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t e c h n i c a l r h e t o r i c 25

the question of how to integrate discussion of the parts of rhetoric with

the kinds of oratory and the parts of the oration remained a problem for

handbook writers throughout antiquity. Fourth-century theorists

Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, and Anaximenesclearly thought of rhetoric

as concerned with the three subjects of invention, arrangement, and

style, and Aristotle (3.1) proposed that delivery might be added as a

fourth part of the subject. The problem of how to treat invention was

compounded by the development of stasistheory by Hermagoras in the

second century b.c.Various solutions were found, but the parts of the

oration, which we saw in the Phaedrusproviding the fundamental struc-

ture of the earliest handbooks, remained important elements. In the

fullest ancient treatise on rhetoric, Quintilians Institutio Oratoria, most

material relating to the content and argument of a speech is inserted intoa discussion of eight parts of a judicial oration that runs from Books 4

through 6, treating in order exordium, narration, digression, proposi-

tion, partition, proof, refutation, and conclusion (in Latin peroratio).

This is then followed in books 810 by discussion of style and in book 11

by discussion of memory and delivery. As in most Latin handbooks,

judicial rhetoric is given by far the greatest attention, with brief mention

of deliberative and epideictic species.Rhetorical handbooks came into existence to meet the needs of Greek

city-states in which citizens were deemed equal and expected to be able

to speak on their own behalf. In origin they are to be associated with

freedom of speech and with amateurism, first in the lawcourts, but also

in democratic political assemblies. Freedom of speech on political issues

received major setbacks with the defeat of the Greek states by Macedon

in 338 b.c. and with the establishment of the Roman Empire by Au-

gustus after the battle of Actium in 31 b.c., though considerable freedom

of speech existed in courts of law throughout the Roman period. Ama-

teurism survived in local courts in Greece even in the Roman period; in

Rome, however, professional advocates, or patrons, usually repre-

sented clients in court, and public speaking in Rome, in the lawcourts,

the senate, and assemblies, was practiced chiefly by a relatively small

number of professional orators who were highly conscious of tech-

niques and of their own roles.Rhetorical handbooks like Rhetoric forHerenniuswere studied by young men aspiring to a public career, or, as

in the case of Ciceros On Invention, are a compilation of their own