Lysias

Lysias (/ˈlɪsiəs/; Greek: Λυσίας; c. 445 BC – c. 380 BC) was a logographer (speech writer) in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BC.

Life

According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the author of the life ascribed to Plutarch, Lysias was born in 459 BC, which would accord with a tradition that Lysias reached, or passed, the age of eighty. This date was evidently obtained by reckoning back from the foundation of Thurii (444 BC), since there was a tradition that Lysias had gone there at the age of fifteen. Modern critics, in general, place his birth later, ca. 445 BC, and place the trip to Thurii around 430 BC.

Cephalus, his father, was a native of Syracuse, and on the invitation of Pericles had settled at Athens. The opening scene of Plato's Republic is set at the house of his eldest son, Polemarchus, in Piraeus. The tone of the picture warrants the inference that the Sicilian family were well known to Plato, and that their houses must often have been hospitable to such gatherings. Further, Plato's Phaedrus opens with Phaedrus coming from conversation with Lysias at the house of Epicrates of Athens: he meets Socrates, with whom he will read and discuss the speech of Lysias he heard.

Lysias (Syrian chancellor)

Lysias (/ˈlɪsiəs/; Greek: Λυσίας; died 162 BC) was a 2nd-century Seleucid General and governor of Syria under the Seleucid Empire.

He was described as, "A noble man, and one of the blood royal". Antiochus IV Epiphanes (circa 166 BC) left him with the government of Southern Syria and the guardianship of his son, while Antiochus went in person into Persia to collect the revenues which were not coming in satisfactorily.

According to Josephus, the instructions of Lysias were "to conquer Judea, enslave its inhabitants, utterly destroy Jerusalem and abolish the whole nation." Lysias, accordingly, armed against Judas Maccabeus a large force under Ptolemy, son of Dorymenes, Nicanor and Gorgias. Of this force Judas defeated the two divisions under Nicanor and Gorgias near Emmaus (166 BC), and in the following year Lysias himself at Beth-zur (Bethsura), after which he proceeded to the purification of the temple.

In the narration of these campaigns there are considerable differences between the writers of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees which scholars have not found easy to explain. Antiochus died at Babylon on his Persian expedition (164 BC), and Lysias assumed the office of regent during the minority of his son, who was yet a child. He collected another army at Antioch, and after the re-capture of Beth-zur was besieging Jerusalem when he learned of the approach of Philip to whom Antiochus, on his deathbed, had entrusted the guardianship of the prince. He defeated Philip in 163 BC and was supported at Rome, but in the following year he fell with his ward Antiochus into the hands of Demetrius I, who put both of them to death.

Lysias (disambiguation)

Lysias can refer to several people.