The needs of democracy in Greece prompted the composition of the first classical handbooks of public speaking. Democratic government existed in a number of Greek cities but most fully in Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. A series of political changes took place over a period of more than two hundred years from monarchical to aristocratic and finally to democratic government. Athenian democracy assumed the active participation of adult male citizens in the deliberative assembly and the lawcourts. Any male citizen could speak in the assembly, which resembled a very large town meeting, but there was no requirement that anyone speak there. In the lawcourts, however, men involved in litigation or accused of a crime were normally expected to speak on their own behalf. Women were represented in court by a male relative. If for any reason, such as illness, a man could not speak on his own behalf, a relative or friend could speak for him. It became possible to buy a speech from a logographer, or speechwriter, which the party involved would try to memorize, but there were no lawyers or others with a special knowledge of law and procedure. Furthermore, there was no public prosecutor; criminal prosecutions had to be conducted by the injured party or a relative or some interested person.
The minimum size of an Athenian jury was 201 members, in important cases, 501, and even more in some cases. The procedure in court consisted primarily of a speech by the plaintiff and a reply by the defendant, each in the form of a continuous address to the jury. Sometimes there were two speeches by each. Evidence of witnesses was taken down in writing before the trial and read out in court. The whole procedure assumed that an ordinary citizen was competent to prosecute or defend a case, but a person with no previous experience in public speaking might find it difficult to address a large jury, explain the case clearly, and persuade the jury of the justice of the speaker’s side of the issue. As noted in Chapter 1, Greek society tolerated and even encouraged contention and rivalry to an extent not commonly found outside the West, and Athenians were particularly prone to engage in litigation. At times, the lawcourts became a kind of public entertainment in Athens.
According to reports derived from a lost work by Aristotle, the first attempt to provide an unskilled speaker with some guidelines about how to prepare and deliver a speech in court seems to have occurred in Syracuse in Sicily, where democracy on the Athenian pattern was introduced suddenly in 467 B.C.1 Citizens found themselves involved in disputes over the ownership of property or other matters and forced to take up their own cases before the courts. A clever Syracusan, for a fee, taught simple techniques for effective presentation and argumentation. Later Greek writers refer to two Sicilian “inventors of rhetoric” named Corax and Tisias, but they are probably the same person.2 Corax means “crow” and is an unusual personal name for a Greek. It is probably a nickname, and the inventor of a system of rhetoric should be known as “Tisias the Crow,” since the rhetorical teaching attributed to Tisias by Plato seems identical to that attributed to Corax by Aristotle.
The art of Tisias was originally taught orally for a fee but then written down by him or one of his students, and copies were made and sold. Copies reached Athens, where their utility was recognized, and various people there also began to write Technai logôn, “Arts of Speech.” By the end of the fifth century a handbook or technical literature existed to which anyone could turn to secure basic principles and topics of public speaking. The best picture of the contents of these early “Arts” is to be found in Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, written in the second quarter of the fourth century, when they still existed and were still studied. In discussing the nature of rhetoric Phaedrus reminds Socrates that there are books on the subject, and Socrates surveys their contents (Phaedrus 266–267d). He says that they indicate that a speaker should begin with a prooemion, or introduction, and should then continue with a diêgêsis, or narration, followed by witnesses, evidence, and probabilities. Theodorus of Byzantium was one of the writers of handbooks, and Socrates says his divisions included a pistis and epipistis, or proof and supplementary proof, followed by a refutation (elenchos) and supplementary refutation (epexelenchos). Socrates ironically claims that Tisias and Gorgias showed how much more important probabilities were than facts and could make small things great, great things small, new things old, old things new, and discuss anything for any length. Such amplification suggests matters of style, and Socrates goes on to note categories of diction identified by Polus, Licymnius, and Protagoras. Included are “proper” words, figurative words, poetic words, and devices for securing pathos that were illustrated by Thrasymachus. Finally, we are told that a speech is supposed to have an epilogos, or conclusion, in which there is a recapitulation of the argument.
