Caecilius, in a tract which he wrote about him,
supposes
him to have been Thucydides' pupil, from what Antiphon delivered in praise of him.
Roman Translations
A while after, hearing his brother was safe, he sacrificed to the Gods for the good news, and caused the cities under his dominion to put on garlands.
G EUMENES. Eumenes was thought to be slain by a conspiracy of Perseus. That report being brought to Pergamum, Attalus his brother put on the crown, married his wife, and took upon him the kingdom. Hearing afterwards his brother was alive and upon the way, he met him, as he used to do, with his life-guard, and a spear in his hand. Eumenes embraced him kindly, and whispered in his ear: -
"If a widow you will wed,
Wait till you're sure her husband's dead. " -
But he never afterwards did or spoke any thing that showed any suspicion all his lifetime; but when he died, be bequeathed to him his queen and kingdom. In requital of which, his brother bred up none of his own children, although he had many; but when the son of Eumenes was grown up, he bestowed the kingdom on him in his own lifetime.
G PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS. Pyrrhus was asked by his sons, when they were boys, to whom he would leave the kingdom. To him of you, said he, that has the sharpest sword.
Being asked whether Python or Caphisius was the better piper, Polysperchon, said he, is the best general.
He joined in battle with the Romans, and twice overcame them, but with the loss of many friends and captains. If I should overcome the Romans, said he, in another fight, I were undone.
Not being able to keep Sicily (as he said) from them, turning to his friends he said: What a fine wrestling ring do we leave to the Romans and Carthaginians!
His soldiers called him Eagle; And I may deserve the title, said he, while I am borne upon the wings of your arms.
Hearing some young men had spoken many reproachful words of him in their drink, he summoned them all to appear before him next day; when they appeared, he asked the foremost whether they spoke such things or him or not. The young man answered : Such words were spoken, O King, and more we had spoken, if we had had more wine.
G ANTIOCHUS. Antiochus, who twice made an inroad into Parthia, as he was once a hunting, lost his friends and servants in the pursuit, and went into a cottage of poor people who did not know him. As they were at supper, he threw out discourse concerning the king; they said for the most part he was a good prince, but overlooked many things he left to the management of debauched courtiers, and out of love of hunting often neglected his necessary affairs; and there they stopped. At break of day the guard arrived at the cottage, and the king was recognised when the crown and purple robes were brought. From the day, said he, on which I first received these, I never heard truth concerning myself till yesterday.
When he besieged Jerusalem, the Jews, in respect of their great festival, begged of him seven days' truce; which he not only granted, but preparing oxen with gilded horns, with a great quantity of incense and perfumes, he went before them to the very gates, and having delivered them as a sacrifice to their priests, he returned back to his army. The Jews wondered at him, and as soon as their festival was finished, surrendered themselves to him.
G THEMISTOCLES. Themistocles in his youth was much given to wine and women. But after Miltiades the general overcame the Persian at Marathon, Themistocles utterly forsook his former disorders; [185] and to such as wondered at the change, he said, The trophy of Miltiades will neither suffer me to sleep nor to be idle.
Being asked whether he would rather be Achilles or Homerus, - And pray, said he, which would you rather be, a conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier that proclaims who are conquerors ?
When Xerxes with that great navy made a descent upon Greece, he fearing, if Epicydes (a popular, but a covetous, corrupt, and cowardly person) were made general, the city might be lost, bribed him with a sum of money to desist from that pretence.
Adeimantus was afraid to hazard a sea-fight, whereunto Themistocles persuaded and encouraged the Greeks. O Themistocles, said he, those that start before their time in the Olympic games are always scourged. Yes; but, Adeimantus, said the other, they that are left behind are not crowned.
Eurybiades lifted up his cane at him, as if he would strike him. Strike, said he, but hear me.
When he could not persuade Eurybiades to fight in the straits of the sea, he sent privately to Xerxes, advising him that he need not fear the Greeks, for they were running away. Xerxes, upon this persuasion, fighting in a place advantageous for the Greeks, was worsted; and then he sent him another message, and bade him fly with all speed over the Hellespont, for the Greeks designed to break down his bridge ; that under pretence of saving him he might secure the Greeks.
A man from the little island of Seriphus told him, he was famous not upon his own account but through the city where he lived, - You say true, said he, for if I had been a Seriphian, I had not been famous; nor would you, if you had been an Athenian.
To Antiphatus, a beautiful person that avoided and despised Themistocles when he formerly loved him, but came to him and flattered him when he was in great power and esteem; Hark you, lad, said he, though late, yet both of us are wise at last.
To Simonides desiring him to give an unjust sentence, You would not be a good poet, said he, if you should sing out of tune; nor I a good governor, if I should give judgement contrary to law.
When his son was a little saucy towards his mother, he said that this boy had more power than all the Greeks, for the Athenians governed Greece, he the Athenians, his wife him, and his son his wife.
He preferred an honest man that wooed his daughter, before a rich man. I would rather, said he, have a man that wants money, than money that wants a man.
Having a farm to sell, he bid the crier proclaim also that it had a good neighbour.
When the Athenians reviled him; Why do you complain, said he, that the same persons so often befriend you? And he compared himself to a row of plane-trees, under which in a storm passengers run for shelter, but in fair weather they pluck the leaves off and abuse them.
Scoffing at the Eretrians, he said, Like the sword-fish, they have a sword indeed, but no heart.
Being banished first out of Athens and afterwards out of Greece, he betook himself to the king of Persia, who bade him speak his mind. Speech, he said, was like to tapestry; and like it, when it was spread, it showed its figures, but when it was folded up, hid and spoiled them.
And therefore he requested time until he might learn the Persian tongue, and could explain himself without an interpreter.
Having there received great presents, and being enriched of a sudden; O lads, said he to his sons, we had been undone if we had not been undone.
G MYRONIDES. Myronides summoned the Athenians to fight against the Boeotians. When the time was almost come, and the captains told him they were not near all come out; [186] They are come, said he, all that intend to fight. And marching while their spirits were up, he overcame his enemies.
G ARISTEIDES. Aristeides the Just always managed his offices himself, and avoided all political clubs, because power gained by the assistance of friends was an encouragement to the unjust.
When the Athenians were fully bent to banish him by an ostracism, an illiterate country fellow came to him with his shell, and asked him to write in it the name of Aristeides. Friend, said he, do you know Aristeides ? Not I, said the fellow, but I do not like his surname of Just. He said no more, but wrote his name in the shell and gave it him.
He was at variance with Themistocles, who was sent on an embassy with him. Are you content, said he, Themistocles, to leave our enmity at the borders ? and if you please, we will take it up again at our return.
When he levied an assessment upon the Greeks, he returned poorer by so much as he spent in the journey.
Aeschylus wrote these verses on Amphiaraus : -
"His shield no emblem bears; his generous soul
Wishes to be, not to appear, the best;
While the deep furrows of his noble mind
Harvests of wise and prudent counsel bear. "
And when they were pronounced in the theatre, all turned their eyes upon Aristeides.
G PERICLES. Whenever he entered on his command as general, while he was putting on his war-cloak, he used thus to bespeak himself: Remember, Pericles, you govern freemen, Greeks, Athenians.
He advised the Athenians to demolish Aegina, as a dangerous eyesore to the haven of Peiraeus.
To a friend that wanted him to bear false witness and to bind the same with an oath, he said: I am a friend only as far as the altar.
When he lay on his death-bed, he blessed himself that no Athenian ever went into mourning upon his account.
ALCIBIADES. Alcibiades, while he was a boy, wrestling in a ring, seeing he could not break his adversary's hold, bit him by the hand; who cried out, You bite like a woman. Not so, said he, but like a lion.
He had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas ; and he cut off his tail, that, said he, the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no farther with me.
Coming into a school, he called for Homerus' Iliad; and when the master told him he had none of Homerus' works, he gave him a box on the ear, and went his way.
He came to Pericles' gate, and being told he was busy a preparing his accounts to be given to the people of Athens, Had he not better, said he, contrive how he might give no account at all ?
Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, he absconded, saying, that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.
But, said one, will you not trust your country with your cause ? No, said he, nor my mother either, lest she mistake and cast a black pebble, instead of a white one.
When he heard death was decreed to him and his associates, Let us convince them, said he, that we are alive. And passing over to Lacedaemon, he stirred up the Decelean war against the Athenians.
G G LAMACHUS. Lamachus rebuked a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, Sir, said he, in war there is no room for a second miscarriage.
G IPHICRATES. Iphicrates was despised because he was thought to be a shoemaker's son. [187] The exploit that first brought him into repute was this: when he was wounded himself, he caught up one of the enemies and carried him alive and in his armour to his own ship.
He once pitched his camp in a country belonging to his allies and confederates, and yet he fortified it exactly with a trench and bulwark. Said one to him, What are you afraid of? Of all speeches, said he, none is so dishonourable for a general, as I should not have thought it.
As he marshalled his army to fight with barbarians, I am afraid, said he, they do not know Iphicrates, for his very name used to strike terror into other enemies.
Being accused of a capital crime, he said to the informer: O fellow! what are you doing, who, when war is at hand, do advise the city to consult concerning me, and not with me ?
To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled him for his mean birth, My nobility, said he, begins in me, but yours ends in you.
A rhetorician asked him in an assembly, who he was that he took so much upon him, - horseman, or footman, or archer, or shield-bearer. Neither of them, said he, but one that understands how to command all those.
G TIMOTHEUS. Timotheus was reputed a successful general, and some that envied him painted cities falling under his net of their own accord, while he was asleep. Said Timotheus, If I take such cities when I am asleep, what do you think I shall do when I am awake ?
A confident commander showed the Athenians a wound he had received. But I, said he, when I was your general in Samos, was ashamed that a dart from an engine fell near me.
The orators set up Chares as one they thought fit to be general of the Athenians. Not to be general, said Timotheus, but to carry the general's baggage.
G CHABRIAS. Chabrias said, they were the best commanders who best understood the affairs of their enemies.
He was once indicted for treason with Iphicrates, who blamed him for exposing himself to danger, by going to the place of exercise, and dining at his usual hour. If the Athenians, said he, deal severely with us, you will die all foul and empty; I'll die clean and anointed, with my dinner in my belly.
