Book 1

praef. The ancient sophistic must be regarded as a rhetoric that philosophizes. For it discourses upon the same subjects as the philosophers; but whereas they, sitting in wait with their questions and advancing little by little through the small points of their inquiries, declare that they do not yet have knowledge, the ancient sophist speaks of these matters as one who knows. At any rate he makes the openings of his speeches with such phrases as "I know," and "I am aware," and "I have long since considered," and "nothing is certain for man." Such a manner of opening rings out at the very start a nobility in the speeches, and a high spirit, and a clear grasp of reality. This style is akin, on the one hand, to the human art of divination, which the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and before them the Indians, composed, conjecturing reality by means of countless stars; and on the other to the oracular and prophetic kind. For one may indeed hear the Pythian god say, "I know the number of the sand and the measures of the sea," and "Wide-seeing Zeus grants a wooden wall to the Tritan-born," and "Nero, Orestes, Alcmaeon, slayers of their mothers," and much of the same kind, speaking like a sophist.

2. The ancient sophistic, even when it set forth philosophical themes, used to treat them at full length and in detail. For it discoursed about courage, it discoursed about justice, about heroes and gods and how the form of the universe has been shaped. But the sophistic that came after it — which we should call not new, since it is ancient, but rather a second sophistic — sketched out the poor man and the rich man, the noblemen and the tyrants, and the themes assigned to particular names, to which history gives rise. The leader of the more ancient school was Gorgias of Leontini among the Thessalians; of the second, Aeschines son of Atrometus, who, after being driven from politics at Athens, took up his residence in Caria and Rhodes. And some handled their themes by rule of art, others in the manner of Gorgias, by inspiration.

3. As for the sources from which extempore eloquence flowed, some say it sprang first from Pericles, which is why Pericles too was held to be great in his speech; others trace it to Python of Byzantium, whom Demosthenes says he alone of the Athenians could withstand when he ran on bold and full of flow; others say that the invention of extempore speaking belongs to Aeschines, for he, having sailed from Rhodes to the court of Mausolus the Carian, charmed him with an improvised speech. But to my mind Aeschines, of all men, improvised most, both when going on embassies and rendering account of them, both as advocate and as public speaker, and that he left behind only those speeches that were composed in writing, so that he might not fall far short of the studied works of Demosthenes; whereas the extempore speech was first begun by Gorgias. For he, coming forward into the theatre of the Athenians, had the courage to say, "Propose your subjects," and was the first to utter this daring challenge, thereby indicating, no doubt, that he knew all things and could speak on any subject whatever, trusting to the moment. And it occurred to Gorgias to do this for the following reason. Prodicus of Ceos had composed a speech, and not a disagreeable one: Virtue and Vice, in the form of women, come to visit Heracles, the one arrayed in cunning and gaudy attire, the other dressed just as it chanced; and to Heracles, who was still young, they hold out, the one idleness and luxury, the other squalor and toils. To this speech, which was put together at considerable length, Prodicus gave paid performances, going about the cities and charming them in the manner of Orpheus and Thamyris, on which account he was held in high esteem among the Thebans, and in still higher among the Lacedaemonians, as one who taught these things for the benefit of the young. So Gorgias, mocking Prodicus for delivering stale matter that had been said over and over, gave himself up to the moment. Yet he did not escape envy. For there was at Athens a certain Chaerephon — not the one whom comedy called "the boxwood," for that man was sick in his blood from his studies, but the one I now speak of, who practised insolence and jeered shamelessly. This Chaerephon, mocking the earnestness of Gorgias, said: "Gorgias, why is it that beans inflate the belly but do not inflate fire?" Gorgias, not at all disturbed by the question, replied: "This I leave to you to investigate; but I have long known this — that the earth grows stalks of fennel for such men as you."

4. The Athenians, seeing the formidable cleverness of the sophists, used to exclude them from the law courts, on the ground that they overcame what was just by an unjust argument and prevailed against the straight and right. Hence Aeschines and Demosthenes used to charge each other with this — not as a reproach, but as something held in suspicion by the jurors; for in private each thought himself admired for it. And Demosthenes, if Aeschines is to be believed, used to boast to his friends that he had brought the jurors' votes round to whatever he himself pleased. As for Aeschines, I do not think he would have set forth among the Rhodians doctrines they did not yet know, unless he had practised them at Athens as well.

5. The ancients gave the name of sophist not only to those orators who were of surpassing and brilliant voice, but also to those philosophers who expounded their thoughts with fluent ease; and of these I must speak first, since, though they were not sophists, they were thought to be such and so came to bear this name.

1.1. Eudoxus of Cnidus, although he had given much careful thought to the discussions of the Academy, was nonetheless enrolled among the sophists for the elegance of his delivery and his skill in extempore speaking; and he was held worthy of the title of sophist throughout the Hellespont and the Propontis, and at Memphis and in the Egypt beyond Memphis, which Ethiopia bounds, and where dwell the Naked Sages of that country.

2.1. Leon of Byzantium in his youth was a pupil of Plato, but when he came to manhood he was called a sophist, since he had a manifold command of speech and was persuasive in his replies. For when Philip was marching against the Byzantines, Leon went out to meet him and said, "Tell me, Philip, what has come over you that you begin a war?" And when Philip replied, "Your fatherland, the fairest of cities, led me on to fall in love with her, and that is why I have come to the doors of my beloved," Leon took him up and said, "Those who deserve to be loved in return do not come to the doors of their beloved with swords; for lovers have need not of weapons of war, but of music." And he set Byzantium free, Demosthenes having spoken much to the Athenians, but Leon little to Philip himself. And when this Leon was on an embassy to the Athenians, the city had now for a long time been in a state of faction and was governed against its own character; and when he came forward into the assembly, he provoked in them an unrestrained burst of laughter at his appearance, since he looked fat and excessively heavy in the belly. But, not at all disconcerted by the laughter, he said, "Why, men of Athens, do you laugh? Is it because I am stout and so big? I have a wife much stouter than I, and when we are of one mind a single couch holds us, but when we quarrel not even the whole house does." And the people of the Athenians came to unity, harmonized by Leon, who had wisely improvised to suit the moment.

3.1. Dias of Ephesus had cast the anchor-cable of his philosophy from the Academy, but he was reckoned a sophist for the following reason. Seeing that Philip was harsh toward the Greeks, he persuaded him to make war against Asia, and he went among the Greeks and argued that they ought to follow Philip on his campaign; for it was a fine thing, he said, even to serve abroad in order to be free at home.

4.1. And Carneades the Athenian too was numbered among the sophists; for though his mind was equipped in the philosophical manner, he drove the force of his arguments to the extreme of formidable cleverness.

5.1. I know too of Philostratus the Egyptian, who shared philosophy with the queen Cleopatra, but was called a sophist because he had adopted a panegyrical and ornate style of speech, consorting as he did with a woman to whom even the love of letters was a kind of luxury. Hence some made a parody upon him in this elegiac couplet: "Keep clear of the wrath of all-wise Philostratus, who, now that he has kept company with Cleopatra, is reported to be the man you see."

6.1. And Theomnestus of Naucratis, who was conspicuously a philosopher, was carried off among the sophists by the amplitude of his style.

7.1. As for Dio of Prusa, I do not know what one ought to call him, on account of his excellence in every kind; for he was, as the saying goes, a horn of Amalthea, compounded of the finest sayings of the finest authors. He kept his eye upon the resonance of Demosthenes and Plato, to which, like the bridges that resonate on instruments, Dio adds his own peculiar note with a deliberate simplicity. And what is best in Dio's speeches is the blending of character; for though he rebuked insolent cities most severely, he did not seem fond of railing, nor disagreeable, but as one who curbs the insolence of horses with the bridle rather than the whip; and when he set himself to praise well-governed cities, he did not seem to exalt them, but rather to bring them to their senses, as cities that would perish if they changed their ways. The character of the rest of his philosophy, too, was neither common nor ironical, but earnestly applied, yet tinged, as with a seasoning, with gentleness. That he was also capable of writing history is shown by his Getica; for indeed he went among the Getae when he was a wanderer. As for the Euboean discourse, and the Praise of the Parrot, and all the matters not of great moment that Dio took seriously, let us not consider them trivial, but sophistical; for it is the mark of a sophist to take pains even over such things as these.

7.2. Living in the times when Apollonius of Tyana and Euphrates of Tyre were practising philosophy, he was on friendly terms with both, although they were at variance with each other beyond what befits the philosophic character. His journey to the Getic peoples I do not think it right to call an exile, since he was not commanded to go into exile, nor yet an absence abroad, since he withdrew from public view, stealing himself away from eyes and ears and doing now one thing in one land, now another in another, out of fear of the tyrannies then ruling in the city, by which all philosophy was being driven out. And while he planted and dug and drew water for baths and gardens and did much other such work for the sake of his livelihood, he did not neglect his studies, but kept himself together by means of two books; and these were the Phaedo of Plato and the speech of Demosthenes On the Embassy. Frequenting the camps, where he was wont to wear himself out, and seeing the soldiers rushing toward revolt upon the murder of Domitian, he did not hold back when he saw disorder breaking out, but, leaping up naked upon a high altar, he began his speech thus: "Then resourceful Odysseus stripped off his rags"; and when he had said this and made it plain that he was no beggar, nor the man they supposed, but Dio the wise, he breathed mightily in his accusation of the tyrant, and taught the soldiers to think more wisely in doing what was approved by the Romans. For indeed the persuasiveness of the man was such as could charm even those who were not versed in the affairs of the Greeks. Trajan the emperor, at any rate, having seated him beside himself at Rome in the golden chariot in which the emperors ride in triumphal procession after their wars, would often turn round to Dio and say, "What you are saying I do not know, but I love you as I love myself." Most sophistical of all in Dio are the images in his speeches, in which, though he is copious, he is also vivid and faithful to his subjects.

8.1. In like manner the eloquence of Favorinus the philosopher proclaimed him among the sophists. He was one of the Gauls of the West, from the city of Arelate, which is settled upon the river Eridanus. He was born of double nature, both man and woman, and this was shown both by his appearance — for even as he grew old he remained beardless of face — and by his voice, which was heard to be shrill and thin and high-pitched, such as nature has fashioned for eunuchs. Yet he was so ardent in matters of love that he was even charged with adultery by a man of consular rank.

8.2. Though a quarrel arose between him and the emperor Hadrian, he suffered no harm. Hence, as though they were marvels, he used to recite, like oracles, these three things about his own life: that, being a Gaul, he spoke Greek; that, being a eunuch, he was tried for adultery; that he had quarrelled with an emperor and yet lived. But this would rather be to the credit of Hadrian, if, being emperor, he quarrelled on equal terms with a man whom he had power to put to death. "A king is the stronger when he is wroth with a meaner man" — provided he masters his anger; and "great too is the wrath of kings nurtured by Zeus" — provided it is chastened by reason. It is better that those who would set the characters of kings in a good light should ascribe such sayings to the opinions of the poets. When Favorinus had been appointed high priest in his native city, he sought, in accordance with the laws governing such matters, to be released from the public service, since he was a philosopher; but seeing that the emperor was minded to lay down the opposite opinion against him, on the ground that he was not a philosopher, he forestalled him thus: "A dream has come to me, O Emperor," he said, "which I ought to tell to you as well. For Dio my teacher stood beside me and admonished me concerning the suit, saying that we are born not for ourselves alone, but also for our fatherlands. I accept, then, O Emperor, the public service, and obey my teacher."

8.3. All this the emperor made into a kind of pastime, and he passed his royal cares by inclining toward sophists and philosophers; but to the Athenians it seemed a terrible thing, and they ran together — chiefly the Athenians in office — and threw down the bronze statue of the man as though he were a bitter enemy of the emperor. But Favorinus, when he heard of it, neither complained nor grew savage over the outrage done him, but said, "Socrates too would have profited had he been deprived of a bronze statue by the Athenians rather than have drunk hemlock." He was on the closest terms with Herodes the sophist, who regarded him as his teacher and father, and wrote to him, "When shall I see you, and when shall I kiss your lips all over?" And so, at his death, Favorinus declared Herodes heir to all the books he possessed, and to his house at Rome, and to Autolecythus. This last was an Indian and quite black, a plaything of Herodes and Favorinus; for he used to keep them entertained as they drank together, mingling Attic with Indian and stumbling into barbarisms with his blundering tongue. The quarrel that arose between Favorinus and Polemo began in Ionia, when the Ephesians attached themselves to him, since Smyrna admired Polemo; and it grew greater at Rome, for consuls and the sons of consuls, some praising the one, some the other, set them at rivalry, which kindles much envy even in wise men. They are pardonable, then, for their rivalry, since human nature counts ambition ageless; but they are to be blamed for the speeches they composed against each other, for licentious abuse, even if it happens to be true, does not free from disgrace even the man who has spoken about such matters. As for those who call Favorinus a sophist, the very fact that he quarrelled with a sophist suffices for proof; for that ambition I have mentioned makes its way against rivals in the same craft.

8.4. His style was fashioned with a free looseness, yet wisely and refreshingly; and he was said to improvise with great fluency. The speech against Proxenus, I declare, Favorinus would neither have conceived nor composed, but it is the work of some drunken youth — or rather of one vomiting. But the speech on the man who died untimely, and the one on the gladiators, and the one on the baths, we pronounce genuine and well composed; and much more so the speeches of his that treat of philosophy, of which the best are the Pyrrhonian discourses; for the Pyrrhonists, although they suspend judgment, are not thereby deprived of the power to give judgment. When he discoursed at Rome, everything was full of eager attention; for indeed even those who had no understanding of the Greek tongue found his hearing no less a pleasure, since he charmed them too by the ring of his voice, by the expressiveness of his glance, and by the rhythm of his tongue. He charmed them also by that part of the speech which they called the "song," but which I call ambition, since it is sung as a finale to the proofs already given. He is said to have heard Dio, but he stands as far from him as those who never heard him at all. So much for those who, though philosophers, were reputed to be sophists. The men properly called sophists were the following.

9.1. Sicily brought forth Gorgias at Leontini, to whom we should trace the art of the sophists, as to a father. For if we consider Aeschylus, how much he contributed to tragedy by equipping it with stage costume and the high buskin and the figures of heroes, with messengers and reporters and all that must be done on the stage and behind it, this is just what Gorgias was to his fellow craftsmen. For he was the originator, among the sophists, of the impulsive style, of paradox, of inspired loftiness, of expressing great themes greatly, of detachments and assaults, by which speech becomes sweeter than itself and more stately; and he clothed it too in poetic words for the sake of adornment and dignity. That he improvised most easily I have said at the beginning of my account; and when he discoursed at Athens, already an old man, if he was admired by the multitude, that is no marvel, but he won over, I think, even the most distinguished men: Critias and Alcibiades, who were then young, and Thucydides and Pericles, who were then growing old. Agathon too, the tragic poet, whom comedy knows as wise and elegant in speech, in many places of his iambics "Gorgianizes."

9.2. Distinguishing himself also at the festivals of the Greeks, he sounded forth his Pythian speech from the altar, where a golden statue of him was set up, in the temple of the Pythian god; while his Olympian speech was directed to the greatest of political ends. For, seeing Greece in a state of faction, he became a counsellor of concord to them, turning them against the barbarians and persuading them to make, not one another's cities, but the country of the barbarians, the prize of their arms. As for the funeral oration which he delivered at Athens, it was spoken over those who fell in the wars whom the Athenians buried at public expense with words of praise, and it is composed with surpassing wisdom; for while he urged the Athenians on against the Medes and Persians, and contended for the same end as in his Olympian speech, he said nothing about concord toward the Greeks, since he was addressing Athenians who loved empire, which could not be won unless they chose the path of action; instead he dwelt upon the praises of the trophies won over the Medes, showing them that trophies over barbarians call for hymns, but trophies over Greeks for dirges.

9.3. Gorgias is said to have reached one hundred and eight years, and yet his body was not undone by old age; on the contrary, he lived to the end sound and with his senses still in their vigor.

10.1. Protagoras of Abdera the sophist was at home a pupil of Democritus, but he also consorted with the Magi from Persia during Xerxes' march against Greece. For his father was Maeander, a man furnished with wealth beyond most in Thrace, who, having received Xerxes with hospitality and gifts, procured for his son the company of the Magi from him; for the Persian Magi do not instruct any but Persians, unless the king grants it. Protagoras' saying that he could not tell whether the gods exist or do not exist seems to me to be a transgression that he derived from his Persian education; for the Magi invoke the divine in the rites they perform in secret, yet do away with the public belief in the divine, not wishing to seem to derive their power from it. For this reason he was driven by the Athenians out of every land, according to some after a trial, but as it seems to others, by a vote passed without his being tried. And as he passed from continents to islands, avoiding the Athenian triremes that were sown over every sea, he was drowned sailing in a small boat. He was the first to discover the practice of charging a fee for discourse, and the first to hand on to the Greeks a thing not to be blamed; for the things we study at expense we welcome more than those that come free. Plato, recognizing that Protagoras expounded his thoughts with dignity but lay back upon that dignity, and was here and there more long-winded than was fitting, characterized his manner in a long myth.

11.1. Hippias the sophist of Elis had so strong a memory even in old age that, after hearing fifty names once, he could repeat them in the order in which he had heard them; and he introduced into his discourses geometry, astronomy, music, rhythms, and discoursed too about painting and sculpture. These things he did elsewhere, but at Lacedaemon he set forth the origins of cities and colonies and exploits, since the Lacedaemonians, because of their desire for empire, took pleasure in this kind of subject. There is also by him a Trojan dialogue — not a speech: in it Nestor, at the capture of Troy, suggests to Neoptolemus son of Achilles what pursuits a man should follow in order to show himself good. He went on more embassies than any of the Greeks on behalf of Elis, and nowhere did he diminish his own reputation either as a public speaker or as a converser; and he gathered very much money and was enrolled in the tribes of cities both small and great. He came also to Inycus to gather money — and this little town belongs to those Sicilians whom Plato mocks. While he was in high repute, throughout the rest of his time he charmed Greece at Olympia with elaborate and well-considered speeches. He expounded his thoughts not deficiently, but with abundance and according to nature, taking refuge in but few of the words drawn from poetry.

12.1. The name of Prodicus of Ceos became so great for wisdom that even the son of Gryllus, when he was imprisoned among the Boeotians, listened to his discourse, providing a surety for his person. When he was on an embassy to the Athenians and came forward into the council chamber, he was thought the most capable of men, although he had a voice hard to hear and heavy. He used to hunt out the young men of noble birth and from wealthy households, so that he even had agents to procure him this kind of game; for he was a slave to money and had given himself over to pleasures. The Choice of Heracles — that speech of Prodicus which I mentioned at the beginning — even Xenophon did not think it unworthy to expound. And why should I attempt to characterize the style of Prodicus, when Xenophon has sufficiently sketched it?

