Note 163 — Chapter LXXVII · FROM THE SUBJUGATION OF OLYNTHUS BY THE LACEDÆMONIANS DOWN TO THE CONGRESS AT SPARTA, AND PARTIAL PEACE, IN 371 B.C.

Dionys. Hal. Judic. de Lysiâ, p. 519; Diodor. xiv, 109. ὥστε τινας τολμῆσαι διαρπάζειν τὰς σκηνάς.

Dionysius does not specify the date of this oration of Lysias; but Diodorus places it at Olympiad 98—B.C. 388—the year before the peace of Antalkidas. On this point I venture to depart from him, and assign it to Olympiad 99, or 384 B.C., three years after the peace; the rather as his Olympic chronology appears not clear, as may be seen by comparing xv, 7 with xiv, 109.

1. The year 388 B.C. was a year of war, in which Sparta with her allies on one side,—and Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos on the other,—were carrying on strenuous hostilities. The war would hinder the four last-mentioned states from sending any public legation to sacrifice at the Olympic festival. Lysias, as an Athenian metic, could hardly have gone there at all; but he certainly could not have gone there to make a public and bold oratorical demonstration.

2. The language of Lysias implies that the speech was delivered after the cession of the Asiatic Greeks to Persia,—ὁρῶν πολλὰ μὲν αὐτῆς (Ἑλλάδος) ὄντα ὑπὸ τῷ Βαρβάρῳ, etc. This is quite pertinent after the peace of Antalkidas; but not at all admissible before that peace. The same may be said about the phrase,—οὐ γὰρ ἀλλοτρίας δεῖ τὰς τῶν ἀπολωλότων συμφορὰς νομίζειν, ἀλλ’ οἰκείας; which must be referred to the recent subjection of the Asiatic Greeks by Persia, and of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks by Dionysius.

3. In 388 B.C.—when Athens and so large a portion of the greater cities of Greece were at war with Sparta, and therefore contesting her headship,—Lysias would hardly have publicly talked of the Spartans as ἡγεμόνες τῶν Ἑλλήνων, οὐκ ἀδίκως, καὶ διὰ τὴν ἔμφυτον ἀρετὴν καὶ διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἐπιστήμην. This remark is made also by Sievers (Geschich. Griech. bis zur Schlacht von Mantinea, p. 138). Nor would he have declaimed so ardently against the Persian king, at a time when Athens was still not despairing of Persian aid against Sparta.

On these grounds (as well as on others which I shall state when I recount the history of Dionysius), it appears to me that this oration of Lysias is unsuitable to B.C. 388—but perfectly suitable to 384 B.C.