HE golden age of Greek oratory may be placed roughly between 450 and 336 B.C., extending from the time of Pericles to that of Alexander the Great. The epics of Homer abound with snatches of primitive oratory, and speeches are put into the mouths of his characters which must have been suggested to the bard by living models. Before the time of Herodotus, public address had taken the definite shape of the formal speeches which he records. Thucydides inserts numerous speeches as having been delivered by generals and others on important occasions. Such was the training which the Greeks had received from epic poetry, that when a man's actions were described they expected his words to be reported; therefore in the historian's narration of events heroic achievements were accompanied by public utterances. Argument and reasoning also entered the composition of the drama, so that finally the oratorical element came to form the leading part of the play, and the style became more like prose. To the statesman Pericles is ascribed the honor of having been the first great orator at Athens. Then followed Cleon, Alcibiades, and many other political leaders, whose oratorical abilities were of a high order. Towards the end of the fifth century B.C. one Corax, of Syracuse, established at Athens a school of forensic oratory, and laid down rules or principles, which are adhered to at the present day. The aims of Corax were entirely practical. His art was not merely for the sake of giving pleasure, but to enable men whose property had been alienated during the usurpation of Thrasybulus, to present their cases in the law courts in the best possible way, so as to protect their rights and reclaim their estates. In a short time the system introduced by Corax began to include instruction in argument for and against any case whatever. The sophists also undertook to give the young men of Athens special preparation for public life. Among the most famous sophists were Antiphon of Attica, and Gorgias of Leontini, Sicily, who came to Athens and received the support of influential men. The oratory of Gorgias was of a showy nature, and aimed at influencing the audience by brilliant passages and oratorical devices, rather than by deliberate argument; that of Antiphon, on the other hand, was based upon conviction produced by sound argument resulting from a careful analysis of all points of the case under review. Each of these teachers introduced a new element in his own department. Antiphon made prominent the question of general probability: "Was such an event likely to take place under such and such circumstances?" This was adopted by succeeding rhetoricians, and became their staple form of argument. Gorgias introduced the practice of committing passages to memory, and gave much attention to the choice of words and the manner of expressing them. Thus a system of oratory, which took its rise in the useful and practical, became systematized and developed, according to the demands of the times, into the rhetorical or scientific. In the palmy days of Athens all branches of liberal education were made subservient to oratory. The ambition of the Athenian youth was to be eloquent. Eloquence was the stepping-stone to place and power. The Alexandrine grammarians, who revised Greek literature, gave special prominence to ten Attic orators. In chronological order their names are: Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isæus, Æschines, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Hyperides, and Dinarchus. The three greatest are selected for consideration in this work. The oratory of the Greek cities of Sicily, Asia Minor and Egypt was merely imitative, and has sunk into oblivion. With the decline of Athens oratory died in Greece, to rise again and become next in importance to the art of war in Rome. |