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2 - Declamation 1 [X]: <Polydamas>

from II - CHORICIUS, DECLAMATIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2010

Robert J. Penella
Affiliation:
Fordham University, New York
Eugenio Amato
Affiliation:
Université de Nantes, France
Malcolm Heath
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
George A. Kennedy
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Terry L. Papillon
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
William R. Reader
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University
D. A. Russell
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Simon Swain
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

[THEME]

After Hector's death, Achilles, having fallen in love with Polyxena, sends an embassy to the Trojans, promising alliance in return for the marriage. The Trojans deliberate; Polydamas recommends acceptance, Priam opposes. We take the part of Polydamas.

EXPLANATORY COMMENT

[1] There is a skill of speech even among barbarians. Education is not the effect of place, but the successful outcome of nature and exercise. [2] Polydamas will stand up and remind the Trojans of the advice he gave them recently about not being overconfident in facing Achilles. He will point out that they suffered from not taking his advice, so to make them readier to do so now. [3] Likewise Demosthenes, seeking to persuade his own people to admit Philip to the Amphictyony, demonstrates that their failure to listen to him on earlier occasions proved the beginning of great disasters. [4] Demosthenes, however, enjoying the immunities of democratic freedom of speech, could be severe in his reproaches, whereas Polydamas will attribute the consequences of Hector's aggressiveness to fortune, because it is improper to speak ill of the departed and, in any case, offensive to revile Hector in Priam's presence <and> before a Trojan audience. [5] He will conceal the actions that show Achilles' savagery – the insults to Hector's body at Patroclus' tomb and the slaughter of the captives at the funeral – but will bring into the foreground circumstances that display his strength and will show him to be great and terrible, though without depriving Hector of his proper praise.

Type
Chapter
Information
Rhetorical Exercises from Late Antiquity
A Translation of Choricius of Gaza's Preliminary Talks and Declamations
, pp. 61 - 73
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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