Chapter I: The Sophistic Trend in Ancient Rhetoric (1)

REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS

Ameringer Ameringer (T. E.), _The stylistic influence of the second
sophistic on the panegyrical sermons of St. John
Chrysostom_, Washington, 1921 (Catholic University
of America Patristic Studies).

ARP Baldwin (C. S.), _Ancient rhetoric and poetic_, New
York, 1924.

Boulanger Boulanger (A.), _Ælius Aristide et la sophistique dans
la province d’Asie au ii siècle de notre ère_, Paris, 1923.

Burgess Burgess (T. C.), _Epideictic literature_, University of
Chicago Studies in Classical Philology III (1902), 89-251.

Campbell Campbell (J. M.), _The influence of the second sophistic
on the style of the sermons of St. Basil the Great_,
Washington, 1922.

Guignet Guignet (M.), _St. Grégoire de Nazianze, orateur et
épistolier_, Paris, 1911.

Hubbell Hubbell (H. M.), _The influence of Isocrates on Cicero,
Dionysius, and Aristides_, New Haven (Yale dissertation),
1914.

Méridier Méridier (L.), _L’influence de la seconde sophistique
sur l’œuvre de Grégoire de Nysse_, Paris, 1906.

Wright Wright (W. C), _Philostratus and Eunapius, the
lives of the sophists_, with an English translation,
London and New York, Loeb Library, 1922.

A. THE TWO HISTORIC CONCEPTIONS OF RHETORIC

Plato’s distrust of rhetoric is a permanent reminder. It is so significantly typical that it recurs throughout the history of education, and must recur. Again and again educational practise has found that it cannot do without rhetoric; again and again educational theory has grudgingly inquired what to do with it. For distrust of rhetoric may be more than the impatience of the philosopher with the orator, of speculation with ordered presentation, of the quest for truth with persuasion. This is involved too; for philosophers have often been impatient of presentation. They have wished to think aloud, or to question and answer, or merely to analyze for themselves, without being held to consecutive explanation. Plato himself falls short of discerning the importance of making truth available and effective for the mass of men incapable of scientific analysis; and this is the ground of Cicero’s rejoinder.[1] But Plato’s distrust is more deeply of rhetoric as he heard it taught. Even in his day Greek rhetoric was largely sophistic, the rhetoric of personal display and triumph. In the _Gorgias_[2] Socrates admits the function of a nobler rhetoric, but cannot find it in use. In the _Protagoras_[3] he asks the vital question, “_About what_ does the sophist make a man more eloquent?” In the _Phædrus_, which discusses rhetoric more specifically, his satire is most evidently of sophistic. To this the ultimate objection is moral. A man should train himself “not with a view to speaking and acting before the world, but for the sake of making himself able ... to please the gods.”[4] Plato challenges not merely the method of the sophists, but their ideal. Since rhetoric has almost always had some part in education, and since it always ultimately involves morality, Plato raises a leading question.

The ultimate, the only final answer to Plato’s challenge is the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle. This proceeds from a conception not only larger than the sophistic of Gorgias and Protagoras, but also significantly divergent in aim. The true theory of rhetoric as the energizing of knowledge, the bringing of truth to bear upon men,[5] is there established for all time. Aristotle amply vindicated rhetoric by defining its place among studies, its necessary correlation with inquiry and with policy, its permanent function. He settled the question of rhetoric philosophically. He established its theory. But this theory was oftener accepted than followed. The sophists had, indeed, been put in their place more surely by Aristotle than by Plato; but they continued to thrive, until ancient rhetoric became more and more sophistic.

The conception animating the practise and the teaching of sophistic, far from being limited to antiquity, is medieval as well, and modern. Apparently it is permanent. Rhetoric is conceived by Aristotle as the art of giving effectiveness to truth; it is conceived alike by the earlier and the later sophists and by their successors as the art of giving effectiveness to the speaker. The conceptions are not contradictory. The second may be theoretically included within the first; and actually Demosthenes may learn something from Isocrates. But to embody them in educational procedure, to carry out either as the controlling idea of a course of study, is to discover that sooner or later they become practically incompatible. Ingenuous youth will be devoted either to energizing truth or to exploiting itself. There will come a parting of the ways; for the two conceptions are divergent. What Aristotle discerned as differentiating is differentiating still. The flaw in sophistic is moral. It may not impair technical training; but by deviating motive it tends to impair education.

For Aristotle’s theory is a touchstone. To recall rhetoric to the true function discerned by him has repeatedly been the object of reform in teaching. What has intervened to deviate rhetoric and frustrate its best use has again and again been the preoccupation with giving effectiveness not to the message, but to the speaker. Ancient sophistic is thus typical. It is not merely historical; it is historic. The false conception divined by Plato, and exposed finally by Aristotle’s demonstration of the true conception, led ancient rhetoric through empty personal triumphs into an elaborate art of display, devoid, at its worst, of other motive. As sophistic spread, as its idea of rhetoric became dominant, ancient education was narrowed;[6] and ancient oratory eddied in shallows until it found a new course with the new motive of Christian preaching.

In exorcising the false conception Aristotle removed the false sophistic emphasis from style. He does not despise, nor even slight, technic. He finds analysis of sentence rhythms necessary. But his goal in this, as in his analysis of figures, is beyond the technical means of securing particular effects. He does not classify figures for reference; he seeks in both phrase and cadence the function; and he discusses neither until he has spent some two-thirds of his treatise on the function of rhetoric as a whole course of study. This he finds philosophically necessary. Otherwise rhetoric cannot be justified; otherwise, he clearly implies, it is narrowed and degraded. For him rhetoric is so inextricably moral that it should never be divorced from subject matter of real significance.

