The Hall (16-20)

The same thing is bound to happen, I think, to a man who tries to show his eloquence among works of art like these. Amid the mass of beautiful things, what he says goes unheeded, vanishes and is absorbed, as if a candle were taken toa great fire and thrown in, or’ an ant pointed out on the back of an elephant or a camel. This danger, certainly, the speaker must guard against, and also that his voice be not disturbed when he speaks in a hall so musical and echoing, for it resounds, replies, refutes—in fact, it drowns his utterance, just as the trumpet drowns the flute when they are played together, and as the sea drowns chanty-men when they undertake to sing for the rowers against the noise of the surf. For the great volume of sound overpowers and crushes into silence all that is weaker.

"As to the other point which my opponent made, that a beautiful hall spurs a speaker on and makes him more ambitious, I think it does the opposite. It dazzles and frightens him, disturbs his thought and makes him more timid, for he reflects that it is disgraceful beyond everything that his discourse

“I forbear to say that even those who are present and have been invited to the lecture become spectators instead of hearers when they enter such a hall as this, and no speaker is enough of a Demodocus, a Phemius, a Thamyris, an Amphion or an Orpheus to distract their minds from looking. Why, every one of them is flooded with beauty the instant he crosses the threshold, and does not give the least sign of hearing [*] what the speaker says or anything else, but is all absorbed in what he sees, unless he is stone-blind or like the court of the Areopagus, listens in the dark!

That the power of the tongue is no match for the eyes, one can learn by comparing

If you wish, I will produce you a witness in the person of a sage, who will testify on the spot that what one sees is far more effective than what one hears. Crier, summon in person Herodotus, son ‘of Lyxus, of Halicarnassus. Since he has been so kind as to comply, let him take the stand and give his testimony. Suffer him to speak to you in Ionic, to which he is accustomed. “'Master Point o’ View telleth ye true herein. Believe whatso he sayeth to this matter, esteeming sight over hearing, for in sooth ears be less trusty than eyes.’ [*]