Οὐ συγγραφῆς ἔργον ψιλῆς Aspetti della narratio encomiastica in Elio Aristide

The epideictic narrative is intrinsically selective. The orators, starting from Isocrates, are highly aware of this: the inevitable selectivity soon became a laudatory topos. In Aelius Aristides' Panathenaicus, this kind of awareness leads to a reflection about the encomiastic narration. The author opposes laudatory διήγησις and συγγραφή / ψιλή συγγραφή / ἁπλὴ διήγησις. The laudatory διήγησις is complex: it faces the difficulty of selecting the material and must be proportionate to the duration of the speech. The συγγραφή tends to give an account of events in a systematic and complete way, but it tends to occupy an infinite time. The first is a true rhetorical way of expression; the second is a kind of "non-oratorical prose" (Russell-Wilson), well documented in technical treatises. The need to construct a selective narrative emerges also in the Sacred Tales, and helps to bring out their encomiastic intent.