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Lysias was the son of Cephalus, grandson of Lysanias, and great-grandson of Cephalus. His father was by birth a Syracusan but moved to Athens because he wished to live in that city and also because Pericles, son of Xanthippus, persuaded him to do so, as he was a personal friend of Pericles and they were connected by ties of hospitality, and he was a man of great wealth. But some say that he moved because he was banished from Syracuse when Gelo was tyrant. Lysias was born at Athens in the archonship of the Philocles459-458 b.c. who succeeded Phrasicles,The archon in 460-459 b.c. was Phrasicleides, not Phrasicles. in the second year of the eightieth Olympiad, and at first he was a schoolmate of the most prominent Athenians; but when the city sent the colony to Sybaris, which was afterwards renamed Thurii, he went out with his eldest brother Polemarchus (for he had two others, Euthydemus and Brachyllus), their father being already dead, to share in the allotment of land.The scene of Plato’s Republic is laid at the house of Cephalus. The dialogue is not historical, and its imagined date cannot be fixed, but it seems to show that Plato knew Cephalus and his sons, see Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 2nd ed., i. p. 341. This was in the archonship of Praxiteles,444-443 b.c. and he was then fifteen years old. He remained there, was instructed by the Syracusans Teisias and Nicias, acquired a house, had a share of the allotment, and was a citizen for thirty-three years, until Cleocritus was archon at Athens.413-412 b.c. The ninety-second Olympiad is the date of the archonship of another Callias, 406-405 b.c. But in the next year, when Callias was archon,The dates given by our author for events in the life of Lysias are consistent (see also 835 a above, and 836 f below, Cf. also Dion. Hal. Isocrates, i.), on the assumption that he went to Thurii when the colony was founded, in 444 b.c. But if that is correct, his activity as a writer of speeches to be delivered in the Athenian courts would not begin until his fifty-seventh year. Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 2nd ed., i. p. 345, after stating the evidence, comes to the conclusion that Lysias was born at Athens probably about 446 b.c., the only certain date being his age (fifteen years), when he went to Thurii, and his treutn to Athens in 413-412 b.c. or the year following. It is quite possible that he did not go to Thurii until some years after the foundation of the colony. The latest of his extant speeches may be dated about 380 b.c., so that we may believe that he died not long after that date. in the ninety-second Olympiad, when the misfortunes in SicilyThe great expedition which the Athenians had sent out in 415 b.c. expecting to conquer Sicily was utterly annihilated in the autumn of 413 b.c. had happened to the Athenians and unrest had arisen among the allies in general and especially those who dwelt in Italy, he was accused of favouring Athens and, with three hundred others, was banished. Arriving at Athens in the archonship of the Callias412-411 b.c. who succeeded Cleocritus, when the Four Hundred already had possession of the city,Summer of 411 b.c. he remained there. But when the battle of Aegospotami405 b.c. The Athenian fleet was destroyed by the Lacedaemonians, which virtually ended the Peloponnesian War. had taken place and the Thirty had taken possession of the city,404 b.c. he was banished after having been there seven years. He was deprived of his property and lost his brother Polemarchus, but he himself escaped from the house in which he was kept to be executed (for it had two doors)See Lysias, xii. (Against Eratosthenes) 15. and lived at Megara. But when the men at PhyleThrasybulus and his followers, May 303 b.c. After these exiles seized Periaeus, there was a period of confusion until the democracy was re-established and Eucleides made archon for the year 403-402 b.c. set about their return to Athens, he was seen to be more helpful than anyone else, since he supplied two thousand drachmas and two hundred shields and, when sent with Hermas, hired three hundred mercenaries and persuaded Thrasydaeus of Elis, who had become his guest-friend, to give two talents. For these services Thrasybulus, after the restoration of the exiles to the city and in the period of anarchyThe Athenians termed any period an anarchy in which no archon could be elected because of party strife. before Eucleides, proposed a grant of citizenship for him, and the popular assembly ratified the grant, but when Archinus had him up for illegality because it had not been previously voted by the senate,The Senate or Council of Five Hundred prepared the business for the Popular Assembly, which could not legally vote upon any measure not previously adopted by the Senate. the enactment was declared void. And after losing his citizenship in this way, he lived the rest of his life at Athens with all the rights of citizenship except the vote and eligibility to office, and died there at the age of eightythree years or, as some say, seventy-six or, as others say, over eighty; and he lived to see Demosthenes as a youth. They say he was born in the archonship of Philocles.