He was accustomed to say, that an army of stags, with a lion for their commander, was more formidable than an army of lions led by a stag.
G HEGESIPPUS. When Hegesippus, surnamed Crobylus (i. e. Top-knot), instigated the Athenians against Philippus, one of the assembly cried out, You would not persuade us to a war ? Yes, indeed, would I, said he, and to mourning clothes and to public funerals and to funeral speeches, if we intend to live free and not submit to the pleasure of . the Macedonians.
G PYTHEAS. Pytheas, when he was a young man, stood forth to oppose the decrees made concerning Alexander. One said: Have you, young man, the confidence to speak in such weighty affairs ? And why not ? said he: Alexander, whom you voted a God, is younger than I am.
G PHOCION. Phocion the Athenian was never seen to laugh or cry.
In an assembly one told him, You seem to be thoughtful, Phocion. You guess right, said he, for I am contriving how to reduce what I have to say to the people of Athens.
The Oracle told the Athenians, there was one man in the city of a contrary judgement to all the rest; and the Athenians in a hubbub ordered search to be made, who this should be. I, said Phocion, am the man ; I alone am pleased with nothing the common people say or do.
[188] Once when he had delivered an opinion which pleased the people, and perceived it was entertained by a general consent, he turned to his friend, and said: Have I not unawares spoken something or other wrong ?
The Athenians gathered contributions for a certain sacrifice; and when others gave to it, he being often spoken to said: I should be ashamed to give to you, and not to pay this man, - pointing to one of his creditors.
Demosthenes the orator told him, If the Athenians should be mad, they would kill you. Like enough, said he, me if they were mad, but you if they were wise.
Aristogeiton the informer, being condemned and ready to be executed in prison, entreated that Phocion would come to him. And when his friends would not suffer him to go to so vile a person; And where, said he, would you discourse with Aristogeiton more pleasantly ?
The Athenians were offended with the Byzantines, for refusing to receive Chares into their city, who was sent with forces to assist them against Philippus. Said Phocion, You ought not to be displeased with the distrust of your confederates, but with your commanders that are not to be trusted. Whereupon be was chosen general, and being trusted by the Byzantines, he forced Philippus to return without his errand.
King Alexander sent him a present of a hundred talents; and he asked those that brought it, what it should mean that, of all the Athenians, Alexander should be thus kind to him. They answered, because he esteemed him alone to be a worthy and upright person. Pray therefore, said he, let him suffer me to seem as well as to be so.
Alexander sent to them for some ships, and the people calling for Phocion by name, bade him speak his opinion. He stood up and told them: I advise you either to conquer yourselves, or else to side with the conqueror.
An uncertain rumour happened, that Alexander was dead. Immediately the orators leaped into the rostrum, and advised them to make war without delay; but Phocion entreated them to tarry awhile and know the certainty: for, said he, if he is dead to-day, he will be dead to-morrow, and so forwards.
Leosthenes hurried the city into a war, with fond hopes conceited at the name of liberty and command. Phocion compared his speeches to cypress-trees ; They are tall, said he, and comely, but bear no fruit. However, the first attempts were successful; and when the city was sacrificing for the good news, he was asked whether he did not wish he had done this himself. I would, said he, have done what has been done, but have advised what I did.
When the Macedonians invaded Attica and plundered the seacoasts, he drew out the youth. When many came to him and generally persuaded him by all means to possess himself of such an ascent, and thereon to marshal his army, O Heracles! said he, how many commanders do I see, and how few soldiers ? Yet he fought and overcame, and slew Nicion, the commander of the Macedonians.
But in a short time the Athenians were overcome, and admitted a garrison sent by Antipater. Menyllus, the governor of that garrison, offered money to Phocion, who was enraged thereby and said: This man is no better than Alexander; and what I refused then I can with less honour receive now.
Antipater said, of the two friends he had at Athens, he could never persuade Phocion to accept a present, nor could he ever satisfy Demades with presents.
When Antipater requested him to do some indirect thing or other, Antipater, said he, you cannot have Phocion for your friend and flatterer too.
[189] After the death of Antipater, democracy was established in Athens, and the assembly decreed the death of Phocion and his friends. The rest were led weeping to execution; but as Phocion passed silently, one of his enemies met him and spat in his face. But he turned himself to the magistrates, and said, Will nobody restrain this insolent fellow ?
One of those that were to suffer with him lamented and complained: Why, Euippus, said he, are you not pleased that you die with Phocion ?
When the cup of hemlock was brought to him, being asked whether he had any thing to say to his son; I command you, said he, and entreat you not to think of any revenge upon the Athenians.
G PEISISTRATUS. Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens, when some of his party revolted from him and possessed themselves of Phyle, came to them bearing his baggage on his back. They asked him what he meant by it. Either, said he, to persuade you to return with me, or if I cannot persuade you, to tarry with you; and therefore I come prepared accordingly.
An accusation was brought to him against his mother, that she was in love and used secret familiarity with a young man, who out of fear for the most part refused her. This young man he invited to supper, and as they were at supper asked him how he liked his entertainment. He answered, Very well. Thus, said he, you shall be treated daily, if you please my mother.
Thrasybulus was in love with his daughter, and as he met her, kissed her; whereupon his wife would have incensed him against Thrasybulus. If, said he, we hate those that love us, what shall we do to them that hate us ? - and he gave the maid in marriage to Thrasybulus.
Some lascivious drunken persons by chance met his wife, and used unseemly speech and behaviour to her; but the next day they begged his pardon with tears. As for you, said he, learn to be sober for the future; but as for my wife, yesterday she was not abroad at all.
He designed to marry another wife, and his children asked him whether he could blame them for anything. By no means, said he, but I commend you, and desire to have more such children as you are.
G DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS. Demetrius Phalereus persuaded King Ptolemy to get and study such books as treated of government and conduct; for those things are written in books which the friends of kings dare not advise.
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Plutarch: Lives of the Ten Orators
Pages 832 - 844
These lives are unlikely to have been written by Plutarch himself, but nevertheless they contain much unique and valuable information about the ten Athenian orators, most of whom lived in the 4th century B. C. The names of the orators are:
Antiphon - Andocides - Lysias - Isocrates - Isaeus - Aeschines - Lycurgus - Demosthenes - Hypereides - Deinarchus
Translated by Charles Barcroft, "lecturer of St. Mildred's", revised by W. Goodwin (1878). A few words and spellings have been changed. The page numbers in the Greek text are shown in red. Click on the G symbols to go to the Greek text of each Life.
The lives sometimes date events by the name of the archon, the chief Athenian magistrate, who entered office in the middle of the summer; the equivalent years B. C. are shown in green.
[832] G 1. ANTIPHON, the son of Sophilus, from the deme of Rhamnus, was his father's pupil; for Sophilus kept a rhetoric school, to which it is reported that Alcibiades himself had recourse in his youth. Having attained to competent measure of knowledge and eloquence, - and that, as some believe, from his own natural ingenuity, - he dedicated his study chiefly to affairs of state. And yet he was for some time conversant in the schools, and had a controversy with Socrates the philosopher about the art of disputing, - not so much for the sake of contention as for the profit of arguing, as Xenophon tells us in his Commentaries of Socrates. At the request of some citizens, he wrote orations by which they defended their suits at law. Some say that he was the first that ever did any thing of this nature. For it is certain there is not one judicial oration extant written by any orator that lived before him, nor by his contemporaries either, as Themistocles, Aristeides, and Pericles; though the times gave them opportunity, and there was need enough of their labour in such business. Not that we are to impute it to their lack of ability that they did nothing in this way, for we may inform ourselves of the contrary from what historians relate of each of them. Besides, if we inspect the most ancient of those known in history who had the same form and method in their pleadings, such as Alcibiades, Critias, Lysias, and Archinous, we shall find that they all followed Antiphon when he was old. For being a man of incomparable sagacity, he was the first that published instructions about oratory; and by reason of his profound learning, he was surnamed Nestor.
Caecilius, in a tract which he wrote about him, supposes him to have been Thucydides' pupil, from what Antiphon delivered in praise of him. He is most accurate in his orations, in invention subtle; and he would frequently baffle his adversary unawares, by a covert sort of pleading; in troublesome and intricate matters he was acute and sharp; and as he was a great admirer of ornamental speaking, he would always adapt his orations to both law and reason.
He was born the time of the Persian war and of Gorgias the rhetorician, being somewhat younger than him. And he lived to see the subversion of the popular government in the commonwealth which was wrought by the four hundred [411 B. C. ], in which he himself is thought to have had the chiefest hand, being sometimes commander of two ships, and sometimes general, and having by the many and great victories he obtained gained them many allies, he armed the young men, manned out sixty triremes, and on every occasion went ambassador to Lacedaemon at the time when Eetioneia was fortified. [833] But when those Four Hundred were overthrown, he with Archeptolemus, who was likewise one of the same number, was accused of the conspiracy, condemned, and sentenced to the punishment due to traitors, his body cast out unburied, and all his posterity infamous on record. But there are some who tell us, that he was put to death by the Thirty Tyrants; and among the rest, Lysias, in his oration for Antiphon's daughter, says the same; for he left a little daughter, whom Callaeschrus claimed for his wife by the law of propinquity. And Theopompus likewise, in his Fifteenth Book of Philippics, tells us the same thing. But this must have been another Antiphon, son of Lysidonides, whom Cratinus mentions in his Pytine as a rascal. But how could he be executed in the time of the Four Hundred, and afterward live to be put to death by the Thirty Tyrants? There is likewise another story of the manner of his death: that when he was old, he sailed to Syracuse, when the tyranny of Dionysius the First was most famous; and being at table, a question was put, what sort of brass was best. When others had answered as they thought most proper, he replied, That is the best brass, of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton were made. The tyrant hearing this, and taking it as a tacit exhortation to his subjects to contrive his ruin, he commanded Antiphon to be put to death; and some say that he put him to death for deriding his tragedies.
