Orationes 49

There are certain people who are clever at admonishing others while letting themselves go unexamined. If they did it by approaching one directly, there would be some profit in it; for either a man would be persuaded, or, having tried to persuade and failed, the adviser would be rid of his obligation. As it is, by putting other people forward as the agents of their counsel, they truly compel one to fight against shadows. And their prefaces, too, are clever: they come round in a circle to declare how well-disposed they are toward me, how they are among those who love such things. But this is to be seasick while sailing. So just the other day a man framed the same charge and bade one of my associates report it to me: that I had spoken out of turn, he said, when in the midst of the encomium and the discourse to the goddess I let fall some words about myself; for it is not fitting, he said, that a man should say anything about himself and his own affairs, especially among those who know the matter exactly—and surely everyone knows of our discourses how far they surpass others (he added this), and that if any man has accomplished anything beyond others, this too has been accomplished by us. Many such compliments he bestowed, that we might accept the accusation. Come then, let us answer this man too, since indeed our host of yesterday has had his due. From what point, then, shall we undertake to set about re-educating him—a man so solemn and so far advanced in wisdom that he undertakes to admonish others as easily as this? For my part, in my eagerness I think I shall make the last point first; for I shall produce him as a witness against himself, that he is a slanderer. Let the man be present, then—whether he is present or not, for I do not know who he happens to be, indeed I do not know him at all—but let him answer as though present. The question is this, best of men: that you allow me

to make speeches, you do well. But tell me this much: do you allow me to make them, yet not permit me to have any judgement about the very things one makes? And what grace would there be in a man who makes a thing but does not know what he is making? Is it then possible to have knowledge about matters, but not to have understanding about what one knows? Surely that would be a riddle, and perhaps beyond a riddle. About the things, then, of which a man has understanding, the wise say he ought also to speak—unless here too you say something different. Consider, then, how you have conceded the whole by granting the first point alone. For if, by your own account, one of the noble things is to make speeches, and it is impossible to make anything nobly without knowing about it, but about the things one knows one must necessarily also have understanding, and about the things one understands one must also speak, then you have granted that about the things a man makes, about these he ought also to speak. "But by Zeus," you say, "what was said was said among those who knew it." What, then, would you have done—would you not have accused me, had you caught me lying, you who charged that these things were unsuitable, the very things of which you say all men are my witnesses? And so, it seems, if I impersonate Demosthenes, or Miltiades, or Themistocles, or the man of the same name as himself, then I am far better than you, even by your own account, at recognizing the speeches suited to each; but as for the speeches it is suitable for me to make about myself and my own affairs—are you the better judge of these? And how, if I yield to you the better knowledge, could I be in my right mind? Surely the character of those others I must conjecture, but my own, I think, I know clearly. And now, if I had to speak about Athena herself, I would be better than you, by your own argument, at recognizing the matter; but as for what concerns the discourses about Athena, are you better than I? And do you say that everyone else knows these things, yet do not allow me myself? And do you rebuke us, while I shall not be permitted to deal with men of your sort, and that for the sake of correction? And you, being a hearer, have taken on the role of an orator, while you think the orator ought to keep silence about his own affairs, and speak about others but be silent about himself? What, then, would you have done if you had granted us "Where Calydon's loveliest plain lies richest, marked off by itself"—

or the territory over which the Chalcidians and Eretrians once disputed, or the land between Corinth and Sicyon, which the oracle spoke of—seeing that I came simply for the sake of friendship and enjoyed the noblest things, such as our affairs might be at their noblest, unless this too gives you offence; and you did not deposit even so much by way of payment as to forgive me, if I rambled at all? Do you not know that even if you composed all the provinces of Egypt together and added the land of Babylon as payment for these discourses—for I shall vex you even now—you would never come near their worth? But what is our payment, and fitting for us? Friendship, goodwill, intelligence, remembrance, a moderate honour for the discourses, reverence for the man who makes them. But since you fear that this may seem to come close to a kind of arrogance or boastfulness, come, let me reassure you. Consider, then, as you listen, how I stand on these matters; and if you catch me lying, in the words of Sophocles, declare that I already understand nothing, and strike out my prophetic art. I hold that the man who thinks more highly of himself than his actual standing warrants, or who poses before the many so as to astonish them, whether by words or deeds, is not sound, but is that very impostor and charlatan, and whatever else you wish to call him. But the man who, knowing exactly to what degree of power he has come, accordingly thinks of himself as he deserves, and neither seeks nor hunts after anything more—this man precisely fulfils the measure of freedom. Just as with money, I think: whoever wraps himself in a bulk greater than he possesses, and struts about parading emptily, and is eager to deceive those he meets, him we call an impostor and a fool and an empty fellow in his ways. But again, the man who claims to appear lower than his means, who deliberately contracts himself by choice into something less, and is readier to deny what he has than to admit it, is not at all among the free; or if you call him mean and stingy and a slave to gain, you would hit nearer the mark. So it is, I think, with discourses too, and with practically everything in

nature: each thing is judged against its worth. And the simple man, not the manifold, is, in my view, the one who knows when to think more highly of his own achievements and when less; who praises both his own affairs and his neighbours', if he finds them admissible, and censures both his own and his neighbours', if he finds anything of that sort in them, nowhere preferring anything to what seems to be the truth. Consider it also from this angle. You, perhaps, have never yet met me; for if you had, you would have known how much I censure in my own work. The things I cross out and revise—how do you suppose I feel about them? And I say that, for all men's thinking equally well of their own affairs, nothing is more unequal among men. But it seems to me that the divine inscription too directly bids this and says it: "Know yourself"—not simply, as you would have it, "Declare yourself to be nothing," but "Neither exceed nor fall short." And the second inscription confirms and seals it, that this is the meaning of the first; for "Nothing in excess" tends, I think, to the same end. Worth, then, Apollo—being prophet and poet, and in both capacities an interpreter of truth—bids us honour; and you too, if you are sensible and not an enemy of the gods, will look to it everywhere; and you will see how, with all things present to a man, you will not show yourself dishonouring them, but always taking each thing into account, and so judge, referring your verdict to this: what sort of man each of us is, and of how much he is worth. For the same things are worthy in some men and not in others. For instance, when Thersites says, "Whomever I shall bind and lead away, or another of the Achaeans," it is laughter, I think. You, bind a man? If not you, will not one of the very Achaeans bind you? Will you not be content? Will you not learn your folly across your back? But when Achilles, I think, recounts, "Twelve cities of men I sacked with my ships, and eleven, I declare, on foot throughout fertile Troy; from all of these I took out many goodly treasures, and carried and gave them all to Agamemnon"—there is none among the Achaeans who will any longer feel resentment. Why? Because his words agree with his deeds. "Three and twenty cities," he says, "I took." What then? Did this one man take them all? We cannot deny it. Did he not take some by sea, some on foot,

some so many and some so many—but the hearers know this too? Then it is all true. "But I was also most zealous for the common cause," he says. Until someone shows that he was not most zealous, he does not babble. For these reasons the same man, Odysseus, scourged one fellow and supplicated another. So that you may know that this is altogether an ancient custom and a Hellenic one—to think well of one's own achievements, and that apart from this high spirit no deed worthy of remembrance, no outstanding speech, nor anything else among men could ever be accomplished—listen to what sort and how many examples have escaped you. I shall, I suppose, make my speeches brothers to yesterday's; for indeed my answer holds nearly to the same theme. As for all the passages in which Homer seemed to you to bid the procurers to be summoned, speaking on his own behalf—you remember them; so I let them go. And yet those lines say almost outright that Homer judges himself to be the mightiest of poets. Homer, then, is dismissed by you. But consider Hesiod's high spirit too, in case you did not observe it before. For he, beginning his Theogony and hymning the Muses, says at once, "who once taught Hesiod beautiful song." And so headstrong and insolent was he that he did not even hold out long enough to finish the preface to the goddesses, but while saying that the Muses hymn Zeus and "Leto and Iapetus and crooked-counselling Cronos," then he does not endure it, but a little later, in the very midst of the gods' names, says, "who once taught Hesiod beautiful song"—as if, unless this too should seem to be a work of the Muses, just as they make the gods sing, so they have made Hesiod a poet, some portion of their renown would be lost to them. And not only does he say that he received the song from them, but he adds that it is also beautiful; "yes, by Zeus, safely indeed," you would say, "adding himself to the Muses." Well then, we too added what we were led to say to the Muses and the goddess. We said, at least, if you remember, that some of the very phrases we recalled were those the goddess had shown us beforehand—unless your objection prevents it. And how far more

