AESCHINES (5th century B.c.), an Athenian philosopher and orator and a friend of Socrates. Diogenes Laertius preserves a tradition that it was he, not Crito, who offered to help Socrates to escape from prison. He was always a poor man. He started a perfumery shop in Athens on borrowed capital, became bankrupt and retired to the Syracusan court. According to Diog. Laert. (ii. 61), Plato, then at Syracuse, pointedly ignored Aeschines, but this does not agree with Plutarch De adulatore et amico (c. 26). On the expulsion of the younger Dionysius, Aeschines returned to Athens, and, finding it impossible to profess philosophy publicly owing to the contempt of Plato and Aristotle, was compelled to teach privately. Besides forensic speeches, noted for their purity of style, he wrote several philosophical dialogues : (I) Concerning virtue, whether it can be taught; (2) Eryxias, or Erasistratus: concerning riches, whether they are good; (3) Axiochus: con cerning death, whether it is to be feared,—but those extant are not genuine remains.
J. le Clem has given a Latin translation of them, with notes and several dissertations, entitled Silvae Philologicae, and they have been edited by S. N. Fischer (Leipzig, 1786), and K. F. Hermann De Aeschin. Socrat. relig. (Gat. 1850). An amusing passage of a genuine dialogue is quoted by Cicero in the De inventione (i. 31). Hirzel Der Dialog. i. 129-140; T. Gomperz Greek Thinkers, vol. iii. p. 342 (Eng. trans. G. G. Berry, London, 5905).