Abstract: It is the role of scholars to shine the light of tradition on problems of today so the value of the rhetorical tradition is clear to a larger audience of students, citizens, and non-experts, even as these same scholars undertake the difficult, demanding work of unearthing, reinterpreting, and understanding anew the buried wisdom of that tradition. This is a rallying cry to reclaim the history of rhetoric as a theory of persuasion about contingency: to comprehend anew how the essential unpredictability of human judgment and action are guided by the power of words.