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In order to establish this theory more fully, it is helpful to consider the heights to which rhetoric rose in classical Greek and Roman poetry. E.R. Curtius writes:

Rhetoric signifies "the craft of speech"; hence, according to its basic meaning, it teaches how to construct a discourse artistically In the course of time this seminal idea became a science, an art, an ideal of life, and indeed a pillar of antique culture. [3]

H. I. Marrou in A History of Education in Antiquity echoes this view:

Learning to speak properly meant learning to think properly, and even to live properly: in the eyes of the Ancients eloquence had a truly human value transcending any practical applications that might develop as a result of historical circumstances; it was the one means for handing on everything that made man man, the whole cultural heritage that distinguished civilised men from barbarians. This idea underlies all Greek thought. [4]

In classical times we find rhetoric at the summit of human accomplishment, integrally fused with poetry and philosophy, so that Cicero could specify the threefold aims of oratory as docere, delectare, movere--to instruct, to please and to move. Cicero elaborates by saying:

To instruct is of necessity, to please is for interest, to move is for victory. [5]

In order to instruct, please and move, appropriate styles and genres had to be found and the aptness of language to subject matter-the whole area of decorum in poetry assumed paramount importance. This resulted in an extensive elaboration and classification of tropes, figures of speech, levels of style and hierarchies of genre. Despite the criticism that this extreme technicality later evoked, it was based on one implicit and fundamental belief that the rhetorical process effectively reproduced the patterns of speech basic to man in situations of differing intensity and emotional force.