ABSTRACT
Aptitude, application, training — to those ingredients Isocrates added two more: a mastery of the subject-matter and a thorough grasp of all the varieties of rhetorical treatment. In Isocrates’ lifetime rhetoric became a highly organized and complex study exhibiting a variety of techniques. Although the form of rhetorical technique varied with the specific situation, the basic pattern emerged of a four-part procedure: proem, narration, proof, peroration. Criticism of the rhetorical approach to the higher learning of Isocrates was pursued most vigorously by Plato, although there is evidence of personal warmth between them. Order, restraint, unity of purpose — the Pythagorean notions guide Plato’s thinking about the ideal society; it is one governed by harmony, a sense of discipline. The view was accepted by Isocrates who pointed out that philosophy — and he meant rhetoric with a little political theory — had been devised as the discipline for training the mind, thus paralleling gymnastic as the discipline for training the body.
