42
Moreover, this has been clear to me from the first, that while all men think that those compositions, whether in verse or prose, are the most useful which counsel us how to live, yet it is certainly not to them that they listen with greatest pleasure; nay, they feel about these just as they feel about the people who admonish them; for while they praise the latter, they choose for associatesCf. Isoc. 1.45. those who share in, and not those who would dissuade them from, their faults.
43
As a case in point, one might cite the poetry of Hesiod and Theognis and Phocylides;Theognis and Phocylides (middle of sixth century) were the leading gnomic poets. Theognis was used in the schools, and we have over a thousand of his verses. Phocylides survives in but a few fragments. Hesiod is classed with them because in his epic The Works and Days are scattered many maxims. for these, they say, have proved the best counsellors for human conduct; but in spite of what they say, people prefer to occupy themselves with each other’s follies rather than with the admonitions of these teachers.
