The composition of Isokrates was extremely elegant: his structure of sentences was elaborate even to excess, his arrangement of words rhythmical, his phrases nicely balanced in antithetical equipoise, like those of his master Gorgias; the recital of his discourses proved highly captivating to the ear.[58] Moreover, he had composed a book of rhetorical precepts known and esteemed by Cicero and Quintilian. Besides such technical excellence, Isokrates strove to attain, and to a certain extent actually attained, a higher order of merit. He familiarized his pupils with thoughts and arguments of lofty bearing and comprehensive interest; not assisting them to gain victory either in any real issue tried before the Dikasts, or in any express motion about to be voted on by the public assembly, but predisposing their minds to prize above all things the great Pan-hellenic aggregate — its independence in regard to external force, and internal harmony among its constituent cities, with a reasonable recognition of presidential authority, equitably divided between Athens and Sparta, and exercised with moderation by both. He inculcated sober habits and deference to legal authority on the part of the democrats of Athens; he impressed upon princes, like Philip and Nikokles, the importance of just and mild bearing towards subjects.[59] Such is the general strain of the discourses which we now possess from Isokrates; though he appears to have adopted it only in middle life, having begun at first in the more usual track of the logographer — composing speeches to be delivered before the Dikastery by actual plaintiffs or defendants,[60] and acquiring thus both reputation and profit. His reputation as a teacher was not only maintained but even increased when he altered his style; and he made himself peculiarly attractive to foreign pupils who desired to acquire a command of graceful expressions, without special reference to the Athenian Assembly and Dikastery. But his new style being midway between Demosthenes and Plato — between the practical advocate and politician on one side, and the generalizing or speculative philosopher on the other — he incurred as a semi-philosopher, professing to have discovered the juste milieu, more or less of disparagement from both extremes;[61] and Aristotle, while yet a young man in the Platonic school, raised an ardent controversy against his works, on the ground both of composition and teaching. Though the whole controversy is now lost, there is good ground for believing that Aristotle must have displayed no small acrimony. He appears to have impugned the Isokratean discourses, partly as containing improper dogmas, partly as specimens of mere unimpressive elegance, intended for show, pomp, and immediate admiration from the hearer — ad implendas aures — but destitute both of comprehensive theory and of applicability to any useful purpose.[62] Kephisodôrus, an intimate friend and pupil of Isokrates, defended him in an express reply, attacking both Aristotle the scholar and Plato the master. This reply was in four books, and Dionysius characterizes it by an epithet of the highest praise.[63]
[58] Dionysius, while admiring Isocrates, complains of him, and complains still more of his imitators, as somewhat monotonous, wanting in flexibility and variety (De Compos. Verborum, p. 134). Yet he pronounces Isokrates and Lysias to be more natural, shewing less of craft and art than Isæus and Demosthenes (De Isæo Judicium, p. 592). Isokrates τὸν ὄγκον τῆς ποιητικῆς κατασκευῆς ἐπὶ λόγους ἤγαγε φιλοσόφους, ζηλώσας τοὺς περὶ Γοργίαν. (Dionys. Hal. ad Pompeium de Platone, p. 764; also De Isæo Judicium, p. 592; besides the special chapter, p. 534, seq., which he has devoted to Isokrates.)
Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 44, 173: “Idque princeps Isocrates instituisse fertur, ut inconditam antiquorum dicendi consuetudinem delectationis atque aurium causâ, quemadmodum scribit discipulus ejus Naucrates, numeris adstringeret.� Compare Cicero, Orator. 52, 175, 176.
The reference to Naucrates (whose works have not been preserved, though Dionysius commends his Λόγος Ἐπιτάφιος, Ars. Rhet. p. 259) is interesting, as it shews what was said of Isokrates by his own disciples. Cicero says of the doctrines in his own dialogue De Oratore (Epist. ad Famil. i. 9, 23), “Abhorrent a communibus præceptis, et omnem antiquorum, et Aristoteleam et Isocrateam, rationem oratoriam complectuntur.â€� About the Τέχνη of Isokrates, see Spengel, Συναγωγὴ Τεχνῶν (Munich), pp. 155-170.
[59] Dionysius Hal. dwells emphatically on the lofty morality inculcated in the discourses of Isokrates, and recommends them as most improving study to all politicians (De Isocrate Judic. pp. 536, 544, 555, seq.) — more improving than the writers purely theoretical, among whom he probably numbered Plato and Aristotle.
