LYSIAS (458-378 B. C.)

THE FATHER OF NATURAL ORATORY

T

HERE was abundant oratory before the days of Lysias, but he stands first among the ancient orators whose works still exist, otherwise than in fragments. Thucydides gives us in his history orations attributed to Pericles and others, but these may have been largely the work of his own hand. The dying speech of Socrates comes to us only in Plato's works, and we do not know that it was not of his own invention. But of the orations of Lysias thirty-five still exist-some perhaps spurious, but most of them doubtless his own. The great credit of Lysias is that he broke away from the artificial manner of the previous schools of oratory, and developed a new, forcible and natural manner. The diction of Lysias is eminently graceful, pure and conspicuous. "He resembles," says Quintilian, "rather a pure fountain than a great river." He employs only the simplest language, yet has the happy art of giving to every subject treated an air of dignity and importance. As a rule, however, he excels in elegance and persuasion, rather than in vigor of declamation; though this is not the case in the example quoted. Lysias was born at Athens, the most celebrated city of Greece, about 458 B. C. He traveled among other Grecian cities and the Grecian colonies of the Mediterranean During his travels he studied rhetoric and oratory.

THE CRIMES OF ERATOSTHENES

[The great sum of the orations of Lysias relate to private matters. Of those extant only one is on a public theme, the arraignment of Eratosthenes. The occasion of this may be briefly stated. Lysias, after residing for years in Italy, returned to Athens, which was then under the rule of what are known in history as the Thirty Tyrants. He and his brother opposed these civic magnates, the result being that his brother was executed, and he had to fly for his life. After these tyrants were expelled be returned to Athens and became a composer of orations for others. Eratosthenes,

one of the expelled tyrants, returned and asked amnesty from the court. During the trial Lysias came into Court and denounced the assassin of his brother in a burst of simple and passionate eloquence, which must have had a great effect on his hearers. In this he first broke from the stilted manner previously existing into his natural later style of speech. We give an illustrative passage from this oration.]

It is an easy matter, O Athenians, to begin this accusation. But to end it without doing injustice to the cause will be attended with no small difficulty. For the crimes of Eratosthenes are not only too atrocious to describe, but too many to enumerate. No exaggeration can exceed, and within the time assigned for this discourse it is impossible fully to represent them. This trial, too, is attended with another singularity. In other causes it is usual to ask the accusers: "What is your resentment against the defendants?" But here you must ask the defendant: "What was your resentment against your country? What malice did you bear your fellow-citizens? Why did you rage with unbridled fury against the State itself?"

The time has now indeed come, Athenians, when, insensible to pity and tenderness, you must be armed with just severity against Eratosthenes and his associates. What avails it to have conquered them in the field, if you be overcome by them in your councils? Do not show them more favor for what they boast they will perform, than resentment for what they have already committed. Nor, after having been at so much pains to become masters of their persons, allow them to escape without suffering that punishment which you once sought to inflict; but prove yourselves worthy of that good fortune which has given you power over your enemies.

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The contest is very unequal between Eratosthenes and you. Formerly he was both judge and accuser; but we, even while we accuse, must at the same time make our defense. Those who were innocent he put to death without trial. To those who are guilty we allow the benefit of law, though no adequate punishment can ever be inflicted. For should we sacrifice them and their children, would this compensate for the murder of your fathers, your sons, and your brothers? Should we deprive them of their property, would this indemnify the individuals whom they have beggared, or the State which they have plundered? Though they cannot suffer a punishment adequate to their demerit, they ought not, surely, on this account, to escape. Yet how matchless is the effrontery of Eratosthenes, who, being now judged by the very persons whom he formerly injured, still ventures to make his defense before the witnesses of his crimes? What can show more evidently the contempt in which he holds you, or the confidence which he reposes in others?

Let me now conclude with laying before you the miseries to which you were reduced, that you may see the necessity of taking punishment on the authors of them. And first, you who remained in the city, consider the severity of their government. You were reduced to such a situa tion as to be forced to carry on a war, in which, if you were conquered, you partook indeed of the same liberty with the conquerors; but if you proved victorious, you remained under the slavery of your magistrates. As to you of the Piræus, you will remember that though you never lost your arms in the battles which you fought, yet you suffered by these men what your foreign enemies could never accomplish, and at home, in times. of peace, were disarmed by your fellow-citizens. By them you were banished from the country left you by your fathers. Their rage, knowing no abatement, pursued you abroad, and drove you from one territory to another. Recall the cruel indignities which you suffered; how you were dragged from the tribunal and the altars; how no place, however sacred, could shelter you against their violence. Others, torn from their wives, their children, their parents, after putting an end to their miserable lives, were deprived of funeral rites; for these tyrants imagined their government to be so firmly established that even the vengeance of the gods was unable to shake it.

