Lysias
Encyclopedia
Lysias (ca. 445 BC – ca. 380 BC) was a logographer (speech writer) in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators
included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium
and Aristarchus of Samothrace
in the third century BC.
and the author of the life ascribed to Plutarch
, Lysias was born in 459 BC, which would accord with a tradition that Lysias reached, or passed, the age of eighty. This date was evidently obtained by reckoning back from the foundation of Thurii
(444 BC), since there was a tradition that Lysias had gone there at the age of fifteen. Modern critics, in general, place his birth later, ca. 445 BC, and place the trip to Thurii around 430 BC.
Cephalus, his father, was a native of Syracuse
, and on the invitation of Pericles had settled at Athens. The opening scene of Plato
's Republic is set at the house of his eldest son, Polemarchus
, in Piraeus
. The tone of the picture warrants the inference that the Sicilian family were well known to Plato, and that their houses must often have been hospitable to such gatherings. Further, Plato's Phaedrus opens with Phaedrus coming from conversation with Lysias at the house of Epicrates of Athens
: he meets Socrates
, with whom he will read and discuss the speech of Lysias he heard.
At Thurii, the colony newly planted on the Tarentine Gulf
, the boy may have seen Herodotus
, now a man in middle life, and a friendship may have grown up between them. There, too, Lysias is said to have commenced his studies in rhetoric
—doubtless under a master of the Sicilian school possibly, as tradition said, under Tisias
, the pupil of Corax
, whose name is associated with the first attempt to formulate rhetoric as an art. In 413 BC the Athenian armament in Sicily
was annihilated. The desire to link famous names is illustrated by the ancient ascription to Lysias of a rhetorical exercise purporting to be a speech in which the captive general Nicias
appealed for mercy to the Sicilians. The terrible blow to Athens quickened the energies of an anti-Athenian faction at Thurii. Lysias and his elder brother Polemarchus, with three hundred other persons, were accused of Atticizing. They were driven from Thurii and settled at Athens (412 BC).
Lysias and Polemarchus were rich men, having inherited property from their father, Cephalus; and Lysias claims that, though merely resident aliens, they discharged public services with a liberality which shamed many of those who enjoyed the franchise (Against Eratosthenes
xii.20). The fact that they owned house property shows that they were classed as isoteleis , i.e. foreigners who paid only the same tax as citizens, being exempt from the special tax (μετοίκιον) on resident aliens
. Polemarchus occupied a house in Athens itself, Lysias another in the Piraeus, near which was their shield manufactory, employing a hundred and twenty skilled slaves
.
In 404 the Thirty Tyrants
were established at Athens
under the protection of a Sparta
n garrison. One of their earliest measures was an attack upon the resident aliens, who were represented as disaffected to the new government. Lysias and Polemarchus were on a list of ten singled out to be the first victims. Polemarchus was arrested, and compelled to drink hemlock
. Lysias had a narrow escape, with the help of a large bribe. He slipped by a back-door out of the house in which he was a prisoner, and took a boat to Megara
. It appears that he had rendered valuable services to the exiles during the reign of the tyrants, and in 403 Thrasybulus
proposed that these services should be recognized by the bestowal of the citizenship. The Boule, however, had not yet been reconstituted, and hence the measure could not be introduced to the ecclesia
by the requisite preliminary resolution (προβούλευμα). On this ground it was successfully opposed.
The Athenian political climate during Lysias’s life cannot be looked upon in modern terms. Modern politics means constant and open competition between organized rival factions with their own ideologies and memberships. The members of these parties label themselves a certain name which implies that they will vote and pay dues to a certain organization who share the same basic social and political outlooks on society. The terms that best render political opposites at the time were “Oligarch” and “Democratic.” Politics as described by Lysias meant that “no human being is by nature oligarchical or democratic, but whatever constitution brings advantage to an individual is the one he would like to see established.” This passage illustrates that whatever ideology a person chose to support is not based on their core beliefs or principles. Overall, two of the key terms of Athenian politics were popular participation and collective rule. Every male Athenian citizen, irrespective to birth, occupation, and with a few exceptions, economic status, had the right to wield power as an official or Council member and actively participate in the decision-making process at the Assembly whether or not he currently held any official position. Voting was egalitarian—‘one man, one vote’—and because Athens was a direct democracy, voting outcomes remained relatively unpredictable. A Greek person was likely to support one or the other at any given time based on specific economic and social cases.
