Mike Edwards
Public speaking may be approached from two angles, the actual practice of eloquence, or “oratory,” and the theory of how to perform it, or “rhetoric.” In many ways this is a false division, orator merely being the Latin equivalent of the Greek rhetor, and the term “rhetoric” is frequently used to cover both aspects, often with a pejorative connotation (cf. “empty rhetoric”). Nevertheless, the division offers a practical way of approaching a vast topic that lay at the very heart of Greek life.
The reader of Greek literature, from Homer onwards, cannot fail to be struck by the frequency with which narrative alternates with direct speech. Almost half of the Homeric epics take the form of speeches, and the ability to speak persuasively was a vital part of the hero’s make-up. Phoenix memorably reminds Achilles that he instructed him to be a “speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (Iliad 9.443) – in that order.
Aristotle in the Rhetoric (1.3) divides oratory into three categories: forensic (law-court oratory), deliberative (political), and epideictic (display). All three are already found in Homer, with assemblies, the trial scene depicted on the Shield of Achilles (Iliad 18.497–508), and the funeral orations delivered by Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen over Hector (Iliad 24.723–76) – a prominent role rarely afforded to women in the classical period. Since Homer was the fount of all knowledge, it was natural to assume the existence of a “Homeric rhetoric,” and later rhetoricians trawled the epics for examples to illustrate their rules (cf. the lost second-century CE treatise On Rhetoric According to Homer by the Stoic grammarian Telephus of Pergamon: Suda T 495; Prolegomena ton staseon vol. 7, p. 5 Walz). But modern scholars are skeptical about the existence of any developed theory of persuasion at this early stage.
The same applies to the three centuries succeeding Homer, but if instruction in rhetoric remained rudimentary, the practice of speaking flourished. Hesiod comments on the Muses pouring sweet dew on a king’s tongue, giving him the ability to speak persuasively in settling disputes (Theogony 83–7), and there is another legal contest in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (ll. 324–96), after Hermes steals Apollo’s cattle. Two major factors in the sixth century contributed significantly to the subsequent flowering of oratory, namely the introduction of prose literature and the development of the city-state (polis). Most of the evidence comes from Athens, where the idea of free speech (isegoria) flourished. The lawgiver Solon retained the verse form of elegy for the dissemination of his political speeches, and tragedy kept up the poetic momentum in the fifth century, most notably in the trial of Orestes in Aeschylus’s Eumenides of 458 (ll. 566–753). But it was Herodotus’s Histories that pointed the way forward, with their numerous deliberative speeches and other debates, including an imaginary discussion in Persia of the best form of constitution (3.80–82). It is highly likely that Herodotus was influenced by a new development in the second half of the fifth century, the advent of the Sophists, but they themselves were preceded in rhetorical thinking by two shadowy figures from Sicily.
For in the desire to attribute the invention of rhetorical theory to a founding father, a separate tradition developed that rhetoric was invented in the first half of the fifth century by Corax of Syracuse and his pupil Tisias. The pair appear in the context of discussions of probability-theory in both Plato (Phaedrus 267a, 273a–274a) and Aristotle (Rhetoric 2.24.11) – though the fact that Plato attributes the same example of probability to Tisias as Aristotle to Corax is a good indicator of the confusion that already surrounded them in the fourth century. Some scholars have even doubted the existence of Corax.
One of the apocryphal tales attributed to them was that they took each other to court over Tisias’s non-payment of Corax’s fee for teaching him, which was to be paid if Tisias won his first case. Corax argued that if he won the case he should receive the fee, but that if he lost he should receive it also, because it would demonstrate that he had taught Tisias effectively; while Tisias argued that if he won the case he did not have to pay the fee, and if he lost he did not have to pay it, because he had not won his first case (cf. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors 2.97–9). A similar story was told of the sophist Protagoras of Abdera and his pupil Euathlus, and this kind of clever intellectual gymnastics links rhetoric and sophistic thinking. For Protagoras there are two contradictory arguments about everything, and it is possible for an orator “to make the weaker case the stronger” (DK 80 A 20–21), hence he wrote Antilogies (contradictory arguments), similar to the surviving Dissoi Logoi (Double Arguments). It was a key part of the sophists’ role to teach their pupils how to argue on both sides of a case. They also carried out research: Protagoras was interested in the correct use of language, Prodicus of Ceos in synonyms, Hippias of Elis in rhythm. But it was another sophist who took argumentation to new levels, the Sicilian Gorgias of Leontini.
