Written sometime in the 4th Century BC, Aristotle's "Rhetoric" is the definitive treatise on the art of persuasive public speaking. The art of oratorical persuasion was an essential skill for the successful politician during the days of ancient Greece and Aristotle's "Rhetoric" is considered one of the greatest works from antiquity on the subject. Like many of the surviving works attributable to Aristotle, "Rhetoric" was not intended for public dissemination,...

"Aristotle (384-322 BC), the great Greek thinker, researcher, and educator, ranks among the most important and influential figures in the history of philosophy, theology, and science. He joined Plato's Academy in Athens in 367 and remained there for twenty years. After spending three years at the Asian court of a former pupil, Hermeias, he was appointed by Philip of Macedon in 343/2 to become tutor of his teenaged son, Alexander. After Philip's death...

George A. Kennedy is Paddison Professor of Classics, Professor of Comparative Literature, and Adjunct Professor of Speech Communication at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. George Kennedy's three volumes on classical rhetoric have long been regarded as authoritative treatments of the subject. This new volume, an extensive revision and abridgment of The Art of Persuasion in Greece, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, and Greek Rhetoric...

An anthology of primary texts in translation, An Introduction to Classical Rhetoric offers an overview of the social, cultural, and intellectual factors that influenced the development and growth of rhetoric during the classical period. Featuring classical rhetoric from the Sophists through St. Augustine, Williams provides an in-depth introduction to the period, as well as introductions to each author and each selection. Examples of rhetoric are interspersed...

Alessandro Barchiesi is the Gesue and Helen Spogli Professor of Italian Studies in the Department of Classics at Stanford University and professor of Latin literature at the University of Siena, Italy. He is the author of several books and the coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies. The study of Homeric imitations in Vergil has one of the longest traditions in Western culture, starting from the very moment the Aeneid was circulated. Homeric...