De Lysia

Lysias, the son of Cephalus, was born of Syracusan parents, but he came into the world at Athens, where his father had settled as a resident alien, and he was educated alongside the most distinguished of the Athenians. At the age of fifteen he sailed off to Thurii together with two brothers, to take part in the colony which the Athenians and the rest of the Greeks were sending out in the twelfth year before the Peloponnesian War; and there he went on living as a citizen in great prosperity, studying under Tisias and Nicias, until the disaster that overtook the Athenians in Sicily. After that catastrophe, when the populace fell into civil strife, he was driven out along with three hundred others on a charge of favouring Athens. Coming back once more to Athens in the archonship of Callias, when he was, as one would reckon, in his forty-seventh year, he continued from that time onward to make his residence at Athens. He composed a very great number of speeches suited to law-courts, councils, and assemblies, and besides these panegyrics, erotic pieces, and letters; and he eclipsed the reputations of the orators who had lived before him or who flourished in his own time, while to those who came after him he left, in nearly all the kinds of oratory—and, by Zeus, not the meanest of them—either no room at all for surpassing him, or a margin only to a few. What manner of style he employs, what excellences he has introduced, in what respects he is superior to those who flourished after him and in what inferior, and what one should take from him—this I shall now try to set out.

He is altogether pure in his diction and the finest model of the Attic tongue—not the ancient tongue which Plato and Thucydides used, but the one that was current in his own day, as one may judge from the speeches of Andocides, of Critias, and of many others. In this respect, then, which is the first and most authoritative thing in oratory—I mean the keeping of the language pure—none of those who came after surpassed him; nay, few even had the power to imitate him, except Isocrates alone; for he too, after Lysias, seems to me to have been of all men the purest in his choice of words. This one excellence, then, I find in the orator to be worthy of emulation and imitation, and I would urge those who wish to write or speak with purity to take that man as their model of this excellence.

There is another excellence, and one no less than this, which many of those who flourished in his time aspired to, but which none displayed more securely than he. What is it? It is the expression which renders the thoughts by means of words that are proper, common, and in everyday use. For one would least of all find Lysias employing figurative language. And he deserves praise not for this alone, but because he makes his subjects appear dignified, distinguished, and grand while using the most ordinary words and laying no hold on poetic embellishment. The earlier writers had no such reputation; on the contrary, wishing to lend a certain ornament to their speeches, they departed from ordinary usage and took refuge in poetic diction, employing many metaphors, hyperboles, and the other figurative forms, and overawing the ordinary listener by the use of strange and dialectal words, by unfamiliar arrangements, and by every other kind of novelty. Gorgias of Leontini makes this plain, who in very many passages produces a vulgar and inflated style and utters some things not far removed from dithyrambs; and so do his disciples, the school of Licymnius and Polus. The poetic and figurative diction laid hold of the Athenian orators too—begun, as Timaeus says, by Gorgias, when as an envoy at Athens he astounded his hearers by his oratory; but, as the truth really is, because it had always, even in earlier times, been an object of admiration. Thucydides, at any rate, the most marvellous of historians, by using a poetic construction in his funeral oration and in his speeches, in many places transformed his expression into a weight and an ornament of words less than usual. But Lysias practised nothing of the kind—in the forensic and deliberative speeches written in earnest, at least, except perhaps a little in the panegyrics; for of his letters, his amatory pieces, and the others which he wrote in a playful spirit I need say nothing. Seeming to converse just as ordinary men do, he yet differs as greatly as possible from the ordinary man, and is a most accomplished poet of prose, having discovered, in language freed from metre, a harmony all his own, by which he adorns his words and makes them pleasing while they have in them nothing inflated or vulgar. This second excellence I bid men take from this orator, if any think it right to converse in that manner of his. There were, then, many writers and orators who emulated this aim; but, after Lysias, the one who came nearest to it was Isocrates, who flourished as a young man among his elders; and one could not, looking beyond these, point to other orators who displayed so great a strength and power in proper and common words.

As a third excellence in the man I declare his clarity—not only that in the words, but that in the matter as well; for there is a kind of clarity in the handling of subject-matter too, not known to many. I infer this from the fact that, of the diction of Thucydides and of Demosthenes, who were most powerful in expressing facts, much is hard for us to make out and is obscure and in need of interpreters; whereas the diction of Lysias is wholly plain and clear even to one who is thought to stand very far from political speeches. And if this clearness arose from feebleness of power, it would not be worthy of esteem; but as it is, the wealth of proper words, drawn from a great abundance, demonstrates this excellence in him. So that his clarity too is worthy of emulation. And indeed, to set forth one's thoughts briefly together with clearness—since it is naturally a difficult thing to bring both of these together and blend them in due measure—is shown by Lysias none worse than any of the rest; for to those who handle the man, he would seem to take on neither ill-timed length nor obscurity. The cause of this is that with him the facts are not enslaved to the words, but the words follow the facts; and he takes his ornament not in departing from the ordinary man, but in imitating him.

And it is not that he is of this character in his expression, while in his treatment of the matter he is ill-timed and prolix; on the contrary, he is as compact as any writer and dense in his thoughts, and is so far from saying any of the unnecessary things that he might even seem to omit many of the useful ones—doing this, by Zeus, not from any feebleness in invention, but from a measuring of the time within which the speeches had to be delivered. Brief he certainly is—sufficient for one who, like an ordinary man, wishes merely to set out the facts, but not adequate for an orator who seeks to display an abundance of power. One must imitate Lysias' brevity too; for a more moderate brevity could not be found in any other orator.