This orator is reported to have written sixty orations; but Caecilius supposes twenty-five of them to be spurious and none of his. Platon, in his comedy called Peisander, traduces him as a greedy man. He is reported to have composed some of his tragedies alone, and others with Dionysius the tyrant. While he was poetically inclined, he invented an art of curing distress of the mind, as physicians can provide cures of bodily diseases. And having at Corinth built him a little house, in or near the market, he set a notice over the gate, to this effect: that he had a way to cure distress of men's minds by words; and let him but know the cause of their malady, he would immediately prescribe the remedy, to their comfort. But after some time, thinking that art not worth his while, he betook himself to the study and teaching of oratory. There are some who ascribe the book of Glaucus of Rhegium concerning Poets to him as author. His orations concerning Herodes, against Erasistratus concerning Peacocks, are very much commended, and also that which, when he was accused, he penned for himself against a public indictment, and that against Demosthenes the general for moving an illegal measure. He likewise wrote another speech against Hippocrates the general; who did not appear on the day appointed for his trial, and was condemned in his absence.
Caecilius has recorded the decree of the senate for the judicial trial of Antiphon, passed in the year in which Theopompus was archon of Athens [411 B. C. ], the same in which the Four Hundred were overthrown, - in these words:
"Enacted by the senate on the twenty-first day of the prytany. Demonicus of Alopece was clerk; Philostratus of Pallene was president.
Andron moved in regard to those men, - Archeptolemus, Onomacles, and Antiphon, whom the generals had declared against, for that they went on an embassy to Lacedaemon, to the great damage of the city of Athens, and departed from the camp in an enemies' ship, and went through Deceleia by land, - that they should be apprehended and brought before the court for a legal trial.
Therefore let the generals, with others of the senate, to the number of ten, whom it shall please the generals to name and choose, look after these men to present them before the court, that they may be present during the proceedings. Then let the Thesmothetes summon the defendants to appear on the morrow, and let them open the proceedings in court at the time at which the summonses shall be returnable. Then let the chosen advocates, with the generals and any others who may have any thing to say, accuse the defendants of treason; and if any one of them shall be found guilty, let sentence be passed upon him as a traitor, according to the law in such case made and provided. "
[834] At the bottom of this decree was subscribed the sentence :-
"Archeptolemus son of Hippodamus, the Agrylian, and Antiphon son of Sophilus, the Rhamnusian, being both present in court, are condemned of treason. And this was to be their punishment: that they should be delivered to the eleven executioners, their goods confiscated, the tenth part of them being first consecrated to Athene; their houses to be levelled with the ground, and in the places where they stood this inscription to be engraved on brass, '[The houses] of Archeptolemus and Antiphon, traitors. '
That Archeptolemus and Antiphon should neither of them be buried in Athens, nor anywhere else under that government. And besides all this, that their posterity should be accounted infamous, bastards as well as their lawful descendants; and he too should be held infamous who should adopt any one of their descendants for his son. And that all this should be engraved on a brass tablet, and that tablet should be placed where that stands on which is engraved the decree concerning Phrynichus. "
G 2. ANDOCIDES, the son of Leogoras, [and grandson of that Andocides] who once made a peace between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, from either the Cydathenian or the Thorian deme, of a noble family, and, as Hellanicus tells us, the offspring of Hermes himself, for the race of Heralds belongs to him. On this account he was chosen by the people to go with Glaucon, with twenty sail of ships, to aid the Corcyraeans against the Corinthians [433 B. C. ]. But in process of time he was accused of some notorious acts of impiety, as that he was of the number of those who defaced the statues of Hermes and divulged the sacred mysteries of Demeter. And besides, he had been before this time wild and intemperate, and had once been seen in night-time revelry to break one of the statues of Hermes; and when on his trial he refused to bring his slave to examination whom his accusers named, he not only remained under this reproach, but was also on this account very much suspected to be guilty of the second crime too. This later action was laid to his charge soon after the expedition of the navy sent by the Athenians into Sicily [415 B. C. ]. For, as Cratippus informs us, when the Corinthians sent the Leontines and Egestians to the Athenians, who hesitated to lend them assistance, they in the night defaced and broke all the statues of Hermes which were erected in the market. To which offence Andocides added another, that of divulging the mysteries of Demeter. He was brought to his trial, but was acquitted on condition he would reveal who were companions with him in the crime. In which affair being very diligent, he found out who they were that had been guilty, and among the rest he accused his own father. He proved all guilty, and caused them all to be put to death except his father, whom he saved, though in prison, by a promise of some eminent service he would do to the commonwealth. Nor did he fail of what he promised; for Leogoras accused many who had acted in several matters against the interest of the commonwealth, and for this was acquitted of his own crime.
Now, though Andocides was very much esteemed of for his skill in the management of the affairs of the commonwealth, yet his inclinations led him rather to traffic by sea; and by this means he contracted friendship with the kings of Cyprus and other great princes. At which time he secretly stole a girl from the city, the daughter of Aristeides, and his own niece, and sent her as a present to the king of Cyprus. But suspecting he should be called in question for it, he again stole her from Cyprus, for which the king of Cyprus took him and locked him up in prison; whence he broke loose, and returned to Athens, just at that time when the four hundred conspirators had usurped the government. By whom being confined, he again escaped when the oligarchic government was broken up. . . . . But when the Thirty Tyrants were uppermost, he withdrew to Elis, [835] and there lived till Thrasybulus and his faction returned into the city [403 B. C. ], and then he also repaired thither. And after some time, being sent to Lacedaemon to conciliate a peace, he was again suspected of wrongdoing, and on that suspicion banished.
He himself has given an account of all these transactions, in his orations, which he has left behind him. For some of them contain his defence of himself in regard to the mysteries; others his petition for restoration from exile; there is one extant on Endeixis (or information laid against a criminal); also a defence against Phaeax, and one on the peace. He flourished at the same time as Socrates the philosopher. He was born in the seventy-eighth Olympiad, when Theogenides was archon of Athens [468 B. C. ], so that he should seem to be about ten years before Lysias. There is an image of Hermes, called from his name, being given by the tribe Aegeis; and it stood near the house where Andocides dwelt, and was therefore called by his name. This Andocides himself was at the charge of a cyclic chorus for the tribe Aegeis, at the performance of a dithyramb. And having gained a victory, he erected a tripod on a high point opposite to the limestone statue of Silenus. His style in his orations is plain and easy, without the least affectation or any thing of a figurative ornament.
G 3. LYSIAS was the son of Cephalus, grandson of Lysanias, and great-grandson of Cephalus. His father was by birth a Syracusan; but partly for the love he had to the city, and partly in condescension to the persuasions of Pericles the son of Xanthippus, who entertained him as his friend and guest, he went to live at Athens, being a man of great wealth. Some say that he was banished from Syracuse when the city was under the tyranny of Gelon. Lysias was born at Athens when Philocles, the successor of Phrasicles, was archon [459 B. C. ], in the second year of the eightieth Olympiad. At his first coming, he was educated among the most noble of the Athenians. But when the city sent a colony to Sybaris, which was afterwards called Thurii, he went thither with his other brother Polemarchus, his father being now dead (for he had two other brothers, Euthydemus and Brachyllus), that he might receive his portion of his father's estate. This was done in the fifteenth year of his age, when Praxiteles was archon [444 B. C. ]. There then he stayed, and was brought up under Nicias and Teisias, both Syracusans. And having purchased a house and received his estate, he lived as a citizen for thirty-three years, till the year of Cleocritus [413 B. C. ]. In the year following, when Callias was archon [412 B. C. ], in the ninety-second Olympiad, the Athenians met with their disasters in Sicily, and others of their allies revolted, and especially the Italians. Lysias, being accused of favouring the Athenians, was banished with three others of his association; and coming to Athens, in the year wherein Callias succeeded Cleocritus [412 B. C. ], the city then labouring under the tyranny of the four hundred conspirators, he remained there. But after the fight at Aegospotami, when the Thirty Tyrants had usurped the government, he was banished thence, after he had remained in Athens seven years. His goods were confiscated; and having likewise lost his brother Polemarchus, he himself escaped by a back door of the house in which he was kept for execution, fled to Megara and there lived. But when the citizens endeavoured to return from Phyle, he also behaved himself very well, and appeared very active in the affair, having, to forward this great enterprise, deposited two thousand drachmas of silver and two hundred shields, and being commissioned with Hermas, he maintained three hundred men in arms, and prevailed with Thrasylaeus the Elean, his old friend and host, to contribute two talents. Upon entering the city, Thrasybulus proposed that, for a consideration of his good service to the public, he should receive the rights of citizenship: this was during the so-called time of anarchy before Eucleides [403 B. C. ]. Which proposal being ratified by the people, Archinus objected that it was against the laws, and a decree without authority of the senate. [836] The decree was thereupon declared void, and Lysias lost his citizenship. He led the remainder of his life in the rank of an Isoteles (or citizen who had no right to vote or hold office), and died at last at Athens, being eighty-three years old, or as some would have it, seventy-six; and others again say, that he lived above eighty years, till after the birth of Demosthenes. It is supposed he was born in the year of Philocles [459 B. C. ].
There are four hundred and twenty-five orations which bear his name, of which Dionysius and Caecilius affirm only two hundred and thirty to be genuine, and he is said to have been overcome but twice in all. There is extant also the oration which he made in defence of the forementioned decree against Archinus, who challenged it and thereby prevented Lysias from receiving the citizenship, as also another against the Thirty Tyrants. He was very persuasive, and was always very brief in what he delivered. He would commonly give orations to private persons. There are likewise his textbooks of oratory, his public harangues, his letters, his eulogies, funeral orations, love speeches, and his defence of Socrates, accommodated to the minds of the judges. His style seems plain and easy, though difficult to imitate. Demosthenes, in his oration against Neaera, says that he was in love with one Metaneira, Neaera's serving-maid, but afterwards married his brother Brachyllus's daughter. Plato in his Phaedrus makes mention of him, as a most eloquent orator and older than Isocrates. Philiscus, his companion, and Isocrates's pupil, composed an epigram concerning him, which agrees with what we have urged from Plato; and it is to this effect:
"Calliope's witty daughter, Phrontis, show
If anything of wit or eloquence you have;
For 'tis decreed that you shall bear a son,
Lysias by name, to spread the name of him
Whose great and generous acts do fill the world,
And are received for glorious above.
