Hermogenes
HERMOGENES, of Tarsus, Greek rhetorician, surnamed Svarfip (the polisher), flourished in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180). His precocious ability secured him a public appointment as teacher of his art while as yet he was only a boy; but at the age of twenty-five his faculties gave way, and he spent the remainder of his long life in a state of intellectual impotence. During his early years, however, he had composed a series of rhetorical treatises, which became popular text-books, and the subject of subsequent commentaries. Of his Tex*"? pVoptw? we still possess the sections Ilepi rSiv arao-twv (on legal issues), Ilepi tvpto-ttas (on the invention of arguments), Ilepl Ideuv (on the various kinds of style) Jlepi ptBodov otivbrriTos (on the method of speaking effectively), and HpoyvtJ.va.o-ti.aTa rhetorical exercises).
Editions by C. Walz (1832)* and by L. Spengel (1854), in their Rhetores Graeci; bibliographical note on the commentaries in W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (1898).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
