Reference edition:

Rhetores Latini Minores, ex codicibus maximam partem primum adhibitis emendabat Carolus Halm, Lipsiae 1863, 561-563 (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana).

Emporius’ short treatise De ethopoeia condenses instructions related to the practice of shaping a person’s character and ethical profile (561, 2-3 – 562, 9 Halm).  Pirovano considers the presence of the progymnasmata in an intermediary program between that of a grammaticus and a rhetor to be original to Emporius and typically Roman, in contrast to the practice of Greek schools, which always treated them as the prerogative of rhetoric teachers (Pirovano 2008: 199-202).  The treatise has many terminological similarities with works of the Latin rhetorical tradition, e.g. those of Julius Victor and Julius Rufinianus.  It gives special attention to the shaping of affects and emotions that are not innate to a person, but that can nevertheless define him in certain circumstances.  The work discusses pathopoeia, i.e. the shaping of pathos (562, 10-25 Halm); pragmatics, i.e. description of the concrete elements related to the handling of a case (562, 26-9 Halm); and prosopopeia, i.e. the procedures for shaping a speaker’s persona using words appropriate to the dispute in which he finds himself operating (562, 30 Halm – 563, 21 Halm).  The work ends very quickly by suggesting that the progymnasmata are a narratio and fabula, a fact that confirms the work is an excerptum. [A. Balbo; tr. C. L. Caterine].