Declamations and Orations by Himerius the Sophist

Contents

1. Ὑπὲρ Δημοσθένους Ὑπερείδου Oration 1 (On Behalf of Demosthenes)

   Hyperides speaks for Demosthenes after a proclamation by which Philip hoped to strip Athens of Demosthenes and its other popular leaders, and urges the Athenians not to give up the man who has kept Attica closed to Macedon. He reviews Philip's advance through Phocis, Euboea, Arcadia, Elis and the Chersonese, mocks the Macedonian party who prize Philip's gold above Solon and Draco, and names Aeschines as the third actor in the Phocian drama.

2. Ὑπὲρ Αἰσχίνου Δημοσθένους Oration 2 (On Behalf of Aeschines)

   Demosthenes speaks on the recall of Aeschines, which Alexander has ordered with that of the other exiles. Since the vote must be undone, he argues, it is better undone willingly than under command, and he sets the speed of Alexander's conquests from Sardis to Cilicia beside all that Aeschines did against the city. The close mocks a people that votes Aeschines' return while trembling at rumours from India: Babylon has fallen, Darius is gone, and only Athens is left for Alexander to conquer.

3. Κατʼ Ἐπικούρου Oration 3 (Against Epicurus)

   Epicurus stands trial at Athens, and the prosecutor makes the trial itself proof that the world is not ruled by chance. The speech attacks his doctrine of pleasure and his atoms and void, recalls the rocks of Parnassus that fell on the Persians at Delphi, and asks why no earthquake strikes the man who speaks so against Pronoia. It closes by defending the wise against the charge that they are wretched, poor and without honour.

4. Κατὰ Πλουσίου Oration 4 (Against a Rich Man)

   A poor man accuses his rich enemy of a crime without precedent. The rich man, the speech alleges, contrived an adultery between the poor man's wife and a youth, and once the husband had killed him, produced tokens of recognition showing that the youth was the poor man's own son. The speaker mocks his enemy's claim to have acted from pity, and casts the whole affair as a tragedy in which the rich man, like a tyrant on the stage, must fall too.

5. Θεμιστοκλέους κατὰ τοῦ Περσῶν Βασιλέως Oration 5 (Themistocles Against the King of the Persians)

   Before the sea battle with Xerxes is decided, the Persian king sends gifts to the Athenian people, and Themistocles speaks against accepting them. He likens their advocates to Cyrsilus, whom the Athenians buried on the spot where he spoke, recalls Xerxes cutting through Athos and darkening the sky with arrows, and holds that a city with its triremes and Apollo as founder needs no walls. He ends by claiming Xerxes' plane-tree as a second trophy on the Acropolis.

6. Πολεμαρχικός Oration 6 (Polemarchic Declamation)

   A funeral speech for the Athenian war dead, delivered at their monument under the law that grants the fallen a public oration. The speaker first praises that law as Athens' own, then turns to the dead, narrating the expedition Darius entrusted to his satraps, the attacks of Datis on Eretria and Naxos, and the vow of goats the city still could not pay off. The close is a run of addresses to the dead as forefathers of every Athenian victory.

7. Ἀρεοπαγιτικὸς ἢ Ἐλευθερωτικός Oration 7 (Areopagitic, or Liberation Oration)

   Before the Areopagus, Himerius asks the council to declare his young son free and an Athenian, so that he may one day speak, write and take part in public life in the city. He presents himself as both sophist and father, and sets out the boy's descent from Plutarch, Minucianus and Nicagoras, a line of sophists and philosophers he calls true Attic nobility.

8. Μονῳδία εἰς τὸν Υἱὸν αὐτοῦ Ῥουφῖνον Oration 8 (Monody for His Son Rufinus)

   Himerius laments his son Rufinus, who died away from him, and blames both a hostile daimon and himself for having parted from the boy. He recalls the son's courage through many illnesses, his calling on Athena his nurse as his illness closed in, and the acclaim he won in the council-house and the theatre at Athens. The news reached the father by night at Melas; he ends by promising funeral contests and to hand his name down to time.