But what subject matter of real significance has oratory when it is barred from discussion of present policy? Here appears a strong external cause of the spread of sophistic. The sophistical trend, already marked, was furthered by the narrowing of public discussion. Of the three fields[7] of oratory distinguished by Aristotle, deliberative, forensic, and occasional, the first was restricted by political changes. It faded with democracy. So later it faded at Rome, and still later in other realms. Deliberative oratory presupposes free discussion and audiences that vote. The steady increase of government from above administered by an appointed official class hastened also the tendency of the second kind of oratory, forensic, to become technical, the special art of legal pleading. Thus the only field left free was the third, occasional oratory, encomium, or panegyric, the commemoration of persons and days, the address of welcome, the public lecture. A favorite field even in Plato’s time, it is in any time the freest field for imaginative and emotional appeal and for personal triumphs. Thus it was early and assiduously cultivated by the sophists. Though it opens, on the other hand, the highest reaches of eloquence, though Isocrates is more than a sophist and Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is as far from sophistic as possible, still its becoming the main field of Greek oratory gave the lead to sophistic. In such conditions sophistic could control education; and its control of education reacted upon the conditions to make a vicious circle. Oratory and the training for it became preponderantly an art of display; and the rhetoric finally bequeathed by the ancient schools was sophistic.

In sum, the sophistic tendency, which may be found in any highly developed literature, was confirmed in Greek by causes both intrinsic and extrinsic. Becoming a habit, it became a scheme of education. Against this Plato represents Socrates in fundamental opposition. Aristotle does more than oppose it; he establishes constructively a rhetoric whose persuasion shall be more than personal appeal and personal triumph. But the rhetoric nobly and philosophically conceived by him did not succeed in supplanting the tendency seen at its best in Isocrates. The conception of Isocrates in Philostratus, though inadequate, is not wrong essentially.

The siren which stands on the tomb of Isocrates the sophist—its
pose is that of one singing—testifies to the man’s persuasive
charm, which he combined with the laws and habits of rhetoric.
Balances, antitheses, rimes, though he was not their discoverer
but only the skilful user of what had been discovered
already, he put his mind to, and also to amplitude, rhythm,
sentence-movement, beat. These things prepared the diction of
Demosthenes, who was a pupil, indeed, of Isæus, but a disciple
of Isocrates. Philostratus, _Lives of the Sophists_, I. 17
(Wright’s translation, page 50, modified).

The Isocratean ideal of eloquence, influential even upon its critic Dionysius of Halicarnassus, even upon so great an orator as Cicero,[8] became more sophistic in the practise of the schools. In the first century of our era sophistic had won its place, by the second century an eminence undisputed till Christian preaching returned to the sound ancient tradition.

For sophistic is the historic demonstration of what oratory becomes when it is removed from urgency of subject matter. Seeking some inspiration for public occasions, it revives over and over again a dead past. Thus becoming conventionalized in method, it turns from cogency of movement to the cultivation of style. Cogency presupposes a message. It is intellectual ordering for persuasion, the means toward making men believe and act. Style, no longer controlled by such urgencies of subject, tends toward decoration and virtuosity. A necessary study in any rhetoric, it had been highly cultivated during Greek democracy; but under monarchy and Empire it became a preoccupation, almost a monopoly. Sophistic practically reduces rhetoric to style. The old lore of investigation (_inventio_), paralyzed by the compression of its trunk nerve, has little scope beyond ingenuity. Organized movement[9] (_dispositio_), similarly impaired at the source, tends to be reduced to salience and variety, or to be supplanted by pattern. Memory becomes verbal. But style and delivery, becoming the main reliance, are elaborated into a systematic technic to a degree almost incredible to-day. In sheer virtuosity the second sophistic has hardly a parallel in earlier or later centuries. It is more like the art of Paderewski or Bernhardt than like that of Demosthenes.

B. THE SECOND SOPHISTIC[10]

1. Philostratus, _The Lives of the Sophists_[11]

_The Lives of the Sophists_ by Philostratus derives the “new” sophistic of his day from the old. New, says he, it is not. We may call it a second sophistic; but it keeps an old tradition. Far from apologizing for sophistic, old or new, Philostratus is proud of it. He sets out to celebrate it as a great tradition. Gorgias is not defended from Socratic exposure; he is claimed as a distinguished ancestor.[12] That rhetoric is not what Aristotle urged, that it is after all sophistic, Philostratus assumes. Nor is the assumption merely provincial vanity; it was widespread and secure. There was no need to vindicate what was generally accepted. Moreover the facts justify not only the assumption of Philostratus, but his history. Though he is not historical in method, his assertion of continuity from Gorgias down to the platform artists of his day has been approved by studies really historical, and affirmed for the fourth century as well. _The Lives of the Sophists_, therefore, exhibit the second sophistic as the fixing of an old tendency in habitual practise and teaching.

During the second, third, and fourth centuries, and throughout the Roman world, rhetoric meant a sophistic generally constant. The leanings of particular schools, such as Stoic Pergamum, were not wide enough to bring new departures. They were merely shifts of emphasis within a common doctrine and practise. The cult of “Atticism” was too artificial to check the general tendency to “Asianism.”[13] What was learned at Athens could be practised at Rome; and neither Athens nor Rome dimmed the glory of Smyrna and Antioch.[14] The schools of Bordeaux were to become essentially like those of Gaza and Carthage. The same “Gorgian figures” were learned by St. Augustine in Latin Africa, by St. Gregory Nazianzen in the Greek East, and by the pagan Libanius. Greco-Roman rhetoric was as pervasive as Roman law and almost as constant.

2. The Character of Sophistic

a. VIRTUOSITY

In estimating this rhetoric, then, little allowance need be made for place or date.[15] Its main characteristics were so constant as to stand out clearly. The most obvious arise from the general aim of virtuosity. This is the constant assumption of Philostratus. Individual triumphs were not so much triumphs of individuality as outstanding exhibitions of skill in working out a pattern. In method, in composition, there was little difference between a teacher’s assignments to his amateur pupils and his own professional orations.[16] Sophistic is largely an oratory of themes.

