El ejemplo histórico en los discursos de Elio Aristides: el episodio de los heraldos de Darío en las Guerras Médicas ( Panatenaico 97-100 Lenz-Behr)

Abstract

In this paper, we study the use of the historical example in the Elio Aristides’oratory from a rhetoric perspective. Studies in this regard have been focused so far on historical matters and Quellenforschung . On the contrary, we start determining the persuasive speech components in general and the example (παράδeιγμα) in particular, through the Rhetoric. Then, we analyze how certain topics and historical motifs (constituted as παραδeίγματα, that is, models and precedents of the past with rhetoric value) integrate both the argumentative and the stylistic facets of the discourse. The historical example discussed here is the one that arose in the Panathenaic out of the episodes in Athens in 491 BC concerning the heralds sent to Greece by Darius at the beginning of the First Persian War.