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Alcidamas, of Elaea
Elaea (Aeolis)

Elaea or Elaia was an ancient city of Aeolis, Asia , the port of Pergamum; the site is not precisely determined but is near Zeytindag, Izmir Province, Turkey....
, in Aeolis
Aeolis

Aeolis or Eolis or Aeolia or Eolia was an area that comprised the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor, mostly along the coast, and also several offshore islands , where the Aeolians Ancient Greece city-states were located....
, Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 sophist and rhetoric
Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of using language as a means to persuade. Along with logic and dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse....
ian, flourished in the 4th century BC.

He was the pupil and successor of Gorgias
Gorgias

Gorgias , "the Nihilist", Greece sophist, pre-socratic philosophy and rhetorician, was a native of Leontini in Sicily. Along with Protagoras, he forms the first generation of Sophism....
 and taught at Athens
Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
 at the same time as Isocrates
Isocrates

File:Isocrates pushkin.jpgIsocrates , an ancient Greek rhetorician, was one of the ten Attic orators. In his time, he was probably the most influential rhetorician in Greece and made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works....
, whose rival and opponent he was. We possess two declamations under his name: On Sophists, directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a more recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date); Odysseus, in which Odysseus
Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses , in Greek mythology , was a legendary Greeks king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
 accuses Palamedes
Palamedes

Palamedes could refer to:*Palamedes , the son of Nauplius in Greek mythology*Palamedes , a Saracen Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend...
 of treachery during the siege of Troy
Troy

Troy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer....
 (this is generally considered spurious).

According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the orator was the power of speaking extempore on every conceivable subject.






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Alcidamas, of Elaea
Elaea (Aeolis)

Elaea or Elaia was an ancient city of Aeolis, Asia , the port of Pergamum; the site is not precisely determined but is near Zeytindag, Izmir Province, Turkey....
, in Aeolis
Aeolis

Aeolis or Eolis or Aeolia or Eolia was an area that comprised the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor, mostly along the coast, and also several offshore islands , where the Aeolians Ancient Greece city-states were located....
, Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 sophist and rhetoric
Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of using language as a means to persuade. Along with logic and dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse....
ian, flourished in the 4th century BC.

He was the pupil and successor of Gorgias
Gorgias

Gorgias , "the Nihilist", Greece sophist, pre-socratic philosophy and rhetorician, was a native of Leontini in Sicily. Along with Protagoras, he forms the first generation of Sophism....
 and taught at Athens
Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
 at the same time as Isocrates
Isocrates

File:Isocrates pushkin.jpgIsocrates , an ancient Greek rhetorician, was one of the ten Attic orators. In his time, he was probably the most influential rhetorician in Greece and made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works....
, whose rival and opponent he was. We possess two declamations under his name: On Sophists, directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a more recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date); Odysseus, in which Odysseus
Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses , in Greek mythology , was a legendary Greeks king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
 accuses Palamedes
Palamedes

Palamedes could refer to:*Palamedes , the son of Nauplius in Greek mythology*Palamedes , a Saracen Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend...
 of treachery during the siege of Troy
Troy

Troy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer....
 (this is generally considered spurious).

According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the orator was the power of speaking extempore on every conceivable subject. Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 (Rhet. iii. 3) criticizes his writings as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.

Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived: Messeniakos, advocating the freedom of the Messenians and containing the sentiment that "all are by nature free"; a Eulogy of Death, in consideration of the wide extent of human sufferings; a Techne or instruction-book in the art of rhetoric; and a Phusikos logos. Lastly, his Mouseion (a word invoking the Muses) seems to have contained the narrative of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod
Contest of Homer and Hesiod

The Contest of Homer and Hesiod is a Greek narrative that expands a remark made in Hesiod's Works and Days to recount an imagined poetical agon between Homer and Hesiod, in which Hesiod bears away the prize, a bronze tripod, which he dedicates to the Muses of Mount Helicon....
, of which the version that has survived is the work of a grammarian in the time of Hadrian
Hadrian

