Jerome Wolf's classification.

The writings of Isokrates are arranged differently in different MSS.¹ The order followed in most modern editions is not that of any one manuscript, but that which was adopted, for the sake of convenience, by Jerome Wolf². His arrangement aims at a fourfold distribution:— Hortatory. I. To Demonikos. II. To Nikokles. III. Nikokles. Deliberative. IV. Panegyrikos. V. Philippos. VI. Archidamos. VII. Areopagitikos. VIII. On the Peace. Epideictic. IX. Evagoras. X. Encomium of Helen. XI. Busiris. XII. Panathenaikos. XIII. Against the Sophists. Forensic. XIV. Plataikos³. XV. Antidosis. XVI. Against Alkibiades ( περὶ τοῦ ζεύγους ). XVII. Trapezitikos. XVIII. Against Kallimachos. XIX. Aeginetikos. XX. Against Lochites. XXI. Against Euthynus⁴ .

The principle of this classification seems hardly ⁵ the best. ‘Deliberative’ has to be strained in various directions in order to include the Panegyrikos, the Philippos, the Areopagitikos. ‘Epideictic’ applies ill to the essay Against the Sophists. The Antidosis, though thrown for literary purposes into the form of a defence in court, cannot properly be called ‘forensic.’

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Sir Richard C. Jebb. London. 1876.

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Current edition Perseus

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos (English) (The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, author. London: Macmillan, 1876.)

Notes on the current edition

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos

1. A table showing the arrangement in the Urbino MS, and in six other manuscripts, is given by Baiter and Sauppe Or. Att. Vol. I, preface to the Text of Isokrates, p. iv.

2. For Wolf's own account of this classification, see p. 684 of his edition of 1570.

3. The Plataikos is an appeal to the Athenian ekklesia. Wolf gives its forensic vehemence of tone as his reason—a strange reason—for classing it as forensic.

With this elassification according to form, it is worth while to compare that of Photios (cod. 159): — I. συμβουλευτικοί: To Demonikos, To Nikokles, Nikokles, On the Peace, Panegyrikos, Areopagitikos, Plataikos, Archidamos, Philippos. II. ἐγκώμια: Busiris, Helen, Evagoras, Panathenaikos. III. δικανικοί: Antidosis ( δικανικός τις εἶναι δοκεῖ), and then the real Forensic Speeches, omitting, no doubt by an oversight, the περὶ τοῦ ζεύγους,—which is wanted to make up the 21. The κατὰ τῶν σοφιστῶν is characterized merely as κατηγορία τῶν ἀντιπολιτευομένων αὐτῷ σοφιστῶν.

A stricter classification according to form would be:— I. Deliberative: Philippos, Archidamos, Plataikos, Areopagitikos, On the Peace: II. Forensic: Or. XVI—XXI: III. Epideictic: Evagoras, Panegyrikos, Panathenaikos, Busiris, Helen, Against the Sophists, Antidosis: IV. Hortatory: To Demonikos, To Nikokles, Nikokles.

5. Objections to it.

Sir Richard C. Jebb The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos 2.15.2

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