isocratean

Updated: May 17, 2025

Whole books of his poems are occupied with the settlement of Latin orthography and prosody, with the combating of Praenestine, Sabine, Etruscan provincialisms, with the exposure of current solecisms; along with which, however, the poet by no means forgets to ridicule the insipidly systematic Isocratean purism of words and phrases, and even to reproach his friend Scipio in right earnest jest with the exclusive fineness of his language.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome, Book IV : The Revolution

In all, except perhaps the Orator, he professes to have availed himself of the principles of the Aristotelic and Isocratean schools, selecting what was best in each of them, and, as occasion might offer, adding remarks and precepts of his own. The subject of Oratory is considered in three distinct lights; with reference to the case, the speaker, and the speech.

John Henry Newman - Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3): The Turks in Their Relation to Europe; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Apollonius of Tyana; Primitive Christianity

Foremost among these is the growing influence of rhetoric and the Isocratean school, which seems to have regarded history as an arena for the display either of pathos or paradoxes, not a scientific investigation into laws. The new age is the age of style.

Oscar Wilde - Essays and Lectures

The speech in their case lay too decidedly at the very heart of public life to be accessible to the handling of the foreign schoolmaster; the genuine orator Cato poured forth all the vials of his indignant ridicule over the silly Isocratean fashion of ever learning, and yet never being able, to speak.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome, Book III : From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek States

The speech in their case lay too decidedly at the very heart of public life to be accessible to the handling of the foreign schoolmaster; the genuine orator Cato poured forth all the vials of his indignant ridicule over the silly Isocratean fashion of ever learning, and yet never being able, to speak.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5)

Whole books of his poems are occupied with the settlement of Latin orthography and prosody, with the combating of Praenestine, Sabine, Etruscan provincialisms, with the exposure of current solecisms; along with which, however, the poet by no means forgets to ridicule the insipidly systematic Isocratean purism of words and phrases, and even to reproach his friend Scipio in right earnest jest with the exclusive fineness of his language.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5)