This book aims in its first part to itemise elements of persuasion in Iliadic speeches, and in its second part to trace the influence of Homeric rhetoric through Archaic poetry down to Classical rhetorical theory. The work's main contribution is the application to the Iliad and other early Greek poems a rubric for detecting specific rhetorical techniques and weighing relative degrees of rhetorical sophistication of different speeches and speakers.
K. understands rhetoric as ‘a learned and deliberately practiced skill, involving the deployment of tropes and techniques according to a rule-based system, and aimed at winning an audience's approval or assent’ (p. 43). Although Plato and Aristotle (arguably furthering their own agendas) credit rhetoric's invention to the shadowy Corax and Tisias in the mid-fifth century, and although prose handbooks on the subject first appear thereafter, K. adopts the general approach taken by the likes of Quintilian and Pseudo-Plutarch, who saw that Greek rhetoric owed Homer a substantial debt. K. summarises scholarly opinion on the history of rhetoric both as a learned practice and as systematic theorising with specialised terminology. Homeric poetry, she argues, represents an important first (early?) stage in the cultivation of rhetoric as a discipline, even if it does not explicitly present a comprehensive theory.
K. surveys Iliadic passages where the poet or characters show awareness of assorted aspects of rhetoric, including styles of delivery, strategies for different audiences, teaching of speaking as a skill and critique of competing speeches. While such passages might have provided at least part of a theoretical basis for understanding Homeric rhetoric on its own terms, K. primarily adapts Aristotle's Rhetoric, which not only is relatively comprehensive and authoritative, but also, K. argues, was deeply influenced by Homer and so corresponds strikingly well to persuasive techniques portrayed in the Iliad.
K. analyses 58 Iliadic speeches (18 in Chapter 2, 40 in the appendix), documenting their ‘concerted use of multiple techniques for effective rhetoric as catalogued by Aristotle’ (p. 47). This selection, including formal orations in assembly and private conversations, ranges from short speeches with only two persuasive strategies, to long speeches with more sophisticated and substantial rhetorical tactics. The speeches are discussed in narrative order, since their use of rhetoric follows no simplistic patterns, but rather is conditioned by their position within the developing plot and their complex relation to other speeches (p. 48). K. achieves her primary aim of establishing the rhetorical nature of Iliadic speeches, but I would have liked to see her devote even more attention than she does to connections between individual speeches and their relationship to characterisation and plot. She effectively contrasts Agamemnon's speeches at Il. 2.110–41 and 8.281–91: he ironically persuades when intending not to do so, but fails when he does intend to persuade (pp. 50, 55–6). However, comparison, for instance, of the former speech to Odysseus' subsequent speech at 2.284–332 could also produce valuable insight into Agamemnon's rhetorical abilities.
Many of K.'s findings, summarised after her catalogue, are interesting, even if not wholly unexpected. Nestor, for instance, delivers the most rhetorical speeches (7), closely followed by Achilles and Hector (6 each). In the next tier are Odysseus and Polydamas (4 each); while the most argumentative divinity is Hera (also 4). Of the sixteen mortals who employ rhetoric, only two are females, Andromache and Hecuba (only 1 each). The most effective rhetorician is Hector, in that he always ‘convinces’ (or hectors) his audience. Nestor almost always persuades, except in his highly rhetorical first speech, which fails to reconcile Achilles and Agamemnon – as required by plot. Odysseus is similarly persuasive, except when addressing Achilles. Many try but most fail to persuade Achilles, except for his dear companion Patroclus (leading to doom at a critical juncture) and the fatherly figure Priam (producing resolution near the end). Ineffective speakers typically exhibit ‘insensitivity to the character and attitude of the addressees’ (p. 86).
