The classical phase of Greek history is usually said to have come to an end with the defeat of the Greek states by Macedon at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C., followed by the short reign of Alexander the Great, who died in 323. Aristotle and Demosthenes, the greatest orator of the Athenian democracy, both died in 322. The next three centuries are known as the Hellenistic Age; although Athens and other Greek cities retained some local autonomy, power in the eastern Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and North Africa was effectively held by Alexander’s Greek generals and their successors, ruling as kings of Macedon, Pergamum, Syria, and Egypt. In the course of the second and first centuries B.C. Rome, already a power in the western Mediterranean, became involved in eastern affairs, defeated the eastern rulers and Greek cities, and by 30 B.C. had incorporated the whole area as provinces in the Roman Empire.
The Hellenistic Age is the time when the Greek language and Greek culture spread throughout the East. Greek schools of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy appeared in Asia and North Africa, and Greek rhetoric came in contact with Judaism and later with Christianity. It was also in this period that Greek rhetorical theory as expounded in schools and in handbooks developed the structures and contents that permanently characterized it. This includes the canonization of rhetoric into the five parts of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery; the development of stasis theory; and the identification of tropes and figures, the latter divided into figures of thought and figures of speech. In the second century Romans began to study rhetoric and write about it in Latin, drawing heavily on Greek sources. Unfortunately, no treatises or handbooks of rhetoric survive from the third and second centuries; what we know about developments come from occasional quotations and references in later writers.
Probably the most important contribution to technical rhetoric in this period was the handbook by the Greek rhetorician Hermagoras of Temnos. Little is known about the author, and his work is lost except for what can be reconstructed on the basis of references in Cicero’s On Invention, the Rhetoric for Herennius, and later discussions of rhetorical invention. Hermagoras defined the task of the orator as “to treat the proposed political question as persuasively as possible” (see Sextus Empiricus 2.62). He treated invention in the greatest detail; arrangement and style were more briefly discussed under the rubric “economy”;1 there was probably also a brief account of memory and delivery.2 Hermagoras is the earliest known source for treatment of the five parts of rhetoric. He divided political questions into two types: theses, which are general (for example, “Is it right to kill a tyrant?”), and hypotheses, or specific cases (for example, “Did Harmodius and Aristogeiton justly kill the tyrant Hipparchus?”). In his analysis of hypotheses Hermagoras expounded in great detail the important theory of stasis, or how to determine the question at issue in a case, a subject that Aristotle (Rhetoric 3.17.1) and other earlier writers had only touched on briefly.
The stasis (in Latin, status or constitutio) is the basic proposition that a speaker seeks to demonstrate. For example, a man accused of murder may deny that he killed the victim. This is conjectural stasis, or stasis of fact. Or he may admit the action but claim that it was legal (perhaps it was done in self-defense), which is stasis of definition. Or he may seek to justify the action in another way, arguing, for example, that he intended no harm and the death was accidental (stasis of quality). The theory is much more complex than these examples suggest; some details will be considered below in the discussion of Cicero’s On Invention, which is the earliest surviving work in which Hermagoras’s theory appears. Hermagoras emphasized the focus of technical rhetoric on judicial oratory, though stasis can be applied to other species of public address, and he provided teachers of rhetoric with a carefully organized body of material to present to their students. Later rhetoricians, of whom Hermogenes in the second century after Christ is the most important, invented new ways of organizing the determination of the question at issue. Stasis theory remained the heart of rhetorical invention until the end of the Renaissance and continues to have some applications today.
Rome began as a small city-state, ruled by kings. According to tradition, the last king was overthrown in 753 B.C. and a “republic” with elected officials, an advisory senate, and legislative assemblies took its place. The Roman Republic was, however, not a democracy in either the Greek or the modern meaning of that term: for most of its history it was an oligarchy in which members of noble and wealthy families controlled the government. From time to time popular uprisings occurred that gradually increased the rights of the lower classes. Beginning in the late second century popular leaders emerged, factionalism and civil wars erupted, and with the dictatorship of Julius Caesar in the middle of the first century constitutional government collapsed, replaced after 30 B.C. by the rule of a single individual, the emperor Augustus and his successors.
Public address and debate in the senate, the legislative assemblies, and the lawcourts was a major feature of the Roman Republic. As in other traditional societies, skills at speaking were long learned by listening to and imitating effective elder speakers. In the second century B.C., however, some wealthy young Romans began to visit Greece to study rhetoric and philosophy, and by the middle of the century some Greek teachers of rhetoric had come to Rome, but the general attitude of the Roman establishment toward study of rhetoric was negative. Skill in speaking constituted a possible threat to the dominant senatorial oligarchy. In 161 B.C. the senate authorized the expulsion from Rome of philosophers and rhetoricians, and as late as 92 B.C. the censors issued an edict against teaching rhetoric in Latin.3 None of these efforts seems to have been very successful, and by the middle of the first century rhetorical schools, and practice in declamation, were central features of Roman education.
Cicero (106–43 B.C.) was the greatest Roman orator and the most important Latin writer on rhetoric. Fifty-eight of his speeches and well over nine hundred letters giving intimate details of his career survive, as well as a series of works designed to introduce contemporary Greek philosophy to the rather unphilosophical Romans and seven works on rhetoric. On Invention was written about 89 B.C., when Cicero was very young, and though it makes some claims to originality it largely expounds the system of technical rhetoric he had studied in his teens.4 He perhaps wrote it primarily for himself as a way of reviewing the theories he had studied. Of all Cicero’s writings on rhetoric, however, it was the most read for a thousand years from late antiquity to the Renaissance. Numerous commentaries were written on it, and it was the major authority for all later knowledge of rhetorical invention, as will be discussed in Chapter 9. Its popularity derived from the fact that unlike other rhetorical works of Cicero, except for the prefaces it is a school book that sets out the terminology and precepts of rhetoric in a way that could be memorized and applied. Cicero had planned to complete similar surveys of other parts of rhetoric but failed to do so at the time and came to regard his early work as unsatisfactory in comparison to the experience he later gained in speaking or the grander view of the orator that he later espoused.
