[3]
Yet I have not on this account lost heart nor chosen to abate my labors; on the contrary, believing that I shall have a sufficient reward in the approbation which my discourse will itself command, I have come before you to give my counsels on the war against the barbarians and on concord among ourselves. I am, in truth, not unaware that many of those who have claimed to be sophists1
1 For the meaning of the word “sophist” see General Introd. p. xii. The word is commonly translated “orator,” since the sophists concerned themselves mainly with exemplifying and teaching oratory; but the sophist speaks only on the lecture platform; the political orator is called a “rhetor” in Isocrates. Gorgias and Lysias in their Olympic orations had spoken on this theme, but it is hardly probable that Isocrates had them particularly in mind in this patronizing remark.
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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