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III.

LYSIAS

Lysias was the son of Cephalus, grandson of Lysanias, and great-grandson of Cephalus. His father was by birth a Syracusan but moved to Athens because he wished to live in that city and also because Pericles, son of Xanthippus, persuaded him to do so, as he was a personal friend of Pericles and they were connected by ties of hospitality, and he was a man of great wealth. But some say that he moved because he was banished from Syracuse when Gelo was tyrant. Lysias was born at Athens in the archonship of the Philocles¹ who succeeded Phrasicles,² in the second year of the eightieth Olympiad, and at first he was a schoolmate of the most prominent Athenians; but when the city sent the colony to Sybaris, which was afterwards renamed Thurii, he went out with his eldest brother Polemarchus (for he had two others, Euthydemus and Brachyllus), their father being already dead, to share in the allotment of land.³ This was in the archonship of Praxiteles,⁴ and he was then fifteen years old. He remained there, was instructed by the Syracusans Teisias and Nicias, acquired a house, had a share of the allotment, and was a citizen for thirty-three years, until Cleocritus was archon at Athens.⁵ But in the next year, when Callias was archon,⁶ in the ninety-second Olympiad, when the misfortunes in Sicily⁷ had happened to the Athenians and unrest had arisen among the allies in general and especially those who dwelt in Italy, he was accused of favouring Athens and, with three hundred others, was banished. Arriving at Athens in the archonship of the Callias⁸ who succeeded Cleocritus, when the Four Hundred already had possession of the city,⁹ he remained there. But when the battle of Aegospotami¹⁰ had taken place and the Thirty had taken possession of the city,¹¹ he was banished after having been there seven years. He was deprived of his property and lost his brother Polemarchus, but he himself escaped from the house in which he was kept to be executed (for it had two doors)¹² and lived at Megara. But when the men at Phyle¹³ set about their return to Athens, he was seen to be more helpful than anyone else, since he supplied two thousand drachmas and two hundred shields and, when sent with Hermas, hired three hundred mercenaries and persuaded Thrasydaeus of Elis, who had become his guest-friend, to give two talents. For these services Thrasybulus, after the restoration of the exiles to the city and in the period of anarchy¹⁴ before Eucleides, proposed a grant of citizenship for him, and the popular assembly ratified the grant, but when Archinus had him up for illegality because it had not been previously voted by the senate,¹⁵ the enactment was declared void. And after losing his citizenship in this way, he lived the rest of his life at Athens with all the rights of citizenship except the vote and eligibility to office, and died there at the age of eightythree years or, as some say, seventy-six or, as others say, over eighty; and he lived to see Demosthenes as a youth. They say he was born in the archonship of Philocles.

Four hundred and twenty-five orations attributed to him are current. Of these Dionysius and Caecilius and their school say that two hundred and thirtythree are genuine, and he is said to have lost his case with only two of them. There is also his speech in support of the enactment against which Archinus brought suit and deprived him of citizenship, and another against the Thirty. He was very persuasive and concise and produced most of his speeches for private clients. There are also Textbooks of Rhetoric prepared by him, and Public Addresses, Letters and Eulogies, Funeral Speeches, Love Speeches, and a Defence of Socrates addressed to the judges.¹⁶ In the matter of his diction he appears to be easy, although in fact he is hard to imitate.¹⁷ Demosthenes in his speech against Neaera¹⁸ says that he was in love with Metaneira, a fellow-slave with Neaera; but later he married the daughter of his brother Brachyllus. Plato also mentions him in the Phaedrus¹⁹ as an able speaker and older than Isocrates. Moreover Philiscus, a pupil of Isocrates and comrade of Lysias, composed an elegiac poem to him, from which it is plain that he was earlier in years, which is indicated also by what Plato said. The verses are as follows:

Now, O Calliope’s daughter endowed with great eloquence, Phrontis,

Show if thy wisdom is aught, if thou hast anything new.

