1000 Classical Characters Briefly Described

Who was Iphigenia? What did Cincinnatus do? A thousand gods, heroes and tyrants of the classical world, each explained in the time it takes to read a text message.

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Isocrates

A celebrated orator, son of a musical instrument maker at Athens. He opened a school of eloquence at Athens, where he was distinguished for the number, character, and fame of his pupils. He was intimate with Philip of Macedon, but the aspiring ambition of Philip displeased Isocrates, and the defeat of the Athenians at Chaeronea had such an effect on him that he did not long survive it.

He died, after being four days without taking any aliment, in his ninety-ninth year, about 338 years before Christ. He was honored after death by the erection of a brazen statue to his memory by Timotheus, one of his pupils, and Aphareus, his adopted son. Milton, in one of his sonnets, speaks of him as that old man eloquent when alluding to his death as being caused by the news of the battle of Chaeronea.

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