Listed 28 sub titles with search on: Biographies Orators for wider area of: "ITALY Country EUROPE" .
ARPINA (Ancient city) LAZIO
Gratidius. M. Gratidius, proposed in B. C. 115 a lex tabellaria at Arpinum, which
was opposed by M. Tullius Cicero, the grandfather of the orator, who was married
to Gratidia, the sister of M. Gratidius. The question respecting the lex tabellaria
was referred to the consul of the year, M. Aemilius Scaurus, who seems to have
decided in favour of Cicero, for it is said that Scaurus praised his sentiments
and his courage. (Cic. de Leg. ii. 16.) According to Cicero (Brut. 45), Gratidius
was a clever accuser, well versed in Greek literature, and a person with great
natural talent as an orator; he was further a friend of the orator M. Antonius,
and accompanied him as his praefect to Cilicia, where he was killed. In the last-mentioned
passage Cicero adds, that Gratidius spoke against C. Fimbria, who had been accused
of extortion. (Val. Max. viii. 5.2.) This accusation seems to refer to the administration
of a province, which Fimbria undertook in B. C. 103 (for he was consul in B. C.
104), so that the accusation would belong to B. C. 102, and more particularly
to the beginning of that year, for in the course of it M. Antonius undertook the
command against the pirates, and M. Gratidius, who accompanied him, was killed.
(Comp. J. Obsequens, Prodig. 104; Drumann, Gesch. Roms, vol. i., who, however,
places the campaign of M. Antonius against the pirates one year too early.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ASCULUM PICENUM (Ancient city) MARCHE
Barrus, T. Betucius, of Asculum, a town in Picenum, is described by Cicero (Brut. 46), as the most eloquent of all orators out of Rome. In Cicero's time several of his orations delivered at Asculum were extant, and also one against Caepio, which was spoken at Rome. This Caepio was Q. Servilius Caepio, who perished in the social war, B. C. 90.
PALANTION (Ancient city) ROME
Q. Hortensius, L.F., the orator, born in B. C. 114, eight years before Cicero, the same year that L.
Crassus made his famous speech for the Vestal Licinia (Cic. Brut. 64, 94). At
the early age of nineteen he appeared in the forum, and his first speech gained
the applause of tile consuls, L. Crassus and Q. Scaevola, the former the greatest
orator, the latter the first jurist of the day. Crassus also heard his second
speech for Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, who had been expelled by his brother Chrestus.
His client was restored (Cic. de Orat. iii. 61). By these speeches Hortensius
at once rose to eminence as an advocate. Q. Hortensius, says Cicero, admodum adolescentis
ingenium simul spectatum et probatum est (Brut. 64). But his forensic pursuits
were soon interrupted by the Social War, in which he was obliged to serve two
campaigns (B. C. 91, 90), in the first as a legionary, in the second as tribunus
militum (Brut. 89). In the year 86 B. C. he defended young Cn. Pompeius, who was
accused of having embezzled some of the public booty taken at Asculum in the course
of the war (Brut. 64). But, for the most part, the courts were silent during the
anarchy which followed the Marian massacres, up to the return of Sulla, B. C.
83. But these troubles, though they checked the young orator in his career, left
him complete master of the courts--rex judiciorum,-- as Cicero calls him (Divin.
in Q. Caecil. 7). For Crassus had died before the landing of Marius ; Antonius,
Catulus, and others fell victims in the massacres; and Cotta, who survived, yielded
the first place to his younger rival. Hortensius, therefore, began his brilliant
professional cancer anew, and was carried along on the top of tile wave till he
met a more powerful than himself in Cicero. Henceforth he confined himself to
civil life, and was wont to boast in his old age that he had never borne arms
in any domestic strife (Cic. ad Fam. ii. 16). He attached himself closely to the
dominant Sullane or aristocratic party, and his chief professional labours were
in defending men of this party, when accused of mal-adminstration and extortion
in their provinees, or of bribery and the like in canvaissilng for public honlours.
His constant success, partly due to his own eloquence, readiness, and skill (of
which we shall say somewhat hereafter, was yet in great measure due to circumstances.
The judices at that time were all taken form the senatorial order, i. e. from
the same party with those who were arraigned before them, and the presiding praetor
was of the same party. Moreover, the accusers were for the most part young men,
of ability indeed and ambition, but [p. 526] quite unequal to cope with the experience
and eloquence of Hortensius. Nor did lie neglect baser methods to ensure success.
Part of the plundered money, which he was engaged to secure to his clients, was
unscrupulously expended in corrupting the judices; those who accepted the bribes
receiving marked ballots to prevent their playing false (Cic. Divin. in Q. Caecil.
7). It is true this statement rests chiefly on the authority of a rival advocate.
But Cicero would hardly have dared to make it so broadly in open court, with his
opponent before him, unless he had good warrant for its truth. Turius, or Furins,
mentioned by Horace (Scrm. ii. 1. 49), is said to have been one of the judices
corrupted by Hortensius.
This domination over the courts continued up to about the year B.
C. 70, when Hortensius was retained by Verres against Cicero. Cicero had come
to Rome from Athens in B. C. 81, and first met Hortensius as the advocate of P.
Quinctius. Cicero's speech is extant, and not the least interesting part is that
in which he describes and admits the extraordinary gifts of his future rival (pro
Quinct. 1, 2, 22, 24, 26). But Cicero again left Rome, and did not finally settle
there till B. C. 74, about three years before the Verrine affair came on.
Meantime, Hortensius had begun his course of civil honours. He was
quaestor in B. C. 81, and Cicero himself bears witness to the integrity with which
his accounts were kept (in Verr. i. 14, 39). Soon after he defended M. Canuleius
(Brut. 92); Cn. Dolabella, when accused of extortion in Cilicia by M. Scaurus;
another Cn. Dolabella, arraigned by Caesar for like offences in Macedonia. In
B. C. 75 he was aediie, Cotta the orator being consul, and Cicero quaestor in
Sicily (Brut. 92). The games and shows he exhibited as aedile were long remembered
for their extaordinary splendour (Cic. de )Off. ii. 16); but great part of this
splendour was the loan of those noble clients, whose robberies he had so successfully
excused (Cic. in Verr. i. 19, 22; Ascon. ad. l.). In B. C. 72 he was praetor urbanus,
and had the task of trying those delinquents whom he had hitherto defended. In
B. C. 69 he reached the summit of civic ambition, being consul for that year with
Q. Caecilius Metellus. After his consulship the province of Crete feii to him
by lot, but he resigned it in favour of his colleague.
It was in the year before his consulship, after he was designated,
that the prosecution of Verres commenced. Cicero was then aedile-elect, though
Hortensius and his party had endeavoured to prevent his election, and another
Metellus praetorelect ; so that, had the cause been put off till the next year,
Cicero would have had the weight of consular and praetorian authority against
him. The skill and activity by which he baffled the schemes of his opponents will
be found under his life. Suffice it to say here, that the issue of this contest
was to dethrone Hortensius from the seat which had been already tottering, and
to establish his rival, the despised provincial of Arpinum, as the first orator
and advocate of the Roman forum. No doubt the victory was complete, though here,
as in all the contests between the two orators, the remark of Quintilian is worth
noticing, viz. that we have only Cicero's own speeches, and have small means of
judging what the case on the other side was (Instit. x. 1). It is true also that
Verres was backed by all the power of the Sullane aristocracy. But this party
had been much weakened by the measures passed by Pompey in his consulship with
Crassus in the year before (B. C. 70). Especially, the Aemilian law, which transferred
the judicial power from the senators to the senators, equites, and tribune aerarii
conjointly, must have very much weakened the influence of Hortensius and his party.
(Ascon. and Cic. in Pison.).
After his consulship, Hortensius took a leading part in supporting
the optimates against the rising power of Pompey. He opposed the Gabinian law,
which invested that great commander with absolute power on the Mediterranean,
in order to put down the pirates of Cilicia (B. C. 67); and the Manilian, by which
the conduct of the war against Mithridates was transferred from Lucullus (of the
Sullane party) to Pompeius (B. C. 66). In favour of the latter, Cicero made his
first political speech.
In the memorable year B. C. 63 Cicero was unanimously elected consul.
He had already become estranged from the popular party, with whom he had hitherto
acted. The intrigues of Caesar and Crassus, who supported his opponents C. Antonius
and the notorious Catiline, touched him personally; and he found it his duty as
consul to oppose the turbulent measures of the popular leaders, such as the agrarian
law of Rullus. Above all, the conspiracy of Catiline, to which Crassus was suspected
of being privy, forced him to combine with the senate for the safety of the state.
He thus came to act with the Sullane nobility, and Hortensius no longer appears
as his rival. We first find them pleading together for C. Rabirins, an old senator,
who was indicted for the murder of C. Saturninus, tribune of the plebs in the
times of Sulla. They both appeared as counsel for L. Muraena, when accused of
bribery in canvassing for the consulship by Sulpicius and Cato; and again for
P. Sulla, accused as an accomplice of Catiline. On all these occasions Hortensius
allowed Cicero to speak last--a manifest admission of his former rival's superiority.
And that this was the general opinion appears from the fact, that M. Piso (consul
in 61), in calling over the senate, named Cicero second, and Hortensius only fourth.
About the same time we find Cicero, in a letter to their mutual friend Atticus,
calling him "noster Hortensius" (ad Att. i. 14).
The last active part which Hortensius took in public life was in the
debates of the senate in the prosecution of the infamous Clodius for his offence
against the Bona Dea. Fearing delay, he supported the amendment of Fufius, that
Clodius should be tried before the ordinary judices, instead of before a court
selected by the praetor. Cicero condemns his conduct in strong terms (ad Att.
i. 16; cf. 14), and seems to have considered the success of this amendment as
the chief cause of Clodius's acquittal.In the subsequent quarrels between Milo
and Clodius, Hortensius showed such zeal for the former, that he was nearly being
murdered by the hired ruffians of Clodius (Cic. pro Milon. 14).
In B. C. 61 Pompey returned victorious from the Mithridatic war. He
found he could no longer command a party of his own. He must side with one of
the two factions which had been fully formed during his absence in the East--the
old party of the optimates and the new popular party, led by Caesar and Crassus,
who used Clodius [p. 527] as their instrument. Hence followed (ill B. C. 60) the
coalition of Pompey with Caesar and Crassus (erroneously called the first triumvirate).
Hortensius now drew back from public life, seeing probably that his own party
must yield to the arts and power of the coalition, and yet not choosing to forsake
it. From this time to his death (in B. C. 50) he confined himself to his advocate's
duties. He defended Flaccus, accused of extortion in Asia, jointly with Cicero,
and took occasion to extol the acts of the latter in his consulship (ad Att. ii.
25). He also pleaded the cause of P. Lentulus Spinther, against whom Pompey had
promoted an accusation for his conduct respecting Ptolemy Auletes, though Cicero,
fearing a second banishment, declined the office (ad Fam. i. 1, ii. 1). He joined
Cicero again iN the defence of Sextius, and again allowed him to speak last (pro
Sext. ii. 6). When the latter was in his province (B. C. 51), Hortensius defended
his own nephew, M. Valerius Messalla, who was accused of bribery in canvassing
for the consulship. He was, as usual, successful; but the case was so flagrant,
that, next day, when Hortensius entered the theatre of Curio, he was received
with a round of hisses -a thing mainly remarkable, because it was the first time
lie had suffered any thing of the kind (ad Fam. viii. 2). In the beginning of
April, B. C. 50, he appeared for the last time, with his wonted success, for App.
Claudius, accused de majestate et ambitu by Dolabella, the future sonin-law of
Cicero. He died not long after. Cicero received the news of his death at Rhodes,
as he was returning home from his province, and was deeply affected by it (ad
Att. vi. 6; comp. Brut. 1.)
In the above sketch of Hortensius's life, we have kept Cicero constantly
in view, for it is from him -his speeches and letters, and other works- that we
owe almost all our knowledge of his great rival. It may be well to recur to the
relation in which they stood to each other at different times. We have seen that
up to Cicero's consulship, in 63 B. C., they were continually opposed. professionally
and politically. After this period they usually acted together professionally
-for Hortensius retired (as we have seen) from political life in the year 60.
Hortensius, in his easy way, seems to have yielded without much struggle to Cicero;
yet the latter seems never quite to have got over jealousy for his former rival.
When he was driven into exile by Clodius (in 58), Hortensius appears to have used
his influence to procure his return; yet Cicero could not be persuaded but that
he was playing a part, and was secretly doing his utmost to keep him from Rome.
