EPIDEICTIC

ANDREW FITZMAURICE

A thesis submitted to the University of New South Wales in fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Arts (Honours) Degree.

February 1991 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My greatest debts are to Professor Conal Condren and Gina Bloom Fitzmaurice. A.F.

ABSTRACT

This thesis is concerned with the nature of the epideictic g~_11_u~ of rhetoric. It focuses upon the relation between a number of formal characteristics of epideictic and its social and political contexts. The analysis is conducted in relation to the concept of epideictic in the work of Gorgias, Isocrates, and Aristotle. From these elements the thesis questions whether a coherent concept of epideictic can be constructed, or whether, as Cicero suggests, epideictic is not a genu_§l. CONTENTS

Introduction 1 Chapter 1 8 Chapter 2 - Gorgias 27 Chapter 3 - Isocrates 63 Chapter 4 - Aristotle 108 Conclusion 144 Bibliography 154 INTRODUCTION

An epideictic genus is distinguished in rhetorical tradition as one of three kinds of rhetoric. 1 The other two genera are deliberative and forensic rhetoric. Deliberative, or 'political' , rhetoric evolves from the oratory of political forums. Forensic rhetoric is concerned with the practice of defence or accusation in law courts. The identity of epideictic, however, is not determined by a specific practice or institution. And yet although epideictic lacks an institutional focus the idea of an epideictic oratory has maintained an important and, at times, dominant place in the history of rhetoric.

On the identification of an epideictic genus in classical rhetoric see, for example: Aristotle The Art of Rhetoric transl. J .H. Freese (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1926, I, iii.3; Cicero De Inventione transl. H.M. Hubbell (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1949, I, 7; and Quintilian Institutio Oratoria transl. H.E. Butler (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1920, III, iv. On the identification of epideictic in modern theories of rhetoric see Kenneth Burke A Rhetoric of Motives California U.P., Berkeley 1969, pp.70- 72; and Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation transl. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver, Notre Dame U.P., Notre Dame Ind., 1969, pp.47-57. 2

The rhetoric we call epideictic was the creation and passion of the fifth and fourth century Greeks. 2 Elements of rhetoric that we associate with epideictic were also important in the practice of declamation in Imperial Rome. 3 Epideictic assumes even greater importance in the Greek (language)

'Second Sophistic' of late antiquity, in the progymnasmata of rhetorical pedagogy and in the Christian rhetoric of the

Eastern empire. This renewed interest in epideictic is reflected in the two treatises on epideictic attributed to Menander, in the consideration given to epideictic in the progymnasmata of Hermogenes and Apthonius, in the christian epi~eictic of Gregory Thaumaturgus, and in the panegyrical sermons of Eusebius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great,

Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom. 4 The pedagogical and

2 George Kennedy observes that "This [epideictic] is a form of literature which has relatively few admirers today, but if we are to understand the Greeks thoroughly it seems necessary to understand, if not to share, their love for it", see Kennedy The Art of Persuasion in Greece Princeton U.P., Princeton 1963, p.153. In this thesis I follow the practice of referring to centuries after Christ in capitals. Centuries before Christ are uncapitalised.

3 See, for example, Quintilian Inst., II, x.12-13: "it [declamation] also uses an element of display", "display" is in fact Butler's translation of the Greek word 'epideiktikon' which Quintilian uses here. On epideictic and declamation see also S.F. Bonner Roman Declamation Liverpool U.P., Liverpool 1969, p.61; M.L. Clark Rhetoric at Rome Cohen and West, London 1953, p.131; and Charles Sears Baldwin Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic Macmillan, New York 1924, p.100. It is clear from Bonner's discussion that declamation has a common emphasis with epideictic upon display and also employs the epideictic loci or topoi.

4 For 'Menander's' treatises on epideictic see Menander ed. W.G. Arnott (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass.; and D.A. Russell and N.G. Wilson Menander Rhetor Clarendon, Oxford 1981. On the progymnasmata see George Kennedy Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors Princeton U.P., Princeton 1983, pp.54-72. On Christian epideictic and the panegyrical sermon see George Kennedy Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition 3 religious associations of epideictic continue through the medieval period. 5 In the Renaissance epideictic reaches the peak of its popularity and importance. Jacob Burckhardt observed that:

"Bartolomeo Facio complained that the orators of his time were at a disadvantage compared with those of antiquity; of three kinds of oratory which were open to the later only one was left to the former, since forensic oratory was abandoned to the jurists, and the speeches in the councils of the Government had to be delivered in Italian"; and Paul Oskar

Kristeller states that: "unlike ancient rhetoric, Renaissance rhe~oric was not primarily concerned with the political and even less with the judiciary speech". 6 But do we detect in these statements a reluctance to identify epideictic other than as what it is not?

A consciousness that rhetoric has an epideictic dimension is also evident in modern philosophies of rhetoric, notably in the work of Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca,

Kenneth Burke, and John L. Austin. 7 Epideictic has also been

From Ancient to Modern Times Croom Helm, London 1980, pp.135- 146.

5 On medieval epideictic see James J. Murphy Rhetoric in the Middle Ages California U.P., Berkeley 1974, pp.35-36 and ch.6; and Kennedy Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors, p.293.

6 Jacob Burckhardt The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy 2 vols, Harper and Row, New York 1958, I, 239; and P.O. Kristeller Renaissance Thought and its Sources ed. M. Mooney, Columbia U.P., New York 1979, p.242. Both cited in John F. Tinkler "Renaissance Humanism and the genera eloguentiae" Rhetorica vol.5, no.3 1987, p.282.

7 See Burke Rhetoric of Motives, pp.70-72; Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca The New Rhetoric, pp.47-57; and John L. Austin How to do things with words Clarendon, Oxford 1962. The relation between epideictic and Austin's concept of 4 one of the principal reference points for analysis in the extensive and expanding modern histories of rhetoric. 8

Throughout this history epideictic has been seen as related to disciplines which include history, philosophy, literature and poetry, and political thought. 9

A number of critics of epideictic have noted that this third kind of rhetoric is a rather slippery category. Cicero, for example, argues that the idea of epideictic was too broad and diffuse to come within the "sphere of art"; Quintilian questions whether epideictic fragments into an infinite number of species; Kenneth Burke comments that "this kind really becqmes a catch-all"; and George Kennedy points out that its qualities are manifold. 10 But with the exception of Cicero each of these critics proceed to use epideictic as a stable

performatives has been brought out by Walter H. Beale "Rhetorical Performati ve Discourse: A New Theory of Epideictic" Philosophy and Rhetoric vol. 11 , no.4 1978, pp.221- 246.

8 There are a large number of works on various aspects of the history of rhetoric. Almost all of these histories discuss the relation of epideictic rhetoric to their subject. A useful bibliography of the history of rhetoric is Winifred Bryan Horner (ed. ) The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric Missouri U.P., Columbia 1983. ,

9 See Cicero Orator transl. H.M. Hubbell (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1939, 37. On the relation of epideictic to poetry, philosophy, and history see also Theodore C. Burgess Epideictic Literature in University of Chicago Studies in Classical Philology 3, 1902; and on the relation of epideictic to political thought see John F. Tinkler "Praise and Advice: Rhetorical Approaches in More's Utopia and Machiavelli' s The Prince" The Sixteenth Century Journal vol.19, No.2, 1988. 1° Cicero De Oratore transl. E.W. Sutton (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1942, II, 48; Inst., III, iv.2; Burke Rhetoric of Motives, p.70; Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.29. 5 and coherent oratorical and analytical category. 11 In their acceptance of epideictic, and to a lesser extent in their misgivings, these critics are in agreement with the majority of discussions of this genus. 12 Perhaps most critics are sympathetic with Quintilian's resolution of the problem by arguing that: "The safest and most rational course seems to be to follow the authority of the majority". 13

In this thesis I examine the nature of epideictic. In particular I address the problem of defining characteristics or sources of coherence for this genus. We might simply agree with Aristotle that epideictic can be defined as the oratory of Qraise and blame. However the closer one looks at the tradition of epideictic and its development the more problematic this answer becomes. My analysis is focused upon epideictic examples from Gorgias' and Isocrates' oratory and upon Aristotle's theory of epideictic. In addition to being attributed with the invention of epideictic, the fifth and fourth century Greek sophists are regarded in the rhetorical tradition as models of epideictic oratory. Frequently discussions of epideictic appeal to these models and to

Aristotle's theory of epideictic to demonstrate the coherence of the genus and to legitimise the idea of an epideictic

11 Although Cicero dismisses epideictic in De Oratore he accepts it in his earlier work, De Inventione, and, to an extent in Orator (see my discussion in Chapter 1).

12 Similar discussions in the criticism of classical rhetoric include Peter Dixon Rhetoric Methuen, London 1971, p.23; Baldwin Ancient Rhetoric, p.15; Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, pp.74-5; and J.F. Dobson The Greek Orators Methuen, London 1919, p.15.

13 Inst., III, iv.12. 6 tradition. It is appropriate therefore to begin a re- examination of the identity of epideictic with an examination of the perceived roots of the tradition. I analyse Gorgias', Isocrates', and Aristotle's use of epideictic from two perspectives. The first of these concerns the political and social context of epideictic. I question whether common elements can be found in the political and social meanings of epideictic. I also analyse each case from the perspective of John L. Austin's theory of performative acts which has been developed into a theory of epideictic.

I question whether parallels can be found between the theory of performative rhetoric and Gorgias', Isocrates', and

Aristotle's epideictic. Such a parallel would establish a thread around which epideictic would cluster. At the same time it is possible to establish whether Austin's theory of performatives does provide a workable theory of epideictic.

Particular characteristics of style, medium, and pedagogy are regarded as distinguishing features of epideictic. I examine whether these characteristics are common to Gorgias', Isocrates', and Aristotle's epideictic, and whether they may, therefore, be used to define the genus.

I analyse the characteristics of style, medium, and pedagogy

in terms of political and performative acts to establish the meaning of similarities and differences at a contextual rather

than a formal level.

In the first part of Chapter 1 I discuss the critical literature on epideictic. In the second part I analyse the concept of the rhetorical performati ve. In Chapter 2 I examine Gorgias' social and political context, his style, 7 medium, and pedagogy, and I consider his 'epideictic' oratory in terms of his philosophy of rhetoric. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 follow the same procedure for analysing Isocrates' 'epideictic' and Aristotle's theory of epideictic respectively. 8

CHAPTER 1

The Concept of Epideictic

A dispute has flickered in classical philology over the past two centuries concerning the derivation of term epideiktikon. One tradition, maintained by both Edward

Meredith Cope and Mederic Dufour, holds that the meaning of epideiktikon is dictated by the 'middle term' epideiknusthai. 14

A contesting tradition, maintained by Oskar Kraus and F.J.

Schw~ab, claims that the meaning of epideiktikon is dictated by the active term epideiknunai. 15 Epideiknusthai indicates an oratory primarily of display, particularly display of one's self and style. Epideiknunai suggests the display of content or a particular subject. The alternate roots lead on the one hand to the definition of epideictic as display oratory and on the other as the oratory of praise and blame. If these alternatives are polarised they lead us on the one hand to a rhetoric of form and on the other to a rhetoric of content.

However, both elements - display and praise and blame - are implied in each of the terms. The difference between the alternative conceptions is a matter of the degree of emphasis upon either term.

14 See Edward Meredith Cope Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric London 1867, p. 22; and M. Dufour Aristotle Rhetorigue Paris 1932, 44. See also J. Richard Chase "The Classical Conception of Epideictic" The Quarterly Journal of Speech 47, 1961, p.296.

15 See Chase "The Classical Conception of Epideictic", p.296. 9

Most analyses of classical epideictic have attempted to find a well ordered and coherent genus with clearly identifiable boundaries, with defining characteristics, and a disciplined body of theory. While epideictic may or may not have a single etymological origin it is possible that the terms epideiknusthai and epideiknunai represent different practices within epideictic in Greek rhetoric. The theory and practice of epideictic is not necessarily coherent. The term encompasses a number of rhetorical forms. Two of the most important of these forms are the traditions of epideictic as an oratory of praise and blame (indicated by the term epideiknunai) and epideictic as display oratory (indicated by the term epideiknusthai) . These traditions are generally seen as identical but they may also be merging, separate, or contesting. As the dispute over epideiktikon indicates, modern discussions of epideictic have struggled with the diversity of the genus. Frequently, critics such as T.W. Baldwin and

J.R. Chase note these difficulties but perceive the problem and solution as a matter of finding the right term or definition for epideictic. Baldwin argues that "Of the various translations of Aristotle's epideiktikon,

'demonstrative' is flatly a mistranslation, 'oratory of display' is quite too narrow a translation, and 'epideictic'

is not a translation at all. The nearest word in current use

is 'panegyric', which is right as far as it goes". 16 He settles on the term 'occasional' as the best of inadequate

16 Baldwin Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic, p.15 n.14. 10 alternatives. Similarly Chase documents the controversy over the meaning of epideictic with the purpose of settling the dispute by identifying the word's etymological root.

These terminological and definitional problems suggest a lack of coherence in the genus. The term epideictic may not refer to closely defined rhetorical conventions in the same manner as do the forensic and deliberative genera. It is possible that forensic and deliberative rhetoric have greater conceptual resolution because their conventions are dictated by the form of the institutions in which they are applied.

Aristotle treats epideictic as relatively stable and coherent. His treatment of epideictic may be largely responsible for the conception in modern criticism that the genus is coherent. Significantly a number of modern critics who treat epideictic as coherent, such as Baldwin and Chase, conduct their analysis principally in reference to Aristotle's

Rhetoric. Looking for a definition these critics turn to the classical authority with a lust for definition.

In practice the Greek sophists treated epideictic mainly by its species, such as panegyric, encomium, and invective, and according to their particular rhetorical and political needs. Western sophists used these species as forms of display, which Aristotle sees as a function of epideictic.

Epideictic was not popular in Republican Rome. Cicero,

for example, is hostile to the genus. His conception of

epideictic is complex and at times contradictory. In De Inventione Cicero accepts the genus as one of the three forms

of rhetoric, but his treatment is summary in comparison with 1 1 his discussion of forensic and deliberative oratory. 17 In De

Oratore he suggests that the genus is a nebulous field dealing with abstracts rather than concrete issues and encompassing all speech outside law and politics. 18 Antonius and Catulus agree that, therefore, the "third kind" of rhetoric is not really a genus at all and that it is not covered by rhetorical art except insofar as orators can apply their knowledge of the other genera to these occasions. In Orator Cicero states that

There are several kinds of speeches differing one from the other, and impossible to reduce to one type; so I shall not include at this time that class to which the Greeks give the name epideictic because they were produced as show­ pieces, as it were, for the pleasure they will give, a class comprising eulogies, descriptions, histories, and exhortations like the Panegyric of Isocrates, and similar orations by many of the Sophists, as they are called, and all other speeches unconnected with battles of public life. 19

While Cicero is at times hostile to this branch of rhetoric his insights as a critic of the genus are instructive. The salient point to emerge from Cicero's discussions of epideictic is that at best the genus is diffuse, comprising a number of separate practices and conventions, and at worst it is non-existent.

Imperial Romans revived epideictic. Accordingly, when discussing the number of branches to rhetoric Quintilian claims that "a feeble attempt has been made by certain Greeks and by Cicero in his De Oratore, to prove that there are not merely more than three, but that the number of kinds is

17 Inv., I, 7; and II, 177-178.

18 De Or., II, 41-50.

19 Or., 37. 12 almost past calculation: and this view has been almost thrust down our throats by the greatest authority of our own times". 20 While Quintilian insists that there are three genera he acknowledges that the problem of classification stems from epideictic. He struggles to find an appropriate term for this genus, observing that: There is, then, as I have said, one kind concerned with praise and blame, which, however, derives its name from the better of its two functions and is called laudatory: others however call it demonstrative. Both names are believed to be derived from the Greek in which the corresponding terms are encomiastic, and epideictic. The term epideictic seems to me however to imply display rather than demonstration, and to have a very different meaning from encomiastic. 21 Here Quintilian approaches recognition of praise and blame and display as separate species of rhetoric. He returns however to insisting upon the threefold division of rhetoric and to the identification of epideictic as a genus with distinguishing, even if diffuse qualities which include praise and blame and display. Quintilian's insistence is justified by the problem that the failure to identify this third form of rhetoric would lead to its matter falling outside art ( as we see in De Ora tore22 ) , resulting in the diminution of rhetoric. Quintilian's position is a compromise between Aristotle's resolution and Cicero's disdain. While Aristotle fails to take account of the diversity of epideictic, Cicero fails to account for the

20 Inst., III, iv.2. 21 Inst., III, iv.12-13. 22 "not everything that we say need be reduced to theory and rule" De Or. II, xi.44. 13 deliberate use of rhetorical conventions outside of judicial and political oratory. Quintilian's compromise is to both recognise a third genus or kind of rhetoric, which is studied and practiced as an art, and yet to recognise a diversity of practices within that branch, and so stretch the concept of a genus to its limit. As he comments above, the term epideictic, which implies display, has "a very different meaning from encomiastic", which implies praise and blame. 23 Praise and blame and display are at once the points of emphasis of different species within this genus and yet also important distinguishing and related features in the genus as a who~e. Above all Quintilian argues that epideictic must be maintained as a part of rhetoric but that as a branch of rhetoric the conventions of this genus are both greatly diffuse and artificial. The more artificial conventions of the genus (and, indeed, the most artificial of all the genera) are those that are not linked to any political or social institutions and associated with species of display.

Epideictic as Performative Rhetoric

The distinction between epideictic and the other genera has been characterised in terms of John Austin's distinction between performative and constative acts. In How to do things with words Austin argues that philosophers have thought of language in two ways: either in terms of

23 I use the term I epideictic' to refer to the genus as whole, whereas Quintilian points out that its meaning is closer to display. Given that no term encompasses the genus (and Quintilian resorts to referring to the "third kind") I will persist with 'epideictic' because it is the most commonly used term. 14 statements that "say" something, that describe or report something, and can therefore be judged true or false; or, as nonsense. 24 Austin points out that much language falls into neither of these categories. He explains that in addition to those statements which "say" something there are also those which "do" something. 25 That is, some statements rather than describing an act may perform the act itself. For example, the statements "I promise to kiss you", "I apologise", or

"Beware of the dog" do not describe some state of affairs and cannot be judged true or false, but rather are "happy" or

"unhappy". 26 A promise is happy if it is carried out and unhappy if not. There are also statements such as "There is a bull in the field" which may be "doing" something, that is, warning; or, "saying" something, that is, describing the field. The meaning of these more complex statements will be clarified by the context of the utterance. Austin calls those utterances that say something "constatives" and those that do something "performatives". 27 He states that six conditions must be satisfied for a performance to be happy. 28

The conditions are:

(A.1) There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect, that procedure to include the uttering of certain words by certain persons in certain

24 Austin How to do things, pp.1-2.

25 Austin How to do things, Lecture I.

26 On the happiness or unhappiness of statements, or the "doctrine of the Infelicities", see Austin How to do things, p. 14.

27 Austin How to do things, p.3 and p.6.

28 The performative, rather than the constative, is the principal object of Austin's attention. 15

circumstances, and further, (A.2) the particular persons and circumstances in a given case must be appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked. (B. 1 ) The procedure must be executed by all participants both correctly and (B.2) completely. (T.1) Where, as often, the procedure is designed for use by persons having certain thoughts or feelings, or for the inauguration of certain consequential conduct on the part of any participant, then a person participating in and so invoking the procedure must in fact have those thoughts or feelings, and the participants must intend so to conduct themselves, and further (T.2) must actually so conduct themselves subsequently. 29 The performative utterance is relatively discrete; it

"is, or is a part of, the doing of an action". 30 That is, the utterance performs an act in itself; it is a performance.

The performative, therefore, must be complete not only in its utterance (condition B.2) but in its nature. By contrast, the constative utterance is separate from the act to which it refers. The constative describes or reports something, so it takes for its reference some act outside of itself, whereas the performative is self-referential.

Having developed this distinction between statements which say something and statements which do something Austin then rejected it as false. He argues that whether a performative utterance such as "I promise" is happy or unhappy will depend to a large extent upon whether the conditions of the performance are true or false. For example, for the performance "I do" in a marriage ceremony to be happy, it must be true that a convention for marriage

29 Austin How to do things, pp.14-15. 30 Austin How to do things, p.5. 16 exists (condition A. 1 ) ; it must be true that the persons participating in the ceremony and the circumstances of the ceremony are appropriate (condition A. 2, for example the bride and groom must not be already married, the celebrant must be licensed to marry, and in some cultures the circumstances of the ceremony are restricted to locations such as a church or a ship); and it must be true that the vows are executed correctly and completely (B.1 and B.2). The conditions that the participants think appropriately, and subsequently (T.1 and T.2), are not always necessary. For example, a bet is made even if the better refuses to pay. The refusal to pay is an "abuse" of the performance rather than an unhappy performance. 31 But in the example of promising, the sincerity and subsequent adherence to the statement is more important to the performance of the act, and in this case the happiness of the performance can again be judged by whether it is true that the act is sincere and subsequently adhered to. Similarly Austin finds that constative statements may be true or false depending upon whether the action they describe is happy or unhappy. The description "I promised Mary" will be true depending upon whether the conditions for the happiness of the performance are fulfilled. Because a performance "implies the truth of certain other statements" 32 and a constative implies the happiness of certain other statements, there is a sense in

31 On the distinction between an "abuse" of the performance of an act rather than an unhappy performance, see Austin How to do things, p.16. 32 Austin How to do things, p.47. 17 which performatives are also constative, and constatives are performative. Austin substitutes for these terms a distinction between locutions, illocutions, and perlocutions. A locutionary utterance is the "performance of an act of saying

something"; locutions are the words and speech itself. 33 An

illocutionary utterance is the "performance of an act in

saying something.~ Illocutions concern the speakers purpose,

or the intended force of the speech. A perlocutionary utterance is "the performance of an act through saying

something". 35 Perlocutions are the "consequences or effects

such acts have on the actions, thoughts, beliefs, etc, of the

hearers". 36 Austin then explains the meaning of

performatives and constatives in terms of these new distinctions:

a) With the constative utterance, we abstract from the illocutionary (let alone the perlocutionary) aspects of the speech act, and we concentrate on the locutionary: moreover, we use an over-simplified notion of correspondence with the facts - over-simplified because essentially it brings in the illocutionary aspect. This is the ideal of what would be right to say in all circumstances ... b) With the performative utterance, we attend as much as possible to the illocutionary force of the utterance, and abstract from the dimension of correspondence with facts. 37

33 Austin How to do things, p.99 and pp.99-109.

~ Austin How to do things, p.99 and pp.99-131. 35 Austin How to do things, p. 1 01 and pp.101-31.

36 John R. Searle Speech Acts Cambridge U.P., Cambridge 1969, p.25.

37 Austin How to do things, pp.145-6, cited in Beale "A New Theory of Epideictic", p.228. 18

It is consistent with the self-referential nature of performatives that the audience attends to the illocutionary aspect of the utterance because the speech will therefore be primarily concerned with the speaker.

While Austin maintains that the performative/ constative distinction must be rejected, the categories have been revived by philosophers including Max Black, Roderick

Chisolm, and G. J . Warnock . 38 James Benjamin and Walter

Beale, in particular, have focused upon applying the performative/constative distinction to rhetorical acts rather than speech acts. 39 The concept of rhetorical acts has been developed by Karl Wallace in an effort to apply speech act theory to whole speeches or discourses that is, to rhetorical acts - rather than small units of language, utterances, or speech acts. 40

For Austin the performative/ constative classification breaks down in relation to speech acts because the terms have no formal linguistic features that legitimate the distinction. That is, the distinction is conceptual and failing a linguistic or grammatical parallel it collapses in

38 See Max Black "Austin on Performatives" in Symposium on J.L. Austin ed. Ted Hondereich, Humanities Press, New York 1969, pp.401-411; Roderick M. Chisolm "Austin's Philosophical Papers" in Symposium on J.L. Austin, pp.101-126; and G.J. Warnock "Some Types of Performative Utterances" in Essays on J.L. Austin Clarendon, Oxford 1973. See also Beale "A New Theory of Epideictic", p.229.

