s:--"At present, O Phaedrus, Isocrates is quite a young man; but
still I delight in telling the expectations which I have of him."
"What are they?" says he. "He appears to me to be a man of too lofty
a genius to be compared to Lysias and his orations: besides, he has a
greater natural disposition for virtue; so that it will not be at all
strange if, when he has advanced in age, he will either surpass all
his contemporaries who turn their attention to eloquence, and in this
kind of oratory, to the study of which he is at present devoted, as if
they were only boys; or, if he is not content with such a victory, he
will then feel some sort of divine inspiration prompting him to desire
greater things. For there is a deep philosophy implanted by nature
in this man's mind." This was the augury which Socrates forms of him
while a young man. But Plato writes it of him when he has become an
old man, and when he is his contemporary, and a sort of attacker of
all the rhetoricians. And Isocrates is the only one whom he admires.
And let those men who are not fond of Isocrates allow me to remain in
error in the company of Socrates and Plato.

That then is a delightful kind of oratory, free, fluent, shrewd in
its sentiments, sweet sounding in its periods, which is found in that
demonstrative kind of speaking which we have mentioned. It is the
peculiar style of sophists; more suitable for display than for actual
contest; appropriate to schools and exhibitions; but despised in and
driven from the forum. But because eloquence is first of all trained
by this sort of food, and afterwards gives itself a proper colour and
strength, it appeared not foreign to our subject to speak of what is
as it were the cradle of an orator. However, all this belongs to the
schools, and to display: let us now descend into the battle-field and
to the actual struggle.

XIV. As there are three things which the orator has to consider; what
he is saying; and in what place, and in what manner he is saying each
separate thing; it seems on all accounts desirable to explain what is
best as to each separate subject, though in rather a different
manner from that in which it is usually explained in laying down the
principles of the science. We will give no regular rules, (for that
task we have not undertaken,) but we will present an outline and
sketch of perfect eloquence; nor will we occupy ourselves in
explaining by what means it is acquired, but only what sort of thi