Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals" — John Shaqi
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
He lived ninety-eight years, or, as some say, a hundred, not being
able to behold Greece the fourth time brought into slavery. The year
(or, as some say, four years) before he died, he wrote his Panathenaic
oration. He labored upon his Panegyric oration ten years, or, as some
tell us, fifteen, which he is supposed to have borrowed out of Gorgias
the Leontine and Lysias. His oration concerning Exchange of Property he
wrote when he was eighty-two years old, and those to Philip a little
before his death. When he was old, he adopted Aphareus, the youngest
of the three sons of Plathane, the daughter of Hippias the orator. He
was very rich, both in respect of the great sums of money he exacted
of his scholars, and besides that, having at one time twenty talents of
Nicocles, king of Cyprus, for an oration which he dedicated to him. By
reason of his riches he became obnoxious to the envy of others, and was
three times named to maintain a galley; which he evaded twice by the
assistance of his son and a counterfeit sickness, but the third time
he undertook it, though the charge proved very great. A father telling
him that he had allowed his son no other companion than one slave,
Isocrates replied, Go thy way then, for one slave thou shalt have two.
He strove for the prize which Aretemisia dedicated to the honor and
memory of her husband Mausolus; but that oration is lost. He wrote also
another oration in praise of Helen, and one called Areopagiticus. Some
say that he died when he had fasted nine days,—some again, at four
days’ end,—and his death took its date from the funeral solemnities of
those that lost their lives at Chaeronea. His son Aphareus likewise
wrote several orations.
He lies buried with all his family near Cynosarges, on the left hand of
the hill. There are interred Isocrates and his father Theodorus, his
mother and her sister Anaco, his adoptive son Aphareus, Socrates the
son of Anaco, Theodorus his brother, bearing his father’s name, his
grandsons, the sons of his adopted Aphareus, and his wife Plathane,
the mother of Aphareus. On these tombs were erected six tables, which
are now demolished. And upon the tomb of Isocrates himself was placed
a column thirty cubits high, and on that a mermaid of seven cubits,
which was an emblem of his eloquence; there is nothing now extant.
There was also near it a table, having poets and his schoolmasters
on it; and among the rest, Gorgias inspecting a celestial globe, and
Isocrates standing by him. There is likewise a statue of his of bronze
in Eleusis, dedicated by Timothy the son of Conon, before the entry of
the porch, with this inscription:
To the fame and honor of Isocrates,
This statue’s sacred to the Goddesses;
The gift of Timothy.
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