G. Calboli, From Aristotelian Léxis to Elocutio

8/12/2019 G. Calboli, From Aristotelian Lxis to Elocutio

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From Aristotelian to elocutioAuthor(s): Gualtiero CalboliSource: Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter 1998), pp. 47-80Published by: University of California Presson behalf of the International Society for the History ofRhetoric

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GUALTIERO C A L B O U

From Aristotel ianXe^is toelocutio

1. INTRODUCTION

ver the last few years it has become fashionable tocriticize Ro bert Pfeiffer for ov ere stim atin g thecontribution of the Stoics and underestimating that ofthe Peripatet ics towards the development of rhetoric,gr am m ar an d philology. In fact A ristotie deserv es the credit forcormecting rhetoric with dialectic and poetry, without losing sightof its practical employment in the assembly and courts of law.A no ther dev elop m ent of rhetoric which occurred after A ristotleand perhaps Theophrastus was the development of an excessivenumber of rules, especially in the doctrine of fropes and figures ofspeech. That happened dur ing the second century B.C. on theisland of Rhodes and may be considered a kind of Asianicrhetoric. It w as infroduced into Rom e throu gh at least twoha ndbooks , C i c e r o ' sDe Inventione and theRhetorica ad Herennium.However, in 55 B.C., at the beginning of his Platonic dialogue DeOratore, C icero diso w ned h is ear ly work (De orat. 1.5).

' R. Pfeiffer, History cfClassicalScholarship,From the eginnings to theEnd oftheHellenisticAge(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).This is the opinion of F. Montanari inLa philologie grecque i I'ipoquehellinistique

et Tomaine, ed. F. Montemari (Vcmdoeuvres - Geneve: Fondation Hardt, EntretiensXL, 1994), p. 29. I agree with him but recall that Pfeiffer also pointed out theimportance of Aristotie and the Peripatos for Hellenistic philology: cf., e.g., pp. 192;197 of the Italian translation by M. Gigante and S. Cerasuolo (Napoli: Macchiaroli,1973).

The origin and development of the doctrine of tropes and figures is not clear.It has been investigated by K. Barwick,Problemed erstoischen SprachlehreundRhetorik(Berlin: Abhandlungen der sachsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig,PhiloL-hist. Kl., Bd. 49, Hft. 3, Akademie-Verlag, 1957), pp. 88-111, but must bereconsidered now (see below).

The International Society for the History of Rhetoric,Rhetorica, Volume XVI,Number (Winter 1998)

47

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48 RHETORICAThe date of composit ion of De Inventione is about 87B.C., onlyone year after C icero he ard Philon of L arissa in Ro m e, as ha s

been recent ly noted by C. Levy. ' Both Cicero 's De Inventione ( 8 8 -87 B.C.) and the Rhetoricaad Herennium (86-82) were composed ata t ime when the democrat ic par ty dominated Rome and beforeSulla came back from the Orient (82). I do not want to discuss tiiepolitical position of the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium here ,a l though the idea that he was a democrat has recent iy beenconfi rmed by G. Achard and J . -M. David. ' h i the per iod betweenthe Ars Rhetoricaw rit ten (but not com pleted ) by the grea t ora torM . A nto niu s (abo ut 96 B .C.)^ an d Su lla's dic tato rsh ip (82), t iiereare ab ou t fifteen y ears of rhetorica l activity d u ri n g w hic h th ecensor ia l edic t by L . Crassus and D. Ahenobarbus of 92 wasineffective. This edict , as has been demonstrated by Emilio Gabba,became effective with Sulla who continued the action that thenobi l i ty 's fact ion had brought under the law proposed by thefribune Livius Drusus in 91 B.C. in order to reorganize the RomanState. ' We know that the orator L. Crassus, a teacher of Cicero,was another of the promoters of this law but died before i tsap pro va l . A fter con sidering G rue n's posit ion on this subject , I

' Cf Cic . Brut. 306; TMSC. 2.9. W hen d id Philo come to R ome? The a nsw er isgiven by W. Kroll in his Commentary ad loc, p. 217f: "Die gliicklichen Erfolge desMithridates verlei teten die Athener , an deren Spitze s ich der Peripatet iker Aris tostel l te, im J . 88 von den Romem abzufal len und s ich mit Archelaus, dem Feldhermdes Mithridates , zu verbiinden. Die Optimaten, welche treu zu den Romem hiel ten,muBten nun fliichten". Cf. also J.-M. David,Le patronat judiciaireau derniersieclede larepublique romaine(Rom a: Ecole Fran^aise de R ome , Palais Fam ese, 1992), p p . 371 f.

C. Levy, "Le mythe de la naissance de la civi l isat ion chez Ciceron", inMathesis e Philia, Studi in onore di M. Gigante (Napoli : Dipart im ento di Fi lologiaC lassica, 1995), pp . 155-168.' G. Achard, Rhetorique i Herennius (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1989), pp. xxviii-XXX,J.-M. Da vid,Le patronatjudiciaire,pp. 369 f.' Cf. G. Calboli, "L'oratore M.Antonio e la Rhetorica ad Herennium , GiornaleItalianodi Filologia,n .s. 3 (1972): 120-177, he re p p . 149-172.

' There is a parallel between the secularization of the juridical culture in Romeand the expansion of Greek rhetoric from the very beginning of the first century B.C.The secularisation of the juridical activity began before Q. Mucius Scaevola (cos. 95)but with Scaevola 's luris CivilisLibriXVIII we have the f irs t great work writ ten by ajurist: on this work see F. P. Bremer, lurisprudentiae Antehadrianae Quae Supersunt(Leipzig: B.G.Teubner, 1896),I , pp. 58-103, A. Schiavone,Giuristi e Nobili nella RomaRepubblicana (Bari: L aterza, 1987), p p. 2 5-49.

' Cf. E. Gabba, Esercito e Society nella Tarda Repubblica Romana (Firenze: LaN uo va Italia, 1973), p p. 383-406.' C f E. S. Gru en, Studies inGreekCulture and Rom an Policy (Leiden: Brill, 1990),pp. 187-191,discussed b y G. C alboli ,Com ificiRhetoricaa dC.H erennium, Introduzione,Edizione Criticae Comm ento,ed. G. C alboli (Bologna: Patro n, 1993'), pp . 503-506 .



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From A ristotelianXe istoElocutio 49now think that both poUtical and cultural purposes wereinterlaced an d com bined in C rassu s 's censorial edict . The edict 'sprohibition of teaching rhetoric became effective after 82-81 B.C.,after which rhetorical artes (xexvai) ceased to be com po sed for at i me . L . C alboU M ontefusco ha s already stressed the impo rtanceof the censorial edict of 92 B.C. in stopping any development of aLatin theory of staseis . A consequence of this blockage oftechnical rhetoric was the broadening of the rhetorical field as wasexpressly required by Cicero 's CYKIIKXLOS TraiSeia. Follo w ing th isCiceronian trend Quinti l ian integrated his Institutio Oratoria withUterature, namely poetry, history, oratory and philosophy {Inst.10.1). In this way the elocutio (the Xe^is) acq uir ed incre asingim po rtanc e. A lread y the whole of Book 4 of Rhetorica adHerennium, which consti tute roughly half the work, was dedicatedtoelocutio alone.However the expansion of Xe^is seemes to have alreadyoccurred in Greece. The island of Rhodes, probably the commonsource of both handbooks (Cic. 'sDe Inv. an(d theRhet.Her.), was acentre for oratory. We know the names of Athenaeus fromNaucrat is and of the two ApoUoni i , ApoUonios Molon andA poU onios the Sweet. Rho des w as the m ost im po rtant centre forAsianic rhetoric at the end of the second and the beginning of thefirst century B.C. From Rhodes probably came the Hellenist ic and

" O n this subject see A . D. Leem an, H. Pinkster an d J. W isse, M. TuUius Cicero,Deoratore libri III Kom men tar, 4.Band:Buch II, 291-367; Buch III, 1-95 (Heidelberg;C.Winter, 1996), p. 305.1 agree with the idea expressed on this page that a politicalintention cannot be excluded from the censorial action of 92 B.C. The presumption ofR. A. Kaster in denying any intention of this kind without considering thearguments of J. -M. David is not his only over-simplification and needs no furthercommentary: Cf . C. Suetonius Tranquil lus , DeGrammaticis et Rhetoribus,ed. w ith aTranslat ion, Introduction and Commentary by R. A. Kaster (Oxford: ClarendonPre ss 1995), p. 293.

" La dottrirw degli status'' nellaretorica greca e romana (Hi ldesheim: O lm s-W eidm ann, 1986), pp . 197-206." O n the eyicikXtos naiSeia see K. B arwick, Dasrednerische Bildungsideal Ciceros(Berlin: A bha ndlu nge n de r sachsischen A kadem ie der Wissenschaften zu L eipzig,Philol-his t . Kl, Bd. 54, Hft . 3, Akademie-Veriag, 1963), pp. 13-17, G. Calboli , "Laformazione oratoria di Cicerone",Vichiana2(1965): 3-30, here pp. 12-22.'*The Rh odian school has been d escribed b y F. Delia C orte, "Rodi e I 'istituzionedei pubblici s tudi", in Opuscula I (Geneva: Pubbl. dell 'lstituto di Filologia Classica,1971), pp . 12-15 , F. Porta lupi,Sullacorrente rodiese (Torino: G.Giappichelli, 1957), pp.10-19. Both must be used with prudence. Hermagoras von Temnos has beenconsidered a Rhodian by Delia Corte and Portalupi , but we know only the origin(Temnos) , and almost nothing more of Hermagoras: see D. Matthes, "Hermagorasvon Temnos 1904-1955",Lustrum3 (1958): 58-214, here pp. 70-72.



