[Niall_Livingstone]_A_Commentary_on_Isocrates'_Busiris

10 INTRODUCTIONworks, 14 some can be fitted—with varying degrees of simplificationor distortion—into the handbook categories: Archidamus, Plataicus, Onthe Peace as symbouleutic; Antidosis as dicanic; Nicocles, Panegyricus,Panathenaicus as epideictic praise. Others, including Busiris, resist suchclassification. There are also grounds on which one might assign allthese works to the epideictic category: they are composed for writtendissemination, not for live delivery at a unique moment of decision; 15any court or assembly situations they envisage are fictitious; and theysometimes seem designed to advertise Isocrates' educational programme,or his moral and political stance, rather than to sway theaudience's mind on a particular issue. 16 Isocrates himself does notmake many pronouncements about categories of rhetorical production;his interest is mainly in asserting the difference between his ownwork and everyone else's, and he tends to appeal to criteria of style,subject-matter and moral purpose rather than of form or occasion. 17Thus genre in general, and the traditional rhetorical genres asdefined by Aristotle in particular, are awkward tools for interpretingthe writings of Isocrates. But there are two respects in which thestandard generic scheme is an important background for the Busiris.Firstly, this work, while it does not fit into any one category, containselements of several: praise (the Encomium of Busiris), defence(refutation of charges against Busiris), apotreptic (urging Polycratesto abandon his present course) and protreptic (urging him to adopta new one). 18 It will also be suggested that the work as a whole can14 This formulation is intended to signal that certain works of Isocrates have beenset on one side: both his 'logographic' output—i.e. Euth., Callim., Loch., Zeug., Trap.,Aegin. (speeches apparently written for a client to use in court), all of which probablydate from before he embarked in earnest on his pedagogical career—and thenine Letters. It is not implied that these works are unimportant or unconnected withthe rest of the oeuvre; they form distinct groups and pose different problems.15 Of course it is highly uncertain how the written versions of dicanic and symbouleuticspeeches, such as those of Lysias or Demosthenes, relate to what reallytook place in court or assembly, and in some cases there may be no direct relationshipat all: but it remains true that such speeches presuppose a unique realoccasion of delivery, whereas even when Isocrates' speeches sketch a 'real-life' settingfor themselves, the fictionality of the setting is made very clear.16 The speeches themselves, however, tend to insist on their practical purpose,and express hostility to the idea of see note on § 4417For collective characterisation of Isocrates' own see Antid. 45-50, Panath.272, Paneg. 4. See also <strong>Livingstone</strong> 1998 pp. 269-72.18 A protreptic aim is implicit in all serious encomium, insofar as it commendsan example for others to follow. This is made explicit in Evagoras (§ 74-81): noteespecially § 77