moderate we are than Hesiod, learn, since you force me to it. He, while composing his hymn to the goddesses, inserted this line, an encomium, so to speak, of himself; but we, having wrought the discourses to the goddess purely and in a pure manner, let fall a small unwritten utterance about ourselves. And Hesiod does not simply take his leave after saying that he received the song from the Muses, nor stop at the earlier addition about the song, that it was beautiful, but he was so much an impostor and so ambitious that he says he received a sceptre, too, from them. And this means for him something more than an idle hearer would notice. Refer it to Homer—what he says about the sceptre: "and now the sons of the Achaeans carry it in their hands, dispensers of justice." "And I," says Hesiod, "am one of these, the portion of the Muses." And exalting his own affairs to excess, what does he say? "to pluck a wondrous branch"—as though he had not taken just any little twig, but, of many, the most conspicuous was a sceptre for Hesiod. Nor did he stop his insolence even there, but, as if deliberately to burst you, he adds, "and they breathed into me a voice." And he ended the verse, but his encomium no more; rather he added "divine" again, and what is finer still, like those sophists who are excessive on every side, "that I might celebrate things to come and things that were before." And what is this? He says that the Muses hymn things to come and things that were before, and that this is their nature. "And so I too," he says, "hymn these very things that the Muses do." If, then, you think fit to strike out these lines of Hesiod, we too will accept the rebuke. But you will first, I suppose, prove that you are a match for the verses. Come then, let us return again to the men about whom they discourse. Does it not seem to you that Homer has most clearly of all men represented Achilles speaking of himself, among other things and once for all in this way: "But I sit by the ships, a useless burden on the earth"—"whether you wish it," he says, "or not; and even if I am ruined worse than now"—"being such as no other of the bronze-clad Achaeans."

"Yes, by Zeus, but Achilles is talking like a young hothead." And what does Odysseus, a man in his ripe old age, say? And this while speaking to Achilles himself: "Achilles, son of Peleus, if you claim to be superior in anything else, I grant it; but I would surpass you in counsel"—and he added "by far." For it is not as the wretched grammarians corrupt the line; it does not run as they have it, who detach the "by far" from the former clause and attach it to what follows, the words that begin the next verse. To me these men seem to have no understanding at all about discourse. For it is plainly an antithesis. For he says, "You are mightier than I and stronger, by no little, with the spear"—then, "but I would surpass you in counsel by far." Hear, then, how it is set in opposition. What there was "with the spear" is "in counsel" here; and what was "by no little," that, in place of it, is "by far"—as though he had said it thus, putting it another way: "You are far mightier than I in matters of war, but I am mightier than you in these things by no little." And I shall lead you to it still more firmly, if you wish. For Homer, with regard to age, does not very much use such additions, as far as I can recall at present; but for judging excellence he does so often. To give an example, I suppose he says, speaking of Zeus and Poseidon, "But Zeus was born first"—just so much, and he does not add "by much." And yet that it is "by much" is clear, even without his adding it, both from what is said of him and from the rest. For he always sings of him as "father of men and gods." So how is he not by far the eldest of all? Again elsewhere he says, "and he who was both earlier and braver, the hero Protesilaus"—only so much, that he was earlier; but how much earlier he does not say. But whenever he judges, he adds "by much," "greatly," and the like: "But again far the best of men was Telamonian Ajax, while Achilles was wrathful." Then how? "For he was by far the mightier." This habit, then, from home he carries over to Odysseus too, thinking it suits him also to speak thus, that "I far excel you in judgement." And Odysseus, taking courage from this, I think, added it. For he knew that

Achilles himself did not pretend to, nor boast of, the things in which he was not capable. For those very passages I just now mentioned, in which Achilles spoke freely, contained an admission sister to the words of Odysseus, since he too defines it thus, saying, "in war; but in the assembly others too are better." Having, then, Achilles' own vote as a pledge, and knowing well that he would not hear the truth with displeasure—rather, it belongs to the same man to be willing both to speak and to hear the truth—he said, "In those things you are far mightier than I, but in these I am as much mightier than you again." And what is finer still: Nestor, who is no longer a man in his ripe old age, but so very aged and mellow that for him "two generations of mortal men had perished, those who once were born and bred with him before, and among the third he reigned"—he will seem to you, his judge, to play the boy so utterly that nothing is more talkative than he, nor more headstrong. For he never once praised himself and then left off, but he is the same everywhere: he who, first, reconciling the kings, says that he kept company with men "not like those of today, but by far the mightiest of all," glorifying himself through them; so that he did not even conceal it, but said outright, "And they heeded my counsels and obeyed my word"—being, he says, such men as those. And what is greater still: "And among them I held a place, coming from Pylos, from a distant land far off; for they themselves summoned me." Two additions: both that they themselves were the ones who sent for him and besought him, and further "from a distant land far off," as though he were so very famous and admirable. And if you say, "But it is sensible and measured, the line 'and I fought on my own account,'" I say so too; and nowhere did I praise madmen, but the passages before us belong to the same skill, and somehow both are true and in keeping with my argument. For where he was inferior to those men, he said "I fought on my own account"; but where he was superior both to them and to those with whom he was speaking, he says he was preferred by those others, and

claims that these others should yield—coming round directly to the same position as Odysseus, who said to Achilles that he was inferior to him in the spear, but better at knowing what is needed, just as before Achilles himself thought concerning himself. For there appears in this very matter no other thing than one single judgement among the three—the young man, the man of ripe old age, the old man—to think of oneself and speak according to the worth of one's possessions. At any rate, when the eldest speaks an exhortation to the Achaeans, urging them to accept Hector's challenge, he runs through nothing but encomia of himself; and here he discourses on having been mightiest in strength of hand, and is in no way bearable, beginning from "Would that I were young, as when by swift-flowing Celadon they fought." And the height of the imposture—for it did not even suffice him to say that he killed his opponent, but as if making his own victory-ode, he says, "The tallest and strongest man I slew; for a great fellow lay sprawled out this way and that"—showing by the same token that he had killed many others too, men great and goodly. But, my good fellow, take care that he does not boast these things at random, but says them deliberately to provoke the Achaeans. And that he hit his mark and touched them, the poet who wrote all this bears witness. For at the end of the harangue he adds this: "So the old man reproached them, and all nine stood up." And not only is Nestor of this sort in public, but in private gatherings too he will appear to you a kind of impostor—he who, when Patroclus had been sent by Achilles to him to ask whom he was leading, and was so very pressed that he did not even wish to rest, for fear that Achilles might blame him, yet Nestor deliberately bids him sit down and listen to his words, and beginning again from some similar starting-point, and longing for and recalling his old youth, he finishes a long narrative, of which the rest is hard even to mention; but the most insolent of his lines, in no way resembling my phrases which I let fall the other day, is this: "And all prayed, among gods to Zeus, among men to Nestor."