After these I find in Lysias an excellence altogether admirable, of which Theophrastus says that Thrasymachus was the originator, but I hold that it was Lysias; for in point of time too this man seems to me to have the priority over the other (I speak of them as having lived in a common prime of life), and, even if this be not granted, at any rate in that he was more practised in real contests. I do not, however, for the present positively maintain which of the two originated this excellence, but that Lysias was the more outstanding in it—this I would confidently declare. And what is the excellence I mean? It is the diction that compresses the thoughts and brings them out roundly, very proper and indeed necessary to forensic speeches and to every genuine contest. This few have imitated; but Demosthenes even surpassed him in it—though he did not use it so clearly or so plainly as Lysias, but in an elaborate and bitter fashion; for let it be said, as it appears to me. Of these matters I shall speak in their proper place.

The diction of Lysias has also much vividness. This is a certain power that brings what is said under the senses, and it arises from the grasping of attendant circumstances. He, then, who applies his mind to the speeches of Lysias will not be so dull, so peevish, or so slow of wit as not to suppose that he sees the things described actually taking place, and that he is conversing, as though they were present, with the persons whom the orator introduces. And he will inquire after nothing—such, for instance, as it is likely that some would do, others suffer, others purpose, others say. For Lysias became of all orators the most powerful in observing the nature of human beings and in assigning to each the appropriate passions, characters, and actions.

I assign to him, then, the most graceful excellence as well, which is called by many the portrayal of character. For simply I can find in this orator no person who is either devoid of character or without life. And of the three things in which and concerning which this excellence happens to reside—thought, diction, and thirdly composition—I declare that in all of these he succeeds. For he not only represents the speakers as conceiving good, fitting, and moderate intentions, so that the speeches seem to be images of their characters, but he also gives to the characters a diction proper to them, by which they are naturally best revealed for what they are—the clear, the proper, the common, the most familiar to all men; for weight, strangeness, and everything that comes of artifice is destructive of character. And he composes it altogether simply and plainly, seeing that character resides not in the period and the rhythms, but in the loose, unperiodic style. And in general—to speak of this excellence too—I do not know whether any other of the orators who employed a like construction of the speech composed either more pleasantly or more persuasively. For the character of his harmony seems unmade and unworked by art, and I should not wonder if it gave to all laymen, and to not a few even of the learned who have no great practice in oratory, the impression that it is put together without artifice and not by art, but somehow of itself and at haphazard. Yet it is more wrought by art than any work of art. For this artlessness has been contrived by him, and the looseness has been bound fast, and in the very seeming not to have been cleverly constructed it has its cleverness. He, then, who practises truth and wishes to become an imitator of nature would not err in using the composition of Lysias; for he could find no other more true than this.

I think, moreover, that the diction of Lysias possesses propriety none the less than that of any of the ancient orators—the strongest and most perfect excellence of all—when I see it fitted sufficiently to the speaker, to the hearers, and to the subject (for it is in these and with reference to these that propriety lies). For according to age, birth, education, occupation, manner of life, and the other things in which person differs from person, he assigns the appropriate utterances; and he measures what is said suitably to the hearer, not addressing a juror, an assemblyman, and a festival crowd in the same way. His diction also takes on differences according to the kinds of subject-matter; for to one beginning it is settled and ethical, to one narrating persuasive and unlabored, to one proving round and dense, to one amplifying and stirring emotion dignified and true, to one summing up loose and concise. One must take the propriety of his diction too from Lysias.

That it is persuasive and convincing and shows much that is natural and all that pertains to this kind of style, there is perhaps no need to say to those who know; for this is already a commonplace, and there is no one who, having learned both by experience and by report, does not agree that he is the most persuasive of all orators. So that this excellence too must be taken from the orator. Though I have much that is fine to say about the diction of Lysias, by taking and imitating which one might become better in expression, I shall, aiming at the time, pass over the rest, but display one further excellence of the orator—judging it the finest and most authoritative, and the one of all others most able by itself to confirm the character of Lysias—which none of those who came after surpassed, but many imitated, and for that very reason were thought to be superior to others though differing in nothing in their other power; of whom, if there be room, I shall speak in the proper place. And what is this excellence? It is the charm that blooms equally upon all his words—a thing greater than any account of it and more wonderful. For it is most easy to perceive and equally plain to every man, layman and craftsman alike, but most hard to set forth in words, and not even within the reach of those who are most able to speak.

So that if anyone should claim to be taught by argument what this power is, he would do no less than demand an account of many other fine things that cannot be easily expressed in words—I mean, in the case of bodily beauty, what that thing is which we call bloom; in the movement of melodies and the weaving of sounds, what is meant by harmoniousness; in the proportion of intervals of time, what the order is and what rhythm is; and, in short, in every work and matter, what is called the right moment and where the due measure lies. For each of these is apprehended by sense and not by reason. And so what the musicians enjoin upon those who wish to listen accurately to a harmony—so as not to be ignorant of even the smallest dissonance in the intervals—namely, to train the hearing and to seek no other criterion more accurate than this, that same thing I too would suggest that those should practise who read Lysias and wish to learn what the charm in him is: by long time and much practice and an irrational feeling to school the irrational sense. This excellence I, for my part, hold to be the strongest and the most characteristic of the diction of Lysias—whether one should call it a happy gift of nature, or a product of toil and art, or a habit or power mixed of both—by which he excels all the rest of the orators. And whenever I am in doubt about some one of the speeches attributed to him, and it is not easy for me to find the truth by the other signs, I take refuge in this excellence as in a final vote. Then, if the charms of the diction seem to me to adorn the writing, I assign it to the soul of Lysias and think it right to look no further than this; but if the character of the diction has no pleasure and no grace, I am abashed and suspect that the speech is perhaps not Lysias', and I no longer force the irrational sense—not even if in other respects the speech seems to me very clever and elaborately wrought—holding that to write well belongs to many, according to certain other particular characters of diction (for this is of many kinds), but to write pleasantly, gracefully, and charmingly belongs to Lysias.

