Dictionary
LYCURGUS	100.00%
Son of Dryas, king of the Thracian Edoni, threatened Dionysus with a scourge when he was wandering about on the Mount Nysa with his nurses, which made them let the holy implements fall to the ground, while the god sought shelter with Thetis in the sea. The gods punished him with blindness and an early death [Il. vi 130-140]. According to another legend, he was made mad by Dionysus and cut off his son's limbs, imagining that he was pruning the shoots of a vine. In accordance with the god's prophecy that his death alone could deliver the land from its temporary barrenness, he was led by the Edoni to Mount Pangaeus, where Dionysus caused him to be torn to pieces by horses.
LYCURGUS	100.00%
One of the Ten Attic Orators, born about B.C. 390 at Athens, of a noble family, pupil of Plato and Socrates. With Demosthenes and Hyperides he was a principal representative of the patriotic party, and directed his exertions especially to the improvemetit of the internal affairs of Athens. During his administration of the finances, a period of twelve years (338-326), lie won great credit by increasing the revenues of the state and the military strength of Athens, by beautifying the city with magnificent buildings, such as the completion of the theatre of Dionysus, and the building of the Panathenaic Stadium, and by causing copies of the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to be preserved in the public archives. He died in 329, and was interred at the public expense. The Athenians did honour to his memory by raising a statue of bronze in his honour on the market-place and by a decree which is still extant [Hicks, Greek Historical Inscriptions, No. 145]. His speeches, of which the ancients possessed fifteen, elaborated with the greatest care, were remarkable for their serious moral tone and noble manner, though they were wanting in grace of form, and apt to become tedious owing to frequent digressions. These merits and defects are exemplified in the only speech of his now extant, that against Leocrates.
ARCHEMORUS	29.91%
A surname given to Opheltes, the infant son of Lycurgus king of Nemea, who was killed by a snake during the march of the Seven against Thebes (q.v.). It was given him by the seer Amphiaraus, who foresaw the destruction awaiting himself and his confederates; and by it the child was invoked at the Nemean Games originally founded in memory of him.
BUTES	28.60%
A Thracian, the son of Boreas. His brother Lycurgus, whose life he had attempted, banished him, and he settled on the island of Strongyle or Naxos. Finding here no wives for himself and his companions, he carried off some women from Thessaly, while they were celebrating a sacrifice to Dionysus. One of these, Coronis, whom he had forced to be his wife, prayed to Dionysus for vengeance. The god drove him mad, and he threw himself into a well.
AREITHOUS	28.18%
King of Arne in Boeotia, called the " club-swinger " because he fought with an iron mace. Irresistible in the open field, he was waylaid by king Lycurgus of Arcadia in a narrow pass where he could not swing his club, and killed. His son Menesthius fell by the hand of Paris, before Troy.
OPHELTES	27.66%
Son of king Lycurgus of Nemea. He was killed by a serpent at the time of the expedition of the Seven against Thebes (q.v.), owing to the negligence of his nurse Hypsipyle (q.v.), who laid the boy on the grass while she showed the thirsty heroes the way to a spring of water. It was in his memory that the Nemean games were originally celebrated, and he was worshipped there under the name Archemorus (q.v.), given him by the seer Amphiaraus.
