Logos without Rhetoric

The Arts of Language before Plato

Robin Reames

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781611177688
• eBook ISBN: 9781611177695
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Rhetoric
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

A germinal examination of rhetoric's beginnings through pre-fourth-century Greek texts

How did rhetoric begin and what was it before it was called "rhetoric"? Must art have a name to be considered art? What is the difference between eloquence and rhetoric? And what were the differences, if any, among poets, philosophers, sophists, and rhetoricians before Plato emphasized—or perhaps invented—their differences? In Logos without Rhetoric: The Arts of Language before Plato, Robin Reames attempts to intervene in these and other questions by examining the status of rhetorical theory in texts that predate Plato's coining of the term rhetoric (c. 380 B.C.E.). From Homer and Hesiod to Parmenides and Heraclitus to Gorgias, Theodorus, and Isocrates, the case studies contained here examine the status of the discipline of rhetoric prior to and therefore in the absence of the influence of Plato and Aristotle's full-fledged development of rhetorical theory in the fourth century B.C.E.

The essays in this volume make a case for a porous boundary between theory and practice and promote skepticism about anachronistic distinctions between myth and reason and between philosophy and rhetoric in the historiography of rhetoric's beginning. The result is an enlarged understanding of the rhetorical content of pre-fourth-century Greek texts.

Edward Schiappa, head of Comparative Media Studies/Writing and the John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, provides an afterword.

Notes

Introduction

1. This can be seen from the outset of both works. Herodotus began, “Here is the showing-forth of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that neither what human beings have done might disappear in time, nor the deeds great and admirable, partly shown forth by Greeks, and partly by the barbarians, might be without fame” (I.1; Mensch, 3). Thucydides begins similarly: “Thucydides of Athens wrote this history of the war fought against each other by the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. He began his work right at the outbreak, reckoning that this would be a major war and more momentous than any previous conflict” (I.1; Hammond, 3). Throughout both works, the authors express a distrust of secondhand accounts and the oral record that mirrors neatly their own desire to set their firsthand accounts in writing.

2. It is clear from Aristotle’s account of Corax in Rhet. 1402a and of Tisias in Soph. Elench. 183 that both had written books on the subject. Plato refers at length to a written work on rhetoric by Tisias at Phaedrus 273a–274a. And Quintilian in Inst. Or. III.8–9 states explicitly that “the earliest writers of text-books are the Sicilians, Corax and Tisias, who were followed by another from the same island, namely Gorgias of Leontini, whom tradition asserts to have been the pupil of Empedocles. He, thanks to his length of days, for he lived to a hundred and nine, flourished as the contemporary of many rhetoricians, was consequently the rival of those whom I have just mentioned, and lived on to survive Socrates” (Butler, 375).

3. Charlton (1985) explains how what we identify as academic disciplines did not emerge until the third century in Alexandria (47).

Unity, Dissociation, and Schismogenesis in Isocrates

1. The current chapter is submitted in remembrance of Professor Mackin, who passed away in August 2011.

2. The opportunities to turn back are few; the choice for leniency only barely succeeds in Corcyra (Thucydides 3.70–85), and fails with Melos (Thucydides 5.84–114). Though there may also have been an opportunity for reconciliation during the peace of Nicias, Thucydides makes it clear that it was not viable.

3. Mackin’s words come from late in his conclusion, where he broadens his scope and considers the lessons of his observation for modern discourse. Perceptively, he does not fault Pericles for his ignorance of the larger ramifications of his words (258).

4. See, for example, Gomme (vol. 1: 236), Romilly (1963), Hornblower (1987), Forde (1989), Price (2001), Kagan (2003), Stahl (2003), Sahlins (2004), Hanson (2005), Foster (2010), Harloe and Morley (2012), Morley (2013), and Hawthorn (2014).

5. The Melian Dialogue (Peloponnesian War 5.84–114) provides a most vivid example when Athens confronts Melos in 416 B.C.E. Euripides may have commented on the violence of this event in his play Trojan Women of 415.

