Apsines

For other uses, see Apsines (disambiguation).

Apsines of Gadara (Ancient Greek: Ἀψίνης ὁ Γαδαρεύς; fl. 3rd century AD) was a Greek rhetorician. He was a native of the Hellenised city of Gadara,[1] whose ruins stand today at the border of Jordan with Syria and Israel. Apsines went on to study at Smyrna and taught at Athens, gaining such a reputation that he was raised to the consulship by the emperor Maximinus. He was a rival of Fronto of Emesa, and a friend of Philostratus, the author of the Lives of the Sophists, who praises his wonderful memory and accuracy.[2]

Two rhetorical treatises by him are extant:

  1. His Τέχνη ῥητορική ("Art of Rhetoric") is a greatly interpolated handbook of rhetoric, a considerable portion being taken from the Rhetoric of Longinus[2] and other material from Hermogenes (the scholar Malcolm Heath posits this work was actually written by Aspasius of Tyre);[3]

an English translation was first published in 1997. Malcolm Heath has argued (APJ 1998) that the work's attribution to Apsines is incorrect.

  1. A smaller work, Περὶ ἐσχηματισμένων προβλημάτων ("on Propositions maintained figuratively").[2]

Editions

References

  1. ^ Blank, David, "Philodemus", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), accessed 3 June 2020.
  2. ^ a b c  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Apsines". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 232.
  3. ^ Heath, Malcolm (2004). Menander: A Rhetor in Context. Oxford University Press. pp. 56–60. ISBN 9780199259205.
  • Hammer, De Apsine Rhetore (1876)
  • Volkmann, Letorile der Griechen und Romer (1885)


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