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Apuleius the sophist : the Florida of Apuleius in the light of the rhetorical theory of the Second Sophistic

University of British Columbia

The least studied of the works of Apuleius is beyond doubt the Florida, a collection of twenty-three fragments of his epideictic orations. This thesis examines the conformity of the work to the rhetorical theory of the second century . The first chapter is a brief examination of the origins and nature of the Second Sophistic, the Greek literary renaissance of Apuleius' time. It concludes that the Second Sophistic was as much a social as a literary phenomenon, and that the chief figures of the movement, the sophists, were more notable for the social importance they suddenly gained than for any literary originality they had. The second chapter is a survey of what is known of the life of Apuleius. Its conformity to the usual pattern of the sophist's career is demonstrated through the parallel treatment given in the chapter to the lives of two other rhetoricians of North Africa, Fronto and Augustine. The third chapter is an explanation of the nature of epideictic oratory. The relevant passages from Aristotle's Rhetoric are quoted and some indication is given of what is known of epideictic oratory before Aristotle. The growth in the importance of the genre between his time and the Second Sophistic is documented by a partial listing of the types of epideictic speech recognized in the two epideictic handbooks of the early third-century rhetorician Menander of Laodicea. The second part of the thesis opens with a brief discussion of the manuscripts of the Florida and then moves to an examination of the individual fragments with the aid of the Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian and the two treatises of Menander already mentioned. It is discovered that the fragments of the Florida can be integrated into the systems of Menander and Quintilian with little difficulty. The longer fragments can often be classed according to the types defined by'Menander; thus, in Florida i we have an instance of the epibaterios logos, in xviii and xx fragments of encomiums of a city (Carthage), and in ix part of a propemptic oration. In the longer fragments we can also see the rhetorical techniques employed by Apuleius, most of which are defined in Quintilian. Favourite among them are augmentation and the extensive use of the exemplum. Most of the shorter fragments consist of isolated exempla, many of them being anecdotes of the philosophers. All of the fragments are examined for content and for rhetorical devices employed. A brief conclusion suggests that, in view of Apuleius' Greek training and what the Florida reveals to us of his activities, he should be considered a true representative of the Greek Second Sophistic.

Text

2010-02-19

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/20506

Classics

University of British Columbia

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