Ober is making a methodological argument just as much as a historical one here. First, the methodological: he argues that rhetorical texts preserve examples of how mass (juries or assemblies) and elite (sophists, politicians, defendants, or plaintiffs) related, and so we can extract information about that relationship from those texts. This methodological argument presupposes (and he briefly attempts to prove) that mass and elite can be fairly easily distinguished; i.e., that there is no middle class (or even status) to speak of.

Ober's historical argument, what he gets out of these texts, is that the ambivalent and tense relationship that the masses (less socially and economically powerful, but politically equal, at least in theory) had with the elite was diffused through that very same rhetoric.

Elites were expected to lead, but also to follow, to speak well, but not to mislead through their oratorical skills, to be the equal of the people, but also to be spectacular. Ober argues that these tensions were diffused rhetorically, basically through play-acting, through situations where an argument in a court case would run along the lines of "you won't let this rich bastard do that to us poor folk!" spoken by another rich guy, or "us elites have to worry about these sorts of things" spoken to a jury of po' folks. ( )