Menander Rhetor ( el, Μένανδρος Ῥήτωρ), also known as Menander of
Laodicea ( el, Μένανδρος ὁ Λαοδικεύς), was a
Greek rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
ian and
commentator of the 3rd or 4th century AD.
Two incomplete treatises on epideictic speeches have been preserved under his name, but it is generally considered that they cannot be by the same author.
Bursian attributes the first to Menander, whom he placed in the 4th century, and the second to an anonymous rhetorician of
Alexandria Troas
Alexandria Troas ("Alexandria of the Troad"; el, Αλεξάνδρεια Τρωάς; tr, Eski Stambul) is the site of an ancient Greek city situated on the Aegean Sea near the northern tip of Turkey's western coast, the area known historically a ...
, who possibly lived in the time of
Diocletian
Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles ...
. Others, from the superscription of the Paris manuscript, assign the first to
Genethlius of
Petra
Petra ( ar, ٱلْبَتْرَاء, Al-Batrāʾ; grc, Πέτρα, "Rock", Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: ), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is an historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to t ...
in
Palestine
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Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
.
In view of the general tradition of antiquity, that both treatises were the work of Menander, it is possible that the author of the second was not identical with the Menander mentioned by the ''
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...
''; since the name is of frequent occurrence in later
Greek literature. The first treatise, entitled ''Division of Epideictic Styles'' (Διαίρεσις τῶν Ἐπιδεικτικῶν), discusses the different kinds of epideictic speeches; the second, ''On Epideictic Speeches'' (Περὶ Ἐπιδεικτικῶν), has special titles for each chapter.
Text in
L Spengel's ''Rhetores graeci'', iii
329446, and in C Bursian's "Der Rhetor Menandros und seine Schriften" in ''Abhandl. der bayer. Akad. der Wissenschaften'', xvi. (1882); see also
Wilhelm Nitsche, ''Der Rhetor M. und die Scholien zu Demosthenes'';
JE Sandys, ''Hist. of Classical Scholarship'' (1906), i. 338;
Wilhelm von Christ, ''Gesch. der griechischen Litteratur'' (1898), 550.
See also
*
Byzantine rhetoric
References
* Heath, Malcolm ''Menander: A Rhetor in Context''. Oxford:
OUP, 2004. Secondary study.
* Russell, D.A. and N.G. Wilson (edd.) ''Menander Rhetor''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Text, translation and commentary.
*
{{Authority control
Ancient Greek rhetoricians