Let him who sings those praises of the dead,
Let him, my friend, too, praise our fellowship. "
He likewise wrote two orations for Iphicrates, - one against Harmodius, and another accusing Timotheus of treason, - in both which he was successful. But when Iphicrates made himself responsible for Timotheus's actions, and would purge himself of the allegation of treason made also against him, Lysias wrote an oration for him to deliver in his defence; upon which he was acquitted, but Timotheus was fined a considerable sum of money. He likewise delivered an oration at the Olympic games, in which he endeavoured to convince the Greeks of how great advantage it would be to them, if they could but unanimously join to pull down the tyrant Dionysius.
G 4. ISOCRATES was the son of Theodorus, of Erchia, reckoned among the middle class of citizens, and a man who kept servants under him to make flutes, by which he got so much money as enabled him not only to bring up his children after the most genteel manner, but likewise to maintain a choir. For besides Isocrates, he had other sons, Telesippus and Diomnestus, and one daughter. And hence, we may suppose, those two comic poets, Aristophanes and Stratis, took occasion to bring him on the stage. He was born in the eighty-sixth Olympiad, Lysimachus being archon [436 B. C. ], about two and twenty years after Lysias, and seven before Plato. When he was a boy, he was as well educated as any of the Athenian children, being under the tuition of Prodicus the Cean, Gorgias the Leontine, Teisias the Syracusan, and Theramenes the rhetorician. And when Theramenes was to be apprehended by the order of the Thirty Tyrants, and fled for protection to the altar of Hestia of the senate, only Isocrates stood by his friend, when all others were struck with terror. For a long time he stood silent; [837] but after some time Theramenes advised him to desist, because, he told him, it would be an aggravation of his grief, if any of his friends should come into trouble through him. And it is said that he made use of certain textbooks of rhetoric composed by Theramenes, when he was slandered in court; which textbooks have since borne Boton's name.
When Isocrates was come to man's estate, he meddled with nothing of state affairs, both because he had a very weak voice and because he was something timorous; and besides these two impediments, his estate was much impaired by the loss of a great part of his patrimony in the war with the Lacedaemonians. It is evident that he composed orations for others to use, but delivered only one; that concerning Exchange of Property. Having set up a school, he gave himself much to writing and the study of philosophy, and then he wrote his Panegyrical oration, and others which were used for advice, some of which he delivered himself, and others he gave to others to deliver for him; aiming thereby to persuade the Greeks to the study and practice of such things as were of most immediate concern to them. But his endeavours in that way proving to no purpose, he gave those things over, and opened a school in Chios first, as some will have it, having for a beginning nine pupils; and when they came to him to pay him for their schooling, he weeping said, "Now I see plainly that I am sold to my pupils. " He admitted all into his acquaintance who desired it. He was the first that made a separation between contentious pleas and political arguments, to which latter he rather addicted himself. He instituted a form of magistracy in Chios, much the same as that at Athens. No schoolmaster ever got so much; so that he maintained a trireme at his own charge. He had more than a hundred pupils, and among others Timotheus the son of Conon was one, with whom he visited many cities, and composed the letters which Timotheus sent to the Athenians; who for his pains gave him a talent out of that which he got at Samos [365 B. C. ]. Likewise Theopompus of Chios, Ephorus of Cyme, Asclepiades who composed arguments for tragedies, and Theodectes of Phaselis, who afterwards wrote tragedies, were all Isocrates' pupils. The last of these had a monument in the way to the shrine of Cyamites, as we go to Eleusis by the Sacred Way, of which now remains only ruins. There also he set up with his own the statues of other famous poets, of all which only Homerus' is to be seen. Leodamas also the Athenian, and Lacritus who gave laws to the Athenians, were both his pupils; and some say, Hypereides and Isaeus too. They add likewise, that Demosthenes also was very desirous to learn of him, and because he could not give the full rate, which was a thousand drachmas, he offered him two hundred, the fifth part, if he would teach him but the fifth part of his art in proportion: to whom Isocrates answered, We do not use, Demosthenes, to impart our skill by halves, but as men sell good fish whole, or altogether, so if you have a desire to learn, we will teach you our full art, and not a piece of it. He died in the year when Charondas was archon [338 B. C. ], when, being at Hippocrates's public exercise, he received the news of the slaughter at Chaeroneia; for he was the cause of his own death by a four days' fast, which he then made, pronouncing just at his departure the three verses which begin three tragedies of Euripides:
"Danaus, father of the fifty sisters, -
Pelops, son of Tantalus, in quest of Pisa, -
Cadmus, in time past, going from Sidon. "
He lived ninety-eight years, or, as some say, a hundred, not being able to behold Greece the fourth time brought into slavery. The year (or, as some say, four years) before he died, he wrote his Panathenaic oration. He laboured upon his Panegyric oration ten years, or, as some tell us, fifteen, which he is supposed to have borrowed out of Gorgias the Leontine and Lysias. His oration concerning Exchange of Property he wrote when he was eighty-two years old, and those to Philippus a little before his death. [838] When he was old, he adopted Aphareus, the youngest of the three sons of Plathane, the daughter of Hippias the orator. He was very rich, both in respect of the great sums of money he exacted of his pupils, and besides that, received at one time twenty talents from Nicocles, king of Cyprus, for an oration which he dedicated to him. By reason of his riches he suffered the envy of others, and was three times named to maintain a trireme; which he evaded twice by the assistance of his son and a counterfeit sickness, but the third time he undertook it, though the expense proved very great. A father telling him that he had allowed his son no other companion than one slave, Isocrates replied, Go your way then, for one slave you shall have two. He strove for the prize which Aretemisia dedicated to the honour and memory of her husband Mausolus; but that oration is lost. He wrote also another oration in praise of Helen, and one called Areopagiticus. Some say that he died when he had fasted nine days, - some again, at four days' end, - and his death took its date from the funeral solemnities of those that lost their Lives at Chaeroneia. His son Aphareus likewise wrote several orations.
He lies buried with all his family near Cynosarges, on the left hand of the hill. There are interred Isocrates and his father Theodorus, his mother and her sister Anaco, his adoptive son Aphareus, Socrates the son of Anaco, Theodorus his brother, bearing his father's name, his grandsons, the sons of his adopted Aphareus, and his wife Plathane, the mother of Aphareus. On these tombs were erected six tables, which are now demolished. And upon the tomb of Isocrates himself was placed a column thirty cubits high, and on that a mermaid of seven cubits, which was an emblem of his eloquence; of which nothing now remains. There was also near it a tablet, having poets and his schoolmasters on it; and among the rest, Gorgias inspecting a celestial globe, and Isocrates standing by him. There is likewise a statue of his of bronze in Eleusis; dedicated by Timotheus the son of Conon, before the entry of the porch, with this inscription:
"To the fame and honour of Isocrates,
This statue's sacred to the Goddesses:
The gift of Timotheus. "
This statue was made by Leochares. There are sixty orations which bear his name; of which, if we credit Dionysius, only twenty-five are genuine; but according to Caecilius, twenty-eight; and the rest are accounted spurious. He was an utter stranger to ostentation, insomuch that, when there came at one time three persons to hear him declaim, he admitted but two of them, desiring the third to come the next day, for that two at once were to him as a full theatre. He used to tell his pupils that he taught his art for ten minas; but he would give any man ten thousand, that could teach him to be bold and give him a good utterance. And being once asked how he, who was not very eloquent himself, could make others so, he answered, Just as a whetstone cannot cut, yet it will sharpen knives for that purpose. Some say that he wrote textbooks of oratory; others are of opinion that he had no method of teaching, but only exercise. He would never ask any thing of a free-born citizen. He used to enjoin his pupils being present at public assemblies to repeat to him what was there delivered. He conceived no little sorrow for the death of Socrates, insomuch that the next day he put himself in mourning. Being asked what was the use and force of rhetoric, he answered, To make great matters small, and small great. At a feast with Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, being desired by some of the company to declaim upon some theme, he made answer, that it was not the time for him to speak what he knew, and he knew nothing that was fitted to that time. Happening once to see Sophocles the tragedian amorously following a comely boy, he said to him, It will become you, Sophocles, [839] to restrain not only your hands, but your eyes. When Ephorus of Cyme left his school before he had arrived at any good proficiency, his father Demophilus sent him again with a second sum of money in his hand; at which Isocrates jokingly called him Diphorus, that is, twice bringing his fee. However, he took a great deal of pains and care with him, and went so far as to put him in the way of writing history.
He was wantonly given; and used to keep a mattress alongside his bed, and his pillow was commonly made moist with saffron. He never married while he was young; but in his old age he kept a mistress, whose name was Lagisce, and by her he had a daughter, who died in the twelfth year of her age, before she was married. He afterwards married Plathane, the wife of Hippias the rhetorician, who had three sons, the youngest of which, Aphareus by name, he adopted for his own, as we said before. This Aphareus erected a bronze statue to him near the temple of Zeus, as may be seen from the inscription:
"In veneration of the mighty Zeus,
His noble parents, and the Gods above,
Aphareus this statue here has set,
The statue of Isocrates his father. "
He is said to have run a race on a swift horse, when he was but a boy; for he is to be seen in this posture in a statue on the Acropolis, in the ball-court of the Arrhephoroi. There were but two suits commenced against him in his whole life. One of these was Megacleides, who challenged him to exchange of property; at the trial of which he could not be personally present, by reason of sickness; but sending Aphareus, he nevertheless won his case. The other suit was commenced against him by Lysimachus, who would have him come to an exchange or be at the charge of maintaining a trireme for the commonwealth. In this case he was defeated, and forced to perform the service. There was likewise a painting of him in the Pompeium.
Aphareus also wrote a few orations, both judicial and deliberative; as also tragedies to the number of thirty-seven, of which two are contested. He began to make his works public in the year of Lysistratus [369 B. C. ], and continued it to the year of Sosigenes [342 B. C. ], that is, twenty eight years. In these years he exhibited dramas six times at the city Dionysiac festivals, and twice went away with the prize through the director Dionysius; he also gained two other victories at the Lenaean festival through other directors.
