Fathers in general cf. Bernardi 1968; Gregg 1975; Amigues 1979; Harrison 1988. On John Chrysostom cf. Colombo 1912; Maas 1912 (II): 1123-1126; Ameringer 1921; Degen 1921; Hubbell 1924; Dickinson 1926; Skimina 1927; Sawhill 1928; Burns 1930; Coleman-Norton 1930; Coleman-Norton 1932; Soffray 1939; Maat 1944; Simonetti 1953; Carter 1958; Murray 1960; Fabricius 1962; Armand de Mendieta 1966; Cioffi 1978; Dekkers 1980; Wilken 1983: esp. 95-127; Padovese 1988; Hunter 1989; Staats 1992; Stoellger 1994. 59 On Athanasius cf. Stead 1976; Kannengiesser 1989; Smith 1991. 60 Cf. Holl 1904:64—71, 111-15; Oberg 1973; Voicu 1992; Brennecke 1993. 61 Cf. Schmid 1911; Skard 1940; Speyer 1986: cols. 628-31. 62 Cf. Bregman 1982; Roques 1987. 63 On Isidore cf. Redl 1928; Bartelink 1964; Ritter 1971; Zincone 1992.

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consensus as regards the influence of the Second Sophistic on Christian writings of the fourth century, its precise nature is much more difficult to determine. Although it is possible to identify certain lexical and stylistic features in a given author or writing, such as choice of words and figures of speech and so on, there are as yet no generally accepted models that could help us to describe the precise relationship between the prose of these authors and the strata of language of the period they were writing in.64 Jaakko Frôsén has demonstrated that the results of many studies on this topic depend on presuppositions that often lack a clear methodological foundation.65 It appears that one has to distinguish, first, between the linguistic, the syntactical and the stylistic levels of the writings of the period. 66 In many Christian authors supposedly writing in a "classical" style, such as Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and J o h n Chrysostom, we find syntactical structures that are quite unknown in classical Attic.67 In addition, in all these authors a strong linguistic influence from the Bible can be observed, a phenomenon which is quite incompatible with "Atticizing". 68 T h e rhetorical structure of a writing depends, secondly, on its genre, purpose and addressee. 69 Within the genre of sermon there is already a wide variation depending on whether we are dealing with an exegetical homily that interprets a biblical text verse by verse (and for which, incidentally, there appears to be no pagan equivalent)70 or whether the sermon celebrates in a panegyrical manner a particular festival or saint and, therefore, generally speaking, follows the rules of the γένος έπιδεικτικόν.71 The sermon as a whole, in turn, followed rules which partly overlap with and partly 64

Cf. the various models suggested in recent years, e.g., by Higgins 1940/41; Higgins 1945; Früchtel 1950; Anlauf 1960; Rydbeck 1967: esp. 186-99; Fabricius 1967; Zilliacus 1967; Reardon 1971: esp. 80-96; Frôsén 1974: esp. 148-79; Dummer 1977; Dihle 1977; Gelzer 1978; Sevcenko 1981; Delarue 1982; Spira 1985; Spira 1989. Cf., in addition, the surveys in Wilson 1983:4-8; Browning 1983: esp. 19-52; Zgusta 1980: esp. 129; Palmer 1980:174-98; Dihle 1992; Adamietz 1992 and the articles collected in Brixhe 1993. As regards methodology Frôsén 1974 is indispensable despite his condensed, and occasionally opaque, style. 65 Cf. Frôsén 1974: esp. 20ff. 66 For this distinction cf. Norden 1915 (1958): I, pp. 349-50; Fabricius 1967:187 n. 2. 67 Cf. the examples given in Fabricius 1967:192-93. 68 Cf. Fabricius 1967:194. 69 On what follows cf. Klock 1987:134-45. 70 As regards the difficulties cf. Schäublin 1994. 71 Cf. Klock 1981:325. Cf., however, also Klock 1981:320 and Klock 1987: 135-36.

