Progymnasmata

The 14 Series of Exercises

The exercises in the progymnasmatic series as described by Aphtonius are briefly set out below:

1. Fable (mythos) is a composition which is false but gives the semblance of truth. Fables are distinguished into: Aesopic, Sybaritic, Lydian, and Phrygian, all of which are eclipsed by the Aesopic, which is associated with Aesop. Aphthonius distinguishes three forms: rational, involving a human being; ethical, involving an animal; mixed, involving both. A moral prefixed to a fable is a promythion; a moral affixed to the end is called epimythion. Generally, the exercise took the form of assigning the student to write a simple fable in imitation of Aesop.
2. Narrative (Diêgêma) is an exposition giving an account of things which has happened or as though they had happened. Narration (Diêgêsis), which is said to be different from narrative; is the narration of a speech and ordinarily sets forth a series of actions; a narrative, merely describes only one. Its divisions are dramatic, or fictious; historical, based on “ancient report”; and pragmatic, which is used by orators in their contests. The constituent elements, as derived from Aristotle’s categories, are of six types: agent, action, time, place, manner, and cause. The virtues of narrative are three: clarity, brevity, persuasiveness. Some rhetors tend to make it four, adding “purity of language”.
3. Chreia (anecdote) is a brief saying or action attributed to some character in a pithy form. It is called chreia “Grk. chreiôdês, useful”. Divisions are verbal–reporting a saying and an action, action–reporting an edifying action; mixed–a combined reporting of a saying and an action. Students were not expected to invent a chreia; they were given a saying or a description of an action by a famous person and expected to work it out by writing a paragraph expanding and developing the meaning with the following headings: praise of the chreia; paraphrase; statement of the cause, example of the meaning; contrast and comparison; testimony of others; epilogue. The chreia selected as an example by Aphthonius is “Isocrates said that the root of education is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
4. Maxim (gnômê) is a general declarative statement, recommending or condemning something. The headings are the same as those of the chreia. An example of maxim used here is adapted from a couplet by Theognis: “The victim of poverty should throw himself into the yawning sea or, my Cyrnis, down from sheer cliffs.”
5. Refutation (anaskeuê) is the rebuttal of any matter at hand. Divisions are attack on those who hold the opposite view, followed by exposition using the following headings: unclear and improbable; impossible, illogical, and unsuitable; inexpedient. The exercise, as stressed by Theon, can be applied to fable, narrative, or chreia. Aphthonius’ example is a refutation of the story of Daphne and Apollo as improbable.
6. Confirmation (kataskeuê) is a statement confirming the credibility of any matter at hand. Here the subject must be neither self–evident nor impossible, but the treatment is exactly the opposite of refutation. Aphthonius’ example is “the story of Daphne is probable.” However, it should be noted that refutation comes before confirmation in the progymnasmata; this probably because it is easier for a student to attack something which has been argued by another than to undertake an independent proof.
7. Commonplace (koinos topos) is a composition which amplifies inherent evils. So called because the statement fits types—for example, tyrants—rather than specific individuals, as does vituperation. In Theon and the Hermogenic treatise the exercise is defined as amplification of either vice or virtue, but in the latter work it is already clear that it is primarily applied to attacking vice, and this remains true in the later history of the exercise. Aphthonius opinion is that it is like a second speech in a trial and has no prooemion, except when one is added in the schools for practice. No divisions are specified. The headings for ergasia are: contradiction or exposition to sharpen opposition; synkrisis, comparing something better to what is attacked; gnomic heading, attacking the motivation of the doer, followed by parekbasis, or digression, castigating his past life; rejection of pity; and what are called telika kephalaia, “final headings” or “headings of purpose.” These are common to some other progymnasmata and are also the basis of argument in deliberative oratory. They include legality, justice, expediency, practicability, honor, and result.
8. Encomium (enkômion) or praise is a composition expository of attendant excellences. A hymn celebrates gods and is brief, an encomium celebrates mortals and is worked out in accordance with art. Subjects are persons, things (like justice), times (like spring), places, animals, and growing things (like olive trees); they may be common, for example the Athenians, or individuals. Headings are: prooemion, divided into nation, city, ancestors, and parents; upbringing, divided into habits, art, and laws; deeds, divided into those relating to soul, body, and fortune; synkrisis, or favorable comparison with another; epilogue, for example a prayer. Aphthonius supplies an encomium of Thucydides, comparing him to Herodotus, and an encomium of wisdom.
9. Vituperation or invective is a composition expository of attendant evils. Aphthonius says that it differs from the koinos topos in that it does not seek punishment, but in fact it differs more significantly in attacking some person or thing specifically named, rather than a type. Headings are identical with those of encomium. The example given is an invective against Philip of Macedon.
10. Comparison (synkrisis) is a comparative composition, setting something greater or equal side by side with the subject. Generally it may be viewed as a double encomium or an encomium coupled with an invective, and its subjects are similar to those of the two preceding exercises. Its effect is deinos, or forceful, a word borrowed from the theory of style. The subjects compared should not be dealt with separately, but the student should consider both, heading by heading. Aphthonius’ example is a synkrisis of Achilles and Hector.
11. Impersonation — Ethopoeia or personification is an imitation of the ethos of a person chosen to be portrayed. Aphthonius uses ethos in the Aristotelian sense of the character of a speaker, including presentation of moral choice embodied in words and arguments. “Imitation” means that the exercise takes a dramatic form whereby one or more characters is imagined as speaking. There are three forms: eidolopoeia is a speech attributed to the ghost of a known person; in prosopopoeia, used by Theon for the exercise as a whole, the character of the speaker is a creation of the writer, for example a mythological figure; in ethopoeia narrowly defined, the third form, the speaker has an historical or traditional character, but is imagined in some situation where the writer has freedom in imagining what he would say. An example given by Aphthonius is a speech for Heracles in reply to Eurystheus when the latter imposes the labors on him the divisions of ethopoeia as whole are pathetical, ethical, and mixed. The “characters” of style to be applied to ethopoeia are, according to Aphthonius, clarity, brevity, floridity, lack of finish, and absence of figures; this terminology is not that of Hermogenes on style, indicating that his work was not yet the standard authority. Instead of headings there are to be divisions into past, present, and future time.
12. Description (ekphrasis) is a descriptive composition bringing the subject clearly before the audience mind’s eye. Its subjects, like those of encomium, may be persons, actions, times, places, animals, and growing things. The description should be complete, of a person for example from head to foot, of actions from the start to the outcomes. Divisions are simple and compound. The “character” of style should be aneimenos, relaxed, but ornamented with a variety of figures. An example given by Aphthonius is an ecphrasis of the acropolis of Alexandria.
13. Thesis or argument is a logical examination of a subject under investigation. The forms are political and theoretical. Political theses include not only such matters as ‘Should the city be walled?’ but also social questions, ‘Should one marry?’ Theoretical theses are those which cannot be put into practice, but are debated: for example, ‘Is the heaven spherical? Hypotheses add attendant circumstances of person, action, cause, “and the rest”; for example, “The Lacedaimonians deliberate whether to wall Sparta as the Persians approach.” Aphthonius seems to assume that thesis is a progymnasma, hypothesis a declamation. The divisions of thesis are ephodos, or approach, used instead of a prooemion, followed by the “final” headings which were noted under koinos topos. Aphthonius’ example is a treatment of the thesis ‘Should one marry? It includes not only defense of the thesis, but an antithesis and a lysis, or solution.
14. Introduction of a law (nomou eisphora) Aphthonius chose to name this exercise gymnasma rather than progymnasma, and it has many of the characteristics of an hypothesis, though the principals are not necessarily named. It takes two forms, advocacy of a proposed law (synêgoria), and opposition (katêgoria). The headings are constitutionality, justice, expediency, and practicability. The thesis for or against the law is to be stated, then the counterargument, then the headings are to be listed. The example given is a speech opposing a law requiring an adulterer, taken in the act, to be killed. From such an exercise it would be an easy step to those meletai on imaginary court cases involving husbands, wives, and adultery which are frequently cited in the Hermogenic corpus.