SPARTIATE	27.54%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 In Sparta the ruling class of those who had the full rights of citizens, as distinguished from the subject Perioeci and Helots (q.v.). They were the descendants of the Dorians, who had formerly conquered the land under the leadership of Aristodemus. As to the manner in which they were divided, see PHYLE. Their number is said never to have exceeded 10,000, and, as they were utterly opposed to the admission of foreign elements, it was constantly decreasing. At the time of the Persian wars it still amounted to 8,000, about 320 B.C. to little more than 1,000. They were called homoioi (men sharing equal rights), with reference to the equality established amongst them by the legislation of Lycurgus, (1) in their education (q.v.), which was exclusively directed towards fitting them for service in war; (2) in their way of living, especially in the meals which they had in common (see SYSSITIA); (3) in their property; (4) and in their political rights. To every family of Spartiatoe an equal portion of land was assigned by Lycurgus, with a number of helots who had settled upon it, who had to cultivate the property and deliver the produce to its possessor. The Spartiatoe themselves were not allowed to engage in a handicraft, or in trade, or in agriculture; their whole life had to be devoted to the service of the State, and therefore they had their abode in Sparta itself. The allotted land and the helots were accounted State property, and the possessors had no kind of right to dispose of them. Families which were dying out were preserved by adopting sons of families related to them, and similarly heiresses were married to men without inheritance of their own. If a family consisted of several male members, then the eldest was considered as head of the family, and had to support his brothers. The original equality of property came to, an end, partly through the extinction of many families and the transference of their lot of ground, partly by the silent abrogation of the old law, which did not allow the Spartiatoe to possess silver or gold, but chiefly after the law of Epitadeus, by which the free disposal of land was allowed , if not by sale, at least by gift during lifetime and by will. But the principle of aristocratic equality long continued inform; and only those who did not fulfil the conditions attached to the equality of rights, or who did not obey the injunctions of Lycurgus as to the education of the young, and as to the life of adult citizens, or who did not contribute to the common meals, suffered a diminution of their political rights. This involved exclusion from the government and administration of the State, as well as from the right of electing or being elected to office; but the punishment affected the individual only, and did not descend to his children, nor did it touch his position in personal law.
PHILO	18.61%
GERUSIA	17.35%
The supreme deliberative authority among the Spartans, according to the constitution of Lycurgus. It consisted of twenty-eight men of at least sixty years of age, called Gerontes, elected by the public assembly for life. The meetings of the Gerusia were presided over by the two kings, who had the right of voting. The number of the council therefore amounted to thirty. It was their duty to deliberate beforehand on all important affairs of state, and prepare preliminary resolutions upon them, to be voted upon by the public assembly. They had also jurisdiction in the case of all offences which were punishable by death or loss of civil rights. They satin judgment, if necessary, even on the kings, in later times associating the ephors with them in this function. Their authority, like that of the kings, suffered considerable restriction at the hands of the ephors. They had a similar position in the Cretan constitution, according to which only the members of the highest magistracy, called the Cosmoi, or regulators, could enter the council, and that after a blameless term of administration.
THETIS	16.07%
Daughter of Nerens and Doris, wife of Peleus, and mother of Achilles. On many occasions she proved herself of assistance to the gods. When Zeus was threatened by Hera, Athene, and Poseidon, she called Briareus (or Aegaeon) to his aid. When Hephaestus was cast out of heaven by Zeus, she took him and hid him for nine years. Again, when Dionysus was fleeing before Lycurgus, she afforded him protection in the sea. Brought up by Hera, she was wooed by Zeus and Poseidon. But when Themis foretold that Thetis would bear a son who would be greater than his father, she was married against her will to a mortal, Peleus (q.v.). This marriage was the source of the greatest sorrow to her. Her attempt to make her only son Achilles immortal was frustrated by her husband, and caused an estrangement between them, and she was fated to see her glorious and godlike son cut off in the prime of life.
HYPSIPYLE	13.80%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Daughter of Thoas of Lemnos. The Lemnian women had, from jealousy, killed all the men of the island; Hypsipyle alone spared her father Thoas, having been the means of aiding his flight. When the Argonauts landed at Lemnos and married the women, Hypsipyle bore twin sons to Jason: <Euneus, who in Homer figures as king of Lemnos and carries on trade with the Greeks before Troy; and Thoas, who is sometimes described as a son of Dionysus. When the news of her father's escape was rumoured among the Lemnian women, Hypsipyle was forced to flee for her life, and was captured by pirates, who sold her to Lycurgus of Nemea. There, as the nurse of Opheltes, the infant son of the king, she accidentally caused his death (see SEVEN AGAINST THEBES), and was exposed to the greatest danger, from which she was only rescued by the intervention of her sons, who were sent to her aid by Dionysus.
