Acknowledgements

I have always found speeches somewhat embarrassing. From family gatherings (with all those awkward toasts) to presidential addresses, speeches force a person into spotlight and such close scrutiny is weird, unusual, potentially embarrassing and hard to bear out with grace. For all the same reasons, they can be difficult to listen to. And of course, the harder the challenge the sweeter are the rewards that one can reap from a successful performance. Speeches can make or break careers, communities and countries. I have long been fascinated by our continuous love for speeches and by the fact that we are willing to put up with so many embarrassing exemplars to experience one that will capture the moment, express our collective feelings and give perspective and direction to our everyday lives. How does that work? This book presents my first sustained efforts at approaching the ever-complicated field of rhetoric and persuasion. It seemed best to start my search with fourth-century bce Athens, when ideas of rhetoric and its demarcation from philosophy and other discourse became topical in a way that may prove helpful to us, as we are constantly addressing and renegotiating these same dynamics. In fact, I am increasingly of the opinion that the still widely oral culture of the ancient world has many useful insights to offer us and our text-centered existence, especially as we are entering a new era of oral culture with its own technological advancements.

This book started life a number of years ago as a Cambridge dissertation under the generous supervision of Richard Hunter, whom I should like to thank first and foremost for not only being an ideal guide and extremely insightful critic throughout the graduate years, but for also offering an inspiring environment for my professional growth and for continuing his support to my projects and plans ever since. I have been truly privileged and am grateful to be able to acknowledge my deep debt to him. I have expressed my warmest thanks to friends and colleagues who were close to me and involved in the dissertation writing process elsewhere. Here, I would like to take the opportunity to mention the many supportive readers and interlocutors who have helped to turn the dissertation into a book and from whose insights the book has greatly benefited. The present work would not have been the same without the direct or indirect input by Emilia Barbiero, Alessandro Barchiesi, Joshua Billings, David Blank, Claire Bubb, Chris Carey, Joan Connelly, Joy Connolly, Raffaella Cribiore, Jyl Gentzler, Stephen Halliwell, Liz Irwin, Casper de Jonge, Larry Kim, Bryant Kirkland, David Konstan, Barbara Kowalzig, David Levene, Toomas Lott, Marko Malink, Daniela Manetti, Peter Meineck, Andy Monson, Helen Morales, Jessica Moss, Mike Peachin, Irene Peirano Garrison, Valeria Piano, James Porter, Lucia Prauscello, Nicholas Rynearson, Adele Scafuro, David Sider, Ellisif Wasmuth, Tim Whitmarsh, Chris Whitton, Nancy Worman, and Harvey Yunis. NYU’s Department of Classics is a place I proudly call my academic home and I am grateful to all my colleagues and graduate students for offering me such warm welcome, for never ceasing to provide intellectual stimulation and for cheering me on in my professional and personal ventures. Here, I should like to single out in particular David Levene, who has been nothing short of simply amazing in his role as a faculty mentor. He has been a role model not only for being truly learned in the widest sense of our increasingly professionalizing discipline, but also for being savvy about the inside workings of academic institutions and academia as a way of life. I also want to express deep gratitude to friends and first teachers who oversaw my initial steps in academia and have fundamentally shaped my perception of academia, Classics, and life: Juhan Aru, Riin Kõiv, Marju Lepajõe†, Anne Lill, Maria-Kristiina Lotman, Janika Päll, Uku Tooming, and Ivo Volt. Aitäh!

The Dean’s First Book Colloquium award at NYU enabled me to discuss my work in close (and sometimes painful) detail with Jyl Gentzler, David Konstan, David Levene, Adele Scafuro and Harvey Yunis. I am infinitely grateful for this opportunity and to all my readers for their invaluable comments, criticisms and encouragement. Two external readers at Cambridge University Press offered further excellent comments that have significantly helped to sharpen the arguments and to think through some of the implications emerging from my interpretations. This book would not have been half as readable without all these readers and would probably have been twice as readable had I been able to take on board all their advice. But writing and rewriting must come to an end at some point. Ohe, iam satis est, ohe, libelle!

Writing this book has coincided with several life events and I am thankful to my family and friends for all their support. This book is dedicated to the four people who have been most intimately involved in those moments: my husband Mattia and our three daughters.