Him who is altered and changed to another form, him who in other

Orders and manners of life hath a new body assumed,

Thou must bring forth some herald of virtue to celebrate: Lysis²⁰

Gone to the dead and the gloom, there an immortal to dwell;

One who will show unto all the love of my soul for my comrade,

Show, too, the worth of the dead unto the whole of mankind.²¹

He also wrote two speeches for Iphicrates, one against Harmodius, the other for use in accusing Timotheüs of treason, with both of which he won his case; but when Iphicrates accepted the responsibility for the actions of Timotheüs,²² assuming at the rendering of accounts the accusation for treason, he defended himself with the speech by Lysias; and he himself was acquitted, but Timotheüs was very heavily fined. And at the Olympic festival also he read a very great oration urging that the Greeks make peace with one another and overthrow Dionysius.²³

Vitae decem oratorum. Plutarch. Harold North Fowler (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1936.

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Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

The Lives of the Ten Orators (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. X. Fowler, Harold North, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τῶν δέκα ἡτόρων Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. V. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1893.) — 3 focus

Λυσίας

[1] 835c Λυσίας υἱὸς ἦν Κεφάλου τοῦ Λυσανίου τοῦ Κεφάλου, Συρακουσίου μὲν γένος μεταναστάντος δʼ εἰς Ἀθήνας ἐπιθυμίᾳ τε τῆς πόλεως καὶ Περικλέους 10 τοῦ Ξανθίππου πείσαντος αὐτόν, φίλον ὄντα καὶ ξένον, πλούτῳ διαφέροντα· ὡς δέ τινες, ἐκπεσόντα τῶν Συρακουσῶν, ἡνίκα, ὑπὸ Γέλωνος ἐτυραννοῦντο. γενόμενος δʼ Ἀθήνησιν ἐπὶ Φιλοκλέους ἄρχοντος τοῦ μετὰ Φρασικλῆ κατὰ τὸ δεύτερον ἔτος τῆς 15 ὀγδοηκοστῆς ὀλυμπιάδος, τὸ μὲν πρῶτον συνεπαιδεύετο τοῖς ἐπιφανεστάτοις Ἀθηναίων· ἐπεὶ δὲ τὴν 835d εἰς Σύβαριν· ἀποικίαν τὴν ὕστερον Θουρίους μετονομασθεῖσαν ἔστελλεν ἡ πόλις, ᾤχετο σὺν τῷ πρεσβυτάτῳ ἀδελφῶν Πολεμάρχῳ (ἦσαν γὰρ αὐτῷ καὶ 20 ἄλλοι δύο, Εὐθύδημος καὶ Βράχυλλος), τοῦ πατρὸς ἤδη τετελευτηκότος, ὡς κοινωνήσων τοῦ κλήρου, ἔτη γεγονὼς πεντεκαίδεκα, ἐπὶ Πραξιτέλους ἄρχοντος κἀκεῖ διέμεινε παιδευόμενος παρὰ Τισίᾳ καὶ Νικίᾳ τοῖς Συρακουσίοις, κτησάμενὸς τʼ οἰκίαν καὶ κλήρου τυχὼν ἐπολιτεύσατο ἕως Κλεάρχου τοῦ Ἀθήνησιν ἄρχοντος ἔτη ἑξήκοντα τρία. τῷ δʼ ἑξῆς 5 Καλλίᾳ ὀλυμπιάδι ἐνενηκοστῇ δευτέρᾳ τῶν κατὰ 835e Σικελίαν συμβάντων Ἀθηναίοις καὶ κινήσεως γενομένης τῶν