Handbuch Antike Rhetorik

Thomas Schirren

5Lysias Ethographos

Abstract: Lysias is said to be a master of ethopoiia, the performance of character by rhetorical means. He achieved this with simplicity, especially in the part of narratio. Most of his speeches as transmitted are dicanic; especially in his apologies he used the proof of character. The simplicity of his style shows how Attic ordinary people used to speak, which later on became the standard for the Atticists who employed truth as a rhetorical function, a kind of elocutio without ornatus. Another category is charis, which is in a sense the virtuosity of a master. This, too, is said from the perspective of a pupil in search of an exemplum imitandum. The same holds for Lysias’ topical arguments, which are impressive ...