Sometimes there is an ordinary proem, much in the manner of Lysias, explaining the friendship of the speaker for the litigant ⁴ or seeking to prepossess the court against the adversary ⁵ . Sometimes there is no proem, properly so called. Thus the third and ninth speeches open at once with the briefest possible statement of the case,—followed, in IX., by a sketch of what the speaker will go on to prove ( πρόθεσις, § 1),—in III., by a preliminary argument ( προκατασκευή, §§ 1—6). The same sort of preliminary argument forms the opening of Or. v., §§ 1—4; and immediately follows the recitation of laws which introduces Or. XI. ⁶ This bold abruptness is characteristic of Isaeos. The genuine forensic speeches of Demosthenes show not a single instance in which he ventured to dispense with a proem.

The narrative is sometimes short ⁷ , and followed by a separate argument; more often it is a long and elaborate statement divided into sections, of which the proofs—from witnesses, from documents or from laws—are given, not collectively at the end, but section by section ⁸ . The sixth speech, On the Estate of Philoktemon, is a good example. Here the adversaries (1) denied that the testator had adopted a son, (2) asserted that he had sons of his body; and there is a corresponding division of the narrative into two distinct parts (§§ 5—7, §§ 18—42), with the proofs subjoined. Will-cases would often, of course, involve such a long and intricate narrative; it would be difficult or impossible for the judges to follow the chapters of an argument detached from the corresponding chapters of facts; but Isaeos, in obeying a necessity, made it a virtue, and carried to a high perfection the combination of luminous recital with perspicuous reasoning. ‘Reading the narratives of Lysias,’ says Dionysios, ‘one would suppose that nothing was said artificially or insidiously, but everything in accordance with the dictates of nature and of truth,—forgetting that the imitation of nature was the chief task of his art. The narratives of Isaeos are apt to give the opposite sensation, and to make one fancy that nothing is spontaneous or unpremeditated, even when things are related as, in fact, they happened. All seems the result of artifice; all seems contrived to deceive, or to secure some sort of underhand advantage. Lysias will be believed even when he lies; Isaeos will not be heard without suspicion even when he tells the truth ⁹ .’ Dionysios greatly over colours the contrast,—as he sometimes does through that solicitude for ‘the meanest capacity’ which belongs to his eager and genial interpretation; but the main point is clear—the consummate and victorious art which he finds in the narrative of Isaeos. Now here we may almost certainly recognise a practical lesson which Isaeos owed to Isokrates—whose teaching in the matter of expression had influenced him so little. The Aeginetikos is perhaps the earliest example of narrative interwoven with proof in the manner which Isaeos perfected ¹⁰ .

In regard to proof, whether massed or sectional, the characteristic difference between Isaeos and Lysias is fairly represented by the remark of the same critic, that Lysias uses enthymeme, Isaeos uses also epicheireme ¹¹ . By enthymeme, Aristotle meant a ¹² rhetorical syllogism: that is, a syllogism drawn, not from the premisses ( ἀρχαί) proper to any particular science—such, for instance, as medicine—but from propositions relating to contingent things in the sphere of human action ¹³ , which are the common property of all discussion; propositions which he classifies as general ( εἰκότα) and particular ( σημεῖα); and accordingly defines an enthymeme as ‘a syllogism from probabilities and signs ¹⁴ .’ A misapprehension of Aristotle's meaning had, as early as the first century B.C., led to the conception of the enthymeme as not merely a syllogism of a particular subject-matter, but also as a syllogism of which one premiss is suppressed ¹⁵ . The term epicheireme was then brought in to denote a rhetorical syllogism which is stated in full—an ‘essay’ to deal thoroughly with the issue at stake ¹⁶ . Dionysios means, then, that Lysias is content with a sketching style of proof, a proof which is not formally complete, whereas Isaeos, aiming at a precise development, goes through every step of his argument. In other phrases of Dionysios himself, Lysias proves ‘briefly’ and ‘generally,’—Isaeos, ‘at length,’ and ‘accurately’ ( διεξοδικῶς—ἀκριβῶς ¹⁷ ). The difference between ¹⁸ epicheireme and enthymeme is well exemplified in the seventh speech. The question is whether Apollodoros, the testator, had really adopted the speaker. The speaker first proves the adoption by direct testimony, and then says that he will bring, further, some indirect testimony. At this stage, Lysias would probably have been content with an enthymeme to the following effect:—‘Thrasybulos, the nephew of the female claimant, has made no claim, though his right is better than hers.’ Isaeos, however, will be satisfied with nothing less than a systematic and rigorous demonstration. Eupolis had two daughters,—the claimant, and another, who has left a son. Now there is, indeed, a law which gives brother and sister equal claim to the estate of a brother. But, where the kinship is less near, men precede women. Hence, if the adoption is invalid, this daughter of Eupolis has no claim, while her nephew, Thrasybulos, has a right to all. But Thrasybulos has raised no claim. Presumably, therefore, he recognises the adoption as valid ¹⁹ . Isaeos, as Sir William Jones well says, lays close siege to the understandings of the jury. His reasonings, generally based on positive law, are constraining even when they are not persuasive. Often, again, an argument is founded on the feeling or conduct of the testator towards the speaker and the adversary respectively ²⁰ : on the conduct of the adversary, as being inconsistent with his assumption ²¹ : on the services rendered by the speaker's client to the deceased ²² or to the State ²³ : on the demerits of the adversary as regards general character ²⁴ , on his omission to perform public services ²⁵ , or on his anxiety to obtain the estate while he is content that the testator's house should be left desolate ²⁶ . The example which the Greek critic selects is, for us, the only considerable specimen of the orator's work in a cause not testamentary ²⁷ . Euphiletos had been struck off the list of his deme on the ground that he was not a trueborn citizen, and has appealed to a jury:—

