[Niall_Livingstone]_A_Commentary_on_Isocrates'_Busiris

18 INTRODUCTIONcharacter he is praising. 35 Since there is very little that is creditablein the traditions about Busiris, the traditions must be abandoned.Isocrates therefore creates a new story: he makes Busiris the founderof the kingdom and civilisation of Egypt. Egypt thus becomes a 'monumentof his excellence' (, § 10), with the result thatan encomium of Egypt can serve as an encomium of Busiris. Eachfeature of the country is counted to Busiris' credit: he chose thecountry for its amenities, established its institutions and so on (Busirisremains the grammatical subject, though not always the logical subject,through most of the section § 11-27). 36 The tendentiousness thatresults from this device is not acknowledged here: it is left to bedealt with in the Defence.The Encomium begins, again as in Helen, with the standard topicsof genealogy and birth, and goes on to the establishment ofBusiris' kingdom. After that, though a chronological ordering is sometimessuggested (e.g. § 15it is much less prominent than in Helen. The Encomium is organisedinstead by different categories of good quality: physical amenitiesand cultivation (§ 12-14), political institutions (§ 15-20), scienceand philosophy (§ 21-23), and religious institutions (§ 24-27). Theseare 'virtues' proper to a country or a city rather than an individual—weare left to infer that Busiris, being responsible for them,must have possessed corresponding personal virtues. 37The structure is less reminiscent of Isocrates' praise of Helen,which concentrates on beauty as her outstanding attribute, than ofAgathon's speech in the Symposium, where Eros is praised for, divided under the headings of andand for divided into and. Agathon's speech, however, ascribes these qualities directly to35On the structure of the Encomium and its relationship to Isocrates' otherEncomia, see also note on § 10-29.36 Note, however, that only once in the Encomium is Busiris actually named: seenote on § 10. In the Encomium in the Helen, Helen's name appearsmore often, but only once in the nominative case (§ 61); she is the grammaticalsubject only in the section dealing with her apotheosis and divine powers (§ 61-65)and in one other passage (§ 40. Partof the reason for this is, of course, that Isocrates is avoiding mention of Helen'smost celebrated or notorious 'action', her elopement with Paris.37 In the 'physical amenities' section, where there is no obvious correspondinghuman virtue, it is explicitly observed that Busiris' priorities in choosing the countrydemonstrate his good sense