Menander: A Rhetor in Context

Ancient schools of rhetoric taught students how to devise arguments in legal and political disputes, and how to express them. Many scholars believe that these techniques increasingly lost their practical relevance under the Roman Empire. This detailed reassessment of the history and social significance of rhetoric in late antiquity shows how it was taught, and why the skills it promoted were still believed to have a direct application in the subsequent careers of the rhetoricians' pupils.