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THE GREEK ORATORS
THE
GREEK ORATORS
BY
J. F. DOBSON, M. A.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF BRISTOL
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1919_
PREFACE
The object of this book is to provide a reasonably short account of
the works of the Orators and to give a general idea of the style of
each. It seemed to me at the outset that this object could be best
attained, not by applying methods of scientific analysis, but by giving
numerous quotations from the speeches to emphasise the points which I
wished to bring out. I have therefore avoided as far as possible the
technicalities of criticism, and illustrated my remarks by translations
of characteristic passages, hoping thus to make my work easily accessible
not only to classical students, but also to others who, while generally
interested in the Classics, have not the time or the capacity to study
them in the original.
I have no idea of superseding the standard works on the subject, such
as Jebb’s _Attic Orators_ and Blass’ _Attische Beredsamkeit_, which
deal with the subject more fully and from a somewhat different point of
view. No student of the Orators can afford to neglect the works of these
scholars, but though I have frequently consulted them, I have by no
means considered myself bound by their opinions; in fact, my chief claim
to consideration is that my own judgments are entirely independent of
authority, and are based directly upon a first-hand study of the extant
writings of the Orators.
The chief work, in addition to the two above mentioned, to which I am
indebted is Croiset’s _Histoire de la Littérature Grecque_.
* * * * *
I have to thank Balliol College and the Clarendon Press for permission to
print extracts from Jowett’s _Plato_.
J. F. DOBSON
BRISTOL, _July 1919_
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ORATORY 1
II. ANTIPHON 19
III. THRASYMACHUS—ANDOCIDES 50
IV. LYSIAS 74
V. ISAEUS 103
VI. ISOCRATES 126
VII. MINOR RHETORICIANS 160
VIII. AESCHINES 163
IX. DEMOSTHENES 199
X. PHOCION, DEMADES, PYTHEAS 268
XI. LYCURGUS, HYPERIDES, DINARCHUS 271
XII. THE DECLINE OF ORATORY 308
INDEX 315
THE GREEK ORATORS
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF ORATORY
§ 1
Oratory is one of the earliest necessities of society; as soon as men
were organised on terms of equality for corporate action, there must have
been occasions when opinions might differ as to the best course to be
pursued, and, if there were no inspired king whose unquestioned authority
could impose his will, the majority must decide whether to flee or to
fight, to kill or to keep alive. Thus different plans must be discussed,
and, in cases where opinion was evenly balanced, that side would prevail
which could state its views most convincingly; and so the need for
deliberative oratory arose.
With the Greeks oratory was instinctive; in the earliest semi-historical
records that we possess, eloquence is found to be a gift prized not
less highly than valour in battle; the kings and princes are not only
‘renowned for their power,’ but are ‘leaders of the people by their
counsels, ... wise and eloquent in their instructions’; strength and
courage are the property of all, but the real leaders must be the
counsellors, βουλήφοροι ἄνδρες. Nestor, who is almost past the age for
fighting, is honoured among the first for his eloquence, and whereas
Achilles shares with many other warriors the glories of the _Iliad_,
Odysseus, fertile in counsel, is the chief subject of an entire poem. The
speech of Phœnix in the ninth book of the _Iliad_ shows us the ideals
which were aimed at in the education of a prince. He tells how he trained
the young Achilles to be a ‘speaker of words and a doer of deeds’;[1]
and Achilles, as we know him, well justified this training. The leading
characters in the Homeric poems are already fluent orators, able and
ready to debate intelligently on any concrete subject, and, moreover, to
seek guidance from general principles. Nestor makes frequent appeals to
historical precedent; Phœnix introduces allegorical illustration;[2] many
speakers refer to the sanctity of law and custom; though the particular
case is foremost in the mind, generalisations of various kinds are by
no means infrequent. The Homeric counsellor can urge his own arguments
and rebut those of his opponent with a natural facility of speech and
readiness of invective which even a polished wielder of personalities
like Demosthenes might envy.
