FOOTNOTES
[1] Thucyd. v, 17-29.
[2] Thucyd. v, 18.
[3] Thucyd. v, 14, 22, 76.
[4] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10.
[5] Thucyd. v, 21, 22.
[6] Thucyd. v, 23. The treaty of alliance seems to have been drawn up at Sparta, and approved or concerted with the Athenian envoys; then sent to Athens, and there adopted by the people; then sworn to on both sides. The interval between this second treaty and the first (οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον, v, 24), may have been more than a month; for it comprised the visit of the Lacedæmonian envoys to Amphipolis and the other towns of Thrace, the manifestation of resistance in those towns, and the return of Klearidas to Sparta to give an account of his conduct.
[7] Thucyd. v, 24.
[8] Thucyd. iv, 19. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ ὑμᾶς προκαλοῦνται ἐς σπονδὰς καὶ διάλυσιν πολέμου, διδόντες μὲν εἰρήνην καὶ ξυμμαχίαν καὶ ἄλλην φιλίαν πολλὴν καὶ οἰκειότητα ἐς ἀλλήλους ὑπάρχειν, ἀνταιτοῦντες δὲ τοὺς ἐκ τῆς νήσου ἄνδρας.
[9] Thucyd. v, 26. οὐκ εἰκὸς ὂν εἰρήνην αὐτὴν κριθῆναι, etc.
[10] Thucyd. v, 28. κατὰ γὰρ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ἥ τε Λακεδαίμων μάλιστα δὴ κακῶς ἤκουσε καὶ ὑπερώφθη διὰ τὰς ξυμφορὰς.—(Νικίας) λέγων ἐν μὲν τῷ σφετέρῳ καλῷ (Athenian) ἐν δὲ τῷ ἐκείνων ἀπρεπεῖ (Lacedæmonian) τὸν πόλεμον ἀναβάλλεσθαι, etc. (v, 46)—Οἷς πρῶτον μὲν (to the Lacedæmonians) διὰ ξυμφορῶν ἡ ξύμβασις, etc.
[11] Aristophan. Pac. 665-887.
[12] Thucyd. v, 21-35.
[13] Thucyd. v, 32.
[14] Thucyd. v, 35. λέγοντες ἀεὶ ὡς μετ’ Ἀθηναίων τούτους, ἢν μὴ θέλωσι, κοινῇ ἀναγκάσουσι· χρόνους δὲ προὔθεντο ἄνευ ξυγγραφῆς, ἐν οἷς χρῆν τοὺς μὴ ἐσιόντας ἀμφοτέροις πολεμίους εἶναι.
[15] Thucyd. v, 35. τούτων οὖν ὁρῶντες οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐδὲν ἔργῳ γιγνόμενον, ὑπετόπευον τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους μηδὲν δίκαιον διανοεῖσθαι, ὥστε οὔτε Πύλον ἀπαιτούντων αὐτῶν ἀπεδίδοσαν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς ἐκ τῆς νήσου ἄνδρας μετεμέλοντο ἀποδεδωκότες, etc.
[16] Thucyd. v, 35. πολλάκις δὲ καὶ πολλῶν λόγων γενομένων ἐν τῷ θέρει τούτῳ, etc.
[17] Thucyd. v, 28. Aristophan. Pac. 467, about the Argeians, δίχοθεν μισθοφοροῦντες ἄλφιτα.
He characterizes the Argeians as anxious for this reason to prolong the war between Athens and Sparta. This passage, as well as the whole tenor of the play, affords ground for affirming that the Pax was represented during the winter immediately preceding the Peace of Nikias, about four or five months after the battle of Amphipolis and the death of Kleon and Brasidas; not two years later, as Mr. Clinton would place it, on the authority of a date in the play itself, upon which he lays too great stress.
[18] Thucyd. v, 67. Ἀργείων οἱ Χίλιοι λογάδες, οἷς ἡ πόλις ἐκ πολλοῦ ἄσκησιν τῶν ἐς τὸν πόλεμον δημοσίᾳ παρεῖχε.
Diodorus (xii, 75) represents the first formation of this Thousand-regiment at Argos as having taken place just about this time, and I think he is here worthy of credit; so that I do not regard the expression of Thucydidês ἐκ πολλοῦ as indicating a time more than two years prior to the battle of Mantineia. For Grecian military training, two years of constant practice would be a long time. It is not to be imagined that the Argeian democracy would have incurred the expense and danger of keeping up this select regiment during all the period of their long peace, just now coming to an end.
[19] Thucyd. v, 29. μὴ μετὰ Ἀθηναίων σφᾶς βούλωνται Λακεδαιμόνιοι δουλώσασθαι: compare Diodorus, xii, 75.
[20] Thucyd. v, 28.
[21] Thucyd. iv, 134.
[22] Thucyd. v, 29. τοῖς γὰρ Μαντινεῦσι μέρος τι τῆς Ἀρκαδίας κατέστραπτο ὑπήκοον, ἔτι τοῦ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους πολέμου ὄντος, καὶ ἐνόμιζον οὐ περιόψεσθαι σφᾶς τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἄρχειν, ἐπειδὴ καὶ σχολὴν ἦγον.
As to the way in which the agreement of the members of the confederacy modified the relations between subordinate and imperial states, see farther on, pages 25 and 26, in the case of Elis and Lepreum.
[23] Thucyd. i, 125.
[24] Thucyd. v, 29. Ἀποστάντων δὲ τῶν Μαντινέων, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη Πελοπόννησος ἐς θροῦν καθίστατο ὡς καὶ σφίσι ποιητέον τοῦτο, νομίζοντες πλέον τέ τι εἰδότας μεταστῆναι αὐτοὺς, καὶ τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἅμα δι’ ὀργῆς ἔχοντες, etc.
[25] Thucyd. v, 30. Κορίνθιοι δὲ παρόντων σφίσι τῶν ξυμμάχων, ὅσοι οὐδ’ αὐτοὶ ἐδέξαντο τὰς σπονδάς (παρεκάλεσαν δὲ αὐτοὺς αὐτοὶ πρότερον) ἀντέλεγον τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις, ἃ μὲν ἠδικοῦντο, οὐ δηλοῦντες ἄντικρυς, etc.
[26] Thucyd. v, 30.
[27] Thucyd. v, 31. Βοιωτοὶ δὲ καὶ Μεγαρῆς τὸ αὐτὸ λέγοντες ἡσύχαζον, περιορώμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, καὶ νομίζοντες σφίσι τὴν Ἀργείων δημοκρατίαν αὐτοῖς ὀλιγαρχουμένοις ἧσσον ξύμφορον εἶναι τῆς Λακεδαιμονίων πολιτείας.
These words, περιορώμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, are not clear, and have occasioned much embarrassment to the commentators, as well as some propositions for altering the text. It would undoubtedly be an improvement in the sense, if we were permitted (with Dobree) to strike out the words ὑπὸ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων as a gloss, and thus to construe περιορώμενοι as a middle verb, “waiting to see the event,” or literally, “keeping a look-out about them.” But taking the text as it now stands, the sense which I have given to it seems the best which can be elicited.
Most of the critics translate περιορώμενοι “slighted or despised by the Lacedæmonians.” But in the first place, this is not true as a matter of fact: in the next place, if it were true, we ought to have an adversative conjunction instead of καὶ before νομίζοντες, since the tendency of the two motives indicated would then be in opposite directions. “The Bœotians, though despised by the Lacedæmonians, still thought a junction with the Argeian democracy dangerous.” And this is the sense which Haack actually proposes, though it does great violence to the word καