De Isocrate

Isocrates the Athenian was born in the eighty-sixth Olympiad, in the archonship at Athens of Lysimachus, in the fifth year before the Peloponnesian War, being twenty-two years younger than Lysias. His father was Theodorus, one of the citizens of moderate means, who owned slaves that made flutes and drew his livelihood from this trade. Having received a becoming upbringing and been educated none worse than any of the Athenians, as soon as he became a man he conceived a desire for philosophy. Having been a pupil of Prodicus of Ceos, of Gorgias of Leontini, and of Tisias of Syracuse—men who at that time had the greatest name among the Greeks for wisdom—and, as some relate, of Theramenes the orator too, whom the Thirty put to death because he was thought to be a friend of the people, he was eager both to act and to speak in public affairs; but as his nature opposed him, having robbed him of the first and most essential things in an orator—boldness and strength of voice, without which it was not possible to speak before a crowd—he gave up that purpose. Desiring glory and to be first among the Greeks for wisdom, as he himself has said, he took refuge in writing down what he had thought out, making his aim not about small matters, nor about private contracts, nor about the things which certain others of the sophists of that time wrote about, but about Hellenic, royal, and political affairs—out of which he supposed that the cities would be better governed and that private men would have an advancement toward virtue. For these things he writes about himself in the Panathenaic oration. Having taken over the practice of oratory in a confused state from the sophists of the school of Gorgias and Protagoras, he was the first to turn from the eristic and physical subjects to the political, and he continued earnest about that very science from which, as he himself says, deliberating, speaking, and doing what is advantageous come to those who have learned. Having become the most distinguished of those who flourished in his time, and having educated the strongest of the young men at Athens and in the rest of Greece—of whom some became the best in forensic speeches, others were outstanding in public life and in managing affairs, others wrote up the common deeds of Greeks and barbarians—and having made his own school an image of the city of the Athenians by the colonies of his words; having amassed such wealth as none of those who made money from philosophy; he ended his life in the archonship of Chaerondas, a few days after the battle at Chaeronea, having lived a hundred years less two, using the resolve to dissolve his own life together with the good things of the city, while it was still uncertain how Philip would use his fortune now that he had taken over the rule of the Greeks. These, then, in summary, are the things related about him.

The diction which he uses has a character of this kind. It is pure no less than that of Lysias, and sets down no word at random, and makes the dialect exact in the most thoroughly common and familiar speech. For this too has fled the vulgarity of archaic and out-of-the-way words; and in respect of figurative phrasing it differs a little from that of Lysias and is moderately tempered; it has clarity like his, and vividness, and is ethical, persuasive, and proper. But it is not round, as his is, nor hammered together, nor suited to forensic contests; rather it is more supine and richly diffuse, nor indeed so concise, but stretched out and slower than is moderate. For what reason it has this fault I shall say in a little while. Nor does it display the natural, plain, and contest-fitted composition, as that of Lysias does, but rather one wrought for a processional dignity, varied, and in some respects more comely than his, in some more over-elaborate. For this man pursues fine speech in everything and aims at speaking in a polished rather than a plain manner. He avoids the placing of vowels side by side as relaxing the harmonies of the sounds and ruining the smoothness of the utterance, and he tries to embrace his thoughts in a period and a circuit very rhythmical and not far removed from poetic metre, and he is more suited to reading than to use. Therefore his speeches bear the displays in festal assemblies and the study made by the hand, but do not endure the contests in assemblies and law-courts. The cause of this is that there must be much of the emotional in those; and this the period least of all admits. And the like endings, balanced clauses, antitheses, and all the array of such figures are abundant in him, and often vex the rest of the construction by obtruding upon the ears.