6. For example, Schiappa (1985), John Poulakos (1995), Takis Poulakos (1997), and Papillon (1996 and 1997).

7. It also derives from the political work of Lewis Fry Richardson (1939).

8. To explain how the styles between women and men can drive each other to more exaggerated forms of behavior, Deborah Tannen (1993, 177–84; 1994, 234–36; 2001, 103–5) explains how the split is created in a complementary way. Two people who have different styles (of communication, personality, behavior) end up exhibiting more exaggerated forms of that different behavior than they would if they were not encountering someone with an opposite style.

9. Bateson is more guarded about this in the conclusion to the second edition of Naven (1958).

10. See also Perelman 1982, 126–37.

11. See for example Romilly 1958.

12. The difficulties of the year 339, before Chaeronea, left him with no choice: his frustration with Philip meant that he could only return to Athenian leadership. Later on, after Philip’s victory, Isocrates realized the inevitability of Philip’s leadership and wrote his last work, the second epistle to Philip, in which he tried to make the best of a (to him now) bad situation by calling him to lead the Greeks again.

13. Or perhaps a “re-newed” sense. He uses the Trojan wars and especially the Persian wars as a way to show precedent for a pattern of Greeks against Easterners (4.85, 158, 181, 186; 12.42–52). It is significant, I think, that Pericles does not use this early history in his argumentation (Mackin, 254).

14. On Isocrates’ death, see pseudo-Plutarch Moralia 837e–f and Edwards 1994, 26–27.

Theodorus Byzantius on the Parts of a Speech

1. On Theodorus’ dates see Solmsen cols. 1839–42. Evidence regarding Theodorus’ life and works is collected in Radermacher [BXII] 106–11.

2. Pl. Phdr. 261, 266–67; Arist. S.E. 34 [183b]; D.H. Amm. 1: 2; cf. Them. Or. 26, 328.

3. Pl. Phdr. 266d; Arist. Rh. 2.23.28 (1400b), following Grimaldi 333 [1400b.15–16]; D.H. Is. 19; Phld. Rh. 4, P. Herc. 1007, col. 5a.10–21 (see Appendix C).

4. Arist. Τεχνῶν συναγωγή ap. Cic. Brut. 48.

5. Pl. Phdr. 266d–267e; Arist. Rh. 3.13.5; Mart. Cap. 5.552.

6. Especially Pl. Phdr. 266d-267e; Arist. Rh. 3.13.4–5 (1414b).

7. Hamberger, 73–80; Solmsen, cols. 1844–45; cf. similar reductions in Kennedy 1994, 32; Heitsch, 38; Theobald, 284n16; Schirren, 1516; De Brauw, 188–90.

8. The standard scholarly view is that Oration 6 in the Lysianic corpus was not authored by Lysias (hence “pseudo-Lysias”); see, e.g., Usher 1999, 113; Todd 2000, 63–64. Accordingly, to avoid confusion, I refer to Oration 6 as pseudo-Lysianic and its author as pseudo-Lysias.

9. For the date of the work, I follow Todd 2007, 407–8, who argues that “what we have is in origins and in essence a genuine speech delivered at the trial [of Andokides],” though the text “may represent post-trial revision.” This view places the composition of the speech in 400 (or 399) B.C.E.

10. For the text of Plato’s Phaedrus, I follow Burnet 1901. With reference to present passage (i.e., Phdr. 266d5–6), the translation is my own.

11. This is the Fowler 1914 translation (537, 539), partly revised.

12. Cf. Mirhady 2007 6 who omits only the speech-conclusion in his list of speech parts attributed to Theodorus at Phdr. 266d–267a. Out of the speech parts mentioned, confirmation, additional confirmation, refutation, and additional refutation are assigned to Theodorus by name; remaining parts are attributed to him as one of the writers of rhetoric books, since Plato deliberately summarizes “the things that have been written in books on the art of speeches” (Phdr. 266d; cf. Vries [266d5–6, 266d7] 221). The speech-conclusion is expressly attributed to all the rhetoric book writers—Theodorus included—in the clause, “But all seem to be in agreement concerning the conclusion of discourses” (267d; trans. Fowler 539; cf. Vries [267d3–4] 226).

13. See, e.g., Hackforth, 138; Vries, 221; Leeman and Pinkster, 180; Cole 1991, 23; Romilly, 60; Heitsch, 37–38; Mirhady, 6; Schirren, 1516.

