Rhetoric for Herennius (Lat. Rhetoricon ad Herennium)

The article provides a brief summary of the rhetoric of Herennius. The rhetoric of Herennius, along with the works of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, is the pearl of ancient rhetoric and is the first judicial rhetoric that was used as a textbook in the Middle Ages. In the rhetoric of Herennius, an analysis of the types of speeches is given with exhaustive completeness (a demonstrative speech is devoted to the praise or censure of a famous person, a deliberative speech consists of discussing political issues and is aimed at choosing a particular decision, a judicial speech is based on a legal dispute); The skills of invention (inventio), composition (dispositio), style (elocutio), memorization (memoria) and performance (pronuntiactio and methods of their application) are analyzed in detail. It is concluded that creative achievements of this kind (like the rhetoric of Herennius) appear once or twice every millennium, but still they exist and it is they that motivate modern researchers in the field of judicial rhetoric to deeply comprehend their depths and move on.