The Rhctorica of Philodemus. 381 



answer that it is not persuasion but persuasion by speech which 

 is the end of rhetoric. In the absence of any indication of origin, 

 we must regard Phryne with Philo as part of the common store 

 of ilkistrations. 



Philodemus quotes several arguments which appear in none 

 of our other authors. They are of little interest or importance; 

 none of them can be traced to a source, and they can best be 

 classed with that mass of arguments which Quintilian assigns 

 without distinction to Critolaus, Athenodorus and the other 

 philosophic opponents of rhetoric. ^^ 



Both Quintilian and Philodemus devote sections of their dis- 

 cussion to proofs that rhetoric is an art. In a way this division 

 of the discussion into refutation and confirmation is artificial, 

 for most of the arguments in favor of rhetoric have been 

 exhausted in replying to the attacks of its enemies. In fact it 

 is hardly conceivable that any rhetorician was ever concerned 

 to prove that he possessed an art until the philosophers began 

 to question his position. Consequently all the pleas for rhetoric 

 are colored more or less by the criticisms of it. For example 

 Quintilian undertakes to show that rhetoric conforms to all 

 definitions of art. It has "method," it is based on a body of 

 perceptions applied to the attainment of a useful end, it involves 

 investigation and practice. But all these definitions were formu- 

 lated for controversial purposes if not for the express purpose 

 of excluding rhetoric. It has been shown how Sextus employed 

 the Stoic definition to refute the claims of rhetoric, and the same 

 argument has undoubtedly been used before. 



Philodemus carries the debate one step further than Quintilian, 

 for while the latter aims to prove that rhetoric is an art, Philo- 

 demus is equally interested in refuting arguments pro and con ; 

 for his position is that all theories of rhetoric whether advanced 

 by rhetorician or philosopher are false except those proposed by 

 his group in the Epicurean sect. There is one line of thought 

 which perhaps deserves more than cursory attention, as its 

 course can be traced with some distinctness. That is the relation 

 of rhetoric to dialectic. Aristotle had said that rhetoric was the 

 counterpart of dialectic, and made the grouping, o-vAAoyio-/xds cv- 

 dvfXYjfm, iirayiayrj irapdSeLyfxa. The same idea underlies Zeno's 



"They are Suppl. 12, 6; 13, 5; 13, 21; 14, 10; II, 83, fr. VII. 