39 See Beale "A New Theory of Epideictic"; and James Benjamin "Performatives as a Rhetorical Construct" Philosophy and Rhetoric 9, 1976, pp.84-95. 4° Karl Wallace Understanding Discourse: The Speech Act and Rhetorical Action Louisiana State U.P., Baton Rouge 1970, eh.IV-VI. 19 upon itself, because any example of language is at once performative and constative. However the concept of rhetorical acts allows us to identify units (or rather, unities) of language at the level of discourse. As Benjamin points out, Austin's "focus on linguistic features blinded him to the extralinguistic dimensions of performative speech acts". 41 The meaning of a speech act depends in Austin's words upon "the total speech act" which is equivalent to "the total speech situation''.~ The meaning of a rhetorical act is contained by the circumstances and sources of unity and form that are specified as "necessary for the definition and classification of such events". 43 Rhetorical acts contain both performative and constative elements but it is possible to identify either element as the principal source of unity to the discourse. Returning to Austin's definition of performatives and constatives in terms of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary forces, we can see that the performative rhetorical act is one in which the audience attends as much as possible to the illocutionary force of the speech as a whole. That is, they attend to what the speaker is doing, to the sense in which their speech performs some act rather than refers to some act. Conversely we can see that a constative rhetorical act is one in which the emphasis of the speech is upon some action outside the speech itself,

41 Benjamin "Performatives as a Rhetorical Construct", p.84.

42 Austin How to do things, p.52. 43 See Beale "A New Theory of Epideictic", p.230. 20 so that the discourse as a whole may be characterised, for example, by attempting to get the audience to do something.

As Walter Beale has shown the concept of rhetorical performatives can be used to characterise the concept of epideictic in classical rhetoric. Beale points out that: "In those discourse situations traditionally associated with deliberative, forensic, or informative discourse, the audience's attention is typically drawn to the 'facts of the case' the locutionary aspect; in those situations traditionally associated with epideictic, the audience's attenti.on is typically drawn to the communal or historical significance of the speech itself the illocutionary aspect". 44 Like performatives epideictic tends to be self­ contained, its function is satisfied within the speech and it is often practiced in the performance of some social or personal act. 45

Consistent with the tendency of modern criticism, Beale attempts to resolve the identity of epideictic. He acknowledges at the outset of his paper that: "All of the traditional definers of epideictic elucidate important characteristics of the genus, and yet, for one reason or another, none of them provides a defining principle of sufficient generality to cover the entire range of epideictic or fully to exclude other classes of rhetoric". 46 He claims

44 Beale "A New Theory of Epideictic", p.229.

45 The performance of either a personal or social act will be one of the principal features distinguishing the two traditions of epideictic I explore in this thesis.

46 Beale "A New Theory of Epideictic", p.222. 21 further to have "abjured any reductionist designs" 47 on his subject, and yet proceeds to a "presentation and defense of the notion of rhetorical performative as a primary definer of epideictic" assuming that there is a coherent tradition to which it can be applied.

It is possible, however, to extend Beale's application of the theory of rhetorical acts to classical epideictic, not to resolve the diversity that he also struggles with, but rather to illustrate that diversity. Beale is correct in identifying the performative tendency of epideictic. But the problem I pose is the degree to which this performative character is always to various degrees in a tension with the constative quality that is more characteristic of deliberative and forensic rhetoric. This tension is one of the principal sources of the diversity and instability in the epideictic genus, and may even lead to the dissolution of the concept of a third rhetorical genus. Cicero makes precisely such an attempt to dissolve epideictic by arguing that its functions can be performed by deliberative and forensic rhetoric.

The Political Performative

Quentin Skinner has shown how speech act theory may be used for the understanding of historical and political meaning, through the analysis of the historical subject's

47 Beale "A New Theory of Epideictic", p.224. 22

"total speech situation". 48 In the light of the subsequent development of the theory of rhetorical acts it is possible to use the concept of a rhetorical act and the distinction between performative and constative acts to develop further the insights into historical meaning from Skinner's application of speech acts. The application of the theory of rhetorical acts to interpretation enables us not only to take account of the way in which meaning is made by the relation of language to its context, but also enables us to focus on the way in which meaning is made by discourses, or uni ties. of utterances. It is at the level of discourse, rather.than utterance, that historical and political analysis is conducted. 49

The distinction within rhetorical acts between performatives and constatives can be used not only for the characterisation of the rhetorical genera, as Beale has shown, but also as an identification of different political

48 See Skinner "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas" History and Theory 8, 1969, pp. 45-4 7; Skinner "Hermeneutics and the Role of History" New Literary History No. 1 , 1979, pp. 209-232; and Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and his Cri ties ed. James Tully, Princeton U. P., Princeton 1988, pp.259-288.

49 A number of critics have criticised Skinner's ideal of interpretation for being an ideal. These critics complain that it is impossible to recreate "the total speech situation" of an utterance. Similarly, Beale observes in relation to Austin's theory of speech acts that "it is next to impossible to typify an utterance in its 'total speech situation' without placing oneself in the untenable situation of generalising from a unique circumstance" ( "A New Theory of Epideictic", p.230) In contrast, rhetorical acts abstract from the total speech situation - they identify a meaning that is contingent upon specified elements of a discourse, so that, as Beale comments, "they start with a recognition of the uniqueness of the event and typify the sources of unity and form in such events" ("A New Theory of Epideictic", p.230). 23 forms represented by the genera, and different forms of the political in all discourse. Deliberative rhetoric is characteristically styled as 'political', because it is the rhetoric of debate used in political assemblies. It is important, however, to see the other genera, particularly epideictic, as potential forms of political discourse.

Political discourse is veiled by epideictic. Aristotle comments that "Praise and counsels have a common aspect; for what you might suggest in counselling becomes encomium by a change in the phrase". 50 The suggestion here is that epideictic is political trope. This trope is also found in the paradoxical relation between performatives and constatives. "Counsels", or political rhetoric, are, like constatives, concerned with some object beyond the limits of the speech. Praise, or epideictic, like performative rhetoric, fulfills its purpose in being spoken. Just as a twist turns praise to counsels and counsels to praise, a twist also turns doing into saying and saying into doing.

A constative political act is directed at the performance of some action outside, or formally independent, of itself such as an argument in support of doing something, or one person persuading another to do or believe something. Importantly also, using Austin's redefinition of performatives and constatives in terms of locutions, the constative political act is one in which the political audience attends to the force of the speech itself (its

50 Rh., I, ix. 35-36. Even when Cicero recommends against an art for epideictic he does so partly because he sees that it has topics in common with deliberative rhetoric, see De Or., II, xii.49. 24 locutionary aspect). A performative political act is sufficient in itself, so that the political aspect of the act is fulfilled in the act and not contingent (or less contingent) upon further action. 51 The 'audience' of a political performative attend more to the ritualistic aspect of the language and to the speaker (the illocutionary aspect), than to the force of the speech itself (which has little force in terms of directives).

Being more persuasive the constative act is closer to what is traditionally thought to be more properly rhetorical, just as it is usually closer to our idea of the political. Delibe~ative rhetoric is referred to as political not simply because it is the rhetoric used in explicitly political forums but because it is concerned with persuasion and achieving ends, with things beyond the rhetorical act itself (that is, with constative objectives). Although less explicitly concerned with persuasion, performatives are both rhetorical and political. 52 The political performative is a veiled form of the political, just as praise is a veiled form of counsel. Due to the more explicit political character of constatives, the performative is an expression of the

51 The performative political act is in this sense analogous to Steven Lukes' concept of the third dimension of power, and the constative political act is analogous to the first and second dimensions which rest upon the traditional definition of power as getting someone to do something, see Lukes Power: A Radical View Macmillan, London 1974. 52 Note Quintilian's observation that the existence of epideictic proves that rhetoric does not necessarily concern proofs, or persuasion, Inst., III, vii.3. 25 political that is often not recognised as political. 53 The political performative is a particularly important political form when the use of political constati ves ( or explicitly political action) is difficult - for example, when political forums are not deliberative, when the political system is authoritarian, or when freedom of speech is restricted.

In one of its more explicitly political dimensions epideictic colonised Greek political thought. But given the diffuse nature of epideictic its political troping takes a number of other forms whose political significance is often overlooked. From the political dimension of epideictic it is possible to see political thought and political 'action'

(encompassed by deliberative rhetoric) as different forms of rhetoric rather than in terms of a distinction between theory and practice. In these terms the 'political' may be interpreted through rhetoric, and various forms of rhetoric distinguish different forms of the political. This approach takes a broad view of the domain of political rhetoric and the concept of the political itself. And given that political thought and other rhetorical forms are tropes of political practice (and vice versa), any topic within this

53 The important exception here is the use of epideictic and performative rhetoric in political thought. However, even in this case the distinction is made between political thought and practice as though political thought was removed from political action and somehow not political itself. As I discuss later, the practice of political thought in classical rhetoric can be seen as an alternative political mode to explicit political practice. 26 expanded domain of politics can be analysed in terms of both practice and theory - calling the distinction itself into ques t ion.. ~

The performative/constative distinction is also mirrored in distinctions between contemplation and action, otium and negotium, and theory and practice. Whereas the political is generally associated with the active side of these oppositions, the oppositions represent alternatives in a broader spectrum of the political. 27

CHAPTER 2 - GORGIAS

Disp1ay

Cicero tells us that Corax and Tisias of Syracuse were the first orators to develop an art of rhetoric, and that this techne was created for forensic rhetoric in response to land claims in Sicily following the expulsion of the tyrants. 55

Tacitus disputes this view, and other forms of oratory particularly praise and blame (for example at festivals such as the Olympics) - may have been practiced under the tyrants.

However there seems little doubt that rhetoric as a formal art begun with Corax, and that it began as a forensic art. 56

Corax ( and Tisias) hatched a generation of sophists, or teachers of the art of rhetoric, which included Gorgias, and

Isocrates. This next generation of sophists transferred the centre of rhetorical training from Syracuse to Athens. The move from Syracuse to Athens is crucial in the development of display oratory. 57 Many of the sophists in Athens were

55 Cicero Brutus transl. G.L. Hendrickson (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1939, 46.

56 On Tacitus' dissenting view see Tacitus Dialogus de Oratoribus transl. Sir W. Peterson (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1914, 40. See also Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp. 60-1, for a discussion of various theories of the contribution of Corax and Tisias to rhetorical art.

~ One of the principal reasons for this move of the rhetorical centre of the Greek world from Syracuse to Athens was the ascendancy of the Athens amongst the Greek city-states in the fifth century. G.B. Kerford, however, argues that Pericles also played an active role in attracting sophists to Athens (see Kerford The Sophistic Movement Cambridge U.P., Cambridge 1981, pp.21-22). Kerford's argument is consistent 28 aliens either because they had come from Syracuse to establish the art of rhetoric or because they had come from other parts of Greece to be taught this art. As aliens many of the sophists were barred from participation in the

Athenian assembly, the courts, and the vehicles for ceremonial rhetoric ( or praise and blame), principally the public funerals and festivals.

The opportunity for speaking was important to the sophists as a means of winning a reputation and therefore for winning students and commissions to write judicial and political speeches for the citizens. The sophists could not overcome this problem by exploiting the rhetorical species of praise and blame because its principal forms at this time - funeral orations, or epitathioi, and festival orations - also limited delivery to Athenian citizens.~ The sophists' only alternative was to invent and deliver speeches without any formal or institutionally defined function: speeches, that is, that were delivered for their own sake. The purpose of these speeches was to exhibit the orator's skill and impress or entertain. The principal function of the speeches, therefore, is display. Kenneth Burke notes that: "Often this third kind, as a rhetoric of 'display', was aimed at praise, not as an attempt to win an audience's praise of the subject

with the friendship that was said to exist between Gorgias and Pericles, see Plutarch The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives transl. Ian Scott-Kilvert, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1960, 36.

~ See Nicole Loraux The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City transl. Alan Sheridan, Harvard U. P., Cambridge Mass. 1986 ( first published 1981); and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.154. 29 discussed but as an attempt to win praise for the oratory itself" .. 59 Aristotle observes that the audience of displays are spectators or critics rather than judges as in political or judicial oratory. 60 He adds that the spectators of displays are judges only insofar as they judge the ability of the speaker: "a member of the general assembly is a judge of things to come; the dicast, of things past; the mere spectator, of the ability of the speaker". 61

Display, then, is a rhetoric of political alienation.

The development of display arises directly from conditions in which poLitical participation is denied to the orator. While the possibility of political or social commentary is open to the display orator the principal function of this oratory is always display, so that the commentary is assimilated to this function; to praise of the "ability of the speaker". A political consciousness, however, is absent from much of the oratory characteristic of display. Frequently subjects such as baldness, salt, bumble-bees, or flies, were chosen for these orations. The tendency for displays to be concerned with such seemingly trivial subjects is a source of many ancient and modern cri ties' disdain for epideictic.

59 Burke Rhetoric of Motives, p.71.

60 Rh . , I , i i i . 1 - 3 .

61 Rh., I, iii. 2-3. Aristotle, as I discuss later, conflates these functions with the tradition of praise and blame. As a critic, therefore, his observations about display can only be used with this qualification, but he provides important insights into the tradition. The affinity between display and praise is partly facilitated by the element in display of seeking praise of the speaker, but importantly there is always a difference of emphasis with display directing praise to the speaker, and the oratory of praise and blame directing it to the subject. 30

Isocrates, for example, criticises the encomium of "bumblebees and salt", and Kennedy argues that Aristotle's inclusion of animals and inanimate objects as subjects of praise indicates a "slippage of the moral tone of philosophical rhetoric". 62

Display oratory is important in Gorgias' rhetorical scheme. While Gorgias also taught political and judicial rhetoric 63 he predominantly practiced display oratory which was suited to his profession as a teacher and to his need to attract pupils. This necessity was due to the fact that he was not a citizen of the of city-states in which he lived and toured. 64 Display oratory is the principal function of

Gorgias' surviving orations. He is known to have written two festival orations of display (an Olympic Speech of which fragments survive, and the Pythian Speech), a Funeral Speech, and an Encomium to the Eleians. The only two works surviving are the Encomium of Helen and the Defense of Palamedes, both performative defenses of mythical figures. 65 D.M. MacDowell observes that: "Each of these [orations] sounds like a public

62 See Isocrates Helen in Isocrates vol.3 transl. Larue Van Hook (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1945, 12; Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p.73; and Rh., I, 9.2.

63 See Plato Gorgias transl. W. Hamilton, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1960, 454 and 452: Gorgias defines rhetoric as "the ability to convince by means of speech a jury in a court of justice, members of the Council in their Chamber, voters at a meeting of the Assembly, and any other gathering of citizens whatever it may be".

64 See Dobson Greek Orators, p.14-15. 65 See the "Introduction" to Gorgias: Encomium of Helen ed. and transl. D.M. MacDowell, Bristol Classical Press, Bristol 1982, p.10. 31 speech intended to show off Gorgias' rhetorical skill to a wide audience - and so, perhaps, to attract pupils", 66 and

J.F. Dobson comments: "He seems not to have written speeches for the law courts; his tendency, as in his personal habits, so in his speech, was towards display, and so he originated the style of oratory known as epideictic which Isocrates in a later age was to bring to perfection". 67 References to

Gorgias' rhetoric by ancient authorities distinguish him as a display orator. For example, Callicles comments in Plato's

Gorgias that: "Gorgias has just finished displaying all manner of lovely things to us". 68

Gorgias' life also fits the description I have provided of the sophists responsible for the development of display oratory. He was a western sophist born at Leontini in Sicily in the fifth century, and a student of Tisias. 69 As a young orator Gorgias was sent to Athens as an ambassador for

Leontini to appeal for aid in a conflict with Syracuse. 70 He was successful but this expedition apparently was his last exercise in practical oratory. Thereafter he left Leontini

66 MacDowell Gorgias, p.10-11.

67 'Dobson Greek Orators, p.15. Dobson sees display as the whole of epideictic which originates with Gorgias. Epideictic did not, however, 'originate' with Gorgias, it gradually coalesced into a fairly loose form, and even was less coherent in Gorgias' time before Aristotle drew these strands together.

68 Plato Gorgias, 447.

69 See MacDowell Gorgias, p.9; Kerford The Sophistic Movement, p.23; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.61-8. 70 See Dionysius of Halicarnassus: The Critical Essays vol.1, transl. Stephen Usher, Harvard U.P, Cambridge Mass. 1 9 7 4 , "Ly s i as" , 3 . 32 and "spent the rest of his life giving instruction and displays in oratory. He had no wife or children, and did not settle permanently in any one city, but travelled around living on the fees which he charged for his teaching". 71 In particular Gorgias spent time at Larissa in Thessaly and, as we can see from Plato's Gorgias, he also became a familiar figure in Athens. Gorgias, then, exemplifies the status of the alien who is barred from participation in judicial and political oratory, and for whom display oratory is the only alternative.

Gorgias' short oration the Encomium of Helen is not distinguished as a display by its title as an encomium or speech of praise. The reference to encomium is significant because of the affinity between praise and blame and display which by Aristotle's time are more closely related. Praise, however, is not a defining characteristic of this speech and it cannot properly, therefore, be regarded as an encomium.

While Gorgias begins with a discussion of praise and blame72 he quickly turns to the use of forensic argument, claiming he wishes "to free the slandered woman from the accusation". 73

Later iri the speech he slips further into the idiom of defence arguing that "it is not difficult to make a defence for that". 74 Isocrates claims that: "he has committed a

71 MacDowell Gorgias, p.9. When asked why he had lived so long (over 100 years) Gorgias replied "Because I have never done anything for pleasure".

72 Gorgias Helen, 1-2. 73 Gorgias Helen, 2. 74 Gorgias Helen, 8. 33 slight inadvertence - for although he asserts he has written an encomium of Helen, it turns out that he has actually spoken a defence of her conduct!". 75 Isocrates is, however, overstating his case due to his own claim to have written the true encomium of Helen. Gorgias' Helen also employs topics of praise and cannot simply be defined as a forensic speech. The speech confuses a variety of topical categories, not, as Isocrates suggests, because Gorgias lacks rhetorical discipline but because the divisions of rhetoric had not yet acquired the degree of formal resolution that they had in

Isocrates' and later periods.

More than any thing else, Gorgias' speech is concerned with display. Quintilian states that: "while there are three kinds of oratory, all three devote themselves in part to the matter in hand, and in part to display". 76 Accepting this argument, it may seem self-fulfilling to characterise Gorgias' Helen, or any other oration, as a display. The issue, however, is one of degree. An oration is characterised by its principal concern, even though it may use the material of other species or genera. Quintilian also notes that: "Isocrates held that praise and blame held a place in every kind of oratory", and yet neither Isocrates or Quintilian would dispute that praise and blame constitutes a species of oratory in itself when either praise or blame is the principal concern of a speech. 77 It is necessary to

75 Isocrates Helen, 14. 76 Inst., III, iv.14.

77 Inst., III, iv.11. 34 recognise the fluidity of rhetorical forms. This fluidity was particularly marked in Gorgias' time, but it is maintained even when rhetoric developed greater formal resolution. 78 Quintilian, even while objecting to claims that there are more than three forms of rhetoric, concedes that: all three kinds rely on the mutual assistance of the other. For we deal with justice and expediency in panegyric and with honour in deliberations, while you will rarely find a forensic case, in part of which at any rate something of those questions just mentioned is not to be found. 79 Gorgias' speech should not therefore be characterised according to the "assistance" it receives from forensic oratory. While it is ostensibly a speech of praise it has little in common with a speech such as Pericles' Funeral Oration, which is a genuine oration of praise (with a deliberative sub-text). Kennedy observes that: Epideictic speeches of the kinds discussed so far performed a public function and offered legitimate opportunities for an orator to develop a significant line of thought. It is a sign of decadence if an orator feels no involvement in the occasion and delivers a speech which is only a rhetorical display. There are, however, a number of speeches which have often been regarded simply as rhetorical displays of stylistic ornamentation, mostly because of their subject matter, which is mythological and apparently irrelevant to the period in which they were written. 80

78 While Isocrates, for example, is anxious to correct Gorgias regarding the proper boundaries of encomium, he still recognises, as Quintilian observes, that praise (the function of encomium) and blame are present in all forms of oratory.

79 Inst., III, iv.16. 80 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.167. 35

Gorgias' Helen is one of these - a "rhetorical display". 81 His purpose in Helen is to display his skill and in particular his style. Above all the speech is a performance. The mock constative function of defense, and even the mock performative of encomium are enacted only to further Gorgias' meta-performance. The only serious constative purpose to the speech is its secondary pedagogical function of various forms of proof (which reflects the close relation between display and pedagogical rhetoric) . In this oration however the pedagogical value is minor. As J. D. Denniston observes:

"starting with the initial advantage of having nothing in particular to say, he was able to concentrate all his energies upon saying it" . 82

Gorgias reveals that his main purpose is display in the last line of Helen. He concludes: "I have essayed to dispose of the injustice of defamation and the folly of allegation;

I have prayed to compose a lucubration for Helen's adulation and my own delectation". 83 Here again we see the confusion of encomiastic ("Helen's adulation") and forensic ("dispose of the injustice") topics. But the striking aspect of this passage is that the last word is "paignia". A paignia is a

81 Both Kennedy and Jebb classify it in this class, see Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.168-9; and R.C. Jebb The Attic Orators 2 vols., Russell and Russell, New York 1962 (first published 1875), vol.2, p.93.

82 J.D. Denniston Greek Prose Style London 1952, p.10. See also MacDowell Gorgias, p.18.

83 See Isocrates vol.3, p.57. I am using Larue Van Hook's translation here, printed in The Classical Weekly, Feb. 15, 1913, and reprinted before his translation of Isocrates' Helen. 36

"sportive essay" 84 or "playful exercise by an oratorical virtuoso" ; 85 its function contrasts with the practical objectives of political and forensic oratory, and contrasts, even, with speeches of praise and blame, such as a funeral oration, which respond to a public need. The paignia is a performance, a game, delivered for its own (and its speaker's) sake.

Style

The most striking characteristic of display oratory is its development of an ornate style. With the possible exception of delivery, style is closest in function of the parts of rhetoric to display. 86 The absence in display oratory of any formal purpose, and frequently the absence of even any tangible concerns, required the speaker to impress with style. As we have seen, Kennedy observes in relation to sophistic epideictic that: "There are, however, a number of speeches which have often been regarded simply as rhetorical displays of stylistic ornamentation, mostly because of their subject matter, which is mythological and apparently irrelevant to the period in which they were written''.~ The emphasis upon style over material in this form of epideictic

84 Van Hook Isocrates, p.54. 85 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.152. 86 Due, however, to the affinity between epideictic and writing, the use of delivery in display was limited. Furthermore delivery as an art is not fully developed until Theophrastus' On Delivery, see Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.282-4. 87 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.167. 37 is also reflected in Quintilian' s comment that: "I do not deny that some compositions of this kind are composed solely with a view to display ... and this proves that those are wrong who hold that an orator will never speak on a subject unless it involves some problem". 88 John William Hay Atkins argues that sophistic epideictic and an impressive style are interdependent to the extent that Gorgias' emphasis upon style was instrumental in establishing epideictic as a separate class of oratory. 89

Atkins' point needs to be extended to account for the conditions which led to Gorgias' emphasis upon style if this emphasis is to be held responsible for the development of display. A florid style is as much a sign as a cause of the western sophists' rhetoric of political alienation. The elevation of style substitutes for the direct engagement with legal and political issues in forensic and deliberative rhetoric. The particular stylistic qualities of display oratory vary, but the use of antithesis, schemes, and amplification are generally characteristic of its florid style. Diodorus Sicilus claims that Gorgias "was the first to make use of figures of speech which were far-fetched and distinguished by artificiality: antithesis, isocolon, parison, homoeoteleuton, and others of that sort which then, because of the novelty of the devices, were thought worthy of praise, but now seem labored and ridiculous when used to

88 Inst., III, vii.3.

89 Atkins "Gorgias" and "Rhetoric, Greek", Oxford Classical Dictionary Clarendon, Oxford 1949, pp.391, 766. See also Chase "The Classical Conception of Epideictic", p.293. 38 excess". 90 The style, particularly as it is represented by

Isocrates, is perhaps best described by Cicero: This style increases one's vocabulary and allows the use of a somewhat greater freedom in rhythm and sentence structure. It likewise indulges in a neatness and symmetry of sentences, and is allowed to use well defined and rounded periods; the ornamentation is done of set purpose, with no attempt at concealment, but openly and avowedly, so that words correspond to words as if measured off in equal phrases, frequently things inconsistent are placed side by side, and things contrasted are paired; clauses are made to end in the same way and with similar sound. 91

Cicero draws attention to the freedom, exaggerated ornamentation, and rhythm of the style, and significantly his description suggests a sense of the style's entertaining or performative function. Later in his Orator Cicero refers to the same style in more disparaging terms:

More care must be taken to distinguish the oratorical style from the similar style of the Sophists mentioned above, who desire to use all the ornaments which the orator uses in forensic practice. But there is this difference, that, whereas their object is not to arouse the audience but to soothe it, not so much to persuade as to delight, they do it more openly than we and more frequently; they are on the look-out for ideas that are neatly put rather than reasonable; they frequently wander from the subject, they introduce mythology, they use far­ fetched metaphors and arrange them as painters do colour combination; they make their clauses balanced and of equal length, frequently ending with similar sounds. 92

Again Cicero observes here that the emphasis of sophistic epideictic is upon delighting rather than persuading the

90 Diodorus of Sicily transl. C.H. Oldfather (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1950, XII, 53.4, cited in Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.64. See also Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.64. 91 Or., 37-8.