Using, at any rate, no better proof than this—that the things said by him are interpreted with pleasure—I have already found that many of the speeches attributed to him and believed by the multitude to be among the most genuine of Lysias, and in other respects not amiss, are not his, having grown suspicious because they do not strike the Lysianic charm nor have the good utterance of that diction, and having put them to the test. Among these is the speech on the statue of Iphicrates, which I know that many would regard as a stamp and a standard of his power. Yet this speech, which seems to be both forcibly expressed in its words and elaborately invented in its reflections, and to possess many other excellences, is without charm and far indeed from displaying the Lysianic mouth. But it became most clear to me that it was not written by that orator when I reckoned up the dates. For if one supposes that Lysias died at eighty years of age in the archonship of Nicon or of Nausinicus, the orator's death would precede the writing of the decree by seven whole years. For it was after the archon Alcisthenes, in whose year the Athenians, the Lacedaemonians, and the King swore the peace, that Iphicrates, having given up his armies, became a private man, and the affair of the statue belonged to that time—seven years after Lysias had died, before this contest was composed for Iphicrates. Likewise the defence of the man, which is itself referred to Lysias, and which is neither amiss in its matter nor feeble in its words, I took to be suspect, since the Lysianic charm does not bloom upon its diction; and setting the dates side by side, I found it to fall after the orator's death by no few years, but by twenty whole years. For it was in the Social War that Iphicrates contested the impeachment and underwent the examination of his generalship, as becomes clear from the speech itself; and this war falls in the archonships of Agathocles and Elpines. To what orator, then, the speeches belong—the one on the statue and the one on the treason—I cannot say for certain; but that both are by one man I could prove by many indications, for the same aim and power are in both; concerning which it is not the moment for the present to inquire. I conjecture that they are by Iphicrates; for the man was both formidable in war and not to be despised in speaking, and the diction in both has much that is vulgar and soldierly, and shows not so much rhetorical shrewdness as soldierly self-will and boastfulness. But concerning these matters more will be set forth elsewhere at greater length.

We must go back to the point from which we digressed to this—that the strongest of Lysias' works and the most characteristic of his power is the charm that adorns and gives bloom to his diction, which none of those who came after surpassed nor imitated to perfection. And the good things of the orator in respect of expression are these—for I shall sum up what has been said: the purity of his words; the exactness of his dialect; the bringing out of his thoughts by proper and not figurative constructions; clarity; brevity; the compressing and rounding of the thoughts; the bringing of what is described under the senses; the laying down of no person without life or without character; the pleasure of the composition of words that imitates the ordinary man; the fitting of speeches appropriate to the underlying persons and matters; persuasiveness and convincingness, and charm, and the timeliness that measures all. These things one would profit by taking from Lysias. But the diction of Lysias is not lofty or magnificent, nor, by Zeus, astounding and wonderful, nor does it display the bitter or the formidable or the fearful, nor has it grips and strong tones, nor is it full of passion and breath; nor, as it is persuasive in the portrayal of character, is it likewise strong in the emotions; nor, as it can please, persuade, and charm, can it in like manner constrain and compel. It is safe rather than venturesome, and not so able to display the strength of art as to imitate the truth of nature.

And one may well wonder what ever possessed Theophrastus to think that he was an emulator of vulgar and over-elaborate speeches, and that he pursued the poetic rather than the true. At any rate, in his treatise On Diction he finds fault with the others who busied themselves with antitheses, balanced clauses, similar endings, and figures like these, and he has actually reckoned Lysias among them, citing the speech on behalf of Nicias the Athenian general—which he delivered while a prisoner among the Syracusans—as having been written by this orator. There will perhaps be no harm in setting down the very words of Theophrastus. They are these: "Antithesis is of three kinds: when contraries are predicated of the same thing, or the same things of a contrary, or contraries of contraries; for in so many ways can they be conjoined. Of these, the equal and the like is childish and, as it were, a poem; and therefore it less befits serious matters. For it appears unseemly, when one is in earnest about the facts, to play with the words and to strip the emotion away by the diction; for it slackens the hearer. As, for instance, when Lysias, in the defence of Nicias, wishing to arouse pity, says: 'I weep for the unfought and unfoughten-at-sea destruction of the Greeks . . . they themselves sitting as suppliants of the gods, while they prove you betrayers of your oaths . . . and invoking kinship and goodwill.' " For if Lysias really wrote these things, he would justly be held worthy of censure for playing the wit at no witty moment; but if the speech is by someone else, as it is, the man who accuses him of what was not his due is more blameworthy. That Lysias did not write the speech on behalf of Nicias, and that the writing is neither of that soul nor of that diction, I am able to prove by very many indications, but I have no occasion in the present discourse. When I compose a special treatise on the orator, in which, among other things, it will be shown by me which of his speeches are genuine, I shall try to render in those pages the exact account concerning this speech too.

