If Plato could be taken literally, we should believe that what is read was the authentic work of Lysias; but Plato is if anything too emphatic in his attempts to produce this illusion, and most readers will probably be left with the impression that Plato is following his usual custom; he tries to give his myths the solemnity of fact, and what he produces here is an imitation too close to be called a parody. We may compare Plato’s reproduction of Aspasia’s oration in the Menexenus.
The speech To his Companions (Or. viii.) cannot reasonably be attributed to Lysias, and indeed is so trivial that it can hardly be the work of any self-respecting forger. It is probably to be regarded as a declamatory exercise.
The speaker complains that his friends have slandered him by asserting that he forced his company on them; they have sold him an unsound horse, and accused him of inducing others to slander them. He therefore abjures their friendship.
Extracts from six lost speeches are preserved by quotation in various writers:
Against Cinesias (Athenaeus, xiii. 551 D); Against Tisis (Dion., de Demos., ch. xi.); For Pherenicus (Dion., de Isaeo, ch. vi.); Against the Sons of Hippocrates (ibid.); Against Archebiades (ibid., ch. x.); Against Aeschines (Athenaeus, xiii., 611 E-612 C).[152]
The fragments of other speeches, in Suidas, Harpocration, and others, are negligible.
CHAPTER V
ISAEUS
§ 1
Dionysius could find, in the authorities whom he consulted, no definite information about the life of Isaeus. The dates of his birth and death are unknown; we cannot, as Dionysius observes, say what were his political opinions, or even whether he had any at all.[153] We are even in doubt as to his birthplace; some authorities called him an Athenian, others a Chalcidian. The suggestion that he may have been the descendant of an Athenian who settled in Chalcis as a cleruch is plausible, but without any authority.[154] The inference, from the fact that he took no part in public life, that he was probably an alien, is not justifiable. The fact that, whether an Athenian or not, he never spoke at any of the great national assemblies, where rhetoricians from all Greek countries gave displays, seems to argue that he had no ambition for personal distinction as an orator, but was content to be a professional writer of speeches.