Rhetorĭca
I. Greek. Among the Greeks
ῥητορική (sc.
τέχνη) comprised the practical as
well as the theoretical art of speaking, and
rhetor denoted an orator no
less than a teacher of oratory. Among the Romans it denoted only the latter, the actual
speaker being called
orator. The first men who reduced oratory to a
system capable of being taught appeared among the Sicilian Greeks, who, according to the
testimony of the ancients, were distinguished for the keenness of their understanding and
their love of disputation (
Cic. Brut. 46). The
Syracusan Corax (circ. B.C. 500) is said to have been the first who elaborated systematic
rules for forensic speeches, and laid them down in writing in a manual on the art of rhetoric
(
τέχνη). His pupil Tisias (born circ. 480), and after him
the Leontine Gorgias, further cultivated the art, and from about 427 carried it to Greeee
itself, and in particular to Athens, whither he went to ask for an alliance against Syracuse.
So far as existing evidence shows, his rhetorical rules were of a highly artificial character,
involving the use of studied antitheses and a multitude of tropes. He may, in fact, be
regarded as the founder of the so-called Asiatic style of eloquence. In the judicial
proceedings and the assemblies of the people the practice of oratory had long been familiar at
Athens, though it had not been reduced to technical rules, and oratory had had a conspicuous
representative in Pericles. At Athens the theory of oratory was further cultivated by the
Sophists (
σοφισταί, “men who professed knowledge or
wisdom”). Their instruction in style and rhetoric was enjoyed by numerous Athenians,
who desired, by the aid of study and practice, to attain to expertness in speaking. See
Sophistae.
The first Athenian who, besides imparting instruction in the new art, applied it practically
to speaking in the assemblies of the people and before courts, and who published speeches as
patterns for study, was Antiphon (died B.C. 411), the earliest of the so-called Ten Attic
Orators. In his extant speeches the oratorical art is shown still in its beginnings. These,
with the speeches interwoven in the historical work of his great pupil Thucydides, give an
idea of the crude and harsh style of the technical oratory of the time; while the speeches of
Andocides (who died about 399), the second of the Ten Orators, display a style that is still
uninfluenced by the rhetorical teaching of the age. The first really classical orator is
Lysias (died about 360), who, while in possession of all the technical rules of the time,
handles with perfect mastery the common language of every-day life. Isocrates (436-338) is
reckoned as the father of artistic oratory properly so called; he is a master in the careful
choice of words, in the rounding off and rhythmical formation of periods, in the apt
employment of figures of speech, and in everything which lends charm to language. By his
mastery of style he has exercised the most far-reaching influence upon the oratorical diction
of all succeeding time. Of the three kinds of speeches which were distinguished by the
ancients —political (or deliberative), forensic, and show-speeches (or declamations）—he specially cultivated the last. Among his
numerous pupils is Isaeus (about 400-350), who, in his general method of
oratory, closely follows Lysias, though he shows a more matured skill in the controversial use
of oratorical resources. The highest point was attained by his pupil
Demosthenes (q.v.), the greatest orator of antiquity (384-322); next to
him comes his political opponent Aeschines (389- 314). The number of the Ten Orators is
completed by their contemporaries Hyperides, Lycurgus, and Dinarchus. In the last of these the
beginning of the decline of oratorical art is already clearly apparent.
To the time of Demosthenes belongs the oldest manual of rhetoric which has been preserved to
us—that of Anaximenes of Lampsacus. This is founded on the practice of oratory, and,
being intended for immediate practical use, shows no trace of any philosophical groundwork or
philosophical research. It is edited by Spengel
(Zürich, 1844). Greek
rhetoric owes to Aristotle its proper reduction into a scientific system. In contrast to
Isocrates, who aims at perfection of form and style, Aristotle, in his
Rhetoric, lays special stress on subject-matter, and mainly devotes himself to
setting forth the means of producing conviction. In fact, Aristotle regards rhetoric as the
counterpart of logic and closely allied with it. See the fine introduction and analysis by
Cope in Cope and Sandys' edition of the treatise
(3 vols. 1877). When Athens had
lost her liberty, practical oratory was more and more reduced to silence; the productions of
the last orators, such as Demetrius of Phalerum, were only a feeble echo of the past.