Atticus in vain endeavoured to undeceive him (Ad Q. Frat. i. 3, 4, ad Att. iii.
9). On his return, indeed, he made public acknowledgment of his error, and spoke
very handsomely of Hortensius (pro Sext. 16-19, post Redit. 13, 14), and soon
after he was named by Hortensius and Pompey to fill the place in the college of
augurs, made vacant by the death of Q. Metellus Celer (Brut. 1, Philipp. ii. 2,
13); yet, when Atticus begged him to dedicate some work to Hortensius, he evaded
the request (ad Att. iv. 6); -for the little treatise De Gloria, inscribed "Hortensius",
was not written till 45 B. C., after the death of the orator. The same feelings
recur in Cicelo's letters from his province. In his extreme anxiety to return
at the expiration of his year, he continually expresses his fears that Hortensius
is playing hint false, and working under-handle to have him detained yet longer
(ad Att. v. 17 ; comp. ib. 2. &c.). There seems to have been really no ground
for these suspicions, and we must set them down to the naturally susceptible and
irritable temper of Cicero. It must be confessed, moreover, that the conduct of
some of his great friends, Pompey in particular, had been such as to justify suspicions
of others.
The character of Hortensius was rather fitted to conciliate than to
command -to call forth regard rather than esteem. He was not, as we have seen,
at all scrupulous about the means he took to gain verdicts; but in considering
this, we must not forget the low state of Roman manners (not to speak of morals)
at this period. Personally he seems to stand above suspicion of corruption. Yet
his enormous wealth was not all well gotten; for Cicero quotes a case in which
Hortensius did not scruple to join Crassus in taking possession of the inheritance
of Minuc. Basilius, though, from the circumstances, he must have known that the
will under which he claimed was a forgery (De Offic. iii. 18; cf. Parad. vi. 1;
Val. Max. ix. 4,1). And though he was honest as quaestor, though he would not
accept a province to drain it of its riches, yet no doubt he shared the plunder
of provinces, not immediately indeed, but in the shape of large fees and presents
from the Dolabellas and other persons like Verres, whom he so often and so successfully
defended. He liked to live at Rome and his villas; he loved an easy life and a
fair fame, had little ambition, and therefore avoided all acts that might have
made him amenable to prosecution. The same easy temper, joined as it often is
with a kind heart and generous disposition, won him many friends; and perhaps
we may say that he had no enemies. He lived to a good age, little disturbed by
ill health, surrounded by all that wealth can give, alive to all his enjoyments,
with as much of active occupation as he desired, without being disturbed by the
political turbulence of his times. He died just at the time when civil war broke
out, a complete specimen of an amiable Epicurean.
His eloquence was of the florid or (as it was termed) "Asiatic" style
(Cic. Brut. 95), fitter for hearing than for reading. Yet he did write his speeches--on
occasions at least (Cic. Brut. 96 ; Val. Max. v. 9.2). His voice was soft and
musical (Brut. 88); his memory so ready and retentive, that he is said to have
been able to come out of a sale-room and repeat the auction-list backwards (Senec.
Praef. in Controv. 1). We need not refer to Cicero (Brut. 88, in Caecil. 14) to
perceive what use this must have been to him as an advocate. His action was very
elaborate, so that sneerers called him Dionysia--the name of a well-known dancer
of the day (Gell. i. 5); and the pains he bestowed in arranging the folds of his
toga have been recorded by Macrobius (Saturn. ii. 9). But in all this there must
have been a real grace and dignity, for we read that Aesopus and Roscius, the
tragedians, used to follow him into the forum to take a lesson in their own art.
Of his luxurious habits many stories are told. His house on
the Palatine was that afterwards occupied by Augustus (Suet. Aug. 72);
but this was comparatively simple and modest. In his villas no expense was spared.
One he had near Bauli, described by Cicero (Acad. Prior. ii. 3) ; a second in
the Ager Tusculanus; but the most splendid was that near Laurentum. Here he laid
up such a stock of wine, that he left 10,000 casks of Chian to his heir (Plin.
H. N xiv. 6, 17). Here he had a park fill of all sorts of animals; and it was
customary, during his sumptuous dinners, for a slave, dressed like Orpheus, to
issue from the woods with these creatures following the sound of his cithara (Varr.
R. R. iii. 13). At Bauli he had immense fish-ponds, into which the sea came :
the fish were so tame that they would feed from his land; none of them were molested,
for he used to buy for his table at Puteoli; and he was so fond of them, that
lie is said to have wept for the death of a favourite muraena (Varr. R. R. iii.
17; Plin. H. N. ix. 55). He was also very curious in trees: he is said to have
fed them with wine, and we read that he once begged Cicero to change places in
speaking, that he might perform this office for a favourite plane-tree at the
proper time (Macrob. Satrn. ii. 9). In pictures also lie must have spent large
sums, at least he gave 144,001) sesterces for a single work from the hand of Cydias
(Plin. HN. xxxv. 40, Β§ 26). It is a characteristic trait. that he came forward
from his retirement (B. C. 55) to oppose the sumptuary law of Pompey and Crassus,
and spoke so eloquently and wittily as to procure its rejection (Dion Cass. xxxix.
37). He was the first person at Rome who brought peacocks to table. (Plin. H.
N. x. 23).
He was not happy in his family. By his first wife, the daughter of
Catulus, he had one son. It was after the death of Lutatia that the curious transaction
took place by which he bought or borrowed Marcia, the wife of Cato. He is acquitted
of sensual profligacy by Plutarch (Cut. Mi. 25); though he wrote love-songs not
of the most decent description (Ov. Trist. ii. 441; Gell. xix. 9).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Jan 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Q. Hortensius Hortalus, Q. F. L. N., son of the great orator, by Lutatia. His
education was probably little cared for, for Cicero attributes his profligacy
to the corrupting influence of one Salvius, a freedman (ad Att. x. 18). On his
return from his province, in B. C. 50, Cicero found him at Laodicea, living with
gladiators and other low company (ad Att. vi. 3). From the expressions in the
same place, it appears that his father had cast him off; and we learn from other
authority that he purposed to make his nephew, Messalla, his heir, to the exclusion
of this son (Val. Malx. v. 9.2). However, he came in for part, at least, of his
father's property; for we find Cicero inquiring what he was likely to offer for
sale to satisfy his creditors (ad Att. vii. 3). However, in 49, the civil war
broke out, and Hortensius seized on the opportunity to repair his ruined fortunes.
He joined Caesar in Cisalpine Gaul, and was sent on by him to occupy Ariminum;
he therefore was the man who first actually crossed the Rubicon (Plut. Caes. 32;
Suet. Jul. 31). Soon after he commanded a cruising squadron on the coast of Italy,and
received a letter from Curio, Caesar's lieutenant in Sicily, desiring him to favour
the escape of Cicero. He visited Terentia, Cicero's wife, at their Cuman villa,
and Cicero himself at his Pompeian, to assure them of his good offices (Cic. ad
Att. x. 12, 16, 17); but he did not, or perhaps could not, keep his word. (Ib.
18). His squadron joined the fleet of Dolabella a little before the battle of
Pharsalia.
In B. C. 44 he held the province of Macedonia, and Brutus was to succeed
him. After Caesar's assassination, M. Antony gave the province to his brother
Caius. Brutus, however, had already taken possession, with the assistance of Hortensius
(Cic. Phillipp. x. 6, 11). When the proscription took place, Hortensius was in
the list; and in revenge he ordered C. Antonius, who had been taken prisoner,
to be put to death. After the battle of Philippi, he was executed on the grave
of his victim.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Jan 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
L. Hortensius, father of the orator, praetor of Sicily in B. C. 97, and remembered there for his just and upright conduct. (Cic. Verr. iii. 16.) He married Sempronia, daughter of C. Semnpr. Tuditanus (Cic. ad Att. xiii. 6, 30, 32).
Hortensia, a sister of the orator, wife of M. Valerius Messala. Their son nearly became heir to the orator.
Hortensia, daughter of the orator Hortensia, Q. Hortensius. She partook of his eloquence, and spoke before the triumvirs in behalf of the wealthy matrons, when these were threatened with a special tax to defray the expenses of the war against Brutus and Cassius. (Val. Max. viii. 3.3; Quintil. i. 1.6; Appian, B. C. iv. 32)
M. Hortensius Hortalus, Q. F. Q. N., grandson of the orator. In the time of Augustus he was in great poverty. The emperor gave him enough to support a senator's rank, and promoted his marriage. Under Tiberius we find him, with four children, again reduced to poverty. (Tacit. Ann. ii. 37, 38; Suet. Aug. 41; Dion Cass. liv. 17.)
RAVENNA (Town) EMIGLIA ROMANA
Aspasius, of Ravenna, a distinguished sophist and rhetorician, who lived about A. D. 225, in the reign of Alexander Severus. He was educated by his father Demetrianus, who was himself a skilful rhetorician; afterwards he was also a pupil of Pausanias and Hippodromus, and then travelled to various parts of the ancient world, as a companion of the emperor and of some other persons. He obtained the principal professorship of rhetoric at Rome, which he held until his death at an advanced age. At Rome he also began his long rhetorical controversy with Philostratus of Lemnos, which was afterwards continued by other disputants in Ionia. Aspasius was also secretary to the emperor, but his letters were censured by his opponent Pausanias, for their declamatory character and their want of precision and clearness. He is said to have written several orations, which, how ever, are now lost. They are praised for their simplicity and originality, and for the absence of all pompous affectation in them. (Philostr. Vit. Soph. ii. 33; Eudoc. p. 66; Suidas, s. v. Aspasios.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Demetrianus, (Demetrianos), of Ravenna, the father of the celebrated rhetorician Aspasius, lived in the time of the emperor Alexander Severus, and was no less distinguished as a rhetorician than as a critical mathematician. (Philostr. Vit. Soph. ii. 33. § 1; Suidas, s. v. Adpadios.)
ROME (Ancient city) ITALY
Lucius Licinius, a Roman orator and man of consular rank. In
B.C. 119, being only twenty-one years of age, he made his debut in the Forum,
in a prosecution against C. Carbo. Cicero says that he was remarkable, even at
this early period, for his candour and his great love of justice. Crassus was
but twenty-seven years old when his eloquence obtained the acquittal of his relation,
the Vestal Licinia. Being elevated to the consulship in 95, he was the author
of a law by which numbers of the allies, who passed for Roman citizens, were sent
back to their respective cities. This law alienated from him the affections of
the principal Italians, so that he was regarded by some as the primary cause of
the Social War, which broke out three years after. Having Hither Gaul for his
province, Crassus freed the country from the robbers that infested it, and for
this service had the weakness to claim a triumph. The Senate were favourable to
his application; but Scaevola, the other consul, opposed it, on the ground that
he had not conquered foes worthy of the Roman people. Crassus conducted himself,
in other respects, with great wisdom in his government, and not only did not remove
from around him the son of Carbo, who had come as a spy on his conduct, but even
placed him by his side on the tribunal, and did nothing of which the other was
not a witness.
Being appointed censor in 92, he caused the school of the Latin
rhetoricians to be closed, regarding them as dangerous innovators for the young.
Crassus left hardly any orations behind him, and he died while Cicero was yet
in his boyhood; but still that author, having collected the opinions of those
who had heard him, speaks with a minute and apparently perfect intelligence of
his style of oratory. He was what may be called the most ornamental speaker that
had hitherto appeared in the Forum. Though not without force, gravity, and dignity,
these were happily blended with the most insinuating politeness, urbanity, ease,
and gayety. He was master of the most pure and accurate language and of perfect
elegance of expression, without any affectation or unpleasant appearance of previous
study. Great clearness of language distinguished all his harangues; and, while
descanting on topics of law or equity, he possessed an inexhaustible fund of argument
and illustration. Some persons considered Crassus as only equal to Antonius, his
great contemporary; others preferred him as the more perfect and accomplished
orator. The most splendid of all the efforts of Crassus was the immediate cause
of his death, which happened in B.C. 91, a short while before the commencement
of the civil wars of Marius and Sulla, and a few days after the time in which
he is supposed to have borne his part in the dialogue De Oratore. The consul Philippus
had declared, in one of the assemblies of the people, that some other advice must
be resorted to, since, with such a Senate as then existed, he could no longer
direct the affairs of the government. A full Senate being immediately summoned,
Crassus arraigued, in terms of the most glowing eloquence, the conduct of the
consul, who, instead of acting as the political parent and guardian of the Senate,
sought to deprive its members of their ancient inheritance of respect and dignity.