92 Or., 65. 39 audience. The style is consistent with the performative nature of display, rather than the constative of persuasion characteristic of forensic and deliberative practice. A further factor vital to the character of display oratory is intimated by Cicero's comment, in the first of the two passages above, that its style "increases ones vocabulary": the style is one of amplification or copia.

Aristotle, also, states that "amplification is most suitable for epideictic speakers", referring to both amplification of style and of invention. 93 For display oratory amplification is primarily a matter of style. In practice the distinction between the invention of arguments and the invention of style can be difficult to determine ( for example, in Isocrates' oratory, as I discuss below). This difficulty, however, is more commonly encountered in display, and may be seen as a further distinguishing feature of the species.

Denniston's comment that "having nothing to say"

Gorgias concentrates "all his energies upon saying it", highlights the relation between display and florid style.

Diodorus claims that during Gorgias' first visit to Athens in

427 "he astounded the Athenians with the strangeness of his speech". 94 This "strangeness" is evident from a number of features of Helen's style, particularly in the use of antithesis and parallelisms, schemes, and amplification. 95

93 Rh. , I, ix. 4 0 •

94 Diodorus of Sicily XII, 53.3.

95 On Gorgias' style see Jebb Attic Orators vol. 2, pp.64-65; Dobson Greek Orators, pp.13-18; Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.63-67; MacDowell Gorgias, pp.17-19; Denniston Greek Prose Style; and Van Hook Isocrates, p.55. 40

Gorgias uses antithesis of both words and meaning in

Helen. 96 For example he states that: It is a law of nature that the stronger is not subordinated to the weaker, but the weaker is subjugated and subordinated by the stronger; the stronger is the leader, while the weaker is the entreater. 97 and For he was the victor and she was the victim. It is just, therefore to symiathise with latter and anathematize the former. 8

In these examples word and meaning are opposed in the antithesis of strong and weak, victor and victim, whereas in the phrase "Inspired incantations are provocative of charm and revocative of harm", 99 the meaning is continuous but the words charm and harm are opposed.

Gorgias' use of figures of sound or language, known as schemes, is another distinctive quality of Helen's style.

Jebb notes that: "It was Gorgias who first brought a throng of the figures of language into Greek rhetoric". 100 His use of schemes is particularly evident in the highly alliterative quality of virtually every sentence in Helen. This alliteration has been emphasise in Van Hook's translation, as

96 The distinction here between antithesis of words or meaning is made in the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum transl. H. Rackham ( Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U. P., Cambridge Mass., 1435b27: "A sentence is antithetical when either terminology or meaning, or both at once, are opposite in the opposed clauses". See also Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p. 65.

97 Van Hook Isocrates, p.56.

98 Van Hook Isocrates, p.56.

99 Van Hook Isocrates, p.55.

100 Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.64. 41 is clear from the examples above and in the comment that Helen "inspired in many men many mad moods of love". 101 A further notable schematic device is Gorgias' use of parallelisms of sound. Parallelism of sound is often used in antithesis, or by itself as in the balancing of "others" and

"suffers" in the statement: "since through discourse the soul suffers as of its own, the felicity and infelicity of property of others" . 102

Gorgias uses amplification in Helen through employing stylistic devices, such as antithesis, which flesh out, and at times stretch the point. Amplification of invention is also used, for example, in the technique popular in epideictic - of discussing the subject's noble ancestry.

Gorgias raises the nobility of Helen's parents, her mother

Leda, her reputed father Tyndareos, and natural father Zeus. 103 These devices of the florid, or high, style, bring the style of Helen close to poetry from which many of the techniques were borrowed. 104 Aristotle states that: And as the poets, although their utterances were devoid of sense, appeared to have gained their reputation through their style, it was a poetical style that first came into being, as that of Gorgias. Even now the majority of the uneducated think that such persons express themselves most beautifully, whereas this is not the case, for

101 Van Hook Isocrates, p.55. 102 Van Hook Isocrates, p.57. 103 Gorgias Helen (MacDowell), 3-4.

104 On the relation of Gorgias' style to poetry see Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.64; and Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.64. 42

the style of prose is not the same as that of poetry. 105 Aristotle insists upon the distinction between the style of poetry and prose, but he acknowledges that Gorgias established a link between them. The importance and character of style in display makes it the closest form of rhetoric to literature. Kennedy comments that "epideictic is the form of oratory closest in style and function to poetry". 106 It is significant in this respect that Gorgias' emphasis upon style could be credited by Atkins with establishing epideictic, because his stylistic devices were borrowed almost entirely from poetry. 107 This close relation to poetry, and later, literature in general, is a distinguishing feature of display oratory. 100 Although Atkins claims that Gorgias' emphasis upon a poetic style was responsible for the development of display oratory, the stress upon a florid style is as much symptomatic of the orator's need to display. This relation

105 Rh., III, i.9. See also Cicero I s comment in Orator (39-40) that Gorgias was "the first according to tradition to attempt an artificial arrangement of words" in prose.

106 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p. 1 5 3 . See also Baldwin Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic, p.35; and Burgess Epideictic Literature.

107 See Jebb Attic Orators, p.64; Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.64.

108 On epideictic, poetry, and literature see Burgess Epideictic Literature, pp.166-194; and John F. Tinkler "Humanist History and the English Novel in the Eighteenth Century" Studies in Philology no.4, 1988. Interestingly the colonisation of epideictic by poetry is reversed in later antiquity, Kennedy states that "In later antiquity, when the victory of rhetoric in literature was complete, virtually all poetry was regarded as a subdivision of epideictic." The Art of Persuasion, p.153. 43 is evident in the importance of Helen's style to Gorgias' display. Each of Gorgias' principal stylistic techniques - antithesis, schemes, and amplification aims more at displaying the orator's skill in manipulating the form of language, rather than at facilitating his argument (except, of course, that display is in itself a meta-argument in favour of orator). The style is one which, as Aristotle harshly judges, "gained their [the orators] reputation", but was "devoid of sense". 109 This aim reflects that the speech's concern is less with argument, or proving a point, than with display. Antithesis of meaning is the restatement of an argument in reverse, adding emphasis but adding little to the argument's development. For example, in Gorgias' antithesis between strong and weak, he states that the strong are more powerful than the weak, and then states that the weak are less powerful than the strong, which is simply a restatement of his meaning, manipulating its form. Figures of sound, or schemes, can emphasise a point, but they can not introduce new ideas, whereas a style which is characterised by figures of thought, or tropes, can introduce new ideas. Schemes are directed at creating a pleasant effect and also, therefore, are concerned with "entertaining the audience"; with performing to spectators rather than convincing judges. 110 Similarly, if amplification consists primarily of stylistic antithesis it adds little to argumentation. Here again we

109 Rh . , I I I , i . 9 •

110 Orator, 38. 44 find evidence for Quintilian's observation that the practice of epideictic proves that rhetoric does not necessarily en t ai· 1 proo f persuasion.. 111 The emphasis of Gorgias' style is upon performance. His style is performative because its function is completed within the boundaries of the speech. Gorgias' style does something, that is, it entertains, rather than saying something, such as assuring the audience, through decorum, of the orator's authority to address some issue beyond the performance of the speech. His style is not directed at moving the audience to further action, it seeks only to delight the audience and asks the minimal constative action of approbation or applause. Gorgias' style signifies his political alienation. His exclusion from the organs of political discourse is reflected in the substitution of political argument in his oratory with a heightened consciousness of language, which is in turn realised in his florid style. The aspect of Gorgias' style in which this disengagement is directly evident is his use of

Attic Greek. Attic is the dialect in which Gorgias had no political rights. He adopted it in preference to the

Sicilian Greek which was the only medium open to him for political rhetoric. 112 The emphasis upon style in western sophistic epideictic has been a basis for criticism of this oratory. Display oratory is seen to emphasise florid language in which words are valued over things, leading, as

111 Inst., III, vii.3.

112 See Dobson Greek Orators, p. 15; and MacDowell Gorgias, p.17. 45

Kennedy claims of Lysias' epitaphioi, to "rhetorical inebriation". 113 A similar judgement is evident in Cicero' s comparison of the style with a painter's combination of colours. The hostility to this style has contributed to a failure to take display oratory seriously, and to account for the political significance of display.

Medium - writing A further important feature of Helen is that it is written. The use of a predominantly written medium is the second feature of display that is important also for its character as a rhetoric of political alienation. Kennedy observes that most sophistic epideictic was "not intended for actual deli very". 114 Most other forms of epideictic are also predominantly written. Aristotle states that: "The epideictic style is especially suited to written compositions". 115 Because many of the sophists were barred from speaking at formal occasions, writing offered the only alternative outlet for oratory besides private gatherings.

113 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.157. Note that while epitaphioi, as I argue, are more characteristic of the oratory of praise and blame, the oration attributed to Lysias is closer to display, and Lysias' status in Athens, with exception of short period, was as a western sophist and alien, rather than a citizen, see Charles Darwin Adams (ed.) Lysias Oklahoma U.P., Norman 1970 (first published 1905), pp.9-32; and Lysias transl. W.R.M. Lamb (Loeb Classical Library), William Heinemann, London, pp.ix-xx.

114 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.152.

115 . Rh., III, xii. 5; see also Chase 11 The Classical Conception of Epideictic", p.293. In contrast forensic and political rhetoric are primarily oral (although not necessarily extempore), and it is these genera that account for the description of rhetoric as an 'art of speaking'. 46

The circulation of manuscripts of display oratory was also a means of reaching and winning potential students; for example in Phaedrus Lysias wins the admiration of Phaedrus with his manuscript of his (display) oration on love. 116 In display oratory, therefore, writing developed as both a sign and an expression of exclusion from public life.

The use of writing in display dislocates author from audience. Whereas knowledge of the audience is vital to proofs of pathos in deliberative and forensic rhetoric, proof, as Quintilian observes, 117 is less important in display which is therefore more amenable to writing. 118 Aristotle, also, observes that enthymeme, or rhetorical proof, is least important in epideictic, and that it is substituted as a means of furnishing material by amplification. 119 This reasoning may also be reversed. That is, because sophistic epideictic turned to writing as its principal means of expression it was limited in the extent to which it could use

116 See Plato Phaedrus transl. H.N. Fowler (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1914, 227- 228. See also Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.57. It is apparent from the Platonic dialogues that private gatherings were important outlets for speech at this time, and they would have provided outlets for the sophists. However these occasions were not public. Writing offered the only public audience to the sophists and this public guali ty was important to the realisation of rhetoric as distinct from dialectic which was more appropriate to private occasions (which is also apparent from Plato's dialogues).

117 Inst., III, vii.3.

118 On the relation between rhetorical proofs and audience, see Lloyd F. Bitzer "Aristotle's Enthymeme Revisited" in Keith V. Erickson (ed.) Aristotle: The Classical Heritage of Rhetoric Scarecrow Press, Metuchen 1974, pp.141- 155.

119 Rh., I, ix.40; and III, xvii.3. 47 proofs; this in turn pushed it further toward using style as the organ of display and performance. The significance of the audience in proofs cannot be underestimated. Lloyd Bitzer argues that enthymeme is defined as proof from the audience's assumptions. 120 According to Aristotle enthymeme is the body of rhetorical proof. 121 The dislocation between orator and audience through writing cannot be overcome simply by assuming or imputing the audience' s assumptions according to Bitzer' s definition, because the power of rhetorical proof is that it is self-persuasive; requiring the values used to be taken from direct knowledge of the audience. Writing therefore can be taken not only as the sign and expression but also as a cause which perpetuates the disengagement of display from practical affairs. In the isolation of speaker from audience the use of writing highlights the performative quality of display. The isolation of writing is suited to the speaker's concentration upon the speech itself and upon the 'speaker' rather than the audience. The speech will be complete in itself rather than persuading the audience to do something. While many sophists were excluded from direct forensic and deliberative practice they were employed to write

120 Note that Bitzer's definition contends with tradition of defining enthymeme in terms of reasoning from probable premises as it exemplified by James H. McBurney; see Bitzer "Aristotle's Enthymeme Revisited" and McBurney "The Place of Enthymeme in Rhetorical Theory" in Erickson (ed) Aristotle: The Classical Heritage of Rhetoric. Whether or not Bitzer's analysis is definitive he demonstrates that the audiences premises are nevertheless critical to the meaning of the enthymeme.

121 Rh . , I , i . 1 1 . 48 speeches for litigants and politicians. 122 Speech writing, or 'logography', was regarded as a less honourable occupation than teaching but it was nevertheless a common form of employment. 123 Logography contributed to the sophists' fluency in writing and complemented their cultivation of display as a written form of oratory. Importantly, in distancing the writer from forensic and political practice logography can be seen as a further expression of the sophists' status as aliens and a further factor in the relation between writing and the non-participatory nature of display. In addition to limiting rhetorical proof writing stimulated the development of a performative style. The reflection writing affords encouraged the polished style characteristic of display. The demand for a polished style for display also encouraged the use of writing. This reciprocal relation strengthens the writing's alienation and the style's display. It is apparent from Plato's Gorgias that Gorgias was accustomed to delivering demonstration speeches to private gatherings, although it is also clear that he circulated manuscripts of his speeches as a further means to winning a reputation. Significantly his display oratory was composed in writing and only then delivered. The degree of stylistic

122 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.57. 123 The status of logographers is apparent from Isocrates' abandonment of the profession, from Aristotle's scorn of Isocrates having practiced it, and from Isocrates' adoptive son Aphareus responding to Aristotle by denying that Isocrates practiced logography. On this episode see "Isocrates" in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 18. 49 intensity achieved by Gorgias necessitated a deliberate compositional process, which was facilitated by writing.

Display oratory demanded stylistic complexity and therefore depended upon written composition. It is partly for this reason that Gorgias' display speeches have survived. What little practical oratory he delivered, such as his speech as ambassador for Leontini, has been lost because it was either not written, or written only as notes or an outline for one occasion. Judicial and forensic speeches are only delivered once. Thereafter they can only be repeated for instruction, and they then change their function. 1M Display oratory may be read or delivered a limitless number of times and fulfill its function as display each time. The preservation of the speech is also important for maximising the opportunities for display.

While logographers composed speeches in writing for delivery in court and assembly it was a necessary function of these speeches that they were delivered (and again the fact that the logographers write rather than deliver speeches is a reflection of their status as aliens). For display oratory, on the other hand, the function of display, while exercised further by delivery, can be satisfied by writing and reading alone. In this respect, although Gorgias' speeches were usually delivered, they precede the development of a display oratory that is even more closely characterised

124 On the change in function and meaning of language that is "parasitic upon its normal use" see Austin How to do things, pp.21-22. This is a category Austin considered too complex to consider but can be seen as a form of meta­ performance. 50 by writing. It is also important to realise that the delivery of written displays, which furthers the element of display, remains a distinctive feature of this oratory through to the Renaissance. The importance of writing in Gorgias' display oratory again reflects his position outside political discourse. Writing is an alternative to active engagement in public life. Through facilitating Gorgias' florid style, writing also strengthens the function of display over argument and the non-contentious tendency of his oratory.

Pedagogy - imitation The use of an imitational pedagogy is the third feature of Gorgias' oratory that is important to its character as display. Sophists are by definition teachers of rhetoric.

The role of teacher is implicit in the derivation of

'sophist' from sophos, meaning wise. 125 Two methods of teaching were employed by the sophists: 1. a technical analysis of rhetoric, presenting the subject through its theory, or techne, and; 2. instruction through the students' imitation of model orations. Western sophists, such as Gorgias and Isocrates, taught display principally through

125 See Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p. 25; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.13. 51 imitation. 126 Imitation was also used for teaching forensic and political rhetoric but in these genera, particularly forensic, the theoretical handbooks were more commonly employed. The handbooks, however, were not concerned with display oratory. Kennedy comments, citing Isocrates and Aristotle, that the early rhetorical handbooks "were concerned only with court oratory". 127 However in the discussion referred to by Kennedy, Aristotle also notes that

"the method of deliberative and forensic rhetoric is the same", so that the handbooks would also have assisted political oratory. 128 In the period before Aristotle's Rhetoric, therefore, forensic teaching emphasised the use of theoretical handbooks, teaching of political oratory used both handbook and imitation, and display was taught primarily through imitation.

Display oratory is suited to teaching through imitation by virtue of its emphasis upon style. The sublime quality in the character of a style is difficult to specify in terms that can be coded into a handbook, and can be more easily demonstrated by example. 'Longinus' recommends "zealous

1~ Gorgias is said to have used an 'art' for teaching, al though the reference is probably to his use of verbal instruction, but he taught mainly through his speeches (see the "Introduction" to Aristotle's Rhetoric, p.xiv, and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p. 62). A techne has also been spuriously attributed to Isocrates, but even if this claim was accepted, he also taught primarily through orations (Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.71).

127 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.57. See also the "Introduction" to Aristotle's Rhetoric, p.xxi. 128 Rh., I, i. 1 0. The early handbooks principally taught the divisions of forensic speech (see, for example, Socrates' scorn on this point in Phaedrus, 266-288) which Aristotle refers to here as 'method'. 52 imitation" of models of style. 129 Although later rhetorical handbooks do theorise style, imitation remains the principal means by which it is taught. The genera in which style is less important, and which rely more upon argumentation, are suited to the handbook method of teaching. The invention of proofs and argument depend more upon the requirements of a particular case as does decorum of style. Much rhetorical argumentation used commonplaces. Paradoxically, the handbooks' codifications of their subject were suited to explaining the potential scope of argument. The alternative of imitating models of argument would require a limitless number of examples; a method closer to the modern common law system of precedent. The affinity between display and writing is a further basis to its use of an imitational pedagogy. Writing offers a stable artifact, and therefore a model, for imitation. Again, the relations between these various elements of display are reciprocally reinforcing. The relation between display and imitation is important to its nature as a rhetoric of political alienation. As a teacher the sophist is already once removed from the

"battlefield", as Cicero says, of public life - the assembly

129 'Longinus' On the Sublime transl. W. Hamilton Fyfe (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1927, XIII, 2-4. Ironically 'Longinus' stresses that sublimity cannot be theorised but treats the subject in a quasi­ theoretical manner. Longinus, however, shows the way to the sublime without ever claiming to present sublimity. W. Hamilton Fyfe observes that Longinus is opposed to the "mechanical application of rules", see "Introduction" to On The Sublime, p.xix. 53 and courts. 730 Teaching, however, clearly has the potential to perform a critical - and indirectly participatory - political role. An imitative pedagogy may also be critical if imitation is interpretative. This critical potential, however, is always in tension with imitation as the unquestioning acceptance of received values. Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca describe epideictic as a genus that is "noncontroversial and aims at increased adherence to an accepted value". 131 But as Kennedy observes, this view fails to account for epideictic's potential to perform a critical role. 132 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca' s observation is, however, true of the "non-controversial" potential of imitation in display oratory. Potentially, imitation teaches the student of display to accept rather than challenge.

The impact of the imitative character of display upon the education system must also be considered. "It is not too much to say" Kennedy argues "that rhetoric played the central role in ancient education". 733 In comparison with the other genera epideictic played a role in education that was proportionally greater than its role in public life ( this point may in part be attributed to the fact that it was the principal form of rhetoric open to teachers). Cicero refers to the sophists' epideictic as the "nurse" and "cradle of the

130 Or., 37 and 42.

131 Perelman and Olbrechts Tyteca The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, p.50. See also Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p.74.

132 Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p.74.

133 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.7. 54 orator". 1~ When uncritically imitative, display encourages the establishment and perpetuation of unshakable models and the institutionalisation of the educational curriculum. 1~

Education, as a result, becomes unresponsive and isolated from social demands. 136 Perhaps most importantly the oration of display which is uncritically imitative is itself disengaged from its immediate social and political environment (except to the extent that it reflects an imitative culture). This disengagement may to a degree be interpreted as politically 'conservative', because an uncritically imitative display supports political tradition, or the status guo, through being politically silent. If, however, the political system demands active support, the silence of display could equally be regarded as subversive, and may even be exploited as an outlet by critics, as, for

134 Or., 37 and 42. Note that this educational role for display becomes vital to the nature of imperial Roman declamation, see Bonner Roman Declamation, p.61; Donald Lemen Clark Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education Columbia U.P., New York 1957; M.L. Clark Rhetoric at Rome, p.131; and George A. Kennedy The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World Princeton U.P., Princeton 1972, ch.4.

1~ This problem, as it developed in the Renaissance, is identified by Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine in From Humanism to the Humanities Duckworth, London 1986.

1~ This tendency can be seen to re-occur through the history of rhetoric: in the dispute between Brutus and Cicero over Attic versus Asiatic style (and in the nostalgia for 'Atticism' generally, from the fourth century B.C. through to the seventeenth century); in the use of a 'pure', or 'Attic', Greek in oratory and education in Fifth and Sixth century Byzantium which could only be faintly understood by the majority of the Greek speaking population (see Kennedy Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors, p.48); in Quintilian's concern with maintaining a vital education system; and in Erasmus' challenge to Cicero as the model of rhetoric and Latin. 55 example, in the case of 'damning with faint praise', or alternately, in the case of damning with hyperbole. 137

Dionysius of Halicarnassus suggests that Gorgias wrote an ars, or handbook, of rhetorical theory, but the attribution is generally regarded as spurious. 138 Kennedy argues that in this case 'ars' probably refers to Gorgias' verbal discussion of rhetoric rather than a written theory. 1~

Even if Gorgias had written a handbook its application, like all rhetorical theory of his period, would have been to forensic and deliberative rhetoric. Imitation was the main teaching method used by Gorgias. Aristotle states that: "The educational system of those who taught eristic for money was like the approach of Gorgias. He and his fellows assigned rhetorical discourses to be learned by heart". 140 Helen is one of the discourses that Gorgias' students "learned by heart".

The imitation of Helen would primarily have been instructive in style. The affinity between a high style and imitation is evident here. The nature of Gorgias' style can be described in terms of schemes, amplification, and

137 An interesting example which combines both faint praise and hyperbole is Julian the Apostate's encomium of the emperor Constantius whom he feared and loathed, see Kennedy Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors, pp.27-30.

138 See MacDowell Gorgias, p.10; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.62.

139 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.62.

140 Aristotle On Sophistical Refutations transl. E. S. Forster ( Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U. P., Cambridge Mass. 1955, 183b39; cited in Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.52. On Gorgias' use of an imitative pedagogy see Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.62; and MacDowell Gorgias, p.10. 56 antithesis, but its character, and in particular its sublimity, can only be fully appreciated by example, and it is therefore appropriately learned through imitation. 141 Given the intimate relation between Gorgias' style and display, the imitation of this style also instructs the student in display. Some forensic proofs may also be learnt from the speech, but these are secondary to its character, and if we accept Gorgias' description of the speech as a paignia this function cannot be taken very seriously. Imitation for Gorgias' students required them, as Aristotle states, to "learn by heart", rather than to critically analyse and question the text. This uncritical imitational pedagogy encourages adherence to accepted values and reflects the non-contentious nature of this form of display. In commenting upon Gorgias' students learning by heart, Aristotle adds that: "Hence the teaching they gave to their pupils was rapid but unsystematic; for they conceived that they could train their pupils by imparting to them not an art but the results of an art". 142 Also evident in this form of imitation is the potential for the model to become institutionalised and therefore further isolated from changing social and political concerns. This tendency is reflected in Aristotle's criticism that: "Even now the majority of the uneducated think that such persons express themselves most beautifully". 143

141 See 'Longinus' On the Sublime, XIII, 2-4. 142 Sophistical Refutations, 184a.

143 Rh., III, i.9. 57

Philosophy of Rhetoric

A further important element in the character of

Gorgias' display oratory is his philosophy of rhetoric.