The first book of On Invention begins with the philosophical introduction, a portion of which is quoted in Chapter 4. “Wisdom without eloquence,” he says, “does too little to benefit states, but eloquence without wisdom does too much harm and is never advantageous.” He then gives a speculative history of the development of human society, probably drawn from Stoic philosophy. There must once have been a great leader with persuasive power who brought mankind out of primitive conditions, but such great men are not interested in the day-to-day details of administration, and a lesser class of those skilled at speech took over petty disputes. In the course of time they became accustomed to stand on the side of falsehood. In the resulting strife, the nobler souls withdrew into philosophical speculation. No specific names are mentioned, but presumably Cicero thought this process described the history of Greek thought from the time of wise men like Solon to the sophists, followed by the criticism of rhetoric by Socrates and his successors. Roman statesmen like Cato, Laelius, and Scipio Africanus, in Cicero’s view, have better combined wisdom and eloquence. The introduction ends with a eulogy of eloquence reminiscent of those by Gorgias and Isocrates and thus draws on the sophistic tradition:
From it the greatest advantages come to the state, if wisdom is present as moderator of all things; from it, to those who have attained it, flow glory, honor, and prestige; from it also is secured the most certain and safe defense of one’s friends. To me, it seems that although men are lower and weaker than the animals in many ways, they most excel them in that they are able to speak. Thus the man seems to me to have gained something wonderful who excels other men in that very way in which mankind excels animals. Since it is acquired not only by nature and by practice, but by some art, it is not irrelevant for us to see what they have to say who have left us precepts on the subject. (1.5)
The technical treatment then begins with the statement that rhetoric is civilis ratio, a part of politics. Its function is to speak in a manner suited to persuading an audience. At this time Cicero had no direct knowledge of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, and many of Aristotle’s subtle distinctions are lost; he does, however, attribute to Aristotle, “who did much to improve and adorn this art,” the view that the function of the orator is concerned with three kinds of subjects: epideictic, deliberative, and judicial (1.7). Its parts, “most authorities” agree (1.9), are invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Inventio is the reasoning out of truth, or that which is like the truth, to make a case probable. Arrangement (dispositio) is the orderly distribution of what has been found. Style (elocutio) is the fitting of suitable words to what has been found. Memoria is a firm grasp in the mind of subjects and words. Delivery (pronuntiatio) is the control of voice and body suitable to the subject and the words. The parts of rhetoric as Cicero and others describe them are clearly pedagogical devices to suggest to a student the stages in the preparation of a speech.
The rest of the work is devoted to invention. Cicero begins with stasis theory as developed by Hermagoras and uses the Latin word constitutio to describe it. Constitutio, he says, is the first conflict of the two sides of a case, resulting from rejection of an accusation—for example, “You did it,” and the response, “I did not do it.” There are four kinds of constitutio in Cicero’s system: conjecturalis, when the fact is at issue, definitiva, when the definition of the action is debated (for example, murder or homicide); generalis, when there is a question of the nature, quality, or classification of an action, and translatio, when the jurisdiction of the tribunal is questioned. These constitutiones are taken up in Book 1 and again in Book 2 in this order. Cases are simple, involving only one question, or complex, involving several questions (1.17). Controversies involve either reasoning (in ratione) or written documents (in scripto) (1.17).
The system as outlined is intended to help the student find what to say. After considering the nature of the case, the student should turn to the basic question at issue, an explanation of the question, determination of what the judge is to decide, and what argument can be advanced for that decision. To do the latter the student must investigate topics, called loci in Latin. Cicero leaves the details aside for the moment and goes on to the next step, which is to arrange the parts of a speech in order. There are six parts in his system: exordium, narration, partition, confirmation, refutation, and conclusion (1.19). The rest of Book 1 takes up these parts in this order, describing the qualities that each should have and some of the topics that can be used. Throughout the work it is interesting to see how the rhetoricians of the Hellenistic period had adopted, modified, omitted, or expanded rhetorical doctrines developed in classical Greece. Arrangement of the discussion by the parts of the oration, as was the case in the early handbooks, has been preserved. Although discussion of topics derives indirectly from Aristotle, and his distinction of three species of rhetoric was accepted, his theory of three modes of persuasion—ethos, pathos, logos—was apparently unknown to Cicero, and thus unknown to his teachers, at this time.
The exordium (1.20–26) prepares the audience to receive the speech and should make each listener benevolus, attentus, docilis; that is, well-disposed to the speaker, attentive, and receptive. There are five kinds of cases: the honorable, the remarkable, the humble, the doubtful, or the obscure, and the exordium must be adapted to each type. In some kinds of cases where there is no special problem the exordium can be a simple introduction, but otherwise there will be need of insinuatio, which by dissimulation or in a roundabout way will steal into the mind of each listener. In considering Cicero’s suggestions about how to make a judge well-disposed, attentive, or receptive we begin to see how a system of commonplaces, differing from Aristotle’s dialectical topics, had been created by the rhetoricians. There are, Cicero says, four loci, “places,” to look for goodwill: in the character of the speaker, such as a modest description of actions and services of the past, or of the speaker’s misfortunes; in the character of the opponents, if they are hated, wicked, or unpopular; in the character of the judges, by paying tribute to their courage, wisdom, or mercy; or in the case itself: can it be praised, or can the opponents’ case be belittled. Similarly, Cicero lists topics that will encourage attentiveness and receptivity, along with topics for use in insinuatio.
The narration (1.27–30) should set forth the case and the reason for the dispute, but may also include a digression extra causam, beyond the narrow limits, to attack someone on the other side or make a comparison or amuse the audience. A narration should have three qualities (what in other writers are sometimes called the “virtues” of the narration): it should be brief, clear, and probable (1.28). For example, it will be clear if events are described in the order in which they occur and if clear words are used. As noted in Chapter 3, these requirements may have originated with Isocrates.
The partition (1.31–33) is of two sorts: the speaker can state the matters on which there is agreement with the opponent and what remains in dispute, or can list the points to be proved. In the latter event it is important to be brief, complete, and concise. Cicero notes that there are additional rules for partition in philosophy that are not relevant here.
The confirmation (1.34–77) is the part of the speech where, by argument, we make “our case” secure credence, authority, and strength. Material for argument here is either of a general sort or is useful only in a particular kind of oratory and is derived from topics concerned with persons or concerned with actions. The attributes of a person are name, nature, manner of life, fortune, disposition, feeling, interests, purposes, deeds, accidents, and speeches. The topics of each are defined and discussed in turn. The last three, for example, involve a person’s behavior, experiences, or words in the past, in the present, or in the future. Attributes of action are of four sorts: connected directly with the action, connected with the performance of the action, adjunct to the action, or consequent upon the action. Each has its topics. For example, to find arguments relating to the performance of the action the student should consider place, time, occasion, manner, and facility.
