[Niall_Livingstone]_A_Commentary_on_Isocrates'_Busiris

DINTRODUCTIONit more with the other longer discourses addressed to an individual(To Nicocles, Evagoras, Philip) than with the Letters.The work does, however, have some clear epistolary features. Inthe opening sentences, Isocrates refers to what he is doing as(§ 2 which elsewhere in his work generally refersto sending a letter.5 This is presented as a second-best, interim substitutefor a direct face-to-face encounter. Demetrius On Style creditsa certain Artemon (perhaps the second-century B.C. grammarianof that name) with the observation that a letter is 'half of a conversation'(§ 223 notice the use of the verbin the Isocrateanpassages cited below), and it becomes an epistolary commonplacethat writing is a second-best alternative to oral communication: cf.'Demetrius'on p. 5 lines 9—11 WeichertThe whole of the relevant passage of Busiris may be comparedwith the fuller treatment of the same topics in the opening of LetterI (To Dionysius}'.fulfil what the extant portions promise. There are, of course, examples of muchlonger letters from the classical period, most notably Letter VII in the Platonic corpus.5 Cf. Eucken 1983 p. 134 n. 47. Note, however, § 34 v (referringto Isoc.'s treatment of Busiris). At Phil. 81 the expression kai iovuaiovdistinction is made between the long discourse Philip itself and the Letter to Dionysius,Ep. 1, to which these words refer.