lled through the cities of Greece speaking on
subjects which pleased their fancy. Sometimes they gave lectures, as
we should say.

The oldest orators spoke simply, limiting themselves to an account of
the facts without oratorical flourishes; on the platform they were
almost rigid without loud speaking or gesticulation. Pericles
delivered his orations with a calm air, so quietly, indeed, that no
fold of his mantle was disturbed. When he appeared at the tribune,
his head, according to custom, crowned with leaves, he might have been
taken, said the people, "for a god of Olympus." But the orators who
followed wished to move the public. They assumed an animated style,
pacing the tribune in a declamatory and agitated manner. The people
became accustomed to this form of eloquence. The first time that
Demosthenes came to the tribune the assembly shouted with laughter;
the orator could not enunciate, he carried himself ill. He disciplined
himself in declamation and gesture and became the favorite of the
people. Later when he was asked what was the first quality of the
orator, he replied, "Action, and the second, action, and the third,
action." Action, that is delivery, was more to the Greeks than the
sense of the discourse.

=The Sages.=--For some centuries there had been, especially among the
Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were
called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They
busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet
science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh
century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece.

=The Sophists.=--About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men
who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged
fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion,
customs, and institutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not
founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything
with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can
know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: "Nothing
exists," said one of them, "and if it did exist, we could not know
it." These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them
were at the same time orators.

=Socrates and the Philosophers.=--Socrates, an old man of Athens,
undertook to combat the sophists. He was a poor man, ugly, and without
eloquence. He opened no school like the sophists but