(1) _Declamatio_[17] (μελέτη)

THEMES OF THE SOPHISTS CELEBRATED BY PHILOSTRATUS

HISTORICAL OR SEMI-HISTORICAL THEMES

The Lacedemonians deliberate concerning a wall. I. 20 (70).[18]
(Isæus; so Aristides, II. 9 (220).)

Demosthenes swears that he did not take the bribe.

Should the trophies erected by the Greeks be taken down?

The Athenians should return to their demes after Ægospotami.

Xenophon refuses to survive Socrates.

Solon demands that his laws be rescinded after Pisistratus has
obtained a bodyguard. I. 25 (122-132). (Polemo.)

The Cretans maintain that they have the tomb of Zeus. II. 4
(188). (Antiochus.)

Scythians, return to your nomadic life. II. 5 (194). (Alexander
of Seleucia; so Hippodromus, II. 27 (296).)

The wounded in Sicily implore the Athenians who are retreating
thence to put them to death with their own hands.

Pericles urges them to keep up the war even after the oracle
declares Apollo’s support of the Lacedemonians. (II. 5; both
also of Alexander.)

Isocrates tries to wean the Athenians from their empire of the
sea.

Callixenus is upbraided for not having granted burial to the
Ten.

Deliberation on affairs in Sicily.[19]

Æschines, when the grain had not come.

Those whose children have been murdered reject a treaty of
alliance. II. 9 (220, seq.) (Aristides.)

Hyperides, when Philip is at Elatea, heeds only the counsels of
Demosthenes. II. 10 (230). (Hadrian of Tyre.)

Islanders sell their children to pay taxes. II. 12 (238).
(Pollux.)

The Thebans accuse the Messenians of ingratitude. II. 15 (244).
(Ptolemy.)

Callias tries to dissuade the Athenians from burning the dead.
II. 20 (256). (Apollonius of Athens.)

The citizens of Catana.

Demades against revolting from Alexander while he is in India.
II. 27 (296). (Hippodromus.)

FICTITIOUS THEMES

The adulterer unmasked. I. 25 (132). (Polemo.)

The instigator of a revolt suppresses it. I. 26 (136).
(Secundus.)

The ravished chooses that her ravisher be put to death. II. 4
(188). (Antiochus.)

A tyrant abdicates on condition of immunity. (_Ibid._)

The man who fell in love with a statue. II. 18 (250).
(Onomarchus.)

The magician who wished to die because he was unable to kill
another magician, an adulterer. II. 27 (292). (Hippodromus.)

Evidently the themes were generally the same as those of the _declamationes_ celebrated by Seneca.[20] Some of them were identical. Such subjects give the oratory of the imperial centuries, both Greek and Latin, the air of athletics, and make its teaching seem largely gymnastic. Gregory Nazianzen, indeed, calls the sophists “oratorical acrobats.”[21] But instead of dismissing sophistic with so obvious a sarcasm, we may learn something from its delight in verbal artistry.

For what, then, ultimately do we blame them? For their absolute
emptiness of thought? But who shall say that they were trying
to think, or that they were asked to think?... a kind of
eloquence, and also a system of education, of which we have
not any longer even the notion; for it rested on a sentiment
which has disappeared, _the absolute and disinterested love of
speaking well_—disinterested not always, indeed, as to personal
advantage, but always as to thought. Who knows whether thought
was for them anything else or anything more than a simple
_motif_, a theme to be developed, something which sustained the
discourse without imparting to it any value, something like the
libretto of an opera?[22]

Since the oratory of display is still with us, the second sophistic should be taken to heart as a complete historic demonstration of what must become of rhetoric without the urgencies of matter and motive.

Philostratus has no qualms. For him _declamatio_ (μελέτη), far from being merely a school exercise, is a form of public speaking on a par with any other. It is even _the_ form of his sophists. He pays little attention to any other except encomium, which is also a school exercise. Reading the past with the eyes of the present, he finds it in Gorgias,[23] who elaborated “encomia of the Medic trophies.” “Medics” (Μηδικά), dilations on the old glories of the Persian wars, were the favorite subjects of _declamatio_. This is evident both from their frequent recurrence and from Lucian’s satire.[24] Scopelian, Philostratus thinks, was best

in Medics, in the Darius and Xerxes things, I mean; for, to me
at least, he of all the sophists seems to render these best and
to set a tradition of rendering for his successors. I. 21 (84).

Ptolemy of Naucratis, however, was nicknamed Marathon.[25] The wonder is that the nickname was sufficiently distinctive.[26]

(2) Improvisation and Memory

The vogue of such subjects does much to explain the otherwise incredible accounts of improvisation. “Propose a theme,” the sophist’s challenge which Philostratus traces back to Gorgias,[27] becomes less startling when we find that the theme, as well as the treatment, might come from stock. Even so the readiness and fluency seem phenomenal and were the great boast. See Mark of Byzantium recognized by pupils in the school of Polemo.

Accordingly when Polemo asked for themes to be proposed, they
all turned towards Mark.... Mark, lifting up his voice and
tossing his head, said: “I will both propose and execute.”
Thereupon Polemo ... discoursed at him long and wonderfully on
the spur of the moment; and when he had declaimed and heard
Mark declaim, he was both admired and admiring. I. 24 (104).

Aristides was exceptional in declining to speak thus; and Philostratus thinks the less of him.[28] Generally improvisation was expected as a mark of virtuosity.[29] The _locus classicus_, perhaps, of improvisation, the most daring and phenomenal virtuosity, is ascribed by Eunapius to Prohæresius.

