other men, while he has the testimony of Plato to pride himself on.  For, as you know, Socrates is introduced in almost the last page of the Phaedrus speaking in these words:—­“At present, O Phaedrus, Isocrates is quite a young man; but still I delight in telling the expectations which I have of him.”  “What are they?” says he.  “He appears to me to be a man of too lofty a genius to be compared to Lysias and his orations:  besides, he has a greater natural disposition for virtue; so that it will not be at all strange if, when he has advanced in age, he will either surpass all his contemporaries who turn their attention to eloquence, and in this kind of oratory, to the study of which he is at present devoted, as if they were only boys; or, if he is not content with such a victory, he will then feel some sort of divine inspiration prompting him to desire greater things.  For there is a deep philosophy implanted by nature in this man’s mind.”  This was the augury which Socrates forms of him while a young man.  But Plato writes it of him when he has become an old man, and when he is his contemporary, and a sort of attacker of all the rhetoricians.  And Isocrates is the only one whom he admires.  And let those men who are not fond of Isocrates allow me to remain in error in the company of Socrates and Plato.

That then is a delightful kind of oratory, free, fluent, shrewd in its sentiments, sweet sounding in its periods, which is found in that demonstrative kind of speaking which we have mentioned.  It is the peculiar style of sophists; more suitable for display than for actual contest; appropriate to schools and exhibitions; but despised in and driven from the forum.  But because eloquence is first of all trained by this sort of food, and afterwards gives itself a proper colour and strength, it appeared not foreign to our subject to speak of what is as it were the cradle of an orator.  However, all this belongs to the schools, and to display:  let us now descend into the battle-field and to the actual struggle.

XIV.  As there are three things which the orator has to consider; what he is saying; and in what place, and in what manner he is saying each separate thing; it seems on all accounts desirable to explain what is best as to each separate subject, though in rather a different manner from that in which it is usually explained in laying down the principles of the science.  We will give no regular rules, (for that task we have not undertaken,) but we will present an outline and sketch of perfect eloquence; nor will we occupy ourselves in explaining by what means it is acquired, but only what sort of thing it appears to us to be.