All arguments drawn from these topics, Cicero says (1.44), will be either probable or necessary, that is, irrefutable. Necessary argument usually takes the form of a dilemma, enumeration, or simple inference. Probabilities as used in argumentation are either signs, credibilities, official judgments, or comparisons. The form of argument is either inductio, induction, or ratiocinatio, deduction (1.51). Examples of each are given, and Cicero considers at length how many parts a ratiocinatio has. Although he is here discussing what in Greek were called enthymemes and syllogisms, he does not use those terms; it is his practice to find a suitable Latin word wherever possible. His own view (1.67) is that ratiocinatio in full form has five parts (what in Greek is called epicheirema): proposition, reason, assumption, reason for the assumption, and conclusion; at a minimum in Cicero’s theory (not in his practice, where two-part enthymemes are frequent), it must have at least three parts: major premise, minor premise, and conclusion. At the end of the discussion of proof Cicero again notes (1.77) that other intricacies of argument studied by philosophers are not suitable for an orator.
Refutation (1.78–79) is of four kinds: the premises are not admitted; the conclusion is shown not to follow; the form of the argument is attacked as invalid; or a stronger argument is set against what an opponent has stated. Examples of how to perform each kind of refutation are given. Arguments are defective if they are entirely false, too general, too commonplace, trifling, remote, badly defined, controversial, self-evident, controvertible, shameful, offensive, contradictory, inconsistent, or adverse to the speaker’s purpose. Each fault is explained.
Digression, according to Cicero (1.97), had been put by Hermagoras at this place in the speech, between the refutation and the conclusion. It might involve praise or blame of individuals, comparison with other cases, or something that emphasized or amplified the subject at hand. Thus it is not literally a digression. Cicero criticizes the requirement as a formal rule and says such treatment should be interwoven into the argument. Ironically, ethical digressions of the sort here described are very characteristic of his greatest speeches, for example, For Caelius and For Milo, and regularly and effectively occur at this very spot in the structure of the speech.
The conclusio (1.98–109), more often called peroratio by Roman writers, has three parts: summoning up, or enumeration; the inciting of indignation against the opponent; and the conquestio, or arousing of pity for the speaker. Topics are given for each. Here and elsewhere Cicero treats the speaker, whether prosecutor or defendant, as the principal in the case, not as an advocate for a client. This is because he is relying on Greek theory, which reflects practice in Greek courts. In Rome, in most major trials the speakers were patroni, or advocates, similar to barristers in the British legal system, who planned the prosecution or defense and conducted cases in court. In the following years Cicero himself often performed this function, which was a development of the Roman patron-client system of earlier times, where members of the upper social or economic class defended the interests of their dependents. Advocates were not supposed to be paid in Cicero’s time, but they often received political support, favors, and even presents from their clients.
In the introduction to the second book of On Invention (2.4) Cicero claims that he has utilized a variety of sources in the work. He may have read some of these, but probably knew about them mainly from a teacher whose identity we do not know. He then gives a brief survey of the history of rhetoric, including the development of an Aristotelian and an Isocratean tradition, which he says (2.8) have now been fused into a single body of knowledge by later teachers. The purpose of the second book is to describe “specific topics of confirmation and refutation for use in each kind of speech” (2.11).
Every inference, Cicero says (2.16), is derived from the cause, from the person involved, or from the act itself. The four kinds of constitutio and their topics for judicial oratory are then discussed. Stasis of quality, which he regards as most important and most complicated is put last (2.62–115). It is divided into two parts: legal topics (2.62–68) and juridical topics, or topics of equity, that have a complicated set of subdivisions (69–115). A juridical question involves either absolutes of right and wrong or assumptive arguments that involve partially extraneous circumstances. Assumptive arguments are used when the action is attacked or defended on the basis of the circumstances under which it was committed rather than as legal or right in itself. There are four subdivisions: an act may be defended by comparison to other possible actions; by putting the blame for the action on the accuser; by shifting blame to someone else; or by confession. Shifting responsibility may involve either the cause of the action or the action itself. Confession may take the form of purgation, in which the speaker claims to have acted in ignorance, by accident, or under constraint, and in any event denies the intent of harm; or it may take the form of deprecation, or pleas for pardon. Each of the categories has appropriate topics to use in both accusation and defense.
Controversies involving written documents are then discussed (2.116–54). The distinction between reasoning and written evidence had been made in 1.17 and is Cicero’s version of Aristotle’s distinction of artistic and nonartistic proof. Cicero discusses topics under the headings of ambiguity, conflict of letter and intent of the law, conflict of two or more laws, reasoning by analogy where no law specifically applies, and definition.
Up to this point the discussion has concerned only judicial oratory. Deliberative oratory is then given brief consideration (2.155–76). Cicero (2.156) notes that in judicial oratory the “end” or purpose is equity, which he says is a subdivision of the larger topic of honor. He is aware that Aristotle had regarded the advantage or utility of a policy as the objective in deliberative oratory, but he himself prefers to say it is honor and utility. In epideictic it is honor alone. What is honorable is found in the four cardinal virtues as defined by Hellenistic philosophers: wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance, each of which becomes a topic. The honorable when coupled with utility consists of such things as glory, rank, influence, and friendship (2.166). How these might be worked out in an actual speech can be seen in Cicero’s oration On the Manilian Law, of 69 B.C. On Invention then ends with a very brief discussion of praise and blame in epideictic oratory (2.177–78). There was no tradition of epideictic oratory in the Roman Republic, and the genre was thus of little interest to Cicero or his contemporaries.
Cicero’s survey of invention ends here. His emphasis is on the actual devices of a speech, primarily a speech in a lawcourt, generally in the order a student might use them in composition. The forms of argument and topics of dialectic are present but are arranged into a system for teaching legal oratory to students. That system, however, is based on the conditions of Greek, not Roman, law and procedure. The litigants are envisioned speaking in their own behalf, which generally would not have been the case in Rome; and even stasis theory, to which so much attention is given, was not entirely applicable to Roman procedures. In civil cases at Rome there was a preliminary hearing of an allegation before the praetor, who determined if the case was actionable and issued a statement of what issues were to be determined by a jury. Stasis theory did, however, have applicability to some criminal trials, and Cicero’s use of it can be seen in some of his cases, especially in For Milo. His practice, and that of other mature orators, of course, was far more inventive and flexible than anything suggested in On Invention, which is a dry handbook for a novice, and especially for one beginning to practice declamation in a rhetorical school. In declaiming imaginary cases in schools the students were expected to follow the rules for invention, including determination of the question at issue, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery as found in handbooks or expounded by their teachers.
