28
For I have now no longer any capacity for these things because of my years; it is enough for me if I can only set before you in a simple manner the actual facts. And I think it becomes you also to ignore all else and give your attention to the facts alone.
29
But you will be in the best position to discover with accuracy whether there is any truth in what I say if you put aside the prejudicesαἱ δυσχέρειαι may mean difficulties or disadvantages under which speeches labor which are composed for a reading public, or the prejudices against them caused by these disadvantages. The latter seems to be the sense here. See Benseler’s note. which are held against the sophists and against speeches which are composed to be read, and take them up one by one in your thought and scrutinize them, not making it a casual task, nor one to be attacked in a spirit of indifference, but with the close reasoning and love of knowledge which it is common report that you also share.“Isocrates addressed him (Philip) as a friend of letters and philosophy: a reputation which his choice of Aristotle as an instructor of his son, Alexander, tends to bear out” (Grote, Hist. xi. p. 325). For if you will conduct your inquiry with these aids instead of relying upon the opinion of the masses, you will form a sounder judgement about such discourses.
30
This, then, completes what I wanted to say by way of introduction. I shall now proceed with the subject in hand. I affirm that, without neglecting any of your own interests, you ought to make an effort to reconcile Argos and Lacedaemon and Thebes and Athens;The leading states. Cf. Isoc. 4.64. for if you can bring these cities together, you will not find it hard to unite the others as well;
