Time

Who

Place

Contribution

Vital Works

5^th Cent. BC

Corax and Tisias

Orator

Greek

(Sicily)

Founder of Greek Rhetoric (Corax) and his pupil (Tisias) devised an art of court defense for ordinary people to follow to defend land in the harrowing times under the tyrant Thrasybulus at Syracuse. (Prose, Narration, Argument, Refutation, Summary)

510 – 440

BC

Parmenides

Philosopher, Priest

Greek (Elea)

Points of view on being and non-being (impossible and thus meaningless) may have paved for the way for the opposing skepticism and cynicism that undergirds later Sophistic rhetoric.

On Nature, The way of Truth, The Way of Opinion, Proem (parts of the same poem)

490 – 420 BC

Protagoras, Philosopher, Teacher

Greek

Protagoras is famously known for his ability (claim) to make the weaker case the stronger in any dispute. He conducted public debates and was the first to charge a fee for his services/training.

487-376

BC

Gorgias

Philosopher

Greek

(Sicily)

Gorgias was a Sophist who invited random questions and gave refined impromptu replies.  He used paradoxes to make the absurd seem logical. Gorgias was known for embracing nonexistence, either as a worldview or common topic for oration. If his arguments about existence are accepted, a rhetor is able to talk endlessly about anything – there are no limits when nothing exists and all is incomprehensible and incommunicable.

Enconmium, Defense, On Being or Nature

480 – 411 BC

Antiphon

Greek (Athens)

The Tetrologies are a complete argument – with a first presentation and a rebuttal from each of two sides – all in the same speech. Antiphon marks a transitory period between practical oration and art or philosophical oration.

Four Tetrologies

460 – 395 BC

Thucydides

Historian

Greek (Athens)

An advocate of practical rhetoric (what we might call instrumental rhetoric), Thucydides suggested a formulaic presentation of stock ideas and sections – to be ready for usage should the need arise.

Pericles’ Funeral Oration (in History of the Peloponnesian War)

4^th Cent. BC

Alcidamas

Greek

(Elea)

Alcidamas was one of many Sophists to despise writing at the turning point from oral to written traditions, and gave a laundry list of support for extemporaneous speaking as opposed to writing, paired with complaints about the damage writing as a (bad) habit does to oratory skill.

On Sophists or Concerning Those Who Write Speeches, Odysseus

436-338

BC

Isocrates

Essayist, Pundit, Teacher

Greek

(Attica)

Isocrates taught rhetoric as a skill, although rarely practiced himself (weak voice). He criticized the Sophists for wasting oratory (and teaching oratory) about “trivial” matters, which were only valid as topics for mental gymnastics – not as a profession.  

Encomium of Helen, Antidosis, Against the Sophists

469-399

BC

Socrates

Philosopher

Greek

(Athens)

Socrates was concerned primarily with the health of the soul, and specifically with philosophy as a way of life (as opposed to oratory, which he called “flattery”). He is famous for the dialectical method that he utilizes in Plato’s Gorgias – a process of reaching the truth/understanding by making fine distinctions about definitions in questioning.  

427-347

BC

Plato

Philosopher

Greek

(Athens)

All of reality is divided between Truths/physical universe, in which the Truth cannot be known. Plato gives us much of what we have on Socrates in his written dialogues. His choices to give us what we have suggest that Plato favored dialectic, had a dim view of Sophistic bloviation, and valued philosophy.  

Phaedrus, Gorgias, Republic, Protagoras

400

BC

Anonymous Author

Although we are not sure who wrote it, the Dissoi Logoi importantly introduced contrasting arguments in a single oration as a method of demonstrating skill – it also is notable for its extreme relativism: good and bad (seemly/shameful; just/unjust) are relative to context, point of view, time, place, etc).

Dissoi Logoi

400-320

BC

Aristotle

Philosopher, Teacher

Greek

(Athens)

Analyzed what could be known by the senses (rather than Truth) and compiled long treatises on any topic he could think of – which was quite a few.

Rhetoric, Politics, Poetics, Nicomachean Ethics

106-

43

BC

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Philosopher

Roman 

(Rome)

Distills Aristotle and others into five canons of rhetoric (inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, actio) and three kinds of speech (epideictic, deliberative, judicial)

De Oratore, Inventione, Rhetorica ad Herenium, On Republic, On the Laws

35-

100

AD

Marcus Fabius Quintilian

Philosopher

Roman  (Rome) from Hispania

Quintilian provides us with the first codified textbook on the theory and practice of rhetoric – divided into theoretical, educational, and practical constructs.

Institutio Oratoria

(12 volumes)