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differ from those for a letter or a dialogue.72 It made a difference whether one addressed fellow believers, pagans, Jews or heretics 73 and whether one defended the faith against attacks, attempted to make converts or expounded the Holy Scriptures. 74 Two further aspects need to be looked at more closely. Most Christian oratory took place within a liturgical setdng. This liturgical setdng undoubtedly shaped Chrisdan discourse, if only through the addition of a formal salutation at the beginning and a doxology at the end and special forms of address, such as "my brethren" or "beloved". 75 How else was the preacher affected by the fact that he was facing his audience not in the market place but within the strict rules of a church service?76 In what follows, we shall, for example, see that in certain types of sermons, such as Easter homilies, close similarities with early Christian hymns can be detected. 77 In addition, an interdependence between sermons and the language of prayer must a priori be assumed, but has so far received little scholarly attention. Furthermore, the relationship between Christian rhetoric and biblical exegesis has hitherto remained obscure. Most Christian speeches were homilies based on a biblical text that had to be elucidated. If Kennedy's dictum is true according to which "what dialectic is to rhetoric in the Aristotelian system, hermeneutics is to homiletics in Christian rhetoric", 78 the question arises as to whether and how the exegesis of a biblical text influenced the way the results of this exegesis were presented to the congregation. 79 Conversely, it must be asked whether and how the rhetorical training of many preachers especially in the fourth century influenced the way they looked at the biblical text they had to expound. 80 In all these regards further studies are urgently needed. In order to illustrate the high level of artificiality of the rhetorical style in some writers at the end of our period I quote, in what fol72

Cf. the surveys in Kustas 1973:43-62; Klock 1987:135-37. Cf. Sider 1983 who arranges his sources according to audience. 74 Cf. Sevcenko 1980:62-63; Sevcenko 1981: esp. 307ff. 75 Cf. Krause 1968 and Olivar 1991:515-27, 879-89. 76 Cf. the remarks in Thiimmel 1994 and Salzmann 1994 (non vidi). 77 Cf. below pp. 649-51. 78 Kennedy 1980:138. 79 For this kind of approach cf., e.g., Torjesen 1986 and Junod 1994 on Origen, Kustas 1981 on Basil of Caesarea, Canévet 1983 on Gregory of Nyssa. In general cf. Schäublin 1974; Wickert 1992; Schäublin 1992. 80 Cf., e.g., Rondeau 1982/85 for the "prosopological" approach to the Psalms. Further remarks on this topic, together with bibliographical references, are found in Viciano 1996:390-91. 73

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lows, a passage from a homily on Psalm 5 by Asterius, written around 400 AD. Asterius (who is not identical with his namesake at Amaseia) was probably not even a bishop, but a priest either in or in the vicinity of Antioch.81 In this passage Asterius praises the mystery of the night of Easter. The style of the text resembles early Christian liturgical hymns, a feature typical for this type of panegyrical sermon: 82 Τ

Ω του θαύματος. 83 Ό φδης κατέπιε τον δεσπότην Χριστδν και ούκ επεψεν. 84 Ό λέων κατέπιε τον άμνον καί άπεστομαχίσθη. Ό θάνατος κατέπιε την ζωην και ναυτιάσας εμεσε και τους προκαταποθέντας.

Ό γίγας τον αποθανόντα Χριστόν βαστάσαι ούκ ϊσχυσεν. Ό νεκρός φοβερός τφ γίγαντι γέγονε· ζώντι έπάλαισε καί υπό νεκρού νικηθείς επεσεν. Εί υπό ζώντος ένικήθη ό διάβολος, είχε προφασίζεσθαι οτι θεώ παλαίειν ούκ ίσχυσα. Ά λ λ α ζώντι έπάλαισε καί άποθανόντι υπέπεσε καί πάσαν πρόφασιν άπώλεσεν. Εις κόκκος έσπάρη

καί ολος ό κόσμος έτράφη.

Ώς 8 5 άνθρωπος έσφάγη

καί ώς θεός έζωοποιήθη καί έζωοποίησε την οίκουμένην.

Ώ ς οστρεον έπατηθη Ώ ς πρόβατον έτύθη

καί ώς μαργαρίτης έκόσμησε την έκκλησίαν. καί ώς ποιμήν ράβδω τω σταυρώ έδιωξε την τών δαιμόνων άγέλην. Ώ ς λύχνος έπί λυχνίαν τον σταυρόν έσβέσθη καί ώς ήλιος άνέτειλεν έκ τού τάφου. Τ

Ην ίδεΐν θέαμα διπλούν ·

σταυρουμένου 86 Χριστού ή ημέρα άνισταμένου αύτού ή νύξ ώς ημέρα

έσκοτίζετο καί έφωτίζετο.

