48 Pontianus, one of the speakers in Athenæus (xi. 504), touches upon some points of this comparison, with a view of illustrating the real or supposed enmity between Plato and Xenophon; an enmity not in itself improbable, yet not sufficiently proved.
Athenæus had before him the Symposion of Epikurus (not preserved) as well as those of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle (xv. 674); and we learn from him some of its distinctive points. Masurius (the speaker in Athenæus, v. init.) while he recognises in the Symposia of Xenophon and Plato a dramatic variety of characters and smartness — finds fault with both, but especially with Plato, for levity, rudeness, indecency, vulgarity, sneering, &c. The talk was almost entirety upon love and joviality. In the Symposion of Epikurus, on the contrary, nothing was said about these topics; the guests were fewer, the conversation was grave and dull, upon dry topics of science, such as the atomic theory (προφήτας ἀτόμων, v. 3, 187 B, 177 B. Ἐπίκουρος δὲ συμπόσιον φιλοσόφων μόνον πεποίηται), and even upon bodily ailments, such as indigestion or fever (187 C). The philosophers present were made by Epikurus to carry on their debate in so friendly a spirit, that the critic calls them “flatterers praising each other”; while he terms the Platonic guests “sneerers insulting each other” (μυκτηριστῶν ἀλλήλους τωθαζόντων, 182 A), though this is much more true about the Xenophontic Symposion than about the Platonic. He remarks farther that the Symposion of Epikurus included no libation or offering to the Gods (179 D).
It is curious to note these peculiarities in the compositions (now lost) of a philosopher like Epikurus, whom many historians of philosophy represent as thinking about nothing but convivial and sexual pleasure.
49 Xenophon, Sympos. vii. 1; ii. 18-19. προγάστωρ, &c.
50 The taunt ascribed to the jester Philippus, about the cowardice of the demagogue Peisander, is completely Aristophanic, ii. 14; also that of Antisthenes respecting the bad temper of Xanthippê, ii. 10; and the caricature of the movements of the ὀρχηστρὶς by Philippus, ii. 21. Compare also iii. 11.
51 Xen. Symp. c. 4-5.
52 Xen. Symp. vi. Αὐτὴ μὲν ἡ παροινία οὕτω κατεσβέσθη, vii. 1-5.
Epiktêtus insists upon this feature in the character of Sokrates — his patience and power of soothing angry men (ii. 12-14).
Small proportion of the serious, in the Xenophontic Symposion.
Though the Xenophontic Symposion is declared to be an alternate mixture of banter and seriousness,53 yet the only long serious argument or lecture delivered is by Sokrates; in which he pronounces a professed panegyric upon Eros, but at the same time pointedly distinguishes the sentimental from the sensual. He denounces the latter, and confines his panegyric to the former — selecting Kallias and Autolykus as honourable examples of it.54
53 Xen. Symp. iv. 28. ἀναμὶξ ἐσκωψάν τε καὶ ἐσπούδασαν, viii. 41.
54 Xen. Symp. viii. 24. The argument against the sensual is enforced with so much warmth that Sokrates is made to advert to the fact of his being elate with wine — ὅ τε γὰρ οἶνος συνεπαίρει, καὶ ὁ ἀεὶ σύνοικος ἐμοὶ ἔρως κεντρίζει εἰς τὸν ἀντίπαλον ἔρωτα αὐτοῦ παῤῥησιάζεσθαι.
The contrast between the customs of the Thebans and Eleians, and those of the Lacedæmonians, is again noted by Xenophon, Rep. Laced. ii. 13. Plato puts (Symp. 182) a like contrast into the mouth of Pausanias, assimilating the customs of Athens in this respect to those of Sparta. The comparison between Plato and Xenophon is here curious; we see how much more copious and inventive is the reasoning of Plato.
The Xenophontic Symposion closes with a pantomimic scene of Dionysus and Ariadnê as lovers represented (at the instance of Sokrates) by the Syracusan ballet-master and his staff. This is described as an exciting spectacle to most of the hearers, married as well as unmarried, who retire with agreeable emotions. Sokrates himself departs with Lykon and Kallias, to be present at the exercise of Autolykus.55
55 Xen. Symp. viii. 5, ix. 7. The close of the Xenophontic Symposion is, to a great degree, in harmony with modern sentiment, though what is there expressed would probably be left to be understood. The Platonic Symposion departs altogether from that sentiment.
Platonic Symposion more ideal and transcendental than the Xenophontic.
