In the closing chapter, however, the perspective seems rather to be Roman. The 'philosopher's ' view that high oratory has been destroyed by loss of freedom seems to reflect
the transition from Republic to Principate. The author's 'reply' to this then takes the debate away from political revolutions to personal ethics, but makes the point, clearly
directed against his imagined opponent, that 'people like us' are perhaps better under control, lest our greed ruin the world. The combination of Greek and Roman
perspectives is confusing, but typical of this bilingual culture.
The Uses of Formal Prose
The carefully fostered, and minutely monitored, arts of prose -were used in this period for a wide range of purposes.
First, and most importantly, for history, as the preceding chapter has explained.
Secondly, for oratory. This was of course the original primary function; but critics such as 'Longinus' were clearly right in their perception that the age no longer offered
political rewards for the orator. The great trials and debates in which Cicero's contemporaries had re-enacted the dramas of the Demosthenic age were in the past; imperial
causes celebres were less earth-shaking. First-century Roman oratory anyway is lost to us; we do not know how significant or innovative it was, and the classicizing revival
at the end of the century caused a change of taste which consigned it to oblivion. We do, however, have two important dated works from the second century: Pliny's
Panegyricus (102) and Apuleius' Apologia (157/8: below, pp. 692 ff.) The 'panegyric', spoken by Pliny as consul in the Senate before Trajan, shows -what Quintilian's
Ciceronianism, with a strong element of 'silver' ingenuity and point, could achieve in the 'epideictic' or ceremonial mode. The 'apology', in which Apuieius defends himself
on a charge of using magic to secure the affections of a wealthy widow, shows forensic oratory turning into pure literature, a vehicle for verbal virtuosity, frivolous
erudition, and emotive rhetoric. Pliny is of course inspired by the values of Roman public life, and Apuleius is steeped in old Latin learning; but they both exemplify here a
Greek phenomenon, the use of rhetoric for entertainment, the typical activity of the 'sophists' of the age.
The history of oratory throughout this period is in fact much more a Greek than a Latin theme. Dio Chrysostom-that is, 'the golden-mouthed'-a leading citizen of Prusa in
Bithynia, orator and moralist, harangued the citizens of Rhodes and Alexandria, calming passions and rebuking folly, around the end of the first century A.D. Polemo of
Laodicea, Favorinus of Aries, Herodes Atticus, and many others went on embassies, pleaded cases, taught pupils, and entertained multitudes with their ingenious historical
or grimly comic fantasies, all in the Greek of Demosthenes or some other early classic. This period, with its celebrated travelling virtuoso orators, is often called the 'Second
Sophistic': the great speakers were idolized like pop-stars. In the sight of posterity it has often seemed a vanity; in its time, it was a literary and social movement of great
influence and significance.
A third use of Kunstprosa breaks new ground. This is the age in which what may be called the 'essay' flourished as a recognizable, though unnamed, literary form. Very
many of the works of Seneca, Dio, Lucian, and Plutarch are best so described. They are short discourses, often dealing with ethical questions, but sometimes with literature
or education or some antiquarian matter. They are, as a rule, very personal in tone, in the sense that the persona of the writer is prominent, though they admit also much
allusive learning and literary elaboration. In style, they tend to the less periodic. Several traditions went to the making of this class of writing. One was that of the
philosophical dialogue, not in the form Plato generally preferred, but in that used by Aristotle, with long speeches instead of sharp question and answer. The dialogue
continued to be written throughout our period-Cicero, Tacitus, and Plutarch were notable practitioners-but its techniques and even its name (dialogus) were also applied to
works in which the element of conversation was not present. Another ancestor was the less polished popular sermon or moral address-'diatribe' is the modern scholars' word-
which seems to have flourished in Hellenistic times, and is especially associated with the Cynics. Bion of Borysthenes, acknowledged by Horace as an exemplar for his
satire, certainly contributed to the technique of imagery and anecdote which Seneca and Plutarch deployed with such lavishness and enthusiasm. Though these urbane
essays were, for the most part, philosophical in tone and content, this does not mean that they did not sometimes come within the province of the rhetorician. Philosophical
theses-'on providence', 'on marriage', and the like-were an established part of the elementary rhetorical curriculum. Moreover, the popularity of the casual-sounding address
led the teachers of rhetoric to lay down precepts for it much as they did for formal speeches; they called it lalia, 'chat', and prescribed simple style, an anecdote or simile to
capture attention at the start, and studied concealment of rhetorical and logical structure.
Barely separable from the 'essay' is the letter (the fourth use), for the 'essay' is often cast in epistolary form. The letter was, however, a recognized genre, for which we have
intelligent and careful instructions in the treatise of Demetrius On Style, probably to be dated around the beginning of our period. Artemon, who had published the letters of
Aristotle, had said that the letter was 'one side of a dialogue'. Demetrius (223 ff.) disagrees: the dialogue-writer imitates an extempore speech, the letter is 'sent as a gift' and