From the spontaneous outpourings of Achilles and his peers to the studied
artifice of Lysias and Demosthenes is a long journey through unknown
country, and it is obvious that no definite course of development can be
traced; but a reference to Homer is of twofold importance. In the first
place, it may indicate that Greek oratory was obviously of native growth,
since the germs of it are to be found in the earliest annals; secondly,
Homer was studied with such devout reverence not only by the Athenian
orators themselves but by their immediate literary predecessors, the
cosmopolitan Sophists and the rhetoricians of Sicily, that his influence
may have been greater than would at first sight seem probable.
§ 2
The records of eloquence may be studied from various points of view,
which may be roughly classified under the headings ‘literary’ and
‘practical,’ though it is not always easy to keep the elements distinct.
A stylistic study of the writings of the Athenian orators must find a
place in any systematic work on the development of Attic prose, but in
a work like the present, which professes to deal with orators only,
such a study cannot be carried out with any attempt at completeness;
thus, while it may be possible to discuss the influence of Thucydides
or Plato on Demosthenes, there will be no room to consider how far the
historian himself may have been influenced directly by Antiphon, or the
philosopher by Gorgias, though a cursory indication may be given that
such influences were at work. When, however, we regard rhetoric not
for its literary value but as a practical art, our task becomes more
feasible; in literature there are many eddies and cross-currents, but in
oratory, especially of the forensic type, there is more uniformity of
flow. Antiphon and Demosthenes had, to a great extent, similar ground
to traverse, similar obstacles to overcome or circumvent; and a study
of their different methods of approaching like problems may give some
reasonable and interesting results which will be a contribution to the
history of the ‘Art of Persuasion.’ Even here we shall find difficulties,
for one who is reckoned among the greatest orators, Isocrates, is known
not to have been practical at all in the sense in which Demosthenes was;
his so-called speeches were never meant to be delivered, and depended for
their efficacy far more on their literary style than on their practical
characteristics. There is, perhaps, only one great factor which is common
to all orators alike; they all give us, both directly and indirectly,
invaluable materials for the study of Athenian history, information with
regard both to public and private life and national character. While the
speeches before the assembly and in public causes increase our historical
knowledge in the wider sense, the private speeches, often dealing with
matters of the utmost triviality, provide a miscellaneous store of
information on domestic matters only comparable to that more recently
recovered from the _papyri_ of Egypt.
§ 3
It would seem that constitutional liberty and a strong civic feeling are
indispensable as a basis for the growth of oratory. Such a statement
must be made with caution, as it leaves out of account a thousand
influences which may have been operative; but we have no records of
oratory at Athens before the establishment of the democracy, and after
the limitation of Athenian influence due to the spread of Hellenism under
Alexander, oratory very rapidly declined.
The imagination of Herodotus gives us, in the debates of the Persian
court, some idea of what he conceived the oratory of an earlier age
to be; but as he transferred the ideas of his own country to another,
without any serious attempt at realism, such speeches are of little
value to us. Thucydides again inserted speeches freely into his history,
but these, he candidly admits, are not authentic records but imaginary
reconstructions. Nevertheless, it is chiefly on Thucydides that we must
draw for information about the eloquence of the early statesmen of the
democracy.
* * * * *
Themistocles has left behind him some reputation as a speaker. Herodotus
indicates how he harangued the Greeks before the battle of Salamis;[3]
Thucydides commends him for ability in explaining his policy,[4] and the
author of the pseudo-Lysian _Epitaphios_ names him as ‘equally capable
in speech, decision, and action.’[5] Beyond these meagre notices, and a
reference to his eloquence in Cicero,[6] we have nothing earlier than
Plutarch,[7] who tells us that from early youth he took an interest in
the practice of speech-making, and that he studied under a Sophist,
Mnesiphilus, who apparently taught him something of the science of
statesmanship. Plutarch records his answer to Eurybiadas, who had taunted
him in the council of allies with being a man without a city—since Athens
was evacuated—and therefore not entitled to the right of speech:
‘We, villain, have left our houses and our walls, disdaining to
be slaves for the sake of these lifeless things; but still we
have a city—the greatest of Greek cities—in our fleet of 200
triremes, which now are ready to help you if you care to be
saved by their aid; but if you go away and betray us a second
time, the Greek world shall forthwith learn that the Athenians
possess a free city and a country no worse than the one they
have lost.’[8]
Another fragment is preserved by Plutarch, an address to Xerxes in quite
a different vein, containing an elaborate metaphor which may have been
thought suited to the Oriental mind:
‘The speech of man is like to a piece of cunning embroidery,
for both when unrolled display their patterns, but when folded
up conceal them.’[9]
Many others of his sayings are chronicled; they are more or less
apocryphal, as his retort to the man of Seriphos, who hinted that
Themistocles owed his greatness to the fact that his city was great.
