Hermogenes on Issues: Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric.

• Author: Sullivan, Robert G.

Much of contemporary argumentation theory - despite the strenuous efforts of many writers to situate it within a post-modern frame - remains an appendix to the ancient accounts of argument, especially those found in the rhetorical arts. To a large extent this has consisted of the development of more or less Aristotelian themes, and particularly such notions as the common topics, informal logics, fallacy theory, figures of thought, and the like. Important as they are, such concepts as these represent only a part of the store of systematic argument theory that stood in ready supply to ancient rhetoricians. Every bit as central to ancient understanding of argument, but not, as yet, fully exploited by contemporary theorists, was what we have come to know as stasis theory, or as it is often called, the theory of causes or issues. The theory of issues was an important historical development of the rhetorical canon of invention, specifying methods for determining the nature of disputes, and associating these dispute types with concrete lines of argument. Issues were theorized at a high level of sophistication in antiquity in both the Greek and Latin rhetorical traditions - the Greek term for which is stasis (plural staseis), the Latin equivalents being status or constitutio.

The earliest surviving descriptions of issues theory come from the Latin rhetorical artes. We have full accounts of status from the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.18-27, 2.2-26; Cicero's De Inventione 1.10-19, 2.12-end; De Oratore 1.139ff, 2.104-13; De Partitiones Oratoria 98-108; Topica 93-96; and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria 3.5-6, 7.2-end. Each of these are variants on Greek originals, the best known of which is that of Hermagoras (2nd c. B.C.), whose fragments have been edited and painstakingly systematized by Dieter Matthes (1958, 1962). Issues theory evolved over time and across traditions of rhetorical practice and education, and remained a central facet of argumentative invention throughout rhetoric's pre-modern history.

In the second century A.D. the rhetorician Hermogenes produced his Peri Ton Staseon (rendered by Heath as On Issues, a convention I will follow for the remainder of this review) as a part of his comprehensive rhetorical techne, and represented the theory of issues in a highly developed form. His version of the theory was tremendously influential, and was, in turn, made the subject of an enormous corpus of commentary and explication during Late Antiquity and the Byzantine era. This treatise has intrinsic interest to argument theorists, and marks an important stop in the evolution of rhetorical invention. It should be of central importance for historians and theoreticians of rhetoric and argumentation. It has not, however, attracted the amount of scholarship that its status would indicate.

Reasons for this lack of attention can be located, in large part, in the Hermogenean text itself. On Issues has no pretensions to literary excellence. The treatise is poorly composed, pursues its subject in a highly compressed fashion, is devoid of any artistic relief, and must stand as one of the more dreary reads in the canon. In addition, the treatise is incomprehensible without an expert command of rhetorical vocabulary or a powerful gloss. The technical vocabulary is not only obscure, but Hermogenes often shifts the meaning of terms, sometimes radically, between uses, and one must be adequately sensitized to these mercurial nuances. Even readers of Greek have tended to avoid the work. Heath notes that the last systematic commentary on this treatise was written in the 16th century. Previous to the volume under review, the only complete English translation in print was that of Ray Nadeau (1964). Nadeau's work was admirable in many respects but would have greatly benefitted from recent scholarship which has helped to clear up many historical...