13.1. Polus of Acragas was trained as a sophist by Gorgias for much money, so they say; for indeed Polus was one of the wealthy. There are those who say that Polus was the first to discover the balanced clauses and the antitheses and the like endings, but they are not right; for that brilliance of speech, once discovered, Polus merely used to excess, on which account Plato, spitting him out for this ambition, says, "Best of men, Polus — to address you in your own manner."

14.1. Those who write Thrasymachus of Chalcedon also among the sophists seem to me to misunderstand Plato, that to shave a lion and to play the false accuser of Thrasymachus are one and the same thing; for that passage occurs where Plato charges him with composing speeches for the courts and with wearing himself out as a false accuser in the law courts.

15.1. As for Antiphon of Rhamnus, I do not know whether one ought to call him good or base. Let him be called good for the following reasons: he held many commands, he won many victories, he increased the navy of the Athenians by sixty fully manned triremes, and he was thought the most capable of men both to speak and to judge; for these reasons he is to be praised both by me and by another. But he might reasonably appear base for the following: he overthrew the democracy, he enslaved the people of the Athenians, he favored Sparta, at first secretly, later openly, and he loosed upon the affairs of the Athenians the tyranny of the Four Hundred.

15.2. As for rhetoric, some say that Antiphon discovered it when it did not yet exist, others that he developed it after it had been discovered; and as to his becoming wise, some say he was self-taught, others that he had it from his father. For they say that his father was Sophilus, a teacher of rhetorical discourse, who instructed both other men of influence and the son of Cleinias. Antiphon became most persuasive, and was surnamed Nestor for the saying that he could persuade men of anything; and he advertised consolatory lectures, on the ground that there was no grief so terrible that he could not banish it from the mind. Comedy attacks Antiphon as a man clever in matters of the courts, who sold for much money speeches composed against justice, and chiefly to those very men who were in danger. What sort of thing this is, I will make plain. Men, in the other sciences and arts, honor those who excel in each, and admire physicians who are abler over those who are less so, and admire in divination and music the more skilled, casting the same vote about carpentry and all the manual crafts; but rhetoric they praise, yet suspect as a thing cunning and money-loving and composed against justice. And it is not the many who hold this view of the art rather than the most distinguished even of serious men; at any rate they call "clever orators" those who understand well and expound well, giving no auspicious name to this advantage. And since the matter has such a nature, it was not unlikely, I think, that Antiphon too should become a subject of comedy, since comedy most of all makes comedy of things worthy of speech.

15.3. He died, then, in Sicily at the hands of Dionysius the tyrant; but the reasons for which he died we ascribe to Antiphon rather than to Dionysius. For he used to disparage the tragedies of Dionysius, on which Dionysius prided himself more than on being a tyrant; and when the tyrant was busying himself about the excellence of bronze, and asked those present what continent or island produces the best bronze, Antiphon, happening to be by, said, "I know the best — that at Athens, of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton are made." For this he died, as one creeping up against Dionysius and turning the Sicilians against him. But Antiphon erred, first, in offending a tyrant under whom he had chosen to live rather than be a democrat at home; next, in freeing the Sicilians while enslaving the Athenians. Moreover, in drawing Dionysius away from writing tragedy, he was drawing him away from idleness; for such pursuits are idle pursuits, and tyrants are more to be desired by their subjects when relaxed than when strained, for if they relax they will kill less, plunder and seize less; whereas a tyrant who applies himself to tragedies should be likened to a physician who is sick but is treating himself. For the making of fables, the monodies, the rhythms of the choruses, and the imitation of characters, of which the greater part must appear good, transform tyrants from what is inexorable and violent, just as draughts of medicine transform diseases. Let us consider this not an accusation of Antiphon, but advice to all, not to provoke tyrannies, nor to drive savage characters to anger.

15.4. Of his forensic speeches there are several, in which the formidable cleverness and all that comes from art are contained; and there are also others that are sophistical, but the most sophistical is the speech On Concord, in which there are brilliant and philosophical maxims, a dignified delivery adorned with poetic words, and the passages expounded at length resemble smooth plains.

16.1. As for Critias the sophist, if he overthrew the people of the Athenians, he is not yet base for that — for such a people might well be overthrown even by itself, being so puffed up as not to listen even to its lawful magistrates. But since he openly favored Sparta, betrayed the temples, demolished the walls through Lysander, and deprived of any standing-place in Greece those Athenians whom he was driving out, by proclaiming a Laconian war against all who should receive a fugitive Athenian; and since in cruelty and bloodthirstiness he surpassed the Thirty, and joined the Lacedaemonians in their monstrous design that Attica might be declared a pasture for sheep, emptied of its herd of men — for these reasons he appears to me the basest of all men who have a name for baseness.

16.2. And if it was as an uneducated man that he was led into these deeds, the argument would hold good for those who say that he was corrupted by Thessaly and his associations there; for uneducated characters are altogether easily led astray in their choice of life. But since he was most excellently educated, and expounded many maxims, and traced his descent to Dropides, who ruled the Athenians after Solon, he would not escape, in the eyes of the multitude, the charge that it was not without baseness of nature that he erred in these things. For indeed this too is strange — that he was not made like Socrates son of Sophroniscus, with whom he philosophized most of all, a man held to be the wisest and most just of his time, but was made like the Thessalians, among whom arrogance and unmixed wine and tyrannical schemes over the cup are the serious business. And yet not even the Thessalians neglected wisdom, but small and greater cities in Thessaly "Gorgianized," looking to Gorgias of Leontini; and they would have changed to "Critianizing" too, if Critias had made any display of his own wisdom among them. But he neglected this, and made their oligarchies more grievous to them by conversing with the powerful men there, and by attacking all democracy and slandering the Athenians as the people that erred most of all men; so that, when one considers this, Critias would seem to have corrupted the Thessalians rather than the Thessalians Critias.

16.3. He died, then, at the hands of the followers of Thrasybulus, who were bringing the people back from exile; and to some he seems to have proved a good man at the end, since he made the tyranny his shroud. But for my part let it be declared that no man dies nobly for the things he has wrongly chosen; on which account it seems to me that both the wisdom of the man and his studied works have been the less esteemed by the Greeks. For if speech does not agree with character, we shall seem to be sounding with another's tongue, like flutes.

16.4. As for the style of his speech, Critias was dogmatic and rich in maxims, and most capable of dignified expression — not the dithyrambic kind of dignity, nor one that takes refuge in words drawn from poetry, but composed of the most proper words and according to nature. I see the man both abridging his words sufficiently, and attacking forcefully in the manner of a defense, and using the Attic dialect not immoderately nor strangely — for tastelessness in Atticizing is barbarous — but, like the gleams of sunbeams, the Attic words shine through his speech. And to fall upon a passage without connectives is the prime of Critias, and to conceive paradoxically and to deliver paradoxically is the contest of Critias; but the breath of his speech is somewhat deficient, yet sweet and smooth, like the breeze of the West Wind.

17.1. The Siren that stands over the tomb of Isocrates the sophist — and it stands as though singing — denounces the persuasiveness of the man, which he contributed to the rules and habits of rhetoric, since he was not the first to discover the balanced clauses and antitheses and like endings, but used well what had been discovered; and he took care also for amplitude and rhythm and arrangement and resonance. These things, I dare say, prepared the way also for the tongue of Demosthenes; for Demosthenes, who was a pupil of Isaeus but an emulator of Isocrates, surpassed him in spirit and impetus and amplitude and swiftness both of speech and of thought. But the dignity of Demosthenes is rather strained and intent, while that of Isocrates is more delicate and sweeter. Let us take an example of the dignity of Demosthenes: "Death is the end of life for all men, even if a man should keep himself shut up and guarded in a little chamber; but good men must always set their hands to all that is noble, putting forward good hope, and must bear nobly whatever the god may give." And the dignity of Isocrates is adorned thus: "Seeing that the whole earth that lies beneath the heaven has been cut in two, and the one part is called Asia, the other Europe, the King has taken the half of it by the treaties, as though dividing the territory against Zeus himself."

17.2. He shrank from politics and kept away from the assemblies, both because of the deficiency of his voice and because of the envy at Athens which works in opposition above all against those who speak more wisely than the rest. Yet he did not give up concern for public affairs; for both in what he wrote to Philip he was setting matters right, no doubt, on behalf of the Athenians, and in what he composed about the peace he was diverting the Athenians from the sea, on the ground that they bore an ill name upon it; and there is by him a Panegyric oration, which he delivered at Olympia, persuading Greece to march against Asia and to cease from their domestic quarrels.

17.3. This man, then, though his speeches are most beautiful, nonetheless gave occasion for the charge that the Panegyric was put together out of what Gorgias had worked up on the same theme. The best composed of Isocrates' studied works are the Archidamus and the speech Without Witnesses; for through the former there runs a high spirit, recalling the events at Leuctra, and not only are the words precise, but the arrangement too is brilliant, and the speech is full of contest, so that even its mythical part, that about Heracles and the cattle, is expounded with vigor; while the Without Witnesses displays a force chastened to rhythms, for thought ends from thought in periods of equal members.

17.4. The pupils of this man were many, but the most distinguished was Hyperides the orator; for Theopompus of Chios and Ephorus of Cyme I would neither disparage nor admire. Those who think that comedy attacks the man as a flute-maker are mistaken; for his father was Theodorus, whom they called a flute-maker at Athens, but he himself knew nothing about flutes nor any other of the manual crafts, since he would not even have obtained his statue at Olympia if he had worked at anything mean. He died, then, at Athens at about a hundred years; and let us consider him one of those who died in war, since he came to his end after Chaeronea, not enduring to hear the report of the Athenian disaster.

