ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role and place of hypokrisis and actio/pronuntiatio in rhetorical textbooks and treatises in order to appropriately contextualize the technical aspects of rhetorical performances that were still active in the late antique rhetorical arena. It provides significant instances of narrations of rhetorical performances from Homer to Imperial times and highlights some of the themes and concerns reprised by and reformulated in late antique accounts of rhetorical performances. Ancient rhetoric was the subject of numerous treatises in Antiquity that sought to define its form and scope. Theoretical references to delivery become less frequent and less elaborate in the rest of the rhetorical treatises of the Imperial and late antique period. There are many more examples in the Greco-Roman anecdotal repertoire of triumphal performances, rhetorical fiascos and oratorical slippages.
