Alcidamas (Ancient Greek:Ἀλκιδάμας), ofElaea, inAeolis, was aGreeksophist andrhetorician, who flourished in the 5th-4th century BC[1].
He was the pupil and successor ofGorgias and taught atAthens at the same time asIsocrates, to whom he was a rival and opponent. We possess two declamations under his name:On Sophists (Περὶ Σοφιστῶν), directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a more recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates[citation needed] is probably of later date);Odysseus (perhaps spurious)[1] in whichOdysseus accusesPalamedes of treachery during the siege ofTroy.[2]
According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the orator was the power of speakingex tempore on every conceivable subject.Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 3) criticizes his writings as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.[2]
Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived:Messeniakos, advocating the freedom of theMessenians and containing the sentiment that "God has left all men free; nature has made no man a slave";[3][4] aEulogy of Death, in consideration of the wide extent of human sufferings; aTechne or instruction-book in the artof rhetoric; and aPhusikos logos. Lastly, hisMouseion (a word invoking theMuses) seems to have contained the narrative of theContest of Homer and Hesiod, of which the version that has survived is the work of a grammarian in the time ofHadrian, based on Alcidamas. This hypothesis of the contents of theMouseion, originally suggested byNietzsche (Rheinisches Museum 25 (1870) & 28 (1873)), appears to have been confirmed by three papyrus finds—one 3rd century BC (Flinders Petrie Papyri, ed.Mahaffy, 1891, pl. xxv.), one 2nd century BC (Basil Mandilaras, 'A new papyrus fragment of theCertamen Homeri et Hesiodi'Platon 42 (1990) 45–51) and one 2nd or 3rd century AD (University of Michigan pap. 2754: Winter, J. G., 'A New Fragment on the Life of Homer'TAPA 56 (1925) 120–129[2]).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Alcidamas".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 523.