It is based upon a complete misconception of the nature of the law about ostracism. The speaker is represented as discussing the question whether he himself or Nicias or Alcibiades should be ostracized—a quite impossible position. The speech is little more than a collection of some of the stock anecdotes about Alcibiades, such as occur in Plutarch. * * * * * The names of four lost speeches are preserved:—πρὸς ἑταίρους, συμβουλευτικός, περὶ τῆς ἐνδείξεως and ἀπολογία πρὸς Φαίακα. Fragments—a few lines in each case—remain of two unnamed speeches. One of these refers to Hyperbolus as still in Athens, and so must be placed not later than 417 B.C., the year when Hyperbolus was ostracized. It deserves quotation as being typical of the snobbishness of the young aristocrat, not yet disciplined by misfortune. ‘I am ashamed to mention the name of Hyperbolus; his father is a branded slave, who up to the present day works in the public mint; he himself is a foreigner, a barbarian, and a lampmaker.’[116] CHAPTER IV LYSIAS § 1 Though we attempt a chronological arrangement of the orators, such a treatment is apt to be misleading, for their lives and the periods of their activity overlap considerably. About the year 390 B.C. Andocides was still composing speeches, Lysias was yet in his prime; Isocrates had already made himself a reputation, and Isaeus had at least begun to be known. It would be rash therefore to attempt to trace in the work of any one the influence of any of the others. Speaking and writing as contemporaries all may have had something to teach and something to learn, but we can hardly say that one is in the fullest sense the literary predecessor or the disciple of another.