Reviews Lauicnt Pernot, Rhetoric in Antiquity, trans. W. E. Higgins (Washing­ ton, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), pp. xiv + 269, $27.95, paper, ISBN 0-8132-1407-6. Rhetoric in Antiquity is one in a series of volumes that have been pub­ lished or are in preparation that provide an overview or explore important aspects of rhetoric in the Greek and Roman worlds. Translated by W. E. Hig­ gins from the original French version of Laurent Pernot published in 2000 as La Rhétorique dans 1 Antiquité (Paris: Librarie Générale Française, 2000), this book seems designed mainly to sen e as an introduction for general readers and students of rhetorical theory and practice from the Homeric to imperial periods. Pernot's structure is traditional: there are six chronological chapters covering Homeric, sophistic, Athenian, Hellenistic, republican, and imperial rhetoric; these chapters include six excurses that take up issues of particular significance to the author. A short introduction (pp. vii-xiv) stresses Pernot's aim of providing a history of the practice and theory of Greek and Roman rhetoric and contains a synopsis of the different conceptions and definitions of rhetoric; the first excursus considers the utility of rhetoric in modern scholarship as evidenced by the popularity of the phrase "the rhetoric of" in the titles of various studies. Chapters 1 and 2 examine the origins of Greek rhetoric. In chapter 1 ("Rhetoric Before Rhetoric," pp. 1-9) Pernot views the speeches of the Iliad and Odyssey as evidence of an awareness of rhetoric, especially technical terms, although he rightly observes that Homer did not anticipate its rules. The speeches of the characters in Homeric epic define their personalities as well as reveal their oratorical abilities. In his treatment of the centuries following Homer, Pernot emphasizes the links not only between oratory and the Greek polis, especially in the development of Athenian democracy, but also between oratory and literature. Chapter 2 ("Sophistic Revolution," pp. 10-23) explores the "invention" of rhetoric and its attribution to various figures such as Empedokles of Agrigentum, Korax and Tisias. The focus is mainly on the sophists, especially Gorgias, and their role in the development of Greek rhetoric and more generally in Athenian society. An excursus on the word rhetorikê challenges not only Edward Schiappa's view (American Journal of Philology 111 [1990]: 457-70) that it was coined by Plato but also Rhetorica, Vol. XXV, Issue 2, pp. 205-219, ISSN 0734-8584, electronic ISSN 15338541 . 02007 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights re­ served. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintlnfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/RH.2007.25.2.205. * /IlL-* * 206 RHETORICA Thomas Cole's thesis (The Origins ofRhetoric in Ancient Greece [1991]) that the discipline of rhetoric itself was invented by Plato and Aristotle. Chapters 3 and 4 address Athenian and Hellenistic rhetoric respectively. In chapter 3 ("The Athenian Movement," pp. 24-56) Pernot covers rhetoric at Athens from the end of the Peloponnesian war to the death of Alexander the Great (404-323 bce). After examining the practice of oratory at Athens in the judicial, political, and ceremonial contexts, Pernot reviews the conditions that made it possible for the different types of speeches to emerge in these different settings, then discusses and compares the careers and works of lsokrates and Demosthenes. One of the more interesting sections, which deals with the reality and image of the practice of oratory, stresses the importance of oratory at Athens even as it draws attention to its limitations. Following M. H. Hansen (The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes [1991]), Pernot suggests that the number of citizens active in the assembly was in the hundreds, while the number of leading orators at any given time probably numbered around twenty; thus the oratorical and public aspects of political life at Athens is generally considerably overvalued in both ancient and modern treatments of rhetoric. In an excursus Pernot outlines the origins and history of the canon of the ten Attic orators; his tendency...