ISOCRATES, I-sOlc'ra-tez, one of the 10 Attic orators: b. Athens, 436 B.c.; d. there, 338 s.c. His principal teachers were Tisias, Gor gias, Prodicus and Protagoras. On account of his weak voice and natural timidity he was re luctant to speak in public, but gave lessons in the art of eloquence, and composed orations for others. His school was opened about 392 B.c. and quickly gained a great reputation. People from many parts of Greece and even from Sicily and still more distant regions streamed to it. Isaeus, Ephorus, Lycurgus, Hyperides were amongst them. He thus made consider able profit, for he received twenty talents ($14, 375) for a speech that he wrote for Nicocles, king of Cyprus. He was the first who saw the value of oratory in public life. By basing it on sound moral principles he rescued it from the abuses of the Sophists. He was distinguished for a polished style and a harmonious construc tion of his sentences. The composition, revi sion and repeated polishing of his speeches oc cupied so much time that he published little. His celebrated panegyric on Athens 'Panathe naicus> employed him 10, or according to others, 15 years. As all his speeches were modeled after the same pattern, their sameness excited weariness, although his subjects were the most important points of morals and politics. Dur ing the rule of the Thirty Tyrants he lived at Chios. His patriotism was sincere, and his de sire for the freedom of Greece so intense, that he starved himself to death in his ninety-eighth year from grief at the battle of Chmronea, "fatal to liberty.° Isocrates left an indelible impress on the cultural and political develop ment, not • only of Greece, but of the whole world through the purity of his style, the lofti ness of his political ideas and ideals, and through the influence which he exerted over such men as Demosthenes, Cicero, etc. In Plu tarch's time 60 orations went under his name, not half of which were, however, deemed genu ine. Twenty-one now remain, of which the principal are the 'Panegyricus> (an oration in which he exhorts the Greeks to concord, and to war against the Persians), the (in which he dilates on the services rendered by Athens to Greece), and the 'Areopagiticus' (in which he advises the Athenians to return to the simplicity and purity of Solon's time). Plato spoke of him in laudatory terms in his drus,) and so did Cicero in his 'De Oratore.> There are many editions both of his complete works and of separate orations. The most im
portant are by Bekker, I (Oxford 1823); Dob son, W. S., (London 1E28) ; Baiter, J. G., and Sauppe, H., (Zurich 1838) ; Benseler, G. E. (2 vols., Leipzig 1886). A good list of the others will be found in British Museum, 'Catalogue of Printed Books.' A representative selection of his work is contained in Jebb, R. C., 'Selections from Attic Orators' (London 1880). There are also a number of translations of which the most important are: English (London 1894, in 'Bohn's Classical Library'); French (3 vols., 1862-64) ; German (2 parts, Leipzig 1854-55). Consult Adams, C. D., 'Recent Views of the Political Influence of Isocrates) (in Classical Philology, Vol. VII, p. 343, Chicago 1912) ; Bell, H. I., 'The British Museum Papyrus of Isocrates, irep1gpliwis' (in Journal of Philology, Vol. XXX, p. 1, London 1907) ; Blass, F., Beredsamkeit) (2 vols., Leipzig 1887 93) ; Id., 'Die Rhythmen der Attischen Kunst prosa> (Leipzig 1901) ; Burgess, T. C., tic Literature' (Chicago 1902) ; Christ, W. von, (Geschichte der Griechischen Literatur> (5th ed., 3 vols., Munich 1908-13) ; Gomperz, H., 'Isokrates und die Sokratik> (in Wiener Stu dien, Vol. XXVII, p. 163, Vol. XXVIII, p. 1, Vienna 1905-06) ; Hubbell, H. M., 'The Influ ence of Isocrates on Cicero, Dionysius and Aristides' (New Haven 1913) ; Jebb, R. C. 'Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeu0 (2 vols., London 1876) • Johnson, A. C., (A Com parative Study in Selective Chapters in the Syntax of Isaeus, Isocrates, etc., (Athens 1911) ; Kessler, J., 'Isokrates und die Panhel lenische Idee> (Paderborn 1910); Oncken, W., 'Isokrates und Athen' (Heidelberg 1862) ; Pohlman, R. von, und das Problem der Demokratie,' (Munich 1913) ; Preuss, S., 'Index Isocrates' (Leipzig 1904) ; Robbins, 'Isocrates' (in Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol XXXV, pp. 401, 593, Andover 1878) • Sanneg, P., 'De Schola Isocratea) (Halle 1867) ; Spengel, L., 'Isokrates tend Plato& (in K5nigl. Bayer. Akad. der Wiss., Abhandlungen, Kl., Vol. VII, pt. 3, p. 729, Munich 1855) ; Thomp son, W. H., 'On the Philosophy of Isocrates and his Relation to the Socratic Schools' (in 'The Phaedrus of Plato,' London 1868) ; Volkmann, R., 'Rhetorik der Griechen und Romer' (Ber lin 1872) ; Wendland, P., Philippos und Isokrates; Isokrates und Demosthenes' (in Nachrichten von der Konigl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaf ten zu Gottingen, Philolog.-Hist. ICI, Gottingen 1910).