In a brief survey of Byzantine rhetoric, this paper argues for distinguishing between the text-tradition and actual performance. With regard to the former, we know considerably less than we often assume, and there where considerably fewer manuscripts of Classical rhetoricians in circulation than in sometimes assumed. With regard to actual rhetorical artifacts, an explanation is offered for the almost complete absence of representatives of two of the tradicional genres, deliberative and forensic; and it is observed that, perhaps paradoxically, Byzantine rhetoric was a rhetoric without a public audience.
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