1 to 4
Retell
A story with a lesson, then something that happened, then one person, then a saying people already repeat.
History and use
Where the course comes from
A sequence for learning the parts of a speech before you are asked to give one. The lessons on this site are the drills. This page is the map.
Where they come from
The name means preliminary exercises. In Greek and Roman classrooms they sat between grammar and a full speech. You were not handed a case and told to begin. You practiced the parts.
Three handbooks still sit where a reader can open them. Aelius Theon, probably in the first century, and a text attributed to Hermogenes, in the second, preserve earlier lists. Aphthonius of Antioch, in the fourth century, wrote the version schools kept. Each exercise came with headings and a finished model. His fourteen are the ones here.
Quintilian, teaching in Rome earlier, already describes the bridge: fable, proverb, anecdote, narrative, then refutation and confirmation, before a student attempts a whole case. He does not list all fourteen. The full set is the later Greek sequence. Byzantine classrooms kept it. Renaissance schools kept it in Latin.
Why this order
The order is a curriculum, not a menu. Retell first. Test next. Decide last. Later exercises assume you can already praise, blame, and take a claim apart.
5 to 10
Test
Take a claim apart, support a real part of one, press on a habit the public already has, then praise, blame, and compare.
11 to 14
Decide
Speak as someone else, make a thing clear to a stranger, lay out both sides, and only then say what should be done.
What they are for now
The name dropped out of most writing classes. The moves did not. A narrative still has to be followable. A refutation still has to quote the claim. Praise that could be copied onto anyone is still not praise. A proposal that hides its cost is still an advertisement.
What changed is the material. Aphthonius's students elaborated myths and famous men. The same headings run on a phone rule, a group chat, a bus route, or a sentence everyone already repeats. The exercise is the shape, not the costume.
A short piece is enough. These were drills. Six sentences of fable could be a finished assignment. So could one speech in someone else's mouth.
The fourteen, with their sources
1/mythos
Fable
Aphthonius calls the fable a false story that images the truth. Poets made them, Aesop most of all, and orators borrowed them to give advice. The moral can sit before the story or after it.
Use a fable when a direct lecture would bounce off. The animals carry the mistake. The lesson has to be earned by what they do.
A test. The moral follows from the action, and it would not fit a different story.
Practice fable2/diegema
Narrative
Narration, for Aphthonius, is the telling of something that happened, or as if it happened. The parts he names are the person, the act, the time, the place, the manner, and the cause.
Use it when a reader needs the order of events before they can judge them. Do not open with the slogan.
A test. Someone who was not there can retell it in the same order.
Practice narrative3/chreia
Anecdote
The chreia is a saying or a deed attached to one particular person, followed by praise or blame. A model Aphthonius uses: Isocrates said the root of education is bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
Use it when one real incident is enough to confirm a reputation or complicate it. Do not turn one deed into a whole character.
A test. The praise or blame is supported by this incident, not by a proverb that could fit anyone.
Practice anecdote4/gnome
Proverb
The maxim is a proverb with no named speaker. Aphthonius gives it the same headings as the chreia, because the sentence is general rather than personal.
Use it when you are about to repeat a sentence a lot of people already believe. The room you put it in changes what it means.
A test. You can say who should hear it, and who would be harmed by hearing it.
Practice proverb5/anaskeue
Refutation
Refutation attacks something doubtful. Not what is obvious, and not what is plainly impossible. Aphthonius lists obscurity, implausibility, impossibility, inconsistency, impropriety, and inexpediency.
Use it on a claim you can quote. Name the joint that fails. Leave the rest standing if it should stand.
A test. A reader can point to the sentence you rejected and the charge you used.
Practice refutation6/kataskeue
Confirmation
Confirmation uses those same headings in reverse. Aphthonius pairs it with refutation so a student practices both directions on one story.
Use it to keep the clause that holds, even inside a post you mostly reject. Quote the part you are willing to stand behind.
A test. You name the clause you are keeping, and why it is clear, probable, fitting, or useful.
Practice confirmation7/koinos topos
Commonplace
The commonplace amplifies a vice or a virtue the audience already grants. It is not a thesis. The question is treated as settled, and the work is to press on that agreement.
Use it on a belief people repeat about a type. Show why the belief lasts, or replace it with a fairer sentence. Do not jump to a new rule.
A test. You are working on a public habit, not reviewing one article and not writing a law.
Practice commonplace8/enkomion
Encomium
Encomium is organized praise: family and origin, education, deeds, then a comparison. Aphthonius's model praises a particular writer, Thucydides, not a great person in the abstract.
Use it when the praise has to survive a swap. If you can change one noun and the paragraph still works, it is not finished.
A test. At least one sentence would become false if you moved it onto another subject.
Practice encomium9/psogos
Invective
Invective uses the headings of an encomium and turns them to blame. In Aphthonius the skill is the same. Only the direction changes.
Use it on something small enough to see. Name the harm. Do not spray the people standing nearby.
A test. The blame stays on the thing you named, and the harm is specific.
Practice invective10/synkrisis
Comparison
Comparison sets two subjects on the same headings and says where one surpasses the other. It can compare two praises or two blames.
Use it when "I like this one better" is not yet a reason. Say which quality you are using, and when the advantage flips.
A test. Both subjects face the same test, and the winner is allowed to change with the situation.
Practice comparison11/ethopoeia
Characterization
Ethopoeia is a speech written in character for a particular moment. Aphthonius's model is Niobe, speaking over her dead children. The words have to be ones that person would spend.
Use it when a caption about someone is easier than their actual sentence. Voice includes what they would not say out loud.
A test. A reader could guess the speaker from the words alone.
Practice characterization12/ekphrasis
Description
Ekphrasis brings a subject before the eyes. Aphthonius does it as a walk through the acropolis of Alexandria, in an order a visitor can follow. A mood with no object is not the exercise.
Use it when the reader was not there and still has to understand the thing: a place, a tool, or a process.
A test. A stranger could repeat the path or the steps without asking what you meant.
Practice description13/thesis
Thesis
Thesis takes up a general question, such as whether one ought to marry, and argues it without attaching the question to one city's law. Both approaches get a hearing.
Use it to lay the disagreement out, including what the two sides share. Choosing the winner is the next exercise, not this one.
A test. A reader cannot tell which side you were itching to join.
Practice thesis14/nomou eisphora
Law
The sequence ends by introducing a law, or speaking against one. A proposal is what the earlier exercises were practice for: you have already retold, tested, praised, blamed, and surveyed.
Use it when you are ready to choose. Name the rule, the approach you refused, and who pays if it works.
A test. Someone could adopt the proposal or refuse it, and the cost is visible.
Practice lawRead the sources
- Quintilian on the early exercises
Institutio Oratoria 1.9. Fable, proverb, and anecdote as the work that follows grammar.
- Quintilian on narration and proof
Institutio Oratoria 2.4. Narrative, refutation, and confirmation before a full case.
- Aphthonius, with the model compositions
Malcolm Heath's translation of the fourteen exercises. An archived copy of a classroom edition.
The handbooks in one volume
George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). Theon, a text attributed to Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus.
The drills are in the sequence. The one-page tests, and a packet you can type in, are on the cheat sheet.
Open the cheat sheet