For I pass over what manner of answer our wise man gives even to Agamemnon, when he is earnestly drawing up the ranks. But the sweetest of all: when Achilles was arranging the games for Patroclus, and others were winning various prizes, Nestor was unable to contend in anything; but, as the saying goes, being now nothing in these contests by reason of age, the very contests in which he once used to win, he speaks as though doing something even by this, and says to the Achaeans—not in these very words, but somehow posing—that "each of you has won, or will win, the foot-race, another perhaps the wrestling, another something else; but I won the boxing against Clytomedes son of Enops, and Ancaeus the Pleuronian in wrestling, who stood up against me, and Iphiclus, good though he was, I outran on foot, and with the spear I outdid Phyleus and Polydorus"—so far am I superior to the winners of today, even if I have yielded to old age. And if you like, see how great a thing is the haughtiness of the boxer of Phocis: "Let him come near, whoever will carry off the two-handled cup; for I say no man shall lead away the mule. For thus I declare, and it shall be accomplished: I shall break his flesh outright and crush his bones together. Let his kinsmen stand by," he says, "who will carry him out, overcome by my hands." Did he, then, threaten but not perform? No, he did nothing else than prophesy what he was going to do. So this was not, I think, mere rashness. But Homer, somehow following him closely, as if defending him—that he said these things to the others from no ill-will nor from harsh willfulness, but displayed only so much as he knew of himself—says that he struck the man as he foretold, and when he saw the blow was mortal, he himself at once became one of Euryalus's kinsmen. For he says, "But great-hearted Epeius took him by the hand and set him upright," the same hand with which he had struck him down. For this reason Odysseus, too, among the Phaeacians holds nothing back, but, provoked at the youth Euryalus in the contests of the Phaeacians, omits no encomium of himself, telling with how much

bloom of body and beauty of however great a measure the grace of discourse and the beauty thereof has grown beyond it. Or do these words not seem to you to be spoken of himself? "But a god crowns his form with words; and men gaze upon him with delight, and he speaks unfalteringly with gentle reverence, and is conspicuous among the gathered; and as he goes through the town they look upon him as a god." And that he means these words of himself is clear from the other, the opposite. For he says, "So you too have a form pre-eminent." For the one quality, out of the two, he gives to the other man; the other, the remaining one, to himself. And these things he said not out of headstrongness—O profit of wisdom that you are, and great glory of the Achaeans!—nor did Odysseus run through them idly, surrendering himself to his temper, but wishing to convert the youth, reared in luxury and gone far astray from the truth. And, it seems, he did him good. For Euryalus repents not long after, and calls him "father" in place of those earlier names, and comes to a reconciliation. And again, speaking of his own skill in the contests, Odysseus, exactly like Nestor in the Iliad, distinguishing each one and how far he prevails, says: "For in all things I am not bad, in whatever contests there are among men. Well do I know how to handle the polished bow; first would I strike a man, shooting into the throng of hostile men, even though very many comrades stood close by and shot at the foe. And with the spear I hurl as far as no other man with an arrow." These things in the sight of the Phaeacians, before he had even told them his name, what it was. And being asked this too at the feast: "I am Odysseus, son of Laertes," he said, "who am a concern to all men for my wiles, and my fame reaches heaven"—knowing well that the Phaeacians would not hear his words as others would, since they thought him one of the many and had no inkling beforehand in their minds that now the best of the Hellenes was conversing with them. He was not ashamed, then, to praise himself, seeing that he was, after all, benefiting others. So the poets themselves think of their own work, and the men of whom they discourse, and those whom the poets most praise

of all. And if someone should ask you whether you censure those who say false things about themselves, or those who do so in any manner whatever—if you mean the former, prove that we lied in these things; but if you mean it absolutely, if anyone so much as grunts, consider what you will make of the second case. For whatever you call shameful in men, you could not say that it falls much short of being fitting for the gods. And whatever you would say is fitting for none of the gods, it is hardly likely to be fitting for the best of the gods. How, then, has Homer represented Zeus saying so many such things about himself, astounding and frightening the other gods like little children—now in the assembly of the gods, when he threatens the company at large, "Then you shall know how much I am the mightiest of all the gods," he, that is, who disobeys his commands; and what follows upon this, "But come, gods, make trial, that you all may know: hang a golden chain from heaven,

and all of you lay hold of it, gods and goddesses; yet you could not drag from heaven to the plain Zeus the supreme counsellor, not even if you toiled exceedingly. But whenever I willingly chose to drag, I would draw up the very earth and the very sea; and the chain I would then bind round a peak of Olympus, and all those things would hang aloft. By so much am I above the gods, and above men." And these things he says, surely, among those who knew them, the gods. For they did not then first learn that Zeus is mightier than they. And all the other such utterances he pronounces, whether in anger at Hera or on any pretext—who could easily pick them all out? And take care not to turn clever on me here, nor to say with a laugh, "What of the greatest things would not be fitting for Zeus?" For that is not the disputed point, but whether it is unfitting for a man who excels in anything whatever, and to whatever degree, to speak about himself or to think well of himself—whether it suffices if those in the know are present. For least of all would it be fitting for Zeus to speak about himself; for he both rules supremely and all know it, and that they know it he himself is aware. Choose, then, in which of these two ways you slander me: either by saying that these words were not fitting for me, which a man might speak who was conscious of having something more than his hearers, or by not permitting anyone at all to speak with any freedom whatever. And surely

you could not say this either, that such a thing brings shame to me, but to Homer, referring it to Zeus, it brings no shame. But, as it seems, both Zeus expounds the truth to the gods for the salvation of the whole, and Homer represented such things as fitting, and Apollo himself displays similar things in his oracles—he no longer speaking through a poet, but as is lawful for him: "I know the number of the sands and the measures of the sea, I understand the dumb man and hear him who does not speak." For to whom did it more befit to speak the truth about himself than to one who knows and speaks the truth about all things? So too among men, all who are dear to the gods and excel their kinsmen are not ashamed to speak the truth, but they reckon that it was the vagabonds, who out of want lie much and on account of need, who made up this name you shun, "the impostor"—to which surely the man who speaks the truth goes wholly opposite. And it is even in the laws not to speak ill, not absolutely, but falsely. As, then, in speeches against another it is not the speaking ill, but the speaking falsely, that is grievous, so neither, if a man speaks well of himself, would he justly incur blame, so long as the speaking of falsehoods is absent. For the man without falsehood will neither speak ill of another unjustly, nor, when it is needful to praise himself, will he shrink from it. And I think you have heard of Sappho too, boasting to certain women who were thought to be blessed, and saying that the Muses had truly made her happy and enviable, and that not even when she was dead would there be forgetfulness of her. And you hear the Laconian too saying of himself and his chorus, "the Muse has cried aloud, the clear-voiced Siren." And yet what such thing did I let fall about myself and my own discourses? Did I compare them to the songs of the Sirens? Or is it more headstrong to bid one set book against book in comparison than to say that one's own voice resembles the voice of the Muses? And add this too, that the poet, having besought the Muse herself at the beginning, that he might be made active by her, then, as if beside himself, says

that this very thing—that he has become a chorus himself in place of the Muse. And if he uttered this without the Muse, my case has nothing in common with his; for I withdrew the good things in my discourses in favour of the goddess. But if the Muse, summoned and present, brought these things into his mind, then it seems that such free speech belongs even to those who live under the Muses, and is approved by the Muses themselves. Again, elsewhere, glorying in those among whom he is held in honour, he catalogues so many and such nations that even now the wretched grammarians seek where on earth these are, and it would profit them to go even a long journey rather than to busy themselves uselessly about the Shadow-foots. And in another place he becomes so very inspired that you would say he is not "inspired" merely according to the word, but says this very thing like a god from the machine: "Tell me this, races of mortals. By the gods, who will you yourself say that you are? Come, recognize this too, if indeed you are able—'having learned, ravening, with all-glib tongue like crows they croak vainly against the divine bird of Zeus.'" Does the poet not here, whoever he is, call the other poets crows, and himself, compared to them, an eagle? Then he makes himself superior to the other poets by as much as an eagle is to crows. Again, then, addressing one of his hearers, since he saw him nodding off and not knowing with whom he was, he composed thus: "Behind me lies, blond lion of bold foxes." For surely you will not say that Pindar too was persuaded by me to put these things into his own poetry. Hear, then, others too: "A golden foundation has been forged for sacred songs, as we now build a many-coloured, speaking ornament of words." Heracles! These things are not at all without warrant in their phrases, but even so he glorifies himself over them, as no less honourable than nectar, and says that this ornament of words shall, though Thebes is already much-renowned, still more adorn it among the streets

