Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/57

Rh grave manliness of the Attic orators, and the effeminate luxuriance of the so-called Asiatic school of oratory. On one occasion he read to his audience in Rhodes his speech against Ctesiphon, and when some of his hearers expressed their astonishment at his having been defeated notwithstanding his brilliant oration, he replied, " You would cease to be astonished, if you had heard Demosthenes." (Cic. De Orat. 3.56; Plin. Nat. 7.30; Plin. Ep. 2.3; Quinctil. 11.3.6.) From Rhodes he went to Samos, where he died in B. C. 314.

The conduct of Aeschines has been censured by the writers of all ages; and for this many reasons may be mentioned. In the first place, and above all, it was his misfortune to be constantly placed in juxtaposition or opposition to the spotless glory of Demosthenes, and this must have made him appear more guilty in the eyes of those who saw through his actions, while in later times the contrast between the greatest orators of the time was frequently made the theme of rhetorical declamation, in which one of the two was praised or blamed at the cost of the other, and less with regard to truth than to effect. Respecting the last period of his life we scarcely possess any other source of information than the accounts of late sophists and declamations. Another point to be considered in forming a just estimate of the character of Aeschines is, that he had no advantages of education, and that he owed his greatness to none but himself. His occupations during the early part of his life were such as necessarily engendered in him the low desire of gain and wealth; and had he overcome these passions, he would have been equal to Demosthenes. There is, however, not the slightest ground for believing, that Aeschines recommended peace with Macedonia at first from any other motive than the desire of promoting the good of his country. Demosthenes himself acted in the same spirit at that time, for the craftiness of Philip deceived both of them. But while Demosthenes altered his policy on discovering the secret intentions of the king, Aeschines continued to advocate the principles of peace. But there is nothing to justify the belief that Aeschines intended to ruin his country, and it is much more probable that the crafty king made such an impression upon him, that he firmly believed he was doing right, and was thus unconsciously led on to become a traitor to his country. But no ancient writer except Demosthenes charges him with having received bribes from the Macedonians for the purpose of betraying his country. He appears to have been carried away by the favour of the king and the people, who delighted in hearing from him what they themselves wished, and, perhaps also, by the opposition of Demosthenes himself.

Aeschines spoke on various occasions, but he published only three of his orations, namely, against Timarchus, on the Embassy, and against Ctesiphon. As an orator, he was inferior to none but Demosthenes. He was endowed by nature with extraordinary oratorical powers, of which his orations afford abundant proofs. The facility and felicity of his diction, the boldness and the vigour of his descriptions, carry away the reader now, as they must have carried away his audience. The ancients, as Photius (Phot. Bibl. 61) remarks, designated these three orations as the Graces, and the nine letters which were extant in the time of Photius, as the Muses. Besides the three orations, we now possess twelve letters which are ascribed to Aeschines, which however are in all probability not more genuine than the so-called epistles of Phalaris, and are undoubtedly the work of late sophists.

The principal sources of information concerning Aeschines are: 1. The orations of Demosthenes on the Embassy, and on the Crown, and the orations of Aeschines on the Embassy and against Ctesiphon. These four orations were translated into Latin by Cicero; but the translation is lost, and we now possess only an essay which Cicero wrote as an introduction to them: De optimo genere Oratorum. 2. The life in Plutarch's Vitae decem Oratorum. 3. The life of Aeschines by Philostratus. 4. The life of Aeschines by Libanius. 5. Apollonius' Exegesis. The last two works are printed in Reiske's edition, p. 10, foll. The best modern essay on Aeschines is that by Passow in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopädie, ii. p. 73, &c. There is also a work by E. Stechow, De Aeschinis Oratoris Vita, Berlin, 1841, 4to., which is an attempt to clear the character of Aeschines from all the reproaches that have been attached to it; but the essay is written in exceedingly bad Latin, and the attempt is a most complete failure.

The first edition of the orations of Aeschines is that of Aldus Manutius in his Collectio Rhetorum Graecorum, Venice, 1513, fol. An edition with a Latin translation, which also contains the letters ascribed to Aeschines, is that of H. Wolf, Basel. 1572, fol. The next important edition is that by Taylor, which contains the notes of Wolf, Taylor, and Markland, and appeared at Cambridge in 1748-56 in his collection of the Attic orators. In Reiske's edition of the Attic orators Aeschines occupies the third volume, Lips. 1771, 8vo. The best editions are those of I. Bekker, vol. iii. of his Oratores Attici, Oxford, 1822, 8vo., for which thirteen new MSS. were collated, and of F. H. Bremi, Zurich, 1823, 2 vols. 8vo.

The oration against Demosthenes has been translated into English by Portal and Leland.

AE'SCHINES (Αἰσχίνης), an Athenian philosopher and rhetorician, son of a sausage-seller, or, according to other accounts, of Lysanias (D. L. 2.60; Suidas, s. v. Ἀισχίνης), and a disciple, although by some of his contemporaries held an unworthy one, of Socrates. From the account of Laertius, he appears to have been the familiar friend of his great master, who said that " the sausage-seller's son only knew how to honour him." The same writer has preserved a tradition that it was Aeschines, and not Crito, who offered to assist Socrates in his escape from prison.

The greater part of his life was spent in abject poverty, which gave rise to the advice of Socrates to him, "to borrow money of himself, by diminishing his daily wants." After the death of his master, according to the charge of Lysias apud Athen. xiii. p. 611e. f.), he kept a perfumer's shop with borrowed money, and presently becoming bankrupt, was obliged to leave Athens. Whether from necessity or inclination, he followed the fashion of the day, and retired to the Syracusan court, where the friendship of Aristippus might console him for the contempt of Plato. He remained there until the expulsion of the younger Dionysius, and on his return, finding it useless to attempt a rivalry with his great contemporaries, he gave private lectures. One of the charges which his opponents