‘You have now heard, judges, not only our ²⁸ evidence but the testimony of all the kinsfolk that Euphiletos the plaintiff is our brother. Consider, first, what motive our father could have had for telling an untruth, or for adopting this man if he had not been his son. You will find that all who act thus are constrained either by the want of trueborn sons or by poverty, hoping for benefits from the persons who by their means have become Athenians. Neither condition applies to our father. He has, in us, two legitimate sons, so that childlessness could not have prompted the adoption. Nor, again, did he look to Euphiletos for maintenance or wealth; he has substance enough; further, it has been deposed before you that he maintained the plaintiff from infancy, educated him, enrolled him in his clan —and these are no light expenses. Our father, then, was not likely, judges, to attempt anything so unjust when it could do him no good. Nor, again, will I be suspected of such madness as bearing false witness for the plaintiff in order to have my patrimony divided among a larger number. Hereafter, of course, I could not for a moment dispute the relationship; no one of you would endure the sound of my voice, if I, who now, standing in peril of the law, testify that he is our brother, should be found contradicting that statement. The probability is, judges, that true testimony has been borne, not only by us, but by the other kinsmen too. Reflect, in the first place, that the husbands of our sisters would never have perjured themselves in the cause of the plaintiff: his mother was the stepmother of our sisters, and somehow stepmothers and the daughters of a former marriage are wont to disagree: so that, if the plaintiff had been our stepmother's son by another than our father, our sisters, judges, would never have allowed their husbands to be witnesses. Again:—our maternal uncle, being, of course, no relation of the plaintiff, would not have gratified the plaintiff's mother by making a false deposition fraught with the manifest injury to us involved in our adoption of a stranger as our brother. Further, judges, how could any of you impute perjury to Demaratos, who stands there, or to Hegesippos, or Nikostratos—men whose whole lives will show a stainless record, and who, being our intimate friends and knowing us all, have severally testified their kinship with Euphiletos?

‘I should be glad, then, to learn from the most respected of our adversaries whether he could establish his Athenian citizenship by any other proofs than those which we have brought for Euphiletos. For my part, I do not think he could do more than show that both his parents are Athenians, and adduce the testimony of his relatives to the truth of that assertion. Then again, judges, supposing our adversaries were in peril, they would expect you to believe their friends rather than their accusers; as it is, though we have all that testimony on our side, shall they require you to put faith in their own story rather than in Euphiletos, in me and my brother, in our clansmen, in our entire family? Moreover, the adversaries are acting from private enmity, without personal risk to one of their number; we, who give our evidence, stand, one and all, within the peril of the law.

‘In addition to these testimonies, judges, the mother of Euphiletos, whom the adversaries allow to be an Athenian, was willing to take an oath before the arbitrator at the Delphinion that she and our father are the parents of Euphiletos; and who should know better? Then our father, judges, who ought to be the next best authority, was and is willing to swear that Euphiletos is his son by his wedded Athenian wife. If this is not enough, judges, I was thirteen years old, as I said before, when Euphiletos was born, and I am ready to swear that Euphiletos is the son of my father. Justly then, judges, might you deem our oaths more trustworthy than the adversaries' assertions; we are willing to make oath on a matter of which we have accurate knowledge, while they retail hearsay from the plaintiff's ill-wishers, or inventions of their own. We, moreover, bring our kinsmen as witnesses before you as before the arbitrators,—witnesses who have a claim to be believed; while, since Euphiletos brought his first suit against the corporation and its demarch now deceased, the adversaries have failed to find any evidence that he is not my father's son, though the case was before the arbitrator for two years. To the conductors of the arbitration these facts afforded the strongest presumption of falsehood, and both of them decided against the adversaries.—(Read the evidence of the former award.)—You have heard that the former arbitration went against them. I claim, judges, that just as the adversaries would have urged an award favourable to themselves in evidence of Euphiletos not being the son of Hegesippos, so the opposite result should now be testimony to the truth of our story, since they were adjudged guilty of having erased the name of Euphiletos, an Athenian citizen, after it had been duly registered. That, then, Euphiletos is our brother and your citizen, and that he has been subjected by the conspirators in his deme to injurious and outrageous treatment, sufficient proof, judges, has, I think, been laid before you.’

A striking trait of Isaeos in the province of argument is iteration; and the preference of emphasis to form which this implies is worth notice as suggesting how the practical view of oratory was beginning to prevail over the artistic. Sometimes the repetition is verbal—an indignant question or phrase occurs again and again, where Isokrates would have abstained from using it twice ²⁹ . More often, it is an argument or a statement which the speaker aims at impressing on the hearers by urging it in a series of different forms and connexions ³⁰ . Or even a document, cited at the outset, is read a second time, as if to make the jury realise more vividly that a circle of proof has been completed ³¹ .

The epilogue in Isaeos is usually a brief recapitulation, often concluding with an appeal in which the judges are urged to remember their duty to the dead ³² , whose house must not be left without some one who can make offerings at the grave: or there is a prayer for indulgence ³³ on account of inexperience,— though this is sometimes, and more naturally, placed in the introduction ³⁴ . The third speech ends no less abruptly than it opens—by the speaker calling on the clerk of the court to read a deposition; the eighth has the like ending, with this further peculiarity, that the testimony called is to a fact stated in the epilogue. A remark which applies to all the work of Isaeos applies especially to the epilogue; Isaeos represents the emotions more generically ³⁵ than Lysias,—that is, with less attention to a special or personal propriety.