The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

Born at Athens, B.C. 436. Died B.C. 338. Aged 98.] It is said that Isocrates was the first man to describe the true value and objects of oratory. His language is the purest Attic; his style, which he elaborated with great pains, elegant and polished. As teacher of rhetoric, he became the instructor of the chief youths of his time. He composed several discourses on great political occasions, and amassed considerable wealth. He had throughout life a constitutional timidity, and a weakness of voice that prevented him from speaking in the assemblies of the people. Socrates had been one of his masters. His character appears to have been spotless. [From the bust in the Villa Albani at Rome, bearing the name of Isocrates. A statue of him was sculptured by Leochares for the temple of Eleusis, and another is described by Pausanias as in the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which statue is spoken of by Christodorus, as being at Constantinople in his time.]