Apsines

Apsines of Gadara (fl. 3rd century AD) was a Greek rhetorician. He studied 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: [Greek: technae raetorikae], a handbook of rhetoric greatly interpolated, a considerable portion being taken from the Rhetoric of Longinus; and a smaller work, [Greek: perhi eschaematismenon problaematon], on Propositions maintained figuratively.

Editions by Bake, 1849; Spengel-Hammer in Rhetores Graeci, ii. (1894): see also Hammer, De Apsine Rhetore (1876); Volkmann, Rhetorik der Griechen und Romer (1885).

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;

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 ἐσχηματισμήνων 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)
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• Bryn Mawr Classical Review page on Dilts/Kennedy