Alcidamas

Alcidamas ( ancient Greek Ἀλκιδάμας Alcidamas, Latinized Alcidamas; † 375 BC) was an ancient Greek sophist and rhetorician from Elaea. He worked in Athens as a contemporary and rival of Isocrates and was a pupil and successor of the sophist Gorgias.

Life

Over the life of the Alcidamas little is known. He came from Asia Minor Elaea, his father's name was Diocles. The Suda states that Alcidamas took over the running of the school by Gorgias.

Works

The surviving speeches

Two speeches are delivered under Alcidamas ' names. While over people, draft speeches in writing or over Sophists ( Perì TON Tous gramtoùs lógous graphóntōn é Perì sophistṓn ) is regarded as genuine, this Odysseus against Palamedes ( Odysseus Kata Palamḗdous ) controversial.

About the Sophists is directed against a group of men who identified themselves as sophists, among other things, against Isocrates. Not only the artlessness of their speeches is criticized, but also its neglect of the "Research in the field of natural phenomena " ( istoria ), the culture and philosophy. As for the rhetoric, the speaker should indeed prepare the structure and thoughts, including main arguments, but to adjust when speaking to the concerns and thoughts of the listener. He therefore advocated at least partly spontaneous and impromptu speech. According to the method of his teacher Gorgias should be the choice of words and the expression found only in the moment of the speech act.

From Alcidamas other writings fragments are only delivered. In Messenian logos ( Messēniakòs lógos ), a speech for the Spartan helots, he says that God set free all people and nature has made ​​no one a slave. This also represents Alcidamas the equality theory of man, for which already pleaded the sophist Lycophron. The fragment also suggests that Alcidamas in contemporary debate against the law ( nomos ) and nature (physis ) has taken a position.

Another font Alcidamas ' were the Enkomien ( Egkṓmia, a collection of Enkomien, of which secure a eulogy on the death, in view of the large amount of human suffering was possible ). Also lost are a rhetorical textbook ( Techne ) and Museion ( Mouseion; German in about Muse garden ), which was probably the former as Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi traditional tale of a contest between Homer and Hesiod contained ( first suggested by Nietzsche ) and a logos about things the Nature ( physikos lógos ), which was probably written in dialogue form.

Reception

Aristotle criticized Alcidamas ' writings as bombastic and " catching cold " in style and writes the poetic metaphors are too cluttered, and far -fetched extensively.

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