τʼ ἄλλων συμμάχων καὶ μάλιστα τῶν τὴν Ἰταλίαν οἰκούντων, αἰτιαθεὶς ἀττικίζειν ἐξέπεσε μετʼ ἄλλων τριακοσίων. παραγενόμενος δʼ Ἀθήνησιν 10 ἐπὶ Καλλίου τοῦ μετὰ Κλεόκριτον ἄρχοντος, ἤδη τῶν τετρακοσίων κατεχόντων τὴν πόλιν, διέτριβεν αὐτόθι. τῆς δʼ ἐν Αἰγὸς ποταμοῖς ναυμαχίας γενομένης καὶ τῶν τριάκοντα παραλαβόντων τὴν πόλιν, ἐξέπεσεν ἑπτὰ ἔτη μείνας, ἀφαιρεθεὶς τὴν οὐσίαν 15 835f καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν Πολέμαρχον· αὐτὸς δὲ διαδρὰς ἐκ τῆς οἰκίας ἀμφιθύρου οὔσης, ἐν ᾗ ἐφυλάσσετο ὡς ἀπολούμενος, διῆγεν ἐν Μεγάροις. ἐπιθεμένων δὲ τῶν ἀπὸ Φυλῆς τῇ καθόδῳ, ἐπεὶ χρησιμώτατος ἁπάντων ὤφθη, χρήματά τε παρασχὼν δραχμὰς 20 δισχιλίας καὶ ἀσπίδας διακοσίας πεμφθείς τε σὺν Ἑρμᾶνι ἐπικούρους ἐμισθώσατο τριακοσίους, δύο τʼ ἔπεισε τάλαντα δοῦναι Θρασυδαῖον τὸν Ἠλεῖον, ξένον αὐτῷ γεγονότα. ἐφʼ οἷς γράψαντος αὐτῷ Θρασυβούλου πολιτείαν μετὰ τὴν κάθοδον ἐπʼ ἀναρχίας τῆς πρὸ Εὐκλείδου, ὁ μὲν δῆμος ἐκύρωσε τὴν 5 δωρεάν, ἀπενεγκαμένου δʼ Ἀρχίνου γραφὴν παρανόμων 836a διὰ τὸ ἀπροβούλευτον εἰσαχθῆναι, ἑάλω τὸ ψήφισμα· καὶ οὕτως ἀπελαθεὶς τῆς πολιτείας τὸν. λοιπὸν ᾤκησε χρόνον ἰσοτελὴς ὤν, καὶ ἐτελεύτησεν αὐτόθι ὀγδοήκοντα τρία ἔτη βιούς, ἢ ὥς τινες ἓξ 10 καὶ ἑβδομήκοντα, ἢ ὥς τινες ὑπὲρ ὀγδοήκοντα, ἰδὼν Δημοσθένη μειράκιον ὄντα. γεννηθῆναι δέ φασιν ἐπὶ Φιλοκλέους ἄρχοντος. φέρονται δʼ αὐτοῦ λόγοι τετρακόσιοι εἰκοσιπέντε· τούτων γνησίους φασὶν οἱ περὶ Διονύσιον καὶ Καικίλιον εἶναι διακοσίους τριάκοντα 15 καὶ τρεῖς, ἐν οἷς δὶς μόνον ἡττῆσθαι λέγεται. ἔστι δʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁ ὑπὲρ τοῦ ψηφίσματος ὃ ἐγράψατο 836b Ἀρχῖνος, τὴν πολιτείαν αὐτοῦ περιελών, καὶ κατὰ τῶν τριάκοντα ἕτερος. ἐγένετο δὲ πιθανώτατος καὶ βραχύτατος, τοῖς ἰδιώταις τοὺς πολλοὺς 20 λόγους ἐκδούς. εἰσὶ δʼ αὐτῷ καί τέχναι ῥητορικαὶ πεποιημέναι καὶ δημηγορίαι, Ἐπιστολαί τε καὶ ἐγκώμια, καὶ ἐπιτάφιοι καὶ Ἐρωτικοὶ καὶ Σωκράτους Ἀπολογία ἐστοχασμένη τῶν δικαστῶν. δοκεῖ δὲ κατὰ τὴν λέξιν εὔκολος εἶναι, δυσμίμητος ὤν. 25 Δημοσθένης δʼ ἐν τῷ κατὰ Νεαίρας λόγῳ ἐραστὴν αὐτόν φησι γεγονέναι Μετανείρας, ὁμοδούλου τῇ Νεαίρᾳ· ὕστερον δʼ ἔγημε Βραχύλλου τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ θυγατέρα. μνημονεύει δʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ Πλάτων ἐν τῷ 836c Φαίδρῳ ὡς δεινοτάτου εἰπεῖν καὶ Ἰσοκράτους πρεσβυτέρου. 5 ἐποίησε δὲ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἐπίγραμμα Φιλίσκος ὁ Ἰσοκράτους μὲν γνώριμος ἑταῖρος δὲ Λυσίου, διʼ οὗ φανερὸν ὡς προέλαβε τοῖς ἔτεσιν, ὃ καὶ ἐκ τῶν. ὑπὸ Πλάτωνος εἰρημένων ἀποδείκνυται ἔχει δ’ οὕτως 10