Διά τί ή ημέρα έσκοτίζετο; Επειδή περί αύτοΰ γέγραπται· "Εθετο σκότος άποκρυφήν αύτού (Ps. 17:12).

81 On Asterius's style cf. Skard 1940; Skard 1949; Skard 1958; Skard 1961; Ciccarese 1985; Ciccarese 1986 (both authors erroneously identify this Asterius with the sophist and Arian of the same name); Kinzig 1992. 82 For an analysis of the passage and its relations with early Christian hymns such as the Latin Exsultet cf. auf der Maur 1962; auf der Maur 1966:102-25, where a translation can be found. Cf. also below, p. 651. 83 Genitive of exclamation. 84 In what follows numerous antitheses occur which are formed by isocola joined by καί. 85 Eightfold anaphora introduced by ώς. 86 Antitheses formed by isocola ending in homoeoteleuton.

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Διά τί δέ ή νύξ ώς ημέρα έφωτίζετο; "Οτι σκότος ού σκοτισθήσεται άπό σού, καί νύξ ώς ημέρα φωτισθήσεται (Ps. 138:12). Τ 87

Ω νύξ ημέρας λαμπροτέρα· ώ νύξ ηλίου φαιδροτέρα · ώ νύξ χιόνος λευκοτέρα · ώ νύξ αστραπής φαεινοτέρα · ω νύξ λαμπάδων διαυγεστέρα · ώ νύξ παραδείσου τερπνοτέρα · ώ νύξ σκότους άπηλλαγμένη · ώ νύξ φωτός πεπληρωμένη · ώ νύξ ή τον ϋπνον διώκουσα · ώ νύξ ή άγρυπνεΐν μετ' άγγέλων διδάσκουσα· ώ νύξ φοβερά τοις δαίμοσιν · ώ νύξ ένιαυτού έπιθυμία· ώ νύξ νυμφαγωγός της έκκλησίας· ώ νύξ ή των νεοφωτίστων μήτηρ· ώ νύξ έν ή νυστάξας 6 διάβολος γεγυμνωται · ώ νύξ έν η ό κληρονόμος εις την κληρονομίαν την κληρονόμον είσηγαγεν· Εις το τέλος, ύπερ της κληρονομούσης (Ps. 5:1) (Ast. Soph. [Richard pp. 76.19-77.19]).

Horn.

1 l:3f.

Closely related to the stylistic level is an area that has hardly been explored so far. Whereas stylistically the Christians by and large imitated pagan oratory, they were linguistically stunningly innovative.88 T h e institutions, rites and doctrines of the new religion necessitated a new terminology and language. The semantic fields of traditional terms were extended to cover the new realities, partly under the influence of the Septuagint and the New Testament. In addition, numerous new lexemes were created, as can be seen by the large 87

Isocola with sixteenfold anaphora and homoeoteleuta; oxymoron; dissolution of syntactical period. 88 Cf. Hunger 1981:40-42; Hunger 1994: cols. 103-104. Christine Mohrmann's hypothesis according to which early Christian Greek (just as early Christian Latin) developed as a Sondersprache or Gruppensprache still needs further examination (Mohrmann 1960). Her students have published a series of studies in the series Graecitas Christianorum Primaeva and its supplements; cf. esp. Ysebaert 1962 (and his recent study of 1994); Vermeulen 1964; Orbân 1970; Bartelink 1970 (and his earlier study of 1952); Hilhorst 1976. For a theological approach to the same problem cf. Laeuchli 1965. Other literature on the subject up to 1978 is conveniendy found in Sieben 1980. Works published subsequently are listed in the relevant sections of the Bibliographia Patristica. As regards Christian reflections on the value of silence in relation to theology (hence the exact opposite of the present subject!) cf. Mortley 1986.

