Apollonius Molon rhetoric

70 BC

Apollonius Molon (sometimes called simply Molon) was a Roman rhetorician, who worked around 70 BC. Molon was a student of Menecles. He coached both Julius Caesar and Cicero in the techniques of oration. He promoted a relatively flowery, bombastic, or so-called “Asiatic” style of oratory.

Quintillian described Apollonius Molon’s mentoring of Julius Caeser thusly:

Thus, at an age to which boldness is still natural, he will find it easy to get over the timidity which invariably accompanies the period of apprenticeship, and will not, on the other hand, carry his boldness so far as to lead him to despise the difficulties of his task. This was the method employed by Cicero: for when he had already won a distinguished position at the bar of his day, he took ship to Asia and there studied under a number of professors of philosophy and rhetoric, but above all under Apollonius Molon, whose lectures he had attended at Rome and to whom now at Rhodes entrusted the refashioning and recasting of his style. It is only when theory and practice are brought into a perfect harmony that the orator reaps the reward of all his study (Quintilian, 1920, p. 419)

Quintilian (1920). Institutio Oratoria. Loeb Classic Library. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/12B*.html#6. Retrieved on January 9, 2010.