18.1. Concerning Aeschines son of Atrometus, whom we say to have been the founder of the second sophistic, the following must be considered. The popular leadership at Athens was wholly divided, and some were friendly to the King, others to the Macedonians; and the foremost of those who favored the King was Demosthenes of Paeania, while of those who looked to Philip it was Aeschines of Cothocidae; and money came to them from both sides, the King keeping Philip occupied through the Athenians so that he should not march against Asia, and Philip trying to break up the strength of the Athenians as a hindrance to his crossing. The quarrel between Aeschines and Demosthenes began both from this very thing — that each pursued his policy for a different king — and, as it seems to me, from their being opposite also in character; for from characters opposed to one another there grows a hatred that has no cause. And they were opposed for these reasons too: Aeschines was thought a lover of wine and pleasant and easygoing, and to have taken all his charm from Dionysus — for indeed in his youth he had played supporting parts in tragedy to the deep-toned actors — while Demosthenes appeared clouded over and heavy of brow and a drinker of water, on which account he was set down among the morose and ill-tempered, and much the more so since, when the two were on an embassy with others to Philip and lived together, the one appeared expansive and pleasant to his fellow ambassadors, the other reserved and always in earnest. Their quarrel was intensified by the speech about Amphipolis before Philip, when Demosthenes broke down in his speech, while Aeschines was not even among those who had ever thrown away their shields — as one may consider by recalling the action at Tamynae, in which the Athenians defeated the Boeotians. For this he was publicly crowned with the prize of valor, among other things for having used incredible speed in carrying the good tidings of the victory.

18.2. When Demosthenes accused him of being responsible for the Phocian disaster, the Athenians acquitted him of the charge; but on the condemnation of Antiphon he was caught without trial, and the members of the Areopagus deprived him of the right to plead for them concerning the temple at Delos. And further, although he had been proclaimed a delegate to the Amphictyonic council, he has not even yet escaped, in the eyes of the multitude, the charge that it was he who set Philip over Elatea, after throwing the council of the Amphictyons into confusion with specious speeches and fables. He withdrew from Athens, not having been commanded to go into exile, but removing himself because of the loss of civic rights to which he was being subjected by Demosthenes and Ctesiphon, having been defeated in the voting. His first impulse in going abroad was toward Alexander, on the supposition that he would presently come to Babylon and Susa; but having put in at Ephesus, and hearing both that Alexander was dead and that the affairs of Asia were so confounded, he held to Rhodes; and the island is a good one to study in, and, having made Rhodes a thinking-place of sophists, he passed his life there, sacrificing to quiet and the Muses, and mingling Attic with Dorian ways.

18.3. As for the extempore speech, delivered with fluency and divine inspiration, he was the first to win this praise. For speaking divinely had not yet become customary in the studies of the sophists, but it began with Aeschines, who improvised with god-possessed impulse, like those who breathe forth oracles. Having been a pupil of Plato and Isocrates, he drew much also from his own nature. For there is in his speech the light of clarity, and a delicate dignity, and charm joined with formidable power; and altogether the style of his speech is too great to be brought under imitation.

18.4. Of the speeches of Aeschines there is, according to some, even a fourth, a Deliac oration, which falsely claims his tongue. For he would never have arranged the speeches about Amphissa, by which the Cirrhaean land was made sacred, with such fair show and grace while plotting evil for the Athenians, as Demosthenes says, and yet have set out so feebly upon the Deliac myths, in which there is theology and theogony and antiquarian lore — and this when contending on behalf of the Athenians, who considered it no small contest not to be cast out of the temple at Delos. Let the tongue of Aeschines, then, be bounded by three speeches: the one Against Timarchus, the defense On the Embassy, and the prosecution of Ctesiphon. There is also a fourth studied work of his: letters, not many, but full of good education and character.

18.5. Of his moral quality he gave a display to the Rhodians too; for when he once read in public the speech Against Ctesiphon, and some wondered how he had been defeated with such a speech, and reproached the Athenians as out of their minds, he said, "You would not wonder if you had heard Demosthenes speaking against it" — thereby not only setting himself to praise his enemy, but also acquitting the jurors of blame.

19.1. Passing over Ariobarzanes the Cilician and Xenophron the Sicilian and Pithagoras of Cyrene, who were thought neither capable of understanding nor of expounding what they understood, but were valued by the Greeks of their own time for lack of noble sophists — much as bitter vetch is valued by those who are short of grain — let us go on to Nicetes of Smyrna. For this Nicetes, taking over the science when it had been confined within narrow bounds, gave it approaches far more splendid than those he himself built for Smyrna, joining the city to the gates leading to Ephesus, and, by their grandeur, raising up deeds to match his words. This man was thought better in forensic matters by the men of the courts, and better in sophistical matters by the sophists, because he had ambidextrously and emulously fashioned himself for both. For he adorned the forensic with sophistical amplitude, and strengthened the sophistical with a forensic sting. The style of his speeches has departed from the ancient and political; it is somewhat Bacchic and dithyrambic, and gives forth its conceptions, peculiar and paradoxical, as the Bacchic thyrsus gives forth honey and the swarms of milk.

19.2. Although he was held worthy of great honors — for what did not Smyrna cry out about him, as about a marvellous man and orator? — he did not often go before the people, but, being charged by the multitude with timidity, he said, "I am more afraid of a people when it exalts than when it reviles." Once when a tax-collector grew insolent toward him in a law court and said, "Stop barking at me," Nicetes very wittily replied, "By Zeus, I will — if you too stop biting me." His journey beyond the Alps and the Rhine came about by an imperial command, and the cause of it was this. A man of consular rank, whose name was Rufus, was auditing the accounts of the Smyrnaeans bitterly and harshly. Having offended him in some way, Nicetes said, "Farewell," and no longer came before him as he sat in judgment. Now, during the time when Rufus governed but a single city, he did not yet think he had been grievously treated; but when he was entrusted with the Celtic legions, he remembered his anger — for prosperity, among its other effects, makes men no longer able to endure the things they had endured, by human reckoning, before they fared well — and he wrote to the emperor Nerva many bitter complaints against Nicetes. And the emperor himself said, "Give him a hearing while he makes his defense, and if you find him guilty, impose the penalty." This he wrote not to give Nicetes up, but to prepare Rufus for pardon; for never would Rufus, against a man who had thus been put in his power, either put him to death or punish anyone else, lest he should appear oppressive to the man who had appointed him judge of his enemy. For these reasons, then, he went to the Rhine and the Celts, and, coming forward to make his defense, he so struck Rufus with awe that Rufus shed more tears over Nicetes than the water that had been measured out to him, and sent him away not only unwounded but the object of all eyes and among the envied of the Smyrnaeans. This man, some time later, Heracleides the Lycian sophist undertook to correct, and entitled him "Nicetes the Purged"; but he did not perceive that he was fitting Pygmy first-fruits to a colossus.

20.1. Isaeus the sophist, the Assyrian, in his youth had given himself to pleasures; for he was a slave to gluttony and hard drinking, wore fine clothes, was often in love, and revelled without concealment; but when he came to manhood he so changed that he was thought a different man from a different man. For he took away from his face and mind the love of laughter that seemed to float upon him; he no longer attended even on the stage the strains of lyres and flutes; he put off his mantles and the dyed colors of his cloaks, restrained his table, and laid aside his loves, as though he had thrown away his former eyes. At any rate, when Ardys the orator asked him whether such-and-such a woman seemed fair to him, Isaeus replied most temperately, "I have ceased to suffer from eye-trouble." And when another asked him which is the best of birds and fishes for eating, Isaeus said, "I have ceased to take such things seriously, for I have come to understand that I was gleaning the gardens of Tantalus" — indicating, no doubt, to his questioner, that all pleasures are shadows and dreams.

20.2. When Dionysius of Miletus, who was his pupil, used to make his declamations with a kind of chanting, Isaeus rebuked him, saying, "Young man of Ionia, I did not teach you to sing." And when a young Ionian expressed admiration to him for the saying of Nicetes, grandly uttered concerning Xerxes, "Let us moor Aegina to the royal ship," Isaeus laughed broadly and said, "Foolish fellow, and how will you put to sea?" He made his declamations not extempore, but considered through the hours from dawn to midday. He cultivated a style of speech neither overlaid nor dry, but unencumbered and according to nature and sufficient to the matters in hand. The expounding of things briefly, both this and the compressing of an entire theme into a brief compass, was the invention of Isaeus, as was shown in many other instances, but most of all in these. For when he was arguing the case of the Lacedaemonians who were deliberating about the wall, he made his point briefly from the words of Homer to this effect: "Shield pressed on shield, helmet on helmet, man on man; thus stand for me, Lacedaemonians, and we are walled." And when he was prosecuting Python of Byzantium, on the ground that he had been imprisoned by oracle on a charge of treason, and the treason had been judged proven when Philip withdrew, he compressed this case into three thoughts; for what he said is contained in these three: "I prove that Python betrayed the god who gave the oracle, the people who imprisoned him, and Philip who withdrew; for the one would not have given the oracle had there been nothing in it, the other would not have imprisoned him had he not been such a man, and the third would not have withdrawn had he not failed to find the man for whose sake he had come."

