Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Antiphon was the son of a father named Sophilus, and belonged to the deme of Rhamnus. He had studied under his father, who was a sophist, and to whom, they say, Alcibiades used to go while still a boy. Having acquired power of speech, as some think, from his own natural gift, he set out to engage in politics; he also established a school, and disagreed with Socrates the philosopher over their differing views about arguments, not out of contentiousness but in a spirit of testing and refutation, as Xenophon has recorded in the Memorabilia.
He also composed speeches for such citizens as needed them, for use in the contests of the lawcourts, being the first to turn to this practice, as some say; at any rate, no forensic speech is preserved from anyone before him, nor even from his own contemporaries, because it was not yet customary to write such things down — not for Themistocles, not for Aristides, not for Pericles, and yet the occasions and necessities that the times afforded them were many. And indeed it was not through any lack of ability that they refrained from writing, as is clear from what is said by the historians about each of the men named above. But as many as we can find, tracing back to the earliest instance, who took up and practiced this kind of speech, one would find these attached themselves to Antiphon, who was already an old man — men such as Alcibiades, Critias, Lysias, and Archinus.
He was also the first to produce manuals of rhetorical technique, having a shrewd and penetrating mind; for this reason he was even called "Nestor." Caecilius, in his treatise about him, conjectures from the praise Antiphon receives in Thucydides that Antiphon had been the teacher of the historian Thucydides. In his speeches he is precise and persuasive, and formidable in invention, and even in matters lacking clear resource he is technically skillful, undertaking to argue from what is obscure, and turning his arguments both toward the laws and toward the emotions, aiming above all at what is fitting. He lived in the time of the Persian Wars and of Gorgias the sophist, being somewhat younger than Gorgias, and he continued in public life down to the overthrow of the democracy by the Four Hundred — a revolution which he himself appears to have helped bring about — serving at one time as trierarch of two triremes, at another as general, and winning many battles, and bringing over great alliances to their side, and arming men in their prime, and manning sixty triremes, and repeatedly going as envoy on their behalf to Lacedaemon, at the time when Eetioneia had been fortified.
But after the overthrow of the Four Hundred, having been impeached together with Archeptolemus, one of the Four Hundred, he was convicted, and, being subjected to the penalties prescribed for traitors, was cast out unburied, and he and his descendants were recorded as disenfranchised. Some, however, relate that he was put to death by the Thirty, as Lysias does in his speech On Behalf of the Daughter of Antiphon — for a small daughter had been born to him, whom Callaeschrus claimed at law. That he died at the hands of the Thirty is also related by Theopompus in the fifteenth book of his Philippica; but this would be a different Antiphon, son of Lysidonides, whom Cratinus too mentions in the Bottle as a worthless fellow.
For how could the man who had already died, put to death under the Four Hundred, be alive again under the Thirty? There is also another account of his death. It is said that, while serving as an envoy, he sailed to Syracuse at the height of the tyranny of the elder Dionysius; and when a dispute arose over drinks as to what bronze was best, and most of those present disagreed, he himself said that the best was the bronze out of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton had been made. When Dionysius heard this and suspected that what had been said was an incitement to assassination, he ordered him put to death — though others say it was because Antiphon had ridiculed Dionysius's tragedies that he grew angry.
Sixty speeches of the orator are in circulation, of which Caecilius says twenty-five are spurious. He has been mocked for love of money by Plato in the Pisander. He is also said to have composed tragedies, both on his own and jointly with Dionysius the tyrant. Furthermore, besides his poetry, he devised an art of freedom from distress, comparable to the treatment the sick receive from physicians; and having set up an establishment in Corinth near the marketplace, he posted a notice that he was able to treat those in distress by means of words, and by inquiring into the causes he would console those who were suffering. But considering the art beneath his own dignity, he turned instead to rhetoric.
There are some who attribute to Antiphon the book On Poets by Glaucus of Rhegium. His most praised works are the speech On Behalf of Herodes, the one Against Erasistratus concerning the peacocks, the one On the Impeachment, which he wrote in his own defense, and the one Against Demosthenes the general, for illegal proposal. He also wrote a speech Against Hippocrates the general and won his case, the defendant not appearing. There is also a decree from the archonship of Theopompus, under whom the Four Hundred were overthrown, by which it was resolved that Antiphon be brought to trial, which Caecilius has cited: "It was resolved by the Council, in the twenty-first day of the prytany — Demonicus of Alopece was proedros, Philostratus of Pallene presiding — Andron proposed, concerning the men whom the generals denounce as having gone as envoys to Lacedaemon to the detriment
of the city of the Athenians, and as having sailed from the camp on a ship of the enemy, and as having gone by land through Decelea — that Archeptolemus and Onomacles and Antiphon be arrested and handed over to the court, so that they may be punished; and let the generals produce them, together with whomever of the Council the generals think fit to add, up to ten, so that judgment may be passed on them in their presence. Let the thesmothetae summon them
for the following day, and let them be brought in as soon as the summonses have run their course, before the court, on the charge of treason, and let those chosen as advocates accuse them, as well as the generals and anyone else who wishes; and against whomever the court votes for conviction, let action be taken concerning him according to the law that stands regarding traitors." Appended to this decree is the sentence of conviction:
"Convicted of treason: Archeptolemus, son of Hippodamus, of Agryle, present; Antiphon, son of Sophilus, of Rhamnus, present — both of these. It was determined that they be handed over to the Eleven, and that their property be public, with a tenth part consecrated to the goddess, and that their two houses be razed, and boundary stones set upon the two building-sites, inscribed as belonging to Archeptolemus and Antiphon, the two traitors. And let the two demarchs make a return of their property, and let it not be lawful to bury Archeptolemus
or Antiphon at Athens, nor in any territory the Athenians control; and let Archeptolemus and Antiphon be disenfranchised, and their line, both bastard and legitimate, and if anyone should adopt any descendant of Archeptolemus or Antiphon, let the adopter be disenfranchised. Let this be inscribed on a bronze stele, in the very place where the decrees concerning Phrynichus are set up, and let this too be placed there."
