Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/351

 VALUE OF THE 'ORATORS' 327 style is that of the plain clear-headed man, who tells his story and draws his deductions so honestly, that his adversary's version is sure to seem artificial and knavish. Within his limits Lysias is a perfect stylist ; but he is a man of little imaginative range, and he addresses a jury. He does not develop a normal literary prose. Is^US, a lawyer of great knowledge and a powerful arguer, is still further from this end. Isocrates achieves it. The essay- writing of his school — men broadly trained in letters, philosophy, and history, and accustomed to deal with large questions in a liberal, pan-Hellenic spirit — forms in one sense the final perfection of ancient prose, in another the ruin of what was most characteristically Attic or indeed Hellenic. It is smooth, self-restrained, correct, euphonious, impersonal. It is the first Greek prose that is capable of being tedious. It has lasted on from that day to this, and is the basis of prose style in Latin and in modern languages. It has sacrificed the characteristic charms of Greek expression, the individuality, the close relation between thought and language, the naturalness of mind which sees every fact naked and states every thought in its lowest terms. Isocrates's influence was paramount in all belles lettres ; scientific work and oratory proper went on their way little affected by him. Secondly, the orators have great historical value. They all come from Athens, and all lived in the century between 420 and 320 B.C. Other periods and towns were either lacking in the combination of culture and freedom necessary to produce political oratory, or else, as hap- pened with Syracuse, they have been neglected by our tradition. The ^Attic orators are our chief ' source ' for Attic law, and they introduce us to the police- court population of a great city — the lawyers, the