The Role and the Place of the Speeches in the Work of Theophylact Simocatta

Speech (màqoj, oratio), as an element of ancient historical narrative, has been known in classical literature since the breakthrough Histories by Herodotus of Halicarnassus1, it demonstrated its full functional capacity in the fundamental History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides2. The History of the Peloponnesian War set the standards for the historic narrative for the centuries to come3, and ancient authors followed these guidelines when creating literary topoi which are continued to be recorded even in contemporary Polish literature4. The significance of topology is so dominant in the literary rhetoric tradition that the modern commentators often attribute slavish imitation