ABSTRACT
The third-century rhetorician 1 Menander of Laodicea 2 wrote two works on epideictic oratory that sum up a long rhetorical tradition in masterful fashion. Epideictic orations are speeches that praise or blame a god, an individual, a city, or some other group of people. The first work describes eight types of hymns in praise of gods, while the second discusses the structure and content of seventeen different types of epideictic orations. The last discusses an oration in honour of ‘Sminthian Apollo’. 3 To illustrate the type, Menander includes an oration in honour of Sminthian Apollo and inserts into the text instructions on writing such an oration. The Sminthian oration is thus an unusual example of a text commented on by its own writer.