Then from his chair the sophist first delivered a graceful
prelude ... then with the fullest confidence he rose for
his formal discussion. The proconsul was ready to propose a
definition for the theme, but Prohæresius threw back his head
and gazed all round the theater ... and beheld in the farthest
row of the audience, hiding themselves in their cloaks, two
men, veterans in the service of rhetoric, at whose hands he
had received the worst treatment of all, and he cried out:
“Ye gods! There are those honourable and wise men! Proconsul,
order them to propose a theme for me. Then perhaps they will
be convinced that they have behaved impiously.”... Whereupon,
after considering for a short time and consulting together,
they produced the hardest and most disagreeable theme that they
knew of, a vulgar one, moreover, that gave no opening for the
display of fine rhetoric. Prohæresius glared at them fiercely,
and said to the proconsul: “I implore you to grant me ... to
have shorthand writers assigned to me.”... Then he said: “I
shall ask for something even more difficult to grant ... there
must be no applause whatever.” When the proconsul had given
all present an order to this effect ... Prohæresius began his
speech with a flood of eloquence, rounding every period with
a sonorous phrase.... As the speech grew more vehement and
the orator soared to heights which the mind of man could not
describe or conceive of, he passed on to the second part of the
speech and completed the exposition of the theme. But then,
suddenly leaping in the air like one inspired, he abandoned the
remaining part, left it undefended, and turned the flood of his
eloquence to defend the contrary hypothesis. The scribes could
hardly keep pace with him, the audience could hardly endure
to remain silent, while the mighty stream of words flowed on.
Then, turning his face towards the scribes, he said: “Observe
carefully whether I remember all the arguments that I used
earlier.” And without faltering over a single word, he began
to declaim the same speech for the second time. (Wright’s
translation, 493.)

This performance is extraordinary only in degree. That of Isæus, as reported by Pliny,[30] seems the same in kind; and so, apparently, are many other recorded triumphs. Taken together, they reveal strict limits. The improvisation was mainly of style. It consisted in fluency of rehandling, of variations upon themes, and in patterns, so common as to constitute a stock in trade. It permitted the use over and over again not only of stock examples and illustrations, but of successful phrases, modulated periods, even whole descriptions. It was the art of a technician, not of a composer.[31] Memory, too, thus trained, was no longer the orator’s command of his material;[32] it was the actor’s command of words. Though a sophist might, indeed, be a thinker, he hardly needed to be for the purposes of his oratory. His fluency was typically not in seizing and carrying forward ideas and images, but in readiness to draw upon a store.

(3) Delivery

The character of this oratory is further expressed in the records of its delivery. Even more than modulation Philostratus exhibits sonority and force. Polemo’s delivery was thrilling as an Olympian trumpet.[33] Scopelian imitated the volume of Nicetes and had the sonority of Gorgias.[34] Favorinus fascinated even those who did not understand Greek.[35] The carrying voice spoke in marked rhythms. Gesture, pushed sometimes to the extent of acting, was habitually demonstrative. Sitting at first, the orator might then leap to his feet, smite his thigh, walk, stamp, sway as a Bacchante. If such theatrical delivery seems to moderns of the West more violent than it seemed to its own audiences, it has never been extinct; and any one familiar with the oratory of display in any time will recognize the sophist’s heavy frown, his mien of deep thought, his air of authority.[36] Chaucer’s Pardoner speaks for the whole sophist line:

I peyne me to han an hauteyn speche.

_Canterbury Tales_, C. 330.

Such weight and vehemence of delivery, sometimes conceding a benignant smile, oftener relying on arrogance,[37] was the bodily expression of the impressiveness (δεινότης) cultivated no less assiduously in style. The sophist was over-expressive lest for a moment he should cease to be impressive. The audience need not be held to any course of thought; it must not be held too long by any one device of style; but it must unflaggingly admire. It must be spellbound. The constant implication of Philostratus probably echoes the ideal of orator and audience alike: behold a great speaker!

b. DILATION

Such oratory must be dilated, even inflated. That it was so in fact any one may satisfy himself who has the patience. The amplification[38] practised by Cicero and taught by Quintilian, though in print it may seem over-anxious, is an oratorical necessity. It is not merely Greek expansiveness; for it moves also the more stinted Latin. In any language it must almost always be practised as a means to oral clearness.[39] But sophistic amplification has no such warrant. It is often purely decorative. Instead of marking a stage of progress, it often merely dwells on a picture, or elaborates a truism, or acts out a mood. It is there for itself, expecting its own applause. Many of the figures of speech are devices of dilation; for sophistic is an art not only of elaboration, but of elaborateness.

(1) _Ecphrasis_

Without enumerating devices that constitute a large part of sophistic, we may see the characteristic dilation at the full in the single form known as ἔκφρασις.[40] An ecphrasis is a separable decorative description, usually of a stock subject. “I will draw this for you in words,” says Himerius,[41] using the formula of introduction, “and will make your ears serve for eyes.” The natural beauty of a prospect or of the human body is detailed for admiration, even oftener the artistic beauty of statue or temple. The orator turns on, as it were, a storm, a feast, the prospect of a city. The essentially artificial character of the ecphrasis is obvious in the favorite exercise of word-painting a peacock.[42] Apparently a boy could carry this peacock from school to the platform and continue to use it with merely verbal variations.

Of course the ecphrasis might rise to a higher level. So it did often. An accomplished orator might make it splendid, even really moving. Oratory cannot afford to neglect the appeal of oral description. None the less the ecphrasis had two essential vices. First it was extraneous, separable, detachable, a clear sign that sequence did not count. Secondly, instead of following the Aristotelian counsels of specific concrete imagery, it habitually generalized and rapidly became conventional.

