P. 48—“Isokrates,” i-soc´ra-tes. (436-338 B. C.) One of the ten Attic orators. He was carefully educated, but as he was too timid to come forward as an orator, he devoted himself to teaching the art and writing speeches for others. Although he took no part in public affairs he loved his country, and despairing of its freedom after the battle of Chæroneia, he took his own life. His style was artificial and labored, but exercised immense influence upon oratory at Athens.
P. 49—“Isæus,” i-sæ´us. One of the ten Attic orators. Instructed by Lysias and Isokrates. We have no particulars of his life. Eleven of his orations in existence are remarkable for their vigor and purity of style.
P. 49—“Thucydides,” thu-cyd´i-des. (471?-400?) The historian. Little more is known of his life than is related by Timayenis (vol. i., p. 337). The accounts of his death are uncertain. The work which gives him his place in history is his account of the Peloponnesian war.
P. 49—“Lysias,” lys´i-as. (B. C. 458-378.) An Attic orator. When a youth, Lysias emigrated to a colony in Italy, where he finished his education. After the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily he returned to Athens, but only to be imprisoned as an enemy of the government. He escaped, and on the overthrow of the tyranny of the thirty tyrants went back to Athens, where he wrote speeches. Only thirty-five are now extant, but they are said to be specimens of the best Attic Greek.
P. 49—“Bema,” be´ma. The Greek for the stage on which speakers stood.
P. 50—“Phalerum,” pha-le´rum. The most easterly of the harbors of Athens.
P. 50—“Eunomus,” eu´no-mus; “Perikles,” per´i-cles; “Satyrus,” sat´y-rus.
P. 50—“Euripides,” eu-rip´i-des. (B. C. 480-406.)
P. 50—“Sophocles,” soph´o-cles. (B. C. 495?-406). The chief of the trio of Greek dramatists. In 468 he defeated Æschylus in a dramatic contest. His character is said to have been that of a complete Greek, combining symmetry of person, skill in music and gymnastics, self-possession, genius, taste. Only seven of his dramas have been preserved.
P. 51—“Dionysius of Halicarnassus.” A rhetorician who came from Halicarnassus, a city in Asia Minor, about B. C. 29. His most ambitious work is a history of Rome in twenty-two books.