Gorgias' only non-rhetorical work is a philosophical treatise, written while he was young, entitled On What is

Not. It outlines a typically sceptical sophistic philosophy. 144

In this treatise Gorgias argues that nothing exists

( "nothing is"), that even if anything does exist it is incomprehendable, and that even if it was comprehendible it would be incommunicable. 145 His response to these philosophical problems is to regard all knowledge as invention or artifice. Rhetoric is the artificer of knowledge (or opinion, or belief).

Confronted with a philosophy of 'nothing is', invention is a product of either reason or speech. These faculties are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Either of these faculties, or both, are seen to distinguish humans from animals and they are therefore alternative definitions of being. The distinction between reason and speech, as Cicero

144 A similar sceptical philosophy, for example, is maintained by Protagoras, whom Socrates criticises for arguing that "man is the measure and measurer of all things", see Plato Theaetetus transl. H.N. Fowler (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U. P., Cambridge Mass, 152a. On the philosophical influences upon Gorgias, particularly from the Pythagoreans, see Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p.30.

145 See Aristotle "On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias" in Aristotle Minor Works transl. W.S. Hett (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1940, 979a; Sextus Empiricus Against the Professors transl. Rev. R.G. Bury (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1949, VII, 65; MacDowell Gorgias, p. 11 ; Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p. 30; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.14. 58 points out in relation to its use by Socrates, may well be false, but it is significant to the extent that it informs the development of opposing philosophies of rhetoric. 146 A philosophy of rhetoric which presents invention as the product of reason emphasises argument or proof as the subject of invention. A philosophy of rhetoric maintaining that invention is the product of speech, emphasises language and style as the subject of invention.

For Gorgias speech is our distinguishing faculty and is the source of invention. "Speech", he argues in Helen, "is a powerful ruler". 147 Consequently Gorgias' great concern is with the nature of language and this concern is reflected in the intensity of his style. Style to an extent substitutes for proof or argument in creating artifice through persuasion. As Jacqueline De Romilly observes, for Gorgias style operates in a similar fashion to magic, weaving a spell on the audience and appealing to the same passions, creating something (belief) where there was nothing, and making proof redundant. 148 This parallel between speech and magic is recognised by Gorgias in Helen:

Now then, let me move from one speech to another. Inspired incantations through speeches are inducers of pleasure and reducers of sorrow; by intercourse with the mind's belief, the power of

l% See Cicero De Or., III, 60. He claims that Socrates "separated the science of wise thinking from that of elegant speaking, though in reality they are closely linked together". 147 Gorgias Helen, 8.

148 See Jacqueline De Romilly Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1975. See also John 0. Ward "Magic and Rhetoric from Antiquity to the Renaissance: Some Ruminations" Rhetorica No.1, 1988, pp.57- 118; and Nancy Struever The Language of History in the Renaissance Princeton U.P., Princeton 1970, pp.10-15. 59

the incantation enchants and persuades and moves it by sorcery. Two arts of sorcery and magic have been invented; they are deviations of mind and deceptions of belief. 1~ Gorgias' philosophy of "nothing is" is intimately related to his political alienation. His response to the idea that "nothing is" is to regard all knowledge as the invention of speech, and to focus on style as the subject of invention. This emphasis upon style, as I have argued, is crucial to the nature of display, which is the expression of

Gorgias' political alienation. Denniston's point, that having nothing to say Gorgias concentrates his energy upon saying it, has a significance he may not have intended. We may say that Gorgias has nothing to say (and is excluded from the institutions that permit saying some-thing) because he believes that nothing is; or we may say that Gorgias believes that nothing is because as an alien he has nothing to say. Either way his focus upon saying "it", which is nothing (and is reflected in his emphasis upon style and display), is the expression of the relation between his "nothing is" philosophy of rhetoric and his position as a political alien.

Having no things to represent Gorgias has only words which, like magic, work upon belief. But in this sense Gorgias' rhetoric is limited because the scope to affect belief is dictated by a scepticism (and a political position) which limits knowledge to words rather than things.

149 Helen transl. MacDowell, 10. 60 For Gorgias there is not a clear distinction between belief and action. 1~ The verb he uses for 'belief' in Helen also means 'to obey' . 151 For Gorgias, therefore, to persuade someone of a political belief is to persuade them to political action - not only because language (as persuasion) and belief lead to action, but because language and belief are action. 152 The absence of political argument in Gorgias' rhetoric, the fact that he has "nothing to say", means that his audience is not led to any political action. Gorgias' audience is subject to and included in his political alienation insofar as his speech lasts. Being asked to believe nothing they do nothing. 153 The politically constative aspect to this rhetoric is minimal - literally "nothing" is (or "nothing is") asked from the audience. Is the concept of a political performative, therefore, oxymoronic, given that Gorgias produces a performative rhetoric in which the political aspect is minimal? And is the political, therefore, necessarily constative; that is,

1~ See Gorgias' claim that a master of rhetoric can get anyone to do anything that they wish (it is for this reason that Helen is innocent and her persuader is guilty) in Helen, 12; and Plato's attribution of this belief to Gorgias in Gorgias, 452. See also MacDowell Gorgias, p.15.

151 See MacDowell Gorgias, p.15.

152 In their common emphasis upon language as action Gorgias may in this sense be compared to Austin who argues that all saying is doing, and indeed this comparison is implied in Stanley Fish's essay "Rhetoric" ( in Fish Doing What Comes Naturally Duke U.P., Durham 1989, pp.472-3 and pp.488- 491) in which he places Austin in the rhetorical tradition of Gorgias. 153 Like the three wise monkeys. 61 does it always require action between people, or getting someone to do something they would not otherwise do?

A knowledge of words may be used to address the world of practical affairs, and the political world in particular, if that world is a world of words. Indeed it is the idea that the world of experience is constituted by words that grants rhetoric its power because all knowledge and belief in that sphere must be a product of artifice and therefore of rhetoric. This potential for invention is latent in Gorgias' philosophy of rhetoric. Gorgias' scepticism however, extends, as his third premise in On What is Not indicates, to a scepticism of the meaning of words. It is for this reason that Gorgias relies upon the magical power of words which is exploited by style to affect his audience. This uncertainty of the meaning of words limits Gorgias' ability to effectively argue or propose a practical or political point and disposes him to the alternate option of display.

It would seem that Gorgias' performative rhetoric is not apolitical, and that the political may be performative (or epideictic), because his oratory is not so much devoid of political meaning as politically nihilistic. His oratory expresses his political alienation (which is interdependent with his nihilistic, or "nothing is", philosophy of rhetoric) and may therefore be said to be political without being constative. We may therefore say that performatives are the rhetoric of political alienation. 62 Gorgias' display oratory is characterised by a number of distinctive features. On a formal level his displays are characterised by a florid schematic style, a predominantly written medium, and they reflect an imitational pedagogy. Through these features his display oratory can also be seen as an expression of his political alienation and as characteristic of a performative rhetoric. We are left with the questions: can these features of Gorgias' display oratory be regarded as distinguishing characteristics of epideictic, and can Gorgias oratory be regarded as a model of epideictic? 63

CHAPTER 3 - !SOCRATES

Display

The second oration that I wish to examine as a possible model of epideictic and possibly confirming the characteristics of Gorgias' 'epideictic' - is Isocrates'

Encomium of Helen, composed in response to Gorgias' speech on the same topic.

Isocrates' life reveals a greater scope in the reasons for the display orator's political alienation than I have previously indicated. Whereas the western sophist I have discussed is alienated by circumstance, Isocrates was a political alien in his own city, Athens, by choice. He complains in his Panathenaicus that:

As to my nature, however, I realized that it was not robust and vigorous enough for public affairs and that it was not adequate nor altogether suited to public discourse, and that, furthermore, although it was better able to form a correct judgement of the truth of any matter than are those who claim to have exact knowledge, yet for expounding the truth before an assemblage of many people it was, if I masl say so, the least competent in all the world. 1

He also refers to being "barred from public life" 155 and compares his position to "those who owe money to the state", that is, he compares himself to the disenfranchised because, as Norlin notes, disenfranchisement was the Athenian

154 Isocrates Panathenaicus in Isocrates Volume 2, transl. George Norlin (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1929, 9-10. 155 Isocrates Panath., 11. 64 punishment for unpaid fines. 1~ Isocrates, however, makes a virtue of his alienation arguing, by comparing himself with political and forensic orators, that: "in spite of the fact that myself and these orators are so far apart in our ways of thinking. . . I have chosen a field so much more worthy". 157

Isocrates pursues a more contemplative (and what he refers to as a philosophical) life, which Kennedy describes as "a wisdom in practical affairs resulting in high moral consciousness and equated with a mastery of rhetorical technique". 158 Isocrates claims in Panathenaicus to take

"refuge in study and work and writing down my thoughts". 159

His rhetoric is not one of direct engagement. The "so much more worthy" fields of rhetoric he refers to are the closely related occupations of teaching and display. While the relations between alienation and display are again apparent here, the importance of instruction in

Isocrates' oratory raises difficulties for the conventional rhetorical classification of his speeches. Jebb, for example, rejects the usual division into forensic, deliberative, and epideictic as unworkable in relation to Isocrates' oratory. He proposes instead that the speeches be divided into "Scholastic" and "Political" works, and under the scholastic he includes the sub-category of "Displays",

156 Isocrates Panath., 1 0. 157 Isocrates Panath., 15. 158 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.178. 159 Isocrates Panath., 11 . 65 under which he lists Isocrates' Encomium of Helen. 160 George

Kennedy, however, considers all of Isocrates' speeches to be pedagogical. 161 Kennedy's argument relates to the greater part of Isocrates' life following the establishment of his school of rhetoric in Athens. This argument discounts

Isocrates' forensic speeches which were written for litigants when as a younger man he worked as a logographer. Isocrates disowned these speeches and disparaged the profession of logography. 162 His son claimed Isocrates never wrote forensic speeches, although according to Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, Aristotle "trying to besmirch Isocrates" said that "the itinerant booksellers carry around with them many bundles of Isocrates forensic speeches". 163

Kennedy identifies the close relation between epideictic and teaching, on the one hand acknowledging the instructive nature of Isocrates' speeches and on the other treating him principally as an epideictic orator. 164 The relation between epideictic of display (often translated as

'demonstrative' oratory) and instruction is complex. The problem of this relation illustrates the limitations of the threefold division of rhetoric. Instruction may be regarded as a species of rhetoric itself, but it must also be seen as a meta-function of rhetoric. Docere, to teach, is identified

160 Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.82-3. 161 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.174-8.

162 See Isocrates Antidosis, 36 and 49, in Isocrates vol.2. See also Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.176. 163 Dionysius of Halicarnassus vol.1, "Isocrates", 18. 164 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.174-7 and 202-3. 66 by Cicero as one of the three functions of oratory (together with movere, to move, and delectare, to please). Instruction is closely associated with display oratory particularly in the form practiced by Isocrates. This association is due both to the fact that display orators were sophists and sophists were by definition teachers, and because instruction is a form of display. 165 Because instruction crosses the boundaries of the genera it may be seen as partly independent of epideictic. Alternately if instruction is seen to be more continuous with display then display must also be seen partly as meta-function of rhetoric. This interpretation is consistent with Quintilian's argument that display is present in all oratory. 166 The transformation of this meta-function into a species of oratory occurs when it is the principal function of a speech. 167 In Isocrates' oratory instruction and display are continuous and so together can be taken as the principal function of these speeches. While the nexus of display and instruction is evident in Gorgias' oratory

(for example, in his demonstration of forensic proofs), its

165 The idea that instruction is a form of display involves a contradiction, given that instruction is active and display is self-fulfilling. This contradiction is embraced by the paradox of performatives and constatives being present in each speech or rhetorical act, one always implies the other.

166 Inst., III, iv.14.

167 Similarly praise and blame are present in all oratory according to Isocrates and Quintilian (Inst., III, iv.11 and 15), and yet praise and blame constitute a kind of oratory when they are the principal concern of the speech. Similarly performative and constative aspects of a speech cease to be meta-functions when they are the principal object of emphasis. 67 extension in Isocrates' speeches indicates the scope of display oratory.

It is also important to notice that in Isocrates' work praise and blame were more closely associated with display than in Gorgias' oratory. Increasingly display and praise and blame were coming to be seen as the distinguishing features of a genus, and consequently the idea of epideictic was gaining greater resolution. Display, however, remains the principal function of Isocrates' epideictic. His purpose in praising and blaming was secondary, in part because it was unrelated to the practical institutions from which praise and blame developed and was practiced and from which he was isolated.

The secondary nature of praise and blame in Isocrates' thought is evident from his political oratory which rather than being deliberative must be seen as political epideictic.

This blending of conventions from different genera, also evident in Gorgias' mixing of encomium and defence, again indicates the fluid nature of the threefold division of rhetoric, but perhaps more importantly it indicates that epideictic displays are the more parasitic of the three kinds of rhetoric. In his political epideictic Isocrates praises and blames political systems, ideals, rulers, and behaviour, as much as he urges Greek unity and war on the barbarians.

In fact he distances himself from the political rhetoric of the assembly, commenting that: "I thought that I was entitled

to more honour than the speakers who come before you on the platform in proportion as my discourses were on greater and 68 nobler themes than theirs". 168 Above all these political speeches are displays. Cicero dismisses the deliberative aspect of Isocrates' oratory, identifying the Panegyricus,

Isocrates' most acclaimed political speech, as epideictic.

As I noted earlier Cicero observes that: There are several kinds of speeches differing one from the other, and impossible to reduce to one type; so I shall not include at this time that class to which the Greeks give the name epideictic because they were produced as show­ pieces, as it were, for the pleasure they will give, a class comprising eulogies, descriptions, histories, and exhortations like the Panegyric of Isocrates, and similar orations by many of the Sophists, as they are called, and all other speeches unconnected with the battles of public life. 169 Cicero's description of Isocrates' political epideictic as "exhortations" is appropriate, indicating that political discourse can be conducted outside of a deliberative context. Significantly in this passage Cicero distinguishes these speeches as "show-pieces", or displays, rather than as orations of praise and blame (which are identified as another species within epideictic). Developing a consistent or coherent political argument is not as important to Isocrates as displaying his skill and demonstrating political epideictic, or exhortation (which he considers the most noble form of oratory), to his students. His speeches are opportunistic and his deliberative purpose is compromised by contradictory exhortations to Dionysius of Syracuse, Cyrus, Philip, the Athenians, Philip again, and Archidamus. His

168 Panath., 11.

169 Or., 37. Aristotle, also, identifies Isocrates as an epideictic orator, Rh., III, xii.12. 69 only consistently developed theme is the aim of Greek unity, or pan-Hellenism. Kennedy observes of Isocrates' speeches that: "they contain serious thoughts, of which the theory of pan-Hellenism is most obvious, but they were composed in response to rhetorical rather than political challenges". 170

It is important to distinguish between Isocrates' mock political aims and his political thought which is more seriously developed as the object of his displays. Kennedy, while acknowledging the importance of display in Isocrates' speeches by observing that they respond to 'rhetorical challenges', fails to make this distinction when he comments that "he wants his pupils and the world to be impressed with his wisdom, but his concern with subject matter is largely incidental". 171 This statement is true of Isocrates' direct and contradictory political appeals, but it underestimates his attempt at genuine political theory. Isocrates himself complains in Panathenaicus and Antidosis that this attempt was also often underestimated by his contemporaries. 172

Dobson states that Isocrates': "highest claim to political consideration is as a political thinker". 173

170 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p. 199.

171 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.203.

172 Panath., 5; Antidosis, 4-8.

173 Dobson Greek Orators, p.130. 70 Isocrates argues in Panathenaicus that an impressive display demands true political wisdom. 174 In this respect his oratory must be distinguished from Gorgias' displays of verbal skill. While Isocrates' exhortations can be regarded as displays I will confine my analysis to his Helen which falls more within the accepted conventions of epideictic. 175 My reason for this approach is that to use his political epideictic to argue that his display oratory demonstrates a concern with political thought may be seen as self-fulfilling if a rigid concept of the genera is applied, whereby all rhetoric on political subjects is regarded as deliberative. 176

The striking aspect of Isocrates' Helen is that although it falls within the increasingly conventionalised

174 Panath. , 1-1 5. The affinity between political epideictic and political thought in Isocrates' oratory is assumed in Renaissance political thought, see, for example, Tinkler "Praise and Advice: Rhetorical Approaches in Mare's Utopia and Machiavelli's The Prince", pp.187-207.

175 In Panathenaicus ( 271-272) Isocrates rejects the idea that his Panegyricus and other exhortations are displays preferring (significantly, for the relation between display and instruction) to describe them as "discourses which are composed for instruction". This denial, however, is directed more at distancing himself from the practice of display oratory such as Gorgias' (similarly Isocrates' Against the Sophists distances him from, and criticises, conventional sophistic practice, but it in no way excludes him from being a sophist, see Isocrates vol.2). The protest suggests also that Isocrates is reacting against a common perception of his audience, or his critics, that his orations are 'merely' displays when he repeatedly claims that he should be taken seriously as a political thinker. The difficulties he encountered in marrying display to political thought, to create political epideictic, and in melding display into a more substantial form, are apparent here.

176 Dobson maintains this position (Greek Orators, p.156), and Jebb notes that it is maintained by Jerome Wolf, Isocrates' nineteenth century editor, but he argues that it is unworkable (Attic Orators, vol.2, p.81). 71 boundaries of epideictic in the fourth century (and Isocrates is at pains to define the speech in terms of those conventions, contrasting it with Gorgias' Helen 177 ) Isocrates exploits the convention of praise of the subject's virtue to display his concern with political thought. He praises Helen for unifying Greece: "it was because of her that the Greeks became united in harmonious accord and organised a common expedition against the barbarians, and that it was then for the first time that Europe set up a trophy of victory over

Asia". 178 As I have noted Greek unity is the most salient theme of Isocrates' political thought. This theme clearly possesses both an encomiastic and deliberative aspect, which are apparent in his praise of Helen's achievement which is clearly also relevant to fourth century attempts to organise expeditions against the Persians. This deliberative subtext recalls Aristotle description of epideictic as a political trope. 179

The principal political subject praised by Isocrates in

Helen is Theseus' political reforms. Theseus is introduced as a subject of amplification, and amplification in this instance (and in contrast to Gorgias' text) is applied to

177 Isocrates Helen, 14-15.

178 Isocrates Helen, 67.

179 Aristotle's states that "praise and counsels have a common aspect; for what you might suggest in counselling becomes encomium by a change in the phrase" , and "when we know what we ought to do ... we ought to make a change in the phrase and turn it employing this knowledge as a suggestion", Rh., I, ix.35-6. 72 invention rather than style. 180 Isocrates uses amplification to develop his political thought. Amplification of invention is characteristic of his display oratory. Aristotle argues that amplification is particularly appropriate to epideictic because its "subject is actions which are not disputed, so that all that remains to be done is to attribute beauty and importance to them". 181 When commenting on the place of amplification in epideictic, Aristotle remarks that Isocrates

"is always bringing somebody in". 182 When praising a person, their family, ancestors, and friends are praised as a means of amplification, so that as Aristotle points out, if you are praising Peleus, you can then praise Achilles "then Aecus, then the god". 183 Similarly when praising Helen, Isocrates praises her first lover, Theseus, and his family, 184 her husband Alexander (Paris) and his family, 1~ then Menelaos, and then Zeus, Helen's father. 1~

Theseus is both the subject of greatest amplification in the speech and the principal example for political theory, reflecting Aristotle's judgement, partly in reference to amplification, that: "Virtues and actions are nobler, when

180 See Aristotle on amplification as alternately a matter of invention and style, Rh., I, ix.38; III, xii.4 and xvii.3.

181 Rh., I, ix.40.

182 Rh., III, xvii.11. See also Rh., I, ix.38-9.

183 Rh., III, xvi i. 12.

184 Helen, 18-38.

185 Helen, 42.

186 Helen, 15-18. 73 they proceed from those who are naturally worthier, for instance, from a man rather than a women". 187 While Helen can be praised for unifying Greece, the discussion of Theseus attempts greater development of political thought because as a man he is fit for higher praise. 188 In a parallel distinction to Plato's and Aristotle's distinctions between three forms of government, Isocrates holds that: "there are three types of polity and three only; oligarchy, democracy, and monarchy". 189 But in Theseus Isocrates sees the ideal ruler who embodies aristocratic government - the ideal form of rule. Isocrates points out that any of the three constitutions may be aristocratic if the best people rule because the best are always by definition the few. He argues that Theseus instituted a democracy but was then elected as leader:

And he was so far from doing anything contrary to the will of the citizens that he made the people masters of the government, and they on their part thought it best that he should rule alone, believing that his sole rule was more to be trusted and more equitable than their own democracy. 190

The principal function of Isocrates' Helen is display; it is as Van Hook notes "a show piece, a rhetorical exercise"

187 Rh. , I, ix. 21 .

188 See also Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.106; Van Hook Isocrates, p.58; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.187, on Isocrates' use of Theseus.

lM Panath., 132. See also Plato The Republic 2 vols., transl. Paul Shorey (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1930, 544; and Aristotle Politics transl. H. Rackham ( Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U. P., Cambridge Mass. 1932, iii, 6. 190 Helen, 36. 74 rather than a speech, such as a funeral oration, in which praise is the principal purpose of the occasion. 191

Isocrates also acknowledges that having criticised Gorgias' Helen, it is necessary for him to "exhibit a specimen of my own", emphasising the performative function of the speech as an exhibition or display. 192 But while the speech is characterised as a display, political thought is the serious subject of display and in this respect Isocrates' use of the form contrasts with the relative capriciousness of Gorgias.

This contrast is evident in the comparison between Isocrates' description of his display as an 'exhibition', with Gorgias' description of his Helen as a paignia, or game. The contrast again indicates the considerable scope within display oratory. For both Gorgias and Isocrates display oratory is an expression of their alienation from political institutions but whereas Gorgias' response to this alienation is to allow display to confirm his disengagement from politics (approximating a purely performative rhetorical act as closely as possible), for Isocrates display is used to re­ engage political life (fully exploiting the constative aspect of his performative acts) at what he describes as the more noble meta-political level of political thought.

Whereas Gorgias' oratory corresponds closely to the idea of performative speech, Isocrates' oratory highlights the problematic nature of distinguishing performatives.

191 Van Hook Isocrates, p.58. On Helen as a display, see also Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.83.

1~ Helen, 15. In Isocrates' Busiris, also an encomium, he states the same purpose using the same expression to "exhibit a specimen", see Busiris, 9, in Isocrates vol.3. 75

Isocrates can be described as doing something, or performing; his principal motivation is display. But Isocrates is always trying to 'say' something, such as provoking a change in his audiences' attitudes to the Persians, while he is doing something. Isocrates' oratory highlights Austin's point that all performatives are constative. The only line between

Isocrates' performance changing into constative rhetoric, and his display into deliberative rhetoric, is the trope that distinguishes praise from counsels. The sustaining force that keeps Isocrates on one side of this trope and prevents the distinction from collapsing - the factor that, therefore, dictates the nature of Isocrates' political voice - is his political position.

Sty1e

Helen's character as a display oration is, perhaps, most clearly manifest in its style. Quintilian comments that: "Isocrates was an exponent of a different style of oratory: he is neat and polished and better suited to the fencing school than the battlefield". 193 Like his teacher

Gorgias, Isocrates aims to create an artistic prose.