Andocides was the son of Leogoras, whose father was Andocides, who once made peace for the Athenians with the Lacedaemonians; he belonged to the deme of Cydathenaeum, or Thorae, and was of a family of the Eupatridae — or, as Hellanicus says, descended even from Hermes, since the lineage of the Heralds goes back to him. For this reason he was once chosen, together with Glaucon, to go with twenty ships to aid the Corcyraeans, who were at odds with the Corinthians. After this, having been accused of impiety, on the charge that
he too had mutilated the Herms and had offended against the mysteries of Demeter — being tried on these charges he was acquitted, on condition that he would inform against the wrongdoers; and applying every effort, he discovered those who had offended against the sacred rites, among whom he even informed against his own father. And though he brought to ruin all the others by his testimony, he saved his father, even though the man had already been imprisoned, by promising that he would be of great
service to the city — and he did not lie; for Leogoras exposed many who were embezzling public money and committing other wrongs. And for this reason he was released from the charge; but Andocides, not being in good standing with those in political power, gave himself over to shipowning, and became a guest-friend of the kings of Cyprus and many other notable men. It was then that, having secretly taken one of the citizen-women, the daughter of Aristides, who was his own cousin,
away from her family without their knowledge, he sent her as a gift to the king of Cyprus. But when he was about to be brought to court on this charge, he stole her away again from Cyprus, and being caught by the king he was put in chains; having escaped, he came to the city, at the time when the Four Hundred were managing affairs. Bound by them as well, and having escaped again, once more, when the oligarchy was overthrown, he was banished from the
city, when the Thirty took over the government. Having spent the time of his exile living in Elis, when the party of Thrasybulus returned, he too came back to the city. But having been sent to Lacedaemon concerning the peace and being thought to have done wrong, he went into exile. He makes all this clear in the speeches he has composed: some are in defense of himself concerning the mysteries, others concern his
petition for his return. There also survives his speech On the Denunciation, and his Defense Addressed to Phaeax, and On the Peace. He flourished at this time together with Socrates the philosopher; the beginning of his life falls in the seventy-eighth Olympiad, when Theogenides was archon at Athens, so that he was older than Lysias by about a hundred years. After him is also named
the Hermes called "of Andocides," a dedication belonging to the tribe Aegeis, but nicknamed after Andocides because Andocides lived near it. He himself also financed a cyclic chorus for his own tribe when it competed in the dithyramb, and having won, he dedicated a tripod opposite the tufa-stone Silenus. He is plain and unadorned in his speeches, simple and without artifice. Lysias was the son of Cephalus,
son of Lysanias, son of Cephalus, a Syracusan by birth, who moved to Athens out of desire for the city, and because Pericles the son of Xanthippus, who was his friend and guest-friend, persuaded him — a man outstanding in wealth; though some say he had been driven out of Syracuse, when it was under the tyranny of Gelon. Having come to Athens in the archonship of Philocles, the successor of Phrasicles, in the second year of the eightieth Olympiad, at first
he was educated together with the most distinguished Athenians; but when the city sent out the colony to Sybaris — later renamed Thurii — he went along with his eldest brother Polemarchus (for he had two other brothers as well, Euthydemus and Brachyllus), their father having already died, so as to share in the allotment, being fifteen years old, in the archonship of Praxiteles; and there he remained, being educated under Tisias and Nicias
the Syracusans, and having acquired a house and obtained a land allotment, he took part in public life there for sixty-three years, until the archonship of Clearchus at Athens. In the following year, when Callias was archon, in the ninety-second Olympiad, when the events in Sicily affecting the Athenians occurred and a disturbance arose among the other allies, especially those inhabiting Italy, he was accused of favoring Athens and was banished along with three hundred others. Coming to Athens in the archonship of Callias, the successor of
Cleocritus, at a time when the Four Hundred already held the city, he spent his time there. When the naval battle at Aegospotami took place and the Thirty took over the city, he was banished, after having stayed seven years, stripped of his property and of his brother Polemarchus as well; but he himself escaped from the house, which had two doors, in which he was being guarded to be put to death, and lived on in Megara. When those from Phyle made their attack
for the restoration, since he showed himself the most useful of all — providing two thousand drachmas and two hundred shields, and being sent along with Hermon he hired three hundred mercenaries, and persuaded Thrasydaeus the Elean, who had become his guest-friend, to give two talents. In return for this, when Thrasybulus proposed a grant of citizenship for him after the restoration, in the time before Euclides when there was no fixed constitution, the people ratified the gift; but Archinus, having brought
a charge of illegality on the ground that it had been introduced without preliminary approval of the Council, won his case, and the decree was overturned. And thus, being excluded from citizenship, he lived out the rest of his life as a resident alien with equal tax status, and died there at the age of eighty-three, or, as some say, seventy-six, or, as others say, more than eighty, having lived to see Demosthenes as a young boy. They say he was born in the archonship of Philocles. Four hundred and twenty-five speeches of his are in circulation,
of which those around Dionysius and Caecilius say two hundred and thirty-three are genuine, and among these he is said to have lost only twice. There is also his speech on behalf of the decree that Archinus had proposed, which stripped him of his citizenship, and another one against the Thirty. He was most persuasive and most concise, having given up the greater part of his speeches to private individuals. There are also attributed to him
handbooks of rhetoric that have been composed, as well as public addresses, letters and encomia, funeral orations and erotic speeches, and a Defense of Socrates aimed at the jurors. In diction he seems easy, though in fact he is difficult to imitate. Demosthenes, in his speech Against Neaera, says that he had been a lover of Metaneira, a fellow slave of Neaera; later he married the daughter of his brother Brachyllus. Plato too mentions him, in
the Phaedrus, as a most formidable speaker, and as older than Isocrates. Philiscus, a pupil of Isocrates and companion of Lysias, also composed an epigram on him, through which it is clear that he was earlier in years — a fact also proved from what is said by Plato. It runs as follows: "Now, O daughter of Calliope, much-speaking Phrontis, you will show whether you have any wisdom and possess some surpassing power, for the man
who has been transformed into another shape and, taking on another body amid the other adornments of life, must bear a herald of virtue, one Lysis, to sing, having gone down among the dead and the darkness — immortal — who will show to all my soul's love of friendship, and the virtue of the departed to all mortals." He also composed speeches jointly with Iphicrates, one against Harmodius, the other for Iphicrates when he was prosecuting
Timotheus for treason, and he won in both. When Iphicrates took upon himself responsibility for Timotheus's actions, and at his audit took over the charge of treason, he defended himself by means of the speech of Lysias; and he himself was acquitted, but Timotheus was fined a very great sum of money. He also delivered a very great speech at the Olympic festival, urging the Greeks, once reconciled, to overthrow Dionysius. Isocrates was the son of Theodorus, of the deme Erchia,
one of the citizens of modest means, who owned slaves who were flute-makers and grew prosperous from this business, so much so that he was able to finance choruses and educate his sons; for he had other sons as well, Telesippus and Diomnestus, and also a small daughter — for which reason he has been mocked for the flutes by Aristophanes and Strattis. He was born in the eighty-sixth Olympiad, when Lysimachus of Myrrhinus was archon, twenty-two years younger than Lysias,
but seven years older than Plato. As a boy he was educated as well as any Athenian, hearing Prodicus of Ceos, Gorgias of Leontini, Tisias of Syracuse, and Theramenes the orator — of whom, when he was being seized by the Thirty and had fled to the altar of Hestia in the council chamber, while all the rest were terrified into silence, he alone rose to help him, and for a long time kept silent at first, but then was begged off by Theramenes himself,
...having said that it would be more painful for him if any of his friends were to benefit from the misfortune. They say that certain compositions were written on his behalf under the name of Boton, when he was being harassed by malicious prosecutions in the courts. But when he reached manhood, he kept away from political affairs, since he was weak of voice and cautious by temperament, and had lost his patrimony in the war against the Spartans; he practiced declamation for others, it seems, but delivered only one speech of his own, the one On the Exchange. Having established a school, he turned to philosophizing and to writing down what he had in mind, including the Panegyricus and some other deliberative speeches, some of which he wrote and read aloud himself, others he prepared for other men to deliver, in the belief that in this way he would spur the Greeks to think as they ought. But failing in this aim, he gave it up, and instead ran a school -- first, as some say, on Chios, with nine pupils. There, seeing his fee being counted out, he said, weeping, "Now I recognize that I have been sold to these men." He conversed with anyone who wished it, being the first to separate contentious argumentation from political oratory, the branch to which he devoted himself seriously. He also helped establish magistracies on Chios modeled on the constitution of his own city.
He amassed more money than any sophist ever had, enough even to serve as a trierarch. His pupils numbered up to a hundred, including, among many others, Timotheus son of Conon, with whom he also traveled to many cities, drafting the letters that Timotheus sent to the Athenians; in return Timotheus gave him a talent from the spoils won at Samos. Theopompus of Chios was also his student, as were Ephorus of Cyme, Asclepiades, who compiled the subjects of tragedy, and Theodectes of Phaselis, who later wrote tragedies himself -- whose tomb stands, now fallen into ruin, along the sacred road to Eleusis for those traveling toward Cyamitis. There Theodectes had set up statues of the famous poets alongside his own, of which only the statue of Homer survives; also of Leodamas the Athenian and Lacritus, the lawgiver of the Athenians, and, as some say, of Hyperides and Isaeus as well.
