The ambivalent power of language in ancient Greek democracy

Abstract

In this essay I share a reading presented at the V Seminary Zétesis, held in 2018. Departing from an interpretation of a testimony of Cicero, I present an articulation between the emergence of an old rhetorical tradition at the core of a rising democracy in Sicily, and the practices and knowledge of sophist philosophers who taught in Classical Greece. In the text, I point out that the importance of language management in the political sphere not only marked the teaching of some of the old sophists but also a certain symptom of judicialization of political relations in the context of democracy that prevailed at this time.