‘You, Themistocles, would never have been famous if you had been a
Seriphian’—‘Nor would you, if you had been an Athenian.’[10] His
interpretation of the oracle, explaining ‘wooden walls’ as ships, shows
the man ready at need like Odysseus; and the impression that we form
of him from the very slight indications which we possess, is of a man
always clear and plausible in his statements, never at a loss for an
explanation, and perhaps rather a good debater than an orator.
Of Pericles, who represents the following generation, we have a clearer
picture. We know more about his private life and the associates who
influenced his opinions. His earliest instructors were the musicians
Damon and Pythoclides, of whom the former remained his intimate friend
through life,[11] and, if we believe Plutarch, was capable of giving
him advice even on questions of statesmanship.[12] The friendship of
Anaxagoras was doubtless a powerful influence, as Plato affirms in a
well-known passage of the _Phaedrus_:[13]
‘All the arts require discussion and high speculation about
the truths of nature; hence come loftiness of thought and
completeness of execution. And this, as I conceive, was the
quality which, in addition to his natural gifts, Pericles
acquired from his intercourse with Anaxagoras.... He was thus
imbued with the higher philosophy ... and applied what suited
his purpose to the art of speaking.’
He is said also to have been acquainted with Zeno of Elea, an
accomplished dialectician, and with the great Sophist Protagoras.
Plutarch represents him as amusing himself by discussing with Protagoras
a question which is the theme of one of Antiphon’s tetralogies—a man
in a gymnasium accidentally kills another with a javelin: who is to
blame?[14] In Xenophon’s _Memorabilia_[15] we find him engaged in
sophistical discussion with his young nephew Alcibiades, who, fresh from
the rhetorical schools, was apparently his superior in hair-splitting
argument.
Thucydides puts three speeches into the mouth of Pericles; though the
language is that of the historian, some of the thoughts may be those of
the statesman. We seem to recognise his high intelligence, developed by
philosophical training, and the loftiness and effectiveness of which
Plato speaks.[16]
The comic poet Eupolis gives us a picture from a different point of view:
A. ‘Whenever at Council he rose in his place
That powerful speaker—so hot was the pace—
Could give other runners three yards in the race.’
B. ‘His speed I admit; in addition to that
A mysterious spell on his lips ever sate:
He charmed; and alone of the orators he
Left something behind, like the sting of a bee.’[17]
We know from Thucydides the extent of his influence over the people.
He was no demagogue in the vulgar sense; they knew him to be sincere
and incorruptible. He was never deterred by the unpopularity of his
policy; he would lead the people rather than submit to be led by them;
he could abase their spirits when they were unduly elated, or raise
them to confidence when unseasonably disheartened.[18] At the height
of his career his eloquence was the more effective because it was
rarely displayed; minor matters in the assembly were transacted by his
subordinates; when Pericles himself arose to speak it was a signal that
a matter of national importance was to be debated, and his appearance
roused a confident expectation that the treatment would be worthy of
the subject.[19] The epithet ‘Olympian,’ applied to him originally in
sarcasm, was felt to be more truly applicable than its originator,
perhaps, intended. His eloquence was a noble exposition of the fine
intelligence and high character which first claimed a hearing.