Isocrates, however, develops and moderates the Gorgianic characters of style, creating a prose style more decorous for

193 Inst. , X, i. 79. Quintilian is here using Cicero' s metaphor contrasting epideictic, as the rhetoric of school, with the battlefield of deliberative and forensic rhetoric - "So much for the school and the parade; let us now enter the thick of the fray", Or., 42; see also Or., 37, where Cicero contrasts Isocrates' speeches with "the battles of public life". This metaphor stresses the pedagogical associations of epideictic. 76 the 'nobility' of his subject. 194 Whereas Gorgias strains prose with poetry, Isocrates creates for prose a style of its own. Jebb points out that: In so far as Isokrates saw more clearly than Gorgias where the line falls between prose-rhythm and verse-rhythm, Isokrates moderated the Gorgian use of these figures. On the other hand he established some of them as the distinctive ornaments of the 'florid' Rhetoric by developing them artistically within certain limits. 195 Isocrates aims for a smooth and flowing style which he achieves primarily through the use of schemes or figures of language. This smooth sounding style is characterised by long sentences, balanced clauses, rounded periods, and by avoiding harsh or unfamiliar words. The following example from Helen contains all of these features:

For he saw that those who seek to rule their fellow-citizens by force are themselves the slaves of others, and that those who keep the lives of their fellow-citizens in peril themselves live in extreme fear, and are forced to make war, on the one hand, with the help of citizens against invaders from abroad, and, on the other hand, with the help of auxiliaries against their fellow citizens; further, he saw them despoiling the temples of the gods, putting to death the best of their fellow-citizens, distrusting those nearest to them, living lives no more free from care than do men who in prison await their death; he saw that, although they are envied for their external blessings, yet in their own hearts they are more miserable than all other men - for what, pray, is more grievous than to live in constant fear lest some bystander kill you, dreading no less tour own guards than those who plot against you? 96

194 On Isocrates' style see "Isocrates" in Dionysius of Halicarnassus vol.1; Cicero Or., 37-42; Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.64; Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p.34; Dobson Greek Orators, pp.131-3; Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates, vol.1, pp.xiv -xv; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.174. 195 Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.64. 196 Helen, 32-4. 77

The length of this sentence is striking. Isocrates' sentences commonly reach half a page or a page, maintaining a constant flow of language from clause to clause. 197 Isocrates' fondness for parallelisms, in common with Gorgias,

is also evident in this passage. He contrasts the point "on the one hand" with "on the other"; he contrasts the antithetical words "envied" yet "miserable"; he uses parisosis, or balancing of equal clauses; 198 and paramoiosis, or rhythmical parallelism of sound, such as "he saw", "he saw", "he saw". 199 As in Gorgias' oratory these parallelisms are also the main means of stylistic amplification. But in contrast to Gorgias text, each of these figures of language

is subordinated to the unity and smoothness of the whole passage. The equal clauses, paramoiosis, and anti thesis maintain the even flow of language. It is important to note that Isocrates' style is predominantly one of schemes, not of metaphor or figures of

thought. Norlin comments that: "He abstains even to excess

from the language of metaphor", 200 and Jebb observes that: "Isocrates rarely uses tropes" and "Nor does he often use

figures of thought". 201 Isocrates avoids metaphor in his

197 See, for example, Panegyricus, 47-50.

198 See Panath. ( 2), where Isocrates reflects upon "writing in a style rich in many telling points, in contrasted and balanced phrases not a few". On Isocrates use of parisosis see also Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 14; and Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.65. 199 On paramoiosis see Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.65. 200 Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates vol.1, p.xiv. 201 Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.64. 78 desire to not disturb the smoothness of his language, and therefore to maintain its gravity and nobility (although Dionysius of Halicarnassus claims that his diction is tame in consequence, and this tameness, importantly, is seen to reflect a distance from "real oratorical combat"). 202

Isocrates' style is appropriate to the 'nobility' of his subject and in its decorum it also substantiates the subject. The style aims at displaying the theme, but in displaying it adds to its nobility. In this sense while the style is performative it has a clear constative aspect, reflecting the greater degree of uncertainty in the distinction between performatives and constatives in

Isocrates' than in Gorgias' oratory. Nevertheless, Isocrates' style is chiefly one of display. His figures do not aim at developing or creating ideas but rather, like Gorgias' devices, they aim to manipulate language to show his ideas to their best advantage. 203 This style aims more at the constative of pleasure from the performative of display, than the constative of persuasion from the performative of argumentation, which Isocrates recognises late in life in

Panathenaicus when he acknowledges that in earlier oratory he had aimed to write: "in a style rich in many telling points, in contrasted and balanced phrases not a few, and in the

202 See "Demosthenes", 17-20, and especially 1 8, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus vol.1.

203 At times Isocrates slips into the Gorgianic practice of employing language for its own sake, and therefore approximating performative practice more closely, see "Isocrates", 3, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus vol.1; Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates, p.xv; Jebb Attic Orators, p.65; Dobson Greek Orators, p.134. 79 other figures of speech which give brilliance to oratory and compel the approbation and applause of the audience". 204 Approbation and applause, as Aristotle and Cicero both observe, are the objects of a display to an audience of spectators, rather than the response of an audience of legal or political judges. 205 On the one hand, therefore,

Isocrates' style is appropriate to his development of themes of political thought, but on the other hand, the performative character of his style, which marks display oratory, reflects his disengagement from political life and indicates that his political thought was conducted from this position of alienation.

Medium - writing

Isocrates' highly polished style is facilitated by, and perhaps only possible through his use of written composition. Writing is one of the most striking characteristics of Isocrates' display oratory. Alcidamus' On those writing written speeches which condemns the practice of written oratory as inimical to the vitality of rhetoric, is directed at Isocrates who was the literate orator of his time. 206

Kennedy states that: "A final contribution of Isocrates to rhetorical tradition should not be overlooked. It is that he is the first major 'orator' who did not deliver his speeches orally. They were carefully edited, polished, and published

204 Panath., 2.

205 See Cicero Or. , 38; and Chase "The Classical Conception of Epideictic", p.295. 206 See Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.172-3. 80 in written (but of course not printed) form. By his action speech was converted into literature, another influence toward the letteraturizzazione of rhetoric". 207 Nor did Isocrates write for delivery. 208 Isocrates gives his reason for taking "refuge in study and work and writing down my thoughts" to be his poor voice. 209 But it is important also to recognise that Isocrates initiated the development of an artistic prose. Writing was not merely his refuge. An artistic written prose was one of his main achievements. 210

Isocrates' use of writing disposes his oratory to display through facilitating his style, which is the frame and in part the substance of his display oratory. And his use of writing further disposes him to display through dislocating him from his audience and therefore restricting his use of enthymeme. Rather than using enthymeme, Isocrates relies more upon amplification and ethos (a form of amplification), both of which are more appropriate to writing and to display, because they are used - as Aristotle argues - to "attribute beauty" to a speech, whereas enthymeme demands

207 Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p. 35. See also Baldwin's comment that epideictic tended to be written "from Isocrates down", in Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic, p.33.

208 See Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates vol.1, p.xxx.

209 Panath., 9-11. Isocrates' occupation as a logographer when he was young also reflected his disposition to writing.

210 See Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates vol.1, p.xvi. 81 that the audience understands and provides the premises of an argument. 211 An additional advantage in the use of writing for display is that it preserves speech. Indeed the relatively high rate of preservation of Isocrates' speeches over other Attic orators is an indication of the predominance and importance of writing in his oratory. 212 Isocrates frequently intimates that his purpose in writing is that the standard of oratory he has achieved will be preserved as a model for Greek rhetoric: "a monument, after my death, more noble than statues of bronze". 213 This element of preservation indicates that the function of his oratory is not dictated by the requirements of a particular occasion or particular institution. In contrast to practical rhetoric, a display oration maintains and even maximises its function

211 Rh., I,ix.40. On Isocrates' use of ethos see my discussion below. On ethos as a form of amplification see Aristotle Rh., I, ix.38. On the appropriateness of amplification and ethos, rather than enthymeme, to epideictic, see Rh., III, xvii.12; and I, ix.38-40. Given Aristotle's intimation that the operation of enthymeme is similar to metaphor ( as both a means of reasoning and instruction) , Isocrates' use of amplification and ethos (the alternatives to enthymeme) is consistent with his avoidance of metaphor. For Aristotle's comparison of enthymeme and metaphor see Rh., III, x, and compare Bitzer's interpretation of Aristotle's concept of enthymeme in Bitzer "Aristotle's Enthymeme Revisited".

212 See Jebb Attic Orators vol. 2, pp. 80-1 ; and Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates vol.1, p.xxx. 213 Antidosis, 7. See also Panath., 8 and 11-12; and Antidosis, 6-7 and 51. 82 with an increasing number of 'deliveries', or readings, and this repetition is facilitated by writing. 214 Writing is an expression of Isocrates' political alienation because it amplifies the exhibitionistic character of his oratory by restricting enthymeme, encouraging amplification and ethos, and because it facilitates the re­ presentation of his thought, setting it outside political institutions. Isocrates explicitly recognises this alienation when he refers to writing as his "refuge". Importantly, however, writing is also Isocrates' medium for the re-engagement of politics through political epideictic.

That is, he exploits the constative aspect of primarily performative rhetorical acts, so that his relation to politics embodies the performative/ constative paradox. In this sense, Isocrates' oratory demonstrates a relation in which political thought and political action are two sides of the same coin,like performative and constative acts.

Isocrates' political epideictic cannot be seen as autonomous from deliberative rhetoric, and its context of political 'life', which he rejects.

Pedagogy - imitation Isocrates' oratory, as I have noted, is intended for instruction. Imitation was his principal method of teaching display orations such as Helen: in fact imitation was

274 Of course Greek poetry and plays were preserved with the assistance of mnemonics, but the same degree of inventive and stylistic complexity that can be found, for example, in Isocrates' Panegyricus, was not possible through this medium, see Walter J. Ong Orality and Literacy Methuen, London 1982, pp.57-67. 83 Isocrates' principal method used in all his teaching, due to the disposition of his oratory to display. Like Gorgias' pedagogy of imitation, Isocrates' pedagogy is facilitated by his use of writing which creates the artifact or model of imitation and enables repeated reference to analysis of that model.

Isocrates is said to have written a techne - implying that he taught by theory also. 215 This textbook was also said to have been included in Aristotle's Synagogue technon - his collection of rhetorical handbooks. The extracts that survive from this techne, given that they are genuine, indicate that the work was concerned primarily with the arrangement and divisions of forensic rhetoric, which is consistent with other handbooks of the time and with the affinity between forensic rhetoric and theory. But, according to Kennedy, the attribution of a theoretical textbook to Isocrates is spurious. 216 Quintilian questions the authenticity of the text as Isocrates', commenting: "if indeed the treatise on rhetoric which circulates under his name is really from his hand", and Cicero claims not have seen the work. ~ 7 The text may have been the work of the younger Isocrates. 218

215 See Cicero Inv., II, 7; Quintilian Inst., II, xv.4 and III, i. 14; Jebb Attic Orators vol. 2, pp. 256-9; Dobson Greek Orators, p.159; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.70-3.

216 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.70-1.

217 Inst., II, xv.4; and De Inv., II, 8. 218 See Quintilian Inst., II, xv.4.n.1. 84

Isocrates' educational works Against the Sophists and

Antidosis, have also sometimes been interpreted as recommending the use of theory in teaching. 219 In these texts he argues that the most important elements in learning are natural ability, instruction, and practice. It is instruction that is interpreted as 'theory', although this term (and also 'practice') could imply either or both theory and imitation. Even if instruction is taken to mean theory, the meaning of theory in this context would be more general than techne or ars, leaving us with a nebulous term which still does not specify Isocrates' teaching method.

A clearer indication of Isocrates' pedagogical preferences is found in his criticism of the use of techne.

In Against the Sophists Isocrates criticises at length those sophists who do "not scruple to write the so-called arts of oratory". 220 He argues that: "I marvel when I observe these men setting themselves up as instructors of youth who cannot see that they are applying the analogy of an art with hard and fast rules to a creative process". 221 He also criticises

the "professors of meddlesomeness and greed" for limiting

techne, and the teaching of rhetoric as a whole, to forensic

rhetoric. In contrast Cicero comments that: "Aristotle

observed that Isocrates succeeded in obtaining a distinguished set of pupils by means of abandoning legal and

219 See Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.178. Kennedy takes 'practice' to mean imitation, al though there seems little grounds for doing so.

220 Against the Sophists, 19.

221 Against the Sophists, 12. Similar criticisms are also made in Helen, see Helen, 1-13. 85 political subjects and devoting his discourses to an empty elegance of style". 222 Here again Cicero, and apparently Aristotle, identify Isocrates as an essentially epideictic (or rather display) orator, both by default (epideictic is the only genus Isocrates does not abandon, and note that this also implies that Cicero regards his political discourses as epideictic, rather than as deliberative, which is also implicit from his comments on the Panegyricus) and by his emphasis upon style. More importantly, however, Cicero's comment implies that Isocrates preferred to teach his pupils epideictic rhetoric, and his preferred method of teaching as

Kennedy observes was imitation: "His own technical contributions came primarily in the area of style; imitation of this style, rather than technical study was probably the main occupation of his students". 223 The significance of this style in display partly accounts for the affinity between display and an imitational pedagogy (also evident with Gorgias), because although the parts of style may be theoretically analysed, its sublime quality is taught, as

'Longinus' argues, through "zealous imitation". 224

In Against the Sophists Isocrates, acknowledging the importance of imitation, argues that the teacher "must in himself set such an example of oratory that the students who

222 De Or., III, 141. Aristotle's 'observation' is not sourced and is probably from one of his lost texts on rhetoric.

223 Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p.34.

224 See Longinus On the Sublime, XIII, 2-4; Baldwin Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic, p.124; and Kennedy The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, p.374. Note the nexus of imitation, style, and writing here. 86 have taken form under his instruction are able to pattern after him". 225 Not only were Isocrates' students taught to imitate the example of his oratory, generations of rhetoricians, including Cicero and Quintilian imitated or recommended the imitation of Isocrates' speeches. 226 This emphasis upon teaching his oratory by imitation is consistent with the tendency of his speeches to display, and consistent with the fact that his speeches were received as displays by his cri ties. 227 But it is important also to note that imitation is the explicitly recommended form of instruction in Isocrates' Helen, the more conventional example of display. Kennedy states that: "Isocrates has a number of objectives in the Helen. Criticism of other educators is one; experimentation with a serious theme is another; clearly the composition of a model encomium for imitation by the pupils in his school is a third". 228 Isocrates closes Helen by inviting imitation; he concludes: "If, therefore, any orators wish to dilate upon these matters and dwell upon them, they will not be at a loss for material". 229 And similarly at the outset of Helen Isocrates criticises

225 Against the Sophists, 18.

226 See Cicero Or., 40; and Quintilian Inst., X, i.108. 227 See, for example, Cicero's treatment of the Panegyricus in Orator (37), and his comments above from De Oratore, III, 141. 228 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.187. 229 Helen, 69. 87 previous models of encomium and promises to provide a new standard . 230 Cicero and Kennedy are wrong to represent Isocrates' pedagogy as limited to the imitation of an "empty elegance of style". Style is certainly one of Isocrates' principal concerns and imitation is the appropriate means for teaching style. But whereas Gorgias' pedagogy requires students to learn his display oratory by heart, Isocrates' students are expected to be critical in imitation. Style instructs decorum, and imitation is also directed at invention. These principles are expressed in Against the Sophists: Who does not know that the art of using letters remains fixed and unchanged, so that we continually and invariably use the same letters for the same purposes, while exactly the reverse is true of the art of discourse? For what has been said by one speaker is not equally useful for the speaker who comes after him; on the contrary, he is accounted most skilled in this art who speaks in a manner worthy of his subject and yet is able to discover in it topics which are nowise the same as those used by others. But the greatest proof of the difference between these two arts is that oratory is good only if it has the qualities of fitness for the occasion, propriety of style, and originality of treatment, while in the case of letters there is no such need whatsoever. 231 These principles are restated both in the exordium to Helen and in the conclusion, when Isocrates wishes that students will find "many new arguments" of invention in his speech, and hopes that orators (or students) will "dilate upon these matters" rather than simply learn them by heart. For Isocrates, therefore, while display is, like Gorgias',

230 Helen, 1-15.

231 Against the Sophists, 12-13. 88 characterised by imitation, there is less potential for imitation to lead to rigid rhetorical and educational conventions.

Philosophy of Rhetoric Isocrates shares a sceptical philosophy of rhetoric with Gorgias, and sophists generally. He was, as Norlin observes, "prejudiced against speculation on the origin of things". 232 Isocrates' scepticism extended to philosophy and philosophers as a whole. His philosophy of rhetoric, therefore, does not reach a complete formulation, such as Gorgias' On What Is Not. Isocrates appreciates the rhetorical conceit of Gorgias' philosophy of rhetoric. In Helen he comments: "For how could one surpass Gorgias who dared to assert that nothing exists of the things that are". 233

But in Antidosis, Against the Sophists, and Helen itself he ridicules philosophical arguments, referring to them in Helen as "petty things that are without value for living". 234

Isocrates proposes instead that the orator and philosopher should concern themselves with practical knowledge of life and in particular with the noble subject of politics. He argues in Helen that the orator should "speak on subjects good or noble, or of superior moral worth". 235

232 Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates, p. xvii. See also Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.182. 233 Helen, 3.

2~ Helen, 5. See also Antidosis, 268, and 274-80; and Against the Sophists, 21. 235 Helen, 12. 89

Significantly just as Isocrates refers to his oratory as political when it is closer to the conventions of display epideictic, he also refers to the orator's occupation as philosophy when it is closer to rhetoric. "What he calls philosophy", Kennedy points out, "is a wisdom in practical affairs resulting in high moral consciousness and equated with a mastery of rhetorical technique". 236 By appropriating the terms of polities and philosophy Isocrates blunts the claims, on the one hand, of a life of engagement, characterised by deliberative and forensic rhetoric, practiced by statesmen such as Demosthenes, and from which he is exiled, and on the other hand, the life of contemplation and withdrawal, characterised by philosophers such as Socrates and Plato (and, ironically perhaps, by

Gorgias), which he also rejects. He attempts to cut out a place between these points, which is to a large extent satisfied by the conventions of display epideictic. This situates Isocrates, as Plato described, on the "borderland between polities and philosophy". 237

Isocrates' definition of rhetoric is similar to Gorgias', but with an important difference. Like Gorgias he defines rhetoric as the "artificer of persuasion". 238 He

2~ See also Evagoras, 8, in Isocrates vol.III, where Isocrates comments "Those who devote themselves to philosophy venture to speak on many subjects": this description resembles rhetoric more than 'philosophy'; Antidosis, 270; and Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates, p.xvi.

2D Plato Euthydemus transl. W.R.M. Lamb (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P, Cambridge Mass., 305. See also Norlin "Introduction" to Isocrates, p.xix.

238 Inst., II, xv.3-4. See also Kennedy on the handbook attributed to Isocrates, The Art of Persuasion, p.72. 90 does not dispute the sophists' scepticism of the possibility of certain knowledge, he only disputes the value of the philosophical inquiry required to discover this point. Having accepted the sophists scepticism, Isocrates agrees with Gorgias' claim that all knowledge is artifice and is therefore the subject of persuasion. The difference is that

Isocrates insists that the orator must be wise and of a high moral character, that their character must be conveyed in their speech, and their speech must be concerned with what is noble and good. He states that: "people can become better and worthier if they conceive an ambition to speak well, if they become possessed of the desire to be able to persuade their hearers, and, finally, if they set their hearts on seizing their advantage - I do not mean 'advantage' in the sense given to that word by the empty minded, but advantage in the true meaning of that term". 239 Isocrates' reasoning about the relation between artifice, persuasion, and character is that people are most persuaded by the people and subjects that they recognise as worthy. The study of rhetoric, therefore, concerns what is good and wise, which is why Isocrates is able to equate this study with philosophy. 240 The most noble subject of study is 'politics', which is also why Isocrates refers to his oratory as 'political'.

239 Antidosis, 275. See also Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.174.

240 This view of rhetoric requiring a high moral tone, so that only a good person can become a good orator, is adopted by Cicero and becomes central to the concept of rhetoric in its medieval and Renaissance traditions. 91

Ethos The most important element to emerge from Isocrates' philosophy of rhetoric is the emphasis upon the moral character of the speaker, and his or her subject, which

Aristotle calls the invention of ethos 241 (if that subject is a person, and the emphasis dictates that it should be). M2

Gorgias' rhetorical response to the philosophical problem that "nothing is" is to regard all knowledge as "artifice" and therefore as invention. Isocrates responds similarly, but the aspect of invention most emphasised by Isocrates in ethos. The invention of ethos, the artifice, that is, of the

241 Note that while Isocrates may have regarded orators principally as men, women also practiced rhetoric in Greece, particularly display, because they were barred from participation in court, assembly, or institutional epideictic. The use of display by women, therefore, again highlights the affinity of the species with political alienation. Perhaps the most striking example of the use of display by a woman is that Aspasia, according to Plato, wrote (or possibly rewrote) Pericles' funeral oration, probably one of the most famous of all epideictic speeches, and also wrote the funeral oration repeated by Socrates in Plato's Menexenus, see Plato Menexenus transl. Rev. R.G. Bury (Loeb Classical Library), Harvard U.P., Cambridge Mass. 1929, 236b5. Socrates also describes Aspasia as a teacher of rhetoric, or a sophist, consistent with the rhetorical role prescribed for people unable to participate in political life. He states that: "She who is my instructor is by no means weak in the art of rhetoric; on the contrary she has turned out many fine orators, and amongst them one who surpassed all other Greeks, Pericles, the son of Xanthippus" (Menexenus, 235e). Loraux The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City, pp.323-4; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp. 1 55-6. Al though the funeral oration is institutional epideictic rather than display epideictic, the suggestion is that the speech used by Thucydides was written by Aspasia after the occasion of Pericles delivery, so that it resembles an epideictic version of the mock political and forensic speeches written by sophists such as Isocrates which are closer to display. Bury, in fact, describes Aspasia' s speech in Menexenus as an "epideictic display", see "Introduction" to Menexenus, p.331.

242 In Helen ( 1 2) Isocrates objects to the encomium of "bumblebees and salt". 92 speaker's identity, is regarded by Isocrates as the most persuasive element in rhetoric, and is therefore a necessary response to the existential vacuum of sophistic scepticism. The construction of ethos is also evident in Gorgias' response to "nothing is", but it finds its strongest expression in Isocrates' oratory as he looks to re-engage the political world.

The emphasis upon ethos in Isocrates' oratory is linked to its orientation to display, and it is particularly evident in his display oratory. Of the three genera ethos is most important in epideictic, and within epideictic it is associated in particular with display. Ethos may often be needed in the opening of political or forensic speeches as a means of establishing the legitimacy of the speaker presenting the case. 243 But thereafter the arguments of these speeches are more commonly dominated by proofs of pathos and logos which are directed more at winning something

- belief, agreement, action - from the audience, consistent with the more constative purpose of deliberative and forensic rhetoric. 244

There are a number of reasons for the affinity between ethos and epideictic. The construction of ethos, as I have mentioned, is partly in response to a sceptical philosophy of rhetoric, and this scepticism is characteristic of the sophists' political alienation and their development of

243 Rh . , I I , i . 1 - 4 .

244 Significantly enthymeme employs the audience in proof, compared with the relatively lower value of proof in epideictic, see Rh. III, xvii.3, 8, and 12. 93 display oratory. The emphasis upon ethos in epideictic may therefore be seen as a response to and expression of political alienation, a point to which I will return below. Like the other genera epideictic must use ethos for the speaker to establish their authority at the outset of the speech. Epideictic will also usually be concerned with the praise of the character of a person. Strictly ethos refers to the use of the speaker's character as a means of persuasion or identification, whereas the treatment of the subject's character is part of the "speech itself", or logos. 245

But in Aristotle's treatment of these terms it is clear that they overlap. Logos is the "speech itself", but Aristotle stipulates that ethos must also be established in the speech and cannot be based upon the audience's preconceptions of the speakers character 246 ( it is interesting in this respect that

John Searle maintains that illocutionary and locutionary acts

- Austin's distinction that roughly parallels Aristotle's ethos and logos - cannot be separated and that in fact the distinction is false) . 247 Similarly where logos concerns the praise and blame of people, as in epideictic, ethos in the sense of the character of those people must also be established. To this extent these characters may be seen as secondary speakers in the text, so that their ethos, as speakers, must also be constructed. In this sense a secondary ethos, within logos, may operate in a speech. This

245 For logos as "speech itself", see Rh., I, ii.3.

246 Rh., I, ii.4.

247 Searle Speech Acts, p.23 n.1. 94 potential seems to be comprehended in Chapters 1 to 18 of Book 2 of Aristotle's Rhetoric, where the treatment of ethical proofs is presented in a manner that is equally applicable to ethos both inside and 'outside' the speech.

Similarly when Isocrates discusses the moral character necessary in oratory he refers to both the character of the speech and the subject. 2~ He relates these two elements of ethos by stressing that study of the character of the subject of a speech will strengthen the character of the speaker, arguing that a speaker who is seen to study such subjects will be perceived as being of high moral character and will therefore be most persuasive. In Helen Isocrates spends the first quarter of the speech discussing the virtues of his own approach to encomium and constructing a worthy image of himself as an orator. When he introduces Helen as his subject he stresses that she is worthy of the nobility he expects of an orator's subject. 249 The rest of the speech is devoted to praise of Helen's and Theseus' ethoi, but in the context of the introduction the object of this praise is always the orator's virtue, reflected in his choice of subject. Importantly, also, Isocrates identifies political virtue as ethos, that is, as being embodied in the characters of people rather than institutions or systems, which he explicitly acknowledges in pointing out that any system may be an aristocracy. What matters is the quality of the leaders more than the structure of the system. The

2~ See, for example, Antidosis, 274-8. 249 Helen, 14. 95 identification of ethos with political virtue is repeated through all his political epideictic. His 'political' oratory is usually constructed upon a political figure such as Dionysius (of Syracuse), Philip (two speeches), Evagoras,

Busiris, Archidamus, Timotheus, Antipater, Nicocles, and

Demonicus (Antidosis, Against the Sophists, and Panathenaicus are devoted almost entirely to himself, so that they are speeches of ethos in the strictest sense). The affinity of ethos with epideictic, therefore, makes the genus particularly suited to political theory in which rulers are emphasised more than political structures or systems.

