Aeschines. I. An Athenian orator, rival of Demosthenes, born at Athens in 389 B. C, died at Samos in 314. he was the son of Atro-metus and Glaucothea. Demosthenes says Atrometus was a freedman and Glaucothea a prostitute. Aeschines, on the contrary, says his father was a true-born Athenian. Demosthenes upbraided him with the fact that his father was a schoolmaster, as though it were a low and sordid occupation. Aeschines was afterward clerk to a magistrate, and thus obtained some insight into the laws of his country. He subsequently tried his fortune on the stage, served with distinction in the army, and finally appeared as an orator on the public arena. He was public clerk for two years, and a satellite of the orators Aristophon and Eubulus. In 347 he was sent, along with Demosthenes, as one of the ten ambassadors to negotiate a peace with Philip of Macedon. From this time forth he favored the Macedonian alliance, and opposed the patriotic party of Athens, headed by Demosthenes. He formed one of the embassy who went to receive Philip's oath to the treaty. Timarchus and Demosthenes accused him on his return of malversation. He evaded the danger by a counter prosecution against Timarchus, on account of his bad moral character, which succeeded.

Shortly after the battle of Clueronea, in 338, Ctesiphon, an Athenian, proposed that Demosthenes should receive from the state a golden crown. Aesehines indicted Ctesiphon for bringing forward an illegal and inappropriate resolution. The cause was not tried until 330, six years after the death of Philip, and when Alexander was in Asia. Ctesiphon was acquitted, and as Aeschines had not gained one fifth of the aggregate votes cast, he was liable to pay the penalty inflicted by the Athenian law on him who brought forward a factious resolution. Being unable to pay this penalty, he retired to the island of Rhodes, where he taught elocution for a livelihood, and became the founder of the Rhodian school of oratory. Three speeches of his are extant, showing great narrative and descriptive power, and freer from personal abuse than those of Demosthenes, who reluctantly acknowledged the merits of Aeschines. The first is on malversation in his embassy, the second is against Timarchus, and the third against Ctesiphon.

II. An Athenian philosopher, a follower of Socrates, and the son of Charinus, a sausage maker. Socrates used to say that the sausage maker's son was the only man who knew how to honor him. Poverty obliged him to go to the court of the younger Dionysius, the Syracusan tyrant, where Plato, then in the ascendant there, treated him with contempt, but Aristippus gave him a large reward for his dialogues. On his return from Sicily, he taught philosophy for a living at Athens. He wrote orations for the forum for hire. Several dialogues on ethical subjects have been with doubtful justice ascribed to him.