We see thus that the Platonic Symposion is much more ideal, and departs farther from common practice and sentiment, than the Xenophontic. It discards all the common accessories of a banquet (musical or dancing artists), and throws the guests altogether upon their own powers of rhetoric and dialectic, for amusement. If we go through the different encomiums upon Eros, by Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Diotima — we shall appreciate the many-coloured forms and exuberance of the Platonic imagination, as compared with the more restricted range and common-place practical sense of Xenophon.56 All the Platonic speakers are accomplished persons — a man of letters, a physician, two successful poets, a prophetess: the Xenophontic personages, except Sokrates and Antisthenes, are persons of ordinary capacity. The Platonic Symposion, after presenting Eros in five different points of view, gives pre-eminence and emphasis to a sixth, in which Eros is regarded as the privileged minister and conductor to the mysteries of philosophy, both the lowest and the highest: the Xenophontic Symposion dwells upon one view only of Eros (developed by Sokrates) and cites Kallias as example of it, making no mention of philosophy. The Platonic Symposion exalts Sokrates, as the representative of Eros Philosophus, to a pinnacle of elevation which places him above human fears and weaknesses57 — coupled however with that eccentricity which makes the vulgar regard a philosopher as out of his mind: the Xenophontic Symposion presents him only as a cheerful, amiable companion, advising temperance, yet enjoying a convivial hour, and contributing more than any one else to the general hilarity.
56 The difference between the two coincides very much with that which is drawn by Plato himself in the Phædrus — θεία μανία as contrasted with σωφροσύνη θνητὴ (p. 256 E). Compare Athenæus, v. 187 B.
57 Plato, Phædrus, p. 249 D. νουθετεῖται μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ὡς παρακινῶν, ἐνθουσιάζων δὲ λέληθε τοὺς πολλοὺς.… αἰτίαν ἔχει ὡς μανικῶς διακείμενος.
Such are the points of comparison which present themselves between the same subject as handled by these two eminent contemporaries, both of them companions, and admirers of Sokrates: and each handling it in his own manner.58
58 Which of these two Symposia was the latest in date of composition we cannot determine with certainty: though it seems certain that the latest of the two was not composed in imitation of the earliest.
From the allusion to the διοίκισις of Mantineia (p. 193 A) we know that the Platonic Symposion must have been composed after 385 B.C.: there is great probability also, though not full certainty, that it was composed during the time when Mantineia was still an aggregate of separate villages and not a town — that is, between 385-370 B.C., in which latter year Mantineia was re-established as a city. The Xenophontic Symposion affords no mark of date of composition: Xenophon reports it as having been himself present. It does indeed contain, in the speech delivered by Sokrates (viii. 32), an allusion to, and a criticism upon, an opinion supported by Pausanias ὁ Ἀγάθωνος τοῦ ποιητοῦ ἐραστής, who discourses in the Platonic Symposion: and several critics think that this is an allusion by Xenophon to the Platonic Symposion. I think this opinion improbable. It would require us to suppose that Xenophon is inaccurate, since the opinion which he ascribes to Pausanias is not delivered by Pausanias in the Platonic Symposion, but by Phædrus. Athenæus (v. 216) remarks that the opinion is not delivered by Pausanias, but he does not mention that it is delivered by Phædrus. He remarks that there was no known written composition of Pausanias himself: and he seems to suppose that Xenophon must have alluded to the Platonic Symposion, but that he quoted it inaccurately or out of another version of it, different from what we now read. Athenæus wastes reasoning in proving that the conversation described in the Platonic Symposion cannot have really occurred at the time to which Plato assigns it. This is unimportant: the speeches are doubtless all composed by Plato. If Athenæus was anxious to prove anachronism against Plato, I am surprised that he did not notice that of the διοίκισις of Mantineia mentioned in a conversation supposed to have taken place in the presence of Sokrates, who died in 399 B.C.
I incline to believe that the allusion of Xenophon is not intended to apply to the Symposion of Plato. Xenophon ascribes one opinion to Pausanias, Plato ascribes another; this is noway inconceivable. I therefore remain in doubt whether the Xenophontic or the Platonic Symposion is earliest. Compare the Præf. of Schneider to the former, pp. 140-143.
Second half of the Phædrus — passes into a debate on Rhetoric. Eros is considered as a subject for rhetorical exercise.
