Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action

Ian Worthington, Ian Worthington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134892679
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Greek rhetoric, in its diverse forms and impact on its contemporary context, is central to an understanding of ancient culture. The influence and exploitation of rhetoric in ancient times and modern reactions to it are the focus of this book. In recent years there has been a renaissance in the study of Greek rhetoric and oratory, informed by modern political sociology and discourse analysis. This book, bringing together the work of leading scholars in the field, examines the relation of ancient oratory and rhetoric to a variety of historical contexts and literary genres at both the theoritical and practical levels, at the same time reflecting new trends and ideas now at work

Part I

COMMUNICATING

1

From orality to rhetoric: an intellectual transformation

Carol G.Thomas and Edward Kent Webb

Early in the Phaedrus, after Phaedrus has read Lysias’ speech on love, Socrates opens his own speech on the subject with the invocation:

Come then, ye clear voiced Muses, whether it be from the nature of your song, or from the musical people of Liguria that ye came to be so styled, ‘assist the tale I tell’ under compulsion by my good friend here, to the end that he may think yet more highly of one dear to him, whom he already accounts a man of wisdom.

(237a–b)¹

Socrates begins the account only to interrupt himself, asking, ‘Well, Phaedrus, my friend, do you think, as I do, that I am divinely inspired?’ When Phaedrus replies ‘Undoubtedly, Socrates, you have been vouchsafed a quite unusual eloquence’, Socrates bids him ‘listen to me in silence. For truly there seems to be a divine presence in this spot, so that you must not be surprised if, as my speech proceeds, I become as one possessed; already my style is not far from dithyrambic’ (239c–d).

Socrates represented so many and differing images to his contemporaries that modern scholars must continue to seek the ‘real’ person. Even so, from the perspective of historical development, there is some agreement on at least one point: it is not uncommon to find Socrates described as a pivot between two phases of ancient Greek culture. Victor Ehrenberg ended his study of classical Greece with Socrates; F.M.Cornford saw the history of philosophy in terms of Before and After Socrates. We believe that Socrates’ actions recorded in the Phaedrus are yet another illustration of his stance astride two ages with their quite differentintellectual attitudes. This position serves nicely, we think, to demonstrate the origins of the art of rhetoric. Socrates begins his discourse as one inspired by the Muses; he interrupts that discourse to question its effectiveness. These actions define two of the essential elements of formal rhetoric: oratory or actual speech, on the one hand, and the study of the theory and technique of speaking, on the other. The development that made oratory selfconscious by transforming the conception of speech was a new employment of writing. The transformation was sudden, occurring during Socrates’ lifetime. His prayer for inspiration is a clue to the basic nature of the change.

This account will open with the role of oratory in ancient Greece, both in shaping the various aspects of Greek life and as indicative of a pre-rhetorical conception of the spoken word. Then, we will turn to the impact of increased reliance on written communication on the accumulated body of remembered tales, songs and accounts. Finally, the legacy of both parents—oratory and written analysis—will be viewed in the final product, the rhetorical theory of Plato and of Aristotle.

ORALITY AND POETICISED SPEECH

‘Greek society relied on oral expression’, George Kennedy states at the beginning of his survey of Greek rhetoric: ‘Although literacy was clearly extensive in fifth- and fourth-century Athens, even then reading and writing, whether on stone, bronze, clay, wood, wax, or papyrus, was difficult and unnatural. Both the mechanics of ancient civilisation and its primary expression remained oral’ (Art of Persuasion, p. 3). The recognition of the predominantly oral character of ancient Greek society, a prominent thread in the tapestry of Kennedy’s account of Greek rhetoric, has quietly found its way into many descriptions of the origins of rhetoric, causing little debate. In the same year that Kennedy’s study appeared, however, Eric Havelock’s Preface to Plato (Oxford: 1963) broadcast a similar view of the mechanics of Greek civilisation. Havelock’s account, by contrast, aroused passionate contention from its date of publication. The ‘lively and iconoclastic mind’ of this ‘maverick’ argued for the persistence of oral communication through virtually the whole of classical Greece.² Only towards the end of the fifth century, Havelock maintained, were the habits fostered by reliance on oral communication giving way to written communication. Plato’s attack on Homer and poetry shows the conflict between the practices of literacy and orality. Until the end of the fifth century, oral, traditional modes of thought served as the foundation of Greek life and culture.

