Isocrates

“ This long life has an element of pathos not unlike that of Greek tragedy; a power above man was compelling events in a direction which Isocrates could not see; but his own agency was the ally of that power, though in a sense which he knew not; his vision was of Greece triumphant over Asia, while he was the unconscious prophet of an age in which Asia should be transformed by the diffusion of Hellenism. ”

“ Isocrates was a man of sense—a patriot in a temperate way—and with something of a feeling for Greece generally, not merely a champion of Athens. His heart was given to politics: and, in an age when heavy clouds were gathering over the independence and the civil grandeur of his country, he had a disinterested anxiety for drawing off the lightning of the approaching storms by pacific counsels. ”

“ Never, perhaps, has there been a writer who attained such luxuriant complexity in his composition of sentences. But Isocrates is too much the slave of his own virtues; his periods are so long, so complete, so uniformly artistic, that their everlasting procession is monotonous. Lysias, less perfect in form, has in consequence more variety; Demosthenes, who could compose long periods, did not confine himself to them, but enlivened his style by contrast. ”

“ The greatest English example in older days is the Areopagitica of Milton, who though manifestly inspired by Isocrates, is far from possessing his perfect control of language, perfect smoothness of period, perfect clearness of thinking, all of which make up the charm of the great master. Isocrates was the teacher of this great style, not only to pleaders and pamphleteers, but to historians, and he was blamed for making men like Ephorus and Theopompus, his favourite pupils, in writing their once famous works, think more of their diction than of their impartiality or their research. ”

“ According to Cicero, Isocrates, and the rhetor Aristides, when he who had been initiated departed from this earthly life he inhabited meadows enameled with flowers of a celestial beauty, and lighted with a sun brighter and purer than the one we see. In that charming abode he was to live centuries, and long preserve his youth. When arrived at an old age, he was to become young again. ”

“ Isocrates sought to enlarge the mental horizon of his disciples by accustoming them to deal with subjects which were not merely Athenian, but, in his own phrase, Hellenic. Secondly, though he did not claim to have found a philosophical basis for morals, it has been well said of him that “he reflects the human spirit always on its nobler side,” [17] and that, in an age of corrupt and impudent selfishness, he always strove to raise the minds of his hearers into a higher and purer air. ”

“ Isocrates was the first Greek who worked out the idea of a prose rhythm. He saw clearly both its powers and its limits; poetry has its strict rhythms and precise metres; prose has its metres and rhythms, not bound by a rigid framework, yet capable of being brought under certain general laws which a good ear can recognize, and which a speaker or writer may apply in the most various combinations. This fundamental idea of prose rhythm, or number, is that which the style of Isocrates has imparted to the style of Cicero. ”

“ It cannot be too distinctly understood that, when Isocrates speaks of his φιλοσοφία, he means simply his theory or method of “culture”—to use the only modern term which is really equivalent in latitude to the Greek word as then current. [13]
The φιλοσοφία, or practical culture, of Isocrates was not in conflict, because it had nothing in common, with the Socratic or Platonic philosophy. The personal influence of Socrates may, indeed, be traced in his work. He constantly desires to make his teaching bear on the practical life. ”

“ Isocrates, in his exhortation to Demonicos, marks the distinction between the true and false friend, by observing, that, while the latter thinks only of those around him, the former remembers the absent, and makes his affection triumph over time and distance. ”

“ The instruction which Isocrates undertook to impart was based on rhetorical composition, but it was by no means merely rhetorical. That “inborn philosophy,” of which Plato recognized the germ, still shows itself. In many of his works—notably in the Panegyricus—we see a really remarkable power of grasping a complex subject, of articulating it distinctly, of treating it, not merely with effect but luminously, at once in its widest bearings and in its most intricate details. Young men could learn more from Isocrates than the graces of style ”

“ The next hope was to find some one man equal to the task. Jason of Pherae, Dionysius I. of Syracuse, Archidamus III., son of Agesilaus—each in turn rose as a possible leader of Greece before the imagination of the old man who was still young in his enthusiastic hope, and one after another they failed him. But now a greater than any of these was appearing on the Hellenic horizon, and to this new luminary the eyes of Isocrates were turned with eager anticipation. ”

“ Cicero himself expressly recognizes this original and distinctive merit of Isocrates.19 Thus, through Rome, and especially through Cicero, the influence of Isocrates, as the founder of a literary prose, has passed into the literatures of modern Europe. It is to the eloquence of the preacher that we may perhaps look for the nearest modern analogue of that kind in which Isocrates excelled—especially, perhaps, to that of the great French preachers. Isocrates was one of the three Greek authors, Demosthenes and Plato being the others, who contributed most to form the style of Bossuet. ”

“ But Isocrates was a man of singularly [127] fixed ideas. With regard to education, he formulated in the discourse against the Sophists (391 B.C.) views which are practically identical with what he expressed nearly forty years later in the Antidosis, views which he maintains in his last work of all, the Panathenaicus (339 B.C.) . With regard to Greek politics, he held till the close of his life the opinions propounded in the Panegyricus of 380 B.C. His aims were unchanged, though of necessity he modified the means by which he hoped to carry them out. ”

“ To comprehend that world the study of Isocrates is indispensable; for in an age dominated by rhetoric he is the prince of rhetoricians. It is difficult for a modern reader to do him justice, so alien is his spirit and the spirit of his age from ours. It must be allowed that he is frequently monotonous and prolix; at the same time it must not be forgotten that, as the most famous representative of rhetoric, he was read from one end of the Greek world to the other. He was the friend of Evagoras and Archidamus, of Dionysius and Philip ”

