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And you must not depart to your homes as men who have merely listened to an oration; nay, those among you who are men of action must exhort one another to try to reconcile our city with Lacedaemon; and those among you who make claims to eloquence must stop composing orations on “deposits,”The translation is influenced by Professor Bonner’s note on τὴν παρακαταθήκην in Classical Philology, xv. p. 385. He argues convincingly that τὴν παρακαταθήκην is not a particular deposit but that the article is “generic, not specific.” Deposits entrusted by one man with another were rather common transactions before the days of banks and caused frequent lawsuits. Hence “the deposit theme” became a hackneyed exercise in the schools of rhetoric. It is, in the opinion of Isocrates, too commonplace and trivial for serious oratory. or on the other trivial themes“Humble bees and salt” are mentioned in Isoc. 10.12 as subjects on which speakers show off their powers to the neglect of worthy themes. In general, he seems here to be thinking of such rhetorical tours de force as Lucian caricatures in his Encomium on the House Fly. which now engage your efforts, and center your rivalry on this subject and study how you may surpass me in speaking on the same question,
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bearing ever in mind that it does not become men who promise great things to waste their time on little things,This very complaint he makes of his rival sophists. See Isoc. 13.1, 10. nor yet to make the kind of speeches which will improve no whit the lives of those whom they convince, but rather the kind which, if carried out in action, will both deliver the authors themselves from their present distressNot too urbanely he dwells upon the poverty of his rivals. Cf. Isoc. 13.4, 7. and win for them the credit of bringing to pass great blessings for the rest of the world.The kind of discourse to which Isocrates himself devoted his serious efforts. See Isoc. 12.11 and General Introd. p. xxiv.
