ABSTRACT
The propaganda generated by the rivalry between Photios and Ignatios shows very clearly that rhetoric, both as a theoretical concept and a practical skill, played an important role in ninth-century Byzantium. The Byzantines understood very clearly, as did Plato, the social and political ramifications of education. Rhetoric flourished in fifth-century Athens because of the revolutionary idea that all citizens, regardless of their background or bank account, had the potential to contribute to the governance of the state. Rhetorical analysis of literary source material can yield valuable data about Byzantine society. Rhetorical analysis can thus open a window onto the relationship between literary sources and the creative process in Byzantium. Analysis of the rhetorical forms and strategies associated with these two writers can deepen our understanding of Byzantine literature and the creative process, establish relationships between apparently unrelated texts, and uncover meaning independent of a text's actual content.