But for the present I shall discuss what comes next—what the practical character of Lysias is—since I have rendered the account concerning his diction; for this part still remains. The man is inventive of the arguments that lie in the facts, not only of those which we should all find, but of those which no one would. For Lysias simply omits none of the elements out of which speeches are made—not the persons, not the circumstances, not the actions themselves, not their manners and causes, not occasions, not times, not places, not the differences of each of these down to the smallest division—but from every observation and every distinction he selects the arguments proper to him. The cleverness of his invention is shown most of all by his speeches that lack witnesses and by those composed on paradoxical cases, in which he says very many and very fine reflections, and makes those things which seem to others utterly without resource and impossible appear full of resource and possible—being discerning of what one ought to say, and, when it was not open to all to use what they had found, selective of the strongest and most authoritative; in this, if not most of all the orators, at least no less than any. He uses a simple and, for the most part, uniform arrangement of his matter, and in the working-out of his arguments he is plain and without elaboration; for he is not found employing preliminary constructions, or approaches, or divisions, or a variety of figures, or the other such artifices, but he is one who marshals what he has found without superfluity, in a liberal and unmalicious way. From these things, then, I exhort those who read him to emulate his invention and judgement of reflections, but not to accept from the man the arrangement and working-out of them—which is more deficient than is fitting—but to take this element from others who proved better at marshalling what they had found, of whom I shall speak later.

Having rendered the account of his excellences and elements, I shall now speak also concerning the kinds of subject in which the political art consists. Since rhetorical speech is divided into three parts and embraces three kinds differing in their ends—the forensic, the deliberative, and the so-called display or panegyric—the man is worthy of mention in all of these, but most of all in forensic contests. And even in these themselves he is better at saying well things small, paradoxical, and resourceless than at saying powerfully things dignified, great, and resourceful. He, then, who wishes to learn the power of Lysias accurately should examine it from the forensic speeches rather than from the panegyric and deliberative. And, in order that I may have occasion to say what is fitting about the kinds of oratory as well, I shall leave aside these matters concerning prooemia, narratives, and the other parts of the speech, and shall discuss and show what manner of man he is in each of the kinds. I shall divide them as it pleased Isocrates and those who order their work after that man, beginning from the prooemia.

I say, then, that of all men the orator is most adroit and most graceful in the openings of his speeches, considering that to begin well is no easy thing, if indeed one wishes to use the fitting beginning and not to utter any chance words (for it is not what is said first, but what would be of no more use in any other part of the proposed discourse than at the beginning, that is the beginning and the prooemium), and seeing that the orator has used all the means which the manuals enjoin and which the matters require. For now he begins from his own praise; now from the slander of his opponent; and if it should chance that he himself has been slandered beforehand, he first clears away the charges against himself; now, praising and courting the jurors, he makes them well disposed to himself and to his case; now he points out his own weakness, the greed of his opponent, and the fact that the contest is not on equal terms for both; now he says that the matters are common and necessary to all and not worthy to be neglected by the hearers; now he establishes some other of the things able to help himself and to weaken his opponent. Having embraced these things concisely and plainly, with good thoughts, well-timed maxims, and moderate reflections, he hastens on to the statement of his case, through which, foretelling the things that are going to be said in the proofs and making the hearer ready to learn for the coming speech, he settles into the narrative; and the statement of the case is for him, for the most part, a borderland between each of the two kinds; and sometimes he has begun from this alone, and now and again, without a prooemium, he has entered upon the narrative, taking it for his beginning. And he is not without life or motion in this kind; but one would marvel most at his power in the prooemia, considering that, having written no fewer than two hundred forensic speeches, in none of them has he appeared either making an unpersuasive prooemium or using a beginning detached from the matters; nay, he has not even struck upon the same reflections nor been carried down to the same thoughts. And yet this is found to have happened even to those who wrote few speeches—I mean the striking upon the same topics; for I pass over the fact that, taking the things said by others, almost all do not count the deed a shame. But this orator is fresh in each of his speeches, at least in the openings and prooemia, and able to accomplish whatever he wishes; for, whether wishing to stir goodwill, attention, or readiness to learn, he would never fail of his mark. In this kind, then, I declare him either first or second to none.

But in narrating the facts—which is, I think, the part that requires the most thought and the most watching—I hold beyond dispute that he is the strongest of all orators, and I declare him the boundary and standard of this kind. And I think that even the manuals of oratory, in which anything worth mention has been said about narrative, took their precepts and starting-points from no other source more than from the narratives written by Lysias. For these narratives have brevity most of all, and clarity, and are pleasing as no others are, and persuasive, and at the same time bring conviction along with them unawares, so that it is not easy to find any whole narrative, or any part of it, false or unpersuasive; so much persuasion and grace do the things said possess, and so do they escape the hearers' notice whether they be true or fabricated. And so the very thing that Homer said in praising Odysseus, that he was persuasive in speaking and in fabricating things that had not happened, this, it seems to me, one might say of Lysias too: "he made many falsehoods, telling them like the truth." And to all I have above all enjoined the practising of this part, making their exercises upon the examples of Lysias. For he would best display this kind who most imitated this man. And in establishing the facts the man is of such a sort as follows.