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5 Q R H E T O R I C AAsianic docfrine of figures which K. Barwick considers the earliestand which, in his opinion, had a l ready been developed byTh eop hrashis . ' " J. St ro ux " has arg ued that The oph rast i isexp laine d and org an ize d die dpcTai rijs Xeêws as distin ct fromthe corresponding KOKiai TTIS Xeêws a n d tiiat A risto tie h a dalready developed a doctr ine of (ja(^T\v\.a. I agree with Strouxexcept on one point, which is the origin of the tiiree genera dicendi(xapaKTTipes TTJS Xeêws). 1 carmot accept his idea (p. 93) tiiat tiiegenera dicendi w ere first em plo yed by teachers an d rhetoricia nsand not by Theophrastus . This quest ion has been discussed bymany scholars*^ and I do not want to reconsider it in its entirety.N eve rtheless I w an t to state clearly that I f ind una ccep table theidea suggested by both He ndrickso n and Stroux an d m orerecentiy by R. Nicolai . A ccordin g to them the three genres are inconflict with the preference which the Peripatetic school alwayss h o w e d t o w a r d s t h e PCCTOTTIS.From this poin t of view i t w o u ld bestrange that a Peripatetic chose the full or the plain style instead ofthe middle one which was preferred in al l respects by Aristotlean d T he op hr ast us . The only dperfi rfis Xeêws reco gn ized b y thePeripatet ics could be, in Hendrickson's opinion, the HCCTOTTIS,whereas the grand style was considered inrepPoXri and the plaineXXen|iLS. "To reconcile with this analysis the Peripatetic theory w ri tes He ndrickson it w ou ld be necessary to assu m e that ,w hi le origin ally th e xapaKxfjp jieCTos w a s the o nly g o o d s ty le , an dthe iaxvos and dSpos were respectively the CXXCKJILS and inrepPoXri,yet in t ime those lat ter had come to be recognized as worthy typesof style virtutes as Gell ius (Varro) calls them, and not erroneousdeviations from the dperii ."

' K. B arwick,Probleme,p p . 102 ff." DeTheophrastivirtutibusdicendi(Leipzig: B .G. Teub ner, 1912), p p. 9-28 ." Recently by D. Innes, "Theophrastus and the Theory of Style", in T heophrastusof Eresus, On HisLifeandWork, ed . W. W. For tenbaugh -P. M. H uby -A . A . Long (NewBrunswick; Rutgers Universi ty Studies in Classical Humanit ies , Vol. 2, TransactionBooks, 1985), pp. 251-267." See G. L. Hendrickson, "The Peripatetic Mean of Style and the Three StylisticC h a r a c t e r s " ,American Journalo fPhilology 25 (1904): 125-146; in particular p.l36: "theAris totel ian doctr ine of the mean could never have tolerated the defini t ion of typesof style in the sense of the x^poKTripes Xefetos co nc eiv ed of as typ es ofindiv idua lism" , p. 140: "Manifestly the i ieoorr is w as to Theop hrastus nota style, butthe s tyle", id., "The O rigin and Mea ning of the A ncient C haracters of Style",AmericanJournalofPhilology 26 (1905): 250-290, here p. 290, J. Stroux, De Theophrastivirtutibus dicendip p . 107-111, R. Nicolai, La storiografia nell'educazione antica (Pisa:G iard ini, 1992), p. 120, n. 169." "Th e Peripatetic M ean of Style", p. 142.



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From A ristotelianXe LS toElocutio 51Hendrickson, however, fails to consider that in the firstpresentation of the xapaKxiipes TTIS Xeêcjs, in Rhet. Her. 4.11-16,the vitia (KaKiat) of th ese xapaxTTipes riis Xeêa)s also oc cu r afterth e virtutes (dpcTai). A s for the xapaKrfjp dSpos, t he e rr on eo usdeviation is recognized in the figura sufflata, the tumos being aTTapeKpaCTi5 from th e gr eat style . A s for th e xapcKTiip toxv os th eshift from the correct to the wrong style is not explained by thesame evidence. Nevertheless the example in Rhetorica adHerennium is very clear and is presented as a fall from the correctplain style: Rhet. Her. 4.16 Qui non possunt in ilia facetissimaverborum attenuationecommodeversari, veniunt ad aridum et exanguegenus orationis.A t any ra te, Stroux also recognizes tha t the shiftfrom the right style to the wrong had already been considered byTh eop hrastus . That m eans that every s tyle has a correspondingfaulty style, and the grand and plain styles were not faultycounterparts of the middle style.A pa rt from these an d similar considerations, I w ould l ike topoint out another element which unti l now, as far as I know, has

bee n dis re ga rd ed in the scholarly discussion . W e find in the fewlines which Aristotle wrote about delivery at the beginning of thethfrd Book of Rhetoric a fripartite distinction of the ({XOVTI intothree kinds of voice: loud, soft and middle or intermediate:Arist.Rhet. III.l 1403b26 ff. 'Eaxiv 8 aurf) \icv [sc. UTroKpiais] evxfi (Jxjjvfi irijiis airnj Set xpTJ' î- irpos eKaaToi* Trd6o5, oiov TroxepeydXr) Kal iroTe piKpqi Kal \xeaT\, KOI trSis xoi? TOWOLS, dov oêic^Kal Papeitji Kal jieari Kal puSpois Tiai irp6 CKaaxa "It is a matter ofhow the voice should be used in expressing each emotion,sometimes loud and sometimes soft and [sometimes] intermediate,and how the pitch accents [tonoi] should be entoned, whether asacu t e , grav e , or m i d d l e , an d w h a t rh y t h m s s h o u l d b e exp res s ed i nea ch case .

DeTheophrastivirtutibusdicendi p. 107.I hav e already discussed this subject in G. Calboli, Oratore senza

microfono , in Ars Rhetorica Antica e Nuova (Genova: Istituto di Filologia Classicae Medievale, Universitci di Genova, 1983), pp. 23-53, here pp. 31-35.

middle is min e, to remain closer to Aristotle's text; circumflex is theadjective used by Kennedy.

For English translations of Aristotle's Rhetoric am indebted to G. Kennedy,Aristotle, On Rhetoric, aTheory of CivicDiscourse (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1991).



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52 RHETORICAW e must add that Aristotle considered tiie mroKpLais

( delivery )^^ as only accessory, an d that explains why,th oughtaking into account notonly the middle voice an daccentuationb u t alsothehighan d dielow,h e did no tdealwith thematterind e p t h . According to him delivery wasoutside the rexvii, butinsofaras itwas Unked witii theXef is itcouldbeseenasevTcxvov,thatis as an'artistic' element:

Arist. Rhet. III.l 1404al5f. Kal IGTIV (j>uaeca5 TOUTTOKPLTIKOV elvai,Kal oTexi'OTepoi/, irepl 8k TTIV Xe iv Ivrexwv Acting is amatterofnaturaltalent and largely not reducibletoartistic rules; butin so farasitinvolves how things are said [lexis],ithasanartistic element

In this way Aristotle did not overlook the partial cormectionbetween deliveryan dpoetry:

Arist.Rhet. III.l 1403b30-1404a3 Td\ikv ow aGXa oxeSov CK rS>udyiiivuivouToi Xappduouaiv, Kal KaGdirep eKet ireiCov Suvavrai vwT v TfOLTiTOi 01 uTTOKpLTai, KQI KOTO TOUS TTOXLTIKGUS dyiLvas, SidTr|u |jiox9r|pLav TIIIV ITOXLT6L(LI' [...] 'AXX'oXris oiiaris irpos 86fav TTISirpaypaTeias TH Sirepl TTII' pT|TopLKf)v, OUKopStJiis Ixoirros dXX' los d-i/ayKaiou TTIV eiTi|reXeLav iroiriTeov. Those [performers wh o givecareful attention to these] aregenerally theoneswho winpoeticcontests;and just as actors are more important than poets nowinthepoeticcontexts ,soitisinpolitical contexts becauseofthe sad state ofg o v e r n m e n t s . [...] Butsince thewhole businessof rhetoriciswith

" Instead of delivery itseems better to use theterm performcmce . Thatisthe opiiuon of E.Fantham, Quintilian on Performance: Traditional and PersonalElements inInstitutio 11.3 ,Phoenix36 (1982): 243-263, here p. 243 and W. W.Fortenbaugh, Theophrastus on Dehvery , inTheophrastusofEresus,cit. in n. 17above, pp. 269-288, here p.288 n. 49, who accepts Fantham's translationofuiroKpiois.

It is likely that theirnoKpiois was first developed by Theophrastus,whoattached great importance todelivery, as appears fiom thefollowing passageofTheophrastus quoted byAthanasius: Theoph. Athan.Proleg.Hermog.DeStat.,RhGXIV 177.3-8 Rabe irXriv ical 9e(J


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From A ristotelian Xef is toElocutio 53opinion, one should pay attention to delivery, not because it is rightbu t because it is necessary".

It is important to notice that the reference of the middle voice tothe jicTpioTTis d id n ot pr ev en t A ristotle from tak ing into acc oun talso the voice neydXii and the voice piKpd. In my opinion the useof a middle type, the HCCTTI (|)UVTI, when the two exfremes and thegradation between these would have been sufficient , may beatfributed to the Peripatetic emphasis on the neTpioTiis, butsh o u ld n o t lea d u s to ign or e the lieydXii a n d th e jiiKpa (txovTj, bo thof which actually occur.A t this po int the pro blem wh ich arises is a possiblerelationship to the Stoic TCXVTI irepl (txovTJs. W e sh o uld in ves tig atewhether in th is TCXVTJ the three kinds of voice led to thedevelopment of the three xapaKTTjpes TT S Xefews. U nfo rtun atelywe lack information on this subject (see the recent contributionsby A x, Fred e and Schenkeveld), bu t w e can say of the vir tues ofspeech, that the Stoics "adopted the doctrine from Theophrastus"(Frede, p. 310). I agree with Frede, albeit as corrected bySchenkeveld, who, following Ax, says that "the Stoics started their'grammar' from ideas on the elements of lexis a n d logos in thew ak e of A ristotel ian logic and natu ral sciences". O n the otherhand, the Peripatet ic school had other occasions beside Aristotleand Theophrastus to improve and perfect a doctrine of differenttype s of style. I ha ve already poin ted out that A lexand rianphilology had been influenced by another Peripatet ic author,Praxiphanes of Rhodes (or Miti lene) who l ived and worked inA lexand ria an d pe rha ps in Rhod es and w as the teacher of both" See W. Ax,Laut, Stimme und Sprache. Studien zu dreiGrundbegriffender antikenSprachtheorie(Gottingen: V anden hoeck & Ruprech t, 1986), pp . 158-162, M. Frede,"Principles of Stoic Grammar", in Essays in Ancient Philosophy, ed. M. Frede (O xford;C lare nd on Press, 1987), pp . 301 -325 , D. M. Sche nkev eld, "T he Stoic Tex^n irepi(t*oi/f|s", Mnemosyne 43 (1990): 86-108, here pp. 93-95, id. "Scholarship andG r a m m a r " , i nLa philologie grecquedI'ipoque hellinistique et rom aine, ed. F. Montanari

(Vandoeuvres - Geneve: Fondation Hardt, Entretiens XL, 1994), pp. 263-306, herep .272." The Stoic Texvt] Ttepl (JXDITIS, p. 104; cf. W. Ax, "Quadripertita Ratio:Bemerkungen zur Geschichte eines aktuellen Kategoriensystems (Adiectio-Detractio-

Transmutatio-Immutatio) , Historiographia Linguistica 13 (1986): 191-214, here pp. 158ff.." See G. C alboli,StudiGrammaticali (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1962), pp. 154-156." Praxiphanes is called MiTuXr|wiios (Mytilenus) by both Clemens (Stromateis 1cap. xvi 79.3, Wehrli fr. 10, ix, p. 96) and the Vita Arati Latina (Commentariorum inAratum reliquiae, ed. E.Maass, p. 149, Wehrli fr. 17, ix, p. 98), but he is placed in thegroup of the celebrated Rhodian personalities by Strabon (xiv 2, 13 (655), Wehrli fr .



