[Niall_Livingstone]_A_Commentary_on_Isocrates'_Busiris

28 INTRODUCTION= Urbinas 111, IXth-Xth century (five correctors, designated2 etc.)6 = Laurentianus LXXXVII 14, XIIIth centuryA = Vaticanus 65, dated 1063E = Arnbrosianus O 144, early XVth centuryII. Poly cratesThe name of Polycrates was to remain notorious among later Greekrhetoricians, but about the man himself and his works we know relativelylittle. Unlike most 'sophists', he was an Athenian by birth. 51From Busiris we learn that he was older than Isocrates (hence bornbefore 436), 52 but turned to the profession of rhetoric relatively latein life, allegedly because of financial hardship. 53 Isocrates has notmet him, and does not anticipate an imminent opportunity to doso: 54 perhaps Polycrates' career took him away from Athens forsignificant periods of time. The writer of the hypothesis to Busirisasserts that Polycrates was working in Cyprus at the time of theBusiris'. this is plausible enough, but may just be a guess based onIsocrates' own connections with Cyprus. Polycrates taught Zoilus ofAmphipolis (notorious as the 'Homeromastix'), 55 and his services aresaid to have been turned down in favour of Gorgias' by Jason, theruler of Pherae in Thessaly. 56Polycrates was famous in antiquity for his speeches on paradoxicaland absurd themes. 57 These included speeches in praise of notoriousfigures in mythology, such as his Busiris and an Encomium ofClytemnestra (in which she was contrasted favourably with Penelope). 5851 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Isaeus 20, Suda s.v. (1977 Adler).52 Bus. 50 The crucial words are omitted by one manuscript ( ),and their authenticity has been disputed: see note ad loc.53 Bus. 1. The idea of the late start and the change of fortune may of course bea fiction, a mock-charitable—but actually insulting—explanation for the fact that aworking rhetorical teacher of mature years knows (in Isocrates' view) so little abouthis subject. Sophists were in the business to make money, a fact naturally stressedby their detractors: see e.g. Plato Apology 19e-20b, Rep. 337d; Isoc. Soph. 3-5; Dover1968 pp. 157 f.54 Bus. 2.55 Aelian Var. hist. XI. 10.56 Pausanias VI. 17.9.57 For the history of this genre see Pease 1926.58 Quintilian II. 17.4, Philodemus II p. 216 f. Sudhaus: both sources also mentionPolycrates' Busiris.