Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hoffman, David C.

Titel

ConcerningEikos: Social Expectation and Verisimilitude in Early Attic Rhetoric

Ist Teil von

• Rhetorica, 2008-02, Vol.26 (1), p.1-29

Ort / Verlag

University of California Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2008

Quelle

Literature Online (LION)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• AbstractThis essay inquires into the meaning and usage ofeikos, an important term in early Greek rhetorical theory. Based on a survey of 394 uses of the verbeoika(of whicheikosis the neuter perfect participle) in texts ranging from Homer to Isocrates, it argues that the traditional translation ofeikosas “probability” is in some ways misleading. Specifically, the essay proposes: 1) that “to be similar” is the core meaning ofeoika, 2) that all other senses ofeoikacan be seen as extensions of the “similarity” sense, 3) that the “befittingness” sense ofeikoscontinued to be of great importance in the early Attic orators, and 4) that the sense ofeikosas that which is befitting or socially expected, and the sense ofeikosas that which is verisimilar, work in tandem in the “profiling” strategy of someeikosarguments.