Though we have no verbal record of his speeches, a few of his phrases
stuck in the memory of chroniclers. Aegina was to him ‘the eye-sore of
the Piraeus’—it spoiled the view from the Athenian harbour.[20] The
Samians, who submitted very reluctantly to the blessings of Athenian
civilization, are like ‘babies that cry when you give them their pap,
but take it all the same’;[21] and Boeotia, disintegrated by civil
war, is like an oak split by oaken wedges.[22] His finest simile—not,
perhaps, original, since Herodotus attributes a similar phrase to Gelon,
when Greece refused his invaluable assistance—occurred, according to
Aristotle, in a funeral speech:
‘The city has lost its Youth; it is as though the year had lost
its Spring.’[23]
§ 4
The eloquence of these earlier statesmen, though significant of the
tendency of the Attic genius, is an isolated phenomenon. It has no
bearing on the development of Athenian oratory. We have now to consider
two direct influences, that of the Sophists and that of the early
rhetoricians of Sicily.
In the middle of the fifth century B.C.,—when in turn the unrestricted
imagination of the Ionian philosophers had failed to explain the riddle
of existence on physical grounds, the metaphysical Parmenides had denied
the possibility of accurate knowledge, and Zeno, the dialectician
of Elea, had reduced himself to dumbness by the conclusion that not
only knowledge is impossible but even grammatical predication is
unjustifiable, for you cannot say that one thing is another, or like
things unlike,—Philosophy fell somewhat into disrepute. A spirit of
scepticism spread over the Greek world, and the greatest thinkers,
foiled In their attempts to discover the higher truths, turned their
attention to the practical side of education. In various cities of
Greater Greece there arose men of high intellectual attainment,
conveniently classed together under the title of _Sophists_ (educators),
who, neglecting abstract questions, undertook to prepare men for the
higher walks of civic life by instruction of various kinds. The greatest,
of these, Protagoras of Abdera, expressed his contempt for philosophy in
the well-known dictum, ‘Man is the measure of all things—of what is, that
it is; and of what is not, that it is not.’ He therefore devoted himself
to the study of literature, and, in particular, of Homer. He attained
great popularity; in the course of long travels throughout the Greek
world, he made several visits to Athens, where he knew Pericles. Plato,
in the dialogue named after him, gives us some idea of the fascination
which his personality exercised over the young men of Athens, and,
indeed, ‘Sophistry’ as a whole had a tremendous popularity. All young
men of good family and position, who aspired to political life, flocked
to hear the lectures of the Sophists. Alcibiades, Critias, and others
undoubtedly owed to this movement much of their political ability.
The morality of sophistry has been much discussed. The comic poets
represent it as the chief instrument for the destruction of the ancient
ideals of conduct. Plato, though he recognized its humanistic value and
spoke with appreciation of several individual teachers, blamed their
teaching as a whole. Certainly the claim of Protagoras, that he could
make the worse cause appear the better, laid him particularly open to
attack. Protagoras made some elementary studies in grammar, presumably
as a basis for logic. His method of teaching was apparently by example.
In the dialogue of Plato he gives a demonstration of how a given subject
should be discussed: his discourse consists first of a ‘myth,’ then a
continuous speech, finally a criticism on a poetical quotation. We may
suppose that this is a reasonable imitation of his methods. His pupils
committed to memory such speeches, or summaries of them, on various
subjects, and were thus moderately well equipped for purposes of general
debate.
Prodicus of Ceos, who seems to have been many years younger than
Protagoras,[24] was more concerned with moral philosophy than with
dialectical exercises. He paid the greatest attention in all his teaching
to ὀρθοέπεια, the correct use of words, _i.e._ the distinction of meaning
between words which in the popular language have come to be treated as
synonymous.[25] This precision may have been carried to the point of
pedantry, but as the correct use of terms is an important element in
prose style, his studies deserve consideration.
Hippias of Elis is of less importance. He was ready to discourse on any
subject under the sun, and could teach his pupils a similar glibness;
abundance of words was made to conceal a lack of ideas.