During his later years Lysias—now probably a comparatively poor man owing to the rapacity of the tyrants and his own generosity to the Athenian exiles—appears as a hard-working member of a new profession—that of logographer
, writer of speeches to be delivered in the law-courts. The thirty-four extant are but a small fraction. From 403 to about 380 BC his industry must have been incessant. The notices of his personal life in these years are scanty. In 403 he came forward as the accuser of Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty Tyrants. This was his only direct contact with Athenian politics. The story that he wrote a defence for Socrates
, which the latter declined to use, probably arose from a confusion. Several years after the death of Socrates
the sophist Polycrates composed a declamation against him, to which Lysias replied.
A more authentic tradition represents Lysias as having spoken his own Olympiacus at the Olympic festival of 388 BC, to which Dionysius I of Syracuse
had sent a magnificent embassy. Tents embroidered with gold were pitched within the sacred enclosure; and the wealth of Dionysius was vividly shown by the number of chariots which he had entered. Lysias lifted up his voice to denounce Dionysius as, next to Artaxerxes
, the worst enemy of Hellas, and to impress upon the assembled Greeks that one of their foremost duties was to deliver Sicily from a hateful oppression. The latest work of Lysias which we can date (a fragment of a speech For Pherenicus) belongs to 381 or 380 BC. He probably died in or soon after 380 BC.
's pursuit of majestic emphasis, to his pupil (and close follower in many respects) Isaeus
' more conspicuous display of artistry and more strictly logical manner of argumentation, and later to the forceful oratory of Demosthenes
.
Translated into terms of ancient criticism, he became the model of the plain style (: genus tenue or subtile). Greek and then Roman critics distinguished three styles of rhetorical composition—the grand (or elaborate), the plain and the middle, the plain being nearest to the language of daily life. Greek rhetoric began in the grand style; then Lysias set an exquisite pattern of the plain; and Demosthenes might be considered as having effected an almost ideal compromise.
The vocabulary of Lysias is relatively simple and would later be regarded as a model of pure diction for Atticists
. Most of the rhetorical figures are sparingly used—except such as consist in the parallelism or opposition of clauses. The taste of the day not yet emancipated from the influence of the Sicilian rhetoric probably demanded a large use of antithesis
. Lysias excels in vivid description; he has also the knack of marking the speakers character by light touches. The structure of his sentences varies a good deal according to the dignity of the subject. He has equal command over the periodic style (κατεστραμμένη λέξις) and the non-periodic or continuous (εἰρομένη, διαλελυμένη). His disposition of his subject-matter is always simple. The speech has usually four parts: introduction (προοίμιον), narrative of facts (διήγησις), proofs (πίστεις), which may be either external, as from witnesses, or internal, derived from argument on the facts, and, lastly, conclusion (ἐπίλογος).
It is in the introduction and the narrative that Lysias is seen at his best. In his greatest extant speech—that Against Eratosthenes—and also in the fragmentary Olympiacus, he has pathos and fire; but these were not characteristic qualities of his work. In Cicero
's judgment (De Orat.
iii. 7, 28) Demosthenes was peculiarly distinguished by force (vis), Aeschines
by resonance (sonitus); Hypereides
by acuteness (acumen); Isocrates
by sweetness (suavitas); the distinction which he assigns to Lysias is subtilitas, an Attic refinement—which, as he elsewhere says (Brutus
, 16, 64) is often joined to an admirable vigour (lacerti). Nor was it oratory alone to which Lysias rendered service; his work had an important effect on all subsequent Greek prose, by showing how perfect elegance could be joined to plainness. Here, in his artistic use of familiar idiom, he might fairly be called the Euripides
of Attic
prose. His style has attracted interest from modern readers, because it is employed in describing scenes from the everyday life of Athens.
The table below shows the name of the speech (in the ordered listed in the Lamb translation), the suggested date of the speech, the primary rhetorical mode, the main point of the speech, and comments. Forensic is synonymous with judicial and denotes speeches made in law courts. Epideictic is ceremonial and involves the praise or, less often, the criticism, of the subject. Deliberative denotes speeches made in legislatures. Notes (e.g., A1, B3, etc.) refer to the list of qualifications below the table.
NOTES "A": FORENSIC, RELATING TO PUBLIC CAUSES
NOTES "B": FORENSIC, RELATING TO PRIVATE CAUSES
The speech attributed to Lysias in Plato's Phaedrus 230e-234. This speech has generally been regarded as Plato's own work; but the certainty of this conclusion will be doubted by those who observe:
If the satirist were merely analysing his own composition, such criticism would have little point. Lysias is the earliest writer who is known to have composed erōtikoi; it is as representing both rhetoric and a false erōs that he is the object of attack in the Phaedrus.
