The earliest mention of oratorical skill occurs in Homer's Iliad, where heroes like Achilles, Hektor, and Odysseus were honored for their ability to advise and exhort their peers and followers in wise and appropriate action.
example: You lie, you pig licking Seleucid! You just want to take the Achaeans into Marxist-Leninist style controlled economy.
With the rise of the democratic polis, oratory was the medium through which political and judicial decisions were made, and philosophical ideas were developed and disseminated.
example: Socrates and his liberal minions all want us to drink the hemlock so they can control every aspect of our lives, take away our hoplite swords, and set up death panels and concentration camps for those who don't agree with their politically correct party line. Nyaaah.
Rhetoric thus evolved as an important art that provided the forms, means, and strategies for persuading an audience of the correctness of the orator's arguments.
example: Nyaaah. You hate Greece. Greece-hater. Nyaah.
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