Metaphors in Rhetoric: From Ancient Greek to 21st-Century Politics, in: S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim and M. Edwards (eds.). Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric (2022; PDF with preprint)

Jakub Filonik

This chapter discusses the place of metaphor in ancient and modern political rhetoric. It starts with the idea of metaphor in classical rhetorical and stylistic theories and juxtaposes it with modern cognitive theories, to note that the differences between Greek theorists’ and modern linguists’ views have often been misconstrued and overemphasised. It argues that the cognitive aspect of metaphor, well represented in Greek theorising, was sidelined in Roman and later tradition. It also analyses examples of some prominent types of metaphors in classical Athenian and recent rhetorical practice, including Cold War rhetoric, and discusses their real-life impact (including metaphors of states as structures and containers, personifications and body politic, and war as a sporting competition).

Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 Chapter 20 Metaphors in Rhetoric: From Ancient Greek to 21st-Century Politics Jakub Filonik As the various disciplines of human enquiry gained their independence over the centuries . . . the study of metaphor survived as a curiosity in some and disappeared as irrelevant in others. There was but one discipline in which the study of metaphor was central—rhetoric. Ortony (1993) 2 This statement from a book called Metaphor and Thought may be surprising to anyone used to studying metaphor as primarily a stylistic, “ornamental” device, more appropriate to poetry than discourse. Some stylistic views of this kind came down to us from classical antiquity, but the ideas inherited from Greek and Roman rhetorical tradition on this matter are much more complex than has often been assumed. Almost a century ago William Bedell Stanford, later a Regius Professor of Greek at Dublin, wrote that “no verbal process is more common and more basic in speech and literature than metaphor,” annoyed with how the expression “this is a metaphorical use” kept serving classicists as an excuse to “evade vital questions of basic meaning.”1 This chapter shows that this tendency was not always the case and the “cognitive” component is well rooted in ancient Greek theorising on metaphor. 1 The ancient theories of metaphor The first to discuss the idea of metaphor was Isocrates in the 4th century BCE, presenting a register of stylistic devices available to poets (Evagoras 8–9). Judging from the compound and its later sense, by metaphorai he meant those used in the process of “transferring” (meta-pherein) meaning from one concept to another.2 Isocrates considers them to have a place among other ornaments (kosmoi) accessible to poets in their fanciful creative endeavours. He explicitly rejects the idea that prose writers (notably orators), in constant need of being precise with words and neglectful of metrical elegance, could gain similar access to this linguistic repertoire, and should only resort to “civil terms,” or those in everyday usage (9.10: ta politika onomata). Aristotle is usually credited with the standard Greek definition of metaphor.3 In his Poetics, he first defines metaphora in a rather dry way as “the application of a noun which properly applies to something else,” noting that the transfer may be “from genus to species, from species to genus, or by analogy” (21, 1457b, trans. Heath [1996]). He thus seems to include under one umbrella term what is now commonly distinguished as (1) metaphor, (2) metonymy, and (3) analogy (and in Rh. 3.11.6– 1 Stanford (1936) 1. For a good recent overview of metaphor in Aristotle and later tradition, see Novokhatko (2014). Cf. Zanker (2017) 164–190 on the spatial metaphor implicit in the term metaphora. 3 See Stanford (1936) on metaphor in the classical rhetorical tradition (and late 19th to early 20th-century linguistics). 2 Page 1 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 15, 1412a–13a, he even calls riddles, similes, proverbs and hyperboles “metaphors”).4 He further notes that a skilled command of this device, dependent on the ability to see resemblances between things and to coin new meanings, is the mark of a true creative genius, as it cannot be learnt from others (Poet. 22, 1459a, cf. Rh. 3.2.8, 1405a).5 And it is from such skilful poets, thanks to their own inventive metaphors, that one can learn the most in the easiest and most pleasant way possible: “metaphor brings about learning (mathēsis) most of all,” says the philosopher (Rh. 3.10.2, 1410b, cf. 3.11.6, 1412a), adding that metaphor should ideally “bring things before the eyes” and “make the lifeless things living” (Rh. 3.10.6–11.2, 1410b–11b, trans. adapted from Kennedy [2007]). He also notes that using metaphors is similar to philosophising, since both are based on perceiving—and perhaps reflecting on—similarities in different yet (not obviously) related things (Rh. 3.11.5, 1412a, cf. Poet. 22, 1459a).6 More importantly, however, Aristotle lists metaphor in the Poetics as distinct from purely ornamental expressions, Isocratean kosmoi,7 and in the Rhetoric notes that of all stylistic devices— pace Isocrates—only metaphor can bring benefit to prose because it is used by everyone in conversation. He then gives numerous examples of good metaphors made by public speakers, including Athenian generals (Poet. 21, 1457b, 22, 1459a, Rh. 3.2.6, 1404b, 3.10.7, 1411a–b, most likely responding to the Isocratean ideas).8 This concept of the ubiquity of metaphor is echoed in Demetrius’ treatise On Style, of unknown date, which acknowledges that metaphors are so commonly used in everyday discourse that hardly anyone notices them (86). Demetrius—an otherwise unknown author—explains that metaphor allows a voice to be called “clear” (leukē, lit. “bright”) or a character “harsh” (trachy), which are expressions of a metaphorical nature that nonetheless pass unnoticed as if they were proper terms (kyrioi) precisely because they are so common (86–87). Not only, then, does metaphor help people conceptualise meaning through literary creativity, it is also the phenomenon that occurs most naturally in everyday speech. This is important because modern cognitive theories of metaphor often present their findings as opposed to the entire classical tradition and create a straw-man argument based on selections from Poetics to suggest that Aristotle is to blame for the strictly literary approach to metaphor.9 Yet this elaborate view of the role of metaphor in human life, emerging from early Greek literary theory, was somewhat unexpectedly obliterated by Roman rhetoricians. Cicero, in his 4 Aristotle considers “metaphor by analogy” to be one of four kinds of metaphor. Nowadays, analogy is usually believed to be an association of markedly similar concepts (from one conceptual domain), as opposed to metaphor that links concepts from different domains: see Vosniadou and Ortony (1989); Lloyd (1966). Metonymy allows reference to a certain thing by its particular characteristic or close association, such as a part for the whole (synecdoche) or object for subject; how often this process is metaphorical in nature is subject to lively scholarly debate, see Lakoff and Johnson (1980) 35–40; Barcelona (2000); Dirven and Pörings (2003); Nagy (2015). 5 Cf. Mahon (1999), who rightly notes the difference between the usage of metaphors and the coining of new ones, as discussed by Aristotle in his Poetics and Rhetoric. 6 See also Stanford (1936) 29 on this definition. 7 By this word, he might have meant epithets, cf. Stanford (1936) 7. 8 The pseudo-Aristotelian Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, of unknown authorship but possibly written soon after Aristotle (often ascribed to Anaximenes of Lampsacus), sadly has very little to say about metaphor (cf. [Arist.] Rh. Al. 23, 1434b). 9 See, e.g., Lakoff and Johnson (1980) 190–193, Ortony (1993) 3, Black (1993) 22, Lakoff (1993) 202. But see Swiggers (1984), Wierzbicka (1986), Kirby (1997), and Mahon (1999) on Aristotle’s theories of metaphor with reference to modern cognitive ones and the criticism of the dichotomic separation of Lakoff and Johnson’s theory from all earlier tradition. Page 2 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 treatise-dialogue On the Orator from the mid-1st century BCE, has Crassus claim that metaphor (translatio) is used primarily for pleasure, should be limited to a single word to be grasped properly, and has to be considered secondary to simile (De or. 3.155–159, similarly Orator, 92; contra Aristotle).10 He notes that even peasants use metaphors (155), and adds that it often made him wonder why everyone seems to enjoy metaphors and strange words more than proper and regular terms (159). At least Cicero makes the attempt to understand this curiosity by discussing metaphors’ appeal to sensual experiences; but he also suggests one should keep them modest and signal their use by apologising for the expression first (160–68), in which he seems to be following Theophrastus’ and the Rhodian school’s rhetorical theories (both mostly lost).11 He also dismisses the topic of the invention of more creative metaphors as unnecessary (156). It seems, however, that it was Quintilian who put the final nail in metaphor’s metaphorical coffin by claiming that it is a mere “ornament” that “adorns” language (Inst. 8.6.4–18), thus taking metaphor theory back to square one for the subsequent millennia.12 His treatise, setting new rules for the more docile rhetoric of the Roman Empire, proved to be very influential, but earlier republican tradition offered more complex explanations. One of the earliest surviving rhetorical treatises in Latin (ca. 85 BCE?),13 the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, repeats Aristotle’s definition of “bringing things before the eyes” and praises a good number of the benefits emerging from the use of metaphor, including conveying things more clearly, saying something more concisely, using a euphemism, underscoring or downplaying the matter in question, or—lastly— embellishing speech (4.45). This concept seems to have had no impact on the later Latin theorising on this matter, but the treatise itself was widely read in antiquity and the modern era, not least owing to its mistaken attribution to the incessantly popular Cicero, despite some doubts in this matter expressed already in 1470.14 Finally, we are lucky to have access to the Greek treatise On Invention, surviving under the name of Hermogenes but probably by an author living in the 3rd or 4th century CE, revised as late as the 5th or 6th, and based on the mid-2nd century rhetorical theory of the Second Sophistic.15 This anonymous rhetorician writes that metaphor is “a matter of using a word whose signiﬁcation (sēmantikon) is not derived from the subject matter at hand but from something else, but which can be applied in common to the subject and a subject brought to light from elsewhere” (which he himself calls tropē but which he says grammarians call metaphora) (4.10, trans. Kennedy [2005]), 10 Part of §157 has sometimes been excluded by editors, but McCall (1969b) makes a case for its authenticity. See Innes (2003) 17, Calboli (2007), and Novokhatko (2014). 