, Oratores Attici, ii. 170-216. Two hundred and fifty-two of them represent one hundred and twenty-seven speeches of known title; and of six the fragments are comparatively large. Of these, the fragmentary speech For Pherenicus belongs to 381 or 380 BC, and is thus the latest known work of Lysias. In literary and historical interest, the first place among the extant speeches of Lysias belongs to that Against Eratosthenes (403 BC), one of the Thirty Tyrants, whom Lysias arraigns as the murderer of his brother Polemarchus. The speech is an eloquent and vivid picture of the reign of terror which the Thirty established at Athens; the concluding appeal, to both parties among the citizens, is specially powerful.
Next in importance is the speech Against Agoratus (388 BC), one of our chief authorities for the internal history of Athens during the months which immediately followed; the defeat at Aegospotami
. The Olympiacus (388 BC) is a brilliant fragment, expressing the spirit of the festival at Olympia, and exhorting Greeks to unite against their common foes. The Plea for the Constitution (403 BC) is interesting for the manner in which it argues that the well-being of Athens—now stripped of empire—is bound up with the maintenance of democratic principles. The speech For Mantitheus (392 BC) is a graceful and animated portrait, of a young Athenian hippeus, making a spirited defence of his honor against the charge of disloyalty. The defence For the Invalid is a humorous character-sketch, The speech Against Pancleon illustrates the intimate relations between Athens and Plataea
, while it gives us some picturesque glimpses of Athenian town life. The defence of the person who had, been charged with destroying a mona, or sacred olive, places us amidst the country life of Attica. And the speech Against Theomnestus deserves attention for its curious evidence of the way in which the ordinary vocabulary of Athens had changed between 600 and 400 BC.
All manuscripts of Lysias yet collated have been derived, as H Sauppe first showed, from the Codex Palatinus X. (Heidelberg). The next most valuable manuscript is the Laurentianus C (15th century), which Immanuel Bekker
chiefly followed. Speaking generally, we may say that these two manuscripts are the only two which carry much weight where the text is seriously corrupt. In Oratt. i.-ix. Bekker, occasionally consulted eleven other manuscripts, most of which contain only the above nine speeches: viz., Marciani F, G, I, K (Venice); Laurentiani D, E (Florence); Vaticani M, N; Parisini U, V; Urbinas O.
Attic orators
The ten Attic orators were considered the greatest orators and logographers of the classical era . They are included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace.-The Alexandrian "Canon of Ten":* Aeschines* Andocides* Antiphon* Demosthenes*...
included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium
Aristophanes of Byzantium
Aristophanes of Byzantium was a Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other classical authors such as Pindar and Hesiod. Born in Byzantium about 257 BC, he soon moved to Alexandria and studied under Zenodotus,...
and Aristarchus of Samothrace
Aristarchus of Samothrace
Aristarchus of Samothrace was a grammarian noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homeric poetry. He was the librarian of the library of Alexandria and seems to have succeeded his teacher Aristophanes of Byzantium in that role.He established the most historically important critical...
in the third century BC.
Life
According to Dionysius of HalicarnassusDionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...
and the author of the life ascribed to Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, Lysias was born in 459 BC, which would accord with a tradition that Lysias reached, or passed, the age of eighty. This date was evidently obtained by reckoning back from the foundation of Thurii
Thurii
Thurii , called also by some Latin writers Thurium , for a time also Copia and Copiae, was a city of Magna Graecia, situated on the Tarentine gulf, within a short distance of the site of Sybaris, whose place it may be considered as having taken...
(444 BC), since there was a tradition that Lysias had gone there at the age of fifteen. Modern critics, in general, place his birth later, ca. 445 BC, and place the trip to Thurii around 430 BC.
Cephalus, his father, was a native of Syracuse
Syracuse, Italy
Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of the preeminent mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This 2,700-year-old city played a key role in...
, and on the invitation of Pericles had settled at Athens. The opening scene of Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's Republic is set at the house of his eldest son, Polemarchus
Polemarchus
Polemarchus or Polemarch was the son of Cephalus of Syracuse. He had two brothers, Lysias and Euthydemus, and a sister who married Brachyllus. Polemarchus and Lysias traveled to Thurii when the latter was 15 years old....
, in Piraeus
Piraeus
Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....
. The tone of the picture warrants the inference that the Sicilian family were well known to Plato, and that their houses must often have been hospitable to such gatherings. Further, Plato's Phaedrus opens with Phaedrus coming from conversation with Lysias at the house of Epicrates of Athens
Epicrates of Athens
Epicrates was a citizen of ancient Athens who took a prominent part in public affairs after the end of the Peloponnesian War.He was a zealous member of the democratical party, and had a share in the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants...
