Lysias
- Son of Cephalus, a famous orator of Athens: tum fuit Lysias, quem jam prope audeas oratorem perfectum dicere, Cic. Brut. 9, 35; cf. id. ib. 85, 293; id. de Or. 1, 54, 231; id. Or. 9, 29; Quint. 10, 1, 78; 12, 10, 24.—Hence,
- B Lysĭăcus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to the orator Lysias: gracilitas, Quint. 12, 10, 24.—
- II A physician, Cels. 5, 18.—
- III A celebrated sculptor, Plin. 36, 5, 4, § 2.
(Λυσίας).
1. An Athenian, who, according to Diodorus (13.74), was one of the ten generals appointed to succeed Alcibiades in the command of the fleet, B. C. 406. His name indeed does not occur in the list of them as given by Xenophon (Xenoph. Hell. 1.5.16), but that author agrees with Diodorus in mentioning him shortly after as one of those who actually held the command at the battle of Arginusae, on which occasion his trireme was sunk, and he himself made his escape with difficulty. It was only to encounter a worse fate, for on his return to Athens with five of his colleagues, they were all six immediately brought to trial, condemned, and executed, on the charge of having neglected to carry off the bodies of the citizens who had fallen in the action. (Xen. Hell. 1.6.30, 7; Diod. 13.99, 101; Philochorus, apud Schol. ad Aristoph. Ran. 1196.)
2. A general under Seleucus Nicator, who in B. C. 286, by the command of that prince, occupied the passes of Mount Amanus, so as to prevent the escape of Demetrius Poliorcetes, who, in consequence, fell into the hands of Seleucus. (Polyaen. 4.9.5; comp. Plut. Demetr. 49.)
3. One of the ambassadors sent by Antiochus the Great, in B. C. 196, to meet the ten deputies appointed by the Romans to settle, together with Flamininus, the affairs of Greece. He was afterwards present at the interview of the king with the Roman ambassadors at Lysimachia. (Plb. 18.30, 33.) According to Appian (App. Syr. 6), he also accompanied Hegesianax and Menippus on their embassy to Rome in B. C. 193, though he is not mentioned on that occasion by Livy (34.57-59).
4. A general and minister of Antiochus Epiphanes, who enjoyed so high a place in the confidence of that monarch, that when Antiochus set out for the upper provinces of his empire in B. C. 166, he not only entrusted Lysias with the care of his son Antiochus, but gave him the sole command of the provinces from the Euphrates to the sea. Lysias was especially charged to prosecute the war against the Jews, and accordingly hastened to send an army into Judaea, under the command of Ptolemy, the son of Dorymenes, Nicanor, and Gorgias; but these generals were totally defeated near Emmaus by Judas Maccabaeus. The next year Lysias in person took the field, with a very large army, but effected nothing of importance. News soon after arrived of the death of Antiochus at Tabae, in Persia (B. C. 164), on which Lysias immediately caused the young prince under his charge to be proclaimed king, by the title of Antiochus Eupator, and himself assumed the sovereign power as his guardian, although that office had been conferred by Antiochus Epiphanes on his death-bed upon another of his ministers named Philip. A new expedition against the Jews was now undertaken by Lysias, accompanied by the young king: they made themselves masters of the strong fortress of Bethsura, and compelled Judas to fall back upon Jerusalem, where they besieged him in the temple, and reduced him to such straits for provisions, that the fortress must have quickly fallen had not the news of the approach of Philip induced Lysias to grant a peace to the Jews on fayourable terms, in order that he might hasten to oppose his rival. Philip was quickly defeated, and put to death. (J. AJ 12.7.2_5, 9.1_7; 1 Maccab. 3.4.5.1-35, 6.2 Macc. x. xi. xiii.)
