Hermogenes

Hermogenes of Tarsus, was a Greek rhetorician, surnamed the polisher. He lived in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180).

His precocious ability secured him a public appointment as teacher of his art while 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. We still possess some sections:

• on legal issues
• on the invention of arguments
• on various kinds of style
• on the method of speaking effectively
• on rhetorical exercises.