Institutio Oratoria

Isocrates [*]( Fr. 3 s. ) held that praise and blame find a place in every kind of oratory.

The safest and most rational course seems to be to follow the authority of the majority. There is, then, as I have said, one kind concerned with praise and blame, which, however, derives its name from the better of its two functions and is called laudatory; others however call it demonstrative. Both names are believed to be derived from the Greek in which the corresponding terms are encomiastic, and epideictic.