Although in general usage the two terms oratory and rhetoric are virtually synonymous, in what follows a distinction is made between them: rhetoric is taken to denote the theoretical art of speaking, oratory its practical application. Both were exhaustively studied in the ancient world, for mastery of the spoken word was the key to success in the fields of politics and law, and successful careers in either field (though both were generally associated) brought power, prestige, and wealth.
1.
Greek. Attic Greek oratory, in its period of splendour (from c.460 BC to the suppression of political freedom at Athens at the end of the fourth century BC), produced a large number of people who professed to be able to teach it, known as rhetors. The earliest teachers, Corax and Teisias, were active in Sicily in the middle of the fifth century BC when the rule of tyrants gave place to democracy; the lawsuits which followed this change of constitution are said to have given Corax the idea of systematizing and writing down the rules for speaking in a law-court. According to Aristotle, Empedoclēs too played some part in this development. Gorgias of Leontini (in Sicily) brought this new style of public speaking to Athens in 427 BC, adopting in particular a poetic style, although it is clear from the earlier plays of Euripidēs that oratory was already a developed art in the city. Gorgias' influence has been detected in the speeches of Thucydidēs and Isocratēs. The teaching of rhetoric was part of the stock-in-trade of many sophists, some of whom specialized in particular aspects of the subject, such as semantics or figures of speech. The sophists and rhetors laid emphasis on the techniques necessary for winning over an audience. The teaching of this kind of rhetoric aroused the hostility of Socrates and especially of Plato, who thought that persuasive speech should be based on knowledge of the truth, and thus introduced the idea of an opposition between rhetoric which aimed to persuade and philosophy which aimed to know the truth (see GORGIAS). The theoretical study of rhetoric was further developed by Aristotle (see 4 (v)), who was probably the first to divide oratory into three kinds, judicial (or forensic), political (or deliberative), and epideictic (the oratory of display), each with its own particular style.
No speech by any of the great political figures of the fifth century survives, though the Funeral Speech of Pericles as it is reproduced by Thucydides (2. 35–46) may possibly give some idea of his lofty style. The earliest and only truly fifth-century Attic orator whose speeches in part survive is Antiphon (c.480–411 BC); he was followed by Andocides (at the very end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth century), and the great fourth-century orators Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Demosthenes, and Aeschines. Of the remaining Attic orators the most important were Lycurgus, Hypereides, and Deinarchus (see CANONS). After the end of the fourth century BC the political situation in Greece did not give much scope for the practice of political oratory; but its importance in education did not decline and the study of oratory was still pursued at Athens and also among the Greeks of Asia Minor, at Rhodes and Pergamum, where oratory of a rich, exuberant, and declamatory kind developed, the so-called Asianic style, in contrast with the simple lucid Attic style modelled on Lysias. The former term arose, according to a grammarian, when the Greek language spread into Asia (from the late fourth century BC) and the Asians used Greek circumlocutions when they did not know the precise words. Quintilian's view is that the style reflected the bombastic and boastful nature of the Asians, compared with Attic speakers who despised vapid and redundant speech.
2.
Roman. At Rome, as in Greece, oratory was recognized as an art from early times. Even in the fourth century BC Appius Claudius Caecus the Censor had a high reputation as an orator. In the survey that Cicero gives in his Brutus of the great Roman speakers, the principal names are those of Cato the Censor, the Gracchi (especially Gaius, described by Cicero as wise, lofty, and weighty, but lacking the final polish), M. Antonius (grandfather of Mark Antony), L. Licinius Crassus (consul in 95 BC, whose speeches were deliberately built up in accordance with the rules of Greek oratory), Julius Caesar, C. Licinius Calvus, an exponent of the pure Attic style, and Hortensius, noted, on the contrary, for his luxuriant Asianism. Cicero found himself under attack as an Asianist by admirers of Calvus who thought his periodic and rhythmical style over-elaborate; he defended himself in the Brutus and Orator.
From the second century BC onwards Roman orators were a product of Greek schools or of Greek teachers who had migrated to Rome. Handbooks such as the Rhetorica ad Herennium were based on Greek models. But Greek theory was subordinate to Roman practice: it was the institutions of the law-courts and above all the senate, where affairs of state were debated before an intelligent, educated, and trained audience, that moulded the dignified Roman oratorical style. Of this wealth of eloquence only the speeches of Cicero survive.
As in Athens in the late fourth century BC, so in Rome under the empire oratory as a living art declined when the political decisions were taken by the emperor and no longer followed public debate. But rhetoric still remained the fundamental element in education, though now it was taught only for the law-courts or display purposes, and exercised in consequence a strong influence on all forms of literature. Professorships of rhetoric were set up in all the large cities of the empire, and for as long as the empire lasted higher education was almost entirely rhetorical. Quintilian was the first professor of rhetoric at Rome and, like Cicero, saw rhetoric as providing the finest literary discipline. In the second century AD Dio Chrysostom and Aelius Aristeides in the eastern empire could draw large audiences to hear performances of their epideictic oratory. Orators or teachers of rhetoric in the West included many of the greatest figures of their time, e.g. St Augustine, St Ambrose, and Ausonius. True understanding of much of classical literature and ancient literary criticism requires appreciation of the large role of rhetoric and oratory in ancient life and culture.
