This text is part of:
[11]
And so although Lysias, who
was accounted the first orator of that time, offered
him a written defence, he refused to make use of
it, since, though he recognised its excellence, he
regarded it as unbecoming to himself. This instance alone shows that the end which the orator
must keep in view is not persuasion, but speaking
well, since there are occasions when to persuade
would be a blot upon his honour. The line adopted
by Socrates was useless to secure his acquittal, but
was of real service to him as a man; and that is by
far the greater consideration.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.