This project examines political communication in the popular assemblies of the Greek cities of the Hellenistic and Roman periods to offer new insights into the debate concerning the extent of popular political participation. Although inscriptions mention the assembly as part of the decision-making process until the end of the third century AD, scholars have argued that, from the second century BC onwards, the people were no longer able to initiate or debate political legislation and were limited to ratifying decisions taken elsewhere. While a general tendency towards an oligarchic form of government is undeniable, little is known about the internal functioning of the assembly, since the inscriptions, our primary source of evidence, are mostly silent on the political processes whose outcome they document. This project therefore turns to an extensive but hitherto ignored corpus of sources, the rhetorical handbooks. The content of these works shows that learning how to persuade the people in the assembly was an integral part of elite education throughout the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. An analysis of this material, combined with the few assembly speeches still extant, could show that, contrary to current opinion, debate and deliberation were integral aspects of assembly politics in this period. As such, this project has the potential to modify modern notions about the power of the people and the democratic nature of the Greek cities in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.