EPHORS	12.24%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A boardof five members at Sparta, elected annually from all the citizens. It is said to have been established by Lycurgus or king Theopompus (770 B.C.). The original intention was that it should give decisions in private matters, and represent the absent kings in certain of their duties, especially the superintendence of the officials and of public discipline. But their circle of authority gradually widened, till it came to mean a superintendence over the whole commonwealth, including the kings. The ephors had the right of raising objections against their actions, calling them, like other officials, to account for their conduct, punishing them with fines and reprimands, and even prosecuting them before the senate, and threatening them with deposition and death. They were the only citizens who were not obliged to rise in the kings' presence, a fact which gives a good idea of the relative position of the two parties. Besides the duty of opposing everything which they thought adverse to the laws and interests of Sparta, they had from early times the right of summoning the deliberative and legislative assemblies, the Gerusia and Ecclesia, to make proposals to them, and take the lead in proceedings left to their management. Two of them regularly accompanied the kings on their campaigns. It is probable also that they had the superintendence of the public treasure. In their capacity of protectors of the public discipline their authority extended itself to the minutest details of private life. In regard to the Helots and Periceci it was still more alsolute. Even on a pericecus they could pass sentence of death without trial. (See PERICECI) On important occasions a majority of their votes was required. At the end of their annual office, on which they entered at the beginning of the Spartan year or at the time of the autumnal equinox, they were liable to be called to account by their successors. The year was dated by the name of the first Ephor on the board.
RHAPSODIST	7.72%
ISOCRATES	7.37%
The fourth among the Ten Attic Orators, was born at Athens B.C. 436. He was the son of Theodorus, the wealthy proprietor of a flute manufactory, who provided for his son's receiving a careful education. Accordingly he had the advantage of being instructed by Prodicus, Protagoras, Theramenes, and (above all) Gorgias; his character was also moulded by the influence of Secrates, although he never belonged to the more restricted circle of his pupils. Bashfulness and a weak voice prevented him from taking part in public life. After the fall of the Thirty, as his father had lost his means in the calamitous years that closed the Peloponnesian War, he turned his attention to composing forensic speeches for others. After having taught rhetoric at Chios [possibly about 404 B.C.], he returned to Athens in 403, and there opened a regular school of rhetoric about 392. It was largely attended by both Athenians and non-Athenians, and brought him in considerable wealth. The total number of his pupils has been given at one hundred, including Timotheus, the son of Conon, the orators Isaeus, Hyperides, and Lycurgus, and the historians Ephorus and Theopompus. Isocrates also had friendly relations with foreign princes, especially with Evagoras of Cyprus and his son Nicocles, who loaded him with favours. He kept himself completely aloof from any personal share in the public life of his day; yet he attempted to influence the political world, not only within the narrow bounds of his native land, but also throughout the whole of Greece, by a series of rhetorical declamations, not intended to be delivered, but only to be read. This he did in the first place in his Panegyricus, which he published in 380 B.C., after spending ten or (according to another account) as many as fifteen years over its preparation. This is a kind of festal oration eulogising the services of Athens to Greece, exhorting the Spartans peacefully to share the supremacy with Athens, and calling on the Greeks to lay aside all internal dissensions and attack the barbarians with their united strength. In the ninetieth year of his age, in a discourse addressed to Philip, in 346 B.C., he endeavours to induce that monarch to carry out his policy by reconciling all the Greeks to one another, and leading their united forces against the Persians. Other discourses relate, to the internal politics of Athens. Thus, in the Areopagiticus, he recommends his fellow citizens to get rid of the existing weaknesses in their political constitution by returning to the democracy as founded by Solon and reconstituted by Clisthenus, and by reinstating the Areopagus as the supreme tribunal of censorship over public decorum and morality. He retained his mental and bodily powers unimpaired to an advanced age, and in his ninety-eighth year completed the Panathenaicus, a discourse in praise of Athens. He lived to see the total wreck of all his hopes for a regeneration of Greecep and died B.C. 338, a few days after the battle of Chaeronea, He is said to have died of voluntary starvation, owing to his despair at the downfall of Greek liberty; [but this account of his death, familiarised by Milton in his fifth English sonnet, must be considered as doubtful.] There were sixty compositions bearing his name known to antiquity, but less than half that number were considered genuine. Of the twenty-one which have come down to us, the first, the Letter to Demonicus, is often regarded as spurious, [but there is no reason to doubt the genuineness of nine of the ten other Letters. It is only the letter prefixed to the nine in the older editions that is not genuine, having been really written by Theophylact Simocatta early in the 7th century A.D.] Of the speeches, six are forensic orations, written to be delivered by others; the rest are declamations, chiefly on political subjects. By his mastery of style, Isocrates had a far-reaching influence on all subsequent Greek prose, which is not confined to oratorical composition alone. His chief strength lies in a careful choice of expression, not only in his vocabulary, but also in the rhythmical formation of his flowing periods, in a skilful use of the figures of speech, and in all that lends euphony to language. [Even in Latin, the oratorical prose of Cicero is, on its formal side, founded chiefly on that of Isocrates. Modern literary prose has, in its turn, been mainly modelled on that of Cicero, and thus the influence of Isocrates has endured to the present day.]
