Isocrates, Panathenaicus
George Norlin, Ed.

“At the first, then, so it appears to me, this was the manner in which you reviewed and thought upon your problem. But since you knew that you had praised the government of the Spartans more than any other man,¹ you feared lest you might impress those who had heard this praise as no different from the orators who speak without conviction or principle, if, that is to say, you censured on the present occasion those whom you formerly were wont to praise above all others. Pondering this difficulty, you proceeded to study in what light you could represent each of these two cities in order that you might seem to speak the truth about them both and that you might be able to praise your ancestors, just as you purposed to do, and at the same time to appear to be censuring the Spartans in the eyes of those who have no liking for them, while in reality doing nothing of the sort but covertly praising them instead.