EPIDEICTIC ORATORY

also called ceremonial oratory according to Aristotle, a type of suasive speech designed primarily for rhetorical effect. Epideictic oratory was panegyrical, declamatory, and demonstrative. Its aim was to condemn or to eulogize an individual, cause, occasion, movement, city, or state. An outstanding example of this type of speech is a funeral oration by the Athenian statesman Pericles in honour of those killed during the first year of the Peloponnesian War. The word is from the Greek epideiktiks, meaning for display or declamatory, and is a derivative of epideiknnai, meaning to show off or to display.