TJic Rhetorica of Philodemus. 379 



Ktti fxrjv iirel iraaa re^vrj rjTOL kaTrjKo'; €;(et to re'Aos kol irdyiov, ws (J>l\o(to- 

 <f>La Kal ypajxiiaTLKrj, r] tov ws to ttoXv i^^ofievov, KadaTrep larptKij Tt kol 

 KvfitpvqTLKrj, htrjcrtL Kal ttjv prjTopiKrjv, uir(.p iarl T(.-)(yq, to erepov tovtwv 

 iirayyiWecrOai. If it be assumed that Philodemus is answering 

 this argument, as I think I have shown above is reasonably 

 probable, then there is no indication of the source, for Sextus 

 gives no hint of the authorship of this particular form of the 

 argument. 



Philodemus and Sextus supply us with the next argument. 

 It is stated like so many others in the form of a syllogism. 

 States do not expel those who practice arts ; some states, notably 

 Sparta and Crete, have banished rhetoricians, therefore rhetoric 

 is not an art. This appears in Philodemus four 'times, in each 

 case in a short and incomplete fragment.^* But it is given at 

 considerable length in Sextus (20-26) who reveals the course 

 of the controversy. The argument originated with Critolaus, 

 and was adopted by the academics Clitomachus and Charmadas. 

 The rhetoricians countered by attacking the major premise; 

 cities do banish artists says Philodemus. "The Spartans put 

 the ban on perfumers and dyers ; and physicians, musicians and 

 even philosophers have been considered harmful enough to be 

 banished." Sextus attempts to answer this, but has difficulty 

 in making a plausible defence. It is not philosophy as a whole, 

 he says, which suffers indignity, but only certain sects ; for 

 example the Epicureans are banished because they teach 

 hedonism. But when he acknowledges that Socrates was the 

 victim of popular judgment about the value of "arts," he 

 practically destroys his own case. 



Sextus in section 51 advances the argument wjiich is based on 

 the definition of rhetoric as iinaTijfxr] tov ev X^yuv, a definition 

 formulated by Xenocrates and adopted by the Stoics (Sextus 6). 

 Every artist can speak well, he says, about his own art, but this 

 speaking does not make him a rhetorician. The argument is an 

 old one; it is hinted at in the Gorgias, but not fully developed. 

 Just what was the history of the argument till the time of Philo- 

 demus we can only conjecture, for none of our authors mention 



"I, 14, fr. V; I, 16, fr. IX; II, 65, fr. II; II, 100, fr. Ill; it occurs 

 also in Quintilian II, 16, 4 in connection with the discussion of the useful- 

 ness of rhetoric, but without reference to its bearing on the controversy 

 over Tixvr]. 