9. Ἐπιθαλάμιος εἰς Σεβῆρον Oration 9 (Epithalamium for Severus)

   A wedding speech for Severus, prefaced by a short account of the genre that divides the piece into four parts: an opening, a thesis on marriage, praise of the couple and a description of the bride. The speech tells of Apollo's wedding song and of Olympias falling in love with the young Philip at the Samothracian mysteries, praises the bride's Thracian family from Philip's city and the groom's descent from Androclus, and ends with a lyric song and petitions for children.

10. Διογένης ἢ Προπεμπτικός Oration 10 (Diogenes, or Farewell Oration)

    Headed with the name Diogenes, this send-off for a young man leaving Himerius's school is recast as a dialogue on the Platonic model, mixing moral matter with physics and theology, as its preface explains. It praises an official whose career grew with the emperor's city on the Bosporus, draws on Plato's account of beauty glimpsed among the gods before birth, and recalls Cineas, who won cities for Pyrrhus by words. It ends with a fair wind for the voyage.

11. Συντακτικὸς πρὸς τοὺς Ἑταίρους Oration 11 (Address to His Companions)

    Only the opening survives of this leave-taking addressed to Himerius's companions on his own departure: a few lines recalling that lyre-players of old never set out for another land in silence, but took leave of their chorus with song.

12. Εἰς Φλαβιανὸν Προπεμπτήριος Oration 12 (Farewell Oration for Flavianus)

    Flavianus is leaving for Ionia, and Himerius sends him off with a description of a painted ship on a calm Aegean, set against Alexander sailing for Asia to the pipe of Timotheus. He praises Flavianus's wisdom, mildness in office and steadiness when fortune turned against him, and recalls a march across the frozen Danube. He closes by sending the leader of his own students on the voyage and looking ahead to the song of return.

13. Προτρεπτικὸς εἰς τοὺς περὶ Πείσωνα Νεήλυδας Oration 13 (Exhortation to the Newcomers around Piso)

    Addressed to the new students who came with Piso, this short piece turns on the right moment. It describes Lysippus's statue of Opportunity, a youth with hair over his brow, a blade in one hand, scales in the other and wings at his ankles, and adds Glaucus taking the crown, the archer who knows when to shoot, and the swan waiting for the spring west wind before it sings.

14. Εἰς τὸν Νέηλυν τὸν Αἰγύπτιον Oration 14 (To the Egyptian Newcomer)

    The Nile, whose rise the Egyptians measure and celebrate cubit by cubit, opens this brief welcome to a student from Egypt. Great things come by small additions: Themistocles was small at Artemisium, greater at Psyttaleia and great at Salamis, and Homer made the war last ten years to show that Fortune grants good things slowly and late.

15. Προπεμπτικός Oration 15 (Farewell Oration)

    In a short send-off, Himerius warns that a father's fame did not help the sons of Pericles but became evidence against them, since they proved unworthy of it. The remedy he offers is aretē and logos, the first in command and the second carrying out its orders. He then turns to boys released from their teachers for a procession, and to Midas, who drugged a spring with wine to catch the Satyr.

16. Σχέδιος ἐπὶ τῇ κατὰ τὴν Διατριβὴν Στάσει Oration 16 (Improvised Declamation on the Dispute in the Lecture Course)

    Improvised when a quarrel broke out among Himerius's students, this short talk asks whether speech can calm strife, reading Helen's drug in Homer as sweet words rather than an Egyptian herb. Timotheus soothing and rousing Alexander with the pipe, Xenophon bearing a spear after studying with Socrates, and Alcibiades suiting himself to Athens, Sparta and Persia supply the examples.

17. Εἰς τὴν τῶν Κυπρίων Ἐπιδημίαν Oration 17 (On the Visit of the Cyprians)

    Greeting visitors from Cyprus, Himerius celebrates their island as Aphrodite's, as Delos is Apollo's, and cites Sappho and Anacreon calling on Cypris. He tells of Aphrodite's birth from the sea and the calm that fell on the waves, and sets the heavenly Aphrodite, whose golden Loves aim at the newly initiated and pure, against the common one. It ends with a warning against admitting a false lover.

18. Εἰς τὸν Πρῶτον ἐκ Καππαδοκίας αὐτοῦ ἀκροασάμενον Oration 18 (To the First Student from Cappadocia)

    This welcome to Himerius's first student from Cappadocia opens with the Scythian who rode an arrow over land and sea. It tells how Dionysus led the Indians he had won into Cappadocia, where a river turned black when they bathed in it and took its name from them. Fame brought the young man from there, and the school's wealth, the speaker says, is not Lydian gold but its students.

19. Ὅτι Σπάνια τὰ Καλά Oration 19 (That Fine Things Are Rare)

    That fine things are rare is argued from Persian archery and a run of examples: the ocean at the edge of the earth, the pyramids, the singing stone of Memnon, the rose slow to open, and fruit that waits for its season. The bronze at Dodona that sounded always became a mere story, since habit breeds satiety, and Himerius ends by urging his students to flee it.

20. Εἰς Μουσώνιον τὸν Ἀνθύπατον Ἑλλάδος Oration 20 (To Musonius, Proconsul of Greece)

    Musonius, proconsul of Greece, has drawn Himerius back to the theatres he meant to leave. Himerius compares him to Apollo, though his arrows draw no blood, since one man escaped the executioner by his vote, and praises the gentleness that made Cyrus great among the Persians. The speech also recalls the Athenian who brought the people news of a victory and was honoured with a bronze statue.

21. Εἰς Σεβῆρον Νέηλυν Oration 21 (To the Newcomer Severus)

    Achilles tuning his lyre in his tent while the plain flashes with arms opens Himerius's welcome to Severus, a new student; the hero sings the glories of men between battles. Athena then wins her dispute with Poseidon with the olive against his wave, and the choirs of the Muses and Apollo play in soft meadows with pipe, lyre and syrinx.

22. Λαλιά Oration 22 (Informal Talk)

    Only a few lines remain of this informal talk. When the Muses dance on Helicon, everything rings with sound: the cicada sings and recalls the tale that it was once a man who sang always, while nightingales, swallows and swans dance about the goddesses.

23. Εἰς τὸν Κόμητα Οὐρσάκιον Oration 23 (To Count Ursacius)

    Abaris the Hyperborean, who came to Athens Scythian in dress and bow but Greek in voice, is the model Himerius offers for Ursacius, a count from Illyricum and a lover of Greek speech, received in a newly built theatre. He adds the Eleusinian youth whom Demeter lifted up to replace a nomad's food with wheat, and closes on Chiron's lyre and swans on Pelion, which led Aeacus to entrust Telamon and Peleus to the Centaur.

24. Εἰς Σεβῆρον Ἑταῖρον Oration 24 (To His Companion Severus)

    This speech to Severus, a student, survives with much of its text lost, and argues that followers win as much fame as founders, as Phidias did after Daedalus, Cratinus after Epicharmus, and Gorgias and Protagoras after Tisias and Corax. It praises the young man's family from Pontus and the justice of a man of his house in office, and ends with the Spartan mother who took a shield dedicated in Athena's precinct and gave it to her son, bidding him win or die.

25. Εἰς Σκυλάκιον τὸν Ἀνθύπατον Ἑλλάδος Oration 25 (To Scylacius, Proconsul of Greece)

    Coming late to the contest, Himerius likens himself to Achilles, who would not fight until Hephaestus's armour arrived: a performer, like Apelles with a painting, gives his best before a judge who knows the art, here Scylacius, proconsul of Greece. Praise of his justice and humanity follows, with deeds in Asia Minor: the Maeander restored to its course and the city's harbours given back, Pisidia cleared of bandits, and a verdict no gold could buy. The text is broken by many gaps.

26. Εἰς Νεήλυδας Ἐφεσίους καὶ Μυσοὺς κ.τ.λ. Oration 26 (To the Newcomers from Ephesus and Mysia)

    Newcomers from Ephesus and Mysia are likened to the peoples who flocked to Apollo's tripod at Delphi, and reminded of the Ionian colony's descent from Athens and from Codrus. Himerius speaks of the zeal a teacher kindles, from Chiron with Achilles to Socrates with Alcibiades, tells of a young athlete at the Pythian games, and ends on the lyre of Orpheus, carried over the sea to Lesbos, which made the island musical.

27. Εἰς τοὺς ἐκ Πατρίδος Ἑταίρους Oration 27 (To Companions from His Homeland)

    Turning to students from his own homeland, Himerius argues that gods and poets love their native places: Apollo Delos, Dionysus Thebes, Anacreon Teos, Alcaeus Mytilene, Simonides and Bacchylides Iulis, Stesichorus Himera. Since he drives no poet's chariot, he proposes to wall his city with men and words, and cites Amphion, Aesop and Plato before telling how Pythagoras made Samos famous though he taught in Italy.

