Lysias

He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BC.

There, too, Lysias is said to have commenced his studies in rhetoric—doubtless under a master of the Sicilian school possibly, as tradition said, under Tisias, the pupil of Corax, whose name is associated with the first attempt to formulate rhetoric as an art.

The Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC during the Peloponnesian War would ultimately create difficulties for Lysias's family, especially when the campaign ended in a devastating defeat for Athens.

Polemarchus occupied a house in Athens itself, Lysias another in the Piraeus, near which was their shield factory, employing a hundred and twenty skilled slaves.

During his later years, Lysias—now probably a comparatively poor man owing to the rapacity of the tyrants and his own generosity to the Athenian exiles—appears as a hard-working member of a new profession—that of logographer, a writer of speeches to be delivered in the law courts.

[2] A more authentic tradition represents Lysias as having spoken his own Olympiacus at the Olympic festival of 388 BC,[3] to which Dionysius I of Syracuse had sent a magnificent embassy.

Tents embroidered with gold were pitched within the sacred enclosure, and the wealth of Dionysius was vividly shown by the number of chariots which he had entered.

Lysias lifted up his voice to denounce Dionysius as, next to Artaxerxes, the worst enemy of Hellas, and to impress upon the assembled Greeks that one of their foremost duties was to deliver Sicily from a hateful oppression.

Lysias displays literary tact, humour, and attention to character in his extant speeches, and is famous for using his skill to conceal his art.

His language is crafted to flow easily, in contrast to his predecessor Antiphon's pursuit of majestic emphasis, to his pupil (and close follower in many respects) Isaeus' more conspicuous display of artistry and more strictly logical manner of argumentation,[4] and later to the forceful oratory of Demosthenes.

Translated into terms of ancient criticism, he became the model of the plain style (ἰσχνὸς χαρακτήρ, ἰσχνὴ/λιτὴ/ἀφελὴς λέξις: genus tenue or subtile).

Greek rhetoric began in the grand style; then Lysias set an exquisite pattern of the plain; and Demosthenes might be considered as having effected an almost ideal compromise.

7, 28) Demosthenes was peculiarly distinguished by force (vis), Aeschines by resonance (sonitus); Hypereides by acuteness (acumen); Isocrates by sweetness (suavitas); the distinction which he assigns to Lysias is subtilitas, an Attic refinement—which, as he elsewhere says (Brutus, 16, 64) is often joined to an admirable vigour (lacerti).

Nor was it oratory alone to which Lysias rendered service; his work had an important effect on all subsequent Greek prose, by showing how perfect elegance could be joined to plainness.

The speech is an eloquent and vivid picture of the reign of terror which the Thirty established at Athens; the concluding appeal, to both parties among the citizens, is specially powerful.

Next in importance is the speech Against Agoratus (388 BC), one of our chief authorities for the internal history of Athens during the months which immediately followed the defeat at Aegospotami.

The Olympiacus (388 BC) is a brilliant fragment, expressing the spirit of the festival at Olympia, and exhorting Greeks to unite against their common foes.

The speech For Mantitheus (392 BC) is a graceful and animated portrait, of a young Athenian hippeus, making a spirited defence of his honor against the charge of disloyalty.