ANTIPHON, the son of Sophilus, by descent a Rhamnusian, was his
father’s scholar; for Sophilus kept a rhetoric school, to which it is
reported that Alcibiades himself had recourse in his youth. Having
attained to competent measure of knowledge and eloquence,—and that, as
some believe, from his own natural ingenuity,—he dedicated his study
chiefly to affairs of state. And yet he was for some time conversant
in the schools, and had a controversy with Socrates the philosopher
about the art of disputing,—not so much for the sake of contention as
for the profit of arguing, as Xenophon tells us in his Commentaries of
Socrates. At the request of some citizens, he wrote orations by which
they defended their suits at law. Some say that he was the first that
ever did any thing of this nature. For it is certain there is not one
juridical oration extant written by any orator that lived before him,
nor by his contemporaries either, as Themistocles, Aristides, and
Pericles; though the times gave them opportunity, and there was need
enough of their labor in such business. Not that we are to impute it
to their want of parts that they did nothing in this way, for we may
inform ourselves of the contrary from what historians relate of each
of them. Besides, if we inspect the most ancient of those known in
history who had the same form and method in their pleadings, such as
Alcibiades, Critias, Lysias, and Archinous, we shall find that they
all followed Antiphon when he was old. For being a man of incomparable
sagacity, he was the first that published institutions of oratory;
and by reason of his profound learning, he was surnamed Nestor.
Caecilius, in a tract which he wrote of him, supposes him to have
been Thucydides’s pupil, from what Antiphon delivered in praise of
him. He is most accurate in his orations, in invention subtle; and he
would frequently baffle his adversary at unawares, by a covert sort of
pleading; in troublesome and intricate matters he was very judicious
and sharp; and as he was a great admirer of ornamental speaking, he
would always adapt his orations to both law and reason.
He lived about the time of the Persian war and of Gorgias the
rhetorician, being somewhat younger than he. And he lived to see the
subversion of the popular government in the commonwealth which was
wrought by the four hundred conspirators, in which he himself is
thought to have had the chiefest hand, being sometimes commander of
two galleys, and sometimes general, and having by the many and great
victories he obtained gained them many allies, he armed the young men,
manned out sixty galleys, and on all their occasions went ambassador
to Lacedaemon at the time when Eetionia was fortified. But when those
Four Hundred were overcome and taken down, he with Archeptolemus, who
was likewise one of the same number, was accused of the conspiracy,
condemned, and sentenced to the punishment due to traitors, his body
cast out unburied, and all his posterity infamous on record. But there
are some who tell us, that he was put to death by the Thirty Tyrants;
and among the rest, Lysias, in his oration for Antiphon’s daughter,
says the same; for he left a little daughter, whom Callaeschrus claimed
for his wife by the law of propinquity. And Theopompus likewise, in
his Fifteenth Book of Philippics, tells us the same thing. But this
must have been another Antiphon, son of Lysidonides, whom Cratinus
mentions in his Pytine as a rascal. But how could he be executed in the
time of the Four Hundred, and afterward live to be put to death by the
Thirty Tyrants? There is likewise another story of the manner of his
death: that when he was old, he sailed to Syracuse, when the tyranny
of Dionysius the First was most famous; and being at table, a question
was put, what sort of brass was best. When others had answered as they
thought most proper, he replied, That is the best brass, of which the
statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton were made. The tyrant hearing
this, and taking it as a tacit exhortation to his subjects to contrive
his ruin, he commanded Antiphon to be put to death; and some say that
he put him to death for deriding his tragedies.
This orator is reported to have written sixty orations; but Caecilius
supposes twenty-five of them to be spurious and none of his. Plato,
in his comedy called Pisander, traduces him as a covetous man. He is
reported to have composed some of his tragedies alone, and others with
Dionysius the tyrant. While he was poetically inclined, he invented
an art of curing the distemper of the mind, as physicians are wont
to provide cure of bodily diseases. And having at Corinth built him
a little house, in or near the market, he set a postscript over the
gate, to this effect: that he had a way to cure the distemper of men’s
minds by words; and let him but know the cause of their malady, he
would immediately prescribe the remedy, to their comfort. But after
some time, thinking that art not worth his while, he betook himself to
the study and teaching of oratory. There are some who ascribe the book
of Glaucus of Rhegium concerning Poets to him as author. His orations
concerning Herodes, against Erasistratus concerning Peacocks,[6]
are very much commended, and also that which, when he was accused,
he penned for himself against a public indictment, and that against
Demosthenes the general for moving an illegal measure. He likewise had
another against Hippocrates the general; who did not appear on the day
appointed for his trial, and was condemned in his absence.
Caecilius has recorded the decree of the senate for the judicial
trial of Antiphon, passed in the year[7] in which Theopompus was
chief magistrate of Athens, the same in which the Four Hundred were
overthrown,—in these words:
“Enacted by the senate on the twenty-first day of the prytany.
Demonicus of Alopece was clerk; Philostratus of Pallene was president.
“Andron moved in regard to those men,—viz. Archeptolemus, Onomacles,
and Antiphon, whom the generals had declared against, for that they
went in an embassage to Lacedaemon, to the great damage of the city
of Athens, and departed from the camp in an enemies’ ship, and went
through Decelea by land,—that they should be apprehended and brought
before the court for a legal trial.
“Therefore let the generals, with others of the senate, to the number
of ten, whom it shall please the generals to name and choose, look
after these men to present them before the court, that they may be
present during the proceedings. Then let the Thesmothetes summon the
defendants to appear on the morrow, and let them open the proceedings
in court at the time at which the summonses shall be returnable. Then
let the chosen advocates, with the generals and any others who may have
any thing to say, accuse the defendants of treason; and if any one
of them shall be found guilty, let sentence be passed upon him as a
traitor, according to the law in such case made and provided.”