Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/639

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
loc cit.
loc cit.

rSAGORAS. Milan, 1 jn5,fol.,aml reprinted in his Classir. Aiidor. e Cod. Vatican, vol iv. p. 2H0, &c. (Rome, 1831.) Isaeus also wrote on rhetorical subjects, such as a work entitled iBiai rex^ai^ which, however, is lost. (Plut. Vii. X. Orat. p. 8.59 ; Dionys. Epist. ad Ammon. i. 2.) Although his orations were placed fifth in the Alexandrian canon, still we do not hear of any of the grammarians having written com- mentaries upon them, except iJidymus of Alexan- dria. (Harpocrat. s. vv. ya/bLTjAia, iravSaiarla.) But we still possess the criticism upon Isaeus written by Dionysius of Halicarnassus ; and by a com- parison of the orations still extant with the opinions of Dionysius, we come to the following conclusion. The oratory of Isaeus resembles in many points that of his teacher, Lysias : the style of both is pure, clear, and concise ; but while Lysias is at the same time simple and graceful, Isaeus evidently strives to attain a higher degree of polish and re- finement, without, however, in the least injuring the powerful and impressive character of his oratory. The same spirit is visible in the manner in which he handles his subjects, especially in their skilful division, and in the artful manner in which he interweaves liis arguments with various parts of the exposition, whereby his orations become like a painting in which light and shade are distributed with a distinct view to produce certain effects. It was mainly owing to this mode of management that he was envied and censured by his contempo- raries, as if he had tried to deceive and misguide his hearers. He was one of the first who turned their attention to a scientific cultivation of political oratory ; but excellence in this department of the art was not attained till the time of Demosthenes. The orations of Isaeus are contained in the col- lections of the Greek orators, published by Aldus, Stephens, Miniati, Reiske, Ducas, Bekker, and Baiter and Sauppe. A separate edition, with Reiske's and Taylor's notes, appeared at Leipzig, 1773. 8vo., and another by G. H. Schafer, Leip- zig, 1 822, 8vo. The best separate edition is that by G. F. Schomann, with critical notes and a good commentary, Greifswald, 1831, 8vo. There is an English translation of the orations of Isaeus, by Sir William Jones (London, 1794, 4to.), with prefatory discourse, notes critical and historical, and a commentary. (Comp. Westermann, Gesch. d. Griech. Beredisamkeit, § 61, and Beilage., v. p. 2^)3, &c. ; J. A. Liebmann, De Isaei Vita et iScriptis, Halle, 1831, 4to.) 2. A sophist and rhetorician, was a native of Assyria. In his youth he gave himself up to sensual pleasures and debauchery ; but after attain- ing the age of manhood, he changed his mode of life, and becfime a person of very respectable and sober habits. He must have lived for some time at Rome in the life of Pliny the younger, who speaks of him (Epist. ii. 3 ; comp. Juvenal, iii. 74, with the Scholiast) in terms of the highest praise. He seems to have enfjoyed a very great reputjition as a declaimer, and to have been particularly strong in extempore speaking. None of his productions have come down to us. Philostratus ( Vit. Soph. i. 20) has dedicated a whole chapter to his bio- graphy, but relates only some anecdotes of him, and adds a few remarks on the character of his orations. (Comp. Anonym, 'laaiov yevos., p. 261, in Wester- mann's Vitarum Script. Graeci Minor.) [L. S.] ISA'GORAS {'l(Tay6pas)^ an Athenian, son of Tisandor. Herodotus says that his family was one VOL. II. ISCnOLAUS. 62.5 of note : of its remote origin he professes himself ignorant, but adds that his kinsmen sacrificed to Carian Zeus. When Cleomenes I. of Sparta camo to Athens, in b. c. 510, to drive out tlippias, he formed a connection of friendship and hospitality with Isagoras, who was suspected of conniving at an intrigue between his wife and the Spartan king. Not long after this we find Isagoras, the leader of the oligarchical party at Athens, in opposition to Cleisthenes, and, when he found the latter too strong for him, he applied to Cleomenes for aid. The attempt made by the Spartans in consequence to establish oligarchy at Athens was defeated ; and when Cleomenes, eager for revenge, again in- vaded Attica, with the view of placing the chief power in the hands of Isagoras, his enterprise again came to nothing, through the defection of the Corinthians and Demaratus. (Herod, v. 66^ 70—72, 74, 75 ; Plut. de Herod. Malign. 23 ; Pans. iii. 4, vi. 8.) [Cleisthenes ; Cleomenes ; Demaratus.] [E. E.] ISANDER ("lo-avSpos), a son of Bellerophon, killed by Ares in the fight with the Solymi. ( Hom. //.vi.l 97; Strab.xii. p. 573, xiii.p.63b.) [L. S.] ISAU'RICUS, a surname of P. Servilius Vatia, father and son, [Vatia.J I'SCANUS, JOSE'PHUS, the author of a Latin poem on the Trojan war, in six books, in hexameter metre. This poem has sometimes been ascribed to Cornelius Nepos, for which reason it is mentioned here, but its author was a native of England, and lived in the twelfth century of our era. It is printed at the end of the edition of Dictys Creten- sis, published at Amsterdam, in 1702. ISCHA'GORAS {'laxayopas), commanded the reinforcements sent by Sparta in the ninth year of the Peloponnesian war, B. c. 423, to join Brasidas in Chalcidice. Perdiccas, as the price of his new treaty with Athens, prevented, by means of his influence in Thessaly, the passage of the troops. Ischagoras himself, with some others, made their way to Brasidas, but how long he staid is doubtful; in B. c. 421 we find him sent again from Sparta to the same district, to urge Clearidas to give up Am- phipolis, according to the treaty, into the hands of the Athenians. (Thuc. iv. 132, v. 21.) [A. H. C] ISCHANDER ("laxavSpos), an obscure Athe- nian tragic poet, in whose plays Aeschines is said to have acted. (Aeschines, p. 37, a ; Vit. Aesch. ; Harpocrat, s. v. "ItrxavSpos ; Kayser, Hist. Crit. Trag. Graec. p. 284.) [P. S.] rSCHENUS {"IcTxevos), also called Taraxippus, from the horses becoming shy on his tomb, is said to have allowed himself to be sacrificed for the pur- pose of averting a plague, for which reason sacri- fices were offered to him at the Olympian games. (Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 43 ; Taraxippus.) [L. S.] ISCHOLA'US or ISCHOLAS {"UxoKaos, 'lo-xAas), a Spartan, who, when the Peloponnesus was invaded by the Thobans and their allies in B. c. 369, was stationed at the village of lum or Oium, in the district of Sciritis, with a body of veoSa/uwSets and about 400 Tegean exiles. By occupying the pass of the Sciritis, he might, accord- ing to Xenophon, have succeeded in repelling the Arcadians, by whom the invasion was made in that quarter : but he chose rather to make his stand in the village, where he was surrounded and slain, with almost all his men. Diodorus, who lauds his valour somewhat rhetorically, and compares him with Leonidas at Thermopylae, tells us that, wheu 6 s