They say that even Demosthenes, while still practicing oratory, came to him eagerly, and said that he could not pay the full thousand drachmas being charged but would give two hundred, on condition of learning only a fifth part of the art; to which Isocrates replied, "We do not sell our craft in pieces, Demosthenes -- just as fine fish are sold whole, so I too, if you wish to be my pupil, will hand over the whole craft to you."
He died in the archonship of Chaerondas, on learning, while in the wrestling school of Hippocrates, the news reported from Chaeronea; he brought his own life to an end over four days by refusing food, having first recited the opening lines of three plays of Euripides: "Danaus, father of fifty daughters," "Pelops, son of Tantalus, coming to Pisa," and "Cadmus, once leaving the city of Sidon" -- departing life at the age of ninety-eight, or as some say a hundred, unable to bear seeing Greece enslaved for a fourth time. A year before his death, or as some say four years before, he composed the Panathenaicus. He spent ten years composing the Panegyricus -- some say fifteen -- which he is said to have drawn from the works of Gorgias of Leontini and of Lysias; and he wrote the speech On the Exchange at the age of eighty-two, and the speeches against Philip a little before his death.
He had a son, Aphareus, adopted late in life, born to Plathane, wife of Hippias the orator, the youngest of her three children. He gained ample wealth, not only by charging his students fees but also from Nicocles, king of Cyprus and son of Evagoras, receiving twenty talents for the speech written in his honor. This provoked envy, and he was three times put forward to serve as trierarch; twice he pleaded illness and was excused through his son, but the third time he undertook the duty himself and spent no small amount. To a father who complained that he had sent his son off no better than a slave, Isocrates replied, "Very well then, go -- for you will have two slaves instead of one." He also competed for the prize that Artemisia established in honor of Mausolus, though the encomium he wrote for it does not survive. He also composed an encomium of Helen and the Areopagiticus.
As for his death, some say he abstained from food for nine days, others for four, dying at the very time of the burial of those who had fallen at Chaeronea. His son Aphareus also composed speeches concerning him. He was buried with his family near the Cynosarges, on the hill, on the left side: he himself, his father Theodorus, and his mother; also her sister, the orator's aunt Anaco, and his adopted son, the poet Aphareus, and his cousin Socrates, son of Anaco (Isocrates' mother's sister), and his brother, likewise named Theodorus after their father, and the grandsons of his adopted son Aphareus -- another Aphareus, and this one's father Theodorus, and his wife Plathane, mother of the poet Aphareus. Over these there stood six funerary monuments, which do not survive today. Over Isocrates' own tomb stood a column thirty cubits high, on which, as a symbol, stood a Siren seven cubits tall, which likewise does not survive now. Nearby stood a tablet of his own, showing the poets and his teachers, among them Gorgias gazing at a celestial globe, with Isocrates himself standing beside him.
A bronze statue of him is also dedicated at Eleusis, in front of the portico, set up by Timotheus son of Conon, with the inscription: "Timotheus, honoring both friendship and the wisdom of Isocrates, dedicated this image to the goddesses" -- the work of Leochares. Sixty of his speeches are extant, of which twenty-five are genuine according to Dionysius, and twenty-eight according to Caecilius, the rest being spurious.
He disliked ostentatious display: once, when three people came to hear him recite, he kept back two and dismissed the third, saying he would come the next day, since for now his audience filled his lecture-room. He used to tell his students that while he himself taught for ten minas, he would give ten thousand drachmas to whoever could teach him boldness and a strong voice. And when someone asked why, if he himself was not capable of public speaking, he trained others to be, he answered that whetstones cannot cut anything themselves, yet they make iron sharp enough to cut. Some say that he also wrote technical treatises on rhetoric; others say that he relied not on a formal method but on practice. He never charged a fellow citizen a fee. He instructed his students, whenever they attended the assemblies, to report back to him what had been said there. He was deeply grieved by the death of Socrates, and appeared the next day dressed in mourning black. When someone once again asked him what rhetoric was, he said, "To make small things great, and great things small."
Once, dining at the court of Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, when those present urged him to speak, he said, "The present occasion does not call for what I am skilled in, and what I am skilled in does not suit the present occasion." Seeing Sophocles the tragedian following a boy with desire in his eyes, he said, "Sophocles, one must control not only one's hands, but one's eyes as well." As for Ephorus of Cyme, when he left his school having accomplished nothing and was sent back again by his father Demophilus with a second fee, Isocrates jokingly called him "Diphorus" ["Double-Fee"]; nevertheless he took great pains with the man, and himself suggested the subject matter for his historical work. Isocrates was also inclined to sensual indulgence, going so far as to use a couch strewn with cushions in bed and keeping his pillow soaked in saffron scent.
While young he did not marry; in old age he lived with a courtesan named Lagiske, by whom he had a small daughter, who died at the age of twelve, before she could be married. He then took as his companion Plathane, wife of Hippias the orator, who had three children, of whom, as already noted, he adopted Aphareus. Aphareus dedicated a bronze statue of his father near the Olympieum, on a column, with the inscription: "Aphareus dedicated this image of his father Isocrates to Zeus, honoring both the gods and the virtue of his parents."
It is also said that he rode on horseback while still a boy, for a bronze statue stands on the Acropolis, in the ball court of the Arrephoroi, showing him as a boy riding a horse, as some have reported. Throughout his whole life he was involved in only two legal contests. The first arose when Megacleides challenged him to an exchange of property; Isocrates did not answer the challenge in person because of illness, but sent his son Aphareus, who won the case. The second arose when Lysimachus challenged him to an exchange over the trierarchy; having lost, Isocrates undertook the trierarchy. A painted portrait of him also stood in the Pompeium.
His son Aphareus wrote speeches, though not many, both forensic and deliberative; he also composed about thirty-seven tragedies, of which two are disputed. Beginning in the archonship of Lysistratus and continuing to that of Sosigenes, a span of twenty-eight years, he entered six productions at the City Dionysia and won twice, through the actor Dionysius, and he also entered two further productions, through other actors, at the Lenaea. Statues of the mother of Isocrates and Theodorus, and of her sister Anaco, stood on the Acropolis; of these, the mother's statue now stands beside that of Hygieia, its inscription altered, while that of Anaco does not survive. Isocrates had two sons: Alexander, by Koinos, and Sosicles, by Lysis.
Isaeus was Chalcidian by birth. Coming to Athens and studying under Lysias, he came to resemble him so closely, both in the harmony of his diction and in his forcefulness in handling his material, that unless one were very well versed in the distinctive character of the two men, one could not easily tell to which of the two orators many of the speeches belonged. He flourished after the Peloponnesian War, as can be inferred from his speeches, and continued active down to the reign of Philip. He gave instruction to Demosthenes, having left his school to do so, for ten thousand drachmas -- and it was chiefly for this that he became famous. He himself, some say, also helped compose the speeches against the guardians for Demosthenes. He has left sixty-four speeches, of which fifty are genuine, along with a treatise of his own on rhetoric. He was the first to begin using rhetorical figures and to turn his thought toward political subjects, a practice which Demosthenes above all imitated. He is mentioned by Theopompus the comic poet in his Theseus.
Aeschines was the son of Atrometus, who had gone into exile under the Thirty and helped bring back the democracy, and of Glaucothea; he was of the deme Kothokidai, belonging neither to a family of distinguished birth nor to one of great wealth. While young and physically strong, he trained diligently in the gymnasia; and being clear-voiced, he later practiced tragic acting -- indeed, as Demosthenes says, he spent his time as an under-clerk and as a third-place actor for Aristodemus at the festivals of Dionysus, reviving old tragedies in his spare time. While still a boy he taught letters alongside his father, and as a young man he served in the army among the frontier patrols.