14. Yunis (on Phdr. 266d5–267d9) stresses Plato’s grasp of details in the early rhetoric books: “S.’s surprisingly extensive knowledge of the sophists’ books reveals an ability to engage his interlocutor in the most opportune manner. Plato thereby also shows that his critique of sophistic rhetoric is based not on ignorance but on close familiarity” (2011, 200).

15. For the text of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, I follow Kassel. The translation is my own, following Kennedy 2007, 231.

16. Kühner and Gerth, 662–63 [§470.2]; Cooper and Krüger 1: 549 [51.16.2]; cf. Pl. Phdr. 265a: μανίαν γάρ τινα, Prot. 313c: ὁ σοφιστὴς τυγχάνει ὢν ἔμπορός τις ἢ κάπηλος.

17. The proximity of Theodorus’ dates to the trial of Andokides for impiety along with evidence in Suidas (θ.145) for a Theodorean speech Against Andokides has engendered several proposals that Theodorus was the author of Ps. Lys. 6; see, e.g., Bergk, 357 (“vielleicht”); Roegholt, 12; Drerup, 337–40; Schneider, 372. However, the evidence for these proposals is not decisive, and the Theodorus-authorship thesis has not figured significantly in scholarship on Oration 6 for about a century.

18. Here and elsewhere for the text of Ps. Lys. 6, I refer to Carey 2007.

19. My translation; on δὲ καὶ, see Denniston and Dover, 305 (s.v. καὶ, II.B.7.ii).

20. My conjecture and translation, following Todd 2007, 469–70.

21. See, e.g., Bergk, 357n80; Jebb 1: 280; MacDowell, 14; Todd 2007, 405, 463.

22. Todd (2007, 463) offers a specific example of what he recognizes as a “structural weakness” in Oration 6, namely use of an anticipatory topic (“I hear he will say”) in two places within the speech (§13 and §35). However, this double use of the topic becomes explicable once it is considered that the anticipations serve distinct purposes in speech parts that have different functions. At §13 the anticipation allows the speaker to insist that those who fail to punish impiety are guilty of impiety (§13) and that Andokides admitted to profaning the Mysteries (§14). Both of these assertions are relevant to the speech part where they arise, confirmation (πίστωσις). At §35 the anticipation allows direct rebuttal of four possible arguments in Andokides’ possible defense (§35–45). These rebuttals relate directly to the speech part in which they arise, refutation (ἔλεγχος).

23. I here follow the Ross text.

24. This is a slight revision of the Forster translation in Forster and Furley, 153, 155.

25. Cole 1991, 28; 2007, 46. Schiappa 1999, 25.

26. Schiappa 2003b, 49–54; 1999, 45–47. Cole 1991, 22–26, 82.

27. Cole 1991, 2, 98–99. Schiappa 1990, 457–70; 1999, 40–49.

28. See, e.g., Usher 1992, 58–60; 1999, 2n3; also Gaines, 500–503; Gagarin 1994 65–66n6; Hesk, 60–61; Reinhardt, 87, 102–3.

29. For some time evolutionary historians have posited that theoretical arts of speechmaking or rhetoric were commonly available in the fifth century B.C.E., but that they were rendered obsolete by Aristotle’s Collection of Arts and thereafter forgotten—a circumstance which explains why they have not survived; see, e.g., Kennedy 2007, 302–6. In response to the evolutionary explanation for the non-survival of fifth-century arts...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• A Note on Translations
• Introduction
• Unity, Dissociation, and Schismogenesis in Isocrates
• Theodorus Byzantius on the Parts of a Speech
• Gorgias’ “On Non-Being”: Genre, Purpose, and Testimonia
• Parmenides: Philosopher, Rhetorician, Skywalker
• Heraclitus’ Doublespeak: The Paradoxical Origins of Rhetorical Logos
• Rhetoric and Royalty: Odysseus’ Presentation of the Female Shades in Hades
• Mētis, Themis, and the Practice of Epic Speech
• It Takes an Empire to Raise a Sophist: An Athens-Centered Analysis of the Oikonomia of Pre-Platonic Rhetoric
• Afterword: Persistent Questions in the Historiography of Early Greek Rhetorical Theory
• Appendix A: A Timeline of the Life of Gorgias of Leontini
• Appendix B: A Summary of Gorgias’ Work and Activity
• Appendix C: A New Testimonium of Theodorus Byzantius
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index