Friday, 23 January 2009
The Laconic School of Rhetoric
Since antiquity, Greek rhetoric has been viewed as having three schools: the grand style, associated with Thucydides, the plain style, represented by Lysias, and the middle style, epitomised by Demosthenes.
In this very humourous passage from Herodotus (III.46), however, we have evidence of a fourth, Laconic, school of rhetoric:
Ἐπείτε δὲ οἱ ἐξελασθέντες Σαμίων ὑπὸ Πολυκράτεος ἀπίκοντο ἐς τὴν Σπάρτην, καταστάντες ἐπὶ τοὺς ἄρχοντας ἔλεγον πολλὰ οἷα κάρτα δεόμενοι· οἳ δέ σφι τῇ πρώτῃ καταστάσι ὑπεκρίναντο τὰ μὲν πρῶτα λεχθέντα ἐπιλελῆσθαι, τὰ δὲ ὕστατα οὐ συνιέναι. Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα δεύτερα καταστάντες ἄλλο μὲν εἶπον οὐδέν, θύλακον δὲ φέροντες ἔφασαν τὸν θύλακον ἀλφίτων δέεσθαι. Οἳ δέ σφι ὑπεκρίναντο "τῷ θυλάκῳ" περιεργάσθαι· βοηθέειν δ᾽ ὦν ἔδοξε αὐτοῖσι.
Apparently, the Spartans weren't big on oratory :-)