There were to be seen in the Acropolis the statues of the mother of Isocrates, of Theodorus, and of Anaco his mother's sister.
G EUMENES. Eumenes was thought to be slain by a conspiracy of Perseus. That report being brought to Pergamum, Attalus his brother put on the crown, married his wife, and took upon him the kingdom. Hearing afterwards his brother was alive and upon the way, he met him, as he used to do, with his life-guard, and a spear in his hand. Eumenes embraced him kindly, and whispered in his ear: -
"If a widow you will wed,
Wait till you're sure her husband's dead. " -
But he never afterwards did or spoke any thing that showed any suspicion all his lifetime; but when he died, be bequeathed to him his queen and kingdom. In requital of which, his brother bred up none of his own children, although he had many; but when the son of Eumenes was grown up, he bestowed the kingdom on him in his own lifetime.
G PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS. Pyrrhus was asked by his sons, when they were boys, to whom he would leave the kingdom. To him of you, said he, that has the sharpest sword.
Being asked whether Python or Caphisius was the better piper, Polysperchon, said he, is the best general.
He joined in battle with the Romans, and twice overcame them, but with the loss of many friends and captains. If I should overcome the Romans, said he, in another fight, I were undone.
Not being able to keep Sicily (as he said) from them, turning to his friends he said: What a fine wrestling ring do we leave to the Romans and Carthaginians!
His soldiers called him Eagle; And I may deserve the title, said he, while I am borne upon the wings of your arms.
Hearing some young men had spoken many reproachful words of him in their drink, he summoned them all to appear before him next day; when they appeared, he asked the foremost whether they spoke such things or him or not. The young man answered : Such words were spoken, O King, and more we had spoken, if we had had more wine.
G ANTIOCHUS. Antiochus, who twice made an inroad into Parthia, as he was once a hunting, lost his friends and servants in the pursuit, and went into a cottage of poor people who did not know him. As they were at supper, he threw out discourse concerning the king; they said for the most part he was a good prince, but overlooked many things he left to the management of debauched courtiers, and out of love of hunting often neglected his necessary affairs; and there they stopped. At break of day the guard arrived at the cottage, and the king was recognised when the crown and purple robes were brought. From the day, said he, on which I first received these, I never heard truth concerning myself till yesterday.
When he besieged Jerusalem, the Jews, in respect of their great festival, begged of him seven days' truce; which he not only granted, but preparing oxen with gilded horns, with a great quantity of incense and perfumes, he went before them to the very gates, and having delivered them as a sacrifice to their priests, he returned back to his army. The Jews wondered at him, and as soon as their festival was finished, surrendered themselves to him.
G THEMISTOCLES. Themistocles in his youth was much given to wine and women. But after Miltiades the general overcame the Persian at Marathon, Themistocles utterly forsook his former disorders; [185] and to such as wondered at the change, he said, The trophy of Miltiades will neither suffer me to sleep nor to be idle.
Being asked whether he would rather be Achilles or Homerus, - And pray, said he, which would you rather be, a conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier that proclaims who are conquerors ?
When Xerxes with that great navy made a descent upon Greece, he fearing, if Epicydes (a popular, but a covetous, corrupt, and cowardly person) were made general, the city might be lost, bribed him with a sum of money to desist from that pretence.
Adeimantus was afraid to hazard a sea-fight, whereunto Themistocles persuaded and encouraged the Greeks. O Themistocles, said he, those that start before their time in the Olympic games are always scourged. Yes; but, Adeimantus, said the other, they that are left behind are not crowned.
Eurybiades lifted up his cane at him, as if he would strike him. Strike, said he, but hear me.
When he could not persuade Eurybiades to fight in the straits of the sea, he sent privately to Xerxes, advising him that he need not fear the Greeks, for they were running away. Xerxes, upon this persuasion, fighting in a place advantageous for the Greeks, was worsted; and then he sent him another message, and bade him fly with all speed over the Hellespont, for the Greeks designed to break down his bridge ; that under pretence of saving him he might secure the Greeks.
A man from the little island of Seriphus told him, he was famous not upon his own account but through the city where he lived, - You say true, said he, for if I had been a Seriphian, I had not been famous; nor would you, if you had been an Athenian.
To Antiphatus, a beautiful person that avoided and despised Themistocles when he formerly loved him, but came to him and flattered him when he was in great power and esteem; Hark you, lad, said he, though late, yet both of us are wise at last.
To Simonides desiring him to give an unjust sentence, You would not be a good poet, said he, if you should sing out of tune; nor I a good governor, if I should give judgement contrary to law.
When his son was a little saucy towards his mother, he said that this boy had more power than all the Greeks, for the Athenians governed Greece, he the Athenians, his wife him, and his son his wife.
He preferred an honest man that wooed his daughter, before a rich man. I would rather, said he, have a man that wants money, than money that wants a man.
Having a farm to sell, he bid the crier proclaim also that it had a good neighbour.
When the Athenians reviled him; Why do you complain, said he, that the same persons so often befriend you? And he compared himself to a row of plane-trees, under which in a storm passengers run for shelter, but in fair weather they pluck the leaves off and abuse them.
Scoffing at the Eretrians, he said, Like the sword-fish, they have a sword indeed, but no heart.
Being banished first out of Athens and afterwards out of Greece, he betook himself to the king of Persia, who bade him speak his mind. Speech, he said, was like to tapestry; and like it, when it was spread, it showed its figures, but when it was folded up, hid and spoiled them.
And therefore he requested time until he might learn the Persian tongue, and could explain himself without an interpreter.
Having there received great presents, and being enriched of a sudden; O lads, said he to his sons, we had been undone if we had not been undone.
G MYRONIDES. Myronides summoned the Athenians to fight against the Boeotians. When the time was almost come, and the captains told him they were not near all come out; [186] They are come, said he, all that intend to fight. And marching while their spirits were up, he overcame his enemies.
G ARISTEIDES. Aristeides the Just always managed his offices himself, and avoided all political clubs, because power gained by the assistance of friends was an encouragement to the unjust.
When the Athenians were fully bent to banish him by an ostracism, an illiterate country fellow came to him with his shell, and asked him to write in it the name of Aristeides. Friend, said he, do you know Aristeides ? Not I, said the fellow, but I do not like his surname of Just. He said no more, but wrote his name in the shell and gave it him.
He was at variance with Themistocles, who was sent on an embassy with him. Are you content, said he, Themistocles, to leave our enmity at the borders ? and if you please, we will take it up again at our return.
When he levied an assessment upon the Greeks, he returned poorer by so much as he spent in the journey.
Aeschylus wrote these verses on Amphiaraus : -
"His shield no emblem bears; his generous soul
Wishes to be, not to appear, the best;
While the deep furrows of his noble mind
Harvests of wise and prudent counsel bear. "
And when they were pronounced in the theatre, all turned their eyes upon Aristeides.
G PERICLES. Whenever he entered on his command as general, while he was putting on his war-cloak, he used thus to bespeak himself: Remember, Pericles, you govern freemen, Greeks, Athenians.
He advised the Athenians to demolish Aegina, as a dangerous eyesore to the haven of Peiraeus.
To a friend that wanted him to bear false witness and to bind the same with an oath, he said: I am a friend only as far as the altar.
When he lay on his death-bed, he blessed himself that no Athenian ever went into mourning upon his account.
ALCIBIADES. Alcibiades, while he was a boy, wrestling in a ring, seeing he could not break his adversary's hold, bit him by the hand; who cried out, You bite like a woman. Not so, said he, but like a lion.
He had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas ; and he cut off his tail, that, said he, the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no farther with me.
Coming into a school, he called for Homerus' Iliad; and when the master told him he had none of Homerus' works, he gave him a box on the ear, and went his way.
He came to Pericles' gate, and being told he was busy a preparing his accounts to be given to the people of Athens, Had he not better, said he, contrive how he might give no account at all ?
Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, he absconded, saying, that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.
But, said one, will you not trust your country with your cause ? No, said he, nor my mother either, lest she mistake and cast a black pebble, instead of a white one.
When he heard death was decreed to him and his associates, Let us convince them, said he, that we are alive. And passing over to Lacedaemon, he stirred up the Decelean war against the Athenians.
G G LAMACHUS. Lamachus rebuked a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, Sir, said he, in war there is no room for a second miscarriage.
G IPHICRATES. Iphicrates was despised because he was thought to be a shoemaker's son. [187] The exploit that first brought him into repute was this: when he was wounded himself, he caught up one of the enemies and carried him alive and in his armour to his own ship.
He once pitched his camp in a country belonging to his allies and confederates, and yet he fortified it exactly with a trench and bulwark. Said one to him, What are you afraid of? Of all speeches, said he, none is so dishonourable for a general, as I should not have thought it.
As he marshalled his army to fight with barbarians, I am afraid, said he, they do not know Iphicrates, for his very name used to strike terror into other enemies.
Being accused of a capital crime, he said to the informer: O fellow! what are you doing, who, when war is at hand, do advise the city to consult concerning me, and not with me ?
To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled him for his mean birth, My nobility, said he, begins in me, but yours ends in you.
A rhetorician asked him in an assembly, who he was that he took so much upon him, - horseman, or footman, or archer, or shield-bearer. Neither of them, said he, but one that understands how to command all those.
G TIMOTHEUS. Timotheus was reputed a successful general, and some that envied him painted cities falling under his net of their own accord, while he was asleep. Said Timotheus, If I take such cities when I am asleep, what do you think I shall do when I am awake ?
A confident commander showed the Athenians a wound he had received. But I, said he, when I was your general in Samos, was ashamed that a dart from an engine fell near me.
The orators set up Chares as one they thought fit to be general of the Athenians. Not to be general, said Timotheus, but to carry the general's baggage.
G CHABRIAS. Chabrias said, they were the best commanders who best understood the affairs of their enemies.
He was once indicted for treason with Iphicrates, who blamed him for exposing himself to danger, by going to the place of exercise, and dining at his usual hour. If the Athenians, said he, deal severely with us, you will die all foul and empty; I'll die clean and anointed, with my dinner in my belly.
He was accustomed to say, that an army of stags, with a lion for their commander, was more formidable than an army of lions led by a stag.