And in general, since there are three things—as Theophrastus says—out of which the great, dignified, and distinguished in diction comes, namely the choice of words, the harmony arising from them, and the figures that embrace them, he chooses very well and sets down the strongest of words, but he fits them together over-elaborately, straining the euphony into music, and he uses figures in a vulgar way, and for the most part becomes frigid, either by taking them from afar, or because the figures are not appropriate to the matters, through his not mastering the measure. These things, moreover, often make his diction longer—I mean the fitting of all his thoughts into periods, the embracing of the periods in the same patterns of figures, and the pursuit of good rhythm in everything. For not all thoughts admit either the same length, or the like figure, or an equal rhythm. So that he is forced to use fillings-out of words that profit nothing and to draw out the speech beyond what is useful. I say this not as though he did these things throughout (I am not so mad; for he sometimes composes his words plainly, breaks up the period nobly, and avoids over-elaborate and vulgar figures, especially in the deliberative and forensic speeches), but as for the most part being a slave to rhythm and to the circuit of the period and placing the beauty of his delivery in the extraordinary, I have spoken of him in a more general way. In these respects, then, I say that the diction of Isocrates falls short of that of Lysias, and further in respect of charm. And yet Isocrates is flowery, if any man is, and alluring through the pleasure of his hearers; but he does not have the same charm as that man. He falls so far short of him in this excellence as natural beauties of body fall short of those got together by adventitious adornments. For the diction of Lysias is by nature possessed of charm, but that of Isocrates only wishes to be. In these excellences, then, he is behind Lysias, at least in my judgement. But he is ahead in those that are about to be mentioned: he is loftier than that man in expression, and far more magnificent and more dignified. For the loftiness of the construction of Isocrates is wonderful and great, more proper to a heroic than to a human nature. It seems to me that one might not be wide of the mark in likening the rhetoric of Isocrates to the art of Polyclitus and Phidias for its dignity, grandeur, and stateliness, and that of Lysias to the art of Calamis and Callimachus for its delicacy and charm. For just as, of those artists, the one set is more successful than the other in the lesser and more human works, and the other more adroit in the greater and more divine, so too, of the orators, the one is wiser in small things, the other more distinguished in great ones—perhaps because he was by nature also high-minded, and, if not, then at any rate in his deliberate purpose he pursued the dignified and the wonderful in everything. So much, then, concerning the diction of the orator.

As for the observations in the field of subject-matter, some are like those of Lysias, others better. The invention of the reflections fitting to each subject is abundant and dense, and falls in nothing short of his; and likewise his judgement, proceeding from great wisdom. But the arrangement and divisions of the matter, the working-out by argument, the breaking up of uniformity by his own changes and by strange digressions, and all the other good things that pertain to the practical economy of a speech, are far greater and stronger in Isocrates; and most of all the choice of the speeches about which he was earnest, and the beauty of the subjects on which he passed his time. By these he would make those who attend to him not only formidable in speaking, but also serious in character, useful to household and city and to all Greece. For one may find the strongest lessons toward virtue in the speeches of Isocrates. And I, for my part, say that those who are going to acquire not some part of political power, but the whole of it, ought to have this orator in their hands. And if anyone practises the true philosophy—not loving only the contemplative part of it but also the practical, and not choosing those things from which he himself will have a painless life, but those from which he will benefit many—I would exhort him to imitate the deliberate purpose of that orator.

Who would not become a lover of his city and of his people, or who would not practise political nobility, after reading his Panegyric? In which, going through the virtues of the men of old, he says that those who freed Greece from the barbarians were not only formidable in war, but also noble in character, ambitious, and self-controlled—men who cared more for the common good than for their private interests, who coveted others' goods less than impossibilities, and who judged happiness not by silver but by good repute, thinking they would leave to their children a great wealth and an honour among the multitude that begot no envy; who held a seemly death better than an inglorious life; who looked not to how the laws might stand fair and exact for them, but to how the moderation of their daily pursuits might in no way overstep their ancestral usages; and so disposed were they toward one another, ambitiously and as citizens, that they even made their factions against one another over which of them should do the city the more good, not which, having destroyed the others, should themselves rule the rest. And using the same zeal toward Greece too, they won over the cities by service, and held them by persuasion through benefactions rather than by forcing them with arms, using words more trustworthy than now oaths are, and thinking it right to abide by their covenants rather than by compulsions; deeming it right to hold such opinions concerning the weaker as they would have thought it right for the stronger to hold concerning themselves; and so prepared in mind that, while privately holding their own cities, they yet dwelt in Greece as a common fatherland.