28. Εἰς Ἀθήναιον Κόμητα Oration 28 (To Count Athenaeus)

    Count Athenaeus is praised for his own merits rather than his good fortune, after a survey of the poets who sang the fame of men: Pindar for Hiero, Anacreon for Polycrates, Alcaeus, and Sappho. The emperor's choice and his subjects' longing prove his worth in office; he emulates Demosthenes, and is as versatile as Proteus. The speech is offered as first-fruits of friendship, like the small Athena Phidias made before the great one.

29. Εἰς τὸν Πριβᾶτον Ῥωμαῖον Oration 29 (To Privatus the Roman)

    Privatus, a Roman, is welcomed through the figure of Anacharsis the Scythian, drawn to Athens by the Eleusinian mysteries, who became Attic in speech as soon as he tasted Greek learning and sought out Solon. Himerius then tells how Polycrates gave his son Anacreon as a teacher in music, and how Homer admired Phoenix for teaching Achilles in deeds and words, at home in Thessaly and again at Troy.

30. Εἰς τὴν ἀπὸ Κορίνθου Ἐπάνοδον Oration 30 (On the Return from Corinth)

    Back in Athens after a stay in Corinth, Himerius tells his students that, like Odysseus longing for Ithaca, he found the land gloomy, Peirene's water salt and the Crisaean gulf rough while he was apart from them. Absence has its uses: the Sun hides so that we look for him again, and Xenophon at Byzantium hid himself to test his men's goodwill. Rarity, he ends, is the cure for satiety.

31. Εἰς Ἀμπέλιον Προπεμπτικός Oration 31 (Farewell Oration for Ampelius)

    A send-off for Ampelius, who had threatened to slip away and is caught in the sophist's nets. Simonides' lyre for Hiero and Philammon's song for Jason's Argonauts are the precedents, for Athens honours its best men with words. The praise turns to his building, from Thermopylae to the far corner of the Peloponnese: Sparta made elegant, the Collytus street in the heart of Athens set right, a stoa in one city, a bath in another, a house named for the emperor in a third.

32. Εἰς Ἀνατόλιον Ὕπαρχον Oration 32 (To Anatolius the Prefect)

    Like Achilles, bidden through Hermes to stop mourning and take up arms, Himerius sets grief aside for a festival: the great prefect Anatolius, the quarry of his art, is greeted as Athens greeted Alcibiades after Cyzicus. Firsts from Anacharsis to Cyrus, and Phidias's Zeus, lead to a portrait in divine colours: when the earth sickens with vice, Lachesis's spindle brings from Zeus's hearth an untainted psychē bearing justice and courage, with a free voice and hands that take no gifts in its train.

33. Εἰς τὸν Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ Ἀνθυπάτου Παῖδα Φοῖβον Oration 33 (To Phoebus, Son of the Proconsul Alexander)

    Phoebus, son of the proconsul Alexander, has moved from a lesser teacher to a sophist's door, and Himerius greets him with a story fit for the occasion. Isocrates, who brought rhetoric from its old bombast to rhythm and order, took in Nicocles, son of Evagoras, ruler of Cyprus, sent by a father who saw the boy drawn to Attic speech; schooled in exhortations, Nicocles became in deeds what he had learnt in words.

34. Εἰς Ἀρκάδιον τὸν Ἰατρὸν καὶ Κόμητα Oration 34 (To Arcadius the Physician and Count)

    Arcadius, physician and count, is praised as a father who chose his son's teacher himself instead of gambling on the crowd's advice, as Peleus took Achilles to Chiron alone among the Centaurs. Himerius tells how Solon, back from Lydia, Ionia and Egypt, found the young Aeschylus raising tragedy from the ground and read his plays with his boy, and how Democedes of Croton, physician at the Persian court, prized Pythagoras's wisdom above the king's wealth.

