These speeches are usually long, complex in argumentation, rich in historical exemplification, and show a highly refined and balanced style that has been a model for centuries of successive authors. These speeches have been generally classified as “epideictic” (display speeches with no immediate practical aim), but they take very different forms from each other: encomia (speeches of praise), deliberative orations (just like those delivered in the Assembly), and collections of advice in the form of maxims. Twenty-one of them have reached us, together with nine epistles (the authenticity of some texts is disputed). Nevertheless, he influenced the politics of the time in many different ways, most significantly through his students, among whom were important political and military figures such as Timotheos, and through his written speeches, which were meant to be read. Isocrates never took part in the active political life of Athens and did not deliver speeches in the Assembly. Humans had to rely on their judgment ( doxa) and on their ability to assess present circumstances and make decisions accordingly ( phronēsis). More generally, no such knowledge existed that could offer people a firm grasp on the practical issues of life. Instead, the student’s natural endowment ( physis) and the acquisition of experience through exercise ( gymnasia) played a fundamental role in the pedagogical process. Moreover, rhetoric could not be imparted as a set of strictly defined rules, applicable to any situation and capable of making anybody a great orator. Speaking well presupposed thinking well, and at the same time contributed to a person’s ethical development. According to him, eloquence could not be disjointed from morals. He never used the word rhetoric to denote his teaching, preferring instead such terms and phrases as philosophia and ē tōn logōn paideia (the culture of discourse). Some of the most influential politicians and authors of the time came from his school. 338 BCE) was one of the most successful rhetoricians in 4th-century BCE Athens.
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