On the former topic, how a ruler should act, you have heard Isocrates speak; on the
 following topic, what his subjects must do, I shall attempt to discourse, not with any
 thought of excelling him, but because this is the most fitting subject for me to discuss
 with you. For if I did not make clear what I desire you to do, I could not reasonably be
 angry with you if you were to mistake my purpose; but if, after I have announced my policy
 beforehand, none of my desires are carried out, then I should justly blame those who fail
 to obey me. And I believe that I should most effectively exhort you and urge you to remember my
 words and heed them, not if I should confine myself to giving you advice and then, after
 counting out my precepts, make an end, but if, before doing this, I should prove to you,
 first, that you ought to be content with our present government, not only from necessity,
 nor because we have lived under it all our lives, but because it is the best of all
 governments; and, second, that I hold this office, not illegally nor as a usurper, but with the just
 sanction of gods and men, and by virtue of my earliest ancestors, and of my father and of
 myself. For, once these claims have been established, who will not condemn himself to the
 severest punishment if he fails to heed my counsels and commands? Speaking, then, of forms of government (for this was the subject I set out to lay before
 you), I imagine that we all believe that it is altogether monstrous A protest against the new “equality.” Cf. Isoc.
 2.14 . In Isoc. 7.21-22 Isocrates praises the old
 democracy of Athens for recognizing ability and
 worth. that the good and the bad should be thought worthy of the same privileges,
 and that it is of the very essence of justice that distinctions should be made between
 them, and that those who are unlike should not be treated alike but should fare and be
 rewarded in each case according to their deserts. Now oligarchies and democracies seek equality for those who share in the administration
 of them; and the doctrine is in high favor in those governments that one man should not
 have the power to get more than another—a principle which works in the interest of the
 worthless! Monarchies, on the other hand, make the highest award to the best man, the next
 highest to the next best, and in the same proportion to the third and the fourth and so
 on. Even if this practice does not obtain everywhere, such at least is the intention of
 the polity.