This volume contains the most famous speeches of Thucydides, Lysias, Andocides, Isocrates and of course, that prince of orators, Demosthenes. The Fifth century BC saw the birth and flowering of Greek prose in the form of forensic and political oratory. for speech-making in classical Athens was both a regular practice and an organized art - an art that became increasingly refined during the course of the century and one that has exercised a lasting influence on the rhetorical tradition of the west.