Dictionary
RHETORIC	100.00%
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The Syracusan CORAX (circ. 500 B.C.) 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 (techne). His pupil TISIAS (born circ. 480), and after him the Leontine GORGIAS, further cultivated the art, and from about 427 carried it to Greece itself, and in particular to Athens. 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 (Gr. Sophistai, " 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. 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 " 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 (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 showspeeches (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, 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. 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. 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 originator is said to have been HEGESIAS of Magnesia near Mount Sipylus. He flourished in the latter half of the 3rd 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., Orator 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 1st 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 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 1st century B.C. [These two orators are expressly distinguished from one another by Strabo, p. 655; 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 2nd 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 120 B.C.), whose writings, which are no longer extant, supplied the chief foundation for the theoretical studies of the Romans at the beginning of the 1st 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 poossess an extensive rhetorical literature that age reaching as far as the 5th 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 On the Sublime (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 1st century, and particularly in the 2nd century, See SOPHISTS. (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 3rd 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 note-worthy orator during the first half of the 2nd century. After the second Punic War, in spite of all the opposition of a 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. 144 B.C.) is spoken of as the first man who compose his speeches in accordance with the rules of Greek art, and not long afterwards the younger GRACCHUS (died 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 1st 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 1st 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 bad 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 CORNIFICIUS, and the youthful production of CICERO, the De Inventione. Cicero, 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, 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 bytheory, 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 suasorioe and controversioe, which were as far as possible removed from the practice of life. A vivid picture of these exercises is preserved by 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 occas:ons 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 Dialogue on Orators, 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 1st century A.D.; his Panegyric, 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 2nd 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 3rd century, the oratorical art had its chief seat in the towns of Gaul, especially in Treves (Treviri) and Bordeaux (Burdigala). Here a style of oratory was matured which possessed a certain smoothness and copiousnessin words, but showed great lack of ideas. Upon the representatives of this style, the " Panegyrists," See PANEGYRICUS.
RHETORIC	100.00%
Among the Greeks, rhetorike 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 [Cicero, Brutus 46]. The Syracusan CORAX (ciro. 500 B.C.) 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 (techne). His pupil TISIAS (born circ. 480), and after him the Leontine GORGIAS, further cultivated the art, and from about 427 carried it to Greece itself, and in particular to Athens. 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 (Gr. Sophistai, "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. 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 "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 (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 showspeeches (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, 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. 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. 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 nus (q.v.), the god of the river, made her his wife. According to an older tradition, the mother of the founders of Rome was Ilia, daughter of Aeneas (q.v.) and Lavinia.
DIONYSIUS	74.98%
Dionysius of Hallicarnassus. A Greek scholar and historian. He came to Rome about 30 B.C., and lived there for twenty-two years, probably as a professor of rhetoric, enjoying the society of many men of note. In these circumstances he devoted himself to studying the Roman language and literature, the historical literature in particular. The result of his studies was his Roman Antiquities, finished about 8 B.C., in all probabihty not long before his death. This was a history of Rome from the mythical age to the Punic Wars, with which the work of Polybius begins. There were twenty books, of which we have 1-9 in a complete state, 10 and 11 in great part, but the rest only in fragments. The intention of its author was to give the Greeks a more correct and more favourable idea of the Roman people, and the growth of its power, and thus to reconcile them to the Roman yoke. With this view he sets forth the wisdom and the good qualities of the founders of Rome. The book is founded on a thorough study of the authorities, and, in spite of its rhetorical tone and of many other defects, forms one of our chief sources of information upon ancient Roman history in its internal and external development. The other remaining works of Dionysius are partly on rhetoric, partly on literary criticism. The rhetorical works are: (a) On the Arrangement of Words, or on the different styles of Greek prose structure; (b) a treatise on rhetoric, which has certainly not come down to us in its original form. The critical writings are essays on the ancient Greek classics, particularly the orators, and among them Demosthenes; but also on Aristotle, Plato, and Thucydides. They are in part thrown into the form of letters to contemporary Romans of repute.
