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AESCHINES (5th century B.C.)

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 272 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AESCHINES (5th See also:century B.C.) , an Athenian philosopher. According to some accounts he was the son of a sausage-maker, but others say that his See also:father was See also:Lysanias (Diog. Laert. ii. 6o; Suidas, s.v.). He was an intimate friend of See also:Socrates, who is reported to have said that the sausage-maker's son alone knew how to See also:honour him. See also:Diogenes Laertius preserves a tradition that it was he, not Crito, who offered to help Socrates to See also:escape from See also:prison. He was always a poor See also:man, and Socrates advised him " to See also:borrow from himself, by diminishing his See also:expenditure." He started a See also:perfumery See also:shop in See also:Athens on borrowed See also:capital, became bankrupt and retired to the Syracusan See also:court, where he was well received by See also:Aristippus. According to Diog. Laert. (ii. 61), See also:Plato, then at See also:Syracuse, pointedly ignored Aeschines, but this does not agree with See also:Plutarch, De adulatore et amico (c. 26).

On the See also:

expulsion of the younger See also:Dionysius, he returned to Athens, and, finding it impossible to profess See also:philosophy publicly owing to the contempt of Plato and See also:Aristotle, was compelled to See also:teach privately. He wrote also forensic speeches; Phrynichus, in See also:Photius, ranks him amongst the best orators, and mentions his orations as the See also:standard of the pure See also:Attic See also:style. See also:Hermogenes also spoke highly of him (Heist laec '). He wrote several philosophical dialogues: (I) Concerning virtue, whether it can be taught; (2) Eryxias, or Erasistratus; concerning riches, whether they are See also:good; (3) Axiochus: concerning See also:death, whether it is to be feared, but those extant on the several subjects are not genuine remains. J. le Clerc has given a Latin See also:translation of them, with notes and several See also:dissertations, entitled Silvae Philologicae, and they have been edited by S. N. See also:Fischer (See also:Leipzig, 1786), and K. F. See also:Hermann, De Aeschin. Socrat. relig. (Gott. r85o). The genuine dialogues appear to have been marked by the Socratic See also:irony; an amusing passage is quoted by See also:Cicero in the De inventione (i.31).

See Hirzel, Der Dialog. i. 129-140; T. See also:

Gomperz, See also:Greek Thinkers, vol. iii. p. 342 (Eng. trans. G. G. See also:Berry, See also:London, 1905).

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AESCHYLUS (525–456 B.c.)

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