This book undertakes a fundamental assessment of Menander of Laodicea ('Menander Rhetor'), and of the nature and functions of rhetoric in later antiquity (second to fifth centuries AD). It examines Menander's fragments, collected here for the first time, in detail, showing that he was primarily an expert on judicial and deliberative oratory; a source-critical analysis of the Demosthenes scholia shows that his influential commentary on Demosthenes can be partially reconstructed. It explores the educational practices of the rhetorical schools, and shows that the skills which they taught still had a direct application in the subsequent careers of the rhetoricians' pupils.
Ancient schools of rhetoric taught students how to devise arguments in legal and political disputes, and how to express them. This reassessment of the history and social significance of rhetoric in late antiquity shows how it was taught, and why the skills it promoted were still believed to have a direct application.
