The Classical Review vol. 60 no. 2 © The Classical Association 2010; all rights reserved and events). These were small components that teachers proposed to pupils and that students could memorise. The distinguishing feature of the ekphrasis was, however, the ability to be more visual than the other progymnasmata, to have an intense effect on the imagination, founded on accurate knowledge of the arguments described and of the details to present to the listener. The following chapters discuss the arguments themselves. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the two guiding concepts of ancient rhetoric, the ἐνάργεια, or the evidence, the closeness to reality, obtained by the vividness of the words, and its result in the mind of the public, or the φαντασία, the imagination which is kindled by the words. Chapter 6 proposes examples of the application of ekphrasis, in declamation and in epideictic and judicial oratory, through the examination of the most advanced manuals of rhetoric (Pseudo-Dionysius of Halicarnassus, pp. 139ff., Sopater Rhetor, pp. 141ff. and Menander Rhetor, pp. 155ff.), to demonstrate how, thanks to the visual details that it transmitted, it was able to produce a sort of alteration of the perception of the listener and an involvement necessary to persuade him. Sopater Rhetor (fourth century A.D.) suggests the use of ekphrasis to support the defence of the judicial orations, and cites some famous examples inspired by history, and described through the eyes of the protagonists, which must have led listeners not only to see the horror of the events but also to feel them as protagonists, pushed by circumstances and forced to carry out the choices of which they were accused. Finally, Chapter 7 refl ects on ‘ekphrasis of works of art’ (in Lucian, Achilles Tatius and Longus, and fi nally in the Eikones of Philostratus Maior) where the ‘visibility’ of the words reaches its highest levels and can be rightly considered a ‘commentary on the nature of the ekphrasis in the broad sense of the word’ (p. 186), a sort of sublimation of the production of images. The book is well set out, although perhaps it could have been arranged in a clearer form (some subtitles are repeated in diverse sections: p. 93 and p. 96, also p. 178 and p. 182). Thanks to W.’s valuable analysis, scholars who have long dealt with ‘ekphrasis of works of art’ can now know the scholarly contexts in which it was practised, and understand the rhetorical nature of some of the subjects used.