Lysias

You have heard, you have seen, you have suffered; you have the guilty: give judgement.

Lysias (Ancient Greek: Λυσίας, Lysías; c. 445 – c. 380 BC) was a Greek logographer and one of the Attic orators, generally regarded as the finest representative of the plain style. His surviving corpus consists mainly of forensic speeches.

Quotes

Greek text cited from C. Carey, Lysiae Orationes cum fragmentis (Oxford, 2007).
Translations cited from W. R. Lamb, Lysias (Cambridge-London, 1930), unless otherwise noted.

XII. Against Eratosthenes

• τοιαῦτα αὐτοῖς τὸ μέγεθος καὶ τοσαῦτα τὸ πλῆθος εἴργασται, ὥστε μήτ᾿ ἂν ψευδόμενον δεινότερα τῶν ὑπαρχόντων κατηγορῆσαι, μήτε τἀληθῆ βουλόμενον εἰπεῖν ἅπαντα δύνασθαι, ἀλλ᾿ ἀνάγκη ἢ τὸν κατήγορον ἀπειπεῖν ἢ τὸν χρόνον ἐπιλιπεῖν.
  • So enormous, so numerous are the acts they have committed, that neither could lying avail one to accuse them of things more monstrous than the actual facts, nor with every desire to speak mere truth could one tell the whole; of necessity either the accuser must be tired out or his time must run short.
  • XII.1 (on the crimes of the Thirty Tyrants)

• παύσομαι κατηγορῶν. ἀκηκόατε, ἑοράκατε, πεπόνθατε, ἔχετε· δικάζετε.
  • I will here conclude my accusation. You have heard, you have seen, you have suffered; you have the guilty: give judgement.
  • ΧΙΙ.100

Attributed

• οὐχ ἅπαξ μέλλεις λέγειν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τῶν δικαστῶν;
  • Isn’t it only once that you are going to speak it before the jurors?
  • Response when told a commissioned oration seemed unconvincing after repeated readings. Reported by Plutarch, Concerning Talkativeness, 504c:
    • Λυσίας τινὶ δίκην ἔχοντι λόγον συγγράψας ἔδωκεν· ὁ δὲ πολλάκις ἀναγνοὺς ἧκε πρὸς τὸν Λυσίαν ἀθυμῶν καὶ λέγων τὸ μὲν πρῶτον αὐτῷ διεξιόντι θαυμαστὸν φανῆναι τὸν λόγον, αὖθις δὲ καὶ τρίτον ἀναλαμβάνοντι παντελῶς ἀμβλὺν καὶ ἄπρακτον· ὁ δὲ Λυσίας γελάσας 'τί οὖν;' εἶπεν 'οὐχ ἅπαξ μέλλεις λέγειν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τῶν δικαστῶν;'
    • Lysias once composed a speech for a litigant and gave it to him. The man read it through a number of times and came to Lysias in despair and said that the first time he read it the speech seemed to him wonderfully good, but on taking it up a second and third time it appeared completely dull and ineffectual, “Well,” said Lysias laughing, “isn’t it only once that you are going to speak it before the jurors?” (tr. W. C. Helmbold, 1939)

Quotes about Lysias

• His aetate Lysias maior, subtilis atque elegans et quo nihil, si oratori satis sit docere, quaeras perfectius: nihil enim est inane, nihil arcessitum, puro tamen fonti quam magno flumini propior.
  • Lysias was older than these [sc. Demosthenes, Aeschines, Hyperides]; he is refined and elegant, and if the orator's only business were to give information one could ask for nothing more perfect. There are no empty phrases and nothing farfetched; but he is more like the pure spring than the mighty river. (tr. D. A. Russell, 2002)
  • Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, X.1.78