Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice

Ruth Webb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317145356
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This is a study of ekphrasis, the art of making listeners and readers 'see' in their imagination through words alone, as taught in ancient rhetorical schools and as used by Greek writers of the Imperial period (2nd-6th centuries CE). The author places the practice of ekphrasis within its cultural context, emphasizing the importance of the visual imagination in ancient responses to rhetoric, poetry and historiography. By linking the theoretical writings on ekphrasis with ancient theories of imagination, emotion and language, she brings out the persuasive and emotive function of vivid language in the literature of the period. This study also addresses the contrast between the ancient and the modern definitions of the term ekphrasis, underlining the different concepts of language, literature and reader response that distinguish the ancient from the modern approach. In order to explain the ancient understanding of ekphrasis and its place within the larger system of rhetorical training, the study includes a full analysis of the ancient technical sources (rhetorical handbooks, commentaries) which aims to make these accessible to non-specialists. The concluding chapter moves away from rhetorical theory to consider the problems and challenges involved in 'turning listeners into spectators' with a particular focus on the role of ekphrasis within ancient fiction. Attention is also paid to texts that lie at the intersection of the modern and ancient definitions of ekphrasis, such as Philostratos' Imagines and the many ekphraseis of buildings and monuments to be found in Late Antique literature.

1 The Contexts of Ekphrasis

DOI: 10.4324/9781315578996-1

Interest in ancient art and aesthetics was a vital impetus to the creation of the modern definition of ekphrasis. Another, altogether less positive, factor was the general lack of curiosity in the first part of the twentieth century about the rhetorical culture of the Roman period (particularly the Greek rhetorical culture which could only be seen as a disastrous falling off from the sublime heights of the classical period). It is this disdain that may well have allowed so meticulous a linguist as Denniston to disregard the ancient definition. The results of these combined phenomena can be seen in the vision of both ekphrasis and the rhetoric of the Imperial period in Roland Barthes’ overview of ancient rhetoric, published in 1970. Here Barthes cites ekphrasis as the typical product of an age when, he claims, rhetoric had given up any claim to persuasion and was purely for show. Ekphrasis, defined as a self-contained, detachable fragment, was typical of the type of discourse that resulted – that is to say a loosely connected patchwork of passages. ¹ Barthes’ picture derives from a once pervasive view of the Greek rhetorical practice of the Roman period as the decadent pastime of the disenfranchised who, without a proper forum in which to flex their rhetorical muscles, engaged in sterile semblances of debate. The picture offered by Barthes is a significantly updated version that rightly stresses the role of improvisation in the rhetorical performance of the time and the interaction between rhetoric and ‘literature’ in the case of the novel. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to accept the characterization of declamation as a disconnected series of passages after reading theoretical works on the subject such as those by Hermogenes which reveal a highly structured approach in which persuasion was still the main goal.

¹ Roland Barthes, ‘L’ancienne rhétorique: aide-mémoire’, Communications, 16 (1970): 183: ‘Le discours étant sans but persuasif mais purement ostentatoire, se déstructure, s’atomise en une suite lâche de morceaux brillants, juxtaposés selon un modèle rhapsodique. Le principal de ces morceaux (il bénéficiait d’une très grosse cote) était la descriptio ou ekphrasis. L’ekphrasis est un fragment anthologique, transférable d’un discours à un autre …’ [Since speeches had no persuasive purpose but were purely a matter of display, they lost all structure and broke down into a loosely connected series of brilliant passages, strung together like a rhapsode’s song. The most important of these passages – it was highly prized – was descriptio or ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is a select fragment, which can be transferred from one speech to another …]. On the idiosyncrasies of Barthes’ overview of ancient rhetoric, see David Cohen, ‘Classical rhetoric and modern theories of discourse’, in Ian Worthington (ed.), Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (London, 1994), pp. 76–7.