Ecphrasis is no less significant for poetic. A form of Alexandrianism[43] avoided by Vergil and adopted with enthusiasm by Ovid, it perverts description because it frustrates narrative movement. The habit of decorative dilation in oratory confirmed a decadent habit of literature.[44] That the habit is decadent even when indulged with more taste is suggested by certain passages in De Quincey, in Pater, most clearly perhaps in that English sophist Laurence Sterne. Among the ecphrases of the _Sentimental Journey_ is one that he executed upon a theme taken from the most expert mocker of the sophists, Lucian,[45] and has made quite typical of the soothing rhythms and the elegant dilation of sophistic eloquence.

The town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there,
trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was
the vilest and most profligate town in all Thrace. What for
poisons, conspiracies, and assassinations, libels, pasquinades
and tumults, there was no going there by day; ’twas worse by
night. Now when things were at their worst, it came to pass
that the Andromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera,
the whole orchestra was delighted with it. But of all the
passages which delighted them, nothing operated more upon their
imaginations than the tender strokes of nature which the poet
had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, “O Cupid!
prince of gods and men.” Every man, almost, spoke pure iambics
the next day, and talked of nothing but Perseus’ pathetic
address—“O Cupid! prince of gods and men!” In every street of
Abdera, in every house—“O Cupid! Cupid!” in every mouth, like
the natural notes of some sweet melody, which drop from it
whether it will or no, nothing but “Cupid! Cupid! prince of
gods and men!” The fire caught; and the whole city, like the
heart of one man, opened itself to love. No pharmacopolist
could sell one grain of hellebore; not a single armorer had a
heart to forge one instrument of death. Friendship and Virtue
met together and kissed each other in the street. The golden
age returned and hung over the town of Abdera. Every Abderite
took his oaten pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her purple
web, and chastely sat her down, and listened to the song.
“’Twas only in the power,” says the fragment, “of the god whose
empire extended from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of
the sea, to have done this.”

c. PATTERN

For the composition of the whole speech sophistic generally had little care. That planned sequence, that leading on of the mind from point to point, which is the habit of great orators and the chief means of cogency, presupposes urgency toward a goal. Sophistic often had no goal. The audience need be won only to admiration, not to decision. Easily, therefore, rhetoric came to pay no more attention to logical movement than poetic to movement in narrative. Like Alexandrian narrative, sophistic oratory cares little for onwardness; and its lore is reduced to prescription for detail.

If Philostratus seems occasionally aware of the value of planned movement, scrutiny will reveal that he is thinking not of the order of the whole, but only of sentences. For instance, the passage praising Isocrates for his “brilliant composition”[46] specifies his handling of rhythms; “for thought after thought concludes upon a balanced period.”

This lack of plan may seem paradoxical in the works of writers
as artistic as the Greek men of letters. So, indeed, it is;
but it is explained by the quite different conception that the
Greeks—at least those of the decadence—have of the beauty of
a discourse. For them the whole value is in the detail. The
perfecting of the whole is secondary; they have no taste for
it. By a sort of deliberate intellectual myopia they restrict
their field of vision to the analysis of a paragraph, a period,
a phrase, even a word. Their esthetic sense, so to speak, is
fragmentary.[47]

As if to mark the lack of individual planning for cogency, sophistic is commonly composed upon set patterns. No other body of oratory has so uniformly resigned itself to forms. The orator could devote his whole attention to each separate development because its place was predetermined in a traditional series of topics. The encomium[48] of a country was expected to deal with its situation, climate, products, its race, founders, government, its advancement in learning and literature, its festivals and its buildings, unless indeed the whole encomium were based on one of these topics. Similar topics controlled the praise of a city, a harbor, a bay, an acropolis. The classification of these as separate forms goes on to enumerate the speech at an embarkation, a marriage, a birthday, a festival, etc., as in a complete letter-writer.[49] Similarly prescribed was the encomium of a person. So pervasive were its topics that they invaded even written biography.[50] Philostratus follows them in his account of Herodes Atticus.[51] Basil, on the other hand, explicitly rejects them as inept for encomia of Christian martyrs; and his protest shows at once their prevalence and their typical vice.

The school of God does not recognize the laws of the encomium,
but holds that a mere telling of the martyr’s deeds is a
sufficient praise for the saints and sufficient inspiration for
those who are struggling towards virtue. For it is the fixed
habit of encomia to search out the history of the native city,
to find out the family exploits, and to relate the education of
the subject of the encomium, but it is our custom to pass over
in silence such details and to compose the encomium of each
martyr from those facts which have a bearing on his martyrdom.
How could I be an object of more reverence or be more
illustrious from the fact that my native city once upon a time
endured great and heavy battles and after routing her enemies
erected famous trophies? What if she is so happily located that
in summer and winter her climate is pleasant? If she is the
mother of heroes and is capable of supporting cattle, what gain
are these to me? In her herds of horses she surpasses all lands
under the sun. How may these facts improve us in manly virtue?
If we talk about the peaks of mountains near, how they out-top
the clouds and reach the farthest stretches of the air, shall
we deceive ourselves into thinking that drawing praise from
these facts we give praise to men? Of all things it is most
absurd that when the just despise the whole world, we celebrate
their praises from those things which they contemned.[52]

Such composing upon a pattern is legitimately a school exercise. Its use in elementary education is not confined to sophistic. What is sophistic is its extent and its prescriptiveness, still more its extension from school into adult and professional practise. How far the oratory of the imperial centuries was controlled by fixed topics becomes startingly evident in its conformity to the rules set forth by the manuals of elementary exercises.[53] Theon’s of uncertain date may have been superseded[54] by that of Aphthonius in the fourth century, which at any rate had a long life.[55] But the pattern is most concisely shown in the second century by Hermogenes,[56] whose work is typical of them all. There some of the most characteristic habits of form in sophistic oratory are seen as prolongations of school exercises.