And who that has greatness, and leads any power, would not delight in what has been written by him to Philip the Macedonian? In which he thinks it right that a man who is a general and lord of so great an authority should reconcile the cities at variance, and not dash them against one another, and should make Greece great out of small, and, despising the ambition over small things, lay hold of such deeds—from which, succeeding, he will be the most distinguished of all leaders, and, failing, will at least acquire the goodwill of the Greeks, those who obtain which are far more to be envied than those who have overthrown great cities and many lands. Further, he exhorts him to imitate the purpose of Heracles and of the other leaders who, together with the Greeks, made war upon the barbarians; and he says that those who differ from others ought to choose deeds that have greatness and to accomplish them with virtue, considering that we have a mortal body but become immortal through virtue; and that with those who are insatiably disposed toward any other of the goods we are vexed, but those who acquire an honour greater than the present we praise; and that, of the other things about which human zeal is concerned—wealth, rule, and dominion—it often falls out that enemies become masters, but of virtue and of the goodwill of the multitude each man's own kin are the heirs. For there is great necessity that the rulers who read these things should be filled with a greater spirit and should desire virtue the more.

And who would more turn each man privately, and the cities as wholes in common, toward justice and piety than the speech On the Peace? For in this he persuades the Athenians not to covet others' goods but to be content with what is at hand; to spare the small cities as though they were possessions; to try to hold their allies by . . . and by benefactions, and not by compulsions or by force; and, of their ancestors, to imitate not those who lived before the Decelean War, who came near to destroying the city, but those before the Persian Wars, who continued practising nobility. And he shows that it is not the many triremes nor the Greeks ruled by force that make the city great, but just purposes and the helping of those who are wronged. And he calls on them to make the goodwill of the Greeks their own, as the city's, holding it the greatest portion toward happiness; and to be warlike in their preparations and exercises, but peaceful in wronging no one in anything; teaching that nothing would contribute so great a power toward wealth, or toward glory, or, in short, toward happiness, as virtue and the parts of it; and rebuking those who have not thus supposed, who held injustice profitable and advantageous to daily life, but justice unprofitable and helpful to others rather than to those who have it. For of these things I do not know whether anyone could speak words either better, or truer, or more befitting philosophy.

And who, having read the Areopagiticus, would not become more orderly, or who would not marvel at the orator's undertaking? Who dared to discourse with the Athenians about their constitution, thinking it right to change the democracy then established, as greatly harming the city—on behalf of which none of the demagogues attempted to speak—seeing it advanced to such disorder that not even the magistrates any longer prevailed over private men, but each, whatever became to his liking, both did and said it, and that ill-timed freedom of speech was reckoned by all a democratic licence; and to restore the constitution established by Solon and Cleisthenes. The purpose and character of which, going through, he says that the men of that time held it more terrible to contradict their elders than . . . and that they reckoned democracy to be not licence but self-control; and they placed freedom not in despising the magistrates but in doing what was commanded; and entrusted licence to none of the unbridled, but assigned the offices to the best, supposing the rest would be such as those who governed the city were; and that, instead of restoring their private estates from the public funds, they expended their private wealth on the common good. And besides these things, the fathers took more care over their sons when they had become men than when they were children, considering that the common good is benefited not from that education but rather from this self-control. And they supposed good practices to be stronger than exact legislation, looking not to how they might restrain wrongdoers by punishments, but to how they might cause each man to pursue nothing worthy of penalty; and, thinking that the fatherland ought to pass its life in great freedom, but that for private men it should not be permitted to do anything which the laws forbid. And they bore terrors and were not panic-struck by misfortunes.