of gods and men—as though it were not enough among men only, but the gods too were going still more greatly to honour the city of the Thebans on his account for the future. And elsewhere still more brilliantly: "By Olympian Zeus, I beseech you, golden Pytho famed for prophecy, with the Graces and with Aphrodite, receive me in your sacred place, a song-worthy spokesman of the Pierides." You see how, even in the midst of praying, he did not restrain himself, but here too spoke solemnly of himself. And yet what would he have got from his prayer—who, at the very beginning of the prayer, thinks so highly of himself, speaking thus about himself? Although I could mention countless others, men of no great worth, who were exalted and thought highly of themselves, I deliberately leave them out, fearing lest I turn my argument to the opposite, as if to deck oneself out in such things belonged also to the base. But you know Simonides' sobriety—or if you do not, others do—how it is one of the most famous of his goods, with regard both to his poetry and to his very life. This man, then, will appear to you also playing the boy, and, as the saying goes, "on the threshold of old age" tasting of imposture. He dared, at least, to say, "In memory I declare no man equal to Simonides." For these words surely someone else does not speak about Simonides, but he composed them about himself. And that he might not seem to say these things while still young and in his bloom, he adds "the eighty-year-old child of Leoprepes," as if pointing it out and saying, "These things I think and say and proclaim about myself, being eighty years old; so I am not playing the boy, but have spoken the truth." And the greatest thing of all: both Simonides and Pindar will both appear to have composed victory-odes for themselves directly, as for others. For the earth had not yet borne you, but freedom in such matters was still permitted to free men. And so you would censure even the athletes themselves who receive the victory-odes from the poets. For these too, in a way, praise themselves, inviting the poets and giving money, and at last, having received the victory-ode, singing of themselves to the pipe and chorus. And you would accuse of imposture, it seems, even those who set up trophies. At any rate it is possible to say to these too, "Men, what do you seek? It is enough to have conquered. What does the inscription mean to you? 'The Athenians from the Thebans,' or

'from the Persians,' or 'the Lacedaemonians from such-and-such men,' or whatever it may be—or else the inscription must be erased." Will the following too seem to you to be a kind of imposture? "The Athenians, fighting in the forefront of the Hellenes at Marathon, slew ninety thousand of the Medes." And "Around Byzantium all who died, war-swift men, defending the fish-rich land." And all those inscriptions finer, I think, than your discourses; and still more: "Since the sea divided Europe apart from Asia, and impetuous Ares haunts the cities of mortals, never among earth-dwelling men was a finer deed done on land and sea at once. For these men, having slain many of the Medes on land, took a hundred Phoenician ships at sea full of men, and greatly groaned Asia, smitten by them with both hands, in the might of war." And before these, "having subdued the nations of the Boeotians and the Chalcidians, the sons of the Athenians"—so, I think, says the inscription, and many others. "Yes, by Zeus, but these are Attic and rather warm." But that we too belong to no other nation in the choice of our discourses is plain to all. You, then, examine the Dorian and the Laconian, if you wish: "Against three hundred myriads here once fought four thousand from the Peloponnese." Is this, then, not imposture, much of it, and besides a brilliant headstrongness? "Four thousand, they say, we were, and against three hundred myriads of enemies we stood." And others again say: "When all Hellas stood on the razor's edge of crisis, we lie here, having saved it by our own lives from slavery. And on the Persians' minds we fastened every grief, the memorials of a grievous sea-battle. Salamis holds our bones; and Corinth our fatherland, in return for our service, set up this monument." So it is time for you to mock them as a kind of garrulous dead who do not know how to keep quiet. And then some man in the manner of Simonides will answer you, "Fellow, you, still living, lie more idle than those beneath the earth." Come, examine these too: "For the Muse is not at a loss; she does not give a taste of the present only, but comes upon all things, reaping." Do these words not seem to you clearly to be the poet praising himself

as fruitful and resourceful in song? And what when he says, "Do not cease for me, since once it has begun, the fair-sounding many-stringed pipe of the most delightful songs"? "Yes, by Zeus, but only the poets thought thus." Consider, then, the orators too, whom alone you say you admire, being yourself very much of their nature. But first I wish to examine those between the poets and the orators. "Of Herodotus of Halicarnassus this is the display of inquiry, that neither the things that have come to pass from men may become faint with time, nor great and wondrous deeds, some displayed by Hellenes, some by barbarians, may become inglorious." Very well, best Herodotus: do you claim that it lies in you and your discourses whether the deeds of Hellenes and barbarians are saved in memory or are all destroyed? "I, for my part," says Herodotus, "say so, unless you are utterly full of sleep." And it seems to me that this quietly stings my opponent. At any rate, having no one to be, Herodotus raises up war, and wishing to say, I think, that he is the most worthy of mention among the historians, he gives his vote to the war. And the sum of his earnestness, as I say, is this. He goes round it very elegantly, and demolishes the older wars, as you would think. But this is nothing else than to show Herodotus and the followers of Hellanicus and Hecataeus and all these men that "I excel you first in judgement; for having selected the mightiest things, I write these and about these, but the rest is child's play." That there is high spirit in Thucydides, too, you would find throughout the whole history. First, on the whole, those who deliver public speeches in him, city by city, share in this quality; then, man by man. Who does not know what Pericles is in him—if indeed you have even heard the name of Pericles—who does not let fall words casually and at liberty, as you the other day took from us, but, having embarked in such crises—both he and the whole people being in them, in which you would have advised even him to lay down a suppliant-branch, when the land was being ravaged by the war, and those in the city were being destroyed

by the plague, and all were pressing upon him and exasperated as against the sole cause of their ills—coming forward, he himself spoke thus: "I expected this, Athenians, and you do wrong to be angry." For I am, he says, in all things the best of you, like a Homeric Zeus. And other things one might less wonder at; but this—O Zeus and gods!—that being an orator and a general, speaking in the assembly, suspect to the many and perhaps on account of this very cleverness, he did not even guard against this very thing as a hostile point, nor conceal it, but, when he ought to deprecate and say what anyone else would have said, "Do not suppose, Athenians, that I either persuaded you of this at the start by cleverness of speech, or now claim that you should be confident about the present circumstances"—instead of dressing this up thus and wrapping it round, he asserts even this, along with the rest, that he excels, that he was also the best of them at speaking, and that too at the beginning of the speech; for I think I almost remember even this. Was this, then, yours, Thucydides, or Pericles'? And another again says, in the same poet: "And it befits me, Athenians, to lead—for I must begin here—since," he says (for add this), "not someone like you, but Nicias attacked me; who, I think, would not have endured even to utter your name under compulsion." And does not Hermocrates, declaiming at Syracuse, seem to you outright a boaster? At any rate he says, glorifying himself and the Syracusans, that he will show the Athenians that these men are not Ionians nor Hellespontines, bidding them meet the enemy outside Sicily. And these are even rather moderate; but observe the hyperboles: "to go against the enemy not with high spirit only, but with contempt." But you have taken away even the "high spirit." And he claims one should despise dangers, while you claim one should not even think at all—beginning, it seems to me, from yourself. Come now, learn the adornment of another, as of a horse. For I think you have read, of Demosthenes' speeches, if nothing else, at least the much-hymned one