Lysias now possessed undisputed authority in the kingdom; and the Romans, the only power whom he had cause to fear, were disposed to favour Antiochus on account of his youth, and the advantages they might hope to derive from his weakness. They, however, despatched ambassadors to Syria, to enforce the execution of the treaty formerly concluded with Antiochus the Great; and Lysias did not venture openly to oppose the arbitrary proceedings of these deputies, but was supposed to have connived at, if he did not command, the murder of Octavius, the chief of the embassy. [Leptines.] He indeed immediately sent ambassadors to Rome to disclaim all participation in the deed, but did not offer to give up or punish the assassin. Meanwhile, the young prince, Demetrius, made his escape from Rome, where he had been detained as a hostage and landed at Tripolis in Syria. The people immediately declared in his favour ; and Lysias, as well as the young Antiochus, was seized by the populace, and given up to Demetrius, who ordered them both to be put to death, B. C. 162. (J. AJ 12.10. § I; 1 Mace. vii.; 2 Macc. 14.1, 2; Appian. Syr. 46, 47; Plb. 31.15, 19; Liv. Epit. xlvi; Euseb. Arm. p. 166, fol. edit.)
5. A native of Tarsus in Cilicia, called by Athemeus an Epicurean philosopher, who raised himself to the position of tyrant of his native city. (Athen. 5.215. b.) [E.H.B]
(Λυσίας), an Attic orator, was born at Athens in B. C. 458; he was the son of Cephalus, who was a native of Syracuse, and had taken up his abode at Athens, on the invitation of Pericles. (Dionys. Lys. 1; Plut. Vit. X. Orat. p. 835 ; Phot. Bibl. Cod. 262, p. 488, &c.; Suid. s. v. Λυσίας; Lys. c. Eratosth. § 4; Cic. Brut. 16.) When he was little more than fifteen years old, in B. C. 443, Lysias and his two (some say three) brothers joined the Athenians who went as colonists to Thurii in Italy. He there completed his education under the instruction of two Syracusans, Tisias and Nicias, and afterwards enjoyed great esteem among the Thurians, and even seems to have taken part in the administration of the young republic. From a passage of Aristotle (ap. Cic. Brut. 12), we learn that he devoted some time to the teaching of rhetoric, though it is uncertain whether he entered upon this profession while yet at Thurii, or did not commence till after his return to Athens, where we know that Isaeus was one of his pupils. (Plut. l.c. p. 839; Phot. Bibl. Cod. p. 490a.) In B. C. 411, when he had attained the age of forty-seven, after the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, all persons, both in Sicily and in the south of Italy, who were suspected of favouring the cause of the Athenians, were exposed to persecutions; and Lysias, together with 300 others, was expelled by the Spartan party from Thurii, as a partisan of the Athenians. He now returned to Athens; but there too great misfortunes awaited him, for during the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, after the battle of Aegospotami, he was looked upon as an enemy of the government, his large property was confiseated, and he was thrown into prison, with a view to be put to death. But he escaped from Athens, and took refuge at Megara. (Plut. Phot. ll. cc.) His attachment to Athens, however, was so great, that when Thrasybulus, at the head of the patriots, marched from Phyle to liberate their country, Lysias joyfully sacrificed all that yet remained of his fortune, for he sent the patriots 2000 drachmas and 200 shields, and engaged a band of 302 mercenaries. Thrasybulus procured him the Athenian franchise, as a reward for his generosity; but Archinus afterwards induced the people to declare it void, because it had been conferred without a probuleuma; and Lysias henceforth lived at Athens as an isoteles, occupying himself, as it appears, solely with writing judicial speeches for others, and died in B. C. 378, at the age of eighty. (Dionys. Lys. 12; Plut. l.c. p. 836; Phot. l.c. p. 490.) Works
