_Isoteles_ (or citizen who had no right to vote or hold office), and died at last at Athens, being fourscore and three years old, or as some would have it, seventy-six; and others again say, that he lived above fourscore years, till after the birth of Demosthenes. It is supposed he was born in the year of Philocles. There are four hundred and twenty-five orations which bear his name, of which Dionysius and Caecilius affirm only two hundred and thirty to be genuine, and he is said to have been overcome but twice in all. There is extant also the oration which he made in defence of the fore-mentioned decree against Archinus, who indicted it and thereby prevented Lysias from receiving the citizenship, as also another against the Thirty Tyrants. He was very cogent in his persuasions, and was always very brief in what he delivered. He would commonly give orations to private persons. There are likewise his institutions of oratory, his public harangues, his epistles, his eulogies, funeral orations, discourses of love, and his defence of Socrates, accommodated to the minds of the judges. His style seems plain and easy, though hardly imitable. Demosthenes, in his oration against Neaera, says that he was in love with one Metanira, Neaera’s serving-maid, but afterwards married his brother Brachyllus’s daughter. Plato in his Phaedrus makes mention of him, as a most eloquent orator and ancienter than Isocrates. Philiscus, his companion, and Isocrates’s votary, composed an epigram concerning him, whence the same that we have urged from Plato is deducible; and it sings to this effect: Calliope’s witty daughter, Phrontis, show If aught of wit or eloquence thou hast; For ’tis decreed that thou shalt bear a son, Lysias by name, to spread the name of him Whose great and generous acts do fill the world, And are received for glorious above. Let him who sings those praises of the dead, Let him, my friend, too, praise our amity. He likewise wrote two orations for Iphicrates,—one against Harmodius, and another accusing Timotheus of treason,—in both which he overcame. But when Iphicrates made himself responsible for Timotheus’s actions, and would purge himself of the allegation of treason made also against him, Lysias wrote an oration for him to deliver in his defence; upon which he was acquitted, but Timotheus was fined in a considerable sum of money. He likewise delivered an oration at the Olympic games, in which he endeavored to convince the Greeks of how great advantage it would be to them, if they could but unanimously join to pull down the tyrant Dionysius. IV. ISOCRATES.