on the crown. Here, then, Demosthenes—whose name alone, it seems, you admire—says, "I was persuaded concerning myself, perhaps lacking perception, yet still I was persuaded"—you see how he provokes you, saying "I was persuaded" twice—"that no one drafting measures would draft better than I"—but I let fall a few words only about the things I had written and was demonstrating at present, and that with confidence in the gods who revealed them; whereas he adds, "nor would anyone acting act, nor anyone serving as envoy serve, more zealously or more justly. For these reasons I ranked myself in all things." And when the letter had been read, he says, "Who brought Philip to this? Was it not the Athenian people, but my policy, Aeschines?" That utterance he sent forth, lifting up the city with many bold words before this; somewhat thus, for I do not remember the exact words. And much more brilliant than these, and somehow already in the Periclean mould, near the end of the speech: "But if there had been one man like me among you, according to my rank, in each of the Hellenic cities—or rather, if Thessaly had had one man, and Arcadia one man, of the same mind as I—none of the Hellenes either outside or inside Thermopylae would have suffered the present ills, but all, being free and autonomous, would have dwelt in their own fatherlands in complete security, in happiness, owing gratitude to you and the other Athenians for these so many and so great goods, on my account." And perhaps some men were then vexed at Demosthenes for saying these things—small and luckless men—and called him an impostor. But the time that came after showed that nothing was said in excess, but that even for all Hellas together such a man, born one, was a sufficient crop. So you would not dispute the first prize with him, nor with those for whom you think it suffices that the discourse be made. And by the gods, answer me this very thing: if you had been born in the same times as he, would you ever have charged Demosthenes too with these very things, or would you have let him off

the accusation? For if you reproached even him with these things, you are a slanderer from far back; but if you would have let him off, you slander me on the same grounds. And it seems to me that the inscription, too, which we now read in the Cerameicus does not stand outside Demosthenes' mind. For my part, then, it would have sufficed me, since I have mentioned the orators, for you would, I suppose, place us too here in the chorus; but for the sake of the truth I wish to make my argument exact through all instances, so that you may also learn what sort of man you are who admonish me—the proverb telling you to mind your goats. Consider, then, another defence too, of a wise man, who is so far from boasting that he even refuted the sophists, going about, as men vainly emboldened. He says, then, threatening the Athenians, that if they kill him they will not find another such. And these things he refers to the trustworthy god at Delphi. "And I think," he says, "that no greater good has ever come to you in the city than my service to the god." Such things there are in the Apology of Socrates. "And indeed for these very things he was convicted," you would say. "And those who condemned him repented," those of his school would say. "Yes, by Zeus, but Socrates himself did not speak these words." Let this be granted. But even if he himself did not say them, yet another of equal honour has said them as fitting for him, it comes to the same thing. And I say that Socrates boasted of himself all his life long, even if it escaped the many. Or what do you think his great irony was? I, for my part, hold that he conversed with the many as though with children, truly jesting with them and dealing with them as with simpletons. Now since he did not in earnest admire or profess, nor again did he think of himself as in truth of no worth, yet appears nevertheless to use these phrases, what else is left but that, on the ground that others are of no worth compared to himself, he would say so—as one might thus infer it follows? And, if you wish, I let Socrates go; but consider Iphicrates, a man not on the border between orator and general, but reaching both. Did you ever, then, go through his defence concerning the gift? And yet suppose, if

you like, the speech to be by Lysias, or suppose it Iphicrates', if you choose this. There is, then, nothing in the whole contest so conspicuous as the high spirit, which indeed makes the speech better than most of Lysias'. For he says to the Athenians, among other things—not in your spirit—"And if," he says, "you had seven generals such as I, Lacedaemon would be uninhabited." And mentioning Harmodius and Aristogeiton, whom the Athenians ranked first of all their benefactors, he says that he would either have taken them as his fellows, or have been invited by them, had he been born among them. "And you think, Athenians," he says, "that these letters and the pillar are a thing of solemnity for me from you; but I have a pillar reaching heaven-high standing in the Peloponnese, witnessing to my valour." And he reaches such a degree of free speech that he sets himself in comparison against both sets of generals, both his fellow citizens' and the enemy's. And yet, by the gods, if Iphicrates had then seated you beside him as adviser when he was about to make his defence, would you have advised him to make his defence in this way, or to fall on his knee and supplicate the judges? Does he, then, appear to use a certain freedom of speech when defending himself about the gift, but, when in danger for his life under Aristophon, to have changed his tune? No, even there he preserved his nature. For asking Aristophon, as they say, "And you yourself, if you had been in command of the ships, would you have betrayed them, or not?"—when Aristophon denied it—"Then you would not have betrayed them, being Aristophon, but Iphicrates betrayed them?" Mentioning, then, one more saying of his, I shall turn to something else. For it is said that, drawing up his lines in Egypt, and the battle being about to take place, he said to those present that for himself all else was reasonably well provided, but one thing, the greatest, was lacking. And when someone asked what he meant, "That," he said, "the enemy do not know the name of Iphicrates," which for the dangers in Hellas was for him the greatest charm. And I hear that Epaminondas' defence to the Thebans went even beyond Iphicrates'; and why should one wonder at these things? But just the other day a comrade of mine, who was seated thus

very near, taught me a painter's inscription, of this kind: "Even if I tell things incredible to hearers, I say this: that the clear limits of this art have now been discovered by our hand, and an insurmountable boundary has been fixed. Yet nothing has been made by mortals beyond reproach." Then, by Zeus, you thought it right for so-and-so the painter to say such hyperboles about himself and to speak freely, who could even in silence accomplish his own work by his art; but for a man examined among a few—for I say nothing else now about my own discourses—even to let fall the slightest word seemed to you something astonishing and grievous? Hear, then, of another painter too, boasting, as you would say, but, as those skilled in these matters say, thinking no more highly than is fitting. And what does he say? "Heraclea is my fatherland; Zeuxis my name; and if any man says he has reached the limits of our art, let him show it and conquer. But I think," he says, "that we hold not the second place." And this inscription neither did he shrink from as too bold, nor did any of his comrades advise him to wipe it out, once he had made it. And what a thing, again, that insolent fellow did and dared to inscribe! For having again made the image of Helen, he wrote beside it Homer's lines: "There is no blame that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should for such a woman long suffer woes"—as though it were the same thing to make an image of Helen and for Zeus to beget Helen herself. And so I let the painters bid you farewell. But I myself heard a certain comic poet talking grandly in wondrous fashion. And yet if one asks the comic poets what they pride themselves on, they would say, I think, that they raise laughter—as one of them himself admitted, with no one asking. But nevertheless these too think the jests of the witty and those of the many ought to be kept apart; and one of them, at the beginning of the drama, boasting, foretells like a prophet such things as these: "Every spectator must rouse himself from sleep, casting from his eyelids the trash of the poets of the day,

as though on that day he were going to make all men wise and serious." And having taught the Cheirons, he writes beside it again, very haughtily, at the end, these things: "In two years this was barely wrought out by us"—and he bids the other poets, in their whole life, "set it before them to imitate," meaning, of course, that none would attain it. And another of them, having a kind of Heraclean wrath, says he "attempts the greatest things"; and going on further he adds a phrase to match this: "having found such a one as a warding-off of evil, a purifier of this land." Is it not, then, monstrous, O earth and gods, that Aristophanes may liken his own jests to the works of Heracles, but that the makers of serious discourses—which even he himself would grant—if they think fit to compare their own discourses to those of others, should seem to you, their judge, to be doing something insolent? And he, glorifying one of his comedies elsewhere, pouring many libations upon many, swears by Dionysus that no one ever heard better comic verses than these. But you did not grant even on oath that the discourse made for the goddess and with the goddess should be praised—and that with the mouth only. And I pass over the others; but, that you may catch yourself in the act of being insolent and a slanderer and a busybody, examine who it was that so praised his own discourse as to discourse outright in that very work about himself, just as the comic poet does about his drama—now, beginning the preface, promising to speak worthily both of the matter and of the time he had spent on the discourse, and adding besides that he had lived better than anyone happens to have lived; now, at the end, as if challenging all to a contest and a struggle, as though none would come even near. And yet what will you say? Was it more fitting for him to think highly of his own work, or was it permitted to him to think even more highly than was right, but to me not even so much as I deserve? And to him to inscribe in his very discourses what he thinks about them, but to me not even to let fall as much as a word outside the discourse? And to comic poets and tragic poets