Being further irritated by an attempt on the part of Philippus to force him into
compliance with his designs, he exerted, on this occasion, the utmost effort of
his genius and strength; but he returned home with a pleuritic fever, of which
he died seven days after. This oration of Crassus, followed, as it was, by his
almost immediate death, made a deep impression on his countrymen; who, long afterwards,
were wont to repair to the Senate-house for the purpose of viewing the spot where
he had last stood, and where he fell, as it may be said, in defence of the privileges
of his order.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Fabianus, Papirius, a Roman rhetorician and philosopher in the time of Tiberius and Caligula. He was the pupil of Arellius Fuscus and of Blandus in rhetoric, and of Sextius in philosophy: and although much the younger of the two, he instructed Albutius Silas in eloquence. (Senec. Coutror. ii. prooem., iii., ed. Bipont.) The rhetorical style of Fabianus is described by the elder Seneca (Controv. iii. proem.), and he is frequently cited in the third book of controversiac, and in the Suasoriae. His early model in rhetoric was his instructor Arellius Fuscus; but he afterwards adopted a less ornate form of eloquence, though he never attained to perspicuity and simplicity. Fabiamus soon, however, quitted rhetoric for philosophy; and the younger Seneca places his philosophical works next to those of Cicero, Asinius Pollio, and Livy the historian. (Senec. Epist. 100.) The philosophical style of Fabianus is described in this letter of Seneca's, and in some points his description corresponds with that of the elder Seneca. (Controv. ii. prooem.) Both the Senecas seem to have known, and certainly greatly esteemed Fabianus. (Cf. Controv. iii. prooem. with Epist. 11.) Fabianus was the author of a work entitled [Rerum ?] Civilium; and his philosophical writings exceeded Cicero's in number. (Senec. Epist. 100.) He had also paid great attention to physical science, and is called by Pliny (H. A. xxxvi. 15, s. 24) rerum nature peritissimus. From Seneca (Natur. Quaest. iii. 27), he appears to have written on Phlysics; and his works entitled De Animalibus and Causarumn Aturalium Libri are frequently referred toby Pliny (H. N. generally in his Elenchos or summary of materials, i. ii. vii. ix. xi. xii. xiii. xiv. xv. xvii. xxiii. xxviii. xxxvi., and specially, but without mention of the particular work of Fabianus, ii. 47.121, ii. 102.223, ix. 8.25, xii. 4.20, xv. 1.4, xxiii. 11.62, xxviii. 5.54).
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Flavius, Alfius, a rhetorician who flourished in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. His reputation attracted to his school the elder Seneca, then recently come to Rome from Corduba. Flavus himself was a pupil of Cestius Pius, whom he eclipsed both in practice and fame as a teacher of rhetoric. He was regarded at Rome as a youthful prodigy, and lectured before he had assumed the dress of manhood. His master, Cestius, said that his talents were too precocious to be permanent; and Seneca (Controv. i. p. 79. Bip.) remarks that Flavus always owed his renown in part to something beside his eloquence. At first his youth attracted wonder; afterwards his ease and carelessness. Yet he long retained a numerous school of hearers, although his talents were latterly spoiled by self-indulgence. Flavus united poetry and history or natural philosophy (Plin. N. H. ix. 8.25, and Elench. ix. xii. xiv. xv.) to rhetoric. (Senec. Controv. i. vii. x. xiv; Schott, de Clar. ap. Senec. Rhet. i.)
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Fuscus, Arellius, a rhetorician who flourished at Rome in the latter years of Augustus. He was of equestrian rank, but was degraded from it on account of some remarkable scandal attached to his life. (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 12.152.) He instructed in rhetoric the poet Ovid (Senec. Controv. x. p. 157 Bip.), the philosopher Fabianus (Id. Controv. proem. ii.), and others. He declaimed more frequently in Greek than in Latin (Suasor. iv.), and his style of declamation is described by Seneca (Controv. proem. ii.), as more brilliant than solid, antithetical rather than eloquent. Seneca, however, highly commends his statement (explicatio) of an argument. (Suasor. iv.) His eulogy of Cicero (Suasor. vii.) is the most interesting specimen of his manner. The Suasoriae and Controversiae both abound in citations from the rhetorical exercises of Fuscus. His rival in teaching and declaiming was Porcius Latro, and their styles seem to have been exact opposites. (Comp. Controv. ii. proem. and x.) Pliny (H. N. xxxiii. 12.152) reproaches Fuscus with wearing silver rings. There were two rhetoricians of this name, a father and son, since Seneca generally affixes "pater" to his mention of Arellius Fuscus. The praenomen of one of them was Quintus.
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Gallus, L. Plotius, a native of Cisalpine Gaul, was the first person that ever set up a school at Rome for the purpose of teaching Latin and rhetoric, about B. C. 88. Cicero in his boyhood knew him. and would have liked to receive instruction from him in Latin, but his friends prevented it, thinking that the study of Greek was a better training for the intellect. L. Plotius lived to a very advanced age, and was regarded by later writers as the father of Roman rhetoric. (Sueton, De clar. Rhet. 2; Hieron. in Euseb. Chron. Ol. 173, 1 ; Quintil. ii. 4.44; Senec. Controv. ii. prooem.) Besides a work de Gestu (Quintil. xi. 3.143), he wrote judicial orations for other persons, as for Atratinus, who in B. C. 56 accused M. Coelius Rufus. (Comp. Cic. Fragm. p. 461; Schol. Bob. ad Cic. p. Arch. p. 357, ed. Orelli; Varro, de L. L. viii. 36.)
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SIKELIA (Ancient Hellenic lands) ITALY
Aristoteles, of Sicily, a rhetorician who wrote against the Panegyricus of Isocrates. (Diog. Laert. v. 35.) Some modern critics attribute to him, on very insufficient grounds, the technon sunagoge, which is printed among the works of Aristotle.
Licymnius. Of Sicily, a rhetorician, the pupil of Gorgias, and the teacher of Polus, and the authority of a work on rhetoric, entitled techne. He is mentioned by Plato (Phaedr. p. 267; comp. the scholia and Heindorf's note), and is quoted by Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 2, 13) and by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Lys. p. 82, 36; De Thuc. Idiom. p. 133, 31, 148,. 1; Dem. 179, 31, ed. Sylburg. et alib.). Dionysius frequently mentions the characteristics of his style, which was smooth and elegant, but somewhat affected, abounding in exactly balanced antitheses. In grammar he gave much attention to the classification of nouns.
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SYRACUSSES (Ancient city) SICILY
Lysias (Lusias). One of the ten Athenian orators. He was born
at Athens, B.C. 458 or 459. His father, Cephalus, was a native of Syracuse, who
settled at Athens during the time of Pericles. Cephalus was a person of considerable
wealth, and lived on intimate terms with Pericles and Socrates; and his house
is the supposed scene of the celebrated dialogues related in Plato's Republic.
Lysias, at the age of fifteen, went to Thurii in Italy, with his brother Polemarchus,
at the first foundation of the colony. Here he remained for thirty-two years;
but, in consequence of his supporting the Athenian interests, he was obliged to
leave Italy after the failure of the Athenian expedition to Sicily. He returned
to Athens, B.C. 411, and carried on, in partnership with his brother Polemarchus,
an extensive manufactory of shields, in which they employed as many as 120 slaves.
Their wealth excited the cupidity of the Thirty Tyrants; their house was attacked
one evening by an armed force while Lysias was entertaining a few friends at supper;
their property was seized, and Polemarchus was taken to prison, where he was shortly
after executed (B.C. 404). Lysias, by bribing some of the soldiers, escaped to
the Piraeus, and sailed thence to Megara. He has given us a graphic account of
his escape in his oration against Eratosthenes, who had been one of the Thirty
Tyrants. Lysias actively assisted Thrasybulus in his enterprise against the Thirty;
he supplied him with a large sum of money from his own resources and those of
his friends, and hired a considerable body of soldiers at his own expense. In
return for these services Thrasybulus proposed a decree by which the rights of
citizenship should be conferred upon Lysias; but, in consequence of some informality,
this decree was never carried into effect. He was, however, allowed the peculiar
privileges which were sometimes granted to resident aliens (namely, isoteleia).
Lysias appears to have died about B.C. 378.
The author of the Life of Lysias, attributed to Plutarch, mentions
425 orations of his, 230 of which were considered to be genuine. There remain
only 34, which are all forensic, and remarkable for the method which reigns in
them. The purity, the perspicuity, the grace and simplicity which characterize
the orations of Lysias, would have raised him to the highest rank in the art had
they been coupled with the force and energy of Demosthenes. His style is elegant
without being overornate, and is regarded as a model of the "plain"
style. In the art of narration, Dionysius of Halicarnassus considers him superior
to all orators in being distinct, probable, and persuasive; but, at the same time,
admits that his composition is better adapted to private litigation than to important
causes. The text of his harangues, as we now have it, is extremely corrupt. His
masterpiece is the funeral oration in honour of those Athenians who, having been
sent to the aid of the Corinthians under the command of Iphicrates, perished in
battle. Lysias is said to have delivered only one of the orations which he wrote--that
against Eratosthenes.
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Lysias (Lusias), an Attic orator, was born at Athens in B. C. 458; he was the
son of Cephalus, who was a native of Syracuse, and had taken up his abode at Athens,
on the invitation of Pericles (Dionys. Lys. 1; Plut. Vit. X. Orat.; Phot. Bibl.
Cod. 262; Suid. s. v. Lusias; Lys. c. Eratosth. 4; Cic. Brut. 16). When he was
little more than fifteen years old, in B. C. 443, Lysias and his two (some say
three) brothers joined the Athenians who went as colonists to Thurii in Italy.
He there completed his education under the instruction of two Syracusans, Tisias
and Nicias, and afterwards enjoyed great esteem among the Thurians, and even seems
to have taken part in the administration of the young republic. From a passage
of Aristotle (ap. Cic. Brut. 12), we learn that he devoted some time to the teaching
of rhetoric, though it is uncertain whether he entered upon this profession while
yet at Thurii, or did not commence till after his return to Athens, where we know
that Isaeus was one of his pupils.
In B. C. 411, when he had attained the age of fortyseven, after the
defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, all persons, both in Sicily and in the south
of Italy, who were suspected of favouring the cause of the Athenians, were exposed
to persecutions; and Lysias, together with 300 others, was expelled by the Spartan
party from Thurii, as a partisan of the Athenians. He now returned to Athens;
but there too great misfortunes awaited him, for during the rule of the Thirty
Tyrants, after the battle of Aegospotami, he was looked upon as an enemy of the
government, his large property was confiseated, and he was thrown into prison,
with a view to be put to death. But he escaped from Athens, and took refuge at
Megara (Plut. Phot. ll.). His attachment to Athens, however, was so great, that
when Thrasybulus, at the head of the patriots, marched from Phyle to liberate
their country, Lysias joyfully sacrificed all that yet remained of his fortune,
for he sent the patriots 2000 drachmas and 200 shields, and engaged a band of
302 mercenaries. Thrasybulus procured him the Athenian franchise, as a reward
for his generosity; but Archinus afterwards induced the people to declare it void,
because it had been conferred without a probuleuma; and Lysias henceforth lived
at Athens as an isoteles, occupying himself, as it appears, solely with writing
judicial speeches for others, and died in B. C. 378, at the age of eighty (Dionys.
Lys. 12.)
Lysias was one of the most fertile writers of orations that Athens
ever produced, for there were in antiquity no less than 425 orations which were
current under his name, though the ancient critics were of opinion that only 230
of them were genuine productions of Lysias (Dionys. Lys. 17; Plut. l; Phot. l;
Cic. Brut. 16). Of these orations 35 only are extant, and even among these some
are incomplete, and others are probably spurious. Of 53 others we possess only
a few fragments. Most of these orations, only one of which (that against Eratosthenes,
B. C. 403) he delivered himself in court, were composed after his return from
Thurii to Athens. There are, however, some among them which probably belong to
an earlier period of his life, when Lysias treated his art more from a theoretical
point of view, and they must therefore be regarded as rhetorical exercises. But
from the commencement of the speech against Eratosthenes we must conclude that
his real career as a writer of orations began about B. C. 403. Among the lost
works of Lysias we may mention a manual of rhetoric (techne rhetorike), probably
one of his early productions, which, however, is lost.