I shall begin from the so-called artistic proofs and shall discuss each part separately. These being divided into three—into the matter, the emotion, and the character—the proofs from the matter Lysias is able to invent and set forth as well as anyone. For the man is the best diviner of the probable, and a most accurate judge of the example—in what respect it is naturally like and in what respect differing—and most powerful in distinguishing the signs that attend upon the facts and in bringing them to the credit of proofs. And the proofs from character he seems to me to construct very notably. For often from the life and nature, often from the previous actions and purposes, he constructs the characters as worthy of belief. But whenever he gets no such starting-point from the facts, he himself portrays the character and constructs the persons as, by his speech, credible and worthy—assigning to them refined purposes, attaching moderate emotions, giving them fair words, introducing them as thinking in accord with their fortunes, and making them grieved at unjust words and deeds while choosing what is just, and constructing everything like to these, out of which a fair and moderate character would appear. But concerning the emotions he is softer, and is not able to construct amplifications, exaggerations, appeals to pity, or whatever is like to these, in a very vigorous and forcible manner. One must not, then, look for these things from Lysias. And in the epilogues too, the recapitulating part of what has been said he enumerates moderately and gracefully; but that emotional part, in which exhortation, pity, entreaty, and their kindred are contained, he renders more deficiently than is fitting.

Such, then, is the character of Lysias, as I have my opinion of him. But if anyone has come to know things other than these, let him say them; and if they are more persuasive, I shall be much obliged to him. And in order that it may better befall one who wishes to learn whether we have rightly and fittingly persuaded ourselves of these things, or whether we have erred in our judgement, I shall make the examination upon the things written by him, taking up a single speech (for it is not possible to use many examples), and from it I shall display the aim and the power of the man, thinking it sufficient for well-educated and moderate souls that small samples of great things and few of many should be given. The speech is from those concerning guardianship, entitled Against Diogeiton, and has a subject of this kind.

Diodotus, one of those enrolled with Thrasyllus in the Peloponnesian War, being about to sail off to Asia in the archonship of Glaucippus, and having infant children, made a will, leaving as their guardian his own brother Diogeiton, who was the children's uncle and grandfather on the mother's side. He himself, then, died fighting at Ephesus, and Diogeiton, having managed the whole property of the orphans and having shown them nothing out of very great wealth, while still living is accused of misconduct in his guardianship by one of the youths, after he had passed his scrutiny. The suit against him is pleaded by the husband of Diogeiton's granddaughter, who was the youths' sister.

I have set down the subject beforehand, so that it may become more clear whether he has used a moderate and fitting beginning.

"If the matters in dispute were not great, men of the jury, I should never have allowed these men to come before you, holding it most shameful to be at variance with one's own kin, and knowing that not only those who do wrong seem to you the worse, but also those who, being wronged in lesser things by their relatives, are unable to endure it. But since, men of the jury, they have been robbed of much money, and having suffered many grievous things at the hands of those by whom they least should, they have taken refuge with me, their kinsman by marriage, it has become necessary for me to speak on their behalf. I am married to the sister of these youths and the granddaughter of Diogeiton; and after much entreaty of both parties, I at first persuaded them to entrust the arbitration to friends, setting much store by it that no one else should know their affairs. But when Diogeiton, in the matters of which he was plainly convicted, would not dare to be persuaded by any of his own friends, but chose both to flee from suits and to prosecute suits that did not exist, and to undergo the uttermost perils rather than, by doing what was just, to be quit of the charges against these men, I beg of you, if I prove that they have been so shamefully treated in their guardianship by their grandfather as no one ever was by men in no way related to him in the city, to help them to their rights; but if not, to put all your trust in him, and to think us for the time to come the worse men. I shall try to instruct you about these matters from the beginning."

This prooemium has all the excellences that a prooemium ought to have. The standards of the manuals, set beside it, will make this plain. For all who have composed the manuals enjoin that, when the contest is against kinsmen, one should see to it that the accusers do not appear malicious or litigious. And they bid first to throw the blame for the charge and the contest upon the opponents, and to say that the wrongs are great and could not be moderately borne, and that the contest is on behalf of persons more in need, more bereft, and less deserving to be despised, whom not to help would make one appear baser; and that, having challenged their opponents to a reconciliation and entrusted the matters to friends and submitted to such concessions as were possible, they could obtain none of the moderate things. These things the writers of manuals enjoin one to do, in order that the character of the speaker may appear more reasonable. And this is able to win goodwill for them and is the strongest part of the construction. All these things I see done through this prooemium. And further, with a view to making the hearers ready to learn, they bid one state the case compressed, so that the jurors may not be ignorant of the subject; and, of whatever sort the things to be said are going to be, to lay down the prooemium too from the beginning of that sort, and, making a sample of the matter, to try to begin straightway from reflections. This too the prooemium has. Further, concerning attention they lay it down somewhat thus: that he who is going to make his hearers attentive must say things both marvellous and paradoxical and must beg the jurors to hear him. These things too Lysias is seen to have done. And there is added to these the smoothness of the expression and the plainness of the construction, which are most needed by those who make their prooemia against kinsmen. And it is worth while to learn how the narrative too has been ordered. It runs thus.

