born 436, Athens
died 338 BC, Athens
Athenian author, rhetorician, and teacher.
His school, unlike Plato 's more philosophical Academy, provided an education for the practical needs of society; it was given over almost entirely to rhetoric . He promoted Greek political unity and cultural superiority based on monarchy and advocated a unified Greek attack on Persia under Philip II of Macedonia to secure unity and peace in Greece. When Greece lost its independence after the Battle of Chaeronea , Isocrates, in despair, starved himself to death.