The Rhetorica of Philodemus. 255 



aTLKT], pr]TopiKr] ill the Strict sense including" forensic and delibera- 

 tive oratory, and TroAtrtK?? or political science/'' Of these three 

 only o-ot^to-TiKT; is used in a technical sense, which apparently 

 originated with the Epicureans, and is restricted to the study 

 of the principles of composition, with special reference to epi- 

 deictic oratory. It is placed on a level with poetics and might 

 be called the art of prose writing. I, 122. 29 = Suppl. 61, 12 . . . 



Kar dXrjdeiav rj crocjiLa-TLK-t] prjTopLKjj tc^vt) ti<; laTLV rrtpi re ras eTrtSet^eis 

 otas avTOt TTOLOvvTai, kol ras tcov Xoywv Sta^e'crets, olwv avTol ypd<f>ov(TLV 



T€ Kol a)^t6Ld^OV(TlV. ^ap.€V TOiVVV TO paOo^LKOV €^€LV aVTYjV, OV TToXv Si 

 KaOdlT€p OVOk Tip' TTOLrjTLKt'jV. 



To the other two branches, prjTopiK-j in the narrow sense and 

 ttoXltlkt], he denies the position of an art. They lack the essential 

 characteristic, namely a definite set of principles which can be 

 imparted from teacher to pupil. Quite the contrary, ability in 

 oratory and politics is the result of practice and experience. 

 The successful public speaker may be compared to a good mer- 

 chant, a hunter, or even a successful thief. ^' All succeed, how- 

 ever, as a result of their own skill based on experience, and their 

 occupations cannot be called arts in the sense in which we speak 

 of music as an art. 



Similarly o-o^to-r?;? means an epideictic orator, and by a natural 

 enlargement of its semantic area, a teacher of epideictic oratory ; 

 and (To<f>taT€veiv means to teach or practice epideictic. This mean- 

 ing of "sophist" is quite dififerent from that current down to 

 the fourth century. The development of meaning has been 

 worked out by Brandstatter,^^ and need not be repeated here 

 except so far as it afifects our immediate discussion. Brand- 

 statter infers from the fragments of Philodemus that Epicurus 

 was the first to use "sophist" and related words in this sense,, 

 and that it became a part of the technical vocabulary of the 

 school in the writings of Hermarchus and Metrodorus. But 

 an examination of the passages on which he based his conclusion 

 (I, 78, 2-19; 78, 19-85, 19; 85, 27-89, 10; 120, 10; 120, 22) 

 will show that Philodemus nowhere quotes from Epicurus an 

 example of the use of the word. The passages are in some 



'"11,245.6. 



" I, 74, 13. 



^* Leipziger Studien, 1894. 



