The "Encomium of Helen" is considered to be a good example of epideictic oratory and was supposed to have been Gorgias' "show piece or demonstration piece," which was used to attract students (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). In their writings, Gorgias and other sophists speculated "about the structure and function of language" as a framework for expressing the implications of action and the ways decisions about such actions were made" (Jarratt 103). And this is exactly the purpose of Gorgias' "Encomium of Helen". Of the three divisions of rhetoric discussed by Aristotle in his "Rhetoric" (forensic, deliberative, and epideictic), the "Encomium" can be classified as an epideictic speech, expressing praise for Helen of Troy and ridding her of the blame she faced for leaving Sparta with Paris (Wardy 26).