Taking as its starting point a new methodical approach, which differentiates between rhetoric I and biographic I, the author investigates the self-presentation of Dio of Prusa, an orator of the early second Sophistic. She shows how the orator is torn between philosophy and rhetoric, between praising himself and affirming his own modesty, and how he is forced both to distinguish himself from his competitors and to fulfill the auditory’s expectations. Once we view the rhetoric I as fulfilling a certain function for achieving a particular aim in a speech, we can appreciate the originality of the orator Dio.