21.1. I shall discourse about Scopelianus the sophist, having first attacked those who try to disparage him; for they deem the man unworthy of the circle of the sophists, calling him dithyrambic and undisciplined and coarse. Such things about him are said by the petty quibblers, the sluggish, who breathe nothing of an extempore tongue. For by nature man is an envious creature: at any rate the small disparage the tall, the ugly the handsome, the slow and lame the light and swift, the cowardly the bold, the unmusical the lyric poets, the untrained the wrestlers; and one should not wonder if certain men, hobbled in their tongue and with an ox of dumbness set upon it, men who could neither conceive anything great themselves nor assent when another conceived it, should spit upon and disparage the man who, of all the Greeks of his time, expounded most readily and boldly and grandly. How they have failed to know the man, I will make plain, and what the very fashion of his house was.

21.2. He was high priest of Asia, both he and his ancestors before him, son from father all of them; and this crown is a great one, and bestowed for much expenditure. He was born a twin: both children lay in swaddling-clothes, but when they were five days old one of them was struck by lightning, while the other was not maimed in any of his senses, though he lay beside the one who was struck. And yet the fire of thunderbolts is so keen and sulphurous that of those near it some it kills by the shock, some it injures in their hearing and eyes, some it strikes down in their wits. But Scopelianus was caught by none of these, for he continued even to deep old age unimpaired and sound. Whence I marvel at this I wish to make plain to you. Eight reapers were dining in Lemnos beneath a great oak near the place called the Horn of the island — and this place is a harbor that curves into slender points — and when a cloud enveloped the oak and a thunderbolt was discharged into it, the oak was struck, and the reapers, a panic falling upon them, died each just as he happened to be engaged: one as he was raising a cup, one as he was drinking, one as he was kneading, one as he was eating, one as he was doing something else, they gave up their souls scorched and black, like the bronze of statues smoked over the fiery springs. But Scopelianus was so reared, not without divine favor, that he escaped the death from the thunderbolt, which not even the toughest of the rustics escaped, and remained unwounded in his senses, with his mind ready and stronger than sleep; for indeed sluggishness too was absent from him.

21.3. He attended, for the rhetorical part of his speeches, upon Nicetes of Smyrna, who declaimed brilliantly, but breathed much more mightily in the law courts. When the Clazomenians begged him to make his declamations at home, thinking that Clazomenae would advance greatly if such a man instructed in their city, he declined it not without grace, saying that the nightingale does not sing in a little cage; and he looked upon Smyrna as a kind of grove for his own euphony, and considered the echo there to be worth most of all. For of all Ionia, settled as it is like a single museum, Smyrna holds the most perfect place, just as among instruments the bridge does.

21.4. The reasons why his father, from being mild and gentle, became harsh toward him are told in many forms — for it was this woman and that, and several besides — but I will declare the truest. After the mother of Scopelianus, the old man took a woman to wife in a half-marriage and not according to law, and Scopelianus, seeing this, used to admonish him and try to draw him away; but this is disagreeable to men past their prime. She, in turn, composed a story against him, that he was in love with her, but could not endure her error. There joined her in these slanders a servant of the old man, a cook surnamed Cytherus, who fawned upon his master, as in a play, and said such things as these: "Master, your son wishes you already dead, not even granting your old age the natural death that will come before long, but himself working at the plot and hiring my hands too. For he has man-slaying drugs prepared against you, the most deadly of which he bids me throw into one of the dishes, promising me freedom and fields and houses and money and whatever I wish to have of your estate; and these things are mine if I obey, but if I disobey, scourging and the rack and heavy fetters and a grievous pillory." And having gone round his master with such flatteries, when the old man died not long after and was making his will, Cytherus was written down as heir, and was called his son and his eyes and his whole soul. And one need not wonder at this, since he charmed an old man in love and perhaps also wandering in his wits through age and through love itself — for indeed even young men in love, there is not one of them who keeps his own mind — but the wonder is that he was thought stronger than the formidable power of Scopelianus and his eminence in the law courts, contending against him about the will, and stretching out against that man's cleverness that man's own wealth. For by draining off the estate and hiring with excessive sums all tongues together and the votes of jurors everywhere, he carried off the victory; on which account Scopelianus used to say that the lands of Anaxagoras had become a pasture for sheep, but his own a pasture for slaves. And when Cytherus, who had become distinguished in public affairs too, was now growing old, and saw his estate dwindling, and was sufficiently despised, and even received blows from a man from whom he happened to be demanding money, he became a suppliant of Scopelianus, that he would set aside his resentment and anger, and recover the house of his father, conceding to Cytherus a portion of it, since it was large, that he might not live there in unfree fashion, and granting him two of the farms by the sea. And a part of the house in which he lived out his life is even now called "the House of Cytherus." These things I tell so that they may not be unknown, and that from them too one may understand that men are the playthings not of god alone, but also of one another.

21.5. While Scopelianus was teaching at Smyrna, there resorted to it Ionians and Lydians and Carians and Maeonians, Aeolians too and the Greeks from Mysia and the Phrygians — but this was nothing great, for Smyrna lies close at the door of these peoples, holding conveniently the gates of land and sea; yet he drew Cappadocians too and Assyrians, he drew Egyptians and Phoenicians and the more distinguished of the Achaeans and all the youth from Athens. He had, indeed, given the multitude the impression of ease and carelessness, since the time before declamation he spent for the most part with the magistrates of the Smyrnaeans over public affairs; but he drew upon a nature that was brilliant and high-minded, and he studied less in the daytime, and being a man of the least sleep he used to say, "O Night, for you indeed have the greatest share of wisdom among the gods," and he made her a fellow-worker in his studies. At any rate he is said to have prolonged his work from evening to dawn. He applied himself to all kinds of poetry, but glutted himself with tragedy, contending against the grand voice of his teacher — for it was in this respect that Nicetes was greatly admired — and he drove grandeur of voice to such a height that he even composed a Gigantia and handed to the Homerids material for their verse. Among the sophists he kept company most of all with Gorgias of Leontini, and among the orators with those who ring out brilliantly. The charm he had by nature rather than by practice, for it belongs to the nature of the Ionians to be witty, and in his speeches too the love of laughter prevailed in him, for he considered the downcast countenance to be unsociable and disagreeable. He came before the popular assemblies too with a relaxed and expansive countenance, and much the more so when they met in anger, soothing them and calming them by the cheerfulness of his look. His character in the law courts was neither money-loving nor abusive; for he arranged himself without fee on the side of those in danger of their lives, and those who railed in their speeches and thought to make some display of spirit he called drunken old women raving. He made his declamations for a fee, but the fee was different for different men and according to each man's means; and he came before them neither disdainful and pompous, nor like those who are afraid, but as it was natural for one to be who was anxious about his own reputation, yet confident that he would not stumble. He discoursed from the chair with delicacy, but when he discoursed standing his speech had vehemence and was vigorous. And he considered his themes not within, nor in the crowd, but withdrawing for a short time he surveyed everything. He had also a surplus of euphony, and his voice had a sweetness, and he often struck his thigh, rousing both himself and his hearers. He was excellent both at giving a speech a turn and at speaking on both sides; but he was more marvellous in the more vigorous themes, and much more so in the Median ones, in which the Dariuses and Xerxeses figure; for these themes he himself, it seems to me, expounded best of the sophists, and handed down to those who came after him to expound, for in them he acted out a high spirit and the levity that belongs to barbarian ways. He was said also to sway more in these, as though playing the Bacchant; and when one of Polemo's circle said that he was beating a tambourine, Scopelianus, taking up the jest, said, "I do beat a tambourine — but the shield of Ajax."

21.6. His imperial embassies were many — for indeed a kind of good fortune accompanied him when he went on an embassy — but the best was the one about the vines; for it was undertaken not on behalf of the Smyrnaeans alone, like most of them, but on behalf of all Asia together. The purport of the embassy I will make plain. It seemed good to the emperor that there should be no vines in Asia, since they were thought to fall into faction over wine, but that those already planted should be taken up, and no others planted thereafter. There was need, then, of an embassy from the commonwealth and of a man who, like an Orpheus or a Thamyris, was to charm on behalf of the vines. They all therefore choose Scopelianus; and he so prevailed in the embassy, with much to spare, that he came back not only with leave to plant, but with penalties against those who did not plant. How he won renown in the contest about the vines is shown both by what has been said — for the speech is among his most marvellous — and by what followed the speech, for he received on its account the gifts customary at the imperial court, and many greetings and praises, and a brilliant band of youth, lovers of wisdom, followed him to Ionia.

21.7. When he came to Athens, Atticus, the father of Herodes the sophist, made him his guest, admiring him for his rhetoric more than the Thessalians once admired Gorgias. At any rate, all the busts of the ancient orators that stood in the walks of his house, he ordered to be pelted with stones, as having corrupted his son. Now Herodes happened to be a youth at the time and still under his father's authority, and he was passionately fond of extempore speaking alone, yet he did not have the courage for it, for he had not yet kept company with Scopelianus up to that point of time, nor did he know what the impulse of extempore speakers was; on which account the man's visit was welcome to him. For when he heard him speaking and delivering an extempore speech, he was given wings by him and made ready, and, intending to give pleasure to his father, he reported to him a declamation in the style of their guest. His father admired him for the imitation and gave him five hundred talents; and he gave Scopelianus himself fifteen, and Herodes added to him as much again from his own gift as his father had given, calling him besides his own teacher. To one who understands Herodes, this is sweeter than even the springs of the Pactolus.

