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When you are looking for public speaking ideas you don’t have to sign up for an expensive course or buy the latest trendy book on public speaking you can just head down to your local library. Guides to public speaking tips were written for our benefit over 2500 years ago and their content is still valid today. The ancient Greeks included some great orators that used techniqques that sill feel modern more than 2000 years later.

The Iliad, the epic tale of heroes like Achilles and Oddysseus is the oldest work known were ancient greeks refer to professional orators. Outside the world of myth and fiction, Greek philosopher Empedocles who died around 444 BC is generally hailed as the man behind an extensive study on the power of language and his compilation of theories on public speaking has laid the foundation for many future works in the field.

Corax of Syracuse and his pupil Tisias is believed to have written the first guide to public speaking. Corax did according to later writes like Cicero, Aristotle and Plato live in Scicily during the 5^th century BC during a time in which the dictator of Syracuse was deposed and democracy first was formed. The deposed ruler had confiscated a large number of properties and people where now flooding to the courts in the hope of getting their properties back. In this climate, Corax developed an art of rhetoric that would permit ordinary men to represent themselves in court.

In the 5^th century, travelling teachers of philosophy and rhetoric, commonly known as sophists, served to popularize classes in 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. The abovementioned Corax and Tisias are normally credited as two of the founders of this movement, but the best known of the early sophists is probably Protagoras (481-420 BC). 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“.

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus is another example of a very prominant ancient rhetorician and he was a Romn Teacher (ca. 35 ca. 100). Quintilianus was born in La Rioja in Hispania but moved to Rome to study rhetoric. The year 69 was a year when rome had four different emperors as a part of the power struggles after the forced suicide of Emperor Nero. 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.