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number of entries in Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon preceded by * or [*]. Even so, the picture is far from being complete. T o give but one example: the homilete Asterius just quoted, who wrote at the very end of the period under discussion, produced a corpus of 31 Homilies on the Psalms (including some Easter homilies) in which more than sixty lexemes are found (some of them formed ad hoc) which occur neither in Liddell-Scott-Jones' Greek-English Lexicon nor in the Patristic Greek Lexicon.89 Sermons, especially those that displayed the features of an elevated, panegyrical, "Asian" style, were probably delivered in a tone of voice approximating chanting. 90 In doing this Christians once again followed pagan examples.91 In particular, panegyrical sermons often contained poetic and hymnic passages, such as the one quoted above, that are among the sources of early Byzantine hymnography. 92 Much research remains to be done on the rhythmical structure of these texts.93 Just as in pagan oratory, the delivery of sermons (ύπόκρισις, actio, pronuntiatio) was sometimes accompanied by dramatic gestures.94 T h e second-century bishop Paul of Samosata is supposed to have smitten "his hand on his thigh" and to have "stamped the tribunal with his feet" in order to rouse his listeners to cheers. 95 89 A list of these lexemes will be included in the introducdon to my annotated German translation of the Homilies to be published in the Bibliothek der griechischen Literatur in 1997. For other authors cf., e.g., Marotta 1971; Aubineau 1973 (1988); Aubineau 1983: X I X X X I ; Datema-Allen 1987:48-50. 90 Cf. the remarks in Norden 1915 (1958):859-61; Hunger 1965:339-40; Hunger 1972:8; Hunger 1978: I, pp. 68-69. It would perhaps be useful to compare the stylistic features of early Christian preaching with those of modern sermons delivered in Black Baptist communities in the USA, on which cf. Rosenberg 1970 and Crystal 1995:371. 91 Cf. Norden 1915 (1958): 55-57, 135-37, 294-95, 375-79; Hunger 1978: I, pp. 68-69; Klock 1987:152 n. 71; Steinbrink 1992 and above Chapter 6. 92 Cf. Norden 1915 (1958):841-67; Wellesz 1943 (on Melito); Wellesz 1947:4849; Wellesz 1961:10-11, 184-88; Beck 1969:96-97; Mitsakis 1971; Brioso 1972; Grosdidier de Matons 1977:16-27, who gives further literature; Trypanis 1981:40824; Hunger 1981:42; Hunger 1984; Spira 1989:147-51; Sachot 1994: col. 169; Hunger 1994: cols. 113-14. For further references on Christian hymnography cf. Hannick 1986; Thraede 1994. 93 Some information on Christian authors is found in Skimina 1927 (John Chrysostom); Skimina 1931 (Gregory of Nazianzus); Skimina 1937: esp. 190-91, 198-99; Skimina 1930; Buchheit 1958:114-19 (Methodius); Hörandner 1981. The state of research is summarized in Klock 1987:217-300. 94 On pagan oratory cf. above Chapter 12. 95 Cf. Eus. H.E. 7:30:9. The account is, of course, hostile towards Paul; yet his actio as described is consistent with what is recommended in ancient handbooks on rhetoric; cf. the references given in Burrus 1989:218-19. Cf. also Gr. Nyss. Eun.

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IV Finally, as regards the impact of ecclesiastical oratory, from the evidence available it is possible to piece together a picture of the immediate reacdon of communides listening to sermons. 96 Generally speaking, the audiences virtually never appear to have listened in passive silence. When the sermon did not live up to their expectations, perhaps because it was too long 97 or the preacher was not well prepared 98 or plainly boring, they began to murmur and create other disturbances. An additional nuisance was the habit of entering or leaving the church before, during and after the sermon, which distracted the preacher. There were preachers famous for their melodious voices.99 People showed skilled preachers their appreciation by applauding just as they would cheer entertaining speeches of famous sophists.100 Not all recipients of these outpourings of public sympathy, however, were happy with them. John Chrysostom, for example, fought against what he saw as an excess distracting from the true spiritual purpose of preaching. Again and again he called for silence.101 In the Apocalypse of Paul we find a curious passage in which it is prophesied that "those who revile the Word of God in church, paying no attention to it, but counting God and his angels as nothing" will chew at their tongues in hell.102 There were other preachers, however, who were less critical. Thus a theologian of the stature of Gregory Nazianzus had no qualms in admitting in his farewell discourse to his community in Constantinople that the applause of his

