Alcidamas
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Alcidamas (), of Elaea, in Aeolis, was a Greek sophist and rhetorician, who flourished in the 5th-4th century BC .
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Vinony's link graph records 24 inbound references to Alcidamas, and connects out to Aristotle, Athens and Friedrich Nietzsche.
It is catalogued under topics including 4th-century BC Greek philosophers, Ancient Greek rhetoricians and Sophists.
Vinony links it to 22 Wikipedia language editions.
Person · Open Library
- Works
- 3
Top works
- Antiphontis orationes et fragmenta
- Testimonios y fragmentos
- Orazioni e frammenti
via Open Library + Wikidata
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Gender
- male
- Place of birth
- Elaea
- Occupation
- rhetorician
- Languages spoken
- Ancient Greek
- Notable work
- Contest of Homer and Hesiod
- Field of work
- philosophy
Show 6 more facts
- floruit
- 0400-00-00
- date of birth
- 0450-00-00
- date of death
- 0350-00-00
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
- writing language
- Ancient Greek
- significant place
- Elaea
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Life
- Notes
- References
- Further reading
Alcidamas (), of Elaea, in Aeolis, was a Greek sophist and rhetorician, who flourished in the 5th-4th century BC ==Life== 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 is probably of later date); Odysseus (perhaps spurious) in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery during the siege of Troy.
According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the orator was the power of speaking ex tempore on every conceivable subject. Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 3) criticizes his writings as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Alcidamas” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.