From Plato’s account we should not conclude that the early handbooks were theoretical discussions of the nature and uses of rhetoric.3 They only suggested an outline of a speech into four or more parts that could give a clear organization to the subject, and they probably consisted largely of examples of what one might say in each of the parts: how to win the audience’s good will and interest in the proemium; how to give a clear and brief statement of a case in the narration; how to construct or refute an argument in the proof; or how to recapitulate the argument in the epilogue. It is clear that the handbooks were intended to be used as preparation for speaking in courts of law, though some of the procedures could be applied to deliberative speeches in the assembly. They probably did not treat word choice or aspects of style. For that, one went to the works by Polus, Licymnius, or Protagoras, as noted by Plato, and these were probably simple lists of different kinds of words that might be useful in some context.
The most important part of a speech is usually the argument, and the technique taught by the early handbooks focused on what is called eikos in Greek, argument from “probability.” A few pages later in the Phaedrus (273a–c) Socrates says that by eikos Tisias meant that which “seems” true to the multitude, and he quotes the following example:
If a weak and brave man, having beaten up a strong and cowardly man, is brought into court, neither must tell the truth. The coward must claim that he was not beaten by a single brave man: that is, he must claim to have been attacked by two or more; whereas the other must refute this, insisting that the two of them were alone, in order to use the argument “How could a little one like me have attacked a big one like him?” (273b4–c1).
There is thus the possibility of using probabilities on either side of the case. Far from discrediting the technique as immoral, this adaptability seems to have recommended it to the Greeks of the fifth century, who delighted in subtleties of argument and in the demonstration that one probability was more probable than another probability. Conversely, they distrusted direct evidence, such as that of documents and eyewitnesses, because of their experience that these could be faked or bribed. Now, of course, most oratory deals with matters of probability, not certainty, and most evidence is in the realm of the probable, not the scientifically demonstrable; but later orators usually prefer to construct a complex fabric of argumentation in which probable conclusions are drawn on the basis of more or less hard evidence, including witnesses, using the personality of those involved and their motivations as important factors. Fifth-century orators as known from extant texts, and the speeches in fifth-century dramatic and historical writing make less use of either direct evidence or the specific character or personality of those involved and prefer to rest their case on the probability of basic human action: What would anybody have believed or done under the circumstances?
Handbooks of public speaking first appeared in fifth-century Greece and have continued to be written and published ever since. At first, such a work was called a technê logôn, an “art of words,” later a technê rhêtorikê. Ars rhetorica became the usual title in Latin for such a work. Rhetoric as described in such handbooks is generally easy to distinguish from rhetoric as understood in other forms of the classical tradition: They set out precepts for public speaking, often accompanied by examples, with primary focus on judicial rhetoric, though in the Middle Ages and Renaissance focus shifts to letter writing, verse composition, and preaching. Writers of handbooks usually have not regarded it as part of their task to tell a prospective speaker what cases to undertake or what should be the limits of legitimate appeal to an audience. They imply success if the rules are followed and usually do not insist on truthfulness. It is often easy to recognize their characteristically prescriptive language: “You should. . . .” The qualifications “usually” and “often” are needed in the previous sentences since some important writings on rhetoric, Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, for example, contain extensive material from the handbook tradition, but combine it with a wider view of the subject. Even Aristotle, as we shall see in Chapter 4, occasionally uses prescriptive language (e.g., in Rhetoric 1.9), and in the second half of the third book he expounds a revised version of handbook rhetoric in discussion of the parts of an oration. Aristotle was writing lectures on rhetoric for students in his philosophical school and laying out the subject systematically as a discipline. His inquiring mind, however, tended to draw everything he found into the picture, and this included the rhetoric of the handbooks, which he had summarized in a lost study, Synagôgê Technôn (“Collection of the Arts”) and which he both criticizes and uses in his extant treatise.
The only surviving Greek handbook of rhetoric from the classical period (other than portions of Aristotle’s work just mentioned) is what is known as the Rhetoric for Alexander.4 It shows a development from discussion only of judicial rhetoric to include precepts for deliberative and epideictic oratory as well. Probably originally the work of Anaximenes of Lampsacus (ca. 380–320 B.C.) and written a little earlier than Aristotle’s Rhetoric, it has an introductory letter purporting to be by Aristotle, who is sending the treatise to Alexander the Great. Aristotle was indeed Alexander’s teacher, but this letter is a later forgery, perhaps intended to give greater authority to the work, and Anaximenes’ original treatise seems to have been altered in some other ways as well to make it seem more Aristotelian. Although the author identifies three kinds of rhetoric—deliberative, epideictic, and judicial—as does Aristotle, he treats oratory as falling into seven species: exhortation and dissuasion; encomium and vituperation; prosecution and defense; and examination, which includes the questioning of an opponent. These are discussed in chapters 2 through 5. The author then treats at length (chs. 6–28) matters common to all species, which include common topics, amplification, proofs, anticipation of the opponent, irony, choice and arrangement of words, and a few devices of style. What he has to say about proof includes argument from probability. Finally, the parts of the oration are taken up in terms of the seven species of oratory (chs. 29–37), with a miscellaneous discussion at the end.
