The texts linked below are significant to the history of rhetoric; thus the title "classical". It is a partial list, to say the least, and we can't read all of them in a semester. The Agenda link above lists in order the texts we will read, but you should at least peruse what's here. Hover over a If you are suspicious of Wikipedia as a source, you are right to be only because we should cross check all sources of information. When it comes to rhetoric and classical philosophy, or at least those entries I've read, Wiki is pretty solid. I've read many of the original sources (in English, admittedly) the Wiki authors used, and I agree with how the authors interpret those sources. So for me it's just more efficient to let them speak for those sources than for me repeat in my own words what they've already said.
As of 10/12/2023 I've also started quoting ChatGPT and Claude. and some historical context quoted from Wikipedia will popup.
Greek
Alcidamas, "He was the pupil and successor of Gorgias and taught at Athens at the same time as Isocrates, to whom he was a rival and opponent. We possess two declamations under his name: On Sophists (Περὶ Σοφιστῶν), directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a more recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates[citation needed] is probably of later date); Odysseus (perhaps spurious)[1] in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery during the siege of Troy.[2]" Concerning Those who Write Speeches
Anaximenes, "The Rhetoric to Alexander (also widely known by its title in Latin: Rhetorica ad Alexandrum; Ancient Greek: Τέχνη ῥητορική) is a treatise traditionally attributed to Aristotle. It was written by a Pseudo-Aristotle instead and is now generally believed to be the work of Anaximenes of Lampsacus.[1]... As a complete Greek manual on rhetoric still extant from the fourth century BCE, Rhetoric to Alexander gives us an invaluable look into the rhetorical theory of the time. Aristotle did in fact write a work On Rhetoric at much the same time. The author claims to have based this treatise on the Techne of Corax and the Theodectea of Aristotle which may in fact refer to On Rhetoric seeing that Aristotle's work was not published until 83 BCE. Rhetorica ad Alexandrum
Anonymous, "Dissoi Logoi (Greek δισσοὶ λόγοι "contrasting arguments") is a rhetorical exercise of unknown authorship. Based on comments in the text it appears to have been written not long after the Peloponnesian War. It is intended to help an individual gain a deeper understanding of an issue by forcing them to consider it from the angle of their opponent, which may serve either to strengthen their argument or to help the debaters reach compromise.
" Dissoi Logoi
Antiphon, "Antiphon of Rhamnus (480–411 BC) was the earliest of the ten Attic orators, and an important figure in fifth-century Athenian political and intellectual life. ...His chief business was that of a logographer (λογογράφος), that is a professional speech-writer. He wrote for those who felt incompetent to conduct their own cases—all disputants were obliged to do so—without expert assistance. Fifteen of Antiphon's speeches are extant: twelve are mere school exercises on fictitious cases, divided into tetralogies, each comprising two speeches for prosecution and defence—accusation, defence, reply, counter-reply; three refer to actual legal processes. All deal with cases of homicide (φονικαὶ δίκαι). Antiphon is also said to have composed a Τέχνη or art of Rhetoric."
The First Tetralogy
Aristophanes, "Aristophanes (c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion (Latin: Cydathenaeum),[3] was a comic playwright of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy.[4] Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries.[5] ... Plato[9][10] singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates, although other satirical playwrights[11] had also caricatured the philosopher."Clouds
Diogenes, "Diogenes, also known as Diogenes the Cynic, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea,[1] in 412 or 404 BC and died at Corinth in 323 BC. ... Diogenes was a controversial figure. His father minted coins for a living, and Diogenes was banished from Sinope when he took to debasement of currency.[1] After being exiled, he moved to Athens and criticized many cultural conventions of the city. He modelled himself on the example of Heracles, and believed that virtue was better revealed in action than in theory. ...Diogenes had nothing but disdain for Plato and his abstract philosophy.[44] Diogenes viewed Antisthenes as the true heir to Socrates, and shared his love of virtue and indifference to wealth,[45] together with a disdain for general opinion.[46] Diogenes shared Socrates's belief that he could function as doctor to men's souls and improve them morally, while at the same time holding contempt for their obtuseness. Plato once described Diogenes as "a Socrates gone mad."Life and Sayings
Demetrious, [born 350 - died c. 280 BC]
"an Athenian orator originally from Phalerum, a student of Theophrastus, and perhaps of Aristotle, and one of the first Peripatetics. Demetrius was a distinguished statesman who was appointed by the Macedonian king, Cassander, to govern Athens, where he ruled as sole ruler for ten years, introducing important reforms. ... He wrote extensively on the subjects of history, rhetoric, and literary criticism. ...Demetrius was the last among the Attic orators worthy of the name,[18] after which the activity went into a decline" On Style (HTML) 2nd century ad. Though it bears his name, Demetrius of Phalarum is not the author.
