[1]: Cf. Isoc. 5.1.
[2]: See General Introd. p. xxxi.
[3]: Like the Encomium on Helen See General Introd. p. xxxi, and Burgess, Epideictic Literature.
[4]: The term “sophist” is used loosely throughout the discourse, sometimes as the equivalent of wise man, but more often, as here, of a professional teacher of philosophy and oratory. See General Introd. p. xii, note a .
[5]: See General Introd. p. xx, and note c .
[6]: The “gold and ivory” statue of Athena which stood in the Parthenon.
[7]: Zeuxis and Parrhasius sojourned in Athens about 400 B.C.
[8]: Literally, painters of votive tablets set up in temples as thank-offerings for deliverance from sickness or from dangers on the sea. Cf. Tibullus 1.3.27-28: nunc, dea, nunc succurre mihi, nam posse mederi/picta docet templis multa tabella tuis.
[9]: The kind of oratory to which Isocrates devoted himself. See General Introd. p. xxiv.
[10]: See General Introd. p. xviii.
[11]: It was a favorite device in the Athenian Courts to warn the jury against the adversary as δεινὸς λέγειν. Cf. Plat. Apol. 17b.
[12]: Cf. Horace Odes 3.30.1: monumentum aere perennius. Cf. Isoc. 9.73 ff. A bronze statue was erected to Isocrates by his pupil Timotheus. See General Introd. p. xxix.
[13]: For the sycophants see Isoc. 8.128, note.
[14]: “To make trouble ”— πράγματα παρέχειν—was the common phrase for the persecution of the sycophants. Cf. 15.
[15]: For this apology cf. Isoc. 5.149; Isoc. 12.4; Isoc. Letter 6.6.
[16]: Cf. Isoc. 12.Isocrates, through writing for a reading public, habitually uses the language of a discourse to be delivered. See General Introd. p. xxx.
[17]: The stock charge against rhetoric and oratory from Corax and Tisias down. Cf. Plat. Apol. 19b; Aristoph. Cl. 874 ff.
[18]: The outstanding instance is the decree passed by the General Assembly, condemning to death without due process of law, the Athenian generals who were in command at the battle of Arginusae. After the execution of the sentence, the people repented of their haste and called to account the leading instigators of this irregular procedure. See Xen. Hell. 1.7.35; Plat. Apol. 32; Grote, History vol. vii. pp. 446-447.
[19]: Athenian juries not infrequently made noisy demonstrations of their prejudices. See Plat. Apol. 30c; Aristoph. Wasps 624.
[20]: The Athenians appear to have worshipped Ἔλεος, Goddess of Pity. See Schol. to Soph. OC 261.
[21]: The reference seems to be to some custom somewhere by which in capital cases a number of the votes of the jury were at the outset of the trial given by grace to the defendant. No such custom is, so far as I know, mentioned anywhere else.
[22]: Isocrates, like Socrates (Plat. Apol. 37a-b), complains that defendants on a capital charge in other states were given a better chance.
[23]: Cf. Isoc. 8.3; Dem. 18.1-2.
[24]: Compare the opposite ideal in Isoc. 7.24; Isoc. 4.76; Isoc. 12.145 ff.
[25]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 17d. Isocrates repeatedly echoes the defense of Socrates. See General Introd. p. xvii and Vasold, Ueber das Verhältniss der isocrateischen Rede Περὶ ἀντιδόσεως Platons Apologia Socratis.
[26]: The distinction between ὕβρις(violence) and ἀδικία(injury) is hardly technical. It seems to be between crimes of personal violence, such as assault, and other offenses against the law in general.
[27]: Certain issues might be kept out of court by being referred to an arbitrator, either agreed upon by the parties concerned or designated by lot from the public arbitrators provided for by law. See Lipsius, Das attische Recht p. 220 ff.
[28]: Isocrates seems to pretend throughout that he, like Socrates, is being tried on a capital charge.
