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Εὐαγόρας

. [Or. IX.] — On the occasion of a festival held by Nicocles, king of the Cyprian Salamis (cp. introd. to or. III., p. 283), in memory of his father Evagoras (who died in 374 B.C.), Isocrates sent this encomium as his tribute. The date is probably about 365 B.C.

Evagoras appears to have been a man of unusually strong character, and of great abilities both military and political. Cyprus was divided between Phoenician settlements, such as Citium and Paphos, and later Greek settlements, such as Salamis and Soli. But the bulk of the population was, till long after the time of Evagoras, Phoenician; and continual contact with the non-hellenic East must always have tended to depress the Greek element in Cyprus. Evagoras was the champion of Hellenism against barbarism at this out-post; first, as restorer of that Greek civilisation which the Phoenician and Tyrian masters of Salamis had effaced; afterwards, as antagonist of Persia in a War of Independence. Perhaps the most striking passage in the memoir is the following, which describes how commerce, arts, letters, humane intercourse with the outer world, having become extinct under the rule of the barbarian, speedily sprang into a new life under the rule of the Hellene. — Attic Orators, II. 113.


§§ 47 — 50.

παραλαβὼν τὴν πόλιν ἐκβ ‘When the city (Salamis) came into his hands, it had been reduced to barbarism; owing to the domination of the Phoenicians, it had no intercourse with Greeks, no knowledge of the useful arts, no commerce, no harbour: but he supplied all these deficiencies’, etc.

διὰ τὴν τῶν Φοινίκων ἀρχ The earliest Greek immigrants into Cyprus seem to have found Phoenicians already established. The Greek settlements traced their origin to Athens, Salamis, Arcadia, Cythnus (one of the Cyclades): Her. VII. 90. Long after the time at which Isocrates is writing the Phoenician element in Cyprus greatly preponderated over the Hellenic: thus Scylax in his Περίπλους, p. 97 (written in the time of Philip of Macedon, 359 — 336 B.C.), calls the inhabitants of the interior collectively ‘barbarians’. Of the Greek cities on the coast, the chief in the time of Scylax seem to have been Salamis, Soli and Marium. (See Rawlinson on Her. v. 104.)

In 500 B.C. the Cyprian Salamis was ruled by a dynasty of Greek princes tributary to Persia (Her. v. 104, 114). Acc. to Isocr., this Greek dynasty — which claimed descent from Teucrus — was dispossessed by a Phoenician adventurer (ἐκ Φοινίκης ἀνὴρ φυγάς, § 19), whose descendants (ἔκγονοι, § 21) held the throne until it was again taken from them by Evagoras, the heir of the old Greek kings.

Grote would place the Phoenician usurpation about 450 B.C. (X. 21), with good reason: though Isocr. at least seems to have conceived it as occurring much earlier. The restoration of the Greek ‘Teucrid’ dynasty by Evagoras cannot have been later than 411 B.C., in which year Andocides visited Cyprus, and found Evagoras reigning at Salamis, [Lys.] In Andoc. § 28. And Evagoras must have been ‘not merely established, but powerful’ (Grote X. 25) when he ventured to harbour Conon after Aegospotami (405 B.C.). At the time of his death in 374 B.C. Evagoras was an old man (§ 71).

οὔτ᾽ ἐμπορίῳ χρωμ i.e. Salamis did not afford an ἐμπόριον, a centre or seat of commerce, to foreign traders. At Athens the ἐμπόριον was the ‘Exchange’. It is unnecessary to read ἐμπορίᾳ.

τείχη προσπεριεβάλετο κ.τ.λ. ‘protected his city with new fortifications’, in addition to its old τείχη. — ἐναυπηγήσατο, ‘caused to be built’. Her. and Thuc. always use the midd.

ταῖς ἄλλαις κατασκευαῖς ‘and, further, so embellished the city with public buildings that it is surpassed by no other in Hellas’. For ταῖς ἄλλαις cp. Nicocles § 22, ταῖς ἄλλαις θεραπείαις, note. The term κατασκευαί might perhaps include τείχη, but not τριήρεις. Cp. Thuc. I. 10, οὔτε ξυνοικισθείσης τῆς πόλεως (Sparta) οὔτε ἱεροῖς καὶ κατασκευαῖς πολυτελέσι χρησαμένης, ‘costly public buildings’. A Greek would think of temples, στοαί, theatre, πρυτανεῖον, gymnasium, baths.


