The Rhetorica of Philodemus. 279 



in regard to the art of the rhetoricians, it can hardly be said that 

 it produces rhetors." Then he adds, "Callistratus and others 

 spoke satisfactorily before the assembly about the public interests 

 without having studied the rix^rj of Thrasymachus or of any one 

 else." Elsewhere he says that those who teach the art of speak- 

 ing do not speak themselves ; it is ridiculous, to suppose that one 

 man possesses the theory, and another the power, of speaking. 



(Lacuna) 

 A little later he says, "One who purposes to speak in public will 

 not seek the teacher who after giving theoretical instruction is 

 not able to see the next step ; but with an eye solely to the task 

 to be accomplished will fulfill by himself the purpose of the art, 

 and will let no chance escape of becoming a better orator." 



An outline of the history of the controversy which Philodemus dis- 

 cusses in the next section may enable the reader to understand some of 

 the points to which he alludes in very obscure language. Philodemus was 

 the pupil of Zeno, an eminent Epicurean who taught at Athens in the 

 latter part of the second and early part of the first century B. C, and 

 attained great eminence among his contemporaries, if he was not actually 

 head of the school. Cicero attended his lectures at the advice of Philo, 

 and admired his style ; Non igitur ille, ut plerique, sed isto modo, ut tu, 

 distincte, graviter, ornate. De Nat. Deor. I, 21, 59. His style is alluded to 

 by Diogenes Laertius, VII, I, 35, fat voriaai. Kal ip^jL-qvedaai <ra<i>ris- he was 

 evidently interested in style, and this interest served to distinguish him 

 from the average Epicurean. Philodemus s"hared his master's interest in 

 elegance of style as we may conclude from Cicero's remarks; (In Pis. 

 28, 68) Homo . . . humanus . . . Est autem hie, de quo loquor non 

 philosophia solum, sed etiam ceteris studiis quae fere ceteros Epicureos 

 negligere dicunt, perpolitus ; poema porro f acit ita f estivum, ita concin- 

 num, ita elegans nihil ut fieri possit argutius. It was this literary interest 

 which led Zeno to make a collection of passages from Epicurus, Her- 

 marchus and Metrodorus, which he thought proved that the leaders of 

 the school considered sophistic rhetoric an art. He limited the province 

 of the art, however, so as to include only the writing of a speech, par- 

 ticularly of an epideictic oration such, for example, as the orations of 

 Isocrates, and excluded all power of rhetoric to persuade in the fields 

 of forensic and deliberative oratory. The quotations, as far as they can 

 be recovered from Philodemus, are not convincing; still it must be 

 acknowledged that while Zeno might not have been able to quote chapter 

 and verse from Epicurus in support of his view, he was in spirit true 

 to Epicurean principles. For Epicurus, at least in his exoteric writings, 

 paid attention to clearness if not, indeed, elegance of style." 



" v. Usener, Epicurea, p. XLII. 