And who would more persuade both a city and men than the orator, in many other places too, but most of all in the speech written against the Lacedaemonians, which is entitled Archidamus, and embraces the subject of not giving up Messene to the Boeotians nor doing what was commanded by the enemy? For the Lacedaemonians had been unfortunate, both in the battle at Leuctra and in many others after it, and the affairs of the Thebans flourished and had advanced to a greatness of rule, while those of Sparta had become humble and unworthy of the ancient supremacy. At last, then, in order that the city might obtain peace, it was deliberating whether it ought to give up Messenia, the Boeotians laying this necessity upon it. Seeing, then, that it was about to do things unworthy of its ancestors, he composed this speech for Archidamus, who was young and not yet king, but had many hopes of obtaining that honour. In it he goes through, first, how justly the Lacedaemonians acquired Messene—both the children of Cresphontes having handed it over to them when they were driven from their rule, and the god having commanded them to receive it and to defend the wronged, and besides these things war having ratified the possession, and time having made it held fast and secure. And he teaches that it is not to the Messenians, who no longer exist, but to slaves and Helots that they will be furnishing a base and a refuge by giving up the city. And he goes through the dangers of their ancestors, which they endured for the sake of supremacy, and reminds them of the glory existing among the Greeks concerning them; and he urges them not to fall together with their fortunes, nor to despair of changes, considering that many who already had a greater power than the Thebans were mastered by weaker men, and that many, shut up under siege and suffering more terrible things than the Lacedaemonians, destroyed those who had made war upon them. And he makes an example of the city of the Athenians, which, having been laid waste out of great prosperity, withstood the uttermost dangers in order not to do what the barbarians commanded. And he exhorts them both to endure in present circumstances and to be of good courage about what is to come, knowing that cities set such misfortunes right by a good constitution and by experience in war—in which Sparta excelled the other cities. And he thinks that it is not those who fare badly who ought to desire peace, for whom there is hope of a change of affairs for the better out of innovation, but those who are faring well; for in the absence of risk lies the guarding of present goods. And having gone through, besides these, many other splendid deeds—as many as were done both in common and privately by their most distinguished men in their wars—and how great shame they would deserve by what they were about to do, and how they would be slandered among the Greeks; reckoning up also that on every side there would be some succour for them as they made the contest—both from gods and from allies and from all men, to whom the growing power of the Thebans was an object of envy; and pointing out the disorder and confusion that would beset the cities while the Boeotians were guardians of Greece; at the last, even if none of these things should come to pass, and no other hope of safety were left, he bids them abandon the city, teaching them that they ought to send away their children and wives and the rest of the throng to Sicily and Italy and the other friendly places, and that they themselves, seizing some spot which should be most secure and most suitable for war, should harry the enemy both by land and by sea. For no power, he says, would think it right to come to grips with men who were the strongest of the Greeks in war, desperately disposed toward life, and possessed of a just anger and a seemly pretext for their necessity. For these things I, at any rate, should say that he counsels not the Lacedaemonians only, but also the rest of the Greeks and all men, far better than all the philosophers who make virtue and the noble the end of life.

Although I have many other speeches of his to go through, written for cities and rulers and private men—of which some call the multitudes to concord and self-control, some lead rulers toward moderation and lawful rule, some make the lives of private men orderly by laying down what each ought to do—fearing that my discourse may be drawn out beyond what is needed, I shall pass these over, and, in order that the things said before may be more easy for me to follow, and for the sake of the difference by which he differs from Lysias, I shall bring together the excellences of these men into a briefer discourse and pass on to the examples.

I said, then, that the first excellence of speeches is pure expression, in which I found no difference in either of them. Next, the exactness of the dialect then in common use; and this too I saw to be alike in both. After these I reckoned that both use proper, familiar, and common words, but that the diction of Isocrates, taking on something of the figurative construction, advanced as far as not to give offence. I declared that both excel in clarity and vividness; but in setting forth thoughts concisely I judged Lysias the more successful. In amplifications Isocrates seemed to me to succeed better. In compressing the thoughts and bringing them out roundly, as suited to real contests, I approved Lysias. In the portrayal of character I found both adroit; but the first place in charm and pleasure I awarded, beyond dispute, to Lysias. The magnificent I saw in Isocrates. In the persuasive and the proper neither seemed to me to fall behind. In the composition of words I judged Lysias the plainer, Isocrates the more over-elaborate—the one a more persuasive imitator of truth, the other a stronger athlete of construction.

These things I said about the diction of each. But making the examination of the matter, I found the invention wonderful in both, and likewise the judgement. But in the arrangement of the reflections, the divisions of the arguments, the working-out according to each kind, and all the other observations in the field of subject-matter, I held that Isocrates is far ahead of Lysias; and in the splendour of his subjects and the philosophic quality of his purpose he differs more than a man does from a boy, as Plato has said—and, if the truth must be told, more than all the other orators who presided over this study in a philosophic way. The circular conduct of the periods, however, and the boyish quality of the figures of the diction I did not approve. For the thought is often a slave to the rhythm of the diction, and the true falls short of the elegant. But the strongest practice in political and contest-fitted speech is that which is most like the natural. And nature wishes the diction to follow the thoughts, not the thoughts the diction. And to one giving counsel about war and peace, and to a private man running the risk of his life before jurors, I do not know what benefit these elegant, theatrical, and boyish things could furnish—rather I know that they would be a cause of harm. For all elegant playing, occurring amid earnest and evil matters, is an untimely thing and most hostile to pity.

