Einleitung, revidierter lateinischer Text, deutsche Übersetzung und Kommentar von Ps.-Quintilian, Declamationes maiores, 2: Caecus in limine. Im Anhang: revidierter griechischer Text, deutsche Übersetzung und Anmerkungen zu Ps.-Libanios, Declamationes, 49.

Our direct knowledge of Roman declamation rests almost entirely on a few late-antique editorial initiatives, which have handed down to us but a tiny sample of this thriving domain: the vast majority of ancient Latin controversiae and suasoriae have been lost, mostly without a trace. The main reason for this was the very nature of that kind of production: declamations were widespread in schools and very popular in circles of amateurs, but they were ultimately perceived as ephemeral texts, not benefitting – as a norm – from the processes of reproduction and preservation usually reserved for ‘canonical’ literary genres. This paper concentrates on how declamations were ‘launched’, on how and why they would perish, and on a number of lost pieces and traditions – with a focus on the imperial age – that can be at least partly reconstructed, thanks to a handful of testimonies. These slight but important vestiges can still tell us much not only about ‘wrecked’ Latin declamations, but also about the broader cultural and social conditions that led to that wreck.

Select passages from pseudo-Quintilian, Declamationes maiores, 5 are discussed in detail from a textual and/or exegetical standpoint.

P.Hamb. II 134 yields the remains of a declamation on a theme otherwise attested only by Quintilian (9, 2, 85-86); the declamation itself is to be dated to the beginning of the 4th century AD, and represents one of the earliest known instances of accentual Satzrhythmus in Greek prose.

Le fonti greche e latine ci hanno tramandato molte centinaia di temi di declamazione estremamente disparati. Un’indagine ravvicinata evidenzia però un dato di fondo: di un numero relativamente limitato di temi possediamo più sviluppi, trattazioni specialistiche, menzioni; di infiniti altri ci restano solo attestazioni singole (o comunque sparute), spesso limitate a citazioni più o meno cursorie e incidentali. Il che suggerisce a sua volta che moltissimi ulteriori temi siano scomparsi senza lasciare traccia. Quali fattori hanno ‘sommerso’ la gran parte dei temi declamatorî elaborati dai retori antichi, a fronte di un numero limitato di temi ‘emergenti’ che, prima facie, non si differenziano significativamente dai tanti altri ‘meno fortunati’? Il saggio cerca di dare un’articolata serie di risposte a questa domanda, evidenziando risvolti interessanti non soltanto per lo specifico della retorica antica, ma, più in generale, per l’individuazione di certi meccanismi fondanti della tradizione (o perdita) dei testi classici.

There has been much debate in recent years over ‘school declamations’ and ‘show declamations’, and a tendency to draw sharp boundaries between the two. Since the pseudo-quintilianic Major Declamations have played a prominent rôle in this debate, it is worth focusing on an aspect that has hitherto remained largely unnoticed: the repeated presence, throughout these fully-developed speeches, of self-conscious allusions to didactic conventions and technico-rhetorical issues clearly pointing to a school milieu. The present paper scrutinizes these ‘metarhetorical’ hints; it contributes to a fairer assessment of the relationship between ‘school’ and ‘show’ declamations; and it sheds some light on the disputed chronology and authorship of the Maiores.