τηλ. ἐπιδόσεις...λαμβάνειν ‘take such rapid steps in progress’, = τοσοῦτον ἐπιδιδόναι, — opp. to ἀναδιδόναι or ὑποδιδόναι, to fall back, fail. At Athens ἐπιδόσεις had the special meaning of ‘benevolences’ contributed by the citizens in the emergencies of the State. Hence the story in Athenaeus IV. 168 of Phocion's dissolute son: ‘Once, when subscriptions to the Treasury (ἐπιδόσεις) were being made, he came forward in the Ecclesia, and said, “I, too, advance” (ἐπιδίδωμι) — “in profligacy”, roared the House with one accord’.

τοιούτοις ἤθεσιν ‘with such qualities’, a dat. of circumstance (= ἔχων τοιαῦτα ἤθη). — ὀλίγῳ πρότερον: in §§ 22 f., where it is said that Evag. was distinguished in youth by σωφροσύνη as well as ῥώμη and κάλλος, — in manhood, by ἀνδρία, σοφία, δικαιοσύνη.

πολὺ λίαν ἀπολ = λίαν πολύ, so ὠμῶς ἄγαν, Xen. Vect. v. 6.


ἐφίκοιτο ‘do justice to’: Dem. F. L. § 65, οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς δύναιτ᾽ ἐφικέσθαι τῷ λόγῳ τῶν ἐκεῖ κακῶν νῦν ὄντων. So “oratione consequi aliquid,Cic. Post Red. ad Quir. 2. § 5.

τὸν τόπον τὸν περιέχ ‘The coast adjacent to Cyprus’ — meaning esp. the seaboard of Cilicia and Caria. Phoenician trading posts had existed there from early times, but on the Cilician coast the Greeks had few settlements before the time of Alexander.

ἀπροσοίστως, κ.τ.λ. ‘their temper was so unsociable and savage that they deemed those rulers the best who were most cruelly disposed towards the Greeks’: — a description which doubtless includes the Phoenician colonists as well as the natives of the Asiatic mainland. In the pseudo-Lysian speech ‘Against Andocides’ it is stated that when he visited Cyprus he was imprisoned by the [Phoenician] king of Citium, καὶ οὐ μόνον θάνατον ἐφοβεῖτο ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ καθ᾽ ἡμέραν αἰκίσματα, οἰόμενος τὰ ἀκρωτήρια ζῶντος ἀποτμηθήσεσθαι, § 26.


ἁμιλλ. οἵτινες...δόξουσι ‘vie with each other, which of them shall seem’. The relative with fut. ind. here expresses a purpose, οἵτινες δόξουσι being equiv. to an object-clause, ὅπως ἕκαστοι δόξουσι. So πρεσβείαν πέμπειν, ἥτις ἐρεῖ, Dem. Ol. I. § 2: Goodwin § 65.

κτήμασιἐπιτηδ By κτήματα are meant esp. works of art, the beautiful objects which surrounded a Greek in his homelife: cp. Thuc. II. 38, ἰδίαις κατασκευαῖς εὐπρεπέσιν, ὧν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν τέρψις τὸ λυπηρὸν ἐκπλήσσει. — ἐπιτηδεύμασι, ‘pursuits’ (business or recreation) in the most general sense: cp. Thuc. ib., τὰ καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἐπιτηδεύματα.

πλείους δέ, κ.τ.λ. ‘a greater number of men versed in literature and art (μουσική), and men of intellectual accomplishment generally ( ἄλλη παίδευσις), reside in these regions than in the communities [παρ᾽ οἷς, apud eos] which they formerly frequented’.

τῶν περὶ τὴν μουσικήν Here, μουσική is best taken in its larger sense. But cp. Epist. VIII. of Isocr. (τοῖς Μυτιληναίων ἄρχουσιν), which commends to the government of Mytilene the eminent musician Agēnor, by whom the grandsons of Isocr. had been taught musicπαιδευθέντες τὰ περὶ τὴν μουσικήν, Ep. VIII. § 1. In § 4 ib. he calls Mytilene μουσικωτάτην, i.e. famous for poetry, letters and art — where again the larger sense is uppermost. (See Attic Orators, II. 247.)

προσομολογήσειεν ‘concede’. πρός in this verb and its subst. προσομολογία does not usu. mean ‘besides’, ‘in addition’, but merely ‘to’, i.e. ‘in discussion with another’: as προσονομάζω in Her. II. 52 is not ‘to give an additional name’, but ‘to accost by a name’.

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