35. Προτρεπτικὸς εἰς τοὺς προσελθόντας Ἑταίρους Oration 35 (Exhortation to the Companions Who Approached)

    Companions newly come to the rites of the Muses are exhorted through the example of Socrates, whose company remade the young: the passionate learnt courage, the soft self-control, and Alcibiades left the sophists to fill everything with trophies. Himerius then praises variety in speech, from Homer's single word for the many-sided Odysseus to the seasons, the peacock, the changing sea, the gardens of Alcinous and Amalthea's horn, and ends by kindling the torch of initiation.

36. Εἰς Φλαβιανὸν Προπεμπτικός Oration 36 (Farewell Oration for Flavianus)

    Flavianus is leaving again before Himerius could greet him properly after his time in Africa, and the send-off opens in winter gloom. Its centre is his African career: the emperor's decision to send him to Carthage, staged in the emperor's own words, a winter crossing met by a cheering city, a malicious attack survived as Pericles survived Cleon and Demosthenes Demades, and a torchlit procession through Carthage.

37. Ἐπιθαλάμιος εἰς Παναθήναιον Oration 37 (Epithalamium for Panathenaeus)

    What survives of this wedding speech for Panathenaeus is a short descriptive passage. The Tiber comes down from Italy to Rome, where it divides round an island that the Romans dedicated to Asclepius after the god had come to their city; the speech then turns to the Thracian Bosporus, born of the Black Sea and widening through the Propontis into the Aegean.

38. Λαλιὰ εἰς τὸν Ἀνθύπατον Κερβώνιον Oration 38 (Talk for the Proconsul Cerbonius)

    The proconsul Cerbonius has come, and music rises again in the city, as Delos rose from the sea and stood firm when Apollo appeared. As a prelude Himerius tells an Attic story: Socrates, mocked for his snub nose, took heart to speak in public once the Delphic oracle named him the wisest. The close has Naiads dancing, the young stilled as by Orpheus, and a sacred ship leaving for Delos with an Attic chorus, as Theseus is said to have led one after Crete.

39. Λαλιὰ εἰς Ἰουλιανὸν καὶ εἰς Μουσώνιον Oration 39 (Talk for Julian and Musonius)

    On his road to the emperor, Himerius refuses to pass a city of such worth in silence, any more than Simonides passed Elis or the piper Ismenias, summoned by Alexander, passed the Pythian festival at Delphi. Musonius, who steered the affairs of Greece, is praised for joining speech to action as Pericles, Themistocles and Alcibiades did. At the sound of chariots the speaker must go, promising to greet the city again on his return from the emperor.

40. Διάλεξις ἐν Φιλίπποις Oration 40 (Discourse at Philippi)

    Speaking at Philippi, Himerius likens himself to the swan that honours a small clear spring with song, and greets a city that was old before Philip, settled by the Athenian Callistratus. Hosts, he argues, are to be repaid in words: so Odysseus spoke on Ogygia and among the Phaeacians, Gorgias would not pass Plataea in silence on his way through Boeotia, and Aristotle, called to Asia by Alexander, greeted Atarneus and Hermias with a short book.

41. Εἰς Κωνσταντινούπολιν Oration 41 (To Constantinople)

    Purified for Helios Mithras and now with the emperor, Himerius offers Constantinople a speech in place of a torch: his words came to the city in his youth and return now his hair is grey, to praise the emperor born there. Cities take their glory from founders such as Romulus, Theseus, Danaus, Lycurgus and Brasidas at Amphipolis; this city's walls are its emperor and the sea. Its governor, sweeter of speech than Nestor, is praised before Himerius turns his words to the emperor.

42. Εἰς Σαλούστιον Ἔπαρχον Oration 42 (To Sallustius the Prefect)

    Fragments of a speech to the prefect Sallustius open with a run of questions: who after Themistocles is wise, who after Aristides above gain, who more eloquent than Pericles or more upright than Phocion? The surviving pieces compare a friendship to that of Heracles and Theseus, and picture a counsellor who is not first in rank yet leads: the sun, moving with the seasons yet unmoved, and Themistocles, who gave the command to Eurybiades and still proved the admiral in deeds.

43. Εἰς Φλαβιανὸν τὸν Ἀνθύπατον Oration 43 (To Flavianus the Proconsul)

    Excerpts from a speech to the proconsul Flavianus. Peleus, too old to wield the ash spear, sent Achilles to Troy; Flavianus wields it himself and is father and teacher to the Athenians. Pindar's lyre kept Hiero in song, and Attic speech now crowns Flavianus like an Olympic victor; the pieces end with the omens Egyptians read in a new-born Apis, and with Iolaus beside Heracles and Patroclus beside Achilles.

