¹ Important works on Philo include: Von Fritz, K., ‘Philon 40 (von Larissa)’, RE 1.19 (1938), 2535–44Google Scholar; Glucker, J., Antiochus and the Late Academy (Göttingen, 1978)Google Scholar, passim; Sedley, D. N., ‘The end of the Academy’, Phronesis 26 (1981), 67–75 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tarrant, H. J., Scepticism or Platonismi (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar; Barnes, J., ‘Review of Tarrant’, CR 36 (1986), 75–7Google Scholar; Striker, G., ‘Review of Tarrant’, AncPhil 1 (1991), 202–6Google Scholar; Görler, W., ‘Philon aus Larissa’, in Flashar, H. (ed.), Die Philosophic der Antike, vol. 4.2 (Basel, 1994), 915–37.Google Scholar See also Inwood, B. and Mansfeld, J. (edd.), Assent and Argument—Studies in Cicero's Academic Books (Leiden/New York/Cologne, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar There is a collection of fragments by Mette, H. J., ‘Philon von Larisa’, Lustrum 28–9 (1986–1987), 9–24.Google Scholar And I shall cite Charles Brittain's as yet unpublished 1996 Oxford D.Phil, thesis ‘Philo of Larissa and the Fourth Academy', which is going to appear as an Oxford Classical Monograph. I read his thesis before I was asked to prepare this paper, and then made a point of writing it without consulting the thesis again. On returning to it, I find us in agreement about several points (and in disagreement about others). I am happy to acknowledge that he is the finder of whatever plausible idea we both propose.

² Cic. Tusc. 2.9 (= fr. 9 Mette):… nostra autem memoria Philo, quern nos frequenter audivimus, instituit alio tempore rhetorum praecepta tradere, alio philosophorum…

³ Inv. 2.9–10. Against a twofold shift of Cicero's philosophical position from scepticism to dogmatism and back, maintained by Glucker, J., ‘Cicero's philosophical affiliations’, in Dillon, J. and Long, A. A. (edd.), The Question of ‘Eclecticism’ (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1988), 34–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Steinmetz, P., ‘Beobachtungen zu Ciceros philosophischem Standpunkt’, in Fortenbaugh, W. W. and Steinmetz, P. (edd.), Cicero's Knowledge of the Peripatos (New Brunswick/London, 1989), 1–22 Google Scholar, see the convincing arguments of Görler, W., ‘Silencing the troublemaker: De Legibus 1.39 and the continuity of Cicero's scepticism’, in Powell, J. G. F. (ed.), Cicero the Philosopher (Oxford, 1995), 85–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Or § 12:… et fateor me oratorem, si modo sim aut etiam quicumque sim, non ex rhetorum officinis sed ex Academiae spatiis exstitisse. Note the contrast of narrowness and space for later reference. Cf. also Reinhardt, K., Poseidonios (Munich, 1921), 212.Google Scholar A different interpretation of the passage in Wisse, J., Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam, 1989), 171–2.Google Scholar

⁵ Philo: Von Arnim, H., Dion von Prusa (Berlin, 1898), 4–114 Google Scholar; Antiochus: Kroll, W., ‘Studien über Ciceros Schrift de oratore’, RhM 58 (1903), 552–97Google Scholar; Cicero: Leeman, A. D., Pinkster, H. and Wisse, J., De oratore libri III, vol. 4 (Heidelberg, 1996), 87–101.Google Scholar

⁶ Cf. Patzig, G., ‘Cicero als Philosoph, am Beispiel der Schrift De finibus’, Gymnasium 86 (1979), 304–22.Google Scholar

⁷ Cf. Douglas, A. E., ‘A Ciceronian contribution to rhetorical theory’, Eranos 55 (1957), 18–26 Google Scholar; Winterbottom, M., ‘Cicero and the middle style’, in Diggle, J., Hall, J. B., and Jocelyn, H. D. (edd.), Studies in Latin Literature and its Tradition in Honour of C. O. Brink, PCPS Suppl. 15 (Cambridge, 1989), 125–31.Google Scholar

⁸ von Arnim (n. 5), 4–114; Schenkeveld, D. M., ‘Philosophical prose’, in Porter, S. E. (ed.), Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 b.c.–a.d.. 400 (Leiden/New York/Cologne, 1997), 195–264 CrossRefGoogle Scholar with further literature (197, n. 4). A detailed reconstruction of the quarrel in Brittain (n. 1), 279–92.

