Similes, Rhetoric and Oppian's Halieutica

This article provides a general discussion of the role of similes in rhetorical discourse as rhetoric developed between the 4th century BC and the 2nd century AD, and then goes on to consider whether the frequent similes in Oppian’s Halieutica are, in part, a response to the popularity of rhetorical style in the Second Sophistic. More traditionally these similes would be said to reflect the repertoire commonly seen in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but this article demonstrates that even a very traditional and conservative style of writing, as Epic was in the Imperial period, is not immune to contemporary cultural and literary fashions].