Publius Aelius Hadrianus , as emperor Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, and Divus Hadrianus after his apotheosis, known as Hadrian in English language, was Roman Emperor of Roman Empire from AD 117 to 138, as well as a Stoicism and Epicureanism philosopher....
, based on Alcidamas. This hypothesis of the contents of the Mouseion, originally suggested by Nietzsche (Rheinisches Museum 25 (1870) & 28 (1873)), appears to have been confirmed by three papyrus finds - one 3rd century BC (Flinders Petrie Papyri, ed. Mahaffy
John Pentland Mahaffy

The Rev. Sir John Pentland Mahaffy Order of the British Empire Royal Victorian Order was an Ireland classicist and polymathic scholar....
, 1891, pl. xxv.), one 2nd century BC (B. Mandilaras, 'A new papyrus fragment of the Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi Platon 42 (1990) 45-51) and one 2nd or 3rd century AD (University of Michigan pap. 2754: Winter, J. G., 'A New Fragment on the Life of Homer' TAPA 56 (1925) 120-129 ).

Further reading

  • Alcidamas' surviving works
    • Guido Avezzù (ed.), Alcidamante. Orazioni e frammenti (now the standard text, with Italian translation, 1982)
    • J.V. Muir (ed.), Alcidamas. The works and fragments (text with English translation, 2001) -
    • Ruth Mariss, Alkidamas: Über diejenigen, die schriftliche Reden schreiben, oder über die Sophisten: eine Sophistenrede aus dem 4. Jh. v. Chr., eingeleitet und kommentiert (Orbis Antiquus, 36), 2002
    • Friedrich Blass
      Friedrich Blass

      Friedrich Blass was a Germany classical scholar from Osnabr?ck.After studying at university of G?ttingen and university of Bonn from 1860 to 1863, he lectured at several gymnasium and at the University of K?nigsberg....
      , Teubner edition of the Greek text (1908) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC69142315&id=KSAMAAAAIAAJ online
    • Alcidamas,
  • About Alcidamas
    • Aristotle
      Aristotle

      Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
      ,       Rhetoric
      Rhetoric (Aristotle)

      Aristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the fourth century BCE. In Greek, it is titled ?????S ????????S, in Latin Ars Rhetorica. In English, its title varies: typically it is titled the Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, or a Treatise on Rhetoric....
       III.3
    • J. Vahlen, "Der Rhetor Alkidamas", Sitzungsberichte der wiener Akademie, Phil.-Hist. Cl., 43 (1863) 491-528 http://books.google.com/books?id=sqYVAAAAIAAJ&printsec=toc&dq=Sitzungsberichte+der+wiener+Akademie&as_brr=1&sig=SQ5oDs0LodOLUJRJBonlrIdYOA8#PPA491,M1 online(=Gesammelte philologische Schriften (Leipzig & Berlin 1911) 1.117-155)
    • Friedrich Blass
      Friedrich Blass

      Friedrich Blass was a Germany classical scholar from Osnabr?ck.After studying at university of G?ttingen and university of Bonn from 1860 to 1863, he lectured at several gymnasium and at the University of K?nigsberg....
      ,       Die attische Beredsamkeit, part 2 (1892) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC02475280&id=vkgMAAAAIAAJ online, pp. 345-363
    • M.L. West
      Martin Litchfield West

      Martin Litchfield West is an internationally recognised scholar in classics, classical antiquity and philology. In 2002, upon his receipt of the Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies from the British Academy, he was called "the most brilliant and productive Greek scholar of his generation." He is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford,...
       (1967) for Alcidamas' invention of the contest of Homer and Hesiod, N.J. Richardson (1981) against
    • (1856-1919, with links to further online material)
    • Additional bibliography is available online at Christopher Skiebe: , Band XXIII (2004).