[29]: Here, as elsewhere, Isocrates preserves the fiction of a court scene by calling upon the clerk to read the formal charge.
[30]: An echo of Plat. Apol. 23c-d.
[31]: See General Introd. p. xxix.
[32]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 33d.
[33]: See General Introd. p. xx.
[34]: The συνέδριον, a board made up of the six junior archons called Thesmothetae, had jurisdiction over a large number of offenses against the state.
[35]: The ἀνάκρισις was any preliminary hearing before an appropriate magistrate.
[36]: The regular Heliastic jury-panels. See Isoc. 7.54, note.
[37]: Cf. Isoc. 15.27, note.
[38]: There is a story that Isocrates charged no fees to Athenian pupils.
[39]: See Isocrates, Vol. I. p. 39, L.C.L.
[40]: Elsewhere called disputation (“eristic”). See General Introd. p. xxi.
[41]: See General Introd. p. xxiv.
[42]: Cf. Isoc. 4.11-12.
[43]: The language of this sentence is reminiscent of Plat. Apol. 20d-e.
[44]: Cf. the boast in Isoc. 4.14.
[45]: No case could occupy more than one day, and the speakers were limited in time by the clepsydra or water-clock.
[46]: That is, in making an epideictic lecture or show speech.
[47]: That is, those of the jury who had not “read these discourses many times.”
[48]: Isoc. 4.51-99
[49]: Isoc. 8.25-56; Isoc. 8.132-145
[50]: See Vol. I. p. 3, note a.
[51]: The earliest known MSS. omit the rest of the Isoc. 15.310 ff. up to the peroration, and so did the earlier editions. Mustoxydis discovered the complete Isoc. 15in MSS. E and Θ, and published the first modern edition of the entire discourse in 1812. See General Introd. pp. xlviii-xlix.
[52]: Isoc. 3.14-39
[53]: See Isoc. 15.51.
[54]: Cf. Isoc. 4.39-40.
[55]: See General lntrod. p. xxxii.
[56]: Cf. Isoc. 4.32 ff.
[57]: These are the “eristics.” See General Introd. pp. xxi, xxv.
[58]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 33a-b.
[59]: For the pupils of Isocrates see Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit 2 pp. 17 ff.
[60]: It was common in the fourth century for Athens to recognize public services in this way. Cf. the contest between Demosthenes and Aeschines On the Crown.
[61]: In the Prytaneum were entertained at state expense honored guests and benefactors of Athens. See Plat. Apol. 36d, which has clearly inspired this passage.
[62]: An offer to yield the floor to an opponent followed by a pause, as here, is common in court pleas. Cf. Plat. Apol. 34a.
[63]: Timotheus, the son of Conon and the favorite pupil of Isocrates, was first appointed to an important command in 378 B.C. From that time on for twenty-two years he was one of the prominent generals in Athenian campaigns. In 357 he was associated with Iphicrates, Menestheus, and Chares in command of the Athenian navy. For his alleged misconduct in this command he was tried in Athens (356 B.C. according to Diodorus) and condemned to pay an enormous fine of 100 talents. See § 129 and note. Unable to pay this, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died shortly after. See Grote, History, vol. xi. pp. 27 ff. The eulogy of Timotheus here is a characteristic “digression.” See General lntrod. p. xvi.
[64]: See Isoc. 15.94.
[65]: Special taxes levied for military purposes.
[66]: Sixty, according to Xen. Hell. 5.4.63.
[67]: This campaign took place in 375. It was followed up the next year by a peace patched up between Athens and Sparta. Nothing is known about the terms of this peace, but in any case it was promptly broken. See Grote, History, vol. ix. pp. 348 ff. Isocrates seems to refer, not to that temporary truce, but to the important “Peace of Callias” in 371, which virtually gave Athens the command of the sea, limiting Sparta to the land, and weakening her, according to Isocrates, for the decisive clash with the Theban power at Leuctra in the same year. See Grote, History, vol. ix. pp. 381 ff.