“ Moreover, even Isocrates himself, whom that divine author, Plato, who was nearly his contemporary, has represented in the Phaedrus as being highly extolled by Socrates, and whom all learned men have called a consummate orator, I do not class among the number of those who are to be taken for models. For he is not engaged in actual conflict; he is not armed for the fray ”

“ EPHORUS (c. 400–330 B.C.) , of Cyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, Greek historian. Together with the historian Theopompus he was a pupil of Isocrates, in whose school he attended two courses of rhetoric. But he does not seem to have made much progress in the art, and it is said to have been at the suggestion of Isocrates himself that he took up literary composition and the study of history. The fruit of his labours was his Ἱστορίαι in 29 books, the first universal history, beginning with the return of the Heraclidae to Peloponnesus, as the first well-attested historical event. ”

“ Isocrates could see behind the glowing colours in which the glories of the Periclean age are sometimes painted, and equally with Demosthenes he realized, and did not shrink from noticing, the weakness of Athens in his own days. But his advice, though noble, is unpractical. He failed, in spite of his knowledge of history, to fathom the depth of Greek selfishness. No State that relied solely or chiefly on moral worth could have a voice in the council of Greece, far less dominate its policy. ”

“ The fervid orator personifies that empire, that false mistress which has lured Athens, then Sparta, then Athens once more, to the verge of destruction. “Is she not worthy of detestation?” Leadership passes into empire; empire begets insolence; insolence brings ruin. The Areopagiticus breathes a kindred spirit in regard to home policy. Athenian life had lost its old tone. Apathy to public interests, dissolute frivolity, tawdry display and real poverty—these are the features on which Isocrates dwells. ”

“ Aristotle conceived the central power as political and permanent; Isocrates conceived it as, in the first place, military, having for its immediate aim the conduct of an expedition against Asia. The general views of Isocrates as to the largest good possible for the Greek race were thus in accord with the prevailing tendency of the best Greek thought in that age. ”

“ For there is a deep philosophy implanted by nature in this man's mind." This was the augury which Socrates forms of him while a young man. But Plato writes it of him when he has become an old man, and when he is his contemporary, and a sort of attacker of all the rhetoricians. And Isocrates is the only one whom he admires. And let those men who are not fond of Isocrates allow me to remain in error in the company of Socrates and Plato. ”

“ The writings of Isocrates contain a few more or less distinct allusions to Plato’s doctrines or works, to the general effect that they are barren of practical result. [15] But Isocrates nowhere assails Plato’s philosophy as such. When he declares “knowledge” (ἐπιστήμη) to be unattainable, he means an exact “knowledge” of the contingencies which may arise in practical life. “Since it is impossible for human nature to acquire any science (ἐπιστήμην) by which we should know what to do or to say, in the next resort I deem those wise who, as a rule, can hit what is best by their opinions” (δόξας) . ”

“ Killed with report that old man eloquent.”
Now the third of the letters which bears the name of Isocrates is addressed to Philip, and appears to congratulate him on his victory at Chaeronea, as being an event which will enable him to assume the leadership of Greece in a war against Persia. Is the letter genuine? There is no evidence, external or internal, against its authenticity, except its supposed inconsistency with the views of Isocrates and with the tradition of his suicide. ”

“ If he does not furnish you with enough material in himself, you must compare him with others, as Isocrates used to do, because of his inexperience of forensic speaking. And you must compare him with illustrious personages, for it affords ground for amplification and is noble, if he can be proved better than men of worth. ”

“ From this time, therefore, bidding farewell to other sorts of learning and study, he now began to exercise himself, and to take pains in declaiming, as one that meant to be himself also an orator. He made use of Isaeus as his guide to the art of speaking, though Isocrates at that time was giving lessons; whether, as some say, because he was an orphan, and was not able to pay Isocrates his appointed fee of ten minae, or because he preferred Isaeus's speaking, as being more business-like and effective in actual use. ”

“ But most certainly the Greeks gave a profound spiritual meaning to the Eleusinia, as also to the mystic connection of Demeter with Dionysus. She gave them bread: but they never forgot that she gave them the bread of life. "She gave us," says the ancient Isocrates, "two gifts that are the most excellent: fruits, that we might not live like beasts; and that initiation, those who have part in which have sweeter hope,—both as regards the close of life, and for all eternity." ”

“ Ridiculing the school of Isocrates, he would add, that his scholars grew old men before they had done learning with him, as if they were to use their art and plead causes in the court of Minos in the next world. ”

“ Practice on these lines will prepare a man, as far as his nature allows, for speaking and acting in a public capacity; so that what Isocrates calls his ‘philosophy’ is really a science of practical politics.
Isocrates seems to have been thorough in all things; himself a hard worker who took extraordinary care over his compositions, he expected his pupils to work hard. He was not content, like some Sophists, with making them learn his own ‘fair copies’ by heart; they must do the work for themselves. He scoffs at those teachers who claim to ‘finish’ their pupils in a year ”

“ His political eloquence can worthily image the majesty of the state, and enforce weighty counsels with lofty and impassioned fervour. A true artist, he grudged no labour which could make the least part of his work more perfect. Isocrates spent ten years on the Panegyricus. After Plato’s death, a manuscript was found among his papers with the first eight words of the Republic arranged in several different orders. What wonder, then, asks the Greek critic, if the diligence of Demosthenes was no less incessant and minute? ”

“ Isocrates on the other hand blames them because they rewarded bodily excellences, but instituted no prize for men of wisdom. Exordia may also be derived from advice, for instance, one should honor the good, wherefore the speaker praises Aristides, or such as are neither famous nor worthless, but who, although they are good, remain obscure, as Alexander, son of Priam ”