Panegyrĭcus
（
πανηγυρικός). The name given among the Greeks to a speech
delivered before a
πανήγυρις—that is, an assembly
of the whole nation on the occasion of the celebration of a festival, such as the Panathenaea
and the four great national games. This oration had reference to the feast itself, or was
intended to inspire the assembled multitude with emulation by praising the great deeds of
their ancestors, and also to urge them to unanimous co-operation against their common foes.
The most famous compositions of this kind which have been preserved are the
Panegyricus and
Panathenaïcus of Isocrates, neither of
which, however, was actually delivered in public. In later times eulogies upon individuals
were so named. This kind of composition was especially cultivated under the Roman Empire by
Greeks and Romans. In Roman literature the most ancient example of this kind which remains is
the eulogy of the emperor Trajan, delivered by the younger Pliny in the Senate, A.D. 100,
thanking the emperor for conferring on him the consulate —a model which subsequent
ages vainly endeavoured to imitate. It forms, together with eleven orations of Mamertinus,
Eumenius, Nazarius, Pacatus Drepanius, and other unknown representatives of the Gallic school
of rhetoric from the end of the third and the whole of the fourth centuries A.D., the extant
collection of the
Panegyrici Latini. Besides these we possess similar orations
by Symmachus, Ausonius, and Eunodius. There are also a considerable number of poetical
panegyrics—e. g. one upon Messala, composed in the year B.C. 31, and wrongly
attributed to Tibullus; one by an unknown author of the Neronian time upon Calpurnius Piso;
and others by Claudian, Sidonius Apollinaris, Merobaudes, Corippus, Priscian, and
Venantius Fortunatus (q.v.).
There are editions of the panegyrici by Beatus Rhenanus
(Basle, 1520),
Livineius
(Antwerp, 1599), Rittershusius, with notes
(Frankfort,
1607), Schwarz
(Altdorf, 1739-48), Arntzen
(Utrecht,
1790-95), and Bährens
(Leipzig, 1874). See Rühl,
De Panegyricis Duodecim Latinis (Greifswald, 1868).
