Apsines Explained

Apsines of Gadara (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: 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.

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 and other material from Hermogenes (the scholar Malcolm Heath posits this work was actually written by Aspasius of Tyre)^[2] ;

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").

Editions

• Jan Bake (1849)
• Spengel-Hammer, Rhetores Graeci (1894)
• Mervin R. Dilts and George A. Kennedy, eds., Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire (Brill, 1997)

References

• Hammer, De Apsine Rhetore (1876)
• Volkmann, Letorile der Griechen und Romer (1885)

External links

• Bryn Mawr Classical Review page on Dilts/Kennedy

Notes and References

1. Blank, David, "Philodemus", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), accessed 3 June 2020.
2. Book: Heath , Malcolm . Menander: A Rhetor in Context. Oxford University Press. 2004. 56–60. English. 9780199259205 .