Paideia

This chapter elucidates how the fabricated images of Demades helped to affirm the importance of paideia —as education and moral instruction—for the socially privileged position of the pepaideumenoi . The figure of Demades accentuated the ethical and professional rewards of paideia , and especially rhetorical education, in more than one way. He became an example of a persuasive orator who was always able to come up with a witty retort, quickly capture and deftly manage the attention of the audience, and speak effortlessly on the spur of the moment. Many more excerpts, however, employ Demades as a negative example: a poor commoner who lacked paideia and moral integrity, he was the opposite of the students whose education entitled them to membership in the intellectual, social, and political élite of the city. Although they seem to be mutually exclusive, these images served the same educational purpose and coexisted within the context of rhetorical schooling.

Aesthetics · Art · Context (archaeology) · Linguistics · Literature · Paideia · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History · Philosophy