: he meets Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, with whom he will read and discuss the speech of Lysias he heard.
At Thurii, the colony newly planted on the Tarentine Gulf
Gulf of Taranto
The Gulf of Taranto is a gulf of the Ionian Sea, in southern Italy.The Gulf of Taranto is almost square, 140 km long and wide, and is delimited by the capes Santa Maria di Leuca and Colonna...
, the boy may have seen Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, now a man in middle life, and a friendship may have grown up between them. There, too, Lysias is said to have commenced his studies in rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
—doubtless under a master of the Sicilian school possibly, as tradition said, under Tisias
Tisias
Tisias , along with Corax of Syracuse, was one of the founders of ancient Greek rhetoric, or sophism. Tisias was reputed to have been the pupil of the lawyer Corax, who agreed to teach Tisias under the condition that he would give him payment for schooling if he won his first case...
, the pupil of Corax
Corax
The term Corax can refer to:* Corax is the name of a British experimental UAV developed in 2004 by BAE Systems* Corax , wereravens in White Wolf's World of Darkness role-playing game system...
, whose name is associated with the first attempt to formulate rhetoric as an art. In 413 BC the Athenian armament in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
was annihilated. The desire to link famous names is illustrated by the ancient ascription to Lysias of a rhetorical exercise purporting to be a speech in which the captive general Nicias
Nicias
Nicias or Nikias was an Athenian politician and general during the period of the Peloponnesian War. Nicias was a member of the Athenian aristocracy because he had inherited a large fortune from his father, which was invested into the silver mines around Attica's Mt. Laurium...
appealed for mercy to the Sicilians. The terrible blow to Athens quickened the energies of an anti-Athenian faction at Thurii. Lysias and his elder brother Polemarchus, with three hundred other persons, were accused of Atticizing. They were driven from Thurii and settled at Athens (412 BC).
Lysias and Polemarchus were rich men, having inherited property from their father, Cephalus; and Lysias claims that, though merely resident aliens, they discharged public services with a liberality which shamed many of those who enjoyed the franchise (Against Eratosthenes
Against Eratosthenes
Against Eratosthenes is a speech by Lysias, one of the ten Attic orators. In the speech, Lysias accuses Eratosthenes, a member of the Thirty Tyrants who ruled Athens following the Peloponnesian War, of the murder of his brother, Polemarchus ....
xii.20). The fact that they owned house property shows that they were classed as isoteleis , i.e. foreigners who paid only the same tax as citizens, being exempt from the special tax (μετοίκιον) on resident aliens
Metic
In ancient Greece, the term metic referred to a resident alien, one who did not have citizen rights in his or her Greek city-state of residence....
. Polemarchus occupied a house in Athens itself, Lysias another in the Piraeus, near which was their shield manufactory, employing a hundred and twenty skilled slaves
Slavery in Ancient Greece
Slavery was common practice and an integral component of ancient Greece throughout its rich history, as it was in other societies of the time including ancient Israel and early Christian societies. It is estimated that in Athens, the majority of citizens owned at least one slave...
.
In 404 the Thirty Tyrants
Thirty Tyrants
The Thirty Tyrants were a pro-Spartan oligarchy installed in Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. Contemporary Athenians referred to them simply as "the oligarchy" or "the Thirty" ; the expression "Thirty Tyrants" is due to later historians...
were established at Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
under the protection of a Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
n garrison. One of their earliest measures was an attack upon the resident aliens, who were represented as disaffected to the new government. Lysias and Polemarchus were on a list of ten singled out to be the first victims. Polemarchus was arrested, and compelled to drink hemlock
Cicuta virosa
Cicuta virosa is a species of Cicuta, native to northern and central Europe, northern Asia and northwestern North America. It is a perennial herbaceous plant which grows up to 1–2 m tall. The stems are smooth, branching, swollen at the base, purple-striped, and hollow except for partitions at the...
. Lysias had a narrow escape, with the help of a large bribe. He slipped by a back-door out of the house in which he was a prisoner, and took a boat to Megara
Megara
Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
. It appears that he had rendered valuable services to the exiles during the reign of the tyrants, and in 403 Thrasybulus
Thrasybulus
Thrasybulus was an Athenian general and democratic leader. In 411 BC, in the wake of an oligarchic coup at Athens, the pro-democracy sailors at Samos elected him as a general, making him a primary leader of the successful democratic resistance to that coup...
proposed that these services should be recognized by the bestowal of the citizenship. The Boule, however, had not yet been reconstituted, and hence the measure could not be introduced to the ecclesia
Ecclesia (ancient Athens)
The ecclesia or ekklesia was the principal assembly of the democracy of ancient Athens during its "Golden Age" . It was the popular assembly, opened to all male citizens over the age of 30 with 2 years of military service by Solon in 594 BC meaning that all classes of citizens in Athens were able...
by the requisite preliminary resolution (προβούλευμα). On this ground it was successfully opposed.
