Thus the Isocratean school claimed to be, and was, a school of morals: it was also a school of good style and composition. The boys’ essays had to be written in a particular style, grandiloquent and ornate, to suit their themes. “For it is absurd to suppose that the matter and manner of ordinary conversation or of forensic oratory are suitable to Pan-Hellenic themes; on the contrary, in this kind of speech the thoughts must be more original and more lofty, the style more striking, and the diction more poetical and elaborate.”[544] Style, diction, and matter must, in fact, be that which Isokrates worked out in his own speeches. That style[545] I do not mean to discuss here. The fact that he wrote in a study and never spoke in public, has made him exaggerate the merits of the artistic prose-style of which he was the first really great exponent; but of its popularity with an Hellenic audience there can be no question. The pupils of Isokrates became the most eminent politicians and the most eminent prose-writers of the time; his house, as Cicero puts it, was the school of Hellas and the manufactory of eloquence.
To acquire this kind of oratory, there was need both of natural ability and of diligent study. Isokrates professes to supply, first an exact science of all the rhetorical devices and the various forms which speech can take, and then practice in the right employment and arrangement of these several parts. To learn the technique of rhetoric is comparatively easy, if the aspirant applies to the right man; but the right use of the technique can never be brought under any set of rules, or taught by one man to another: it can only be learnt by experience. The future orator must try the effect of each arrangement and combination of technique on the audience, and so draw up his own system.[546] The requisite audience for these experiments will be provided by the other pupils of the school, with the master as chief critic. A good master is essential. By his personal influence he will be able to communicate those finer elements of style which cannot be communicated in formal teaching. If he is worth his salt, all his pupils will bear the stamp of his own manner, and will easily be distinguished from every one else by the similarity of their style to his and to one another’s.[547] Education in rhetoric at Isokrates’ school seems to have begun with the study of his own works. In the Panathenaikos he describes himself as reading the speech over with two or three of his regular pupils; they revise and criticise it as they go along. This would give Isokrates the opportunity of expounding his own views of technique, with his own works before him as illustrations. It may be inferred from the beginning of the Bousiris that the written speeches of other Sophists were also studied, and their faults, or aberrations from Isocratean canons, pointed out, in order that they might be avoided in future. At any rate, Isokrates complains that other professors of the same sort of Rhetoric at Athens made use of his writings for teaching their own pupils, though, of course, according to him, they did so in order to show the boys what to admire, not what to avoid. When this technique had been fully mastered Isokrates set his pupils to write speeches on their own account, choosing for them some great and improving theme: in these speeches they had to apply the rules which they had learnt, and the subtler influences which they had imbibed, from their teacher. But they had also to think out the subject-matter, and in this lies much of the merit of the whole system. For, as Isokrates observes, the essayist who writes upon such themes will have to think noble thoughts, and select noble deeds as his instances and illustrations. This contemplation of what is noble will be a greater incentive to virtue than any so-called science of ethics:[548] for there is no science which can create goodness in wicked natures, but exhortation and persuasion can work wonders. Moreover, since the orator’s best argument is, after all, a good reputation, the young orator will see that his conduct and character are as excellent as possible.[548] And the practice of weighing just what thoughts and actions are suitable to the speech involves that faculty of sound deliberation which is necessary for the formation of right judgments. In fact, Isocratean “Philosophy” does more to form character than it does to produce eloquence.[549]
The pupils practised themselves, as we have seen, by delivering their harangues before Isokrates and their fellow-pupils. The school formed a select clique of trained critics of Rhetoric; the encouragement of criticism by this means must have been valuable. To this council Isokrates submitted his own orations before publication; former pupils were also invited to attend on these occasions. There is an interesting account of such an assembly at the end of the Panathenaikos. “I was revising the speech as it stands down to this point,” Isokrates says, “with three or four of the lads who are accustomed to study with me. On reading it through, we were satisfied with it and thought it only needed a peroration. I determined, however, to send for one of those among my pupils who had been brought up in an oligarchy and had set themselves to praise Lakedaimon, so that he might notice any false charge which we had unwittingly brought against the Spartans.” The pupil comes, and, while praising the speech enthusiastically, makes an unguarded criticism of its matter which led to a long discussion, in the course of which he and Isokrates deliver lengthy harangues. Finally, the pupil is crushed. The boys who had been present throughout the discussion were completely convinced by Isokrates and applauded him warmly. But the master himself was not satisfied. So three or four days later he called together all his old pupils who were in Athens, and the speech was submitted to their judgment, and received with enthusiastic applause. The former critic then delivered a brilliant harangue, trying to elucidate a hidden meaning in the speech. “The crowd of pupils, which is usually ready to applaud, shouted, flocked round him, and congratulated him, thoroughly agreeing with his eulogy of me,” says Isokrates. “I praised him too, but did not reveal whether he had hit off my secret meaning or not.”
The whole tone of the passage suggests that such an appeal to the pupils for criticism and advice was common, the only extraordinary feature being the presence of the “old boys.” This view is supported by other passages. In the Areiopagitikos[550] Isokrates tells his imaginary audience that “Some who heard me on a former occasion describe this constitution which Athens once enjoyed, while praising it enthusiastically and calling our ancestors happy,… told me that I was not likely to persuade you to adopt it.” On another occasion his speech made such an impression upon this preliminary audience that “No one praised the beauty of the style, as they usually do, but all admired the truth of the argument.” When he first told his pupils that he meant to send an advisory speech to Philip, “they all thought he was mad, and had the impudence to rebuke him, a thing which they had never done before.… But when they had heard the speech, they changed their minds completely and thought that Philip, Athens, and all Hellas would alike be grateful to him.”[551]
Isokrates’ great political pamphlets, with their wonderfully polished style and their striking themes, naturally served him as an excellent advertisement, as he naïvely admits in the Antidosis. Those who required further information about his educational methods and aims would turn to the prospectus Against the Sophists, which he published at the beginning of his career. Owing to these attractions, pupils came to him from all parts of the Hellenic world, from Pontos, Sicily, and Cyprus;[552] he had “more than all the other teachers of philosophy put together.”[553] They were not merely private citizens, but statesmen, generals, kings, and tyrants.[554] Probably the age at which they came varied greatly, but most of his actual pupils would probably be between fifteen and twenty-one. He often speaks of μειράκια as among them. Moreover, he speaks of parents bringing their sons to him,[555] which they certainly would not do if the boys were over eighteen. Public life in the average Hellenic state began at twenty; so boys would wish to be ready for it by that age. The course at Isokrates’ school lasted for three or four years.[556] The Athenian lad was more or less busy with his military duties from eighteen to twenty, so he would probably take the course between fourteen and eighteen; natives of other states would fit it in according to their local customs. The fee for the whole course was 10 mnai, or £40.[557] The story[558] goes that Demosthenes, having only £8, offered to pay that sum for one-fifth of the course. But Isokrates replied that he could not sell his philosophy in slices; the customer must take the whole fish or none at all. Probably, however, the tale is a fiction: Isokrates himself claims not to have made any money out of his countrymen, and only to have charged his foreign pupils.
Since, soon after the opening of his school, he had a hundred pupils, the accounts of his great wealth, which he repudiated so indignantly, cannot have been far wrong, especially as he received 20 talents (nearly £5000) for his panegyric on Euagoras. His own comparison of his wealth with that of Gorgias, who left only £800 at his death, is curious, if the above statements are true.
But his pupils, drawn from a class that had sufficient substance to live at leisure,[559] seem to have been well satisfied with what they got for their money. “At the end of their time, when they were on the point of sailing home to their friends, they so loved their life in Athens that they parted from it with tears and sighs.” Isokrates kept on friendly terms with them afterwards. Thus he writes to Timotheos, tyrant of Herakleia and an old pupil, to congratulate him on his accession and commend to him another old pupil, Autokrator. Then there is the charming letter in which he introduces Diodotos, another of his pupils, to the Macedonian Antipater, at some personal risk, for there was war between Athens and Macedon at the time. “I have had many pupils,” the letter runs, “some of whom have become great orators, some men of action, some great thinkers, some, with no particular talents, have at any rate become upright and cultured gentlemen: Diodotos combines all these qualities.”
The chief boast of the school of Isokrates was that it produced gentlemen. Isokrates defines education not as a knowledge of metaphysics and a contemplation of the Good, nor yet as technical ability in some particular profession, art, or trade, but as a sort of culture and polish. “This is my definition of the educated man,” he says. “First, he is capable of dealing with the ordinary events of life, by possessing a happy sense of fitness and a faculty of usually hitting upon the right course of action.
“Secondly, his behaviour in any society is always correct and proper. If he is thrown with offensive or disagreeable company, he can meet it with easy good-temper; and he treats every one with the utmost fairness and gentleness.
“Thirdly, he always has the mastery over his pleasures, and does not give way unduly under misfortune and pain, but behaves in such cases with manliness and worthily of the nature which has been given to us.