And this is not first of all my own opinion, by Zeus, since many even of the ancients held this view about him. For Philonicus the dialectician, while praising the rest of the construction of the man's diction, finds fault with its emptiness and vulgarity, and says that he resembles a painter who adorns all his pictures with the same garments and the same postures; for all found his speeches using the same modes of diction, so that, while in many places working out the particulars artistically, in the wholes he appears altogether unfitting, because he does not express the characters in a manner suited to the subjects. And Hieronymus the philosopher says that one could read his speeches well, but could not at all deliver them as a public oration, raising the voice and the tone and speaking in this construction with the fitting delivery. For the greatest and most stirring thing for crowds has been let slip, the emotional and the living; for he is a slave throughout to smoothness, but the blended and manifold quality marked by tension and relaxation, and the part broken up by emotional transitions, he has cast away. And, in general, he says that, having sunk into the voice of a boy reading aloud, he can bear neither tone, nor emotion, nor delivery. By many others, too, these things and the like have been said, about which I need write nothing. For from the very diction of Isocrates, when it is set down, both the rhythm of the periods, pursuing the polished in everything, and the boyishness of the figures, worn out about antitheses, balanced clauses, and like endings, will become clear. And it is not the kind of figures that I blame (for many used them, both historians and orators, wishing to give bloom to their diction), but the excess.

For by their not occurring at the right time nor in season, I say they . . . obtrude upon the ears. At any rate, in the much-talked-of Panegyric oration he is profuse in such things: "I hold that they are the authors of most blessings and worthy of the greatest praises"; for here not only is clause equal to clause, but also the words to the words—to "most" the word "greatest," to "blessings" the word "praises," to "authors" the word "worthy." And again: "nor did they enjoy them as their own while neglecting them as alien"; for the second clause is balanced with the clause, and of the words, to "enjoy" the word "neglect" is antithetical, and to "their own" the word "alien." To which he adds: "but they cared for them as their own, while abstaining, as one should, from what in no way belonged to them." Here again is set in opposition to "cared for" the word "abstained," and to "their own" the words "in no way belonged." And these are not yet enough, but in the period after these he again turns it about, with "by which he himself would most win repute and would leave to his children a great glory" being carried on, and "they did not even emulate one another's rashnesses" being joined to it, "nor did they exercise their own audacities." And without leaving even a little space he adds to these: "but they held it more terrible to be ill spoken of by their fellow citizens than to die nobly on behalf of their fatherland." So here too, in the second place, to "nobly" the word "ill" is the counterpart, and to "to be spoken of" the word "to die" is balanced. If he were moderate up to this point, he would be bearable; but he will not relent. At any rate, again, in the period after it, he sets down: "that for the good among men there will be no need of many writings but of few agreements, and they will be of one mind both about the common and about private affairs." So "writings" and "agreements" are balanced, and "many" and "few" and "common" and "private" are antithetical. Then, as though he had said nothing of the kind, he will flood us with balanced clauses crowded together, adding these: "and they managed the affairs of others by serving and not by outraging the Greeks, thinking it right to be their generals and not their tyrants, and desiring rather to be addressed as leaders than as masters, and to be called saviours and not destroyers, winning over the cities by doing them good and not subduing them by force, using their words more trustworthy than now their oaths are, and thinking it right to abide by their covenants as by necessities." And what need is there to lengthen the discourse by going through the particulars? For almost the whole speech has been made elegant by him with such figures. The speeches written, however, at the end of his life are less boyish, inasmuch, I suppose, as he had received from time a perfected wisdom. And concerning these things this is enough. But it would now be time to lay hold of the examples too, and to show by them what the orator's strength is. To set forth all the kinds of subjects and all the forms of speeches in a short space is impossible; but one deliberative oration taken up, and one speech from the

forensic speeches, suffice. Let the deliberative speech be that in which he exhorts the Athenians to break off the so-called Social War, which the Chians, the Rhodians, and their allies were waging against them, and to cease being grasping and coveting empire by land and sea; teaching that justice is not only stronger than injustice but also more profitable. The supine and dilatory quality of the conduct and of the periods, and the elegance, are present in these too, but the theatrical figures have been taken up sparingly. These things, then, the reader ought to overlook and not to consider worthy of regard, as I said at the beginning, but to give his mind closely to the rest. The speech begins from here.

