The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch by Cribiore Raffaella;

Author:Cribiore, Raffaella; [Cribiore, Raffaella;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781400827671
Publisher: Princeton UP
Published: 2009-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The Long and Short Paths to Rhetoric

THE DIALOGUE The Teacher of Rhetoric (Rhetorum praeceptor), by the second-century satirist Lucian, is cast in the form of an essay advising a young man who is interested in receiving a rhetorical education. Seduced by the promises of rhetoric (wealth, status, and fame), the student confronts a choice between two different paths: a traditional rhetorical education consisting of many years of strenuous training, and the new, shorter, and easier road to rhetoric, which, according to Lucian, had just been opened. The traditional teacher, who led students up the hill of learning in an ascent that would take many years, made them follow carefully in the footprints of ancient writers such as Demosthenes and Plato.1 The elegant and effeminate teacher who offered the easy and short path, however, dismissed the need for rigorous training, claiming that a sprinkling of Attic words, the careful selection of easy themes, and the imitation of contemporary models would assure success. Lucian assigned to the charlatan teacher the most outrageous attributes, yet it is likely that he based the figure on some realistic details and that the work has claims to actuality.2 This dialogue shows how literary reminiscences, imagination, satire, and the real world converge. It is not only an attack against “concert orators,”3 those sophists Lucian pretends to despise, nor is it merely a variation on the often-recurring theme that younger generations toil less than older ones. It is, in my view, a satirical acknowledgment that two different educational tracks may have already existed in the second century C.E., and that people who followed the shorter route succeeded equally well, if not better, than those who embarked on the traditional course.

This chapter is concerned with the two paths that led to the acquisition of rhetoric, and with what induced students to shorten a long and demanding process. Personal circumstances and the need to start earning, the cost of schooling, a diminished appreciation for traditional rhetoric, or satiation with an education that was somewhat out of touch with reality contributed to the urge to leave the customary path. Parents’ insistence that education should bring tangible fruits in a short time can often be verified. In all times (and especially when schooling was not partitioned in mandatory stages), families have tried to interfere with teachers’ plans. The anonymous professor who taught in tenth-century Constantinople, for example, protested that some parents wished to accelerate the learning pace of their sons contrary to reason. A bird who had not flown before—he said with rhetorical emphasis—could not fly swiftly at the start, and it was impossible for the Augean stables to be cleaned with one sweep.4 In Late Antiquity, the wish to acquire an education in rhetoric concentrated in more easily digestible pills went hand in hand with specific cultural aspects. Late Antiquity saw a proliferation of manuals that recycled and summarized knowledge, of commentaries and paraphrases that clarified a text, and of presentations of material in question-and-answer format (erotapokriseis).5 This period was also distinguished by a gradual development of specialization that peaked in the sixth century.

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