How highly the orations of Lysias were valued in antiquity may be
inferred from the great number of persons that wrote commentaries upon them, such
as Caecilius Calactinus, Zosimus of Gaza, Zeno of Cittium, Harpocration, Paullus
Germinus, and others. All the works of these critics have perished. The only criticism
of any importance upon Lysias that has come down to us is that of Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, in his Peri ton archaion rhetoron hupomnematismoi, the ton archaion
krisis, and in his account of Lysias, to which we may add the remarks of Photius.
According to the judgment of Dionysius, and the accidental remarks of others,
which are borne out by a careful examination of the orations still extant, the
diction of Lysias is perfectly pure, and may be looked upon as the best canon
of the Attic idiom; his language is natural and simple, but at the same time noble
and dignified (Dionys. Lys. 2, 3, Demosth. 13; Cic. Brut. 32; Quintil. xii. 10.21,
comp. ix. 4.17); it is always clear and lucid; the copiousness of his style does
not injure its precision; nor can his rhetorical embellishments be considered
as impairing the charming simplicity of his style (Dionys. Lys. 4). His delineations
of character are always striking and true to life (Dionys. Lys. 7; Quintil. iii.
8.51; Phot. l.).
But what characterises his orations above those of all other ancients,
is the indescribable gracefulness and elegance which pervade all of them, without
in the least impairing their power and energy; and this gracefulness was considered
as so peculiar a feature in all Lysias' productions, that Dionysius thought it
a fit criterion by which the genuine works of Lysias might be distinguished from
the spurious works that went by his name (Dionys. Lys. 10, 3, Demosth. 13, Dinarch.
7; comp. Cic Brat. 9, 16; Quintil. ix. 4.17, xii. 10.24). The manner in which
Lysias treats his subjects is equally deserving of high praise (Dionys. Lys. 15-19;
Hermogen. De Form. Orat. ii.). It is, therefore, no matter of surprise to hear
that among the many orations he wrote for others, two only are said to have been
unsuccessful.
The extant orations of Lysias are contained in the collections of
Aldus, H. Stephens, Reiske, Dukas, Bekker, and Baiter and Sauppe. Among the separate
editions, we mention those of J. Taylor (London, 1739, 4to. with a full critical
apparatus and emendations by Markland), C. Foertsch (Leipzig, 1829, 8vo.), J.
Franz (Munich, 1831, 8vo., in which the orations are arranged in their chronological
order); compare J. Franz, Dissertatio de Lysia Oratore Attico Graece script, Norimbergae,
1828, 8vo.; L. Hoelscher, De Lysiae Oratoris Vita et Dictione, Berlin, 1837, 8vo.,
and De Vita et Scriptis Lysiae Oratoris Commentatio, Berlin, 1837, 8vo.; Westermann,
Gesch. der Griecch. Beredtsam-keit, 46, 47, and Beilage, iii. pp. 278--288.
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Lysias: Life
Lysias a non-citizen born in Athens, perhaps 459 B.C.
Lysias, though he passed most of his years at Athens, did not possess
the citizenship, and, except in the impeachment of Eratosthenes, appears to have
had no personal contact with the affairs of the city. Yet, as in literary style
he is the representative of Atticism, so in his fortunes he is closely associated
with the Athenian democracy. He suffered with it in its two greatest calamities--the
overthrow in Sicily and the tyranny of the Thirty; he took part in its restoration;
and afterwards, in his speeches for the law-courts, he became perhaps the best,
because the soberest, exponent of its spirit--the most graceful and most versatile
interpreter of ordinary Athenian life.
Kephalos, the father of Lysias, was a Syracusan, who settled at Athens
as a resident alien on the invitation of Perikles (Lys. in Eratosth.4). Such an
invitation would scarcely have carried much weight before Perikles had begun to
be a leading citizen, i.e. before about 460 B. C.; and the story which represented
Kephalos as having been driven from Syracuse when the democracy was overthrown
by Gelon (485 B. C.) is therefore not very probable.
Lysias was born at Athens after his father had come to live there.
The year of his birth cannot be determined. Dionysios assumes the same year as
the pseudo-Plutarch 459 B. C.; but admits, what the latter does not, that it is
a mere assumption. And the ground upon which the assumption rested is evident.
Lysias was known to have gone to Thurii when he was fifteen. Thurii was founded
444 B. C.: it was inferred, then, that Lysias was born in 459 B. C. But there
is nothing to prove that Lysias went to Thurii in the year of its foundation.
The date 459 B. C. must be regarded, therefore, as a mere guess. It is the guess,
however, which had the approval of the ancients; and it is confirmed by this circumstance
-that Lysias was reported to have died at about eighty , and that, in fact, his
genuine works, so far as they are extant, cease at about 380 B. C.4 In the absence
of certainty, then, it seems probable that the date 459 is not far wrong.
This is not, however, the prevalent modern view. Lysias was said to
have gone to Italy after his father's death; and this fact is the criterion for
the date of his birth on which C. F. Hermann and Baur rely, as the ancient writers
relied on the foundation-year of Thurii. Kephalos is introduced in Plato's Republic,
of which the scene is laid (C. F. Hermann thinks) in 430 B. C. Lysias, then, it
is agreed, cannot have gone to Thurii before 429, or have been born before 444.
Blass justly objects to a dialogue of Plato being used as an authority for a date
of this kind; but he himself arrives at the same conclusion on another ground--
viz. because Kephalos cannot have come to Athens earlier than 460, and had lived
there (as his son says, Lys. in Eratosth. § 4) thirty years. Again, Lysias was
certainly older than Isokrates, who was born in 436. The birth of Lysias must
therefore be put (Blass thinks) between 444 and 436.
This view depends altogether on the statement that Lysias remained
at Athens till his father's death -a statement vouched for only by the Plutarchic
biographer, who is surely untrustworthy on such a point. Further, it assumes both
the date and the literal biographical accuracy of the Republic; or else -what
is at least doubtful- that Kephalos could not have come to Athens before 460.
Lastly, it makes it difficult to accept the well-accredited account of Lysias
having reached, or passed, the age of eighty; since all traces of his industry,
hitherto constant, cease when, at this rate, he would have been no more than sixty-six.
The question must be left uncertain. But the modern hypothesis that Lysias was
born between 444 and 436 B. C. does not seem, at least, more probable than the
ancient hypothesis that he was born about 459.
Besides Lysias, Kephalos had two other sons, Polemarchos and Euthydemos
-Polemarchos being the eldest of the three; and a daughter, afterwards married
to Brachyllos. The hospitable disposition of Kephalos is marked in the opening
of the Republic, of which the scene is laid at the house of his eldest son. He
complains that Sokrates does not come often now to see them at the Peiraeus, and
begs that in future he will come to them without ceremony, as to intimate friends.
It is easy to believe that, in the lifetime of Perikles, the house of the wealthy
Sicilian whom his friendship had brought to Athens was an intellectual centre,
the scene of many such gatherings as Plato imagined at the house of Polemarchos;
and that Lysias really grew up, as Dionysios says, in the society of the most
distinguished Athenians.
Lysias at Thurii.
At the age of fifteen -his father, according to one account, being
dead- Lysias went to Thurii, accompanied certainly by his eldest brother Polemarchos;
perhaps also by Euthydemos. At Thurii, where he passed his youth and early manhood,
he is said to have studied rhetoric under Tisias of Syracuse, himself the pupil
of Korax, reputed founder of the art. If, as is likely, Tisias was born about
485 B. C. and did not go to Athens till about 418, there is nothing impossible
in this account. At any rate it is probable that Lysias had lessons from some
teacher of the Sicilian school, a school the trammels of which his maturer genius
so thoroughly shook off. The overthrow of the Athenian arms in Sicily brought
into power an anti-Athenian faction at Thurii. Lysias and his brother, with three
hundred persons accused of 'Atticising', were driven out, and fled to Athens in
412 B. C. A tradition, idle, indeed, but picturesque, connected the Athenian disaster
in Sicily with the last days of Lysias in southern Italy. To him was ascribed
a speech, possessed by the ancients, in which the captive general Nikias implored
the mercy of his Sicilian conquerors
His life at Athens from 412 to 405 B C.
The next seven years at Athens -from 412 to 405- seem to have been
years of peace and prosperity for the brothers. They were the owners of three
houses, one in the town, in which Polemarchos lived; another in the Peiraeus,
occupied by Lysias; and, adjoining the latter, a shield-manufactory, employing
a hundred and twenty slaves. Informers - who were especially dangerous to rich
foreigners- did not vex them; they had many friends; and, in the liberal discharge
of public services, were patterns to all resident-aliens. The possession of house
property shows that they belonged -as their father Kephalos had doubtless belonged-
to that privileged class of resident-aliens who paid no special tax as such, and
who, as being on a par in respect of taxes with citizens, were called isoteleis.
If Lysias continued his rhetorical studies during this quiet time, he probably
had not yet begun to write speeches for the law-courts. A rich man, as he then
was, had no motive for taking to a despised drudgery; and the only extant speech
ascribed to him which refers to a date earlier than 403 -that for Polystratos-
is probably spurious. Cicero, quoting Aristotle, says that Lysias once kept a
rhetorical school, but gave it up because Theodoros surpassed him in technical
subtlety. If this story is worth anything, there is perhaps one reason for referring
it to the years 412-405; it certainly imputes to Lysias the impatience of a wealthy
amateur. At any rate the ornamental pieces enumerated in the lists of his works
-the encomia, the letters, the show-speeches- may have belonged in part to this
period of his life. After 403 he wrote for the lawcourts as a profession, and
wrote with an industry which can have left little time for the rhetoric of display.
The Anarchy.
Soon after the Thirty had taken power in the spring of 404, two of
them, Theognis and Peison, proposed that measures should be adopted against the
resident-aliens; nominally, because that class was disaffected--really, because
it was rich. Ten resident-aliens were chosen out for attack, two poor men being
included for the sake of appearances. Lysias and Polemarchos were on the list.
When Theognis and Peison, with their attendants, came to the house of Lysias in
the Peiraeus, they found him entertaining a party of friends. The guests were
driven off, and their host was left in the charge of Peison, while Theognis and
his companions went to the shield-manufactory close by to take an inventory of
the slaves. Lysias, left alone with Peison, asked if he would take a sum of money
to save him. 'Yes', said Peison, 'if it is a large sum'. They agreed on a talent;
and Lysias went to bring it from the room where he kept his money-box. Peison,
catching sight of the box, called up two servants, and told them to take its whole
contents. Thus robbed of more than thrice the amount bargained for, Lysias begged
to be left at least enough to take him out of the country. Peison replied that
he might consider himself lucky if he got off with his life. They were then going
to leave the house, when they met at the door two other emissaries of the Thirty.
Finding that Peison was now going to the house of Polemarchos in the town, these
men relieved him of Lysias, whom they took to the house of one Damnippos. Theognis
was there already with some other prisoners. As Lysias knew Damnippos, he took
him aside, and asked him to assist his escape. Damnippos thought that it would
be best to speak directly to Theognis, who, he was sure, would do anything for
money. While Theognis and Damnippos were talking in the front-hall, Lysias slipped
through the door, which chanced to be open, leading from the first court of the
house to the second. He had still two doors to pass through -luckily they were
both unlocked. He escaped to the house of Archeneos, the master of a merchantship,
close by, and sent him up to Athens to learn what had become of Polemarchos. Archeneos
came back with the news that Polemarchos had been met in the street by Eratosthenes,
one of the Thirty, and taken straight to prison. The same night Lysias took boat
to Megara.
Polemarchos received the usual message of the Thirty -to drink the hemlock. Although
the property of which the brothers had been despoiled was so valuable -including
almost the whole stock of the shield-manufactory, gold and silver plate, furniture,
and a large sum of money- the decencies of burial were refused to Polemarchos.
He was laid out in the prison on a common stretcher, -one friend gave a cloth
to throw over the body, another a cushion for the head, and so forth. A pair of
gold earrings were taken from the ears of his widow.
Lysias aids the Exiles.
During the ten or twelve months of the exile -from the spring of 404
to the spring of 403- Lysias seems to have been active in the democratic cause.
