Isocrates, Panathenaicus
George Norlin, Ed.

But perhaps some may object—for nothing prevents breaking into my discourse—that it is absurd for me to presume to speak as though I had exact knowledge of events at which I was not present when they transpired. I, however, do not see anything unreasonable in this. I grant that if I were alone in relying on traditions regarding what happened long ago or upon records which have been handed down to us from those times I should with good reason be open to attack. But in fact many men—and men of discernment, too—will be seen to be in the same case with me.