Lysias

, an eminent Greek orator, was born at Syracuse, about the year 459 B. C. He was educated at Athens, and became a teacher of rhetoric, and composed orations for others, but does not appear to have been a pleader. Of his orations, which are said to have amounted to three or four hundred, only thirty-four remain. He died in the eighty-first year of his age, and in the 378th year B.C. Cicero and Quintilian give him a very high character, and suppose that there is nothing of their kind more perfect than his orations. Lysias lived at a somewhat earlier period than Isocrates; and exhibits a model of that manner which the ancients call the “tenuis vel subtilis.” He has none of the pomp of Isocrates. He is every where pure and attic in the highest degree; simple and unaffected; but wants force, and is sometimes frigid in his compositions. In the judicious comparison which Dionysius of Halicarnassus makes of the merits of Lysias and Isocrates, he ascribes to Lysias, as the distinguishing character of his manner, a certain grace or elegance arising from simplicity: “the style of Lysias has gracefulness for its nature; that of Isocrates seems to have it.” In the art of narration, as distinct, probable, and persuasive, he holdsf Lysias to be superior to all orators; at the same time he admits, that his composition is more adapted to private litigation than to great subjects. He convinces, but he does not elevate nor animate. The magnificence and splendour of Isocrates are more suited to great occasions. He is more agreeable than Lysias; and in dignity of sentiment far excels him. The first edition of Lysias is that by Aldus, folio, 1513, in the first part of the “Rhetorum Gnecorum orationes.” The best modern editions are that of Taylor, beautifully and correctly printed by Bowyer, in 1739, 4to; of Reiske, at Leipsic, 1772, 8vo and of | Auger at Paris, 1782. Auger also published an excellent French translation of Lysias in 1783. ¹