There is still no unanimity of opinion concerning the book’s central thesis even as it was restated in Havelock’s final book, The Muse Learns to Write (New Haven: 1986). For Murray, it ‘begins to look as if Havelock was right after all in his basic contention’, while in the eyes of T.J.Winifrith the book ‘tries to provoke and merely succeeds in irritating’.³ What can be agreed is that Havelock’s advocacy of the fundamental role of oral communication in Greek culture has stimulated much interest in the issue. His views on the intellectual consequences of orality remain points of serious contention.⁴ On the underlying question of the extent of literacy in the early Greek world, William Harris’ recent Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass.: 1989) inclines the balance in favour of Havelock’s position. After a thorough survey of the evidence for literacy in ancient Greece, Harris concludes that even in Athens in the second half of the fifth century the rate of literacy did not exceed 10 per cent of the Attic population; for most states the percentage was even lower.⁵

The recognition of oral communication’s central place in Greek society has significance for those who have searched for the origins of rhetoric. As natural speakers, rhetors, it comes as no surprise that the Greeks discovered the art of speaking, rhetoric. Its usual history is entwined with the newly established democracy in Syracuse during the second quarter of the fifth century which generated a need for training in the art of public speaking. Tisias and Corax, said to have produced the first handbooks on effective speaking in court, are credited with early responses to the need. In 427 the trail led to mainland Greece when Gorgias, a Sophist from Leontini, brought the art to Athens, where democratic processes caused it to flourish. From there, it passed on to the rest of antiquity. Such an interpretation assumes that the essential cultural and intellectual elements of rhetoric were present within the archaic and early classical periods—a ‘protorhetoric’, as it were—and needed only the right political circumstances to produce the formal and distinct practice of rhetoric. While recognising rhetorical theory as an important new development, this view sees the emergence of rhetoric as essentially an expression of cultural continuity.

This explanation has been rigorously challenged in a recent study by Thomas Cole, Origins of Rhetoric, who argues an alternative, ‘revolutionary’ interpretation of rhetoric’s origins. Cole claims that the doxographical tradition attributing the creation of rhetoric to Tisias and Corax is erroneous. Because their handbooks were probably simple illustrations of contemporary oratory and not analyses of oratory in general, the two Sicilians’ contribution to the art of rhetoric was minimal. Although the gradual spread of rhetorical texts is important in Cole’s interpretation, it does not alone constitute the beginning of rhetoric. Instead, rhetoric was established as an art (techne) of speaking when Plato and Aristotle combined the study of manner with that of matter. In other words, an understanding of effective speech and knowledge of one’s subject were equally essential to rhetoric. Since both Plato and Aristotle felt that truth derived from dialectical reasoning, Cole demonstrates how their arguments bound rhetoric and philosophy together inextricably. Throughout antiquity and even into the modern age, rhetoric was defined in Platonic and Aristotelian terms, determining the prerequisites for its very existence.

Cole’s argument is rigorous, his analysis of the evidence is thorough and, according to the criteria of Plato and Aristotle, it correctly places the origins of rhetoric almost a century later than the usual date. If, however, one sees rhetoric not only as an achievement in theory and practice, but also as an intellectual development from which practice proceeded and theory arose, it is necessary to modify Cole’s construction. By viewing rhetoric as an intellectual attitude, Cole’s conception of the revolutionary change from pre-rhetorical to rhetorical Greece remains valid. However, the location of this shift from an unreflective conception of speech to one of self-conscious speech-making should be moved back to the traditional date of rhetoric’s origins in the middle of the fifth century.

The Greeks’ reliance on oral communication not only shaped the processes and institutions of their society, but also influenced their conception of speech itself. In the archaic and early classical world where the ability to read and write—even at Athens—was rare, and written texts even rarer, the spoken word assumed great burdens. One of the greatest was the preservation of important information. The need to be understood, even listened to, meant that expression was a vital skill. Words pleasing to the ear, woven together with eloquence, were more memorable than those without aesthetic merit. When Pindar sang, ‘aboard the Muses’ chariot I beg the eloquence that this occasion needs’ (Olympian 9.79–81), he was voicing a general principle of ancient Greek life as well as honouring one man with a paean. A good measure of eloquence was needed so that ‘winged words’ would endure within another’s memory. Even martial Tyrtaeus knew the value of ‘a sweetly speaking tongue’ (12.8).

The necessity for mellifluous verbal expression meant that speech was judged by the degree of charm it conveyed. The criteria by which we assess and classify oral communication—elements of speech, techniques of speaking and speakers’ intentions—did not apply in this pre-rhetorical age. The first definition of poetry according to its metrical aspect, for example, did not appear until the second half of the fifth century when Gorgias stated that ‘all poetry is simply speech with metre’ (Helen 9).⁶ Prior to this declaration, there is a telling absence of any analysis or criticism of poetic technique or form. Nor is there any suggestion that a clear distinction existed between poetic and prose speech. Not one of the early Greeks mentions the idea that there exists a type of speech that is not poetic; and before the fifth century no example of prose composition survives.

