ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of rhetoric as the study of language in the context of politics from antiquity to the beginning of modernity. More specifically, it examines the way in which the principal classical authors dealt with rhetoric in light of its power 'to cultivate citizens' in both thinking and speaking and, from there, to impact civic life. It is apparent from observing the conceptual developments of rhetoric through the centuries that they are rather circular; similar claims about the high or low status of the discipline, according to its relation to the rigorousness of dialectic and morality, have been discussed by different authors in different contexts. The rise of rhetoric as a discipline of study in Ancient Greece can be seen as a recognition of the importance of language in political society. Rhetoric as a whole became increasingly identified with what classical rhetoricians, such as Aristotle and Cicero, had regarded as but one of its parts, namely elocution.