⁹ The main texts on the ‘quarrel’ are Cic. de Orat. 1; Philod. Rhet. 2; Quint. Inst. Or. 2; S. E. Adv. Math. 2.

¹⁰ See, in particular, Cic. de Orat. 1.84–93.

¹¹ de Orat. 1.84. Although there is no reason to doubt that Cicero is relating Academic views in this passage, one should not stress too much that they are Charmadas’; there might be the couple Cicero-Philo behind Antonius-Charmadas. And when a sceptical Academic like Charmadas talked about the philosophorum inventa, he was unlikely to have particular doctrines in mind; rather, he should be taken to refer to philosophical ways of looking at certain problems, which lead to an awareness of their complexity.

¹² Yet it would be wrong to claim that the Gorgias has no ideas of that kind at all (cf. 503a–b, 504e).

¹³ Cf. e.g. Couissin, P., ‘The stoicism of the New Academy’, in Burnyeat, M. (ed.), The Sceptical Tradition (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1983), 31–63 Google Scholar, and Striker, G., ‘On the difference between the Pyrrhonists and the Academics’, in Striker, G., Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics (Cambridge, 1996), 135–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ This is discussed in detail by Brittain (n. 1), 303–5.

¹⁵ Cic. Inv. 1.8 (= fr. 6a Matthes); Quint. Inst. Or. 2.21.21–2 (= fr. 6c Matthes).

¹⁶ The fragments are collected in Matthes, D., Hermagorae Temnitae Testimonia et Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1962).Google Scholar See also Stroux, J., ‘Summum ius summa iniuria—Ein Kapitel aus der Geschichte der interpretatio iuris’, in Stroux, J., Römische Rechtswissenschaft und Rhetorik (Potsdam, 1949), 7–66 Google Scholar; Matthes, D., ‘Hermagoras von Temnos 1904–1955’, Lustrum 3 (1958), 58–214, 262–78Google Scholar; Barwick, K., ‘Augustins Schrift De rhetorica und Hermagoras von Temnos’, Philologus 105 (1961), 97–110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Montefusco, L. Calboli, La dottrtna degli Status nella retorica greca e romana (Bologna, 1984)Google Scholar; Russell, D. A., Greek Declamation (Cambridge, 1983), 40–73 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kennedy, G. A., A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton, 1994), 97–101 Google Scholar; Heath, M., ‘The substructure of στστσ- theory from Hermagoras to Hermogenes’, CQ 44 (1994), 114–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Heath, M., Hermogenes on Issues (Oxford, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar That the tradition links στστσ-theory very firmly to Hermagoras does not imply that he did not himself rely on works of predecessors.

¹⁷ For my purposes it suffices to give a simplified account of the working of the theory; for details see Heath's 1994 paper (n. 16).

¹⁸ Cic. Inv. 1.34–43, on which passage see Leff, M. C., ‘The topics of argumentative invention in Latin rhetorical theory from Cicero to Boethius’, Rhetorica 1 (1983), 23–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ Cic. de Orat. 2.65,2.78, 3.110. Kroll, W., ‘Rhetorik’, RE Suppl. 7 (1940), 1040–1138, at 1096.Google Scholar That Hermagoras, at least nominally, made some claim also to the θσις emerges from Posidonius’ attack on him for just that reason; cf. Plut. Pomp. 42.5 = fr. 43 Edelstein/Kidd.

²⁰ The θσις was a preliminary exercise, a προγυμνασμα: Clarke, M. L., ‘The thesis in Roman rhetorical schools of the Republic’, CQ 45 (1951), 159–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Throm, H., Die Thesis (Paderborn, 1932).Google Scholar Although the extant texts of προγυμνσματα come from the Imperial era, it is very likely that the type of exercise is Hellenistic.

²¹ See Ad Q. fr. 3.3.4; related passages are collected in Sihler, E. G., ‘θετικώτερον’, AJPH 23 (1902), 283–94.Google Scholar Cf. also Or. §§ 45–6; Brut. § 322.

²² On, for instance, the in utramque partem—structure of the de Div. see Schofield, M., ‘Cicero for and against divination’, JRS 76 (1986), 47–65.Google Scholar

²³ …sed is quasi dictata, nullo dilectu, nulla elegantia. Philo et §proprium nrt [et proprio numero Seyffert, et pronuntiabat numero Pohlenz] et lecta poemata et loco adiungebat. itaque postquam adamavi hanc quasi senilem declamationem, studiose equidem utor nostris poetis…

²⁴ In Fat. §§ 3–4 and Fin. 2.2, the method used by Cicero in the Tusculans is described without a rhetorical ring.