[68]: The southern cape of the Peloponnesus.
[69]: Captured by Timotheus in 366 B.C. For the campaign see Grote, History, vol. x. pp. 54 ff.
[70]: Pericles was one of the generals who put down the revolt of Samos from the Athenian Confederacy in 440 B.C. See Thuc. 1.116.
[71]: Sestos and Crithôte were acquired for Athens by Timotheus as a part of the Samos (Asia Minor) campaign.
[72]: The “Thracian” campaign, in the course of which he won over the cities in the Chalcidean peninsula, took place in 365-364. See Grote, History, vol. x. pp. 60 ff.
[73]: With specific reference to Chares, the rival and enemy of Timotheus. See Plut. Mor. 187-188.
[74]: Cf. Isoc. 7.2 and note.
[75]: Cf. Isoc. 12.259.
[76]: He happened to be in command of the Spartan forces when the Athenian empire crumpled at the battle of Aegospotami.
[77]: In the campaign against Byzantium, which was aided by the Chians and their allies (357 B.C.), a conflict arose between Chares and the other commanders of the Athenian fleet, Timotheus, Iphicrates, and Menestheus, Iphicrates’ son. Chares persisted in carrying out a plan of attack which had been agreed upon but which the others abandoned on account of a storm. Unsupported in this, he was defeated. Returning to Athens, he then charged his colleagues with treason and corruption. In the trial Iphicrates shouldered the responsibility for the campaign, and Menestheus gave a full accounting for the receipts and expenditures. They were acquitted, while Timotheus, never popular with the demos, was fined 100 talents. See § 101, note. Isocrates’ version of the facts is generally accepted. See Grote, History, vol. xi. pp. 30 ff.
[78]: This recalls the poetic commonplace on the immortality lent by literature, for example in the familiar lines of Horace (Hor. Odes 4.9.25-28): vixere fortes ante Agamemnona/ multi; sed omnes inlacrimabiles/ urgentur ignotique longa/ nocte, carent quia vate sacro.
[79]: The voting of Athenian juries was by secret ballot. Cf. Isoc. 7.34.
[80]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 17d.
[81]: Isocrates married Plathane, the widow of Hippias of Elis, and adopted her son Aphareus. So far as we know, he had no children of his own. See Jebb, Attic Orators vol. ii. p. 30.
[82]: The twelve hundred richest citizens in Athens paid the special tax levies for war purposes and performed at private expense the ”liturgies” (public services), such as standing the expense of the training of a chorus for the drama or of fitting out a ship of war (trierarchy). See Gilbert, Greek Constitutional Antiquities p. 371.
[83]: Cf. Isoc. 12.12-13. Havet (Introd. to Cartelier’s Antidosis p. xlix) contrasts the dignity of the discourses of Isocrates with the personalities and recriminations characteristic of the public orators of his day.
[84]: Cf. Isoc. 12.12.
[85]: For example, by presenting himself for service on the juries and drawing pay for this. Cf. Isoc. 7.24 and note.
[86]: See Isoc. 7.54, note. Cf. Isoc. 7.24.
[87]: So Socrates, in Plato’s Apology, addresses first one group of the jury, then the other.
[88]: See General Introd. p. xii.
[89]: See Isoc. 8.117.
[90]: He lived one hundred and seven years according to Cicero, De senect. v.
[91]: A gold coin about equal in value to the guinea.
[92]: Popular actors, especially in comedy, received high pay. See Böckh, Public Economy of Athens p. 120.
[93]: Contrast the conditions described in Isoc. 7.34 ff.
[94]: See General Introd. p. xi.
[95]: See 8, note.
[96]: Of Pindar’s encomium on Athens there is preserved a fragment (76 (46)): Ὦ ταὶ λιπαραὶ καὶ ἰοστέφανοι καὶ ἀοίδιμοι, Ἑλλάδος ἔρεισμα, κλειναὶ Ἀθᾶναι, δαιμόνιον πτολίεθρον “O splendid, violet-crowned, famed in song, glorious/ Athens, bulwark of Hellas, a wondrous city.”