PLUTARCH	7.17%
A Greek writer of biographies and miscellaneous works, who was born at Chaeronea in Baetia, about 50 A.D. He came of a distinguished and wealthy family, and enjoyed a careful education. His philosophical training he received at Athens, especially in the school of the Peripatetic Ammonius (of Lamptrae in Attica, who is identified with Ammonius] the Egyptian. After this he made several journeys and stayed a considerable time in Rome, where he gave public lectures on philosophy, was in friendly intercourse with persons of distinction, and conducted the education of the future emperor Hadrian. From Trajan he received consular rank, and by Hadrian he was in his old age named procurator of Greece. He died about 120 in his native town, in which he held the office of archon and of priest of the Pythian Apollo. His fame as an author is founded principally upon his Parallel Lives . These he probably prepared in Rome under the reign of Trajan, but completed and published late in life at Chaeronea. The biographies are divided into connected pairs, each pair placing a Greek and a Roman in juxtaposition, and generally ending with a comparative view of the two; of these we still possess forty-six: Theseus and Romillus, Lycurgus and Numa, Solon and Valerius Publicola, Themistocles and Camillus, Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Alcibiades and Coriolanus, Timoleon and Aemilius Paulus, Pelopidas and Marcellus, Aristides and the elder Cato, Philopaemen and Flamininus, Pyrrhus and Marius, Lysander and Sulla, Cimon and Lucullus, Nicias and Crassus, Eumenes and Sertorius, Agesilaus and Pompeius, Alexander and Caesar, Phocion and the younger Cato, Agis and Cleomenes and the two Gracchi, Demosthenes and Cicero, Demetrius Poliorcetes and Antonius, Dion and Brutus . To these are added the four specially elaborated lives of Artaxerxis Mnenon, Aratus, Galba, and Otho; a number of other biographies are lost. Plutarch's object was, not to write history, but out of more or less important single traits to form distinct sketches of character. The sketches show indeed a certain uniformity, in as much as Plutarch has a propensity to pourtray the persons represented either as models of virtue in general, or as slaves of some passion in particular; but the lives are throughout attractive, owing to the liveliness and warmth of the portraiture, the moral earnestness with which they are penetrated, and the enthusiasm which they display for everything noble and great. For these reasons they have always had a wide circle of readers. More than this, their historical value is not to be meanly estimated, in spite of the lack of criticism in the use of the authorities and the manifold inaccuracies and mistakes, which, in the Roman lives, were in part the result of a defective knowledge of the Latin language. There are a large number of valuable pieces of information in which they fill up numerous gaps in the historical narratives that have been handed down to us. Besides this work, eighty-three writings of various kinds (some of them only fragments and epitomes of larger treatises) are preserved under the name of Plutarch. These are improperly classed together under the title Moralia (ethical writings); for this designation is only applicable to a part of them. The form or these works is as diverse as their tenour and scope: some are treatises and reports of discourses; a large number is composed in the form of Platonic or Aristotelian dialogues; others again are learned collections and notices put together without any special plan of arrangement. A considerable portion of them are of disputable authenticity or have been proved to be spurious. About half are of philosophical and ethical tenour, and have for the most part a popular and practical tendency, some of them being of great value for the history of philosophy, such as the work on the opinions of the philosophers (De Placitis Philosophorum) in five books. Others belong to the domain of religion and worship, such as the works on Isis and Osiris, on the Oracles of the Pythia Priestess, and on the Decay of the Oracles; others to that of the natural sciences, while others again are treatises on history and antiquities, or on the history of literature, such as the Greek and Roman Questions, and the Lives of the Ten Orators. [This last is undoubtedly spurious.) One of most instructive and entertaining of all his works is the Table-talk (Questiones Conviviales) in nine books, which deal inter alia, with a series of questions of history, archaeology, mythology, and physics. But even with these works his literary productiveness was not exhausted; for, besides these, twenty-four lost writings are known to us by their titles and by fragments. In his language he aims at attaining the pure Attic style, without, however, being able altogether to avoid the deviations from that standard which were generally prevalent in his time.
