The Iliad, the epic tale of heroes like Achilles and Oddysseus is the oldest work known were ancient greeks refer to professional orators. The Greek philosopher Empedocles made extensive studies on the power of language and rhetoric and is sometimes referred to as the man who did public speaking into a science, All later works on the topic of public speaking and rhetoric can trace their origins back to his work.

The first written manual on public speaking is attributed to Corax of Syracuse and his pupil Tisias. Corax did according to later writes like Cicero, Aristotle and Plato live in Scicily during the 5^th century BC when the tyrant of Syracuse was deposed and democracy formed. The courts were flooded with people that wanted to recover their properties that had been siezed by the former despot. It was in light of this Corax wrote the public speaking guide to allow ordinary men to be able to represent themselves in court when trying to get their land back.

During the 5^th century, sophists, travelling retoric and philosophy teachers, gave popular lectures in how the best get your point forward using different oratory techniques. They travelled from one city to the next trying to enrol students that they would teach in the art of retoric against a fee. Corax and Tisias is often seen as two of the founding fathers of this movement but they are however far from the most well known of the earliest Sophists, that honor isntead goes to Protagoras. Protagoras was active in and played an important role on develop the field of reasoned understanding, he is also acredited the famous quote: “Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not“.

Another example of an illustrious rhetorician is Roman teacher and writer Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (ca. 35 ca. 100). He moved to Rome to study rhetoric. After the forced suicide of Emperor Nero, a time of civil war and turmoil besieged the Romans and in 69 no less than four emperors succeeded each other. During this tumultuous year, Quintilianus opened a public school on effective public speaking. Some of his students are well know bu those who know their history such as Pliny The younger and Tacitus (The later is believed but not confirmed to have been enrolled in the school). Only one work of Quintilianus has survived; a twelve-volume textbook on public speaking entitled “Institutio Oratoria“. The work contains his thoughts on teaching and how to develop as a speaker as well as information and practise that would help the student improve his skills.