Gorgias came to Athens on an embassy in 427 and amazed the assembly with his method of speaking. In a long career he taught all over Greece, charging high fees, and Diodorus (12.53) calls him “the first man to devise rules of rhetoric,” in another version of the “founding father” tradition. Evidence of Gorgias’s skill in argumentation is provided by the Praise of Helen, where he justifies Helen’s conduct by the alternative propositions that she was obeying the gods, was taken to Troy by force, was persuaded by speech (logos), or was overcome by love. Gorgias’s parting remark, “I wanted to write the speech as an encomium of Helen and an amusement (paignion) for myself” (§ 21), might be taken to indicate a lack of seriousness, but his examination of the powers of logos suggests otherwise. The theme of defending the apparently indefensible continues in the Defense of Palamedes, an imaginary trial speech against Odysseus’s accusation that Palamedes had conspired with the Trojans. Finally, a fragment of Gorgias’s Funeral Oration falls within the epideictic epitaphios genre.
Gorgias’s writing is highly artificial. Critics noted the poetic nature of his style, with plenty of metaphors such as “vultures, living tombs” (Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime 3.2). Word jingles (paranomasiai) abound, with assonance, alliteration, and rhyme (homoioteleuton), and in his sentence structure there are parallelisms (isokola) and antitheses. Together, these so-called “Gorgianic figures” would have a profound influence on later style, though most authors would use them rather more sparingly.
It is hard to exaggerate the impact of the sophists on the literature of the second half of the fifth century. As well as Herodotus, their influence on Euripides and Aristophanes is clear; while Thucydides in his History often adopts the sophistic method of presenting speeches in antilogies, as in the Mytilenean Debate (3.38.7), where Cleon criticizes the Athenians for behaving in the assembly as if they were listening to sophistic displays. But it was in the forensic field that the sophistic influence was particularly strong. Plato (Phaedrus 266d-267d) gives a list of sophists who were theorizing on courtroom oratory, and the two strands of theory and practice come together in the person of Antiphon of Rhamnus.
Antiphon (c. 480–411BCE) was the first member of the Canon of Ten Attic Orators (see below). Executed for his part in the oligarchic revolution in 411, he is described by Thucydides (8.68.1) as being extremely able but suspect to the people because of a reputation for cleverness. Consequently, Antiphon devoted himself to writing speeches for others: again on the “founding father” theme, he was regarded in antiquity as the first professional speechwriter (logographos; cf. Pseudo-Plutarch, Vit. X or.: Life of Antiphon 832c–d). Three speeches from homicide trials survive under his name, written in the grand style, full of antitheses, that is familiar from Thucydides, whose teacher Antiphon was supposed to be. He also taught rhetoric, as is evidenced by the Tetralogies, three sets of imaginary homicide speeches, two on each side as in a real trial (on the assumption that these are genuine works of Antiphon). There is, besides, a fragmentary treatise On Truth, attributed to Antiphon the Sophist, and (again assuming they were the same person) this is consistent with the range of activities performed by Protagoras and Gorgias.
With Antiphon we enter roughly a century of well-documented oratory at Athens, primarily in the forensic sphere. Litigants were expected to deliver their own speeches before juries that regularly numbered 200 or more in private suits, and in public cases 500 or more. The parties were allocated a fixed amount of time, measured by a water-clock (klepsydra). A litigant might share his allocation of time with a relative or friend who could speak on his behalf as an advocate (synegoros). Those who could afford the fees might secure the services of a logographer, a professional speechwriter like Antiphon, who would provide them with a text to learn for recital in court. Evidently, in a legal system where there were no trained judges to guide the juries on matters of law or precedent, far less to maintain silence in court, the ability to speak well in noisy conditions was vital in persuading juries, which had no opportunity to deliberate before they voted.
At some point a list was compiled of those who were regarded as the ten best orators of the fifth and fourth centuries. This canon may have been the work of Alexandrian scholars in the third or second century, but it is uncertain when the list of names we know was finalized. Caecilius of Caleacte wrote a lost treatise in the first century On the Style of the Ten Orators, but it is only with the Lives of the Ten Orators, wrongly attributed to Plutarch, that we have certain evidence for what became the established membership. Over 100 speeches survive, though included in the corpus are some that were clearly written by others (see below).
