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The Thesis in the Roman Rhetorical Schools of the Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. L. Clarke
M. L. Clarke
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTH WALES, BANGOR.
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Extract

Ancient rhetoric divided the questions which concerned the orator into the definite and the indefinite, quaestiones finitae and quaestiones infinitae, the former concerned with particular persons and occasions, the latter without any such reference. To take a simple example from Quintilian, ‘Should one marry?’ is a quaestio infinita, ‘Should Cato marry?’ a quaestio finita. The distinction was introduced, or at any rate first clearly formulated, by Hermagoras in the second century B.C., and became an established part of rhetorical theory. The Greek term for the indefinite, or general, question was none of the various Latin equivalents used by Cicero attained general currency, and the Greek term prevailed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 1 , Issue 3-4 , July 1951 , pp. 159 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1951

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References

1 3. 5. 8.

2 Cic. Inv. 1. 8.

3 Quint. 3. 5. 5; cf. Cic. De Or. 1. 138; 3. 109; Top. 79; Part. Or. 4; 61; Or. 46; 125.

4 Inv. 1. 8; De Or. 2. 78; 3. III; Top. 79; Part. Or. 4.

5 Contr. 1, pref. 12.

6 2. 1. 9.

7 Rhet. 1. 5.

8 The point is not dealt with in Throm's Die Thesis, which deals in full with the general history of the thesis and its place in rhetorical theory.

9 Contr. 1, pref. 12.

10 Rhet. 1.5.

11 But Seneca himself records that Cicero declaimed at least one controversia of a thoroughly ‘new’ type: Contr. 1. 4. 7.

1 2. 1. 9.

2 2. 4. 41–2. In 2. 10. 1 Quintilian speaks of declamations as nouissime inuenta.

3 The same question is asked by Sihler in A.J.P. xxiii (1902), p. 289, but apart from saying that Quintilian cannot have meant ‘the Roman era of Cato or even of the Gracchi’, he does not answer the question.

4 Cf. Tac. Dial. 19. 1.

5 omnes ueteres et Cicero praecipue, 9. 3. 1; cf. 4. 1. 9; 6. 3. 15; 8. 5. 1, 2; 10. 1. 43; 5. 2; 7. 14; 12. 9. 5; 10. 48; 11. 5. Sometimes, however, ‘the ancients’ are the pre-Ciceronian orators: 2. 5. 23; 10. 2. 17.

6 10. 5. 11. The reference is presumably to the ‘quaedam quasi ’ with which Cicero occupied himself in 49 B.C.: Att. 9. 4.1; 9. 1.

1 Another tradition makes Aeschines responsible: Philostratus, Vit. Soph. 1, p. 481.

2 Pol. 12. 25a. 5. See Kroll, P.W., s.v. ‘Melete’. In his article ‘Rhetorik’ (P.W. Supplementband vii) Kroll writes of declamations ‘sie nahmen schon in hellenistischer Zeit einen breiten Raum im Schulbetrieb ein’ (§38).

3 Cic. Inv. 1.8.

4 Plut. Pomp. 42.

5 l.c.

6 Cic. De Or. 3. 107; Or. 46; Tusc. 2. 9; Quint. 12. 2. 25; D.L. 5. 3.

7 Borneque, , Les Déclamations et les Déclamateurs d'après Séneque le Père, p. 41, believes that theses were introduced by the Academics and Peripatetics. He suggests that Molo of Rhodes introduced controversiae to Rome.Google Scholar

8 De Or. 3. 110; Tusc. 2. 9.

9 De Or. 1.45 f.; cf. Sext. Emp. adv. Math. 2.20.

10 von Amim, Dio von Prusa, p. 89; Kroll, Rhetorik, § 20.

