La verità supera la meraviglia: poesia e prosa a confronto nell’<em>Evagora</em> di Isocrate

Abstract

When comparing prose to poetry within the Evagoras, Isocrates defines the peculiarity of his own prose style and contents. While poetry is based on causing marvel and astonishing the audience, the proper feature of prose is persuasion through reasoning. Focusing on the originality of his writing a eulogy for a contemporary person, Isocrates uses the methodology of historical inquiry to produce rhetorical arguments. As a consequence, he can state that his rhetorical discourse is ‘true’ and can provide a paradigmatic model for political behavior.