ALCIDAMAS

Form: Gr. Alkidamas.

A Greek rhetorician of Elaea in Aeo1is, pupil and successor of Gorgias, a contemporary and opponent of Isocrates. Two declamations, bearing his name, have come down to us, one an imaginary indictment of Palamedes by Odysseus, the other a speech on the Sophists; but the latter only can with any probability be attributed to him. It is a cleverly written argument, intended to show that the culmination of rhetorical training consists in the power of speaking extempore on any subject from mere notes of the arrangement; not the practice of carefully writing out speeches, and then learning them by heart for public delivery.