The Athenian political climate during Lysias’s life cannot be looked upon in modern terms. Modern politics means constant and open competition between organized rival factions with their own ideologies and memberships. The members of these parties label themselves a certain name which implies that they will vote and pay dues to a certain organization who share the same basic social and political outlooks on society. The terms that best render political opposites at the time were “Oligarch” and “Democratic.” Politics as described by Lysias meant that “no human being is by nature oligarchical or democratic, but whatever constitution brings advantage to an individual is the one he would like to see established.” This passage illustrates that whatever ideology a person chose to support is not based on their core beliefs or principles. Overall, two of the key terms of Athenian politics were popular participation and collective rule. Every male Athenian citizen, irrespective to birth, occupation, and with a few exceptions, economic status, had the right to wield power as an official or Council member and actively participate in the decision-making process at the Assembly whether or not he currently held any official position. Voting was egalitarian—‘one man, one vote’—and because Athens was a direct democracy, voting outcomes remained relatively unpredictable. A Greek person was likely to support one or the other at any given time based on specific economic and social cases.
During his later years Lysias—now probably a comparatively poor man owing to the rapacity of the tyrants and his own generosity to the Athenian exiles—appears as a hard-working member of a new profession—that of logographer
Logographer (legal)
The title of logographer was applied to professional authors of judicial discourse in Ancient Greece...
, writer of speeches to be delivered in the law-courts. The thirty-four extant are but a small fraction. From 403 to about 380 BC his industry must have been incessant. The notices of his personal life in these years are scanty. In 403 he came forward as the accuser of Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty Tyrants. This was his only direct contact with Athenian politics. The story that he wrote a defence for Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, which the latter declined to use, probably arose from a confusion. Several years after the death of Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
the sophist Polycrates composed a declamation against him, to which Lysias replied.
A more authentic tradition represents Lysias as having spoken his own Olympiacus at the Olympic festival of 388 BC, to which Dionysius I of Syracuse
Dionysius of Syracuse
Dionysius of Syracuse may refer to:*Dionysius I of Syracuse, tyrant of Syracuse from 405 BC to 367 BC.; father of Dionysius II*Dionysius II of Syracuse, tyrant of Syracuse from 367 BC to 357 BC and again from 346 BC to 344 BC.; son of Dionysius I...
had sent a magnificent embassy. Tents embroidered with gold were pitched within the sacred enclosure; and the wealth of Dionysius was vividly shown by the number of chariots which he had entered. Lysias lifted up his voice to denounce Dionysius as, next to Artaxerxes
Artaxerxes
Artaxerxes may refer to:The throne name of several Achaemenid rulers of the 1st Persian Empire:* Artaxerxes I of Persia, Artaxerxes I Longimanus, r. 465–424 BC, son and successor of Xerxes I...
, the worst enemy of Hellas, and to impress upon the assembled Greeks that one of their foremost duties was to deliver Sicily from a hateful oppression. The latest work of Lysias which we can date (a fragment of a speech For Pherenicus) belongs to 381 or 380 BC. He probably died in or soon after 380 BC.
Style
Lysias displays literary tact, humour, and attention to character in his extant speeches, and is famous for using his skill to conceal his art. It was obviously desirable that a speech written for delivery by a client should be suitable to his age, station and circumstances. Lysias was the first to make this adaptation really artistic. His language is crafted to flow easily, in contrast to his predecessor AntiphonAntiphon (person)
Antiphon the Sophist lived in Athens probably in the last two decades of the 5th century BC. There is an ongoing controversy over whether he is one and the same with Antiphon of the Athenian deme Rhamnus in Attica , the earliest of the ten Attic orators...
's pursuit of majestic emphasis, to his pupil (and close follower in many respects) Isaeus
Isaeus
Isaeus , fl. early 4th century BC. One of the ten Attic Orators according to the Alexandrian canon. He was a student of Isocrates in Athens, and later taught Demosthenes while working as a metic speechwriter for others. Only eleven of his speeches survive, with fragments of a twelfth. They are...
' more conspicuous display of artistry and more strictly logical manner of argumentation, and later to the forceful oratory of Demosthenes
Demosthenes
Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...
.