21.8. The good fortune that he enjoyed in his embassies one may gather from this too. The Smyrnaeans had need of a man to go on an embassy on their behalf, and the embassy was about the greatest matters. Scopelianus was now growing old and was past the age for travelling, and Polemo was being chosen, who had not yet been on an embassy before. So Polemo, praying for good fortune, asked that the persuasiveness of Scopelianus might become his; and embracing him before the assembly, he very wittily applied to the man the words from the Patrocleia: "Give me your armor to put about my shoulders, in case they take me for you." And Apollonius of Tyana too, who surpassed human nature in wisdom, ranks Scopelianus among the marvellous.

22.1. Whether Dionysius of Miletus, as some say, was sprung from most distinguished fathers, or, as others, from this alone — that they were free men — let that part of the matter be dismissed, since he shone by his own virtue; for to take refuge in one's forebears belongs to those who have lost the praise that is their own. Having been a pupil of Isaeus, a man who, as I have said, expounded according to nature, he sufficiently took an impression of this, and in addition the good ordering of thoughts, for this too is of Isaeus. Being most honeyed in his conceptions, he was not drunk over his pleasures, as some of the sophists are, but managed them sparingly, always saying to his intimates that one must taste honey with the fingertip and not with the hollow of the hand, as has been shown in all that Dionysius said, in logical and legal and ethical contests, but most of all in the lament over Chaeronea. For going through the part where Demosthenes, after Chaeronea, presents himself to the council, he ended this monody of his speech thus: "O Chaeronea, base spot." And again, "O Boeotia that has deserted to the barbarians. Groan, you heroes beneath the earth: near Plataea we have been defeated." And again, in the speech about the Arcadians who were on trial for serving as mercenaries: "A market of war is set before the Arcadians, and the woes of the Greeks feed Arcadia. And war comes on without a cause."

22.2. Such, on the whole, was the style of Dionysius, according to which the work of his declamation proceeded as he considered his theme for as long a time as Isaeus did. As for the story told about Dionysius — that he taught his pupils their power of memory by Chaldean arts — whence it arose, I will make plain. Arts of memory neither exist nor could exist; for memory gives the arts, but is itself untaught and captured by no art, since it is an advantage of nature or a portion of the immortal soul. For human things would never be thought mortal, nor what we have learned teachable, if memory dwelt as a fellow-citizen among men — whether one must call her the mother of time or the child, let us not quarrel with the poets, but let it be as they wish. Besides, who is so simple, when he is enrolled among the wise, as to slander his own reputation by playing the sorcerer among young men, and to slander even what he was rightly taught? Whence, then, came the power of memory to his hearers? The works of Dionysius were thought insatiable in their pleasure, and he was often compelled to repeat them, since he perceived that they delighted in the hearing. So the readier of the young men used to stamp them upon their minds and report them to others, having grasped them by practice rather than by memory, on which account they were called "men of memory" and had made it into an art. Starting from this, some say that the declamations of Dionysius were "patched together from gleanings," as though one man contributed one thing to them and another another, wherever he had spoken briefly.

22.3. Great honors, then, were paid him both from the cities, all that admired him for his wisdom, and the greatest from the emperor; for Hadrian appointed him satrap of peoples not undistinguished, and enrolled him among those who ride at public expense and those who are fed in the Museum — and the Museum is an Egyptian table that calls together the distinguished men from all over the earth. Though he visited very many cities and consorted with very many peoples, he never incurred a charge of amorousness or of imposture, by reason of his appearing most temperate and self-controlled. As for those who attribute to Dionysius the Araspas who loved Panthea, they have never heard the rhythms of Dionysius, nor the rest of his manner of expression, and are without experience of the art of his thoughts; for this work is not of Dionysius, but of Celer the rhetorical writer; and Celer was a good director of the imperial correspondence, but not adequate in declamation, and at variance with Dionysius from the time of their youth.

22.4. Nor let those things be omitted by me, who heard them from Aristaeus, the oldest of the Greeks of my time and one who knew very much about the sophists. Dionysius was growing old in brilliant repute, and Polemo was coming into his prime, not yet known to Dionysius, and was staying at Sardis, pleading a case before the Hundred Men, by whom Lydia was governed. So when Dionysius came in the evening to Sardis, he asked Dorion the critic, his guest-friend, "Tell me, Dorion, what is Polemo doing here?" And Dorion said, "A man, the richest in Lydia, in danger of losing his estate, brings Polemo from Smyrna as his advocate, having persuaded him with a fee of two talents, and he will plead the case tomorrow." And Dionysius said, "What a windfall you have told me of, if it shall be mine to hear Polemo, when I have not yet come to a trial of him." "It seems," said Dorion, "that the young man, now advancing to a great name, perplexes you." "And by Athena," said Dionysius, "he does not let me sleep, but sets my heart to leaping and my mind, when I consider how many are his praisers, and how to some his mouth seems a fountain of twelve spouts, while others measure his tongue by the cubit, like the risings of the Nile. So heal me of this anxiety by telling me what more, and what less, you have observed in me and in him." And Dorion very temperately said, "You yourself, Dionysius, will judge better between yourself and him, for you, by your wisdom, are able both to know yourself and not to be ignorant of another." Dionysius heard him plead the case, and as he was leaving the court he said, "The athlete has strength, but not from the wrestling school." When Polemo heard this, he came to the doors of Dionysius announcing a declamation to him; and when Dionysius came, and Polemo pleaded brilliantly, he came up to Dionysius and, pressing his shoulder against his, as those do who lock together in the upright wrestling of the stadium, he very wittily jeered, saying, "There were once, there were once, brave men of Miletus." Now, while of distinguished men every land is the tomb, Dionysius has a monument in most distinguished Ephesus; for he is buried in the market-place at the most central spot of Ephesus, where he ended his life after teaching the first part of his life at Lesbos.

23.1. Lollianus of Ephesus was the first to preside over the chair at Athens, and he presided also over the people of the Athenians, having held for them the office of general over the arms; and this office of old used to enroll and lead men out to war, but now it has charge of provisions and the grain-market. When a tumult arose at the bakers' shops and the Athenians had set out to stone him, Pancrates the Cynic, who afterward philosophized at the Isthmus, came forward to the Athenians and said, "Lollianus is no seller of bread, but a seller of words," and so diverted the Athenians that they let fall the stones that were in their hands. When grain had been shipped in from Thessaly and there was no public money, Lollianus authorized a contribution among his own pupils, and considerable money was collected. And this will be thought the mark of a resourceful man, wise in public affairs; but the following of a just and fair-minded one: for he gave this money back to those who had contributed it, remitting the fee for his lectures.

23.2. This sophist was thought most skilled in art and most prudent, and to have worked out adequately the technique of argumentation, which lies in artful invention; and he was sufficient in exposition, but not over-elaborate in conceiving and in arranging what he had conceived. There shine through his speech also brilliancies that quickly fade, like the flash of lightning. This is shown in all his speeches, but most of all in these. For when he was accusing Leptines on account of his law, since grain was no longer coming to the Athenians from the Pontus, he reached his height thus: "The mouth of the Pontus has been closed by a law, and a few syllables hinder the sustenance of the Athenians; and Lysander fighting at sea and Leptines fighting with a law have the same effect." And when he was opposing the Athenians, who in lack of money were planning to sell the islands, he breathed thus: "Loose, O Poseidon, the favor done to Delos; allow her, when she is sold, to flee." He improvised in the manner of Isaeus, whom indeed he had heard; and he charged generous fees, providing meetings that were not only for declamation but also for instruction. There are statues of him at Athens, one in the market-place, and another in the little grove, which he himself is said to have planted.

24.1. Nor will I pass over Marcus the sophist of Byzantium, on whose account I might even rebuke the Greeks, if, being such a man as I shall show, he should not yet meet with the reputation that is his own. Now Marcus traced his descent to the ancient Byzas, and his father, of the same name, had slaves who worked the sea at Hieron — and Hieron is by the mouth of the Pontus. His teacher was Isaeus, from whom, having learned to expound according to nature, he adorned it with a graceful gentleness. A most adequate example of Marcus's style is the Spartan advising the Lacedaemonians not to receive those who came naked from Sphacteria. For he began this theme thus: "A Lacedaemonian who has kept his shield to old age — gladly would I have killed these naked men." And what sort of man he was in his discourses too one may gather from this: for teaching about the art of the sophists, that it is manifold and varied, he made the rainbow an example of his argument, and began the discourse thus: "He who has looked upon the rainbow as a single color has not looked upon it so as to marvel; but he who saw how many colors it has, marvelled the more." Those who attribute this discourse to Alcinous the Stoic err both about the style of the speech and about the truth, and are the most unjust of men in robbing the sophist also of what is his own.

24.2. The character of his brows and the thoughtfulness of his face declared Marcus a sophist; for indeed he was always considering something in his mind and training himself in the things that lead to extempore speaking. And this was shown by the set of his eyes, fixed for the most part upon secret thoughts, and was confessed by the man himself; for when one of his friends asked him how he had declaimed the day before, he said, "Worthily of speech before myself, but less so before my pupils." And when the man wondered at the answer, Marcus said, "I make active use even of silence, and two themes exercise me, and three under the one that I argue in public." His beard and hair he kept in a squalid state, on which account he seemed to the multitude more rustic than befits a man of understanding. This is just what Polemo the sophist experienced toward him; for Marcus came into the lecture room of Polemo, being already renowned, and as those who had come to the hearing sat together, one of those who had sailed to Byzantium recognized him and signified it to his neighbor, and he to the next, and it was passed round to all, that he was the Byzantine sophist; on which account, when Polemo asked for themes, all turned toward Marcus that he might propose one. And when Polemo said, "Why do you look at the rustic? For this man will not give a theme," Marcus, raising his voice as was his custom, and lifting up his head, said, "Both will I propose, and will declaim." Thereupon Polemo took him up, and understanding that he spoke in the Dorian manner, discoursed at the man much and marvellously, trusting to the moment; and having declaimed, and having heard the other declaim, both was admired and admired in turn.