Lysias was one of the most fertile writers of orations that Athens ever produced, for there were in antiquity no less than 425 orations which were current under his name, though the ancient critics were of opinion that only 230 of them were genuine productions of Lysias. (Dionys. Lys. 17; Plut. l.c. p. 836; Phot. l.c. p. 488; Cic. Brut. 16.) Of these orations 35 only are extant, and even among these some are incomplete, and others are probably spurious. Of 53 others we possess only a few fragments. Most of these orations, only one of which (that against Eratosthenes, B. C. 403) he delivered himself in court, were composed after his return from Thurii to Athens. There are, however, some among them which probably belong to an earlier period of his life, when Lysias treated his art more from a theoretical point of view, and they must therefore be regarded as rhetorical exercises. But from the commencement of the speech against Eratosthenes we must conclude that his real career as a writer of orations began about B. C. 403. Among the lost works of Lysias we may mention a manual of rhetoric (τέχνη ῥητορική), probably one of his early productions, which, however, is lost. How highly the orations of Lysias were valued in antiquity may be inferred from the great number of persons that wrote commentaries upon them, such as Caecilius Calactinus, Zosimus of Gaza, Zeno of Cittium, Harpocration, Paullus Germinus, and others. All the works of these critics have perished. The only criticism of any importance upon Lysias that has come down to us is that of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his Περι τῶν ἀρχαιων ῥητόρων ὑπομνηματισμοί, the τῶν ἀρχαιων κρισις, and in his account of Lysias, to which we may add the remarks of Photius. According to the judgment of Dionysius, and the accidental remarks of others, which are borne out by a careful examination of the orations still extant, the diction of Lysias is perfectly pure, and may be looked upon as the best canon of the Attic idiom; his language is natural and simple, but at the same time noble and dignified (Dionys. Lys. 2, 3, Demosth. 13; Cic. Brut. 32; Quint. Inst. 12.10.21, comp. 9.4.17); it is always clear and lucid; the copiousness of his style does not injure its precision; nor can his rhetorical embellishments be considered as impairing the charming simplicity of his style. (Dionys. Lys. 4, &c.) His delineations of character are always striking and true to life. (Dionys. Lys. 7; Quint. Inst. 3.8.51; Phot. l.c. p. 488.) But what characterises his orations above those of all other ancients, is the indescribable gracefulness and elegance which pervade all of them, without in the least impairing their power and energy; and this gracefulness was considered as so peculiar a feature in all Lysias' productions, that Dionysius thought it a fit criterion by which the genuine works of Lysias might be distinguished from the spurious works that went by his name. (Dionys. Lys. 10, &c., 3, Demosth. 13, Dinarch. 7; comp. Cic Brut. 9, 16; Quint. Inst. 9.4.17, 12.10.24.) The manner in which Lysias treats his subjects is equally deserving of high praise. (Dionys. Lys. 15-19; Hermogen. De Form. Orat. ii. p. 490.) It is, therefore, no matter of surprise to hear that among the many orations he wrote for others, two only are said to have been unsuccessful. (Plut. l.c. p. 836.) Editions
The extant orations of Lysias are contained in the collections of Aldus, H. Stephens, Reiske, Dukas, Bekker, and Baiter and Sauppe.