The Context of Ancient Ekphrasis

The Progymnasmata which offer the definitions of ekphrasis as ‘a speech that brings the subject matter vividly before the eyes’ ² belong to the first centuries CE. The version by Ailios Theon is usually accepted as the earliest and dated to the first century, while those by a certain Nikolaos are dated to the fifth century. ³ Between lie the third-century version wrongly attributed in antiquity to the famous rhetorician Hermogenes of Tarsos and those of Aphthonios from the fourth century. To the information offered by the Progymnasmata can be added Quintilian’s discussion of enargeia and the advice on the use of ekphrasis in the context of larger speeches to be found in the more advanced rhetorical treatises by Hermogenes (second century), Menander Rhetor (later third century), Sopatros Rhetor (fourth century) and Syrianos (fifth century). All these authors are witnesses to the rich rhetorical culture that flourished in the Greek-speaking areas of the Roman Empire and survived in the Byzantine Middle Ages (to a far greater extent than in the medieval West). Throughout this period the study of rhetoric dominated the education of the elite and mastery both of the Attic dialect and of rhetorical forms of exposition was a prerequisite for many careers, even for acceptance as a male member of the elite, and a central element in certain conceptions of Greekness.

² See, for example, Theon, Progymnasmata, 118, l. 7: ἔκφρασίς ἔστι λόγoς περιηγηματικὸς ἐvαργω̑ς ὕπ’ ὄψιv ἄγωv τὸ δηλoύμεvov. ³ Malcolm Heath, ‘Theon and the history of the Progymnasmata’, GRBS, 43 (2002/3): 129–60 argues for a much later date for Theon, identifying him with the fifth-century rhetorician of the same name. I prefer to retain the earlier date because of the parallels with Quintilian and the unusual use of Hellenistic historians while acknowledging that these are by no means decisive criteria.

For more humble families who could nevertheless afford to educate their sons, a training in rhetoric offered a chance for the talented to improve their social position. This is the picture drawn by the ‘autobiography’ of the second-century Syrian Lucian, who depicts his young self torn between his own desire to study rhetoric (paideia) and his family’s demands that he earn a living as a sculptor. Paideia personified offers fame, fortune and travel to the young Lucian in contrast to a life of toil in the workshop. ⁴ The type of fame and fortune to which Lucian refers is exemplified in Philostratos’ Lives of the Sophists, a collective portrait of the most famous Greek exponents of the art of rhetoric in the second and early third centuries (among whom Lucian is not counted). The accounts of charismatic star teachers and speakers described by Philostratos, who coined the term ‘Second Sophistic’ to describe the phenomenon, give a vivid impression of the glamour and popularity of rhetorical display at the period: speakers drew large audiences who adulated them but who could also be skilled listeners able to criticize the performances they listened to.

⁴ Lucian, The Dream or His Life, 1–13.

Philostratos’ Sophists performed declamations (meletai), fictional speeches that also formed part of the rhetorical training delivered in schools. These meletai were speeches on imaginary cases in which the speaker took on the persona of a character in a situation specially formulated to pose a particular rhetorical problem. Many of the cases were set in the classical Greek past (none post-date the death of Alexander in 323 BCE) and involved characters such as Perikles or Demosthenes in situations more or less loosely based on history. Others were imaginary but involved a stock cast of characters drawn from the world of the classical polis: the young hero, the rich man, the general, the tyrant, the orator. Declamation demanded a certain dramatic talent from its exponents who had to speak in persona (Philostratos mentions Polemo’s habit of leaping up from his chair at the climax of his argument and of stamping on the ground, while Herodes Attikos is said at one point to have had tears in his eyes as he declaimed on a particularly emotive subject). ⁵ But, above all, it required precise skills of analysis and argumentation and a mastery of presentation and style (all in irreproachable atticizing Greek). It was the structures provided by this training (rather than the lack of them as Barthes claims) that allowed the best declaimers to improvise lengthy and complex speeches.

⁵ Philostratos, Lives of the Sophists, 537 and 574.