What does survive is comment on the quality of speech, a tendency suggesting that speech was conceived as a spectrum of progressive quality. Often such comments come in the form of a metaphor evoking sensory pleasure. Nestor’s words flow sweeter than honey (Iliad 1.251) and Hesiod’s good judges advise with soft words in order to bring harmony to the community (Theogony 89–90). Even the voices of the Sirens, which brought death to those who listened, are described in similar terms (Odyssey 12.187). The immediate pleasurable effect on the listeners determined a speech’s effectiveness. The greater the effect of a speaker’s words, the higher upon the spectrum of eloquence his speech fell. The words of men like Nestor, Odysseus and Hesiod’s good judges, who could hold the attention and shape the attitudes of their auditors, occupied the higher end of the spectrum. The words of less noted, more laconic speakers like Menelaus fell somewhere below (Iliad 3.212–215).

Poetic speech, however, claimed the top of the spectrum. And poets were the most eloquent speakers. According to Greek legend, poetic skill was of divine origin: in order to assuage an angry Apollo, Hermes created the lyre and the speech appropriate to accompany its musical notes (Homeric Hymn to Hermes 4.420– 435).⁷ The Muses were the patrons of poetic speech and of those who practised it. The daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus actively aided mortal singers and were not simply mythical personifications of a poet’s abilities.⁸ The Muses’ contribution to the poet was often a grant of special knowledge. As Mnemosyne’s children they could give a mortal access to vast, divine memory. On Hesiod, who calls himself a mere shepherd in the fields of Boeotia, they bestowed accounts of the gods and the past ages of the world. The poet of the Iliad and Odyssey begins with a general prayer for assistance to ‘the Muse’ (Mousa) in the Odyssey, to ‘the goddess’ (thea) in the Iliad. The singer of the Iliad requires fresh inspiration from the Muses to recount the Greek forces at Troy (2.484) and yet another nudge to recall the best and bravest (2.761).

The invocations and references to the Muses show that divinity was felt to be responsible for other aspects of the poetic performance.⁹ Beyond stories, the Helicon Muses inspired (

) Hesiod to sing and taught (

) him how to do so (Theogony 31, Works and Days 662).¹⁰ Although Pindar repeatedly claimed that he possessed natural poetic ability, he required the Muses’ inspiration to begin a song which his skills would then carry forward. Twice he uses the image of a gust of wind that fills a waiting sail in alluding to their gift to him (Pythian 11.39; Nemean 3.26).¹¹ In the Homeric Hymns, the Muses are regularly invoked to sing (Hephaestus), are thanked for inspiration (The Muses, Apollo) or are asked for information (Pan, Aphrodite). Phemius requires their inspiration but, at the same time, claims that he is self-taught (autodidaktos: Odyssey 22.346–347). The Phaeacian bard Demodocus, by contrast, is inspired and has been instructed in his art (Odyssey 8.480–481).

The marked presence of divinity in poetic speech was not limited to bards but was a far more general phenomenon. Skill in speaking was a gift of the gods granted to men other than specialists in the art of singing. As Odysseus reminds Eurylaus (Odyssey 8.166–173):

Friend, that was not well spoken, you seem like one who is reckless. So it is that the gods do not bestow graces in all ways on men, neither in stature nor yet in brains or eloquence; for there is a certain kind of man, less noted for beauty, but the god puts comeliness upon his words, and they who look towards him are filled with joy at the sight, and he speaks to them without faltering in winning modesty, and shines among those who are gathered, and people look on him as a god when he walks in the city.¹²

The gift was exceedingly valuable for it, along with skill as a fighter, defined a hero. Odysseus himself is compared to a singer by Eumaeus as that servant recounts his meeting with the hero to Penelope: ‘But as when a man looks to a singer, who has been given from the gods the skill with which he sings for delight of mortals, and they are impassioned and strain to hear it when he sings to them, so he enchanted me in the halls as he sat beside me’ (Odyssey 17.518–521). Odysseus has skills equal to a poet and his words have similar effects, but he is better known as king of Ithaca and renowned warrior at Troy.¹³

The brilliance of a speaker can be measured by the effect his words have on his audience. When Demodocus sings of the sack of Troy and the sufferings of the Achaeans, Odysseus is rendered helpless with grief (Odyssey 8.521–533). Nestor’s speeches, among the most eloquent in the epics, are very like a bard’s song. They consist of stories of the past which are as entertaining as they are persuasive or informative. As Cole has recognised (Origins of Rhetoric, p. 39), the tale Nestor relates often subsumes any message the Pylian king wished to convey (Iliad 1.254–284). Nestor’s sheer volubility is also consistent with the picture of a bard who, once inspired, can sing for long stretches of time. Odysseus, too, holds forth before an assembly of men for...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Part I: COMMUNICATING
• Part II: APPLICATIONS
• Part III: CONTEXTS
• Bibliography