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VI. The Rhetorical Writings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Extract
Ancient rhetoric was a big subject, though its main outlines became stereotyped enough to be easily grasped. More perhaps can be said in its defence as a means of education, if not as an influence on literature and criticism, than is commonly allowed, but it had two clear faults. As systematized in the Hellenistic period it became extremely technical and pedantic, and it concentrated excessively on the techniques of gaining victory in the law courts. Though Cicero regarded the great forensic battle, which of course often had political implications, as the outstanding challenge to the orator, he claimed for his ideal orator–statesman much more than a narrow forensic virtuosity, and he had little time for the technicalities and pedantries of the rhetoricians. The best example is his handling of the topic of ornatus (one of four ‘virtues of style’ which probably go back to Theophrastus) in the third book of De Oratore. Traditionally treated as providing scope for extensive classification and exemplifications of the rhetorical ‘figures’, ornatus is claimed by Cicero as the product of a well-stocked mind, and only after a long ‘digression’ on this theme does he provide, and then with deliberate perfunctoriness, a list of figures on the traditional pattern.
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References
page no 35 note 1 There is an admirable brief critical survey by Russell, D. A., Greece & Rome N.S. xiv (1967), 130 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. At the other extreme, Lausberg, H., Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik (Munich, 1960)Google Scholar provides all the detail anyone could want. Midway come Clarke, M. L., Rhetoric at Rome (London, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Baldwin, C. S., Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic (repr. Gloucester, Mass., 1959)Google Scholar. The best historical survey is W. Kroll, art. ‘Rhetorik’, RE Supp.-Bd. vii.
page no 35 note 2 Clark, D. L., Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York, 1957)Google Scholar and Corbett, E. P., Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar have dealt with it as having practical value in modern education.
page no 36 note 1 On this, W. Kroll in RE, art. M. Tullius Cicero, col. 1094.
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page no 37 note 3 The doctrine of the ‘three styles’, thanks to its appearance in Ad Herennium, Cicero’s Orator, and Horace Ars poet. 25-8, had a long and influential subsequent history. Its origins have been much debated. Probably the ‘middle’ style was originally the Peripatetic ‘mean’ style, i.e. the best style, avoiding both aridity and bombast, but it became simply one of three, with resultant complications as to its definition. See Hendrickson, G. L., AJP xxv (1904), 125 ff.Google Scholar; xxvi (1905), 249 ff. The controversy to date was summarized by Körte, A., Hermes lxiv (1929), 80 ffGoogle Scholar. There is also Quadlbauer, A., Wien. Stud. lxxi (1958), 55 ffGoogle Scholar.
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