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54 RHETORICACa l Uma c hos a nd Ar a t os , t hough Ca l l i ma c hos w r ot e a w or kcri ticiz in g h im (TTpos TTpa^L(t)dvTiv). *' H o w e v e r , a t tiiis p o in t it isenough for me to draw attention to the fripartite division of thevoice given by Aristotle as a natural element which is able to beconsidered as a model for the fripartite division of the stylesbecause of the connection with the Xefis.The connection with Theophrastus is even more l ikely becausehe was interes ted in deUvery and voice and had s tudiedpsych ology an d sensory percep tion. This connects w ith anot he raspect of Theophrastus ' rhetoric and stylist ic which has beenpo inted out by G rube and m ore recently by D. l ime s, theusefulness of the speak er leaving som e poin ts un ex pre sse d in aspeech in order to leave something for the hearers to work out forthemselves, which both f lat ters and persuades them:

T h e o p h . 6 9 6 F H S & G ( = D e m . eloc. 2 2 2 ) ci> TOUTOL? Te ouv TOTTiQavov. Kal ev (L 6o


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From A ristotelianXegistoElocutio 55(clarity and ordinary usage) and in what Theophrastus says: namely,that one ought not to elaborate everything in detail, but leave somethings for the listener, too, to perceive and infer for himself; forwhen he perceives what you have left out, he not only is a listenerbut also becomes your witness, and in addition more favorablydisposed. For he thinks himself perceptive, because you haveprovided him with the occasion to exercise perception. Sayingeverything as if to a fool gives the appearance of despising thelistener."

In comparison with this statement of Theophrastus we could takeinto accoim t A ristotle 's ide a that the Hstener alway s enjoys itwhen he can guess the development of enthymemes {Rhet.n.23.1400b 34-35).A s for th e Th eo ph ras tea n origin of the th ree xapaKTfjpes TIISXefetos, the conclusion of D. limes is that "it is [..] theoreticallyconceivable that Theophrastus took up Aristotle 's [Rhet.III.7.1408a 10 ff.] hint of a two-style theory and modified it to include athird, intermediate type. [ . . .] . But tiiere is no compelling reason toatfribute suc h a three-style theo ry to T he op hra stus ". This is themost prudent posit ion. To conclude this part of my paper 1w o u l dpoint out that the earliest evidence of the three-(four) styles theorywhich we find in a Greek work, the Rhetorica by Phi lodem us(Book 4, Coll. m-IV. Vol. I , p. 164 Sud.) refers to aSpoypa^iav,LCTXvoTTiTa, licaoTTiTa a n d 7Xa(|)up6TTiTa. The tiecioTTiTa ne e d s to bereconstructed and this is now possible with some plausibil i tythanks to a new inspection of the papyrus by F. Longo Auricchio(see below ).

" "Theophrastus and the Theory of Style",pp.2611.It would be interesting to clarify whether a link existed between Philodemusand Peripatetic rhetoric. A connection with the Peripatetic C ritolaus has beenclaimed by Radermacher and Sudhaus (vol. I, p. XXVIl), but Durandi showed thatPhilodemus, in agreement with Epicurus, criticized Aristotle for abandoningphilosophy to rhetoric, seeT.Dorandi, "Epicuro confro Aristotele sulla Retorica", inPeripatetic Rhetoric after Aristotle, ed. W. W. Fortenbaugh and D. C. Mirhady (NewBrunswick: Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities VI, TransactionPublishers, 1994), pp. 111-120.



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56 RHETORICA2. THE DO C TRINE O F TRO PES A ND FIGURES

M y aim in the Par t 1 w as not only to present new arg um ents indefence of Theophrastus ' authorship of t i ie doctrine of the threestyles, but also to confirm the importance of Theophrastus forunders tanding l inguis t ic express ion considered as a whole , that i sincludin g all the m ost valua ble elem ents of the Xe^is ^ d thexapaKTiipes TTIS Xefews K.B arwick^' an d G. K enn edy h av ealready pointed out how important Theophrastus was for thedoctrine of figures which we first find in Rhetorica ad Herennium4.13.19-55.68. Both scholars stress Theophrastus ' confributiontowards the development of this docfrine, and Kermedy says (p.277) that "Theophrastus is probably responsible for elevating thesubject to a level equal to dict ion and thus encouraging theprocess of identification of figures which led to the almostinterminable l ists in later rhetorical handbooks." The doctrine oftropes and f igures draws in other elements which are probablyPeripatetic. This applies not only to Rhetorica ad Herennium, butalso to the doctrine of tropes anci figures of the first century B.C.At this t ime the later at tested dist inction between the grammaticaland the rhetorical doctrines of t ropes and f igures was probablynot yet f irmly established. On this subject Barwick's importantstu dy sti ll dese rves consid eration. Since his w or k som einterest ing contributions have been presented by D. M.Schenk eveld. In part icu lar the pa pe r w rit ten in 1991 on Figuresand Tropesen ds w ith a n explan ation of the origin of tropesand aninterest ing suggestion about the origin and development of thedist inction between tropes and f igures. I would l ike to considerhis suggestion, that rhetoricians developed a theory of f igures ofspeech starting from the Gorgianic figures, just as they used theA risto telia n axiiiiaTa Tfjs Xefews to de ve lo p a theo ry of figure s oftho ug ht. A t the en d of the seco nd or at the begirm ing of the firstcentury B.C. according to Schenkeveld "al l par ts were puttogetherwith more or less successinto theories of f igures and

' Probleme, pp. 95f.; 102-110.The Art ofPersuasionin Greece (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,1963), pp. 276fBarwick,Probleme, pp. 97-110.

" "Figures and fropes. A border-case between grammar and rhetoric", inRhetorik zwischen den Wissenschaften, ed. G. Ueding (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1991), pp.149-157; "Scholarship and G ram m ar", pp . 263 ff. w ith reference to prev ious pap ers) ." This idea has already been hinted at by Barwick,Probleme, p. 102.



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From A ristotelian Xef is toElocutio 57t r ope s . "Rhetoricaad Herennium supports this suggestion. Actuallyif we consider the situation of figures and tropes in this work, wefind th at there is n o clear distinction betw een tr op es and figuresand that the Gorgianic f igures are bound together so as to mergeinto a group of not completely distinguished figures of speech andthought. Nevertheless t i ie fropes are grouped together (Rhet. Her.4.42-46) in ten exorrmtiones verborum wh ich corresp on d to thefropes from the point of view of definition. The followingpassages are the beginning and the conclusion of the section ofRhetoricaad Herennium devoted to these ten tropes:

Rhet. Her.4.42 "Restant etiam decern exom ationes verborum, quasidcirco non vage dispersimus, sed a superioribus separavimus, quodomnes in uno genere sunt positae. Nam earum omnium hocproprium est, ut ab usitata verborum potestate recedatur atque inaliam rationem cum quadam venustate oratio conferatur". "Thereremain also ten Figures of Diction, which I have intentionally notscattered at random, but have separated from those above, becausethey all belong in one class. They indeed all have this in common,that the language departs from the ordinary meaning of the wordsand is, with a certain grace, applied in another sense" (Trans, by H.Caplan).Rhet.Her. 4.46 "Haec sunt fere, quae dicenda videbantur deverborum exomationibus. Nunc res ipsa monet, ut deiceps adsententiarum exomationes transeamus". "This is substantially all Ihave thought it necessary to say on the Figures of Diction. Now thesubject itself directs me to tum next to the Figures of Thought".

This is the first text in which we find fropes dealt with as part ofthe elocutio,tho ug h w itho ut the specific na m e of trope . Th e tenfropes, here called exorrmtiones verborum, are the following {Rhet.Her. 4.42-46): nomirwtio (ovonaToiroLLa), pronomirmtio (dvTO-vo(iaCTia), denomirmtio {\ieTUivv\iia), circumitio (T7epL(t)paCTis), trans-gressio (inrepPaTov), superlatio (wepPoXii), intellectio (CTin/eK8oxil),abusio (KQTdxpTiCTLs), translatio (|ieTa(t>opd), permutatio (dXXiiYopia).

