Three representative passages
Isokrates cannot be represented by extracts; the structure and the total effect are especially important for him just because he is specially an artist. But three passages may be taken as showing the bent rather than the compass of his art,—the contrast, in
the
Areopagitikos, between the social lives of the old and of the new democracy; the eulogy, in the
Panegyrikos, of the first Athenian empire; and the passage on beauty in the
Helen.
Areop. [VII] §§ 51—54.
In the
Areopagitikos he is contrasting the social Athens of 500 B.C. with that of 355 B.C.:—
‘Under the supervision of that Council, the city was not distracted with law-suits and grievances and taxes and penury and wars; people lived on good terms with their neighbours and peaceably with all men. Athenians were the trust of Greece and the terror of barbarians; they had saved their country, and had so punished the enemy that he was glad enough to be let alone. And so, thanks to this, they lived in such security that the houses and establishments in the country were handsomer and richer than those within the wall,—many citizens never coming to town even for the festivals, but preferring their own snug homes to a share in the bounty of the State. The public spectacles, for which they might have come, were managed sensibly, and not with an insolent profusion. People did not measure happiness by shows, or by rivalries in the equipment of a chorus, or by the like forms of pretentiousness, but by soberness of life, by everyday comfort, by the absence of destitution among citizens. These are the tests of a real prosperity as distinguished from a policy of low makeshifts. Is there any sane man who can help being stung by what goes on nowa-days — when he sees numbers of citizens actually drawing lots for daily bread before the lawcourts, yet condescending to feed any Greeks who
will row their ships for them,—coming on the stage in golden apparel, and passing the winter in garments of which the less said the better—with the rest of those economical contrasts which redound to the infamy of Athens?’
Panegyr. [IV] §§ 103— 106.
In the
Panegyrikos the first Athenian empire is used as an argument for making Athens equal leader with Sparta in a war against Asia. An implied contrast with the Spartan influence from 405 to 380 B.C. runs through the whole:—
‘All, I think, would expect that State to be the best president of Greece under whose former rule those who accepted it were, as a fact, happiest. Now it will be found that under our leadership private households throve best and cities, too, became greatest. We were not jealous of the growing States; we did not sow the seeds of strife by setting up in them a government adverse to their own, in order that they might be divided by faction and that both factions might pay court to us; rather, holding the concord of our allies to be a common good, we governed all the cities by the same laws, debating their affairs in the federal spirit, not in a spirit of absolutism; watching over the interests of the whole league, but leaving every member of it free,—helping the commons and warring against despotisms,—thinking it a shame that the many should be under the few, that men worse than their fellows in nothing but fortune should be scouted for office, aye, and that, when Greece is the mother of us all, some Greeks should be tyrants while others are barely residents on sufferance, and that a franchise
bestowed by nature should be cancelled by law. Finding these vices, and more than these, in Oligarchy, we gave to our allies the same form of government under which we lived ourselves—one which I see no need to praise at much length when it can be described so shortly. Under that government the allies lived for seventy years unvexed by tyrants, independent of barbarians, at unity among themselves, at peace with all the world.’
Helen. Encom. [XI] §§ 54—58.
In the
Helen it is interesting to mark both the likeness and the deep unlikeness to a Platonic strain:—
‘They had reason for their choice, and I for the greatness of these praises; for she was gifted above all others with Beauty, the first of all things in majesty and honour and divineness. It is easy to see its power; there are many things which have no share of Courage, or Wisdom, or Justice which yet will be found honoured above things which have each of these; but nothing which is devoid of Beauty is prized; all things are scorned which have not been given their part of that attribute; the admiration for Virtue itself comes to this, that of all manifestations of life Virtue is the most
beautiful. The supremacy of Beauty over all other things can be seen from our own dispositions towards it and them. Other things we seek merely to attain, as we may have need of them; we have no further affection of the mind about them; but beautiful things inspire us with love—love, which is as much stronger than wish as its object is better. We are jealous of those who excel in ability or anything else, unless they
conciliate us by daily benefits and constrain us to feel kindly towards them: but the beautiful inspire us with goodwill at first sight; to them alone, as to the gods, we are never tired of doing homage, delighting to be their slaves rather than to be rulers of others, and feeling more gratitude to those of them who set us many tasks than to those who lay no commands upon us. We reproach the subjects of any other despotism with the name of flatterers; but we see only a clear-eyed and noble zeal in the lieges of Beauty. Care for that gift is to us so perfectly a religion that we hold the profaners of it in themselves more dishonoured than sinners against others, but honour for all time, and as benefactors to the State, those who have guarded the glory of their own youth in the chasteness of an inviolable shrine.’
Lysias: Forensic Speeches in Public Causes