12 For a more nuanced reading of Quintilian’s metaphor theory, see Novokhatko (2017). 13 See Winkel (1979) on the dating and the influence of the Aristotelian Nicomachean Ethics on the treatise; Cicero’s De inventione probably predates it by a few years but has nothing to say on metaphor. On the term metaphora and Greek influences in Latin stylistic texts before Quintilian, see Novokhatko (2016). 14 Cf. Skinner (2014) on Shakespeare’s use of Ad Herennium (together with Cicero’s and Quintilian’s treatises) and its popularity during the Renaissance and in Tudor England. See p. 30 on the first published doubts about its authenticity. 15 See Kennedy (2005) xv–xvi; cf. Patillon (2010) 13–17. 11 Page 3 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 one of the most elaborate “semantic” definitions of metaphor surviving from antiquity.16 Its wording strikingly resembles modern cognitive theories of metaphor and conceptual integration.17 In On Types of Style (Περὶ ἰδεῶν λόγου 248),18 Hermogenes proper (often—but not unarguably—identified with Hermogenes of Tarsus of 2nd century CE)19 shows good knowledge of the Attic orators and their use of metaphor, but warns that one has to be cautious with strong “metaphorical expressions” (tropikai lexeis), such as the Demosthenic “they were hamstrung” (Dem. 13.31), “he sold himself” (19.16), or “he mugged Greece” (9.22), since, instead of being solemn (semnai) and grandiose, these can make a speech too harsh, or even—if one is not Demosthenes—“coarse and vulgar” (trans. Wooten [1987]). Aristotle, to the contrary, criticised some unfitting metaphors either as laughable or, indeed, too solemn (semnon agan) and tragic (Rh. 3.3.4, 1406b), which his later counterpart, with different stylistic taste, apparently favoured.20 Hermogenes also notes that metaphors make speech vivid but not beautiful, which is why Isocrates avoided them (229, 248–249, 289–299).21 Even more importantly, he advises speakers to use metaphors that are “hardly noticed” by the audience (248: oude emphainetai), showing how far from Isocrates the later Greek rhetorical theory came in this respect and how independent it was from the Latin tradition. 2 Metaphor and persuasion It is no secret to us today that metaphors are encountered in our lives in everyday speech, and various metaphor theories from Gertrude Buck’s (1899)22 through I. A. Richards’s (1936) and Max Black’s (1954) to Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) have all tried to encapsulate this basic feature. With the latter work, the most influential modern branch of metaphor research began, known as cognitive theories of metaphor or conceptual metaphor theory, with further studies helping contextualise it and redefine its place in culture and discourse.23 Metaphors are also most prominently present in political rhetoric, even annoyingly so when speakers make too abundant use of them. Linguists have now developed new methods of analysing them more systematically, including critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black [2011], [2018]), metaphor scenarios (Musolff 2016b), metaphor identification through corpus queries (Charteris-Black [2004]; Deignan [2005]; Krennmayr and Steen [2017]), and measuring the impact of metaphorical framing through experimental studies (Thibodeau & Boroditsky [2013]; Steen, Reijnierse & Burgers [2014]; Reuchamps, Dodeigne and Perrez [2018]). In fact, the interest in metaphor has grown in recent 16 See Patillon (2010) 314–319 for the discussion of this passage and theory. On conceptual integration (or conceptual blending), see Fauconnier and Turner (2002). 18 Passage numbers given here are page numbers of Rabe’s Teubner edition, also used in Wooten’s translation (not to be confused with Rabe’s marginal passage numbers based on Walz’s and Spengel’s editions of Greek rhetorical texts). 19 See Kennedy (2005) xiii, n. 1. 20 See Vatri (2018) on psycholinguistic approaches to reconstructing the stylistic taste of ancient Greek speakers. 21 Cf. Stanford (1936) 14–15. 22 On which see Mehlenbacher and Harris (2017). 23 See an overview of current methodologies in studying metaphors in political rhetoric in Musolff (2016a). 17 Page 4 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 decades to such an extent that as early as 1978 a literary critic, Wayne Booth, wondered if by the year 2039 “there will be more students of metaphor than people.”24 These studies, both experimental and developing new theoretical methods, are important because they point to a constructive intersection where (rhetorical) theory meets (discursive) practice. At the beginning of his Rhetoric, Aristotle urges that a good speech must adapt its style, order, and delivery to the circumstances,25 but most of all has to persuade people (3.1, 1403b). And where he criticises some metaphors used by speakers, it is because they are ill fitting and thus “unpersuasive” (apithana, Rh. 3.3.4, 1406b). This is much in line with what modern theories have to say on the way metaphor works in discourse, even if they have much more to add. More curiously, Cicero and Quintilian made use of the Peripatetic philosophers in their theorising, while Cicero’s own political speeches drew heavily on Demosthenes and employed many metaphors in doing so.26 In fact, almost all Quintilian’s examples of well-applied metaphors come from Cicero.27 It is thus surprising that both authors were so eager to deny metaphor its persuasive power in their treatises on rhetoric. Some of this must have been a matter of cultural aesthetics and social norms, including Roman concepts of mores, decorum and publicly voiced rigour, as well as the more rigid rules of using educated Latin.28 Metaphor was certainly a vital—and often contested and renegotiated—element of rhetorical practice in classical Greece, as some of the examples in this chapter will demonstrate.29 It does not always seem viable to trace which of these metaphors survived in the history of rhetoric through the continuation of their ancient prototypes and which tend to be universally conceived. Some, such as the “ship of state,” were firmly grounded in Greek cultural experience at least since archaic times and the earliest surviving Greek literary texts, and begin their journey through rhetoric with the Greeks.30 Whatever the source of others, it is useful to remember that the classical education of many ancient and modern public speakers was based on knowledge of Demosthenes and Cicero (the former popular throughout antiquity, the latter in educated circles during the 24 Booth (1978) 49. On delivery in Athenian oratory, see Hall (1995), Serafim (2017) 28–31, 113–136, and essays in Kremmydas et al. (2013) and Papaioannou et al. (2017). 26 For example, struma civitatis (“a plague on the civil community”) in Pro sestio 135, on which see La Bua (2019) 254– 255. Cf. Lavan (2013) and Ando (2015) on metaphorical conceptualisations in Roman political thinking. 27 Quint. Inst. 8.6.4–18, cf. La Bua (2019) 273. On Quintilian’s use of the terms metaphora and translatio, see Novokhatko (2017). 28 Cf. Stanford (1936) 106–107. 29 For more detailed studies of metaphors in the speeches of Athenian orators, see Wohl (2009) and (2010) on political metaphors and metonymies in selected forensic speeches of Demosthenes and Lysias; Cook (2012) on Demosthenes’ and Aeschines’ rival use of metaphorical concepts; Kosch (2017) on Demosthenes’ conscious break with Isocrates’ views on metaphor; and Filonik (2017) on the role of civic metaphors in Lycurgus. See also Cairns (2014) on Homer’s and Plato’s metaphors of psychē and thymos and (2017) on emotion metaphors in tragedy. 30 On the “ship of state” metaphor, see Brock (2013) 53–67. 25 Page 5 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 Middle Ages),31 not least their rhetorical use of metaphor.32 This did not always go hand in hand with an appreciation of their metaphorical language, particularly in the periods when popular assemblies and popular rhetoric were looked down upon. A good example of this wariness from English history would be Samuel Parker, the bishop of Oxford and father of the more famous writer and translator, who in 1670 attempted to introduce an act of Parliament banning “fulsome and luscious” metaphors, incidentally confirming their power.33 The presence of a metaphorical layer in some of the examples quoted below should be clear without much explanation. In the case of others, some knowledge of how metaphors have been studied by linguists since the 1980s might prove useful. Lakoff and Johnson (1980), in their conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), define metaphor as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another, in a surprisingly similar vein to their forefather Hermogenes (even if they fail to acknowledge it). Among its principles, it postulates the existence of some basic conceptual structures called image schemas, based on the qualitative analysis of numerous metaphors and the deduction that much metaphorical thinking derives from human bodily experience (embodiment). The most important schemas are usually distinguished as containers, paths, forces, balance, and links.34 Their objective existence has been questioned, but they prove useful as overarching notions in analysing the predominant conceptual domains from which metaphors take their language and meaning. CMT also argues that metaphors operate by highlighting certain aspects of concepts while downplaying others, not that far from what we learn from the Rhetorica ad Herennium (4.45). The significance of metaphors in discourse, however, as opposed to their more universal aspects rooted in human biology, has been only fully explored in later studies, and their role in rhetoric will also be the focus of the overview to follow, without any claims to comprehensiveness.35 3 Containers and structures The focus here will be on specific metaphors and their uses in rhetoric, rather than on schemas, but one schema – that of CONTAINER, based on spatial relations between the human body and surrounding objects – will be given extra attention. This schema allows us to imagine abstract notions or unconfined entities in relation to a limited physical space, such as a house or a box. This can prove useful in political rhetoric, when states, associations, political systems, or their constitutive parts are metaphorically presented as vessels, in which things or ideas are placed, or as structures, with abstract concepts imagined as their architectural elements. For example, when in 31 See Pernot (2006), Canevaro (2018) and Canfora (2019) on the ancient and Byzantine reception of Demosthenes, and Blanshard (2019) on the modern. On the reception of Cicero, see essays in Steel (2013) and Altman (2015); see Murphy (1981) 106–123 and Ward (2015) on his mediaeval reception; cf. Skinner (2014) 25–33 on Cicero, Quintilian, and the Rhetorica ad Herennium (ascribed to Cicero at that time) as major components of the rhetorical education in Tudor England. 32 See La Bua (2019) 274 on the importance of imitating Cicero’s metaphors in speakers’ education. 33 See Chilton (1996) 2; see also Musolff (2016a) 309. 34 On image schemas in more detail, see Hampe and Grady (2005). 35 For more examples (and comparisons) of ancient and modern metaphors, see Filonik (2018), with further bibliography. Page 6 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 On the False Embassy Demosthenes tries to emphasise the importance of giving public speeches based on truth in democratic deliberation, he says (19.184): οὐδὲν γὰρ ἔσθ’ ὅ τι µεῖζον ἂν ὑµᾶς ἀδικήσειέ τις ἢ ψευδῆ λέγων. οἷς γάρ ἐστ’ ἐν λόγοις ἡ πολιτεία, πῶς, ἂν οὗτοι µὴ ἀληθεῖς ὦσιν, ἀσφαλῶς ἔστι πολιτεύεσθαι; ἂν δὲ δὴ καὶ πρὸς ἃ τοῖς ἐχθροῖς συµφέρει δῶρά τις λαµβάνων λέγῃ, πῶς οὐχὶ καὶ κινδυνεύσετε; There is no greater crime someone could commit against you than to speak false words. For how could people whose government is based on speeches govern themselves securely unless the speeches are true? And if someone is bribed to speak in support of policies that favour the enemy, how does that not also put you at risk? (trans. adapted from Yunis [2005]) Recognising that there is something figurative in the speaker’s wording is immediate, but some help from the cognitive perspective may help us understand how it operates. This is not to say that the Greek here is unambiguous. The clause οἷς ἐστ’ ἐν λόγοις ἡ πολιτεία can be understood either as (1) “those for whom the state (or state administration) is placed in words (or public speeches)” or (2) “those for whom the state (state administration) rests upon words (public speeches).”36 In sense (1), the Greek preposition en should be read as “in,” a container metaphor that makes public speeches themselves an underlying structure, into which the state is placed as an object, while in (2), it should be understood as “on” or “at,” a structure metaphor, with speeches conceptualised as fundaments, that is the supportive part of the state’s architecture (the latter being seen as the main structure). We might learn more about modern conceptual thinking about the state than what Demosthenes thought of it from the fact that recent English translations of the speech prefer variant (2) as the right way to render the Greek expression here, with the state seen as the paramount edifice.37 Whichever of the two possibilities we prefer, the government “placed in” or “relying on” speeches is presented as a fragile object, contingent on the truthfulness of political rhetoric and the goodwill of the speakers, particularly with its independence endangered by a foreign force powerful enough to make it collapse.38 According to the orator, it appears as such to all citizens taking part in public deliberation in a democracy and making their decisions based on the speeches delivered at the assembly.39 With reference to this, Demosthenes soon uses another metaphor by saying that whoever wastes time and delays or neglects public decision-making in such a constitution, “simply 36 Literally, the entire sentence runs as follows: “How can it be safe for those for whom state administration is placed in (based on) public speeches to run their state, if the speeches are not truthful?” 37 See both D.M. MacDowell (“is based on words”) and H. Yunis (“is based on speeches”). But R. Waterfield goes for “depends on words,” with the state conceptualised as a pendulous object hanging down from words perceived as something solid. The secondary, instrumental meaning of en seems to be inferred from this basic, locative sense (referring to an area or confined space): see Luraghi (2003) 82–94. 38 On the “logocentricity” of Athenian polity and the orators’ rhetoric based on such argumentation, see also Hesk (2000) 163–179; cf. Ober (1989) 156–191. 39 On the language of this passage, see Paulsen (1999) 201. Page 7 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 breaks off the city’s policies” (19.186: τὰ πράγµαθ’ ἁπλῶς ἀφῄρηται).40 Not very far from this is Lycurgus who claims that the ephebic oath is “what holds democracy together,” or “keeps it from falling apart” (1.79: τὸ συνέχον τὴν δηµοκρατίαν), trying to convey the idea that the constitution of Athens is a set of dispersed building elements from which the state is “combined” and which need to be kept together by the oath as a binding construction material (these elements are the magistrate, the judge and the private citizen).41 This conceptualisation highlights the importance of each of these elements to the wellbeing and survival of the entire construction. Yet Lycurgus was not the first speaker in Athens to make use of this metaphor rhetorically. Andocides portrayed the oath (1.9) and Demosthenes the courts (24.2) as such a “binding material”—thus extolling their significance—in the larger structure of the Athenian polity (again conceived as a structure, but metaphorically framed with reference to the link and force schemas). But pointing out the fragile foundations of a structure does not have to be a call for more consideration, as it was in Demosthenes’ “state in speeches” example. In the beginning of the so-called Long Telegram, US diplomat George Kennan, when outlining the proposed American policy towards Soviet Russia, stated that “Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundations” compared with the fundamental strength and stability of contemporary Western countries.42 Such conceptions of the state and its institutions have often been used to communicate meaning in politics, with the “state is a building” (often a house) metaphor occurring almost ubiquitously in modern rhetoric and public discourse.43 Winston Churchill, referring to the newly founded United Nations Organisation in his “Sinews of Peace” speech (1946), urged that its foundation required action, not mere words, and claimed—with a biblical reference—that it should be a “true temple of peace,” built “not upon shifting sands or quagmires, but upon the rock.”44 In quite a different context, Donald Trump in his 2017 Inaugural Address made use of the “state is a 40 Cf. Dem. 15.30–33 for similar political ideas expressed through a whole set of different metaphors. See also Aeschin. 3.253, where Aeschines calls Demosthenes a pirate in his public activities, sailing through the state on mere words (or speeches, whose surface allows the movement, that is the politician’s “progression” in the state, a metaphor coined on the basis of the path schema). 41 Lyc. 1.79: τρία γάρ ἐστιν ἐξ ὧν ἡ πολιτεία συνέστηκεν, ὁ ἄρχων, ὁ δικαστής, ὁ ἰδιώτης. Cf. Brock (2013) 165 on similar imagery in the orators. 42 George Kennan, “The Long Telegram” (1946), full text in Wilson Center Digital Archive, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116178.pdf; cf. Chilton (1996) 142. 43 See the general remarks on this metaphor in Chilton and Lakoff (1995) 53–54. See Brock (2013) 25–42 on Greek imagery. 