K. does not consider stylistic devices or formal structure, but only argumentative techniques, what might be called touchstones or ‘proofs’ (pisteis), the focus of Aristotle's Rhetoric. She investigates the use of three major persuasive touchstones in Iliadic speeches: invoking the speaker's character (êthos), including good sense and good will; disposing the audience favourably (diathesis), especially by appealing to emotion; and constructing an argument (logos), which may rely on evidence, signs, probability, example and rhetorical syllogism or ‘enthymeme.’ An enthymeme presents a conclusion supported by a premise, of which Aristotle lists 28 commonplaces or ‘topics’.
As readers learn in the following chapter (pp. 78–9) – though such information would have been helpful if presented earlier and arranged in a more transparent hierarchy – nearly half of the 58 persuasive speeches in the Iliad invoke êthos (47%); nearly four-fifths attempt diathesis (78%); and nearly all employ some kind of enthymeme (97%), which is not entirely unexpected since these speeches were selected for their rhetorical nature. As K. reports, some argumentative techniques appear more frequently than others: expansion (3); probability (6); example (9); gnomic truth (19); and finally ‘topics’ (67), which occur in nearly seven-tenths of the speeches (69%). Apparently, however, only four topics occur frequently: consideration of incentives (37), greater and less (10), consequence (8) and timing (5) – constituting 90% of the evidence (60/67); while the remaining 10% consists of six topics occurring only once or twice each. Accordingly, if I understand K.'s charts correctly, only 36% of Aristotelian topics are employed in Iliadic speeches (10/28), only 14% with any frequency (4/28). Whether all this represents ‘striking correspondences between the techniques employed by Homeric characters and those described in Aristotle's Rhetoric across all categories and subcategories’ (p. 42) or ‘use of a [relatively] wide variety of Aristotelian topics as enthymeme premises’ (p. 124), as claimed, is not clear.
The second, shorter part of the book begins with a brief survey of ancient texts from other societies. K. finds a few non-Greek speeches illustrating the persuasive tropes found in the Iliad, but these are short and fairly simple. Thus Homeric interest in depicting relatively sophisticated rhetorical speech provides evidence for the distinctive ‘debate culture’ of Ancient Greece which, K. admits, ‘could well have functioned as a common source of rhetorical material for Homer and Aristotle’ (p. 92). Then she applies her rubric to rhetorical speeches in other examples of Archaic or early Classical poetry, hoping to trace a literary genealogy from Homer to Aristotle – but omitting the Odyssey and tragedy, and most prose as well. Her chapter on Archaic poetry finds that speeches in longer Homeric Hymns and military elegies of Callinus and Tyrtaeus bear the closest resemblance to Homeric rhetoric, without quite matching its range and complexity. I found most interesting her treatment of the hymns to Apollo and to Hermes, wisdom poets such as Hesiod, and the Lille Stesichorus. Finally, turning to prose, she discusses forensic speeches attributed to epic heroes in sophistic writings, positions on rhetoric found in Plato's works and explicit citations of Homer in Aristotle's Rhetoric.
K.'s arguments are expressed clearly, and the book is attractively produced – though not without various infelicities, including the omission of words, letters, or macrons, for example, ‘Nestor and […?] before …’ (p. 47), ‘contained [in] these lines’ (p. 66), ‘ἀ[π]ηλεγέως’ (p. 195 n. 28), ‘aux[ê]sis’ (e.g. pp. 50, 79). To focus on the book's translations, some are her own, others are taken or adapted from elsewhere, mainly Lattimore's Iliad. This sometimes leads to awkward spelling inconsistencies in close proximity, for example, ‘Patroclus … Patroklos … Achilles … Achilleus’ (pp. 64–5). When quoting Il. 3.221–3, K. offers ‘he let loose … could compete’ (p. 35); but when rendering the same passage within a quotation by Strabo (for which she also provides the Greek), she unfortunately translates εἵη and ἐρίσσειε as ‘there was … would quarrel’ (p. 29). Likewise she renders τάδε πάντα from Il. 9.442 as ‘all these matters’ (p. 10) and ‘these many things’ (p. 35).
