previous next

Lysias aids the Exiles.

During the ten or twelve months of the exile— from the spring of 404 to the spring of 403—Lysias seems to have been active in the democratic cause. According to his biographer1—whose facts were probably taken from Lysias himself—he presented the army of the patriots with two hundred shields, and with a sum of two thousand drachmas; gained for it, with the help of one Hermon2, upwards of three hundred recruits; and induced his friend Thrasydaeos of Elis3 to contribute no less than two talents. Immediately upon the return from the Peiraeus to the city in the spring of 403, Thrasybulos proposed that the citizenship should be conferred upon Lysias; and the proposal was carried in the ekklesia. In one respect, however, it was informal. No measure could, in strictness, come before the popular assembly which was not introduced by a preliminary resolution (probouleuma) of the Senate. But at the moment when this decree was passed, the Senate had not yet been reconstituted after the anarchy4; and the probouleuma had therefore been wanting. On this ground Archînos, a colleague of Thrasybulos, arraigned the decree (under the Graphê Paranomôn) as unconstitutional, and it was annulled5. The whole story has been doubted6; but it is difficult to reject it when the Plutarchic biographer expressly refers to the speech made by Lysias in connection with the protest of Archînos7. Whether this speech was or was not identical with that of Lysias On his own Services8 cannot be decided; but the latter must at least have been made upon this occasion.

1 [Plut.] Vit. Lys. The facts mentioned there may have been taken from the speech of Lysias on the motion of Archînos (ib. § 11), and also from that περὶ τῶν ἰδίων εὐεργεσιῶν, (quoted by Harpokration s. vv. Κεῖοι, Φηγαιεῦσι, μεταπύργιον,) if indeed this was distinct from the former.

2 Ἑρμᾶνι in the Vit. Lys. § 7 ought probably to be Ἕρμωνι, as Blass assumes, Att. Bereds. p. 340.

3 [Plut.] Vit. Lys. Cf. Xen. Hellen. III. 2. 27.

4 This appears from the statement of the pseudo-Plut. Vit. Lys. § 8, that the proposal was made μετὰ τὴν κάθοδον ἐπ᾽ ἀναρχίας τῆς πρὸ Εὐκλείδου, that is, immediately after the return in the spring of the year 403. Later in the same year Eukleides became archon; and with the revival of the constitutional forms which commenced in his archonship the ἀναρχία was held to have ended

5 [Plut.] Vit. Lys. ὁ μὲν δῆμος ἐκύρωσε τὴν δωρεάν, ἀπενεγκαμένου δὲ Ἀρχίνου γραφὴν παρανόμων διὰ τὸ ἀπροβούλευτον εἰσαχθῆναι ἑάλω τὸ ψήφισμα.

6 As by Scheibe (Blass, p 340), who thinks that the biographer assumed it from the vague allusion in Aeschin in Ctes § 195: Ἀρχῖνος γὰρ ὁ ἐκ Κοίλης ἐγράψατο παρανόμων Θρασύβουλον τὸν Στειριέα γράψαντά τι παρὰ τοὺς νόμους, ἕνα τῶν συγκατελθόντων αὐτῷ ἀπὸ Φύλης, καὶ εἷλε. This says only, τι.

7 ἔστι δ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁ ὑπὲρ τοῦ ψηφίσματος (λόγος) ὃ ἐγράψατο Ἀρχῖνος, τὴν πολίτειαν αὐτοῦ περιελών: Vit. Lys. § 11.

8 See p. 151, note 1.

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

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: