by Scott McGill
Writing in the fourth century BCE, Plato recommends that the end purpose of “compil[ing] anthologies of the poets and mak[ing] collections of whole passages, which…must be committed to memory,” is not only to enable a student to gain wide familiarity with literature but also “to make…a good and wise [individual] of him [or her]” (Leg. 810e–812a [Bury]). In his pedagogical treatise Ad Demonicum, Pseudo‐Isocrates suggests that noble behavior results from a mind filled “with many noble maxims; for, as it is the nature of the body to be developed by appropriate exercises, it is the nature of the soul to be developed by moral precepts” (Ad Demonicum 12 [Norlin]). In the first century of the Common Era, Plutarch submits that teachers should be chosen on the basis of their ability to select and set “precepts and exhortations beside the young, in order that [children’s] characters [might] grow to be upright” (De liberis educandis 4C [Babbitt]). Affirming commensurate practice, in his fourth‐century regulatory corpus, Basil of Caesarea assigns iterative work with moral maxims, sayings, and exemplary stories to the “common children” of his fledgling monastic community (Reg. Fus. 15 [Clarke]; cf. Gregory Nazianzen, Vita Macrina 3). Like his predecessors, he notes that rehearsal of such content will not only inculcate fluid command of common compositional forms but also insure “that the soul…be lead to practise [sic] good immediately and from the outset, [and] while…still plastic and soft, pliable as wax, [be]…molded by the shapes pressed upon it” (Basil, Reg. Fus. 15 [Clarke]; cf. Morgan 2007; Larsen 2013a, 2013b).
29.3 The “Forms” of Late Antique Literary Architecture
Just as a premise of radical rupture has governed the positive and negative valence ascribed excerpted literary extracts, it has also shaped assessment of the structures used in reworking this content. Here, tradition has designated common forms of literary content as either grammatical or moral, rhetorical or spiritual (cf. Marrou 1956; Rappe 2001; Wilken 2012). However, challenging an interpretive spectrum perennially defined by fundamentally disparate media and goals, it is the case that both technical and ethical aims remain endemic to the ancient/late ancient habits of “thinking and writing” learned in school (Kennedy 2003; cf. Larsen 2001, 2008; 2013a; 2013b; 2016; 2017). These links are particularly well illustrated in the spectrum of ancient and late ancient rhetorical handbooks that remain extant. Dated from the first century of the Common Era through late antiquity (and beyond), a burgeoning record of established practice invites tracing the dissemination of both reworked moral content and structural models.
The earliest handbook that survives is the first century compendium of exercises (gymnasmata) attributed to Theon of Alexandria (Theon, Gymn. [Kennedy 2003, pp. 1–72]). Theon likens work with the included media to learning pottery on a simple pot rather than on a huge storage jar (Gymn. 59; Quintilian, Inst. 1.9.1; cf. Hock and O’Neil 1985, p. 21). Reference to commensurate practice in Quintilian’s relatively contemporary commentary indicates that Theon’s handbook is not the first of its kind (Hock and O’Neil 1985, p. 10). In second‐ and third‐century sources, three other compilations are named. The handbooks of Paulus of Tyre and Minucianus of Athens are no longer extant, but a third, attributed to Hermogenes of Tarsus, survives (Progymn. [Kennedy 2003, pp. 73–88]).
It is late antiquity, however, that marks a “flowering of [the] genre” (Hock and O’Neil 1985, p. 11). Many handbooks are no longer extant. However, the Suda assigns to this period the elementary exercises (progymnasmata) of Epiphanius of Petra, Onasimus of Cypris, and Ulpian of Emessa. Elsewhere, a lost set of strategems is attributed to one Syrianus. The handbooks of Sirikius of Neapolis and Sopater, presumably of Apamea, have been identified in fragments. Two additional treatises, the preliminary exercises of Nicolaus of Myra (Progymn.[Kennedy 2003, pp. 129–172]) and Aphthonius of Antioch (Progymn. [Kennedy 2003, pp. 89–127]), are preserved intact.