THE ELEMENTARY EXERCISES (προγυμνάσματα) OF HERMOGENES[57]

MYTH (FABLE)

Myth is the approved thing to set first before the young,
because it can lead their minds into better measures.

Myths appear to have been used also by the ancients, Hesiod
telling that of the nightingale, Archilochus that of the fox.

From their inventors myths are named Cyprian or Libyan or
Sybaritic; but all alike are called Æsopic, because Æsop used
myths for his dialogues.

The description of a myth is traditionally something like this.
It may, they say, be fictitious, but thoroughly practical
for some contingency of actual life. Moreover it should be
plausible. How may it be plausible? By our assigning to the
characters actions that befit them. For example, if the
contention be about beauty, let this be posed as a peacock; if
some one is to be represented as wise, there let us pose a fox;
if imitators of the actions of men, monkeys.

Myths are sometimes to be expanded, sometimes to be told
concisely. How? By now telling in bare narrative, and now
feigning the words of the given characters. For example, “the
monkeys in council deliberated on the necessity of settling
in houses. When they had made up their minds to this end and
were about to set to work, an old monkey restrained them,
saying that they would more easily be captured if they were
caught within enclosures.” Thus if you are concise; but if you
wish to expand, proceed in this way. “The monkeys in council
deliberated on the founding of a city; and one coming forward
made a speech to the effect that they too must have a city.
‘For see,’ said he, ‘how fortunate in this regard are men. Not
only does each of them have a house, but all going up together
to public meeting or theater delight their souls with all
manner of things to see and hear.’” Go on thus, dwelling on the
incidents and saying that the decree was formally passed; and
devise a speech for the old monkey. So much for this.

The style of recital, they say, should be far from periods and
near to pleasantness. The moral to be derived from the myth is
sometimes put first, sometimes last. Orators[58] too appear to
have used myth instead of example.

TALE

A tale, they say, is the setting forth of something that has
happened or of something as if it had happened. Sometimes,
however, authorities set the chria instead of this.

A tale differs from a story as a poem from an extended poetical
work. For a poem or a tale is about one thing, a poetical
work or a story about several. Thus a poetical work is the
_Iliad_, for example, or the _Odyssey_; but a poem is (one of
the component parts, such as) the making of the shield, the
visit to the shades, or the slaying of the suitors. And again,
a story is the history of Herodotus or the composition of
Thucydides; a tale is the incident of Arion or that of Alcmæon.

The forms of the tale are said to be four: the mythical; the
fictitious, which is also called the dramatic, as those of the
tragic poets; the historical; and the political or personal.
But for the present we consider the last.

The modes of tales are five: direct declarative, indirect
declarative, interrogative, enumerative, comparative. Direct
declarative is as follows: “Medea was the daughter of Æetes.
She betrayed the golden fleece”; and it is called direct
because the whole discourse, or the greater part, keeps the
nominative case. Indirect declarative is as follows: “The story
runs that Medea, daughter of Æetes, was enamored of Jason,”
and so on; and it is called indirect because it uses the other
cases. The interrogative is this mode: “What terrible thing did
not Medea do? Was she not enamored of Jason, and did she not
betray the golden fleece and kill her brother Absyrtus?” and
so on. The enumerative mode is as follows: “Medea, daughter
of Æetes, was enamored of Jason, betrayed the golden fleece,
slew her brother Absyrtus,” and so on. The comparative is
as follows: “Medea, daughter of Æetes, instead of ruling
her spirit, was enamored; instead of guarding the golden
fleece, betrayed it; instead of saving her brother Absyrtus,
slew him.” The direct mode is suited to stories, as being
clearer; the indirect, rather to trials; the interrogative to
cross-questioning; the enumerative, to perorations, as rousing
emotion.

CHRIA

A chria[59] is a concise exposition of some memorable saying or
deed, generally for good counsel.

Some chriæ are of words, others of deeds, still others of both:
of words, i.e., essentially sayings, as “Plato said that
the Muses dwell in the souls of the fit”; of deeds, i.e.,
essentially doings, as “Diogenes, seeing an ill-bred youth,
smote his tutor, saying ‘why did you teach him thus?’”

A chria differs from a memoir mainly in scope; for some
memoirs may run to considerable length, but a chria must be
concise. It differs from a proverb in that the latter is a bald
declaration, whereas a chria is often (developed) by question
and answer; and again in that a chria may be based upon deeds,
whereas a proverb is based only upon words; and again in that
a chria introduces the person who did or said, whereas the
proverb has no reference to a person.

Chriæ have been distinguished, mainly by the ancients, as
declarative, interrogative, and investigative.

But now let us come to the point, that is the actual working
out. Let this working out be as follows: first, brief encomium
of the sayer or doer; then paraphrase of the chria itself; then
proof or explanation. For example, Isocrates said that the root
of education is bitter, but its fruit sweet: (1) encomium,
“Isocrates was wise,” and you will slightly develop this topic;
(2) chria, “said, etc.,” and you will not leave this bare, but
develop the significance; (3) proof, (a) direct, “the greatest
affairs are usually established through toil, and, once
established, bring happiness”; (b) by contrast, “those affairs
which succeed by chance require no toil and their conclusion
brings no happiness; quite the contrary with things that demand
our zeal”; (c) by illustration, “as the farmers who toil
ought to reap the fruit, so with speeches”; (d) by example,
“Demosthenes, who shut himself up in his room and labored much,
finally reaped his fruit, crowns and public proclamations.” (e)
You may also cite authority, as “Hesiod says, ‘Before virtue
the gods have put sweat’; and another poet says, ‘The gods
sell all good things for labor.’” (4) Last you will put an
exhortation to follow what was said or done.

So much for now; fuller instructions you will learn later.