[97]: ”Friend of the city,“an honorary title conferred upon a foreigner by vote of the General Assembly, making him a sort of informal representative of Athens in his own country, and entitling him to special privileges and courtesies in Athens. See Gilbert, Greek Constitutional Antiquities pp. 181-182.
[98]: So Socrates (Plat. Apol. 32d) tones down an assertion which might otherwise have sounded over-heroic.
[99]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 17b ff.
[100]: Literally, I desire first to discuss the art of discourse after the manner of the genealogists.
[101]: The distinction usually drawn, in Plato for instance, between δόξα and ἐπιστήμη, the one “opinion,” the other “knowledge,” is not exactly that made by Isocrates. δόξα is here, not irresponsible opinion, but a working theory based on practical experience—judgement or insight in dealing with the uncertain contingencies of any human situation which presents itself. In this realm, he holds, there can be no exact science. Cf. Isoc. 15.271; Isoc. 13.1-3. See General Introd. pp. xxii, xxvii.
[102]: For Isocrates’ view as to the elements which produce the successful orator see General Introd. p. xxiv.
[103]: Isocrates here mentions qualifications which he himself lacked, voice and assurance. See Isoc. 5.8l; Isoc. 12.10.
[104]: Isoc. 13.14-18
[105]: The earlier compositions are more finished as to rhythm and musical quality. See Isoc. 5.27.
[106]: That is, champions in the contests of oratory.
[107]: As distinguished from the professional life of public orators and teachers of oratory. Cf. 204.
[108]: Cf. 253; Isoc. 8.114.
[109]: See General Introd. p. xxvi.
[110]: See Isoc. 2.12 and note, Vol. I. p. 47.
[111]: That is, teachers of wisdom. He means so-called sophists, such as teachers of forensic skill, who bring all sophists into disrepute.
[112]: For Solon and Cleisthenes as authors of Athenian democracy see Isoc. 7.16.
[113]: For the Amphictyonic Council see Isoc. 5.74, note. The family of the Alcmaeonidae, to which Cleisthenes belonged, won the favor of this council by their aid in rebuilding the temple of Apollo which had been burned in 548 B.C. The story that Cleisthenes and his party got funds from the Amphictyony is found also in Dem. 21.144. But the facts are confused; see Beloch, Griechische Geschichte vol. ii. p. 387.
[114]: The commander of the Athenian fleet at the battle of Salamis.
[115]: See Isoc. 4.96; Isoc. 6.43.
[116]: See Isoc. 8.126.
[117]: The term “sophists” here is equivalent to “wise men” ( σοφοί). The list of the “Seven Sages” varied, but Solon was always included.
[118]: For the relation of Pericles to Anaxagoras see Plut. Per.
[119]: See Plat. Lach. 180d.
[120]: When a case was accepted for trial, the appropriate court fixed a day for the preliminary hearing, and published the charge on white tablets set up in the market place. See Lipsius, Das attische Recht p. 820. The “Thesmothetae” (see 38, note) were responsible for bringing to trial mainly offenders against the state, including sycophants. See Lipsius, Das attische Recht pp. 374 ff. The “Eleven,” besides being a board for the care of prisons and for the execution of condemned criminals, dealt with malefactors such as robbers, burglars, pickpockets, kidnappers, etc. See Lipsius, Das attische Recht p. 78. “The Forty,” four selected by lot from each of the ten tribes, had jurisdiction over the great mass of private litigation, involving mainly property rights (torts), themselves settling without more ado all petty cases involving sums not exceeding ten drachmas. See Lipsius, Das attische Recht pp. 8l ff.
[121]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 33d.
[122]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 34a-b.
[123]: Cf. Isoc. 8.131.