The second member of the canon, the aristocratic Andocides (c. 440–c. 390), displays a native talent for speaking that is at times rather uncontrolled. His amateur status perhaps makes his membership of the list slightly surprising, and the second-century CE Athenian sophist Herodes Atticus supposedly replied to an audience who were acclaiming him as one of the Ten “I am certainly better than Andocides” (Philostratus, VS 564–5). Andocides is infamous for his role in two religious scandals of 415, the mutilation of the Herms and profanation of the Mysteries, which forced him into exile. On the second of two unsuccessful attempts to return he delivered On his Return, where he shows little contrition, and it was not until the amnesty of 403 that Andocides was finally allowed to resume his citizenship in Athens. He was then prosecuted for impiety in 399, when he delivered On the Mysteries, a long but carefully constructed defense which is notable rhetorically for its abuse of his opponents (diabole). His free-flowing narrative style, with frequent parentheses and anacoluthon, gives the speech a natural feel, as if unprepared. Andocides was acquitted and served in 392/1 on an embassy to Sparta, but his On the Peace with the Spartans failed to persuade the assembly and he again left Athens, disappearing from the historical record. The preserved Andocidean corpus contains a fourth speech, Against Alcibiades, which is one of several attacks on the Athenian fifth-century general and his family (cf. Lysias or. 14, or. 15; Isocrates or. 16). Purporting to be a speech delivered at a vote of ostracism in 417, the speech is undoubtedly a later rhetorical exercise.
A speech Against Andocides in the Lysiac corpus is also widely accepted as not being a genuine speech by Lysias, but in this instance is usually accepted as being one of those delivered at the Mysteries trial. There are several others in the corpus of 34 preserved Lysiac speeches whose authenticity has been questioned, but there are more than enough genuine speeches to enable an informed assessment of the third member of the canon. Lysias (in the tradition 459/8–c. 380) was a Syracusan metic, who moved in the highest Athenian circles (he appears in Plato’s Phaedrus). His logographic activities were prompted by the loss of the family’s wealth in the Peloponnesian War. He briefly enjoyed Athenian citizenship as a result of Thrasybulus’s decree honoring those who had helped restore the democracy, and it may have been then that he delivered in person his prosecution of Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty Tyrants, for murdering his brother, Polemarchus. Debarred as a metic from a political career, he concentrated on writing speeches for clients to deliver in court in both public and private cases. The latter include one of Lysias’s finest speeches, On the Killing of Eratosthenes (who was possibly related to the tyrant). Here Lysias defends a client who has killed his wife’s lover but has been accused of entrapment, so breaking the law on justifiable homicide. Another is a prosecution speech, Against Diogeiton, which is remarkable for its representation of Diogeiton’s own daughter speaking out against him – as a woman, she would have been unable to appear in person as a witness.
Of the corpus of 425 speeches that were extant at the time of the pseudo-Plutarchan Life (836a), critics like Dionysius and Caecilius adjudged 192 spurious. The desire to pass off works as being composed by Lysias reflects his position as one of the foremost Attic orators. This status was due to his style, which was recognized for its pure, everyday language. Lysias was thus a leading representative of “Atticism,” the stylistic model that many critics in late Republican Rome advocated over the more florid “Asianist” style. Lysias’s speeches are clearly arranged, regularly in the fourfold division of proem (introduction), narrative of events, proofs and epilogue (summary of the speech and concluding remarks). For Dionysius it was in his vivid and concise narratives that Lysias excelled as “unquestionably the best of all the orators” (Dion. Hal. Lysias 18). These are a key part of his persuasive technique – they carry the reader away with them, just as they must have carried away the original juries. Further, Lysias’s speeches have the quality of charm (charis), in which none of his successors excelled him (Lysias 10); and Dionysius also praises his ability at characterization (ethopoiia), by which he means a general portrayal of character, though scholars have rightly detected elements of individual characterization in various speeches. Lysias, according to the Life (836a), only lost two cases: true or not, few orators surpassed him.
Isocrates (436–338) was another member of the canon who did not speak in public, in his case due to a weak voice and lack of confidence. Impoverished, like Lysias, by the Peloponnesian War, Isocrates started as a logographer. Six forensic speeches (of 21 extant speeches/tracts plus nine letters) survive, among which his On the Team of Horses, composed for the son of Alcibiades, is rightly renowned. But Isocrates quickly became disillusioned with speechwriting and around 390 opened a school of rhetoric in Athens for the sons of the wealthy. He now began writing rhetorical tracts to serve as core texts for his curriculum, including Against the Sophists, where he sets out his own rhetorical agenda, and Helen and Busiris, where he demonstrates his skill at argument on well-worn themes concerning legendary characters – he was taught by Gorgias, whose influence on his style and method is clear enough. For about ten years he worked on the Panegyricus, which advocates a unified Greek crusade against the Persians (another by then conventional theme, following works by Gorgias and Lysias), written in a complex, periodic style with abundant use of “Gorgianic figures.” Isocrates goes to great lengths to avoid hiatus (the clashing of vowels in successive syllables) and pays close attention to rhythm, with combinations of the trochee (long vowel followed by short) and iambus (short followed by long). Published in 380, the Panegyricus established Isocrates as a key figure in Athenian intellectual circles.
