The first translation, produced by a team of eight scholars, of the Declamations and Preliminary Talks of the sixth-century sophist Choricius of Gaza. Declamations, deliberative or judicial orations on fictitious themes, were the fundamental advanced exercises of the rhetorical schools of the Roman Empire, of interest also to audiences outside the schools. Some of Choricius' declamations are on generic themes (e.g. a tyrannicide, a war-hero), while others are based on specific motifs from Homeric times or from classical Greek history. The Preliminary Talks were typical prefaces to orations of all kinds. This volume also contains a detailed study of Choricius' reception in Byzantium and Renaissance Italy. It will be of interest to students of late antiquity, ancient rhetoric, and ancient education.

Rhetorical Strategies in Late Antique Literature: Images, Metatexts and Interpretation is a collection of essays that survey the rhetorical tropes and the metaliterary dimension of works by important authors in a period marked by intense and thriving contact between Classical paideia and Christian culture. The contributions of this volume dissect the reuse of Classical literature and the deployment of rhetorical techniques in the creation of texts and images meant for use in cultural and religious debates by building on recent interpretations of the late antique cultural landscape as a milieu in which our understanding of religious dichotomies requires a more nuanced reassessment. The authors treated in this volume include Eusebius of Caesarea, Methodius of Olympus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Nonnus and the emperor Julian.

This book argues that narrations of rhetorical performances in late antique literature can be interpreted as a reflection of the ongoing debates of the time. Competition among cultural elites, strategies of self-presentation and the making of religious orthodoxy often took the shape of narrations of rhetorical performances in which comments on the display of oratorical skills also incorporated moral and ethical judgments about the performer. Using texts from late antique authors (in particular, Themistius, Synesius of Cyrene, and Libanius of Antioch), this book proposes that this type of narrative should be understood as a valuable way to decipher the cultural and religious landscape of the fourth century AD. The volume pays particular attention to narrations of deficient rhetorical deliveries, arguing that the accounts of flaws and mistakes in oratorical displays and rhetorical performances reveal how late antique literature echoed the concerns of the time. Criticisms of deficient deliveries in different speaking occasions (declamations, public speeches, oratorical agones, school exercises, sermons) were often disguised as accusations of practising magic, heresy or cultural apostasy. A close reading of the sources shows that these oratorical deficiencies hid struggles over religious, cultural and political issues.

Genuine Teachers of This Art examines the technê, or "handbook," tradition—which it controversially suggests began with Isocrates—as the central tradition in ancient rhetoric and a potential model for contemporary rhetoric. From this innovative perspective, Jeffrey Walker offers reconsiderations of rhetorical theories and schoolroom practices from early to late antiquity as the true aim of the philosophical rhetoric of Isocrates and as the distinctive expression of what Cicero called "the genuine teachers of this art." Walker makes a case for considering rhetoric not as an Aristotelian critical-theoretical discipline, but as an Isocratean pedagogical discipline in which the art of rhetoric is neither an art of producing critical theory nor even an art of producing speeches and texts, but an art of producing speakers and writers. He grounds his study in pedagogical theses mined from revealing against-the-grain readings of Cicero, Isocrates, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Walker also locates supporting examples from a host of other sources, including Aelius Theon, Aphthonius, the Rhetoric to Alexander, the Rhetoric to Herennius, Quintilian, Hermogenes, Hermagoras, Lucian, Libanius, Apsines, the Anonymous Seguerianus, and fragments of ancient student writing preserved in papyri. Walker's epilogue considers the relevance of the ancient technê tradition for the modern discipline of rhetoric, arguing that rhetoric is defined foremost by its pedagogical enterprise.

The turning of biblical texts into Latin poetry - biblical paraphrase - was a significant literary activity in late antiquity (third to sixth centuries AD). The most important surviving examples of this form are Juvencus and Sedulius (of the Gospels), Arator (of Acts), "Cyprianus Gallus" (Genesis to Judges), Claudius Marius Victorius (Genesis) and Avitus (parts of Genesis and Exodus). Generally described as biblical epics because they are written in hexameters and imitate pagan epic (especially Virgil), they have also been widely recognized to have drawn for their technique of composition on the rhetorical school exercise of paraphrase. Dr. Roberts analyses in convincing detail how the epic genre interacted with the biblical text through the medium of paraphrase to produce a distinctively Christian literature. He begins by offering the first modern study of paraphrase; two chapters describe its theory and practice, taking into account the standard rhetorical handbooks and recently discovered papyrological evidence. From this perspective, he analyses the types of alterations biblical epic writers made to the biblical text, thereby demonstrating the literary effects they were trying to achieve.

A new account of the emergence of the ancient rhetorical tradition, from Classical Athens to Augustan Rome.

This volume features thirty-six translated texts illustrating the use of the chreia, or anecdote, in Greco-Roman classrooms to teach reading, writing, and composition. This ancient literary form preserves the wit and wisdom of famous philosophers, orators, kings, and poets. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org).

A Companion to Ancient Education presents a series of essays from leading specialists in the field that represent the most up-to-date scholarship relating to the rise and spread of educational practices and theories in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Reflects the latest research findings and presents new historical syntheses of the rise, spread, and purposes of ancient education in ancient Greece and Rome Offers comprehensive coverage of the main periods, crises, and developments of ancient education along with historical sketches of various educational methods and the diffusion of education throughout the ancient world Covers both liberal and illiberal (non-elite) education during antiquity Addresses the material practice and material realities of education, and the primary thinkers during antiquity through to late antiquity

Redefines the role assigned education in the history of monasticism, by re-situating monasticism in the history of education.