The Sophists had early realized the opportunities which the great assembly of all Greek States gave for an expression of national feeling, and though perhaps the speech-making was instituted chiefly for the display of oratory, the custom had grown up of making it an occasion for discussing broad political questions. Thus Gorgias had preached the necessity of union among Greeks, and in later time Isocrates in his _Panegyric_ was to urge again the need of putting aside petty disputes among cities for the good of the Greek nation. In 388 B.C. Dionysius of Syracuse had sent a magnificent embassy to the Olympic festival. Lysias, realizing that this despot of the West, who had reduced important cities of Sicily, had defeated Carthage, and was now threatening the towns of Magna Graecia, might become, especially if allied with Persia, a serious menace to the independence of the cities of Greece proper, urged them to sink their private animosities for the good of all, and as a foretaste of their enmity he called upon them to tear down the royal pavilion at Olympia and scatter its treasures. In the extant fragment the speaker warns his hearers that much of the Greek world is in the hands of tyrants, and much under barbarian sway. This is owing to the weakness caused by internal discord. Empire depends on command of the seas, and Dionysius and Artaxerxes are both strong in ships. ‘You ought therefore to lay aside your war with each other, and by harmonious action make a bid for safety; you should view the past with shame and the future with apprehension.’ He invites Sparta to take the lead. The substance of the end of the speech is known to us only from the ‘argument,’ but the fragment is long enough to be judged as a simple yet dignified composition. The _Epitaphios_ or Funeral Speech purports to relate to the Athenians who fell in the Corinthian war, _c._ 394 B.C., though it is impossible to determine the year precisely. Such speeches were habitually delivered at Athens, a speaker of established reputation being generally chosen to perform the service. Now Lysias, not being a citizen, could not be so chosen, and, if the speech was really delivered, he can hardly have composed it; for a practised public speaker would probably not require the services of a professional logographos.[137] An extract from the peroration will give a general idea of the style: ‘And so we may deem these men most happy, in that they faced and met their end on behalf of all that is great and noble, not committing themselves to chance, nor awaiting the death that comes in nature’s course, but choosing the noblest way of dying.