44 Winston Churchill, “Sinews of Peace” (speech, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, 5 March 1946), America’s National Churchill Museum, https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/sinews-of-peace-iron-curtain-speech.html. The phrase quoted is most likely a reference to the New Testament, Mt. 16:18 (“and upon this rock I will build my church”). Churchill’s full quote runs: “Before we cast away the solid assurances of national armaments for selfpreservation we must be certain that our temple is built, not upon shifting sands or quagmires, but upon the rock.” Page 8 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 structure” metaphor, mentioning “a great national effort to rebuild our country,” with emphasis as much on construction as on ownership.45 In post-war Poland, on 18 June 1945 the future Communist Party leader Władysław Gomułka declared that the communists “were offering a place in their house” to the Polish democratic leaders residing in the UK. This was soon explained as “a place in the government” and “being joint householders of Poland” (showing that he took the “country” to mean the “government” and vice versa).46 A more inclusive version of the “our house” metaphor—focused on both the collective effort in the building process and on the shared space—can be found in Jawaharlal Nehru’s rhetoric, attempting to put end to the fighting in an ethnically and religiously divided country. In a speech full of metaphors, now commonly labelled “Tryst with Destiny,” delivered on the eve of the proclamation of India’s independence, he urged: “We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell” (and alluded to Gandhi as “the architect of this freedom”).47 Concepts such as this can be found in the rhetoric of virtually all modern states, as they are also commonly present in language and have the potential to influence people’s thinking. The famous “iron curtain” metaphor was coined in 1945, long before the first bricks were laid for what was to become the Berlin Wall in 1961—the phrase first used by Goebbels about the forthcoming Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe (ein eiserner Vorhang), then by Churchill (together with the “iron fence” expression).48 In the Western world it was soon endowed with a symbolic significance, that of permanent separation of the East from the West, either through the claims of the Soviets’ conscious separatism or in the urging for even more “containment.”49 Perhaps the most famous metaphorical notion from the conceptual domain of “house”, used and reframed in discourse year by year, is that of the common European house, prevalent in the Cold War rhetoric of the 1980s (cold war itself being Walter Lippmann’s metaphorical coinage from 1947).50 In 1981, Leonid Brezhnev first used the “common house” idea in a speech given in Bad Godesberg, and Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko made it more explicit in January 1983 in Bonn when he said that “both the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union live in one European house, under one roof,” metaphorically presenting the geopolitical space of Europe as a shared dwelling.51 As Paul Chilton has discussed in his book on Cold War security metaphors, the 45 Donald Trump, “Inaugural Address” (speech, Washington, DC., 20 January 2017), full text at CNN, https://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-inaugural-address/index.html. See Filonik (2018) 26–27 on ancient and modern ownership metaphors in politics. 46 See Władysław Gomułka, “Władzy raz zdobytej nie oddamy nigdy” (speech, Moscow, 18 June 1945), Przemówienia.com, http://www.przemowienia.com/kategorie/przemowienia-znanych-osob/wladyslaw-gomulka-wladzy-raz-zdobytejnie-oddamy-nigdy/411-wladyslaw-gomulka-wladzy-raz-zdobytej-nie-oddamy-nigdy, trans. mine. 47 Jawaharlal Nehru, “Speech on the Granting of Indian Independence” (speech, 14 August 1947), Internet History Sourcebooks Project, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1947nehru1.asp. 48 See Chilton (1996) 163–164. 49 See Chilton (1996) 164 on the implications of the “iron curtain” metaphor, and pp. 190–247 on the American “containment” policy in Cold War international relations. 50 See Schäffner (1996) 33–34, Chilton (1996) 251–323. 51 See Chilton (1996) 264. Page 9 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 timing was no accident, since Gromyko’s choice of words was meant to serve a particular political agenda: the USSR’s intervention in the German election campaign at the time when Germany was expecting a consignment of nuclear missiles, about to be deployed under the decision of NATO in response to a similar move by the USSR (one protested against by Western Germany’s opposition leaders and part of the populace).52 But it was under Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership that the “common European house” metaphor really caught everyone’s attention, as soon as he started using it publicly during his frequent visits to the West after taking office in 1985; it became popular in 1987, with his subsequent speeches and his book Perestroika, reflecting the “new political thinking” in the USSR.53 While it is impossible to tell the extent to which his original answer was altered in the Soviet newspaper Pravda (“Truth,” ironically known for its blatant lies and pro-government propaganda), it reported him saying in a television interview in France: “We live in a single house (dom), although some go into that house from one entrance, others from another entrance.”54 Yet this metaphorical expression did not go uncontested for long. What Gorbachev referred to here—and kept repeating later—was a typical large, multistorey Soviet apartment block, with separate single-family apartments, but also with certain shared rules of conduct and neighbourly interaction (and, in the idealised model, cooperation). But this was not the way his expression was read in Western European countries, used to the prototypical stand-alone house in private ownership and usually occupied by only close relatives, with no similar shared space but with free movement between all its constitutive parts, the kind of house where communist and capitalist cousins could hardly live together.55 The rendering of his words in other languages as “home,” due to the ambiguity of the Russian (and generally Slavonic) word dom, certainly did not help to clear up such first impressions. For the Soviet leader, it seems that the metaphor was originally a non-hostile way of shifting away from the Brezhnev doctrine of interventionism in the Soviet sphere of influence and opening up to the West without dismantling the entire international order, but in Western Europe his conceptual framework gave rise to rival interpretations and a lively discussion of possible implications, including various aspects of relations between the USSR, Western Europe, and the USA, as well as the future reunification of Germany.56 It was also constantly questioned and creatively reframed in discourse, with the emphasis on the structural elements of such a house, as apparent from a commentary in The Economist from October 1987:57 Despite much Russian and East German talk about the “shared house of Europe,” old European fears are plainly far from disappearing (Poles like to point out that the shared European house is the one where they have to lie in the corridor and get trodden on). 52 Chilton (1996) 264–265. See Chilton (1996) 270, Schäffner (1996) 33–34. 54 Chilton (1996) 266. 55 On the original meaning and reception of this metaphor, see Chilton (1996) 265–275, Schäffner (1996) 34. 56 See Chilton (1996) 269–270. 57 The Economist, 31 October 1987; quoted by Schäffner (1996) 34 (her emphasis). 53 Page 10 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 Commentators also questioned whether all Europeans could “live happily under one roof,” when “Europe is still a pair of semi-detached houses” and is separated by a wall,58 based—again—on a different understanding of the concept in question, which Soviet officials tried to address in further discussion of their idea of a house.59 Such ongoing reinterpretations provided a safe way of discussing intimidating subjects in the years 1987–1989, such as the future fate of the divided city of Berlin or of the German state(s).60 Paul Chilton has even argued that this long-lasting discourse, focused around house metaphors between Soviet and German (and other western European) politicians, prepared the way for a more material reinterpretation of existing structures, eventually leading to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall since 9 November 1989 and the collective reopening of the Brandenburg Gate on 22 December, followed by visa-free movement between both sides of Berlin and of Germany.61 After years of contested concepts surrounding the “common house” and after such a definite conclusion of this particular international debate, similar metaphors in the early 1990s tended to focus more on the architecture of the new European order, with the single market as its foundation or NATO as its supporting pillar, than on its resemblance to a house.62 But the house metaphor made its return soon enough in the debates about Europe, reflecting and potentially influencing the ways in which it was envisaged. For instance, Britain and Germany portrayed each other in their rhetoric as a problematic “neighbour” for others, in addition to the broader “structure” metaphor being present in these debates (e.g., one of the presidents of the European Commission being called the “architect of the modern European Community”), as discussed in more detail by Andreas Musolff.63 In 1997, Chancellor Helmut Kohl defended the euro by saying it was the weight-bearing pillar of the European house.64 Around the same time, The Times went back to the Maastricht Treaty’s “three pillars of integration” when it pointed to “cracks opening up between France and Germany, the pillars of ‘the European construction.’”65 And in the UK, the monetary union itself was criticised by the Conservative opposition leader William Hague as “a building without fire-escapes” and a “burning building with no exits.”66 The general “construction” metaphors, and specific ones from the domain of “house,” thus kept supplementing each other in both praise and criticism of new European policies. It is illustrative what Margaret Thatcher wrote about the intricacies of such discourse from a Eurosceptic perspective in 1993: “anyone dealing with the European Community should pay careful attention to metaphors. We in Britain were inclined to minimise their significance . . . We had to learn the hard way that by agreement to what were apparently empty generalisations 58 E.g., The Economist, 23 April 1988; see Schäffner (1996) 34 and Chilton (1996) 304–308. See Chilton (1996) 272. 