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Hermagoras of Temnos was a premier rhetorician of this period.
We have a reconstruction of his lost work.
He developed the "stasis" system such that all Latin systems, including those of CICERONE and QUINTILIANO, can be seen as reliant on him.
1. Conjecture: (as to the event)
accused's motive accused's character signs and evidence in the act
2. Definition
3.
Quality plea of justification (no wrong admitted)
counter proposition (wrong . . . but)
counter plea (benefit rendered)
countercharge (he deserved what happened to him)
shifting (of blame )
plea for leniency.
4. Objection (to trial on procedural grounds).
This approach to JUDICIAL rhetoric became a hallmark of Roman treatments.
The Rhetorica Ad Herennium (unknown writer around 90BC) is the oldest complete Latin rhetorical text. Detailed presentation and treatment of the five canons. Once attributed to CICERONE. It was written by someone with very similar training to his -- such that by looking at this and his works, we know a LOT about what was taught in the Roman system of education. This work was ignored in ancient times, but was used in standard treatments beginning around the 4th century and was used for more than a thousand years. Its treatment of style was used even longer-- entirely through the Renaissance. It should be read along with Cicero's "De Oratore" and "De Inventione", so that one can extract a thorough sense of that which was held to be important for rhetorical practice in the Roma Antica, and in the 1000 years which followed.
The Romans were ambivalent to receiving Greek "wisdom". Twice the Romans expelled Greek philosophers and rhetoricians from their city (161 a.C. and 91 a.C.).
Roman teachers were free to travel to Athens, and often did, returning with rhetoric.
By Cicerone's time (106-43 a.C.) education in Rhetoric was the hallmark distinction in ITALIA.
All of a Roman's preliminary education pointed the student toward the art, discipline, science, and craft of ONE subject: rhetoric, or "oratoria".
Rhetoric and Philosophy in Ancient Rome.
Greek teachers were brought to Rome, so the Roman schools took on the rhetorical (or 'oratorial') flavour.
The Romans recognized that their political system required the oral presentation of matters of state, such that rhetorical training was seen as crucial.
The Roman "systems" of education included Imitation Mimesis: not plagiarism, copying, or fair use.
Rather, careful observation of the behaviour of the masters which fosters an appreciation for the proper attitude and approach.
Apprenticeship through observation and application.
Whom to Imitate ? Writers and speakers. The best models.
The "ancient" and the modern: but only those who are "best", not merely because they are "ancient" or new.
Pay close attention to those particular persons of note.
But do not get overly attached to one model.
How to Imitate from the Ad Herennium.
"Imitation impels us to employ a studious method to be similar to someone in speaking."
Carefully analyze the model so as to explain how the author of the model achieved the excellence there.
The teacher normally did this analysis with professional accuracy, thereby illustrating, for the student, how the model was made to be excellent and how a lesser usage might have worked less well.
Assign the students exercises which find them composing sentences which practice the forms illustrated in the model and analysis above.
The students imitate the excellent aspect, using their own materials as instances.
Orally criticize discourse, and produce analysis and example through the living word embodied in the lessen.
This is what Plato is up to in the Phaedrus and the Symposium.
Here, he criticizes a faulty model and urges us to admire and emulate a superior model.
Analytical and appreciative lectures (prelection) in which student efforts are discussed and criticized orally in class.
Practice of the imitation by
(1) paraphrase
(2) translation and
(3) learning by heart.
The elementary exercises.
Progymnasmata taught by the grammaticus.
They all gave patterns for those learning to speak and write to follow.
They present a graded series of exercises in speaking and writing--from the easy progressively to the more difficult.
They assume that which preceded them and build in a new aspect.
In Hermogenes, there are twelve which introduce the rudiments of the three kinds of rhetoric:
Deliberative:
fable,
tale, chreia (brief exposition of what a person did),
proverb,
thesis,
legislation (retell narrative stories from epics and dramatic poets).
This enables one to not only improve at writing sentences, but also leaves one with a stock of stories from which to draw.
Judicial: confirmation and refutation, commonplace (added to the narratives just told--argue those that have been constructed) epideictic: encomium (praise a person), impersonation, comparison, description Declamation Taught to older boys, only after the progymnasmata were thoroughly learned. suasoria: exercise in deliberative oratory
Controversia: exercise in judicial oratory (argue cases).
These were considered most important.
No advanced school work in epideictic.
The teacher set the topic, pointed out possible lines of argument and ways to argue.
As he became better and better at this, he drew larger and larger crowds such that eventually he had to set aside "declamation" days--these grew to encourage ostentatious teachers and led to the decline of controversia.
Also, as the political and religious systems took over more and more strict control of what could be said, the topics for controversia became more and more obscure and meaningless. suasoria were done using historical themes (since school boys were not thought to have the wisdom or experience to counsel on current matters) They were done in character and required a tremendous knowledge of historical fact.
They also stressed the importance of adaptation of materials to imagined audiences.
Controverisae used
(1) real rules/laws or made up laws,
(2) difficult/equivocal sets of circumstances
(3) all that which was known about rhetorical practice in direct application of these cases.
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