ALCIDAMAS, of Elaea, in Aeolis, Greek sophist and rheto rician, flourished in the 4th century B.C. He was the pupil and successor of Gorgias and taught at Athens at the same time as Isocrates. We possess two declamations under his name : IIEpi directed against his rival Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates is prob ably of later date) ; in which Odysseus accuses Pala medes of treachery during the siege of Troy (this is generally considered spurious) . Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived : advocating the freedom of the Messenians and containing the sentiment that "all are by nature free"; a Eulogy of Death, in consideration of the wide extent of human sufferings; a TEXvn or instruction-book in the art of rhetoric ; and a I UO tKOS X6 yos. Lastly, his Movo-Eiov (a word of doubtful meaning) contained the narrative of the contest between Homer and Hesiod, two fragments of which are found in the 'Aywv `Oµilpov Kai the work of a grammarian in the time of Hadrian. A 3rd-century papyrus (Flinders Petrie, Papyri, ed. Mahaffy, 1891, pl. xxv.) probably contains the actual remains of a description by Alcidamas.
See fragments in Muller, Oratores Attici, ii. (1858) ; Vahlen, Der Rhetor Alkidamas (1864) ; Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit; and the edition by Blass, 1881.