1:17 as regards Eunomius; cf. also Klock 1981:335 and 1987:153 n. 71; Steinbrink 1992: col. 52. 96 On what follows cf. Norden 1915 (1958):550-53; Stuiber 1954: cols. 98-102; Hunger 1965:339-40; Olivar 1991:589-901; Stander 1993; Sachot 1994: cols. 159-60. 97 On the length of ancient sermons (for which no overall rule can be given) cf. Olivar 1991:670-721. 98 On the problem of preparation and improvizarion cf. Olivar 1991:589-640; Hammerstaedt-Terbuyken 1996: 1260-68. 99 Sozomen calls Antiochus of Ptolemais "Chrysostomos" (H.E. 8:10:1), just as John Chrysostom was later awarded the same honorary tide. 100 Cf. Norden 1915 (1958):274-75, 295-96; Zellinger 1917; Stuiber 1954: cols. 9 9 - 1 0 2 (who p. 99 claims that "the custom of applauding was not practised in Christian assemblies before Constantine". I remain sceptical); Olivar 1991:834-67. 101 Cf. the references in Olivar 1991:872-74, 857 n. 120, 863 nn. 140 and 143. Time and again he emphasizes the difference between the church and the theatre, which seems to suggest that for some members of his audience at least the difference between the two appears indeed to have been very small; cf. Stuiber 1954: col. 101; Olivar 1991:865-66. 102 Ch. 37 (Hennecke-Schneemelcher, II, p. 732).

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listeners "lent wings" to his thought; 103 he bade farewell to the "balustrade, pressed upon by those who thrust themselves forward to hear the word". 104 From this discourse and from other sources we know not only that official stenographers took shorthand notes of the sermons of famous preachers in view of later publication, but also that private individuals wrote down beautiful figures of speech or clever comparisons and metaphors. 105 In some cases, when there were members of the audience who did not speak Greek, interpreters were at hand to translate the sermon into the vernacular. 106 Even though, therefore, in recent years our picture about the interaction between the preacher and his audience has become clearer, we do not yet really know much about the social composition of the congregations filling the churches. There is some evidence, for at least with regard to the fourth century careful conclusions can be drawn from the exisdng homilies of the period. 107 The implications of the development of a Christian rhetoric for the social and political life of the Roman Empire at large are much more difficult to assess. It goes without saying, however, that for most believers the sermon as the most prominent form of Christian oratory was important as a source of information about their faith. It served a didactic and educational purpose. At the same time the sermon was a means of establishing orthodoxy and combatting deviant theological views.108 But the sermon was more than just an instruction in the right faith. As secular rhetoric in general was both a technique and a means of institutional power, 109 the same could be argued for its ecclesiastical counterpart. 110 This is, for example, immediately obvious in the works of Eusebius of Caesarea who propagated a close alliance between the church and the emperor Constantine. 111 At the same time, however, the influence of these writings on the formation of Byzantine

103

Cf. Or. 42:24. Cf. Or. 42:26. 105 Cf. Gr. Naz. Or. 42:26 and, in general, Olivar 1991:902-22. 106 Cf. Hermann-von Soden 1959: esp. cols. 42-44; Olivar 1991:890-901. 107 Cf. Bernardi 1968; MacMullen 1989; Olivar 1991:761-70. 108 Cf. Klock 1981:324. 109 Cf. Cameron 1991:87. 110 The recent essays by Robert A. Raster (1988:70-95), Averil Cameron (1991) and Peter Brown (1992) are first examples for this kind of approach. Cf. also Bernardi 1968; Forlin Patrucco 1985; Lane Fox 1994. 111 On Eusebius cf. esp. Pasquali 1910; Johnson 1985; des Places 1985; Barnes 1989; Smith 1989; Perrone 1990; Winkelmann 1991. 104