60 Cf. Chilton (1996) 271, 305–308. 61 Chilton (1996) 308. 62 See Chilton (1996) 300–304, 348–354, 357–389, 395–396; cf. Schäffner (1996) 39–40. 63 Musolff (2000). 64 Musolff (2000) 222. 65 The Times, 17 June 1997, quoted in Musolff (2000) 22. 66 Musolff (2000) 225. 59 Page 11 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 or vague aspirations we were later held to have committed ourselves to political structures which were contrary to our interests.”67 The conceptual domain of “house” also played a crucial role in 20th-century American political discourse, not least in the portrayal of Central and South American “neighbours.” In the tensions of the Cold War, one of the metaphors that came to the fore was that of the “backyard,” based on the central place of individual home ownership in North American culture.68 But in politics, this concept served to support the idea of imperialistic spheres of dominion as something that is rightfully possessed. When in the 1980s US President Ronald Reagan urged support for the right-wing terrorist guerrilla groups in Nicaragua, he insisted that anything short of this would send “an unmistakable signal that the greatest power in the world is unwilling and incapable of stopping communist aggression in our own backyard.”69 More curiously, this thinking survived the Cold War and returned under President Bill Clinton, who, with reference to the consequences of a coup d’état in Haiti, supported the US military intervention in 1994 by saying in an unscripted interview: “the United States has an interest, it seems to me, in the post-Cold War world in not letting dictators break their word to the United States and to the United Nations, especially in our own backyard.”70 Keith Shimko has argued that in addition to individual ownership, in American thinking the concept of “backyard” evokes another one, that of family relations at home with children playing in the backyard of the house and parents watching over them—in connection with the visual imagery of Uncle Sam keeping an eye on the children of Latin America, a clearly paternalistic rhetorical construct.71 Moreover, the backyard may be seen as an extension of the house and also part of one’s property, making one an owner of this space responsible for setting it in order, rather than someone else’s independently governed territory. 4 States as persons Uncle Sam taking care of other states as his children is itself a good example of a metaphor based on personification, very common in Western political discourse. It can also be traced back to the ancient Greek world, but it seems more universal than any single rhetorical tradition.72 In one of the prosecution speeches written for his clients shortly after 403/2, the logographer Lysias tried to persuade the judges to condemn the defendant Agoratus, put on trial for his actions that benefitted the short-lived oligarchic junta of the Thirty in Athens, by saying: ὅστις φησὶ µὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ δήµου <πεποιῆσθαι>, τὸν δὲ δῆµον, ὃν αὐτός φησι πατέρα αὑτοῦ εἶναι, φαίνεται κακώσας . . . ὅστις οὖν τόν τε γόνῳ πατέρα τὸν αὑτοῦ ἔτυπτε καὶ οὐδὲν παρεῖχε τῶν ἐπιτηδείων, τόν τε ποιητὸν πατέρα ἀφείλετο ἃ ἦν ὑπάρχοντα ἐκείνῳ ἀγαθά, πῶς οὐ καὶ διὰ τοῦτο κατὰ τὸν τῆς κακώσεως νόµον ἄξιός ἐστι θανάτῳ ζηµιωθῆναι; 67 Thatcher (1993) 319, quoted in Musolff (2016c) 11. See Shimko (2004) 211–213. 69 Shimko (2004) 212. 70 Shimko (2004) 212. 71 Shimko (2004) 212–213. 72 Cf. the discussion in Filonik (2018) 27–31, with notes. 68 Page 12 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 He claims to have been <adopted as a citizen> by the People, but it is the People—whom he describes as his father—that he is shown to have wronged . . . If a person struck down his natural father and failed to provide him with the necessities of life, or if he robbed his adoptive father of the things he already possessed—surely such a person deserves the death penalty for this reason, according to the law on maltreatment of parents.73 (13.91, trans. adapted from Todd [2000]) The law he refers to applied to those who did not take care of their elderly parents (clearly intended for individuals, not entire city-states), so half of what the speaker refers to is purely metaphorical, with the dēmos—conventionally embodying the Athenian state—presented as the defendant’s parent, in need of human-like care.74 Similarly, the orator Lycurgus asks the judges what punishment they will consider enough for a man who “did not repay his fatherland for nurture” (1.53: οὐκ ἀπέδωκε τὰ τροφεῖα τῇ πατρίδι), emphasising that the city-state (or indeed the fatherland, with its familial and territorial connotations) is a “nurturing parent.” In 1949, Churchill revised his earlier “structure” imagery, whether as a conscious reframing effort or not, only to resort to a different metaphorical conception when he argued: “human beings and human societies are not structures that are built or machines that are forged. They are plants that grow and must be tended as such.”75 But elsewhere in modern political rhetoric societies and states are unambiguously presented as human beings, with personality traits and the ability to establish human relationships. In August 1914, with the war looming large, British Foreign Secretary and Liberal MP Edward Grey, speaking before the House of Commons, observed:76 For many years we have had a long-standing friendship with France. [An HON. MEMBER: “And with Germany!”] I remember well the feeling in the House when the late Government made their agreement with France—the warm and cordial feeling resulting from the fact that these two nations, who had had perpetual differences in the past, had cleared these differences away . . . . But how far that friendship entails obligation—it has been a friendship between the nations and ratified by the nations—how far that entails an obligation let every man look into his own heart, and his own feelings, and construe the extent of the obligation for himself. 73 The word “adopted” (πεποιῆσθαι, lit. “made”) in the text is a conjecture required by the syntax, but whether we accept it in this form or not, the metaphorical sense is equally clear based just on the text preserved in the manuscripts. Cf. Wohl (2010) 222–223 on this metaphor in Lys. 13.91. 74 See a more comprehensive discussion of similar metaphors in Lycurgus and their relationship with Athenian laws in Filonik (2017) 244–245; cf. Filonik (forthcoming a) on family and “state is a household” metaphors. 75 Winston Churchill, “MIT Mid-Century Convocation” (speech, 31 March 1949), International Churchill Society, https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1946-1963-elder-statesman/mit-mid-century-convocation/. 76 65 H.C. Deb., 3 August 1914, cc1815 (cf. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1914/aug/03/statementby-sir-edward-grey). Page 13 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 In choosing this metaphor, Grey in fact distances himself from it by drawing attention to the fact that it is a friendship “between the nations” and one “ratified” by the nations, not a word one would normally use with reference to interpersonal relations. In response to this, Labour Leader Ramsay MacDonald, though accepting the metaphorical “friendship” frame, rejected any far-reaching implications it might have:77 So far as France is concerned, we say solemnly and definitely that no such friendship as the right hon. Gentleman describes between one nation and another could ever justify one of those nations entering into war on behalf of the other. This “friendship” between nations and various calls in support of a “global community” have been one of the most common ways of framing political matters in the rhetoric focused on international relations, usually followed by a list of those nations’ “enemies.”78 Such imagery of states as friendly or hostile people has been readily used by many politicians before numerous audiences as a helpful way of addressing people’s sentiments more directly and making them emotionally invested.79 It also simplifies the narrative about policy issues, making it easier for politicians to manipulate it. As Chilton and Lakoff have observed, the “maturity” of a country is seen as its economic growth and industrialisation, which carries an assumption that “underdeveloped” countries are not mature and should be treated as children by their elders, being forcefully reprimanded if necessary.80 The many possibilities for such interpretations of the metaphor become apparent when one recalls the example of Uncle Sam making sure that South American children in the backyard behave (discussed above). Such use of political metaphors has also often led to ideologies dangerously resembling social Darwinism, not least the concept of “equilibrium of power,” according to which a metaphorical force field is stable as long as both opposing forces are equal in value, with no human decisions being otherwise able to maintain the balance. This idea has often been used to interpret the international relations between political superpowers according to the tenets of Realpolitik.81 Another related metaphor drawing on the laws of physics and prevalent in the Cold War period was that of a “power vacuum,” a space devoid of either US or Soviet influence that must be filled by one or the other, with no third possibility.82 But the metaphor that has probably been used the most in Western history in innumerable variations is the conception of “body politic.”83 It started to become internalised with descriptions 77 65 H.C. Deb., 3 August 1914, cc1830. See, for example, US President Jimmy Carter’s speech on 22 May 1977 at Notre Dame University, full text available at The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/1977/05/23/archives/text-of-presidents-commencement-address-atnotre-dame-on-foreign.html. 79 Cf. Beer and de Landtsheer (2004) 27–28, Charteris-Black (2011) 320–323. 