The RJiciorica of Philodemus. 281 



had been written, and referred to these works by this name with- 

 out granting that they accompHsh their purpose; if any one 

 possesses the powder of persuasion, it is responsible for evil and 

 not good. With these arguments he thinks that he proves that 

 those who believe any part of rhetoric to be an art are inconsistent 

 with Epicurus. 



I wonder at the perplexity of the pupils of that "philosopher I, 95, 18 = 



of Athens." If they cared to know where this doctrine was laid ^"PP^- 4d> 



29. 



down they might have consulted the philosophers at one of the 

 meetings of the school on the twentieth of the month, or any of 

 the regular associates of Zeno, who lives in Athens, not in Persia. 

 In order to satisfy their desire we have presented the passages 

 which we claim prove that the so-called sophistic rhetoric is an 

 art, and is not a part of rhetoric ; for the divisions of rhetoric 

 are not as he assumes throughout his work, panegyric, political 

 and forensic any more than the genus dog is divided into the 

 species sea-dog and land-dog. 



We forgive the man for having written so much against our 

 position ; we should not have mentioned it except to show what 

 strange things philosophers sometimes do. "But I desire to 

 know," you will say, "who wrote that book"? Not Zeno.^' 



Our claim that the Isocratean orations and those of like char- I, 99, 5b = 

 acter are not composed without method is especially attacked in ^"PP^- 4o, 

 the passage, "Epicurus believed that there was no art of per- 

 suading large bodies of men; that those who are not rhetoricians 

 sometimes are more persuasive than the rhetoricians ; that those 

 trained in panegyric are less able to face the tumult of the 

 assembly than those who have no rhetorical training; that 

 Epicurus spoke of arts, and said that those acquainted with them 

 were benefited, but did not mean that this enabled them to attain 

 the end; if anyone possesses the power of persuasion it is 

 responsible for evil and not for good." 



But the arguments of Epicurus which prove that there is no 

 art of politics do not prove that the sophists do not possess 

 some other art. We shall select certain passages from the 

 Symposium of Epicurus which support our view. T, 102, 21 = 



In order to represent the young man as being refuted when ^o^^ ' ^^' 



" Philodemus was the author of the book (his Hypomnematicon) 

 which had been attacked on the supposition that its author was Zeno. 



