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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.

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