But it is impossible for one, or in the course of one trial, to enumerate the means which were employed to undermine the power of this State, the arsenals which were demolished, the temples sold or profaned, the citizens banished or murdered, and those whose dead bodies were impiously left uninterred. Those citizens now watch your decree, uncertain whether you will prove accomplices of their death or avengers of their murder. I shall desist from any further accusations. You have heard, you have seen, you have experienced. Decide then!

The port of Athens.

ISOCRATES (436-338 B. C.)

ATHENS SILVER-TONGUED ORATOR

I

SOCRATES lived at the same time with Lysias and rivalled him in fame, his style resembling that of Lysias in purity and correctness, though it is more round and full in its periods, while his orations have a power in their full stream of harmonious diction which is found in no earlier work of rhetoric. The ancient estimate of his powers is shown by the statue of a siren erected in his tomb, in indication of his sweetness. Like his fellow orators, his speeches were not extemporaneous, but were elaborated with great care. He is said to have spent ten years in composing and polishing one oration. Of his productions, twenty-one are extant. He opened a school of oratory at Athens, and numbered among his pupils many men of later prominence. He lived to be ninety-eight years of age, and died then from voluntary starvation, occasioned by his grief at the fatal battle in which Philip of Macedon overthrew the power of Athens.

FLATTERY MORE POWERFUL THAN TRUTH

[The orations of Isocrates may be classified as didactic, persuasive, laudatory, and forensic. We select from Dinsdale's translation, a passage illustrative of his method. It may be said further that his weak voice and natural timidity prevented him from becoming a public speaker himself, his orations being written for others, or for delivery by chosen speakers on important political occasions.]

Those who come hither are used to say that those things which they are going to speak of are of the noblest nature, and worthy the city's utmost attention; but if there ever was a time when this might be said of any affairs, methinks that I now handle deserves such an exordium. We are assembled to deliberate about peace and war, which are of the highest importance in human life; and those who consult maturely are more successful than others. The importance, therefore, of our present subject is of this high nature.

Now I have frequently observed that you make a great difference between orators, and are attentive to some but cannot suffer the voice of others. This is in reality no just wonder, for in former times you used to reject all such as did not flatter your inclinations; which, I think, deserves an impartial blame; for, though you know many private houses have been entirely ruined by flatteries, and detest such persons as in their private affairs conduct themselves in this manner; yet you are not disposed yourselves in the same manner in regard of the public amendment, but, finding fault with the censor, and taking pleasure in flatteries, you seem to put more confidence in such than in other citizens. And you yourselves have been a cause that the orators study and meditate not so much what will be beneficial to the State, as what will please your hope and expectation, for which a crowd of them is now flocked together; as it is evident to all that you take more pleasure in those who exhort you to war than to such as give you more peaceable counsels.

You have met to choose, as it becomes you, the wisest measures; and though you do not know what is best to be done, yet you will hear none but such as flatter you. But if you truly have the State's good at heart, you ought rather to be attentive to those who oppose your sentiments, than to such as fall in with your humors and weaknesses; for you cannot be ignorant that those who practice such artifices are the most likely to deceive you, since artful flattery easily closes the eye to truth and sincerity. But you can never suffer such prejudice from those who speak the plain, naked truth, for such cannot persuade you but by the clear demonstrations of utility.

THE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD GOVERNMENT

[The "Areopagiticus" is one of the public discourses of Isocrates in which he deals with the home affairs of Athens. We offer the following extract, in which the good government of the past is offered as an example for the future.]

Such was the authority to which, as I have said, they entrusted the maintenance of good order, which considered that those were in error who imagined that a community in which the laws were framed with the greatest exactness produced the best men. For, if this were so, there could be nothing to prevent all the Hellenes* being on the same level, so far as the facility of adopting one another's written laws is concerned. They, on the contrary, knew that virtue is not promoted by the laws, but by the habits of daily life, and that most people turn out men of like character to those in whose midst they have severally been brought up. For, where there are a number of laws drawn up with great exactitude, it *The Greeks-so called because they are believed to be descended from a mythical personage named Hellen.