I have already stated that the first half of the Phædrus differs materially from the second; and that its three discourses on the subject of Eros (the first two depreciating Eros, the third being an effusion of high-flown and poetical panegyric on the same theme) may be better understood by being looked at in conjunction with the Symposion. The second half of the Phædrus passes into a different discussion, criticising the discourse of Lysias as a rhetorical composition: examining the principles upon which the teaching of Rhetoric as an Art either is founded, or ought to be founded: and estimating the efficacy of written discourse generally, as a means of working upon or instructing other minds.
Lysias is called a logographer by active politicians. Contempt conveyed by the word. Sokrates declares that the only question is, Whether a man writes well or ill.
I heard one of our active political citizens (says Phædrus) severely denounce Lysias, and fasten upon him with contempt, many times over, the title of a logographer. Active politicians will not consent to compose and leave behind them written discourses, for fear of being called Sophists.59 To write discourses (replies Sokrates) is noway discreditable: the real question is, whether he writes them well.60 And the same question is the only one proper to be asked about other writers on all subjects — public or private, in prose or in verse. How to speak well, and how to write well — is the problem.61 Is there any art or systematic method, capable of being laid down beforehand and defended upon principle, for accomplishing the object well? Or does a man succeed only by unsystematic knack or practice, such as he can neither realise distinctly to his own consciousness, nor describe to others?
59 Plato, Phædrus, p. 257 C.
60 Plato, Phædrus, pp. 257 E, 258 D.
The two appellations — λογογράφος and σοφιστής — are here coupled together as terms of reproach, just as they stand coupled in Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 417. It is plain that both appellations acquired their discreditable import mainly from the collateral circumstance that the persons so denominated took money for their compositions or teaching. The λογογράφος wrote for pay, and on behalf of any client who could pay him. In the strict etymological sense, neither of the two terms would imply any reproach.
Yet Plato, in this dialogue, when he is discussing the worth of the reproachful imputation fastened on Lysias, takes the term λογογράφος only in this etymological, literal sense, omitting to notice the collateral association which really gave point to it and made it serve the purpose of a hostile speaker. This is the more remarkable, because we find Plato multiplying opportunities, even on unsuitable occasions, of taunting the Sophists with the fact that they took money. Here in the Phædrus, we should have expected that if he noticed the imputation at all, he would notice it in the sense intended by the speaker. In this sense, indeed, it would not have suited the purpose of his argument, since he wishes to make it an introduction to a philosophical estimate of the value of writing as a means of instruction.
Heindorf observes, that Plato has used a similar liberty in comparing the λογογράφος to the proposer of a law or decree. “Igitur, quum solemne legum initium ejusmodi esset, ἔδοξε τῇ βουλῇ, &c., Plato aliter longé quam vulgo acciperetur, neque sine calumniâ quâdam, interpretatus est” (ad p. 258).
61 Plato, Phædrus, p. 259 E. ὅπῃ καλῶς ἔχει λέγειν τε καὶ γράφειν, καὶ ὅπῃ μή, σκεπτέον. — p. 258 D. τίς ὁ τρόπος τοῦ καλῶς τε καὶ μὴ γράφειν.
Question about teaching the art of writing well or speaking well. Can it be taught upon system or principle? Or does the successful Rhetor succeed only by unsystematic knack?.
First let us ask — When an orator addresses himself to a listening crowd upon the common themes — Good and Evil, Just and Unjust — is it necessary that he should know what is really and truly good and evil, just and unjust? Most rhetorical teachers affirm, that it is enough if he knows what the audience or the people generally believe to be so: and that to that standard he must accommodate himself, if he wishes to persuade.62
62 Plato, Phædrus, p. 260 A.
Theory of Sokrates — that all art of persuasion must be founded upon a knowledge of the truth, and of gradations of resemblance to the truth.
He may persuade the people under these circumstances (replies Sokrates), but if he does so, it will be to their misfortune and to his own. He ought to know the real truth — not merely what the public whom he addresses believe to be the truth — respecting just and unjust, good and evil, &c. There can be no genuine art of speaking, which is not founded upon knowledge of the truth, and upon adequate philosophical comprehension of the subject-matter.63 The rhetorical teachers take too narrow a view of rhetoric, when they confine it to public harangues addressed to the assembly or to the Dikastery. Rhetoric embraces all guidance of the mind through words, whether in public harangue or private conversation, on matters important or trivial. Whether it be a controversy between two litigants in a Dikastery, causing the Dikasts to regard the same matters now as being just and good, presently as being unjust and evil: or between two dialecticians like Zeno, who could make his hearers view the same subjects as being both like and unlike — both one and many — both in motion and at rest: in either case the art (if there be any art) and its principles are the same. You ought to assimilate every thing to every thing, in all cases where assimilation is possible: if your adversary assimilates in like manner, concealing the process from his hearers, you must convict and expose his proceedings. Now the possibility or facility of deception in this way will depend upon the extent of likeness between things. If there be much real likeness, deception is easy, and one of them may easily be passed off as the other: if there be little likeness, deception will be difficult. An extensive acquaintance with the real resemblances of things, or in other words with truth, constitutes the necessary basis on which all oratorical art must proceed.64
