Menander of Laodicea (‘Menander Rhetor’) is the late ancient rhetorician most familiar to modern classicists, because of the two treatises on epideictic oratory bearing his name. However, the bulk of his attested output was concerned with the practice and theory of forensic and deliberative oratory, and the overwhelming majority of ancient testimonia and fragments relate to this aspect of his work. This observation invites a reassessment of the significance of Menander himself, and of late ancient rhetoric in general: the widespread perception of late antique oratory as primarily epideictic sits uncomfortably with the predominantly forensic and deliberative orientation of Menander and other rhetoricians. I have been engaged in an ongoing research project on the history of rhetoric in late antiquity for a number of years (see Bibliography below), and am currently working on a book that will:
:Specific questions to be addressed include:
(a) What is the evidence for the life and work of Menander? No complete collection of Menander’s testimonia and fragments exists; assembling and analysing the evidence is a first priority. Analysis shows that the work cited most frequently is (by a large margin) his commentary on Demosthenes.
(b) What influence has Menander’s commentary had on the Demosthenes scholia? Distinctive interpretations attributed to Menander in other sources appear without attribution in the scholia, which must owe an implicit debt to Menander. The source-critical analysis needed to establish how extensive and direct the dependence is has only been feasible since Dilts’ edition (1983-86) provided the first critical examination of the manuscript tradition of the scholia. However, the analysis also requires expertise in rhetorical theory: the scholia concentrate on rhetorical exegesis, using the complex apparatus of issue-theory to analyse large-scale structures of exposition and argument; hence identifying mutually incompatible but internally consistent rhetorical analyses provides a powerful criterion for differentiating sources. Provisional findings indicate that the scholia conflate material from three late ancient commentaries, of which Menander is the most important.
(c) What was the nature and purpose of Menander’s commentary? Some Menandrian material in the scholia seems to originate in lectures to advanced students; inferences are possible about the students’ prior knowledge and the lecturer’s objectives and teaching methods. These passages show, not just how an ancient rhetorician read Demosthenes’ speeches, but also how he expounded them in a specific pedagogical context. Extending this analysis to the rest of the scholia promises to throw light on classroom practice.
(d) How does the evidence of the Demosthenes scholia relate to other evidence for rhetorical teaching? The evidence of the scholia needs to be integrated with other sources for teaching practice in rhetorical schools (e.g. Quintilian, Philostratus, Libanius). Moreover, establishing the pedagogical context of Menander’s commentary raises questions about the purpose(s) of technical writings on rhetoric in general, and their relation to practical pedagogy. It can be shown, for example, that extant third-century texts reflect changes in curriculum structure resulting from second-century innovations in issue-theory. Systematic investigation is likely to produce further insights into classroom practice and the evolving structure of the rhetorical curriculum.
(e) How does Menander’s commentary relate to the history of rhetoric in the third century? References to other commentators and theorists remind us of Menander’s professional context. His career falls in the evidential gap between Philostratus’ and Eunapius’ Lives of the Sophists, and between the major theoretical texts of the second/early third centuries and the later commentaries on them. This was demonstrably not a stagnant period: the production of commentaries on rhetorical textbooks (not attested before Porphyry) is itself a significant innovation. The evidence for this little-known period, though fragmentary and indirect, is more extensive and revealing than generally realised; systematic study will help identify elements of continuity and change.
(f) How did the teaching of rhetoric relate to the broader intellectual and cultural context? Many rhetoricians were major figures in other fields (e.g. Longinus, Porphyry), and the universality of rhetorical training within the social elite meant that techniques and habits of thought acquired through studying rhetoric permeated other activities. There is scope for comparing the exegetical techniques of the Demosthenes scholia with those used in literary, philosophical and Biblical commentaries. Studying rhetoric in relation to its cultural and intellectual context will also help strengthen the case for the third century as a period of continuing cultural creativity.
(g) How did the teaching of rhetoric relate to its social context? The significance of rhetorical training in the formation of cultural and class identity is widely recognised, its career relevance less so. The assumption that late ancient oratory was primarily epideictic has led some to conclude that the rhetoricians’ emphasis on forensic and deliberative oratory was academic and unrealistic; contemporary perceptions differed. The evidence for connections between rhetorical training and subsequent career paths needs further investigation.
(h) How representative is the surviving technical literature? Rhetoric was not taught exclusively by sophists, and some have tried to distinguish sophistic (academic, artificial) from non-sophistic (practical) rhetoric. But the complex usage of the word ‘sophist’ (descriptive or evaluative; laudatory or pejorative; objective or — given the highly competitive sophistic ethos — tendentious; inclusive of assistant teachers in a sophist’s school, or exclusive of distinguished experts who were not also virtuoso performers) renders this contrast elusive. A preliminary study of papyri preserving advocates’ briefs and trial transcripts, comparing the argumentative techniques used by advocates in low-level courts with those expounded in the technical literature, suggests mutually illuminating continuities between the extant theoretical texts and at least some of the relatively unsophisticated practitioners attested in the papyri. Further research is needed to substantiate this provisional finding, and to assess the significance of the material for the question of rhetoric’s career relevance.
My work on the Demosthenes scholia began in the early 90’s, while completing Hermogenes On Issues. When the question of sources arose, preliminary investigations established a hypothesis about Menander’s contribution. The attempt to reassess Menander’s significance revealed the need for a deeper understanding of the third-century history of rhetoric, and of the texts and fragments of other rhetoricians of this period. These investigations have generated a continuing series of papers on chronological and prosopographical problems, laying groundwork for the core project. From this research evidence emerged of Porphyry’s importance in the history of late ancient rhetoric (2e). The fragments of Porphyry’s tutor Longinus raised doubts about the modern consensus against Longinus’ authorship of the treatise On Sublimity; a subsidiary project on Longinus was completed in summer 1999. This detour has substantially enriched my appreciation of the third-century cultural context. A number of other preliminary papers are in progress — including studies of the fragments of Hermagoras, of the pseudo-Dionysian Art of Rhetoric, of Porphyry’s rhetorical fragments, and of the papyri containing advocates’ briefs and trial transcripts (2h).
The book that is the main output envisaged from the project (working title, Menander: a rhetor in context) will have three sections:
Malcolm Heath
University of Leeds
December 2000