Further, Isocrates positioned himself as a Panhellenic advisor, writing tracts during the 360s concerning Cyprus (To Nicocles, Nicocles, Evagoras), Boeotia (Plataicus), and the Peloponnese (Archidamus). These contain a number of interesting rhetorical advances, including the use of imaginary speech in character (prosopopoeia at the end of Archidamus) and a prose encomium of a living person, Evagoras. After Athens’ failure in the Social War (357–355), he temporarily favored a Common Peace (On the Peace) and recommended a return to the ancestral constitution (Areopagiticus); then in the Antidosis of 353 Isocrates used the imaginary setting of an Athenian legal procedure to defend his life’s activities in an early example of autobiography, where he details his educational system. This followed his defeat in an actual antidosis (an exchange of property), and his involvement in this process indicates the financial success of his school. By the 340s Isocrates was openly advocating the cause of Philip II of Macedon, as the one person capable of uniting the Greeks against Persia. Arguably his most important work, the Philip was published in 346, but Isocrates was to be disappointed by Philip’s reaction. Disillusioned, he embarked on the Panathenaicus, which he was still writing in 339, two or so years short of his centenary. Here Isocrates again presents an apologia for his life, combined with a biased comparison of Athens with Sparta. After further unsuccessful appeals to Philip, Isocrates starved himself to death in 338.
The fifth member of the canon, Isaeus (c. 420–340s), was probably from Chalcis on Euboea, and so was another metic, like Lysias. A pupil of Isocrates and a professional logographer, he may have written a rhetorical treatise as well. Eleven speeches survive concerning inheritance cases, plus an extended fragment of a speech on citizenship quoted by Dionysius. The intricacies of the inheritance cases and the complex ways in which he deals with them suggest that Isaeus was an expert in this area of law. His clever argumentation led Dionysius to compare him unfavorably with Lysias (e.g. Dion. Hal. Isaeus 3–4), but at the same time this cleverness had a power (deinotes) which would be the mark of the greatest orator, Demosthenes, whose teacher Isaeus was thought to be.
The preeminence of Demosthenes (384–322) is reflected not only in the size of the corpus that has come down to us under his name – 60 speeches, an Erotic Essay, Letters and a collection of Proems – but also by the fact that a number of these works are spurious or of doubtful authenticity: as with Lysias, their preservation is due to their inclusion under his name. Demosthenes began by successfully prosecuting his former guardians for dissipating his inheritance, but not all the sums involved were recovered, and he went on to pursue a lucrative career as a speechwriter. At the same time he overcame physical deficiencies, for example by practicing speaking with pebbles in his mouth (Plutarch, Demosthenes 11.1), thereby improving his delivery of the speeches that would eventually see him established as the leading political speaker in Athens. Demosthenes’ forensic speeches cover a vast array of subjects: the Against Conon, an assault case that allows comparison with Lysias’s Against Simon, reveals a mixture of Lysianic charm and Demosthenic forcefulness that makes it one of his finest.
From 355/4 Demosthenes embarked on his political career through involvement in high-profile public suits, delivering the Against Leptines in 355. Most of his early attempts to influence Athenian policy were unsuccessful, including the First Philippic (351), when he had come to realize the threat posed by Philip of Macedon. Again, his proposal in the three Olynthiacs (349–348) to support that city fully against Philip was not heeded: Olynthus fell, and the Athenians were forced to conclude the Peace of Philocrates in 346. Although of necessity he supported the peace at the time, Demosthenes fell out with one of his fellow ambassadors, Aeschines, and quickly disowned the agreement. The pair had already been at odds during their service on the Council in 347/6, and now through his associate Timarchus Demosthenes attempted to prosecute Aeschines for taking bribes from Philip. Aeschines countered with a successful prosecution of Timarchus for addressing the assembly when debarred by immorality. In 343 Demosthenes tried again, and again Aeschines was successful, if narrowly. Aeschines (c. 397–c. 322) was another member of the canon, and his speeches Against Timarchus and On the Embassy survive, along with Demosthenes’ prosecution speech On the False Embassy. Demosthenes continued to advocate resistance to Philip, most notably in the Third Philippic (341), which is arguably the finest political speech from antiquity, but the defeat at Chaeronea (338) was a turning point in Greek history. Chosen to deliver what is a model Funeral Oration in honor of the fallen, Demosthenes was himself honored by the proposal of Ctesiphon to grant him a gold crown for his services to Athens. However, Aeschines immediately lodged a suit against Ctesiphon for making an illegal proposal. Delaying the trial until what seemed the appropriate moment, Aeschines finally brought the prosecution in 330 with the last of his three speeches that survive, Against Ctesiphon, but Demosthenes’ reply in On the Crown, acting as an advocate for Ctesiphon, won such an overwhelming victory that Aeschines was forced into exile at Rhodes, where he taught rhetoric and was remembered as the founder of the Second Sophistic (see below). Aeschines’ rhetorical powers, like his political judgment, have been overshadowed by the dominance of Demosthenes, but the three speeches demonstrate his own high level of rhetorical ability. On the written page he displays wit and a generally simple vocabulary, with extensive argumentation supplemented by quotations from poetry; in delivery he was renowned for his strong voice and rejection of extravagant gestures. Like Andocides, he was not a professional speechwriter, and his at times unpolished style meant that he was ranked less highly by ancient critics than he might have been. Demosthenes’ On the Crown, on the other hand, is generally acknowledged to be the finest speech of any ancient orator, a masterpiece that defends his political career as a devoted servant of the Athenian democracy. The two pairs of speeches concerning the embassy and crown offer us a rare glimpse of how both parties presented their cases, though we must remember that the speeches were edited for publication. Most of Demosthenes’ later speeches do not survive, including his unsuccessful defense in a corruption trial connected with Alexander the Great’s fugitive treasurer Harpalus (324/3). When Greece’s revolt after Alexander’s death failed at Crannon in 322, Demosthenes fled and, so the story goes, committed suicide by drinking poison from his pen.
