Influential Rhetoricians During The Time Of ( 483 - 375 B.c

Gorgias the â€Å"Rhetorician† Ancient Athens had many influential rhetoricians during the time of (483 – 375 B.C.E), Gorgias of Leontini was a major figure prominent because of his skills in the art of rhetoric. Gorgias helped rhetoric’s development because of his renown skills as a rhetorician. At the time the ability to communicate and deliver oratory was what gave one influence in Ancient Athens. Gorgias contribution was significant to the culture and development of rhetoric because, he believed in teaching rhetoric to the common man, and through the defense of Helen in his epidictic speech the Encomium of Helen and his aura he spread wherever he went being able to persuade and communicate with the best. Gorgias was a Sophist by nature of that time but rejected the title to be a â€Å"Rhetorician† and had the beliefs like the Sophist that rhetoric was a universal right. He believed that the common man deserved to learn rhetoric from teachers if the y could conjure up the large amounts money needed to learn from renown teachers of Gorgias status. Many from outside of rhetoric would say it was incredibly wrong to charge people who couldn’t afford to pay for teaching and spend all their money just to learn rhetoric. What Gorgias would argue is that those outsiders who found it wrong to charge money did not understand the power and influence rhetoric gave to someone in Ancient Athens. Rhetoric gave the common man the ability to yield conversation in the polis, debates, and