OLYMPIAN GAMES	6.85%
AESCHYLUS	6.71%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The earliest of the three great tragic poets of Greece, son of Euphorion. He was born at Eleusis, near Athens, B.C. 525, of an old and noble stock, fought at Marathon, Salamis and Plataeae, and in his 25th year appeared as a writer of tragedies and rival of Pratinas and Choerilus, though he did not win his first victory till 488 B.C. About 476 he lived in Sicily, at the court of Hiero of Syracuse, and composed his Aetnoeans for the consecration of the city of Aetna, founded by that king in the place of the ancient Catana. On his return to Athens he was beaten by the young Sophocles with his very first play, but vanquished him again the next year with the Tetralogy of which the Seven against Thebes formed a part. After the performance of his Oresteia, B.C. 459, he quitted home once more, perhaps in disgust at the growing power of the democracy; and after three years' residence at Gela in Sicily, was killed, says one story, by an eagle dropping a tortoise on his bare skull. The inhabitants of Gela buried his remains, and honoured them with a splendid monument. At a later time the Athenians, on the motion of the orator Lycurgus, placed a brazen statue of him, as well as of Sophocles and Euripides, in the theatre; by a decree of the people a chorus was granted for every performance of his plays, and the garland of victory voted him as though be were still living among them. His tragedies, like those of the other two, were preserved in a special standard copy, to guard them against arbitrary alterations. His son Euphorion was also an esteemed tragic poet, so was his sister's son Philocles and his descendants for several generations. (See TRAGEDY.) The number of Aeschylus's plays is stated as 90, of which 82 are still known by title, but only 7 are preserved: (1) The Persians, performed in 473 B.C., was named from the chorus. Its subject was the same as that of Phrynichus' Phaenissae, the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis, but was differently treated. (2) The Seven against Thebes, part of a Tetralogy, embracing the cycle of Theban legend, of which Laius and OEdipus formed the first two pieces, and the satyric drama Sphinx the conclusion. (3) The Suppliants, the reception of Danaus and his daughters at Argos, evidently part of another Tetralogy, and, to judge by the simple plot and its old-fashioned treatment, one of his earliest works. (4) Prometheus Bound, part of a Trilogy, the Prometheia, whose first and last pieces were probably Prometheus the Fire-bringer and Prometheus Unbound. Lastly, the Oresteia, the one Trilogy which has survived, consisting of the three tragedies, (5) Agamemnon, the murder of that hero on his return home; (6) The Choephoroe, named from the chorus of captive Trojan women offering libations at Agamemnon's tomb, in which Orestes avenges himself on Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra; and (7) The Eumenides, in which Orestes, pursued by the Furies, is acquitted by the Areopagus at Athens. This Trilogy, composed B.C. 458, and probably the last work exhibited by Aeschylus at Athens, gives us an idea of the whole artistic conception of the poet, and must be looked upon as one of the greatest works of art ever produced. The style is marked by sublimity and majesty, qualities partly attributable to the courageous and serious temper of the time, but chiefly the offspring of the poet's individuality, which took delight in all that is great and grand, and loved to express itself in strong, sonorous words, an accumulation of epithets, and a profusion of bold metaphors and similes. His view of the universe reveals a profoundly philosophic mind, so that the ancients call him a Pythagorean; at the same time he is penetrated by a heartfelt piety, which conceives of the gods as powers working in the interest of morality. However simple the plot of his plays, they display an art finished to the minutest detail. His Trilogies either embraced one complete cycle of myths, or united separate legends according to their moral or mythical affinity; even the satyric dramas attached to the Tragedies Stand in intimate connexion with them. Aeschylus is the true creator of Tragedy, inasmuch as, by adding a second actor to the first, he originated the genuine dramatic dialogue, which he made the chief part of the play by gradually cutting down the lyrical or choral parts. Scenic apparatus he partly created and partly completed. He introduced masks for the players, and by gay and richly embroidered trailing garments, the high buskin, head-dresses, and other means, gave them a grand imposing aspect above that of common men; and he fitted up the stage with decorative painting and machinery. According to the custom of the time, he acted in his own plays, practised the chorus in their songs and dances, and himself invented new dance figures.
