ISOCRATES was the son of Theodorus, of Erchia, reckoned among the
middle class of citizens, and a man who kept servants under him to
make flutes, by which he got so much money as enabled him not only to
bring up his children after the most genteel manner, but likewise to
maintain a choir. For besides Isocrates, he had other sons, Telesippus
and Diomnestus, and one daughter. And hence, we may suppose, those
two comical poets, Aristophanes and Stratis, took occasion to bring
him on the stage. He was born in the eighty-sixth Olympiad,[12]
Lysimachus being archon, about two and twenty years after Lysias, and
seven before Plato. When he was a boy, he was as well educated as any
of the Athenian children, being under the tuition of Prodicus the
Cean, Gorgias the Leontine, Tisias the Syracusan, and Theramenes the
rhetorician. And when Theramenes was to be apprehended by the order of
the Thirty Tyrants, and flying for succor to the altar of the senate,
only Isocrates stood his friend, when all others were struck with
terror. For a long time he stood silent; but after some time Theramenes
advised him to desist, because, he told him, it would be an aggravation
of his grief, if any of his friends should come into trouble through
him. And it is said that he made use of certain institutions of
rhetoric composed by Theramenes, when he was slandered in court; which
institutions have since borne Boton’s name.
When Isocrates was come to man’s estate, he meddled with nothing of
state affairs, both because he had a very weak voice and because he
was something timorous; and besides these two impediments, his estate
was much impaired by the loss of a great part of his patrimony in the
war with the Lacedaemonians. It is evident that he composed orations
for others to use, but delivered only one, that concerning Exchange of
Property. Having set up a school, he gave himself much to writing and
the study of philosophy, and then he wrote his Panegyrical oration, and
others which were used for advice, some of which he delivered himself,
and others he gave to others to pronounce for him; aiming thereby to
persuade the Greeks to the study and practice of such things as were of
most immediate concern to them. But his endeavors in that way proving
to no purpose, he gave those things over, and opened a school in Chios
first, as some will have it, having for a beginning nine scholars;
and when they came to him to pay him for their schooling, he weeping
said, “Now I see plainly that I am sold to my scholars.” He admitted
all into his acquaintance who desired it. He was the first that made a
separation between wrangling pleas and political arguments, to which
latter he rather addicted himself. He instituted a form of magistracy
in Chios, much the same with that at Athens. No schoolmaster ever got
so much; so that he maintained a galley at his own charge. He had more
than a hundred scholars, and among others Timotheus the son of Conon
was one, with whom he visited many cities, and composed the epistles
which Timotheus sent to the Athenians; who for his pains gave him a
talent out of that which he got at Samos. Theopompus likewise the
Chian, Ephorus the Cumaean, Asclepiades who composed arguments for
tragedies, and Theodectes of Phaselis, who afterwards wrote tragedies,
were all Isocrates’s scholars. The last of these had a monument in the
way to the shrine of Cyamites, as we go to Eleusis by the Sacred Way,
of which now remains only rubbish. There also he set up with his own
the statues of other famous poets, of all which only Homer’s is to be
seen. Leodamas also the Athenian, and Lacritus who gave laws to the
Athenians, were both his scholars; and some say, Hyperides and Isaeus
too. They add likewise, that Demosthenes also was very desirous to
learn of him, and because he could not give the full rate, which was
a thousand drachms, he offered him two hundred, the fifth part, if he
would teach him but the fifth part of his art proportionable: to whom
Isocrates answered, We do not use, Demosthenes, to impart our skill by
halves, but as men sell good fish whole, or altogether, so if thou hast
a desire to learn, we will teach thee our full art, and not a piece of
it. He died in the year when Charondas was chief magistrate,[13] when,
being at Hippocrates’s public exercise, he received the news of the
slaughter at Chaeronea; for he was the cause of his own death by a four
days’ fast, which he then made, pronouncing just at his departure the
three verses which begin three tragedies of Euripides:
Danaus, father of the fifty sisters,—
Pelops, son of Tantalus, in quest of Pisa,—
Cadmus, in time past, going from Sidon.
He lived ninety-eight years, or, as some say, a hundred, not being
able to behold Greece the fourth time brought into slavery. The year
(or, as some say, four years) before he died, he wrote his Panathenaic
oration. He labored upon his Panegyric oration ten years, or, as some
tell us, fifteen, which he is supposed to have borrowed out of Gorgias
the Leontine and Lysias. His oration concerning Exchange of Property he
wrote when he was eighty-two years old, and those to Philip a little
before his death. When he was old, he adopted Aphareus, the youngest
of the three sons of Plathane, the daughter of Hippias the orator. He
was very rich, both in respect of the great sums of money he exacted
of his scholars, and besides that, having at one time twenty talents of
Nicocles, king of Cyprus, for an oration which he dedicated to him. By
reason of his riches he became obnoxious to the envy of others, and was
three times named to maintain a galley; which he evaded twice by the
assistance of his son and a counterfeit sickness, but the third time
he undertook it, though the charge proved very great. A father telling
him that he had allowed his son no other companion than one slave,
Isocrates replied, Go thy way then, for one slave thou shalt have two.