²⁵ Görler (n. 1), 1041. The way in which Cicero introduces the first disputatio in the Tusculans seems not to suggest that the rhetorical slant was imposed by him on an originally philosophical method. Cf. also A. E. Douglas, ‘Form and Content in the Tusculan Disputations’, in: Powell (n. 3), 197–218.

²⁶ Leeman et al. (n. 5), 91–5.

²⁷ Famous not the least as a battlefield of Quellenforschung; von Arnim (n. 5), 4–114 suggested Philo, Kroll (n. 5) Antiochus of Ascalon.

²⁸ On in utramque partem dicere as a rhetorical way of arguing in Cicero, see also A. A. Long, ‘Cicero's Plato and Aristotle’, in Powell (n. 3), 37–62, in particular 52–8; Görier (n. 1), 930. The speaking on either side is introduced in 3.107 as one type of locus communis, i.e. of the common-place. This is to be explained by the fact that Cicero inserted the Academic and Peripatetic speaking in utramque partem at that place of the curriculum of the Progymnasmata where normally the training with the θσις stands, another form of preliminary training being κοινς τοπος. Theon begins his discussion of the θσις with an account of why it is distinct from the κοινς τοπος (120.16–17 Spengel), which suggests some overlapping of the two concepts (for 3.105–7 as a whole, cf. also Theon 106.4ff. περ τπου and 109.19ff. περ γκωμου κα Ψγου).

²⁹ On the division in its context, see also Barwick, K., ‘Das rednerische Bildungsideal Ciceros’, Abhandlungen der sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, philologisch-hislorische Klasse 54.3 (Berlin, 1963), at 51–8.Google Scholar

³⁰ ‘Omnis igitur res eandem habet naturam ambigendi, de qua quaeri et disceptari potest, sive in infinitis consultationibus disceptatur sive in eis causis, quae in civitate et forensi disceptatione versantur; neque est ulla, quae non aut ad cognoscendi aut ad agendi vim rationemque referatur.’

³¹ Kroll (n. 19), at 1096: ‘Die ausgeführte Theorie der Theseis, wie sie bei Cicero vorliegt, ist das Werk eines Philosophen.’ Barwick (n. 29), 52: ‘…kann sie nur von philosophischer Seite stammen und nach Lage der Dinge nur von Peripatetikern und Akademikern.’ Leeman et al. (n. 5), 99: ‘Die Andeutung der letztgenannten De oratore-passage, daβ diese Einteilung von doctissimi homines herrührt (3.117; cf. 114 redeunt; dispertiunt; 116 ponuntur), bestätigt die Vermutung, daβ Cicero sie der Akademie, also wahrscheinlich Philon, entnommen hat.’ Schenkeveld (n. 8), 200 appears to be certain that the division comes from Philo, as is Brittain (n. 1), 319–20.

³² A characterization of the division also in Brittain (n. 1), 315.

³³ The doctrine is to some extent anticipated by Aristotle, Rhet. 3.16, 1416b20ff.; Quintilian was aware of that, as his historical survey of the στσις-doctrine shows (Inst. Or. 3.6). But see also Rhet. ad Alex. p. 26.23ff.; Fuhrmann, and Matthes (n. 16), 135ff. Also Brittain (n. 1), 290, assumes that the division postdates Hermagoras.

³⁴ I have found no evidence to the effect that Philo himself directed exercises in which persuasion in the ordinary sense, i.e. without a dialectical element, was practised; but he will obviously have allowed for this use of his rhetoric.

³⁵ Brittain (n. 1), 241–77, offers a full interpretation of the fragment, which effectively refutes the communis opinio that it is merely a list of lecture-titles involving a trite comparison of medicine and philosophy.

³⁶ Dihle, A. (‘Poseidonius’ system of moral philosophy’, JHS 93 [1973], 50–7)CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that the ὑποθετικς λγος was introduced by Posidonius. Yet Aristo of Chios is reported to have found the ὑποθετικς τπος useless in the third century b.c. (S. E. Adv. Math. 7.12). The variation in terminology does not seem significant.

