Isaeus in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

(Ἰσαῖος). One of the ten Attic orators. He was born at Chalcis, and came to Athens at an early age. He wrote judicial orations for others and established a rhetorical school at Athens, in which Demosthenes is said to have been his pupil. He lived between B.C. 420 and 348. Eleven of his orations are extant, all relating to questions of inheritance. They afford considerable information respecting this branch of the Attic law, of which he was a master, and are marked by intellectual acumen, clearness of statement, and vigour of style. Edited with the other orations by Reiske (1773), Bekker (1823-28), Dobson (1828), Baiter and Sauppe (1839-43); and separately by Schömann (1831); with notes by Burmann (1883), and by Scheibe in the Teubner series. See Blass, Attische Beredsamkeit, vol. ii.; May, Les Plaidoyers d' Isée (Paris, 1876); and on the style, Lincke, De Elocutione Isaei (1884).

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