"... personally, he's lauded for having masterful political skills but what I see comes across as superficial and vain... though I'm entirely aware that the two states need not be mutually exclusive... but I just don't think the man gives a good speech... the delivery is too studied, the language over wrought, the aesthetics too self conscious... it's as if Pericles, following the success of the funeral oration, had tailored every subsequent speech after it to the effect that his style became cloying and mawkish, with the original as consequence being demeaned and drained of value... thankfully, Thucydides was a better writer than that..."