"There were two brothers, men of the jury, Diodotus and Diogeiton, by the same father and the same mother. The unseen property they divided between them, but of the visible they held in common. When Diodotus had made much money by trade, Diogeiton persuaded him to take his own daughter, who was his only child; and there were born to him two sons and a daughter. Some time later, Diodotus, being enrolled with Thrasyllus among the hoplites, called his wife, who was his niece, and her father—his own father-in-law and brother, and the children's grandfather and uncle—and, thinking that, by reason of these ties of kinship, it belonged to no one more in justice to deal with his own children, gave him a will and five talents of silver on deposit; and he showed seven talents and forty minas as lent out on bottomry, and two thousand drachmas owed in the Chersonese. He enjoined that, if anything should befall him, a talent should be given as dowry to his wife, and the contents of the room given to her, and a talent to his daughter. He also left twenty minas to his wife and thirty Cyzicene staters. Having done these things and left copies at home, he went off to serve with Thrasyllus. When he had died at Ephesus, Diogeiton at first hid from his daughter the death of her husband and took the documents which he had left sealed, saying that he needed them in order to recover the bottomry moneys. But when in time he disclosed the death to them, and they had performed the customary rites, for the first year they lived in the Piraeus, for all the provisions had been left there. When these failed, he sent the children up to the city, and gave the mother in marriage, bestowing a dowry of five thousand drachmas—a thousand less than her husband had given. In the eighth year after this, when the elder of the two youths had passed his scrutiny, Diogeiton called them and said that their father had left them twenty minas of silver and thirty staters. 'I, then, have spent much of my own on your maintenance. And so long as I had it, it made no difference to me; but now I myself am in want. You, then, since you have passed your scrutiny and become a man, look to it yourself from now on how you will have your livelihood.' Hearing this, struck down and weeping, they went off to their mother, and taking her with them came to me, piteously disposed by their misfortune and wretchedly cast out, weeping and beseeching me not to look on while they were robbed of their father's estate and reduced to beggary, outraged by those by whom they least should have been, but to help them, both for their sister's sake and for their own. It would be much to tell how great a grief there was in my house at that time. At the last their mother entreated and besought me to gather together her father and her friends, saying that, even if she had not before been accustomed to speak among men, the greatness of her misfortunes would compel her to set forth to us everything concerning their woes. I went and expressed my indignation to Hegemon, who has Diogeiton's daughter, and held conversation with the other friends, and demanded that this man come to an accounting concerning the matters. Diogeiton at first refused, but at last was compelled by his friends. When we had come together, the woman asked him what manner of soul he had that he thought fit to use such a purpose concerning the children—he being the brother of their father, my father, their uncle and grandfather. 'And even if you were ashamed before no man,' she said, 'you ought to have feared the gods—you who received five talents from him on deposit when he sailed away. And concerning these I am willing to swear, presenting my children—both these and those born to me afterwards—wherever this man may bid. Yet I am not so wretched, nor do I set so much store by money, as to spend my life perjured against my own children and unjustly to take away my father's property.' Further, she convicted him of having recovered seven talents of bottomry money and four thousand drachmas, and produced the documents of these; for in the removal, when he was moving house from Collytus into the house of Phaedrus, the children, lighting upon a book that had been thrown out, had brought it to her. She showed that he had recovered a hundred minas lent on land at interest, and another two thousand drachmas, and furniture worth much, and that grain came to them from the Chersonese each year. 'Then,' she said, 'did you dare to say, having so much money, that their father left two thousand drachmas and thirty staters—the very things that were left to me, which, when he died, I gave to you? And you have thought fit to cast these boys, your daughter's children, out of their own house in threadbare cloaks, without shoes, without an attendant, without bedding, without garments, without the furniture which their father left them, and without the deposits which he placed with you. And now you educate the children of my stepmother, who are well off in much wealth—and in this you do well—but you wrong mine, whom, having cast them dishonoured out of the house, you are eager to make beggars instead of rich. And over such deeds you fear neither the gods nor are ashamed before me who know, nor do you remember your brother, but you set us all at less account than money.' Then, men of the jury, when many grievous things had been said by the woman, we who were present were all so disposed by what this man had done and by her words—seeing the children, what they had suffered, remembering the dead man, how unworthy of his property the guardian was whom he had left, and reflecting how hard it is to find one to whom one ought to entrust one's own affairs—that, men of the jury, none of those present could utter a word, but, weeping no less than those who had suffered, they went off in silence."

And, in order that the character of the proofs too may become clear, I shall set down what is said after this. His own particular proofs, as needing no longer many words, he confirms by the witnesses themselves, saying nothing but this: "First, then, come up for me, witnesses." But the opponent's pleas he divides in two—that some he admitted he received and pretended to have spent on the maintenance of the orphans, while others he denied he had received and was then convicted—and concerning both he makes his speech, saying that the expenses were not such as that man declared they had been, and rendering the proofs concerning the disputed points.

