Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 B. C.Freeman, Kenneth J. (Kenneth John)
History
Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 B. C.
Freeman, Kenneth J. (Kenneth John)
Education, Greek
Thus the object of Isokrates was rather to impart culture and polish
to his pupils than to teach them rhetoric; it is in this point that he
differs from the other professors who taught the same sort of rhetoric
as he did at Athens and have now been forgotten, and from the
logographoi, who taught the kind of speaking which suited the Athenian
law-courts, without professing to supply anything but a technical
knowledge of their particular subject.
In an Athenian trial the prosecutor and defendant had each to deliver
a speech for themselves; afterwards, regular advocates might address
the jury in some cases, but this was rare. So the duty of an Athenian
lawyer was simply to write speeches for his clients to deliver, not to
speak himself. Thus the metic Lusias, who had no right to speak in a
court himself, was a famous lawyer, or logographos, speech-writer, as
the Hellenes called him.
Mantitheos, say, finds himself involved in a lawsuit. He comes to
Lusias and explains the circumstances. Lusias masters the details,
looks up the laws on the question, and studies his client’s age,
character, and so forth. He then writes a speech sufficiently
dramatised to come naturally from Mantitheos’ mouth. In composing it
he will simulate the indignation which he supposes his client to feel,
he will adopt the nonchalant air of injured innocence which Mantitheos
showed in telling the story, and so on, till the speech is a real bit
of dramatisation like the speeches in a tragedy. When composed, the
speech would be carried off by Mantitheos, learnt by heart, and duly
recited. It is all a bit of acting on Lusias’ part. The habit of
simulating feelings when writing speeches was dangerous, when the
logographos came forward to speak in his own person on some question.
Demosthenes never quite escapes the suspicion of acting and posing,
even in his most impressive moments.
Besides these clients, the Athenian lawyers had permanent pupils, who
either intended to be lawyers themselves or thought the study would
help them in a political life. Their methods of teaching, as may be
seen from Plato’s _Phaidros_, resembled those of Isokrates. In the
dialogue called by his name, Phaidros is going out to walk off the
effects of sitting indoors too long.[561] He had been listening to
Lusias, “the cleverest speech-writer of the age,” reciting one of his
speeches, on which he had spent much labour. Phaidros had made him
repeat it several times, and has now borrowed the book in order to
learn it by heart during his walk. Sokrates persuades him to read it
aloud, in doing which he is quite carried away by its eloquence.[562]
Sokrates then proceeds to criticise the style and matter of the
speech,[563] and to compose one of his own on the same subject to show
how it ought to be treated.
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