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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: improvising that sort of stuff. Had the orator to praise Athenians among
Peloponnesians, or Peloponnesians among Athenians, he must be a good
rhetorician who could succeed and gain credit. But there is no difficulty
in a man's winning applause when he is contending for fame among the
persons whom he is praising.
MENEXENUS: Do you think not, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Certainly 'not.'
MENEXENUS: Do you think that you could speak yourself if there should be a
necessity, and if the Council were to choose you?
SOCRATES: That I should be able to speak is no great wonder, Menexenus,
considering that I have an excellent mistress in the art of rhetoric,--she
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