The remaining members of the canon were contemporaries of Demosthenes. Hyperides, his supporter (389–322), was indeed rated second only to him. After studying under Isocrates and beginning a career as a logographer, Hyperides opened his political career in 363/2 with a prosecution of the prominent politician Aristophon. In 343 he successfully prosecuted Philocrates for his leading role in the peace with Philip, and he remained a prominent anti-Macedonian after Chaeronea. In 324/3 he led the attack on Demosthenes in the Harpalus affair, and he was selected to deliver the Funeral Oration of 323, parts of which survive. After the Greek defeat in the Lamian War Hyperides was executed by Antipater, who supposedly ordered that his tongue be cut out. Seventy-seven speeches under his name were known to later critics, who judged 50 genuine. These were lost until papyrus fragments of six speeches were discovered between 1847 and 1892, including parts of the speech against Demosthenes. More recently, fragments of his speeches Against Timandrus and Against Diondas have been discovered in the Archimedes Palimpsest. Like Lysias, Hyperides uses everyday language, while On the Sublime praises his wit, suavity and persuasiveness (chapter 34). Biting sarcasm was evidently matched to a native talent for inventiveness, which supposedly saw him defend the courtesan Phryne by bringing her into court and getting her to show the jurors her breasts.
Lycurgus (c. 390–c. 325/4) ran Athens’ finances for 12 years after Chaeronea. He notably oversaw the rebuilding of the theatre of Dionysus, which was complemented by a new, official version of the plays of the three great tragedians, and the completion of a new arsenal. An anti-Macedonian, in 331/0 he prosecuted for treachery one Leocrates, who had left Athens between 338 and 332, and only narrowly lost. Lycurgus also attacked a number of individuals for corrupt practices, but ironically was himself condemned for leaving a deficit in the treasury: his sons, imprisoned because they were unable to repay the inherited debt, were released after an appeal by Demosthenes. Fifteen speeches of Lycurgus were judged genuine by Caecilius, but only the Against Leocrates survives. Though influenced stylistically by Isocrates, the frequent hiatuses in his writing reflect that Lycurgus was, like Aeschines, more concerned with what he was saying than with the style in which he said it, and he, too, quoted extensively from poetry.
Finally, the Corinthian Dinarchus (c. 360–c. 290) studied rhetoric at Athens under Theophrastus and became the leading logographer after the deaths of Demosthenes and Hyperides, particularly during the rule of his patron Demetrius of Phalerum. When Athens was liberated by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 307/6 Dinarchus moved to Chalcis; returning in 292, he lived with a friend, Proxenus, but his last recorded act was a prosecution of Proxenus for misappropriating his money. Dionysius judged 60 of the 87 speeches of Dinarchus known to him as genuine, of which only three survive (Against Demosthenes, Against Aristogeiton and Against Philocles), all concerned with the Harpalus affair. Despite his logographic success and Dionysius’s essay, Dinarchus has found few admirers – he was dubbed ‘a small-beer Demosthenes’ by Hermogenes (On Ideas 2.11), and he makes excessive use of invective.
Outside the canon, we have two speeches by the founder of the Cynic school of philosophy, Antisthenes (c. 445–365), who composed antithetical claims to the armor of Achilles by Ajax and Odysseus; the On the Authors of Written Speeches or On the Sophists and the accusation of Palamedes by Odysseus written in the first half of the fourth century by Alcidamas; and some speeches preserved in the Demosthenic corpus by Apollodorus (notably 59, Against Neaera) and Hegesippus. The apologies (defense speeches) of Socrates composed by Plato and Xenophon also merit mention here.
