Rhetorica ad Herennium

The "Rhetorica ad Herennium" may be the oldest surviving Latin book on rhetoric. (Scholarly consensus now suggests that Cicero's "De Inventione" was published earlier.) It contains the first known description of the method of loci, a mnemonic technique.

Written by an unknown author early in the first century BC, it has often been attributed to Cicero (it was written close in time to Cicero's "De Inventione"), but most scholars feel that it is not his work. Others have held that it is the work of Cornificius [e.g. Petrus Victorius, 1582; Tolkiehn, 1919; Kroll, 1934] but the issue has never been satisfactorily resolved. It is most likely that the treatise is actually a set of lecture notes copied down by the young student of an unknown teacher of rhetoric at Rhodes, which was at that time the ancient world's center of rhetorical studies.

The work was not known in ancient times, but it was widely copied and read during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was commonly used, along with Cicero's '"De Inventione", "to teach rhetoric, and its popularity is evidenced by the large number of surviving manuscripts — over one hundred are extant." "It was also copied extensively into European vernacular languages, and served as the standard schoolbook text on rhetoric during the Renaissance."

The work's importance to the art of rhetoric lie neither in its innovation nor in its depth. The rhetorics of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian are far more important and influential works. Its success lies in focusing less on the philosophical underpinnings of rhetoric and more on practical applications and examples. This straightforward approach is no doubt what made it such an influential work in later times.

Another important aspect is that it presents a glimpse into the development of Latin rhetoric. It is clearly Greek in its doctrine, and synthesizes the ideas of many Hellenistic predecessors, including Isocrates, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Hermagoras. Yet, its discussion of elocutio (style) is the oldest surviving systematic treatment of Latin style, and many of the examples are of contemporary Roman events. This new style, which flowered in the century following this work's writing, promoted revolutionary advances in Roman literature and oratory.

The "Ad Herennium" also provides the first complete treatment of memoria (memorization of speeches).

Notes

References

*"Rhetorica ad Herennium" (with an [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Rhetorica_ad_Herennium/home.html English translation] by Harry Caplan). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1954. (Note: despite the fact that the preface by Caplan repeats the case that the work is not by Cicero, its title page bears his name in brackets, a common sign of forgery or false ascription, to indicate the traditional association, and it is often cataloged under Cicero's name for the same reason).
*"Rhetorica ad Herennium" (Friedrich Marx, ed. "Prolegomena in editio maior" .), Tuebner, Leipzig, 1923.
*Golla, Georg. "Sprachliche Beobachtungen zum auctor ad Herennium", Breslau, 1935.
*Kroll, Wilhelm. "Die Entwicklung der lateinischen Sprache", "Glotta" 22 (1934). 24-27.
*Kroll, Wilhelm. "Der Text des Cornificius", "Philologus 89 (1934). 63-84
*Tolkiehn, Johannes. "Jahresbuch des philologischen Vereins zu Berlin" 45 (1919)