"I claim, then, men of the jury, that you give your minds to the reckoning, so that you may pity the young men for the greatness of their misfortunes, and may hold this man worthy of the anger of all the citizens. For Diogeiton brings all men into such suspicion of one another that, whether living or dying, they trust their nearest kin no more than their bitterest enemies—he who dared to deny some things, and, at the last, admitting he had others, declared a receipt and expenditure for two boys and a sister, over eight years, of seven talents of silver and seven thousand drachmas. And he came to such a pitch of shamelessness that, not knowing where to turn the money, he reckoned five obols a day for relish for two children and a sister, but for shoes, for the fuller, for garments, and for the barber he had it written down neither by the month nor by the year, but, all told for the whole time, more than a talent of silver. And on the tomb of their father, not having spent twenty-five minas of the five thousand drachmas, he sets half of it down to himself and has reckoned half to them. Then for the Dionysia, men of the jury (for it does not seem to me out of place to mention this too), he declared he had bought a lamb for sixteen drachmas, and reckoned eight of these drachmas to the children. At which we were angered not least. So it is, men, that in great losses the small things sometimes grieve the wronged no less; for they show all too clearly the wickedness of the wrongdoers. For the other festivals and sacrifices, then, he reckoned to them more than four thousand drachmas spent, and a host of other things which he reckoned into the total—as if he had been left guardian of the children for this very purpose, that he might show them documents instead of money, and make them poorest instead of rich, and that, if any enemy of their father's existed, they might forget him and war against the guardian who had robbed them of their patrimony. And yet, if he had wished to be just toward the children, it was open to him, according to the laws which are laid down concerning orphans both for guardians who are unable and for those who are able, to lease out the estate, rid of much trouble, or, buying land, to maintain the children from the income; and whichever of these he had done, they would have been rich as no Athenians more. But as it is, it seems to me that he never once intended to make the property visible, but to have their goods himself, thinking that his own wickedness ought to be heir to the property of the dead man. But what is most monstrous of all, men of the jury: this man, serving as joint-trierarch with Alexis the son of Aristodicus, and saying that he contributed forty-eight minas to him, reckoned half of it to these orphans—whom the city not only, while they were children, made exempt, but, when they had passed their scrutiny, released for a year from all the liturgies. Yet he, their grandfather, contrary to the laws, exacts from his daughter's children half of his own trierarchy. And having sent off a merchant ship to the Adriatic worth two talents, when he was dispatching it he said to their mother that the risk was the children's; but when it was saved and had doubled in value, he says the venture was his own. Yet if he is going to assign the losses to them, but will have for himself the moneys that were saved, he will not find it hard to write into the account where the money was spent, and will easily grow rich himself from what belongs to others. To reckon each item to you, men of the jury, would be a long task. But when I had with difficulty got the documents from him, I asked Aristodicus, the brother of Alexis (for Alexis himself happened to have died), having witnesses, whether the account of the trierarchy was with him. He said it was. And going to his house, we found that Diogeiton had contributed twenty-four minas to him for the trierarchy. But this man declared he had spent forty-eight minas; so that there has been reckoned to these children as much as the whole expense came to for him. And yet, what do you suppose he has done in matters of which no one shares his knowledge, but which he alone managed, when in things that were done through others, and about which it was not hard to inquire, he dared to lie and to mulct his own grandchildren of twenty-four minas? And come up for me, witnesses of these things."—Witnesses.—"You have heard the witnesses, men of the jury. As for me, of all the money he himself at last admitted he had—seven talents and forty minas—out of these I shall reckon for him, showing no income at all but spending from the principal; and I shall set down, as no one ever did in the city, for two boys and a sister and a tutor and a maidservant, a thousand drachmas each year, a little less than three drachmas a day. In eight years these come to eight thousand drachmas; . . . there remain six talents of the seven talents, and twenty minas of the forty minas. For he could not show that he had lost it to pirates, or suffered loss, or paid it back to creditors . . . ."

In forensic speeches, then, the man is of this character; but in display speeches he is softer, as I said. For he wishes to be loftier and more magnificent, and of the orators who flourished in his own time or earlier he would not seem to be inferior to any; but he does not rouse the hearer as Isocrates does. I shall set down an example of these speeches too.

There is a certain panegyric speech of his, in which he persuades the Greeks, while the festival is being held at Olympia, to drive out the tyrant Dionysius from his rule and to free Sicily, and to begin the hostility at once, by plundering the tyrant's pavilion, which was adorned with gold and purple and much other wealth. For Dionysius had sent envoys to the festival bringing a sacrifice to the god, and the lodging of the envoys in the precinct was magnificent and costly, that the tyrant might the more be admired by Greece. Taking this for his subject, he has made the beginning of the speech of this kind.

"For many other fine deeds, men, it is right to remember Heracles, and because he was the first to gather this contest together out of goodwill toward Greece. For in the time before, the cities were disposed as strangers toward one another; but when he had put down the tyrants and checked the insolent, he made a contest of bodies, an emulation in wealth, and a display of judgement in the fairest place of Greece, so that for all these things we might come together to the same place, some to see, some to hear. For he held that the gathering here would be a beginning to the Greeks of friendship toward one another. He, then, gave this lead. But I have come not to talk of petty things nor to do battle over words; for I hold that these are the works of sophists too useless and very much in need of a livelihood, but that it is the part of a good man and a citizen of much worth to give counsel concerning the greatest matters, when I see Greece so shamefully disposed, with much of it under the barbarian and many cities laid waste by tyrants. And if we suffered these things through weakness, it would be necessary to be content with our fortune; but since it is through faction and our rivalry with one another, how is it not right to cease from the one and to check the other, knowing that to be rivals belongs to those who fare well, but to deliberate the best to those who are in anxious straits? For we see that the dangers are great and have surrounded us on every side. And you know that the empire belongs to those who command the sea, that the King is steward of the moneys, that the bodies of the Greeks belong to those who are able to spend, that he himself possesses many ships, and the tyrant of Sicily many. And so it is right to lay aside the war against one another, and, using one and the same purpose, to cling to safety, and to be ashamed concerning the past and to fear concerning what is to come, and to imitate our ancestors, who made the barbarians, when they coveted others' land, be deprived of their own, and, having driven out the tyrants, established a freedom common to all. But I wonder at the Lacedaemonians most of all—with what purpose they look on while Greece burns, being leaders of the Greeks not unjustly, both through their inborn virtue and through their knowledge concerning war—they alone dwelling unravaged, unwalled, free from faction, unconquered, and ever using the same ways; for which reasons there is hope that they possess an immortal freedom, and that, having been saviours of Greece in the past dangers, they will provide for what is to come. The coming season, then, is no better than the present; for we must consider the misfortunes of those who have perished not as alien but as our own, nor wait until the forces of both come against us ourselves, but, while it is still possible, to check these men's insolence. For who would not . . . seeing that they have become great in the war against one another? And these things being not only shameful but also terrible, to those who have greatly erred there has come licence for what they have done, but to the Greeks no vengeance for it at all."