"All those who come forward here are accustomed to say that the matters about which they themselves are going to give counsel are the greatest and most worthy of the city's attention. Nevertheless, even if it has been fitting to make such a preface about some other matters, it seems to me proper to make the beginning concerning the present matters too from here. For we have come together to deliberate about war and peace, which have the greatest power in the life of men, and concerning which those who deliberate rightly must needs fare better than the rest. So great, then, is the magnitude of the matters for which we have assembled. But I see you not granting your hearing equally to the speakers, but giving your minds to some, while of others you do not even endure the voice. And you do nothing wonderful. For at all other times too you have been accustomed to cast out all the rest except those who speak in support of your desires. With whom one might justly find fault, that, knowing that many great houses have been overthrown by flatterers, and hating, in private affairs, those who have this art, you are not likewise disposed toward them in the public sphere, but, while accusing those who admit and delight in such men, you yourselves are seen to trust these more than the other citizens. And indeed you have made the orators study and meditate, not on what will benefit the city, but on how they shall speak words pleasing to you—toward whom even now the throng of them has streamed. For it was plain to all that you would be more pleased with those who call you to war than with those who counsel peace. For the former produce an expectation that we shall recover our possessions in the cities and take back again the power which we formerly happened to hold, while the latter hold out nothing of the kind, but say that we must keep quiet and not desire great things contrary to justice, but be content with what is at hand—which is the hardest of all things for most men. For we are so dependent on our hopes and so insatiable toward what seem to be advantages, that not even those who possess the greatest wealth are willing to remain content with it, but, ever reaching after more, run risks concerning what they have. Wherefore it is worth fearing lest we too now become liable to these follies. For some seem to me to have been spurred to war too eagerly, as though they had heard, not from chance counsellors, but from the gods, that we shall succeed in everything and easily master our enemies. But men of sense ought not to deliberate about what they know (for that is superfluous), but to act as they have resolved; and about what they do deliberate, not to think they know the outcome, but to consider concerning it as men using opinion, while whatever may chance is going to come to pass. Of these things you happen to be doing neither, but are disposed as turbulently as possible. For you have come together as though you must choose the best out of all that is said, but, as though you already clearly knew what is to be done, you are unwilling to hear except from those who deliver speeches for your pleasure. And yet it befitted you, if indeed you wished to seek the city's advantage, to give your mind rather to those who oppose your opinions than to those who gratify you, knowing that, of those who come forward here, the ones who say what you wish can easily deceive you; for what is said for pleasure casts a shadow over the seeing of the best. But by those who do not counsel for pleasure you would suffer nothing of the kind. For there is no way they could persuade you to change your mind without making the advantage plain. And apart from these things, how could men either judge well about what has happened, or deliberate about what is to come, unless they examined the speeches of the opponents side by side, and themselves furnished common hearers to both? But I wonder at the elder men, if they no longer remember, and at the younger, if they have heard from no one, that through those who advise clinging to peace we have never yet suffered any evil, but through those who lightly choose war we have already fallen into many great misfortunes. Of which we make no remembrance, but are ready, doing nothing further for ourselves, to man triremes and make contributions of money and send help and wage war, as though we were running risks in a city that was not our own. And the cause of these things is that, while it befits you to be earnest about the common as about the private, you do not hold the same opinion about them, but, when you deliberate about your private affairs, you seek as counsellors those who think better than yourselves, whereas, when you hold assembly about the city, you distrust and envy such men, but praise the basest of those who come forward to the platform, and consider the drunken more democratic than the sober, and the senseless more than the well-minded, and those who distribute the city's goods more than those who serve you with public liturgies from their own substance. So that it is worth wondering if anyone hopes that the city, using such counsellors, will advance to the better. But I know that it is uphill work to oppose your opinions, and that, though there is a democracy, there is no freedom of speech except here, for the most senseless and those who care nothing for you, and in the theatres for the comic poets. Which is most terrible of all—that to those who carry out the city's faults to the rest of the Greeks you have such gratitude as you have not even for those who do you good, while toward those who rebuke and admonish you you are so ill disposed as toward those who do the city some evil. But nevertheless, even though these things are so, I would not stand off from what I purposed. For I have come forward, not to gratify you nor to court a vote, but to declare what I happen to know—first about what the prytanis proposes, then about the rest of the city's affairs. For there will be no profit in what has now been resolved about peace, if we do not deliberate rightly about the rest. I say, then, that we must make peace, not only with the Chians, Rhodians, Byzantians, and Coans, but with all men, and use, not the covenants which certain men have now written, but those that were made with the King and the Lacedaemonians, which command that the Greeks be autonomous, that the garrisons withdraw from the cities not their own, and that each people hold their own. For more just covenants than these we shall not find, nor more advantageous to the city."

