Many times have I wondered at those who first convoked the national assemblies and established the athletic games,Pan-Hellenic gatherings at the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian games, including also the Pan-atheniac festival at Athens. See Gardner and Jevons, pp. 269 ff. amazed that they should have thought the prowess of men's bodies to be deserving of so great bounties, while to those who had toiled in private for the public good and trained their own minds so as to be able to help also their fellow-men they apportioned no reward whatsoever,This is not quite exact (see Lys. 33.2), nor consistent with § 45 where he mentions contests of intellect and prizes for them. But the mild interest which these evoked served but to emphasize the excess of enthusiasm for athletics against which Isocrates here and elsewhere protests. Cf. Isoc. 15.250 and Isoc. Letter 8.5. The complaint is older than Isocrates. See Xenophanes, Fr. 19.

when, in all reason, they ought rather to have made provision for the latter; for if all the athletes should acquire twice the strength which they now possess, the rest of the world would be no better off; but let a single man attain to wisdom, and all men will reap the benefit who are willing to share his insight.

Yet I have not on this account lost heart nor chosen to abate my labors; on the contrary, believing that I shall have a sufficient reward in the approbation which my discourse will itself command, I have come before you to give my counsels on the war against the barbarians and on concord among ourselves. I am, in truth, not unaware that many of those who have claimed to be sophistsFor the meaning of the word “sophist” see General Introd. p. xii. The word is commonly translated “orator,” since the sophists concerned themselves mainly with exemplifying and teaching oratory; but the sophist speaks only on the lecture platform; the political orator is called a “rhetor” in Isocrates. Gorgias and Lysias in their Olympic orations had spoken on this theme, but it is hardly probable that Isocrates had them particularly in mind in this patronizing remark.

have rushed upon this theme, but I hope to rise so far superior to them that it will seem as if no word had ever been spoken by my rivals upon this subject; and, at the same time, I have singled out as the highest kind of oratoryCf. Lys. 33.3. For Isocrates, idea of the highest oratory see General Introd. p. xxiv. that which deals with the greatest affairs and, while best displaying the ability of those who speak, brings most profit to those who hear; and this oration is of that character.

In the next place, the moment for action has not yet gone by, and so made it now futile to bring up this question; for then, and only then, should we cease to speak, when the conditions have come to an end and there is no longer any need to deliberate about them, or when we see that the discussion of them is so complete that there is left to others no room to improve upon what has been said.

But so long as conditions go on as before, and what has been said about them is inadequate, is it not our duty to scan and study this question, the right decision of which will deliver us from our mutual warfare, our present confusion, and our greatest ills?

Furthermore, if it were possible to present the same subject matter in one form and in no other, one might have reason to think it gratuitous to weary one's hearers by speaking again in the same manner as his predecessors; but since oratory is of such a nature

that it is possible to discourse on the same subject matter in many different ways—to represent the great as lowly or invest the little with grandeur, to recount the things of old in a new manner or set forth events of recent date in an old fashionThe author of the treatise , 38, quotes this passage and condemns Isocrates' “puerility” in thus dwelling on the power of rhetoric when leading up to his praise of Athens, and so arousing distrust of his sincerity. But the objection loses its force if Isocrates is here using what had become a conventionalized statement of the power of oratory. This it probably was. Plut. Orat. 838f, attributes to Isocrates the definition of rhetoric as the means of making “small things great and great things small.” A similar view is attributed to the rhetoricians Tisias and Gorgias in Plat. Phaedrus 267a, who are credited with “making small things appear great and great things small, and with presenting new things in an old way and old themes in a modern fashion through the power of speech.” Cf. Isoc.11.4 and Isoc. 12.36; also Julian, Oration, i. 2 C.—it follows that one must not shun the subjects upon which others have spoken before, but must try to speak better than they.

For the deeds of the past are, indeed, an inheritance common to us all; but the ability to make proper use of them at the appropriate time, to conceive the right sentiments about them in each instance, and to set them forth in finished phrase, is the peculiar gift of the wise.