³⁷ On this letter see also Brunt, P. A., ‘Cicero's officium in the civil war’, JRS 76 (1986), 12–32, at 13 Google Scholar; Griffin, M., ‘Philosophy, politics and politicians at Rome’, in Barnes, J. and Griffin, W. (edd.), Philosophia Togata (Oxford, 1989), 1–37, at 34 Google Scholar; Hutchinson, G. O., Cicero's Correspondence (Oxford, 1998), 148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There are parallels for this behaviour in Cicero's letters (Att. 14.13.4; Fam. 11.29.1); but normally Cicero does not explain what he is doing.

³⁸ Teachers of rhetoric did sometimes set pupils to take opponent sides in declamation; but these were ὑποθσεις.

³⁹ Cic. Att. 9.7 (4). 1 [introduction to the [θσεις]:…sed tamen, ne me totum aegritudini dedam, sumpsi mihi quasdam tamquam θσεις, quae et Πολιτικα sunt et temporum horum, ut et abducam animum a querelis et in eo ipso, de quo agitur, exercear.

⁴⁰ Cic. Topica § 95:… Sed quae ex statu contentio efficitur, eam Graeci κρινμενον vocant, mihi placet id, quoniam quidem ad te scribo, qua de re aeitur vocari. Translations for κρινμενον are iudicatio (Rhet. Her. 1.16.26; Quint., Inst. Or. 3.11.4), contentio, or id de quo contenditur (Augustin., De Rhet. p. 145.8 Halm); in the Topica where Cicero is addressing a jurist, he gives an alternative translation which resembles a set-phrase of legal formulae (cf. Krüger, H., ‘Die Worte “qua de re agitur” und (res) “qua de agitur” in den Prozessformeln’, ZRG 29 [1908], 378–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar ). But id de quo agitur is in itself more neutral than the usual translations of κρινμενον, which have the forensic ring of school-rhetoric. This might have influenced Cicero's choice of expression.

⁴¹ On this aspect of the Rhetoric the standard work is still Solmsen, F., Die Entwicklung der aristotelischen Logik und Rhetorik (Berlin, 1929).Google Scholar

⁴² Ar. Top. A2, 101a35–6; Θ14, 163a37–163b15; Cic. Or. § 46; Alex. Aphr. in Top. 27.17–18; Anon. Seg. § 183.

⁴³ The partial structural parallelism of the methods of sceptical Academics and Peripatetics in the Hellenistic era is manifest also in another (related) area. It is well known that to contrast opposing views is one of the principles according to which the tenets of philosophers in the doxographical tradition are organized. The sources show a shift of attitude in the use of this method similar to that which I am presuming for the use of the τποι. Cf. Mansfeld, J., ‘Doxography and dialectic’, ANRW 2.36.4 (1990), 3056–229, at 3063 Google Scholar: The Skeptical mode of presentation, later called diaphonia (disagreement), is not much more than a diaeresis (from a purely formal point of view, it of course still is) employed to a different purpose. The diairetic construction of a status quaestionis, or listing of such views as were available and even, sometimes, theoretically possible, could be used to help one, in a preliminary way, to discover the truth; this is how Aristotle and Theophrastus used it. It could also be used to produce a stalemate. The disagreement(s) could be allowed to remain as they were, and suspension of judgement could be recommended. This is how the Academics used it. One may say that part of the history of ancient doxography is contained in the switch from a Peripatetic dialectical dihairesis, with the emphasis on finding one's way towards the truth, to an Academic dihairesis stated in the shape of a diaphonia in order to preclude, or indefinitely to postpone, a decision.’

⁴⁴ The loci are: a definitione, a partium enumeratione, a notatione, a coniugatione, a genere, a forma, a similitudine, a differentia, e contrario, ab adiunctis, ab antecedentibus, a consequentibus, a repugnantibus, ab efficientibus causis, ab effectis rebus, ex comparatione, ex auctoritate.

⁴⁵ Wallies, M., De fontibus Ciceronis Topicorum (Halle, 1878)Google Scholar; Kroll (n. 5); Dillon, J., The Middle Platonists (London, 1977), 102–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ This was suggested for the first time by Wallies (n. 45), 48.

⁴⁷ Proposals as to the further development of the topical doctrine in Van Ophuijsen, J., ‘Where have the Topics gone?’, in Fortenbaugh, W. W. and Mirhardy, D. (edd.), Peripatetic Rhetoric after Aristotle (New Brunswick/London, 1994), 131–73.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See Brunschwig, J. (ed.), Aristote—Topiques I–IV (Paris, 1967), xxxviii.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ This holds for the κοινο τποι; the so-called εἲδη are a different case.

