Hermogenes of Tarsus

His precocious ability secured him a public appointment as teacher of his art while he was only a boy, attracting the note of the emperor Marcus Aurelius himself; but at the age of twenty-five his faculties gave way, and he spent the remainder of his long life in a state of intellectual impotence.

[1] During his early years, however, he had composed a series of rhetorical treatises, which became very popular textbooks in Byzantium, and the subject of subsequent commentaries.

The next type of style is rapidity—quick short sentence, rapid replies, sudden turns of thought in antithesis.

[3] George of Trebizond, a Byzantine scholar, introduced Hermogenes to Western Europe during the Renaissance through his Rhetoricorum libri V (1470).

[4] Hermogenes was also influential on Spanish rhetoricians such as Antonio Lull, Pedro Juan Núñez, and Luis de Granada.

Michel Patillon has translated the entire Hermogenic corpus into French, with copious annotations.

[9] Annabel Patterson wrote a book about Hermogenean style, rhetorical categories, and its influence on Renaissance writers, such as William Shakespeare.