Anonymus Seguerianus or Anonymous Seguerianus is the name given to an

unknown Unknown or The Unknown may refer to: Film and television Film * The Unknown (1915 comedy film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 comedy film), Australian silent film * The Unknown (1915 drama film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 drama film), American silent drama ...

author that has left us an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

al treatise titled the ''Art of Political Speech'' () that was probably written in the first half of the third century CE.M. R. Dilts (ed.) & G. A. Kennedy (ed.), ''Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire: Introduction, Text, and Translation of the Arts of Rhetoric Attributed to Anonymous Seguerianus and to Apsines of Gadara'', Brill, 1997, pp. x-xxi. The work survives in a single twelfth century

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

that was discovered in 1838 in the Royal Library in Paris by the French scholar Nicolas Séguier,

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de St. Brisson, from whom the work's author takes its name.M. R. Dilts (ed.) & G. A. Kennedy (ed.), ''Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire'', 1997, pp. xi, xxi. Two years later Séguier published the first edition of the work. In 1891 Johann Graeven edited a new edition in which he advanced the theory that the work could be attributed to the third-century rhetorician Cornutus and that the extant treatise should be considered an

epitome An epitome (; , from ἐπιτέμνειν ''epitemnein'' meaning "to cut short") is a summary or miniature form, or an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment. Epitomacy represents "to the degree of." A ...

of the original work.M. R. Dilts (ed.) & G. A. Kennedy (ed.), ''Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire'', 1997, pp. x-xi. While the theory of Cornutus' authorship has not proved popular the idea that the work should be considered an abridgment of a longer work is still debated. According to George A. Kennedy the author should be considered a student who simply put together a compilation compilation rhetorical invention that probably put together the work using previous sources (mostly Alexander Numenius together with Neocles and Aelius Harpocration) simply for his own use. To make their point more persuasive they also notice that the anonymous never advances any opinion of his own, as would be expected from a teacher; an interpretation that was strongly opposed by Michel Patillon, who instead sees him as an original author who is presenting his own interpretation of common doctrine.M. R. Dilts (ed.) & G. A. Kennedy (ed.), ''Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire'', 1997, pp. xi-xiii. Previously Julius Brzoska writing in the ''

Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft The Pauly encyclopedias or the Pauly-Wissowa family of encyclopedias, are a set of related encyclopedias on Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman classical studies, topics and scholarship. The first of these, or (1839–1852), was begun by compiler A ...

'' argued that "only by accepting that this work is an epitome can one understand and explain the multiple abbreviations, additions, deletions, repetitions, displacements, misunderstandings." Julius Brzoska, "Anonymi 8) 2. Anonymus Seguerianus", I: 2, in ''

'', 1898, pp. 2328-2330: "''Nur bei der Annahme einer Epitome kann man die vielfachen Kürzungen, Zusätze, Streichungen, Wiederholungen, Versetzungen, Missverständnisse verstehen und erklären''" On a similar vein, more recently Malcolm Heath rebutted Kennedy answering that it "remains virtually certain that the text which Séguier discovered is a shortened version", observing that an anonymous Greek

commentary Commentary or commentaries may refer to: Publications * ''Commentary'' (magazine), a U.S. public affairs journal, founded in 1945 and formerly published by the American Jewish Committee * Caesar's Commentaries (disambiguation), a number of works ...

to Hermogenes' ''De inventione'' preserves the same sources of the Seguerianus and presents them in the same way but also quotes content absent from the extant book, thus indicating that the commentator used a more extensive text.

References

{{Authority control 3rd-century literature Works of unknown authorship Rhetoric works Ancient Greek works Political philosophy in ancient Greece