United States or Pakistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Of thirty-two historical writings read and excerpted by Photius in his Bibliotheca, late in the ninth century, nineteen are lost; of several of the Attic orators, Lysias, Lycurgus, Hyperides, Dinarchus, he possessed many more speeches than we have seen. In the twelfth century John Tzetzes and Eustathius apparently had access still to very many lost authors.
Hyperides and Lycurgus never went out, did not so much as dare show their noses beyond the gates; they sat snug inside in a domestic state of siege, composing poor little decrees and resolutions.
"After all, to do thee justice, /mon petit Abbe/, example has little to do with corrupting us. Nature pleads the cause of pleasure as Hyperides pleaded that of Phryne. She has no need of eloquence: she unveils the bosom of her client, and the client is acquitted." "Monseigneur shows at least that he has learned to profit by my humble instructions in the classics," said Dubois.
Archias, formerly an actor, was their captain, and was thence called the exile-hunter. This Archias finding Hyperides the orator, Aristonicus and Himeraeus in Aegina, took them by force out of the temple of Aeacus, whither they had fled for safety, and sent them to Antipater, and put them all to death; and Hyperides, they say, had his tongue cut out.
He was admired through all Greece, the king of Persia courted him, and by Philip himself he was more esteemed than all the other orators. His very enemies were forced to confess that they had to do with a man of mark; for such a character even Aeschines and Hyperides give him, where they accuse and speak against him. Demosthenes would never turn aside or prevaricate, either in word or deed.
This Archias finding Hyperides the orator, Aristonicus of Marathon, and Himeraeus, the brother of Demetrius the Phalerian, in Aegina, took them by force out of the temple of Aeacus, whither they were fled for safety, and sent them to Antipater, then at Cleonae, where they were all put to death; and Hyperides, they say, had his tongue cut out.
But he is certainly more florid than either Hyperides or Lysias; partly from the natural turn of his genius, and partly by choice. There were likewise two others, at the time we are speaking of, whose characters were equally dissimilar; and yet both of them were truly Attic.
In return, I name Demosthenes, Aeschines, Hyperides,18 and many others, in opposition to Lysias; while I confront Cato and the Gracchi with Caesar, Pollio,19 Caelius,20 but, above all, Cicero, whose longest speech is generally considered his best. Why, no doubt about it, in good compositions, as in everything else that is valuable, the more there is of them, the better.
For Aeschines and Hyperides, in their very accusations, give him such a character. I wonder, therefore, how Theopompus could say that he was a man of no steadiness, who was never long pleased either with the same persons or things.
Cicero regards the advent of these two men, M. Antonius and Crassus, as analogous to that of Demosthenes and Hyperides at Athens. They first raised Latin eloquence to a height that rivalled that of Greece. But though their merits were so evenly balanced that it was impossible to decide between them, their excellencies were by no means the same.
Word Of The Day