and these necessary contestants one may see both the presidents of the games and the spectators allowing them to digress a little about themselves, and often, removing the mask in the midst of the Muse whom they are impersonating, they harangue solemnly; but you did not grant us even so much as to take breath—and that being yourself a nobody, when it would befit you to be content if you were present at the proceedings even in the rank of a household slave. What will you say, by the gods, if someone should ask you? "That, by Zeus, these things are offensive and vulgar." If, then, to the many—why are these not displeased? But if to you—why do you take refuge in the many? For these "many" of yours appear to be pretty much one man, and a malignant one at that, or else a cold one. And surely, if you yourself praised the discourse, what was said was to your mind. For you surely did not claim a share for yourself in the pleasure taken in my work, and then, seeing me delighting in it, make it a misfortune. But if the beauty of the discourse passed you by, then it was reasonable for these things to be said by us. About the very things, then, that I let fall, how were you affected? For if you yourself were displeased, they were said for this very purpose, that you might be vexed. For surely you do not impose a penalty upon me when I rejoice in my own work, while I shall not make it a gain, if you are pained on this account. But if, on the other hand, you approved what was said, how do you now find fault with the things to which you then assented, or which of us do you accuse, when you are so disposed? For you appear no less than yourself. Such things, then, will be found judged not only man by man, in general, and against worth, but also against the occasions and against the particular addition of the pretext on each occasion. For instance, if a man chooses such discourses out of insolence and haughtiness, or deliberately dishonouring the many and thinking them of no worth, or, as I just said, for the sake of some private interest—such men as I have already seen with eyebrows raised, walking like masters of those they meet, and plastered over in their way of life so as to strike at once those who encounter them—at such men it is just, I think, to be indignant, and to consider them descendants of the Gorgon's head, who have not reaped the noblest fruits of the discourses they champion. But whoever has chosen for the rest of his life a manner so

moderate and ordinary that he is most recognized by this very thing, and this is his token—unless even now I have unwittingly said something too great, and must beg pardon—but whenever the god moves him, then he utters something even about himself, and that whatever it may be, and having uttered it in the very contest and the very moment, when it is likely he remembers nothing else but the discourses, then takes his leave—why should anyone reproach him with these things? But you, by Zeus, tell me, had so much leisure that, leaving aside those great spectacles, you picked out these little and worthless things like the birds, that you might go off as though with a windfall to abuse? Say, then, that I did even this out of kindness, that you might not be utterly disheartened, but might have something for which you would be willing to live. For it was, it seems, a Pythian oracle to you, that when you have praised everyone you will perish. So you owe me a ransom, and if you charge me with this, you charge me justly. Or do you examine the Pythia herself and the oracle-givers exactly, watching their bearing and their look when they speak spontaneously, and if they seem to you to say anything too bold, do you then accuse them afterwards? Wretched man, and far from the gods, were all these things a matter of the occasion? And I shall remind you of Xenophon too, who, discoursing about Cyrus the Great, says that at other times he was trim and orderly and least of all a boaster, but whenever he went into the contests and grew somewhat heated, he said nothing small nor held himself back, but exalted both himself and his soldiers. Reasonably so; for if, my good man, you take the goad out of the soul, you have done away with the provision for courage. And so examine me, and add still more: if, not being about to contend, but already embarked, contending, if at the very moment of need, if of the better part, if with the discourse seething, if first driven myself, then moving the many with the same goad—if I let fall these things for the sake of conversion and the common benefit of the hearers, which we praise even in prefaces and say is further needed in them. And if you find the things I say to be present, dare to say, "This man is not

mad without a god," but with Athena present, to whom the noblest part of self-control is consecrated. And you have surely heard Homer too speaking about combatants: "He raged as when spear-brandishing Ares, or destructive fire rages on the mountains in the thickets of a deep wood; and foam was about his mouth." And you know what follows upon this, that I may gratify you. "Yes, by Zeus, but this man is a barbarian, unable to restrain himself." And what shall we say of the other, the fairest of the Achaeans? Will you not recall how Homer arms him too, after the renouncing of the wrath? "And in the midst armed himself godlike Achilles; and there was a gnashing of his teeth; and his two eyes shone as it were the flame of fire; and into his heart sank unbearable grief; and he, raging against the Trojans, put on the gifts of the god." You see that Homer adds everything together to the man: the gnashing of teeth, fire in the eyes, anger against the enemy, grief over his misfortune, adornment for his fellow soldiers. The dancers of Enyo and Enyalius take their stand in this manner, unable to keep their minds still, and far less still keeping their hands still; and the lips too move with a strange motion, and every part of the body, and a wondrous blend holds them—of grief, anger, desire, calculation; and these men, even if they come to words, in the midst of their deeds say such things as "Come nearer" and "the sons of wretched men oppose my might." But the dancers of Hermes and the Muses, around whom Zeus, the king of gods, ordained that the beauties and daring of winged words should be—will you think fit that they display their own works gazing down at the earth like the Erembi, in no way differing from pack-asses, midway between the waking and the sleeping; or that they appear no whit duller than those possessed by the Corybantes or some other hot divinity, but that what happens moves together with the strain of the music? But of Diomedes you do not blame the helmet nor the shield, which sent forth fire, as Homer says, but you even wonder at it and make it the token of great things;

and the things to which the goddess from her very head sends up the fire, to these you do not even grant pardon? And of what battle will you say that so great a heat precedes it as that of living and true discourses? For the fire perhaps adorned everything in Darius's case, and the phrase suits a man of power no more than a wise man; but of discourses there is one source, the truly sacred and divine fire which is from Zeus, over which it is surely not possible to sleep for one initiated and borne into the midst. But you at that moment think fit to look to yourself and your own eyes, fearing like a child lest someone grunt something that will bring you some unpleasantness. And you set bounds not to a torrent, but to the Nile, and that when it has symmetry together with its greatness. Do you not know that, just as the arms from Hephaestus moved of themselves, that man made them so? And I think, too, that the arrows of Apollo themselves rang of their own accord, sharing his anger. So too in the contests concerning discourses about the gods, many such things, the discourses themselves moving of their own accord, become as it were carried off, and the discourse then provides a certain sound, necessary and consequent upon its rush, like some missile borne with a whir. I fear, then, that I am speaking to a deaf man, and in a way dancing out the mysteries, displaying the holy things to one uninitiated; nevertheless, as in a story, a secret word shall be spoken to those able to hear, but to you no more for that. For I say that whenever the light of the god comes round, and, as the saying is, flashes through a chariot—such chariots as the poets have given the Muses—and takes hold of the soul of the speaker, like some draught passing in from the springs of Apollo, at once it fills him with tension and heat together with good cheer, and lifts his eyes upward and parts his hair, and such a man—whether you wish to call him a chorus-dancer or a Bacchant—looks at nothing else, neither present nor absent, but only at