Demetrius is said to have been the first to give to oratorical expression a tendency towards
an elegant luxuriance. He was also the first to introduce the custom of making speeches upon
imaginary subjects by way of practice for deliberative and forensic speaking.
In later times the home of oratory was transferred to the free Hellenic or hellenized
communities of the coasts and islands of Asia Minor, especially Rhodes. On the soil of Asia a
new style was developed, called the Asiatic. Its Asiatic originator is said to have been
Hegesias of Magnesia near Mount Sipylus. He flourished in the latter half of the third
century. In avowed opposition to the method of Demosthenes, who spoke in artistically formed
periods, Hegesias not only went back to the simpler constructions of Lysias, but even
endeavoured to outvie the latter in simplicity, breaking up all that he had to say into short
sentences, and carefully avoiding periods of any length (
Cic.
Orat. 226). On the other hand, he sought to give a certain vividness
to his speeches by an elaborately arranged order of words and by a far-fetched and often
turgid phraseology. This was the prevailing fashion until the middle of the first century B.C.
Even in Rome it had numerous followers, especially Hortensius, until by the influence of
Cicero it was so utterly crushed out that Hegesias was soon forgotten, even among the Greeks.
A peculiar kind of oratory (the so-called Rhodian) prevailed in Rhodes, where a closer
approach was again made to the Attic models, and particularly to the representatives of the
simple style, such as Hyperides. Conspicuous orators of this school were Apollonius and Molon,
both of Alabanda in Caria, in the first half of the first century B.C. These two orators are
expressly distinguished from one another by Strabo, p. 655; but they are confounded even by
Quintilian, who erroneously speaks of Apollonius Molon (iii. 1, 16; xii. 6, 7).
The theory of oratory remained until about the end of the second century B.C. exclusively in
the hands of the philosophers, and was little regarded by the Asiatic orators. After that time
the orators and practical teachers of the art again applied themselves with eagerness to
theoretical studies; the theorists adopted an eclectical method, seeking to combine the
philosophical and more scientific proceeding of Aristotle with that of Isocrates, which
addressed itself rather to the turns of phrase and the outward forms of oratory. The most
noteworthy system was introduced by Hermagoras of Temnos (about B.C. 120), whose writings,
which are no longer extant, supplied the chief foundation for the theoretical studies of the
Romans at the beginning of the first century B.C. The system of rhetoric elaborated by him was
afterwards further worked out and improved in detail. In the time of the Empire the rhetorical
schools in general flourished, and we possess an extensive rhetorical literature of that age
reaching as far as the fifth century A.D. It includes the works of authors who mainly treated
of the literary and aesthetic side of rhetoric, especially those of Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, the champion of Atticism and of refined taste, and the unknown author of the
able treatise,
Περὶ Ὕψους (see
Longinus); also those of technical writers, such as Hermogenes, the most
noteworthy representative of the scholastic rhetoric of the age, Apsines, Menander, Theon ,
Aphthonius, and others. On the revival of Greek oratory after the end of the first century,
and particularly in the second century, see
Sophistae, and the works mentioned at the end of this article.
II. Roman. As among the Athenians, so also among the Romans, the
institutions of the State early gave occasion for the practice of political and forensic
oratory. Until the end of the third century B.C. this oratory was wholly spontaneous. The
speech of the aged Appius Claudius Caecus, delivered in 280 against the peace with Pyrrhus,
and afterwards published, was long preserved as the earliest written monument of Roman
oratory. Numerous political speeches were published by the well-known Marcus Porcius Cato, the
most noteworthy orator during the first half of the second century. After the Second Punic
War, in spite of all the opposition of Cato and of those who thought with him, Greek culture
forced its way irresistibly into Rome, and the Romans became eager to conform to the Greek
theory of oratory also. Servius Sulpicius Galba (circ. B.C. 144) is spoken of as the first man
who composed his speeches in accordance with the rules of Greek art, and not long afterwards
the younger Gracchus, who died in 121, proved himself a consummate orator through the
combination of natural gifts and art. Even at this time the publication of orations after
delivery was a general custom, and men were already to be met with who actually wrote speeches
for others. At the beginning of the first century B.C. the most noteworthy orators were Marcus
Antonius and Lucius Licinius Crassus.
