The Figure of the Warrior Hero in Late Greek Declamation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34624/fb.v0i19.34789Keywords:
Rhetorical Exercises, Libanius, Choricius, Late Antiquity, Reception of Comedy, Reception of AchillesAbstract
This article focuses on the works of Libanius and Choricius (rhetoricians of the 4th and 6th century respectively), expounding on the different facets which the figure of the hero-soldier acquired in their declamations – model exercises composed for classroom use but which also had an independent entertainment value and could be performed in other social settings, outside the classroom. While the Greek literature of late antiquity is increasingly becoming the object of serious study, scholars have not paid much attention to the literary qualities of Greek declamation: its world-making capacities; its absorption of literary models (epic, drama, and the novel); and its growing tendency to delve into the personal rather than the civic or political. This article first contextualizes the practice of declamation within the panorama of late antique education. It then considers the recasting of the Iliadic hero by excellence, Achilles, analyzing the controversial and ambiguous nature of the hero in two progymnasmata by Libanius of Antioch (8.3 and 9.1) and two declamations by Choricius of Gaza (Decl. 1 e 2). A third and final section takes in the theatrical connotations of declamation, analysing first the braggart warrior hero (Lib. Decl. 33) and then the hero in love (Chor. Decl. 5 e 6), exploring how both figures echo analogous heroes in New Comedy and the Greek novel. This overview illustrates not only the literary evolution of such figures but also how these – and the previous, core genres and authors in which they were embedded – shaped late antique paideia and were in turn shaped by, and adapted to fit, contemporary social expectations.
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