He became a student -- as some say, of Isocrates and Plato; according to Caecilius, of Leodamas -- and, as a conspicuous politician on the side opposed to Demosthenes and his party, he served on many embassies, including one to Philip concerning the peace. For this he was accused by Demosthenes both of having brought about the destruction of the Phocian nation and of having kindled the war, when he was chosen as delegate to the Amphictyonic Council against the Amphisseans, who were cultivating the sacred harbor land. As a result the Amphictyons appealed to Philip, and Philip, aided by Aeschines, seized the opportunity and took Phocis. But with Eubulus, son of Spintharus, of Probalinthus, a popular leader, speaking in his defense, he was acquitted by thirty votes. Some say that the orators had written up their speeches for the trial, but that, since the events at Chaeronea intervened, the case never actually came to trial.
Some time later, after Philip's death, while Alexander was crossing into Asia, Aeschines indicted Ctesiphon for proposing an illegal measure regarding the honors voted to Demosthenes; but failing to win a fifth of the votes, he went into exile at Rhodes, unwilling to pay the thousand drachmas owed for his defeat. Others say that a further penalty of disenfranchisement was imposed on him because he refused to leave the city, and that he went instead to Ephesus, to Alexander. When Alexander died and turmoil followed, Aeschines set out for Rhodes and, settling there, established a school and taught. He read to the Rhodians, by way of demonstration, his speech Against Ctesiphon; and when they all marveled that, having spoken so well, he had nevertheless lost the case, he said, "You would not marvel, Rhodians, if you had heard Demosthenes speaking in reply." He also left a school there, which came to be called the Rhodian school. Afterward he sailed to Samos, and while staying on that island, he died not long after.
He had a fine voice, as is clear both from what Demosthenes says and from the speech of Demochares. Four speeches of his are in circulation: Against Timarchus, On the False Embassy, and Against Ctesiphon -- and these alone are genuine, for the speech entitled Delian is not by Aeschines: he was indeed appointed as advocate for the case concerning the temple on Delos, but he did not in the end deliver the speech, since Hyperides was elected in his place, as Demosthenes says. He also had brothers, as he himself says, Aphobetus and Philochares. He was the first to bring the Athenians news of the victory at Tamynae, for which he was crowned a second time. Some have said that Aeschines was not actually a pupil of anyone, but rose up out of his position as an under-clerk while spending his time in the law courts; that he first spoke before the Assembly against Philip, and, having won a good reputation, was elected as ambassador to the Arcadians, where he went and rallied the Ten Thousand against Philip. He also brought an indictment against Timarchus for prostitution; Timarchus, abandoning his defense, hanged himself, as Demosthenes says somewhere. Aeschines was elected ambassador to Philip, together with Ctesiphon and Demosthenes, to negotiate the peace, in the course of which he conducted himself better than Demosthenes did; and a second time, as one of ten ambassadors who ratified the peace under oath, he was put on trial and acquitted, as has already been said.
Lycurgus' father was Lycophron, son of Lycurgus, whom the Thirty Tyrants put to death, the man responsible for his execution being Aristodemus of the deme Bate, who, after serving as a Hellenic treasurer, went into exile when the democracy was restored; Lycurgus was of the deme Boutadai, of the family of the Eteoboutadai. Having become a student of Plato the philosopher, he first devoted himself to philosophy; then, becoming an associate of Isocrates the orator, he engaged prominently in public affairs, both as a speaker and as a man of action, and was in fact entrusted with the administration of the public finances: he served as treasurer for three periods of five years, over fourteen thousand talents -- or, as some say, eighteen thousand six hundred fifty -- and Stratocles, who proposed the honors voted to him,
the orator — being himself elected the first time, and then, having one of his friends nominated in his place, he himself continued to conduct the administration, because he had proposed in advance a law that no one elected to the public funds should hold office for more than five years. He remained continually in charge of the works, both summer and winter. And having been elected to oversee preparation for war, he set right many things in the city, and provided the people with four hundred triremes, built the gymnasium in the Lyceum and planted it with trees, constructed the wrestling-school, and, as overseer, completed the theater of Dionysus.
Entrusted by private citizens with two hundred fifty talents on deposit, he kept them safe, and had gold and silver processional vessels made for the city, along with gold statues of Victory. He also took over many unfinished works and completed them, including the shipsheds and the arsenal; and he put a stone foundation around the Panathenaic stadium, finishing this work and leveling the ravine, after a certain Deinias, who owned this land, had ceded it to the city, Lycurgus having earlier persuaded him to grant it as a favor. He also held charge of guarding the city and arresting criminals, all of whom he drove out, so that some of the sophists said that Lycurgus wrote his laws not with ink but with death, dipping his pen against wrongdoers. For this reason, when King Alexander demanded that he be handed over, the people did not surrender him.
During the time when Philip was waging his second war against the Athenians, Lycurgus served as ambassador, together with Polyeuctus and Demosthenes, to the Peloponnese and certain other cities. He continued throughout his whole life to be held in high regard by the Athenians and to be considered a just man, so that even in the lawcourts, for Lycurgus to say he vouched for someone was thought to help the party being defended.
He also introduced laws: one concerning comic poets, that a competitive contest be held at the Chytroi in the theater, and that the winner be enrolled among the city's poets — which had not previously been permitted — thereby reviving a contest that had lapsed; another, that bronze statues be set up of the poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, that their tragedies be written down and kept in an official copy, and that the city clerk read along with the text for the actors performing them, since it was not permitted to depart from it in performance. A third law provided that no Athenian, nor anyone residing at Athens, be permitted to buy a free person into slavery from among those captured, without the consent of their former master. And further, that a contest for Poseidon be held at the Piraeus, with no fewer than three cyclic choruses, the winners to be given no less than ten minas, the second-place chorus eight, and those judged third, six.
He also proposed that no woman travel to Eleusis by carriage, so that women of the common people should not be put at a disadvantage compared to the wealthy; anyone caught doing so was to pay a fine of six thousand drachmas. When his own wife did not comply, and informers caught her, he paid a talent to them. When he was later accused before the Assembly over this, he said, "Well, at least I have been seen giving, not taking." Once, when a tax-collector laid hands on the philosopher Xenocrates and was dragging him off for failure to pay the metics' tax, Lycurgus, coming upon them, struck the tax-collector on the head with his staff, released Xenocrates, and, since the man had behaved improperly, had him shut up in prison.
When Lycurgus was being praised for this act, Xenocrates, meeting his sons some days later, said, "How quickly, children, I have repaid your father's favor — for he is praised by many for having helped me." Lycurgus also proposed decrees, employing a certain Euclides of Olynthus, who was most capable in such matters. Although he was well-off, he wore one and the same cloak in winter and summer, and put on shoes only on necessary days. He practiced his oratory night and day, not being naturally gifted for extemporaneous speaking; he kept beneath him a small couch on which there was only a fleece and a pillow, so that he might rise easily and go on practicing. When someone reproached him for paying fees to sophists while spending his time on rhetoric, he said that if anyone were to promise to make his sons better men, he would give not a thousand drachmas but half his estate.
He was also outspoken because of his noble birth: once, when the Athenians would not tolerate him while he was addressing the Assembly, he cried out as he was being shouted down, "O Corcyrean scourge, how many talents you are worth!" And again, when they proclaimed Alexander a god, he said, "And what sort of god would he be, whose shrine one will need to be sprinkled with purifying water after leaving?"
After his death, his sons were handed over to the Eleven, Menesaechmus having brought the accusation and Thrasycles the indictment; but when Demosthenes, during the time of his exile, wrote to the Athenians that they were getting a bad reputation over Lycurgus' children, they changed their minds and released them, Democles, a pupil of Theophrastus, having spoken in their defense. Lycurgus himself, and some of his descendants, were buried at public expense; their monuments stand opposite the sanctuary of Athena Paionia, in the garden of the philosopher Melanthius — table-tombs inscribed with the names of Lycurgus himself and his sons, still preserved down to our own day. Most remarkable of all, he raised the city's revenue to twelve hundred talents, when previously only sixty had come in.
