ALCIDAMAS, of Elaea, in Aeolis, Greek sophist and rhetorician,
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, whose rival and opponent he was. We possess
two declamations under his name: Peri Sofiston, directed
against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore
over written speeches (a recently discovered fragment of
another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date);
'Odusseus, in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery
during the siege of Troy (this is generally considered
spurious). According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the
orator was the power of speaking extempore on every conceivable
subject. Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 3) criticizes his writings
as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use
of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.
Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived:
Messeniakos, 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 Techne or instruction-book in the art
of rhetoric; and a Fusikos lolos. Lastly, his Mouseion
(a word of doubtful meaning) contained the narrative of the
contest between
Homer and
Hesiod, two fragments of which are
found in the 'Agon `Omerou kai `Esiodou, 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.
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed
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