Translated into terms of ancient criticism, he became the model of the plain style (: genus tenue or subtile). Greek and then Roman critics distinguished three styles of rhetorical composition—the grand (or elaborate), the plain and the middle, the plain being nearest to the language of daily life. Greek rhetoric began in the grand style; then Lysias set an exquisite pattern of the plain; and Demosthenes might be considered as having effected an almost ideal compromise.
The vocabulary of Lysias is relatively simple and would later be regarded as a model of pure diction for Atticists
Atticism
Atticism was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the 1st century BC; it may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with spoken Greek, which continued to evolve in directions guided by the common usages of Hellenistic Greek.Atticism was...
. Most of the rhetorical figures are sparingly used—except such as consist in the parallelism or opposition of clauses. The taste of the day not yet emancipated from the influence of the Sicilian rhetoric probably demanded a large use of antithesis
Antithesis
Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...
. Lysias excels in vivid description; he has also the knack of marking the speakers character by light touches. The structure of his sentences varies a good deal according to the dignity of the subject. He has equal command over the periodic style (κατεστραμμένη λέξις) and the non-periodic or continuous (εἰρομένη, διαλελυμένη). His disposition of his subject-matter is always simple. The speech has usually four parts: introduction (προοίμιον), narrative of facts (διήγησις), proofs (πίστεις), which may be either external, as from witnesses, or internal, derived from argument on the facts, and, lastly, conclusion (ἐπίλογος).
It is in the introduction and the narrative that Lysias is seen at his best. In his greatest extant speech—that Against Eratosthenes—and also in the fragmentary Olympiacus, he has pathos and fire; but these were not characteristic qualities of his work. In Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's judgment (De Orat.
De Oratore
De Oratore is a dialogue written by Cicero in 55 BCE. It is set in 91 BCE, when Lucius Licinius Crassus dies, just before the social war and the civil war between Marius and Sulla, during which Marcus Antonius Orator, the other great orator of this dialogue, dies...
iii. 7, 28) Demosthenes was peculiarly distinguished by force (vis), Aeschines
Aeschines
Aeschines was a Greek statesman and one of the ten Attic orators.-Life:Although it is known he was born in Athens, the records regarding his parentage and early life are conflicting; but it seems probable that his parents, though poor, were respectable. Aeschines' father was Atrometus, an...
by resonance (sonitus); Hypereides
Hypereides
Hypereides or Hyperides was a logographer in Ancient Greece...
by acuteness (acumen); Isocrates
Isocrates
Isocrates , an ancient Greek rhetorician, was one of the ten Attic orators. In his time, he was probably the most influential rhetorician in Greece and made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works....
by sweetness (suavitas); the distinction which he assigns to Lysias is subtilitas, an Attic refinement—which, as he elsewhere says (Brutus
Brutus (Cicero)
Cicero's Brutus is a history of Roman oratory. It is written in the form of a dialogue, in which Brutus and Atticus ask Cicero to describe the qualities of all the leading Roman orators up to their time. It was composed in 46 B.C.-Further reading:*G. V...
, 16, 64) is often joined to an admirable vigour (lacerti). Nor was it oratory alone to which Lysias rendered service; his work had an important effect on all subsequent Greek prose, by showing how perfect elegance could be joined to plainness. Here, in his artistic use of familiar idiom, he might fairly be called the Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
of Attic
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
prose. His style has attracted interest from modern readers, because it is employed in describing scenes from the everyday life of Athens.
Table of extant speeches
From Lysias we have thirty-four speeches. Three fragmentary ones have come down under the name of Lysias; one hundred and twenty-seven more, now lost, are known from smaller fragments or from titles. In the Augustan age four hundred and twenty-five works bore his name, of which more than two hundred were allowed as genuine by the critics.The table below shows the name of the speech (in the ordered listed in the Lamb translation), the suggested date of the speech, the primary rhetorical mode, the main point of the speech, and comments. Forensic is synonymous with judicial and denotes speeches made in law courts. Epideictic is ceremonial and involves the praise or, less often, the criticism, of the subject. Deliberative denotes speeches made in legislatures. Notes (e.g., A1, B3, etc.) refer to the list of qualifications below the table.
