Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/392

376 I S M U S said to have been " an Athenian by descent " ( A^ratos TO yevos). So far as ve know, Isseus took no part in the public affairs of Athens. " I cannot tell," says Dionysius, " what were the politics of Isseus or whether he had any politics at all." Those words strikingly attest the profound change which was passing over the life of the Greek cities. It would have been scarcely possible, fifty years earlier, that an eminent Athenian with the powers of Isreus should have failed to leave on record some proof of his interest in the political concerns of Athens or of Greece. But now, with the decline of personal devotion to the state, the life of an active citizen had ceased to have any necessary contact with political affairs. Professional pursuits, determined by private choice and directed to private ends, could now engross all those energies which would once have been devoted, at least in large measure, to the service of the city. The very fact that almost nothing is known about the life of Isseus is itself the most suggestive of facts. Already we are at the beginning of that transition which is to lead from the old life of Hellenic citizenship to that Hellenism whose children are citizens of the world. There is good authority for the tradition that Isseus was the pupil of Isocrates, probably about 393 B.C., when Isocrates was beginning his career as a teacher, and while Isfeus was not yet occupied with his special calling. Internal evidence for such intercourse may be found in the method of handling subject-matter which some extant speeches of Isaeus exhibit. Though not a pupil, Isseus had certainly been a student of Lysias. A passage of Photius ha^ been understood as meaning that personal relations had existed between Is^eus and Plato ; but this view appears to rest on an erroneous construction of the pas sage in question. 1 The profession of Isaeus was that of which Antiphon had been the first representative at Athens that of a Xoyoyplfos, who composed speeches which his clients were to deliver in the law-courts. But, while Antiphon had written such speeches chiefly (as Lysias frequently) for public causes, it was with private causes that Isseus was almost exclusively concerned. The fact marks the progres sive subdivision of labour in his calling, and the extent to which the smaller interests of private life now absorbed the attention of the citizen. The most interesting recorded event in the career of Isseus is one which belongs to its middle period his con nexion with Demosthenes. Born in 384 B.C., Demosthenes attained his civic majority in 366. At this time he had already resolved to prosecute the fraudulent guardians wlio had stripped him of his patrimony. In prospect of such a legal contest, he could have found no better ally than Isseus, a master of Attic law, especially where claims to property were at issue, and one who for upwards of twenty years had been eminently successful as a writer of speeches for the law courts. That the young Demosthenes actually resorted to the aid of Isaus is beyond reasonable doubt. But the pseudo-Plutarch embellishes the story after his fashion. He says that Demosthenes, on coming of age, took Isceus into his house, and studied with him for four years paying him the sum of 10,000 drachmas (about 400), on condition that Isseus should withdraw from a school of rhetoric which he had opened, and devote himself wholly to his new pupil. The real Plutarch gives us a more sober and a more probable version. He simply states that Demosthenes " employed Isseus as his master in rhetoric, though Isocrates was then teaching, either (as some say) because he could not pay Isocrates the prescribed 1 On this point (as on some others which can be but briefly noticed here) the reader is referred to the detailed treatment of the subject in J ebb s Attic Orators from Antiphon to Tsieus, vol. ii. p. 264. fee of ten minse, or because he preferred the style of Isaeus for his purpose, as being vigorous and astute " (Spaa-r^pLov Kal -jravovpyov). It may be observed that, except by the pseudo-Plutarch, a school of Isseus is not mentioned, for a notice in Plutarch need mean no more than that he had written a text-book, or that his speeches were read in schools; 2 nor is any other pupil named. As to Demo sthenes, his own speeches against Aphobos and Onetor (363-62 B.C.) afford the best possible gauge of the sense and the measure in which he was the disciple of Isseus ; the intercourse between them can scarcely have been either very close or very long. The date at which Isseus died can only be conjectured from his work ; it may be placed about 350 B.C. Isasus has a double claim on the student of Greek litera ture, lie is the first Greek writer who comes before us as a consummate master of strict forensic controversy. He also holds a most important place in the general develop ment of practical oratory, and therefore in the history of Attic prose. Antiphon marks the beginning of that development, Demosthenes its consummation. Between them stand Lysias and Isseus. The open, even ostenta tious, art of Antiphon had been austere and rigid. The concealed art of Lysias had charmed and persuaded by a versatile semblance of natural grace and simplicity. Isseus brings us to a final stage of transition, in which the gifts distinctive of Lysias were to be fused into a perfect harmony with that masterly art which receives its most powerful expression in Demosthenes. Here, then, are the two cardinal points by which the place of Isasus must be determined. We must consider, first, his relation to Lysias ; secondly, his relation to Demosthenes. A comparison of Isreus and Lysias must set out from the distinc- ^ C> tion between choice of words (Ae |is) and mode of putting words together ((rwdtcris). In choice of words, diction, Lysias and Isajus are closely alike. Both are clear, pure, simple, concise ; both have the stamp of persuasive plainness (d^cAem), and both combine it with graphic power (eWpyeia). In mode of putting words together, composition, there is, however, a striking difference. Lysias threw off the stiff restraints of the earlier periodic style, with its wooden monotony ; he is too fond indeed of antithesis always to avoid a rigid effect ; but, on the whole, his style is easy, flexible, and vari ous ; above all, its subtle art usually succeeds in appearing natural. Now this is just what the art of Is?eus does not achieve. With less love of antithesis than Lysias, and with a diction almost equally pure and plain, he yet habitually conveys the impression of con scious and confident art. Hence he is least effective in adapting his style to those characters in which Lysias peculiarly excelled, the ingenuous youth, the homely and peace-loving citizen. On the other hand, his more open and vigorous art does not interfere with his moral persuasiveness where there is scope for reasoned remon strance, for keen argument, or for powerful denunciation. Passing from the formal to the real side of his work, from diction and com position to the treatment of subject-matter, we find the divergence wider still. Lysias usually adheres to a simple four-fold division- proem, narrative, proof, epilogue. Isseus frequently interweaves the narrative with the proof. 3 He shows the most dexterous ingenuity in adapting his manifold tactics to the case in hand, and often "out-generals" (K-aTatrrpaTTj^e?) his adversary by some novel and daring disposition of his forces. Lysias, again, usually contents himself with a merely rhetorical or sketchy proof ; IS.TCUS aims at strict logical demonstration, worked out through all its steps. As Sir William Jones well remarks, Isseus lays close siege to the under standings of the jury. 4 a Flut. , De glor. Athen., p. 350 c, where he mentions TOVS icro- Kpareis Kal Avri(j}u>vTas Kal iffaiovs among robs e/ rats (TxoAcus TO. jj.eipA.Kia. TrpoSiSaovcoi Tas. 3 Here lie was probably influenced by the teaching of Isocrates. The forensic speech of Isocrates known as the jEgincticus (Or. xix. ), which belongs to the peculiar province of Tsanis, as dealing with a claim to property (ewtSt/cacria), affords perhaps the earliest example of narrative and proof thus interwoven. Earlier forensic writers had kept the Si-fiyrjo-is and TriVreis distinct, as Lysias does. 4 This is what Dionysius means when lie says that Isams differs from Lysias T< /*}? /far iv6vp.rip.ii TI ejfiv aAAa Kal /car e7rixeip >7M a (Ijie. 16). Here the "enthymeme" means a rhetorical syllogism with one premiss suppressed ("curtuin," Juv. , vi. 449) ; " epicheireme," such a syllogism stated in full. Cf. Volkmann, Rhetorik der Griechen und Earner, 1872, pp. 153 /.