ABSTRACT
How much does a rhetor need to know? We have seen that, in a sense, Aristotle was able to capitalize on all the
writers before him, and to add his own intellectual approach based on his wide studies in a variety of fields. Yet some readers have felt that Aristotle asks for more breadth than most speakers can manage. While we do not have an account of all the debates on this subject between the time of Aristotle and the Romans, it is clear from what did transpire that some, perhaps many, writers considered this question in the centuries after Aristotle’s death in 322 B.C.E.
