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t e c h n i c a l r h e t o r i c 27

after Christ. In Theons method of teaching a passage was read aloud

and students were first required to listen and try to write it out from

memory; after gaining skill in doing this they were given a short passage

and asked to paraphrase it and to develop and amplify it, or seek to

refute it. Theon describes and gives examples of the treatment of ten

exercises: chria (or anecdote), fable (such as those attributed to Aesop),

narrative, commonplace (dealing with virtues or vices), ecphrasis (or

description of something), prosopopoeia (or speech in character), en-

comium, syncrisis (or comparison), thesis (first refutation of a proposi-

tion, then arguing a proposition), and an argument supporting or op-

posing a law.

A short account of exercises in composition is attributed, probably

wrongly, to the second-century rhetorician Hermogenes of Tarsus andwas the basis of a Latin account, entitledpraeexercitamina, by the gram-

marian Prisician, written about 500 a.d.The most influential of the

compositional handbooks was the work of Aphthonius, who was writ-

ing in the late fourth century.His treatise was used throughout the

Byzantine period and was popular in the Renaissance, when it was

translated into Latin by Rudolph Agricola. There is also a treatment of

the subject by Nicolaus, dating from the fifth century after Christ.By at least the first century b.c., virtually all Greek and Roman stu-

dents were practiced in progymnasmatic exercises in grammar or rhe-

torical schools. They learned a highly structured, approved way of nar-

rating, amplifying, describing, praising, criticizing, comparing, proving,

and refuting something. These skills could then be combined in dif-

ferent ways to compose a speech. The subjects for treatment were as-

signed by the teacher; free composition was not a feature of Greek and

Roman education. Progymnasmataare important for the study of Greek

and Latin literature of the Hellenistic and Roman periods in that the

exercises often supplied writers with structural units in their works and

with techniques of amplification. Among the best examples are the

Heroidesby the Latin poet Ovid, which are versified prosopopoeia. Prac-

tice of encomium was particularly important, since epideictic oratory

became an important rhetorical genre in the imperial period and was

not treated in detail in most rhetorical handbooks.Scholarly research and the writing of technical handbooks originated

in Greece. Cato the Elder, Varro, Celsus, and other Romans compiled