Note 58 — Chapter I · LIFE OF ARISTOTLE.
Reading edition
Dionysius, while admiring Isocrates, complains of him, and complains still more of his imitators, as somewhat monotonous, wanting in flexibility and variety (De Compos. Verborum, p. 134). Yet he pronounces Isokrates and Lysias to be more natural, shewing less of craft and art than Isæus and Demosthenes (De Isæo Judicium, p. 592). Isokrates τὸν ὄγκον τῆς ποιητικῆς κατασκευῆς ἐπὶ λόγους ἤγαγε φιλοσόφους, ζηλώσας τοὺς περὶ Γοργίαν. (Dionys. Hal. ad Pompeium de Platone, p. 764; also De Isæo Judicium, p. 592; besides the special chapter, p. 534, seq., which he has devoted to Isokrates.)
Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 44, 173: “Idque princeps Isocrates instituisse fertur, ut inconditam antiquorum dicendi consuetudinem delectationis atque aurium causâ, quemadmodum scribit discipulus ejus Naucrates, numeris adstringeret.” Compare Cicero, Orator. 52, 175, 176.
The reference to Naucrates (whose works have not been preserved, though Dionysius commends his Λόγος Ἐπιτάφιος, Ars. Rhet. p. 259) is interesting, as it shews what was said of Isokrates by his own disciples. Cicero says of the doctrines in his own dialogue De Oratore (Epist. ad Famil. i. 9, 23), “Abhorrent a communibus præceptis, et omnem antiquorum, et Aristoteleam et Isocrateam, rationem oratoriam complectuntur.” About the Τέχνη of Isokrates, see Spengel, Συναγωγὴ Τεχνῶν (Munich), pp. 155-170.