'llQ. RaNSAS UNIVF,RS^1'^■ QUARl'KRI.S'. 



turns in favor of the genuineness of our epitaphios. But the ques- 

 tion is to me still an open one. 



Thirwall (Hist. Gr. , vol. 3. p. 131) calls this oration " a noble 

 oration, a worthy rival to that of Thucydides". Blass says he is 

 choked by the antitheses and has to get into the atmosphere of the 

 Olympiacus before he can breathe with ease. Grote says it is a 

 very fine composition (Hist. Gr. . vol. 6. p. 191). while Dobree 

 (Adv. I. p. 8 ) calls it " non modo Lysia sed quovis oratore 

 indignam." Hence, we see, its merit is largely- a matter of per- 

 sonal taste. For my part, I like it the more I study it. So far as 

 its chronological inaccuracies are concerned, these considerations 

 have been known to give way before the exigencies of rhetoric even 

 in modern times. 



Photius and Suidas (quoted at length by Sauppe, Fragm. Oratt. 

 Att., p. 170) speak of the funeral orations of Lwsias in tlie plural 

 number. 



5. We have the authorit}' of Photius (Ed. Bekk.. p. 487) for 

 saying that Isocrates was guilty of plagiarism for having introduced 

 into his Panegyricus many things which had been said by Archinus 

 and Thucydides and Lysias in their funeral orations. The funeral 

 oration of Archinus, therefore, comes next, being somewhat earlier 

 than 380 B. C, the date of the Panegyricus. Plato also in his 

 Menexenus (p. 234 B) indicates that he is acquainted with some 

 funeral oration of Archinus. The date and circumstances are un- 

 known, but a fragment of Archinus, (on the mortal condition of 

 man) is preserved by Clement of Alexandria, which seems to 

 belong to it. (See Sauppe, Fragm. Oratt. Att., pp. 166-7). Plato 

 also makes reference to an oration of an entirely unknown Dion. 

 (Menex. 234 B; 236 A). 



6. Next in order comes the Menexenus of Plato. Socrates is 

 represented as the speaker, and professes to have been taught the 

 oration by Aspasia, but he talks about events which occurred 

 thirteen years alter his own death, which happened B. C. 399. 

 The ironical and the serious are inseparably blended throughout 

 the whole. Plato here indulges in his sarcastic propensities at the 

 expense of the orators, more especially those of the Sicilian school. 



7. We now come to an instance of the eTrtrae^tos Adyos among the 

 Asiatic Greeks. On the death of Mausolus, king of Caria (B. C. 

 352 ), his queen Artemisia offered a prize for the best literary pro- 

 duction in his honor. Theodectes, a Lycian, but a pupil of Plato 

 and of the Apollonian Isocrates, Theopompus of Chios ( both of 

 whom were likewise disciples of the Athenian Isocrates), as well as 



