Today’s Quotation is care of Isocrates, from a letter to Demonicus. Listen in! Subscribe to Quotomania on quotomania.com or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Isocrates was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the 10 Attic orators, and a teacher whose writings are an important historical source on the intellectual and political life of the Athens of his day. The school he founded, the first academy of rhetoric, was very different from the intellectual and philosophical Academy of Plato. Isocrates was contemptuous of the Platonic circles, and is considered focused on polished expression, rather than the higher intellectual pursuits. Isocrates training was almost entirely given over to rhetoric, the art of persuasion.
Of his hundred pupils the most notable were Timotheus, the Athenian general, prominent in Athens’s history between 378 and 355; Nicocles, the ruler of Salamis in Cyprus; and the two greatest Greek historians of the 4th century—Ephorus, who wrote a universal history, and Theopompus, who wrote the history of Philip II of Macedon. In this way his influence permeated both politics and literature.
The letter to Demonicus was written approximately 374-372 BCE.
Its authenticity is disputed by some, as it was believed that the verbal form and style were not consistent with the style and views of Isocrates. However, the work’s influence is evident in other oratory speeches, advice to rulers, pedagogical works and essays that have borrowed its elements. The Letter to Demonicus has been used as an example and reference for many late Roman and Byzantine scholars and extracts of it have been found in seven papyri. This letter is offered as a gift to Demonicus. Isocrates explains that friendship, benevolence, modesty in the way of life, and does not fail to mention the difficult task of fulfilling the duties related to public functions. Isocrates points out that proper behavior not only leads to virtue, which is the highest “commodity”, and adds that virtue is also a pleasure of higher order.
To listen to the Letter to Demonicus in Greek, follow this link:
Read more information about rhetoric here:
