Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

862 29. education in the roman empire
De figuris numerorum. It is probably no accident that Grillius probably and
Priscian certainly worked and taught in Constantinople. For late Latin rhetoricians
Cicero provided both models of style and theoretical treatises. His
De inventione was endlessly commented on, as were to a lesser extent his
Partitiones oratoriae and his Topica. Quintilian is the latest authority quoted by
most late antique Latin treatises on rhetoric. The causes of this impermeability
of late Latin rhetorical teaching are not easy to discern.
Many model declamations used in the later stages of rhetorical education
survive from late antiquity both in Greek and in Latin. They allow us a
glimpse into the rhetorician’s classroom. In Greek there are collections by
Libanius (only partly authentic), Himerius, Sopatros, Procopius of Gaza
and Choricius. In Latin some of the texts in the two collections of declamations
traditionally attributed to Quintilian may have been composed in
late antiquity, but they are impossible to date with precision. The eighty-one
texts in Sopatros’ Diaireseis zetematōn 26 are not complete declamations, but
analyses of the appropriate arguments and the manner of their presentation.
The same is true of some of the shorter Pseudo-Quintilianic declamations.
Such texts throw an interesting light on how the late antique teacher
of rhetoric set about his business. Two striking features are common to
both Greek and Latin rhetorical texts of the period. The first is the predominance
of forensic and, to a lesser extent, of political themes. Yet the surviving
‘real-life’ speeches of Libanius and Themistius, Procopius of Gaza
and Choricius, Dioscorus of Aphrodito and the Latin panegyrists, belong
with few exceptions to the epideictic genre – encomia, funeral orations,
addresses to rulers and the like. There is a curious discrepancy between
precept and practice, between the school and the life for which it was
intended to prepare. Even more remarkable are the themes of these model
declamations. Those dealing with political or moral themes, if in Greek, are
set either in fifth-century Athens or in the world of Demosthenes and
Alexander the Great, if in Latin, in the last century of the Roman republic.
The much more numerous forensic speeches display no knowledge of or
interest in Roman law or even the law of contemporary Greek cities. Almost
without exception they are set in a timeless world with arbitrary and often
fantastic laws. None of these model speeches, political, moral or forensic,
betrays any awareness of the Roman empire. When one reflects that a training
in rhetoric was regarded as essential both for members of city councils
and for those who aspired to play a part in the public life of their province
or of the empire as a whole, one cannot but be surprised at this hermetic
exclusion of the world in which such men were to pass their lives.
The study of philosophy was never a regular stage in the education of
the urban élite, as were grammar and rhetoric. Late antiquity, however, saw
26 Walz (1832–6) viii.1–385.
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