Of these, Aphthonius’s handbook became the unrivaled standard as a source for model classroom media, “first in the Greek East and then in the Latin West” (Hock and O’Neil 1985, p. 11). In both contemporary and subsequent commentary, his singular status is often attributed to the exemplary models he includes for each exercise (cf. Hock and O’Neil 1985, pp. 211–216). An anonymous prolegomonist names Aphthonius’s exercises “clearer than…others and more easily learned,” because while “others set out the bare methods without examples [and so make] the study of the progymnasmata difficult for students at the introductory level, Aphthonius…describe[s] the methods as clearly and distinctly as possible.” Through “illuminat[ing] what he says with examples, [Aphthonius] has [additionally] made his work more adapted and appropriate to the needs of the young” (Prol. 79 [Kennedy 2003, pp. 94–95]).
Nonetheless, even as Aphthonius’s handbook became standard, its sequences might be viewed as something of a palimpsest, retaining the residual imprint of earlier models. For example, enduring influence is apparent in the late ancient resequencing of Theon’s foundational models to align with Aphthonius’s emergent reordered arrangement. Such reconfiguration arguably underscores Theon’s continued relevance. Like the subsequent acclaim generated by Aphthonius’s own models, the detailed explication included in Theon’s early compendium appears implicitly foundational to late ancient classroom deployment. In fact, viewed together, the two handbooks serve as functional complements, elucidating persistent patterns that link instructional media with literary production in space and over time.
As conduits of “methodical and instrumental knowledge” (Prol. 79 [Kennedy 2003, p. 95]; cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 6.1), both handbooks serve as repositories of uniformly iterative and variably consistent structures. Each introduces the classical forms of “literary architecture” through work with the core media of maxim, chreia, fable, and narrative. Albeit variable with respect to details and sequencing, the same four building blocks remain foundational to more advanced practice in refutation, confirmation, commonplace, encomion, invective, syncrisis, ethopoeia, ekphrasis, thesis, and law. Apthonius’s late antique formulation reorders Theon’s first‐century sequencing of chreia, fable, and then narrative. Instead, he begins with fable (mythos), then moves to narrative, chreia, and then maxim. He likewise renders discrete Theon’s elision of maxims and chreiai into two categories. As encountered in extant literature, however, requisite fluidity remains inherent.
29.3.1 Maxim
Both Theon and Aphthonius agree that any elaborative exercise involving the maxim should proceed in a manner that incorporates elements similar to those employed in expanding the chreia. In his early handbook, Theon blends the maxim (gnômê) and the chreia into a single compositional category. Simultaneously, he differentiates the two forms in multiple ways (Gymn. 96–97 [Kennedy 2003, p. 15]). Although Aphthonius identifies the maxim as a separate medium, he functionally defines the form relative to the chreia (Progymn. 25–26 [Kennedy 2003, pp. 99–100]). For example, echoing Theon’s more particular distinctions, Aphthonius affirms that a maxim differs from a chreia in that a “chreia sometimes reports an action, whereas a maxim is always a saying.” Additionally, “a chreia needs to indicate a person (as speaker or doer), whereas a maxim is uttered impersonally” (Progymn. 26 [Kennedy 2003, p. 100]; cf. Theon, Gymn. 96–97).
Aphthonius further delineates maxims as protreptic, apotreptic, or declarative; simple or compound; credible, true, or hyperbolic (Progymn. 25–26 [Kennedy 2003, pp. 99–100]). In elucidating the foundational fluidity of the form, the exemplar he selects to illustrate the “apotreptic” maxim underscores the literary character of even the simplest grammatical/progymnasmatic sequences: “A man who is a counselor should not sleep all the night” (Progymn. 25 [Kennedy 2003, 99]; cf. Il. 2.24). In its original narrative setting, this excerpt introduces a well‐rehearsed exchange that takes place on the eve of the epic battle recounted in the Iliad. Here, the line is delivered by an apparition of Nestor, in a “dreamy” visit to the beleaguered Agamemnon (Il. 2.24–25). As redeployed in classroom settings, the same statement (or fragment) appears
as one of a collection of maxims, which doubled as key components in exercises aimed at adept reformulation and elaboration.
29.3.2 Chreia
Both Theon and Aphthonius emphasize the degree to which the maxim is related in form to the chreia. Theon defines the chreia as “a brief saying or action making a point, attributed to some specified person, or something corresponding to a person.” He suggests that every brief maxim attributed to a person creates a chreia, further distinguishing a reminiscence as an “action or a saying useful for life” (Theon, Gymn. 96 [Kennedy 2003, p. 15]). He gives the following example:
Alexander the Macedonian king stood over Diogenes as he slept and said:
“To sleep all night ill suits a counselor” (Il. 2.24)
And Diogenes responded:
“On whom folks rely, whose cares are many.” (Il. 2.25)
Aphthonius melds these disparate aspects, more cryptically describing the chreia as “a brief recollection, referring to some person in a pointed way” (Progymn. 23 [Kennedy 2003, p. 97]).