Among the separate editions, we mention those of J. Taylor (London, 1739, 4to. with a full critical apparatus and emendations by Markland), C. Foertsch (Leipzig, 1829, 8vo.), J. Franz (Munich, 1831, 8vo., in which the orations are arranged in their chronological order); compare J. Franz, Dissertatio de Lysia Oratore Attico Graece script, Norimbergae, 1828, 8vo.; L. Hoelscher, De Lysiae Oratoris Vita et Dictione, Berlin, 1837, 8vo., and De Vita et Scriptis Lysiae Oratoris Commentatio, Berlin, 1837, 8vo.; Westermann, Gesch. der Griecch. Beredtsam-keit, 46, 47, and Beilage, iii. pp. 278-288. Other people named Lysias
There are some other persons of the name of Lysias, who come under the head of literary characters. 1. Lysias of Tarsus, an epicurean philosopher, who usurped the tyrannis in his native place on the occasion of his being raised to the priesthood of Ieracles, and afterwards distinguished himself by his indulgence in luxuries and cruelty. (Athen. 5.215.) 2. A person who is one of the interlocutors in Plutarch's treatise de Musica. 3. A sophist, who was, according to Taylor, the author of the ἐρωτικά, which are attributed by some of the ancients to the orator Lysias. (Taylor, Vit. Lys. p. 154.) This sophist may be the one mentioned by Demosthenes (c. Neaer. p. 351. [L.S]
a sculptor of the time of Augustus, for whom he executed a great and highly valued group, representing Apollo and Diana in a fourhorse chariot, which Augustus placed in the chapel erected by him to the memory of his father, Octavius, on the Palatine hill. Pliny says that the group was of one piece of marble; but similar statements of his respecting other groups, which are still extant, the Laocoön for instance, have been disproved by an examination of the works themselves: we may therefore suspect his accuracy in this instance. (Plin. Nat. 36.5. s. 4.10; Meyer, Kunstgeschichte, vol. iii. pp. 38, 39.) [P.S]
LY´SIAS (Λυσιάς: Eth. Λυσιάδης), a small town in Phrygia, between Synnada and Prymnessus. (Strab. 12. p. 576; Plin. Nat. 5.29; Ptol. 5.2.23; Hierocl. p. 677.) No particulars are known about the place, nor is its site ascertained, but we still possess coins of Lysias. (Eckhel, Doctr. Num. 3. p. 167.)
[L.S](Λυσίας). One of the ten Athenian orators. He was born at Athens, B.C. 458 or 459. His father, Cephalus, was a native of Syracuse, who settled at Athens during the time of Pericles. Cephalus was a person of considerable wealth, and lived on intimate terms with Pericles and Socrates; and his house is the supposed scene of the celebrated dialogues related in Plato's Republic. Lysias, at the age of fifteen, went to Thurii in Italy, with his brother Polemarchus, at the first foundation of the colony. Here he remained for thirty-two years; but, in consequence of his supporting the Athenian interests, he was obliged to leave Italy after the failure of the Athenian expedition to Sicily. He returned to Athens, B.C. 411, and carried on, in partnership with his brother Polemarchus, an extensive manufactory of shields, in which they employed as many as 120 slaves. Their wealth excited the cupidity of the Thirty Tyrants; their house was attacked one evening by an armed force while Lysias was entertaining a few friends at supper; their property was seized, and Polemarchus was taken to prison, where he was shortly after executed (B.C. 404). Lysias, by bribing some of the soldiers, escaped to the Piraeus, and sailed thence to Megara. He has given us a graphic account of his escape in his oration against Eratosthenes, who had been one of the Thirty Tyrants. Lysias actively assisted Thrasybulus in his enterprise against the Thirty; he supplied him with a large sum of money from his own resources and those of his friends, and hired a considerable body of soldiers at his own expense. In return for these services Thrasybulus proposed a decree by which the rights of citizenship should be conferred upon Lysias; but, in consequence of some informality, this decree was never carried into effect. He was, however, allowed the peculiar privileges which were sometimes granted to resident aliens (namely, ἰσοτέλεια). Lysias appears to have died about B.C. 378.
The author of the Life of Lysias, attributed to Plutarch, mentions 425 orations of his, 230 of which were considered to be genuine. There remain only 34, which are all forensic, and remarkable for the method which reigns in them. The purity, the perspicuity, the grace and simplicity which characterize the orations of Lysias, would have raised him to the highest rank in the art had they been coupled with the force and energy of Demosthenes. His style is elegant without being overornate, and is regarded as a model of the “plain” style. In the art of narration, Dionysius of Halicarnassus considers him superior to all orators in being distinct, probable, and persuasive; but, at the same time, admits that his composition is better adapted to private litigation than to important causes. The text of his harangues, as we now have it, is extremely corrupt. His masterpiece is the funeral oration in honour of those Athenians who, having been sent to the aid of the Corinthians under the command of Iphicrates, perished in battle. Lysias is said to have delivered only one of the orations which he wrote—that against Eratosthenes.