" The Greek and Roman correspondences to these fropes are given in myedition Comifici Rhetorica ad C. Herennium, pp. 374-395, and in Rhetorica adHerennium Rhetorik anHerennius, Incerli Auctoris Libri IVde arte dicendi, EinesUnbekannten4BUcheriberRedekunst,ed.F.Miiller(A achen:Veriag Shaker, 1994), pp.231-233.The ancient rhetoricians were uncertain whether the inrepPaToi' isuperlatio)was a frope or afigure.Quintilian himself puts the imcpPaToi/ into bothfropes(Inst.8.6.62-67) and figures (9.1.3). The same is done by Quintilian of the iiepi(j)paots andthe 6vo\iaTOTtoda.

http://%7B/ieTUivv/iiahttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://%7B/ieTUivv/iia


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58 RHETORICAMetaphor , on one hand, occurs by changing t i ie meaning of onlyone word,^^ al legory, on the other han d , is a chain of m eta ph or s asexplained in Rhet.Her. (4.46 Perm utatio [...]. Per similitudinemsumitur, cum translationespluresfrequenter ponuntur) a nd by Ci c e r o(Orat. 94 iam cum fluxerunt continuae plures translationes [...] genushocGraeciappellantdXXrjyopiair. nomine recte, genere melius ille, quiista omnia translationes vocat).The first Greek text in which we find the use of the wordTpoTTos w ith the m ea ni ng of rhe toric al t ro pe is tiie follow ingpassage of Phi lodemus:"

P h i l o d . Rhet. 11 64 .18 f f 8L a[ ipouvT]ai 6 | aur f iv [ sc .(i>pdaiv] e[i]s e r8TI T[pL]a Tpdliroi' crxripa iTX[dap]a- Tpo|iTov p[ev] OL[OI'] j i e [ T a < H p ] a v

" A s exam ples in the passage just quoted of theRhet.Her.4.45 we find: "Italiamtumultus expergefecit, extinxit civitatem, cottidianis nuptiis delectatur, explereinimicitias - crudehtatem saturare, in rebus difficillimis aspiravit, rei publicaerat iones exaruerunt , revirdescent ." The metaphors are;Italiam, civitatem, inimicitias,crudelitatem considered as hum an be ings, nuptiis instead of an obscene word,aspiravitinstead of favit where a favourable wind is understood as replacement of aperson,exaruerunta n drevirdescent as a badly or well cultivated garden instead of abadly or well administered s tate. In al l these cases the metaphor concernsspecifically only one word, but to construct it the author frequently needs twow o r d s (cottidianis nuptiis, explere inimicitias, crudelitatem saturare, rationes exarueru nt,[rationes] revirdescent).The same is the case with A ris tot le 's m etap hor, e.g. by the01/0X0701/:Poet.1457 b 20Xiyoi 8e oioi/ 6|ioio)S e xe i (JudXii irpos A ioi/iooi/ Kal d


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60 RHETORICAname, verb etc. and introduced metaphor into the freatment ofn a m e(Poet. 1457 b 6 ff.) im m ed iately after op po sin g th e YXWTTQ tothe Kiipiov ovojia, the standard term.*' Later, in Rhetoric {Rhet.1409 b 32-1410 b 5), Aristotle took into account all t i ie Gorgianicfigure s, ex ce pt t he tTapovopLaaLa, w h e n h e spok e of t h e dvTiGTjaLs,the TrapLaoKJis and the TTaponoLOXTLs which both correspond to thespec ific G or gi an ic figures of th e onoioirTtoTov a n dotioioTeXevTov. T he ne xt topic de alt w ith b y A ris to tie (Rhet. 1410 b6 ff.) is the metaphor. The ordering of the material, firstly theepwTriCTLs (Poetics 1456 b 9 ff.), sec on dly t he G or gia nic figures{Rhet.U09 h 32-1410 b 5) and tiiirdly tiie tropes {Rhet. 1410 b 6-1413 a 22: the metaphor is the only trope taken into account byAristotle) , corresponds exactly to the disposit ion in Rhetorica adHerennium. Therefore i t seems not impossible that in Rhetorica adHerennium the figures and tropes follow an order near to that inPerip atetic theor y, a first draft of w hich can be fou nd in A risto tlew h e n h isPoetics a n d Rhetoric are considered together.

The question arises whether the si tuation which we find in theRhetorica ad Herennium should be considered as an earlyarrangement or as the result of a recent combination in whichfigures and tropes were put together. As for the dist inctionbetween t ropes and f igures and i ts development , a convincinganswer can be found in Rhetorica ad H erennium itself, w h e r e w eread that the author linked together a certain group of figures ofspeech and avoided scat ter ing them because they shared the samecharacterist ic of changing the usual meaning of a word intoanother one not only for the sake of expressiveness but also topr od uc e a pleasing effect. A s 1 po inted ou t in my Commentary,following Barwick," i t seems more l ikely that the doctrine offigures which we find in the Rhetorica ad H erennium was not aforerunner of the Stoic doctrine of Diogenes of Babylon, but acontrast ing doctrine which could be employed as a substi tute forthe Stoic freatements of tropes and figures. In this regard the

Arist . Poet.1457 b 3 f. Xeyoj Se Kitpiov \ikv (J xfxiiToi eKaorot "By 'standardterm' I mean one used by a community" (Trans, by S.H alliwell)." In the sam e pa ssa ge A ristotle cites the otioioTeXeuToi' an d th e rrrioois (Rhet.1410 a 27 and 1410 b 1) and it must be said that his knowledge of the Gorgianicfigures, the rtapouopaoia exce pted, is com plete. A s for the iropowptaoio. A x,"Q uad ripert i ta Ratio" pp . 208-210, dem onstrate d that the four cr i ter ia of theadiectio,detractio, transmutatio and immutatio which produce the lrapol/o^laoia are originallyA ristotelian (see below ). Therefore we can say that no ne of the Gorg ianic figures isouts id e the Peripatet ic at tention." ComificiRhetoricaadC. Herennium,p . 374; cf, B arwick,Problemepp . 88-97.



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From Aristotelian Xe i? toElocutio 61number of the tropes is of a certain importance, for in otherfreatises there are less or more. In Ps. Plut.,De vita et poesi Hom. U16 ff., we find, for example, eight tropes: 6vo(iaTOTroLLa, KOTd-XpTiCTis, neTa(t)opdv, jierdXiiiJiLS, (JuveK6oxil, jicTwvijiLa,dvTovojiaCTia, dvTi(t)pa(ns. Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria {Inst.8.6.4-67)has the following fourteen:\iTa


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62 RHETORICAexplain what has been said by poets either in standard or figurativeexpressions.Som e detai ls , in my opinion, confirm this gen eral view. B eforeconsidering them, however, I must briefly discuss the viewsproposed, after Barwick's work, by Baratin and Schenkeveld. Iwil l consider also Sdirader 's art icle to which Schenkeveldconstantly refers. Schrader believes that, as far as can be seen inthe Homeric Schol ia , Alexandrian grammarians used the wordTpoTTos only in a general sense (any evidence of a specific meaningbefore Tryphon is absent) . However Schrader accepts that the

grammarians of Pergamon received from the Stoics a rhetoricalvers ion of t rope and that they employed a more developed theoryof t r ope s t ha n t he Al e xa ndr i a n gr a mma r i a ns . " The w or d on the contrary, began to be employed in a specific sense in them idd le of the second cen tury B .C . by L ucilius 1133 M . an dp er ha ps eve n earlier by P olybius 29.12.10. A s for Rhetorica adHerennium Schrader too (pp. 592 f.) thinks that the doctrine offigures which we find in this work came from the Rhodian school,and in particular from a system of figures developed byAthenaeus, the r ival of Hermagoras of Temnos, and Apol loniusMolon. Both defined the f igures by considering on the one handpl e a sur e (T|8OVTI)an d on the other the mistak e of the CTOXOLKKTHOS:Phoebamm. Ill 44.11-21 'AGTiuaios 8e 6 NauKpanTris Kal'A iroXXcoi'ios 6 eiriKXriGels MoXwv lip ia air ro oirrii), CTxfipd e c m vperaPoXf) e i s riSoff) / ef dyo ua a T^V dKoinv. ou trdirroTe 6epeTaPdXXeTai- KOI r|9iKeuTai Kal eiictxnniKtjjTepoi' tTOLei TOV Xoyoi'.6 Se TeXeios auTou opos OUTO), axfjpd ianv efdXXaîs KOTOSidv oiav fi Xeîi/ em TO KpeiTTOi/ dveu Tpoirou yivo\iT\vT\. eiri TOKpeiTTov efpriToi 8id TOV aoXoiKiapov Kal ydp 6 aoXoLKiapos Tpoirriecm Kal efdX Xafis, dXX' em TO x^Lpoi/. dveu 8e Tpoirou eiprjTai,irei8f| Kal 6 Tpoiro? Kal T\TpoiriKn Xefi? i^dXKaîs e a n v eK TiisKupiius XeyopevTi5, dveu pevToi crxnpaTos. ihs irapd T^) AripoofieveiKTX.. "Athenaeus of Naucrat is and ApoUonios cal led Molon def ined" D. M. Schenkeveld, "Figures and fropes ", franslate s (p. 155) the last tw o linesin thisway: "because the gramm arians make use of these when explaining the literalor figurative expressions in poetry", and he comments thus: "Explanation of literalexpressions does not entail application of the theory of fropes and here Tryphonbefrays the existence of the wider sense [of fropej." However I think thatgrammarians abo used the doctrine of fropes when they considered the Kupiaoi/onoTa, by explaining the Kupiov 6vo\i.a through the difference with the

corresponding frope (in particular w ith metaphor)." Cf. H. Schrader,2XHMA undTPOUOZ,p. 602.



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From Aristotelian Xefts toElocutio 63it in this way: figure is a change leading the hearer to pleasure. Thechange does not happen all of the time, but gives a special characterand emphasis to the speech. Its complete definition is the following:figure is a chcinge into a stronger expression which regards themeaning and the speech and happens without any trope. 'Into astronger expression' has been said on account of the solecism. Forthe solecism is a variation and a change, but to the worst. 'Withouttrope' has been said because the trope and the speech constructedwith tropes is a change from the common use of the language,without figures as in Demosthenes etc."

Th e pr ob lem , therefore, is to de term ine the link betw een fropesand figures and barbarism and solecism. After the hypothesis ofBarwick who, having established a parallel ism between virtutesa n d vitia orationis (KaKiai a n d dpcTal Tfjs Xe^ea)s), co nstr ucte d acomplete correspondence between the two phenomena, a newsuggestion has been put forward by Baratin." He points out thatfor the Stoics the word Tpoiros did not mean only the change ofone word, but could refer to more than one word as in SVF inA pp .v ii 5. Th is is the te rm (Tpoiros an d also axiiiia), w hic h theStoics used for the moods of inference called dvaTT68eLKTOL Tpoirot:"If the first, then the second; but the first; therefore the second",etc ." Nevertheless Baratin acknowledges that Tpouos in rhetoricaland grammatical use, according to the Stoics, refers only to oneword. This is a consequence of a further development. At thebeginning there was a l ink between the vitia a nd virtutes orationis,a nd bot h me a nt a n ecart from the normal meaning. This firststep can be found in Quint . Inst. 1.8.14-16, where barbar ism andsolecism are considered deviations from the standard usage andboth are to be condemned, whereas in poetry they are accepted asmetaplasm and schema. The second step of this developmentoccurs in theoretical grammar: this should mean, in Baratin 'swords (p. 312) "I ' introduction dans la grammaire theorique de lade sc rip tio n de s figures et de s fropes". A t this po int in the Stoicdoctrine, the barbarism comes to be considered a mistake withregard to Xefis, and the solecism a mistake with regard to Xoyos:

" Cf. M. Baratin,Larmissancedela syntaxedRome(Paris: Les editions de M inuit,1989), pp . 292-322." Sex. Emp.Adv. Math. viii. 224 f; W. Kneale and M.Kneale,The Development ofLogic (O xford: C lare nd on Press, 1964), pp . 162-176, M. Frede, Die stoische Logik(Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974), pp.136-148. Frede also quotes thedefin ition b y Dio gen es L aertiu s (vii 76): rpoiros Se ^OTIV olovel axntio Xoyou, oioi/6 Toioi rro s' 'et TO irptJoToi', T 6 Se irrepov dXXd \ir]v TO vpCirov TO dpo Seirrepou'.