It is important to note also that the affinity between ethos and epideictic is furthered by the use of ethos as a means of amplification. Aristotle states that: "In epideictic speeches, amplification is employed, as a rule, to prove that things are honourable or useful; for the facts must be taken on trust, since proofs of these are rarely given". 250 The implicit relation here between ethos and amplification as substitutes for enthymeme (and the minimal role of enthymeme in display) is taken up in Aristotle's comment that: "Nor should you look for an enthymeme at the time when you wish to give the speech an ethical character; for demonstration involves neither moral character nor moral purpose". 251 The opposition between enthymeme and ethos here

is consistent with the statement above that proofs of

250 Rh., III, xvii.3. See also Rh., I, ix.38-9.

251 Rh., III, xvi i. 8. See also his statement that: "If you have proofs, then, your language must be both ethical and demonstrative; if you have no enthymemes, ethical only", Rh., III, xvii.12. 96 epideictic topoi "are rarely given"; again recalling

Quintilian's point that proof and argument are unnecessary in epideictic. The affinity between ethos, amplification, and epideictic is supported by their mutual opposition to enthymeme. Ethos proves, also, to be the most appropriate form of 'proof' for writing, given the problematic nature of the use of enthymeme and pathos in writing. For Isocrates, in particular, ethos is the foremost element of amplification. He is, as Aristotle observes, "always bringing somebody in". 252 In "bringing" he amplifies, and in the subject always being "somebody", he is always amplifying through ethos. Through ethos, therefore, Isocrates' philosophy of rhetoric and political philosophy are closely linked to his style and invention in that they are characterised by amplification.

But the most important reason for the affinity of ethos with epideictic, and with display oratory in particular, is that ethos is display. That is, the principal motivation and function of display oratory is the speaker's presentation of his or her self as a good orator (and of good character), with the praise or other treatment of the subject being secondary and in the service of this principal purpose. In display oratory, therefore, the authority of the speaker is the issue throughout the speech ( an implicit or meta stasis) . 253

The object of display is the speaker's ethos. Both the

252 Rh . , I I I , xvi i . 11 .

253 On stasis theory see Hermogenes On Staseis transl. Raymond E. Nadeau in Speech Monographs 31, 1964, pp.361-424. See also Kennedy The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, pp.619-33. 97 emphasis upon and the construction of the speaker's identity are conventional.

Similarly, taking displays as performative rhetorical acts we see that the defining characteristic of a performative is that the audience "attends" to the illocutionary force of the utterance. An illocutionary act is the "performance of an act in saying something"; it concerns the speaker and the verb of the utterance, rather than the effect of the speech (which is the perlocutionary force, and is comparable to Aristotle's concept of pathos). 2~

Ethos and illocution differ in that ethos is more generally defined as a speaker's presentation of his or her character in the speech, whereas the illocutionary act is more generally defined as a speaker's presentation of his or her role in the speech. 255 The important common element to these concepts is that they both emphasise that the speaker, and his or her motive for speaking (whether stated generally or narrowly), are the object of a performative rhetorical act or display. The identification of epideictic as performative may be extended therefore to the comparison of the

2~ Austin How to do things, p.99.

255 Although Quintilian discusses the suggestion that the definition of "the third type of speech" should be extended from praising and blaming to dealing with verbs in general. He states that: "Indeed if we place the task of praise and denunciation in the third division, on what kind of oratory are we to consider ourselves to be employed, when we complain, console, pacify, excite, terrify, encourage, instruct, explain obscurities, narrate, plead for mercy, thank, congratulate, reproach, abuse, describe, command, retract, express our desires and opinions, to no other of the many possibilities", Inst., III, iv. 3. Interestingly this list is strikingly similar to Austin's list of examples of illocutionary acts, see Austin How to do things, p.149; and Searle Speech Acts, p.23. 98 illocutionary object of performatives with the ethical object of epideictic. 2~ What these parallels confirm is that like the relation of performative rhetorical acts to illocutionary acts, the relation between ethos and display is not merely important, and is not simply an affinity, but rather it is definitional. Given the display orator's alienation and scepticism his or her speech will be inclined to be self-sustaining due to the absence of any socially or institutionally defined role. Having nothing to talk about it is necessary either to talk about nothing, as Gorgias does, or to talk about oneself. And even in speaking of nothing Gorgias is also talking about himself because politically he is nothing; he has no politically defined role. It is because of the identification of this self-presentation with ethos that ethos is definitionally necessary in display oratory. While ethos is present in all forms of epideictic and all forms of rhetoric to the extent that they concern display, it cannot be the principal object of these forms. For otherwise, given the ethos/display nexus, the other forms of rhetoric would also then collapse into display. Quintilian comments that:

"while there are three types of oratory, all three devote themselves in part to the matter in hand and in part display", but he recognises that display constitutes the foremost concern of one type. 2~ Similarly all oratory is

256 While Beale stresses the illocutionary object of performatives he does not take this step in identifying ethos with or epideictic, or in comparing ethos and illocutionary acts. 257 Inst., III, iv.12-14. 99 partly devoted to ethos but in display it is the foremost concern. We may also conclude from this nexus that

Isocrates' emphasis upon ethos confirms the characterisation of his oratory as display. The nexus of ethos and display is also critical to Isocrates' political thought. The reference to ethos is always to personal character and identity, that is, to the individual rather than to abstracts, systems, or ideas as such. Ethos is the idiom of self-representation. Given the identification of ethos with display oratory we can also see that display is the rhetoric of a personal political identity. This relation between ethos and the creation of political identity is evident from Isocrates addressing his speeches to Greek political figures, and from his stress upon the personal role and guali ties of character ( or ethos) necessary for those figures to resolve political problems.

The relation is also evident from Isocrates placing himself, through his use of first person address, and his credentials (using ethos in the stricter sense) as the authority for his political arguments. The stress in each of these cases is upon ethos and therefore also upon the individual as the political agent. This relation is reflected more explicitly in Isocrates' argument in Helen that the best political system is characterised by the rule of the best people (an aristocracy) rather than by particular institutions (such as democracy), any of which may be aristocratic.

As the expression of identity the emphasis upon ethos in Isocrates' oratory is closely related to the dissolution in the fourth century of the characteristically fifth century 100

Athenian identification of the citizen with the polis. Jebb comments that in the fifth century Greek polis: "Society and the State were one. The man had no existence apart from the citizen". 258 And Norlin observes that: "How closely the life of the individual was in fact bound up with that of the state is revealed in common use of the word [for] to live as a citizen, instead of the bare term to live". 259 In the fourth century "The individual had begun to draw more and more away from the state". 260 Kennedy points out that: "This is a general trend of the fourth century, and part of the transition from the real city state, in which every man was a part of the whole, to the Hellenistic state where an individual ruled and where other individuals found compensatory individuality in an increasingly personal philosophy and religion". 261

Isocrates discusses this transition in his

Areopagiticus. He criticises the moral corruption he sees stemming from the dissolution of the old order: "we are quite indifferent to the fact that our polity has been corrupted, nor do we even consider how we may redeem it", and he argues for the return of the powers of the Athenian Areopagus council. 262 His faith in the Areopagus is not, however, an

258 Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.15.

259 Norlin "Introduction" to Areopagiticus in Isocrates vol.2., p.101. 260 Jebb Attic Orators vol.2, p.15. ~, Kennedy The Art of Rhetoric, p.184. See also Norlin "Introduction" to Areopagiticus, p.101. 262 Areopagiticus, 15. 1 01 anachronistic argument for a return to the polis. Isocrates is frequently criticised for being out of date with the pace of change in Greek polities, and for not recognising the realities of changing power relations in his political formulations, 263 but in the Areopagiticus he proposes a solution in terms of the personal qualities of rulers to a crisis brought about by the dissolution of the identity of the citizen with the polis. His argument is framed in terms of sentimentality for fifth century Athenian political life, but his appeal is not for a return to fifth century and the identification of citizen with polis. The use of fifth century ideals is consistent with epideictic conventions of amplification. When addressing a city the orator is expected to praise its history and the history of its heroes and institutions. If in this respect Isocrates' thought is anachronistic it is conventionally anachronistic. By criticising Isocrates for anachronism critics have taken his claim to be a political orator too literally and expected him to conform to deliberative conventions without recognising the consistency of his thought with the conventions of epideictic and display. 264 Isocrates appeals more for rule by the best, than rule by a particular system, and in this emphasis his thought is consistent with his contemporary

263 For an example of such criticism see Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.196-203. This criticism of Isocrates for being out of touch, particularly as he grows older, reflects the critics' belief that his speeches are more displays of political thought than serious attempts at political engagement.

264 On the praise of cities see Kennedy Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors, pp.23-4. 102 political context. Kennedy observes that in Areopagiticus Isocrates "looks more and more toward individuals as the hope of separate cities and of the Greek world". 265 The separation of self-representation from the polis and the consequent increasing emphasis upon personal identity being defined in less explicitly political terms finds its expression in the heightened importance of creating rhetorical ethos. The conventions of ethical self­ representation are not explicitly political (that is, deliberative) and for this reason they are appropriate to the veiled quality of political discourse in epideictic. It is significant in this respect that the ethical concern with virtue is also the principal epideictic topos (in contrast to the deliberative topos of expedience). Given the identification of ethos with display, display is the appropriate rhetorical form for this new political order of the separation of citizen and polis in fourth century Greece. It is not surprising, therefore, to find, consistent with these formal affinities, that display epideictic becomes increasingly important and more frequently practiced in fourth century rhetoric (with Isocrates being the foremost exponent). The decay of the polis corresponds with the rise of display oratory.

There is a further clue here to the different expressions of political alienation by Gorgias and Isocrates through their display oratory. For Gorgias display is the only vehicle of expression possible due to his alienation

265 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.184. 103 from a society in which participation is structured by the identification of citizen and polis. For Gorgias alienation is the alternative to participation. Isocrates, as we have seen, shunned participation due to the acceptable but hardly sufficient reason that his voice was weak, but - more importantly - alienation was less of an alternative in Isocrates' Athens. It was, rather, increasingly characteristic of the political role of citizenship. For Gorgias alienation is external from the society and for Isocrates it is internal. Consequently we see display epideictic assimilated from being an alternative to a dominant form of rhetoric. This assimilation can also be seen to be repeated historically. Display constantly alternates from being the expression of a dispossessed class or classes in an otherwise participatory society, to being the dominant mode of expression in non-democratic, mass, or authoritarian societies where the whole society or citizenry may be seen as politically alienated from the state. What then is the relation of the nexus between display and political alienation with the change in self­ representation? It might at first be thought that the emphasis upon personal character expressed by ethos contradicts the relation between ethos and alienation - the emphasis upon a personal identity may seem to suggest greater political engagement than political alienation. Self­ representation is balanced by alienation. The emphasis upon ethos is in part a product of the loss of the citizens' role as part of the state. The citizen is more alienated from the polis but "compensated with individuality". Returning to 104

Kennedy's formulation, there is a "transition from the real city state, in which every man was a part of the whole, to the Hellenistic state where an individual ruled and where other individuals found compensatory individuality". 266 In this sense the emphasis upon a personal identity is a part of alienation. The two are linked through their relation to ethos. Ethos is the expression of alienation: having no political role it is necessary for aliens to create their own identity and talk about themselves.

There are, however, two tensions between ethos, the emphasis upon a personal identity, and political alienation. On the one hand the emphasis upon a personal identity and ethos are a product of alienation, and on the other, the increasing self-representation is compensated for by increasing alienation. The greater power over defining one's self and identity the greater is the loss of political power, and the greater the loss over the conventions for defining one's self. Notably, while the concept of ethos facilitates the creation of self-identity it does so within restricted rhetorical conventions. Rhetorical ethos both grants the means to define oneself and stipulates the terms of the definition (for example, by stipulating the topoi). Stephen Greenblatt claims that:

If we say there is a new stress on the executive power of the will, we must say that there is the most sustained and relentless assault upon the will; if we say that there is a new social mobility, we must say that there is a new assertion of power by both family and state to determine all movement within the society; if we say that there is a heightened awareness of the existence of alternative modes of social,

266 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.184. 105

theological, and psychological organisation, we must say that there is a new dedication to the imposition of control upon those modes and ultimately to the destruction of alternatives.~7

But perhaps this second tension - the compensatory tension, highlighted by Greenblatt - must be seen as moderated by the first. Greenblatt risks posing a rather zero-sum idea of these relations. We might rather argue that the "stress on the executive power of the will", the personal construction of identity, and language of ethos, are both a product of an alienated class (or society) and a cause of the disintegration of the identification of citizen and polis, and therefore a cause of alienation. Certainly the issue of cause and effect here reflects that these relations are interdependent. But importantly this relation of interdependence is complementary. Either side of the relation facilitates the other, contrary to Greenblatt' s representation of these forces in conflict, with one always struggling to overcome and offset the other.

Self-representation was pursued through the political framework of pan-Hellenism. As Kennedy observes above, the polis is replaced by "the pan-Hellenistic state where an individual ruled and where other individuals found compensatory individuality". 268 The looser political bonds of pan-Hellenism were both stimulated and facilitated by the emphasis upon a personal rather than polis-centred representation of identity. Isocrates' principal political

267 Stephen Greenblatt Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare, Chicago 1980, pp.1-2. 268 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.184. 106 aim of encouraging pan-Hellenism is, therefore, facilitated by his emphasis upon ethos, and ultimately through his use of display oratory. The pan-Hellenism proposed in Helen and in most of Isocrates' oratory is interdependent with display. This interdependence reflects the affinity between a particular political idea with a particular rhetorical form.

Through the identity of display and ethos this rhetorical form proves to be the vehicle or even the engine of an aristocratic political system in which the identity of the citizen is separated from the political system and which

Isocrates represents as pan-Hellenism. 269

Isocrates' Helen reveals both similarities to and differences from Gorgias' Helen. In its formal characteristics Isocrates' oration shares a schematic style with Gorgias', although his smoothness contrasts with Gorgias' "jingling excesses". Gorgias and Isocrates both use a written medium for display, although in contrast to Gorgias

Isocrates does not deliver his orations. Both teach through imitation, although Isocrates encourages a more critical use of imitation. Gorgias and Isocrates are both political aliens, but Isocrates is an alien by choice; he prefers the 'nobility' of teaching. They share sceptical philosophies, but Isocrates is more sceptical of philosophy rather than

269 The relation of display to a mass society has a significance beyond its affinity with alienation. The larger the political and social system, the more difficult it is to use pathos and enthymeme because taking the audience's premises is obstructed by a larger, more distant, and more heterogeneous audience. The emphasis in display upon ethos, which Aristotle regards as a substitute for enthymeme, and a more performative rhetoric minimises this problem. 107 philosophically sceptical; preferring to engage more 'practical' concerns. The political and rhetorical meanings of Gorgias' and Isocrates' oratory are different, but the similarities in their practice of display oratory leave us with the question of whether the identity of epideictic may be built from the conventions of display. 108

CHAPTER 4 - ARISTOTLE

Institutiona1 Epideictic The public funeral oration or epitaphios was a peculiarly Athenian invention in the classical world.

Demosthenes states that the Athenians "alone in the world deliver funeral orations for citizens who have died for their country". 270 The epitaphioi were delivered in the Kerameikos, or public cemetery located between the Agora and the Academy. v, The oration was given at the close of the summer (the close of the war season) and before the winter

(the season of rest), reflecting the position of the epitaphios on the boundary between an active life of engagement and a life of withdrawal, and upon the related boundary between life and death which the oration marks. 272 The epitaphios is, therefore, an Athenian institution defined by specific functional, locational, and political requirements. It is described by Nicole Loraux as having an

"at once double and indissolubly single dimension, as an

270 Demosthenes Against Leptines 141, cited in Loraux The Invention of Athens, p.1. Note that the epitaphios must be distinguished form the Roman laudatis funebris if only by virtue of the former being public. On this distinction see Loraux The Invention of Athens, p.1 and p.341 n.1; and Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.154.

271 See Loraux The Invent ion of Athens, pp. 1 6-2 2 and p. 21 for a map. 272 See Thucydides The Peloponnesian War transl. Rex Warner, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1954, II, 34; and Loraux The Invention of Athens, pp.16-22. 109 institution and a literary form", and as "a specifically

Athenian institution". 273

It is important to note the political requirement that the epitaphios could only be delivered by an Athenian citizen, and, further, that its lament was also only for citizens who died in battle. The citizen, according to Thucydides, was "chosen by the city for his intellectual gifts and his general reputation" to make "an appropriate speech in praise of the dead" . 274 The orator chosen, therefore, was not any citizen, but a prominent citizen; not only a fully enfranchised member of the political system but a political leader. The epitaphioi were delivered by figures such as Pericles and Demosthenes. Whereas display epideictic was an oratory for the political alien, the epitaphios was an oratorical institution at the centre of the political system practiced by the politically powerful and delivered to citizens.

The contrast between display and institutional epideictic is underlined by the fact that the traditions developed separately and out of different conditions. Loraux complains that:

Some even amuse themselves by moving forward the date of birth of the funeral oration to a period late enough for rhetoric to have already been developed in Athens, as if all eloquence could be reduced to formal exercises and every institution of the spoken language to an epideixis, as if there had never been any interaction between the

273 Loraux The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City, p.11 and p.1 respectively. 274 Thucydides Peloponnesian War, II, 34. 11 0 laws governing public speeches and the demands of political life. vs

She concludes that "the various Athenian scenes of national celebrations ... acquired their meaning long before the sophists set themselves up as teachers of eloquence". 276 Identifying sophistic display with the term 'epideictic' , Loraux argues that we cannot "merge the funeral oration into the epideictic genre". 277 This statement is knowingly directed against the majority of classical authorities, including Aristotle, who associate funeral oratory with epideictic. va But, importantly, what Loraux highlights here is the incoherence of the epideictic genus, particularly during the period with which she is dealing - the fifth and early fourth centuries when institutional epideictic reached the height of its autonomy. The division between the institutional and display epideictic is a central part of that incoherence.

Aristotle's formulation of epideictic does not, as

Loraux suggests, favour display over institutional epideictic, and nor is the term 'epideictic' used only by Aristotle to mean display. Aristotle synthesised the two traditions, completing a process that is already and

275 Loraux Invention of Athens, pp.11-12.

276 Loraux Invention of Athens, p.12. Loraux indicates that it is not only the funeral oration but other forms of institutional praise, such as the festival oration (including Panathenian and Olympic speeches) that developed under these separate conditions and constitute a separate tradition to display epideictic.

277 Loraux Invention of Athens, p.11. 278 See, for example, Rh., II, 22.6; Or., 37; and Loraux Invention of Athens, pp.223-4. 1 1 1 increasingly evident through Gorgias' and Isocrates' work. He drew on the conventions of praise and blame and display to create a single if somewhat patchwork genus. As Burgess points out, while the term epideictic was used by orators such as Isocrates to refer to rhetorical characteristics that would become identified with epideictic (particularly display), it was not used definitively to designate a genus until Aristotle applied it to his synthetic construct. Burgess states that "The term as we shall see, was used to some extent before his day, but not with the definiteness of application which Aristotle's Rhetoric gave to it". 279 While the term epideictic suggests display, Aristotle's concept of epideictic is defined principally in terms of the conventions of praise and blame of institutional epideictic and its topoi. Aristotle states that: "Each of the three kinds has a different special end, and as there are three kinds of Rhetoric, so there are three special ends ... The end of those who praise or blame is the honourable or disgraceful". 280 Here Aristotle defines epideictic in terms of the institutional epideictic topos of honour (and, later, virtue and fortune), but more importantly he assumes the function of institutional epideictic - praise and blame - to be the function of his own theory of epideictic.

Display also has a role in Aristotle's concept of epideictic, but its function is secondary. Aristotle reconciles Plato's critic isms of sophistry and sophistic

279 Burgess Epideictic Literature, p.91, see also p.100 n. 2.

280 Rh., I, 3.5. 112 displays (such as Lysias' encomium upon love in Phaedrus) with a more purposeful and practical tradition of epideictic rhetoric. The institution of epitaphioi was in demise at the time Aristotle wrote his Rhetoric and the practice ceased shortly after. The last recorded funeral oration was delivered in 322. Aristotle's concept of epideictic, according to Loraux, is therefore "a whole to which the funeral oration belongs only imperfectly and after the event". 281 For Loraux Aristotle's theory of epideictic is the "first misinterpretation of the meaning and import of the funeral oration". 282 How, otherwise, could Aristotle possibly claim that epideictic is "best suited to being written down" when, as Loraux points out (only partially correctly), that the epi taphioi were an oral tradition. 283 Can nothing, therefore, be learnt of the 'original' from the shadow and hybrid of Aristotle's epideictic? And, perhaps more importantly (at least for my purposes), what significance does Athenian institutional epideictic have for Aristotle's and subsequent concepts of epideictic? It is not as difficult as Loraux apparently finds it to identify the conventions of separate traditions in

Aristotle's discussions of epideictic. While he creates a genus (principally from the material of display and institutional epideictic) Aristotle acknowledges the different forms that genus encompasses - including funeral

281 Loraux Invention of Athens, p.224. 282 Loraux Invention of Athens, p.224. 283 Loraux Invention of Athens, p.224. 113

orations and sophistic displays of wit such as paradoxical . encomium., 284 Given the different and sometimes contradictory meaning and significance of the conventions Aristotle adopts (for example, their reflection of contrasting political meaning) the explication of those conventions is crucial to

understanding Aristotle's complex idea of epideictic. 285

In the assimilation and dominance of institutional

epideictic within Aristotle's concept of epideictic, his Rhetoric is distinctly different in its rhetorical and political meaning from sophistic rhetoric. This difference

284 On funeral orations see, for example, Rh., III, 10.7; and on display see Rh., I, ix.2. 285 Ironically, on the one hand Loraux insists that because the conventions of institutional epideictic reflected in Aristotle's concept of epideictic are "imperfect" and "after the event" (pp.223-4) they are not instructive because they are removed from the specificity of their purpose and context. But on the other hand she claims that mock funeral orations, such as Plato's Menexenus or Lysias' and Gorgias' funeral orations must, in spite of "serious anomalies" (p. 8), be regarded as 'genuine' epitaphioi. She argues that "the model was sufficiently powerful that it was extremely difficult to distinguish between counterfeit and epitaphioi and the generality of speeches delivered in the Kerameikos" (p.10). The formal similarity of genuine and mock epitaphioi is insufficient grounds for placing them in the same class. By Loraux's own reasoning the specificity of context must be taken into account in the meaning of a speech. As Austin points out, the same words may constitute happy or unhappy, felicitous or infelicitous ( as opposed to true or false) performatives, and/or even different performatives depending upon the context or "appropriate circumstances" of the utterance (How to do things, lec.2). Loraux points out that Aristotle's representation of epideictic is separated from epitaphioi by differences in context and function and yet ignores that it is precisely these differences that must separate mock epitaphioi (which are closer to display) from genuine orations. I have not ignored the distance between Aristotle's concept of epideictic and the specificity of institutional epideictic. While, as I argue, Aristotle's concept may teach something about the nature of epitaphioi, what I am interested in is not how accurately it reflects a previous tradition but how conventions from that tradition are assimilated to Aristotle's concept and transmitted (albeit with distortions) to subsequent rhetoric. 114 is particularly manifest in the style and partly in the pedagogy proposed in Aristotle's treatment of epideictic, whereas his emphasis upon writing as the epideictic medium reflects an element of display in common with the sophists. While Aristotle's concept of epideictic abstracts from the specifics of the context of epitaphioi, as a theory it is designed to be reapplied to rhetorical practice. Although this reconstituted practice would not necessarily be funeral oratory, in assimilating the conventions of an institutional epideictic Aristotle's theory is most appropriate to the practice of an institutional oratory. Aristotle points out that praise is closely related to, and in fact mirrors, political discourse. We have seen that he states: Praise and counsels have a common aspect; for what you might suggest in counselling becomes encomium by a change in phrase. Accordingly, when we know what we ought to do and the qualities we ought to possess, we ought to make a change in the phrase and turn it, employing this knowledge as a suggestion. 286 and he also states that: "if you desire to praise, look what you would suggest; if you desire to suggest, look what you would you would praise". 287 Even when disembodied from its specific institutional context the function of praising necessarily has an implicit political meaning. Whereas display reflects the orator's alienation, the oratory of praise is also of counsels, and the orator, as Aristotle observes, is also a counselor ( consistent with the

286 Rh., I, 9.36.

287 Rh., I, 9.37. 115 requirement in institutional epideictic that a prominent figure deliver the oration). The oratory of praise is of political engagement (albeit as a speculum 288 ) by a political authority. 289 In common with display, praise has a performative function. To a large extent praise is given for its own sake; the subject to which it is addressed is, in the case of funeral oratory, dead. But the proximity between praise and counsel indicates the greater constative dimension to this oratory than in display. Praise is always recommending action further to its own performance. It is this constative aspect that makes use of praise appropriate by political authority and appropriate, therefore, to an institutional rhetoric. Similarly, while defence and exhortation are characteristic of forensic and political rhetoric - that is, constative rhetoric - they are also performatives. For example, the verb for defending is an act in itself which is not necessarily contingent upon further action and therefore it is a performance. However, the feature that distinguishes praise as more performative than defence and exhortation is that the performatives of defence and of exhortation are judged by their truth or falsity; by their relation to some action outside the speech, so that the test of these performatives is constative. In contrast, praise is judged principally by its 'happiness' rather than

288 On epideictic and specula see Tinkler "Praise and Advice: Rhetorical Approaches in More' s Utopia and Machiavelli's The Prince", p.199.