νῦν ὦ. Καλλιόπης θύγατερ, πολυήγορε Φρόντι,

δείξεις εἴ τι φρονεῖς καί τι περισσὸν ἔχεις

τὸν γὰρ ἐς ἄλλο σχῆμα μεθαρμοσθέντα καὶ ἄλλοις

ἐν κόσμοισι βίου σῶμα λαβόνθʼ ἕτερον,

δεῖ ς1ʼ ἀρετῆς κήρυκα τεκεῖν τινα Λύσιδα ὑμνεῖν, 15

δύντα κατὰ φθιμένων καὶ ζόφου ἀθάνατον

ὃς τὸ τʼ ἐμῆς ψυχῆς δείξει φιλέταιρον ἅπασι, 836d

καὶ τὴν τοῦ φθιμένου πᾶσι βροτοῖς ἀρετήν

συνέγραψε δὲ λόγω καὶ Ἰφικράτει, τὸν μὲν πρὸς Ἁρμόδιον, τὸν δὲ προδοσίας κρίνοντι Τιμόθεον 20 καὶ ἀμφοτέροις ἐνίκα· ἀναδεξαμένου δʼ Ἰφικράτους τὰς τοῦ Τιμοθέου πράξεις, ταῖς εὐθύναις ἀναλαβὼν τὴν τῆς προδοσίας αἰτίαν ἀπολογεῖται διὰ τοῦ Λυσίου λόγου · καὶ αὐτὸς μὲν ἀπελύθη, ὁ δὲ Τιμόθεος ἐζημιώθη πλείστοις χρήμασιν. ἀνέγνω δὲ καὶ ἐν τῇ Ὀλυμπιακῇ πανηγύρει λόγον μέγιστον, διαλλαγέντας τοὺς Ἕλληνας καταλῦσαι Διονύσιον. 836e

Translations (1)

Lives of the Ten Orators Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Barcroft, Charles, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 3 focus

III.

LYSIAS.

