The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric: Volume I, The Progymnasmata

Reading, writing an inflected language, and composing an argument were among the skills taught in Greco-Roman schools. At all three curricular levels students developed these skills by learning how to use a literary form known as the chreia, or anecdote. Beginners at the primary level learned to read and write by copying different examples of the chreia. Students at the secondary level used it to learn how to decline nouns and conjugate verbs and form them into grammatically correct sentenc...