Rhetoric and Oratory in the Ancient Greek world

3rd March 2014 James Cross [email protected] UCL CLIE Diploma Lecture Rhetoric and Oratory in the Ancient Greek world 1. Definition of ‘rhetoric’ fro...
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3rd March 2014 James Cross [email protected] UCL CLIE Diploma Lecture

Rhetoric and Oratory in the Ancient Greek world 1. Definition of ‘rhetoric’ from the Oxford English Dictionary: The art of using language effectively so as to persuade or influence others, esp. the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques to this end; the study of principles and rules to be followed by a speaker or writer striving for eloquence, esp. as formulated by ancient Greek and Roman writers. 2.

Then looking darkly at him Achilleus of the swift feet spoke: ‘O wrapped in shamelessness, with your mind forever on profit, how shall any one of the Achaians readily obey you either to go on a journey or to fight men strongly in battle? I for my part did not come here for the sake of the Trojan spearmen to fight against them, since to me they have done nothing. Never yet have they driven away my cattle or my horses, never in Phthia where the soil is rich and men grow great did they spoil my harvest, since indeed there is much that lies between us, the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea; but for your sake, o great shamelessness, we followed, to do you favour, you with the dog’s eyes, to win honour and Menelaos’ [wife (Helen)] from the Trojans. You forget all this or else you care nothing. And now my prize you threaten in person to strip from me, for whom I labored much, the gift of the sons of the Achaians. never, when the Achaians sack some well-founded citadel of the Trojans, do I have a prize that is equal to your prize. Always the greater part of the painful fighting is the work of my hands; but when the time comes to distribute the booty yours is far the greater reward, and I with some small thing yet dear to me go back to my ships when I am weary with fighting. Now I am returning to Phthia, since it is better to go home again with my curved ships, and I am minded no longer to stay here dishonoured and pile up your wealth and your luxury.’ Then answered him in turn the lord of men Agamemmnon: ‘Run away by all means if your heart drives you. I will not entreat you to stay here for my sake. There are others with me who will do me honour, and above all Zeus of the counsels. To me you are the most hateful of all the kings whom the gods love… Iliad, I, 148-176, trans. R. Lattimore

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Homer’s Iliad would have been sung to music. This fifth-century BC vase depiction of a kithara player gives us an impression of a Homeric singer. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) 4.

Bust of Pericles bearing the inscription "Pericles, son of Xanthippus, Athenian". Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original from ca. 430 BC (Vatican Museums)

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5. ‘…I declare that our city as a whole is an education to Greece; and in each individual among us I see combined the personal self-sufficiency to enjoy the widest range of experience and ability to adapt with consummate grace and ease. … Athens alone among her contemporary states surpasses her reputation when brought to the test: Athens alone gives the enemies who met her no cause for chagrin at being worsted by such opponents, and the subjects of her empire no cause to complain of undeserving rulers. Our power most certainly does not lack for witness: the proof is far and wide, and will make us the wonder of present and future generations. We have no need of a Homer to sing our praises, or of any encomiast whose poetic version may have immediate appeal but then fall foul of the actual truth. The fact is that we have forced every sea and every land to be open to our enterprise… … Realise that happiness is freedom, and freedom is courage, and do not be nervous of the dangers of war. … To a man with any pride cowardice followed by disaster is more painful than a death which comes in the vigour of courage and the fellowship of hope, and is hardly felt. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, II, 41-44 (excerpts) (trans. M. Hammond) 6. ...after the overthrow of the tyrants in Sicily (probably in Syracuse in 467), citizens suddenly needed to learn how to speak in assemblies and/or law courts (for example, to recover property that had been appropriated by the tyrants). Corax, and later his pupil Tisias, met this need by inventing rhetoric, the art of persuasive speech, and teaching it for a fee. One or the other or both produced a written Technē, a manual or handbook that treated the division of speeches, the argument from likelihood, and perhaps other subjects. Their achievements were made known in Athens, either by their fellow Sicilian Gorgias, who visited Athens in 427, or by Tisias himself, who is said to have taught Lysias and Isocrates among others. Their book (or books) was known to Aristotle (or to one of his pupils), who summarized the contents of all the early handbooks in his now lost Synagōgē Technōn (Collection of Arts). For later scholars this work then became the main source for the writings of Corax and Tisias, which were themselves soon lost. M. Gagarin, ‘Background and Origins: Oratory and Rhetoric before the Sophists’ in I. Worthington (Ed.) A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 30. 7. But if it was the spoken word that persuaded her and deceived her mind, it is not hard to come up with a defence for this too and to dissolve the charge as follows. The spoken word is a mighty lord, and for all that it is insubstantial and imperceptible it has superhuman effects. It can put an end to fear, do away with

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distress, generate happiness, and increase pity. I will now prove that this is so, and I must also prove it to my audience with their beliefs. ‘Speech with metre’ is my designation and description of all poetry. When people hear poetry they are affected by fearful terror and tearful pity and mournful longing, and at the successes and setbacks of others’ affairs and achievements the mind feels its own personal feelings, thanks to the spoken word. ... Inspired incantations use the spoken word to induce pleasure and reduce distress. When the power of the incantation meets the beliefs of a person’s mind, it beguiles, persuades, alters it by its sorcery. The twin techniques of sorcery and magic have been discovered – techniques which cause the mind to err and deceive beliefs. So many people have persuaded or do persuade so many others about so many things by forging false speech! Gorgias Encomium of Helen (Excerpt) (Trans. R. Waterfield) 8. SOCRATES: Well, according to these people…there’s absolutely no need for a person planning to be a competent orator to have anything to do with the truth where right or good actions are concerned, or indeed where right or good people are concerned, whether they are so by nature or nurture. They say that in the lawcourts no one has the slightest interest in the truth of these things, but only in making a plausible case; and since it is probability that enables one to do that, then this is what someone who plans to be an expert orator should concentrate on. In fact sometimes, they say, you shouldn’t even mention what actually happened, if it is improbable, but make up a plausible tale instead when prosecuting and defending. Whatever kind of speech one is giving, one should aim for probability (which often means saying farewell to the truth), because rhetorical skill depends entirely on one’s speeches being infused throughout by probability. Plato Phaedrus 272d (Trans., R. Waterfield) Suggestions for further reading T. Habinek, Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory (Blackwell Publishing, 2005). M. Gagarin, ‘Background and Origins: Oratory and Rhetoric before the Sophists’ in I. Worthington (Ed.) A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 27-36. H. Yunis, ‘Plato’s Rhetoric’ in I. Worthington (Ed.) A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 75-89. E. P. J. Corbett, ‘A Brief Explanation of Classical Rhetoric’ and ‘The Relevance and Importance of Rhetoric for Our Times’ in Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (Oxford University Press, 1965), 20-33.

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