1 Sext. Emp. adv. Math. 2. 12; cf. Critolaus und die Rhetorik in Philodemus, Rhet., ed. Sudhaus, suppl.

2 De Or. 1. 45.

3 ‘instituit alio tempore rhetorum praecepta tradere, alio philosophorura’: Tusc. I.c. ‘apud Philonem … etiam harum iam causarum [i.e. particular as opposed to general questions] cognitio exercitatioque celebratur’: De Or. 3. 110.

4 Marx, , Ad Herennium, p. 147;Google ScholarSchanz-Hosius, , Geschichte der röm, lit. i, p. 210;Google ScholarGwynn, , Roman Education, ch. 5.Google Scholar

5 Suet. Rhet. 2.

6 e.g. 2. 12.

7 Marx, , Ad Herennium, pp. 102 f.Google Scholar

8 1. 8.

9 3. 6. 59.

10 De Or. 3. 94; cf. Suet. Rhet. 2.

1 De Or. 1. 149.

2 Id. 1. 244.

3 Id. 2. 100.

4 Id. 2. 8–9.

5 Id. 3. 107. Cicero here classes such questions not as thesis but as commonplace. Commonplaces were conventionally divided into two classes: (i) disquisitions on the heinousness of certain notorious sins and sinners, and (ii) general questions which can be argued both ways, such as the credibility of witnesses and the desirability of believing rumours (Inv. 2. 48). In the latter sense commonplace clearly borders on thesis. But in the passage of De Oratore in question Cicero seems to be guilty of a certain confusion. He speaks of this form of commonplace in terms much more appropriate to thesis, for commonplace always belonged to rhetoric, and in its second sense was confined to certain stock questions closely related to forensic practice. The confusion between the second type of commonplace and thesis was cleared up when definitions of commonplace confined themselves to the first type. See Hermogenes (Rabe) 25. 13.

6 Id. 2. 134; Or. 45.

7 Q.F. 3.3.4.

8 Brut. 322. Cf. Or. 45, where the outstanding orator who refers from the particular to the general is contrasted with the volgaris orator.

9 See Throm, , Die Thesis, p. 95.Google Scholar

10 De Or. 1. 85, 86.

1 ‘de altera parte dicendi [i.e. quaestiones infinitae] mirum silentium est.’ De Or. 2. 78; Sihler in A.J.P. xxiii (1902), p. 290.

2 De Or. 3. 110. The interpretation of this passage is notoriously difficult, but there is little doubt that the rhetoricians are referred to in this sentence.

3 Part. Or. 139.

4 Id. 61–7.

5 Id. 9; 68.

6 Kroll, , Rhetorik, § 24.Google Scholar

7 Top. 87–90.

8 Id. 2–3. The analysis of theses in De Or. 3. 111–19, similar to that in Part. Or. and Top., is awkwardly introduced and evidently not a part of accepted doctrine.

9 Suet. Rhet. 1. 5. The text is that of Robinson, Paris, 1925.

10 See Quint. 1. 9. 4, 5, with Colson's notes. For an example of this sort of chria see Diomedes (Keil) i, p. 310.

1 Chria, Quint. l.c.; apologi, i. 9. 2; narrationes, 1.9. 6; 2.4.2 f.; praise and blame, 2. 4. 20; theses, 2. 4. 24; 2. 4. 18.

2 Quint. 2. 1. 1 f.

3 Quint. 2. 1. 3.

4 See Barwick, in Hermes, lxiii (1928), p. 283; P. W., s.v. ‘Theon’.Google Scholar

5 Marx, , Ad Herennium, pp. 110 f.Google Scholar

6 Suet. Rhet. 1. 5; Gramm. 4.

7 Q.F. 3. 3. 4; 2. 4. 2.

1 De Oratore 3. 107.

2 Id. 3. 60–1.

3 In Quintilian's day the Greek rhetoricians were better in this respect than the Latin, but his complaints are echoed by Theon, probably his contemporary: Prog. 1.

4 There was, of course, truth in this, but the old general education was obtained outside the rhetorical schools, not inside them.