ORATORY (Lat. aratorius, relating to an orator, kom orator, orator, from orare, to pray, as a legal petitioner). The art or net of speak ing to an audience, with elevation of thought and sentiment and corresponding ex pression.
The art of speaking in public in such a manner as to convince and persuade was one of the first to be developed in comparative perfection. Like other attainments of primeval man. it was crude in its early forms. The oldest record of such speech is what might be expected of Methusaers son Lamech. who, having commanded his small audience to hear his voice and hearken to his speech, declares that he will slay a man for wounding him, and cites an historie precedent in justification. It is the earliest type of oratory —the war harangue, either by way of rousing warlike ardor in the tribe, or of bragging about heroic deeds, as happens among savages to-day. Similar examples of the war speech occur in the Rind and in Ilerodotus and Thue:,Aides, all the while growing longer and fuller of form and art with progress in literary cultivation.
After the military address, as of generals to armies, and often with it, other forms began to be evolved as races emerged from barbarism. When a sense of equity and regard for human rights prevailed over despotic might sufficiently to establish tribunals, it became necessary that men should defend their own interests. As these soon began to he sacrificed to the differ ence in natural ability which prevails in com munities, the monopoly of speaking in courts passed to the skilled advocate, who first had written the client's argument for him to deliver in person, and who later became his proxy in speaking. Three names mark the progress of this movement in the filth and fourth centuries B.C.—Contx of Syracuse, who attempted to make every man his own advocate by furnishing him a blank brief which needed but little variation in filling at a time when the purpose of most litiga tion was to recover alienated estates: Lysias. who wrote arguments with more reference to tire char acter and rank of the several clients who were to deliver them; and finally Isoerates, who in structed men of native ability in the principles and practice of oratory, into whose hands the business of advocacy at length passed from the unskilled citizen and the professional logographer. In this school of Isoerates the great orators of Greece were trained, and by him eloquence was raised to a height corresponding to that of the contemporary art of sculpture. His own Eulogy on Athens was the labor of years, and at the age of ninety-eight he is said to have been still re vising and correcting it. It was copied and recited in all Hellenie land.
To the oratory whicb arose from the mainte nance of personal rights in courts of law another kind was added when government by popular legislation succeeded despotism, and delibera tive speaking in the assembly followed forensic in the tribunal. This political oratory Isoerates
principally taught, and from his school proceeded group known as the Attic Ten (eight in addi tion to Isoerates and Lysias). who contributed to the literature of ancient eloquence its choicest examples. At the same time they illustrated several styles which have proved most effective, establishing the truth that excellence is not the sole prerogative of any one of them. Andocides, for example. represented natural orators. who rely upon native gifts and have a corresponding contempt for rhetorical precepts and methods. As a eon sel 'Hence he was sometimes obscure. irrel evant. and careless in arrangement ; carrying his point by keeping in sympathy with Iris audienee, interesting them by anecdotes, and by making his plain speech still clearer by abundant illus tration—his energy and self-conceit bringing him through difficulties that might have foiled more sensitive speakers. Isams exemplified a step forward by his skill in arranging his argu ments and massing them with cumulative force. without loss of the animation and vivacity which are the dependence of the natural orator. Hyper ides used still greater craft in the disposition of his material—a matter of great importance to the ancients—emphasizing his strong points, artfully concealing his art, popularizing his dic tion with colloquialisms, a general speaker with a variety of graces. witty, sarcastic, playful, and grave by turns. .Eschines was a man who did not permit a natural gift of spontaneous elo quence to had him into the pitfalls of extempori zation, but habitually practiced composition, to which lie added a careful study of literature, t(igether with such training in delivery as the stage could give. Tn consequence his speeches were sometimes called greater than himself, too theatrical for reality. This was not the charge against Demosthenes. with whom he had the honor to be associated in the famous ease of the Crown, and in whom Attic oratory culminated. Having had its rise in the dialectics of the Sophists and the formal rhetoric of the Sicilian forensics, it took on by turns leading phases in the solemnity of Thueydides, the majesty of Pericles, the stateliness of Antiphon, the plain ness of Lysias, the ornateness of Gorgias, the elegance of Isocrates, the artlessness of Ando vides. and the vigor of All these were aspects of eloquence by which Demosthenes profited. By study of them all he gathered from each the best, making such selection and com bination with his own personal gifts as placed him above them all.