[124]: No love was lost between Athens and Thebes, and to the Athenians the Thebans were proverbial for their stupidity. Cf. Plut. Mor. 995e: τοὺς γὰρ Βοιωτοὺς ἡμᾶς οἱ Ἀττικοὶ καὶ παχεῖς καὶ ἀναισθήτους καὶ ἠλιθιους, μάλιστα διὰ τὰς ἀδηφαγίας προσαγορεύουσιν. Cf. Pind. O. 6.148-153; Cicero, De fato4; Horace, Epist. 2.1.241-244.
[125]: Pausanias (Paus. 1.22.3) states that the worship of Πειθώ (Persuasion) was established in Athens by Theseus, and speaks of a statue of this goddess as once standing near the Acropolis. A special seat of honor was assigned to her priestess in the Theatre. See C.I.A. iii. 351.
[126]: Cf. the opening paragraph of Isoc. 4.1 and note.
[127]: The rendering is here doubtful. Literally it is “through wisdom of a man.” Possibly Isocrates has in mind Pericles and the triumphs of Athens under his administration. Supporting the rendering “of a man” is Isoc. 7.11.
[128]: The same point is made in Isoc. 3.3-4. Cf. Aristot. Rh. 1355b.
[129]: Cf. Isoc. 4.48.
[130]: 253-257 are quoted from Isoc. 3.5-9.
[131]: The “eristics.” Cf. Isoc. Letter 5.3 ff. See General Introd. p. xxi. In this passage, as well as in Isoc. Letter 5.3 ff., he may be resenting the criticisms of the Aristotelians. See Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit ii. p. 65.
[132]: Compare Socrates’ views, Xen. Mem. 4.7.2 ff.
[133]: See Isoc. 12.26; General Introd. p. xxiii.
[134]: A broad term including the study of poetry.
[135]: Compare Callicles’ similar view about the study of philosophy in Plat. Gorg. 484c.
[136]: The fruitlessness of the speculations of the early philosophers (physicists) is shown, according to Isocrates, in the utter diversity of their views, for example, regarding the first principles or primary elements from which the world was created. At one extreme was Anaxagoras, who held that the primary elements were infinite in number; at the other was Gorgias, who in his nihilistic philosophy denied that there was any such thing as being or entity at all. Cf. Isoc. 10.3; Xen. Mem. 1.1.14 ff.; Plat. Soph. 242.
[137]: See General Introd. pp. xxvi ff.
[138]: See Isoc. 15.184 and note.
[139]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 38c.
[140]: Cf. Isoc. 13.21; Theog. 429 ff.; Xen. Mem. 1.2.19 ff.; Plat. Meno 95 ff.
[141]: Cf. Isoc. 13.15.
[142]: Compare his discussion of true advantage in Isoc. 3.2; Isoc. 8.28-35.
[143]: See General Introd. p. xxiv.
[144]: Cf. Aristot. Rh. 1356a: κυριωτάτη πίστις τὸ ἦθος.
[145]: Cf. Isoc. 15.275.
[146]: Cf. Isoc. 8.34.
[147]: Reminiscent of Thuc. 3.82 ff.
[148]: Cf. Isoc. 7.49.
[149]: Cf. Isoc. 7.50.
[150]: A famous spring near the Acropolis, first called Callirrhoe (Fair-flowing). Later, when enclosed and adorned by Pisistratus, it was called the Fountain of Nine Spouts. See Thuc. 2.15; Gardner, Ancient Athens p. 18.
[151]: The ransom of slaves captured in war. Isocrates is probably thinking of some notorious case.
[152]: The mina = 100 drachmas. A drachma was the standard wage of a day-laborer.
[153]: Cf. Isoc. 2.29; Plat. Gorg. 491.
[154]: Cf. Isoc. 3.6.
[155]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 29d.
[156]: Cf. Isoc. 4.48 ff. See Havet’s enthusiastic comment in Cartelier’s Isoc. 15. p. lviii. Cf. also Thuc. 2.41; Thuc. 7.63.