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^ RHETORICAD io g. L ae rt. 7.59 6 8e Pappapicrtios CK TWV KaKiwv X e^ s eoTiuap d TO e9os TWV ei)8oKLp.oi)vTwv "EXXTIVWV,CToXoLKiCTtios8e CCTTLXoyos dKaTaXXiiXojs aw TC Tayiievos. " A m o n g vic es of sty lebarbarism is violat ion of t i ie usage of Greeks of good standing;while there is solecism when the sentence has an incongruousconstruction" (frans. by R. D. Hicks).Ae^Ls means t i ie 's ignificant ' and barbarism concerns the'significant'. A mistake witii reference to Xoyos is a solecism, but itis sometiiing more tiian a mistake of combination, because it isde fin ed a s dKaTaXXeXws crwTeTayjievos, "f or m e d e la co m b in ai so nd 'e lements qui ne sont pas coherents" ." The Alexandriangra m m aria ns g ave a ne w interpre tat ion of Xefis, "assimilee a lanot ion du mot" ." This change led to new meanings of barbar ismand solecism: the former was considered a mistake with referenceto one word, the la t ter a mistake involving more than one word."This new interpretat ion of mistakes gave r ise to new meanings ofboth trope and f igure: the trope with respect to one word, thefigure to more than one. I am not sure that Baratin 's hypothesis isright, tho ug h I t ii ink tiiat the different ap pr oa ch of A lex an dria nphilologists could have influenced such a development of theStoic doctrine. However it is difficult to distinguish the differentsteps of such an influence. Barwick thinks that, whereas the Stoicswere interested in the l inguist ic function of tropes, Alexandrianphilology was interested in its use to embeUish speech, but it isdifficult to distinguish every step in the building of such asyncretic doctrine. Each dist inct step could have developed in adifferent way and at a different time and we lack too much of theinformation necessary to determine al l the detai ls . The island ofRhodes was certainly of great importance to the process because i twas open to the influence of the Alexandrian and Stoic doctrines"and of such author i ta t ive Per ipate t ic phi losophers as Eudemusand Praxiphanes who were then act ive in Rhodes. '"1 pr e sume a l so

" Baratin,La naissance de lasyntaxedRome,p . 317." Baratin,La naissance de lasyntaxeA Rome, p . 319."En un mot, la reinterpretat ion alexandrine de I 'opposit ion lexis/logos, enfaisant porter le solecisme non plus sur I 'enonce mais sur 'plusieurs mots ', a faitpasser le solecisme du cadre de I 'enonce a celui du syntagm e au mo ins du pointde vue des definitions", cf. Baratin,La naissance de lasyntaxeARome,p . 319." The great Stoic philosopher Poseidonios was teaching in Rhodes (see Jacoby T2.4.6.8).^ See P. Moraux, Der Aristotelismus bei den Griechen. Von Andro nikos b isAlexander von Aphrodisia(Berlin: W. d e Gru yte r, 1973), I, p p . 8-1 0.



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From AristotelianXe istoElocutio 65that the division of the rmrratio (8LTiyT|(jLs) in Rhet. Her. 1.12 goesback to Praxiphanes ."Schenkeveld too cri t icizes Barwick's theory and suggests thatin the Classic period "technical terms were in use for individualphenomena which in a later period were classif ied under tropesand figures".'" He stresses the fact that Tpoiros was used not onlyto refer simply to a single word but also in a wider sense and thatit began to refer to a single word through the adjective TPOTTLKOS,which was employed instead of neTa(})opiK6s when metaphor wasrestricted (and, for example, the KaTdxpTiats was split off). His"final supposition is that at the end of the second or beginning ofthe f irst century B.C. al l parts were put together with more orless success into theories of figures and tropes"." In my opinionSchenkeveld's prudence is excessive but useful ." As for theRhetoricaad H erennium, Schenkeveld's hypothesis suggests that thedocfrine of figures (and tropes) which we find in this work was anancient system, not a simplification of a previous doctrinedeveloped under Stoic influence. In this way we should explainalso the combination together of the ten tropes presented asspecialexomationesverborum inRhetoricaad Herennium (4.42-46).

" C f C a lb o li,Com ificiRhet.Her.,p. 216, R. Nicolai,La storiografia,p. 125, n. 174.* Cf. "Figures and fropes", p. 152.*' C f "Fig ures and fropes", p p. 155I.In one case I cannot accept Schenkeveld's opinion. He writes (p. 150) that"from the very first occurrence of fropos in the sense of trope in a Greek text[Phi lodemus ,Rh et. \, 164,18ff ] fropes are not confined to single wo rds ." A s we ha vealready seen the frope is explained through the example of both metaphor andallegory. The metaphor is clearly and constantly related to a single word andallegory is considerd a chain of metaphors (Rhet. Her.4.46; Cic.orat.94 "iam cumfluxerunt con tinua e plure s franslationes, alia plane fit oratio; itaque ge nus hocGraeci appellant dXXriyopiai'," Quint. Inst. 8.6.44 "allegoria [...] fit [..] plerumqueco nt in ua tis tra la tio ni bu s" ; 9.2.46 "(etpooi/eta] ut, quern a d m od um dXXriyopiau facitcontinua tieTapd, sic hoc schema faciat fropos ille contextus"). Allegory is termedXoyos by Tryphon, 111 193.9 Sp., b ut Xefis by A no n. frop. Ill 207.11 an d (Jipdois byW iirz. Pap . 19.1.22. O n the other han d allegory has alwa ys been considered a trope .Therefore, notwithstanding Quint . Inst. 9.2.46, 1 am not s ure that S chen keve ld isright on this point.



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66 RHETORICA3. FIG U R E S A N D G R A M M A RG. Kermedy" has pointed out t i iat "Quinti l ian 's discussion ofmaxims (yvwjiaL, sententiae)as a device of style (8.5) pr ob ab ly goe sback to Theophrastus since Cicero, immediately after l is t ing thefour Theophrastean vir tues , demands that the orator provide acu-taecrebraeque sententiae {Orator79, cf. G reg ory of C ori nth in W alz7.1154). The maxim was a form of proof to Aristotle {Rhetoric1394alff.), but in the Rhetoricaad Herennium (4.24f.) it has becomesim ply a f igure of speech." A lthou gh I accept such a considera tion, I w ou ld nevertheless bear in m in d that Peripa tet icinfluence in the Rhetorica ad Herennium may be found not only inthe figure of the sententia, but also in some others considered bythe author of this work together with this (TXTIlia in Book 4.The figure of sententia (yvwuri) needs to be investigated indepth because i t occurs as a axniia only in Rhetorica ad Herennium(4.24) and in Visell ius and Comificius, who are both quoted byQuinti l ian {Inst. 9.2.107 and 9.3.98). I need not repeat here that inmy opinion it is very likely that Comificius is the author ofRhetorica ad Herennium. A good argument support ing this i s thatthe arrangement of the figures of this group in the Rhetorica adHerennium is the same as that presented by Quinti l ian and almostthe same as that presented by the rhetor ic ian Comif ic ius quotedby Quinti l ian (Inst. 9.3.98)." At tii is point it would be worthreconsider ing the role played by Rhodian phi losophers andrhetoricians. This has already been dealt with by F. Della Corte, bymyself and more recently by J . Cousin. ' ' Rhodes was of greatimportance since i t was one of the four places (Athens,Alexandria, the island of Rhodes and Skepsis) where Peripatet icbooks and doctr ine could be found af ter Ar is tot le 's death ."Moreover Athens, Rhodes and Alexandria were important cenfresof study for both philosophy and rhetoric. The author ofRhetoricaad Herennium points out at the beginning and at the end of hiswork (1.1 and 4.69) that he very much enjoys philosophy, but in2.16 he s eem s to be ag ainst Dialecticians:

" G. Kennedy,TheArt of Persuasion, p . 278." Cf. G. Calboli, "Comificiana 2 , Atti della Ace. delle Scienze dell'lstituto di

Bologna, Memorie51-52 (1964):1-114,here pp . 20-29." Cf. F. Della C orte, La filologialatina dalle origini aVarrone (Ffrenze: La NuovaItalia, 1981^), p. 168, Calboli, Studi grammaticali, p. 260, J. Cousin, Quintilien,Institutionoratoire(Paris: Les B elles L etfres, 1975-1980), V, p p . 138-141." Cf. P. Moraux,DerAristotelismus,I, p . 15.



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From Aristotelian Xe^is to Elocutio 67Rhet. Her. 2 .16 Sunt qui arbitrentur ad hanc causam tractandamvehementer per t inere cogni t ionem amphibol iarum eam, quae abdialecticis proferatur. Nos vero arbitramur non modo nuUoadiumento esse , sed pot ius maximo impedimento . Omnes enim i l l iamphibol ias aucupantur , eas e t iam, quae ex a l tera par te sentent iamnullam possunt interpretari . I taque et al ieni sermonis molest iinterpellatores et scripti cum odiosi tum obscuri interpretes sunt. [. . .]Verum horum pueri les opiniones rect issimis rat ionibus, cum voles,refel lemus. In praesentiarum hoc intercedere non al ienum fuit , uthuius infant iae garru lam discip l inam contemneremus. "There aresome who think that for the development of this kind of cause aknowledge of amphibolies as taught by the dialecticians is highlyuseful. I, however, believe that this knowledge is no help at all , andis, I m ay even say, a mo st serious hindra nce . In fact these writers areon the lookout for all amphibolies, even for such as yield no sense atal l in one of the two interpretat ions. Accordingly, when some oneelse spea ks, they are his boring and also misty interprete rs . A ndwhen they themselves speak, wishing to do so cautiously and deft iy,they prove to be utterly inarticulate. [...] Indeed I shall refute thechildish opinion s of these writers by the most s traightforward proofswhenever you wish. For the present i t has not been out of place tomake this protest , in order to express my contempt for the wordylearning of this school of inarticulateness."