44. Λαλιὰ εἰς τὸ Γενέθλιον Ἑταίρου τινός Oration 44 (Talk for a Companion's Birthday)

    A companion's birthday falls at the turn of the year when Demeter's harvest gives way to Bacchus's vintage, and Himerius, kept apart from him, compares himself to Odysseus competing at Alcinous's games while he longed for home. The friend is hailed as a hero, and the wonders of Egypt, the Nile flood, the pyramids and the singing statue of Memnon, adorn the feast. Xenophon's devotion to Cyrus alone and the Andrians' gift of bare fire to Apollo excuse a small offering.

45. Λαλιὰ εἰς τὸ ὑγιαίνειν τὸν Ἑταῖρον Oration 45 (Talk on a Companion's Recovery of Health)

    A friend has recovered from fever, and Himerius sings again as swallows and cicadas do after winter. During the illness the sun looked dimmer and the Nile gloomy in full flood, for a whole ship suffers when its helmsman is sick. He closes with a myth told for the occasion: the Titans, envying the young Dionysus, struck him down with drugs and slander, until Zeus raised the god and drove them off.

46. Εἰς τοὺς ἐπιβουλεύοντας καὶ εἰς τὸν Ἀνθύπατον Βασίλειον Oration 46 (To the Conspirators and to the Proconsul Basilius)

    Besieged by the hostility of a whole people, on the charge, he says, that he wishes to dance with the Muses, Himerius turns to the proconsul Basilius, who has asked to hear him. Orpheus among the envious Leibethrians and Aesop at Delphi show what such envy has done before. Basilius, son of a consul, is likened to Achilles taught by Chiron, come to the Greeks bearing justice instead of golden arms, while Fame flies west to tell his father.

47. Εἰς Βασίλειον Παναθηναίοις ἀρχομένου τοῦ Ἔαρος Oration 47 (To Basilius at the Panathenaea)

    Spring and the Panathenaea frame this welcome to Basilius, which opens with a hymn taken from Anacreon's store and an Attic spring of nightingales, swallows and the full Ilissus. The proconsul is likened to Apollo, who leads the Muses' choirs on Helicon, and is fitter than Antilochus with his slow horses to call Poseidon his teacher in horsemanship. At the close Athena's sacred ship moves overland on Attic breezes, with the evening star shining over it by day: the Athenians call Basilius Hesperus.

48. Εἰς τὸν Ἑρμογένην τὸν τῆς Ἑλλάδος Ἀνθύπατον Oration 48 (To Hermogenes, Proconsul of Greece)

    Hermogenes, proconsul of Greece, returns to Athens after a winter in which Attic song fell silent and Corinth kept him. As Odysseus roused Philoctetes, Hermogenes bids Himerius take up the Muses' bow. The praise follows his life: trusted in youth at the imperial court as keeper of its secrets and interpreter of law, he made a ruler gentler where Pythagoras failed with Phalaris. A petition to the Muses that he may long guide the young closes the speech.

49. Εἰς Πλοκιανὸν τὸν Ἀνθύπατον Oration 49

    The speech to the proconsul Plocianus is lost. The collection keeps its heading, which names him, and nothing of the text.

50. Εἰς Ἀμπέλιον τὸν Ἀνθύπατον Oration 50

    An address to Ampelius in his proconsulship, of which only the heading is preserved; the speech itself is lost.

51. Εἰς τὸν Ἀνθύπατον τῆς Ἑλλάδος Πραιτέξτατον καὶ τοὺς Ἑταίρους Oration 51

    Its heading addresses the speech to Praetextatus, proconsul of Greece, and to Himerius's companions; nothing else of it survives.

52. Εἰς τὸν Βασιλέα Ἰουλιανόν Oration 52

    A speech to the emperor Julian, known now only by its heading. The text of the address has not survived.

53. Ἐν Νικομηδείᾳ Oration 53

    The heading places this speech at Nicomedia. Its text is lost, so its occasion and addressee cannot be known.