Since Cicero did not write up his early studies of arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, we may turn, as did students of rhetoric in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to another early Latin handbook that does address those subjects. This is Rhetoric for Herennius, a treatise perhaps written by an otherwise unknown Cornificius and dedicated to an unidentified Herennius. Its discussion of invention has many similarities to Cicero’s On Invention, and it thus probably represents the teachings of the same teacher or school and suggests some of what Cicero might have had to say on other parts of rhetoric. It was composed a few years later than On Invention, perhaps around 84 B.C. Through the Middle Ages and until the late fifteenth century the treatise was regarded as a work by Cicero and often known as the Rhetorica Secunda. Although, like Cicero, the author has not adapted rhetorical theory to Roman legal process and provides no discussion of ethos, Roman values appear to a greater extent in his work than in On Invention. This is especially true of his extended discussion of dignitas, which is his term for ornamentation (4.19–68).5 An attraction of Rhetoric for Herennius for the student of the history of rhetoric, in addition to its full description of its subject, is the availability of an excellent edition, with Latin text, translation, and notes, by Harry Caplan in the Loeb Classical Library series.
Rhetoric for Herennius is in four books. The first two cover judicial invention but integrate the material in Cicero’s second book into a single account of proof. Book 3 takes up deliberative and judicial rhetoric and then turns to the remaining parts of the subject that had achieved canonical status by this time.
The discussion of dispositio, or arrangement, is very short (3.16–18). The author says there are two kinds, one arising from the rules of rhetoric, the other accommodated to the circumstances. The rules of rhetoric, of course, have provided for the exordium, narration, and the like, and the primary reason the discussion is so short is that these parts of the oration have already been discussed in detail. We are now told, however, that it is possible to vary this order if, in the speaker’s judgment, something else is more effective. One might, for example, want to start with consideration of a very strong argument made by the opponent, or with the narration. Both Greek and Roman orators indeed do this. In the course of the first century B.C. the need for all parts of an oration in the prescribed order became an important issue between the schools of Apollodorus of Pergamum, who taught that the prescribed order should always be followed, and Theodorus of Gadara, who was more flexible (The dispute is a good example of the pedantic quarrels that often erupted between rival teachers of rhetoric.)6 The discussion of arrangement in the Rhetoric for Herennius ends with a paragraph on the order of arguments within the proof and refutation. The strongest ones should go first and last, with weak arguments in the middle.
Instead of turning next to style, the author reserves that subject for treatment in a separate book and fills out Book 3 with his account of delivery and memory. This arrangement, which is imitated by George Trebizond in the most important new rhetoric of the fifteenth century, results primarily from the author’s desire to treat style at greater length and in particular to include numerous examples of his own composition. He was perhaps also influenced by the fact that style was the subject of monographic treatment by others; some readers might only be interested in that subject and would find it convenient if it was written in a separate papyrus scroll.
Having decided to treat style last, the author also reverses the order of memory and delivery. His discussion of delivery (3.19–27) is the earliest we have, except for Aristotle’s brief remarks at the beginning of Rhetoric, Book 3. Delivery is divided into vocis figura and corporis motus, a distinction that probably originated in Theophrastus’s now lost study of the subject. Voice quality consists of magnitudo, or volume, firmitudo, or stability, and mollitudo, or flexibility. Volume is largely dependent on natural endowment but can be improved by practice. Stability—ability to speak at length without becoming hoarse—is preserved by cultivation. Flexibility also requires exercise and involves three tones or styles: sermo, or conversation, contentio, or debate, and amplificatio, or amplification. Each of the tones is further divided and rules are given for achieving it. An analogy to styles of oratory, which is discussed in the next book, is apparent here and is further developed in Quintilian’s account of delivery. Physical movement or gesture is coordinated with the three tones, and advice is given on the use of the face, arms, hands, body, and feet. In moments of pathetic amplification it is even appropriate to slap the thigh and beat the head.
The discussion of memory (3.28–40) is the best account of the subject in any ancient treatise. Mnemonics has a history that apparently began in the fifth century B.C. Throughout the centuries the subject was explored in a series of separate treatises, as well as being given some treatment in rhetorical handbooks.7 Most of the account here is given over to the “artificial” system of backgrounds and images that a student can use to memorize any kind of discourse. A background is a physical setting, familiar to the student, and can be thought of as a tablet in the mind. Against this background the student imagines pictures that symbolize the ideas or the words of a speech in the order in which they should occur. When the student is speaking, this picture is then passed in review in the mind to suggest the thoughts or words. The system works, and still has some use today, but is cumbersome in memorizing a long text, and is probably most useful in exercising the memory to a point where it can gain unaided an ability to remember a composition, or as a way of remembering some particularly difficult passage verbatim. Ancient orators sometimes used notes, but the reading of a speech from a written text was considered ineffective in political or legal contexts and usually avoided. There are many ancient testimonies to the great potential of the human mind to remember material verbatim in a society that was far more oral than ours and put high value on such an ability.
Book 4 of Rhetoric for Herennius consists of an introduction defending the author’s decision to write his own illustrative examples of style (elocutio), followed by an account of kinds of style, virtues of style, and ornaments of style. Since there was probably more written on these subjects than on anything else relating to rhetoric in the following centuries, and since the Latin terms employed by the author often did not become the standard terminology, his account of style is less authoritative than his remarks on other parts of rhetoric, but it is a good picture of the subject as understood in the first century B.C. and has been probably the most read part of his work since late antiquity.
Three kinds of style are recognized (4.11–16): the gravis, or grand, mediocris, or middle, and adtenuata, or simple. This is the earliest extant statement of what became a permanent feature of traditional discussions of style. It perhaps originated in Theophrastus’s lost treatise on style and had been codified by Greek rhetoricians of the third and second centuries B.C. Each style is illustrated by a passage (on a Roman theme) composed by the author. Furthermore, the three kinds of style have their defective counterparts, which may be called the swollen, the slack, and the meagre, and each of these is illustrated. The reader is not told when to use each style or how to combine them.
The author then discusses qualities that good style should exhibit (4.17–18). These are what Aristotle and Theophrastus had called “virtues.” That term is not used—indeed the only general word applied to them is res, which means “things”—but the author does speak of vitia, or “vices” of style. The qualities he approves are a revision of Theophrastus’s system, better known to us from Cicero’s On the Orator and Orator and Quintilian’s Institutio. Style, he says, should have elegantia, compositio, and dignitas. Elegantia may be translated “taste.” It consists of two things, correct Latinity and clarity of expression. It may be remembered that Aristotle had identified clarity (with propriety) as the virtue of style and had discussed correctness a little later in his work. Correctness and clarity were the first two virtues in Theophrastus’s scheme. Compositio, however, does not directly correspond to any of Theophrastus’s virtues. It is a polished arrangement of words and is defined as avoiding a series of faults, such as excessive hiatus or alliteration. Dignitas, or distinction of style, is ornamentation and consists of the use of figures of speech, divided into those of words and those of thoughts, but neither the Greek word schêma nor the Latin word figura is used; the devices are called exornationes. What follows is the earliest surviving description of figures of speech. Forty-five verbal figures are given Latin names, defined, and illustrated, some being broken down into subdivisions. Sometimes comments are made about the effect of a figure: repetitio, the first figure mentioned, is said (4.19) to have charm, gravity, and vigor, but no effort is made to go beyond this to explain the psychology of the figure. The last ten verbal figures consist of those in which language departs from the usual meaning of a word (4.42). These are what the Greeks and later the Romans called “tropes,” or “turnings,” the most important of which is metaphor. Then nineteen figures of thought are similarly described.