Having said these things beforehand and so disposed his hearers suitably toward the coming speech, and having set forth a most beautiful encomium of justice, and having blamed the established state of affairs, he adds to these the comparison of the men of that time with their ancestors: "And for this reason I said these things beforehand, that about the rest I shall, holding nothing back but altogether unreservedly, make my speech to you. For who, coming from elsewhere and not corrupted along with us, but suddenly standing over what is being done, would not think us mad and out of our minds—we who pride ourselves on the deeds of our ancestors and think it right to praise the city from what was done then, but do nothing of the same as they, but altogether the contrary? For they continued making war on the barbarians for the sake of the Greeks, while we, having uprooted those who got their livelihood from Asia, led them against the Greeks. And they, freeing the Greek cities and helping them, were thought worthy of the supremacy, while we, enslaving them and doing the opposite of those of that time, are vexed if we shall not have the same honour as those men—we who have fallen so far short, both in deeds and in thoughts, of those who lived at that time, as they, on behalf of the . . . . . . . . . . . . we are concerned. For having heard one thing, you will know about the rest also: that, while death is laid down as the penalty if anyone is caught bribing, we elect as generals those who do this most openly, and set over the greatest affairs the man who has been able to corrupt the most of the citizens. And being earnest about the constitution no less than about the safety of the whole city, and knowing that the democracy grows and abides in tranquillity and security, but has already twice been overthrown in wars, we are ill disposed toward those who desire peace, as toward oligarchs, but think those who love war to be well disposed, as caring for the democracy. And being most experienced in words and deeds, we are so unreasoning that about the same things on the same day we hold not the same opinions, but the very things we accuse before going up into the assembly, these, when we have come together, we vote for; and, not long after, when we have departed, we again find fault with what was resolved. And pretending to be the most self-controlled of the Greeks, we use such counsellors as there is no one who would not despise; and these very same men we set as masters of all the common affairs, to whom no one would entrust any of his private concerns."

Such, then, is the man in his deliberative speeches. In the forensic, in other respects he is very exact and true, and has come closest to the character of Lysias; but in the composition of words he has that smoothness and comeliness—less than in his other speeches, yet still has it. And let no one suppose that I am ignorant either that Aphareus, who became Isocrates' stepson and adopted son, in his speech against Megacleides concerning the Antidosis declares that no case for a law-court was written by his father, or that Aristotle says that very many bundles of forensic speeches of Isocrates are carried about by the booksellers. For I know that these things are said by those men, and I neither am persuaded by Aristotle, who wishes to besmirch the man, nor agree with Aphareus, who for this very purpose fabricates a specious account. But, holding it sufficient that the Athenian Cephisodorus is a confirmer of the truth—who both lived with Isocrates and became his most genuine pupil, and made the truly admirable defence on his behalf in his replies to Aristotle—I believe that certain speeches were written by the man for law-courts, not however many; and I use as an example one of them (for it is not possible to use more), the so-called Trapeziticus, which he wrote for a certain foreigner among his pupils against Pasion the banker. The speech is this.

