Apsines of Gadara (; fl. 3rd century AD) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

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 ...

ian. He was a native of the

Hellenised Hellenization or Hellenification is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language, and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonisation often led to the Hellenisation of indigenous people in the Hellenistic period, many of the te ...

city of

Gadara Gadara ( or ; ), in some texts Gedaris, was an ancient Hellenistic city in what is now Jordan, for a long time member of the Decapolis city league, a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see. Its ruins are today located at Umm ...

,Blank, David
"Philodemus"
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), accessed 3 June 2020. whose ruins stand today at the border of

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

with

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

and

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Apsines went on to study at

Smyrna Smyrna ( ; , or ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, Turkey. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna ...

and taught at

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, gaining such a reputation that he was raised to the

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...

ship by the emperor Maximinus. He was a rival of Fronto of Emesa, and a friend of

Philostratus Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus (; ; 170s – 240s AD), called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He flourished during the reign of Septimius Severus ...

, the author of the ''Lives of the Sophists'', who praises his wonderful memory and accuracy. Two rhetorical treatises by him are extant: # His Τέχνη ῥητορική ("Art of Rhetoric") is a greatly interpolated handbook of rhetoric, a considerable portion being taken from the ''Rhetoric'' of

Longinus Longinus (Greek: Λογγίνος) is the name of the Roman soldier who pierced the side of Jesus with a lance, who in apostolic and some modern Christian traditions is described as a convert to Christianity. His name first appeared in the apoc ...

and other material from Hermogenes (the scholar Malcolm Heath posits this work was actually written by

Aspasius of Tyre Aspasius () of Tyre was rhetorician and historian of Ancient Greece. According to the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia called the Suda, he wrote a history of Epirus and of things remarkable in that country (called ''On Tyre and its Citizens''), ...

); an English translation was first published in 1997. Malcolm Heath has argued (''APJ'' 1998) that the work's attribution to Apsines is incorrect. # A smaller work, Περὶ ἐσχηματισμένων προβλημάτων ("on Propositions maintained figuratively").

Editions

* Jan Bake (1849) * Spengel-Hammer, ''Rhetores Graeci'' (1894) * Mervin R. Dilts and George A. Kennedy, eds., ''Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire'' (Brill, 1997)

References

* Hammer, ''De Apsine Rhetore'' (1876) * Volkmann, ''Letorile der Griechen und Romer'' (1885)

External links

Bryn Mawr Classical Review page on Dilts/Kennedy
3rd-century Greek writers Ancient Greek rhetoricians Ancient Greek educators Rhetoric theorists 3rd-century writers Roman-era Athenian rhetoricians Ancient Smyrna 3rd-century Roman consuls Ancient Greeks in Rome Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown {{MEast-writer-stub