The concepts of tropes and figures were unknown to Aristotle, though he did, of course, describe metaphor and other devices of style that came to be included among them. We do not have adequate sources to trace the early history of the listing and naming of tropes and figures. It was probably largely the work of Hellenistic grammarians and of Stoic philosophers interested in language. Once begun, however, the process became a major interest of Greek and Latin rhetoricians; rhetorical treatises discussed figures at length, and handbooks devoted exclusively to figures were published. Often, “style” was taken to mean the use of tropes and figures, a view that is found throughout the history of rhetoric.
Rhetoric for Herennius sets out the technical system of classical rhetoric in its five traditional parts, with its characteristic emphasis on judicial oratory, explication of stasis theory, and textbook approach. Many other handbooks followed. Most, like the early Greek handbooks, were ephemeral, soon replaced by the work of another teacher. Some of those written in the time of the Roman Empire did survive, however, and were studied by some medieval and Renaissance readers. Among these are the treatises of Apsines and Cassius Longinus in Greek and the works collectively known as the Rhetores Latini Minores, discussed later in this chapter. If the later history of classical rhetoric were represented only by these works, it would be a rather dry study. Fortunately, some works of greater intellectual merit have survived to give us a deeper understanding of the role of rhetorical theory and practice in classical culture. Here we shall briefly consider the most important.
Cicero pursued a successful career in politics and the lawcourts, culminating in his election as consul for 63 B.C. His political policy was conservative, aimed at defending the traditions of Rome and the constitution of the Roman Republic, but open to cooperation and compromise with the various socio-economic classes of the time, what Cicero calls a concordia ordinum. As consul he successfully put down the conspiracy of Catiline, but four years later Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marcus Crassus joined power in a “triumvirate” that overrode many constitutional guarantees. Cicero was forced into exile for a year; after his return he was able to plead in the lawcourts but debarred from much political activity. To occupy his mind, he resumed some of his early studies. In 55 B.C. he wrote one of his most admired works, the dialogue On the Orator, in which he sought to create a synthesis of the philosophical, sophistic, and technical traditions of rhetoric as he understood them, and to project a vision of the ideal orator as the leader and protector of a just and orderly society.8 In a letter dating from this period (To His Friends 1.9.23) he says he has written in the manner of Aristotle’s early dialogues and sought to embrace the oratorical theory of all the ancients, both the Aristotelians and Isocrateans. By this time, Aristotle’s Rhetoric had been published. Cicero had read it, and he adapts some Aristotelian concepts, including the three modes of persuasion, which are lacking in his earlier work. In addition, On the Orator has dramatic reminiscences of Plato in the setting of the dialogue and provides a response to some of Plato’s criticisms of rhetoric.
The dramatic date of the dialogue is 91 B.C. The leading characters are the major orators of that time, whom Cicero had known when he was young, and especially Lucius Licinius Crassus, who is the spokesman for Cicero’s own views. In Book 1 the question under discussion is the knowledge required of an orator. Crassus claims that an orator should be able to speak on any subject and thus should have studied philosophy, politics, history, and law. Scaevola thinks this ideal unattainable and stresses the need for a technical knowledge of law. Antonius limits the skills of an orator to an ability to use language and argument effectively in the lawcourts and in public meetings.
Antonius is the principal speaker in Book 2. Among other things, he gives an account of rhetorical invention, arrangement, and memory in nontechnical terms. Most important is his discussion of the sources of persuasion: “The whole theory of speaking is dependent on three sources of persuasion: that we prove (probemus) our case to be true; that we win over (conciliemus) those who are listening; that we call their minds (animos . . . vocemus) to what emotion the case demands” (2.115). This is Cicero’s version of Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion, though with a subtle difference: Aristotle’s conception of ethos was essentially “rational,” aimed at an impression of reliability; Cicero’s conciliare is directed more to creating sympathy on the part of the audience.9 Cicero also adjusts his conception of ethos to Roman procedure by making it apply both to the character of the speaker and to the character of the client (2.182). In a later work entitled The Orator (69) a version of the concept reappears and is given the name officia oratoris, “duties of the orator,” which include probare, delectare, and flectere; that is, to prove, to delight, and to stir. These duties are then identified with the three styles: plain for proof, middle for pleasure, and grand for emotion. The duties of the orator are also discussed by Quintilian (12.10.58–59) and became an important concept in Saint Augustine’s discussion of Christian eloquence in the fourth book of On Christian Learning.
Crassus is again the main speaker in Book 3, and he gives a long, nontechnical account of style, structured around the four Theophrastan virtues of correctness, clarity, ornamentation, and propriety. These subjects are taken up in greater detail in the later treatise The Orator, which is especially important for its account of prose composition and rhythm.
Cicero, like Greek sophists, was convinced from personal experience of the power and richness of oratory. It was, in his view, a true art form, not in the sense of a collection of rules but as a product of the creative imagination. He did much to clarify the study of rhetorical style, and in his speeches he is considered to be the greatest Latin prose stylist. He also had great personal interest in philosophical studies and was convinced that a statesman, to be effective, needed a deep understanding of logic, ethics, and philosophy. On the Orator is an eloquent statement of the ideal of the citizen-orator that dominated the culture of the Greco-Roman world in those periods when there was relatively orderly government and freedom of speech. The work influenced Roman views of rhetoric until late antiquity, but was known in the Middle Ages only in an incomplete version. The importance of the rediscovery of the complete text in the fifteenth century is seen in the fact that On the Orator was the first book printed in Italy (1465). Its subsequent influence was considerable, and it remains a major work in the history of rhetoric.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (ca. A.D. 39–96) was the author of the most extensive rhetorical treatise that survives from antiquity, the twelve books of Institutio Oratoria, or Education of the Orator. Quintilian was born in Spain but educated in Rome and practiced as an orator in the Roman lawcourts. About A.D. 71 the emperor Vespasian appointed him to an official chair of rhetoric paid for by the emperor, the first such appointment in history. Quintilian gave lectures to large groups of students and directed their exercises in declamation. On retirement from teaching, about A.D. 92, he spent two years on research and revision of his lectures, and he published his only surviving work—a few others have been lost—around A.D. 95.
