The "Erotic Essay" (Ancient Greek: Ἐρωτικός) was one of the two surviving epideictic speeches (along with the Funeral Oration) attributed to the Athenian statesman and orator Demosthenes.
[1] However, Robert Clavaud has argued that there are no strong arguments for the inauthenticity of the epideictic speeches,[2] against almost unanimous scholarly consensus to the contrary.
[3] Friedrich Blass believes that it belongs to a member of a school of Isocrates.
[4] Ian Worthington believes that the content and style of the Erotic Essay is the most removed from Demosthenes' other writings and asserts that the oration is influenced by both Plato and Isocrates.
[5] Usher believes that the essay is more similar to the style of Isocrates' school than it is to Demosthenes.