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 342 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE and sensitive ; even in later life his shyness was an amusement to his pupils. However, towards the end of the war, when his father was dead, and every one alike in straits for money, Isocrates had to support himself by his wits. As soon as peace was made and he was free to leave Athens, he went to Thessaly and learned from the great Gorgias — a singular step for a poor man, if we accept the current myth of the 'grasping sophists.' But doubtless the old man was ready to help a promising pupil without a fee. He was back in Athens by 400, a professional speech- writer and teacher of rhetoric. The latter profession cannot have paid under the circumstances, but the former did. Aristotle says that the booksellers in his time had * rolls and rolls ' of legal speeches bearing the name of Isocrates. He himself disliked and ignored this period of 'doll-making' in contrast to the 'noble sculpture' of his later life,^ and his pupils sometimes denied its existence altogether. It was at Chios, not Athens, that he first set up a formal school of rhetoric, probably in 393, when, in consequence of Conon's victories, Chios returned to the Athenian alliance. Conon was a friend of Isocrates, and may have given him some administrative post there. The island had long been famous for its good laws and peaceful life. Speech-writing for courts of law was obviously not permissible in an administrator ; even for an Athenian politician it was considered questionable. But there could be no objection to his teaching rhetoric if he wished. Isocrates had nine pupils in Chios, and founded his reputation as a singularly gifted teacher. When ^ Dionys. Isocr. i8, Antid. 2.