Vocabulary. Schemata
His vocabulary avoids excess; he is, in the judgment of Dionysius, the purest of Atticists, with the exception of Lysias. But if we compare the two we find much more tendency to fine writing in Isocrates. Using ordinary words he can produce notable effects, and he is always consciously striving after a certain pomposity of diction. This is most noticeable in the exhibition-writings, such as the Helen and Busiris, where grandiloquent compound words are not infrequent, and metaphors are commoner and more striking than in the speeches on real subjects.
One of his affectations, copied by nearly all subsequent orators, is the unnecessary piling up of words almost synonymous to express one idea.[193] On the other hand we sometimes find synonyms apparently contrasted in different parts of the sentence; such contrast is only verbal, and is made for the purpose of rounding the period; in either case we must note that the writer departs from simplicity in order to improve the sound of his words, but does not add much to the sense.[194]
Another characteristic is the use of the plural of abstract nouns, in much the same sense as the singular.[195] All these details—the partiality for compounds, for the accumulation of synonyms and for the use of the plural instead of the singular, may be classed together under the head of exaggerations of expression, and recorded as characteristics of the epideictic style.
In general, the tone is heightened, and Isocrates tends to appear florid when compared with Lysias; if, on the other hand, we take Gorgias as a standard, we see how far Isocrates, who undoubtedly imitated the Sicilian style, has surpassed his model in the direction of refinement.
§ 3. On Education
Prevented by natural disabilities from exercising his talents in public, but urged on by the necessity of earning a living, since the Peloponnesian War had dissipated his fortune, Isocrates turned to a profession for which he was well fitted, that of an educator. During many years he was, like Gorgias, a teacher of rhetoric, and like Gorgias he may be classed as a Sophist. This title is misleading. In itself it means nothing more than an educator, or teacher of wisdom, and early, writers use it in a laudatory sense; Herodotus applies it to the Seven Sages. In the fourth century it was debased, partly by the comic poets, as representing the popular habit of sneering at anything which the mob cannot understand, but more honestly and systematically by Plato, who, though he admitted that some of the Sophists, such as Protagoras, were men worthy of the highest respect, took many opportunities of disparaging Sophists as a class, and Sophistry as a profession.
There can be no doubt that he was quite sincere, for he takes great pains to bring out the distinction between the educators and his own master Socrates, whom Aristophanes had already marked as one of the crowd.[196]
To us it seems that the marked distinction cannot be maintained; apart from Socrates’ peculiarity of refusing to take fees from his pupils, he is distinguished only by possessing a higher moral tone than the rest of the Sophists. Like them he was a sceptic as far as philosophy was concerned, and like them he was an educator.