Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/532

Rh 514 RHETORIC The period from Alexander to Augus- tus. the work of Aristotle. On the other hand, the practical character is more strongly marked. It might, indeed, be said of Aristotle's treatise that it is rather a Philosophy of Rhetoric than a Rhetoric proper. It is a body of abstract principles and general rules. These will enable the student to dissect a good speech ; but, by themselves, they will not go far towards enabling him to make one. Aristotle's purpose was to annex rhetoric to the realm of science. He succeeded, as far as success was possible. But the new province was somewhat of a Poland. The rigid system which was found necessary for holding the unruly dependency did not leave much scope for spon- taneous vigour or native exuberance. During the three centuries from the age of Alexander to that of Augustus the fortunes of rhetoric were governed by the new conditions of Hellenism. Aristotle's scientific method lived on in the Peripatetic school. Meanwhile, how- ever, the fashion of florid declamation or strained conceits prevailed in the rhetorical schools of Asia, where, amid mixed populations, the pure traditions of the best Greek taste had been dissociated from the use of the Greek lan- guage. The " Asianism " of style which thus came to be contrasted with " Atticism " found imitators at Rome, among whom must be reckoned the orator Hortensius (c. 95 B.C.). Hermagoras of Temnos in vEolis (c. 110 B.C.) claims mention as having done much to revive a higher con- ception. Using both the practical rhetoric of the time before Aristotle and Aristotle's philosophical rhetoric, he worked up the results of both in a new system, following the philosophers so far as to give the chief prominence to "invention." He thus became the founder of a rhetoric which, as distinguished from the practical and the philo- sophical, may be called the scholastic. Through the influence of his school, Hermagoras did for Roman elo- quence very much what the school of Isocrates had done for Athens. Above all, he counteracted the view of "Asian- ism," that oratory is a mere knack founded on practice, and recalled attention to the study of it as an art. 1 Cicero's rhetorical works are to some extent based on the technical system to which he had been introduced by Molon at Rhodes, and by other contemporary teachers. But Cicero further made an independent use of the best among the earlier Greek writers, as Isocrates, Aristotle, and Theophrastus. Lastly, he could draw, at least in the later of his treatises, on a vast fund of reflection and experience. Indeed, the distinctive interest of his contributions to the theory of rhetoric consists in the fact that his theory can be compared with his practice. The result of such a com- parison is certainly to suggest how much less he owed to his art than to his genius. Some consciousness of this is perhaps implied in the idea which pervades much of his writing on oratory, that the perfect orator is the perfect man. The same thought is present to Quintilian, in whose great work, De Institutions Oratorio,, the scholastic rhetoric receives its most complete expression (c. 90 A.D.). Quintilian treats oratory as the end to which the entire mental and moral development of the student is to be directed. Thus he devotes his first book to an early discipline which should precede the orator's first studies, and his last book to a discipline of the whole man which lies beyond them. Some notion of his comprehensive method may be derived from the circumstance that, in connexion with precepts for storing the speaker's mind, he introduces a succinct estimate of the chief Greek and Roman authors, of every kind, from Homer to Seneca (bk. x. 46-131). After Quintilian, the next name which deserves to be signalized in the history of the art is that of Hermogenes, who about 170 A.D. 1 See Professor Jebb's A ttic Orators, vol. ii. p. 445. made a complete digest of the scholastic rhetoric from the time of Hermagoras of Temnos (110 B.C.). It is contained in five extant treatises, which are remarkable for clearness and acuteness, and still more remarkable as having been completed before the age of twenty-five. Hermogenes continued for nearly a century and a half to be one of the chief authorities in the schools. Longinus Other (c. 260 A.D.) published an Art of Rhetoric which is still wri tei extant ; and the more celebrated treatise On Sublimity (n-e/n {tyovs), if not his work, is at least of the same period. About 315 A.D. Aphthonius composed the "exercises" (Trpo-YVfj.vda-p.aTa) which superseded the work of Hermogenes. At the revival of letters the treatise of Aphthonius once more became a standard text-book. Much popularity was enjoyed also by the exercises of ^Elius Theon (380 A.D.). Space would fail if we attempted to enumerate the writers on rhetoric who, during these centuries, attained to more or less repute. In the editions of the Rhetores Gr&ci by Spengel and by Walz the fecundity of the literature can be seen. The theory of rhetoric engaged this industry, because the practice of the art was in greater vogue than ever before or since. During the first four centuries of the empire Pract several causes contributed to this result. First, there was of rhi a general dearth of the higher intellectual interests ; politics t01 gave no scope to energy ; philosophy was stagnant, and emp j literature, as a rule, either arid or frivolous. Then the Greek schools had poured their rhetoricians into Rome, where the same tastes which revelled in coarse luxury welcomed tawdry declamation. The law-courts of the Roman provinces further created a continual demand for forensic speaking. Asia, Gaul, and Africa are now the regions which supply the largest proportion of successful orators. The passion for rhetoric was everywhere. " Thule talks of engaging an orator," says Juvenal. "You call a man a thief," says Persius; "he answers you with finished tropes." Athens, Smyrna, Rhodes, Tarsus, Antioch, Alexandria, Massilia, and many other cities had seats of learning at which rhetoric was taught by pro- fessors who enjoyed the highest consideration. The public teacher of rhetoric was called "sophist," which was now The' an academic title, similar to "professor" or " doctor." In the 4th century B.C. Isocrates had taken pride in the name of io-T-rjs, which, indeed, had at no time wholly lost the good, or neutral, sense which originally belonged to it. The academic meaning which it acquired under the early empire lasted into the Middle Ages (see Ducange, s.v., who quotes from Baldricus, "Egregius Doctor magnusque Sophista Geraldus "). While the word rhetor still denoted the -faculty, the word KplwAn denoted the office or rank to which the rhetor might hope to rise. So in Lucian's piece (160 A.D.), the " Teacher of Rhetoricians" says ( 1), "You ask, young man, how you are to become a rhetor, and attain in your turn to the repute of that most impressive and illustrious title, sophist." Vespasian (70-79 A.D.), according to Suetonius, was the first emperor who gave a public endowment to the teach- ing of rhetoric. But it was under Hadrian and the Antonines (117-180 A.D.) that the public chairs ofcimi rhetoric were raised to an importance which made them rl' et ' objects of the highest ambition. The complete constitu- tion of the schools at Athens was due to Marcus Aurelius. The Philosophical School had four chairs (Opovoi), Platonic, Stoic, Peripatetic, Epicurean. The Rhetorical School had two chairs, one for "sophistic," the other for "political" rhetoric. By "sophistic" was meant the academic teach- ing of rhetoric as an art, in distinction from its " politi- cal" application to the law-courts. The "sophistical" chair was superior to the " political " in dignity as in