Sviatoslav Dmitriev (Ball State University)
The many discoveries in Herculaneum included papyrus scrolls with Philodemus’s On Rhetoric, which is the only known copy of a treatise by the prolific scholar. The importance of this find was marred by the sorrowful state of a text that survives as many disconnected fragments. Siegfried Sudhaus’s restoration and ordering of those fragments (1892-2896) have been questioned in the publication of On Rhetoric by Chandler (2006) and in Nicolardi’s recent edition of the first book (2018). Having rearranged some fragments, however, Chandler and Nicolardi did not dramatically clarify our vision of the text.
Whereas some have pointed to certain similarities between the views of Philodemus and other experts (Barnes 1986; Roochnik 1994; Liebersohn 2011), no study has focused on his place in rhetorical theory. This task requires contextualizing Philodemus’s opinions within a broad theoretical framework that includes his contemporaries and later rhetorical authorities. By asserting that rhetoric had its method, Philodemus (Rhet. 1, 72.17-73.35) joined those who argued that rhetoric was an art—including Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Περὶ μιμήσεως, fr. 2), Quintilian (2.17.2), Philostratus (VS 592), Eunapius (VS 17.1-2 [90]), Troillus (Herm. Rhet. [45-46]), Syrianus (Comm. Herm. 1893, 3.16-23), and ps.-Maximus Planudes (Comm. Herm. [214.2-4])— against those who saw rhetoric as the “experience” and “practice” of speaking in public, like Sextus Empiricus (Math. 2.16) and Diogenes Laertius (1.7.9). This debate (see Lucian, Par. 27, 29; Desbordes 1996, 31-37) reflected views on relations between an orator’s natural capacity, acquired knowledge, and practical training: ps.-Max. Conf. 17.61/71 (425); Sternbach 1893, 181, no. 111; Sternbach 1963, 164, no. 439; with Cribiore 2007, 129-134. Philodemus’s reference to Aeschines lacking the rhetorical method and relying on practice (Rhet. 2, 97.1-98.21), melete or empeiria, adds an interesting spin to the question of definitions, because melete was a technical term that designated an exercise in declamation, the ultimate rhetorical achievement. Philostratus and his contemporaries (VS 507) called Aeschines the father of the Second Sophistic, while Photius (Bibl. 61) reflected the view that Aeschines was the first person to compose declamations (meletai).
Philodemus’s rhetorical work recycled not only proverbs (Longo Auricchio 2016) but also metaphors, including a popular metaphor of the state as a sinking ship (Rhet. 1, 358: col. lxviii.3-10), which survives in a rhetorical dialogue from the first century B.C. (P.Berol. 13045.246-250), a poem of Metochites from the fourteenth century (Carm. 1.808-810 [33]), and other works (Brock 2013, 53-67). His comparison of making speeches to shooting arrows (Rhet. 2, 97.1-98.21) was used by Libanius (Ep. 428.3) and Himerius (10.8, 13.3), while his reference to Aegina as an eye-sore of Piraeus (Rhet. 1, 181.11-15) was ascribed to Demades by Athenaeus (3, 99d).
Whereas the content and organization of On Rhetoric continue to be debated (Dorandi 1990; Fimiani 2016; Ranocchia 2018; Del Mastro 2020), a broader contextualization of Philodemus’s views presents them as both corresponding to the mainstream rhetorical thinking and developing over time. Conversely, Philodemus’s opinions illuminate the ideas of his contemporaries and of later rhetorical experts.