This multiauthored volume as well as bringing into clearer focus the notion of drama and
oratory as important media of public inquiry and critique aims to generate significant
attention to the unified intentions of the dramatist and the orator to establish favourable
conditions of internal stability in democratic Athens. We hope that readers both enjoy and find
valuable their engagement with these ideas and beliefs regarding the indissoluble bond between
oratorical expertise and dramatic artistry. This exciting collection of studies by worldwide
acclaimed classicists and acute younger Hellenists is envisaged as part of the general effort
almost unanimously acknowledged as valid and productive to explore the impact of formalized
speech in particular and craftsmanship rhetoric in general upon Attic drama as a moral and
educational force in the Athenian city-state. Both poet and orator seek to deepen the central
tensions of their work and to enlarge the main themes of their texts to even broader terms by
investing in the art of rhetoric whilst at the same time through a skillful handling of
events evaluating the past and establishing standards or ideology.
