Panegyrikos

1. Panegyrikos [Or. iv.]—The date of the speech is determined by § 126. It is there said that the Spartans are besieging Olynthos and Phlius. Olynthos was besieged in 383 b.c., Phlius early in 380; both fell towards the close of 379. The speech cannot, then, have been published before 380 or after 379. Now the year 380 b.c. was the first of the hundredth Olympiad. The title Panegyrikos— given to the speech by Isokrates himself—points only to some great festival, and has been referred by one critic1 to the Greater Panathenaea. But, taking the other circumstances into account, it seems hardly doubtful that the Panegyrikos was published at the time of the Olympic festival in the autumn of 380 b.c.

Mode of publication

The duty of Hellenic unity against the barbarian had already been the theme of Gorgias and of Lysias in speeches delivered at Olympia. It is not likely that, like theirs, the oration of Isokrates was recited at the festival by its author. His want of nerve and voice, and much in the contents of the speech itself, would probably have deterred him from such an attempt. The speech may, indeed, have been recited for him; but it is more likely that it was first introduced to the Greek public by copies circulated at Olympia, and sent to cities in which Isokrates had friends among the leading men.