80 Chilton and Lakoff (1995) 43. 81 Cf. Chilton and Lakoff (1995) 41, 51. 82 See Shimko (2004) 205. 83 On the modern cultural variation in its use, see Musolff (2016b) 55–71, 115–125; on some examples of its use in Near Eastern, Far Eastern, and classical antiquity, see Harvey (2007) 4–22. For a more detailed discussion of body politic in Greek political imagery, see Brock (2000) and (2013) 69–82, and now Serafim (2020). Brock identifies two explicit 78 Page 14 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 of civil strife (stasis) in archaic Greece, and entered Western political discourse for good through classical Greek authors. Plato was probably the most influential in this respect, but among the orators, for example, Aeschines in his forensic speech Against Ctesiphon addressed the judges in 330 BCE by saying: πρὸς µὲν τοὺς στασιαστικοὺς λόγους ἐκεῖνο αὐτῷ ὑποβάλλετε· “ὦ Δηµόσθενες, εἰ σοὶ ἦσαν ὅµοιοι οἱ ἀπὸ Φυλῆς φεύγοντα τὸν δῆµον καταγαγόντες, οὐκ ἄν ποθ’ ἡ δηµοκρατία κατέστη. Νῦν δὲ ἐκεῖνοι µὲν µεγάλων κακῶν συµβάντων ἔσωσαν τὴν πόλιν τὸ κάλλιστον ἐκ παιδείας ῥῆµα φθεγξάµενοι, µὴ µνησικακεῖν· σὺ δὲ ἑλκοποιεῖς, καὶ µᾶλλόν σοι µέλει τῶν αὐθηµερὸν λόγων, ἢ τῆς σωτηρίας τῆς πόλεως.” In response to his divisive claims, you should give him the following answer: “Demosthenes, if the men who restored the people from exile from Phyle had been like you, the democratic constitution would never have been re-established. As it is, after great disasters, they saved the city by pronouncing the noblest words an enlightened education can provide: No recriminations. But you inﬂict wounds and are more concerned with the arguments of the moment than with the safety of the city.’” (3.208, trans. Carey [2000]) In addition to the general imagery of the polis as a person who needs to be saved and kept safe by those coming to its rescue, there is a specific metaphor of “opening (old) wounds” (helkopoiein) in the city-state by dividing it politically when it needs “healing” after the civil war of 404/3, according to the terms of the amnesty.84 Unsurprisingly, in modern times the metaphorical language of the “healthy” body politic and its “purification” has been favoured by extremist movements, from Nazi propaganda through the Ku Klux Klan to ethnic “cleansing” in former Yugoslavia.85 This tendency stems from the fact that such groups’ ideology depends on the perceived unity and homogeneity of society and the state, and on the presentation of anything foreign or external as a disease and something harmful to this body-of-the-state’s posited purity and integrity. Its roots in ancient Greek thinking seem to be different, as deriving from the egalitarian political culture of the polis, or citizen-state, in which the “disease” of the city is emerging from internal hostility (political division or civil strife), and where all enfranchised “members” are equally part of the state and its government (a few steps behind mentions of the “body of the polis” in Athenian oratory, in Dinarchus (1.110) and Hyperides (5 col. 25 Kenyon = 1.25 Jensen), although some caution seems necessary, since the first is a spurious reading (but probably correct, considering the papyrus reading in P. Oxy. 49, 3436, cf. Worthington [1992] ad loc.) and the second is probably a different metaphor from what is normally assumed, as rightly noted by Kucharski (2016) ad loc. (“they took bribes on the security of the state’s body,” that is endangered the state’s “personal” freedom, a reference to the abolition of enslavement for debt by Solon, based on a more generic “body = person” metonymic substitution in classical Greek, cf. some-body for some-one in English; see Harris [2002] on Solon’s law). 84 Cf. Brock (2000) 29 = (2013) 73 on the metaphor. See Joyce (2014) on the expression mē mnēsikakein (lit. “not to hold a grudge for past wrongs”) quoted by Aeschines and on the amnesty of 403. On the arguments from history in Athenian rhetoric, see Westwood (2018) with further bibliography. 85 See Chilton and Lakoff (1995) 44–45, Musolff (2010), and Musolff (2016b) 73–92. Cf. Gregg (2004) (esp. pp. 64–65) on anti-communist “body politic” metaphors in US discourse in the inter-war period and during the Cold War. Page 15 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 modern democracies in inclusiveness but still more democratic than any large political unit in the centuries to come). 5 Political games and political battles Concepts coming from the domains of sport and war have been influencing each other since antiquity, probably from the time when the first chariot races were organised not just to fight or train for war but to enter a competition. This imagery has come down to us not just through visual imagery but also literary texts, not least those from classical Athens, with well over one hundred written versions of its publicly delivered speeches surviving to this day. Many of their metaphorical conceptions resemble our modern ones, even if only some of the technical language is recognisable to us now.86 Aeschines, just two passages before mentioning the “body politic,” refers to yet another kind of bodily activity when he tells the judges to make his court opponent, Demosthenes, maintain his “position” (and keep to the point in court in a trial for an illegal proposal), as if this was a boxing match:87 Ὥσπερ οὖν ἐν τοῖς γυµνικοῖς ἀγῶσιν ὁρᾶτε τοὺς πύκτας περὶ τῆς στάσεως ἀλλήλοις διαγωνιζοµένους, οὕτω καὶ ὑµεῖς ὅλην τὴν ἡµέραν ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως περὶ τῆς τάξεως αὐτῷ τοῦ λόγου µάχεσθε καὶ µὴ ἐᾶτε αὐτὸν ἔξω τοῦ παρανόµου περιίστασθαι, ἀλλ’ ἐγκαθήµενοι καὶ ἐνεδρεύοντες ἐν τῇ ἀκροάσει, εἰσελαύνετε αὐτὸν εἰς τοὺς τοῦ παρανόµου λόγους, καὶ τὰς ἐκτροπὰς αὐτοῦ τῶν λόγων ἐπιτηρεῖτε. So be like the boxers in athletic contests you see competing with each other for position; in the same way, you, too, must spend the whole day ﬁghting with him about the disposition of his argument in defence of the city, and you must not let him step outside the limits of the issue of illegality; you must sit there on guard, lying in wait for him as you listen, and drive him back to the argument about illegality, and watch out for his attempts to divert the case. (3.206, trans. Carey, slightly modified) In fact—Thucydides’ grim view of the political world aside—the internal matters of Athenian democracy are usually presented as competition or sport rather than war.88 In the same speech, Aeschines asks the judges to act as “referees judging the contest in political excellence” (agōnothetai politikēs aretēs), bestowing awards on the most virtuous citizen-competitors (3.180, 232). Similarly, when Demosthenes praises the democracy’s open competitive spirit, as opposed to Spartan elitist 86 See Hawhee (2004) on the technical language of athletics in ancient Greek oratory, Kyle (2015) on sport as spectacle throughout antiquity, and Pritchard (2013) on the relations between war, sport, and democracy in classical Athens. Cf. Chetwynd (2016) on modern sporting metaphors. 87 See Hawhee (2004) 33–34 for a slightly different translation of the technical terms and the double meaning of the term stasis in this passage (“position”/“position taken up in litigation”), cf. pp. 27–39 on the speech’s athletic metaphors. Incidentally, even Aristotle in his Rhetoric used boxing metaphors to describe rhetorical activity (3.14.11, 1416a.1–3). 88 See Filonik (forthcoming b) for a more detailed discussion of agonistic metaphors and the concept of agōn in Greek political discourse (including Thucydides). Page 16 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 homogeneity, he makes the point that in Athens the “good men” enter a competition (hamilla) for prizes (dōreiai) awarded by the dēmos (20.106–8).89 Speakers in Athens were also eager to present various political struggles as battles and having to remain in a battle “order,” taxis (often with reference to hoplite warfare, even though many Athenians more often would have experienced different types of fighting, not least in the navy). In his assembly speech For the Freedom of the Rhodians of ca. 350 BCE, Demosthenes urges his fellow citizens: ἐχρῆν γάρ, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχειν διάνοιαν ὑµᾶς περὶ τῆς ἐν τῇ πολιτείᾳ τάξεως ἥνπερ περὶ τῆς ἐν ταῖς στρατείαις ἔχετε. τίς οὖν ἐστιν αὕτη; ὑµεῖς τὸν λιπόντα τὴν ὑπὸ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ τάξιν ταχθεῖσαν, ἄτιµον οἴεσθε προσήκειν εἶναι καὶ µηδενὸς τῶν κοινῶν µετέχειν. χρῆν τοίνυν καὶ τοὺς τὴν ὑπὸ τῶν προγόνων τάξιν ἐν τῇ πολιτείᾳ παραδεδοµένην λιπόντας καὶ πολιτευοµένους ὀλιγαρχικῶς ἀτίµους τοῦ συµβουλεύειν ὑµῖν αὐτοῖς ποιεῖσθαι . . . You should have the same attitude towards constitutional discipline, Athenians, as you have towards military discipline. What do I mean? You think that a man who deserts the position assigned to him by the general should be deprived of his civic privileges and allowed no share in the community.90 In the same way, those who desert the constitutional position handed down to them by their ancestors, and whose political conduct is oligarchic, should be deprived of the civic right to offer you advice. (15.32–33, trans. Trevett [2011], slightly modified) In using this inventive metaphorical framing, Demosthenes is aware that its meaning may not be obvious to the audience and goes on to explain what it entails after adding a rhetorical question as a metaphor cue (lit. “What is this order, then?”). He uses the concepts coming from the experience of Greek warfare to impose the idea of fulfilling one’s civic obligations as being equal to military discipline on an audience consisting of approximately six thousand Athenian citizens. It is now very difficult to tell if all of them would be eager to accept such metaphors in public rhetoric. Just as they might share one prevalent idea of “household” based on their common experience of one culture and one legal and political system, one has to wonder if the economically privileged citizens who actually were able to serve as hoplites would have seen the metaphors often drawn from hoplite warfare ideology differently from all other citizens. But perhaps allowing them to imagine themselves as a single hoplite army of Athens was powerful enough as a rhetorical image, since we see it recurring over and over again in Athenian oratory and visual imagery.91 In their conception of interstate politics, on the other hand, the Athenians were no better than modern-day imperialists. When, in his First Philippic, Demosthenes addressed the matter of 89 See Canevaro (2016) 369–370 on this passage and similar Greek metaphors; see Kremmydas (2012) 377 on the antithesis. 