'In corsa nello stadio della storia'. Eforo e Teopompo secondo Fozio

By analyzing the complex tradition on the asserted similarity between the proems of the historical works of Ephoros and Theopompos that was brought together in Photios (Bibl. 176 121a, 23-24), the paper aims to sketch the evolution of the biographical cliché about the two historians being disciples of Isocrates, as forestalled in the aphorism of the goad and the rein attributed to Theopompos. The idea that a basic preconception - namely, an almost consequential connection between the teachings of Isocrates and the stylistic features of the (presumed) disciples - is underlying Photios' testimony seems to prompt an interpretation in contrast with the well-known positions expressed by Ed. Schwartz, and to suggest that ancient critics had already come to view those stylistic features in the works of Ephoros and Theopompos as characteristic of the school of Isocrates. In addition, there was the biographical tradition of the two having been co-disciples which was already consolidated and considered as a fact. Against the theory according to which the historical reality of the teaching of Isocrates may constitute a subsequent and fictitious elaboration substantiated by acknowledging analogies with the style of the Athenian orator, the traditional data merged in Photios, as well as the comparison with analogous scholastic traditions such as that of Demosthenes "disciple of Plato", lead one to assume that the biographical data were the "a priori", while the stylistic elements functioned as a "tekmerion" "a posteriori".