G HEGESIPPUS. When Hegesippus, surnamed Crobylus (i. e. Top-knot), instigated the Athenians against Philippus, one of the assembly cried out, You would not persuade us to a war ? Yes, indeed, would I, said he, and to mourning clothes and to public funerals and to funeral speeches, if we intend to live free and not submit to the pleasure of . the Macedonians.
G PYTHEAS. Pytheas, when he was a young man, stood forth to oppose the decrees made concerning Alexander. One said: Have you, young man, the confidence to speak in such weighty affairs ? And why not ? said he: Alexander, whom you voted a God, is younger than I am.
G PHOCION. Phocion the Athenian was never seen to laugh or cry.
In an assembly one told him, You seem to be thoughtful, Phocion. You guess right, said he, for I am contriving how to reduce what I have to say to the people of Athens.
The Oracle told the Athenians, there was one man in the city of a contrary judgement to all the rest; and the Athenians in a hubbub ordered search to be made, who this should be. I, said Phocion, am the man ; I alone am pleased with nothing the common people say or do.
[188] Once when he had delivered an opinion which pleased the people, and perceived it was entertained by a general consent, he turned to his friend, and said: Have I not unawares spoken something or other wrong ?
The Athenians gathered contributions for a certain sacrifice; and when others gave to it, he being often spoken to said: I should be ashamed to give to you, and not to pay this man, - pointing to one of his creditors.
Demosthenes the orator told him, If the Athenians should be mad, they would kill you. Like enough, said he, me if they were mad, but you if they were wise.
Aristogeiton the informer, being condemned and ready to be executed in prison, entreated that Phocion would come to him. And when his friends would not suffer him to go to so vile a person; And where, said he, would you discourse with Aristogeiton more pleasantly ?
The Athenians were offended with the Byzantines, for refusing to receive Chares into their city, who was sent with forces to assist them against Philippus. Said Phocion, You ought not to be displeased with the distrust of your confederates, but with your commanders that are not to be trusted. Whereupon be was chosen general, and being trusted by the Byzantines, he forced Philippus to return without his errand.
King Alexander sent him a present of a hundred talents; and he asked those that brought it, what it should mean that, of all the Athenians, Alexander should be thus kind to him. They answered, because he esteemed him alone to be a worthy and upright person. Pray therefore, said he, let him suffer me to seem as well as to be so.
Alexander sent to them for some ships, and the people calling for Phocion by name, bade him speak his opinion. He stood up and told them: I advise you either to conquer yourselves, or else to side with the conqueror.
An uncertain rumour happened, that Alexander was dead. Immediately the orators leaped into the rostrum, and advised them to make war without delay; but Phocion entreated them to tarry awhile and know the certainty: for, said he, if he is dead to-day, he will be dead to-morrow, and so forwards.
Leosthenes hurried the city into a war, with fond hopes conceited at the name of liberty and command. Phocion compared his speeches to cypress-trees ; They are tall, said he, and comely, but bear no fruit. However, the first attempts were successful; and when the city was sacrificing for the good news, he was asked whether he did not wish he had done this himself. I would, said he, have done what has been done, but have advised what I did.
When the Macedonians invaded Attica and plundered the seacoasts, he drew out the youth. When many came to him and generally persuaded him by all means to possess himself of such an ascent, and thereon to marshal his army, O Heracles! said he, how many commanders do I see, and how few soldiers ? Yet he fought and overcame, and slew Nicion, the commander of the Macedonians.
But in a short time the Athenians were overcome, and admitted a garrison sent by Antipater. Menyllus, the governor of that garrison, offered money to Phocion, who was enraged thereby and said: This man is no better than Alexander; and what I refused then I can with less honour receive now.
Antipater said, of the two friends he had at Athens, he could never persuade Phocion to accept a present, nor could he ever satisfy Demades with presents.
When Antipater requested him to do some indirect thing or other, Antipater, said he, you cannot have Phocion for your friend and flatterer too.
[189] After the death of Antipater, democracy was established in Athens, and the assembly decreed the death of Phocion and his friends. The rest were led weeping to execution; but as Phocion passed silently, one of his enemies met him and spat in his face. But he turned himself to the magistrates, and said, Will nobody restrain this insolent fellow ?
One of those that were to suffer with him lamented and complained: Why, Euippus, said he, are you not pleased that you die with Phocion ?
When the cup of hemlock was brought to him, being asked whether he had any thing to say to his son; I command you, said he, and entreat you not to think of any revenge upon the Athenians.
G PEISISTRATUS. Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens, when some of his party revolted from him and possessed themselves of Phyle, came to them bearing his baggage on his back. They asked him what he meant by it. Either, said he, to persuade you to return with me, or if I cannot persuade you, to tarry with you; and therefore I come prepared accordingly.
An accusation was brought to him against his mother, that she was in love and used secret familiarity with a young man, who out of fear for the most part refused her. This young man he invited to supper, and as they were at supper asked him how he liked his entertainment. He answered, Very well. Thus, said he, you shall be treated daily, if you please my mother.
Thrasybulus was in love with his daughter, and as he met her, kissed her; whereupon his wife would have incensed him against Thrasybulus. If, said he, we hate those that love us, what shall we do to them that hate us ? - and he gave the maid in marriage to Thrasybulus.
Some lascivious drunken persons by chance met his wife, and used unseemly speech and behaviour to her; but the next day they begged his pardon with tears. As for you, said he, learn to be sober for the future; but as for my wife, yesterday she was not abroad at all.
He designed to marry another wife, and his children asked him whether he could blame them for anything. By no means, said he, but I commend you, and desire to have more such children as you are.
G DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS. Demetrius Phalereus persuaded King Ptolemy to get and study such books as treated of government and conduct; for those things are written in books which the friends of kings dare not advise.
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Plutarch: Lives of the Ten Orators
Pages 832 - 844
These lives are unlikely to have been written by Plutarch himself, but nevertheless they contain much unique and valuable information about the ten Athenian orators, most of whom lived in the 4th century B. C. The names of the orators are:
Antiphon - Andocides - Lysias - Isocrates - Isaeus - Aeschines - Lycurgus - Demosthenes - Hypereides - Deinarchus
Translated by Charles Barcroft, "lecturer of St. Mildred's", revised by W. Goodwin (1878). A few words and spellings have been changed. The page numbers in the Greek text are shown in red. Click on the G symbols to go to the Greek text of each Life.
The lives sometimes date events by the name of the archon, the chief Athenian magistrate, who entered office in the middle of the summer; the equivalent years B. C. are shown in green.
[832] G 1. ANTIPHON, the son of Sophilus, from the deme of Rhamnus, was his father's pupil; for Sophilus kept a rhetoric school, to which it is reported that Alcibiades himself had recourse in his youth. Having attained to competent measure of knowledge and eloquence, - and that, as some believe, from his own natural ingenuity, - he dedicated his study chiefly to affairs of state. And yet he was for some time conversant in the schools, and had a controversy with Socrates the philosopher about the art of disputing, - not so much for the sake of contention as for the profit of arguing, as Xenophon tells us in his Commentaries of Socrates. At the request of some citizens, he wrote orations by which they defended their suits at law. Some say that he was the first that ever did any thing of this nature. For it is certain there is not one judicial oration extant written by any orator that lived before him, nor by his contemporaries either, as Themistocles, Aristeides, and Pericles; though the times gave them opportunity, and there was need enough of their labour in such business. Not that we are to impute it to their lack of ability that they did nothing in this way, for we may inform ourselves of the contrary from what historians relate of each of them. Besides, if we inspect the most ancient of those known in history who had the same form and method in their pleadings, such as Alcibiades, Critias, Lysias, and Archinous, we shall find that they all followed Antiphon when he was old. For being a man of incomparable sagacity, he was the first that published instructions about oratory; and by reason of his profound learning, he was surnamed Nestor.
Caecilius, in a tract which he wrote about him, supposes him to have been Thucydides' pupil, from what Antiphon delivered in praise of him. He is most accurate in his orations, in invention subtle; and he would frequently baffle his adversary unawares, by a covert sort of pleading; in troublesome and intricate matters he was acute and sharp; and as he was a great admirer of ornamental speaking, he would always adapt his orations to both law and reason.
He was born the time of the Persian war and of Gorgias the rhetorician, being somewhat younger than him. And he lived to see the subversion of the popular government in the commonwealth which was wrought by the four hundred [411 B. C. ], in which he himself is thought to have had the chiefest hand, being sometimes commander of two ships, and sometimes general, and having by the many and great victories he obtained gained them many allies, he armed the young men, manned out sixty triremes, and on every occasion went ambassador to Lacedaemon at the time when Eetioneia was fortified. [833] But when those Four Hundred were overthrown, he with Archeptolemus, who was likewise one of the same number, was accused of the conspiracy, condemned, and sentenced to the punishment due to traitors, his body cast out unburied, and all his posterity infamous on record. But there are some who tell us, that he was put to death by the Thirty Tyrants; and among the rest, Lysias, in his oration for Antiphon's daughter, says the same; for he left a little daughter, whom Callaeschrus claimed for his wife by the law of propinquity. And Theopompus likewise, in his Fifteenth Book of Philippics, tells us the same thing. But this must have been another Antiphon, son of Lysidonides, whom Cratinus mentions in his Pytine as a rascal. But how could he be executed in the time of the Four Hundred, and afterward live to be put to death by the Thirty Tyrants? There is likewise another story of the manner of his death: that when he was old, he sailed to Syracuse, when the tyranny of Dionysius the First was most famous; and being at table, a question was put, what sort of brass was best. When others had answered as they thought most proper, he replied, That is the best brass, of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton were made. The tyrant hearing this, and taking it as a tacit exhortation to his subjects to contrive his ruin, he commanded Antiphon to be put to death; and some say that he put him to death for deriding his tragedies.