90 “Having a share in the polis” is a metaphorical concept commonly used in Athenian oratory for rhetorical purposes, on which see Filonik (2017) 237–240 with notes; cf. Filonik (2018) 26–27. 91 On the representation of the war-dead as hoplites in Athens, see Loraux (2006) 66–69. Page 17 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 the spheres of influence shifting from Athens to Macedonia under Philip II, he called northern tribes on the Balkan peninsula Philip’s “prizes of war,” which the Athenians were in his view mistakenly reluctant to reach for, even though these were “lying in the open,” only waiting for someone to claim them as his: εἰ δέ τις ὑµῶν . . . δυσπολέµητον οἴεται τὸν Φίλιππον εἶναι, σκοπῶν τό τε πλῆθος τῆς ὑπαρχούσης αὐτῷ δυνάµεως καὶ τὸ τὰ χωρία πάντ’ ἀπολωλέναι τῇ πόλει, ὀρθῶς µὲν οἴεται . . . εἴχοµέν ποθ’ ἡµεῖς Πύδναν καὶ Ποτείδαιαν καὶ Μεθώνην καὶ πάντα τὸν τόπον τοῦτον οἰκεῖον κύκλῳ, καὶ πολλὰ τῶν µετ’ ἐκείνου νῦν ὄντων ἐθνῶν αὐτονοµούµενα κἀλεύθερ’ ὑπῆρχε, καὶ µᾶλλον ἡµῖν ἐβούλετ’ ἔχειν οἰκείως ἢ ‘κείνῳ. . . . Φίλιππος . . . εἶδεν . . . τοῦτο καλῶς ἐκεῖνος, ὅτι ταῦτα µέν ἐστιν ἅπαντα τὰ χωρί’ ἆθλα τοῦ πολέµου κείµεν’ ἐν µέσῳ, φύσει δ’ ὑπάρχει τοῖς παροῦσι τὰ τῶν ἀπόντων, καὶ τοῖς ἐθέλουσι πονεῖν καὶ κινδυνεύειν τὰ τῶν ἀµελούντων. If any of you thinks that Philip is hard to wage war against, considering the size of the forces at his disposal and our city’s loss of all its properties, he is quite correct. Once we had Pydna and Potidaea and Methone and the whole surrounding region as our property, and many of the peoples that are now on his side were autonomous and free and preferred to be on familiar terms with us more than with him. Philip knew very well that all these places lie in the open as the prizes of war, and that the possessions of those who are absent naturally belong to those who are present, and of those who are negligent to those who are willing to toil and face danger. (4.4–5, trans. adapted from Trevett and modified) That is a statement no political “hawk” today would be ashamed to make, perhaps in more convoluted language (as in the “equilibrium of power” metaphors discussed above). Here, the extra force of the message comes from the fact it was said in public and expected to win over the people’s votes for the policies proposed in the citizen assembly, with no attempt to hide the real intent. It draws on a common conceptualisation of territories as objects, portrayed as if they could be picked up and carried away as someone’s belongings, based on a much more primary conception that land does in fact belong to individuals or groups the way their mobile objects do, reflected in the politics, economy, laws, and wars of modern states. Both Greek and Roman theorists have noticed that metaphor has a certain emotive function. Modern scholars have argued that this function in politics often consists in reassuring the audience by presenting them with something tangible and comprehensible instead of discussing abstract and complicated policy issues, since the former have the ability to simplify and swiftly explain the changing and threatening world, or divert attention from real problems to imaginary and rhetorically constructed ones.92 When response to political problems is presented as “war” (on drugs, poverty, or terrorism), both real causes and real solutions become less important, and an apolitical, emotional approach tends to dominate the public debate.93 This is no less grave when it 92 93 See Beer and de Landtsheer (2004) 27–29, Hartmann-Mahmud (2002), Charteris-Black (2011) 320–323. See Hartmann-Mahmud (2002) 427. Page 18 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 comes to the use of metaphors in actual wars, especially when they are portrayed as a sporting contest, merely a “match” or a “game.”94 Such war-normalising metaphors in public discourse tend to suggest that war is just another normal kind of activity and should be treated as such, and are often used to help raise the support for military solutions (and spending).95 An illustrative case is the recurrent metaphorical references to football in the official discourse surrounding Operation Desert Storm in 1991 (the First Gulf War). Those metaphors allowed the military operation to be framed as a mere sporting match, with no human cost involved other than losing a contest, reducing the decision-making process to how to best win a game.96 General Norman Schwarzkopf, leading the operation, tried to present the deceptive attack he commanded on the enemy forces as a “Hail Mary pass” known from American football, a desperate play by a losing team that needs divine intervention to succeed, but one that may lead straight to victory if successful. Not only was the metaphor harmful, it was also misguided, since the undertrained Iraqi army stood virtually no chance against the well-funded, technologically superior, and carefully prepared invasion, involving the “largest aerial and ground assaults in military history” to date, which nonetheless has been applauded by US military enthusiasts who accepted this framing.97 However absurd, it shows how rhetorical attempts to influence the reception of military decisions can be framed with reference to the conceptual domain of “sport,” downplaying and hushing up the atrocities of war, and together with “body politic” metaphors, easily leading to the violation of human rights and even to its public approval from voters.98 6 Metaphors in discourse and in rhetorical tradition Some metaphors discussed in this chapter—such as body politic—have had direct continuation from antiquity to the 21st century, even if not all of their routes can be easily recreated. Most should probably be considered common tropes and modes of thinking reappearing in various places and periods based on similar conceptualisations and experience of the world, and entering political rhetoric to persuade audiences and shift attitudes.99 Whether “ornamental” or not, according to Demetrius and Hermogenes on the one hand and modern experimental studies on the other, the most inconspicuous of them, hiding in everyday speech or often “fossilised” in language, should be considered equally important as rhetorical devices and no less—if not more—persuasive. 94 See Lakoff (1991) and Chilton and Lakoff (1995); cf. Musolff (2016b) 7–23 on the “politics is war” metaphor. See previous footnote, together with Jansen and Sabo (1994), Gavriely-Nuri (2008) and (2009); cf. Koteyko and Ryazanova-Clarke (2009) 121 on the use of the “secure house” metaphor by President Vladimir Putin to promote military spending in Russia. 96 See Herbeck (2004); cf. Chilton and Lakoff (1995) 47–48. 97 See an uncritical appraisal of the strategy on a military-focused Internet forum: Dick Cheney [pseud.], “Schwarzkopf's Left Hook Was a Miracle,” 08 January 2015, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?676819-Schwarzkopf-sLeft-Hook-was-a-Miracle. 98 Cf. Filonik (2018) 36, with further bibliography, on “pest” and “parasite” metaphors, and Musolff (2015) on the metaphors used to portray immigrants as a threat. 99 Cf. Szymański (1993) on metaphoric hyperbole and bodily metaphors in Sanskrit and Greek literary theory and practice. 95 Page 19 of 26 Published version: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021 When presenting examples from modern political discourse, this chapter has focused on conscious attempts to sway public opinion through metaphors. This is not to say that their role is only negative, as metaphors have also proved highly persuasive in everyday communication, promoting socially important issues, helping to deal with psychological difficulties or health problems, and advancing public awareness and specialised knowledge.100 On the other hand, the dangers of abusing metaphor are not limited to politics, and have been identified in various kinds of discourse, including convoluted ways of promoting corporate ideology and misleading customers in advertising, potentially with serious consequences to people’s health.101 As this chapter has argued, the power of metaphor as both a rhetorical device and a conceptual process has been recognized since Aristotle and partly reflected—and even elaborated—in later rhetorical theory, but was mostly lost in the Roman tradition, which influenced later thinking and theorising. Nonetheless, metaphors continued to be used throughout antiquity and later eras to communicate meaning and persuade audiences, and did not require Isocrates’ or Quintilian’s approval to be effective in uninterrupted rhetorical practice. Acknowledgments This research was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (2016/20/S/HS2/00056). It was also supported by the International Society for the History of Rhetoric and the Polish-US Fulbright Commission. My sincere thanks go to Roger Brock, Brenda Griffith-Williams, Christos Kremmydas, Janek Kucharski, Giulia Maltagliati, Andreas Musolff and Christine Plastow for their invaluable suggestions and corrections. I would also like to thank the audiences at the University of Toronto, University of Chicago, and Northwestern University for all the helpful comments on the ideas that formed this chapter, and the editors of this volume for their diligence and patience. Bibliography Altman, W.H.F. Ed. 2015. 