Nestor's speeches within Homer's Iliad and some of the longer speeches within Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica provide the focus for my paper. I hope to demonstrate that the speeches of both poets exhibit an unexpected level of structure and of elaboration. Homer's, profoundly paratactic in their arrangement, anticipate some elements associated with later rhetoric.

But Homer and Apollonius represent two sides of the rhetorical coin. Homer's enthusiasm for direct speech is couched in addresses which are positive, outwardly directed, and expectantly ameliorative. Apollonius, no lover of direct speech, has his reflect an interiorization typified by hesitancy, inwardly turned anger, guile and passivity.

Why these changes? Burgeoning literacy may represent one cause. The other may be generated by the theme of amechanie which runs throughout the Argonautica.

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