Herma'goras
（
*(Ermago/ras.)
1. Of Temnos, a distinguished Greek rhetorician of the time of Pompey and Cicero.
He belonged to the Rhodian school of oratory, and appears to have tried to excel as an orator (or rather declaimer) as well as a teacher of rhetoric. (
Quint. Inst. 5.3.59, viii. pr. § 3; Suid.
s. v. Ἑρμαγόρας.)
But it is especially as a teacher of rhetoric that he is known to us.
He devoted particular attention to what is called the
invention, and made a peculiar division of the parts of an oration, which differed from that adopted by other rhetoricians. (
Quint. Inst. 3.1.16.) Cicero (
de Invent. 1.6) opposes his system, but Quintilian defends it (3.3.9, 5. §§ 4, 16, &c., 6.56), though in some parts the latter censures what Cicero approves of. (Cic.
de Invent. 1.11;
Quint. Inst. 3.6.60, &c.)
But in his eagerness to systematise the parts of an oration, he entirely lost sight of the practical point of view from which oratory must be regarded. (
Quint. Inst. 3.11.22; Tacit.
de Orat. 19.)
He appears to have been the author of several works which are lost; Suidas mentions
Ῥητορικαί,
Περὶ ἐζεργασίας,
Περὶ φράσεως,
Περὶ σχηνάτων,
Περὶ πρέποντος. (See the passages in which Cicero discusses the views of Hermagoras in Orelli's
Onom. Tull. s. v.; comp. Westermann,
Gesch. d. Griech. Beredtsamk. § 81. note 11.83. notes 11-13; C. G. Piderit,
de Hermagora Rhetore Commentatio, Hersfeld, 1839, 4to.)