SEVEN AGAINST THEBES, THE	6.35%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 OEdipus, king of Thebes, had pronounced a curse upon his sons Eteocles and Polynices, that they should die at one another's hand. In order to make the fulfilment of the curse impossible, by separating himself from his brother, Polynices left Thebes while his father was still alive, and at Argos married Argeia, the daughter of Adrastus (q.v.). On the death of his father he was recalled, and offered by Eteocles, who was the elder of the two, 1 the choice between the kingdom and the treasures of OEdipus; but, on account of a quarrel that arose over the division, he departed a second time and induced his father-in-law to undertake a war against his native city. According to another legend, the brothers deprived their father of the kingdom, and agreed to rule alternately, and to quit the city for a year at a time. Polynices, as the younger, first went into voluntary banishment; but when, after the expiration of a year, Eteocles denied him his right, and drove him out by violence, he fled to Argos, where Adrastus made him his son-in-law, and undertook to restore him with an armed force. Adrastus was the leader of the army; besides Polynices and Tydeus of Calydon, the other son-in-law of the king, there also took part in the expedition the king's brothers Hippomedon and Parthenopoeus (q.v.), Capaneus, a descendant of Proetus, and Amphiaraus (q.v.), the latter against his will, and foreseeing his own death. The Atridae were invited to join in the expedition, but were withheld by evil omens from Zeus. When the Seven reached Nemea on their march, a fresh warning befell them. Hypsipyle, the nurse of Opheltes, the son of king Lycurgus, laid her charge down on the grass in order to lead the thirsty warriors to a spring, during her absence the child was killed by a snake. They gave him solemn burial, and instituted the Nemean games in his honour; but Amphiaraus interpreted the occurrence as an omen of his own fate, and accordingly gave the boy the name of Archemoros (i.e. leader to death). When they arrived at the river Asopus in Boeotia, they sent Tydeus (q.v.) to Thebes, in the hope of coming to terms. He was refused a hearing, and the Thebans laid an ambush for him on his return. The Seven now advanced to the walls of the city, and posted themselves with their troops one at each of its seven gates. Against them were posted seven chosen Thebans (among them Melanippus and Periclymenus). Menoeceus (q.v.) devoted himself to death to insure the victory for the Thebans. In the battle at the sanctuary of the Ismenian Apollo they were driven right back to their gates; the giant Capaneus had already climbed the wall by a scaling ladder, and was presumptuously boasting that even the lightning of Zeus should not drive him back, when the flaming bolt of the god smote him down, and dashed him to atoms. The beautiful Parthenopaesus also fell, with his skull shattered by a rock that was hurled at him. Adrastus desisted from the assault, and the armies, which had suffered severely, agreed that the originators of the quarrel, Eteocles and Polynices, should fight out their difference in single combat. Both brothers fell, and a fresh battle arose over their bodies. In this, all of the assailants met their death, except Adrastus, who was saved by the speed of his black-maned charger. According to the older legends, his eloquence persuaded the Thebans to give the fallen due burial. When the bodies of the hostile brothers were placed on the pyre, the flames, which were meant to destroy them together, parted into two portions. According to the version of the story invented by the Attic tragedians, the Thebans refused to bury their foes, but at the prayer of Adrastus were compelled to do so by Theseus; according to another version, he conquered the Thebans and buried the dead bodies at Eleusis in Attica (AeEschylus, Septem contra Thelbas). For the burial of Polynices, see ANTIGONE; further see EPIGONI. 1 This is the common tradition, followed by Euripides (Phoem. 71). Sophocles, however, exceptionally makes Polynices the elder brother (Ed. Col. 375, 1294, 1422).
