Public Speaking at Athens.

Dr. Morgan delivered, in Sever 11, yesterday afternoon, the first of a series of six lectures on Public Speaking at Athens. Lysias was the special subject of his lecture.

Oratory is scarcely considered practical in our day and we have comparatively few men of marked rhetorical ability. The reverse was the case in Greece, where oratory flourished at a very early date. The cultivation of oratory was a necessity among the Greeks as every man was obliged to conduct his own case in court. The law demanded that he should plead his own cause, but it was not necessary that he should write his speech. Hence arose the logographos whose business it was to write speeches. It was in this capacity that Lysias was most active.

Lysias was born at Athens in 459 B. C. He was the son of Cephalus, a rich merchant of Piraeus. His father's wealth enabled him to associate with the leading men of the city, and to pursue his education in the best schools of Athens. The period of his literary activity began soon after the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants, when he delivered his famous speech against Eratosthenes. It lasted about thirty years, during which time he wrote over two hundred speeches. The chief characteristic of Lysias style was his ability to adapt the speech to the character of the person who delivered it.