... came to recast the Lombard campaigns as disasters for Rome and the causes of great suffering. Rome’s suffering then served as a rhetorical foil against which Gregory contrasted what he saw as the callous neglect of imperial officials and especially John’s prideful asceticism performed in the safety...

... attention to what figures did not say or think. An interesting and as yet undiscussed counterpoint to this rhetorical technique is the fourth-century preacher’s practice of imagining objects. This too was an established rhetorical device, called enargeia . The objects that he evokes tend to be ordinary...