PROVERB

A proverb is a summary saying, in a statement of general
application, dissuading from something or persuading toward
something, or showing what is the nature of each: dissuading,
as in that line “a counsellor should not sleep all night”;
persuading, as in the lines “he who flees poverty, Cyrnus,
must cast himself upon the monster-haunted deep and down steep
crags.” Or it does neither of these, but makes a declaration
concerning the nature of the thing: “Faring well undeservedly
is for the unintelligent the beginning of thinking ill.”

Again, some proverbs are true, others plausible; some simple,
others compound, others hyperbolic:

(1) true, such as “no one can find a life without pain”;

(2) plausible, such as “never have I asked what manner of man
takes pleasure in bad company, knowing that birds of a feather
flock together”;

(3) simple, such as “wealth may make men even benevolent”;

(4) compound, such as “no good comes of many rulers; let there
be one”;

(5) hyperbolic, such as “earth breeds nothing feebler than man.”

The working out is similar to that of the chria; for it
proceeds by (1) brief encomium of him who made the saying, as
in the chria; (2) direct exposition; (3) proof; (4) contrast;
(5) enthymeme; (6) illustration; (7) example; (8) authority.
Let the proverb be, for example, “_a counsellor should not
sleep all night._” (1) You will briefly praise the speaker.
Then to (2) direct exposition, i.e., to paraphrase of the
proverb, as “it befits not a man proved in counsels to
sleep through the whole night”; (3) proof, “always through
pondering is one a leader, but sleep takes away counsel”;
(4) contrast, “as a private citizen differs from a king, so
sleep from wakefulness”; (5) “how, then, might it be taken?
if there is nothing startling in a private citizen’s sleeping
all night, plainly it befits a king to ponder wakefully”; (6)
illustration, “as helmsmen are incessantly wakeful for the
common safety, so should chieftains be”; (7) example, “Hector,
not sleeping at night, but pondering, sent Dolon to the ships
to reconnoiter.” (8) The last topic is the one from authority.
Let the conclusion be hortatory.

REFUTATION AND CONFIRMATION

Destructive analysis is the overturning of the thing cited;
constructive analysis, on the contrary, its confirmation.

Things fictitious, such as myths, are open to neither
destruction nor construction; destruction and construction
apply only to things that offer argument on either side.

Destructive analysis proceeds by alleging that the thing is (1)
obscure, (2) incredible, (3) impossible, (4) inconsistent or,
as it is called, contrary, (5) unfitting, (6) inexpedient: (1)
obscure, as “in the case of Narcissus the time is obscure”;
(2) incredible, as “it is incredible that Arion in the midst
of his ills was willing to sing”; (3) impossible, “it is
impossible that Arion was saved on a dolphin”; (4) inconsistent
or contrary, “quite opposite to preserving popular government
is wishing to destroy it”; (5) unfitting, “it was unfitting for
Apollo, being a god, to love a mortal woman”; (6) inexpedient,
when we say that it is of no use to hear this.

Confirmation proceeds by the opposites of these.

COMMONPLACE

The so-called commonplace is the amplification of a thing
admitted, of demonstrations already made. For in this we
are no longer investigating whether so-and-so was a robber
of temples, whether such-another was a chieftain, but how we
shall amplify the demonstrated fact. It is called commonplace
because it is applicable to every temple-robber and to every
chieftain. The procedure must be as follows: (1) analysis of
the contrary, (2) the deed itself, (3) comparison, (4) proverb,
(5) defamatory surmise of the past life (of the accused) from
the present, (6) repudiation of pity by the so-called final
considerations and by a sketch of the deed itself.

Introductions will not be merely within the commonplace, but
will be maintained up to it. For instance, if the commonplace
be about a temple-robber, the introduction, not in sense but
in type, may be as follows: “All evil-doers, honorable judges,
should be hated, but especially those whose audacity is
directed toward the gods”; or again, “If you wish to deprave
other men, let this one go; if not, punish him”; or again, “To
outward seeming the only one on trial here is the accused, but
in truth you judges, too; for to be false to one’s oath of
office may be more criminal than transgression.”

Then, before proceeding to the deed itself, (1) discuss its
contrary; e.g., “Our laws have provided for the worship of
the gods, have reared altars and adorned them with votive
offerings, have honored the gods with sacrifices, festal
assemblies, processions.” Then the application to the
indictment. “Naturally, for the favor of the gods preserves
cities; and without this they must be destroyed.” (2) Now
proceed to the case in hand. “These things being so, what has
this man dared?” and tell what he has done, not as explaining
it, but as heightening. “He has defiled the whole city, both
its public interests and its private; and we must fear lest our
crops fail; we must fear lest we be worsted by our enemies,”
etc. (3) Next go on to comparison. “He is more dangerous than
murderers; for the difference is in the object of attack.
They have presumed against human life; he has outraged the
gods. He is like despots, not like them all, but like the most
dangerous. For in them it appears most shocking that they
lay hands on what has been dedicated to the gods.” And you
will bring into the denunciation comparisons with the lesser,
since they are destructive. “Is it not shocking to punish the
thief, but not the temple-robber?” (4, 5 above.) You may draw
defamation of the rest of his life from his present crime.
“Beginning with small offenses, he went on to this one last,
so that you have before you in the same person a thief, a
housebreaker, and an adulterer” (5, 4 above). You may cite
the proverb in accordance with which he came to this pass,
“Unwilling to work in the fields, he wished to get money by
such means”; and, if you are denouncing a homicide, (you may
tell) also the consequences, “a wife made widow, children
orphans.” (6) Use also the repudiation of pity. Now you will
repudiate pity by the so-called final considerations of equity,
justice, expediency, possibility, and propriety, and by
description of the crime. “Look not on him as he weeps now, but
on him as he despises the gods, as he approaches the shrine, as
he forces the doors, as he lays hands on the votive offerings.”
And conclude upon exhortation. “What are you about to do? what
to decide concerning that which has been already judged?” So
much for the present; the ampler method you will know later.