Rhetorical theory developed alongside the practice of the canonical orators. Supplementing model speeches for imitation and collections of proems and epilogues, “arts” of rhetoric (technai) offered instruction on how to compose a speech. All are now lost, except for two treatises written in the second half of the fourth century. These offer comprehensive courses in rhetoric as it was understood at the time, focusing on the discovery (or “invention”) of arguments, arrangement and style. The Rhetoric to Alexander, perhaps written by Anaximenes of Lampsacus, divides rhetorical discourse into seven categories (or “species”), six of which are opposites: exhortation and dissuasion, praise and blame, prosecution and defense, and investigation. Topics and arguments for each category are followed by an analysis of the means of persuasion common to them all, and the treatise ends with the speech structure appropriate for each of the categories. But by far the more influential of the two treatises has been Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In Book 1, after defining his subject (as “the faculty of finding out in any given case the available means of persuasion,” Rhetoric 1.2) Aristotle discusses the three genres of oratory – deliberative, judicial, and epideictic, each of which (as in the Rhetoric to Alexander) has two opposing sides – and the “topics” and arguments appropriate to each. These are logical and objective; in Book 2 he treats subjective and moral proofs, including how the orator should present his own character (ethos), the kinds of emotion (pathos) that can be aroused in the audience, and the logical proofs that are common to the three genres: “commonplaces,” enthymemes (deductive reasoning through rhetorical syllogisms), and examples (inductive reasoning). Book 3 is devoted to style (including the periodic sentence, metaphor, and prose rhythm) and the four parts of the speech.
Although little-read before the first century, the Rhetoric acquired increasing influence through the Peripatetic school of Aristotle’s successors. Rhetoric itself, however, had many detractors in the classical period, none greater than Plato. As an opponent of democracy, Plato had no time for the oratory of the assembly or the law-courts which had condemned his master Socrates. The sophists are unmasked as purveyors of false wisdom in works such as the Protagoras and Sophist, and his opposition to rhetoric is developed in a series of dialogues, the Gorgias, Menexenus, Symposium, and Phaedrus. For Plato, rhetoric as practiced in Athens is not an art, merely an imitation of an art, and far worse is not concerned with justice but with the imposition of the speaker’s own will. A philosophic rhetoric would always aim at the truth and justice, and Plato indicates that such a true rhetoric is possible via philosophical discourse.
Greek oratory reached its peak during the fourth century, and arguably Aristotle’s Rhetoric was never surpassed as a rhetorical manual. However, the absence of speeches from the Hellenistic period (323–27) and the lack of rhetorical treatises before the first century do not mean that this was a period devoid of either interest or importance. Indeed, a vast amount of systematizing went on, and numerous treatises were written on invention, style, argumentation, delivery, and memory, the “five parts” of rhetoric. Lost works on style (lexis) include those of Aristotle’s successor Theophrastus, who enumerated the four stylistic “virtues” (aretai) of correctness, clarity, appropriateness, and ornamentation. In due course, these virtues were contrasted with the new and elaborate Asiatic style, whose creation was attributed to Hegesias of Magnesia in the third century. The concept of the three genres of style – the grand, middle, and plain – is first found in the Latin treatise of the first century BCE, the Rhetoric to Herennius (4.11ff.), but goes back much earlier. Demetrius’s On Style adds a fourth genre, “forceful” (deinos), and if this is a work from the Hellenistic period (though this is much debated) it is the only surviving Greek treatise of that time, along with what remains of Philodemus (see below). Also to be mentioned here is the theory of tropes and figures, known from the On Tropes attributed to Tryphon in the first century CE and from Latin sources. Building on Aristotle’s discussion of metaphor at Rhetoric 3.2–4 (cf. Poetics 21) and influenced by Stoic concepts of grammar, the theory developed of deviations from “natural” usage in single words (trope, such as metonymy) and several words (figure). In line with the schematizing tendency of the period, figures were then subdivided into figures of thought (schemata dianoias) and of diction (lexeos). The theory of argumentation was developed in the second century by Hermagoras of Temnos, who saw that most legal cases depend on rational inquiry, which in turn is facilitated by establishing the “question at issue” (stasis). Theophrastus wrote a treatise On Delivery, as did Athenaeus in the second century, the results of which are again evident in the Rhetoric to Herennius, and in the rhetorical works of Cicero. Finally, theories of memory, attributed to the sixth-/fifth-century poet Simonides, were developed by Charmadas and Metrodorus of Skepsis in the second/first century. Once more, the earliest preserved discussion is in the Rhetoric to Herennius (3.28–40).
