in Rhetoricke or schoole-master was knowen to have done; so that he was well able to defray the charges of a galley at sea. Of scholars he had to the number of one hundred: and among many others, Timotheus the sonne of Conon; with whom he travelled abroad, and visited many cities: he penned all those letters which Timotheus sent unto the Athenians; in regard whereof he be∣stowed upon him a talent of silver, the remainder of that money due by composition from Sa∣mos. There were besides of his scholars Theopompus the Chian, and Ephorus of Cumes; Ascle∣piades also who composed tragical matters and arguments; and Theodectes, who afterwards wrote tragoedies (whose tombe or sepulcher is as men go toward Cyamite, even in the sacred way or street that leadeth to Eleusis, now altogether ruinate and demolished: in which place he caused to be erected and set up the statues of famous poets together with him, of all whom there remai∣neth [ 10] none at this day but Homer alone;) also Leodamus the Athenian; Lacritus the law-giver unto the Athenians, and as some say, Hyperides and Isaeus. And it is said that Demosthenes also came unto him whiles he yet taught a Rhetoricke schoole, with an earnest purpose to learne of him, using this speech: that he was not able to pay him a thousand drachms of silver, which was the onely price that he made and demaunded of everie scholar; but meanes he would make to give him two hundred drachms, so he might learne of him but the fift part of his skill, which was a proportionable rate for the whole; unto whom Isocrates made this answere: We use not, De∣mosthenes, to do our businesse by piece-meale; but like as men are woont to sell faire fishes all whole; even so will I, if you purpose to be my scholar, teach and deliver you mine art full and entier, and not by halfes or parcels. [ 20]
He departed this life the verie yeere that Chaeronides was Provost of Athens; even when the newes came of the discomfiture at Chaeronea, which he heard being in the place of Hippocrates publicke exercises: and voluntarily he procured his owne death, in abstaining from all food and sustenance the space of foure daies, having pronounced before this abstinence of his, these three first verses which begin three tragoedies of Euripides:
- 1 King Danaus, who fiftie daughters had.
- 2 Pelops the sonne of Tantalus, when he to Pisa came.
- 3 Cadmus whilom, the citie Sidon left.
He lived 98 yeeres, or as some say, a full hundred, & could not endure for to see
Greece fower times brought into servitude: the yeere before he died, or as some write, fower yeeres before
[ 30] he wrote his Panathenaick oration: as for his Panegyrik oration, he was in penning it tenne yeeres, and by the report, of some, fifteene, which he is thought to have translated and borrowed out of
Gorgias the Leontine and
Lysias: and the oration concerning the counterchange of goods, he wrote when he was fourescore yeeres old & twaine: but his Philippike oration he set downe a little before his death: when he was farre stepped in yeeres, he adopted for his sonne,
Aphareus, the yoongest of the three children of
Plathane his wife, the daughter of
Hippias the oratour, and professed Rhetorician. He was of good wealth, as well for that he called duely for money of his scholars, as also because he received of
Nicocles king of
Cypres, who was the sonne of
Euagoras, the summe of twenty talents of silver for one oration which hee dedicated unto him: by occasion of this riches, he became envied, and was thrice chosen and enjoined to be
[ 40] the captaine of a galley, and to defray the charges thereof: for the two first times he feigning himselfe to be sicke, was excused by the meanes of his sonne; but at the third time he rose up and tooke the charge, wherein he spent no small summe of money. There was a father, who talking with him about his sonne whom he kept at schoole, said: That he sent with him no other to be his guide and governour, but a slave of his owne: unto whom
Isocrates answered: Goe your waies then, for one slave you shall have twaine. Hee entred into contention for the prize at the solemne games which queene
Artemisia exhibited at the funerals and tombe of her hus∣band
Mausolus: but this enchomiasticall oration of his which he made in the praise of him, is not extant: another oration he penned in the praise of
Helena; as also a third in the commen∣dation of the counsell
Areopagus. Some write, that he died by absteining nine daies together
[ 50] from all meat: others report but fower; even at the time that the publike obsequies were solem∣nized for them who lost their lives in the battell at
Chaeronea. His adopted sonne
Aphareus com∣posed likewise certeine orations: enterred hee was together with all his linage and those of his bloud, neere unto a place called
Cynosarges, upon a banke or knap of a little hill on the left hand, where were bestowed, the sonne, and father
Theodorus; their mother also and her sister
Anaco, aunt unto the oratour; his adopted sonne likewise
Aphareus, together with his cousen ger∣main
Socrates, sonne to the a foresaid aunt
Anaco Isocrates mothers sister: his brother
Theodo∣rus