63 Plato, Phædrus, pp. 260-261.
64 Plato, Phædrus, p. 262.
Comparison made by Sokrates between the discourse of Lysias and his own. Eros is differently understood: Sokrates defined what he meant by it: Lysias did not define.
Sokrates then compares the oration of Lysias with his own two orations (the first depreciating, the second extolling, Eros) in the point of view of art; to see how far they are artistically constructed. Among the matters of discourse, there are some on which all men are agreed, and on which therefore the speaker may assume established unanimity in his audience: there are others on which great dissension and discord prevail. Among the latter (the topics of dissension), questions about just and unjust, good and evil, stand foremost:65 it is upon these that deception is most easy, and rhetorical skill most efficacious. Accordingly, an orator should begin by understanding to which of these two categories the topic which he handles belongs: If it belongs to the second category (those liable to dissension) he ought, at the outset, to define what he himself means by it, and what he intends the audience to understand. Now Eros is a topic on which great dissension prevails. It ought therefore to have been defined at the commencement of the discourse. This Sokrates in his discourse has done: but Lysias has omitted to do it, and has assumed Eros to be obviously and unanimously apprehended by every one. Besides, the successive points in the discourse of Lysias do not hang together by any thread of necessary connection, as they ought to do, if the discourse were put together according to rule.66
65 Plato, Phædrus, p. 263 B. Compare Plato, Alkibiad. i. p. 109.
66 Plato, Phædrus, pp. 263-265.
Logical processes — Definition and Division — both of them exemplified in the two discourses of Sokrates.
Farthermore, in the two discourses of Sokrates, not merely was the process of logical definition exemplified in the case of Eros — but also the process of logical division, in the case of Madness or Irrationality. This last extensive genus was divided first into two species — Madness, from human distemper — Madness, from divine inspiration, carrying a man out of the customary orthodoxy.67 Next, this last species was again divided into four branches or sub-species, according to the God from whom the inspiration proceeded, and according to the character of the inspiration — the prophetic, emanating from Apollo — the ritual or mystic, from Dionysus — the poetic, from the Muses — the amatory, from Eros and Aphroditê.68 Now both these processes, definition and division, are familiar to the true dialectician or philosopher: but they are not less essential in rhetoric also, if the process is performed with genuine art. The speaker ought to embrace in his view many particular cases, to gather together what is common to all, and to combine them into one generic concept, which is to be embodied in words as the definition. He ought also to perform the counter-process: to divide the genus not into parts arbitrary and incoherent (like a bad cook cutting up an animal without regard to the joints) but into legitimate species;69 each founded on some positive and assignable characteristic. “It is these divisions and combinations (says Sokrates) to which I am devotedly attached, in order that I may become competent for thought and discourse: and if there be any one else whom I consider capable of thus contemplating the One and the Many as they stand in nature — I follow in the footsteps of that man as in those of a God. I call such a man, rightly or wrongly, a Dialectician.”70
67 Plato, Phædrus, p. 265 A. ὑπὸ θείας ἐξαλλαγῆς τῶν εἰωθότων νομίμων.
68 Plato, Phædrus, p. 265.
69 Plato, Phædrus, pp. 265-266. 265 D: εἰς μίαν τε ἰδέαν συνορῶντα ἄγειν τὰ πολλαχῆ διεσπαρμένα, ἵν’ ἕκαστον ὁριζόμενος δῆλον ποῖῃ περὶ οὗ ἂν ἀεὶ διδάσκειν ἐθέλῃ. 265 E: τὸ πάλιν κατ’ εἴδη δύνασθαι τέμνειν κατ’ ἄρθρα, ᾗ πέφυκε, καὶ μὴ ἐπιχειρεῖν καταγνύναι μέρος μηδέν, κακοῦ μαγείρου τρόπῳ χρώμενον.
Seneca, Epist. 89, p. 395, ed. Gronov. “Faciam ergo quod exigis, et philosophiam in partes, non in frusta, dividam. Dividi enim illam, non concidi, utile est.”
