Greek Political Oratory (Penguin Classics)

This volume contains the most famous speeches of Thucydides, Lysias, Andocides, Isocrates and of course, that prince of orators, Demosthenes. The Fifth century BC saw the birth and flowering of Greek prose in the form of forensic and political oratory. for speech-making in classical Athens was both a regular practice and an organized art - an art that became increasingly refined during the course of the century and one that has exercised a lasting influence on the rhetorical tradition of the west. The greatest Athenian speeches also provide an important record of that city's politics, and those included in this volume have all been selected for their political significance. All are masterpeices of rhetorical technique; and in his introduction A.N.W. Saunders demonstrates their importance in connection with Greek history and philo- sophy and in particular with the rise of sophistry and the decline of the city state.