for without the power and the opportunity of defending himself against accusation no man could hold an ascendent position.  Socrates insisted upon the gift of oratory for a general in the army as well as for a leader in political life.  In Athens the courts of justice were numerous, and those who could not defend themselves were obliged to secure the services of those who were trained in the use of public speaking.  Thus arose the lawyers, among whom eloquence was more in demand and more richly paid than in any other class.  Rhetoric became connected with dialectics, and in Greece, Sicily, and Italy both were extensively cultivated.  Empedocles was distinguished as much for rhetoric as for philosophy.  It was not, however, in the courts of law that eloquence displayed the greatest fire and passion, but in political assemblies.  These could only coexist with liberty; for a democracy is more favorable than an aristocracy to large assemblies of citizens.  In the Grecian republics eloquence as an art may be said to have been born.  It was nursed and fed by political agitation, by the strife of parties.  It arose from appeals to the people as a source of power:  when the people were not cultivated, it addressed chiefly popular passions and prejudices; when they were enlightened, it addressed interests.

It was in Athens, where there existed the purest form of democratic institutions, that eloquence rose to the loftiest heights in the ancient world, so far as eloquence appeals to popular passions.  Pericles, the greatest statesman of Greece, 495 B.C., was celebrated for his eloquence, although no specimens remain to us.  It was conceded by the ancient authors that his oratory was of the highest kind, and the epithet of “Olympian” was given him, as carrying the weapons of Zeus upon his tongue.  His voice was sweet, and his utterance distinct and rapid.  Peisistratus was also famous for his eloquence, although he was a usurper and a tyrant.  Isocrates, 436 B.C., was a professed rhetorician, and endeavored to base his art upon sound moral principles, and rescue it from the influence of the Sophists.  He was the great teacher of the most eminent statesmen of his day.  Twenty-one of his orations have come down to us, and they are excessively polished and elaborated; but they were written to be read, they were not extemporary.  His language is the purest and most refined Attic dialect.  Lysias, 458 B.C., was a fertile writer of orations also, and he is reputed to have produced as many as four hundred and twenty-five; of these only thirty-five are extant.  They are characterized by peculiar gracefulness and elegance, which did not interfere with strength.  So able were these orations that only two were unsuccessful.  They were so pure that they were regarded as the best canon of the Attic idiom.