Corax (or
Korax Κόραξ), along with
TisiasTisias , along with Corax of Syracuse, was one of the founders of ancient Greek rhetoric, or sophism. Tisias was reputed to have been the pupil of the lawyer Corax, who agreed to teach Tisias under the condition that he would give him payment for schooling if he won his first case...
, was one of the founders of
ancient GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
rhetoricRhetoric is one of the arts of using language as a means to persuade. Along with grammar and logic or dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From ancient Greece to the late 19th Century, it was a central part of Western education, filling the need to train public...
. It has sometimes been asserted that they are merely legendary personages. Other scholars contend that Corax and Tisias were the same person, described in one fragment as "Tisias, the Crow" (
corax is the
ancient GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
term for "
crowThe true crows are large passerine birds that form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-sized jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on...
"). Corax is said to have lived in
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
in the 5th century BC. During his time,
ThrasybulusThrasybulus was an Athenian general and democratic leader. In 411 BC, in the wake of an oligarchic coup at Athens, the pro-democracy sailors at Samos elected him as a general, making him a primary leader of the successful democratic resistance to that coup...
, the tyrant of
SyracuseSyracuse is a historic city in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is famous for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture and association to Archimedes, playing an important role in ancient times as one of the top powers of the Mediterranean world;...
, was overthrown and a democracy formed.
Corax (or
Korax Κόραξ), along with
TisiasTisias , along with Corax of Syracuse, was one of the founders of ancient Greek rhetoric, or sophism. Tisias was reputed to have been the pupil of the lawyer Corax, who agreed to teach Tisias under the condition that he would give him payment for schooling if he won his first case...
, was one of the founders of
ancient GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
rhetoricRhetoric is one of the arts of using language as a means to persuade. Along with grammar and logic or dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From ancient Greece to the late 19th Century, it was a central part of Western education, filling the need to train public...
. It has sometimes been asserted that they are merely legendary personages. Other scholars contend that Corax and Tisias were the same person, described in one fragment as "Tisias, the Crow" (
corax is the
ancient GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
term for "
crowThe true crows are large passerine birds that form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-sized jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on...
"). Corax is said to have lived in
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
in the 5th century BC. During his time,
ThrasybulusThrasybulus was an Athenian general and democratic leader. In 411 BC, in the wake of an oligarchic coup at Athens, the pro-democracy sailors at Samos elected him as a general, making him a primary leader of the successful democratic resistance to that coup...
, the tyrant of
SyracuseSyracuse is a historic city in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is famous for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture and association to Archimedes, playing an important role in ancient times as one of the top powers of the Mediterranean world;...
, was overthrown and a democracy formed. Under the despot, the land and property of many common citizens had been seized; these people flooded the courts in an attempt to recover their property. Corax devised an art of rhetoric to permit ordinary men to make their cases in the courts. His chief contribution was in helping structure judicial speeches into various parts: prose, narration, statement of arguments, refutation of opposing arguments, and summary. This structure is the basis for all later rhetorical theory. His pupil, Tisias, is said to have developed legal rhetoric further, and he may have been the teacher of
IsocratesIsocrates , 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.Greek rhetoric is commonly traced to Corax of Syracuse,...
. All we know of the work of Corax is from references made by later writers, such as
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
,
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
, and
CiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.Cicero is generally perceived to be one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome...
. According to Dan Harder, Shakespeare derived the name
Sycorax from Corax of Syracuse.
The famous but apocryphal story of how Tisias tried to cheat his teacher is passed down in the introductions to various late rhetorical treatises (e.g. R4 in H. Rabe, Prolegomenon Sylloge, Rhetores Graeci, XIV, Teubner, Leipzig 1931. Tisias got his teacher Corax to agree that he would not pay him his teacher's fee until he won his first lawsuit. He then avoided going to court. Corax got him into court by suing him himself, for the money. He argued that if he, Corax, won the case, he would get his pay, and if he lost, he would still get it because Tisias would have won his first lawsuit, thereby fulfilling the terms of their agreement. Tisias, some versions say, retorted that if he, Tisias, lost the case, he would escape under the terms of the agreement, having lost, not won, his first lawsuit, and if he won it he should also be free, since he would be awarded the money at issue. The judge is said to have thrown both of them out of court, remarking, "kakou korakos kakon oon," "a bad egg from a bad crow" (Suda, #171 under "K").