54. Εἰς Νεήλυδας Oration 54

    Newcomers are welcomed into Himerius's chorus, and he faults those who herd students with blows when song and speech can lead them to the Muses' meadows. Older students are to guide the new, as initiates lead the uninitiated, seasoned pilots the sailor and hounds the puppy. Alexander, who persuaded Philip to take him on campaign while still a boy, and Homer's young Antilochus following Achilles are offered as models.

55. Εἰς Νέηλυν Oration 55

    Addressed to a newcomer, like other speeches in the collection that welcome new students; only the heading survives.

56. Εἰς Ζήνωνα τὸν Ἑταῖρον Oration 56

    Only the heading survives of this speech to Zeno, one of Himerius's companions.

57. Εἰς Ἀφόβιον Νέηλυν Oration 57

    A welcome for Aphobius, a new arrival among Himerius's students, lost except for its heading.

58. Εἰς τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Χρησμοῦ τοῦ Ποσειδῶνος φοιτήσαντα Oration 58

    Its heading says the speech was addressed to a student who came to Himerius at the bidding of an oracle of Poseidon. The speech itself does not survive.

59. Εἰς τοὺς ἀπʼ Ἰωνίας ἐπιδημήσαντας Oration 59

    Ionian visitors, of Attic stock, are shown their mother city in words. Himerius promises a tour: Marathon in the painting of the Painted Stoa, with Callimachus still fighting, then the Acropolis with Athena's olive and Poseidon's wave on the hill, and the Areopagus. He ends with a picture of Apollo, father of Ion, golden-haired and robed, with a lyre and no bow, smiling as if foretelling the Ionian colony.

60. Εἰς τοὺς Ἴωνας Ξένους Oration 60

    A day after a lighter greeting to Ionian visitors, Himerius changes to the high strain. Ionia's mark is war and learning as well as linen and luxury: the Ionians fought the Persians, settled Sicily, raised rhetoric above tragedy, and claim Heraclitus, Homer by the Meles and Apollo's oracles at Branchidae and Colophon. He ends with Pindar, who greeted Ionian visitors at the Dionysia with a short song and promised them that same high strain in the theatre the next day.

61. Εἰς τοὺς Ἑταίρους Oration 61

    Teachers of every craft show their pupils a model first, Himerius tells his companions: the painter, the sculptor with his wax figures, the piper playing ahead, the bird spreading its wings over its fledglings. Two guests are present, an old fellow student now an envoy and president of games from a city on the straits between Asia and Europe, and a young newcomer, for whom he tells how Cimon's victories at the Eurymedon turned the Pamphylians from Persia's side to Athens'.

62. Ἑταίρῳ Κωνσταντινουπολίτῃ Oration 62 (To a Companion in Constantinople)

    Addressed to a companion from Constantinople, this speech opens with the stone of Memnon, which sings at the first light of dawn: should the speaker greet the city in silence? Constantinople is the crown of Europe, open to ships from every harbour and greater than the city of Romulus. The Muses, Simonides says, dance more eagerly when Apollo leads, as they do now with a man of their name at the city's head, and the speech ends by asking him to receive its first-fruits kindly.

63. Διάλεξις ἐν τοῖς Ἑταίροις μετὰ τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς Πατρίδος Ἐπάνοδον Oration 63 (Discourse among Companions after Returning from His Homeland)

    Back from his homeland, Himerius proposes to sacrifice to the Muses at home before facing the public, as Attic custom puts private rites before the mysteries. Sailors, athletes, pipers, cicadas and swans all practise before they perform; an Ethiopian archer asked Alexander for time to practise after a single day away from his bow; and Homer has Odysseus shoot through the axes before he turns the great bow on Antinous. So the exercise stays indoors, and the contest is kept for the great theatre.

64. Λαλιὰ ἐξ Αὐτοσχεδίου εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ Διατριβήν Oration 64 (Improvised Talk on His Own School)

    Spoken without preparation in Himerius's own lecture room, this talk opens with a small temple on Delos where Leto's labour was eased. Everyone loves the place where they began: Odysseus prefers Ithaca to Ogygia, and Democedes of Croton valued home above the Persian king's table. Strangers in Athens seek the houses of Demosthenes and Socrates rather than that of Hipponicus, and Phidias made Zeus and the Maiden in a small workshop; the talk ends with a petition to Apollo and the Muses.