Theon Progymnasmata

Morgan’s “core” and “periphery” model of ancient education shows that a much smaller and more elite group of students would proceed of the “core” of learning to read, write, and practice grammar, and into the more advanced study of rhetoric. As a result, this smaller group of students could be expected to gain a much more thorough understanding of the history and political ideas included in the classical literature that animated all levels of education. For those students who embarked upon the study of rhetoric, the progymnasmata exercises introduced a range of tasks that prepared the ground for sophisticated rhetorical work. The progymnasmata thus bridged different levels of education, with some of the earliest exercises just out of the grammarian’s purview and some of the later ones sharing themes and methods with advanced rhetorical study. For a study of democratic discourse in the first century, the Progymnasmata are useful in helping to chart the more complex and intense nature of this discourse for students as they moved into higher levels of education. In his progymnasmata handbook, Aelius Theon produced one the most extensive and earliest surviving manuals on rhetorical training in the ancient world. When examined in conjunction with the sample Progymnasmata exercises written by the famous educator Libanius in the fourth century CE, Theon’s handbook provides a particularly valuable tool for understanding the dissemination of democratic discourse in higher levels of education.

As a transition between learning grammar and more advanced rhetorical exercises of declamation, progymnasmata were designed to help students write their own compositions based on a number of simpler exercises such as expanding chreia, composing a speech fitting to some historical or mythical character (prosopopoeia) or more advanced exercises such as crafting a thesis.

The poets like Homer and Euripides whom most students would have used earlier, now became the material for a range of exercises requiring varying levels of ingenuity and imagination. Authors like Isocrates and Demosthenes that a student in lower levels would have had some likelihood of encountering primarily in gnomic sayings or in chreia, here stand as examples for varied exercises throughout the manual. Predicated on classical examples, the progymnasmata exercises provided students with “a store of techniques of presentation and argumentation, with flexible patterns on which to model their own compositions, and a set of common narratives, personae and values to appeal to.” In contrast to the elementary levels of education, student studying first progymnasmata and then more advanced forms of rhetoric like declamation were reading and creatively working with much larger amounts of material, thus investing students and teachers in what Ruth Webb calls, “a shred code.”