an extent as to be allowed to exercise in the
palaestra, but not to be entitled to the crown at the Olympic games.
For the athletes, who are free from defects, are not content as it
were with good health, but seek to produce strength and muscles and
blood, and a certain agreeableness of complexion; let us imitate them,
if we can; and if we cannot do so wholly, at least let us select as
our models those who enjoy unimpaired health, (which is peculiar to
the Attic orators,) rather than those whose abundance is vicious, of
whom Asia has produced numbers. And in doing this (if at least we can
manage even this, for it is a mighty undertaking) let us imitate, if
we can, Lysias, and especially his simplicity of style: for in many
places he rises to grandeur. But because he wrote speeches for many
private causes, and those too for others, and on very trifling
subjects, he appears to be somewhat simple, because he has designedly
filed himself down to the standard of the inconsiderable causes which
he was pleading.

IV. And a man who acts in this way, even if he be not able to turn out
a vigorous speaker as he wishes, may still deserve to be accounted an
orator, though an inferior one; but even a great orator must often
also speak in the same manner in causes of that kind. And in this way
it happens that Demosthenes is at times able to speak with simplicity,
though perhaps Lysias may not be able to arrive at grandeur. But if
men think that, when an army was marshalled in the forum and in all
the temples round the forum, it was possible to speak in defence of
Milo, as if we had been speaking in a private cause before a single
judge, they measure the power of eloquence by their own estimate of
their own ability, and not by the nature of the case. Wherefore, since
some people have got into a way of repeating that they themselves do
speak in an Attic manner, and others that none of us do so; the one
class we may neglect, for the facts themselves are a sufficient answer
to these men, since they are either not employed in causes, or when
they are employed they are laughed at; for if the laughter which
they excite were in approbation of them, that very fact would be a
characteristic of Attic speakers. But those who will not admit that we
speak in the Attic manner, but yet profess that they themselves are
not orators; if they have good ears and an intelligent judgment, may
still be consulted by us, as one respecting the character of a pi