When he was about to die, he asked to be carried into the Metroön and the Council-chamber, wishing to render an account of his public conduct; but since no one dared to accuse him except Menesaechmus, he cleared himself of the charges, was carried back to his house, and died there — regarded as a fair man throughout his whole life and praised for his eloquence, and never having lost a single lawsuit, though many had brought accusations against him. He had three children by Callisto, daughter of Habron and sister of Callias son of Habron of Bate, who had served as treasurer of military funds under the archonship of Chaerondas. Dinarchus speaks of this marriage in his speech Against Pistias.
He left three sons, Habron, Lycurgus, and Lycophron; of these, Habron and Lycurgus died childless, but Habron died after a distinguished public career, while Lycophron married Callistomache, daughter of Philip of Aexone, and fathered Callisto. This Callisto was married by Cleombrotus, son of Deinocrates, of Acharnae, who fathered Lycophron; this Lycophron was adopted by his grandfather Lycophron, and he too died without children. After his death Socrates married Callisto and had a son, Symmachus; from him came Aristonymus, from him Charmides, from him Philippe. From her and Lysander came Medeius, who also became an interpreter of sacred law drawn from the Eumolpidae family. From this Medeius and Timothea, daughter of Glaucus, came the children Laodameia and
Medeius, who held the priesthood of Poseidon Erechtheus, and Philippe, who later served as priestess of Athena. Earlier, Diocles of Melite had married her and fathered Diocles, who served as general in command of the hoplites; this Diocles married Hedista, daughter of Habron, and fathered Philippides and Nicostrate; and Themistocles, son of Theophrastus the torch-bearer, married Nicostrate and fathered Theophrastus and Diocles. Medeius also arranged the priesthood of Poseidon Erechtheus.
Fifteen speeches of the orator Lycurgus survive. He was crowned by the people many times and honored with statues; a bronze statue of him stands in the Ceramicus by decree, passed in the archonship of Anaxicrates, under which both Lycurgus himself and the eldest of his descendants received meals in the Prytaneum. When Lycurgus died, Lycophron, the eldest of his sons, disputed the right to this gift.
Lycurgus also spoke often on matters concerning sacred property, indicting Autolycus the Areopagite, Lysicles the general, Demades son of Demeas, Menesaechmus, and many others, and convicted them all. He also brought Diphilus to trial for stealing, from the silver mines, the pillars that supported the weight above, and for having grown rich from them contrary to the laws; though the penalty was death, he secured his conviction, and distributed fifty drachmas to each citizen from the proceeds, the total collected amounting to a hundred sixty talents — or, as some say, a mina apiece. He also brought Aristogeiton, Leocrates, and Autolycus to trial for cowardice.
Lycurgus was nicknamed "the Ibis" — "Ibis to Lycurgus, Bat to Chaerephon" — and they traced their lineage from Erechtheus, son of Earth and Hephaestus, and more immediately from Lycomedes and Lycurgus, whom the people honored with public burial. This is the complete genealogy of the family of those who held the priesthood of Poseidon, set out on a tablet standing in the Erechtheum, painted by Ismenias of Chalcis; there are also wooden statues of Lycurgus and his sons, Habron, Lycurgus, and Lycophron, made by Timarchus and Cephisodotus, the sons of Praxiteles. The tablet was dedicated by Habron, his son, who had been allotted the priesthood from the family and ceded it to his brother Lycophron; for this reason Habron is depicted handing him the trident.
Lycurgus also drew up a record of everything he had administered and set it up on a stele in front of the wrestling-school he had built, so that anyone who wished could examine it; and no one was ever able to convict him of embezzlement. He also proposed that Neoptolemus, son of Anticles, be crowned and honored with a statue, because he had promised to gild the altar of Apollo in the marketplace, in accordance with the god's oracle. He also proposed honors for Diotimus, son of Diopeithes, of Euonymon, in the archonship of Ctesicles.
Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes and of Cleobule, daughter of Gylon, of the deme Paeania, was left by his father at the age of seven, together with a five-year-old sister. During the time of his orphanhood he lived with his mother, studying, as some have said, under Isocrates, but as most say, under Isaeus of Chalcis, a pupil of Isocrates then residing at Athens — Demosthenes emulating Thucydides and the philosopher Plato, under whom some say he actually studied first. But as Hegesias of Magnesia tells it, he begged his tutor to let him hear Callistratus,
son of Empedus, of Aphidna — a reputable orator who had served as cavalry commander and had dedicated the altar to Hermes of the Marketplace — when he was about to speak before the Assembly; and having heard him, Demosthenes became a passionate admirer of his speeches. He heard him for only a short time, while Callistratus was still in the city. But when Callistratus went into exile in Thrace, and Demosthenes had by then come of age from the ephebate, he turned to attend Isocrates and Plato; and afterward, taking on Isaeus as well,
into his own household, he trained himself under him for four years, imitating his style of speaking. As Ctesibius says in his work On Philosophy, Demosthenes obtained, through Callias of Syracuse, the speeches of Zethus of Amphipolis, and, through Charicles of Carystus, those of Alcidamas, and studied them thoroughly. When he came of age, having received less from his guardians than he should have, he brought suit against them for their mismanagement in the archonship of Timocrates — there were three of them, Aphobus, Therippides,
and Demophon, or Demeas — and he prosecuted this last most vigorously, since he was his mother's brother — assessing the penalty at ten talents for each suit; and he won against them all, yet collected nothing of the judgment, releasing some for a sum of money and others simply as a favor. When Aristophon had already relinquished his position of leadership because of old age, Demosthenes became a choregos. And when Meidias of Anagyrus struck him in the theater while he was serving as choregos,
he brought him to trial, but, having received three thousand drachmas, dropped the suit. They say that while still young he would withdraw to a cave and study there, having shaved half his head so that he would not go out in public; that he slept on a narrow bed so as to rise quickly; that he worked hard to overcome his inability to pronounce the letter rho; and that he cured himself of moving his shoulder unbecomingly while declaiming by hanging a small spit,
or, as some say, a small dagger, from the ceiling, so that fear of it would keep him still. As his powers of speech advanced, they say he had a life-size mirror made and practiced declaiming while looking into it, so as to correct his shortcomings; and that he would go down to the shore at Phalerum and rehearse his speeches against the crash of the waves, so that, if ever the Assembly grew tumultuous, he would not lose his composure. And when his breath
failed him, they say he paid Neoptolemus the actor ten thousand drachmas, so that he might learn to deliver whole periods without pausing for breath. When he entered public life, at a time when the city was divided into two factions — some siding with Philip, others speaking in the Assembly on behalf of freedom — he chose the side of those opposed to Philip, and throughout that entire time continued to urge helping those in danger of falling under Philip's power, working in politics together with Hyperides,
Nausicles, Polyeuctus, and Diotimus. For this reason he also made allies of the Athenians out of the Thebans, Euboeans, Corcyraeans, Corinthians, and Boeotians, and many others besides. Once, when he had failed badly before the Assembly and was walking home in despair, Eunomus of Thria, already an old man, met him and encouraged him; but it was especially Andronicus the actor who, meeting him, said that his speeches were fine but that he was lacking
in delivery, and, to prove it, recited from memory what Demosthenes had said before the Assembly. So Demosthenes, believing him, entrusted himself to Andronicus for training. This is why, when someone asked him what was the first thing in rhetoric, he said, "Delivery," and what was second, "Delivery," and what was third, "Delivery." When he came forward again before the Assembly, however, he was ridiculed for speaking in an overly novel manner, so that he was mocked in comedy by Antiphanes
and Timocles: "By earth, by springs, by rivers, by streams!" By swearing in this manner before the Assembly, he stirred up an uproar. He also used to swear by Asclepius, accenting the name with the stress moved forward, and tried to show that he was pronouncing it correctly, since the god was "gentle" (ēpios); and on this account too he was often shouted down. But after studying with Eubulides the dialectician of Miletus, he corrected all these faults. And on one occasion, being present at
the Olympic festival, and hearing Lamachus of Tereina reading a eulogy of Philip and Alexander while denouncing the Thebans and Olynthians, Demosthenes rose up and brought forward the testimony of the ancient poets concerning the noble deeds of the Thebans and Olynthians, so that Lamachus was forced thereafter to stop and flee the festival. Philip, when people reported to him the speeches Demosthenes had delivered against him, said, "Why, even
I myself, if I heard Demosthenes speaking, would vote for war against myself." He used to call his own speeches like soldiers, because of their warlike power, but those of Isocrates like athletes, since they provided a theatrical kind of pleasure. He was thirty-seven years old, reckoning from the archonship of Dexitheus to that of Callimachus, when an embassy came from the Olynthians concerning
aid, since they were being hard pressed by Philip in the war, and he persuaded the Athenians to send it; but in the following year, in which Plato died, Philip subdued the Olynthians. Xenophon the Socratic also knew him, either at the beginning of his career or at its height; for Xenophon's Hellenica ends with the events of the battle at Mantinea, in the archonship of Charicleides, and Demosthenes had earlier, in the archonship of Timocrates, won his case against his guardians.