LYSIAS was the son of Cephalus, grandson of Lysanias, and great-grandson of Cephalus. His father was by birth a Syracusan; but partly for the love he had to the city, and partly in condescension to the persuasions of Pericles the son of Xanthippus, who entertained him as his friend and guest, he went to live at Athens, being a man of great wealth. Some say that he was banished Syracuse when the city was under the tyranny of Gelo. Lysias was born at Athens when Philocles, the successor of Phrasicles, was chief magistrate, in the second year of the eightieth Olympiad.¹ At his first coming, he was educated among the most noble of the Athenians. But when the city sent a colony to Sybaris, which was afterwards called Thurii, he went thither with his other brother Polemarchus, his father being now dead (for he had two other brothers, Euthydemus and Brachyllus), that he might receive his portion of his father’s estate. This was done in the fifteenth year of his age, when Praxiteles was chief magistrate.² There then he stayed, and was brought up under Nicias and Tisias, both Syracusans. And having purchased a house and received his estate, he lived as a citizen for thirty-three years, till the year of Cleocritus.³ In the year following, in the time of Callias, viz. in the ninety-second Olympiad, when the Athenians had met with their disasters in Sicily, and when other of their allies revolted, and especially the Italians, he, being accused of favoring the Athenians, was banished with three other of his association; when coming to Athens, in the year wherein Callias succeeded Cleocritus, the city then laboring under the tyranny of the four hundred conspirators, he there sat down. But after the fight at Aegospotami, when the Thirty Tyrants had usurped the government, he was banished thence, after he had remained in Athens seven years. His goods were confiscated; and having likewise lost his brother Polemarchus, he himself escaped by a back door of the house in which he was kept for execution, fled to Megara and there lived. But when the citizens endeavored to return from Phyle, he also behaved himself very well, and appeared very active in the affair, having, to forward this great enterprise, deposited two thousand drachms of silver and two hundred targets, and being commissioned with Hermas, he maintained three hundred men in arms, and prevailed with Thrasylaeus the Elean, his old friend and host, to contribute two talents. Upon entering the city, Thrasybulus proposed that, for a consideration of his good service to the public, he should receive the rights of citizenship: this was during the so called time of anarchy before Euclides. Which proposal being ratified by the people, Archinus objected that it was against the laws, and a decree without authority of the senate. The decree was thereupon declared void, and Lysias lost his citizenship. He led the remainder of his life in the rank of an Isoteles (or citizen who had no right to vote or hold office), and died at last at Athens, being fourscore and three years old, or as some would have it, seventy-six; and others again say, that he lived above fourscore years, till after the birth of Demosthenes. It is supposed he was born in the year of Philocles.

There are four hundred and twenty-five orations which bear his name, of which Dionysius and Caecilius affirm only two hundred and thirty to be genuine, and he is said to have been overcome but twice in all. There is extant also the oration which he made in defence of the fore-mentioned decree against Archinus, who indicted it and thereby prevented Lysias from receiving the citizenship, as also another against the Thirty Tyrants. He was very cogent in his persuasions, and was always very brief in what he delivered. He would commonly give orations to private persons. There are likewise his institutions of oratory, his public harangues, his epistles, his eulogies, funeral orations, discourses of love, and his defence of Socrates, accommodated to the minds of the judges. His style seems plain and easy, though hardly imitable. Demosthenes, in his oration against Neaera, says that he was in love with one Metanira, Neaera’s serving-maid, but afterwards married his brother Brachyllus’s daughter. Plato in his Phaedrus makes mention of him, as a most eloquent orator and ancienter than Isocrates. Philiscus, his companion, and Isocrates’s votary, composed an epigram concerning him, whence the same that we have urged from Plato is deducible; and it sings to this effect:

Calliope’s witty daughter, Phrontis, show

If aught of wit or eloquence thou hast;

For ’tis decreed that thou shalt bear a son,

Lysias by name, to spread the name of him

Whose great and generous acts do fill the world,

And are received for glorious above.

Let him who sings those praises of the dead,

Let him, my friend, too, praise our amity.

He likewise wrote two orations for Iphicrates,—one against Harmodius, and another accusing Timotheus of treason,—in both which he overcame. But when Iphicrates made himself responsible for Timotheus’s actions, and would purge himself of the allegation of treason made also against him, Lysias wrote an oration for him to deliver in his defence; upon which he was acquitted, but Timotheus was fined in a considerable sum of money. He likewise delivered an oration at the Olympic games, in which he endeavored to convince the Greeks of how great advantage it would be to them, if they could but unanimously join to pull down the tyrant Dionysius.

Notes on the current edition

The Lives of the Ten Orators

1. 459-458 b.c.

