Biblica_1_Layout 1 20/01/12 11:44 Pagina 583 583 PROSOPOPOETICS AND CONFLICT: SPEECH AND EXPECTATIONS [T]he speeches are given in the language in which, as it seemed to me, the several speakers would express, on the subjects under consideration, the sentiments most befitting the occasion, though at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said (1.22.1 [SMITH, LCL]) 10. Callisthenes comments that “anyone attempting to write something must not fail to hit upon the character, but must make speeches appro- priate to the person and the circumstances” (FGrHist 124 F 44). In- deed, according to J. Marincola, the assumption reflected in Seneca’s comment that, “as is men’s speech, so is their lives” (Ep. 114.1) was a “truism for the ancients” so that a writer “could reveal a character’s nature by the type of speech he composed for him” 11. Reflecting this truism, Plutarch writes, “a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes greater revelation of character than battles where thousands fall” (Alex. 1.2 [PERRIN, LCL]) 12. As a result, authors often criticized the work of others if the words given a character were perceived to be inappropriate to either the per- son or the situation. Theon, therefore, criticizes Euripides for having DERSON, JR. Glossary of Greek Rhetorical Terms Connected to Methods of Argumentation (CBET 24; Leuven 2000) 60-61, 106-107; H. LAUSBERG, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric. A Foundation for Literary Study (eds. D.E. ORTON – R.D. ANDERSON) (Leiden 1998) 495-496. 10 See also, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 7.66.2-3; 11.1.3-4. 11 MARINCOLA, “Speeches”, 119. 12 MARINCOLA (“Speeches”, 120) argues that historians made good use of Plutarch’s idea as well (citing Xenophon, Hell. 2.3.56; Arrian, Anab. 2.12.8, 4.20, 5.18, 7.1.5-6). L.V. PITCHER ,“Characterization in Ancient Historio- graphy”, A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (ed. J. MARIN- COLA) (Malden, MA 2007) I, 102-117, likewise argues that characterization, including through speech, was a key component to histories in general. Such facts underscore the blurred distinctions between genres in the ancient world, wherein we find several “histories” that seem much more like biographies (cf. Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander) and “biographies” that verge on histo- riography (cf. Tacitus’ Agricola) even while the general idea that biograph- ies focus on an individual life in contrast to historiography’s interest in grand events remains. For further discussion on the relationship between historio- graphy and biography in the ancient world see, P. STADTER, “Biography and History”, A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (ed. J. MARIN- COLA) (Malden, MA 2008) II, 528-540; C.H. TALBERT, “The Acts of the Apos- tles: Monograph or ‘Bios’”, History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts (ed. B. WITHERINGTON III) (Cambridge 1996) 58-61.