This orator is reported to have written sixty orations; but Caecilius supposes twenty-five of them to be spurious and none of his. Platon, in his comedy called Peisander, traduces him as a greedy man. He is reported to have composed some of his tragedies alone, and others with Dionysius the tyrant. While he was poetically inclined, he invented an art of curing distress of the mind, as physicians can provide cures of bodily diseases. And having at Corinth built him a little house, in or near the market, he set a notice over the gate, to this effect: that he had a way to cure distress of men's minds by words; and let him but know the cause of their malady, he would immediately prescribe the remedy, to their comfort. But after some time, thinking that art not worth his while, he betook himself to the study and teaching of oratory. There are some who ascribe the book of Glaucus of Rhegium concerning Poets to him as author. His orations concerning Herodes, against Erasistratus concerning Peacocks, are very much commended, and also that which, when he was accused, he penned for himself against a public indictment, and that against Demosthenes the general for moving an illegal measure. He likewise wrote another speech against Hippocrates the general; who did not appear on the day appointed for his trial, and was condemned in his absence.
Caecilius has recorded the decree of the senate for the judicial trial of Antiphon, passed in the year in which Theopompus was archon of Athens [411 B. C. ], the same in which the Four Hundred were overthrown, - in these words:
"Enacted by the senate on the twenty-first day of the prytany. Demonicus of Alopece was clerk; Philostratus of Pallene was president.
Andron moved in regard to those men, - Archeptolemus, Onomacles, and Antiphon, whom the generals had declared against, for that they went on an embassy to Lacedaemon, to the great damage of the city of Athens, and departed from the camp in an enemies' ship, and went through Deceleia by land, - that they should be apprehended and brought before the court for a legal trial.
Therefore let the generals, with others of the senate, to the number of ten, whom it shall please the generals to name and choose, look after these men to present them before the court, that they may be present during the proceedings. Then let the Thesmothetes summon the defendants to appear on the morrow, and let them open the proceedings in court at the time at which the summonses shall be returnable. Then let the chosen advocates, with the generals and any others who may have any thing to say, accuse the defendants of treason; and if any one of them shall be found guilty, let sentence be passed upon him as a traitor, according to the law in such case made and provided. "
[834] At the bottom of this decree was subscribed the sentence :-
"Archeptolemus son of Hippodamus, the Agrylian, and Antiphon son of Sophilus, the Rhamnusian, being both present in court, are condemned of treason. And this was to be their punishment: that they should be delivered to the eleven executioners, their goods confiscated, the tenth part of them being first consecrated to Athene; their houses to be levelled with the ground, and in the places where they stood this inscription to be engraved on brass, '[The houses] of Archeptolemus and Antiphon, traitors. '
That Archeptolemus and Antiphon should neither of them be buried in Athens, nor anywhere else under that government. And besides all this, that their posterity should be accounted infamous, bastards as well as their lawful descendants; and he too should be held infamous who should adopt any one of their descendants for his son. And that all this should be engraved on a brass tablet, and that tablet should be placed where that stands on which is engraved the decree concerning Phrynichus. "
G 2. ANDOCIDES, the son of Leogoras, [and grandson of that Andocides] who once made a peace between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, from either the Cydathenian or the Thorian deme, of a noble family, and, as Hellanicus tells us, the offspring of Hermes himself, for the race of Heralds belongs to him. On this account he was chosen by the people to go with Glaucon, with twenty sail of ships, to aid the Corcyraeans against the Corinthians [433 B. C. ]. But in process of time he was accused of some notorious acts of impiety, as that he was of the number of those who defaced the statues of Hermes and divulged the sacred mysteries of Demeter. And besides, he had been before this time wild and intemperate, and had once been seen in night-time revelry to break one of the statues of Hermes; and when on his trial he refused to bring his slave to examination whom his accusers named, he not only remained under this reproach, but was also on this account very much suspected to be guilty of the second crime too. This later action was laid to his charge soon after the expedition of the navy sent by the Athenians into Sicily [415 B. C. ]. For, as Cratippus informs us, when the Corinthians sent the Leontines and Egestians to the Athenians, who hesitated to lend them assistance, they in the night defaced and broke all the statues of Hermes which were erected in the market. To which offence Andocides added another, that of divulging the mysteries of Demeter. He was brought to his trial, but was acquitted on condition he would reveal who were companions with him in the crime. In which affair being very diligent, he found out who they were that had been guilty, and among the rest he accused his own father. He proved all guilty, and caused them all to be put to death except his father, whom he saved, though in prison, by a promise of some eminent service he would do to the commonwealth. Nor did he fail of what he promised; for Leogoras accused many who had acted in several matters against the interest of the commonwealth, and for this was acquitted of his own crime.
Now, though Andocides was very much esteemed of for his skill in the management of the affairs of the commonwealth, yet his inclinations led him rather to traffic by sea; and by this means he contracted friendship with the kings of Cyprus and other great princes. At which time he secretly stole a girl from the city, the daughter of Aristeides, and his own niece, and sent her as a present to the king of Cyprus. But suspecting he should be called in question for it, he again stole her from Cyprus, for which the king of Cyprus took him and locked him up in prison; whence he broke loose, and returned to Athens, just at that time when the four hundred conspirators had usurped the government. By whom being confined, he again escaped when the oligarchic government was broken up. . . . . But when the Thirty Tyrants were uppermost, he withdrew to Elis, [835] and there lived till Thrasybulus and his faction returned into the city [403 B. C. ], and then he also repaired thither. And after some time, being sent to Lacedaemon to conciliate a peace, he was again suspected of wrongdoing, and on that suspicion banished.
He himself has given an account of all these transactions, in his orations, which he has left behind him. For some of them contain his defence of himself in regard to the mysteries; others his petition for restoration from exile; there is one extant on Endeixis (or information laid against a criminal); also a defence against Phaeax, and one on the peace. He flourished at the same time as Socrates the philosopher. He was born in the seventy-eighth Olympiad, when Theogenides was archon of Athens [468 B. C. ], so that he should seem to be about ten years before Lysias. There is an image of Hermes, called from his name, being given by the tribe Aegeis; and it stood near the house where Andocides dwelt, and was therefore called by his name. This Andocides himself was at the charge of a cyclic chorus for the tribe Aegeis, at the performance of a dithyramb. And having gained a victory, he erected a tripod on a high point opposite to the limestone statue of Silenus. His style in his orations is plain and easy, without the least affectation or any thing of a figurative ornament.
G 3. LYSIAS was the son of Cephalus, grandson of Lysanias, and great-grandson of Cephalus. His father was by birth a Syracusan; but partly for the love he had to the city, and partly in condescension to the persuasions of Pericles the son of Xanthippus, who entertained him as his friend and guest, he went to live at Athens, being a man of great wealth. Some say that he was banished from Syracuse when the city was under the tyranny of Gelon. Lysias was born at Athens when Philocles, the successor of Phrasicles, was archon [459 B. C. ], in the second year of the eightieth Olympiad. At his first coming, he was educated among the most noble of the Athenians. But when the city sent a colony to Sybaris, which was afterwards called Thurii, he went thither with his other brother Polemarchus, his father being now dead (for he had two other brothers, Euthydemus and Brachyllus), that he might receive his portion of his father's estate. This was done in the fifteenth year of his age, when Praxiteles was archon [444 B. C. ]. There then he stayed, and was brought up under Nicias and Teisias, both Syracusans. And having purchased a house and received his estate, he lived as a citizen for thirty-three years, till the year of Cleocritus [413 B. C. ]. In the year following, when Callias was archon [412 B. C. ], in the ninety-second Olympiad, the Athenians met with their disasters in Sicily, and others of their allies revolted, and especially the Italians. Lysias, being accused of favouring the Athenians, was banished with three others of his association; and coming to Athens, in the year wherein Callias succeeded Cleocritus [412 B. C. ], the city then labouring under the tyranny of the four hundred conspirators, he remained there. But after the fight at Aegospotami, when the Thirty Tyrants had usurped the government, he was banished thence, after he had remained in Athens seven years. His goods were confiscated; and having likewise lost his brother Polemarchus, he himself escaped by a back door of the house in which he was kept for execution, fled to Megara and there lived. But when the citizens endeavoured to return from Phyle, he also behaved himself very well, and appeared very active in the affair, having, to forward this great enterprise, deposited two thousand drachmas of silver and two hundred shields, and being commissioned with Hermas, he maintained three hundred men in arms, and prevailed with Thrasylaeus the Elean, his old friend and host, to contribute two talents. Upon entering the city, Thrasybulus proposed that, for a consideration of his good service to the public, he should receive the rights of citizenship: this was during the so-called time of anarchy before Eucleides [403 B. C. ]. Which proposal being ratified by the people, Archinus objected that it was against the laws, and a decree without authority of the senate. [836] The decree was thereupon declared void, and Lysias lost his citizenship. He led the remainder of his life in the rank of an Isoteles (or citizen who had no right to vote or hold office), and died at last at Athens, being eighty-three years old, or as some would have it, seventy-six; and others again say, that he lived above eighty years, till after the birth of Demosthenes. It is supposed he was born in the year of Philocles [459 B. C. ].
There are four hundred and twenty-five orations which bear his name, of which Dionysius and Caecilius affirm only two hundred and thirty to be genuine, and he is said to have been overcome but twice in all. There is extant also the oration which he made in defence of the forementioned decree against Archinus, who challenged it and thereby prevented Lysias from receiving the citizenship, as also another against the Thirty Tyrants. He was very persuasive, and was always very brief in what he delivered. He would commonly give orations to private persons. There are likewise his textbooks of oratory, his public harangues, his letters, his eulogies, funeral orations, love speeches, and his defence of Socrates, accommodated to the minds of the judges. His style seems plain and easy, though difficult to imitate. Demosthenes, in his oration against Neaera, says that he was in love with one Metaneira, Neaera's serving-maid, but afterwards married his brother Brachyllus's daughter. Plato in his Phaedrus makes mention of him, as a most eloquent orator and older than Isocrates. Philiscus, his companion, and Isocrates's pupil, composed an epigram concerning him, which agrees with what we have urged from Plato; and it is to this effect:
"Calliope's witty daughter, Phrontis, show
If anything of wit or eloquence you have;
For 'tis decreed that you shall bear a son,
Lysias by name, to spread the name of him
Whose great and generous acts do fill the world,
And are received for glorious above.