The structure of Rhetoric for Alexander is not entirely satisfactory, and the question of how to integrate discussion of the parts of rhetoric with the kinds of oratory and the parts of the oration remained a problem for handbook writers throughout antiquity.5 Fourth-century theorists—Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, and Anaximenes—clearly thought of rhetoric as concerned with the three subjects of invention, arrangement, and style, and Aristotle (3.1) proposed that delivery might be added as a fourth part of the subject. The problem of how to treat invention was compounded by the development of stasis theory by Hermagoras in the second century B.C. Various solutions were found, but the parts of the oration, which we saw in the Phaedrus providing the fundamental structure of the earliest handbooks, remained important elements. In the fullest ancient treatise on rhetoric, Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, most material relating to the content and argument of a speech is inserted into a discussion of eight parts of a judicial oration that runs from Books 4 through 6, treating in order exordium, narration, digression, proposition, partition, proof, refutation, and conclusion (in Latin peroratio). This is then followed in books 8–10 by discussion of style and in book 11 by discussion of memory and delivery. As in most Latin handbooks, judicial rhetoric is given by far the greatest attention, with brief mention of deliberative and epideictic species.
Rhetorical handbooks came into existence to meet the needs of Greek city-states in which citizens were deemed equal and expected to be able to speak on their own behalf. In origin they are to be associated with freedom of speech and with amateurism, first in the lawcourts, but also in democratic political assemblies. Freedom of speech on political issues received major setbacks with the defeat of the Greek states by Macedon in 338 B.C. and with the establishment of the Roman Empire by Augustus after the battle of Actium in 31 B.C., though considerable freedom of speech existed in courts of law throughout the Roman period. Amateurism survived in local courts in Greece even in the Roman period; in Rome, however, professional advocates, or “patrons,” usually represented “clients” in court, and public speaking in Rome, in the lawcourts, the senate, and assemblies, was practiced chiefly by a relatively small number of professional orators who were highly conscious of techniques and of their own roles.6 Rhetorical handbooks like Rhetoric for Herennius were studied by young men aspiring to a public career, or, as in the case of Cicero’s On Invention, are a compilation of their own studies written for themselves. These works will be discussed in detail in Chapter 5.
Handbooks and technical treatises were written on a variety of other subjects in antiquity. The earliest are medical works, originating in the school of Hippocrates in the fifth century; some, for example On Airs, Waters, and Places, are theoretical, but others, for example On Wounds to the Head, are practical handbooks for physicians and surgeons. Fourth-century technical handbooks include Xenophon’s works On Horsemanship and On the Duties of a Cavalry Commander. Greek works on geometry and grammar appeared in the third and second centuries B.C.; the most famous, Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, dates from around 300. The earliest grammar book to have survived is that by Dionysius Thrax, written in the middle of the second century and used in Greek schools for over fifteen hundred years. There were also technical works on agriculture, astronomy, architecture, military tactics, music, the interpretation of dreams, and other subjects. For the history of rhetoric, however, the most important handbooks other than those directly concerned with public speaking were the progymnasmata, which describe the system of teaching prose composition that developed in the Hellenistic period and continued in use until early modern times.