§ 5
Cicero has preserved, from Aristotle, a statement that forensic rhetoric
came to its birth at Syracuse, when, after the expulsion of the tyrants
in 465 B.C., many families, whose property had been confiscated by them,
tried to re-establish their claims.[26] Certainly Corax, the founder of
rhetoric, was teaching about the year 466 B.C., and composed a τέχνη,
or handbook of rhetorical principles.[27] He was followed by his pupil
Tisias, who also wrote a treatise which Aristotle pronounced to be better
than his master’s, and was in turn soon superseded by a better one.[28]
Both Corax and Tisias attached great importance to εἰκός (probability) as
a means of convincing a jury. A sample of the use of this argument from
the work of Corax is the case of the man charged with assault, who denies
the charge and says, ‘It is obvious to you that I am weak in body, while
he is strong; it is therefore inherently improbable that I should have
dared to attack him.’ The argument can of course be turned the other way
by the prosecutor—‘the defendant is weak in body, and thought that on
that account no one would suspect him of violence.’ We shall find that
this argument from εἰκότα is very characteristic of the orator Antiphon;
it occurs in his court speeches as well as in his tetralogies, which are
model exercises. It seems, indeed, that he almost preferred this kind of
argument to actual proof, even when evidence was available.[29] Tisias
improved on the theme of Corax; supposing that a feeble but brave man has
attacked a strong one who is a coward, he suggests that both should tell
lies in court. The coward will not like to admit his cowardice, and will
say that he was attacked by more than one man. The culprit will prove
this to be a lie, and will then fall back on the argument of Corax, ‘I
am weak and he is strong; I could not have assaulted or robbed him,’—and
so on.[30]
An anecdote of these two rhetoricians further indicates the slipperiness
of the ground on which they walked.[31] Tisias took lessons from Corax
on condition that he should pay the fee only if he won his first case in
court. After some lapse of time Corax grew impatient for his money, and
finally brought an action—the first case, as it happened, on which Tisias
was ever engaged. Corax asserted, ‘If I win the case, I get my money by
the verdict; if I lose it, I claim payment by our contract.’ ‘No,’ said
Tisias, ‘if I win, I don’t pay, and if I lose I don’t pay.’ The court
dismissed the case with the remark, ‘A bad _crow_ lays bad eggs’;[32]
and this was obviously to the advantage of the younger man, who had nine
points of the law on his side.
Though no writings of either are preserved, we can form an idea of
their methods. They were wholly immoral or non-moral, and perversely
sophistical. The plausible was preferred to the true, and the one
object was to win the case. Their method of teaching was, according to
Aristotle, ‘quick but unscientific,’[33] and consisted of making the
pupil learn by heart a large number of ‘commonplace’ topics and standard
arguments suitable to all kinds of legal processes. They do not appear to
have paid any attention to style on the literary side.
§ 6
Gorgias of Leontini, a contemporary of Protagoras, started out, like the
Sophist, from the position that nothing can be known, and the pursuit
of philosophy is a ploughing of the sand. He is said to have been a
pupil of Tisias, and occupies a place between the early rhetoricians
and the Sophists usually so-called. Like the former, he studied and
taught oratory, but whereas they were only concerned with the struggle
for mastery in debate, he entertained, like Protagoras, a broad view
of education, and, while continuing to regard rhetoric as the art of
persuasion,[34] attached more attention to the artistic side than any
other educator had done. He became the first conscious artist in prose
style.
Like the other Sophists he travelled from town to town giving displays
of his art, and gained riches which he spent freely.[35] In 427 B.C. he
came to Athens as an ambassador from his native city,[36] and produced
a remarkable impression on his hearers, not only the multitude before
whom he spoke, but the highly educated class who could appreciate his
technique. Thucydides owed something to him, and the poet Antiphon showed
traces of his influence.[37] We hear of his sojourn at Larissa, where
the Thessalians, in admiration, coined from his name the word which
Philostratus uses to express his exuberant style.[38]
His first work is said to have been a sceptical treatise on Nature, or
the Non-existent.[39] This was followed by a certain number of speeches,
the most famous of which was the _Olympiac_, in which, like Isocrates at
a later date, he urged on the Greeks the necessity of union. The _Funeral
Oration_, to which we shall recur, is supposed to have been delivered
at Athens, but this can hardly have been the case, as such speeches
were regularly delivered by prominent Athenian statesmen, and there
would be no occasion for calling in a foreigner. A _Pythian_ speech and
various _Encomia_ are recorded; some on mythical characters, which may be
regarded as mere exercises, some on real people, as the Eleans.[40] He
seems not to have written speeches for the law-courts; his tendency, as
in his personal habits, so in his speech, was towards display, and so he
originated the style of oratory known as epideictic, which Isocrates in a
subsequent age was destined to bring to perfection. Though an Ionian by
birth, he instinctively recognized the great possibilities of the Attic
dialect, and chose it as his medium of expression; it was not, however,
the Attic of everyday life, but a language enriched by the exuberance of
a poetical imagination. We possess of his actual work only one noteworthy
extract from the _Funeral Speech_; but from this, joined to a few
isolated criticisms and phrases preserved by commentators, as well as
from the language ascribed by Plato to his imitator Agathon,[41] we can
form some idea of his pompous exaggerations.