W h o w e r e t h e s e dialecticil T h e p a r t i c u l a r p o i n t o f t h e ambiguitasw a s d e a l t w i t h b y t h e S t o i c d i a l e c t i c i a n s w h o d i s t i n g u i s h e d e i g h tk i n d s of dpL(}>LPoXia.'' A n t o n y in C ic e ro 's De oratore c r i t i c i z e s t h eS t o ic D i o g e n e s w h o c a m e t o R o m e in 15 5 B . C . , w h i l e p r a i s i n g t h eP e r i p a t e t i c C r i t o l a u s a n d e s p e c ia l ly t h e A c a d e m i c C a m e a d e s : C i c .De orat. 2 . 15 9 -16 1 " h i e n o s i g i t u r S t o i c u s i s t e [ s c . D i o g e n e s ] n i h i la d i u v a t [...]; a t q u e i d e m e t i a m i m p e d i t , q u o d e t m u l t a r e p e r i t ,q u a e n e g a t uU o m o d o p o s s e d i s s o lv i [...]. C r i t o l a u m i s t u m , q u e ms i m u l c u m D i o g e n e v e n i s s e c o m m e m o r a s , p u t o p l u s h u i c n o s f r os t u d i o p r o d e s s e p o t u i s s e . E r a t e n i m a b i s t o A r i s t o t e l e , a c u i si n v e n t i s tibi e g o v i d e o r n o n l o n g e a b e r r a r e . [...]. C a m e a d i v e r o v i si n c r e d i b il i s iU a d i c e n d i e t v a r i e t a s p e r q u a m e s s e t o p t a n d a n o b i s . "W e k n o w t h a t i n m a n y r e s p e c t s A n t o n y c a n b e c o r m e c t e d w i t h t h e

' ' See L. CalboU Montefusco,La dottrina degli status , p. 180, a 74, and also A .D. Leeman, H. Pinkster and E. Rabble, M . Tu llius Cicero, Deoratore libri III,Kommentar, 3.Band:BuchII,99-290 (Heidelberg: C Winter, 1989), p.51: "Obgleichdie Ambiguitat bereits bei Aristoteles (Rhet. 1375bll) und Anaximenes S.85, 8 F.erwahnt wfrd, fand sie eine eingehende dialektische Behandlung erst bei denStoikem."



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68 RHETORICAinterests of the au tho r ofRhetoricaad Herennium.'* This can help usin determining with precis ion what kind of connect ion wasaccepted by the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium b e t w e e nphi losophy and rhetor ic , and this l ink between phi losophy andrhetoric explains an aspect which we found in the freatment of thesententia in th eRhetorica ad Herennium.In this work the sententia is fol lowed by and l inked with someother figures: the contrarium (4.25 = evQv\]LT\\ia), membrum (4.26 =KwXov),articulus (4.26 = Koiina),continuatio (4.26-27 = ireptoSos). O none hand, these f igures go back to philosophical and rhetoricalargumentat ion and to syl logism. On the other hand, in both theRhetorica ad Herennium an d C om ificius, this gr ou p of figuresimmediately precedes the Gorgianic figures, dvTiGeais excepted,and seems to be the oldest group of figures from which thedoctrine of tropes and figures developed. After the first of therop-yLCLa C TxiJliaTa , th e dvTLGeois, de alt w it h in Rhet. Her. 4.21{contentio), w e a ctually find in the Rhetorica ad Herennium theexclamatioan d the interrogatio(4.22) an d th en the sententia and theother figures just mentioned, i .e. the group of contrarium,mem brum, articulus, continimtio, followed immediately by the otherGorgianic figures: compar (LCTOKWXOV, irapLCTOKiLs), similiter cadens(ojioioTTTWTov),similiterdesinens(ojioioTeXenTov), adnominatio (irapo-vonacjia) . We should stress, moreover, that in Rhetorica adHerennium the figure of dvTLGeais (contentio) w as consciouslytaken into account twice, first among the figures of speech (4.21),and later among the figures of thought (4.58):

Rhet. Her. 4.58 Contentio est, per quam contraria referentur. Ea est inverborum exomationibus, ut ante (4.21) docuimus, huiusmodi:"Inimicis te placabilem, amicis inexorabilem praebes". Insententiarum, huiusmodi: "Vos huius incommodis lugetis, iste reipublicae calamitate laetatur. Vos vesh-is fortunis diffiditis, iste solussuis eo magis confidit". Inter haec duo contentionum genera hocinterest: illud ex verbis celeriter relatis constat, huic sententiaecontrariae ex comparatione referantur oportet. "Through Antithesiscontraries will meet. As I have explained above, it belongs eitheramong the figures of diction, as in the following example: 'You showyourself conciliatory to your enemies, inexorable to your friends'; oramong the figures of thought, as in the following example: 'Whileyou deplore the troubles besetting him, this knave rejoices in the ruinof the state. While you despair of your fortunes, this knave alone

Cf. G. Ca lboli,L'oratore M. A ntonio, pp. 146-149.



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From Aristotel ian Xefis toElocutio 69grows al l the more confident in his own. ' Between these two kinds ofA ntithe sis the re is this difference: the first consists in a rap idopposi t ion of words ; in the o ther opposing thoughts ought to meetin a comparison ."

'A vTiGcCTis is th e first of th e G o rg ia n ic figures; a n d af terA r i s t o t l e ' s Rhetoric ( IE c .9 ) i t w a s i n v e s t i g a t e d c a re fu l l y b yT h e o p h r a s t u s , w h o i d e n t i f i e d t h r e e k i n d s o f a n t i t h e s i s , t h o u g h h i sfre atm e nt s e e m s t o b e d i f t e re n t f ro m t h e d i s t i n c t i o n w h i c h w e f i n di n t h e Rhetorica ad Herennium. T h i s d i s t i n c t i o n a p p e a r s t o b e m o r el i k e t h e d i s t i n c t i o n b e t w e e n fig ure s of o n e w o r d ( t r o p e s ) a n d t h o s eof m o r e t h a n o n e w o r d w h i c h is a s c r i b e d b y B a r w i c k " t o t h e S t o ics c h o o l . H o w e v e r , i n c o n s i d e r i n g t h i s g r o u p o f G o r g i a n i c figu res,B a r w i c k f o r m u l a t e d t h e p r o b a b l e h y p o t h e s i s t h a t T h e o p h r a s t u sh a d a l r e a d y p r o p o s e d a d o c t r i n e of fig ures w h i c h i s t h e s a m e a st h a t w h i c h w e f i n d i n Rhetorica ad Herennium, i n R u t i h u s L u p u sa n d C i c e r o .

I w i l l n o w q u o t e b o t h A r i s t o tl e a n d T h e o p h r a s t u s i n o r d e r t os h o w n o t o n l y t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f t h e G o r g i a n i c figures m e n t i o n e db y A r i s t o t l e , b u t a l s o h o w i m p o r t a n t v e r b a l o p p o s i t i o n is i na n t i t h e s i s , a n a s p e c t t h a t A r i s t o t l e a l m o s t c e r t a i n l y d i d n o t m i s s :Ar i s t . Rhet. Ill 1409b 33-1410a 26 Tfi? 8e ev KoJXois Xegecjs A V^^^SiTiprnievT) eoTiv, T\ 8k dvTiKei|ievr|- [...] dvTiKenievri 8e. ev fieKOTepii) T(3 KioXii) f| irpo? evavritj) evavTiov auyKeiToi fi TOUTOeireCeuKTai TOIS evav Tioi? [...]. "Heeia 8 ea r iv r| ToiauTri Xe^is,OTi TdvavTia yvcjpiptjJTaTa Kal i r a p ' dXXr|Xa ^dXXov yviiipi\ia. KalOTi eoiKe auXXoyiaiiil)- 6 ydp eXeyxos auva7(jJ7fi TCJV dvTiKei^evujveaTiv. 'AvTiGeais pev ouv TO TOIOUTOV eaTiv. Trapiaioai? 6" edv laaTO Ki3Xa, irapopoiiixjis Se ed v o|roia jd l a x a T a ixT\ eKOTepov TOKiiiXov. Lexisin cola is either div ide d or co ntra sted . [...] It iscontrasted when in each colon opposite l ies with opposite or thesame is yoked with its opposites [. . .]. Such a lexis is pleasing becauseopposi tes are most knowable and more knowable when put bes ideeach othe r an d becau se they are like a syllogism , for refutation[elenkos] is a bri ng ing togethe r of contra ries. A ntithesis, then, is onesuch thing, as is parisosis if the cola are equ al [in the n u m be r ofsyllables], a n d paromoiosis if each colon has similar extrem ities [ins o u n d ] " .Dion. Hal .Lys. 14 (= frg. 692 FHS&G) KtoXuaei 8'oiJ8ev LCTCJS KOI Tf|vXefiv auTTiv O eivai T^V eo


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70 RHETORICATI TpiTTCos, OTav T(I) auT(J TO evavTia f\ T(JJ evavTiip TO auTd f\TOis evavTiois evavTia TTpoCTKaTTiYopr|9fi. ToaauTOXtSs ydp eYX'^P^iau(^eux6fivai. TOUTCJV Se TO pev lao v Kal TO opoio v tTaiSitoSes icalKa9airepel iroiTipa- Sio Kal fJTTOv dpp oT rei TO aiTGuSf). (JxiiveTai ydpdirpeires atrouSdCovTa TOIS irpd-ypaaiv TOLS ovojiaai iraiC eiv Kal TOirdeo s TT) Xefei irepiaL peiv eKXuei ydp TOV oKpoaTiiv [...]."Nothing, Isuppose, wil l prevent [me] giving as well the very words ofTheophras tus . They run as fo l lows: 'Ant i thes is occurs in three ways:w he n oppo si tes are predicated of the sam e th ings , or the sam e th ingsof the opposite, or opposites of opposites. For this is the number ofpossible combinations. Balanced structure and similar sound in these(anti theses) are childish an d just l ike a po em . O n this acco unt theyare not very well suited to serious purpose, for i t seems unbecomingwhen a man seriously engaged in real issues plays with words cindby his style does away with emotional effect, for he loses his listener'[]"

