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  1. Sep 2013
    1. Homer, who has been conceded the highest reputation for wisdom, has pictured even the gods as at times debating among themselves about the future(5) --not that he knew their minds but that he desired to show us that for mankind this power lies in the realms of the impossible.

      This is an example of ethos. Isocrates is appealing to the authority, or high regard in those days, of Homer to suggest that even the gods don't know everything. Therefore, no man can claim to either. This is like using a celebrity to endorse a product. In this instance, Isocrates uses Homer as if Homer would also frown down upon the 'other' Sophist teachers, so everyone else should too.