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‘The introductions in the epideictic branch are derived from praise and blame (naturally: see 1 3 §§ 3, 4); as, for instance, Gorgias' opening of his Olympic oration (a πανηγυρικὸς λόγος, delivered at the Olympic games), “By many’ (or ὑπέρ, ‘for many things’; which seems more in accordance with what followed) ‘are ye worthy to be admired, O men of Hellas”: that is to say (γάρ videlicet) he praises those who first brought together the general assemblies’. Comp. Quint. III 8. 9, (continuation of the preceding quotation) et Gorgias in Olympico laudans eos qui primi tales instituerunt conventus (translated from Ar.). Another short fragment of this oration is preserved by Philostr. Vit. Soph. 1 9. Ὁ δὲ Ὀλυμπικὸς λόγος, says Philostratus, ὑπὲρ τοῦ μεγίστου αὐτῷ (Gorgiae) ἐπολιτεύθη: στασιάζουσαν γὰρ τὴν Ἑλλάδα ὁρῶν ὁμονοίας ξύμβουλος αὐτοῖς ἐγένετο τρέπων ἐπὶ τοὺς βαρβάρους καὶ πείθων ἆθλα ποιεῖσθαι τῶν ὅπλων μὴ τὰς ἀλλήλων πόλεις ἀλλὰ τὴν τῶν βαρβάρων χώραν. The rest of his fragments, genuine and spurious, are collected by Sauppe Or. Att. III 129, seq. [See also Appendix to Thompson's ed. of the Gorgias.] Hieronymus adv. Iovin. (quoted by Wyttenbach on Plut. 144 B), “Gorgias rhetor librum pulcerrimum de concordia, Graecis tunc inter se dissidentibus, recitavit Olympiae.” Isocr., Panegyr. § 3, after stating the nature of the contents of his own speech, adds, in allusion to this, with others, οὐκ ἀγνοῶν ὅτι πολλοὶ τῶν προσποιουμένων εἶναι σοφιστῶν ἐπὶ τοῦτον τὸν λόγον ὥρμησαν. ‘But Isocrates blames them for that bodily excellences they rewarded with gifts, whilst to intellectual excellence they awarded no prize’. This is the substance of the two first sections of Isocr. Paneg. Mr Sandys, in his note ad locum, gives a summary of the whole exordium §§ 1—14. Victorius points out this as one of the places in which Aristotle's hostility to Isocrates appears! The problem here proposed by Isocr.—the omission of the institution of prizes for intellectual competition—is solved by Arist., Probl. XXX 11.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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