Attic orators

In Homer's epic, the Iliad, the warrior, Achilles, was described as "a speaker of words and a doer of deeds".

It was not until the middle of that century that the Sicilian orator, Corax, along with his pupil, Tisias, began a formal study of rhetoric.

In 427 BC, another Sicilian named Gorgias of Leontini visited Athens and gave a speech which dazzled the citizens.

Gorgias’s "intellectual" approach to oratory, which included new ideas, forms of expression, and methods of argument, was continued by Isocrates, a 4th-century BC educator and rhetorician.

Oratory eventually became a central subject of study in the formalized Greek education system.