Panathenaicus

Nevertheless, as long as they confined themselves to abusing my discourses, reading them in the worst possible manner side by side with their own, dividing them at the wrong places, mutilating them, and in every way spoiling their effect, I paid no heed to the reports which were brought to me, but possessed myself in patience. However, a short time before the Great Panathenaia,[*](The Panathenaic festival was celebrated in Athens each year but with special magnificence every fourth year, when it was called the Great Panathenaia.) they stirred me to great indignation.

For some of my friends met me and related to me how, as they were sitting together in the Lyceum,[*](A sacred enclosure on the right bank of the Ilissus, dedicated to Apollo—a gymnasium and exercise ground, but was also frequented by philosophers. Here Aristotle and his pupils were wont to gather.) three or four of the sophists of no repute— men who claim to know everything and are prompt to show their presence everywhere—were discussing the poets, especially the poetry of Hesiod and Homer, saying nothing original about them, but merely chanting their verses and repeating from memory the cleverest things which certain others had said about them in the past.[*](Other sophists made much of the study and elucidation of the poets, but there is no evidence that Isocrates did. See Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit 2, pp. 46 ff.)

It seems that the bystanders applauded their performance, whereupon one of these sophists, the boldest among them, attempted to stir up prejudice against me, saying that I hold all such things in contempt and that I would do away with all the learning and the teaching of others, and that I assert that all men talk mere drivel except those who partake of my instruction. And these aspersions, according to my friends, were effective in turning a number of those present against me.

Now I could not possibly convey to you how troubled and disturbed I was on hearing that some accepted these statements as true. For I thought that it was so well known that I was waging war against the false pretenders to wisdom and that I had spoken so moderately, nay so modestly, about my own powers that no one could be credited for a moment who asserted that I myself resorted to such pretensions.

But in truth it was with good reason that I deplored at the beginning of my speech the misfortune which has attended me all my life in this respect. For this is the cause of the false reports which are spread about me, of the calumny and prejudice which I suffer, and of my failure to attain the reputation which I deserve—either that which should be mine by common consent or that in which I am held by certain of my disciples who have known me through and through.

However, this cannot now be changed and I must needs put up with what has already come to pass. Many things come to my mind, but I am at a loss just what to do. Should I turn upon my enemies and denounce those who are accustomed always to speak falsely of me and do not scruple to say things which are repugnant to my nature? But if I showed that I took them seriously and wasted many words on men whom no one conceives to be worthy of notice I should justly be regarded as a simpleton.

Should I, then, ignore these sophists and defend myself against those of the lay public who are prejudiced against me, attempting to convince them that it is neither just nor fitting for them to feel towards me as they do? But who would not impute great folly to me, if, in dealing with men who are hostile to me for no other reason than that I appear to have discoursed cleverly on certain subjects, I thought that by speaking just as I have spoken in the past I should stop them from taking offence at what I say and should not instead add to their annoyance, especially if it should appear that even now at this advanced age I have not ceased from “speaking rubbish”?

But neither would anyone, I am sure, advise me to neglect this subject and, breaking off in the midst of it, to go on and finish the discourse which I elected to write in my desire to prove that our city had been the cause of more blessings to the Hellenes than the city of the Lacedaemonians. For if I should now proceed to do this without bringing what I have written to any conclusion and without joining the beginning of what is to be said to the end of what has been spoken, I should be thought to be no better than those who speak in a random, slovenly, and scattering manner whatever comes into their heads to say. And this I must guard against.