Lysias has been edited by Reiske (1772), Bekker (1828), Baiter and Sauppe (1850), Cobet (1863), and Scheibe (1886); and there are selections edited by Rauchenstein-Fuhr (with German notes), Frohberger, and (with English notes) by Shuckburgh, Stevens, and Bristol. There is an English translation by Gillies. See Jebb's Attic Orators, i. pp. 142- 312.
Lysias (c. 445-c. 380 BC) was an Athenian metic- a formal resident of Athens but not a full Athenian citizen. His family's prosperity came from a shield factory, which they operated until, during the oligarchic revolution of 404-403, the Thirty Tyrants killed Lysias’ brother Polemarchus and confiscated their property. When the democrats regained power, Lysias accused one of the Thirty, Eratosthenes, of his brother's murder. As a metic, Lysias could not appear in court himself, but the success of Against Eratosthenes (12), his longest and best known speech, led to a profitable career as a logographer, writing speeches for others. More than 30 of these, covering a wide range of cases, survive in whole or in part, though the authenticity of some is doubted. As an orator Lysias is particularly known for his ethopoiia, or “creation of character” and his prose style, which was celebrated for its simple clarity and vividness, especially in the narrative parts of his speeches. Later rhetoricians down through Roman times cited Lysias as the outstanding representative of a pure Attic prose style.
LifeAncient scholars give the traditional date of Lysias’ birth as 459 BC, but most recent scholars accept a later date on the basis of information in Plato's Phaedrusand [Dem.] 59.21-22(Dover 1968: 28-46, Edwards and Usher 1985: 125-26, Carey 1989: 1-3). Lysias tells us (Lys. 12.4) that his father moved to Athens at the urging of Pericles and lived there for thirty years. As a youth Lysias lived for a while in Thurii, a new panhellenic colony established by Pericles in 443 BC. Lysias’ family was always strongly allied with the democratic forces in the city, and in a vivid narrative (Lys. 12.5-20) he recounts the confiscation of their property, the execution of his brother, and his own narrow escape from the Thirty. Lysias then joined with the democratic opposition and helped them regain control of the government. We know almost nothing of his life after this time, but his latest datable speech was probably delivered in 382 BC. Lysias must have been a well-known figure in Athens, and in his dialogue Phaedrus, Plato quotes (and criticizes) an entire speech of Lysias as paradigmatic of Athenian rhetoric: seductively attractive on the surface but not true.
WorksSeveral hundred speeches attributed to Lysias were known to ancient scholars from the third century BC to the second century AD (Dover 1968). Of these thirty one have been preserved in medieval manuscripts and large sections of three others are quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1st cent. BC) in his essay on Lysias. Modern scholars have disputed the authenticity of almost every speech of Lysias. Dover's fundamental study concludes that only Against Eratosthenes (12) was written entirely by Lysias, and that many of the rest may have been written jointly by Lysias and the client for whom the speech was composed (Dover 1968). Usher has advanced strong arguments against Dover's theory (Usher 1976) and it has not generally been accepted, but many questions remain about the composition of Lysias’ speeches (how did the logographer and his client work together to prepare a case?), their “publication” (in a time before printing, who had copies of a speech made and distributed, and for what purpose?) and their collection and preservation during the logographer's lifetime and after his death.
SignificanceThe cases for which Lysias composed speeches cover a wide range of issues, public and private. They include, in addition to political cases (6, 12-16, 25-26, 31), the killing of an adulterer caught in the act (1), a lovers’ quarrel (3), the alleged removal of a sacred olive stump (7), slander (10), property claims (17-19), misuse of public funds (21, 27-29), trade (22), citizenship (23), a state pension (24), and guardianship (32). In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the art of political oratory was more highly valued, Demosthenes was considered the outstanding example of Attic oratory and the less elaborate speeches of Lysias were not highly regarded. In the last half century, however, Lysias has become more widely read and better appreciated. One reason undoubtedly is that his Greek is easier, and thus more appealing to students who generally do not begin Greek at such early ages as they formerly did. Other reasons include a greater appreciation of Lysias’ simple, more direct style (and a corresponding distrust of grand political rhetoric like Demosthenes’), a declining interest in military history (and the struggle between Athens and Philip that so consumed Demosthenes), and a correspondingly greater interest in such aspects of Greek private life as the condition of women.
