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Attic Orators
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By the 2nd cent. ad there was a list of ten Athenian orators (Lysias, Isaeus, Hyperīdēs, Isocratēs, Dīnarchus, Aeschinēs (1), Antiphōn, Lycurgus, Andocidēs, Dēmosthenēs (2) whose classic status was recognized. Paradoxically, Lysias, Isaeus, and Dinarchus, being metics, could not deliver speeches to Athenian juries or to the assembly, and Isocrates never addressed a large audience; so this entry would be better entitled ‘Speech‐writers active in Athens’, which is what all ten did, and we have only their surviving scripts by which judge their rhetorical powers. See canon.
