The Early Rhetorical Tradi’tion

Abstract

Abstract Oratory became a more or less distinct genre of Greek prose literature some time around the middle of the fifth century nc. The uncertainties surrounding its beginnings do not allow a more precise dating. On one important aspect of its early development, however, confident assertion is possible: unlike other genres, oratory evolved under the stimulus of two agencies, that of the preceptor and that of the practitioner. From the start there were teachers instructing would-be orators in what to say, how and in what order to say it. By the time of Antiphon, the first Greek orator whose speeches have survived, the work and influence of the teachers had crystallized into a body of topics and types of argument which only the most talented (or foolhardy) might ignore. An attempt, such as is envisaged in the present enquiry, to assess the literary achievement of each of the Attic orators, must logically approach their texts with the initial intention of trying to identify what they received from the first teachers, before examining the merit of what may seem idiosyncratic and original. The tradition begins with these early teachers, and it is necessary to clarify the form in which their instruction was transmitted.