24.3. After this Marcus came to Megara — and the Megarians are colonists of the Byzantines — and the Megarians were at faction with the Athenians, their minds at the height of bitterness, as though the decree against them had just been written, and they would not receive them when they came to the Lesser Pythian games. But Marcus, coming forward among them, so transformed the Megarians that he persuaded them to open their houses and to receive the Athenians, with their wives and children. Hadrian the emperor too admired him when he came on an embassy on behalf of the Byzantines, for of the emperors of old he was the most disposed to foster excellence.

25.1. Polemo the sophist was neither, as most suppose, a Smyrnaean, nor, as some say, of Phrygian stock, but Laodicea in Caria brought him forth, a city neighboring the river Lycus, inland, but more powerful than the cities on the sea. The house of Polemo includes many of consular rank, and still does; and his lovers were many cities, but above all Smyrna; for these, having from his youth discerned something great in him, brought together upon the head of Polemo all the crowns in their gift, voting to him and to his family honors enviable in their city, for they granted to the man and to his descendants the right to preside at the Hadrianic Olympic games, and to embark on the sacred trireme. For in the month of Anthesterion a trireme is sent aloft into the market-place, which the priest of Dionysus, like a steersman, guides as it looses its cables from the sea.

25.2. While he was teaching at Smyrna, he benefited the city in these ways. First, he made the city appear more populous than itself, since youth flowed into it from continents and islands, not undisciplined or a mingled mass, but choice and pure Greece. Next, he made it dwell in concord and free from faction; for in former time Smyrna was in faction, and those of the upper city were at variance with those by the sea. He was of the greatest worth to the city in his embassies too, going before the emperors and contending in advance for her interests. Hadrian, at any rate, who was attached to the Ephesians, he so won over to the Smyrnaeans that in a single day he poured out upon Smyrna ten million drachmas, from which both the grain-market was built and a gymnasium, the most magnificent in Asia, and a temple visible from afar upon the headland, which seems to lie opposite Mimas. And further, by rebuking their public faults and by admonishing them most wisely, he was of benefit, and he likewise rooted out insolence and all arrogance, the more so because he did not even disaccustom them from Ionian ways. He benefited them in these matters too, no doubt: the suits they had against one another he did not allow to go forth anywhere else, but settled them at home. I mean the suits about money; for those against adulterers and temple-robbers and murderers, from the neglect of which pollution grows, he urged not only to bring out but to thrust forth from Smyrna, for they needed a judge with a sword. And the charge brought against him by the multitude — that when he travelled many beasts of burden followed him, and many horses, and many slaves, and many breeds of dogs for various kinds of hunting, while he himself rode in a chariot drawn by some Phrygian or Celtic team with silver bridles — this won renown for Smyrna; for a city is made brilliant by its market and the magnificent furnishing of its buildings, but it is made brilliant also by a prosperous house; for not only does a city give a man a name, but it also wins one for itself from a man. Polemo cared also for Laodicea, frequently visiting his own house there and benefiting it in public matters as much as he could.

25.3. His honors from the emperors were such as these. Trajan the emperor granted him to travel free of charge by land and sea; Hadrian extended this to all his descendants, and enrolled him too in the circle of the Museum for the Egyptian maintenance; and at Rome, when twenty-five myriads were demanded, he paid over this money although Polemo had neither said that he needed it nor given prior notice that he would give it. And when Smyrna accused him of having laid out for his own pleasure much of the money bestowed on them by the emperor, the emperor sent a letter composed thus: "Polemo has rendered me an account of the money bestowed on you by me." Even if someone shall call this an act of pardon, it surely was not possible for him to find that pardon over the money except by his preeminence in the rest of his virtue. And when the emperor had consecrated the Olympieum at Athens, completed after five hundred and sixty years, as a great achievement of time, he bade Polemo too pronounce the hymn over the sacrifice. And he, as was his custom, fixing his eyes upon the thoughts already presenting themselves, gave himself up to his speech, and from the foundation-platform of the temple discoursed much and marvellously, making the opening of his speech the statement that his impulse concerning it had not come without the gods. The emperor reconciled to him also his own son Antoninus, in the handing over of the scepter when he was becoming a god from a mortal. What this was, I must make plain. Antoninus governed all Asia together, and lodged in the house of Polemo as the best in Smyrna and that of the best man; but Polemo, coming home by night from abroad, cried out at the doors that he was suffering grievously, being shut out of his own house, and then he compelled Antoninus to remove to another house. The emperor knew of this, but asked nothing about it, that the wound might not be reopened; rather, considering the times after his own and that often those who attend upon and provoke even gentle natures call them forth, he feared for Polemo; on which account, in his testament concerning the empire, he said, "And Polemo the sophist was the counsellor of this my purpose" — by this preparing in abundance the way to obtain pardon, as for a benefactor to whom thanks were due. And Antoninus jested with Polemo about the affairs at Smyrna, indicating, no doubt, that he had not forgotten them, but by his honors on each occasion he raised him to greatness, giving a pledge, as it were, that he did not remember them. He jested thus: when Polemo came to the city, Antoninus embraced him and said, "Give Polemo a lodging, and let no one cast him out of it." And when a tragic actor, from the Olympic games in Asia over which Polemo presided, said that he was appealing, since he had been driven out by Polemo at the beginning of the play, the emperor asked the actor what hour it was when he was driven from the stage, and when he said that it happened to be midday, the emperor very wittily said, "But me he drove out of his house about midnight, and I did not appeal."

25.4. Let these things stand as a showing of a gentle emperor and a high-spirited man. For Polemo was so high-spirited that he discoursed with cities from a position of superiority, with potentates without abasement, and with the gods on equal terms. For when he displayed extempore speeches to the Athenians, on the occasion of his first coming to Athens, he did not set himself to praise of the city, many as are the things one might say on behalf of the Athenians, nor did he speak at length about his own reputation, although such a style too is profitable to sophists in their displays; but knowing well that one must check rather than exalt the natures of the Athenians, he discoursed thus: "They say, men of Athens, that you are wise hearers of speeches. I shall find out." And when a man who had ruled the Bosporus and had been fashioned in all Greek education came, in his study of Ionia, to Smyrna, Polemo not only did not place himself among his attendants, but, when the man begged to keep company with him, repeatedly put him off, until he forced the king to come to his doors, bringing with him ten talents as a fee. And when he came to Pergamon, at the time when he was sick in his joints, he slept in the temple, and when Asclepius stood beside him and bade him abstain from cold drink, Polemo said, "My good sir, what if you were treating an ox?"

25.5. This greatness and loftiness of spirit he drew from Timocrates the philosopher, having kept company with him for four years when he came to Ionia. And it is not amiss to make Timocrates too known. This man was from the Pontus, and his fatherland was Heraclea, whose people praise the customs of the Greeks; and at first he philosophized about the medical kind of discourse, knowing well the doctrines of Hippocrates and Democritus, but when he had heard Euphrates of Tyre, he let himself go with full sails into that man's philosophy. He was so much more choleric than was moderate that, as he discoursed, his beard and the hair on his head used to rise up, like those of lions in their charges. His tongue was easy and vehement and ready, on which account he was of the greatest worth to Polemo, who welcomed such an impetuosity of speech. At any rate, when a quarrel arose for Timocrates with Scopelianus, on the ground that he had given himself over to pitch and to hair-pluckers, the youth that frequented Smyrna was divided, but Polemo, hearing both, became a partisan of Timocrates, calling him the father of his own tongue. And when he was making his defense to him over the speeches against Favorinus too, he shrank back warily and submissively, like those boys who fear the blows from their teachers if they have committed any disorder.

25.6. This same submissiveness he used toward Scopelianus too at a later time, when he was chosen to go on an embassy on behalf of the Smyrnaeans, and asked, as for the arms of Achilles, for that man's persuasiveness. With Herodes the Athenian he kept company partly from submissiveness, partly from a superior position. How this too came about I wish to make plain, for it is noble and worthy of remembrance. Herodes was passionately fond of extempore speaking, more than of being thought a consul and of consular descent; and not yet knowing Polemo, he had come to Smyrna to keep company with the man at the time when he himself was setting in order the free cities. Embracing him and greeting him warmly, at the same moment as he took his mouth from his mouth, he said, "When, father, shall we hear you?" And Herodes supposed that he would put off the hearing, saying that he shrank from running the risk before such a man; but Polemo, with no pretense, said, "Hear me today, and let us go." When he heard this, Herodes says he was astounded at the man, that his tongue too was extempore, and his judgment. This shows the high spirit of the man, and, by Zeus, the wisdom with which he used the astonishment; but the following shows his self-control and decorum: for when Herodes came to the display, Polemo received him with long praise, worthy of the words and deeds of Herodes.