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Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric Edited by Sophia Papaioannou Andreas Sera��m Michael Edwards LEIDEN | BOSTON For use by the Author only | © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV Contents Acknowledgements ix Note on Editors and Contributors 1 x Making the Past Present: Ancient Rhetoric across the Ages, Cultures, and Topics 1 Sophia Papaioannou, Andreas Sera��m, and Michael Edwards part 1 Survey Chapters 2 The Reception of Greek Rhetoric in the Late Antique East Alex Petkas 27 3 The Reception and Transformation of Rhetoric in Germany during the Eighteenth Century 52 Dietmar Till 4 The Beginning of Rhetoric among Serbs: Pioneering Manual in Eloquence by Avram Mrazović from 1821 75 Dragutin Avramović part 2 Thematic Chapters section 1 The Genres, Techniques, and Features of Rhetoric 5 The Persuasive Potential of Epideictic Rhetoric: Ancient Past and Contemporary Reception 99 Takis Poulakos 6 The Reception of Paradeigma in Late Greek Rhetorical Theory M. Carmen Encinas Reguero 116 For use by the Author only | © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV vi Contents 7 Reading Pliny’s Panegyricus within the Context of Late Antiquity and the Early Modern Period 135 William J. Dominik 8 Psogos: The Rhetoric of Invective in 4th Century ce Imperial Speeches 170 Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas 9 Aristotle’s Rhetoric in Italy (1250–1400): The Latin and the Vernacular Traditions 192 Fiammetta Papi 10 Dionysius Longinus, On Sublimity 223 Malcolm Heath 11 Ancient Rhetoric and the Early “Italian” Commentaries on the Poetria nova 247 Domenico Losappio 12 The Reception of Quintilian’s Theory of Gesture: Rhetorical Elements in Pantomime Acting 269 Chrysanthi Demetriou section 2 Literature, Theatre, and Culture 13 Rhetoric, the Dorian Hexapolis, and Knidos: A Study of the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric in the Greek East and Its Impact on the Second Sophistic 291 Richard Leo Enos 14 “A Feast of Languages”: William Shakespeare’s Reception of Ancient Rhetoric 305 Michael J. MacDonald 15 Ancient Rhetoric on the Silver Screen: Performing Agōnes in Michael Cacoyannis’ Euripidean Trilogy 331 Anastasia Bakogianni For use by the Author only | © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV vii Contents 16 Sport and Peace: Panhellenic Myth-Making and the Modern Olympics 356 Jacques A. Bromberg section 3 Politics, Leadership, and Public Speaking 17 The Demosthenic Model of Leadership Revisited by Libanius: The Revival of Philip in the Funeral Oration over Julian 381 Styliani Chrysikou 18 Rhetoric, Aesthetics, and the State in Renaissance Political Thought 401 Peter Stacey 19 The Last Orator: Rufus Choate and the End of Classical Eloquence in America 430 James M. Farrell 20 Metaphors in Rhetoric: From Ancient Greek to 21st-Century Politics 454 Jakub Filonik section 4 Pedagogy and Gender 21 The Reception of Ancient Rhetoric in Modern Argumentation Theory and Pedagogy 489 Christian Kock 22 Ancient Forensic Rhetoric in a Modern Classroom Sima Avramović and Gerhard Thür 23 The Rhetoric of Gender in the Heroides of the French Renaissance: Revisiting Female Exempla 527 Stella Alekou 514 For use by the Author only | © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV viii Contents section 5 Religion 24 Christians, Ottomans, and Emperors: Demosthenes in European Politics 567 Maria S. Youni 25 Augustine’s Christian Eloquence Hanne Roer 588 section 6 Science 26 Rhetoric of Mathematics: The Case of Diophantus of Alexandria Jean Christianidis and Michalis Sialaros 27 Philosophia naturalis: Ancient Rhetoric and Early Modern Science Johanna Luggin 617 643 General Index 675 Index Locorum 679 For use by the Author only | © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV chapter 20 Metaphors in Rhetoric: From Ancient Greek to 21st-Century Politics Jakub Filonik As the various disciplines of human enquiry gained their independence over the centuries … the study of metaphor survived as a curiosity in some and disappeared as irrelevant in others. There was but one discipline in which the study of metaphor was central – rhetoric. Ortony (1993) 2 ∵ This statement from a book called Metaphor and Thought may be surprising to anyone used to studying metaphor as primarily a stylistic, “ornamental” device, more appropriate to poetry than discourse. Some stylistic views of this kind came down to us from classical antiquity, but the ideas inherited from Greek and Roman rhetorical tradition on this matter are much more complex than has often been assumed. Almost a century ago William Bedell Stanford, later a Regius Professor of Greek at Dublin, wrote that “no verbal process is more common and more basic in speech and literature than metaphor,” annoyed with how the expression “this is a metaphorical use” kept serving classicists as an excuse to “evade vital questions of basic meaning.”1 This chapter shows that this tendency was not always the case and the “cognitive” component is well rooted in ancient Greek theorising on metaphor. 1 Stanford (1936) 1. For a good recent overview of metaphor in Aristotle and later tradition, see Novokhatko (2014). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004470057_021 For use by the Author only | © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV Metaphors in Rhetoric 1 455 The Ancient Theories of Metaphor The ��rst to discuss the idea of metaphor was Isocrates in the 4th century BCE, presenting a register of stylistic devices available to poets (Evagoras 8–9). Judging from the compound and its later sense, by metaphorai he meant those used in the process of “transferring” (meta-pherein) meaning from one concept to another.2 Isocrates considers them to have a place among other ornaments (kosmoi) accessible to poets in their fanciful creative endeavours. He explicitly rejects the idea that prose writers (notably orators), in constant need of being precise with words and neglectful of metrical elegance, could gain similar access to this linguistic repertoire, and should only resort to “civil terms,” or those in everyday usage (9.10: ta politika onomata). Aristotle is usually credited with the standard Greek de��nition of metaphor.3 In his Poetics, he ��rst de��nes metaphora in a rather dry way as “the application of a noun which properly applies to something else,” noting that the transfer may be “from genus to species, from species to genus, or by analogy” (21, 1457b, trans. Heath [1996]). He thus seems to include under one umbrella term what is now commonly distinguished as (1) metaphor, (2) metonymy, and (3) analogy (and in Rh. 3.11.6–15, 1412a–13a, he even calls riddles, similes, proverbs and hyperboles “metaphors”).4 He further notes that a skilled command of this device, dependent on the ability to see resemblances between things and to coin new meanings, is the mark of a true creative genius, as it cannot be learnt from others (Poet. 22, 1459a, cf. Rh. 3.2.8, 1405a).5 And it is from such skilful poets, thanks to their own inventive metaphors, that one can learn the most in the easiest and most pleasant way possible: “metaphor brings about learning (mathēsis) most of all,” says the philosopher (Rh. 3.10.2, 1410b, cf. 3.11.6, 1412a), adding that metaphor should ideally “bring things before the eyes” and “make the lifeless things living” (Rh. 3.10.6–11.2, 1410b–11b, trans. adapted 2 Cf. Zanker (2017) 164–190 on the spatial metaphor implicit in the term metaphora. 3 See Stanford (1936) on metaphor in the classical rhetorical tradition (and late 19th to early 20th-century linguistics). 4 Aristotle considers “metaphor by analogy” to be one of four kinds of metaphor. Nowadays, analogy is usually believed to be an association of markedly similar concepts (from one conceptual domain), as opposed to metaphor that links concepts from di�ferent domains: see Vosniadou and Ortony (1989); Lloyd (1966). Metonymy allows reference to a certain thing by its particular characteristic or close association, such as a part for the whole (synecdoche) or object for subject; how often this process is metaphorical in nature is subject to lively scholarly debate, see Lako�f and Johnson (1980) 35–40; Barcelona (2000); Dirven and Pörings (2003); Nagy (2015). 5 Cf. Mahon (1999), who rightly notes the di�ference between the usage of metaphors and the coining of new ones, as discussed by Aristotle in his Poetics and Rhetoric. For use by the Author only | © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV

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Metaphors in Rhetoric: From Ancient Greek to 21st-Century Politics, in: S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim and M. Edwards (eds.). Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric (2022; PDF with preprint)

Metaphors in Rhetoric: From Ancient Greek to 21st-Century Politics, in: S. Papaioannou, A. Serafim and M. Edwards (eds.). Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric (2022; PDF with preprint)

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