In Isoc. 15.295 is a
 similar picture of the attractions and advantages of life in Athens . since in addition to those which the
 city herself sets up, she prevails upon the rest of the world also to offer prizes; The meaning may be that prize-winners in Athens are awarded similar prizes in conpetitions
 elsewhere. for the judgements pronounced by us command such great approbation
 that all mankind accept them, gladly. But apart from these considerations, while the
 assemblages at the other great festivals are brought together only at long intervals and
 are soon dispersed, our city throughout all time The
 Panathenaic and the Dionysiac festivals were held every year, whereas the Olympic and
 Pythian games came only once in four years, and the Nemean and Isthmian games once in
 two years. Festival followed upon festival in Athens , and Isocrates’ statement is almost literally true. Thucydides
 says the same thing, Thuc. 2.38 , and Xenophon declares that
 the Athenians celebrate twice as many festivals as the other Greeks, Xen. Const. Ath. 3.8 . is a festival for
 those who visit her. Philosophy, For “philosophy” in Isocrates see General
 Introd. p. xxvi, and Cicero’s definition, De orat. iii. 16, “omnis rerum
 optimarum cognitio, atque in iis exercitatio, philosophia.” moreover, which has
 helped to discover and establish all these institutions, which has educated us for public
 affairs and made us gentle towards each other, which has distinguished between the
 misfortunes that are due to ignorance and those which spring from necessity, and taught us
 to guard against the former and to bear the latter nobly—philosophy, I say, was given to
 the world by our city. And Athens it is that has honored eloquence, Cf. Isoc. 15.295-296 ; Plat. Laws 641e ; and Milton : “mother
 of arts and eloquence.” 
 which all men crave and envy in its possessors; for she realized that this is the one
 endowment of our nature which singles us out from all living creatures, and that by using
 this advantage we have risen above them in all other respects as well; For the power and function of λόγος see Isoc. 3.5-9 ; Isoc. 15.273 ; Xen. Mem. 4.3 . she saw
 that in other activities the fortunes of life are so capricious that in them often the
 wise fail and the foolish succeed, whereas beautiful and artistic speech is never allotted
 to ordinary men, but is the work of an intelligent mind, and that it is in this respect that those who are accounted wise and ignorant present the
 strongest contrast; and she knew, furthermore, that whether men have been liberally
 educated from their earliest years is not to be determined by their courage or their
 wealth or such advantages, but is made manifest most of all by their speech, and that this
 has proved itself to be the surest sign of culture in every one of us, and that those who
 are skilled in speech are not only men of power in their own cities but are also held in
 honor in other states. And so far has our city distanced the rest of mankind in thought and in speech that her
 pupils have become the teachers For Athens as the School of Greece see General Introd. p. xxviii; Isoc.
 15.296 ; Thuc. 2.41.1 . of the rest of the
 world; and she has brought it about that the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but
 an intelligence, and that the title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our
 culture than to those who share a common blood. See General
 lntrod. p. xxxiv and Isoc. 9.47 ff. Cf. the inscription on
 the Gennadeion in Athens : Ἕλληνες καλοῦνται οἱ τῆς παιδεύσεως τῆς ἡμετέρας
 μετέχοντες