| Speech | Suggested date | Primary rhetorical mode | Main point of speech | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. On the Murder of Eratosthenes On the Murder of Eratosthenes "On the Murder of Eratosthenes" is a speech by Lysias, one of the "Canon of Ten" Attic orators . The speech is a defense written for Euphiletos who is charged with the death of Eratosthenes... |
ca. 400 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A6]; in private causes [B4] | Euphelitos tries to prove that the murder he committed was not premeditated | |
| 2. Funeral Oration | ca. 380–340 BCE | epideictic | Praise of fallen soldiers, purported to have been spoken during the Corinthian War Corinthian War The Corinthian War was an ancient Greek conflict lasting from 395 BC until 387 BC, pitting Sparta against a coalition of four allied states; Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos; which were initially backed by Persia. The immediate cause of the war was a local conflict in northwest Greece in which... . |
Authorship uncertain (style and approach are much different from Lysias' other speeches). |
| 3. Against Simon Against Simon Against Simon is a speech by Lysias, one of the "Canon of Ten" Attic orators . The speech concerns a case of "wounding with premeditation" or with the intention to commit murder... |
393 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A6]; in private causes [B4] | ||
| 4. On a Wound by Premeditation | uncertain | forensic, in public causes [A6] | Defendant is on a charge of wounding his friend, with intent to kill. | |
| 5. For Callias | uncertain | forensic, in public causes [A7] | A friend defends Callias against accusations of impiety. | |
| 6. Against Andocides | uncertain | forensic, in public causes [A7] | certainly spurious, but perhaps contemporary | |
| 7. Defense in the Matter of the Olive Stump | 395 BCE or later | forensic, in public causes [A7] | ||
| 8. Accusation of Calumny | uncertain | forensic, in private causes [B3] | spurious | |
| 9. For the Soldier | 394 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A3] | probably not by Lysias, but by an imitator, writing for a real cause | |
| 10. Against Theomnestus 1 | ca. 384–383 BCE | Forensic, in private causes [B1] | ||
| 11. Against Theomnestus 2 | ca. 384–383 BCE | Forensic, in private causes [B1] | this "second" speech may be merely an epitome of the first | |
| 12. Against Eratosthenes Against Eratosthenes Against Eratosthenes is a speech by Lysias, one of the ten Attic orators. In the speech, Lysias accuses Eratosthenes, a member of the Thirty Tyrants who ruled Athens following the Peloponnesian War, of the murder of his brother, Polemarchus .... |
403 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A6] | ||
| 13. Against Agoratus | 399 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A6] | ||
| 14. Against Alcibiades 1 | 395 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A5] | ||
| 15. Against Alcibiades 2 | 395 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A5] | ||
| 16. In Defense of Mantitheus | 392 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A4] | ||
| 17. On The Property Of Eraton | 397 BCE | forensic, in private causes [B3] | ||
| 18. On The Property Of The Brother Of Nicias: Peroration | 395 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A2] | ||
| 19. On the Property of Aristophenes | 387 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A3] | ||
| 20. For Polystratus | 407 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A1] | Polystratus is prosecuted for his acts against democracy. Polystratus' son defends him. | |
| 21. Defense Against a Charge of Taking Bribes | 402 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A1] | Defendant pleads the court not to condemn him for corruption. | |
| 22. Against the Corn-Dealers | 386 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A1] | ||
| 23. Against Pancleon | uncertain | forensic, in private causes [B4] | ||
| 24. On the Refusal of a Pension | 402 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A4] | Old man defends himself against accusations of not being eligible for a pension. | |
| 25. Defense Against a Charge of Subverting the Democracy | 401 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A4] | A man defends himself against a charge of treason; he is accused of being a supporter of the Thirty Tyrants Thirty Tyrants The Thirty Tyrants were a pro-Spartan oligarchy installed in Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. Contemporary Athenians referred to them simply as "the oligarchy" or "the Thirty" ; the expression "Thirty Tyrants" is due to later historians... . |
|
| 26. On the Scrutiny of Evandros | 382 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A4] | ||
| 27. Against Epicrates and his Fellow-Envoys | 389 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A1] | ||
| 28. Against Ergocles | 389 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A1] | ||
| 29. Against Philocrates | 389 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A3] | ||
| 30. Against Nicomachus Nicomachus (scribe) Nicomachus was a scribe who headed an Athenian committee, the , tasked with publishing the laws of Draco and Solon after the oligarchic revolution of 411 BC had been suppressed by the democrats. Lysias in a speech denouncing Nicomachus notes that the scribe's father was a public slave, and implies... |
389 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A1] | ||
| 31. Against Philon | ca. 404–395 BCE | forensic, in public causes [A4] | Philon have been elected to the council by lot. The speaker objects his election. | |
| 32. Against Diogeiton | 400 BCE | forensic, in private causes [B2] | A guardian is accused of holding out the money belonging to his wards. | |
| 33. Olympic Oration | 388 BCE | epideictic | ||
| 34. Against the Subversion of the Ancestral Constitution | 403 BCE | deliberative | Lysias speaks against a proposal that citizenship of Athens should only be confined to land owners. |
NOTES "A": FORENSIC, RELATING TO PUBLIC CAUSES
- Relating to Offences directly against the State ; such as treason, malversation in office, embezzlement of public moneys.
