Greek rhetorician
Apsines of Gadara (Greek: Ἀψίνης ὁ Γαδαρεύς; fl. 3rd century AD) was a Greek rhetorician. He was a native of the Hellenised city of Gadara,[1] whose ruins stand today at the border of Jordan with Syria and Israel. Apsines went on to study at Smyrna and taught at Athens, gaining such a reputation that he was raised to the consulship by the emperor Maximinus. He was a rival of Fronto of Emesa, and a friend of Philostratus, the author of the Lives of the Sophists, who praises his wonderful memory and accuracy.[2]
Two rhetorical treatises by him are extant:
- His Τέχνη ῥητορική ("Art of Rhetoric") is a greatly interpolated handbook of rhetoric, a considerable portion being taken from the Rhetoric of Longinus[2] and other material from Hermogenes;
an English translation was first published in 1997. Malcolm Heath has argued (APJ 1998) that the work's attribution to Apsines is incorrect.
- A smaller work, Περὶ ἐσχηματισμένων προβλημάτων ("on Propositions maintained figuratively").[2]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Apsines". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 232.