If w e c o n s i d e r t h a t t h e s t u d y o f s e n t e n c e s a n d p h r a s e s from t h ep o i n t of v i e w of s y n t a x s e e m s t o b e g i n w i t h A p o U o n i o s D y s c o l o s ,t h e o n l y p o s s i b l e o r i g i n f o r a d i s c u s s i o n a b o u t a n t i t h e s i s a n d t h eo t h e r ropyL C L a a x i i n a T a i s t h e r h e t o r i c a l p r a c t i c e o f t h e p e r i o d ,w h i c h w a s a l r e a d y d i s c u s s e d i n A r i s t o t l e ' s Rhetoric. A s a m a t t e r o ff a ct , D i o n y s i o s of H a l i c a r n a s s u s f o u n d m a n y f a u l ts in t h e s y n t a xof T h u c y d i d e s a n d of T h u c y d i d e s ' s i m i t a t o r s b u t s i m p l y c a l l e dt h e m b a d k i n d s o f f i g u re {Din. 8:CToXoiKO(}>aveisaxT|p.aTLCT|ioiis,Thuc. 29 TQS T&v CTxtipaTiapwv TrXoKas aoXoiKO(|>avLS, 53 TOJVC TX TiM -QT ajv TO TreirXavriiievov CK Tfjs KOTQ ^vaiv dKoXou0Las KQLTO CToXoLKO


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From Aristotel ian Xejis to Elocutio 71d o c t r i n e o f l a b e l s , s u c h a s t r o p e s a n d fig ure s, i n v a d e d a fie ldw h i c h w a s o p e n t o c o m b i n a t i o n a n d h a s c o n d i t i o n e d t h e n a t u r e o fr h e t o r i c u n t i l n o w b y r e d u c i n g i t t o a m e c h a n i c a l s y s t e m . T h i sv i e w i s v e r y i n t e r e s t i n g ; a n d w h i l e i t s e e m s t o b e c o r r e c t , m u s t b ei n v e s t i g a t e d from i t s b e g i n n i n g s w h e n t h e r h e t o r i c a l d o c t r i n e ofXef IS a n d g r a m m a r w e r e l a c e d t o g e t h e r .

G o i n g b a c k t o G o r g i a n i c fig ure s I t h i n k t h a t , c o n f ra r y t o t h eo p i n i o n o f B a r w i c k , " t h e quadripertita ratio, i .e . th e fou r-fo ldc a t e g o r i z a t i o n adiectio, detractio, immutatio a n d transmutatio, isp r e s e n t i n Rhetorica ad Herennium i n t h e e x p l a n a t i o n o f t h ed i f f e r e n t t y p e s o f paronomasia, c a l l e d adnominatio i n t h i s w o r k :Rhet. Her. 4 .29 Adnominat io es t , cum ad idem verbum et nomen

acceditur commutatione vocum aut l i t terarimi, ut ad res dissimilessimilia verba adcommodentur. Ea mulHs et vari is rat ionibusconfici tur. A dten uatio ne a ut conplexione eius dem li tterae s ic: "Hie,qui se magnifice iactat atque ostentat , venit ante, quam Romamvenit". Et ex contrario: "Hie, quos homines alea vincit, eos ferro

74stat im vincit" . Prod uctione eiusd em li tterae hoc m od o: "H incavium dulcedo ducit ad "avium". Brevitate eiusdem li t terae: "Hie,tametsi videtur esse honoris cupidus, tantum tamen ci iriam dil igi t ,qu an tum C uriam ?" . A dde ndis l i tter is hoc pacto : "Hie s ib i possettem pe ra re, nisi am ori mallet obtempercu-e" D em end is nu nc litterissic: "Si lenones vitcisset tamquam leones, vitae tradidisset se"Transferendis l i t teris s ic: "Videte, iudices, utrum homini navo anvano credere mal i t i s" . Commutandis hoc modo: "Del igere oporte t ,quam velis di l igere". "Paronomasia is the figure in which, by meansof modification of sound or change of letters, a close resemblance toa given verb or noun is produced, so that s imilar words expressdissimilar things. This is accomplished by many different methods:(1) by thinning or contracting the same letter, as follows: "That manwho carries himself with a lofty bearing and makes a display ofhimself was sold as a slave before coming to Rome;" (2) and by thereverse: "Those men from whom he wins in dice he straightaway

notion de solecisme par rapport au champ ou les Stoiciens la pla^aient", and, before,p. 319: "En un mot, la reinterpretation alexandrine de I'opposition lexis/logos, enfaisant porter le solecisme non plus sur Tenoned mais sur plusieurs mots, a faitpasser le solecisme du cadre de I'enonceicelui du syntagme - au moins du point devue des definitions" But I don't agree completely w ith B aratin on this particularpoint." Probleme, pp. 1021.About the dis t inct ion between uincit"fesselt" and uincit "besiegt" which wasm ad e in the spok en L atin of this time see F. Som mer,HandbuchderLateinischen LautundFormenlehre(Heidelberg: Winter, 1948), p. 147.



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72 RHETORICAbinds in chains;" (3) by lengthening the same letter, as follows: "Thesweet song of the birds dra w s us from here into pathless places;" (4)by shortening the same letter: "Does this man, although he seemsdesirous of public honour, yet love the Curia [the Senate-house] asmuch as he loves Curia?"; (5) by adding letters, as follows: "Thisman could rulehimself, if only he did not prefer to submit to love";(6) and now by omitting letters, as follows: "If he had avoidedpandars as though they were lions, he would have devoted himselfto life;" (7) by transposing letters, as follows: "See, men of the jury,whether you prefer to trust an industrious man or a vaingloriousone;" (8) by changing letters, as follows: "You ought to choose sucha one as you would wish to love."

I have quoted this long passage for an important reason. At theend of it we find the quadripertita ratio wh ich can be obtainedthrough addition, omission, fransposition or change of someletters. According to Ax this group of categories and even thequadripertita ratio as a w hole were found an d f irst de ve lop ed bythe Peripatetic School. In the Physics A ristotie explains theprinciple of (icTapoXii, which is the basis of the four categories,while their further development may be atfr ibuted to Stoicgrammar." Therefore i t now seems diff icult to employ thiscriterion for recognizing the Stoic doctrine of tropes and figures indistinction to a Peripatetic or Hellenistic one as did Barwick.Moreover, i f we consider the passage just quoted from Rhet. Her.4.29, we meet a very interest ing point: prior to the quadripertitaratio,Trapovojiatjia {adnomirmtio) is said to concern the measure ofthe syllables, un do ub ted ly a poetical criterion. 1 ha ve alrea dypointed out" that the Gorgianic f igures developed from poetry.The passage from the Rhetorica ad Herennium shows how or iginalmaterial from an early doctrine of Gorgianic figures could beintegrated with a new doctrine after the development of thequadripertita ratio or, m ore prob ably, of its application to thesefigures which is not quite t i ie same. However the group offigures which are called exorrmtiones verborum an d are plac edbetween t i ie contentio (dvTieeats, Rhet. Her. 4.21) and theadnomirmtio (irapovojiaaia, Rhet. Her. 4.29), is peculiar, for hereelocutio is interlaced w ith argumentatio. A s for irapovo^aCTia{adnominatio), the treabnent of tiiis figure inRhetoricaad H erenniumis tiie only one where tiie mefrical and tiierefore tiie poetical

Cf. A x, "Quadripe rtita Ratio", pp . 204-211.1 agree completely w ith Ax.Cf.Comifici Rhetorica adHerennium,pp.337and 343.



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From Aristotelian Xejis toElocutio 73cri terion occurs." Barwick thought that the same Hellenist icdoctrine of figures as distinct from the Stoic one is still present inth eRhetoricaad Herennium, Gorgia-Rut iUus Lupus and theCarmende Figuris, b u t actually w e find the mefrical criterion on ly in th efirst work. To explain why this part of the f igure was abandonedafter Quinti l ian i t is perhaps enough to read the severe censureut tered b y Quint i l ianhimself:

Quint.Inst. 9.3.69-71 Aliter quoque voces aut eaedem aut diversa insignificatione ponuntur aut productione tantum vel correptionemutatae: quod etiam in iocis frigidum equidem tradi inter praeceptamiror, eorumque exempla vitandi potius quam imitandi gratia pono:"Amari iucundum est, si curetur ne quid insit amari", "Aviumdulcedo ad avium ducit" [...]. Comificius hanc traductionem vocat[cf Rhet.Her. 4.20], videlicet alterius intellectus ad alterum. Sedelegantius, quod est positum in distinguenda rei proprietate: "Hancrei publicae pestem paulisper reprimi, non in perpetuum comprimiposse". "There are also other ways in which the same words may beused in different senses or altered by the lengthening or shorteningof a syllable; this is a poor trick even when employed in jest, and Iam surprised that it should be included in the text-books; theinstances which I quote are therefore given as examples foravoidance, not for imitation. Here theyare:'It is pleasant to be loved,but we must take care that there is no bitterness in that love'. [...]Comificius calls this traductio, that is the transference of themeaning of one word to another. It has, however, greater elegancewhen it is employed to distinguish the exact meanings of things, asin the following example: 'This curse to the state could be repressedfor a time, but not suppressed for ever'" (translation by H. E. Butler).

Since I have already treated this question," I shall not discuss it indepth now. I only add that with irapovonaaia {adnomirmtio)w ehave a Peripatet ic basis which could be broadened by includingthe Stoic doctrine of the quadripertita ratio. H ow eve r, s ince thequadripertita ratio too ha s a Peripatet ic origin, as w as de m on strate dby Ax, i t caimot be excluded that the whole doctrine of theTrapovoiiaCTia {adnomirmtio) employed by the author of Rhetorica adHerennium is Peripatetic. This is the first hypothesis we can

" Cf Calboli , Com ifici R hetorica ad H erennium pp. 340-343, L. CalboliMontefusco, Con sulti Fortuna tiani Ars Rhetorica p. 459, M. Squillante, De Figuris velSchem atibus, Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e com men to di M.S. (Roma: GruppoEditoriale Intemazionale, 1993), p. 154.