Only the speech Against Eratosthenes (12) is now read for historical interest, for in it Lysias includes a fairly detailed (and openly pro-democratic) account of the brief rule of the Thirty. His account is particularly valuable, since the two other main accounts, Aristotle's Constitution of the Atheniansand Xenophon's Hellenicashow a clear aristocratic bias and thus present the Thirty in a more favorable light. Thus Lysias’ account is crucial to establishing the middle ground favored by most modern historians (the most recent assessment of the Thirty is Krentz 1982). Even in this important political speech, however, we find a characteristically vivid narrative account, describing Lysias’ brother's arrest and his own escape.
Perhaps the most widely read speech of Lysias today is On the Murder of Eratosthenes (1), which was scarcely read at all a century ago, and is not included in Shuckburgh's selection of 16 speeches or Adams’ selection of 8. The speech conveys a vivid picture of the speaker, Euphiletus, a rather simple-minded but decent and honorable farmer, who is stunned to find his wife having an affair with Eratosthenes (perhaps the same man as is attacked in 12) and kills the lover when he finds him in his wife's bed. Many details about the life and living quarters of an ordinary Greek family emerge, and the issues are immediately comprehensible even to those with little or no background knowledge. Other memorable characters include the wealthy Athenian in Against Simon (3), who reluctantly recounts his own passion (unbecoming a man of his age) for a young boy for whose favors he has been fighting, the impoverished invalid in On the Refusal of a Pension (24), who sarcastically mocks his challenger in defending his right to his small state allowance, and the tearful widow described in Against Diogeiton (32), who pleads against the cruel treatment of her children by their appointed guardian. The portrayal of these and other characters, the inclusion of so much information about people's ordinary lives, and the relative ease of the Greek all make Lysias the most widely read orator today.
Adams, Charles Darwin, Lysias, Selected Speeches. New York 1905. Bateman, John J. “Lysias and the Law,” TAPA89 (1958) 276-85. Blass, Friedrich, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 2nd ed. vol. 1. Leipzig 1887. Bonner, Robert J. Lawyers and Litigants in Ancient Athens. Chicago 1927. Carey, C. Lysias, Selected Speeches. Cambridge 1989. Dover, K. Lysias and the Corpus Lysiacum. Berkeley 1968. Jebb, R. C. The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeus, vol. 1. London 1893. Kennedy, George, The Art of Persuasion in Greece. Princeton 1963. Kennedy, George, “Oratory” in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature I: Greek Literature. Ed. by P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox (Cambridge 1985), pp. 498-526. Krentz, Peter, The Thirty at Athens. Ithaca 1982. Morgan, Gareth, “Euphiletos’ House: Lysias 1,” TAPA112 (1982) 115-23. Shuckburgh, Evelyn S. Lysiae, Orationes XVI. London 1882. Usher, S. “Individual Characterization in Lysias,” Eranos63 (1955) 99-119. Usher, S. “Some Aspects of Lysias’ Argumentation,” Phoenix16 (1962) 157-77. Usher, S. “Lysias and his clients,”GRBS17 (1976) 31-40. Usher, S. & D. Najock, “A Statistical Study of Authorship in the Corpus Lysiacum,” Computers and the Humanities16 (1982) 85-105. Usher, S. & M. Edwards, Greek Orators I: Antiphon and Lysias. Warminster 1985 (pp. 125-277 on Lysias are by Usher). Winter, Thomas N. “On the Corpus of Lysias,” CJ69 (1973-74) 34-40. Michael Gagarin