Panathenaicus

And you will deserve this reward; for you have extolled both these cities well and fittingly—Athens, according to the acclaim of the majority, which no man of note has ever disdained, while all men in their craving to obtain it are ready to submit themselves to any hazard whatsoever; but Sparta, according to the reasoning of those who endeavor to aim at the truth, whose good opinion some would choose in preference to that of all the rest of the world, even were mankind to number twice as many as now.

“I am insatiable in my desire to speak on the present occasion and I still have many things which I might say concerning you and these two cities and your discourse, but I shall forgo these subjects and declare myself only upon the question about which, as you say, you called me in to advise you. I counsel you, then, not to burn or to suppress your discourse, but—if there be any need of so doing—to revise and supplement it and then give to those who desire it the benefit of all the time and pains which you have spent upon its composition,

if indeed you wish to gratify the worthiest among the Hellenes—those who are in truth devoted to culture and do not merely pretend to it—and to annoy those who secretly admire your writings above all others but malign your discourses before the crowds at the national festivals, in which those who sleep outnumber those who listen;[*](Cf. Isoc. 5.12.) for these speakers hope that if only they can hoodwink such audiences their own compositions will rival yours in popular favour, little realizing that their work is farther below the level of yours than the poets who have essayed to compose in the manner of Homer fall short of his reputation.”

When he had said these things and had asked those present to express their opinion on the question about which they had been called in, they did not merely accord him the applause with which they were wont to greet a clever speech but signified by tumultuous shouts that he had spoken excellently; they crowded around him, praised him, envied him, congratulated him, and found nothing to add to what he had said or to subtract therefrom, but showed that they were of his opinion and advised me to do the very thing which he had urged.

Nor did I, for my part, stand silently by; on the contrary, I praised both his native ability and his training, although beyond that I uttered not a word about the sentiments which he had expressed, as to how his conjecture had hit upon my purpose or missed the mark, but let him remain of the same opinion which he had formed for himself.

Now as to the subject which I undertook to discuss, I think that I have said enough; for to review in detail the points which have been made[*](As at the close of the Address to Philip.) not in keeping with discourses such as this. But I do wish to relate my personal experiences in relation to its composition.

I entered upon it at the age which I have already stated at the beginning.[*](See Isoc. 12.3.) But when I had written half of it, I was attacked by a malady which it is not decorous to name,[*](Coray conjectures that the malady was dysentery.) but which is powerful enough to carry off in the course of three or four days not only older people but many in the prime of life. I battled against this disease without respite for three years, and I passed every day of that time with such devotion to my work that those who knew of my industry as well as those who learned of it from them admired me more because of this fortitude than because of the things for which I had formerly been praised.

When, however, I had at length given up my work both because of my illness and of my age, certain of those who were in the habit of paying me visits, and who had read again and again the portion of my discourse which I had written, begged and urged me not to leave it half-finished or incomplete, but to work upon it for a short time and to give my thoughts to what remained to be done.

They did speak as men do who perfunctorily acquit themselves of a duty, but praised extravagantly what I had written, saying about it such things that if any people had heard them who were not my personal friends and kindly disposed towards me, they could not possibly have failed to suppose that my visitors were trying to make a fool of me and that I had lost my wits and was altogether a simpleton if I allowed myself to be persuaded of what they said.

But, although I had this feeling about the things which they made bold to state, I did allow myself to be persuaded (for why make a long story of it?) to occupy myself with the completion of the discourse, at a time when I lacked but three years of having lived a century and when I was in a state of infirmity such that anyone else similarly afflicted, so far from undertaking to write a discourse of his own, would not even be willing to listen to one worked out and submitted by another.

Why, then, have I gone into these matters? Not because I think that I should ask indulgence for the things which I have discussed—for I do not feel that I have spoken of them in a manner to require this—but because I desire both to relate my personal experiences and to commend those among my hearers who not only applaud this speech but prefer, as more weighty and more worthy of serious study, discourses which are composed for instruction and, at the same time, with finished art[*](Such as this discourse or the Panegyricus. See Isoc. 4.11.) to others which are written for display or for the law-courts,[*](Speeches which were written for display—epideictic oratory—are composed with finish but are not instructive. See General Introduction. Speeches written for the law-courts, on the other hand, lack the refinements of style and aim to pervert the truth. See General Introduction.) and who prefer for the same reason discourses which aim at the truth to those which seek to lead astray the opinions of their auditors, and discourses which rebuke our faults and admonish[*](Such as the Isoc. 8. See Isoc. 15.62.) us to those which are spoken for our pleasure and gratification.[*](Cf. Isoc. 2.54.)

I desire, on the other hand, to warn those of my hearers who are of a mind contrary to these, in the first place, not to trust in their own opinions nor to regard as true the judgements which are pronounced by the lazy-minded and, in the second place, not to publish hastily their views on things which they do not understand, but to wait until they can find themselves in accord with men who have much experience of matters submitted to them for judgement;[*](Literally, “experience of things shown.” Others render “experience in epideictic oratory.”) for if they will so govern their thoughts, no one can fail to approve their discretion.