Note 83 — Book III

ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐπιδεικτικὴ λέξις γραφικωτάτη· τὸ γὰρ ἔργον αὐτῆς ἀνάγνωσις (1414 a). The intervening reference to Chæremon, a poet said to have been better to read than to hear, as “precise as a professional speech-writer,” should not deviate us here into consideration of speeches written out to be memorized. For a full discussion of the professional speech-writer (λογογράφος) see Cope and Sandys on Book II. xi. 7. Here Aristotle is discussing something different, the adaptation of occasional oratory as nicer and more literary in sentence movement. Perhaps he implies too that such speeches had better be composed, as well as elaborated, in writing. Certainly this kind of oratory, from Isocrates down, regularly included many compositions which we should call essays and which were not even intended to be spoken.