According to his biographer -whose facts were probably taken from Lysias himself-
he presented the army of the patriots with two hundred shields, and with a sum
of two thousand drachmas; gained for it, with the help of one Hermon, upwards
of three hundred recruits; and induced his friend Thrasydaeos of Elis to contribute
no less than two talents. Immediately upon the return from the Peiraeus to the
city in the spring of 403, Thrasybulos proposed that the citizenship should be
conferred upon Lysias; and the proposal was carried in the ekklesia. In one respect,
however, it was informal. No measure could, in strictness, come before the popular
assembly which was not introduced by a preliminary resolution (probouleuma) of
the Senate. But at the moment when this decree was passed, the Senate had not
yet been reconstituted after the anarchy4 ; and the probouleuma had therefore
been wanting. On this ground Archinos, a colleague of Thrasybulos, arraigned the
decree (under the Graphe Paranomon) as unconstitutional, and it was annulled.
The whole story has been doubted; but it is difficult to reject it when the Plutarchic
biographer expressly refers to the speech made by Lysias in connection with the
protest of Archinos. Whether this speech was or was not identical with that of
Lysias On his own Services cannot be decided; but the latter must at least have
been made upon this occasion.
The professional life of Lysias.
Stripped of a great part of his fortune by the Thirty Tyrants, and
further straitened, probably, by his generosity to the exiles, Lysias seems now
to have settled down to hard work at Athens. His activity as a writer of speeches
for the law-courts falls--as far as we know--between the years 403 and 380 B.
C. That it must have been great and constant is shown by the fact that Dionysios
speaks of him as having written 'not fewer than two hundred forensic speeches'.
No other of the Attic orators was credited with so many as a hundred compositions
of all kinds. First in time and first, too, in importance among the extant orations
of Lysias is that Against Eratosthenes, in whom he saw not only one of the Thirty
Tyrants but the murderer of his brother Polemarchos. It was probably in 403 that
Eratosthenes was impeached. The speech of Lysias, memorable as a display of eloquence,
valuable, too, as a sufferer's picture of a dreadful time, has this further interest,
that it is the only forensic speech known to have been spoken by Lysias himself,
and that it marks his only personal contact with the politics of Athens.
Lysias had probably been a professional speech-writer for about four
years when Sokrates was brought to trial in 399. According to the popular account,
Lysias wrote a defence for Sokrates to speak in court, but Sokrates declined to
use it. In the story itself there is nothing improbable; Kephalos and his son
Lysias had been the intimate friends of Sokrates. But it may be suspected that
the story arose from a confusion. At some time later than 392 B. C. the sophist
Polykrates published an epideictic Accusation of Sokrates, and, in reply to it,
Lysias wrote a speech In Defence of Sokrates. This was extant in antiquity; and
some one who had heard of it, but who knew nothing of the circumstances under
which it was written, probably invented the story that it had been offered to,
and declined by, the philosopher. The self-denial of Sokrates would be complete
when, after rejecting the aid of money, he had rejected the aid of the best contemporary
rhetoric.
Lysias is named in the ordinary text of his own speech On the Property
of Aristophanes as taking part in an embassy to Dionysios the elder of Syracuse,
an embassy of which the date cannot be put below 389 B. C. But there can be little
doubt as to the correctness of the emendation which removes his name from that
passage. There is better reason for believing another story in which the name
of Lysias is associated with that of the elder Dionysios. We have good authority
for the statement that the Olympiakos, of which a large fragment remains, was
spoken by Lysias in person at the Olympic festival of 388 B.C., to which Dionysios
had sent a splendid embassy. In that speech Lysias pointed out that two great
enemies -the despot of Syracuse in the west, the king of Persia in the east- threatened
Greece; and urged union among Greeks with all the eagerness and with more than
the sagacity of Isokrates.
Chronological limit of his known work.
As has already been noticed, the indisputably genuine works of Lysias, so far
as they are known, cease about 380 B.C. The latest, the speech for Pherenikos
of which a fragment remains, belongs to 381 or 380. Of the two speeches for Iphikrates,
also represented by fragments only, one belonged to 371, the other to 354; but
Dionysios pronounced both spurious, partly on the external ground that Lysias
could not then have been living; partly -which, for us, is the important point-
on the internal evidence of style. It seems probable that Lysias died in, or soon
after, 380 B.C., at the age of about eighty.
Character of Lysias.
The character, as well as the capacity, of Lysias must be judged from
the indirect evidence of his own writings. Circumstances kept him out of political
life, in which his versatility and shrewdness would probably have held and improved
the position which great powers of speech must soon have won. The part which he
took during the troubles under the Thirty proved him a generous friend to Athens,
as the Olympiakos shows him to have been a wise citizen of Greece; but his destiny
was not that of a man of action. It is not likely that he regretted this much,
though he must have felt his exclusion from the Athenian franchise as the refusal
of a reward to which he had claims. His real strength -as far as can be judged
now- lay in his singular literary tact. A fine perception of character in all
sorts of men, and a faculty for dramatising it, aided by a sense of humour always
under control; a certain pervading gracefulness and flexibility of mind; rhetorical
skill, masterly in a sense hardly dreamed of at that day, since it could conceal
itself -these were his most distinctive qualities and powers. His liberal discharge
of public services, and his generosity to the exiles in 404, accord with the disposition
which is suggested by the fragments of his letters. He was a man of warm nature,
impulsive, hospitable, attached to his friends; fond of pleasure, and freely indulging
in it; but, like Sophokles at the Chian supper-party described by Ion, carrying
into social life the same intellectual quality which marks his best work -the
grace and the temperate brightness of a thoroughly Athenian mind.
Lysias: Style
Lysias a literary artist
An appreciation of Lysias is, in one sense, easy for modern criticism.
He was a literary artist, and his work bears the stamp of consummate literary
skill. The reader may fail to realise the circumstances under which a particular
speech was delivered, the force with which it appeals to emotion or to reason,
the degree in which it was likely to prove persuasive or convincing. But he cannot
fail to be aware that he is reading admirable prose. The merit of Lysias as a
writer is secure of recognition. It is his oratorical power which runs some danger
of being too lightly valued, unless attention is paid to the conditions under
which it was exerted. The speech Against Eratosthenes, indeed, in which he expresses
the passionate feeling of his own mind, would alone suffice to prove him in the
modern sense eloquent. But a large majority of his other speeches are so comparatively
tame, so poor in the qualities of the higher eloquence, that his oratorical reputation,
to be understood, needs to be closely interpreted by the scope of his oratory.
Although on a few occasions he himself came forward as a speaker,
the business of his life was to write for others. All sorts of men were among
his clients; all kinds of causes in turn occupied him. Now he lent his services
to the impeachment of an official charged with defrauding the Athenian treasury,
or to the prosecution of some adherent of the Thirty, accused of having slandered
away the lives of Athenian citizens; now he supplied the words in which a pauper
begged that his obol a day from the State might not be stopped, or helped one
of the parties to a drunken brawl to demand satisfaction for a black eye. The
elderly citizen who appeals against the calumny of an informer to his past services
as trierarch or choregus; the young man checked on the threshold of public life
by some enemy's protest at his dokimasia for his first office,--in turn borrow
their eloquence from Lysias. If he had been content to adopt the standard which
he found existing in his profession, he would have written in nearly the same
style for all these various ages and conditions. He would have treated all these
different cases upon a uniform technical system, merely seeking, in every case
alike, to obtain the most powerful effect and the highest degree of ornament by
applying certain fixed rules. Lysias was a discoverer when he perceived that a
purveyor of words for others, if he would serve his customers in the best way,
must give the words the air of being their own. He saw that the monotonous intensity
of the fashionable rhetoric -often ludicrously unsuited to the mouth into which
it was put- was fatal to real impressiveness; and, instead of lending to all speakers
the same false brilliancy, he determined to give to each the vigour of nature.
It was the desire of treating appropriately every case entrusted to him, and of
making each client speak as an intelligent person, without professional aid, might
be expected to speak in certain circumstances, which chiefly determined the style
of Lysias.
Lysias the representative of the Plain Style.
This style, imitated by many, but marked in Lysias by an original
excellence, made him for antiquity the representative of a class of orators. It
was in the latter part of the fourth century B. C. that Greek critics began regularly
to distinguish three styles of rhetorical composition, the grand, the plain and
the middle. The grand style aims constantly at rising above the common idiom;
it seeks ornament of every kind, and rejects nothing as too artificial if it is
striking. The plain style may, like the first, employ the utmost efforts of art,
but the art is concealed; and, instead of avoiding, it imitates the language of
ordinary life. The 'middle' style explains itself by its name. Theophrastos appears
to have been the first writer on Rhetoric who attempted such a classification;
there is, at least, no hint of it in Aristotle or in the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum.
Vague as the classification necessarily is, it was frequently modified according
to the taste of individual teachers. The two extremes -the grand and the plain
styles -were recognised by all; but some discerned two, some three shades between
them; while others thought it needless to distinguish anything intermediate. On
the whole, however, the tripartite division kept its ground down to Roman times.
It was adopted, with variations of detail, by Cicero, Dionysios and Quintilian.
The characteristics of the 'plain' style -with which we are most concerned at
present- are only sketched by Dionysios; but they are more precisely given by
Cicero. There is a difference, indeed, between the points of view of the two critics.
Dionysios treats the three styles historically; Cicero treats them theoretically.
The 'middle' style of Cicero differs, therefore, from the 'middle' style of Dionysios
in being an ideal. But Cicero's description of the 'plain' style, at least, would
probably have been accepted in the main by Dionysios; and it is clear that for
Cicero, as for Dionysios, Lysias was the canon of that style. According to Cicero,
the chief marks of the 'genus tenue' are these:
1. In regard to composition--a free structure of clauses and sentences, not straining
after a rhythmical period.
Originality of Lysias.
With certain exceptions, which will be noticed in their place, Lysias
has these characteristics, and is the best representative of the plain style,
whether viewed historically or in the abstract. That style gradually came to be
used by almost all writers for the ekklesia or the law-courts; but it was Lysias,
says Dionysios, who 'perfected' it, and 'brought it to the summit of the excellence
proper to it'. In order that the originality of Lysias may not be underrated,
attention must be given to the precise meaning of this statement. It appears to
speak of him merely as having succeeded better than others in a style used by
nearly all writers of speeches for the law-courts. But what was, in fact, common
to him and them was this only -the avoidance of decidedly poetical ornament and
the employment of sober prose. This is all that the ?plain? style, as opposed
to the 'elaborate', necessarily means. That which he had, and which no other had
in the same degree, was the art of so writing this prose that it should be in
character with the person who spoke it. Their style was monotonously plain; his
was plain too, but it was more, it was variously natural. Dionysios shows elsewhere
that he appreciated to the full the originality of Lysias; but he has hardly brought
it out with sufficient clearness in the passage which has just been noticed. Lysias
may, in a general sense, be regarded as the perfecter of a style already practised
by many others; but it is closer to the truth to call him the founder of a new
one, and of one in which he was never rivalled.
It does not, perhaps, strike the modern mind as very remarkable that
a man whose business was to write speeches for other people should have conceived
the idea of making the speech appropriate to the person. In order to understand
why this conception was, at the time, a proof of genius, it is necessary to remember
how rhetoric was then viewed. Prose composition in its infancy was a craft, a
close profession, just as much as poetry. Beside the sacred band of ?wise? poets
stood the small group of experts skilled to fashion artistic prose. When a man
wished for help in a law-suit he applied, as a matter of course, if he could afford
it, to one of these; and it was equally a matter of course that the speech supplied
to him should bear the same stamp as others turned out by the same machine. There
was no pretence of its being the work of the speaker, and no expectation, therefore,
that it should reflect his nature; a certain rhetorical colour, certain recognized
forms of argument and appeal, were alone looked for. The idea of writing for a
client so that he should have in court the whole advantage of professional aid,
and, in addition to this, the advantage of appearing to have dispensed with it,
was not only novel but daring. This is what Lysias first undertook to do, and
did admirably.
Had his style been florid before it became plain?
His dramatic purpose -if it may be so called- decided the special
characteristics of his style. But, even without this purpose, an instinctive dislike
of exaggeration would of itself have given his style some general characteristics,
sufficient to distinguish it from that of any of his contemporaries. On this account
we must dissent from a view advanced by K. O. Muller in his History of Greek Literature.
Lysias had, he thinks, two distinct styles at two different periods of his life;
the earlier, 'forced and artificial'; the later, plain. Muller recognises the
former in the speech in the Phaedros, and in the Epitaphios. The turning-point
was, he conceives, the impeachment of Eratosthenes, when ?a real feeling of pain
and anger? in the mind of Lysias gave 'a more lively and natural flow both to
his spirits and to his speech'. 'This occasion' -Muller adds- 'convinced Lysias
what style of oratory was both the most suited to his own character and also least
likely to fail in producing an effect upon the judges'. Ingenious as the theory
is, we have no belief in the fact of any such abrupt transition as it supposes.