[60] Dionysius Hal. De Isocrate Judicium, pp. 576, 577, Reiske: δέσμας πάνυ πολλὰς δικανικῶν λόγων Ἰσοκρατείων περιφέρεσθαί φησιν ὑπὸ τῶν βιβλιοπωλῶν Ἀριστοτέλης. It appears that Aphareus, the adopted son of Isokrates, denied that Isokrates had ever written any judicial orations; while Kephisodôrus, the disciple of Isokrates, in his reply to Aristotle’s accusations, admitted that Isokrates had composed a few, but only a few. Dionysius accepts the allegation of Kephisodôrus and discredits that of Aristotle: I, for my part, believe the allegation of Aristotle, upon a matter of fact which he had the means of knowing. Cicero also affirms (Brutus, xii. 46-48), on the authority of Aristotle, that Isokrates distinguished himself at first as a composer of speeches intended to be delivered by actual pleaders in the Dikastery or Ekklesia; and that he afterwards altered his style. And this is what Aristotle says (respecting Isokrates) in Rhetoric. i. 9, 1368, a. 20, ὅπερ Ἰσοκράτης ἐποίει διὰ τὴν συνήθειαν τοῦ δικολογεῖν, where Bekker has altered the substantive to τὴν ἀσυνήθειαν; in my judgment, not wisely. I do not perceive the meaning or pertinence of ἀσυνήθειαν in that sentence.
[61] See Plato, Euthydemus, p. 305; also ‘Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,’ [vol. i. ch. xix. pp. 557-563].
It is exactly this juste milieu which Dionysius Hal. extols as the most worthy of being followed, as being ἡ ἀληθινὴ φιλοσοφία. De Isocrate Jud. pp. 543, 558.
[62] Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 35, 141. “Itaque ipse Aristoteles quum florere Isocratem nobilitate discipulorum videret, quod ipse suas disputationes a causis forensibus et civilibus ad inanem sermonis elegantiam transtulisset, mutavit repente totam formam prope disciplinæ suæ, versumque quendam Philoctetæ paulo secus dixit. Ille enim ‘turpe sibi ait esse tacere, quum barbaros’ — hic autem, ‘quum Isocratem’ — ‘pateretur dicere’â€� See Quintilian, Inst. Or. iv. 2, 196; and Cicero, Orator. 19, 62: “Aristoteles Isocratem ipsum lacessivit.â€� Also, ib. 51, 172: “Omitto Isocratem discipulosque ejus Ephorum et Naucratem; quanquam orationis faciendæ et ornandæ auctores locupletissimi summi ipsi oratores esse debebant. Sed quis omnium doctior, quis acutior, quis in rebus vel inveniendis vel judicandis acrior Aristotele fuit? Quis porro Isocrati adversatus est infensius?â€� That Aristotle was the first to assail Isokrates, and that Kephisodôrus wrote only in reply, is expressly stated by Numenius, ap. Euseb. Pr. Ev. xiv. 6: ὁ Κηφισόδωρος, ἐπειδὴ ὑπ’ Ἀριστοτέλους βαλλόμενον ἑαυτῷ τὸν διδάσκαλον Ἰσοκράτην ἑώρα, &c. Quintilian also says, Inst. Or. iii. 1, p. 126: “Nam et Isocratis præstantissimi discipuli fuerunt in omni studiorum genere; eoque jam seniore (octavum enim et nonagesimum implevit annum) pomeridianis scholis Aristoteles præcipere artem oratoriam cÅ“pit; noto quidem illo (ut traditur) versu ex Philoctetâ frequenter usus: Αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾷν μέν, καὶ Ἰσοκράτην ἐᾷν λέγειν.â€�
Diogenes La. (v. 3) maintains that Aristotle turned the parody not against Isokrates, but against Xenokrates: Αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾷν, Ξενοκράτην δ’ ἐᾷν λέγειν. But the authority of Cicero and Quintilian is decidedly preferable. When we recollect that the parody was employed by a young man, as yet little known, against a teacher advanced in age, and greatly frequented as well as admired by pupils, it will appear sufficiently offensive. Moreover, it does not seem at all pertinent; for the defects of Isokrates, however great they may have been, were not those of analogy with βάρβαροι, but the direct reverse. Dionysius must have been forcibly struck with the bitter animus displayed by Aristotle against Isokrates, when he makes it a reason for rejecting the explicit averment of Aristotle as to a matter of fact: καὶ οὔτ’ Ἀριστοτέλει πείθομαι ῥυπαίνειν τὸν ἄνδρα βουλομένῳ (De Isocr. Jud. p. 577).