ENCOMIUM

Encomium is the setting forth of the good qualities that
belong to some one in general or in particular: in general,
as encomium of man; in particular, as encomium of Socrates.
We make encomia also of things, such as justice; and of
animals without reason, such as the horse; and even of plants,
mountains, and rivers. It has been called encomium, they say,
from poets’ singing the hymns of the gods in villages long ago;
and passes also used to be called villages.

Encomium differs from praise (in general) in that the latter
may be brief, as “Socrates was wise,” whereas encomium
is developed at some length. Observe too that censure is
classified with encomia, either because the latter may be
euphemistic or because both are developed by the same
commonplaces. In what, then, does the encomium differ from the
commonplace? For in some cases the two seem very much alike.
The difference, they say, appears in the end, in the issue.
For whereas in the commonplace the aim is to receive a reward,
encomium has no other (end) than the witness to virtue.

Subjects for encomia are: a race, as the Greek; a city, as
Athens; a family, as the Alcmæonidæ. You will say[60] what
marvelous things befell at the birth, as dreams or signs or the
like. Next, the nurture, as, in the case of Achilles, that he
was reared on lions’ marrow and by Chiron. Then the training,
how he was trained and how educated. Not only so, but the
nature of soul and body will be set forth, and of each under
heads: for the body, beauty, stature, agility, might; for
the soul, justice, self-control, wisdom, manliness. Next his
pursuits, what sort of life he pursued, that of philosopher,
orator, or soldier, and most properly his deeds, for deeds
come under the head of pursuits. For example, if he chose the
life of a soldier, what in this did he achieve? Then external
resources, such as kin, friends, possessions, household,
fortune, etc. Then from the (topic) time, how long he lived,
much or little; for either gives rise to encomia. A long-lived
man you will praise on this score; a short-lived, on the score
of his not sharing those diseases which come from age. Then,
too, from the manner of his end, as that he died fighting for
his fatherland, and, if there were anything extraordinary under
that head, as in the case of Callimachus that even in death
he stood. You will draw praise also from the one who slew
him, as that Achilles died at the hands of the god Apollo.
You will describe also what was done after his end, whether
funeral games were ordained in his honor, as in the case of
Patroclus, whether there was an oracle concerning his bones, as
in the case of Orestes, whether his children were famous, as
Neoptolemus. But the greatest opportunity in encomia is through
comparisons, which you will draw as the occasion may suggest.

Similarly also living things without speech, so far as they
permit. You will draw your encomia from the place in which the
thing lives; and in addition to the country of its birth you
will tell to which of the gods it is dedicated, as the owl to
Athena, the horse to Poseidon. In like manner also you will
tell its nurture, the nature of soul and body, its deeds and
their use, the length of its life; and you will use throughout
such comparisons as fall in with these topics.

Encomia of things done you will draw from their inventors, as
the things of the chase from Artemis and Apollo; from those
who practised them, as heroes. But the best procedure for
such encomia is to consider those who pursue them, of what
sort these are in soul and body, e.g., hunters as manly,
courageous, more alert in intelligence, physically vigorous.
Finally you will observe that we must make encomia of the gods;
and it is to be borne in mind that such encomia must be called
hymns.[61]

Furthermore plants similarly, each from the topics of its
habitat, of the god to which it is dedicated, as the olive to
Athena, of its nurture, as how it is grown. If it needs much
care, you will marvel at this; if little, at that. You will
tell concerning its body, its rapid growth, its beauty, and
whether it is ever-blooming, as the olive. Then its usefulness,
on which you will dwell most. Comparisons you will lay hold of
everywhere.

Furthermore encomium of a city you may undertake from these
topics without difficulty. For you will tell of its race that
its citizens were autochthonous, and concerning its nurture
that they were nourished by the gods, and concerning its
education that they were educated by the gods. And you will
expound, as in the case of a man, of what sort the city is
in its manners and institutions, and what its pursuits and
accomplishments.

COMPARISON

Comparison has been included both under _commonplace_ as a
means of our amplifying misdeeds, and also under _encomium_ as
a means of amplifying good deeds, and finally has been included
as having the same force in censure. But since some (authors)
of no small reputation have made it an exercise by itself, we
must speak of it briefly. It proceeds, then, by the encomiastic
topics; for we compare city with city as to the men who came
from them, race with race, nurture with nurture, pursuits,
affairs, external relations, and the manner of death and what
follows. Likewise if you compare plants, you will set over
against one another the gods who give them, the places in which
they grow, the cultivation, the use of their fruits, etc.
Likewise also if you compare things done, you will tell who
first undertook them, and will compare with one another those
who pursued them as to qualities of soul and body. Let the same
principle be accepted for all.

Now sometimes we draw our comparisons by equality, showing the
things which we compare as equal either in all respects or in
several; sometimes we put the one ahead, praising also the
other to which we prefer it; sometimes we blame the one utterly
and praise the other, as in a comparison of justice and wealth.
There is even comparison with the better, where the task is
to show the less equal to the greater, as in a comparison of
Heracles with Odysseus. But such comparison demands a powerful
orator and a vivid style; and the working out always needs
vivacity because of the need of making the transitions swift.

CHARACTERIZATION (ΗΘΟΠΟΙΙΑ)[62]

Characterization is imitation of the character of a person
assigned, e.g., what words Andromache might say to Hector.
(The exercise is called) _prosopopœia_ when we put the person
into the scene, as Elenchus in Menander, and as in Aristides
the sea is imagined to be addressing the Athenians. The
difference is plain; for in the one case we invent words for a
person really there, and in the other we invent also a person
who was not there. They call it image-making (εἰδωλοποιία)
when we suit words to the dead, as Aristides in the speech
against Plato in behalf of the Four; for he suited words to the
companions of Themistocles.