Quintilian’s Institutio is primarily a treatise on technical rhetoric, a vast handbook setting forth the standard theory of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, in that order and in great detail, with his own sensible comments and revisions.10 He often begins a new section with a historical survey of the differences of opinion he finds in earlier authorities and then tries to reach a reasoned judgment about what is best. His discussion of the various views of stasis (3.6) is a good example of his method. Quintilian was a patient, moderate, reasonable man, dedicated to good teaching, clear thinking, natural expression, and loyalty to the empire. He defines rhetoric (2.15.34) as bene dicendi scientia, “the knowledge of speaking well.” Use of the term scientia does not imply that rhetoric is an exact science; use of bene, on the other hand, does imply both artistic excellence and moral goodness, for it is a major theme of Quintilian throughout his work that the perfect orator must, above all, be a good man (see especially the preface to Book 1 and 12.1).
Quintilian incorporates rhetoric into a total educational system. This is perhaps the greatest significance of his work. Rhetoric is to him, following Cicero, the centerpiece in the training of the leaders of society and the responsible citizen. In Book 1 he inquires into the earliest lessons in speech, beginning with the newborn child. He follows the child through the school of the grammarian and in Book 2 arrives at the school of the rhetorician. Training there is considered at length in terms of both theory and practical exercises in declamation, which Quintilian regards only as means to train speakers for public life. He often criticizes the artificiality and excesses of declamation in his own time (e.g., 2.10). Quintilian was a humane educator, with a sincere concern for his students; he believed that they should be treated as individuals, encouraged to do their best, and treated with respect. In the earlier books Quintilian is chiefly addressing parents and teachers; in the later books he increasingly addresses the student directly. The twelfth and final book considers the adult orator. What knowledge does he need of law and history? What cases should be accepted? How should he round out his career? When should he retire?
The system of rhetoric that Quintilian expounds from Book 3 through Book 11 contains many details we would not otherwise know, but in most instances they do not represent innovations of his own. At several points in his work he adjusts Greek theory (as seen, for example, in Cicero’s On Invention) to the actual conditions of Roman oratory. Changes in theory from the time of Rhetoric for Herennius are most evident in the account of style, though heavily indebted to Cicero. He adds a chapter on sententiae (8.5), the pointed or epigrammatic statements that had become very popular in the schools of rhetoric in the early empire, a long chapter on composition (9.4), drawn partly from Cicero’s later work, The Orator; and a chapter on copia, or how to secure “abundance” of ideas and words (10.1). Quintilian’s discussion of what the student should read to acquire copia leads him into literary criticism. By his time, lists of the most approved writers in each literary genre, including oratory, had been established by librarians and teachers, and he reviews these with memorable judgments, but the paramount question throughout this chapter is what literature can most help perfect an orator’s skills.
The goal of education to Quintilian is training of a great orator. This orator must be morally good, and ethics is never far from Quintilian’s mind; but the orator he envisions is more a part of the sophistic tradition as envisioned by Isocrates than the philosophical tradition from Plato and Aristotle. What Quintilian stresses (12.1) is the orator’s ability to lead, to influence, even to dominate a situation. This orator is expected to know something about philosophy and to be good at reasoning, but Quintilian has little sympathy with philosophy as understood in his time. He identifies professional philosophy with trivial disputation or, worse, with social and political opposition to the state as seen among Cynic philosophers (the hippies of antiquity).
Quintilian’s eloquent statement of the ideal orator was hardly affected at all by the fact that the Roman principate, or imperial government, had replaced the republic two generations before his birth, bringing with it autocratic government and censorship of publication, though preserving the structure of republican government in the senate and the law-courts. Quintilian was personally indebted to the emperors and served as the tutor to the heirs to Domitian (4.1), whom he flatters in a conventional way (10.1.92). His contemporary, the historian Tacitus, in his Dialogue on Orators, lamented the loss of opportunity for political oratory in this period. Quintilian, in contrast, saw great hopes for oratory, even for an orator greater than Cicero (12.11). That would be very great indeed, since Cicero is very close to Quintilian’s ideal. Quintilian sweeps away reactions against Cicero’s ideas and style in the early empire—for example, in writings of Seneca the Younger—and reasserts imitation of his works as the basis of great rhetoric. “Cicero,” he says in a striking sententia, “is the name not of a man, but of eloquence” (10.1.112).
Quintilian’s endorsement of the Ciceronian style proved a powerful witness in the Renaissance, when the humanists sought to recover classical standards of style. Similarly, his endorsement of the oratorical ideal helped to ensure the survival of training in public speaking as the major consideration in the schools in later antiquity and into the Middle Ages, when practical opportunities for public speaking were eroded. To be sure, his influence varies over the centuries and is a less constant factor than the influence of On Invention and Rhetoric for Herennius. Education of the Orator was too vast to be used as a handbook by students, but parts were always read by leading scholars and teachers. In late antiquity it was quarried by rhetoricians writing abstracts, of whom Julius Victor is probably the best example. After the Carolingian period the text of Quintilian’s work was known chiefly in a mutilated form, but even so, it exerted powerful influence on John of Salisbury, primarily as a work on education. In the fifteenth century, as we shall see, the full text was recovered, and thereafter its influence was great, at times exceeding that of Cicero. To Hugh Blair in the second half of the eighteenth century, the authoritative statement of classical rhetoric was still that by Quintilian.
A few years after the publication of Quintilian’s Institutio, the historian Cornelius Tacitus (ca. A.D. 56–115), one of the most admired orators of the time, published a short dialogue that provides a vivid picture of the conditions of the time and deserves consideration by students of the history of rhetoric. It may be, at least partly, a negative reaction to Quintilian’s optimism. The Dialogue on Orators purports to describe a meeting of important Roman orators in A.D. 75, during the reign of Vespasian.11 Curiatus Maternus, apparently the spokesman for Tacitus, has abandoned public life, weary with the corruption of the times, and is writing tragedies on historical themes that allow him to express criticism of the ruler in a way he could not do openly as an orator. He feels that there has been a general “decline of eloquence.” This is denied by Aper, an ambitious younger orator who has been able to exploit contemporary circumstances. A third speaker, Messala, replies to Aper, praising the eloquence of the past and criticizing that of the present as more the art of an actor than of an orator. Maternus urges Messala to explain the causes of decline, and the latter promptly attributes it to “the laziness of youth, the neglectfulness of parents, the ignorance of teachers, and forgetfulness of ancient discipline” (28.2). Somewhat similar complaints can be found in earlier works: for example, in the preface to the book on declamation by Seneca the Elder and in the opening chapter of Petronius’s Satyricon. Messala then goes on to contrast the education of older times and contemporary schools of declamation with their subjects remote from reality. Part of the text is lost here; when it resumes (36.1), Maternus is speaking. He puts the blame for the decline of eloquence on the lack of subjects for great oratory that existed in the time of the republic. Disorders and dissensions fan the flames of great oratory but are no longer necessary under the government of the empire. An additional factor is that the lawcourts are now more practical and just but allow less scope to an orator. There is in the Dialogue on Orators no direct attack on the principate and no explicit complaint of loss of freedom of speech, but it is possible to read between the lines to see that this is felt by Maternus, at least, and all the speakers except Aper clearly feel nostalgia for the time of the republic.
