Lysias and Isocrates gave an entirely new form to oratory by the happy alterations which they in different ways introduced into the old prose style. Lysias (fl. 359 B.C.), in the fiftieth year of his age, began to follow the trade of writing speeches for such private individuals as could not trust their own skill in addressing a court; for this object, a plain, unartificial style was best suited, because citizens who called in the aid of the speech-writer had no knowledge of rhetoric, and thus Lysias was obliged to originate a style, which became more and more confirmed by habit. The consequence was, that for his contemporaries and for all ages he stands forth as the first and in many respects the perfect pattern of a plain style. The narrative part of the speech, for which he was particularly famous, is always natural, interesting, and lively, and often relieved by mimic touches which give it a wonderful air of reality. The proofs and confutations are distinguished by a clearness of reasoning and a boldness of argument which leave no room for doubt; in a word, the speeches are just what they ought to be in order to obtain a favorable decision, an object in which, it seems, he often succeeded. Of his many orations, thirty-five have come down to us. Isocrates (fl. 338 B.C.) established a school for political oratory, which became the first and most flourishing in Greece. His orations were mostly destined for this school. Though neither a great statesman nor philosopher in himself, Isocrates constitutes an epoch as a rhetorician or artist of language. His influence extended far beyond the limits of his own school, and without his reconstruction of the style of Attic oratory we could have had no Demosthenes and no Cicero; through these, the school of Isocrates has extended its influence even to the oratory of our own day.