"My contest is a great one, men of the jury; for I run a risk not only concerning much money, but also concerning not seeming to covet others' goods unjustly—which I count of the greatest importance; for a sufficient estate will be left to me even if I am deprived of these things. But if I should seem to have laid claim to so much money to which I have no right, I should be discredited for my whole life. And it is, men of the jury, the hardest of all things to meet with such opponents. For the contracts with bankers are made without witnesses, and those who are wronged must run risks against such men, who possess many friends, handle much money, and are thought trustworthy because of their trade. Nevertheless, even though these things are so, I think I shall make it plain to all that I am being robbed of so much money by Pasion. From the beginning I shall relate to you, as best I can, what has been done. For my father, men of the jury, is Sopaeus, whom all who sail into the Pontus know to be so intimately disposed toward Satyrus that he rules over much territory and has charge of all that man's power. Learning about this city and about the rest of Greece, I conceived a desire to travel abroad. So my father filled two ships with grain and gave me money, and sent me out at once for trade and for sightseeing. Pythodorus the Phoenician having introduced Pasion to me, I used his bank. Some time later, a slander having arisen against Satyrus, that both my father was plotting against his rule and that I was consorting with the exiles, he seizes my father, and sends word to those from the Pontus residing here to take the money from me and to bid me sail in; and if I should do none of these things, to demand my surrender from you. Being in such evils, men of the jury, I tell Pasion my own misfortunes. For I was so intimately disposed toward him that I trusted him most not only about the money but about other matters too. And I thought that, if I gave up all the money, I should be in danger—if anything happened to that man—of being deprived of both my goods here and there, and of being in want of everything; but that, if, admitting I had it, I should not hand it over at Satyrus' command, I should bring myself and my father into the greatest slanders with Satyrus. So, as we deliberated, it seemed best to hand over the visible money, but, concerning what lay with this man, not only to deny it, but also to appear to owe money both to him and to others at interest, and to do everything from which those men would most be persuaded that I had no money. At that time, then, men of the jury, I thought that Pasion was advising me all this out of goodwill. But when I had carried these things through with Satyrus' men, I learned that he was plotting against my goods. For when I wished to recover my own and sail to Byzantium, this man, considering that a most beautiful opportunity had fallen to him—for the money lying with him was much and worth shamelessness, and I, in the hearing of many, had denied possessing anything, and was plainly being asked for it by all and admitting that I owed it to others; and besides these things, men of the jury, thinking that, if I should try to stay here, I should be given up by the city to Satyrus, and that, if I should turn anywhere else, he would care nothing for my words, and that, if I should sail into the Pontus, I should be put to death along with my father—reckoning these things, he intended to rob me of the money, and toward me pretended to be in straits at the moment and unable to pay it back. But when I, wishing to know the matter, send to him Philomelus and Menexenus to demand it, he denies to them having anything of mine. Such evils having fallen upon me from every side, what state of mind do you think I was in?—I, for whom it was possible, by keeping silent, to be robbed of my money by this man, and, by speaking, to recover it no more, and to bring myself and my father into the greatest slander with Satyrus. So I thought it best to keep quiet. After these things, men of the jury, men come to me reporting that my father is released, and that Satyrus so repents of all that was done that he has given him the greatest pledges, and made his rule even greater than it was before, and taken my sister as wife for his own son. Learning this, Pasion, and knowing that I shall now act openly about my own affairs, makes away with the slave who shared his knowledge about the money. And when I, coming to him, sought the man, thinking that this would be the clearest proof concerning what I charged, he tells a most monstrous story—that I and Menexenus, having corrupted and persuaded the man who sat at the bank, had taken six talents of silver from him. And in order that there might be no proof or examination by torture about these things, he said that we, having made away with the slave, were bringing a counter-charge against him and demanding the man whom we ourselves had made away with. And saying these things, and being indignant and weeping, he dragged me before the polemarch, demanding sureties, and did not let me go before I provided him with sureties for six talents. And come up for me, witnesses of these things." That this differs in its whole kind from the display and deliberative speeches in the character of the diction, there is no one who would not agree. It has not, however, altogether departed from the Isocratean conduct, but preserves some slight reflections of that construction and

of that dignified style, and they are more poetic than true. For instance, when he says: "And I thought that, if I gave up the money beforehand, I should be in danger." For the unwrought and plain way is this: "And I thought that, by handing over the money, I should be in danger." And again that: "And besides these things, men of the jury, thinking that, if I should try to stay here, I should be given up by the city to Satyrus; and if I should turn anywhere else, he would care nothing for my words; and if I should sail into the Pontus, I should be put to death along with my father." For the period is drawn out and . . . beyond the forensic manner, and the composition has something of the poetic, and the figure of the diction has been taken from the display balanced clauses and like endings. For both "should try" and "should turn" and "should sail in," set in one place, and the length of the three clauses being equal, are tokens of the Isocratean construction. And the things added to these: "he intended to rob me of the money, and toward me pretended to be in straits and unable"—these are like and closely resembling one another. And besides these, what he adds a little later: "so that he had given him the greatest pledges, and made his rule even greater than it was before, and taken my sister as wife for his own son." For here again "had given" and "had made" and "had taken" are alike, and "the rule" and "my sister." One could say still other things besides these, from which the character of the orator would become clear; but it is perhaps necessary to have regard for the time.