Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/375

 INFLUENCE OF ISOCRATES 351 feet, to take the great task upon him at last. He saw neither the fulfilment nor the disappointment. Did he commit suicide ? Late tradition says so — Dionysius, Pausanias, Philostratus, Lucian, pseudo-Plutarch, and the Life, in unison. At any rate, it is certain that nine days — Aristotle says five days — after Chaeronea, Isocrates was dead. His seven legal speeches are able, and free from chicanery, but they are too full-dress and they do not bite. His letters to the sons of Jason, to Timotheus, and the rulers of Mitylene, show the real influence which this secluded teacher possessed ; and one inclined to accuse him of servility to his royal correspondents will do well to read the letter of his enemy (Speusippus ?), numbered 30 in the Socratic collection. We have noticed briefly his relation with Plato.^ With Aristotle it was something the same. The pupils of the two men developed eventually a violent feud ; the masters respected one another. Plato moved mostly in a different sphere from the teacher of style ; but Aristotle taught rhetoric himself, and is said, in justify- ing his enterprise, to have parodied a line of Euripides, " Base to sit dumby and let barbarians speak," by substitut- ing 'Isocrates' for 'barbarians.' The strictly scientific method of the Rhetoric implies, of course, a criticism of the half-scientific, half-empirical method of Isocrates. But if Aristotle criticises, he also follows. Not only did his first great work, the Exhortation to Philosophy,* defi- nitely prefer the Isocratic model to the Platonic, but whenever in his later life he strives after style, it is style according to Isocrates. Also, among previous teachers of rhetoric, Isocrates, though not philosophical enough ^ I cannot think that the ' bald-headed tinker ' of Rep. vi. is Isocrates.