He was much addicted to the substitution of rare expressions—γλῶτται,
as the Greek critics called them—for the ordinary forms of speech. His
language abounded in archaic and poetical words, striking metaphors
and unusual compounds. He frequently employed neuter adjectives and
participles in preference to the corresponding abstract nouns; he liked
to use a verbal noun accompanied by an auxiliary in places where a simple
verb would be naturally employed. Finally, though he could not aspire
to composition in elaborate periods like Isocrates or Demosthenes, he
developed the use of antithesis, word answering to word and clause to
clause, pointing his antithetical style not only by the frequent use
of μὲν and δέ, but by the use of assonance at the ends of clauses,
corresponding forms of verbs in similar positions, and by some attention
to rhythm and equality of syllabic value in contrasted clauses.
His chief fault was excess; he was a pioneer in expression, and did very
valuable work; but he lacked a sense of proportion. The result is that
the page of his genuine work which we possess reads like a parody of
style, as every characteristic is carried to extreme. But the teacher
must indulge in exaggeration, or the pupil will not grasp his points, and
the work of Gorgias has a considerable value. It was the first attempt
to form a style, and his followers learned partly by imitation, partly
by avoiding the faults which were too prominent. The very fact that the
fragment preserved is possibly not in his best style makes it the easier
to observe his influence on his successors—Antiphon, Thucydides, and many
subsequent writers of artistic prose.
In addition to the speeches already mentioned we possess two _encomia_ on
Helen and Palamedes, which are attributed to him. Their authenticity is
very doubtful, but Blass, who discussed the question very thoroughly in
his _Attic Orators_ without coming to a conviction, has since decided in
favour of their genuineness.[42] This is entirely a matter of personal
opinion; but, even if not genuine, they are probably able imitations of
the Gorgian style and method.
The fragment from the _Epitaphios_ can hardly be translated in a way that
will give a proper idea of its affectations, but as some notion of its
most striking faults may be formed from an English version, some extracts
are added. In the Greek in some places there seems to be very little
sense, and what there is has been entirely subordinated to the sound:
‘What quality was there absent in these men which ought in
men to be present? And what was there present that should not
be present? May I have the power to speak as I would, and
the will to speak as I should, avoiding the jealousy of gods
and escaping the envy of men. For these were divine in their
valour, though human in their mortality; often preferring mild
equity to stern justice, and often the uprightness of reasoning
to the strictness of the laws, considering that the most divine
and universal law is this—to speak, to omit, and to do the
proper thing at the proper time. Two duties above all they
practised, strength of mind and strength of body; the one in
deliberation, the other in execution; tenders of those who by
injustice were unfortunate, punishers of those who by injustice
were fortunate.... And accordingly, though they have died, our
yearning died not with them, but immortal over these bodies not
immortal it lives when they live no more.’
Contrast and parallelism are rampant throughout this incredible piece
of bombast, which in addition to the curious jingles produced by such
words as γνώμην καὶ ῥώμην; δυστυχούντων, εὐτυχούντων, shows a poetical
vocabulary in such phrases as ἔμφυτος Ἄρης, ‘the Mars that is born in
them,’ ἐνόπλιος ἔρις, ‘embattled strife,’ and φιλόκαλος εἰρήνη, ‘peace
that loves the arts.’ Antiphon and Thucydides suffered severely from the
contagion of this style, and a conscious imitator, the author of the
pseudo-Lysian _Epitaphios_, has reproduced its florid monotony.