1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Apsines

APSINES of Gadara, a Greek rhetorician, who flourished during the 3rd century A.D. After studying at Smyrna, he taught at Athens, and gained such a reputation that he was raised to the consulship by the emperor Maximinus (235–238). He was the friend of Philostratus, the author of the Lives of the Sophists, who speaks of his wonderful memory and accuracy. Two rhetorical treatises by him are extant: Τέχνη ῥητορική, a handbook of rhetoric greatly interpolated, a considerable portion being taken from the Rhetoric of Longinus; and a smaller work, Περὶ ἐσχηματισμένων προβλημάτων, on Propositions maintained figuratively.

Editions by Bake, 1849; Spengel-Hammer in Rhetores Graeci, ii. (1894): see also Hammer, De Apsine Rhetore (1876); Volkmann, Rhetorik der Griechen und Römer (1885).