The power of poetry may be understood from this consideration: if one should retain the
 words and ideas of poems which are held in high esteem, but do away with the meter, they
 will appear far inferior to the opinion we now have of them. Nevertheless, although poetry
 has advantages so great, we must not shrink from the task, but must make the effort and
 see if it will be possible in prose to eulogize good men in no worse fashion than their
 encomiasts do who employ song and verse. In the first place, with respect to the birth and ancestry of Evagoras, Cf. Isoc. 3.42 . even if
 many are already familiar with the facts, I believe it is fitting that I also should
 recount them for the sake of the others, that all may know that he proved himself not
 inferior to the noblest and greatest examples of excellence which were of his inheritance.
 For it is acknowledged that the noblest of the demigods are the sons of Zeus, and there
 is no one who would not award first place among these to the Aeacidae: for while in the
 other families we shall find some of superior and some of inferior worth, yet all the
 Aeacidae have been most renowned of all their contemporaries. In the first place Aeacus, Aeacus, son of Zeus and
 Aegina , was renowned for his piety. 
 son of Zeus and ancestor of the family of the Teucridae, was so distinguished that when a
 drought visited the Greeks and many persons had perished, and when the magnitude of the
 calamity had passed all bounds, the leaders of the cities came as suppliants to him; for
 they thought that, by reason of his kinship with Zeus and his piety, they would most
 quickly obtain from the gods relief from the woes that afflicted them. Having gained their desire, they were saved and built in Aegina a temple This was the Aiakeion,
 described by Pausanias ii. 29. to be shared by all the Greeks on the very spot
 where he had offered his prayer. During his entire stay among men he ever enjoyed the
 fairest repute, and after his departure from life it is said that he sits by the side of
 Pluto and Kore Persephone. in the enjoyment of the
 highest honors. Aeacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthys were
 reputed to be the judges in the world of the dead.