- Causes relating to Unconstitutional Procedure
- Causes relating to *Claims for Money withheld from the State .
- Causes relating to a Scrutiny (δοκιμασία); especially the Scrutiny, by the Senate, of Officials Designate
- Causes relating to Military Offences
- Causes relating to Murder or Intent to Murder
- Causes relating to Impiety
NOTES "B": FORENSIC, RELATING TO PRIVATE CAUSES
- Action for Libel (δίκη κακηγορίας)
- Action by a Ward against a Guardian
- Trial of a Claim to Property (διαδικασία)
- Answer to a Special Plea
Miscellaneous
To his Companions, a Complaint of Slanders, viii. (certainly spurious).The speech attributed to Lysias in Plato's Phaedrus 230e-234. This speech has generally been regarded as Plato's own work; but the certainty of this conclusion will be doubted by those who observe:
- the elaborate preparations made in the dialogue for a recital of the erōtikos which shall be verbally exact,
- the closeness of the criticism made upon it.
If the satirist were merely analysing his own composition, such criticism would have little point. Lysias is the earliest writer who is known to have composed erōtikoi; it is as representing both rhetoric and a false erōs that he is the object of attack in the Phaedrus.
Fragments
Three hundred and fifty-five of these are collected by Hermann SauppeHermann Sauppe
Hermann Sauppe was a German classical philologist and epigraphist born in Wesenstein, near Dresden....
, Oratores Attici, ii. 170-216. Two hundred and fifty-two of them represent one hundred and twenty-seven speeches of known title; and of six the fragments are comparatively large. Of these, the fragmentary speech For Pherenicus belongs to 381 or 380 BC, and is thus the latest known work of Lysias. In literary and historical interest, the first place among the extant speeches of Lysias belongs to that Against Eratosthenes (403 BC), one of the Thirty Tyrants, whom Lysias arraigns as the murderer of his brother Polemarchus. The speech is an eloquent and vivid picture of the reign of terror which the Thirty established at Athens; the concluding appeal, to both parties among the citizens, is specially powerful.
Next in importance is the speech Against Agoratus (388 BC), one of our chief authorities for the internal history of Athens during the months which immediately followed; the defeat at Aegospotami
Battle of Aegospotami
The naval Battle of Aegospotami took place in 405 BC and was the last major battle of the Peloponnesian War. In the battle, a Spartan fleet under Lysander completely destroyed the Athenian navy...
. The Olympiacus (388 BC) is a brilliant fragment, expressing the spirit of the festival at Olympia, and exhorting Greeks to unite against their common foes. The Plea for the Constitution (403 BC) is interesting for the manner in which it argues that the well-being of Athens—now stripped of empire—is bound up with the maintenance of democratic principles. The speech For Mantitheus (392 BC) is a graceful and animated portrait, of a young Athenian hippeus, making a spirited defence of his honor against the charge of disloyalty. The defence For the Invalid is a humorous character-sketch, The speech Against Pancleon illustrates the intimate relations between Athens and Plataea
Plataea
Plataea or Plataeae was an ancient city, located in Greece in southeastern Boeotia, south of Thebes. It was the location of the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, in which an alliance of Greek city-states defeated the Persians....
, while it gives us some picturesque glimpses of Athenian town life. The defence of the person who had, been charged with destroying a mona, or sacred olive, places us amidst the country life of Attica. And the speech Against Theomnestus deserves attention for its curious evidence of the way in which the ordinary vocabulary of Athens had changed between 600 and 400 BC.
All manuscripts of Lysias yet collated have been derived, as H Sauppe first showed, from the Codex Palatinus X. (Heidelberg). The next most valuable manuscript is the Laurentianus C (15th century), which Immanuel Bekker
August Immanuel Bekker
August Immanuel Bekker was a German philologist and critic.-Biography:Born in Berlin, Bekker completed his classical education at the University of Halle under Friedrich August Wolf, who considered him as his most promising pupil. In 1810 he was appointed professor of philosophy in the University...
chiefly followed. Speaking generally, we may say that these two manuscripts are the only two which carry much weight where the text is seriously corrupt. In Oratt. i.-ix. Bekker, occasionally consulted eleven other manuscripts, most of which contain only the above nine speeches: viz., Marciani F, G, I, K (Venice); Laurentiani D, E (Florence); Vaticani M, N; Parisini U, V; Urbinas O.