APHTHONIUS	60.29%
A Greek rhetorician of Antioch, about 400 A.D., a pupil of Libanius, who wrote a schoolbook on the elements of rhetoric, the Progymnasmata, or "First Steps in Style," much used in schools down to the 17th century. This book is really an adaptation of the chapter so named in Hermogenes Rhetoric. A collection of forty fables by Aesop also bears his name.
APSINES	59.99%
A Greek rhetorician, of Gadara, who taught at Athens in the first half of the 3rd century A.D., and wrote a valuable treatise on Rhetoric.
HERMOGENES	57.56%
A Greek rhetorician of Tarsus in Cilicia, who flourished in the middle of the 2nd century A.D. He came to Rome as a rhetorician as early as his fifteenth year, and excited universal admiration, especially on the part of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. In his twenty-fourth year he lost his memory, and never recovered it, though he lived to a great age. His work on Rhetoric, which still exists, enjoyed a remarkable popularity, and was for a long time the principal text-book of rhetoric ; it was also epitomised, and was the subject of numerous commentaries. The work itself consists of five sections: (1) On points at issue in legal causes; (2) On the art of discovering arguments; (3) On the various forms of oratorical style; (4) On political orations in particular, and on the art of eloquent and effective speaking ; (5) the last section consists of rhetorical exercises (Progymnasmata), which were cast into a fresh form by Aphthonius (q.v.), and translated into Latin by Priscian.
QUINTILIAN	55.97%
The celebrated Roman rhetorician, born about 35 A.D. at Calagurris in Spain. After he had received his training as an orator at Rome, he went home about 59 A.D., but returned again to Rome in 68 A.D. in the train of Galba. He there began to practise as an advocate, and also gave instruction in rhetoric. In this latter capacity he achieved such fame that he was able to open a school of rhetoric in the reign of Vespasian, and received payment from the State. After twenty years work be retired from his public duties in A.D. 90, and after some time devoted himself to the education of the grandchildren of Domitilla, Domitian's sister, for which he was rewarded by the emperor with the rank of consul. Though materially prosperous, his happiness was disturbed by the loss of his young wife and his two sons. [He died between 97 and 100 A.D.] Of his works on rhetoric, composeed in his later years, we possess the one that is most important, that on the training of an orator (De Institutione Oratoria) in twelve books. This he wrote in two years; but it was not until after repeated revision that he published it, just before the death of Domitian in 96. He dedicated it to his friend, the orator Victorius Marcellus, that he might use it for the education of his son Geta. This work gives a complete course of instruction in rhetoric, including all that is necessary for training in practical elocution, from the preliminary education of boyhood and earliest youth to the time of appearance in public. It describes a perfect orator, who, according to Quintilian, should be not only skilful in rhetoric, but also of good moral character, and concludes with practical advice. Especially interesting is the first book, which gives the principles of training and instruction, and the tenth book, for its criticisms on the Greek and Latin prose authors and poets recommended to the orator for special study. [Many of these criticisms, however, are not original.] Quintilian's special model, and his main authority, is Cicero, whose classical style, as opposed to the debased style of his own time, he imitates successfully in his work. A collection of school exercises (declamationes) which bears his name is probably not by him, but by one of his pupils. [The most recent editor, however (Constantine Ritter, 1884), regards the great bulk of them as genuine.]
GORGLAS	51.15%
A Greek sopbist and rhetorician, a native of Leontini in Sicily. In 427 B.C., when already advanced in years, he came to Athens on an embassy from his native city, to implore aid against the Syracusans. The finished style of his speaking excited general admiration. He was successful in the object of his mission, and immediately returned home. But he soon came back to Athens, which he made his headquarters, travelling through Greece, like the other Sophists, and winning much popularity and emolument from a large number of disciples. He survived Socrates, who died in 399, and ended his days at Larissa in Thessaly in his hundredth year. His philosophy was a nihilistic system, which he summed up in three propositions: (a) nothing exists; (b) if anything existed, it could not be known; (c) did anything exist, and could it be known, it could not be communicated. Ile declined to assume the name of Sophist, preferring that of rhetorician. He professed to teach not virtue, but the art of persuasion; in other words, to give his disciples such absolute readiness in speaking, that they should be able to convince their hearers independently of any knowledge of the subject. He did not found his instruction on any definite rhetorical system, but gave his pupils standard passages of literature to learn by art and imitate, practising them in the application of rhetorical figures. He appeared in person, on various occasions, at Delphi, Olympia, and Athens, with model speeches which he afterwards published. It must not be forgotten that it was Gorgias who transplanted rhetoric to Greece, its proper soil, and who helped to diffuse the Attic dialect as the literary language of prose. Two highly rhetorical exercises, the genuineness of which is doubtful, have come down to us under his name, the Encomium of Helen, and the Defence of Palamedes against the charge of high treason brought against him by Odysseus.
