Ancient rhetoric was the art of persuasion expressed almost exclusively in speech. It flourished in ancient Greece and Rome, with notable rhetoricians including Cicero and Pericles. Plato and Aristotle outlined key elements of rhetoric, including ethos, pathos, and logos. Quintilianus added the five canons of rhetoric: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and actio, which are still considered the key elements of speechmaking today.
Ancient rhetoric is described by Aristotle as the art of persuasion. While modern rhetoric can be communicated through the mediums of writing, radio and television, the ancient art of rhetoric was expressed almost exclusively in speech. The high point of this art in antiquity ranges from the fall of Troy in AD 1200 to the fall of Rome in the fifth century AD. Notable rhetoricians include Marcus Tullius Cicero and Pericles.
Rhetoric first flourished in ancient Greece. The first mention of rhetoric as an art is found in Homer’s Iliad. Cicero is widely considered the best rhetorician of the Roman Republic, based on his collected speeches and treatises. His On Invention was one of the most widely used texts on the art of rhetoric in the Middle Ages.
However, treatises on ancient rhetoric were written before the time of Cicero. The first treatise is recognized as that of Empedocles, around 444 BC It influenced the first real texts dedicated to the subject which were compiled by Corax and Tisias. While a number of philosophers and thinkers from Protagoras to Isocrates have expounded ideas on ancient rhetoric, Plato, Socrates and Aristotle are considered the most influential on Western thought.
Plato postulated that rhetoric could be divided into two types. The first was true rhetoric, based on dialectical study and the search for truth. The purpose of true rhetoric was to persuade people of the truth. Second to true rhetoric was false rhetoric, which was the advancement of what people wanted to hear in order to persuade them to do what the rhetorician – often a vote-seeking politician – desired.
While Plato’s ideas on ancient rhetoric survived in fragments, his student Aristotle wrote a comprehensive treatise on the subject. He was the first to examine the steps in the process of creating rhetoric. Aristotle believed that a rhetorician needs to discover his subject, fix it, and then select a style for final presentation.
Like Plato, Aristotle outlined a number of key elements of ancient rhetoric. He believed that a speaker’s character and credibility were vital; he called this ethos. He also believed that pathos or emotional appeals were fundamental to effective rhetoric. Finally, he believed that rhetoricians must be masters of the art of logic and reasoning, which he called logos, to persuade an audience.
Cicero took Aristotle’s ideas about ethos one step further. While Aristotle’s ethos might be narrowly applied to the topic at hand – meaning that a bee expert would be more persuasive on beekeeping matters than a plumber – Cicero believed that a rhetorician should be knowledgeable on all subjects. A speaker, therefore, must be a worldly man or woman who seeks knowledge on multiple subjects.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, better known as Quintilianus, was a later orator and rhetorician in the Roman Empire. He created a treaty called Institutes of Oratory which established a plan for the training of rhetoricians. He added Aristotle’s ideas on the creation of good rhetoric by describing the five canons of rhetoric: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria and actio. These ideas basically translate as creating an idea, organizing or structuring it, refining its content and style, memorizing it, and delivering it. His ideas are still considered the five key elements of speechmaking, even today.
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