person
Lysias
Lysias of Syracuse and then Athens (c. 459-c. 380 BC), the master of plain Attic style and one of the canonical ten Attic orators. Cicero takes him as the type of the spare, polished, simply elegant style throughout the rhetorical works (Brut. 35, 48, 63-67; Orat. 28-32; De opt. gen. or. 9), the model against which Demosthenes is measured.
Reading notes
- On the Best Kind of Orators §9 Lysias
Athenian orator (c. 445--c. 380 BC), the canonical model of the plain style (genus tenue): spare, lucid, and unadorned. The new Atticists took him as their pattern; Cicero grants his slenderness but argues that the greatest orator must command the grand manner too.