‘Decline’ and ‘flourishing’ of oratory and literary rhetoric? A comparative study of Hellenistic and imperial Greece

我的项目旨在对公元前322年至公元240年之间的希腊修辞和演讲进行历时的地平线之旅：根据传统观点，公元前322年之后，希腊演讲失去了最初的功能，即发表政治和司法演讲(事实证明，几乎没有连续的文本存在)。然而，最近的研究将这一时期视为修辞传统的重要组成部分，但仍缺乏全面的调查。相比之下，帝国时期，特别是公元60年至公元240年(被称为“第二智者派”)，被视为希腊文学和演讲的更新。但由于学者们主要关注精英演说家及其社会地位，重要方面仍有待调查。由于对希腊化著作的零碎证据和对第二智者的特殊特征的关注有所保留，修辞学在一个连续的传统内经历了变化的事实在很大程度上被忽视了。这项研究将表明，修辞和演讲在希腊化文学和社会中的作用比通常认为的要多得多。为此，我将第一次收集和分析手头的相关文学和纪录片文本，包括纸莎草和碑文。重新评估古代文学批评的叙述和关于艺术、宗教等衰落的精选陈述将揭示，第二智者派是一种从古典到帝国时代不受干扰的传统的延续，即使政治和社会框架发生了变化。

My project is intended to be a diachronic tour d’horizon of Greek rhetoric and oratory between 322 BC and 240 AD: According to the traditional view, after 322 BC Greek oratory lost its original function, i.e. delivering political and juridical speeches (proven by the fact that nearly no continuous texts are extant). Recent studies, however, have treated this period as significant part of the rhetorical tradition—but a thorough investigation still is lacking. By contrast, the Imperial period, especially the period from 60 to 240 AD (known as ‟Second Sophistic“), is regarded as renewal of Greek literature and oratory. But since scholars have concentrated on elite orators and their social status, important aspects are still to be investigated. Due to reservations concerning the fragmentary evidence of the Hellenistic writings and a focus on the particular features of the Second Sophistic, the fact that rhetoric rather underwent changes within a continuous tradition was largely overlooked. The study will show that much more than often assumed can be stated about the role of rhetoric and oratory in Hellenistic literature and society. For this purpose, I will collect and analyze for the first time the relevant literary and documentary texts at hand, including papyri and inscriptions. A revaluation of narratives of ancient literary criticism and selected statements about the decay of art, religion etc. will reveal that the Second Sophistic is rather a continuation of a tradition that runs without disruption from the classical to the Imperial age, even though the political and social framework changes.