Hermagoras of Temnos

Hermagoras of Temnos was an eminent Greek teachers of rhetoric from the 2nd century BC That Hermagoras from Temnos dates ( Pergamon ), testifies to the geographer Strabo.

His six books comprehensive work on rhetoric, entitled TECHNAI rhetorikaí was because of its clear systematic order the basic book of rhetorical education in the Roman Republic. The work is lost, but can be reconstructed from Cicero's De inventione and from Quintilian's Institutio oratoria into disrepair. Hermagoras presented the eloquence in the service of the government people to live together, which is why the court speeches are in the foreground with him. He argued for the thesis doctrine ( a classification of legal cases ) and the Stasi theory, analyzes the possible questions for prosecution, defense and judgment.

According to tradition Hermagoras demanded by the speaker five qualities:

• A good nose
• Sense of order
• A sophisticated style
• A good memory
• An expressive speech

His own work was indeed judged by Cicero in his essay, Brutus and by Tacitus in his Dialogus de oratoribus as unusually dull and straw- thin, yet the influence of Hermagoras to Roman rhetoric soon after onset was exceedingly great.