When Aeschines went into exile after his conviction, Demosthenes rode after him on horseback. Thinking that Demosthenes meant to seize him, Aeschines fell down and covered his face, but Demosthenes raised him up, comforted him, and gave him a talent of silver. Demosthenes also advised the people to maintain a mercenary force on Thasos, and for this purpose he sailed out as trierarch. When he served as grain-commissioner and was accused of theft, he was acquitted. When Philip seized Elatea, Demosthenes himself marched out with those who fought at Chaeronea, where he is also said to have left his post; and as he fled, a bramble caught hold of his cloak, and turning around he cried, "Take me alive!" He also had the motto "Good Fortune" inscribed on his shield. He did, however, deliver the funeral oration for the fallen. After this, he took on the responsibility for repairing the city's fortifications and, having been elected supervisor of the walls, he contributed from his own resources the money spent, a hundred minas. He also gave ten thousand drachmas to the sacred embassies, and, boarding a trireme, he sailed round collecting funds from the allies. For these services he was crowned many times, first with a gold crown by Demomeles, Aristonicus, and Hyperides, and finally by Ctesiphon; and when the decree was indicted as unconstitutional by Diodotus and Aeschines, he won his defense, so that the prosecutor did not even receive a fifth of the votes.
Later, when Alexander was campaigning in Asia and Harpalus fled to Athens with money, Demosthenes at first prevented him from being received; but when Harpalus sailed in anyway, Demosthenes took a thousand darics and changed his position. When the Athenians wished to hand the man over to Antipater, Demosthenes spoke against it, and he proposed that the money be deposited on the Acropolis without even telling the people the amount. When Harpalus claimed to have brought seven hundred talents up to the Acropolis, only three hundred and fifty, or a little more, were found there, as Philochorus says. Afterward, when Harpalus escaped from the prison where he was being held until someone should arrive from Alexander, and made his way to Crete, or as some say to Taenarum in Laconia, Demosthenes was charged with bribery, on the ground that this was why he had neither reported the amount of money brought back nor the negligence of the guards.
He was brought to trial by Hyperides, Pytheas, Menesaechmus, Himeraeus, and Patrocles, who induced the Council of the Areopagus to condemn him; and being convicted, he went into exile, since he was unable to pay the fivefold penalty (he was charged with having taken thirty talents), or, as some say, because he did not wait for the verdict. After this time, when the Athenians sent Polyeuctus as an envoy to the league of the Arcadians to persuade them to abandon their alliance with the Macedonians, and Polyeuctus was unable to persuade them, Demosthenes appeared and, speaking in support, persuaded them. Admired for this, he obtained his recall after some time, a decree having been passed and a trireme sent for him. When the Athenians voted that he should adorn the altar of Zeus the Savior in Piraeus with the thirty talents he owed, and that he should be released — this decree having been proposed by Demon of Paeania, who was his cousin — he was once again active in politics on these terms.
When Antipater was shut up in Lamia by the Greeks and the Athenians were offering sacrifices of good tidings, Demosthenes said to one of his companions, Agesistratus, that he did not share the same view as the others about the situation: "for I know," he said, "that the Greeks are capable of running the short sprint and know how to do it, but not the long-distance race." When Antipater took Pharsalus and threatened to besiege the Athenians unless they surrendered the orators, Demosthenes left the city and fled first to Aegina, intending to take refuge at the shrine of Aeacus, and then, growing afraid, moved to Calauria. When the Athenians voted to surrender the orators, including him, he sat as a suppliant in the temple of Poseidon there. When Archias, nicknamed the "Exile-hunter," who had once been an actor alongside Anaximenes the orator, came after him and tried to persuade him to get up, on the ground that he would thereby become a friend of Antipater, Demosthenes said, "Neither when you were acting tragedy did you persuade me, nor will you persuade me now with your advice." When Archias attempted to use force, the people of the town prevented him; and Demosthenes said, "I did not take refuge in Calauria seeking safety, but so that I might convict the Macedonians of doing violence even to the gods."
He then asked for a writing tablet and wrote — according to Demetrius of Magnesia — the elegiac couplet later inscribed by the Athenians beneath his statue: "If your strength had matched your judgment, Demosthenes, the Macedonian Ares would never have ruled the Greeks." His statue stands near the enclosure and the altar of the Twelve Gods, made by Polyeuctus. But as others say, what was found written was this: "Demosthenes to Antipater, greetings." As for his death, Philochorus says he died by drinking poison; Satyrus the historian says that the reed pen with which he began to write the letter had been poisoned, and that he died from tasting it; Eratosthenes says that, having long feared the Macedonians, he wore around his arm a ring smeared with poison. There are also those who say that he died by holding his breath; and others who say that he tasted the poison concealed in his seal-ring.
He lived, according to those who give the higher figure, seventy years; according to those who give the lower figure, sixty-seven. He was active in politics for twenty-two years. When Philip died, he came forward wearing bright clothing, even though his own daughter had recently died, rejoicing at the death of the Macedonian. He also gave his support to the Thebans when they went to war against Alexander, and he continually encouraged the rest of the Greeks; for this reason, after razing Thebes, Alexander demanded that the Athenians hand him over, threatening them if they did not comply. When Alexander was campaigning against the Persians and asked the Athenians for a naval force, Demosthenes spoke against it, saying it was unclear whether he might not use it against those who provided it. He left behind two sons by one wife of good repute, the daughter of a certain Heliodorus; he had one daughter, who died before marriage while still a child. He also had a sister, from whom, together with Lachus of Leuconoe, his nephew Demochares was born, a man distinguished both in war and in political oratory, second to none. There is a statue of him in the Prytaneum, on the right as one enters toward the hearth, the first one, girded with his cloak and also wearing a sword; for it is said that this is how he delivered his speech to the people when Antipater demanded the surrender of the orators.