⁵⁰ So where the division of the θσις appears, the loci are mentioned as the next stage of invention. In the de Oratore, however, the structure of the work, which follows the officia oratoris, requires the detailed treatment of the loci under inventio in Book 2, and that of the quaestio universa under elocutio, because the ‘general question’ is linked to stylistic richness. In the Part. Or., an uncommon division of the work into vis oratoris (where the loci are treated), oratio and quaestio leads to the separation of the detailed discussions of the two elements.

⁵¹ Cf. Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N. (edd.), The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1987), 188 Google Scholar, where Topica §§ 6–7 is given as 31F. The parts of Λογικ are given in e.g. Acad. 1.19:… tertia [sc. pars philosophiae, λογικ] de disserendo et (i) quid verum quidfalsum (ii) quid rectum in oratione pravumque (iii) quid consentiens quid repugnet iudicando. Referring to epistemology, rhetoric, and logic?

⁵² The parallel passage mentioned is Fin. 4.10: ‘Cumque duae sint artes [no mss. variants], quibus perfecte ratio et oratio compleatur, una inveniendi, altera disserendi, hanc posteriorem et Stoici et Peripatetici, priorem autem illi egregie tradiderunt, hi omnino ne attigerunt quidem.’ Cf. Reid, J. S., M. Tulli Ciceronis Academica (London, 1885), at 139–40Google Scholar on Acad. 1.32 for Cicero's use of disserere (as opposed to dicere) to refer to διαλεκτικ. That Cicero thereby equates iudicare and διαλεκτικ in Fin. 4.10 is compatible with Topica § 6, in that in Fin. disserere covers the art of judgement in general, i.e. also the Peripapetic way of doing it. The beginning of Fin. 4 is sometimes regarded as Antiochian in origin; that this is either a simplification or false is suggested by the fact that in Fin. 4.6–7 there is a remark about ‘the Academic and Peripatetic teaching of rhetoric’ which strongly resembles the information given in de Orat. 3.109–10.

⁵³ Or. §§ 47–8; Part. Or. §§ 8 and 139; but not in the de Orat.

⁵⁴ For example, Alex. Aphr. in Metaph. 306.6; Alex. Aphr. in Top. 27.30–1; Gal. De plac. Hipp, et Plat. 7, p. 430.29 De Lacy (= Chrys., fr. mor. 259.32 von Arnim).

⁵⁵ There are also remarks by Cicero that the Academy and the Peripatetics alone cannot make the perfect orator (Brut. 120), because their way of speaking is not aggressive enough.

⁵⁶ Presumably the coming out of one side as verisimile, in evidence in Cicero (e.g. Tusc. 2.9) and attested by Favorinus of Arelate (as reported by Galen, Opt. Docr. I = Favorinus fr. 28 Barigazzi; cf. also Holford-Stevens, L., ‘Favorinus: the man of paradoxes’, in Barnes, J. and Griffin, M. [edd.], Philosophia Togata II [Oxford, 1997], 188–217, at 208–9Google Scholar ) for ‘younger Academics’, reflects a Philonian modification of the more rigorous earlier ‘speaking on either side’, which was meant to lead to ༐ποΧ, suspension of judgement; it could be explained as an extension of the initially epistemological notion of the πιθανν towards a qualified acceptance of other schools’ opinions. That this modification is due to Philo has, in my view on insufficient grounds, recently been questioned by J. Glucker, ‘Probabile, veri simile, and related terms’, in Powell (n. 3), 133—7, and, for different reasons, by Görier (ibid., 133).

⁵⁷ One might wonder why there was the shift in Cicero's position concerning the θσις—leaving it to the philosophers in Inv., but claiming it for the perfect orator in his mature works—as his acquaintance with Philo predates the Inv. In fact, Cicero's position in Inv. is compatible with the assumption that he was familiar with Philo's views on rhetoric already; we could assume that in his later years he formed a new position by answering to the Academic's views in a different way. In Inv. 1.8 he attacks Hermagoras for making the θσις the subject-area of rhetoric, because only philosophers can deal with difficult philosophical problems. This might mirror a claim Philo himself made for his rhetoric (cf. Posidonius’ attack on Hermagoras for the same reason). It would have been very high-minded if Cicero had taken sides with Philo at this early stage; alternatively, since it is likely that Cicero, when writing Inv., was still strongly influenced by his rhetorical teachers, he might be merely relating their views. But the consularis Cicero, who was one of the most erudite men of his time and ‘king of the courts’ (Fam. 9.18.2), might easily have changed his mind, holding that the orator perfectus must be capable of discussing the general question.