This chapter explores Isocrates’ paideia, grounded in a notion of philosophia where the ethical cultivation of eloquent speech is directed toward forming citizens capable of strengthening dêmokratia. His approach significantly influenced Quintilian’s broader vision of comprehensive education for the orator–citizen. These educational projects lay the foundation for what may be considered each author’s political theory, closely connected and forming the initial core of the Mediterranean rhetorical tradition outlined in the previous chapter. Isocrates and Quintilian stand as early figures of resistance within the long-standing intellectual dispute over rhetoric. Both emphasized the need to distinguish rhetorical practice from manipulation, demagoguery, or slander. Their works help us understand rhetoric as a science of ethical expression, one that fosters both a deeper understanding of the world and the formation of the citizen’s inner life, which in turn sustains the ethos of the polis and underpins its politeia. Key political concepts such as political friendship, civic courage, and plurality, further developed in the thought of Giambattista Vico and Hannah Arendt, find in their writings some of their earliest and most compelling articulations.