Declamation was "a toy of oratory" in which students composed and delivered deliberative and forensic practice speeches in character. It was not confined to the schools: the professionals gave public performances to large and critical audiences. Greco-Roman education was more or less dominated by rhetoric; from the fourth century B.C. down to and beyond the end of classical antiquity declamation was an art within the larger art, inhabiting almost a distinct world, with its own laws, customs and mores.

Latin declamation has been well studied: its Greek counterpart--also to a large extent its model--is less well known. This book, based on the Gray Lectures given in Cambridge in 1981, aims to remedy this situation. It sets the practice of declamation in its historical context, describes the conventional, though often bizarre, theses of the speeches, and discusses the declaimers public performances, rhetorical theory and knowledge, and use of classical literature an history.