The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Plutarch’s Morals.
• Of Eating of Flesh.
• Lives of the Ten Orators.
• I.: Antiphon.
• II.: Andocides.
• III.: Lysias.
• IV.: Isocrates.
• V.: Isaeus.
• VI.: Aeschines.
• VII.: Lycurgus.
• VIII.: Demosthenes.
• IX.: Hyperides.
• X.: Dinarchus.
• Whether an Aged Man Ought to Meddle In State Affairs.
• Political Precepts.
• Which Are the Most Crafty, Water-animals Or Those Creatures That Breed Upon the Land?
• That Brute Beasts Make Use of Reason
• Of the Face Appearing Within the Orb of the Moon.
• Of Fate. *
• Concerning the First Principle of Cold.
• Whether Water Or Fire Be Most Useful.
• Against Colotes, the Disciple and Favorite of Epicurus.
• Plutarch’s Consolatory Letter to His Wife.
• Of the Three Sorts of Government, Monarchy, Democracy, and Oligarchy.
• Whether the Athenians Were More Renowned For Their Warlike Achievements Or For Their Learning.
• Against Running In Debt, Or Taking Up Money Upon Usury.
• Plutarch’s Platonic Questions.
• Parallels, Or a Comparison Between the Greek and Roman Histories. *
• Of the Names of Rivers and Mountains, and of Such Things As Are to Be Found Therein. *

V.

ISAEUS.

Isaeus was born in Chalcis. When he came to Athens, he read Lysias’s works, whom he imitated so well, both in his style and in his skill in managing causes, that he who was not very well acquainted with their manner of writing could not tell which of the two was author of many of their orations. He flourished after the Peloponnesian war, as we may conjecture from his orations, and was in repute till the reign of Philip. He taught Demosthenes — not at his school, but privately — who gave him ten thousand drachms, by which business he became very famous. Some say that he composed orations for Demosthenes, which he pronounced in opposition to his guardians. He left behind him sixty-four orations, of which fifty are his own; as likewise some peculiar institutions of rhetoric. He was the first that used to speak or write figuratively, and that addicted himself to civil matters; which Demosthenes chiefly followed. Theopompus the comedian makes mention of him in his Theseus.