Theon and the history of the progymnasmata

This paper surveys the evidence for the technical literature on rhetorical progymnasmata. It concludes that the arguments for an early date for Theon’s Progymnasmata are inherently weak, and are inconsistent with the evidence for the text’s currency in late antiquity (especially the fact that it was translated into Armenian). Analysis of a dispute about the classification of Aelius Aristides On the Four in the fourth and fifth centuries shows that Theon and the Sopater whose Progymnasmata are quoted by John of Sardis are both likely to be teachers of rhetoric independently attested in fifth-century Alexandria. It is suggested that the pseudo-Hermogenean Progymnasmata are most likely to be the work of Minucianus; but this conjecture cannot be proved.