the discourses themselves and their stewards, like those who look to others holding out something to them, and that whenever they hold it forth from on high; and "he sent forth a word," he says, which, unspeakable, was not to be borne—for the occasion brings forth many things which no layman in such contests would conceive—and it is not possible, slackening one's mind nor subjecting oneself to the hearers, to preserve the goad of the discourses, which is fitting; but the heat alone, like some drug, escorts and steers the discourse, like a ship, and gives no place to opposing forces. But whenever this fails, the matter of the discourses ebbs away and the numbness prevails, and such an orator must needs be carried downward, chilled by his dullness, like some eagle slackening its wings. And I have a certain sacred discourse to relate to you, which I heard by night not long ago from one of the higher powers, of what kind the thing of divine madness is. The discourse ran somehow thus. "It is necessary," he said, "for the mind first to be moved from what is customary and common; and being moved and having looked beyond, to keep company with god and to surpass." "And neither," said the teacher, "is wonderful. For looking beyond the many, he keeps company with god; and having kept company with god, he surpasses." These things for you are records of the sacred night, as the poets call it—come through the gate of horn, more lustrous in truth than any ivory. So that, even if we could mention no one, of any single kind, who thought highly of himself, and even if such an experience of discourses were not necessary, but the god were now leading us into this, we would surely not make a misfortune of the first prizes. But you accuse the very token of the phrase. Or, by the gods, is not the best hearer the one who is very self-controlled, but the one who knows how to be moved best and who meets what is said; and the best orator not the hottest and the first to understand himself, but the one who is bested by his hearers, or needs to learn from them of what kind the things are that he says? Consider this too. For I say that, for the sake of the discourses themselves, there is often a necessity for him

who is purely simple and humane to let fall a word; otherwise, the things that ought not to escape the better sort escape the many. To give an example: there are beauties in discourses, and likewise in poetry, and certain forms both far from and near to one another, which it is not easy to grasp all at once, but each man, cutting off a part, gained renown in that respect; and Homer, if you please, I leave out of the account of poets. Whenever, then, a man makes it his ambition to go through all these noble things and to combine all the combinations about discourses, and first to render the characters fitting to the occasions, then the conjunctions—where precision is needed, there adding bloom; where elaboration, there speed; to the abundant, clarity; grace where there is solemnity, but where invention, there to manage; where daring, there security; and over all, ease and pace—and may it be granted me to know these things better than you and your like—then every hearer here grows dizzy and does not know what to be, but, as if encircled in a battle-line, they are thrown into confusion, and each, as he has of nature or ability, so he praises: one the precision of the diction, another the subtlety of the thought, another that it is beautiful. But the orator on their behalf bursts. What do you say? Do you not see the contest, not even from afar, but, while I pipe on each of the two pipes separately and use all the harmonies at once, you sit looking to the motion of some one of the fingers, just as if, in a lyre or a cithara, all being displayed together, you thought you heard the sound of a single string. The orator teaches you—for no other reason than that, preserving a certain divine trace in himself, and providing both for you and others, but most of all for the very nature of the discourses, so that their seeds, having come to knowledge, may be preserved so far as possible. This it is, O you who know my affairs but are ignorant of your own, which moved even me the other day. But you change the law and alter the order which nature has shown forth, not among men only, but among the other

animals as well; and this is, to listen to the better; and you think the eagle is able to move the same as the jackdaw, the eagle whose might, even while it is still approaching far off, is plain to those able to see and hear, as it cleaves the air, just as when sailors cleave the sea with the oar. And plain too is the lion roaring, what he will do, not to say tearing his prey. But you demand a horse's run, yet the shape of an ass's head—things that do not go together; and have you not heard of those, "and about his shoulders the mane streams, and he, trusting in his splendour, lightly his knees bear him to the haunts and pasture of horses"? For an ass it is enough to exult in being rid of his burden, which he carries about for his master's daily need, gathering more blows than steps. But indeed I was being carried off, as it were down a stream, by the discourse. I return, then, to that point, that you think fit to change the law of nature, which bids us endure the superiority of the better and live with reference to what leads. It is shameful for the general to look to the soldiers, but noble for the armies to look to the generals, as, I think, for the dancers to the leader, for the sailors to the helmsman, for the peoples to the ruler, for the hearers to the orator. If, then, you have been refashioned for us from a hearer into an orator, it is time for you to take the throne; but if, being small and getting small returns, you spend your time on these matters, I have nothing auspicious to bring against you; but I wish to examine at greater length what I said a little before, the matter of the motive, since you too would agree that most things are judged by this. For if I, for this reason—that I might either entice youths, or, deceiving certain luckless fathers, induce them to pay me fees—conducted these things so solemnly, and if not only the other day, but at any time whatever in all my life, overcome by any such thing, I have said or done anything at all, small or great, take it and use it as you wish; I do not deprecate it. But if, as the nature of the discourse worked and led me on, so I was disposed, and listened to my own discourses as to another's—or rather in this respect was altogether at a disadvantage and held back, not being able to revel and with security enjoy the

pleasure, as if the book were another's, nor would I have been ashamed to leap up—why, leaving aside the wondering at my self-control, do you accuse me of things that in no way concern me? I, then, will make an even further excess: let all these things be unspoken; can you, by the gods, say this—that I did nothing for the sake of any need, but vainly, by the custom of a sophist and out of empty vanity, dressed up these things and for the sake of show? Are not all men aware how far I am from these things? Is not our way wholly other? Do you not see that the discourses, out of what is possible, have come to the utmost of truth, and do you all not see that all our deliberation about them is, to the utmost of truth, for truth's sake? What motion of hands, or what twisting of lips, have I deliberately practised beyond the moderate? What grievous fashion of dress? As some have already hidden themselves in their cloaks, perhaps honouring themselves according to their worth; but I have not, although needing more covering than the many, yet I shunned this screen. But did I ever fashion any other such thing? Do I dance with both arms, as certain others do? Do any alien evils concern me? Have I come to such a point of leisure? But it is enough for me, if, busying myself about the very discourses and the necessary things, I am able to get through, adding to myself no imported evil. So, then, kindled by the discourse, I said these things. So that even if it is most true that one ought not to ramble, as you say, yet if from the rush of the discourse such a thing comes upon one, what is the use of impossible counsel? As if you should bid one snatched up by a wind on the sea to keep still and remain, speaking from the shore: "You see, I sit in silence." And you seem to me, according to the proverb, to accuse the man bitten by the viper, never having been bitten yourself. These things Philoctetes, the son of Poeas, would not have endured to hear from you. But perhaps you thought me one of those sophists whom the procurers admonish, and do well to do so. I, then, once saw a sophist in the middle of speaking led off by a procurer in such a way that

the procurer thought himself the better judge both of what that man should say and to what length—and the sophist himself agreed—rather than to confound everything together, that he might not incur ridicule. We, for our part, even when stricken in body, did not resort to ignoble supplications of physicians, but, although—be it said with the gods' favour—possessing the best of physicians as friends, we took refuge in the temple of Asclepius, thinking that whether we must be saved, it was finer through him; or whether it was not granted, that it was time to die. And my fellow students could tell of my nature. For even when I was a boy, if a teacher asked something I knew, and another got in first with the answer, I would no longer speak, that I might not seem to say another's words. And much the same is my case now in the temple of Asclepius. For the truth, at least, shall be told to you too; but to think it worse or better is permitted, as each man pleases. For so again, with the fellow students there, I both was and am disposed, that whoever does not rise to give me place, I am not vexed with him; but if he does rise, I would be ashamed not to yield him the place. But you, if you come here to rule, persuade these men that it befits you before us; but if you yield the leadership to another, remember the lines of Homer: "Dear sir, sit in silence, and obey my word," and "Thus let it be, great-hearted Trojans, as I declare," and "And Patroclus alone sat opposite him in silence"; and command, but not against the commander. For it is shameful for both, both for you and for the commander. And adding a little, I shall take my leave. And these things I deliberately drew out, not as though any one of them were not sufficient, but that you might know through how many proofs you are ignorant, and of how many you came in here unseeing and unhearing, like one altogether profane. Then, being yourself an initiate, do you examine the hierophant? And the newly initiated mystic is of less honour than the mystic of old, but you, now first being admitted among the mystics, do you judge the mystagogue? You seem to me to renew the ancient tale about Momus and