Rhetorical instruction was originally imparted by Greeks. In the first decade of the first
century the freedman Plotius Gallus came forward as a teacher of rhetoric, and other Latin
teachers followed him. These found a large number of hearers, but the
censors interfered to stop the practice, as an innovation on the custom of their forefathers.
It is true that this attempt to oppose the current, which had already set in, was in vain.
Still it was only by freedmen that rhetorical instruction in Latin was given until the time of
Augustus, when the Roman knight Blandus was the first free-born man who came forward as a
public teacher of rhetoric. Even the Latin rhetoricians derived their theory exclusively from
Greek sources, especially from Hermagoras, to whose influence the two earliest extant
rhetorical writings of the Roman school are to be referred; these are the work of the
pseudo-Cornificius, and the production of Cicero,
De Inventione.
Cicero (q.v.), the greatest orator of Rome and the
only orator of the Republic of whom any complete speeches are extant, composed in his later
years several other valuable writings upon rhetorical subjects, founded on his practice as an
orator— viz. the
De Oratore, the
Brutus, and the
Orator. Besides Cicero, the last age of the Republic possessed a series of
other conspicuous orators, such as
Hortensius
(q.v.), Caelius, Brutus, and, above all, Caesar. A few more representatives of the oratory of
the Republic survived to the time of Augustus. The most important of these is Asinius Pollio.
But, with the old constitution, the occasions and materials for oratory also disappeared under
the Monarchy, and the hindrances and limitations to its public exercise increased in the same
proportion. Practice was gradually superseded by theory, orators by rhetoricians, speeches by
declamations. The exercises of the rhetorical schools, which now became one of the chief
centres of intellectual life, paid almost exclusive attention to the form, and dealt with
imaginary subjects of political and forensic oratory, called
suasoriae
and
controversiae, which were as far as possible removed from the
practice of life. A vivid picture of these exercises is preserved in the reminiscences of the
rhetorician Seneca, the father of the well-known philosopher. The manner of speaking
contracted in the schools was adopted on the few occasions on which practical oratory could
still be exercised, and these occasions were accordingly turned into exhibitions of theatrical
declamation. It was in vain that men like Quintilian, in his work on the training of an orator
(
Institutio Oratoria), and Tacitus, in his
Dialogus, pointed to
the true classical patterns, and combated the fashion of their time, from which even they were
not entirely free. Like these, the younger Pliny belongs to the end of the first century a.d.; his
Panegyricus, addressed to Trajan, the only
monument of Roman oratory after Cicero preserved in a complete form, became the model for the
later panegyrists. In the second century A.D. Fronto, and the school named after him, sought
to revive the old Roman spirit by a tasteless imitation of archaic expressions and forms of
speech. The same style is practised, though with more ability, by the African Apuleius. After
the end of the third century the oratorical art had its chief seat in the towns of Gaul,
especially in Trèves (Treviri) and Bordeaux (Burdigala). Here a style of oratory
was matured which possessed a certain smoothness and copiousness in words, but showed great
lack of ideas. Upon the representatives of this style, the “Panegyrists,”
see
Panegyricus.
Bibliography.—See
Ballu, Histoire Critique
de l'Éloquence chez les Grecs (1813);
Gros,
Étude sur la Rhétorique chez les Grecs (1835);
Girard, Études sur l'Éloquence Attique
(1874);
Perrot, Les Precurseurs de
Démosthène (1873);
Blass, Die Attische
Beredsamkeit (1877); the introduction to Cope and Sandys' edition of the
Rhetoric of Aristotle
(1877); the translation of the same
treatise by Welldon
(1886);
Volkmann, Die Rhetorik der Griechen und
Römern (1874); Berger and Cucheval,
Histoire de
l'Éloquence Latine, 2 vols.
(1872);
Westermann,
Geschichte der röm. Beredsamkeit (1835);
Demarteau,
L'Éloquence Républicaine de Rome (1870);
Tivier, De Arte Declamandi apud Romanos (1868);
Poiret,
L'Éloquence Judiciaire à Rome (1887);
Ritter, Die Quintilianische Declamationen (1881); and Sears,
The History of Oratory (Chicago, 1896). The Greek rhetorical
writers are edited by Spengel
(Stuttgart, 1828); and the minor Latin writers by
Halm
(Leipzig, 1863).