The status of rhetoric as an “art” remained controversial in the philosophical schools of the Hellenistic period. The Stoics, who contended that only the Stoic wise man could be the perfect orator, favored a concise style, adding “succinctness” (suntomia) to the list of virtues. The Academy adopted a more favorable stance towards rhetoric under Philon of Larissa (159/8–84/3), who taught Cicero. Finally, the Epicurean Philodemus of Gadara (c. 110–40) held meetings at Herculaneum in the so-called Villa of the Papyri, and his polemical On Rhetoric survives. Hostile to deliberative and judicial rhetoric, Philodemus grants the status of an “art” to the type of sophistic, epideictic rhetoric that was in his view practiced by Isocrates.
Oratory also flourished in the Hellenistic period, though in different circumstances from before. There was still political activity in the assemblies, elections and interstate negotiations, even if it was now dominated by the aristocracies, and disputes in the law-courts continued. From sources such as Polybius and Livy we know the names of numerous orators, and synopses of speeches made by and in response to ambassadors are preserved on inscriptions. Again, while the schools taught declamation (see below), prominent figures gave public lectures in the gymnasia, and a new type of encomium in praise of a god who has performed a miracle cure is attested in numerous inscriptions and papyri.
Criticisms abounded of the decline of oratory and rhetoric after the change in Rome from Republic to Empire at the end of the first century BCE, notably in Tacitus’s Dialogue (36–41). There were, however, numerous positive developments under the Empire (see König, ch. 7 in this volume). Literary criticism in connection with oratory made great advances under Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who came to Rome in 30 BCE. Seven of his Critical Essays concern the Attic orators (Prologue to the Attic Orators, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, Letter to Ammaeus on Demosthenes and Aristotle, and Dinarchus; essays on Aeschines and Hyperides do not survive); these promote Atticism, the “imitation” (mimesis) of the writing styles of classical Athens, though not uncritically. Demosthenes was the supreme model, and in his analysis of “composition” Dionysius investigated the order of words and flow of sounds that in Demosthenes produced a “middle” style (between “elevated” and “simple”) as well as a “middle” harmony (between “austere” and “elegant”). Dionysius’s friend Caecilius wrote On the Style of the Ten Orators and may have been responsible for settling the membership of the canon (see above). The first-century CE work On the Sublime, usually attributed to “Pseudo-Longinus”, discusses how to achieve sublimity, or literary excellence, by imitation of classical models, especially Homer, Plato and, of course, Demosthenes.
A second development came in what we would call higher education, where the study of rhetoric was key. Taught by the rhetor, it comprised two stages. After learning grammar at school, students now embarked on “preparatory exercises” (progymnasmata). This was nothing new, but the exercises, moving from fable to composing a legal proposal, were now carefully ordered. Information on their content comes from Latin sources (especially Quintilian and Suetonius), but also in Greek from the Progymnasmata of Aelius Theon (first century CE) and Pseudo-Hermogenes (second century CE). Students progressed to “declamation” (melete), the composition of a fictitious speech. This type of exercise was centuries old (cf. Gorgias’s Palamedes), but became especially popular at the end of the Republic, the Romans dividing declamation into controversiae (judicial speeches) and suasoriae (deliberative speeches). Sources include in Latin Seneca the Elder (c. 50 BCE–c. 40 CE) and in Greek Aelius Aristides (second century CE). Eleven of Aristides’ twelve preserved suasoriae, written in an Atticizing style, are set in classical Greece (e.g. the Sicilian Orations, for and against sending reinforcements to the Athenian expedition). Other declamations are found in Lucian, Lesbonax, Polemon, and Hadrian of Tyre, illustrating that declamation was far more than a student exercise: speeches were composed by professors who performed them in public to large crowds and so became celebrities.
Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria is one of the most important manuals of rhetoric, but Greek theory also flourished under the Empire. General courses, like that of Apsines (third century), were supplemented by treatises on specific aspects of the subject, such as those by the second-century rhetorician Hermogenes on argumentation (On Issues) and style (On Ideas). The latter, with its seven types of “forms of style,” greatly advances the theories of the Hellenistic period, offering a thorough, systematic approach to the topic. Epideictic rhetoric was not neglected, as is evidenced by the two third-century treatises ascribed to Menander Rhetor.
Epideictic, indeed, came into its own during the Empire, with the prosperity that accompanied the pax Romana. Opportunities for speeches praising the “virtues” (aretai) of the subject were now legion, whether of the gods, countries or individuals. Examples include the “imperial oration” (basilikos logos) in praise of the emperor and the “panegyric” (paneguris) at a religious festival, but also private addresses, such as the “birthday oration” (genethliakos logos). This does not mean, however, that the two other types of oratory disappeared. There was ample scope in the provinces for Greek orators to speak in courtrooms and before governors, and debates in assemblies were conducted on matters such as the imperial cult or interstate relations. A notable set of speeches that survives is the Bithynian Orations of Dio of Prusa (c. 40–after 110 CE; cf. König, ch. 7, pp. 117–8 in this volume).
