The 4th century BC is not the first inventor of the art of rhetoric, but it is the essential field of its action: it contributed so decisively to its development that the art of speech achieved, especially during this period and despite philosophical criticism, an impressive triumph.

The interaction between the speaker and the audience, the passions and the distrust of the many in the face of the superiority of the one, as well as the anxiety of the one, as an advisor and political leader, are the essence of the rhetoric of the 4th century BC.

According to Professor Bernhard Zimmermann (University of Freiburg, Germany), "in the present book, the so-called lesser orators are systematically evaluated for the first time alongside the great representatives of the art of rhetoric, Demosthenes and Isocrates. Recent findings, such as the fragments of Hyperides in the palimpsest manuscript of Archimedes, are also taken into account.

A significant contribution of this study is recognized in the consideration of the theoretical confrontations regarding the art of speech in the rhetorical manuals of Anaximenes and Aristotle, but primarily in the highlighting of the leading role of Isocrates, whose position in the confrontation with the philosophy of the 4th century BC gains a clear framework."

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