Note 8 — Chapter III · * OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

Aristotel. ap. Athenæum, xi. p. 505 C; Rhetoric. iii. 16.

Dionys. Halikarnass. ad Cn. Pomp. de Platone, p. 762, Reiske. Τραφεὶς (Plato) ἐν τοῖς Σωκρατικοῖς διαλόγοις ἰσχνοτάτοις οὖσι καὶ ἀκριβεστάτοις, οὐ μείνας δ’ ἐν αὐτοῖς, ἀλλὰ τῆς Γοργίου καὶ Θουκυδίδου κατασκευῆς ἐρασθείς: also, De Admir. Vi Dicend. in Demosthene, p. 968. Again in the same treatise De Adm. V. D. Demosth. p. 956. ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα λέξις, ἡ λιτὴ καὶ ἀφελὴς καὶ δοκοῦσα κατασκευήν τε καὶ ἰσχὺν τὴν πρὸς ἰδιώτην ἔχειν λόγον καὶ ὁμοιότητα, πολλοὺς μὲν ἔσχε καὶ ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας προστάτας — καὶ οἱ τῶν ἠθικῶν διαλόγων ποιηταί, ὧν ἦν τὸ Σωκρατικὸν διδασκαλεῖον πᾶν, ἔξω Πλάτωνος, &c.

Dionysius calls this style ὁ Σωκρατικὸς χαρακτὴρ p. 1025. I presume it is the same to which the satirist Timon applies the words:—

Ἀσθενική τε λόγων δυας ἢ τριὰς ἢ ἔτι πόρσω, Οἶος Ξεινοφόων, ἤτ’ Αἰσχίνου οὐκ ἐπιπειθὴς γράψαι —

Diogen. La. ii. 55.

Lucian, Hermogenes, Phrynichus, Longinus, and some later rhetorical critics of Greece judged more favourably than Timon about the style of Æschines as well as of Xenophon. See Zeller, Phil. d. Griech. ii. p. 171, sec. ed. And Demetrius Phalereus (or the author of the treatise which bears his name), as well as the rhetor Aristeides, considered Æschines and Plato as the best representatives of the Σωκρατικὸς χαρακτήρ, Demetr. Phaler. De Interpretat. 310; Aristeides, Orat. Platon. i. p. 35; Photius, Cods. 61 and 158; Longinus, ap. Walz. ix. p. 559, c. 2. Lucian says (De Parasito, 33) that Æschines passed some time with the elder Dionysius at Syracuse, to whom he read aloud his dialogue, entitled Miltiades, with great success.

An inedited discourse of Michæl Psellus, printed by Mr. Cox in his very careful and valuable catalogue of the MSS. in the Bodleian Library, recites the same high estimate as having been formed of Æschines by the chief ancient rhetorical critics: they reckoned him among and alongside of the foremost Hellenic classical writers, as having his own peculiar merits of style — παρὰ μὲν Πλάτωνι, τὴν διαλογικὴν φράσιν, παρὰ δὲ τοῦ Σωκρατικοῦ Αἰσχίνου, τὴν ἐμμελῆ συνθήκην τῶν λέξεων, παρὰ δὲ Θουκυδίδου, &c. See Mr. Cox’s Catalogue, pp. 743-745. Cicero speaks of the Sokratic philosophers generally, as writing with an elegant playfulness of style (De Officiis, i. 29, 104): which is in harmony with Lucian’s phrase — Αἰσχίνης ὁ τοὺς διαλόγους μακροὺς καὶ ἀστείους γράψας, &c.