Roman women had somewhat great independence than had been true for women in Athens. They could not vote or hold office, but they participated freely in social life throughout Roman history, and some were well educated. The only extant writings by a Roman woman are forty lines of elegiac poetry by Sulpicia, written in the late first century B.C. and preserved with the works of Tibullus. They deal with her love for a young man and are admired for their warmth and lack of artificiality. Some upper-class Roman women exercised considerable influence on public affairs through husbands, brothers, and sons; the most famous examples are Cornelia, mother of the tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchi; Livia, the proud and domineering wife of the emperor Augustus and mother of the emperor Tiberius; and Agrippina, wife of the emperor Claudius and mother of Nero.12
Valerius Maximus (8.3) mentions three Roman women who delivered public speeches in the first century B.C.: Amasia Sentia, Gaia Afrania, and Hortensia, daughter of the famous orator Hortensius. Among Quintilian’s enlightened views was a recommendation that women should be educated as much as possible, but primarily so that they could contribute to the education of their sons (1.1.6–7). He praises the style of letters by Cornelia and says of Hortensia that the oration she delivered before Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus “is still read and not merely as a compliment to her sex.” The speech sought remission of the tax imposed on the 1,400 richest women in Rome in 43 B.C. A version of it, in Greek, is found in the Civil Wars by Appian, written in the second century after Christ. Since we know from Quintilian that the speech still could be read around A.D. 95 when he published his Education of the Orator, it is possible that Appian’s version is a translation of the Latin original, though perhaps abridged. If so, it is the only surviving example of public speaking by a woman from the classical period. According to Appian (4.32–34), Hortensia spoke as follows:
As befitted women of our rank addressing a petition to you, we first had recourse to your own wives. Experiencing a hostile reception from Fulvia [wife of Antony], we have been driven here to the forum. You have already put to death our fathers and sons and husbands and brothers, complaining that you were wronged by them. If you also take our property from us, you reduce us to a condition unworthy of our birth and manner of life and womanly nature. Now if we women have not voted that any of you should be regarded as a public enemy, and have not destroyed your house or army or led another against you or hindered you from obtaining office or honor, why do we share the penalties when we have no share in the guilt?
Why should we pay this tax when we have no share in public office or honor or military command or political power? Because you say there is a war? When have there not been wars? When have taxes ever been levied on women? Their sex has exempted them in all countries. Our mothers once rose superior to their sex and made contributions when you were in danger of losing the whole empire and Rome itself, at the time the Carthaginians were troubling you. Then they contributed voluntarily, and not from their landed property or fields or dowry or houses, without which life is not livable for free women, but only from their personal jewelry, and not with any fixed valuation nor in fear of informers or accusers nor by constraint or force, but what they were willing to give. What fear is there now among you for the empire or the country? Let war come with the Celts or Parthians and we shall not be inferior to our mothers in regard to the common safety. But we would never contribute to support civil wars nor aid you against each other. We paid no contribution to Caesar or Pompey, nor did Marius or Cinna force us to pay nor did Sulla when he tyrannized over the state. And you claim to be re-establishing the constitution!
Under autocratic governments there is no clear separation of legislative, judicial, and administrative powers as there is in republican or democratic government. The triumvirs were dictators, making and administering the laws, and they sat as a court to hear petitions. Roman emperors did the same, though they frequently referred matters to a council of advisers, and that continued to be the practice of medieval and Renaissance kings. Hortensia’s speech is judicial and appeals for justice. She begins with a procedural question, pointing out that the women she represents have sought to resolve the question through the agency of women, and she supports her call for justice by citing the traditional understanding of the position of women. She attests to women’s patriotism, anticipating a possible objection from the triumvirs, by a famous incident from the time of the Punic Wars, and she insists that whatever wrongs may have been done the triumvirs (she admits to none), women were guiltless and the alleged wrongs have been fully redressed by the proscriptions (death or exile) of men. The triumvirs were angry at the women and ordered them driven away, but there was a popular uprising on their behalf, and the next day the number of women to be taxed was reduced to four hundred and a general tax on male citizens, foreign residents, and priests was imposed instead.
The single most influential Greek rhetorician of Roman imperial times was Hermogenes of Tarsus, who began life as a sophistic prodigy in the mid-second century after Christ and to whom five handbooks of rhetoric are attributed. Largely unknown in the West until the Renaissance, they achieved an authoritative status among later Greeks, comparable to that of Cicero’s On Invention in western Europe, and introductions to and commentaries on them were written through the Byzantine period. The five works make up a comprehensive rhetorical corpus, but three of them are of doubtful authenticity and were probably written at a later period. The two indubitably genuine works and the most original are On Stases (or On Issues) and On Ideas (or On Types of Style).13
Hermogenes’ stasis theory resembles what is found in On Invention, but with many differences in detail. Instead of four coordinated categories (fact, definition, quality, and transference), he subordinates each kind to the one before it. An allegation is either uncertain or certain. If uncertain, the stasis is one of fact. If certain, the matter is either undefined, which requires stasis of definition, or defined. If defined, it is either qualified in some way by the circumstances, requiring stasis of quality, or it is not. If it is not, the speaker may hope to deny the court’s jurisdiction (transference). The student of declamation—the reader addressed by Hermogenes—is to proceed down the sequence, conceivably ending up with the conclusion that the case cannot be undertaken. We know that sophists of the empire engaged in acrimonious discussion about the proper stasis to use in fictitious cases.
