Vitae decem oratorum
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng3
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Isaeus was a Chalcidian by birth, but came to Athens and went to school [to Isocrates. He resembled] Lysias
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1
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in his melodious diction and in his skilful arrangement and treatment of the subject matter in his speeches, so that unless a person were thoroughly familiar with their particular styles, he could not easily tell to which of the two orators
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many of the speeches belong. He was in his prime after the Peloponnesian War, as may be inferred from his speeches, and lived until the reign of Philip. He taught Demosthenes,
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2
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not at his school, but privately, for ten thousand drachmas, whereby he acquired great distinction. And he himself composed for Demosthenes the speeches against his guardians, as some said. He has left behind him sixty-four speeches, fifty of which are genuine, and some rules of rhetoric of his own. He was also the first to give artistic form to his speech
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and to turn his attention to the urbane style of the orator; in which Demosthenes has closely imitated him. Theopompus the comic playwright mentions him
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4
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in the
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Theseus
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.