The other principle public activity of Philostratos’ sophists was epideictic oratory: occasional speeches marking significant moments in citizens’ lives or in the life of the city. By the Roman period, the range of occasions for such speeches was vast: they marked the arrivals and departures of dignitaries or even pupils within a school, invitations to governors, weddings, deaths and funerals and festivals. Nor was there a complete absence of occasions for more obviously practical uses of rhetoric: Philostratos mentions several cases where these rhetorical performers and teachers had to use their art in their own defence in court, and city councils – boulai – still provided a forum for debate among the wealthy elite. ⁶ In the fourth century, when power was concentrated more directly in the person of the emperor, Libanios used his rhetorical skills to try to persuade Theodosios of various changes that should be made in the administration of Antioch. ⁷ Just as importantly, Malcolm Heath has shown how the skills taught in the rhetorical schools could be put to use in actual court cases. ⁸

⁶ See Laurent Pernot, La Rhétorique de l’éloge dans le monde gréco-romain (2 vols, Paris, 1993) and La Rhétorique dans l’Antiquité (Paris, 2000), pp. 104–7 (on the survival of political rhetoric after the battle of Chaeronea); John Ma, ‘Public speech and community in the Euboicus’, in Simon Swain (ed.), Dio Chrysostom_ Politics, Letters, and Philosophy (Oxford, 2002). ⁷ For one example, see Bernard Schouler, ‘Un enseignant face aux prisons de son temps’, Pallas, 72 (2006): 279–96. ⁸ Malcolm Heath, ‘Practical advocacy in Roman Egypt’, in Michael J. Edwards and Christopher Reid (eds), Oratory in Action (Manchester, 2004), pp. 62–82.

The case of Augustine in fourth-century North Africa illustrates the continued importance of a rhetorical education: though not wealthy, Augustine’s family were determined to allow him to develop his talent by sending him to Madauros and then to Carthage in the hope that his studies would lead to a distinguished career as an advocate. ⁹ His trajectory is very similar to that depicted in Lucian’s Dream and illustrates the uses to which a rhetorical training could be put in an increasingly Christian context. Augustine was certainly not alone. In the Greek East the fourth century saw the continuing importance of rhetorical training as offered by men like Libanios and his rival teachers, many of whose pupils were Christians. The talent of these Greek Christian rhetors of the fourth century – Gregory of Nyssa, his brother Basil of Caesarea and Basil’s friend Gregory Nazianzen, who studied rhetoric with him at Athens – has led to them being identified as part of a ‘Third Sophistic’, a title that emphasizes the continued value and relevance of rhetoric beyond the third century. ¹⁰

⁹ Augustine, Confessions, II, iii (5) and III, iii (6) – iv (7). ¹⁰ See, for example, Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley, 1991); Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, 1992); Eugenio Amato (ed.), Approches de la Troisième Sophistique: hommages à Jacques Schamp (Brussels, 2006).

Recent studies of the Second Sophistic have rightly emphasized the social, political and cultural functions of rhetorical performance as a means of communicating power and negotiating identity. ¹¹ The predominance of classical themes made declamation a means of asserting and exploring Greek identity. ¹² So, while orators may no longer have been at the forefront of politics, as in classical Athens or Republican Rome, rhetorical performance provided an important forum for the Greek citizens of the Empire to assert their identity, to achieve social status among their peers and their contemporaries and was one of the principal media in which relationships with Rome and the representatives of the Empire were constructed. ¹³

¹¹ See, for example, Maud Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton, 1995); Thomas Schmitz, Bildung und Macht: Zur sozialen und politischen Funktion der zweiten Sophistik in der griechischen Welt der Kaiserzeit (Munich, 1997); Tim Whitmarsh, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2001). ¹² See the seminal work of Ewen L. Bowie, ‘Greeks and their past in the Second Sophistic’, in Moses I. Finley (ed.), Studies in Ancient Society (London, 1974), pp. 116–209 and Paolo Desideri, ‘Filostrato: la comtemporaneità del passato greco’, in Fernando Gascó and Emma Falque (eds), Pasado renacido: Uso y abuso de la tradición clásica (Seville, 1992), pp. 55–70. ¹³ See on this point Laurent Pernot, ‘La rhétorique de l’empire ou comment la rhétorique grecque a inventé l’empire romain’, Rhetorica, 16 (1998): 131–48.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The Contexts of Ekphrasis
• 2. Learning Ekphrasis: The Progymnasmata
• 3. The Subjects of Ekphrasis
• 4. Enargeia: Making Absent Things Present
• 5. Phantasia: Memory, Imagination and the Gallery of the Mind
• 6. Ekphrasis and the Art of Persuasion
• 7. The Poetics of Ekphrasis: Fiction, Illusion and Meta-ekphrasis
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Translations
• Appendix B: Subjects for Ekphrasis
• Bibliography
• Index