If, then, the successes were judged by mere quantity rather than by the true standard, even Hyperides would surpass Demosthenes outright. He has more strings to his bow and more virtues, and is well-nigh near the top in everything, like a pentathlete: he falls behind the leaders in each event, but stands first among amateurs. §1
Hyperides, besides imitating in everything but composition the achievements of Demosthenes, has also wholly absorbed the virtues and graces of Lysias. He talks with simplicity where it is needed, not running on monotonously like Demosthenes; he has character pleasingly with sweetness, plainly seasoned; his witticisms are unspeakable, his sneer the most political, his fineness of breeding, his deftness in irony, his jests neither tasteless nor ill-bred, but in the manner of those Attic men, well-applied; his disparagements clever, his comic vein full, his sting amid sportiveness well-aimed; and inimitable, the charm in all this. He is most natural in moving pity; he is fluent in story-telling, and supremely supple in carrying on a discourse with moist breath. So in his pieces about Leto he is more poetic, while his Funeral Oration he set forth in the display style as perhaps no one else. §2
But Demosthenes is no characterist, has no flow, is least moist or display-like, and is for the most part without any of these qualities mentioned. When indeed he forces himself to be witty and urbane, he stirs not laughter so much as derision; when he aims at being charming, he then most departs from charm. Had he attempted to write his little speech On Phryne or On Athenogenes, he would have only commended Hyperides the more. §3
But, since, in my view, Hyperides' beauties, though many, are without greatness, sluggish in a sober heart, leaving the hearer at rest (no one trembles in reading Hyperides), while the other man, taking his stand on the most great-natured beauties brought to perfection, the strain of high speech, living passions, abundance, address, speed, and, where it has its place, that mastery and might that no one can approach, since these (I say), as great gifts sent from heaven (for it is not lawful to call them human) he has gathered to himself in their fulness, by the beauties he has he ever conquers all, even when others have what he has not, and as it were thunders down and lightens out the orators of all time. Sooner could one open one's eyes to a thunderbolt as it falls than face up to his closely-marshalled passions. §4