The Greek word progymnasmata means “preliminary exercises,” preliminary, that is, to declamation as practiced in schools of rhetoric. The word occurs once in Rhetoric for Alexander (28.1436a25), suggesting that some exercises in written composition were already in use in the fourth century, and two of the common exercises are mentioned in Rhetoric for Herennius, written in the early first century B.C. (narrative in 1.12 and maxim in 4.56–57). Four Greek handbooks on composition survive, and there is a Latin discussion of the subject in Quintilian’s rhetorical treatise (2.4). Practice in composition began in grammar schools with the simplest narrative exercises, followed by gradually more difficult assignments involving proving or disproving something, and were sometimes continued in the early years of the study of rhetoric.7
The earliest surviving treatment of progymnasmata is the work of Aelius Theon, a teacher in Alexandria in the middle of the first century after Christ.8 In Theon’s method of teaching a passage was read aloud and students were first required to listen and try to write it out from memory; after gaining skill in doing this they were given a short passage and asked to paraphrase it and to develop and amplify it, or seek to refute it. Theon describes and gives examples of the treatment of ten exercises: chria (or anecdote), fable (such as those attributed to Aesop), narrative, commonplace (dealing with virtues or vices), ecphrasis (or description of something), prosopopoeia (or speech in character), encomium, syncrisis (or comparison), thesis (first refutation of a proposition, then arguing a proposition), and an argument supporting or opposing a law.
A short account of exercises in composition is attributed, probably wrongly, to the second-century rhetorician Hermogenes of Tarsus and was the basis of a Latin account, entitled praeexercitamina, by the grammarian Prisician, written about 500 A.D.9 The most influential of the compositional handbooks was the work of Aphthonius, who was writing in the late fourth century.10 His treatise was used throughout the Byzantine period and was popular in the Renaissance, when it was translated into Latin by Rudolph Agricola. There is also a treatment of the subject by Nicolaus, dating from the fifth century after Christ.
By at least the first century B.C., virtually all Greek and Roman students were practiced in progymnasmatic exercises in grammar or rhetorical schools. They learned a highly structured, approved way of narrating, amplifying, describing, praising, criticizing, comparing, proving, and refuting something. These skills could then be combined in different ways to compose a speech. The subjects for treatment were assigned by the teacher; free composition was not a feature of Greek and Roman education. Progymnasmata are important for the study of Greek and Latin literature of the Hellenistic and Roman periods in that the exercises often supplied writers with structural units in their works and with techniques of amplification. Among the best examples are the Heroides by the Latin poet Ovid, which are versified prosopopoeia. Practice of encomium was particularly important, since epideictic oratory became an important rhetorical genre in the imperial period and was not treated in detail in most rhetorical handbooks.
Scholarly research and the writing of technical handbooks originated in Greece. Cato the Elder, Varro, Celsus, and other Romans compiled short Latin encyclopedias that summarized information on several subjects, including rhetoric. These were the ancestors of encyclopedias of the liberal arts by Martianus Capella, Cassiodorus, and Isidore of Seville, major sources for some knowledge of rhetorical theory in the western Middle Ages. Teachers and students could amplify these accounts by study of Cicero’s handbook On Invention and the Rhetoric for Herennius (which was regarded as also by Cicero). In the Greek-speaking East, technical discussions of rhetoric by Hermogenes and of progymnasmata by Aphthonius performed a similar function. Both in the East and the West, the pedestrian handbooks, with their simplified and easily memorized rules, were often preferred as school texts over the more profound accounts of the subject, such as Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Cicero’s On the Orator. New handbooks, often adapted for very elementary students and treating either rhetoric as a whole or only the ornaments of style, appeared in the Renaissance but continued strongly indebted to classical sources. Lectures on rhetoric in medieval and Renaissance universities usually took the form of commentaries on Cicero’s On Invention or Rhetoric for Herennius, but eventually professors began to restate classical theory in their own words, to take a more philosophical approach to the subject, and to refer students to the classics for additional study.
In the nineteenth century, as part of the romantic movement in literature and the arts, there was a reaction against the highly structured nature of handbook rhetoric with its rules for argument, arrangement, and style. Rhetoric as a discipline lost its central role in education. The twentieth century has seen a recovery of rhetoric, both that of the classical tradition and a variety of “new” rhetorics. Aristotle’s Rhetoric, with its philosophical approach to the subject, has regained great authority. Classical handbooks, which long dominated rhetorical teaching, have been replaced by introductory texts in public speaking and written composition. These texts often adapt concepts, terminology, organization, and precepts from classical sources, consciously or unconsciously, but they have abandoned the focus on judicial rhetoric that characterized earlier handbooks. Judicial rhetoric became the exclusive province of lawyers.