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Tria Genera Causarum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. A. G. Hinks
D. A. G. Hinks
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

The early handbooks of rhetoric compiled by Tisias and Corax and their successors seem to have been directed entirely at successful speaking in courts of law. This was the art that Strepsiades set out to learn in the Philosopher's Thinking-shop; this, Isocrates complains, was the only object of technical writers on rhetoric before his time; and Aristotle, when he wrote the chapter that stands first in hisRhetoric, made just the same complaint: τ⋯ς αὐτ⋯ς oὔσμς μεθ⋯δoυ περι τ⋯ δημηγoρικτ⋯ και δικανικ⋯ και καλλιoνoς και πoλιτικωτ⋯ραςτ⋯ς δημηγoρικ⋯ς πραγματειας oὔςηρ ἤ oὔσης ἤ τ⋯ς περι τ⋯ ςυναλλ⋯γματα, πει μ⋯ν ⋯κεινης oὐδ⋯ν λ⋯γoυγι, περι δ⋯ικ⋯ξεσθαι π⋯ντες πειρ⋯νται τεχνoλoγειν. The art as the Sophists practised it was by no means so limited in its application: many of them were accustomed to playing the parts of statesmen and diplomats as well as of educators; and the most notorious field for their powers of oratory was of course the lecture or ⋯πιδειξις. But the systems of rhetoric that they devised and taught did not cover their own practice; and forensic oratory, as well as seeming the most commonly necessary kind at that time, was also, it must be said, the easiest to reduce to rule. Gorgias, it is true, professed to teach a rhetoric of more extended application, by means of which his pupils would be able to produce conviction in any public assembly;* but we must conclude that this wider field was at least very imperfectly treated in all the technical systems of the time. Plato shortly describes the position thus:μ⋯λιστα μ⋯ν πως περι τ⋯ς δικας λ⋯γεται τε και γρ⋯φεται τ⋯χνῇ, λ⋯γεται δ⋯ και περι δημηγoριας ‧ ⋯π ι πλ⋯o≠ δ⋯ oκ⋯κoα.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 3-4 , October 1936 , pp. 170 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1936

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References

page 170 note 1 Adv. soph, xii 19.

page 170 note 2 1354b 25 ff.

page 170 note 3 The term ⋯πιδειξις from its first meaning any demonstration or display (Thuc. iii 16; vi 31; Demosth. 319, 9; 785, 17), comes to be used in particular of a verbal demonstration or exposition (Thuc. iii 42; Plat. Phaed. 99d; cf. Ar. Nub. 748); and the word and its cognates are regularly applied by Plato to the lectures of Sophists (e.g. Hipp. Maj. 282d), whether those general discourses intended to impress the public and attract pupils (e.g. Euthyd. 275a; Gorg. 447a ff.; a sense perhaps alluded to in Ar. Nub. 269) or the instructional lectures themselves (Crat. 384b; cf. Soph. 224b). In Isocrates ⋯πιδειξις takes on a new sense of ‘panegyric’, which I shall consider below along with Aristotle's use of ⋯πιδεικτικ⋯ς as a technical term.

page 170 note 4 Plat. Gorg. 452e.

page 170 note 5 Phaedr. 26Ib.

page 170 note 6 Plat. Gorg. 456b.

page 170 note 7 Cf. C. Brandstaetter: De Notionum IIoλιτικ⋯ς et Σοισϒής Usu Rhetorico—Leipziger Studien XV (1894) p. 139 ff.

page 170 note 8 This attribution, first made by Peter Vic-torius and revived by Spengel, has been commonly adopted since the appearance of Wendland's, P. book Anaximenes von Lampsakos, Berlin, 1905Google Scholar.

page 170 note 9 The manuscripts give Tρí;α γ⋯νη and add τ⋯δ' ⋯πιδεικτικ⋯ν; but Spengel in his commentary brings forward excellent reasons why this should be rejected as an interpolation intended to bring the work into uniformity with Aristotle and later theory. We have the testimony of Quintilian III, 4, 9 and of Syrian II p. II, 17 (Rabe) that in this passage only the first two kinds are mentioned. Still more cogent is the internal argument that nothing more is said of this ' epideictic ' branch anywhere in the book.