" Cf. "C om ificiana 2" , pp . 12-19.



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7 4 R H E T O R I C Asuggest ." Another possibihty is to consider this cri terion as Stoicfor, after i ts Peripatet ic invention and expanded use, i t wasemployed more and more by the Stoics . In th is case Comif ic iusand the author ofRhetorica ad Herennium ( w ho ma y be t he sa meperson) infroduced a Stoic element into a Peripatet ic corpus. Wecaimot decide between the two hypotheses, but the f irst possibil i tygains more additional plausibility from the fact that the source ofRhetorica ad Herennium follows almost the same order we f ind inthe combination of Aristotle 'sPoetics a n d Rhetoric. The doctrine ofRhetorica ad Herennium appears therefore to be closer to aPeripatet ic original without substantial changes (see above).I think that a Rhodian origin is very probable for bothRhetorica ad Herennium a nd Ci c e r o ' s De Inventione, and the islandof Rhodes seems to me the most probable place for thedevelopment of the theory of f igures and tropes described inRhetorica ad Herennium. For the presence of an AristoteUandoctrine in Rhodes on this subject is well at tested (Eudemos ofRhodes wrote a Tlepl Xe^etos). But Rhodes also seems to be asuitable location for a syncretism of the different doctrines of Stoican d A lexandrian rhetor ic and gram m ar. Dionysios Thrax '" w en t toRhodes f rom Alexandria and not only taught grammar, but wasals o in te re ste d in rh eto ric an d w ro te a w o rk rrepi en


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From Aristotel ian Xefis to Elocutio 75e x c l u d e d . " T h i s w a s t h e o r i g i n o f t h e d o c t r i n e o f t r o p e s a n dfig ure s w h i c h w e m e e t i n t h e e a r l i e s t R o m a n ars w h e r e t h i sd o c t r i n e i s p r e s e n t , t h e Rhetorica ad Herennium.T h e P e r i p a t e t i c c h a r a c t e r o f t h e d o c t r i n e of t r o p e s a n d figu resi n Rhetorica ad Herennium i n c l in e s m e t o c o n s i d e r a n o t h e r p o i n t i nth e d o c tr in e of f igures: n a m e ly , th e iiGoTToiLa, w h ic h in Rhet. Her.4 . 6 3 i s c a l l e d notatio. T h e e x a m p l e g i v e n f o r t h i s f i g u r e r e m i n d s u so f T h e o p h r a s t u s ' Characters a n d i n p a r t i c u l a r of t h e t w e n t y - t h i r dc h a ra c t e r o f t h e d Xa C o v e i a :

Rhet. Her. 4.63-64 Notatio est, cum alicuius natura certis describitursignis , quae, s icuti notae quae naturae sunt adtributa; ut s i vel is nondivitem, sed ostentatorem pecuniosi describere: "Iste" , inquies," iudices , qui se d id d iv i tem putabat esse praeclarum, pr imum nuncvidete, qu o vu ltu nos intuea tur" . [ ...] C um pu er um respici t hun cunum, quem ego novi vos non abitror , al io nomine appellat ,de ind e alio atq ue alio. 'A t eho tu', inquit, 'veni, Sann io, ne quid istibarbari turbent ' ; ut ignoti , qui audient , unum putent selegi demult is . Ei dici t in aurem, aut ut domi lectuli s temantur, aut abavunculo rogetur Aethiops, qui ad balineas veniat , aut asturconilocus ante ost ium suum detur, aut al iquod fragile falsae choragiumgloriae conparetur. Deinde exclamat, ut omnes audiant: "Videto, utdil igenter numeretur, s i potest , ante noctem". Puer, qui iam bene erinaturam nori t : "Tu i l lo plures mit tas oportet" , inquit , "si hodie vist rans num erar i" "A ge" , inquit , "due tecum Libanum et Sosiam""Sane". Deinde casu veniunt hospites homini, quos is te, dumsplendide peregrinatur, invitat . Ex ea re homo hercule saneconturbatur; sed tamen a vi t io naturae non reeedit . "Bene", inquit ,"faeitis, cum venitis: sed rectius feeissetis, si ad me domum rectaabisset is" . "Id fecissemus", inquiunt i l l i , "si domum novissemus""At is tud quidem facile fui t undelibet invenire. Verum ite mequom".Secuntur i l l i . Sermo interea huius eonsumitur omnis in ostentat ione:quaerit , in agris frumenta cuiusmodi sint; negat se, quia villaeincensae sint , accedere posse; nee aedificare et iamnune audere;"tametsi in Tuscolano quidem coepi insanire et in isdemfund am entis aedificare" D um haec loquitur, venit in aede squasdam, in quibus sodal ic ium erat eodem die fu turum; quo is te pro

" The only Stoic element which we find in the docfrine of frop es and figure s oftheRhet. Her. is the fact that the ten fropes (4. 42-46) are put together. This can beconsidered a first distinction fiom figures. But this is the same position we find inthe combination of A ristotle'sPoeticsandRhetoricand it is therefore difficult to see aStoic element in such an arrangement. This confirms the prevailing Peripateticnature of such a doctrine inRhet. Her.



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76 RHETORICAnotitia domnaedi iam it inh-o eum hospitibus. "Hie", inquit,"habito." Perspieit argentum, quod erat expositum, visit tricliniumsti-atum: probat. Aceedit servulus; dicit homini elare, dominum iamven turum , si velit exire. "Itane?" inquit. "E am us, hosp itis; fi-atervenit ex Falemo: ego illi obviam pergam; vos hue deeuma

. . . 84veni tote .The infroductory formula of tii is passage {cum alicuius na tura certisdescribitur signis), as well as tiiat used for tiie similar figure of tiiesermocimtio {Rhet. Her. 4.65 cum alicui personae sermo attribuitur)recalls the vague formula TOLOITTOS TIS OIOS used inT h e o p h r a s t u s ' Characters to intro du ce tiie sketch es of different

Character Delineation consists in describing a person's character by thedefinite signs which, like distinctive marks, are attributes of that character; forexample, if you should wish to describe a man who is not actually rich but paradesas a mo neyed man, you w ou ld say: That f)erson there, men of the jury, w h o thinksit adm irable that he is called rich, see now first w ith w hat an air he surveys u s. [...]When he turns to his slave boy here, his only one I know him, and you do not, Ithink he calls him now by one name, now by another, and now by a third: Hothere, you, Sannio, says he, come here, see that these barbarians don 't tu m thin gsupsid e down, so that unk now ing hearers may think he is selecting one slav e fromam ong m any. W hispering in the boy's ear he tells him either to arrange the dining-couches at home, or to ask his uncle for an Ethiop to attend him to the baths, or tostation the Asturian thoroughbred before his front door, or to make ready someother flimsy stage property which should set off his vainglory. Then he shouts, thatall ma y hear: See to it that the mo ney is carefully cou nted before nightfall, ifpossible. The boy, by this time well know ing his master's character, says: You hadbetter send more slaves over there if you w ant the counting done today. Go then,he answ ers, take w ith you Libanus and Sosia. Very goo d, sir. Then by chancecome guests, whom the rascal had invited while fravelling abroad in splendour. Bythis event the man is, you may be sure, quite embarrassed, but he still does notdesist from his natural fault. You do we ll, says he, to com e, but you wo ul d ha vedon e better to go sfraight to me at my house. That w e wo uld hav e done , say they,

had we k nown your house. But surely it w as easy to find that out from emyone.Still, com e w ith me. They follow. In the me anw hile all his conversation is spen t inboasting. He asks: How are the crops in the fields? He says that beca use his villa shave been burnt, he cannot go to them, and does not yet dare rebuild them,although on m y Tusculan estate, to be sure, I hav e com men ced an insaneundertaking to build on the same foundations. While saying this he come s to acertain house in wh ich a banqueting club wa s to meet on that very day . A s if in facthe knew the own er, the rascal now enters the hou se with his guests. Here, says he,is wh ere I live. He scrutinizes the silver whic h had been laid out, inspects thedining-couch which had been spread, and indicates his approval. A little slave boycomes up. He says aloud to the man that the master is about to arrive; would hew ish to leave? Indeed? says the man . Let us be off, my friends. My brother hasarrived from the Falemian country. I shall go meet him. Do come here at fouro'clock. (frans. by H . Caplan; see also Cap lan's noted, p.387).



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From Aristotelian Xefis toElocutio 77types of behaviour." In addition, the themes of a small amount ofmoney made to appear large and of pretended wealth occur alsoin Theophrastus:"T h e o p h . Char. 23.2-9 KOI a\ia TOUTO irXeGpiCtov TTeptreiv TO

iraiSdpLov eis TTIV TpdireCav, Spoxpfis OUTIL Knievr|s [...] KOI eviriaScoTT) OLKicf OLKISV ()>fiaoi TOUTTIV eivoi TTIV troTpcpav irpos TOV pf|eiSoTO, Kol SLOTI peXXei ircjXeiv ouTf)v 8id TO eXdrrco e iv ai OUT(Lirpos T(is $evo6oxios."and while he exaggerates these, he sends hisslave to the bank because a drachma is on deposit for him there [. . .].When he is l iving in a rented house, he tel ls someone who doesn 'tknow that it belongs to his family, and that he intends to sell i tbecause it 's too small for him for entertaining" (translation by J.Rusten).

M o r e i n t e r e s t i n g i s t h e c o n c l u s i o n o f t h e p a g e d e d i c a t e d t o notatioin Rhet.Her. 4.65. Here we find a list of vices, three of whichcorrespond to character sketches of Theophrastus. Significantlythe range of this figure is the same as that of T heophrastus:Rhet. Her. 4.65 Huiusmodi notat iones, quae describunt, quodconsentaneum s i t unius cu iusque naturae , vehementer habentmagnam deleeta t ionem: to tam enim naturam cuiuspiam ponunt an teoeulos, aut gloriosi , ut nos exempli causa coeperamus, aut invidi auttumidi aut avari , ambit iosi , amatoris , luxuriosi , furis ,quadruplatoris . "Character Delineations of this kind which describethe quali t ies proper to each man's nature carry very great charm, forthey set before our eyes a person's whole character, of the boastfulman, as 1und

G. Calboli, From Aristotelian Léxis to Elocutio

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