Гермоген Тарский: Жизнь, творчество и влияние риторики

2nd century Greek rhetorician
Hermogenes of Tarsus was a Greek rhetorician, surnamed The Polisher (Ξυστήρ). He flourished 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, attracting the note of the emperor Marcus Aurelius himself; 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. Allegedly, Antiochus used to taunt him: "Lo, here is one who was an old man among boys and now among the old is but a boy." The Suda records a rumor that after his death his heart was found to be enormous and covered in hair. George of Trebizond, a Byzantine scholar, introduced Hermogenes to Western Europe during the Renaissance through his Rhetoricorum libri V (1470). The famous publisher Aldus Manutius introduced the Hermogenean rhetorical corpus to the Western European reader in the Rhetores Graeci (1508). Lull and Núñez published versions of Hermogenes's progymnasmata, and Núñez´s Rhetoricae institutionis draws significantly on the entire Hermogenic corpus. The 19th century Hugo Rabe edition of the Opera Hermogenis, with Latin introduction, is based upon various editions, among others, the Aldine edition. Michel Patillon has translated the entire Hermogenic corpus into French, with copious annotations. Malcolm Heath has translated On Issues (Περὶ στάσεων) into English, and Cecil W. Wooten has translated On Types of Style into English. A Dutch translation of On Types of Style appeared in late 2006.

Mikael Johansson has tried to apply the unique rhetorical schemes of Hermogenes on some of the declamations of Libanius. Annabel Patterson wrote a book about Hermogenean style, rhetorical categories, and its influence on Renaissance writers, such as William Shakespeare. Hugh Blair also mentions Hermogenes in his work on rhetoric.

There seems to have been yet another Hermogenes of Tarsus, remembered for being put to death by Emperor Domitian because of some allusions in his History.