The brief re-emergence of the debate between the philosophers and the sophists in the previous section raises another feature of Hellenistic rhetoric, that is, the respective roles of the philosopher and the orator in Greek society. The issue was certainly not decided during this period, for it rears its head regularly during the Roman imperial period, in such works as Philostratus’ Lives of the Philosophers. Even in the fourth century AD, Themistius and his contemporaries still disagreed about the role of the philosopher in the realm of rhetoric. Essentially, this debate centred on the right to make moral and other types of judgements in speeches. As in Plato’s castigation of the sophists for their inattention to morality and attention to technique, philosophers continued to hold that only they had the uprightness as well as the independence of mind to deliver certain types of judgements. Rhetores, to them, were little more than technicians dependent on favour and patronage for success and reputation, thus rendering favourable remarks, about a ruler, for example, very suspect. In contrast, by virtue of being philosophers, they had parrhesia, often translated as ‘freedom of speech’, but better defined as independence of mind unencumbered by the vicissitudes of fortune; when a philosopher praised a ruler, to use the same example, his judgements were true and valid, not suspect. Orators naturally disagreed, in the belief that they were fully capable of making judgements that were valid and true, and indeed that they had the right, even the obligation, to do so.
In practical terms, this dispute is most directly relevant to speeches On Kingship in the Hellenistic period. Though, as usual, very little of that oratory survives, it is clear that rulers often heard speeches on the concept of kingship, and more often than not they were praised in these orations. That was accomplished in different ways, varying from pure flattery to the description of an ideal king, with whose characteristics the royal subject of an oration is inevitably compared favourably. The latter approach was designed to avoid charges of pure flattery, for a king is not praised solely because he is king, but rather at one remove, as a reflection of the ideal; this approach has a Platonic flavour for that reason. Naturally, an orator could construct his ideal king with precisely those characteristics that his oration’s subject possessed, as has been argued for Dio Chrysostom’s orations for Trajan.23 Themistius illustrates this point even more clearly: his speeches to a series of emperors paint different pictures of the ideal that emperors emulated or were to emulate, primarily by emphasizing particular virtues for particular emperors.24 On occasion, he even calls an emperor a philosopher because he displayed a specific virtue. To illustrate the larger point, some of Themistius’ contemporaries regarded him, partly because of the nature of his speeches, partly because he took an active role in politics, as no more than a flatterer,25 and at two periods in his life, he felt compelled to insist that he was a philosopher with parrheesia.
The earliest surviving Greek orations on kingship are Dio Chrysostom’s speeches for Trajan early in the second century AD. Despite the lack of specific evidence, these speeches reflect the development of views on kingship by philosophers and rheetores during the Hellenistic period. Dio Chrysostom was both an orator and a philosopher, and his remarks had a validity in philosophical circles that a rhetor’s statement would not have; indeed, they were an important basis for Themistius’ orations.26 Dozens of orators and some philosophers delivered similar speeches during the Hellenistic period, and each group considered its own statements perfectly valid, though philosophers were not much enamoured with rheitores’ treatments of this theme, for they felt that rheitores were poaching in their territory. Their claims to independence of thought were largely attempts to occupy some high moral ground in this dispute, because philosophers also felt it important not to become too involved in political activity; addresses to kings inevitably put them in that arena.
Over time, three categories of practitioner developed: the rhltOr, the sophist, and the philosopher. While this was a development of the Hellenistic period, it is best evident in the first and second centuries AD, the period usually called the Second sophistic.27 A rhOtor was purely a technician, while a sophist was either a highly accomplished rhOtOr or an orator with a philosophical mien (or both). Thus Herodes Atticus, widely regarded as the best orator of his day, and Dio Chrysostom could both be considered sophists, though the latter is sometimes considered a philosopher or a sophist who became a philosopher. In terms of moral authority, philosophers sometimes conceded to sophists the capacity to hold parrhOsia and the right to make moral judgements. Inevitably, the definitions are not precise and depend on perspective: the same individual might be considered a sophist by one person and a philosopher by another, and self-definition played a part as well. Consequently, this division into three categories helped little in resolving disputes over territory and may have exacerbated them.
The schools of philosophy approached rhetoric somewhat differently from each other. As already noted, much of the impetus for the nature and theoretical aspects of Hellenistic rhetoric originated with the Peripatetics, who presumably lost some influence in purely technical matters as these areas came more and more under the control of rhetoricians. The Academy accommodated itself over time to the existence of rhetoric, but remained cautious, especially in regard to the questions of the authority to make moral judgements and to undertake active roles in politics. Despite contributions to grammatical theory and literary criticism, the Stoics contributed little to developments in rhetoric, except in the sense that their philosophical perspectives might filter down into arguments and moral judgements. In fact, this was generally true of all philosophical schools: each was influenced by the others, and some elements of each became part of the paideia of the Hellenistic world. A proper education, even without specific training in philosophy, instilled elements of philosophy in students during their years in school.
The Cynics’ approach to rhetoric, like their approach to most else, was different, for they simply did not adhere to established rules. They cared little for the niceties of social discourse, and cared equally little for the niceties of verbal discourse, tending rather to say exactly what they thought without the adornment of rhetorical technique. Indeed, Cynic philosophy was by nature opposed to the trained and artificial eloquence created by the system of education, though many Cynic philosophers had experienced a quality education of the normal type. Their pronouncements (the term orations is perhaps a misnomer) were straightforward, to the point, and often annoying. On one hand, Cynic philosophers might be said to have been the true possessors of parrhOesia because of their unwillingness to be influenced by external factors; on the other, they exercised not so much an independence of thought as a deliberate desire to create an effect on their audiences, a perspective that goes a little beyond what parrhltsia was intended to signify.28 Nevertheless, itinerant Cynic philosophers did have an effect in the long term: their methods of addressing audiences and castigating them with a view to improving the moral condition of society have justifiably been seen as playing an important role in the development of religious preaching.
World History