HEGESIAS	47.03%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A Greek orator, born in Magnesia on Mount Sipylus in the first half of the 3rd century B.C. He was the founder of what was termed the Asiatic style of oratory. (See RHETORIC.)
LONGINUS	46.45%
A Greek rhetorician, born at Athens about 213 A.D., who studied Neoplatonism at Alexandria, and practised as teacher of philosophy, grammar [i.e. literary criticism], and rhetoric, in his native city, from about 260, until the accomplished queen Zenobia of Palmyra summoned him as minister to her court. As he persuaded her to resist the Roman yoke, the emperor Aurelian caused him to be executed after Zenobia's overthrow in 273. He possessed such an extent of learning, that Eunapius called him a living library and a walking museum. His versatility is proved by compositions on philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, chronology, and literature. Of these, only fragments are extant, for example, the introduction to a commentary on Hephaestio's handbook of metres, and a short Rhetoric incomplete at the beginning. A brief treatise On the Sublime, commonly ascribed to him, is more probably to be assigned to an unknown writer about the Christian era. It treats and illustrates by classic examples the characteristics of the Iofty style from a philosophical and aesthetic point of view. It is written in a vigorous manner.
ARNOBIUS	45.97%
An African, who won a high reputation as a master of rhetoric at Sicca in Numidia, in the reign of Diocletian. He was at first a heathen and an assailant of Christianity; but on becoming a Christian, to prove the sincerity of his conversion, he wrote (about 295 A.D.) the extant work Adversus Gentes. This is a superficial and rhetorical defence of Christianity and attack on Polytheism, but it is full of instruction with regard to the contemporary heathenism and its various worships.
DRACONTIUS	45.36%
A Latin poet who lived and practised as an advocate at Carthage towards the end of the 5th century A.D. He was man of real poetic gifts and considerable reading, but his style is spoiled by rhetorical exaggeration and false taste. His surviving works are; (1) a number of short epics upon subjects taken from the old mythology and school-room rhetoric. (2) An apologetic poem (Satisfactio) addressed in the form of an elegy to Guthamund, king of the Vandals, whose wrath he had excited by writing a panegyric on a foreign prince. (3) A Christian didactic poem in three books. This is a really poetical treatment of the story of the creation.
ZENOBIUS	44.00%
A Greek Sophist of Antioch, who lived at Rome as teacher of rhetoric in the first half of the 2nd century B.C., and availing himself of the works of earlier writers, made a collection of proverbs, still extant in an abridged form.
PRUDENTIUS CLEMENS	42.08%
The most important among the Christian Latin poets, born 348 A.D., of a respectable family in Spain. After a rhetorical and legal education, he first practised as an advocate, discharged the duties of a civil and criminal judge in Spain, held a high military appointment at court, and in later years retired to a monastery, where he devoted himself to writing sacred poems, and died about 410 A.D. He published a collection of his sacred poems in 405 A.D. They are composed with rhetorical skill, in epic and lyric metres (in the latter of which Horace in his model); and they include subjects of the most varied kind: Hymns for daily prayer (Cathemerinon liber); a martyrology (Peri Stephanon); a conflict between the virtues and the vices for the soul of man, etc.
DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS	39.90%
(of Phalerum, on the coast S.W. of Athens). He was born about 345 B.C., was a pupil of Theophrastus, and an adherent of the Peripatetic school. He was distinguished as a statesman, orator and scholar. His reputation induced Cassander to put him at the head of the Athenian state in 317 B.C. For ten years he administered its affairs, and so thoroughly won the affection of his fellow-citizens that they erected numerous statues to him, as many as 360, according to the accounts, On the approach of Demetrius Poliorcetes in 307 B.C., he was deposed, and through the efforts of his opponents condemned to death by the fickle populace. On this he fled to Egypt, to the court of Ptolemy the First, who received him kindly and availed himself of his counsel. Thus Demetrius is credited with having suggested the foundation of the celebrated Alexandrian library. But Ptolemy withdrew his favour from him and banished him to Upper Egypt, where he died in 283 B.C. from the bite of a venomous snake. He was very active as, a writer, and his stay in Egypt gave him plenty of leisure to indulge his taste; but only a few fragments of his works have survived. An essay On Rhetorical Expression, formerly attributed to him, was in reality from the hand of a Demetrius who lived in the 1st century A.D. As an orator Demetrius is said to have been attractive rather than powerful. He was supposed to have been the first speaker who gave rhetorical expression an artificial character, and also the first who introduced into the rhetorical schools the habit of practising speaking upon fictitious themes, juristic or political.
CURTIUS RUFUS	39.42%
A Roman historian, who probably lived and practised as a rhetorician about the middle of the 1st century A.D., and wrote a history of Alexander the Great, in ten books, in the reign of Claudius (A.D. 44-54). The first two books are lost, and the fifth mutilated at the end, the sixth at the beginning. He seems to aim more at rhetorical effect than at historical accuracy. In the use of his authorities he is uncritical, as he follows untrustworthy writers like Clitarchus, knowing them to be untrustworthy. His work contains many errors in geography and chronology, and his accounts of the battles show that he had no military knowledge. But he understands the art of interesting his readers by a pleasant narrative and lifelike drawing, and there, is a certain charm in the numerous speeches which he has inserted in his text, in spite of their strong rhetorical colouring. His language reminds us of Livy. It is curious that he is never mentioned in antiquity.
SENECA	38.52%
Annaeus, the rhetorician; born of an equestrian family, at Cordaba (Cordova) in Spain, towards the end of the Republic. In the time of Augustus he studied at Rome, where he lived in intimacy with the most famous rhetoricians and orators, and died at a very great age, probably not till after the death of Tiberius (37 A.D.). [He was the father of Seneca the philosopher, and (by his son Mela) grandfather of Lucan the poet.] According to the testimony of Seneca the philosopher, he was a man of pristine virtue and severity, much devoted to the maintenance of ancestral customs [Seneca, Ad Helviam Matrem 17, 3: patris mei antiquus rigor; maiorum consuctudini deditus]. As a stylist he was a great admirer of Cicero. In his old age, relying simply on his marvellous memory, he composed at his son's desire a collection of declamations for the use of schools of rhetoric, modelled on the treatment of the subjects by the most famous rhetoricians of his youth. It bears the title, Oratorum et Rhetorum Sentenioe Divisiones Colores, one book containing seven themes called suasorice, and ten books, thirty-five controversioe. Of these we now possess only books i, ii, vii, ix, x, and the greater part of the introductions to books iii and iv, besides an abstract of the whole, belonging to the 4th or 5th century. The contents give a vivid picture of the work of the schools of rhetoric in the time of Augustus and Tiberius, and are an important authority for the history of Roman rhetoric.
ANAXIMENES	36.26%
A Greek sophist of Lampsacus, a favourite of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. He composed orations and historical works, some treating of the actions of those two princes. Of these but little remains. On the other hand, he is the author of the Rhetoric dedicated to Alexander, the earliest extant work of this kind, which was once included among the works of Aristotle.
MENANDER	36.01%
A Greek rhetorician, of Laodicea, who probably lived at the end of the 3rd century after Christ. He is the author of two treatises About Speeches for Display, which add to our knowledge of the theory of the sophistic type of oratory [in Spengel's Rhetores Groeci, iii 331-446].
MAXIMUS	35.96%
of Tyre. A Greek rhetorician and adherent of the Platonic philosophy, in the second half of the 2nd century after Christ. Forty-one rhetorical lectures of his on philosophical subjects of general interest are extant; the style is neat and scholarly.