Some time later the Athenians granted maintenance in the Prytaneum to the relatives of Demosthenes, and after his death they set up his statue in the Agora in the archonship of Gorgias, at the request of his nephew Demochares, who obtained these honors for him; and his own son Laches, son of Demochares of Leuconoe, in turn requested honors in the archonship of Pytharatus, ten years later, for the erection of the statue in the Agora and for maintenance in the Prytaneum for himself and always for the eldest of his descendants, and for a front seat at all the public games. The decrees concerning both men are recorded, and the statue of Demochares was moved to the Prytaneum, as has already been mentioned. Sixty-five genuine speeches of Demosthenes are extant. Some also say that he lived a dissolute life, wearing women's clothing and reveling constantly, and that this is how he came to be nicknamed Batalus; others say he was mocked with this name, diminutively, after the name of his nurse. Diogenes the Cynic, seeing him once shrinking back in embarrassment in a tavern, said, "The more you shrink back, the more you will be in the tavern." Others, mocking him, said that in his speeches he was a Scythian, but in battle a city-dweller.
He also took gold from Ephialtes, one of the popular leaders, who, having gone as an envoy to the King, came back secretly bringing money, so that by distributing it among the popular leaders he might kindle the war against Philip; and they say that he personally took a bribe of three thousand darics from the King. He also arrested and tortured a certain Anaxilas of Oreus, who had been his guest-friend, on the charge of being a spy, and when the man revealed nothing, he moved that he be handed over to the Eleven. Once, when he was prevented by the Athenians from speaking in the Assembly, he said he wished to say only a short thing to them; and when they fell silent, he said: "A young man, in summer, hired a donkey from the city to go to Megara. At midday, when the sun was blazing fiercely, both he and the donkey's owner wanted to take shelter under its shadow, and they hindered each other, the one saying that he had hired the donkey, not its shadow, the other that the one who had hired it had full control over it."
And having said this, he began to leave. When the Athenians held him back and asked him to bring the story to its conclusion, he said, "So then, you wish to hear about the shadow of a donkey, but when I speak about serious matters, you do not wish to listen?" Once, when Polus the actor told him that for two days' acting he had received a talent as pay, Demosthenes said, "I received five talents for staying silent for one day." When his voice failed him and he was shouted down in the Assembly, he said that actors should be judged by their voice, but orators by their judgment. When Epicles reproached him for always deliberating carefully, he said, "I would be ashamed if, advising so great a people, I spoke off the cuff." It is recorded that he did not let his lamp go out until he was fifty years old, working meticulously over his speeches. He himself says that he drank only water.
Lysias the orator also knew him, and Isocrates saw him active in politics up until the battle of Chaeronea, as did some of the Socratic philosophers. He delivered most of his speeches extemporaneously, being well suited by nature for this. Aristonicus son of Nicophanes of Anagyrus was the first to propose that he be crowned with a gold crown; Diondas opposed the motion under oath.
Hyperides was the son of Glaucippus, who was in turn the son of Dionysius, and he belonged to the deme of Collytus. He had a son of the same name as his father, Glaucippus, an orator who also composed speeches; and his son in turn was Alphinous. Having been a pupil of the philosopher Plato, together with Lycurgus, and also of Isocrates the orator, he was active in politics at Athens at the time when Alexander was taking control of Greek affairs; and he spoke against the generals
whom Alexander demanded from the Athenians, and against the surrender of the triremes. He also advised that the mercenary force at Taenarum, led by Chares, not be disbanded, being well disposed toward the general. At first he pleaded cases for pay. Though he was suspected of having shared in the Persian money with Ephialtes, when he was chosen trierarch, at the time Philip was besieging Byzantium and he was sent out to help the Byzantines, he undertook to finance a chorus that year, while everyone else was exempted from every public service. He also proposed honors for Demosthenes, and when the decree was indicted as unconstitutional by Diondas, he was acquitted. Though he was a friend of Demosthenes, Lysicles, and Lycurgus, he did not remain loyal to the end; rather, when Lysicles and Lycurgus were dead and Demosthenes was being tried for having taken a bribe from Harpalus, Hyperides, chosen out of everyone — since he alone had remained free of bribery — brought the accusation
against him. When he was tried by Aristogeiton for unconstitutional conduct for having proposed, after Chaeronea, that resident foreigners be made citizens, that slaves be freed, and that sacred objects, children, and women be deposited in Piraeus, he was acquitted. When some accused him of having overlooked many laws in his decree, he said, "The weapons of the Macedonians darkened my judgment," and, "It was not I who wrote the decree, but the battle of Chaeronea." After this, however, Philip, out of fear, granted the recovery of the dead, though he had earlier refused it to the heralds who came from Lebadea. Later, after the events at Crannon, when he was demanded by Antipater and was about to be handed over by the people, he fled the city to Aegina along with those who had been condemned; and having met with Demosthenes and defended himself concerning their earlier quarrel,
once he had left there, he was seized by force, at the hands of Archias, nicknamed the Exile-hunter — a man of Thurian origin, at that time a leading actor, and now assisting Antipater — while he was clinging to the statue in the temple of Poseidon, and was brought before Antipater at Corinth. There, under torture, he bit through his own tongue, so that he would be unable to reveal any of the city's secrets, and so he died, on the ninth of Pyanepsion
in its first phase. Hermippus, however, says that his tongue was cut out after he had been brought to Macedonia, and that he was thrown out unburied, and that Alphinous, who was his cousin — or, as some say, the son of his son Glaucippus — through a certain physician named Philopeithes, obtained permission to take charge of the body, to cremate it, and to bring the bones to Athens to his relatives, contrary to the decrees of both the Athenians and the Macedonians; for they had ordered not only that his relatives go into exile, but also that he not be buried in his own country. Others say that he died at Cleonae, having been led away with the others, where his tongue was cut out and he was destroyed in the manner already described; and that his relatives took the bones and buried them together with his parents before the Hippades Gate, as Heliodorus says in the third book of his work On Monuments. Today, however, the tomb has fallen into ruin and
its location is unknown. He is said to have surpassed everyone in public speaking, and by some he is even ranked above Demosthenes. Seventy-seven speeches are attributed to him, of which fifty-two are genuine. He was also given to sensual indulgence, so much so that he drove out his own son and brought in Myrrhine, the most expensive courtesan, kept Aristagora in Piraeus, and in Eleusis, on his own property, kept
Phila the Theban, having ransomed her for twenty minas. He used to take his daily walk in the fish market. As might be expected, he also became involved in the trial of Phryne the courtesan, when she was tried for impiety; he himself makes this clear at the beginning of his speech. When she was on the verge of being convicted, he brought her forward, tore open her clothing, and displayed the woman's breasts; and when the jurors gazed upon her beauty, she was acquitted. He was also quietly assembling charges against Demosthenes, so much so that he was caught in the act: for when Hyperides was ill, Demosthenes came to his house to visit him and found him holding a document directed against himself; and when Demosthenes grew angry, Hyperides said, "As a friend, it will do you no harm; but should you become my enemy, it may prevent you from doing something against me." He also proposed honors for Iolas, who was believed
to have given Alexander the poison. He also joined with Leosthenes in the Lamian War, and delivered the funeral oration for the fallen with remarkable skill. When Philip was preparing to sail against Euboea and the Athenians were hesitant, he raised forty triremes by voluntary contributions, and was himself the first to contribute two triremes, for himself and for his son. When a dispute arose with the Delians over which people should have charge of the sanctuary, and Aeschines was chosen to speak on the other side, the Council of the Areopagus elected Hyperides to speak, and the speech is entitled the Delian Speech; he also served as envoy to the Rhodians. When envoys also came from Antipater, praising Antipater as a decent man, Hyperides met them and said, "We know that he is decent, but we for our part have no need of a decent master." He is also said to have addressed the assembly without theatrical delivery, and simply to have narrated
the things done, and did not trouble the jurors with these matters. He was also sent to the Eleans to speak in defense of Callippus the athlete, who was accused of corrupting the contest, and he won. When he also indicted the honor voted to Phocion — the indictment which Meidias son of Meidias of Anagyrus brought, in the archonship of Xenias, on the seventh from the end of Gamelion — he lost.
