The rhetorical exercises of Nikephoros Basilakes : progymnasmata from twelfth-century Byzantium

Progymnasmata are literally \"exercises\" that are \"preliminary\" to declamation, which is the composition and delivery of ostensibly impromptu speeches in the guise of fictional, mythical, or historical characters who serve as prosecution or defense in fictitious trial scenarios. Basilakes's collection includes highly polished examples of fable, narration, maxim, refutation, confirmation, encomium, and ethopoeia. Basilakes's exercises draw on myth, ancient history, the Bible, and other Christian texts, and they use specific words and phrases from ancient Greek epic, tragedy, historiography, and other genres. The progymnasmata also feature mythological and biblical stories that Basilakes treats more than once, the most obvious example being his handling of the myth of Atalanta as both a refutation and a confirmation. In other cases, however, he revisits stories so as to highlight different perspectives, changes in disposition, and moral dilemmas.-- Provided by publisher