70 Plato, Phædrus, p. 266 B. Τούτων δὴ ἔγωγε αὐτός τε ἐραστής, ὦ Φαῖδρε, τῶν διαιρέσεων καὶ συναγωγῶν, ἵν’ οἷός τε ὦ λέγειν τε καὶ φρονεῖν· ἐάν τέ τιν’ ἄλλον ἡγήσωμαι δυνατὸν εἰς ἓν καὶ ἐπὶ πολλὰ πεφυκὸς ὁρᾷν, τοῦτον διώκω κατόπισθε μετ’ ἴχνιον ὥστε θεοῖο. καὶ μέντοι καὶ τοὺς δυναμένους αὐτὸ δρᾷν εἰ μὲν ὀρθῶς ἢ μὴ προσαγορεύω, θεὸς οἶδε· καλῶ δὲ οὖν μέχρι τοῦδε διαλεκτικούς.
This is Dialectic (replies Phædrus); but it is not Rhetoric, as Thrasymachus and other professors teach the art.
View of Sokrates — that there is no real Art of Rhetoric, except what is already comprised in Dialectic — The rhetorical teaching is empty and useless.
What else is there worth having (says Sokrates), which these professors teach? The order and distribution of a discourse: first, the exordium, then recital, proof, second proof, refutation, recapitulation at the close: advice how to introduce maxims or similes: receipts for moving the anger or compassion of the dikasts. Such teaching doubtless enables a speaker to produce considerable effect upon popular assemblies:71 but it is not the art of rhetoric. It is an assemblage of preliminary accomplishments, necessary before a man can acquire the art: but it is not the art itself. You must know when, how far, in what cases, and towards what persons, to employ these accomplishments:72 otherwise you have not learnt the art of rhetoric. You may just as well consider yourself a physician because you know how to bring about vomit and purging — or a musician, because you know how to wind up or unwind the chords of your lyre. These teachers mistake the preliminaries or antecedents of the art, for the art itself. It is in the right, measured, seasonable, combination and application of these preliminaries, in different doses adapted to each special matter and audience — that the art of rhetoric consists. And this is precisely the thing which the teacher does not teach, but supposes the learner to acquire for himself.73
71 Plato, Phædrus, pp. 267-268.
72 Plato, Phædrus, p. 268 B. ἐρέσθαι εἰ προσεπίσταται καὶ οὑστίνας δεῖ καὶ ὁπότε ἕκαστα τούτων ποιεῖν, καὶ μέχρι ὁπόσου;
73 Plato, Phædrus, p. 269.
What the Art of Rhetoric ought to be — Analogy of Hippokrates and the medical Art.
The true art of rhetoric (continues Sokrates) embraces a larger range than these teachers imagine. It deals with mind, as the medical researches of Hippokrates deal with body — as a generic total with all its species and varieties, and as essentially relative to the totality of external circumstances. First, Hippokrates investigates how far the body is, in every particular man, simple, homogeneous, uniform: and how far it is complex, heterogeneous, multiform, in the diversity of individuals. If it be one and the same, or in so far as it is one and the same, he examines what are its properties in relation to each particular substance acting upon it or acted upon by it. In so far as it is multiform and various, he examines and compares each of the different varieties, in the same manner, to ascertain its properties in relation to every substance.74 It is in this way that Hippokrates discovers the nature or essence of the human body, distinguishing its varieties, and bringing the medical art to bear upon each, according to its different properties. This is the only scientific or artistic way of proceeding.
74 Plato, Phædrus, p. 270 D. Ἆρ’ οὐχ ὧδε δεῖ διανοεῖσθαι περὶ ὁτουοῦν φύσεως; Πρῶτον μὲν, ἁπλοῦν ἢ πολυειδές ἐστιν, οὗ περὶ βουλησόμεθα εἶναι αὐτοὶ τεχνικοὶ καὶ ἄλλον δυνατοὶ ποιεῖν; ἔπειτα δέ, ἐὰν μὲν ἁπλοῦν ᾖ, σκοπεῖν τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ, τίνα πρὸς τί πέφυκεν εἰς τὸ δρᾷν ἔχον ἢ τίνα εἰς τὸ παθεῖν ὑπὸ τοῦ; ἐὰν δὲ πλείω εἴδη ἔχῃ, ταῦτα ἀριθμησάμενος, ὅπερ ἐφ’ ἑνός, τοῦτ’ ἰδεῖν ἐφ’ ἑκάστου, τῷ τί ποιεῖν αὐτὸ πέφυκεν ἢ τῷ τί παθεῖν ὑπὸ τοῦ;
Art of Rhetoric ought to include a systematic classification of minds with all their varieties, and of discourses with all their varieties. The Rhetor must know how to apply the one to the other, suitably to each particular case.