The other part of rhetoric to which Hermogenes made an original contribution was the theory of style. There were two schools of thought about style in the Roman period. One tradition was that there were three kinds of style: the grand, the middle, and the plain, sometimes expanded to four kinds, as in On Style by Demetrius. In Greek these were usually called “characters” of style (meaning “stamps, forms,” not moral character). This is the tradition as found in Rhetoric for Herennius and in writings of Cicero and Quintilian; it remained authoritative in the West, as seen, for example, in Book 4 of Saint Augustine’s On Christian Learning. The other view of style, primarily found in Greek writers, is that there is an ideal form of style, made up of various qualities or virtues combined in different ways. This theory was developed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as seen in his work On Composition. A treatise of the second century after Christ, wrongly attributed to the great sophist Aristides, continued the attempt to define a variety of qualities of style. Hermogenes’ On Ideas is a complex response to this tradition. The “ideas” or “types” of style that he describes are clarity, grandeur, beauty, rapidity, character, sincerity, and force, but some of these are broken down into subdivisions for a grand total of twenty ideas. Examples are sought in classical Greek writers, especially in Demosthenes, who occupies in Hermogenes’ thinking the place of the ideal orator. The concept of an “idea” of style perhaps comes from Isocrates’ use of that word, but it was easily related to Platonic ideas. Hermogenes’ writings on stasis and on ideas appealed to the categorizing instincts of Neoplatonists, the major intellectual leaders of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries in the Greek-speaking world.
Hermogenes’ works were little known in the Latin-speaking part of the empire, and Latin writings, even those of Cicero, were little known in the Greek-speaking world. The two cultures gradually drew apart as the centuries passed, until by the early Middle Ages very, very few people in western Europe had any knowledge of Greek, and only a few in Byzantium had any knowledge of Latin. Finally, a Greek emigrant to Italy, George Trebizond, introduced Hermogenes’ ideas of style to western Europe in 1426, and they soon became widely known in literary circles. Hermogenes’ works again became school texts, and the “ideas” themselves exercised considerable influence on Renaissance literature.14
A large number of rhetorical works, including handbooks and commentaries, has survived in Greek from later antiquity. Many of the texts were collected by Christian Walz in the ten volumes of his Rhetores Graeci. Some works are available in English translation: among them are translations of the Hermogenic works cited above, handbooks by the Anonymous Seguerianus and Apsines in Dilts and Kennedy, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, and treatises on epideictic in Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor.
From later Roman times there are a number of Latin rhetorical handbooks that summarize all or part of the system of classical rhetoric. Their authors are known collectively as the Minor Latin Rhetoricians.15 Julius Victor, mentioned in the discussion of Quintilian above, is one. Another is Aquila Romanus, who wrote a treatise on forty-eight figures of speech, probably in the third century. At some later time Julius Rufianus added thirty-eight more figures. Sulpitius Victor borrowed his title from Quintilian but went back to now lost Greek sources to restructure theory under the three duties of understanding, invention, and disposition. Fortunatianus composed his Art of Rhetoric in the form of questions and answers. Its most unusual feature is the theory of ductus, or treatment of the orator’s intent, which George Trebizond took up in the fifteenth century. Cicero’s On Invention was given a running commentary by Victorinus, who shows the influence of Neoplatonist philosophy, and by Grillius; both commentaries had some use in the Middle Ages. The Minor Latin Rhetoricans were studied in the Middle Ages primarily because their works were briefer and easier to understand than the earlier sources, but also because they limited rhetoric to a more restricted field than had Cicero and Quintilian and thus to something closer to practical concerns of later times. Their contents suggest something of the function of rhetorical studies in the western empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. Although all these handbooks belong more or less in the Ciceronian tradition, there are also signs of a separate, more Greek influence. Their contents are largely confined to discussion of judicial rhetoric, with a strong emphasis on stasis theory. Attention to memory and delivery has almost vanished, and even interest in style has declined, except for figures of speech. These characteristics probably reflect, at least in part, changed conditions in society: training in written argumentation was becoming more important than in speech. Stasis theory continued to be useful in planning a defense or accusation, but procedures in court now debarred the kind of full-scale opening or concluding address with which Cicero had won his fame.16
The discipline of grammar developed parallel with that of rhetoric during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and the two often overlapped.17 Grammar schools provided training necessary for a student before he entered a school of rhetoric, and some individuals taught both subjects. The most famous Roman grammarian was Aelius Donatus, who lived in the fourth century after Christ and whose works were the basic grammatical texts for the Middle Ages. He also wrote commentaries on the Latin poets Terence and Virgil.
The Ars Minor of Donatus, his most read work, is limited to discussion of the eight parts of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, etc.), but his fuller Ars Grammatica goes beyond strictly grammatical subjects to discuss, in Book 3, barbarism and solecism as faults of style as well as a number of ornaments of style also discussed by rhetoricians. A barbarism is a mistake in the form, spelling, or pronunciation of a word (in English, for example, pronouncing the t in “often” or spelling it without the t); a solecism is a mistake in the use of a word (for example, misusing “infer” for “imply” or vice versa). Donatus’s position was that figures of thought belong to rhetoric; figures of speech, however, are included in grammar. He gives no general definition of a figure, but names, defines, and illustrates with a single example each of seventeen figures of speech, at least some of which may be familiar to modern students: prolepsis, zeugma, hypozeuxis, syllepsis, anadiplosis, anaphora, epanalepsis, epizeuxis, paronomasia, schesis onomaton, parhomoeon, homoeptoton, homoeoteleuton, polyptoton, hirmos, polysyndeton, and dialyton. The Greek names had become standard in Latin, replacing the attempts at translation in Rhetoric for Herennius and in Cicero’s discussions. After treating these figures, Donatus turns to tropes, which he says are expressions transferred from the “proper” meaning to another for the sake of ornament or necessity. A trope is “necessary” if there is no proper word in good usage. Thirteen tropes are named and defined, each illustrated with one Latin example; many of the terms are still in use today: meta-phora, catachresis, metalepsis, metonymia, antonomasia, epitheton, synecdoche, onomatopoeia, periphrasis, hyperbaton, hyperbole, allegoria, and homoeosis. Donatus’s treatment of tropes and figures had great authority and was substantially repeated in handbooks by the Venerable Bede and other later writers. Since grammar was always more widely studied than rhetoric, and often out of Donatus’s text, his discussion insured that these ornaments of style were known in later centuries even to students who did not study rhetoric as a separate discipline.
Technical rhetoric (and grammar) is technical and thus often dry. In antiquity it had to be learned by rote by teenage students, although their studies were enlivened by practice in declamation, with its bizarre themes of pirates and ravished maidens. The handbooks imposed rules, regularized, and codified—thus did not provide for subtlety or finesse. Of interest in this respect is the way classical rhetoric traditionally viewed style as a set of ornaments “laid on” to the thoughts that invention had provided and disposition arranged, rather than as something integral to the whole speech.
In contrast, one strength of classical instruction in rhetoric should be noted. It had a concept of unity of the material: it dealt with the whole argument, the whole speech, and in the case of Quintilian, the whole of education. As such, it tended to balance the obsessive concern of the other verbal disciplines, grammar, dialectic, and poetics, with words, single lines, short passages, or separate arguments. Plato’s demand for a living discourse had filtered through to the rhetoricians as long as they held to their primary duty of teaching public speaking.