Deinarchus, son of Socrates or Sostratus — a native, as some say, though others hold him to be a Corinthian — came to Athens still a young man, at the time when Alexander was marching through Asia, and settling there became a pupil of Theophrastus, who had succeeded to Aristotle's school, and he also associated with Demetrius of Phalerum. He turned most eagerly to political life after the death of Antipater, when some of the orators had been put to death and others had gone into exile. Having become a friend of Cassander, he prospered greatly, amassing money
by exacting fees for the speeches which he wrote for those in need; and he set himself against the most prominent of the orators, not by coming forward before the assembly himself — for he was not able to do that — but by writing speeches for his opponents. And when Harpalus fled, he wrote a great many speeches against those who were charged with taking bribes, and handed these over to the accusers. Later, when he was charged with having had dealings with Antipater and Cassander
concerning the seizure of Munychia, at the time when it was garrisoned by Antigonus and Demetrius in the archonship of Anaxicrates, he converted most of his property into cash and fled to Chalcis. Having spent about fifteen years in exile, and having acquired a great fortune, he returned home, Theophrastus and his circle having arranged his return along with the other exiles. He lodged with his friend Proxenus, and having lost his gold there,
now being an old man and weak in his eyesight, and since Proxenus was unwilling to help search for it, he brought a suit against him, and then for the first time spoke in a court of law himself. His speech in this case is also preserved. Sixty-four genuine speeches of his are in circulation; some of these are attributed to Aristogeiton instead. He was an imitator of Hyperides, or, as some say, because of his emotional intensity and vehemence he was an imitator
of Demosthenes’ figures of speech. — Demochares son of Laches, of Leuconoe, moves that a bronze statue in the agora, and meals in the prytaneum, and a front seat, be granted as an honor to Demosthenes son of Demosthenes of Paeania, and to the eldest of his descendants forever, as one who has been a benefactor and counselor of many fine things to the people of Athens, and who devoted his own property to the common good and contributed
eight talents and a trireme when the people liberated Euboea, and another when Cephisodorus sailed out to the Hellespont; and another when the generals Chares and Phocion were sent out by the people to Byzantium; and who ransomed many of those captured by Philip at Pydna, Methone, and Olynthus; and who furnished a chorus of men when the tribe Pandionis defaulted on providing one, and armed
those citizens who lacked arms, and spent money on the building of the walls when elected by the people to that office, himself contributing three talents, and besides these contributed two more, having dug two trenches around the Piraeus; and after the battle at Chaeronea he contributed a talent, and toward the grain-supply in the time of famine he contributed a talent; and because he brought the people into alliance,
having persuaded and having become their benefactor and counselor, by which means he persuaded the Thebans, Euboeans, Corinthians, Megarians, Achaeans, Locrians, Byzantines, and Messenians, and the forces which he organized for the people and their allies — ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry — and the levy of money which he persuaded the allies, through his embassies, to contribute to the war, more than five hundred talents; and how he prevented the Peloponnesians from going to help Alexander against Thebes, giving money and himself serving as envoy;
and having been counselor to the people in many other fine matters, and having conducted the politics of his time toward freedom and democracy in the best way, and having gone into exile on account of the oligarchy when the democracy was overthrown, and having died at Calauria out of his goodwill toward the people, when soldiers were sent against him by Antipater, having remained faithful to his goodwill and attachment to the people, and having neither
fallen into the hands of his enemies nor done anything unworthy of the people in his peril. In the archonship of Pytharatus, Laches son of Demochares of Leuconoe moves that the Council and the People of Athens grant to Demochares son of Laches of Leuconoe a bronze statue in the agora, and meals in the prytaneum for himself and for the eldest of his descendants forever, and a front seat at all the contests, as one who has been a good benefactor and counselor
to the people of Athens and has done the following benefits for the people: in his embassies, his proposals, and his political conduct — the building of the walls, the provision of arms, missiles, and engines, and the fortification of the city during the four-year war, and the making of peace, truce, and alliance with the Boeotians; on account of which he was driven into exile by those who overthrew the democracy; and how he returned in the archonship of Diocles,
restored by the people, being the first to reduce public expenditure and to spare the existing resources, and having gone as envoy to Lysimachus and obtained for the people thirty talents of silver, and again another hundred; and having proposed an embassy to Ptolemy in Egypt, in consequence of which those who sailed brought back fifty talents of silver for the people; and having gone as envoy to Antipater and obtained twenty talents of silver, and having recovered Eleusis for the
people, and having persuaded the people to choose this course and having carried it through, and having gone into exile on behalf of democracy, and having taken part in no oligarchy nor held any office at all once the democracy had been overthrown; and being the only Athenian among those of his own generation active in politics who never attempted to alter his fatherland's constitution to anything other than democracy; and having made the judgments, the laws, the courts, and the properties
of all the Athenians secure through his own conduct of public affairs, and having done nothing contrary to democracy either in word or in deed. — Lycophron son of Lycurgus, of the deme Butadae, registered a claim that he be entitled to meals in the prytaneum in accordance with the honor granted by the people to Lycurgus of Butadae. In the archonship of Anaxicrates, in the sixth prytany, that of the tribe Antiochis, Stratocles son of Euthydemus of Diomeia proposed: Whereas Lycurgus son of Lycophron, of Butadae, inheriting from
his own ancestors a goodwill toward the people that had long been proper to his family — and Lycurgus's ancestors, Lycomedes and Lycurgus, were honored by the people while living, and when they died the people gave them, on account of their valor, public burial in the Ceramicus — and Lycurgus himself, in his own political career, established many fine laws for his country, and having become treasurer of the public revenue
for the city for three periods of five years, and having distributed from the public revenue eighteen thousand nine hundred talents; and having received much from private citizens on trust and advanced it, both for the needs of the city and of the people, six hundred and fifty talents in all; and having been judged to have managed all these matters justly, he was crowned many times by the city; moreover
having been chosen by the people, he gathered together great sums of money for the Acropolis, and having prepared adornment for the goddess — solid gold images of Victory, gold and silver processional vessels, and gold ornament for a hundred basket-bearers — and having been elected to oversee the preparation for war, he brought up to the Acropolis great quantities of arms and fifty thousand missiles, and he built four hundred seaworthy triremes, some
by repairing them, others by building them new from the keel up; and besides these, taking over half-finished the ship-sheds and the arsenal, he completed them, and finished the theater of Dionysus, and built the Panathenaic stadium and the gymnasium at the Lyceum, and adorned the city with many other constructions; and when King Alexander, having subdued the whole of Asia, was claiming the right to give orders in common to all the Greeks,
and demanded the surrender of Lycurgus as one acting against him, the people did not hand him over, out of fear of Alexander; and though he often rendered account of his conduct of public affairs in a city that remained free and democratic, he continued throughout his whole life uncondemned and unbribed, so that all might know that those who choose to conduct their politics justly on behalf of democracy and freedom are held by the people
in the highest esteem while they live, and are repaid with everlasting gratitude when they die. Be it resolved, with good fortune, by the people: to praise Lycurgus son of Lycophron, of Butadae, for his virtue and justice, and to set up a bronze statue of him in the agora, unless the law forbids the erection of one somewhere; to grant meals in the prytaneum to the eldest of Lycurgus's descendants forever, for all time,
and that all his decrees remain valid; and that the secretary of the people have them inscribed on stone stelae and set up on the Acropolis near the dedications; and that for the inscribing of the stelae the treasurer of the people give fifty drachmas from the funds allotted for decrees of the people.