That temperate mastery with which Lysias cultivated the 'plain' style is doubly
a marvel if it was only a sudden practical experience which weaned him from his
first love for a forced and artificial rhetoric. Converts are not proverbial for
discretion; and the exquisite judgment shown by Lysias after his supposed reformation
ought to have prevented its necessity. Like all his contemporaries he must, unquestionably,
have had his earliest training in the florid Sicilian school; but there is nothing
to show that its precepts ever took a strong hold upon him; and there is overwhelming
reason to believe that a genius of the bent of his must very early have thrown
off such pedantic trammels. It is true that the speech in the Phaedros- assuming
its genuineness- is more stiffly composed than any of his presumably later writings:
but, on the other hand, it is, as Muller allows, entirely free from the ornaments
of Gorgias. As for the Epitaphios, its spuriousness is now a generally recognised
fact.
Special characteristics of his style.
Plainness and an easy versatility are, then, the general characteristics
of Lysias. We propose now to consider in detail his special characteristics; speaking
first of his style in the narrower sense, his composition and diction; next of
his method of handling subject-matter.
His Composition.
Cicero, as we have seen, counts among the marks of the 'plain' style
a free structure of sentences and clauses, not straining after a rhythmical period
(Orator 77, quoted above). Dionysios, speaking of ethopoiia in Lysias, says that
he composes 'quite simply and plainly, aware that ethos is best expressed, not
in rhythmical periods, but in the lax (or easy) style' (en tei dialelumenei lexei).
In another place, however, he praises Lysias for a vigour, essential in contests,
?which packs thoughts closely and brings them out roundly? (strongulos) -that
is, in terse periods. Both remarks are just. Nothing more strikingly distinguishes
Lysias from his predecessors and from nearly all his successors than the degree
in which the structure of his sentences varies according to his subject. His speeches
may in this respect be classified under three heads. First, those which are of
a distinctly public character; in which the composition is thoroughly rhythmical,
and which abound with artistic periods, single or combined. Secondly, those speeches
which, from the nature of their subjects, blend the private with the public character;
which show not only fewer combinations or groups of periods, but a less careful
formation of single periods. Thirdly, the essentially private speeches; which
differ from the second class, not in the mould of such periods as occur, but in
the larger mixture with these of sentences or clauses not periodic. Further, in
each of these three classes, a greater freedom of composition distinguishes the
narrative from the argument. The narrative parts of the properly public speeches
are usually thrown into what may be called the historical as opposed to the oratorical
period; that is, the sentences are more loosely knit and are drawn out to a greater
length. According as the speech has more of a private character, these freer periods
are more and more relaxed into a simple series (lexis eiromene) of longer or shorter
clauses. Yet, while there are so many shades in the composition of Lysias, the
colour of the whole is individual. Isokrates develops period out of period in
long, luxuriant sequence; Demosthenes intersperses the most finished and most
vigorous periods with less formally built sentences which relieve them; Lysias
binds his periods, by twos or threes at the most, into groups always moderate
in size but often monotonous in form; excelling Isokrates in compactness, but
yielding to Demosthenes in life.
His Diction--its purity.
The diction of Lysias is distinguished in the first place by its purity.
This is a quality upon which no modern could have pronounced authoritatively,
but for which the ancient Greek critic vouches. In the Augustan age the reaction
from florid Asianism to Atticism had set in strongly, and especial attention was
paid by Greek grammarians to the marks of a pure Attic style. Dionysios may be
taken as a competent judge. He pronounces Lysias to be 'perfectly pure in expression,
the best canon of Attic speech, -not of the old used by Plato and Thucydides',
but of that which was in vogue in his own time. This may be seen, he adds, by
a comparison with the writings of Andokides, Kritias and many others. Two ideas
are included under the ?purity? praised here; abstinence from words either obsolete
(glossai) or novel, or too decidedly poetical; and abstinence from constructions
foreign to the idiom of the day -an excellence defined elsewhere as 'accuracy
of dialect'. Lysias is not rigidly pure in these respects. The only instance of
an old-fashioned syntax, indeed, which has been noticed in him, is the occasional
use of te as a copula; nor does he use such pedantic words as were meant by 'glossae';
but rare or poetical words and phrases occur in many places. The praise of purity
must be taken in a general and relative sense. Of those who came after Lysias,
Isokrates most nearly approached him in this quality; but Isaeos is also commended
for it.
Simplicity.
Next, in contrast with the Sicilian school of rhetoric, Lysias is
characterised by a general avoidance of ornamental figures. Such figures as occur
are mostly of the kind which men use in daily life without rhetorical consciousness,
-hyperbole, metaphor, prosopopoiia and the like. As a rule, he expresses his meaning
by ordinary words employed in their normal sense. His panegyrical speeches and
his letters are said to have presented a few exceptions to this rule; but all
his business-works, as Dionysios calls them -his speeches for the ekklesia and
for the law-courts- are stamped with this simplicity. He seems, as his critic
says, to speak like the ordinary man, while he is in fact the most consummate
of artists, -a prose poet who knows how to give an unobtrusive distinction to
common language, and to bring out of it a quiet and peculiar music. Isokrates
had the same command of familiar words, but he was not content to seek effect
by artistic harmonies of these. His ambition was to be ornate; and hence one of
the differences remarked by Dionysios: Isokrates is sometimes vulgar; Lysias never
is. There is one kind of ornament, however, which Lysias uses largely, and in
respect to which he deserts the character of the plain style. He delights in the
artistic parallelism (or opposition) of clauses. This may be effected: (1) by
simple correspondence of clauses in length (isokolon); (2) by correspondence of
word with word in meaning (antitheton proper); (3) by correspondence of word with
word in sound (paromoion). Examples are very numerous both in the public and in
the private speeches. This love of antithesis -shown on a larger scale in the
terse periodic composition- is the one thing which sometimes blemishes the ethos
in Lysias.
Clearness and conciseness.
Closely connected with this simplicity is his clearness. Lysias is
clear in a twofold sense; in thought, and in expression. Figurative language is
often a source of confusion of thought; and the habitual avoidance of figures
by Lysias is one reason why he not only speaks but thinks clearly. In regard to
this clearness of expression Dionysios has an excellent remark. This quality might,
he observes, result merely from 'deficiency of power', i.e. poverty of language
and of fancy which constrained the speaker to be simple. In the case of Lysias
it does, in fact, result from wealth of the right words. He uses only plain words;
but he has enough of these to express with propriety the most complex idea. The
combination of clearness with conciseness is Conciseness. achieved by Lysias because
he has his language thoroughly under command; his words are the disciplined servants
of his thoughts. Isokrates is clear; but he is not also concise. In the union
of these two excellences, Isaeos perhaps stands next to Lysias. There are, indeed,
exceptions to the conciseness of Lysias, as there are exceptions to the purity
and the plainness of his diction. Instances occur in which terms nearly synonymous
are accumulated, either for the sake of emphasis or merely for the sake of symmetry;
but such instances are not frequent.
Vividness.
Vividness, enargeia -'the power of bringing under the senses what
is narrated' -is an attribute of the style of Lysias. The dullest hearer cannot
fail to have before his eyes the scene described, and to fancy himself actually
in presence of the persons introduced as speaking. Lysias derives this graphic
force from two things; -judicious use of detail, and perception of character.
A good example of it is his description, in the speech Against Eratosthenes, of
his own arrest by Theognis and Peison. Dionysios ascribes vividness, as well as
clearness, to Isokrates also; but there is perhaps only one passage in the extant
work of Isokrates which strictly justifies this praise. A description may be brilliant
without being in the least degree graphic. The former quality depends chiefly
on the glow of the describer's imagination; the latter depends on his truthfulness
and skill in grouping around the main incident its lesser circumstances. A lifelike
picture demands the union of fine colouring and correct drawing. Isokrates was
a brilliant colourist; but he was seldom, like Lysias, an accurate draughtsman.
Ethopoiia.
From this trait we pass naturally to another which has just been mentioned
as one of its sources -the faculty of seizing and portraying character. Of all
the gifts of Lysias this is the most distinctive, and is the one which had greatest
influence upon his style. It is a talent which does not admit of definition or
analysis; it can be understood only by studying its results. It is shown, as Dionysios
says, in three things -thought, diction, and composition; that is, the ideas,
the words, and the style in which the words are put together, always suit the
person to whom they are ascribed. There is hardly one of the extant speeches of
Lysias upon which this peculiar power has not left its mark. Many of them, otherwise
poor in interest, have a permanent artistic value as describing, with a few quiet
touches, this or that type of man. For instance, the Defence which is the subject
of the Twenty-first Oration is interesting solely because it embodies to the life
that proud consciousness of merit with which a citizen who had deserved well of
the State might confront a calumny. In the speech on the Sacred Olive, if the
nameless accused is not a person for us, he is at least a character -the man who
shrinks from public prominence of any kind, but who at the same time has a shy
pride in discharging splendidly all his public duties. The injured husband, again,
who has taken upon Eratosthenes the extreme vengeance sanctioned by the law, is
the subject of an indirect portrait, in which homeliness is combined with the
moral dignity of a citizen standing upon his rights (De caed. Eratosth. (Or. I.)
§§ 5 ff., 47--50). The steady Athenian householder of the old type, and the adventurous
patriot of the new, are sketched in the speech On the Property of Aristophanes.
The accuser of Diogeiton, unwilling to prosecute a relative, but resolved to have
a shameful wrong redressed; -Diogeiton's mother, pleading with him for her sons;
-are pictures all the more effective because they have been produced without apparent
effort. But of all such delineations -and, as Dionysios says, no character in
Lysias is inartistically drawn or lifeless- perhaps the cleverest and certainly
the most attractive is that of Mantitheos, the brilliant young Athenian who is
vindicating his past life before the Senate. Nowhere is the ethical art of Lysias
more ably shown than in the ingenuous words of apology with which, as by an afterthought,
Mantitheos concludes his frank and highspirited defence:
'I have understood, Senators, that some people are annoyed with me for this too
-that I presumed, though rather young, to speak in the Assembly. It was about
my own affairs that I was first compelled to speak in public; after that, however,
I do suspect myself of having been more ambitiously inclined than I need have
been -partly through thinking of my family, who have never ceased to be statesmen-
partly because I saw that you (to tell the truth) respect none but such men; so
that, seeing this to be your opinion, who would not be invited to act and speak
in behalf of the State? And besides - why should you be vexed with such men? The
judgment upon them rests with none but yourselves'
The 'propriety' and 'charm' of Lysias.
The 'propriety' which has always been praised in Lysias depends mainly
on this discernment of what suits the character of each speaker; but it includes
more - it has respect also to the hearers and to the subject, and generally to
all the circumstances of the case. The judge, the ekklesiast, the listener in
the crowd at a festival are not addressed in the same vein; different excellences
of style characterise the opening, the narrative, the argument, the final appeal.
It remains to say a few words on the peculiar and crowning
excellence of Lysias in the province of expression -his famous but inexplicable
'charm'. It is noticeable that while his Roman critics merely praise his elegance
and polish, regarding it as a simple result of his art, the finer sense of his
Greek critic apprehends a certain nameless grace or charm, which cannot be directly
traced to art,--which cannot be analysed or accounted for: it is something peculiar
to him, of which all that can be said is that it is there. What, asks Dionysios,
is the freshness of a beautiful face? What is fine harmony in the movements and
windings of music? What is rhythm in the measurement of times? As these things
baffle definition, so does the charm of Lysias. It cannot be taken to pieces by
reasoning; it must be seized by a cultivated instinct. It is the final criterion
of his genuine work:
'When I am puzzled about one of the speeches ascribed to him, and when it is hard
for me to find the truth by other marks, I have recourse to this excellence, as
to the last piece on the board. Then, if the Graces of Speech seem to me to make
the writing fair, I count it to be of the soul of Lysias; and I care not to look
further into it. But if the stamp of the language has no winningness, no loveliness,
I am chagrined, and suspect that after all the speech is not by Lysias; and I
do no more violence to my instinct, even though in all else the speech seems to
me clever and well-finished; believing that to write well, in special styles other
than this, is given to many men; but that to write winningly, gracefully, with
loveliness, is the gift of Lysias'.