[157]: The Attic “dialect” was the least provincial of all, avoiding the extreme harshness of the Doric and the softness of the Ionic, and tended to be more and more the language of cultivated Greeks, until in the time of Alexander the Great it had broadened into the “common dialect,” ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος.
[158]: The best cavalrymen in Greece.
[159]: Cf. Isoc. 4.41.
[160]: The Spartans.
[161]: See Isoc. 4.1; Plat. Apol. 36d.
[162]: Cleisthenes.
[163]: Miltiades.
[164]: At the close of the Persian Wars, the Athenians returned to their city and, under the leadership of Themistocles, against the protest of the Lacedaemonians, built strong walls around Athens and around the harbor-town, the Piraeus. Later these two walled towns were connected by the building of the “long walls.”
[165]: Pericles. See 232-234, where all these, except Miltiades, are eulogized by name.
[166]: For example, a charge of deliberate murder could come only before the Court of the Areopagus. A charge against the sycophants, on the other hand, could be brought before the Thesmothetae (see 237, note), who prepared the case for trial before a Heliastic Court, in which case the charge was termed γραφή(indictment); or before the Senate of the Five Hundred, in which case the charge was called εἰσαγγελία(impeachment); or before the General Assembly, in which case the charge was termed προβολή(plaint). See Lipsius, Das attische Recht pp. 176 ff. This was, however, true of so many crimes that the point of Isocrates is rather rhetorical.
[167]: The term sycophant is applied here as elsewhere in Isocrates and the other orators to demagogic politicians.
[168]: From the time of the “reforms” of Ephialtes (see Isoc. 7.50: τοῖς ὀλίγῳ πρὸ ἡμῶν), and especially after the death of Pericles. Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 28) states: “So long, however, as Pericles was leader of the people, things went tolerably well with the State; but when he was dead there was a great change for the worse. Then for the first time did the people choose a leader who was of no reputation among the people of good standing, whereas up to this time men of good standing were always found as leaders of the democracy” (Kenyon’s translation). Aristotle goes on to say that Pericles was followed by such leaders as Cleon, the tanner—insolent demagogues who vied with each other in pandering to the mob.
[169]: That is, vigilance exercised by loud-mouthed demagogues is the price of liberty.
[170]: Cf. Dem. 13.173: ἔστι δ′ οὐδέποτ′, οἶμαι, δυνατὸν μικρὰ καὶ φαῦλα πράταττοντας μέγα καὶ νεανικὸν φρόνημα λαβεῖν.
[171]: The Athenian democracy since the days of Cleisthenes lived in continual fear of revolution. There remained a strong oligarchical party, supported by Sparta, and it was always easy to catch the ear of the Athenian demos by accusing anyone of oligarchical or Spartan sympathies. Cf. Isoc. 8.133.
[172]: Is he thinking particularily of Alcibiades?
[173]: Cf. Isoc. 12.13 and 142.
[174]: The Peloponnesian War.
[175]: First by the oligarchy of the Four Hundred in 411 B.C., secondly by the oligarchy of the Thirty Tyrants in 404 B.C., after the downfall of the Athenian Empire.
[176]: One of the terms of peace at the end of the war was that the “long walls” connecting Athens with the Piraeus should be torn down.
[177]: After her surrender to Sparta and the allies of Sparta at the close of the Peloponnesian War. See Isoc. 7.6 and note; Xen. Hell. 2.2.19-20. Cf. Isoc. 8.78, 105; Isoc. 14.23.
[178]: A Spartan garrison occupied the Acropolis during the reign of the Thirty.
[179]: The clepsydra or water-clock, which marked the time allowed to each speaker.
[180]: These pathetic scenes were a stock device in the court room—ridiculed by Aristophanes in the Wasps. Cf. Aristot. Rh. 1354a. Isocrates here echoes Plat. Apol. 34c.
[181]: Cf. Plat. Apol. 35d.