[93]
And let no one suppose that I desire to conceal the fact that I have in some instances expressed myself in the same manner as upon a former occasion. For, coming to the same thoughts, I have preferred not to go through the effort of striving to phrase differently what has already been well expressed.1 It is true that if I were making an epideictic speech2 I should try to avoid scrupulously all such repetitions;
1 This apology is curious, since Greek orators habitually repeated identical passages in dealing with the same situations. Cf. Isoc. 15.74.
2 Cf. Isoc. 15.55. An “epideictic” speech was a lecture whose aim was to display the rhetorical powers of the speaker.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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