The intended public of Demetrius's 'On Style': The place of the treatise in the Hellenistic educational system

On Style, written by a certain Demetrius probably in the first century B.C. , is an important witness to the rhetorical education of the third/second c enturies B.C> It is a matter of long scholarly debate whether Demetrius int ended his treatise to be a handbook of rhetoric or a work of literary criti cism. Here it is argued that the public Demetrius writes his book for are p upils who have done the preliminary courses in rhetoric and have learnt to write progymnasmata. They now enter the final course on rhetoric and will c ompose the more difficult exercises, commonly termed declamationes.