Isocrates (/aɪˈsɒkrətiːz/;Ancient Greek:Ἰσοκράτης[isokrátɛ̂ːs]; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greekrhetorician, one of the tenAttic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works.
Greek rhetoric is commonly traced toCorax of Syracuse, who first formulated a set of rhetorical rules in the fifth century BC. His pupilTisias was influential in the development of the rhetoric of thecourtroom, and by some accounts was the teacher of Isocrates. Within two generations, rhetoric had become an important art, its growth driven by social and political changes such as democracy and courts of law. Isocrates starved himself to death, two years before his 100th birthday.[1]
Isocrates was born into a prosperous family inAthens at the height of Athens' power shortly before the outbreak of thePeloponnesian War (431–404 BC).Suda writes that Isocrates was the son of Theodorus who owned a workshop that manufacturedaulos. His mother's name was Heduto. He had a sister and three brothers; two of the brothers were Tisippos (Ancient Greek: Τίσιππος) and Theomnestos (Ancient Greek: Θεόμνηστος).[2][3]
Isocrates received a first-rate education. "He is reported to have studied with several prominent teachers, includingTisias (one of the traditional founders of rhetoric), the sophistsProdicus andGorgias, and the moderateoligarchTheramenes, and to have associated withSocrates, but these reports may reflect later views of his intellectual roots more than historical fact".[2]
He passed his youth in a period following the death ofPericles, a time in which "wealth – both public and private – was dissipated", and "political decision were ill-conceived and violent" according to the 2020 Encyclopedia Britannica. Isocrates would have been 14 years old when the democracy voted to kill all the male citizens of the smallThracian city ofScione.[4] There are accounts, including that of Isocrates himself,[5] stating that thePeloponnesian War wiped out his father's estate, and Isocrates was forced to earn a living.[6]
Late in his life, he married a woman named Plathane (daughter of thesophistHippias) and adoptedAphareus (writer), one of her sons by a previous marriage.[2]
There is no evidence for Isocrates' participation in public life duringPeloponnesian War (431–404).[2]
His professional career is said to have begun withlogography: he was a hired courtroomspeechwriter. Athenian citizens did not hire lawyers; legal procedure required self-representation. Instead, they would hire people like Isocrates to write speeches for them. Isocrates had a great talent for this and he amassed a considerable fortune. According toPliny the Elder (NH VII.30) he could sell a single oration for twentytalents. However, his weak voice meant that he was not himself a good public speaker. He played no direct part in state affairs, but he published many pamphlets which influenced the public and provide significant insight into major political issues of the day.[7]
Around 392 BC Isocrates set up his own school of rhetoric at theLyceum. Prior to Isocrates, teaching consisted of first-generation Sophists, such as Gorgias andProtagoras, walking from town to town as itinerants, who taught any individuals interested in political occupations how to be effective in public speaking.[8] Isocrates encouraged his students to wander and observe public behavior in the city (Athens) to learn through imitation. His students aimed to learn how to serve the city.[8] "At the core of his teaching was anaristocratic notion ofarete ("virtue, excellence"), which could be attained by pursuingphilosophia – not so much the dialectical study of abstract subjects likeepistemology andmetaphysics that Plato marked as "philosophy" as the study and practical application of ethics, politics andpublic speaking".[2] The philosopherPlato (a rival of Isocrates) founded his own academy in response to Isocrates' foundation.[8]
Isocrates accepted no more than nine pupils at a time. Many of them went on to be prominent philosophers, legislators, historians, orators, writers, and military and political leaders.[2][9] The first students in Isocrates' school were Athenians. However, after he published thePanegyricus in 380 BC, his reputation spread to many other parts ofGreece.[10] Some of his students includedIsaeus,Lycurgus,Hypereides,Ephorus,Theopompus,Speusippus, andTimotheus. Many of these students remained under the instruction of Isocrates for three to four years. Timotheus had such a great appreciation for Isocrates that he erected a statue atEleusis and dedicated it to him.[10]
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According to George Norlin, Isocrates defined rhetoric as outward feeling and inward thought of not merely expression, but reason, feeling, and imagination. Like most who studied rhetoric before and after him, Isocrates believed it was used to persuade ourselves and others, but also used in directing public affairs. Isocrates described rhetoric as "that endowment of our human nature which raises us above mere animality and enables us to live the civilized life."[10] Isocrates unambiguously defined his approach in the speech "Against the Sophists".[11] This polemic was written to explain and advertise the reasoning and educational principles behind his new school. He promoted broad-based education by speaking against two types of teachers: theEristics, who disputed about theoretical and ethical matters, and theSophists, who taught political debate techniques.[9] Also, while Isocrates is viewed by many as being a rhetor and practicing rhetoric, he refers to his study asphilosophia—which he claims as his own. "Against the Sophists" is Isocrates' first published work where he gives an account of philosophy. His principal method is to contrast his ways of teaching with Sophism. While Isocrates does not go against the Sophist method of teaching as a whole, he emphasizes his disagreement with bad Sophistic practices.[12]
Isocrates' program of rhetorical education stressed the ability to use language to address practical problems, and he referred to his teachings as more of a philosophy than a school of rhetoric. He emphasized that students needed three things to learn: a natural aptitude which was inborn, knowledge training granted by teachers and textbooks, and applied practices designed by educators.[9] He also stressed civic education, training students to serve the state. Students would practice composing and delivering speeches on various subjects. He considered natural ability and practice to be more important than rules or principles of rhetoric. Rather than delineating static rules, Isocrates stressed "fitness for the occasion," orkairos (the rhetor's ability to adapt to changing circumstances and situations). His school lasted for over fifty years, in many ways establishing the core of liberal arts education as we know it today, including oratory, composition, history, citizenship, culture, and morality.[9]
Of the 60 orations in his name available in Roman times, 21 remained in transmission by the end of the medieval period. The earliest manuscripts dated from the ninth or tenth century, until fourth century copies of Isocrates' first three orations were found in a singlecodex during a 1990's excavation atKellis, a site in theDakhla Oasis ofEgypt.[13][14] We have nine letters in his name, but the authenticity of four of those has been questioned.[by whom?] He is said to have compiled a treatise, theArt of Rhetoric, but there is no known copy. Other surviving works include his autobiographicalAntidosis, and educational texts such asAgainst the Sophists.