289 With the exception of course of ironic praise, such as paradoxical encomium in which irony does not only involve the subject being praised (trivialising praise) but also of the orator who praises. 116 for its truth. For example hyperbole is considered acceptable and even desirable in praise, whereas in defence or accusation it indicates a false quality in the speech. 290 On the one hand Aristotle's Rhetoric provides a theory of an epideictic for authority; an institutional epideictic. On the other hand the imitation of sophistic epideictic provides a model of expression for the politically alienated in the rhetorical tradition. These alternate models may also be reflected in any one example of epideictic practice or theory (as they already are to some extent in Aristotle's concept of epideictic), which leads to a predisposition to contradiction in epideictic discourse. The two models provide alternatives at any one time and alternatives over time when the political circumstances appropriate to either are dominant. We may also speculate that the predominance of, or the limitation of access to a particular model would impose an orthodoxy in the conventions of that model dictating the orators political voice, or leading to distortions between political language and other elements in the political context.

Before passing on to examine the similarities and differences between the Aristotelian and Sophistic models of epideictic - reflected in differences between Aristotle's and

290 The contrast between praise in institutional epideictic and praise in a display is that although praise in institutional epideictic is exaggerated it must nevertheless be sincere. Praise in display oratory is frequently completely insincere, for example, in the paradoxical encomium of baldness, blindness, and bumblebees. This insincerity of praise in display again reflects that the principal object of the speech is to display the orator's wit rather than genuinely to praise. 117 the sophists' epideictic style, medium, and pedagogy - I will examine one of Aristotle's principal theoretical justifications for classifying institutional and display epideictic within the same genus.

While institutional epideictic is practiced by political authorities and is an implicitly political (although, importantly, not deliberative) rhetoric, the relations between the speaker and audience are different from those in the other genera, but similar to display oratory. In both display and institutional epideictic the audience relates to the speaker as spectators (both rhetorical and political spectators). It is this point - the classification of rhetorical kinds by the attitude of the audience - that underpins Aristotle's creation of the epideictic genus. As we have seen in the Rhetoric he states that: The kinds of rhetoric are three in number, corresponding to the three kinds of hearers ... Now the hearer must necessarily be either a mere spectator or a judge, and a judge either of things past or things to come. For instance, a member of the general assembly is a judge of things to come; the dicast, of things past; the mere spectator, of the ability of the speaker. Therefore there are necessarily three kinds of rhetorical s~eeches, deliberative, forensic, and epideictic. 91

In sophistic displays Aristotle could have clearly seen the audience's role as spectators. To be a spectator is the corresponding attitude to the orator's role in displaying.

Display implies observing the display, or spectating, just as a performance implies an audience of spectators rather than judges. "The mere spectator", as Aristotle observes,

291 Rh . , I , 3 . 1 - 3 . 118 is a judge only in the sense that he or she judges the ability of the speaker, or quality of a performance. This judgement is the minimal constative dimension characteristic of the most purely performative rhetorical acts. Similarly we would find judges are always to some extent also spectators. A person on trial is more than simply being judged, they are performing a social act - a demonstration of the law. 292 In the practice of institutional epideictic the role of the audience as spectators would also have been clear to Aristotle. The attitude of the audience to a funeral oration is in some ways closer to the attitude of an audience to sophistic displays than to either forensic or deliberative rhetoric. Deliberative rhetoric, as Aristotle observes, is concerned either with exhorting or dissuading. Forensic rhetoric is concerned with accusing or defending. These four rhetorical acts are constative; they require some further judgement or action from the audience, who therefore sit literally or metaphorically as judges. A speech of praise asks nothing directly from the audience other than that they listen, and it does not necessitate direct action from the audience following the delivery of the speech. The audience

292 On the law and its execution as performance see, for example, Michel Foucault Discipline and Punish transl. Alan Sheridan, Penguin, London 1977, pp. 47-50; and Austin who laments the "widespread obsession that the utterances of the law, and utterances used in, say, 'acts in the law', must somehow be statements true of false" and states that "it is worth pointing out - reminding you - how many of the 'acts' which concern the jurist are or include the utterance of performatives, or at any rate are or include the performance of some conventional procedures", see Austin How to do things, p. 19. 119 is less in a position to judge "the ability of the speaker" than an audience of a display, because the speaker's ability is less in question than in display. The orator of a funeral oration, for example, is not there to entertain the audience, and having being chosen to speak, the orator's ability, or other more important qualifications, are already recognised.

Aristotle's characterisation of the epideictic audience as spectators is significant for the political meanings of the genus and its various forms. Spectacle, as Michel

Foucault has argued, is an important manifestation of relations of authority in pre-modern society. 293 Spectacles not only of punishment but theatre or oratory also convey, enforce, and affirm power relations. The spectacle of sophistic epideictic is the orator's alienation. In sitting before the sophist as spectators the audience does not recognise or invest any political authority in the speaker.

Sophists such as Gorgias having "nothing to say", or Isocrates speaking about himself, confirm their role as a spectacle and confirm that their performance signifies the absence of an authoritative political voice.

The spectator of institutional epideictic, on the other hand, is instructed in the values of good citizenship by a political authority. It is important in this respect that the principal topos of institutional epideictic is virtue

(regarded as superior to its counterpart 'fortune'). ~ 4 The

293 See Foucault Discipline and Punish, pp.47-54.

294 Socrates' and Plato's ( and Isocrates' ) parts in establishing virtue as the principal topos of a responsible epideictic (and, in particular, of Aristotle's epideictic) cannot be underestimated. In contrast, for example, Gorgias defends and praises Helen primarily in terms of the topos of 120 spectacle before the audience is the re-presentation of the virtues of the dead in battle, the heroes and history of the city and its political system. Each of these topics is conventional in a funeral oration and each confers greater honour on the others . This spectacle, as Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca observe, aims at ''increased adherence to an accepted value". 295 Whereas display epideictic is a rhetoric appropriate to an absence of authority, institutional epideictic is appropriate to an authoritative presence. The difference between the spectator of display and the spectator of institutional epideictic is that the spectator of display is required to only make the minimum judgement of whether the speech is entertaining. The spectator of institutional epideictic is asked to judge their own minds, or their opinions. It is in this sense that praise is a trope of deliberative rhetoric. Although institutional praise does not directly prescribe action, the spectators' opinions are important to future decisions to be made by the deliberative assembly, and, more immediately, the spectators' opinions are important to sanctioning the present state of affairs. Aristotle declares that the present is the special concern of epideictic, in contrast to political and forensic rhetoric which he distinguishes by their concern with the future and the past respectively. He states that: "it is the existing condition of things that all those who praise and blame have

fortune.

295 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca The New Rhetoric, pp.47-57. 121

, , e 11 296 in V1 W • For example, in Pericles' funeral speech the audience is asked to accept that the loss of life is worthwhile and that the war is on course. In troping deliberative rhetoric praise is necessarily not equivalent to deliberative rhetoric. Praise and counsels, as Aristotle observes, do have a common aspect. "What you might suggest in counselling becomes encomium by a change in the phrase", but the change in the phrase is crucial in changing the relation between speaker and audience, even though the same subject may be at issue in both cases. For example a deliberative orator may counsel - and therefore advise or persuade - an audience to pursue an honourable course of action. Encomium, however, states what is honourable (taking honour as the issue) and therefore does not advise but rather instructs or commands an honourable course of action. When Aristotle later points out that proof is less necessary in epideictic ("The facts must be taken on trust since proof of these is rarely given" 297 ) his comment is significant in that it indicates that there is less need for persuasion in the didactic relations of institutional epideictic. "The change in the phrase" from exhortation to praise is a change in the form of political rhetoric. Praise is more appropriate than exhortation to an orator, or a political system which is asking the audience to judge whether they agree (or rather, asking them to agree) with a

296 Rh . , I , i i i . 4 . 297 Rh., III, 17.3. 122 stated position rather than asking the audience to judge between different positions (as they would in a political assembly). For this reason praise is more appropriate for an authority to use, and this is reflected in the choice of a prominent citizen to deliver institutional epideictic. While the funeral oration develops in the democratic Athenian polis for the performance of the more authoritarian requirements of the polis, such as the imposition of an orthodoxy of values within which the democratic system operates,~8 it is a rhetoric that is also appropriate in aristocratic, oligarchic, authoritarian or other political systems besides democracy. In these systems institutional epideictic would be more likely to be a dominant rather than an alternative oratory.

James Benjamin argues that for performative rhetorical acts operating in an institutional framework: "The audience is not 'invited' to resolve the exigence but, by acquiescing to the institution, they accept the power of the speaker to invoke the procedures which directly produce the mandated resolution of the problem". 299 Benjamin's argument resembles

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca' s claim that epideictic encourages increased adherence to accepted values. As spectators, the audience of institutional epideictic are not

"invited to resolve" an exigency. The context of

298 This reflect Clifford Geertz thesis, adopted by Greenblatt, that the development of individual power will be balanced by greater cultural control over that power, see Greenblatt Renaissance Self-Fashioning, p.3.

299 Benjamin "Performatives as a Rhetorical Construct", p.93. 123 institutional performatives invests the orator's speech with what may be called greater unilateral force than in deliberative or forensic rhetoric. While the role of the audience as spectators is a common element between display and institutional epideictic the meaning of that role is different in each case. The display orator's audience are spectators because the orator has no formal political role. The display orator is not recognised as holding any political authority by the audience. The institutional epideictic orator's audience are spectators because the orator is a political authority with a formally defined role who is asking them to maintain or adopt some politically consequential belief.

Style - Metaphor

The different political significance of institutional and display performances is manifest in the contrast between sophistic and Aristotelian theories of style. This contrast is between the florid schematic style of the western sophists and Aristotle's equation of good style with good metaphor.

In fact, as Friedrich Solmsen has pointed out, Book 3 of Aristotle's Rhetoric is composed from two separate accounts of style. ~ 0 The first of these was proposed in Aristotle's earlier lectures on rhetoric in which he supported the schematic style of the sophists and Isocrates in particular. Chapters 5 to 7 of Book 3, as Kennedy

~ 0 Solmsen "Die Entwicklung der aristotelischen Logik und Rhetorik" in Neue philologische Untersuchungen 4, Berlin, 1929, cited in Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, pp.82-83, and p. 1 03. 124 observes, are "in the sophistic tradition", and are a remnant of Aristotle's early rhetorical thought. 301 These chapters account for the Gorgian and Isocratian character that critics such Croll and Hendrickson (before Solmsen) found in

Aristotle's theory of style. 302 Metaphor is discussed in chapters 5 to 7, but it is treated in the Isocratian manner as one of a number of types of words, and attributed only minor importance. Solmsen accounts for the anomalous character of Book 3 by pointing out that the lectures which comprise the remainder of the chapters on style - 2 to 4 and

8 to 12 - were added later in Aristotle's life after he wrote the Poetics. These chapters replaced the discussion that would originally have preceded (and possibly also succeeded) chapters 5 to 7. As Kennedy observes: "the greatest difference between the two accounts is in the treatment of metaphor". 303 My concern here is with Aristotle's theory of metaphor. Chapters 5 to 7 of Book 3 are important in so far as they indicate Aristotle's development of an epideictic alternative to sophistic display.

In chapters 2 to 4 of Book 3 Aristotle treats metaphor as the basis to good style. He states that: "In regard to style, one of its chief merits may be defined as perspicuity.

This is shown by the fact that the speech, if it does not

301 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.103.

~ 2 Morris W. Croll Style, Rhetoric, and Rhythm ed. J. Max Patrick and Robert 0. Evans, Princeton U.P., Princeton 1966, p.58; and G.L. Hendrickson "The Origin and Meaning of the Ancient Characters of Style" American Journal of Philology 26, 1905, p.251 n.2.

303 Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.108. 125 make the meaning clear, will not perform its proper function", and later claims that: "It is metaphor above all that gives perspicuity, pleasure and a foreign air". 304

Aristotle argues that metaphor is "most important both in poetry and prose". 305 However one of the most instructive insights into the nature of Aristotle's theory of metaphor is in chapters 10 to 12 of Book 3 where he compares the operation of metaphor to the operation of enthymeme. Both enthymeme and metaphor

"grasp the similarity in things that are apart". 306 For either enthymeme or metaphor to work the audience must make the connection with the silent premise or tacit allusion. ~ 7

Aristotle explains that:

Of necessity, therefore, all style and enthymemes that give us rapid information are smart. This is the reason why superficial enthymemes, meaning those that are obvious to all and need no mental effort, and those which, when stated, are not understood, are not popular, but only those which are understood the moment they are stated, or those of which the meaning, although not clear at first, comes a little later; for from the

304 Rh., III, 2.1-2; and III, 2.9 respectively.

305 Rh., III, 2.8.

306 Rh., III, 11.5.

307 Enthymeme does not necessarily involve the suppression of a premise. The conditions of enthymeme may also be that the premises are probable or that the premises are supplied by the audience, so that it is possible that an enthymeme could have the three part form of a syllogism or have certain premises. However each of these cases is likely to involve the suppression of a premise. For example if the condition of enthymeme, as Bitzer argues, is that a premise is supplied by the audience, it is likely that this premise will be silent because it is known. On the nature of enthymeme see McBurney "The Place of Enthymeme in Rhetorical Theory"; and Bitzer "Aristotle's enthymeme revisited". 126

latter a king of knowledge results, from the former neither one nor the other. ~ 8

Metaphor stretches the mind, making a connection between more and less known things, pushing the limits of our knowledge. The more known element reflects upon the less known, bringing the foreign into our understanding. 309 Like enthymeme, therefore, metaphor is a form of reasoning because it teaches or instructs. The metaphorical style is appropriate to the character of an institutional epideictic. Returning to Aristotle's point:

Praise and counsels have a common aspect; for what you might suggest in counselling becomes encomium by a change in the phrase. Accordingly, when we know what we ought to do and the qualities we ought to possess, we ought to make a change in the phrase and turn it, employing this knowledge as a suggestion. ~o

Metaphor is the process by which encomium is turned to counsel. In this passage Aristotle twice identifies the process by which praise is "turned" to counsel as metaphorical; firstly, by repeating that the difference between epideictic and deliberative rhetoric is in a "change in the phrase", and secondly, by identifying that this change is a "turn" or trope. It is through metaphor, therefore, that the epideictic orator conducts political discourse,

308 Rh . , I I I , 1 0 . 4 .

~ 9 Perhaps partly assimilating the foreign to a pre­ existing mental set, and yet in bringing something more into that set also changing it and taking it closer to the thing from which it was different. 310 Rh., I, ix.36. 127 whereas for the display orator using a schematic style the possibility to conduct political discourse is more limited. The didactic nature of metaphor suggests its close relation to teaching and reasoning, and it also suggests the unilateral force consistent with the authority of institutional epideictic. A metaphorical style is appropriate to Aristotle's theory of epideictic because if it is good metaphor (neither too foreign, nor too familiar) it compels the audience's understanding: metaphor - Aristotle claims - "produces" an understanding in the mind of the audience. 311 The relation between author and audience, like that between teacher and student, is one in which information is given and received. Metaphor does not consult, nor is it used to persuade so much as to "inform". The didactic quality of metaphor substitutes for the persuasiveness of enthymeme. The metaphorical style is appropriate for use by a political authority who seeks to inform or instruct their audience in orthodox political virtue. The metaphorical style is, therefore, appropriate to the theory of institutional epideictic proposed in Aristotle's Rhetoric.

Aristotle's treatment of metaphor as the basis of style and, in particular, of a perspicuous style ("it is metaphor above all that gives perspicuity" 312 ) is important to the development and theoretical identification of the Attic, or

311 Rh . , I I I , 1 0 . 2 .

312 Rh., III, 2.9. 128 plain, style. 313 Perspicuity is a principal characteristic of the plain style. But, perhaps more importantly, as Croll points out, the emphasis of the Asiatic, or oratorical style, is upon figures of sound, or schemes, whereas the Attic style emphasises figures of thought, or metaphor. 314 The reason a metaphorical style can be described as plain is clearer when contrasted with the rhyming excesses of Gorgias' figures of sound. But if we take into account the smooth, flowing, and even 'plain' sound achieved by Isocrates' schemes, the meaning of Aristotle's association of metaphor with perspicuity is perhaps better found in the operation of metaphor. The metaphorical style is plain in that it is the clearest (and possibly the only) way, according to Aristotle, of making the unknown known. Metaphor is, therefore, the plainest and most effective means of instruction.

The Attic style was popular not only in institutional epideictic but also in other institutional oratory. A plain style was used in forensic oratory (for example, by Lysias) and political oratory (for example, by Demosthenes) as well as in institutional epideictic such as Pericles' funeral oration. In this respect institutional epideictic is closer to other institutional oratory than to sophistic display.

The different forms of institutional oratory have in common

313 On the relation between metaphor and the Attic style, see Croll Style. Rhetoric, and Rhythm, p.54; and on Aristotle and the Attic style see W.S. Howell Logic and Rhetoric in England: 1500 - 1700 Princeton U.P., Princeton 1956, p.388. As Kennedy points out, Aristotle was not familiar with the distinctions between grand, middle, and plain style - these distinctions evolved later, particularly in Roman criticism, see Kennedy The Art of Persuasion, p.79.

314 Croll Style, Rhetoric, and Rhythm, p.54. 129 a speaker and audience with political franchise and the performance of a political function. It is significant, therefore, that the plain style is referred to as Attic. A sophist cannot participate in an Attic oratory. Attic is not the natural dialect of most sophists and in Attica most sophists are political aliens. An Attic style is one of political membership. ~ 5

Amplification is appropriate to the style of both display and institutional epideictic. 316 But while in display amplification is of schemes, in institutional epideictic it is metaphor that is amplified. Amplification enhances the instructive function of the metaphorical style.

According to Aristotle amplification is appropriate to epideictic rather than enthymeme. 317 This argument reflects Aristotle's point that metaphor and enthymeme function similarly. Given Aristotle's presentation of enthymeme as the body of invention, the metaphorical style substitutes for, or rather is, invention in institutional epideictic (the topoi of invention can be seen as a stock of metaphors that can be turned to various instructive purposes) . As in display epideictic, style is the most important rhetorical function in institutional epideictic, but the metaphorical style gives institutional epideictic a compelling rather than entertaining character.

~ 5 Gorgias' use of the Attic dialect (but not an Attic style) reinforces his alienation from political power because he abandons Sicilian Greek in which he would have a political voice.

316 Rh., I, 9.39.

317 Rh., I, 9.39. 130

Medium - Writing Morris Croll states that Aristotle's "Rhetoric treats for the first time the art of writing, as opposed to the art of speaking". 318 Aristotle, however, emphasises that epideictic in particular is appropriate to a written medium. 319 He observes that deliberative rhetoric, which is "like a rough sketch", is appropriate to oral delivery before a crowd because "where action is most effective, there the style is least finished, and this is the occasion in which voice, especially a loud one is needed". 320 Forensic rhetoric employs writing and speech - speech for delivery to a court and writing for composition because its style "is more finished" and, importantly, because there is "no discussion" in court. 321 "The epideictic style", Aristotle argues, "is especially suited to written compositions, for its function is reading". 322 J. H. Freese comments in his note that: "This does not seem to agree with the general view. Funeral orations of the nature of panegyrics for instance, were certainly meant to be spoken". 323 While it is

318 Croll Style, Rhetoric, and Rhythm, p.58.

319 Rh., III, 12.6. See also Cope Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric, p.324.

320 Rh., III, 12.5. 321 Rh., III, 12. 5. This use of writing in forensic rhetoric is reflected in the importance of logographers in preparing legal oratory, in contrast to deliberative oratory which did not employ the logographers.

322 Rh . , I I I , 1 2 . 5 .

323 Rh., p.423 n. 131 true that institutional epideictic oratory was necessarily delivered delivery was a part of its context (mock institutional epideictic which did not have to be delivered was closer to display) - Freese ignores that these orations were written and then delivered. Pericles' funeral oration, for example, was written before it was delivered as well as being re-written by Aspasia and Thucydides. 324 The use of writing for institutional epideictic partly accounts, as with displays, for the relatively high rate of survival for these orations.

There is a close relation between Aristotle's statements that the function of epideictic is display and then, later, that the function of epideictic is to be written. The written character of institutional epideictic and its relation to display indicates a further reason for Aristotle's inclusion of institutional and display epideictic within one genus. There are two important elements in the relation between writing and display. The first of these is that writing literally displays language: 'display' is a visual metaphor. Writing sets language before our eyes. The written artifact is itself a spectacle. This potential for writing as display is more deliberately realised, for example, in the elaborate character of medieval script. The sense of writing as display is particularly relevant to the sophistic displays which could function as purely written exercises, whereas institutional epideictic is both written and delivered. The delivery of a written speech clearly

324 See Plato Menexenus, 23Gb. 132 minimises the quality of display in the artifact of writing. The sense in which writing displays language is comparable to, and substitutable for, the effect of the delivery of speech. We may even say that writing captures, or re- presents, an element of the display of oral language. The performance of a speech also displays language before our eyes. In its combination of delivery and writing, therefore, the medium of institutional epideictic contributes a significance to display that is comparable to the written sophistic epideictic. The second and more important element in the relation between writing and display is indicated by Aristotle's statement that writing is appropriate to epideictic because it facilitates the composition of a "finished" style. 325 The elevation of style in institutional epideictic, as in sophistic epideictic, is a function of display. The polish of written style is the object of display. The difference between display epideictic and institutional epideictic here is that the finish is applied to a metaphorical style in institutional epideictic rather than a schematic style. The element of display in the style of institutional epideictic is not the nihilistic display of style of a sophistic paignia, or the ethical display of Isocrates' style. Writing allows the improvement of instructive and compelling nature of a metaphorical style. Writing also, therefore, contributes to the authority of the institutional epideictic orator.

325 Rh . , I I I , 1 2 . 5 . 133

This authority is facilitated by two further qualities of writing. The first of these is the nature of writing as an artifact. The seemingly set or fixed quality of something that is written gives it a sense of authority. This appeal to the authority of writing is found in the 'codification' of laws ( such as Solon' s), the literate translation of oral tradition (such as Pisistratus' order to "set down" Homer's poetry in writing, or the translation of rhetoric into techne

326 ), the writing of Hebrew law in stone, and in expressions attributing a binding contractual authority to writing, such as to the instruction to "put it in writing". Aristotle exploits the authoritative quality of writing. Writing is also significant for the element of display in Aristotle's concept of epideictic, but the quality of its performance is authoritative rather than playful. While the authority of a written speech, or any speech must be qualified in being open to interpretation, written language offers its audience no immediate right of reply or discussion. In this point lies the second of the qualities of writing that are appropriate to authoritative language, which returns us to the issue of the unilateral force of institutional epideictic. ~ 7 This

326 There is a debate over whether rhetoric is pre­ literate or a literate invention. The knowledge of rhetoric coincides with the growth of Greek literature, but this relation may not be causal but may rather reflect the limitation of knowledge beyond written records. Certainly Homer's pre-literate poetry suggests the practice of forms of rhetoric, see Walter Ong Orality and Literacy, p.109; Dixon Rhetoric, p.7; and Paul E. Corcoran Political Language and Rhetoric Queensland U.P, St. Lucia 1979, ch.s 2 and 3.