Dio brings together the two strands of oratory and rhetoric as a member of what Philostratus calls the “Second Sophistic” (VS 481, 507). After discussing eight “philosopher sophists” (Dio included) and nine sophists of the fifth to fourth centuries, the “First Sophistic,” to whom he adds Aeschines as the founder of the Second Sophistic, Philostratus gives biographies of 40 sophists amongst many more from Imperial times. Few of their works survive, but they include those by Polemon, Hermogenes, and Aelius Aristides. Mostly of aristocratic birth, these sophists were public figures who served on embassies and were prominent in their local communities (Herodes Atticus was the leading figure in Athens). Eighty surviving speeches are attributed to Dio, among which are four discourses On Kingship addressed to the emperor Trajan. Two others whose works survive are the multitalented Lucian of Samosata (c. 120–180), author of numerous encomia, and Cassius Longinus (c. 213–272/3), tutor of the philosopher Porphyry executed by the emperor Aurelian; his Rhetoric reveals a conventional work on the five parts.
Eventually oratory and rhetoric came into the orbit of Christianity (cf. Stenger, ch. 8, pp. 133–6 in this volume). After initial resistance, increasingly during the second and third centuries Christian apologists such as Tatian in Greek and Tertullian in Latin came to adopt pagan rhetorical methods. In the mode of the times, Gregory Thaumaturgus wrote the Christian epideictic Thanksgiving to Origen in 238. After Christianity became the official religion of Rome in the fourth century, Greco-Roman rhetoric combined with the Church Fathers in what is sometimes termed the “Third Sophistic.” This was the period of Libanius (314–c. 393), 64 of whose speeches survive, many addressed to emperors and officials, including his funeral oration on the emperor Julian. Another figure is the highly influential author of progymnasmata, Aphthonius. Greek Christian rhetoricians include Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and, perhaps most notably of all, Libanius’s pupil John Chrysostom (c. 354–407). The centrality of Greek rhetoric to so many aspects of life – education, politics, the law, literature and now religious homilies – ensured its survival into the Middle Ages and beyond.
Translations of the Attic Orators are available in the Loeb and Texas University Press (ed. M. Gagarin) series; see also Carey 2011 for a varied collection of some of the most famous speeches. A selection of commentaries on individual speeches is given below, though some assume a knowledge of Greek. Other useful collections are Gagarin and Woodruff 1995 for the early material, and Russell and Winterbottom 1972 for later texts. Translations of many of the later authors are most readily available in the French Budé series, but the progymnasmata have been translated into English by Kennedy ( 2003 ). There are a number of general studies of Greek oratory and rhetoric, including Kennedy 1963, 1983, 1994; Edwards 1994; Usher 1999; and Pernot 2005 . On early rhetoric see Cole 1991 and Schiappa 1999, though their theories remain controversial (see Pernot 2005, 21–3); also Wardy 1996 . For an introduction to the sophists see Kerferd 1981 . The Hellenistic period has not generally been well served until recent years, mostly because of the loss of so much primary material – for example, no rhetorical manual survives between Aristotle’s Rhetoric (or the Rhetoric to Alexander) and the Latin Rhetoric to Herennius, unless Demetrius is dated in this period. But this situation is changing: see the extensive edited collection of Porter 1997, and now that of Kremmydas and Tempest 2013 . The study of Greek oratory and rhetoric after the Roman conquest is inevitably tied up with that of their Latin counterparts, and works on Roman rhetoric may be consulted for Greek, especially Kennedy 1972 . But there are numerous volumes devoted to studies of the later Greek rhetoricians, such as Heath 1995 and Swain 2000 . The standard overview of Greek declamation is that of Russell 1983, while for a general introduction to the Second Sophistic see Anderson 1993 .
The following are valuable resources: Wyse 1904; Petrie 1922; MacDowell 1962, 1990, 2009; Carey and Reid 1985; Edwards and Usher 1985; Anderson 1986; Loraux 1986; Carey 1989, 1992; Kennedy 1991; Missiou 1992; Worthington 1992, 1994, 2010; Russell 1992; Usher 1993; Edwards 1995, 1999; Harris 1995; Too 1995, 2008; Furley 1996; Gagarin 1997; Winter 1997; Whitehead 2000; Sloane 2001; Yunis 2001, 2011; Todd 2007; Carey et al. 2008; Gunderson 2009; Kremmydas 2012 .