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Having pondered on these matters and come to the conclusion that there could never be found a subject nobler than this, of more general appeal, or of greater profit to us all, I was moved to write upon it a second time. Yet I did not fail to appreciate my own deficiencies; I knew that this theme called for a man, not of my years, but in the full bloom of his vigor and with natural endowments far above those of other men;
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and I realized also that it is difficult to deliver two discourses with tolerable success upon the same subject, especially when the one which was first published was so written that even my detractors imitate and admire it more than do those who praise it to excess.
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Nevertheless, disregarding all these difficulties, I have become so ambitious in my old age that I have determined by addressing my discourse to you at the same time to set an example to my disciples and make it evident to them that to burden our national assemblies with oratory and to address all the people who there throng together is, in reality, to address no one at all;The same sentiment is expressed in Isoc. Letter 1.6-7. See General Introd. pp. xxxvi. ff. that such speeches are quite as ineffectual as the legal codes and constitutionsPossibly a disparagement of Plato’s Republic and Laws (see Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, ii. p. 4), but more probably of Isocrates’ unfriendly rival, Antisthenes, who, according to Diog. Laert. 6.1.16, wrote a work On Law, or the Constitution of a State. drawn up by the sophists;
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and, finally, that those who desire, not to chatter empty nonsense, but to further some practical purpose, and those who think they have hit upon some plan for the common good, must leave it to others to harangue at the public festivals, but must themselves win over someone to champion their cause from among men who are capable not only of speech but of action and who occupy a high position in the world—if, that is to say, they are to command any attention.
