Handbuch Antike Rhetorik

Jan Erik Heßler

1Rede und die Entwicklung der Redekunst vor den Sophisten

Abstract: This contribution deals with speeches, their forms of appearance, and the reflection about speeches in Greek literature before the arrival of the sophists at Athens, that is from the beginnings until the last third of the 5th century B. C. Included are speech situations in Homer, statements about the effect of good and bad rhetoric in Hesiod, and passages of archaic lyric that are close to guidelines and/or to literary forms known from the history of rhetoric after ca. 400 B. C. After the archaic poets, Herodotusʼ Histories and funeral speeches in Athens provide early forms of rhetorical texts of the Classical age, while Corax and Tisias lay the foundation for ...