Alternative format.
Gorgias, "Gorgias (483 – 375 BCE) was an ancient Greek sophist, pre-Socratic philosopher, and rhetorician who was a native of Leontinoi in Sicily. Along with Protagoras, he forms the first generation of Sophists. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger. "Like other Sophists, he was an itinerant that practiced in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to ask miscellaneous questions from the audience and give impromptu replies."[3] He has been called "Gorgias the Nihilist" although the degree to which this epithet adequately describes his philosophy is controversial. ...His chief claim to recognition is that he transplanted rhetoric from his native Sicily to Attica, and contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose." On Nature or Non-Being
Isocrates, "Isocrates (436–338 BC), an ancient Greek rhetorician, was one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works."Encomium of Helen
Parmenides, "Parmenides of Elea was in his prime about 475 BC. His floruit is placed by Diogenes Laertius in 504-501 BC. But he visited Athens and met Socrates when the latter was still very young, and he himself was about sixty-five years old; so that if Socrates was about twenty, the meeting took place about 450 BC, making Parmenides’ floruit 475 BC."[4]
Parmenides has been considered the founder of metaphysics or ontology and has influenced the whole history of Western philosophy.[5][a] He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which also included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. Zeno's paradoxes of motion were to defend Parmenides' view." On Nature
Philostratus, "Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus (/fɪˈlɒstrətəs/; Greek: Φλάβιος Φιλόστρατος;[1] c. 170 – 247/250), called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probably around 170, and is said by the Suda to have been living in the reign of emperor Philip the Arab (244–249). His death possibly occurred in Tyre c. 250 AD. Lives of the Sophists
Plutarch, "Plutarch (AD 46–after 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo. He is known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia.
Parallel Lives Of Noble Grecians And Romans
Protagoras, "Protagoras (c. 490 BC – c. 420 BC)[1] was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with inventing the role of the professional sophist.
Protagoras also is believed to have created a major controversy during ancient times through his statement that, "Man is the measure of all things", interpreted by Plato to mean that there is no absolute truth but that which individuals deem to be the truth.
"Fragments of
Theophrastus, " (371 – c. 287 BC), a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos (Λέσβος Lésvos), was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death, he attached himself to Aristotle who took to Theophrastus in his writings. When Aristotle fled Athens, Theophrastus took over as head of the Lyceum.[4] Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-six years, during which time the school flourished greatly. He is often considered the father of botany for his works on plants. " On Characters
Thucydides, " Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work.Pericles' Funeral
Oration
Xenophon, (c. 431 BC – c. 354 BC) was an Athenian author, historian and mercenary, who led the epic retreat of the Ten Thousand from Mesopotamia to the Black Sea coast. He knew Socrates, Cyrus the Younger and Agesilaus II of Sparta, and wrote about all of them. Cyropaedia
Aphthonius He flourished in the second half of the 4th century, or even later. Nothing is known of his life, except that he was a friend of Libanius and of a certain Eutropius, perhaps the author of the epitome of Roman history. We possess by Aphthonius the Προγυμνάσματα, a textbook on the elements of rhetoric, with exercises for the use of the young before they entered the regular rhetorical schools. They apparently formed an introduction to the Τέχνη of Hermogenes of Tarsus.[2]
of Antioch (fl. 4 c. ce), Progymnasmata (14 Traditional Rhetoric (Compostion) Exercises)
Athenaeus of Naucratis,
ChatGPT: Athenaeus was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian who lived in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. He is best known for his work titled "Deipnosophistae" (The Banquet of the Learned), a 15-volume compilation of conversations and discussions that took place at a fictional banquet. This work provides valuable insights into the intellectual and cultural life of the time, as well as information about the culinary practices and customs of the ancient world.
