Originally the practice of giving speeches was known as rhetoric (also called oratory). Rhetoric first flourished in the Greek city-state of Athens in the fifth century B.C.E. and referred to making effective speeches, particularly those of a persuasive nature. It would later assume an equally dominant role in Roman society, where patrician families educated their sons in the necessary art of oratory.

Athens was the site of the Western world’s first direct democracy, and it was through public speaking that its free, land-owning males made it a reality. Meeting as a community in a public square called the agora, the Athenians spoke with great skill on the issues of public policy, and to this day their belief that citizenship demanded active participation in public affairs endures. Following the eventual conquest of Greece (ca. 146 B.C.E.), citizens in the Roman republic used oratory to create the world’s first known representative democracy. Assembling in a public space called a forum, the Romans plied their public speaking skills to lobby for civic issues and debate political disputes. Today, the term public forum denotes a variety of venues for the discussion of issues of public interest, including traditional physical spaces such as town halls as well as virtual forums streamed to listeners online. Some have even called the Internet our global public forum or agora.⁸

The Canons of Rhetoric

For the Greeks, oratory was the means by which they settled civil disputes, determined public policy, and established laws. In cases involving major crimes, for example, juries usually included five hundred members.⁹ People served as their own advocates, so their chances of persuading jurors to vote in their favor depended on the quality of their speaking skills. The Greeks called this kind of advocating or legal speech forensic oratory; speech given in legislative or political contexts, deliberative oratory; and speech delivered in special ceremonies, such as celebrations and funerals, epideictic oratory. The great Athenian leader-general Pericles, for example, used his considerable powers of political persuasion, or deliberative oratory, to convince Athenians to rebuild the Acropolis and erect other great temples, such as the Parthenon, that would endure and amaze the world for centuries to come.

Greek and Roman teachers divided the process of preparing a speech into five parts—invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery—called the canons of rhetoric. These parts correspond to the order in which they believed a speech should be put together. Invention refers to discovering the types of evidence and arguments you will use to make your case to an audience. Arrangement is organizing the speech in ways that are best suited to the topic and the audience. Style is the way the speaker uses language to express the speech ideas. Memory is the practice of the speech until it can be artfully delivered. Finally, delivery is the vocal and nonverbal behavior you use when speaking. The Romans later renamed these canons inventio (discovering the speech material), dispositio (arranging the material), elocutio (styling the speech), memoria (remembering all the various lines of argument to prove a case), and pronuntiatio (vocal and nonverbal delivery). To read more on the classical canons, see Table 1.3, “Classical Rhetoric on the Web,” which lists several sites on the Web devoted to classical rhetoric.

A Rich and Relevant Heritage

Although such a founding scholar as Aristotle surely didn’t anticipate the omnipresent PowerPoint or Prezi slide show that accompanies so many contemporary speeches, the speechmaking structure he bequeathed to us as the canons of rhetoric remains remarkably intact. Often identified by terms other than the original ones, these canons nonetheless continue to be taught in current books on public speaking, including this one. To read more on the canons, see Table 1.4, “The Classic Canons of Rhetoric and Speechmaking Today.”