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imperial ideology is less obvious and currendy the subject of a controversial scholarly debate. 112 In any case, there can be no doubt that religious speeches and sermons helped to inculcate what were considered to be civic virtues. In addition, as Peter Brown has recendy argued, the all-pervasive paideia, in which the knowledge of the rules of eloquence played a crucial part, "served to veil deepseated, private divisions between Christians and non-Christians"." 3 It took the edge out of Christianity which in the first three centuries of its existence had made the life of its adherents sometimes rather miserable. Or, expressed in positive terms: Paideia had an irenic function. It became possible for Christians and non-Christians to respect each other on the basis of a shared culture. And yet it would be too simplistic to say that Christian rhetoric only helped to stabilize the status quo ante with just minor variations. In the authoritarian atmosphere of the later Roman Empire the Christian sermon was also one of the few occasions where those brave enough could risk to criticize the secular rulers in public.114 And by some this opportunity was seized to dramatic effect. It may suffice here to call to mind J o h n Chrysostom's sniding remarks against the empress Eudoxia which contributed to his downfall." 5 Within the sacred walls of the numerous newly built churches a modicum of free speech, of genuine παρρησία, existed that allowed the church to restrain the arm of the secular ruler and to resist blatant injustice. Christian discourse could only be effective in all these respects if it was intelligible and comprehensible to the general public. There is, however, a school of thought which maintains that because of their (culturally determined) predilection for "archaic" Attic, the Christian preachers of the fourth century were largely not understood." 6 The general problem of defining a linguistic stratum such as Attic notCf., e.g., Kinzig 1994:572 and n. 8 where further literature is given. Brown 1992:125. 114 On what follows cf. also Spira 1985 and 1989:139-40. 115 Cf. Soc. H.E. 6:18:1-5; Soz. H.E. 8:20:1-3; Pall. V. Chrys. 8-11; Chrys. Ep. Innoc. I. Characteristically, this speech is lost. 116 Cf. e.g. Christ-Schmid-Stählin 1924 (1961):955 (about Chrysostom); Zgusta 1980:129-30; Browning 1983:49-50; and Fabricius 1962:18 and n. 3; Fabricius 1967:189 n. 8. In this respect an apocryphal story is somedmes quoted according to which "a woman once interrupted one of John Chrysostom's sermons to complain that she could not understand half of what he was saying, so remote was his language from that of the mass of the people. The preacher obligingly delivered the rest of his sermon, we are told, in the vulgar tongue" (Browning 1983:50; cf. also Zgusta 1980:130). On the origins of this story cf. Browning 1983:50 n. 37. 113

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withstanding, this is highly unlikely, simply because there is, as I mendoned already, abundant material illustrative of the responses of the audience. 117 On the contrary, during the fourth century preaching became the mass medium par excellence that helped to shape public opinion. 118 Thus Christian eloquence regained some of the old features of rhetoric that had largely been lost under the socio-political conditions of the early Empire. Not least this aspect secured its lasting influence on later generations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete bibliography would far exceed the confines of this chapter. The bibliography here given is, therefore, a bibliographie raisonnée according to the following criteria: (1) Only very few works published before Eduard Norden's seminal work Antike Kunstprosa (1st edn. 1898) have been included. (2) Only those works bearing an immediate relationship to the subject have been chosen; in particular, works on Christianity and secular education and on the vast problem of Christianity and GraecoRoman culture in general have largely been excluded." 9 (3) In particular, an attempt has been made to gather the most recent secondary literature and those works that provide full bibliographies. (4) Generally speaking, with few exceptions no editions of the sources mentioned in this chapter have been included. (Bibliographies of modern editions of the Greek Christian literature of the first three centuries are found in the following works: L. Berkowitz - K. A. Squitier, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Canon of Greek Authors and Works [3rd edn., New York/Oxford 1990]; M. Geerard, Corpus Christianorum: Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti [Turnhout 1992]; idem, Corpus Christianorum: Clavis Patrum Graecorum [5 vols.; Turnhout 1974-87]). Adamietz, J., "Asianismus", in Historisches Wörterbuch da Rhetorik, I (1992), cols. 1114— 1120. Alexandre, M., "Le 'De mortuis' de Grégoire de Nysse", StPatr, X (TU, 107; Berlin 1970), pp. 35-43. Alfonsi, L., "Sul 'Simposio' di Metodio d'Olimpo", Conv 15 (1943), pp. 184-89. , "La struttura della I 'Apologia' di Giustino", in R. Cantalamessa and L. F. Pizzolato (eds.), Paradoxes politeia: Studi patristici in onore di Giuseppe Lazzali (Vita e pensiero; Milan 1979), pp. 57-76. Altenburger, M., and F. Mann, Bibliographie zu Gregor von Nyssa: Editionen — Übersetzungen—Literatur (Leiden 1988). Ameringer, T. E., The Stylistic Influence of the Second Sophistic on the Panegyrical Sermons of St John Chrysostom (PatSt, 5; Washington, DC 1921). Amigues, S., "L'optatif dans la correspondance des Pères cappadociens", RPh 53 (1979), pp. 286-305. Anderson, G., The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire (London/ New York 1993). 117

Cf. also Fabricius 1967:194. Fabricius estimates that only 0.5% of John Chrysostom's vocabulary was incomprehensible to his audience (1962:117). 118 On what follows cf. Spira 1985 and 1989: esp. 140-41. 119 Cf. above n. 8.

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