If you turn to the other road, you will find many
people, and among them a wholly clever and wholly
handsome gentleman with a mincing gait, a thin
neck, a languishing eye, and a honeyed voice, who
distils perfume, scratches his head with the tip of
his finger, Cf. Plutarch, Pompey, 48 fin. and carefully dresses his hair, which is
scanty now, but curly and raven-black—an utter]
delicate Sardanapalus, a Cinyras, a very Agathon (that
charming writer of tragedies, don’t you know?). I
am thus explicit that you may recognize him by
these tokens, and may not overlook a creature so
marvellous, and so dear to Aphrodite and the Graces.
But what am I talking about? Even if you had
your eyes shut, and he should come and speak to
you, unsealing those Hymettus lips and releasing
upon the air those wonted intonations, you would




 

discover that he is not like us “who eat the fruit of
the glebe,” Iliad6, 142. but some unfamiliar spirit, nurtured
on dew or on ambrosia. 
If, then, you go to him and put yourself in his
hands, you will at once, without effort, become an
orator, the observed of all, and, as he himself calls it,
king of the platform, driving the horses of eloquence
four-in-hand. For on taking you in charge, he will
teach you first of all—but let him address you
himself.

 
It would be comical for me to do the
talking on behalf of such an accomplished speaker,
as I should be poorly cast, it may very well be,
for parts of that nature and importance; I might
fall down and so put out of countenance the hero
whom I impersonated. 
He would address you, then, somewhat in this
fashion, tossing back what hair is still left him,
faintly smiling in that sweet and tender way which
is his wont, and rivalling Thais herself of comic
fame, or Malthace, or Glycera, in the seductiveness
of his tone, since masculinity is boorish and not in
keeping with a delicate and charming platform-hero
—
 
he will address you, I say, using very moderate
language about himself: “Prithee, dear fellow, did
Pythian Apollo send you to me, entitling me
the best of speakers, just as, when Chaerephon
questioned him, he told who was the wisest in that
generation? Socrates, in the Apology of Plato, says that when Chaerephon in his zeal “asked whether anyone was wiser than I, the Pythia responded that nobody was wiser ” (21 ). If that is not the case, but you have
come of your own accord in the wake of rumour,
because you hear everybody speak of my achievements with astonishment, praise, admiration, and
self-abasement, you shall very soon learn what a
superhuman person you have come to. Do not expect to see something that you can compare with



 

So-and-so, or So-and-so; no, you will consider the
achievement far too prodigious and amazing even
for Tityus or Otus or Ephialtes. Indeed, as far as
the others are concerned, you will find that I drown
them out as effectively as trumpets drown flutes, or
cicadas bees, or choirs their leaders.
 
“As you yourself wish to become a speaker, and
cannot learn this with greater ease from anyone else,
just attend, dear lad, to all that I shall say, copy me in
everything, and always keep, I beg you, the rules
which I shall bid you to follow. ‘In fact, you may
press on at once; you need not feel any hesitation
or dismay because you have not gone through all the
rites of initiation preliminary to Rhetoric, through
which the usual course of elementary instruction
guides the steps of the senseless and silly at the
cost of great weariness. You will not require them
at all. No, go straight in, as the proverb says, with
unwashen feet, The saying in full was ἀνίπτοις ποσὶν ἀναβαίνων ἐπὶ τὸ στέγος (going up to the roof with unwashed feet), and so can hardly contain any reference to ceremonial purification. Perhaps going up on the roof was tantamount to going to bed, Cf. Song of Solomon, 5, 3. and you will not fare any the worse
for that, even if you are quite in the prevailing
fashion and do not know how to write. Orators
are beyond all that!
 
“I shall first tell you what equipment you must
yourself bring with you from home for the journey,
and how you must provision yourself so that you can
finish it soonest. Then giving you my personal
instruction along the road, partly by example set
for you while you proceed, and partly by precept,
before sunset I shall make you a public speaker,
superior to them all, just like myself—indubitably



 

first, midmost and last I.e, the others are not in it with him. Compare Demosthenes 25, 8: “all such beasts, of whom he is midmost and last and first.” of all who undertake to make
speeches. 
“Bring with you, then, as the principal thing, ignorance; secondly, recklessness, and thereto effrontery
and shamelessness. Modesty, respectability, selfrestraint, and blushes may be left at home, for they
are useless and somewhat of a hindrance to the
matter in hand. But you need also a very loud
voice, a shameless singing delivery, and a gait like
mine. They are essential indeed, and sometimes
sufficient in themselves. Compare the conversation between Demosthenes and the sausage-seller in Aristophanes, Knights, 150-235. Let your clothing be
gaily-coloured, or else white, a fabric of Tarentine
manufacture, so that your body will show through;
and wear either high Attic sandals of the kind that
women wear, with many slits, or else Sicyonian
boots, trimmed with strips of white felt. Have also
many attendants, and always a book in hand.