Works
Anaximenes wrote three historical works:
1. History of Philip of Macedon
A history of Philip of Macedonia, which consisted at least of eight books. (Harpocrat. s. v.
Καβύλη, Ἁλόννησος; Eustratius. ad Aristot. Eth. 3.8.)
2. A history of Alexander the Great.
D. L. 2.3; Harpocrat. s. v.Ἀλκίμαχος, who quotes the 2nd book of it.
3. A history of Greece
A history of Greece, which Pausanias (6.18.2) calls τὰ ἐν Ἕλλησιν ἀρχαῖα, which, however, is more commonly
called πρῶται ἱστορίαι or πρώτη ἱστορία. (Athen. 6.231; Diod. 15.89.) It comprised in twelve books the history of Greece
from the earliest mythical ages down to the battle of Mantineia and the death of
Epaminondas. He was a very skilful rhetorician, and wrote a work calumniating the three
great cities of Greece, Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, which he published under the name of
Theopompus, his personal enemy, and in which he imitated the style of the latter so
perfectly, that every one thought it to be really his work. This production Anaximenes sent
to those cities, and thus created exasperation against his enemy in all Greece. (Paus. 6.8.3, Suid. l.c.) The histories of
Anaximenes, of which only very few fragments are now extant, are censured by Plutarch (Praec. Pol. 6) for the numerous prolix and rhetorical speeches he
introduced in them. (Comp. Dionys. De Isaco, 19; De
adm. ri dic. Demosth. 8.) The fact that we possess so little of his histories, shews
that the ancients did not think highly of them, and that they were more of a
rhetorical than an historical character. He enjoyed some reputation as a teacher of rhetoric
and as an orator, both in the assembly of the people and in the courts of justice (Dionys.
l.c. ; Paus. l.c.), and also wrote speeches for
others, such as the one which Euthias delivered against Phryne. (Athen. 13.591; comp. Harpocr. s. v.
Εὐθίας.)
Assessment
There have been critics, such as Casaubon (ad Diog. Laert. 2.3), who
thought that the rhetorician and the historian Anaximenes were two distinct persons; but
their identity has been proved by very satisfactory arguments. What renders him a person of
the highest importance in the history of Greek literature, is the following fact, which has
been firmly established by the critical investigations of our own age. He is the only
rhetorician previous to the time of Aristotle whose scientific treatise on rhetoric is now
extant. This is the so-called Ῥητορικὴ πρὸς
Ἀλέξανδρον, which is usually printed among the works of Aristotle, to whom,
however, it cannot belong, as all crities agree. The opinion that it is a work of Anaximenes
was first expressed by P. Victorius in his preface to Aristotle's Rhetoric, and has been
firmly established as a fact by Spengel in his
Συναγωγὴ
τεχνῶν, "Sive Artium Scriptores ab initiis usque ad editos Aristotelis de rhetorica
libros," Stuttgard, 1828, p. 182. &c. (Comp.
Quint. Inst.
3.4.9 with the notes of Gesner and Spalding.) This Rhetoric is preceded by a letter
which is manifestly of later origin, and was probably intended as an introduction to the
study of the Rhetoric of Aristotle. The work itself is much interpolated, but it is at any
rate clear that Anaximenes extended his subject beyond the limits adopted by his
predecessors, with whose works he was well acquainted. He divides eloquence into forensic and
deliberative, but also suggests that a third kind, the epideictic, should be separated from
them. As regards the plan and construction of the work, it is evident that its author was not
a philosopher : the whole is a series of practical suggestions how this or that subject
should be treated under various circumstances, as far as argumentation, expression, and the
arrangement of the parts of a speech are concerned.
Further Information
Vossius, de Histor. Graec. p. 92, &c., ed. Westermann; Ruhnken,
Hist. Crit. Orat. Graec. p. 86; Westermann, Gesch. der
Griech. Beredtsamkeit, § 69.