III. LYSIAS.
LYSIAS was the son of Cephalus, grandson of Lysanias,
and great-grandson of Cephalus. His father was by birth
a Syracusan; but partly for the love he had to the city,
and partly in condescension to the persuasions of Pericles
the son of Xanthippus, who entertained him as his friend
and guest, he went to live at Athens, being a man of great
wealth. Some say that he was banished Syracuse when
the city was under the tyranny of Gelo. Lysias was born
at Athens when Philocles, the successor of Phrasicles, was
chief magistrate, in the second year of the eightieth Olympiad.
1 At his first coming, he was educated among the
most noble of the Athenians. But when the city sent
a colony to Sybaris, which was afterwards called Thurii, he
went thither with his other brother Polemarchus, his father
being now dead (for he had two other brothers, Euthydemus and Brachyllus), that he might receive his portion
of his father's estate. This was done in the fifteenth year
of his age, when Praxiteles was chief magistrate.
2 There
then he stayed, and was brought up under Nicias and Tisias,
both Syracusans. And having purchased a house and received his estate, he lived as a citizen for thirty-three years,
till the year of Cleocritus.
3 In the year following, in the
time of Callias, viz. in the ninety-second Olympiad, when the
Athenians had met with their disasters in Sicily, and when
other of their allies revolted, and especially the Italians,
he, being accused of favoring the Athenians, was banished with three other of his association; when coming to
Athens, in the year wherein Callias succeeded Cleocritus,
the city then laboring under the tyranny of the four hundred
conspirators, he there sat down. But after the fight at
Aegospotami, when the Thirty Tyrants had usurped the
[p. 25]
government, he was banished thence, after he had remained
in Athens seven years. His goods were confiscated; and
having likewise lost his brother Polemarchus, he himself
escaped by a back door of the house in which he was kept
for execution, fled to Megara and there lived. But when
the citizens endeavored to return from Phyle, he also behaved himself very well, and appeared very active in the
affair, having, to forward this great enterprise, deposited
two thousand drachms of silver and two hundred targets,
and being commissioned with Hermas, he maintained three
hundred men in arms, and prevailed with Thrasylaeus the
Elean, his old friend and host, to contribute two talents.
Upon entering the city, Thrasybulus proposed that, for a
consideration of his good service to the public, he should
receive the rights of citizenship: this was during the so called time of anarchy before Euclides. Which proposal
being ratified by the people, Archinus objected that it was
against the laws, and a decree without authority of the
senate. The decree was thereupon declared void, and
Lysias lost his citizenship. He led the remainder of his
life in the rank of an
Isoteles (or citizen who had no right
to vote or hold office), and died at last at Athens, being
fourscore and three years old, or as some would have it,
seventy-six; and others again say, that he lived above fourscore years, till after the birth of Demosthenes. It is supposed he was born in the year of Philocles.
There are four hundred and twenty-five orations which
bear his name, of which Dionysius and Caecilius affirm
only two hundred and thirty to be genuine, and he is said
to have been overcome but twice in all. There is extant
also the oration which he made in defence of the fore-mentioned decree against Archinus, who indicted it and
thereby prevented Lysias from receiving the citizenship, as
also another against the Thirty Tyrants. He was very cogent in his persuasions, and was always very brief in what
[p. 26]
he delivered. He would commonly give orations to private
persons. There are likewise his institutions of oratory,
his public harangues, his epistles, his eulogies, funeral
orations, discourses of love, and his defence of Socrates,
accommodated to the minds of the judges. His style
seems plain and easy, though hardly imitable. Demosthenes, in his oration against Neaera, says that he was in love
with one Metanira, Neaera's serving-maid, but afterwards
married his brother Brachyllus's daughter. Plato in his
Phaedrus makes mention of him, as a most eloquent orator and ancienter than Isocrates. Philiscus, his companion,
and Isocrates's votary, composed an epigram concerning
him, whence the same that we have urged from Plato is
deducible; and it sings to this effect:
Calliope's witty daughter, Phrontis, show
If aught of wit or eloquence thou hast;
For 'tis decreed that thou shalt bear a son,
Lysias by name, to spread the name of him
Whose great and generous acts do fill the world,
And are received for glorious above.
Let him who sings those praises of the dead,
Let him, my friend, too, praise our amity.
He likewise wrote two orations for Iphicrates,—one
against Harmodius, and another accusing Timotheus of
treason,—in both which he overcame. But when Iphicrates made himself responsible for Timotheus's actions,
and would purge himself of the allegation of treason
made also against him, Lysias wrote an oration for him to
deliver in his defence; upon which he was acquitted, but
Timotheus was fined in a considerable sum of money.
He likewise delivered an oration at the Olympic games,
in which he endeavored to convince the Greeks of how
great advantage it would be to them, if they could but
unanimously join to pull down the tyrant Dionysius.
[p. 27]