A modern reader would be sanguine if he hoped to analyse the distinctive
charm of Lysias more closely than Dionysios found himself able to do. He may be
content if study by degrees gives him a dim apprehension of something which he
believes that he could use, as Dionysios used the qualities detected by his 'instinct',
in deciding between the genuine and the false. Evidently the same cause which
in great measure disqualifies a modern for estimating the 'purity'? of the language
of Lysias also disqualifies him for estimating its charm. This charm may be supposed
to have consisted partly in a certain felicity of expression, -Lysias having a
knack of using the word which, for some undefinable reason, was felt to be curiously
right; partly in a certain essential urbanity, the reflection of a nature at once
genial and refined. The first quality is evidently beyond the sure appreciation
of a modern ear: the second less so, yet scarcely to be estimated with nicety,
since here too shades of expression are concerned. At best a student of Lysias
may hope to attain a tolerably true perception of what he could not have written:
but hardly the faculty of rejoicing that he wrote just as he did.
His treatment of subject, matter.
Having now noticed the leading characteristics of Lysias in regard
to form of language, we will consider some of his characteristics in the other
great department of his art -the treatment of the subject-matter. In this the
ancient critics distinguished two chief elements, Invention and Arrangement.
By 'invention' was meant the faculty of discovering the arguments
available in any given circumstances; the art, in short, of making the most of
a case. Sokrates, criticising the speech in the Phaedros, is made to express contempt
for the inventive power of Lysias. Arguments, however, which would not pass with
a dialectician, might do very well for a jury. If Plato found Lysias barren of
logical resource, Dionysios emphatically praises his fertile cleverness in discovering
every weapon of controversy which the facts of a case could yield to the most
penetrating search. The latter part of the speech against Agoratos may be taken
as a good example of this exhaustive ingenuity. It is a fault, indeed, that there
the speaker attempts to make too many small points in succession; and one, at
least, of these is a curious instance of overdone subtlety.
In regard to arrangement, Lysias is distinguished from all other Greek
orators by a uniform simplicity. His speeches consist usually of four parts, which
follow each other in a regular order: proem, narrative, proof, epilogue. In some
cases, the nature of the subject renders a narrative, in the proper sense, unnecessary;
in others, the narrative is at the same time the proof; in a few, the proem is
almost or entirely dispensed with. But in no case is there anything more elaborate
than this fourfold partition, -and in no case is the sequence of the parts altered.
This simple arrangement, contrasting with the manifold subdivisions which Plato
notices as used by the rhetoricians of his day, is usually said to have been first
made by Isokrates. This may be true in the sense that it was he who first stated
it theoretically. In practice, however, it had already been employed by Lysias;
and more strictly than by Isokrates himself. The difference between their systems,
according to Dionysios, is precisely this: Lysias uses always the same simple
framework, never interpolating, subdividing or defining; Isokrates knows how to
break the uniformity by transpositions of his own devising, or by novel episodes.
The same difference, in a stronger form, separates Lysias here from his imitator
in much else, Isaeos. Every kind of artifice is used by Isaeos in shifting, subdividing,
recombining the four rudimentary elements of the speech according to the special
conditions of the case. It was this versatile tact in disposing his forces -this
generalship, as Dionysios in one place calls it- which chiefly procured for Isaeos
the reputation of unequalled adroitness in fighting a bad cause. Lysias had consummate
literary skill and much acuteness; but his weapons were better than his plan of
campaign; he was not a subtle tactician. 'In arranging what he has invented he
is commonplace, frank, guileless'; while Isaeos 'plays all manner of ruses upon
his adversary', Lysias 'uses no sort of knavery'. Invention and selection are
admirable in him: arrangement is best studied in his successors.
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Lysias: Parts of the oration
If we turn from his general plan to his execution of its several parts,
Lysias will be found to shew very different degrees of merit in proem, narrative,
proof and epilogue.
Proem
His proem, or opening, is always excellent, always gracefully and
accurately appropriate to the matter in hand. This inexhaustible fertility of
resource calls forth the special commendation of Dionysios. 'The power shown in
his proems will appear especially marvellous if it is considered that, though
he wrote not fewer than 200 forensic speeches, there is not one in which he is
found to have used a preface which is not plausible, or which is not closely connected
with the case. Indeed, he has not twice hit upon the same syllogisms, or twice
drifted into the same thoughts. Yet even those who have written little are found
to have had this mischance, -that, I mean, of repeating commonplaces; to say nothing
of the fact that nearly all of them borrow the prefatory remarks of others, and
think no shame of doing so'. The opening of the speech against Diogeiton may be
cited as an example of a difficult case introduced with singular delicacy and
tact.
Narrative.
The same kind of cleverness which never fails to make a good beginning
finds a more important scope in the next stage of the speech. In narrative Lysias
is masterly. His statements of facts are distinguished by conciseness, clearness
and charm, and by a power of producing conviction without apparent effort to convince.
If these qualities mark almost equally some of the narratives in the private orations
of Demosthenes, it is yet Lysias and not Demosthenes to whom Dionysios points
as the canon of excellence in this kind. He goes so far as to say that he believes
the rules for narrative given in the current rhetorical treatises to have been
derived from study of models supplied by Lysias.
Proof.
In the third province -that of proof- this supremacy is not maintained.
Rhetorical proofs are of three kinds: (1) direct logical proofs which appeal to
the reason; and indirect moral proofs which appeal (2) to the moral sense, and
(3) to the feelings.
In the first sort Lysias is strong both by acuteness in discovering,
and by judgment in selecting, arguments. In the second he is effective also; and
succeeds, even when he has few facts to go upon, in making characters seem attractive
or the reverse by incidental touches. In the third he is comparatively weak; he
cannot heighten the force of a plea, represent a wrong, or invoke compassion,
with sufficient spirit and intensity.
Epilogue.
Hence in the fourth and last department, the epilogue, he shows, indeed,
the neatness which suits recapitulation, but not the power which ought to elevate
an appeal. The nature of his progress through a speech is well described by an
image which his Greek critic employs. Like a soft southern breeze, his facile
inspiration wafts him smoothly through the first and second stages of his voyage;
at the third it droops; in the last it dies.
General qualities resulting from character
The manner in which Lysias handles his subject-matter has now been
spoken of so far as concerns its technical aspect. But, besides these characteristics
of the artist which may be discovered in particular parts, there are certain general
qualities, resulting from the character of the man, which colour the whole; and
a word must now be said of these.
The tact of Lysias.
Foremost among such qualities is tact. One of its special manifestations
is quick sympathy with the character of the speaker; another is perception of
the style in which a certain subject should be treated or a certain class of hearers
addressed. Both these have already been noticed. But, above and beyond these,
there is a certain sureness in the whole conduct of a case, a certain remoteness
from liability to blunder, which is the most general indication of the tact of
Lysias. Among his genuine extant speeches there is only one which perhaps in some
degree offers an exception to the rule; -the speech against Evandros. In the case
of the speech against Andokides, the conspicuous absence of a fine discretion
is one of the most conclusive proofs that Lysias was not the author. In relation
to treatment, this tact is precisely what the 'charm' praised by Dionysios is
in relation to language; it is that quality, the presence or absence of which
is the best general criterion of what Lysias did or did not write.
His humour.
A quality which the last almost implies is humour; and this Lysias
certainly had. The description of an incorrigible borrower, in the fragment of
the lost speech against the Sokratic Aeschines, shows this humour tending to broad
farce, and illustrates what Demetrius means by the 'somewhat comic graces' of
Lysias. But, as a rule, it is seen only in sudden touches, which amuse chiefly
because they surprise; as in the speech for Mantitheos, and most of all in that
for the Invalid.
Sarcasm.
Really powerful sarcasm must come from earnest feeling; and Lysias,
though intellectual acuteness gave him command of irony, was weak in sarcasm for
the same reason that he was not great in pathos. There is, properly speaking,
only one extant speech -that against Nikomachos- in which sarcasm is a principal
weapon. Here he is moderately successful, but not in the best way; for, just as
in his attack upon Aeschines, vehemence, tending to coarseness, takes the place
of moral indignation.
Defects of Lysias as an orator.
The language, the method, the genius of Lysias have now been considered
in reference to their chief positive characteristics. But no attempt to estimate
what Lysias was would be true or complete if it failed to point out what he was
not. However high the rank which he may claim as a literary artist, he cannot,
as an orator, take the highest. The defects which exclude him from it are chiefly
two; and these are to a certain extent the defects of his qualities. As he excelled
in analysis of character and in elegance, so he was, as a rule, deficient in pathos
and in fire.The limits of pathos in Lysias.
It would be untrue to say that Lysias never appeals to the feelings
with effect, and unfair to assume that he lacked the power of appealing to them
with force. But the bent of his mind was critical; his artistic instinct shrank
from exaggeration of every sort; and, instead of giving fervent expression to
his own sense of what was pitiable or terrible in any set of circumstances, it
was his manner merely to draw a suggestive picture of the circumstances themselves.
This self-restraint will be best understood by comparing a passage of Lysias with
a similar passage of Andokides. The speech On the Mysteries describes the scene
in the prison when mothers, sisters, wives came to visit the victims of the informer
Diokleides. A like scene is described in the speech Against Agoratos, when the
persons whom he had denounced took farewell in prison of their kinswomen. But
the two orators take different means of producing a tragic effect. 'There were
cries and lamentations', says Andokides, 'weeping and wailing for the miseries
of the hour'. Lysias simply remarks that the wife who came to see her husband
had already put on mourning. For hearers of a certain class the pathos of facts
is more eloquent than an express appeal; but the speaker who is content to rely
upon it renounces the hope of being found pathetic by the multitude. It was only
now and then that, without going beyond the limits which his own taste imposed,
Lysias could expect to stir general sympathy. In the defence which he wrote for
the nephews of Nikias, the last survivors of a house made desolate by violent
deaths and now threatened with spoliation, he found such an opportunity. He used
it well, because, though declamation would have been easy, he abstained from everything
rhetorical and hollow. The few words in which the defendant speaks of his claim
to the protection of the court are plain and dignified:
'Judges, I have no one to put up to plead for us; for of our kinsmen some have
died in war, after showing themselves brave men, in the effort to make Athens
great; some, in the cause of the democracy and of your freedom, have died by the
hemlock of the Thirty; and so the merits of our kinsmen, and the misfortunes of
the State, have become the causes of our friendlessness. It befits you to think
of these things and to help us with good will, considering that under a democracy
those deserve to be welltreated at your hands who, under an oligarchy, had their
share of the troubles'.
The eloquence of Lysias rarely passionate.
After inquiring how far Lysias fails in pathos, it remains to speak
of the other principal defect noticed above. How far, and in what sense, does
he want fire? By ?fire? is meant here the passion of a speaker stirred with great
ideas. Dionysios says (in effect) that, besides pathos, Lysias wants two other
things, grandeur and spirit. He has not -we are told- the intensity or the force
of Demosthenes; he touches, but does not pierce, the heart; he charms, but fails
to astonish or to appal. This is true; but it should be remembered that in a great
majority of the causes with which he had to deal the attempt at sublimity would
have been ridiculous. It may be granted that, had Lysias been called upon to plead
for Olynthos or to denounce Philip, he would not have approached even distantly
the lofty vehemence of Demosthenes. The absence of passion cannot properly be
regarded as a defect in his extant speeches; but they at least suggest that under
no circumstances could he have excelled in passionate eloquence. They indicate
a power which sufficed to elaborate them, rather than a power which gave them
their special qualities out of an affluence of resource. Two speeches, however,
must be named, one of which shows (in what remains of it) the inspiration of a
great idea, the other, the inspiration of an ardent feeling. These are the Olympiakos
and the speech Against Eratosthenes. If in each of these Lysias has shown himself
worthy of his subject, the inference in his favour should be strengthened by the
fact that, so far as we know, these are the noblest subjects which he treated.
In the Olympiakos he is enforcing the necessity of union among Greeks
and calling upon Sparta to take the lead:
'It befits us, then, to desist from war among ourselves and to cleave, with a
single purpose, to the public weal, ashamed for the past and apprehensive for
the future; it befits us to imitate our forefathers, who, when the barbarians
coveted the land of others, inflicted upon them the loss of their own; and who,
after driving out the tyrants, established liberty for all men alike. But I wonder
most of all at the Lacedaemonians, and at the policy which can induce them to
view passively the conflagration of Greece. They are the leaders of the Greeks,
as they deserve to be, both for their inborn gallantry and for their warlike science;
they alone dwell exempt from ravage, though unsheltered by walls; unvexed by faction;
strangers to defeat; with usages which never vary; thus warranting the hope that
the freedom which they have achieved is immortal, and that, having proved themselves
in past perils the deliverers of Greece, they are now thoughtful for her future'.
In the speech Against Eratosthenes, he concludes the impeachment with an appeal
to the two parties who had alike suffered from the Thirty Tyrants; -the Townsmen,
or those who had remained at Athens under the oligarchy; and the democratic exiles
who had held the Peiraeus:
'I wish, before I go down, to recall a few things to the recollection of both
parties, the party of the Town and the party of the Peiraeus; in order that, in
passing sentence, you may have before you as warnings the calamities which have
come upon you through these men.
'And you, first, of the Town -reflect that under their iron rule you were forced
to wage with brothers, with sons, with citizens a war of such a sort that, having
been vanquished, you are the equals of the conquerors, whereas, had you conquered,
you would have been the slaves of the Tyrants. They would have gained wealth for
their own houses from the administration; you have impoverished yours in the war
with one another; for they did not deign that you should thrive along with them,
though they forced you to become odious in their company; such being their consummate
arrogance that, instead of seeking to win your loyalty by giving you partnership
in their prizes, they fancied themselves friendly if they allowed you a share
of their dishonours. Now, therefore, that you are in security, take vengeance
to the utmost of your power both for yourselves and for the men of the Peiraeus;
reflecting that these men, villains that they are, were your masters, but that
now good men are your fellow-citizens, -your fellow-soldiers against the enemy,
your fellow-counsellors in the interest of the State; remembering, too, those
allies whom these men posted on the acropolis as sentinels over their despotism
and your servitude. To you -though much more might be said- I say thus much only.
'But you of the Peiraeus -think, in the first place, of your arms- think how,
after fighting many a battle on foreign soil, you were stripped of those arms,
not by the enemy, but by these men in time of peace; think, next, how you were
warned by public criers from the city bequeathed to you by your fathers, and how
your surrender was demanded of the cities in which you were exiles. Resent these
things as you resented them in banishment; and recollect, at the same time, the
other evils that you have suffered at their hands; -how some were snatched out
of the marketplace or from temples and put to a violent death; how others were
torn from children, parents, or wife, and forced to become their own murderers,
nor allowed the common decencies of burial, by men who believed their own empire
to be surer than the vengeance from on high.
'And you, the remnant who escaped death, after perils in many places, after wanderings
to many cities and expulsion from all, beggared of the necessaries of life, parted
from children, left in a fatherland which was hostile or in the land of strangers,
came through many obstacles to the Peiraeus. Dangers many and great confronted
you; but you proved yourselves brave men; you freed some, you restored others
to their country.
'Had you been unfortunate and missed those aims, you yourselves would now be exiles,
in fear of suffering what you suffered before. Owing to the character of these
men, neither temples nor altars, which even in the sight of evil-doers have a
protecting virtue, would have availed you against wrong; - while those of your
children who are here would have been enduring the outrages of these men, and
those who are in a foreign land, in the absence of all succour, would, for the
smallest debt, have been enslaved.
'I do not wish, however, to speak of what might have been, seeing that what these
men have done is beyond my power to tell; and indeed it is a task not for one
accuser, or for two, but for a host.
'Yet is my indignation perfect for the temples which these men bartered away or
defiled by entering them; for the city which they humbled; for the arsenals which
they dismantled; for the dead, whom you, since you could not rescue them alive,
must vindicate in their death. And I think that they are listening to us, and
will be aware of you when you give your verdict, deeming that such as absolve
these men have passed sentence upon them, and that such as exact retribution from
these have taken vengeance in their names.
'I will cease accusing. You have heard -seen- suffered: you have them: judge'.
Place of Lysias in the history of Rhetoric.
On reviewing the general position of Lysias among the Attic orators,
it will be seen to result mainly from his discovery, made at a time when Rhetoric
had not yet outlived the crudest taste for finery, that the most complete art
is that which hides itself. Aided not only by a delicate mastery of language but
by a peculiar gift for reading and expressing character, he created a style of
which the chief mark was various naturalness. It was long before the art of speaking
reached, in general practice, that sober maturity which his precocious tact had
given to it in a limited field; it was long before his successors freed themselves
to any great extent -few wholly freed themselves- from the well-worn allurements
which he had decisively rejected when they were freshest. But at least no one
of those who came after dared to neglect the lesson taught by Lysias; the attempt
to be natural, however artificially or rarely, was henceforward a new element
in the task which professors of eloquence conceived to be set before them. Lysias
remains, for all aftertimes, the master of the plain style.
This supremacy in a definite province is allowed to him by the general
voice of antiquity through the centuries in which its culture was finest; the
praise becoming, however, less discriminating as the instinct which directed it
became less sure.
Plato's satire upon Lysias -for not having seen that the writing of love-letters
is a branch of Dialectic- is joined to a notice of the clearness, compactness,
finished polish of his language; and it would perhaps be unfair to Plato to assume
that in the one place where he seems at all just to Lysias he meant to be altogether
ironical. Isaeos was a careful student of Lysias. If Aristotle seldom quoted him,
if Theophrastos appears to have missed and Demetrics to have underrated his peculiar
merits, one of the first orators of their generation, Deinarchos, often took him
for a model. When the taste for Attic simplicity, lost during two centuries in
the schools of Asia, revived at Rome, Lysias was recognised as its truest representative.
Though most of his Roman imitators appear to have become feeble in seeking to
be plain, one of them, Licinius Calvus, is allowed at least the praise of elegance.
Cicero's criticism of Lysias is not close; it does not analyse with any exactness
the special qualities of his style; but the general appreciation which it shows
is just. For Cicero, Lysias is the model, not of a plain style merely, but of
Attic refinement; he has also the highest degree of vigour; and though grandeur
was seldom possible in the treatment of such subjects as he chose, some passages
of his speeches have elevation. Yet, while Demosthenes could use the simplicity
of Lysias, it is doubtful (Cicero thinks) whether Lysias could ever have risen
to the height of Demosthenes; Lysias is 'almost' a second Demosthenes, or, what
is the same thing, 'almost' a perfect orator; but his mastery is limited to a
province. The Augustan age produced by far the best and fullest of known ancient
criticisms upon Lysias, that of Dionysios. The verdict of Caecilius has perished
with his work on the Ten Orators; but the remark preserved from it, that Lysias
was abler in the invention than in the arrangement of arguments, shows discernment.
This quality marks in a less degree the judgments of subsequent writers. Quintilian
only commends Lysias in general terms for plain elegance of language and mastery
of clear exposition; Hermogenes especially praises, not his winningness, but his
hidden force, classing him, with Isaeos and Hypereides, next to Demosthenes in
political eloquence. Photios goes wide of the mark; he praises Lysias for those
things in which he was relatively weak, pathos and sublime intensity; and disputes
the just observation of Caecilius that Lysias excelled in invention rather than
in arrangement.
Lysias and his Successors.
A few words will be enough to mark the broad differences between Lysias
and those three of his successors who may best be compared with him, - Isaeos,
Isokrates and Demosthenes. Isokrates, like Lysias, has purity of diction and accuracy
of idiom; command of plain language (though he is seldom content with it); power
of describing, though not of dramatizing, character; propriety and persuasiveness.
But while Lysias hides his art in order to be more winning, Isokrates aims openly
at the highest artificial ornament, and escapes being frivolous or frigid only
by the greatness of most of his subjects and the earnestness with which he treats
them. Isaeos, a direct student of Lysias, resembles him most in his diction, which
is not only, like that of Isokrates, clear and pure, but concise also; further,
he strives, like his master, to conceal his art, but never quite succeeds in this.
The excellence of Demosthenes comprises that of Lysias, since, while the latter
is natural by art, the former is so by the necessary sincerity of genius; but
Demosthenes is not, like Lysias, plain; nor has he the same delicate charm; grandeur
and irresistible power take its place.
Lastly, it should be remembered that it is not only as an orator but also, and
even more, as a writer that Lysias is important; that, great as were his services
to the theory and practice of eloquence, he did greater service still to the Greek
language. He brought the everyday idiom into a closer relation than it had ever
before had with the literary idiom, and set the first example of perfect elegance
joined to plainness; deserving the praise that, as in fineness of ethical portraiture
he is the Sophokles, in delicate control of thoroughly idiomatic speech he is
the Euripides of Attic prose.
Lysias:
Epideictic and deliberative speeches
Extant and lost works
Epideictic
Speeches
Oratory at the Panhellenic festivals.
The
Olympiakos.
The Olympiakos compared with the Panegyrikos.
The
Epitaphios.
Character and authorship of the Epitaphios.
Deliberative
Speech
Oration
XXXIV, a Plea for the Constitution.
Lysias:
Forensic Speeches in Public Causes
Principle of distinction between 'public' and 'private' law-speeches.
A. Speeches in public causes.
B. Speeches in private causes.
Causes
relating to offences directly against the state
1. For
Polystratos, Orration XX
2. Defence
on a Charge of Taking Bribes, Oration XXI
3. Against
Ergokles, Oration XXVIII
4. Against
Epikrates, Oration XXVII
5. Against
Nikomachos, Oration XXX
6. Against
the Corndealers, Oration XXII
Indictment
for proposing an unconstitutional measure
On
the Confiscation of the Property of the Brother of Nikias, Oration XVIII
Claims
for moneys withheld from the state.
1. For
the Soldier, Oration IX
2. On
the Property of Aristophanes, Oration XIX
3. Against
Philokrates, Oration XXIX
Causes relating to a scrutiny (dokimasia) before the senate; especially
of officials designate.
1. Against
Evandros, Oration XXVI
2. For
Mantitheos, Oration XVI
3.
Against Philon, Oration XXXI
4. Defence
on a Charge of seeking to abolish the Democracy, Oration XXV
5. For
the Invalid, Oration XXIV
Causes
relating to military offences (lipotaxiou--astrateias)
1. Against
Alkibiades, on a Charge of Desertion, Oration XIV
2. Against
Alkibiades, on a Charge of Failure to Serve, Oration XV
Causes
relating to murder or intent to murder
1. Against
Eratosthenes, Oration XII
2. Against
Agoratos, Oration XIII
3. On
the Death of Eratosthenes, Oration I
4. Defence
Against Simon, Oration III
5. On
Wounding with Intent, Oration IV
Causes
relating to impiety (graphai asebeias, hierosulias k.t.l.).
1. Against
Andokides, Oration VI
2. For
Kallias, Oration V
3. On
the Sacred Olive, Oration VII
Lysias:
Forensic Speeches in Private Causes; Miscellaneous Writings; Fragments
1. Action for defamation (dike kakegorias), Against Theomnestos, Oration
X & Oration
XI
2. Action by a ward against a guardian (dike epitropes), Against
Diogeiton, Oration XXXII
3. Trial of a claim to property (diadikasia), On
the Property of Eraton, Oration XVII
4. Answer to a special plea (pros paragraphen), Against
Pankleon, Oration XXIII
Miscellaneous Writings.
To
his Companions: a Complaint of Slanders. Oration VIII
The Erotikos in the Phaedros.
Fragments.
1. Against Kinesias.
2. Against Tisis.
3. For Pherenikos.
4. Against the Sons of Hippokrates.
5. Against Archebiades.
6. Against Aeschines.
Letters.
This text is cited July 2005 from Perseus Project URL bellow, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Editor's Information
The e-texts of the works by Lysias are found in Greece (ancient country) under the category Ancient Greek Writings.
Corax (Korax), a Sicilian, who, after the expulsion of Thrasybulus from Syracuse (B. C. 467), by his oratorical powers acquired so much influence over the citizens, that for a considerable time he was the leading man in the commonwealth. The great increase of litigation consequent on the confusion produced by the expulsion of the tyrants and the claims of those whom they had deprived of their property, gave a new impulse to the practice of forensic eloquence. Corax applied himself to the study of its principles, opened a school of rhetoric, and wrote a treatise (entitled Techne) embodying such rules of the art as he had discovered. He is commonly mentioned, with his pupil Tisias, as the founder of the art of rhetoric; he was at any rate the earliest writer on the subject. His work has entirely perished. It has been conjectured (by Garnier, Mem. de l'Institut. de France, Classe d'Histoire), though upon very slight and insufficient grounds, that the treatise entitled Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, found amongst the works of Aristotle, is the supposed lost work of Corax (Cic. Brut. 12, de Orat. i. 20, iii. 21; Aristot. Rhet. ii. 24; Quintil. iii. 1)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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