ABSTRACT
Quintilian's discussions of enargeia and phantasia explain the functions of vivid language in a rhetorical context as well as providing insights into the psychological processes involved in both the production and reception of such language. There are significant parallels between Quintilian's treatment of enargeia and the discussions of ekphrasis in the Progymnasmata, and the same is true of the treatment of ekphrasis and its synonyms in the treatises that deal with the more advanced stages of the curriculum. This chapter explores the uses of ekphrasis as a rhetorical technique as it appears in the more advanced Greek treatises on rhetoric that represent the next stage in rhetorical training after the introductory exercises of the Progymnasmata. The elevation of ekphrasis to the status of a separate exercise, in the surviving Progymnasmata, may well have encouraged its expansion and development.