And it is my opinion that the studyLiterally the “philosophy which has to do with oratory”—culture expressed in speech. For “philosophy” as used by Isocrates see General Introd. p. xxvi. of oratory as well as the other arts would make the greatest advance if we should admire and honor, not those who make the first beginnings in their crafts, but those who are the most finished craftsmen in each, and not those who seek to speak on subjects on which no one has spoken before, but those who know how to speak as no one else could.

Yet there are some who carp at discourses which are beyond the powers of ordinary men and have been elaborated with extreme care, and who have gone so far astray that they judge the most ambitious oratory by the standard of the pleas made in the petty actions of the courts;For Isocrates' opinion of court oratory see General Introd. p. xxii. as if both kinds should be alike and should not be distinguished, the one by plainness of style, the other by display; or as if they themselves saw clearly the happy mean, while the man who knows how to speak elegantly could not speak simply and plainly if he chose.

Now these people deceive no one; clearly they praise those who are near their own level. I, for my part, am not concerned with such men, but rather with those who will not tolerate, but will resent, any carelessness of phrase, and will seek to find in my speeches a quality which they will not discover in others. Addressing myself to these, I shall proceed with my theme, after first vaunting a little further my own powers.

For I observe that the other orators in their introductions seek to conciliate their hearers and make excuses for the speeches which they are about to deliver,This is done by Lys. 2.1, by Hyp. 6.2, and by Isocrates himself, Isoc. 12.36-38. sometimes alleging that their preparation has been on the spur of the moment, sometimes urging that it is difficult to find words to match the greatness of their theme.

But as for myself, if I do not speak in a manner worthy of my subject and of my reputation and of the time which I have spentSee General Introd. p. 30.—not merely the hours which have been devoted to my speech but also all the years which I have lived—I bid you show me no indulgence but hold me up to ridicule and scorn; for there is nothing of the sort which I do not deserve to suffer, if indeed, being no better than the others, I make promises so great.This self-confidence is something more than Isocratean vanity. It is a conscious device to enhance the greatness of this theme. At the beginning he is exalted by its magnitude; at the end, 187, he is cast down by his failure to measure up to it. See Havet's interesting remarks in Cartelier's , p. lxv. So much, by way of introduction, as to my personal claims.

But as to our public interests, the speakers who no sooner come before us than they inform us that we must compose our enmities against each other and turn against the barbarian,Artaxerxes II., king of Persia, 404-359 B.C. rehearsing the misfortunes which have come upon us from our mutual warfare and the advantages which will result from a campaign against our natural enemy—these men do speak the truth, but they do not start at the point from which they could best bring these things to pass.

For the Hellenes are subject, some to us, others to the Lacedaemonians, the politiesThe Greek states which were under the influence of Athens were democratic; those under Sparta's influence, oligarchic. by which they govern their states having thus divided most of them. If any man, therefore, thinks that before he brings the leading states into friendly relations, the rest will unite in doing any good thing, he is all too simple and out of touch with the actual conditions.

No, the man who does not aim merely to make an oratorical display, but desires to accomplish something as well, must seek out such arguments as will persuade these two states to share and share alike with each other, to divide the supremacy between them, and to wrest from the barbarians the advantages which at the present time they desire to seize for themselves at the expense of the Hellenes.Almost the same language is used in Isoc. 5.9.

Now our own city could easily be induced to adopt this policy, but at present the Lacedaemonians are still hard to persuade; for they have inherited the false doctrine that leadership is theirs by ancestral right. If, however, one should prove to them that this honor belongs to us rather than to them, perhaps they might give up splitting hairs about this question and pursue their true interests.

So, then, the other speakers also should have made this their starting-point and should not have given advice on matters about which we agree before instructing us on the points about which we disagree. I, at all events, am justified by a twofold motive in devoting most of my attention to these points: first and foremost, in order that some good may come of it, and that we may put an end to our mutual rivalries and unite in a war against the barbarian;

and, secondly, if this is impossible, in order that I may show who they are that stand in the way of the happiness of the Hellenes, and that all may be made to see that even as in times past Athens justly held the sovereignty of the sea, so now she not unjustly lays claim to the hegemony.This claim was made good two years later when the new confederacy was formed. See General Introd. p. xxxvii. The Greek word “hegemony”—leadership, supremacy—is often used in the particular sense of acknowledged headship of confederated states, as here.