Isocrates I

Nicocles

3. NICOCLES introduction Nicocles is the final work in Isocrates’ Cyprian trilogy. Speeches 9 and 3 dramatize the instruction of Nicocles in his role as ruler, and in this third work, the former pupil of the rhetorician shows that he has learned his lessons well as he in turn assumes the role of political teacher. He offers a self-justification that draws attention to his virtues in a way that is reminiscent of the rhetorician’s instructive encomium of Evagoras (cf. 3.29–46 and the introduction to Isocrates speech 9), and takes it upon himself to instruct his subjects in their duties and obligations. Significant is the extent to which Nicocles’ speaking voice resembles that of the author, marking not the failure of, or lack of resourcefulness in, rhetorical characterization but the success of a pedagogical method that aspires to teach the student to be like his teacher.1 Nicocles praises monarchy and its virtues at sections 14–25 of the speech. Rather than understand Isocrates to be espousing an absolutist or monarchic ideology, we might see the author as giving voice to a state that has shown itself favorable to Athens’ political and military agendas and to Hellenic culture generally. The work’s account of Athens ’ government might also be read as an example of political theorizing on the author’s part, perhaps resembling Darius’ arguments in favor of monarchy in the constitutional debate in Herodotus (3.82). It might be argued, furthermore, that Isocrates is careful to cultivate the sympathy of Athens for the Cypriot royal family by emphasizing af1 See 15.205–206 and Livingstone 1998: 272–280. finities between the democratic city state and this monarchy. Indeed, Nicocles’ particular account of the way in which individual and communal interests are not divergent (48–64; also 2.21) is consistent with the democratic ideology that Thucydides places in the mouth of Pericles (Thuc. 2.60 –64), while the famous ‘‘hymn to logos’’ (3.5–9), which implicitly constructs Cyprus as a rhetorical community, is one that Isocrates will himself cite verbatim as an aetiology of Athenian greatness as a democratic community at 15.253–257. 3. nicocles [1] Some people are ill disposed toward speeches (hoi logoi ) and fault philosophers,2 saying that they engage in such pastimes not for the sake of virtue but for personal advantage (pleonexia). I would be happy to learn from those who feel this way why they blame those who wish to speak well but praise those who wish to act well. If personal advantage offends them, I will find that many greater advantages result from actions rather than from words. [2] Moreover, it would be strange if they failed to recognize that we do not show reverence in religious matters, cultivate justice, or practice the other virtues in order to have less than others, but that we enjoy the greatest goods during our lives. Accordingly, we must not criticize the actions through which someone might virtuously gain advantage, but the men whose actions are wrong or whose words are deceitful and unjust. [3] I am surprised that those who hold this view do not also decry wealth, strength, and courage. If they have problems with public speaking because some men do wrong and lie, they should reasonably blame other good things too, for some people who possess these will clearly do wrong and will use them to harm many. [4] But it is not right to condemn physical strength just because some hit people they meet, or to criticize bravery because some people kill those they should not, or generally to transfer the evil of men to their actions. Instead one should blame individuals who use good things badly and try to harm their fellow citizens using means that could benefit them instead. 170 isocrates i 2 See 9.8n. [5] As it stands, those who neglect to make this distinction in each case are ill disposed to all discourse (logoi ), and they have erred to such an extent that they do not notice that they are opposed to such an activity which, of all the qualities of human nature, is the cause of all the greatest goods. In other respects, we do not differ from other living beings, and we are inferior to many in speed, strength, and other resources . [6] But since we have the ability to persuade one another and to...