The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric

This book provides the first translations in English and a preliminary analysis of the commentaries on the chreia chapter in Aphthonius's standard Progymnasmata, a classroom guide on composition. The chreia, or anecdote, was a popular form that preserved the wisdom of philosophers, kings, generals, and sophists. Aphthonius used the chreia to provide instructions on how to construct an argument and to confirm the validity of the chreia by means of an eight-paragraph essay. His treatment of this classroom exercise, however, was so brief that commentators needed to clarify, explain, and supplement what he had written as well as to situate the chreia as preparation for the study of rhetoric-the kinds of public speeches and the parts of a speech. By means of these Byzantine commentaries, we can thus see more clearly how this important form and its confirmation were taught in classrooms for over a thousand years.
"This is the third and final volume of the Chreia in Ancient Education and Literature Project sponsored by the Institute of Antiquity and Christianity at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. The first volume, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric: The Progymnasmata, appeared in 1986 and introduced and translated the chreia chapters from all the extant Progymnasmata as well as some related texts. The second volume, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises, was published in 2002, and introduced and translated the various classroom exercises that used the chreia during the primary and secondary stages of the curriculum but especially during the third, or rhetorical, stage where elaborating a chreia became the principal exercise for students to undertake"--Introduction.