2. The archon in 460-459 b.c. was Phrasicleides, not Phrasicles.

3. The scene of Plato’s Republic is laid at the house of Cephalus. The dialogue is not historical, and its imagined date cannot be fixed, but it seems to show that Plato knew Cephalus and his sons, see Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 2nd ed., i. p. 341.

4. 444-443 b.c.

5. 413-412 b.c. The ninety-second Olympiad is the date of the archonship of another Callias, 406-405 b.c.

6. The dates given by our author for events in the life of Lysias are consistent (see also 835 a above, and 836 f below, Cf. also Dion. Hal. Isocrates, i.), on the assumption that he went to Thurii when the colony was founded, in 444 b.c. But if that is correct, his activity as a writer of speeches to be delivered in the Athenian courts would not begin until his fifty-seventh year. Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 2nd ed., i. p. 345, after stating the evidence, comes to the conclusion that Lysias was born at Athens probably about 446 b.c., the only certain date being his age (fifteen years), when he went to Thurii, and his treutn to Athens in 413-412 b.c. or the year following. It is quite possible that he did not go to Thurii until some years after the foundation of the colony. The latest of his extant speeches may be dated about 380 b.c., so that we may believe that he died not long after that date.

7. The great expedition which the Athenians had sent out in 415 b.c. expecting to conquer Sicily was utterly annihilated in the autumn of 413 b.c.

8. 412-411 b.c.

9. Summer of 411 b.c.

10. 405 b.c. The Athenian fleet was destroyed by the Lacedaemonians, which virtually ended the Peloponnesian War.

11. 404 b.c.

12. See Lysias, xii. ( Against Eratosthenes) 15.

13. Thrasybulus and his followers, May 303 b.c. After these exiles seized Periaeus, there was a period of confusion until the democracy was re-established and Eucleides made archon for the year 403-402 b.c.

14. The Athenians termed any period an anarchy in which no archon could be elected because of party strife.

15. The Senate or Council of Five Hundred prepared the business for the Popular Assembly, which could not legally vote upon any measure not previously adopted by the Senate.

16. Cicero, De Oratore, i. 231, and Diogenes Laertius, ii. 20, 40, say that Lysias composed an oration in defence of Socrates, and offered it to him, but Socrates refused it. A speech in defence of Socrates ( ὑπερ Σωκράτους πρὸς Πολυκράτην) is mentioned several times by the scholiast on Aristeides. It was composed probably some years after the death of Socrates, as an epideictic oration in reply to a similar speech against Socrates by the sophist Polycrates. This is doubtless the speech which Cicero and Diogenes wrongly believed to have been composed for use in the actual trial of Socrates. See Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 2nd ed., i. p. 351.

17. Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ἀρχαίων κρίσις, v. 1 ὡς ἀναγιγνωσκόμενον μὲν εὔκολον νομίζεσυαι χαλεπὸν δὲ εὑρίσκεσθαι ζηλοῦν πειρωμένοις, when read he is considered easy, but is found to be difficult by any who try to imitate him.

18. Demosthenes, Or. lix. 21.

19. Plato, Phaedrus, 279 a.

20. Lysis, because the word Lysias is inadmissible in the Greek metre. Wyttenbach suggests that the verses were really written in honour of Lysis the Pythagorean.

21. Bergk, Poet. Lyr Graec. ii. p. 640. Bergk rightly says that this is only part of a longer poem. The fragment does not indicate that Lysias was older than Isocrates, but some such statement may have been contained in a later part of the poem.

22. In 355 b.c. Iphicrates and Timotheüs, Athenian generals who had been unsuccessful, were accused by their colleague, Chares, of treason. Although Iphicrates accepted full responsibility, he was acquitted, but Timotheüs was fined one hundred talents, which he could not pay. He left Athens and soon died.

23. Only a fragment (Or. xxxiii.) of this is extant.

Plutarch Vitae decem oratorum 3

Harold North Fowler (Translator)

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Λυσίας

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