Isocrates wrote a collection of ten known orations, three of which were directed to the rulers of Salamis on Cyprus. InTo Nicocles, Isocrates suggests first how the new king might rule best.[15] For the extent of the rest of the oration, Isocrates advises Nicocles of ways to improve his nature, such as the use of education and studying the best poets and sages. Isocrates concludes with the notion that, in finding the happy mean, it is better to fall short than to go to excess. His second oration concerning Nicocles was related to the rulers of Salamis on Cyprus; this was written for the king and his subjects. Isocrates again stresses that the surest sign of good understanding is education and the ability to speak well. The king uses this speech to communicate to the people what exactly he expects of them. Isocrates makes a point in stating that courage and cleverness are not always good, but moderation and justice are. The third oration about Cyprus is an encomium to Euagoras who is the father of Nicocles. Isocrates uncritically applauds Euagoras for forcibly taking the throne of Salamis and continuing rule until his assassination in 374 BC.[16]
Two years after his completion of the three orations, Isocrates wrote an oration for Archidamus, the prince of Sparta. Isocrates considered the settling of the Thebans colonists in Messene a violation of the Peace of Antalcidas. He was bothered most by the fact that this ordeal would not restore the true Messenians but rather the Helots, in turn making these slaves masters. Isocrates believed justice was most important, which secured the Spartan laws but he did not seem to recognize the rights of the Helots. Ten years later Isocrates wrote a letter to Archidamus, now the king of Sparta, urging him to reconcile the Greeks, stopping their wars with each other so that they could end the insolence of the Persians.[16]
At the end of theSocial War in 355 BC, 80-year-old Isocrates wrote an oration addressed to the Athenian assembly entitledOn the Peace; Aristotle called itOn the Confederacy. Isocrates wrote this speech for the reading public, asking that both sides be given an unbiased hearing. Those in favour of peace have never caused misfortune, while those embracing war lurched into many disasters. Isocrates criticized the flatterers who had brought ruin to their public affairs.[16]
InPanathenaicus, Isocrates argues with a student about the literacy of theSpartans. In section 250, the student claims that the most intelligent of the Spartans admired and owned copies of some of Isocrates' speeches. The implication is that some Spartans had books, were able to read them, and were eager to do so. The Spartans, however, needed an interpreter to clear up any misunderstandings of double meanings which might lie concealed beneath the surface of complicated words. This text indicates that some Spartans were not illiterate. This text is important to scholars' understanding of literacy in Sparta because it indicates that Spartans were able to read and that they often put written documents to use in their public affairs.
Because ofPlato's attacks on the sophists, Isocrates' school – having its roots, if not the entirety of its mission, in rhetoric, the domain of the sophists – came to be viewed as unethical and deceitful. Yet many of Plato's criticisms are hard to substantiate in the actual work of Isocrates; at the end ofPhaedrus, Plato even shows Socrates praising Isocrates (though some scholars have taken this to be sarcasm). Isocrates saw the ideal orator as someone who must possess not only rhetorical gifts, but also a wide knowledge of philosophy, science, and the arts. He promoted the Greek ideals of freedom, self-control, and virtue; in this, he influenced several Roman rhetoricians, such asCicero andQuintilian, and influenced the core concepts ofliberal arts education.[citation needed]
Although Isocrates has been largely marginalized in the history of philosophy,[17] his contributions to the study and practice of rhetoric have received more attention. Thomas M. Conley argues that through Isocrates' influence on Cicero, whose writings on rhetoric were the most widely and continuously studied until the modern era, "it might be said that Isocrates, of all the Greeks, was the greatest."[18] With theneo-Aristotelian turn in rhetoric, Isocrates' work sometimes gets cast as a mere precursor to Aristotle's systematic account inOn Rhetoric.[19] However, Ekaterina Haskins reads Isocrates as an enduring and worthwhile counter to Aristotelian rhetoric. Rather than the Aristotelian position on rhetoric as a neutral tool, Isocrates understands rhetoric as an identity-shaping performance that activates and sustains civic identity.[19] The Isocratean position on rhetoric can be thought of as ancient antecedent to the twentieth century theoristKenneth Burke's conception that rhetoric is rooted in identification.[20] Isocrates' work has also been described as proto-Pragmatist, owing to his assertion that rhetoric makes use of probable knowledge with the aim resolving real problems in the world.[17][21]
Isocrates' innovations in the art of rhetoric paid closer attention to expression and rhythm than any other Greek writer, though because his sentences were so complex and artistic, he often sacrificed clarity.[7]
I had lost in the Peloponnesian War the patrimony which remained to me from what my father had spent....
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