However, the commonality that links Apthonius’s exemplary maxim with Theon’s model chreia effectively illustrates the fluid character of these intimately related forms. Adeptly rearticulated, the same Iliadic excerpt used to elucidate the maxim (and vice versa) readily serves as a double‐chreia, comprised of “statements by two persons, each of which might as readily constitute a simple chreia by one person” (Gymn. 98 [Kennedy 2003, p. 17]).
Subsequent redeployment of this content is as interesting. One encounters the reattributed exchange between Alexander and Diogenes, in the philosophical discourses of Epictetus (Diss. 3.22.92). More striking, however, is the notation of Timaios, a third‐century scribe who includes an allusion to the literary setting of the maxim in a letter to his master Heroninos (P. Flor. II.259; cf. Cribiore 1996, pp. 6–7; 2001, p. 179). To underscore the urgency of a certain matter needing immediate attention, Timaios pens an excerpt from the lines that preface Nestor and Agamemnon’s nocturnal conversation (Homer, Il. 2.1–2). Preserved in the margin of a routine business document, one finds, “All the other gods and men, lords of chariots, were sleeping the whole night through, but Zeus could not have sweet sleep” (P. Flor. II.259; cf. Il. 2.1–2).
Each of the handbooks in question more broadly classifies the chreia as “verbal,” “active,” or “mixed.” Theon’s early treatise likewise includes additional delineation within these general categories (Theon, Gymn. 96–106 [Kennedy 2003, pp. 15–47]; cf. Aphthonius, Progymn. 23). This attaches to a graded set of exercises (gymnasmata), aimed at improving compositional dexterity and skill. Theon frames these as a series of discrete activities (Theon, Gymn. 101–106 [Kennedy 2003, pp. 19–23]; cf. Hock and O’Neil 1985, pp. 35–41, 94–107). With commensurate goals, Aphthonius outlines a single ergasia. This is organized according to a sequence of set “headings.” As enumerated, elaboration comprises “praise, paraphrase, cause, contrary, comparison, example, testimony of the ancients, [and/or a] brief epilogue” (Progymn. 23–25 [Kennedy 2003, pp. 98–99]; see further discussion below).
29.3.3 Fable
Theon places the fable third in his elementary sequence of exercises. Aphthonius uses this form to introduce his sequence. Both define the fable as “a fictitious story [or statement] giving an image of truth” (Theon, Gymn.72 [Kennedy 2003, p. 23]; cf. Aphthonius, Progymn. 21). The essence of the form is captured in practice that shifts from “imaginative falsehood” to something “sometimes false, sometimes true” (John of Sardis, Comm. 35–36 [Kennedy 2003, p. 194]). Theon downplays typological distinction based on whether a fable retains a human or animal protagonist. However, Aphthonius suggests that a fable can be “rational,” “ethical,” or “mixed,” depending on whether “a human being is imagined as doing something [rational]” or whether “the [ethical] character of irrational animals” is represented (Progymn. 21 [Kennedy 2003, p. 96]). To illustrate, he presents an “ethical” fable about cicadas and ants:
It was the height of summer and the cicadas were offering up their shrill song, but it occurred to the ants to toil and collect the harvest from which they would be fed in the winter. When the winter came on, the ants fed on what they had laboriously collected, but the pleasure of the cicadas ended in want. Similarly, youth that does not wish to toil fares badly in old age.
(Progymn. 21 [Kennedy 2003, p. 96])
Emphasizing the fable’s qualitative merit, both Theon and Aphthonius commend its use “for the sake of the moral” (Aphthonius, Progymn. 21 [Kennedy 2003, p. 96]; cf. Theon, Gymn. 73).
