Figure 83 Life-size bronze head, perhaps of a philosopher, recovered in 1900 from the Antikythera
shipwreck; height 29 cm, first century BC. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Source: DEA / G.
NIMATALLAH / De Agostini / Getty Images.
The Greek orators of the early Roman Empire are generally spoken of as belonging to a “Second
Sophistic,” rivaling in verbal accomplishment the sophists of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Indeed,
some of the speeches they delivered were intended to represent what an historical character of the fifth or
fourth century BC might have said if he had undergone the kind of rhetorical training that the orators of the
Second Sophistic were prepared to impart to their pupils. That is, these sophists would compose and
declaim display pieces, often to large and appreciative audiences of enthusiastic connoisseurs, that
purported to be, say, the funeral oration over the Athenian dead at Marathon in 490 BC, or a speech urging
the Athenian assembly in 415 BC to vote to send reinforcements to the embattled troops in Sicily. If this
sounds as though the Greeks were now hopelessly mired in the past, trying to relive the “glory days” of
the Classical Period, that is to a certain degree true. But it is equally true that the Greeks of the Classical
Period had done exactly the same thing themselves, trying to relive the “glory days” of a still earlier age.
So, for example, among the surviving works of the fifth-century sophist Gorgias (p. 219) is a speech
ostensibly delivered by the mythical figure Palamedes, defending himself against charges brought by
Odysseus of engaging in treasonous dealings with the enemy during the Trojan War. Another of Gorgias'
surviving orations is a speech in praise of Helen, who is otherwise universally reviled for having caused
the Trojan War by indulging her lust for her husband's guest, Paris.