25.7. The stage-manner of the man, which he used in his declamations, one may learn both from Herodes, in one of his letters to Varus, and I too will make it plain from there. He came to his displays with a relaxed and confident countenance, but he was carried in on a litter, since his joints were already destroyed. And he considered his themes not in public, but withdrawing from the crowd for a short time. His voice was brilliant and intense, and a marvellous resonance rang out from his tongue. Herodes says too that he leaped up from his chair at the climaxes of his themes, so great was the impulse that overflowed in him, and that when he had rounded off a period, he brought the final clause of it with a smile, indicating how much he spoke without effort, and that he pawed the ground in the passages of his themes no less than the horse of Homer. He says that one hears him on the first day as a judge does, on the next as lovers do, and on the third as those who marvel do — for indeed he kept company with him for three days. Herodes records too the themes upon which he kept company with him. The first, then, was Demosthenes swearing off a bribe of fifty talents which Demades was bringing against him, on the ground that Alexander had sent word of it to the Athenians from the accounts of Darius; the next was breaking up the Greek trophies, the Peloponnesian war having come to a settlement; the third of the themes was bringing the Athenians, after Aegospotami, back into their demes. Concerning this Herodes says that he sent him fifteen myriads, calling them the fee for the hearing, and that when Polemo did not accept it, he himself thought he had been slighted, but that Munatius the critic, who was drinking with him — and this man was from Tralles — said, "Herodes, it seems to me that Polemo dreamed of twenty-five myriads, and thinks himself the less by that amount by which you did not send so much." Herodes says that he added the ten, and that Polemo took them eagerly, as one recovering a debt. Herodes granted Polemo this too — not to come forward before him to a display of speeches, nor to contend against him, but to drive out of Smyrna by night, lest he should be forced; for he thought it bold even to be forced. And throughout the rest of his time he continued to praise Polemo and to set him beyond wonder; for at Athens, having contended brilliantly in the contest about the trophies, and being admired for the impetus of his speech, he said, "Read the declamation of Polemo and you will know a man." And at Olympia, when Greece cried out over him, "You are one like Demosthenes," he said, "Would that I were like the Phrygian" — so naming Polemo, since at that time Laodicea was reckoned with Phrygia. And when Marcus the emperor said to him, "What do you think of Polemo?" Herodes, fixing his eyes, said, "The din of swift-footed horses strikes about my ears" — indicating, no doubt, the resounding and high-sounding quality of his speeches. And when Varus the consul too asked him what teachers he had used, he said, "Under this one and that I was taught, but under Polemo I was already teaching."

25.8. Polemo says that he heard Dio also, having made a journey for this purpose to the nation of the Bithynians. Polemo used to say that the works of prose writers must be carried out on the shoulders, but those of the poets in wagons. And the following too is among the things that bring honor to Polemo. Smyrna was in dispute about the temples and the rights attaching to them, having made Polemo her advocate when he had now come to the end of his life. But when he died at the very impulse of the journey on behalf of these rights, the city fell to other advocates, and as they argued the case poorly in the imperial court, the emperor, looking toward the advocates of the Smyrnaeans, said, "Was not Polemo appointed advocate to you for this contest?" "Yes," they said, "if you mean the sophist." And the emperor said, "Perhaps, then, he composed some speech on behalf of the rights, seeing that he was to contend before me and over such great matters." "Perhaps, O Emperor," they said, "but not for us to know." And the emperor granted adjournments to the suit, until the speech should be brought; and when it had been read in the court, the emperor gave judgment in accordance with it, and Smyrna went off victorious in the precedence, and they said that Polemo had come back to life for them.

25.9. Since of distinguished men not only the things said in earnest are worthy of record, but also those said in their lighter moments, I will record too the witticisms of Polemo, so that not even these may appear to have been passed over. An Ionian youth was living luxuriously at Smyrna beyond the ways of the Ionians, and deep wealth was destroying him, which is an evil teacher of undisciplined natures. The youth's name was Varus, and, corrupted by flatterers, he had persuaded himself that he was the fairest of the fair, and taller than the tall, and of those about the wrestling-school the noblest and most skilled, and that not even the Muses would strike up more sweetly than he, whenever he turned to singing. He thought much the same about the sophists too, for he supposed that he could ride past even their tongues whenever he declaimed — and declaim he did — and those who borrowed money from him used to add to the interest the obligation of hearing him declaim. Polemo too was being brought under this tribute, while he was still young and not yet sick, for he had borrowed money from him; and since he did not pay court to him, nor go to his hearings, the youth was difficult and threatened "notices." Now the "notices" are a written warning of the market, announcing a default judgment against the man who does not pay. So when Polemo's relatives blamed him as disagreeable and ill-tempered, since, when it was in his power not to be dunned and to make profit from the youth by giving him a kindly nod, he did not do this, but called him forth and provoked him, hearing such things he went to the hearing; but when, late in the afternoon, the declamation was proceeding and no harbor of the speech appeared, and everything was full of solecisms and barbarisms and contradictions, Polemo leaped up and, holding out his two hands, said, "Varus, bring on your notices." When a proconsul was racking a brigand who had been convicted on many charges, and said he was at a loss what penalty might be worthy of the man's deeds, Polemo, happening to be by, said, "Order him to learn old things by heart." For although this sophist had learned very much by heart, he nonetheless considered learning by heart the most toilsome of the things in his training. And seeing a gladiator streaming with sweat and afraid of the contest for his life, he said, "You are in such anguish as if you were about to declaim." And meeting a sophist who was buying sausages and sprats and the cheap kinds of fish, he said, "My good fellow, it is not possible for one who feeds on these to play well the part of the high spirit of Darius and Xerxes." And when Timocrates the philosopher said to him that Favorinus had become a chattering thing, Polemo most wittily said, "And so has every old woman" — mocking his eunuch-like nature. And when an actor of tragedy, at the Olympic games in Asia, pointed to the earth at the words "O Zeus," and at "and Earth" raised his hand to heaven, Polemo, who was presiding over the games, drove him out of the contest, saying, "This man has committed a solecism with his hand." No more about these things; for even these suffice to make plain the charm of the man.

25.10. The style of Polemo's speeches is warm and full of contest and ringing clear, like the Olympic trumpet; and there shines upon it too the Demosthenic quality of judgment, and his dignified expression is not supine, but brilliant and breathing, as though from the tripod. Those, however, are mistaken about the man who say that he handled invectives best of the sophists, but defenses less well; for this argument is shown to be untrue both by this theme and that among those in which he makes a defense, but most of all by the Demosthenes who swears off the fifty talents. For having arranged a defense so difficult, he proved sufficient to the speech with amplitude and art. I see the same error also in those who think that he was carried away in the figured themes, hindered in his course as a horse in difficult ground, and that he excused himself from them with the very maxims of Homer: "For hateful to me as the gates of Hades is the man who hides one thing in his heart and says another." For this perhaps he said hinting and intimating the difficulty of such themes; but he contended best in those too, as is shown by the adulterer who is unveiled, and the Xenophon who claims to die for Socrates, and the Solon who asks to wipe out his own laws when Peisistratus had received his bodyguard, and the three Demosthenes speeches — the one presenting himself after Chaeronea, the one who seems to assess his own penalty at death over the Harpalus affair, and the one advising flight upon the triremes when Philip was advancing, although Aeschines had ratified a law that whoever mentioned the war should die. For in these most of all the themes brought forward by him in figured fashion, reins have been thrown upon the speech and the conceptions preserve their double meaning.

25.11. When he was often submitting to the physicians, as his joints were forming stones, he used to urge them, "Dig and cut the quarries of Polemo." And writing to Herodes about this disease, he wrote thus: "I must eat — I have no hands; I must walk — I have no feet; I must suffer pain — then I have both feet and hands." He died at about fifty-six years; and this measure of life, which to the other sciences is the beginning of old age, is to a sophist still youth, for this science, as it grows old, ripens wisdom. There is no tomb of his at Smyrna, even if several are spoken of; for some say that he was buried in the garden of the temple of Virtue, others not far from this by the sea, and there is a small temple and in it a statue of Polemo arrayed as he celebrated the rites upon the trireme, beneath which they say the man lies; others say in the courtyard of his house beneath the bronze statues. But none of these is true; for if he had died at Smyrna, he would not have been deemed unworthy of any of the marvellous temples among them, so as not to lie in it. But the following is truer: that he lies at Laodicea by the Syrian gates, where indeed the tombs of his ancestors are, and that he was buried while still living; for this he enjoined upon his dearest friends, and, lying in the tomb, he urged those who were closing the grave, "Bring it on, bring it on; let not the sun behold me silent." And to his relatives who were lamenting him he cried out, "Give me a body and I will declaim." With Polemo the things of Polemo came to an end; for those who came after him were indeed his kinsmen, but not such as to be examined against his excellence, except one man, of whom I shall speak a little later.

26.1. Nor let us forget Secundus the Athenian, whom some called "the splinter," as a carpenter's son. Secundus the sophist, then, was extraordinary in understanding, but unelaborate in exposition; and having educated Herodes, he came to a quarrel with him when he was already teaching, on which account Herodes used to jeer at him, adding the words, "Potter is angry with potter, and carpenter with orator." But when he died, Herodes both pronounced a speech over him and shed tears, although he died an old man. Worthy of remembrance about this man are several things, but most of all this theme: "Let him who began a faction be put to death, and let him who stopped a faction have a reward; the same man both began and stopped it, and asks for the reward." This theme he abridged thus: he said, "Well then — what came first? The stirring up of the faction. What second? The stopping of it. Having paid, then, the penalty for what you did wrong, take, if you can, the reward for the good you have done." Such was this man; and he is buried near Eleusis, on the right of the road to Megara.