He strove for the prize which Aretemisia dedicated to the honor and
memory of her husband Mausolus; but that oration is lost. He wrote also
another oration in praise of Helen, and one called Areopagiticus. Some
say that he died when he had fasted nine days,—some again, at four
days’ end,—and his death took its date from the funeral solemnities of
those that lost their lives at Chaeronea. His son Aphareus likewise
wrote several orations.
He lies buried with all his family near Cynosarges, on the left hand of
the hill. There are interred Isocrates and his father Theodorus, his
mother and her sister Anaco, his adoptive son Aphareus, Socrates the
son of Anaco, Theodorus his brother, bearing his father’s name, his
grandsons, the sons of his adopted Aphareus, and his wife Plathane,
the mother of Aphareus. On these tombs were erected six tables, which
are now demolished. And upon the tomb of Isocrates himself was placed
a column thirty cubits high, and on that a mermaid of seven cubits,
which was an emblem of his eloquence; there is nothing now extant.
There was also near it a table, having poets and his schoolmasters
on it; and among the rest, Gorgias inspecting a celestial globe, and
Isocrates standing by him. There is likewise a statue of his of bronze
in Eleusis, dedicated by Timothy the son of Conon, before the entry of
the porch, with this inscription:
To the fame and honor of Isocrates,
This statue’s sacred to the Goddesses;
The gift of Timothy.
This statue was made by Leochares. There are threescore orations which
bear his name; of which, if we credit Dionysius, only five and twenty
are genuine; but according to Caecilius, twenty-eight; and the rest are
accounted spurious. He was an utter stranger to ostentation, insomuch
that, when there came at one time three persons to hear him declaim,
he admitted but two of them, desiring the third to come the next day,
for that two at once were to him as a full theatre. He used to tell
his scholars that he taught his art for ten minas; but he would give
any man ten thousand, that could teach him to be bold and give him a
good utterance. And being once asked how he, who was not very eloquent
himself, could make others so, he answered, Just as a whetstone cannot
cut, yet it will sharpen knives for that purpose. Some say that he
wrote institutions to the art of oratory; others are of opinion that
he had no method of teaching, but only exercise. He would never ask
any thing of a free-born citizen. He used to enjoin his scholars
being present at public assemblies to repeat to him what was there
delivered. He conceived no little sorrow for the death of Socrates,
insomuch that the next day he put himself in mourning. Being asked
what was the use and force of rhetoric, he answered, To make great
matters small, and small great. At a feast with Nicoceon, the tyrant
of Cyprus, being desired by some of the company to declaim upon some
theme, he made answer, that that was not a season for him to speak what
he knew, and he knew nothing that was then seasonable. Happening once
to see Sophocles the tragedian amorously eying a comely boy, he said to
him, It will become thee, Sophocles, to restrain not only thy hands,
but thine eyes. When Ephorus of Cumae left his school before he had
arrived at any good proficiency, his father Demophilus sent him again
with a second sum of money in his hand; at which Isocrates jocosely
called him Diphorus, that is, _twice bringing_ his fee. However, he
took a great deal of pains and care with him, and went so far as to put
him in the way of writing history.
He was wantonly given; and used to lie upon a ... mat for his bed, and
his bolster was commonly made moist with saffron. He never married
while he was young; but in his old age he kept a miss, whose name was
Lagisce, and by her he had a daughter, who died in the twelfth year of
her age, before she was married. He afterwards married Plathane, the
wife of Hippias the rhetorician, who had three sons, the youngest of
which, Aphareus by name, he adopted for his own, as we said before.
This Aphareus erected a bronze statue to him near the temple of
Jupiter, as may be seen from the inscription:
In veneration of the mighty Jove,
His noble parents, and the Gods above,
Aphareus this statue here has set,
The statue of Isocrates his father.
He is said to have run a race on a swift horse, when he was but a
boy; for he is to be seen in this posture in the Citadel, in the
tennis court of the priestesses of Minerva, in a statue. There were
but two suits commenced against him in his whole life. One whereof
was with Megaclides, who provoked him to exchange of property; at
the trial of which he could not be personally present, by reason of
sickness; but sending Aphareus, he nevertheless overcame. The other
suit was commenced against him by Lysimachus, who would have him come
to an exchange or be at the charge of maintaining a galley for the
commonwealth. In this case he was overthrown, and forced to perform the
service. There was likewise a painting of him in the Pompeum.
Aphareus also wrote a few orations, both judicial and deliberative;
as also tragedies to the number of thirty-seven, of which two
are contested. He began to make his works public in the year of
Lysistratus, and continued it to the year of Sosigenes, that is, eight
and twenty years.[14] In these years he exhibited dramas six times
at the city Dionysiac festivals, and twice went away with the prize
through the actor Dionysius; he also gained two other victories at the
Lenaean festival through other actors.
There were to be seen in the Citadel the statues of the mother of
Isocrates, of Theodorus, and of Anaco his mother’s sister. That of
the mother is placed just by the image of Health, the inscription
being changed; that of Anaco is no longer there. [Anaco] had two sons,
Alexander by Coenes, and Lysicles by Lysias.