Artium scriptores Writers of Arts
(Reste der voraristotelischen Rhetorik – The Evidence for Pre-Aristotelian Rhetoric)
Herausgegeben - Edited
von - by
Ludwig Radermacher
Wirkl. Mitglied der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften - Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Vorgelegt in der Sitzung vom. 12. Jänner 1949 - Presented at the Meeting of January 12, 1949
1951
In Kommission bei - By Arrangement with
Rudolf M. Rohrer
Wien - Vienna
The current edition of Ludwig Radermacher's original work is provisional. It has been undertaken by David Mirhady (dmirhady@sfu.ca), with the essential help of Domingo Avilés, in order to provoke renewed interest in early Greek rhetoric and rhetoricians. Help will be welcome. After a lengthy and productive career stretching back to the last decade of the 19th century, Professor Radermacher died within a year of his publication. Nevertheless his collection has continued to be the standard reference tool for the study of early Greek rhetoric until now, though it has been largely inaccessible because it lacked translation into a modern language.
With the help of the Lace: Greek OCR project (http://heml.mta.ca/lace) at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, Radermacher’s volume has now been digitized, and a complete English translation is in draft form. It is important to emphasize the designedly inchoate character of the project, which is posted here. With the internet nothing is written on paper, let alone stone, so texts and translations can always be modified. We have used translations from various sources, or created our own. But these are only placeholders. New, original translations are needed.
Since Radermacher’s numerations of texts have become standard, however, it seems best to preserve them. In the case of some authors, for whom there is little evidence, it has seemed best to present source text and translation in parallel columns on a single page. Other authors, such as Antiphon, whose Tetralogies form part of Radermacher’s edition, are somewhat longer. It may be easier for users to open two windows in order to allow both texts to be viewed simultaneously, given the width of many desktop monitors nowadays.
We have hesitated to translate all of Radermacher’s commentary. Much of it may be dated, and it seems likely that new ideas will come forward. Many of Radermacher’s source texts can include more contextual material. Additional scholarly bibliography is also available and should find its way on to the site. For a volume of sources of technical handbooks, indices and a glossary of technical terms are clearly desirable. Schools of rhetorical theorists also need to be identified, which is an oversight in Radermacher.