INTRODUCTION TO THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF RHETORIC: SOPHISTS

I. BACKGROUND PERIOD: BEFORE 700 BC

Though we date the "invention" just after 500BC, and place its "inventors" as foreigners to Greece, there is evidence that pre-Socratic Greeks understood and utilized many of the principles for orderly oral speech. We see rhetorical influences in ancient

LITERATURE: the epics of Homer and the poetry of Hesiod, among others include the use of rhetoric throughout. For instance, the Iliad and the Odyssey contain examples of characters making speeches for the purpose of praise or blame, to incite action or inaction; we see narrator and characters illustrating how characters discover and implement argument strategies (and the outcomes of those appeals), we read reasoned argument, emotional appeal, and argument based on authority.

EXPOSITION: a hundred years prior to the explosive interest in rhetoric, Greeks took up the practice of logography as writing started becoming important. Not only were the epics committed to writing, but state documents, court documents, and private agreements were negotiated and recorded. The practice some times led in the direction of that dictation of set speeches, a practice which later develop into the commerce of speeches through speech writing.

DRAMA: many of the ancient plays of Aeschylus, Aristophenes, Thucydides, and Euripides featured speeches by the principals, often set in courts, which illustrate many of them illustrating the basic principles of speaking which would later become part of the rhetorical tradition.

PHILOSOPHY: though early philosophy did was not often rhetorical, we can show that some early philosophers contributed key concepts for the development of classical rhetoric. We will mention Protagoras and Empedocles in particular.

II. NEEDS OF THE CITY-STATE, CIRCA 500 BC

Notice how these are contradictory and contested

EDUCATE POLIS TOWARD CITIZENSHIP

EDUCATE ARISTOCRACY TO HOLD PLACE DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION

PAIDEIA: TO ATTAIN EXCELLENCE IN ALL THINGS

III. THE FIRST TEACHERS: SOPHISTS AS MEN OF WISDOM

BASIC DESCRIPTION:

Sophists, from Perseus Project (11.2.4)

Teachers who were generally itinerant and, especially in the earliest examples, foreigners. They took money for their instruction. Some set up relatively permanent location . . . most went from street, to house, to district. The sophists are "blamed" (primarily) by Plato for the moral decay of Greece and democracy therein.

FOUR TYPES:

CULTURAL: claimed to teach about all knowledge. Some did it well; others only claimed to do so and could not deliver. Through this function, however, the sophists played a major role protecting and passing on the cultural heritage they are so often accused of destroying.

DISPUTATIONAL: taught primarily forensic argument. These, especially later, came to be associated with logographers in the nefarious practice of selling set speeches for use in courts.

RHETORICAL: taught the relatively content-free methods of rhetoric. Taught students how to go about communicating effectively. In later years, sometimes stooped to merely teaching delivery and style.

POLITICAL: taught toward success in public life.

Regardless of the type, the sophists generally professed to touch on the following:

VIRTUE: these ideals varied, depending on the cultural contexts of the day and the audience: bravery, wisdom, honor, loyalty, leadership, participation. Paideia is the key notion here: toward the highest development of Greek values through education.

TECHNE: The work of the rhetorical sophist: relatively content-free communication methods

SUCCESSFUL DISCOURSE: in Greece, Rome, as now, the bottom line was crucial.

back to lecture note index