Let him who sings those praises of the dead,
Let him, my friend, too, praise our fellowship. "
He likewise wrote two orations for Iphicrates, - one against Harmodius, and another accusing Timotheus of treason, - in both which he was successful. But when Iphicrates made himself responsible for Timotheus's actions, and would purge himself of the allegation of treason made also against him, Lysias wrote an oration for him to deliver in his defence; upon which he was acquitted, but Timotheus was fined a considerable sum of money. He likewise delivered an oration at the Olympic games, in which he endeavoured to convince the Greeks of how great advantage it would be to them, if they could but unanimously join to pull down the tyrant Dionysius.
G 4. ISOCRATES was the son of Theodorus, of Erchia, reckoned among the middle class of citizens, and a man who kept servants under him to make flutes, by which he got so much money as enabled him not only to bring up his children after the most genteel manner, but likewise to maintain a choir. For besides Isocrates, he had other sons, Telesippus and Diomnestus, and one daughter. And hence, we may suppose, those two comic poets, Aristophanes and Stratis, took occasion to bring him on the stage. He was born in the eighty-sixth Olympiad, Lysimachus being archon [436 B. C. ], about two and twenty years after Lysias, and seven before Plato. When he was a boy, he was as well educated as any of the Athenian children, being under the tuition of Prodicus the Cean, Gorgias the Leontine, Teisias the Syracusan, and Theramenes the rhetorician. And when Theramenes was to be apprehended by the order of the Thirty Tyrants, and fled for protection to the altar of Hestia of the senate, only Isocrates stood by his friend, when all others were struck with terror. For a long time he stood silent; [837] but after some time Theramenes advised him to desist, because, he told him, it would be an aggravation of his grief, if any of his friends should come into trouble through him. And it is said that he made use of certain textbooks of rhetoric composed by Theramenes, when he was slandered in court; which textbooks have since borne Boton's name.
When Isocrates was come to man's estate, he meddled with nothing of state affairs, both because he had a very weak voice and because he was something timorous; and besides these two impediments, his estate was much impaired by the loss of a great part of his patrimony in the war with the Lacedaemonians. It is evident that he composed orations for others to use, but delivered only one; that concerning Exchange of Property. Having set up a school, he gave himself much to writing and the study of philosophy, and then he wrote his Panegyrical oration, and others which were used for advice, some of which he delivered himself, and others he gave to others to deliver for him; aiming thereby to persuade the Greeks to the study and practice of such things as were of most immediate concern to them. But his endeavours in that way proving to no purpose, he gave those things over, and opened a school in Chios first, as some will have it, having for a beginning nine pupils; and when they came to him to pay him for their schooling, he weeping said, "Now I see plainly that I am sold to my pupils. " He admitted all into his acquaintance who desired it. He was the first that made a separation between contentious pleas and political arguments, to which latter he rather addicted himself. He instituted a form of magistracy in Chios, much the same as that at Athens. No schoolmaster ever got so much; so that he maintained a trireme at his own charge. He had more than a hundred pupils, and among others Timotheus the son of Conon was one, with whom he visited many cities, and composed the letters which Timotheus sent to the Athenians; who for his pains gave him a talent out of that which he got at Samos [365 B. C. ]. Likewise Theopompus of Chios, Ephorus of Cyme, Asclepiades who composed arguments for tragedies, and Theodectes of Phaselis, who afterwards wrote tragedies, were all Isocrates' pupils. The last of these had a monument in the way to the shrine of Cyamites, as we go to Eleusis by the Sacred Way, of which now remains only ruins. There also he set up with his own the statues of other famous poets, of all which only Homerus' is to be seen. Leodamas also the Athenian, and Lacritus who gave laws to the Athenians, were both his pupils; and some say, Hypereides and Isaeus too. They add likewise, that Demosthenes also was very desirous to learn of him, and because he could not give the full rate, which was a thousand drachmas, he offered him two hundred, the fifth part, if he would teach him but the fifth part of his art in proportion: to whom Isocrates answered, We do not use, Demosthenes, to impart our skill by halves, but as men sell good fish whole, or altogether, so if you have a desire to learn, we will teach you our full art, and not a piece of it. He died in the year when Charondas was archon [338 B. C. ], when, being at Hippocrates's public exercise, he received the news of the slaughter at Chaeroneia; for he was the cause of his own death by a four days' fast, which he then made, pronouncing just at his departure the three verses which begin three tragedies of Euripides:
"Danaus, father of the fifty sisters, -
Pelops, son of Tantalus, in quest of Pisa, -
Cadmus, in time past, going from Sidon. "
He lived ninety-eight years, or, as some say, a hundred, not being able to behold Greece the fourth time brought into slavery. The year (or, as some say, four years) before he died, he wrote his Panathenaic oration. He laboured upon his Panegyric oration ten years, or, as some tell us, fifteen, which he is supposed to have borrowed out of Gorgias the Leontine and Lysias. His oration concerning Exchange of Property he wrote when he was eighty-two years old, and those to Philippus a little before his death. [838] When he was old, he adopted Aphareus, the youngest of the three sons of Plathane, the daughter of Hippias the orator. He was very rich, both in respect of the great sums of money he exacted of his pupils, and besides that, received at one time twenty talents from Nicocles, king of Cyprus, for an oration which he dedicated to him. By reason of his riches he suffered the envy of others, and was three times named to maintain a trireme; which he evaded twice by the assistance of his son and a counterfeit sickness, but the third time he undertook it, though the expense proved very great. A father telling him that he had allowed his son no other companion than one slave, Isocrates replied, Go your way then, for one slave you shall have two. He strove for the prize which Aretemisia dedicated to the honour and memory of her husband Mausolus; but that oration is lost. He wrote also another oration in praise of Helen, and one called Areopagiticus. Some say that he died when he had fasted nine days, - some again, at four days' end, - and his death took its date from the funeral solemnities of those that lost their Lives at Chaeroneia. His son Aphareus likewise wrote several orations.
He lies buried with all his family near Cynosarges, on the left hand of the hill. There are interred Isocrates and his father Theodorus, his mother and her sister Anaco, his adoptive son Aphareus, Socrates the son of Anaco, Theodorus his brother, bearing his father's name, his grandsons, the sons of his adopted Aphareus, and his wife Plathane, the mother of Aphareus. On these tombs were erected six tables, which are now demolished. And upon the tomb of Isocrates himself was placed a column thirty cubits high, and on that a mermaid of seven cubits, which was an emblem of his eloquence; of which nothing now remains. There was also near it a tablet, having poets and his schoolmasters on it; and among the rest, Gorgias inspecting a celestial globe, and Isocrates standing by him. There is likewise a statue of his of bronze in Eleusis; dedicated by Timotheus the son of Conon, before the entry of the porch, with this inscription:
"To the fame and honour of Isocrates,
This statue's sacred to the Goddesses:
The gift of Timotheus. "
This statue was made by Leochares. There are sixty orations which bear his name; of which, if we credit Dionysius, only twenty-five are genuine; but according to Caecilius, twenty-eight; and the rest are accounted spurious. He was an utter stranger to ostentation, insomuch that, when there came at one time three persons to hear him declaim, he admitted but two of them, desiring the third to come the next day, for that two at once were to him as a full theatre. He used to tell his pupils that he taught his art for ten minas; but he would give any man ten thousand, that could teach him to be bold and give him a good utterance. And being once asked how he, who was not very eloquent himself, could make others so, he answered, Just as a whetstone cannot cut, yet it will sharpen knives for that purpose. Some say that he wrote textbooks of oratory; others are of opinion that he had no method of teaching, but only exercise. He would never ask any thing of a free-born citizen. He used to enjoin his pupils being present at public assemblies to repeat to him what was there delivered. He conceived no little sorrow for the death of Socrates, insomuch that the next day he put himself in mourning. Being asked what was the use and force of rhetoric, he answered, To make great matters small, and small great. At a feast with Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, being desired by some of the company to declaim upon some theme, he made answer, that it was not the time for him to speak what he knew, and he knew nothing that was fitted to that time. Happening once to see Sophocles the tragedian amorously following a comely boy, he said to him, It will become you, Sophocles, [839] to restrain not only your hands, but your eyes. When Ephorus of Cyme left his school before he had arrived at any good proficiency, his father Demophilus sent him again with a second sum of money in his hand; at which Isocrates jokingly called him Diphorus, that is, twice bringing his fee. However, he took a great deal of pains and care with him, and went so far as to put him in the way of writing history.
He was wantonly given; and used to keep a mattress alongside his bed, and his pillow was commonly made moist with saffron. He never married while he was young; but in his old age he kept a mistress, whose name was Lagisce, and by her he had a daughter, who died in the twelfth year of her age, before she was married. He afterwards married Plathane, the wife of Hippias the rhetorician, who had three sons, the youngest of which, Aphareus by name, he adopted for his own, as we said before. This Aphareus erected a bronze statue to him near the temple of Zeus, as may be seen from the inscription:
"In veneration of the mighty Zeus,
His noble parents, and the Gods above,
Aphareus this statue here has set,
The statue of Isocrates his father. "
He is said to have run a race on a swift horse, when he was but a boy; for he is to be seen in this posture in a statue on the Acropolis, in the ball-court of the Arrhephoroi. There were but two suits commenced against him in his whole life. One of these was Megacleides, who challenged him to exchange of property; at the trial of which he could not be personally present, by reason of sickness; but sending Aphareus, he nevertheless won his case. The other suit was commenced against him by Lysimachus, who would have him come to an exchange or be at the charge of maintaining a trireme for the commonwealth. In this case he was defeated, and forced to perform the service. There was likewise a painting of him in the Pompeium.
Aphareus also wrote a few orations, both judicial and deliberative; as also tragedies to the number of thirty-seven, of which two are contested. He began to make his works public in the year of Lysistratus [369 B. C. ], and continued it to the year of Sosigenes [342 B. C. ], that is, twenty eight years. In these years he exhibited dramas six times at the city Dionysiac festivals, and twice went away with the prize through the director Dionysius; he also gained two other victories at the Lenaean festival through other directors.
There were to be seen in the Acropolis the statues of the mother of Isocrates, of Theodorus, and of Anaco his mother's sister.
