Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
This orator is reported to have written sixty orations; but Caecilius
supposes twenty-five of them to be spurious and none of his. Plato,
in his comedy called Pisander, traduces him as a covetous man. He is
reported to have composed some of his tragedies alone, and others with
Dionysius the tyrant. While he was poetically inclined, he invented
an art of curing the distemper of the mind, as physicians are wont
to provide cure of bodily diseases. And having at Corinth built him
a little house, in or near the market, he set a postscript over the
gate, to this effect: that he had a way to cure the distemper of men’s
minds by words; and let him but know the cause of their malady, he
would immediately prescribe the remedy, to their comfort. But after
some time, thinking that art not worth his while, he betook himself to
the study and teaching of oratory. There are some who ascribe the book
of Glaucus of Rhegium concerning Poets to him as author. His orations
concerning Herodes, against Erasistratus concerning Peacocks,[6]
are very much commended, and also that which, when he was accused,
he penned for himself against a public indictment, and that against
Demosthenes the general for moving an illegal measure. He likewise had
another against Hippocrates the general; who did not appear on the day
appointed for his trial, and was condemned in his absence.
Caecilius has recorded the decree of the senate for the judicial
trial of Antiphon, passed in the year[7] in which Theopompus was
chief magistrate of Athens, the same in which the Four Hundred were
overthrown,—in these words:
“Enacted by the senate on the twenty-first day of the prytany.
Demonicus of Alopece was clerk; Philostratus of Pallene was president.
“Andron moved in regard to those men,—viz. Archeptolemus, Onomacles,
and Antiphon, whom the generals had declared against, for that they
went in an embassage to Lacedaemon, to the great damage of the city
of Athens, and departed from the camp in an enemies’ ship, and went
through Decelea by land,—that they should be apprehended and brought
before the court for a legal trial.
“Therefore let the generals, with others of the senate, to the number
of ten, whom it shall please the generals to name and choose, look
after these men to present them before the court, that they may be
present during the proceedings. Then let the Thesmothetes summon the
defendants to appear on the morrow, and let them open the proceedings
in court at the time at which the summonses shall be returnable. Then
let the chosen advocates, with the generals and any others who may have
any thing to say, accuse the defendants of treason; and if any one
of them shall be found guilty, let sentence be passed upon him as a
traitor, according to the law in such case made and provided.”
At the bottom of this decree was subscribed the sentence.—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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