Athenaeus' "Deipnosophistae" is a valuable source for scholars interested in the study of ancient Greek literature, philosophy, and everyday life. It contains a wide range of quotations from earlier authors and is known for its erudition and the vast array of topics it covers.
The Deipnosohistae or Dinner-Table Philosophers (Wiki)
Cicero, "Marcus Tullius Cicero[a] (3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer and Academic Skeptic philosopher[3] who played an important role in the politics of the late Republic and vainly tried to uphold republican principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire.[4] His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics, and he is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.[5][6] He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in the year 63 BC.
Dio Chrysostom, "Dio Chrysostom was part of the Second Sophistic school of Greek philosophers which reached its peak in the early 2nd century. He was considered as one of the most eminent of the Greek rhetoricians and sophists by the ancients who wrote about him" (link) (c.40 - c.115 ad) On Training for Public Speaking
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (c. 60 BC - after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Augustus Caesar. His literary style was Atticistic—imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime. ... Dionysius' opinion of the necessity of a promotion of paideia within education, from true knowledge of Classical sources, endured for centuries in a form integral to the identity of the Greek elite.On Literary Composition.
Epictetus The Wiki article asserts "No writings by Epictetus are known. His discourses were transcribed and compiled by his pupil Arrian (c. 86/89 – c. after 146/160 AD).[21] The main work is The Discourses, four books of which have been preserved (out of the original eight).[31] Arrian also compiled a popular digest, entitled the Enchiridion, or Handbook. In a preface to the Discourses that is addressed to Lucius Gellius, Arrian states that "whatever I heard him say I used to write down, word for word, as best I could, endeavouring to preserve it as a memorial, for my own future use, of his way of thinking and the frankness of his speech."[21] In the sixth century, the Neoplatonist philosopher Simplicius wrote an extant commentary on the Enchiridion.[32]"
The Enchiridion (Handbook)
Libanius, "(c. 314 - 392 or 393) was a Greek teacher of rhetoric of the Sophist school. During the rise of Christian hegemony in the later Roman Empire, he remained unconverted and in religious matters was a pagan Hellene. ...Libanius used his arts of rhetoric to advance various private and political causes. He attacked the increasing imperial pressures on the traditional city-oriented culture that had been supported and dominated by the local upper classes. He is known to have protested against the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire....The surviving works of Libanius, which include over 1,600 letters, 64 speeches and 96 progymnasmata (rhetorical exercises), are valuable as a historical source for the changing world of the later 4th century. His first Oration I is an autobiographical narrative, first written in 374 and revised throughout his life, a scholar's account that ends as an old exile's private journal.
Lucian, "Lucian of Samosata[a] (c. 125 - after 180 AD) was an Assyrian[1] satirist and rhetorician[2] who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstition, religious practices, and belief in the paranormal. Although his native language was probably Syriac, all of his extant works are written entirely in Ancient Greek (mostly in the Atticized dialect popular during the Second Sophistic period)."
Quintilian, "Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35 - c. 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing....The only extant work of Quintilian is a twelve-volume textbook on rhetoric entitled Institutio Oratoria (generally referred to in English as the Institutes of Oratory), published around AD 95.
