[Footnote 82: Pliny peaks admiringly of one Isaeus, and improvisatore. But it was an exception in Rome. Lett. ii. 8.]
[Footnote 83: Lucian, Master of Rhetoric, 18.]
[Footnote 84: Anthology, vi. 152.]
We feel far removed from the time when Demosthenes thought it no blot on his glory that his orations smelt of the oil! Greece has ever loved words. Take away her eloquence, and she remains gossiping and loquacious. If I may be allowed the comparison, she is like the princess in the fairy story, dropping pearls from her lips. The true pearls being exhausted, only waxen pearls remained.
And now, having proved an absence of apparent labor to be a condition of success in these exhibitions, we can understand why poets did not resort thither for the recitation of their works. Improvisations in verse had not then been invented, but the enthusiasm they would have excited one may easily fancy.
Spoiled by public favor, these fluent geniuses could not fail to hold their own merits in high estimation. We will not take literally Lucian's assertion that they set themselves above Demosthenes: "Who was your orator of Paeania compared to me? Must I conquer all the ancients one by one?" [Footnote 85] But they frequently speak in magnificent terms of their own talents, elated at the tricks of the tongue so thoroughly mastered. Praise them as one would, their self-praise was louder still. The sophists hid their vanity more skillfully perhaps, affecting sober vestments and an air of austerity, but it was merely a stage trick suited to the character to be sustained. Sometimes, in order to produce a better effect on their hearers, they appeared clad in the skins of wild beasts, with hair and beard dishevelled, or wearing simply an old tunic and carrying a wallet and staff. [Footnote 86] The rhetor was more dainty in his toilette; his garments were of a white stuff woven with flowers, brought from the looms of Tarentum, and so fine in texture as to show the outlines of the form through its gauzy tissue. He wore Attic sandals like those of women, covered here and there, or a Sicyonian buskin decorated with white fringe. He did not disdain those external signs of luxury that betoken rank; and went from town to town followed by numerous servants leading horses and packs of hounds. One in particular drove a chariot with silvered reins, and, passing lingeringly along the ranks of spectators on his way to the chair, allowed them to contemplate his gorgeous robe covered with diamonds. [Footnote 87]
[Footnote 85: Lucian, Master of Rhetoric, 21.]
[Footnote 86: Lucian, Peregrinus, Eunapius, Prohaeresius.]
[Footnote 87: Philostratus, Life of the Sophists, I. xxv. 4; II. x. 4.]