Note 62 — Chapter I · LIFE OF ARISTOTLE.

Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 35, 141. “Itaque ipse Aristoteles quum florere Isocratem nobilitate discipulorum videret, quod ipse suas disputationes a causis forensibus et civilibus ad inanem sermonis elegantiam transtulisset, mutavit repente totam formam prope disciplinæ suæ, versumque quendam Philoctetæ paulo secus dixit. Ille enim ‘turpe sibi ait esse tacere, quum barbaros’ — hic autem, ‘quum Isocratem’ — ‘pateretur dicere’” See Quintilian, Inst. Or. iv. 2, 196; and Cicero, Orator. 19, 62: “Aristoteles Isocratem ipsum lacessivit.” Also, ib. 51, 172: “Omitto Isocratem discipulosque ejus Ephorum et Naucratem; quanquam orationis faciendæ et ornandæ auctores locupletissimi summi ipsi oratores esse debebant. Sed quis omnium doctior, quis acutior, quis in rebus vel inveniendis vel judicandis acrior Aristotele fuit? Quis porro Isocrati adversatus est infensius?” That Aristotle was the first to assail Isokrates, and that Kephisodôrus wrote only in reply, is expressly stated by Numenius, ap. Euseb. Pr. Ev. xiv. 6: ὁ Κηφισόδωρος, ἐπειδὴ ὑπ’ Ἀριστοτέλους βαλλόμενον ἑαυτῷ τὸν διδάσκαλον Ἰσοκράτην ἑώρα, &c. Quintilian also says, Inst. Or. iii. 1, p. 126: “Nam et Isocratis præstantissimi discipuli fuerunt in omni studiorum genere; eoque jam seniore (octavum enim et nonagesimum implevit annum) pomeridianis scholis Aristoteles præcipere artem oratoriam cœpit; noto quidem illo (ut traditur) versu ex Philoctetâ frequenter usus: Αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾷν μέν, καὶ Ἰσοκράτην ἐᾷν λέγειν.”

Diogenes La. (v. 3) maintains that Aristotle turned the parody not against Isokrates, but against Xenokrates: Αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾷν, Ξενοκράτην δ’ ἐᾷν λέγειν. But the authority of Cicero and Quintilian is decidedly preferable. When we recollect that the parody was employed by a young man, as yet little known, against a teacher advanced in age, and greatly frequented as well as admired by pupils, it will appear sufficiently offensive. Moreover, it does not seem at all pertinent; for the defects of Isokrates, however great they may have been, were not those of analogy with βάρβαροι, but the direct reverse. Dionysius must have been forcibly struck with the bitter animus displayed by Aristotle against Isokrates, when he makes it a reason for rejecting the explicit averment of Aristotle as to a matter of fact: καὶ οὔτ’ Ἀριστοτέλει πείθομαι ῥυπαίνειν τὸν ἄνδρα βουλομένῳ (De Isocr. Jud. p. 577).

Mr. Cope, in his Introduction to Aristotle’s Rhetoric (p. 39, seq.), gives a just representation of the probable relations between Aristotle and Isokrates; though I do not concur in the unfavourable opinion which he expresses about “the malignant influence exercised by Isokrates upon education in general” (p. 40). Mr. Cope at the same time remarks, that “Aristotle in the Rhetorica draws a greater number of illustrations of excellences of style from Isokrates than from any other author” (p. 41); and he adds, very truly, that the absence of any evidence of ill feeling towards Isokrates in Aristotle’s later work, and the existence of such ill feeling as an actual fact at an earlier period, are perfectly reconcileable in themselves (p. 42).

That the Rhetorica of Aristotle which we now possess is a work of his later age, certainly published, perhaps composed, during his second residence at Athens, I hold with Mr. Cope and other antecedent critics.