In ancillary commentary penned “no earlier than the late fifth century,” and before the middle of the ninth (Kennedy 2003, p. 173), John of Sardis defends Aphthonius’s placement of the fable at the start of the progymnasmatic sequence. He suggests that by virtue of offering “a glimpse of the three species of rhetoric…judicial…deliberative…[and] encomion,” the fable “encompass[es] the seeds of all the art” (Comm. 11 [Kennedy 2003, pp. 180–181]). He additionally foregrounds the fable as a medium that “teaches students how to achieve plausibility” (Comm. 34 [Kennedy 2003, p. 193]), suggesting that the same skills deployed in making “speeches suitable for the supposed characters in a fable” (Comm. 34 [Kennedy 2003, p. 193]) remain essential to more advanced composition (Comm. 34 [Kennedy 2003, p. 193]).
29.3.4 Narrative
The medium of narrative (diêgêma) is uniformly defined as “language descriptive of things that have happened or as though they had happened” (Theon, Gymn. 78 [Kennedy 2003, p. 28]); cf. Aphthonius, Progymn. 22). In his early treatise Theon identifies six essential elements: “the person, whether that be one or many; the action done by the person; and the place where the action was done; and the time at which it was done; and the manner of the action; and sixth, the cause of these things.” As enumerated, the “virtues” of narrative are “clarity, conciseness and credibility” (Theon, Gymn. 78 [Kennedy 2003, p. 28]).
To illustrate, Theon draws examples from familiar stories (Gymn. 80–96 [Kennedy 2003, pp. 29–42. Aphthonius, recounts “concerning the rose” (Progymn. 22 [Kennedy 2003, p. 97]). However, the features that distinguish fable from narrative are equally well illustrated in a late ancient monastic reframing of Aphthonius’s exemplary fable. As reconfigured, this melding of grammatical and rhetorical, moral and spiritual is not only repackaged in an alternate medium but also repopulated with human protagonists:
A brother visited Abba Silvanus at Mount Sinai; he saw the brothers working and said to the elder, “Labor not for the meat that perishes” [John 6:27]. “Mary has chosen the good part”’ [Luke 10:42]. The elder said to Zachariah, his disciple, “Give the brother a book and put him in a cell without anything else.” So when the ninth hour [time] came the visitor watched the door, expecting someone would be sent to call him to the meal. When no one called him he got up, went to find the old man and said to him, “Have the brothers not eaten today?” The old man replied that they had. Then he said, “Why did you not call me?” The old man said to him, “Because you are a spiritual man and do not need that kind of food. We, being carnal, want to eat, and that is why we work. But you have chosen the good portion and read the whole day long and you do not want to eat carnal food.” When he heard these words the brother made a prostration saying, “Forgive me, abba.” The old man said to him, “Mary needs Martha. It is really thanks to Martha that Mary is praised.” (AP_G Silvanus 5 [Ward])
In this “rational” recounting, rather than singing cicadas and diligent ants, one meets a “spiritually” minded visitor juxtaposed with Abba Silvanus and his hard‐working monks (persons). The narrative action is plausibly set at Mount Sinai (place). It is framed by the daily rhythms of monastic life (time). The manner and cause of respective protagonists’ actions are “clearly,” “concisely,” and “credibly” woven into the details of the narrative itself.
29.4 Classroom Practice
As illustrated here, set handbook exercises could be used to transform even the most f
amiliar content to address a new historical circumstance and/or audience. Blurring the clear compositional lines that have differentiated between the simple wisdom of rustic monks and the sophisticated rhetoric of elite authors, they affirm the scope of well‐masked, shared practice. Both chronologically and geographically, such confluence argues against adhering to established dichotomies. Instead, it underscores the degree to which a text’s prospective audience is refracted in the literary details that infuse the standard media being deployed. That such pedagogically informed, “habits” are mirrored in extant literary sources should not surprise. However, material examples of late ancient classroom practice also affirm broad continuity that reflects established protocol (cf. Larsen 2013a, 2016, 2017).
29.4.1 P. Bouriant 1
Of school exercises dated to late antiquity, the content included in the notebook preserved as P. Bouriant 1 is particularly well researched (and well recognized). It is comprised of classroom content so quintessential that only the chrism included on each page serves to indicate Christian provenance. First published by P. Jouguet and P. Perdrizet in 1906 (cf. Carlig 2016), the notebook includes practice that begins with an extensive collection of syllabically categorized word lists. Affirming foundational use of forms elsewhere encountered in progymnasmatic handbooks, this is followed by a reading/pronunciation exercise comprised of five chreiai attributed to Diogenes. Next, one meets a full set of twenty‐four, alphabetically sequenced maxims, followed by material drawn from the preface to the fables of Babrius.