And do not be surprised (as I said in my letter to Dionysius after he had made himself master of Sicily) that I, who am not a general nor a public orator nor in any other position of authority, have expressed myself to you more boldly than the others. The fact is that nature has placed me more at a disadvantage than any of my fellow-citizens for a public career:Isocrates dwells on his disabilities repeatedly. Cf. Isoc. Letter 1.9; Isoc. Letter 8.7; and Isoc. 12.9-10. See General Introd. p. xix. I was not given a strong enough voice nor sufficient assurance to enable me to deal with the mob, to take abuse, and bandy words with the men who haunt the rostrum;

but, though some will condemn my taste in saying so, I do lay claim to sane judgement and good education, and I would count myself in comparison with others not among the last, but among the foremost. And that is why I endeavor in this way, for which my nature and powers are suited, to give advice to Athens and to the Hellenes at large and to the most distinguished among men.

Now regarding myself, and regarding the course which you should take toward the Hellenes, perhaps no more need be said. But as to the expedition against Asia, we shall urge upon the cities which I have called upon you to reconcile that it is their duty to go to war with the barbarians, only when we see that they have ceased from discord. For the present, I shall address myself to you, not, however, with the same confidence as I had at that period of my life when I was writing on this same subject.

For then I challenged my audience to visit their ridicule and contempt upon me if I did not manifestly treat the question in a way which was worthy of the matter in hand and of my reputation and of the time which I had devoted to the discourse.Isoc. 4.14. But now I dread lest what I say may fall far short of every claim I then made; for, apart from the other disabilities under which I labor, my , which has enriched the other men who make philosophy their business,Not an empty boast. See Havet, Introduction to Cartelier’s Isoc. 15 pp. lxxv ff. has left me quite impoverished, because I am neither willing to repeat what I have written in that discourse nor am I at my age able to cast about for new things.

However, I must not shirk my task, but must say in support of the enterprise which I have proposed whatever occurs to me as likely to persuade you to undertake it. For even if I fall short in any degree, and am not able to write in the style of my former publications, I think that I shall at any rate present an attractive sketch for those who have the energy to elaborate the details and carry the work to completion.