page 171 note 1 E.g. pp. 27, 21 ff; 30. 26 ff.; 65, 18 ff.; 84, 25 ff.(ed. Spengel.Hammer).

page 171 note 2 Aristot, . Rhet. I 3Google Scholar.

page 171 note 3 Cf. e.g. p. 27, 21–5.

page 171 note 4 P. 147 ff.

page 172 note 1 1Seclusit Spengel.

page 172 note 2 Cf. Diels, H. : Abh. Berl. Ak. 1886, ivGoogle Scholar; Wendland, : Anaximenes v. L., p. 30Google Scholar ff.; Barwick, K.: Hermes 57 (1922) 14Google Scholar ff.; F . Solmsen: ibid. 67, 144.

page 172 note 3 Cf. Volkmann, R.: Rhetorik der Griechen und Römer 2, Leipzi 1885, p. 19Google Scholar ff.

page 173 note 1 Cf. Solmsen, F.: Die Entwichlung der arts- totilischen Logik und Rhetorik (Neue Philolog. Unters. IV) Berlin 1929, p. 196Google Scholar ff. Solmsen's general contention here seems to me unassail-able.

page 173 note 2 The statement of Diogenes I.aertius (III 93 f.) that Plato divided rhetoric into six types, which are the same as the first six of Anaxi-menes, seems, if it is worth anything, to support the view that this was a common feature of fourth century theory. So does the appearance of the τρια γ⋯νη in the second half of Aristotle's third book, which is known to be drawn from such sources.

page 173 note 3 Or. iv II; cf. ps-Demosth, . Erot. 2 (p. 1401Google Scholar fin.).

page 173 note 5 Über eine altuberlieferte Missdeutung der epi-deiktischen Redegattung bei Aristoteles, Halle 1905. Nate Studien zur aristotelischen Rhetorik, Halle 1907. Some perverse contentions, supported by a number of very injudicious arguments, caused the first paper to be damned heartily and beyond its deserts by Wendland. The second is a strident rejoinder, advocating the same views in the same manner. It is now evident that Kraus was partly right. His views are said to have been put forward in a more temperate form by F. J. Schwaab, in an unprinted Würzburg dissertation of 1923 (see Drerup, in B.ph. W. 1923, 745Google Scholar; Gohlke, in Bursians Jahresb. 220Google Scholar, 321 f.).

page 174 note 1 1391 b 17.

page 174 note 2 Neue Studies P. 47.

page 174 note 3 Rhet. Gr. III I ff. (Spengel).

page 174 note 4 See Angermann, O.: De Aristotels Rhetorum Auctore— Diss. Leipzig 1904, p. 38Google Scholar f.

page 175 note 1 Rh. Her. I 2; de Inv. I 7; de Or. I 141; III 109; cf. II 43 ff.; Top. 91.

page 175 note 2 Part. Or. 10; Quint. III 3 14, 4 12.

page 175 note 3 Philod, . Rhet. p. 45Google Scholar , 16 ff. of Sudhaus’ Supplementum.

page 175 note 4 Ibid. 25, 3 ff.; 61, 10 ff.; cf. 'eund. I 251; 256 ff.

page 175 note 5 Cf. Hubbell, H. M.: The Rhetorica of Philodemus—Trans. Connecticut Academy 23 (1920), p. 254–6Google Scholar.

page 175 note 6 Suppl. p. 48, 15 ff.

page 175 note 7 Part. Or. 10.

page 175 note 8 III 7 I; VIII 3 II.

page 175 note 9 Rhetorik p. 19 f.

page 175 note 10 Deutsche lit. Zeit. 1906 nr. 9.

page 175 note 11 Kraus cites a number at the beginning of each of his papers.

page 175 note 12 The reference is to Antony, in de Or. II 43Google Scholar ff.

page 176 note 1 See the index to Rebe' Prolegomenon Sylloge under συβoυλευτικóς and πανηγυρικóς.

page 176 note 2 SeeBarwick, K. in Hermes 57 (1922) 4–7Google Scholar.