~ 7 Walter Ong argues in addition that writing is less open to interpretation than speech which he sees as 'fluid'. He apparently accepts the conventional appeal to the concrete quality of writing. Given, however, that speech is often open to clarification through discussion (which is a more limited 134 unilateral force of written language is recognised by Aristotle when he states that for discourse for which writing is· appropria· t e II th ere is, no d iscussion., , 11 328 In the case of institutional epideictic which is written and delivered, the use of writing reflects the intention that the speech is set and does not allow for discussion (indeed the inappropriateness of writing for dialogue in part accounts for Socrates' hostility to the medium). 329

Theoretical Pedagogy

One of the striking differences between the sophists' treatment of display oratory and Aristotle's treatment of epideictic is that Aristotle's treatment is theoretical. The sophists 'theory' of display oratory was presented within that oratory. Sophists taught display oratory by example and dealt with forensic and political oratory theoretically. Even when discussing 'theoretical' aspects of oratory the sophist would compose an oration on the topic, such as

Isocrates' Antidosis or Against the Sophists. Aristotle, on

possibility with writing) in this respect writing is more open to interpretation and more fluid than speech. It is the limitation of discussion characteristic of writing that is responsible for the fluidity that at the same time makes writing appropriate to authoritative language. For this reason it can be found that whereas dissent in democratic (or deliberative) rhetoric is characterised by a stated difference of opinion, dissent in more authoritarian discourse may require greater recourse to differences of interpretation. The attempt to limit differences of interpretation in these discourses (for example in Plato's Republic, or in Hobbes' insistence in Leviathan that words should be counters) reflects an attempt to limit political dissent.

328 Rh . , I I I , 1 2 . 5 .

329 See Plato Phaedrus, 275d, where Socrates complains that you cannot cross-examine a book. 135 the other hand, dealt with almost all subjects theoretically, but it is nevertheless significant that he included epideictic within his rhetorical techne. 330 Early in the Rhetoric Aristotle complains that previous techne have only dealt with a limited range of rhetoric, primarily forensic. 331

Aristotle's theoretical discussion of epideictic is significant for the differences between his concept of epideictic and the sophistic practice of display. The theoretical treatment of epideictic was not entirely Aristotle's innovation. The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, written before Aristotle's Rhetoric divides rhetoric into political and forensic genera and seven

species. 332 Four of these species are appropriate to political and forensic rhetoric ("exhortation", "dissuasion", "accusation", "defence") while a fifth is 'universal' ("investigation"). The remaining two of these species, "eulogy" and "vituperation" ( or praise and blame) are the

330 Some of Aristotle's lost early works, such as his Gryllus ( a Platonic discussion hostile to rhetoric), were dialectical, see Freese "Introduction" to Aristotle's Rhetoric, p.xxviii.

331 Rh., I, i.3. Socrates makes a similar complaint in Phaedrus.

332 Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, I, 1421 b, 8-14. This is accepting Chase', Spengel', Kennedy', and Burgess' arguments that the first sentence of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, identifying three genera including epideictic, was, like the dedication, added later to bring it into conformity with Aristotle's Rhetoric, see Chase "The Classical Conception of Epideictic", p. 294; Spengel' s edition of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum in Rhetores Graeci, Leipzig 1853, I; Kennedy The Art of Rhetoric, p.114-5; and Burgess Epideictic Literature, p.95. 136 conventions of institutional epideictic. 333 Institutional epideictic, in common with forensic and political oratory (and in contrast to sophistic display), had qualities that enabled its theoretical treatment. Given this affinity between institutional oratory and a theoretical pedagogy, the theoretical treatment of epideictic in Aristotle's Rhetoric is indicative of the institutional emphasis of his concept of epideictic. One of the principal qualities that enabled Aristotle to treat epideictic theoretically was that his conception of this oratory, while emphasising style, was less concerned with the sublime than was sophistic display. As already mentioned, Longinus argues that "zealous imitation" is the appropriate pedagogy for teaching a student to become a sublime orator. 3~ Aristotle (responding to Plato) advocates a practical oratory. He argues that one of the principal

11 335 features of oratory is that it is "useful • Practical oratory must be able to be taught to all students and

333 There are few references to an epideictic, or display, in the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum. The first of these - "epideiktikon" - is in the spurious first sentence. The text later uses the adverb "epideixeos" (1440 b 12-14, see also Chase "The Classical Conception of Epideictic", p. 295) in reference to the nature of praising and blaming, reflecting the greater affinity between these species (as performatives) and display than political and forensic rhetoric with display. But while the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum is, as Kennedy argues (The Art of Persuasion, p.115), a sophistic text reflecting sophistic theory, it is not concerned with sophistic display oratory. Rather it is a sophistic analysis of practical oratory (necessary, for example, for a logographer) so that its concern with praise and blame is a concern with practical oratory, or institutional epideictic. 3~ 'Longinus' On The Sublime, xiii.2.

335 Rh . , I , i . 1 4 . 137 practiced by all citizens. It is, ironically, closer to the rhetorical "knack" attacked by Socrates than the sublimity of Gorgias. In contrast to the sophists, Aristotle taught rhetoric as a subject supplementary to his principal concerns. He taught rhetoric in the afternoons when his students were sleepy and inattentive. Appreciation of the sublime is beyond the reach of, and not particularly useful to, the garden-type student of rhetoric. While imitation is on this account less important to these students, teaching by theory has the virtue of schematically demonstrating the practical techniques of a functional oratory (as a school 'textbook' might perform the same purpose in mathematics or even history). These techniques are necessary to a citizen who, without ambitions for becoming a great speaker, must be able to represent him or herself in court (Athenian law did not permit the use of advocates) if only to understand and deliver a speech written by a logographer, and if necessary, to speak in the assembly, or speak as a political representative elected by lot. While typically the institutional epideictic orator was a prominent citizen, Aristotle's theorisation of epideictic (and his use of conventions that could be theorised) and, therefore, his association of epideictic with political and legal rhetoric, reveals his concern that the third form of rhetoric should 138 be a practical oratory used by citizens in institutional contexts. 336 A further advantage in the theoretical treatment of epideictic is that it overcomes the problem of an imitational pedagogy leading to the unquestioning acceptance of models which, with social change, lose their relevance. In comparison to imitation rhetorical theory is probably a more flexible pedagogy. Theory is more open to discussion and revision. Whereas the models of Gorgias and Isocrates remain unchanged over centuries, Aristotle's theory has been revised by Theophrastus, Hermagoras, Cicero, Quintilian and their contemporaries as well as in the Renaissance and modern periods. In this manner the theory of epideictic maintains its appropriateness to political institutions and, therefore, maintains its nature as an institutional oratory. Theory can also be seen as a part of the demonstrative quality of epideictic. When Aristotle states that the appropriate attitude of an epideictic audience is as spectators rather than judges he uses the term "theoros" for

'spectator' . 337 Theoros is also the Greek root for 'theory' .

Although the concept of theory is different from theoros the terms have similar elements in their meaning. There is a similar sense between theory and spectating, or 'theoros', in their relation to epideictic. The concept of theory is

3~ While Aristotle leaves open the possibility of also using imitation to teach institutional epideictic, and he frequently uses example as a means of demonstration, it is significant that he finds epideictic open to any degree to a theoretical discussion.

337 Rh., I, iii.2-3. See also Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, p.73; and Corcoran Political Language, p.43. 139 pedagogical. The term 'theoros' implies the didactic relation between speaker and audience: the term implies wisdom in the attitude of the spectator. 338 There is also a didactic quality to the concept of theory, particularly in comparison to imitation. A theory also implies an inventor and recipient; a process of transmission. The concept of theory shares with the idea of spectacle the sense in which the audience is informed. Here we are reminded of the important relation between epideictic, or display, and teaching or demonstration (epideictic also being known as 'demonstrative' oratory). In institutional epideictic this is an authoritative teaching relation; for Isocrates' students it is interpretative.

Phi1osophy of Rhetoric As a philosopher Aristotle attempts to make rhetoric and its parts, including epideictic, philosophically sound and coherent. Aristotle's Rhetoric is praised above all as a philosophy of rhetoric. Aristotle's philosophy of rhetoric must be understood in terms of his larger philosophical approach which can, in turn, be understood in relation to his philosophical predecessors. Heraclitus argued that understanding was impossible because change makes the nature of things different every instant. In his much quoted dictum he drew the analogy that if we wanted to understand the nature of water in a river at some point the flow of the river means that the nature of what we want to understand is

338 For a discussion of theoros implying a wise spectator, see Corcoran Political Language, p.43. 140 always changing. Responding to this problem, Plato argued that if we are to know things they must be stable and unchanging and therefore not of this world. Aristotle, however, claimed that knowledge of this world is possible because all change is to some end, and that therefore we can know the changing nature of the world by knowing the ends of change. For Aristotle philosophy is an exploration of teleology. As Paul Corcoran observes, for Aristotle: "To know a thing was to know its purpose, its aim, its tendency: the telos". 339 Aristotle's approach to rhetoric is also teleological. When Aristotle distinguishes the three forms of rhetoric he distinguishes them by their ends: "Each of the three kinds has a different special end, and as there are three kinds of Rhetoric, so there are three special ends. The end of the deliberative speaker is the expedient or harmful .... The end of the forensic speaker is the just or the unjust ..... The end of those who praise and blame is the honourable and disgraceful; and they also refer all other considerations to these". 340 This statement is a teleology of rhetoric. The term translated as 'end' here is "telos", the root of 'teleology' . The striking point about this teleological definition of rhetoric is that Aristotle uses the terms 'deliberative' and 'forensic' when referring to the ends of these genera but he does not use the term 'epideictic' when ref erring to the end of this genus. The problem for

339 Corcoran Political Language, p.42. 340 Rh., I, iii,5. 141

Aristotle's teleology is that the term 'epideictic' implies display and display has no apparent end. Praise and blame on the other hand do have an end - the honourable and disgraceful. So Aristotle is predisposed by his teleology into defining the third genus in the conventions of institutional epideictic as an oratory of praise. The appropriateness of institutional epideictic to Aristotle's teleology is not coincidental. Aristotle is concerned with developing a philosophy of rhetoric to counter Socrates' and Plato's criticisms of rhetoric, but in doing so he is careful to avoid returning to the rhetoric of sophistic displays which were a major object of their criticism. If his theory of rhetoric is not 'purposeful' or 'functional' he at least attempts to avoid Gorgias' moral vacuum. The point that Gorgias' oratory has no apparent telos is reflected in his philosophical scepticism and the purposelessness of political alienation. Institutional epideictic, on the other hand, is more purposeful than display in the sense that it is directed to an institutional object or end, which is to honour. Aristotle would not have been unaware of these implications of his philosophy of rhetoric. His teleology is an attempt to counter the extreme scepticism of Gorgias and Heraclitus, and it also reflects a concern with 'practical' matters which an extreme scepticism undermines. Praise, therefore, is singled out by Aristotle's teleology not only because it is directed at some end but because, as an

institutional convention, it is appropriate to the practical emphasis of a teleological philosophy. 142

Through his philosophical elevation of praise as a genus of oratory Aristotle gives momentum to a tradition of oratory of praise which outlives its philosophical genesis.

But in elevating praise philosophically in this way Aristotle fails to make a coherent genus from all the elements he draws together. The emphasis upon the central role of praise as an end means that other conventions collected into the genus are left hanging loose. This untidiness is evident when after stating the telos of praise Aristotle adds, sweepingly: "and they also refer all other considerations to these [that is, to praise and blame]". These other conventions therefore, such as display, are not fully drawn into the oratory of praise and blame, and continue to be practiced in a semi­ autonomous life.

Through Aristotle's concept of epideictic it is possible to see that the practice of institutional epideictic is very different in both its formal conventions and its meanings from display epideictic. The metaphorical style and theoretical pedagogy which Aristotle proposes contrast sharply with the schemes and imitation of sophistic displays, and as the contrast between Gorgias and Isocrates indicates

the same conventions are used in sophistic display to different purposes. While the different forms of epideictic have a written medium and an audience of spectators in common

the function of these elements is different in each instance. The characterisation of epideictic in terms of performative

rhetoric is successful. Performative elements are evident in Gorgias', Isocrates', and Aristotle's epideictic. The 143 characterisation of Gorgias' epideictic as performative is successful because his oratory approaches the performative ideal. But for Isocrates' oratory and even more for Aristotle's concept of epideictic the performative characterisation works because of what Austin saw as its failure. The characterisation of Isocrates' and Aristotle's epideictics as performative highlights the constative or deliberative underside to this rhetoric. The benefit of the characterisation of epideictic as performative, therefore, is to highlight that the concept of epideictic is not coherent; that rather like that of performatives it is unstable and diffuse. 144

CONCLUSION

It is tempting to conclude with Antonius in De Oratore that there is no third, or epideictic, genus in rhetoric. ~ 1

As the examples of Gorgias', Isocrates', and Aristotle's epideictics illustrate, the models regarded as typifying the genus prove to be a cluster of different practices and concepts performing different rhetorical and political roles.

Moreover, the idea that these models represent the roots of the epideictic tradition must be doubted not only because of their diversity but because of the absence of a clear concept of epideictic in Gorgias' and Isocrates' oratory and by the hasty manner in which Aristotle convenes the class. Whereas the traditions of forensic and political rhetoric are rooted in the quasi-mythical foundational story of Corax and Tisias there is no foundational myth in the epideictic tradition.

For Cicero epideictic is neither discrete nor stable not only because it is a composite of practices but because the epideictic domain slips into political and forensic rhetoric.

He argues that matters lying outside political and forensic practice can still be treated with political and forensic rhetoric. ~2 Similarly Austin rejects the concept of performatives because performative acts are performed by constatives: all saying is doing.

~, De Or., II.47-48. ~2 De Or., II.49-50. 145

But while a philosopher of rhetoric may dismiss the idea that there is an epideictic genus historians are nevertheless confronted with a rhetorical tradition that has consciously defined itself as epideictic. The historian must ask why these epistemological problems have been overlooked. What has epideictic been used for, and why is it more useful, or more popular, in some contexts than others? Clearly part of the answer, as I have shown, lies in the use of display as an alternative rhetorical outlet for political aliens.

However, again, this use does not hold true for all the oratory characterised under this putative genus. Epideictic is also used by political authorities in institutional contexts. The use of epideictic lies in its very epistemological unsoundness, in its instability and slipperiness. Epideictic has been used in preference to other genera because its conventional fluidity offers a greater political and social flexibility. This answer could amount to saying, like Cicero, that epideictic is anything the speaker wants it to be. ~ 3 Again, however, we must ask why a speaker uses and associates him or her self with a more open genus. What characterising and legitimising roles would such an open genus perform? The answer to this question lies in the specific contexts in which orators appeal to the concept of epideictic. In this thesis I have demonstrated that the meaning of epideictic models is set in their social and rhetorical context. Where these models are being revived and

~3 Or., 37; and De Or., II.47. 146 followed in the epideictic tradition differences between their conventions, arising from different contexts, must be taken into account when considering the emulation of a particular model or models by later orators and in the ascendancy of some models over others in different periods.

Here it may be instructive to raise some purely speculative examples in the Renaissance when epideictic is the dominant form of rhetoric. 344 There are parallels between the position and oratory of Gorgias and that of Bartolommeo della

Fonte, who admires Gorgias as a model of rhetoric and "as the highest and most distinctive type of man", who is a teacher of rhetoric (a sophist), and who delivers orations in praise of eloquence that are primarily displays of his oratorical ability and reminiscent of Gorgias' praise of speech as a

344 There is an implicit problem here. Epideictic is recognised as the dominant rhetorical form in the Renaissance, and yet Cicero, who is recognised as the principal model for Renaissance rhetoric (see, for example, Jerrold E. Seigel Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism Princeton U.P., Princeton 1968), disparaged epideictic. This problem has not received any attention from historians of Renaissance rhetoric although it has important ramifications for the characterisation of Renaissance thought. For example, Martin Heidegger deprecates Renaissance thought because he considers that it is essentially Latin and therefore derivative (see Ernesto Grassi Renaissance Humanism: Studies in Philosophy and Poetics Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts and Studies, New York 1988). However epideictic is a predominantly Greek form (Heidegger's preferred culture). The two most important and productive ancient epideictic periods are in fifth and fourth century Greece and in the Greek second sophistic. Latin epideictic is a minor part of Latin rhetoric and of epideictic literature. The importance of rhetoric in Renaissance humanism and the dominance of epideictic in Renaissance rhetoric suggests that Renaissance thought should be reconsidered in terms of a greater Greek influence than is allowed by Heidegger or by the characterisation of Renaissance rhetoric as Ciceronian. 147 powerful ruler. 345 There are also parallels between institutional epideictic and Bacon's speeches as Chancellor in parliament in praise of Elizabeth in which praise is the principal purpose of the speech. Bacon was also an admirer of Aristotle's Rhetoric which was only just regaining recognition, having been almost unknown earlier in the Renaissance, and which provided the theoretical model for this type of speech. One may also look at the revival in Renaissance rhetoric of conventions which I have associated with different models of epideictic, as reflecting different social statements because of those associations. For example, there are tensions in Renaissance rhetoric between schematic and metaphorical style, and between imitational and theoretical pedagogies, reminiscent of tensions between the sophists' alienation and the position of institutional orators. Improvements in the technology of writing may be inter-related with the dominance of epideictic in Renaissance rhetoric. And the use of amplification, or copia, and ethos by Renaissance humanists suggests parallels between the social position of the humanists and the Greek sophists. A principal reason for the diversity of epideictic conventions and contexts is the absence of an institutional focus to the genus. Epideictic is distinguished from political and forensic rhetoric in not being tied to an institution. Forms of epideictic, such as the epitaphioi and festival orations such as the Panathenaic and Panhellenic

345 See Charles Trinkaus "A Humanist's Image of Humanism: the Inaugural Orations of Bartolommeo della Fonte" Studies in the Renaissance vol.6, 1959, p.97. 148 orations, were institutional but they do not encompass the genus. The unfocussed character of the genus partly accounts for the lack of a clear concept of epideictic in its early history, it accounts for the openness of the genus, and for its slippage into political and forensic rhetoric.

James Benjamin, however, has argued that the distinguishing feature of performative rhetoric is that it operates in an institutional context. Given that epideictic is distinguished in not being characterised by a particular institution, Benjamin's argument raises difficulties for the identification of epideictic as a performati ve rhetoric. Benjamin states that: Performative speech acts can only occur if a unique element is present in the rhetorical situation: an institution. An institution is the embodiment, organization, and formalization of values and procedures necessary for meeting certain social needs. But conventions are not identical with institutions. Conventions exist within institutions as grounds for expectations about how the participant will act or feel. Conventions are sets of arbitrary agreements which specify operations; they allow but do not effectuate results. Institutions, on the other hand, are the sources of authorization for conventional procedures. ~ 6

Benjamin's point is that performative rhetoric is characterised by an apparently low degree of audience participation and that therefore participation must be defined, by an institution, before the act is performed. The audience's participation is implied by the structure of the institution rather than explicit. Benjamin's observation, however, is encompassed by Austin's first two conditions for

~6 Benjamin "Performatives as a Rhetorical Construct", p. 91 . 149 performatives. That is, the act must be performed in "an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect" (A.1), and the persons and circumstances must be appropriate for the invocation of the procedure (A.2). Without disputing that "conventions are not identical with institutions", this similarity between Benjamin's definition of institutions and Austin's description of conventional procedure prompts one to ask whether institutions and conventions are as different as Benjamin suggests. Benjamin's example of an institution in which conventions operate is the church. 347 In what sense, however, can the church be said to exist outside of its conventions? The institution of the church is not in its buildings. There are limitations on the extent to which buildings can define conventional procedures. The term 'institution' distinguishes more stable conventions from what we generally refer to as conventions. 348 The stability of these conventions contributes to their reification, to a perception that they are somehow more real, and to the idea, reflected in Benjamin's statement, that institutions are not conventional.

An 'institutional' epideictic, therefore, differs from display epideictic (in which different conventions, such as praise and defence, are often mixed) only in that its

347 Benjamin "Performatives as a Rhetorical Construct", p. 91 .

348 The proximity of 'convention' and 'institution' in the same class is reflected in common use of the terms, for example, in the ironic substitution of one term for another when we refer to sitting in the pub on Saturday afternoons as an institution. 150 conventions are more stable. An institutional epideictic does not operate in some extra-conventional context. The difference between an institutional epideictic as an epideictic used by political authorities in political 'institutions' and display as an oratory used by political aliens is a difference that is conventionally and rhetorically defined. The difference is not between rhetorics operating in concrete political structures where the differences between the rhetorics is determined by the structures of the institutions (which Benjamin suggests in arguing that conventions operate in institutions). As conventions, institutions are part of a rhetorical structure. Differences between institutional and non-institutional forms are rhetorically defined, that is, through different representations of conventions.

How then if institutions are conventions does epideictic differ from political and forensic rhetoric when an 'institutional' focus is taken as one of the principal distinctions of these genera? Benjamin's concept of conventions operating in institutions is similar to Aristotle's theory of the function of rhetoric. Aristotle argues that rhetoric is a "faculty" which must be distinguished from the things that it facilitates, such as politics. ~ 9 Aristotle is anxious when discussing the topoi to point out that rhetoric is the faculty of treating a matter, it does not constitute the matter and so the conventions, or topoi, of that matter do not properly belong

~9 Rh., I, iv.4-7. 151 to rhetoric. He states that: "there is no need at present to endeavour to enumerate with scrupulous exactness or to classify those subjects which men are wont to discuss, or to define them as far as possible with strict accuracy, since this is not the function of the rhetorical art". 350 Given, however, that the contexts, or institutions, in which the genera operate are conventional, the differences between the genera, like the differences between institutional and non­ institutional epideictic will be defined through different representations of those conventions; that is, through rhetoric. Cicero credits rhetoric with greater scope than does

Aristotle. Just as Cicero refuses to distinguish between an art for speaking and an art for thinking, he also does not distinguish between a rhetorical faculty and a rhetorical context. Rhetoric invents and exploits the conventions of a context. This invention is prescribed in the enumeration of rhetorical topoi. The distinction between a faculty and a framework, such as an institution, in which that faculty operates is substituted for by the concept of rhetoric as invention. The difference between epideictic and 'institutionally' focused rhetorics is not a difference of a material, or an extra-conventional and somehow tangible, basis (as the idea of rhetoric as a faculty suggests), but a difference in how these rhetorics are rhetorically defined. If the 'institutional focus' of political and forensic rhetoric is simply a more stable conventional context than

350 Rh . , I , iv . 4 . 152 the contexts of epideictic then we must regard sceptically the foundational stories and the coherence of these genera which are traced to their institutional 'basis'. The development of political and forensic rhetoric is linked to the development of political and forensic institutions from their earliest appearance in Greek literature, suggesting that the institutions are prescribed and encompassed by the rhetoric as much the rhetoric is determined by the institutions. 351 Although the institutions of political and forensic rhetoric are more stable than other rhetorical conventions they are not laid down in a coherent plan from above. Nor are political and forensic rhetoric the pure creation of a fifth century philosopher of rhetoric such as Corax. They are defined historically rather than philosophically. Like epideictic, political and forensic rhetoric evolve from a conventional complex. Their stability is not guaranteed. They are neither discrete or coherent.

The apparent epistemological advantage these genera have over epideictic is false. Cicero argues that epideictic does not qualify as a genus or an art because of its incoherence. But while Cicero's preferred genera may have historically developed greater coherence than epideictic they do not have a greater philosophical claim to this quality. Political and forensic rhetoric therefore, like epideictic, must be accepted for their historical and practical tradition rather than for a legitimising philosophy of rhetoric. It is possibly with this insight that Isocrates insists upon

351 See Kennedy Classical Rhetoric, pp.3-17. 153 defining rhetoric through its practice and refuses to become engaged in philosophising rhetoric. It is possibly also for this reason that Aristotle prefers to limit the scope of rhetoric but also to maintain that there are three rhetorical genera. If one genus is to be dismissed for incoherence then all can likewise be dismissed for the same reason. And if one genus is maintained all can be maintained and characterised by the same problematic. 154

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