65. Εἰς τοὺς ἐν τῇ Συμπληγάδι ὄντας καὶ τῆς Ἀκροάσεως ἀπολιμπανομένους Oration 65

    Its heading addresses students who were in a clash and missed the lecture. Himerius sets beside them Homer's small, gloomy assembly in Achilles' absence, where the king grieves over an army wounded in head, hand and leg and over his own disabling wound, and approves that grief: a good leader shares his men's joy and pain, as a lyre falls silent when one string fails. He ends with a hymn to golden-winged Victory and a petition for new triumphs over the barbarians.

66. Εἴς τινας δόξαντας ἀφηνιάζειν τῶν Φοιτητῶν Oration 66

    To students suspected of throwing off the rein, Himerius tells a Phrygian fable from Aesop. When the Dryads and Hamadryads dance rudely to Apollo's lyre, the god does not reach for his arrows as in Homer, whose tales of the gods Himerius refuses, but retunes his lyre to a harsh mode, and Helicon, turned into a man, rebukes the Nymphs for deserting him for Cithaeron, the mountain of tragedy. What the fable means for them, he says, is theirs to guess.

67. Εἰς τοὺς περὶ Κυντιανὸν ἀτάκτως ἀκούσαντας Oration 67

    The edition prints only this speech's heading, addressed to those around Cyntianus, who listened in disorder; nothing of the speech itself follows.

68. Προτρεπτικὴ πρὸς τὸ χρῆναι τὴν Ποικιλίαν τὴν ἐν τοῖς Λόγοις ἀσπάζεσθαι Oration 68

    Finding the Attic theatres parched of speech, Himerius urges his students to embrace variety. Each land has its product, and that of Athens is speech; Phidias did not always carve Zeus, the shield of Achilles shows war, weddings and harvest together, and Proteus becomes a sophist who splits his speeches into many forms. He praises the students for throwing down their books the day before to build an improvised theatre, finer than the wall the general Demosthenes raised at Pylos, and bids them imitate Amphion.

69. Μετὰ τὴν τοῦ Τραύματος Θεραπείαν Oration 69 (After the Healing of His Wound)

    Recovered from a wound, Himerius reopens his theatre to the newcomers he has kept waiting. Envy, he argues, strikes eloquence harder than fortune: no one envied Sardanapalus, while Palamedes and Orpheus were destroyed and Homer's heroes wounded. After Ibycus, who broke his hand falling from a chariot between Catana and Himera, he issues a proclamation in the manner of the mysteries, bidding students drop the ball and take up the pen, and greets newcomers from Argaeus, Galatia, the Caicus and the Nile.

70. Μετὰ τὴν ἀπὸ Κορίνθου Ἐπάνοδον Oration 70

    Delivered, as its heading records, after Himerius came back from Corinth, this speech is represented in the edition by that heading alone.

71. Εἰς τὸ Γραφεῖον καὶ τοὺς Ἑταίρους Oration 71

    The heading, Eis to grapheion kai tous hetairous, names Himerius's companions among those addressed, and it stands here alone, without the speech it introduced.

72. Εἰς τὴν Λακεδαιμονίων Πόλιν Oration 72

    A speech addressed to the city of the Spartans, of which the edition gives the heading and nothing more.

73. Ὅτι οὐ δεῖ πάντως δημοσίᾳ τὰς Ἀκροάσεις ἀπαγγέλλειν Oration 73

    The heading of this piece states its thesis: that lectures need not always be delivered in public. It is the only part the edition prints, so how Himerius argued the case is not preserved here.

74. Ὅτι δεῖ ἀεὶ ἐν Γυμνασίαις εἶναι Oration 74

    Opening with Hesiod's line that practice improves the work, this short exhortation tells how the piper Antigenidas, before competing at the Pythian games, withdrew to rehearse among his friends on one pipe and on two. Horses, athletes, soldiers and farmers who sharpen their sickles before the Pleiades rise all prepare in advance. The Attic myth takes away the nightingale's tongue because she does not sing always, while the swans are praised as Apollo's because their hymn never stops.

75. Λαλιὰ ἐν Κορίνθῳ ἐκδεδομένη Oration 75 (Talk Delivered at Corinth)

    The heading records an informal talk given at Corinth, and it is all the edition prints of it.