RHETORIC	6.08%
Among the Greeks, rhetorike comprised the practical as well as the theoretical art of speaking, and rhetor denoted an orator no less than a teacher of oratory. Among the Romans, it denoted only the latter, the actual speaker being called orator. The first men, who reduced oratory to a system capable of being taught, appeared among the Sicilian Greeks, who, according to the (testimony of the ancients, were distinguished for the keenness of their understanding and their love of disputation [Cicero, Brutus 46]. The Syracusan CORAX (ciro. 500 B.C.) is said to have been the first who elaborated systematic rules for forensic speeches, and laid them down in writing in a manual on the art of rhetoric (techne). His pupil TISIAS (born circ. 480), and after him the Leontine GORGIAS, further cultivated the art, and from about 427 carried it to Greece itself, and in particular to Athens. In the judicial proceedings and the assemblies of the people, the practice of oratory had long been familiar at Athens, though it had not been reduced to technical rules, and oratory had had a conspicuous representative in PERICLES. At Athens the theory of oratory was further cultivated by the SOPHISTS (Gr. Sophistai, "men who professed knowledge or wisdom "). Their instruction in style and rhetoric was enjoyed by numerous Athenians, who desired by the aid of study and practice to attain to expertness in speaking. The first Athenian, who, besides imparting instruction in the new art, applied it practically to speaking in the assemblies of the people and before courts, and who published speeches as patterns for study, was ANTIPHON (died B.C. 411), the earliest of the "Ten Attic Orators." In his extant speeches the oratorical art is shown still in its beginnings. These, with the speeches interwoven in the historical work of his great pupil Thucydides, give, an idea of the crude and harsh style of the technical oratory of the time; while the speeches of ANDOCIDES (died about 399), the second of the Ten Orators, display a style that is still uninfluenced by the rhetorical teaching of the age. The first really classical orator is LYSIAS (died about 360), who, while in possession of all the technical rules of the time, handles with perfect mastery the common language of every-day life. ISOCRATES (436-338) is reckoned as the father of artistic oratory properly so called ; he is a master in the careful choice of words, in the rounding off and rhythmical formation of periods, in the apt employment of figures of speech, and in everything which lends charm to language. By his mastery of style he has exercised the most far-reaching influence upon the oratorical diction of all succeeding time. Of the three kinds of speeches which were distinguished by the ancients, political (or deliberative), forensic, and showspeeches (or declamations), he specially cultivated the last. Among his numerous pupils is ISAeUS (about 400-350), who in his general method of oratory closely follows Lysias, though he shows a more matured skill in the controversial use of oratorical resources. The highest point was attained by his pupil DEMOSTHENES, the greatest orator of antiquity (384-322); next to him comes his political opponent AeSCHINES (389-314). The number of the Ten Orators is completed by their contemporaries HYPERIDES, LYCURGUS, and DINARCHUS. In the last of these the beginning of the decline of oratorical art is already clearly apparent. To the time of Demosthenes belongs the oldest manual of rhetoric which has been preserved to us, that of ANAXIMENES of Lampsacus. This is founded on the practice of oratory, and, being intended for immediate practical use, shows no trace of any philosophical groundwork or philosophical research. Greek rhetoric owes to ARISTOTLE its proper reduction into a scientific system. In contrast to Isocrates, who aims at perfection of form and style, Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, lays special stress on subject-matter, and mainly devotes himself to setting forth the means of producing conviction. When Athens had lost her liberty, practical oratory was more and more reduced to silence; the productions of the last orators, such as DEMETRIUS of nus (q.v.), the god of the river, made her his wife. According to an older tradition, the mother of the founders of Rome was Ilia, daughter of Aeneas (q.v.) and Lavinia.
DEMOSTHENES	3.95%