Beyond being a good speaker, what does it mean for a speaker to be good? Brett Jacinto Shanley explores the long-neglected ethical dimension of ancient Greek and Roman rhetorical theory and its surprising relevance for the modern world.

The rich interplay of virtue ethics and rhetorical theory is explored through Antiquity's five most relevant figures: Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. What emerges is a vision of rhetoric wildly foreign to the amoral hyper-expediency that defines public discourse and education as we know it by centering character as a fundamental feature of persuasion. Approaches to fostering virtuous communication were many – but rhetoric and ethical philosophy were once one.

Surrounding this theory is a world of context: Socrates, sophists, assassinations, a republic in collapse, and the professional jealousies of an empire. Through thorough scholarship and a rich depiction of the lives and times of the foundational rhetoricians, Shanley elucidates ancient texts with a thoroughly modern sensibility. Doing so offers a radical reimagining of what communicative education can – and perhaps ought – to be, with implications no less profound today than the day they were written.