At the time and place that quote was written, wisdom referred to leadership, or reliable old people. And leaders would use their physical, mental or monetary abilities instead of talking people down in public display.
This "who can talk better to convince the crowd" business appeared more than once throughout history and was at it's peak effectiveness among the scientific community during the enlightenment phase of europe where your peers are actually as intelligent or more intelligent than you are, and your tools are empirical evidence rather than your charisma.
The idea later reverted to it's hellenistic form of democratic political dialogue which is only effective as the critics of it's listeners, or the demos.
This "who can talk better to convince the crowd" business appeared more than once throughout history and was at it's peak effectiveness among the scientific community during the enlightenment phase of europe where your peers are actually as intelligent or more intelligent than you are, and your tools are empirical evidence rather than your charisma.
The idea later reverted to it's hellenistic form of democratic political dialogue which is only effective as the critics of it's listeners, or the demos.