Aphrodite. For they say that she sat adorned, but Momus was bursting, having nothing to find fault with; and at last he kept off from her, but mocked her sandal. So that both things came about: neither did Aphrodite hear ill, nor did Momus speak well. And you, admiring the stage, blamed the wings of the stage, and, letting the discourses go, watched for the things let fall by the way. So far do you walk from the law. So that you may know, then, that even Solon, the most renowned of the lawgivers, lets things fall by the way, hear of him too. And yet to such a degree of daring and headstrongness has he advanced—for these are the names that fit him out of your accusation—that I rambled outside the book, and that drawn out by the discourse, whereas Solon deliberately made a book—as we did to Athena, so he to himself and his own polity—in which, among other things, he says these: "Some things beyond hope, with the gods' help, I accomplished, and others I did not do in vain." You see how headstrongly, and not according to your counsel? And these are in tetrameters; but in the iambics he would bear witness to these things in due season of time: "The greatest mother of the Olympian gods, best of all, the black Earth, from whom I once

removed the boundary-stones fixed in many places—she who before was enslaved, now is free. And many to Athens, their god-built fatherland, I brought back, men who had been sold, one unjustly, another justly, and others fleeing under the compulsion of necessity, no longer uttering an Attic tongue, as wandering far in many places; and others here at home holding shameful slavery and trembling at their masters' whims I made free. These things by power, fitting together force and justice, I wrought, and I went through them as I promised. And ordinances alike for the bad man and the good, fitting straight justice to each, I wrote. But another, taking the goad as I did, an ill-counselling and greedy man, would not have restrained his spirit." Suppose, then, that Solon too speaks on our behalf: another, bringing this goad into discourses, would not have brought in so much self-control. And you will refute me when you yourself, having acquired the same power of discourse—though I think it not easiest for you—are then seen thinking more moderately of yourself. But if you yourself, begging and at a loss for your daily bread and looking to two and three obols, make a charge against the king who writes, let it not be hindered even by the expense of gold and silver, saying that these things are haughtiness and a vaunt of words, you will be equally at a loss for both money and sense. Then what does Solon say? "For if I had wished what then pleased the opposing party, and again what their adversaries wished to do, this city would have been bereft of many men. Wherefore, defending myself on every side, I turned about like a wolf among many hounds." You see that Solon too adorns himself and thinks more highly of himself than you do. For he held, I think, that these encomia composed of himself would be profitable to others as examples. For this reason the man with his hand within his cloak lifts up his voice and adorns his own affairs justly. For he claimed, I think, to keep his hand within, but not his head down. Come, let me console you with another of the most famous, since you are more timid than is right, not to say more reckless. There is a hyperbole, in what he has said, of Solon's. For consider: "the place beyond the heavens neither has any poet here yet hymned worthily, nor will hymn it; but it is thus." You saw how he blew away all the malignant, writing freely about his own nature, and as was likely for one who would confirm the discourse in hand, that the inspiration of the better powers makes one think beyond the many. Or do these things seem to you to be on a par with those from the crossroads? Having completed, then, the discourse about love, what fair word about himself has he afterward left out, or what of the noblest things has he not said? First, that he sought the truth rightly, by knowing how to gather some things together and to cut others apart for the sake of the argument; then, that he arranged the discourse in order; and greatest of all, he thinks highly of his magnificence, so that he speaks while directly

attacking his adversary—unless indeed you are so very much a child as to think the words are Phaedrus's, and not that Plato makes Phaedrus speak the discourse: "I have long been admiring your discourse, how much finer you wrought it than the former, so that I fear lest Lysias appear lowly to me, if indeed he should be willing to stretch out another against it." And again, what will you say of this? "Ah, by how much more skilled in discourse than Lysias the son of Cephalus do you say the nymphs of Achelous and Pan the son of Hermes are." Do these things not seem to you to have been said by the man about himself with every encomium—unless indeed you have the ears of Midas, whose inscription he mocked, likening it to his comrade's discourse—and that according to nearly all the virtues? Necessarily he runs through these things about himself. For it belongs, I think, to a prudent and self-controlled man to know his worth, to a just man to render what is fitting both to himself and to others, and to a brave man not to fear to speak the truth. But he who, on the contrary, is indignant at all the opposites of these is reasonably held liable, until he show that the discourses are alien to the speaker and draw to themselves a greater reputation than the truth. Countless other things, then, I have to say, but I pass them over. But since I mentioned Solon and the things he discourses about his own polity, come, consider what this man too says in the very laws he laid down. And these things it befits a lawgiver to know rather than all the poets together. Does he not, then, seem to you outright to proclaim himself the first and wisest of all the poets? With a strong necessity, surely, this comes about thus. For when the very man who says he is a lawgiver, and the very man who says the poets must yield to the lawgiver, and all of them at that, how does it not end in what I foretold? Have you, then, considered through all these things how great is the distance between you and him in these matters? Either, then, accuse all the best among the Hellenes, or be gentler with us for the future—you who fear on my behalf, but do not consider on your own, and yourself claim to speak freely toward me out of goodwill, but do not allow me to speak freely toward these men

out of goodwill, and provide freedom of speech for yourself out of cowardice, but do not think it right that mine should be the upright and just freedom from high spirit. Further, then, I wish to mention one or two of the generals. For I think that Epaminondas' nature then conferred no slighter benefit on the city of the Thebans than you will say you have provided for your own. For apart from the defence I just mentioned, there is also another inscription proclaiming his character in the Peloponnese, which, by the gods, if someone should erase, would you not be vexed? I would be exceedingly so, I think, and others too of my sort, though not perhaps of yours. What, then, is this inscription that all sing? "By our counsels Sparta had her glory shorn, and Messene in time receives her sacred children." Correct this too, then, if you will, with your own discourses—that all know these things, but you must not grunt. They sing too a saying of Chabrias, spoken, it seems to me, after the sea-battle at Naxos—but if even before the battle, it is no worse. The man spoke darkly of himself; for he said that an army of deer led by a lion is more terrible than one of lions led by a deer. So it has been shown to you, through all—poets and orators and generals and all who are of any use among the Hellenes—that magnanimity is a necessary possession and, as it were, inborn in the better sort; and Demosthenes' saying is sound: "for of whatever kind men's pursuits are, of such a kind must their spirit be too." And yet it would be strange that in other things the spirit should arise according to the worth of one's possessions, but in matters concerning judgement itself and discourses it should not be so far more. For the spirit is nothing else than, as it were, a spring and starting-point for discourses, for one who has leisure to reckon about these things. And it seems to me, on the whole, that such a form of judgement is a token and as it were an image of the whole Hellenic character. For arts and the calculations of the hand, and all such things, one might believe arise among the barbarians too no worse; but the strength of soul and thinking with an unburdensome freedom was, then, an ancient

and peculiar good of the Hellenes. And I wonder how, being well fitted by nature for tutoring, you do not see those men who buy praise with money, not only in their displays, but also in the theatres. And yet what else do these seem to you to do than to praise themselves? And that too in ways one ought not, and in the manner least proper, and there is added the making of what exists less than it is, a kind of appendage to their folly. But I am more refined than these, if in nothing else, yet in this, it seems: for I think it right to praise myself for free, and that the things of which I am conscious; and that I do not do it often, these men are my witnesses. So that I display a token not so much of insensibility as of a certain wisdom. And that I do not lie, this you too agree. One thing remains for me to ask you. By the gods, if, while you were praying to the gods about children, someone should say to you that you will have them, and have them resembling this man both in spirit and in discourses—meaning me—would you not accept it? I think you would even run to it. Then, the very things which you yourself, if you chanced upon them, would think you had attained by prayer—these you reproach us with? And the things for which you would owe the gods gratitude—these you blamed in us? And you did not even honour the Persian and Laconian order of the trial, nor give the few things to the many and the lesser to the greater? If, then, we have made our defence to you with moderation, well; but if not, consider how you will deal with yourself. But you shall tutor us, neither you yourself nor any other man, not a single one; for the patron suffices.