Now the true rhetor ought to deal with the human mind in like manner. His task is to work persuasion in the minds of certain men by means of discourse. He has therefore, first, to ascertain how far all mind is one and the same, and what are the affections belonging to it universally in relation to other things: next, to distinguish the different varieties of minds, together with the properties, susceptibilities, and active aptitudes, of each: carrying the subdivision down until he comes to a variety no longer admitting division.75 He must then proceed to distinguish the different varieties of discourse, noting the effects which each is calculated to produce or to hinder, and the different ways in which it is likely to impress different minds.76 Such and such men are persuadable by such and such discourses — or the contrary. Having framed these two general classifications, the rhetor must on each particular occasion acquire a rapid tact in discerning to which class of minds the persons whom he is about to address belong: and therefore what class of discourses will be likely to operate on them persuasively.77 He must farther know those subordinate artifices of speech on which the professors insist; and he must also be aware of the proper season and limit within which each can be safely employed.78
75 Plato, Phædrus, p. 277 B. ὁρισάμενός τε πάλιν κατ’ εἴδη μέχρι τοῦ ἀτμήτου τέμνειν ἐπιστηθῇ.
76 Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 A. Πρῶτον, πάσῃ ἀκριβείᾳ γράψει τε καὶ ποιήσει ψυχὴν ἰδεῖν, πότερον ἓν καὶ ὅμοιον πέφυκεν ἢ κατὰ σώματος μορφὴν πολυειδές· τοῦτο γάρ φαμεν φύσιν εἶναι δεικνύναι.
Δεύτερον δέ γε, ὅτῳ τί ποιεῖν ἢ παθεῖν ὑπὸ τοῦ πέφυκεν.
Τρίτον δὲ δὴ διαταξάμενος τὰ λόγων τε καὶ ψυχῆς γένη καὶ τὰ τούτων παθήματα, δίεισι τὰς αἰτίας, προσαρμόττων ἕκαστον ἑκάστῳ, καὶ διδάσκων οἵα οὖσα ὑφ’ οἵων λόγων δι’ ἣν αἰτίαν ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἡ μὲν πείθεται, ἡ δὲ ἀπειθεῖ.
77 Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 D. δεῖ μὴ ταῦτα ἱκανῶς νοήσαντα, μετὰ ταῦτα θεώμενον αὐτὰ ἐν ταῖς πράξεσιν ὄντα τε καὶ πραττόμενα, ὀξέως τῇ αἰσθήσει δύνασθαι ἐπακολουθεῖν, &c.
78 Plato, Phædrus, p. 272 A. ταῦτα δὲ ἤδη πάντ’ ἔχοντι, προσλαβόντι καιροὺς τοῦ πότε λεκτέον καὶ ἐπισχετέον, βραχυλογίας τε αὖ καὶ ἐλεεινολογίας καὶ δεινώσεως, ἑκάστων τε ὅσ’ ἂν εἴδη μάθῃ λόγων, τούτων τὴν εὐκαιρίαν τε καὶ ἀκαιρίαν διαγνόντι, καλῶς τε καὶ τελέως ἐστὶν ἡ τέχνη ἀπειργασμένη, πρότερον δ’ οὔ.
The Rhetorical Artist must farther become possessed of real truth, as well as that which his auditors believe to be truth. He is not sufficiently rewarded for this labour.
Nothing less than this assemblage of acquirements (says Sokrates) will suffice to constitute a real artist, either in speaking or writing. Arduous and fatiguing indeed the acquisition is: but there is no easier road. And those who tell us that the rhetor need not know what is really true, but only what his audience will believe to be true — must be reminded that this belief, on the part of the audience, arises from the likeness of that which they believe, to the real truth. Accordingly, he who knows the real truth will be cleverest in suggesting apparent or quasi-truth adapted to their feelings. If a man is bent on becoming an artist in rhetoric, he must go through the process here marked out: yet undoubtedly the process is so laborious, that rhetoric, when he has acquired it, is no adequate reward. We ought to learn how to speak and act in a way agreeable to the Gods, and this is worth all the trouble necessary for acquiring it. But the power of speaking agreeably and effectively to men, is not of sufficient moment to justify the expenditure of so much time and labour.79