Senica, "Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Elder or (less correctly) the Rhetorician (54 BC – c. 39 AD), was a Roman writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Corduba, Hispania. He wrote a collection of reminiscences about the Roman schools of rhetoric, six books of which are extant in a more or less complete state and five others in epitome only. His principal work, a history of Roman affairs from the beginning of the Civil Wars until the last years of his life, is, sadly, almost entirely lost to us. Seneca lived through the reigns of three significant emperors; Augustus (ruled 27 BC – 14 AD), Tiberius (ruled 14 AD – 37 AD) and Caligula (ruled 37 AD – 41 AD). He was the father of Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, best known as a Proconsul of Achaia; his second son was the dramatist and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger (Lucius), who was tutor of Nero, and his third son, Marcus Annaeus Mela, became the father of the poet Lucan."Intro to Controversiae
Seutonius, "Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius (c. 69 - after 122 AD),[1] was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. ... His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar to Domitian, entitled De Vita Caesarum. Other works by Suetonius concern the daily life of Rome, politics, oratory, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians.Lives of the Emminent Rhetoricians
Tacitus, "Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (c. AD 56 – c. 120) was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians.[1][2] He lived in what has been called the Silver Age of Latin literature, and is known for the brevity and compactness of his Latin prose, as well as for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics."A Dialogue on Oratory
Christian
Augustine of Hippo, "Augustine of Hippo (Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430 AD), also known as Saint Augustine, was a Roman African, Manichaean, early Christian theologian, doctor of the Church, and Neoplatonic philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of the Western Church and Western philosophy, and indirectly all of Western Christianity. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church for his writings in the Patristic Period. Among his most important works are The City of God, De doctrina Christiana, and Confessions."
Erasmus, "Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (28 October 1466[3][4] – 12 July 1536), known as Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam,[note 1] was a Dutch philosopher and Christian scholar who is widely considered to have been one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance.[5] Originally trained as a Catholic priest, Erasmus was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists".[De Copia "Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (Latin: De Utraque Verborum ac Rerum Copia) is a rhetoric textbook[1] written by Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, and first published in 1512. It was a best-seller widely used for teaching how to rewrite pre-existing texts, and how to incorporate them in a new composition.[1] Erasmus systematically instructed on how to embellish, amplify, and give variety to speech and writing."
"The “Annotated Bibliography of Global and Non-Western Rhetorics” bears witness to a robust literature that is not so much new as it has been emerging for several decades under one of several monikers: “comparative,” “global,” and/or “non-Western.” At the same time, this particular project emerges at the intersection of two recent conversations that reflect a need to look deliberately and categorically at how the monikers have evolved. "
Han Fei Zi, "Han Fei (c. 280 – 233 BC), also known as Han Fei Zi, was a Chinese philosopher or statesman[3] of the Legalist school during the Warring States period, and a prince of the state of Han.[4] ... often considered to be the greatest representative of “Chinese Legalism” for his eponymous work the Han Feizi,[5] synthesizing the methods of his predecessors.[6] Han Fei's ideas are sometimes compared with Niccolò Machiavelli[7] and his book is considered by some to be superior to the "Il Principe" of Niccolò Machiavelli both in content and in writing style.[8] The Difficulties of Persuasion
Wen Zi, The Rules of Writing (actually this is an article about three of the rules)
Lu Ji's Wen Fu From Wiki, "Lu Ji (261–303), courtesy name Shiheng, was a writer and literary critic who lived during the late Three Kingdoms period and Jin dynasty of China....Lu Ji wrote much lyric poetry but is better known for writing fu, a mixture of prose and poetry. He is best remembered for the Wen fu (文賦; On Literature), a piece of literary criticism that discourses on the principles of composition....The first translation into English is by Chen Shixiang, who translated it into verse because, although the piece was rightly called the beginning of Chinese literary criticism, Lu Zhi wrote it as poetry.The Art of Letters (alternative source)
Nagarjuna's Vigrahavyavartani: The Dispeller of Disputes. [An argument interestingly similar to Gorgia's on Being or on Nature, in a different language, from a different world, suggesting that similar thoughts might occur to people in different contexts and thus that some kinds of thinking, and rhetoric, might be supra-cultural.]
From Wiki, "Nāgārjuna (c. 150 – c. 250 CE; simplified Chinese: 龙树; traditional Chinese: 龍樹; pinyin: Lóngshù; Standard Tibetan: mGon-po Klu-grub) was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.[2] Furthermore, according to Jan Westerhoff, he is also "one of the greatest thinkers in the history of Asian philosophy." "