I shall set down the example of one more deliberative speech, so that the character of this kind of oratory too may become clear.

It has embraced the subject of not dissolving the ancestral constitution at Athens. For when the people had returned from the Piraeus and had voted to be reconciled with those in the city and to bear no grudge for what had happened, and there being fear that the multitude might again behave insolently toward the well-off, having recovered its ancient power, and many words being made about this, a certain Phormisius, one of those who had returned with the people, introduced a motion that the exiles be brought back, but that the constitution be handed over not to all, but to those holding land—the Lacedaemonians too wishing this to be done. If this decree were ratified, about five thousand of the Athenians were going to be shut out from public affairs. In order, then, that this might not happen, Lysias writes this speech for one of the men of note who took part in public life. Whether, then, it was delivered at that time is unclear; at any rate it is composed suitably as for a contest. It runs thus.

"When we thought, men of Athens, that the misfortunes which had befallen us had been left as sufficient memorials to the city, so that not even those born after us would desire other constitutions, then it is that these men seek to deceive those who have suffered ill and tried both kinds of government, with the same decrees by which they twice already did so before. And at these men I do not wonder, but at you who hear them, that you are of all men most forgetful, or most ready to suffer ill at the hands of such men, who in fortune shared in the affairs of the Piraeus, but in purpose belonged to those of the city. And yet what was the need for exiles to return, if by your own votes you are going to enslave yourselves? I, then, men of Athens, being driven from the constitution neither by property nor by birth, but being before those who speak against it in both respects, hold that this is the only salvation for the city—that all Athenians share in the constitution. For when we possessed both the walls and the ships and the moneys and allies, we did not intend to thrust away any Athenian, but even made intermarriage with the Euboeans; . . . and shall we drive away the citizens we have? No—if you will be persuaded by me—nor, along with the walls, shall we strip ourselves of these things also: many hoplites and horsemen and archers; clinging to whom you will be firmly governed by the people, will prevail the more over your enemies, and will be more useful to your allies. For you know that under the oligarchies in our time it was not those possessing land who held the city, but many of them were put to death, and many cast out of the city; whom the people brought back and gave you back your own, but did not itself dare to share in it. So that, if you will be persuaded by me, you will not deprive your benefactors, so far as in you lies, of their fatherland, nor will you account words more trustworthy than deeds, nor the things to come more than the things that have happened—especially remembering those who fight on behalf of the oligarchy, who in word war against the people, but in deed covet your possessions, which they will acquire whenever they catch you bereft of allies. Then, when matters stand thus for us, they will ask: 'What salvation will there be for the city, if we do not do what the Lacedaemonians command?' But I think these men should be asked: 'What will there be for the people, if we do what they enjoin?' And if not—it is far finer to die fighting than openly to vote our own death. For I hold that, if I persuade you, the danger will be common to both . . . . And I see that the Argives and Mantineans, holding this same purpose, dwell in their own land—the one bordering on the Lacedaemonians, the other dwelling near them—and that the one are no more numerous than we, and the other not even three thousand. For the Lacedaemonians know that, even if they invade their land many times, many times will these men meet them with arms in hand; so that the risk does not seem to them a fine one, if, should they conquer, they cannot even enslave these men, but, should they be defeated, will deprive themselves of the goods they have. And the better they fare, the less do they desire to run risks. We too, men of Athens, held this purpose when we ruled the Greeks, and we seemed to deliberate well, looking on while the land was ravaged, not thinking we ought to fight it out for it. For it was right, neglecting a few things, to spare many goods. But now, since we have been deprived of all those things by battle, and only our fatherland is left to us, we know that this danger alone holds the hopes of safety. But we must rather, remembering that already, helping others who were wronged, we set up in alien land many trophies over our enemies, prove ourselves good men on behalf of our fatherland and of ourselves, trusting in the gods and hoping . . . since justice will be on the side of the wronged. For it would be a terrible thing, men of Athens, if, when we were in exile, we fought the Lacedaemonians in order to return, but, having returned, shall flee into exile in order not to fight. Is it not, then, shameful, if we shall come to such a pitch of cowardice that our ancestors ran risks even on behalf of others' freedom, while you do not dare to make war even on behalf of your own?"

But enough now of examples, that we may discuss the rest of the orators too in the same way. Next to this orator, in the order of the dates, comes Isocrates. Of him, then, we must speak in turn, taking up another beginning.