Born at Athens, B.C. 436. Died B.C. 338. Aged 98.]
It is said that Isocrates was the first man to describe the true value
and objects of oratory. His language is the purest Attic; his style,
which he elaborated with great pains, elegant and polished. As teacher
of rhetoric, he became the instructor of the chief youths of his time.
He composed several discourses on great political occasions, and
amassed considerable wealth. He had throughout life a constitutional
timidity, and a weakness of voice that prevented him from speaking in
the assemblies of the people. Socrates had been one of his masters. His
character appears to have been spotless.
[From the bust in the Villa Albani at Rome, bearing the name of
Isocrates. A statue of him was sculptured by Leochares for the temple
of Eleusis, and another is described by Pausanias as in the temple of
Jupiter Olympius, which statue is spoken of by Christodorus, as being
at Constantinople in his time.]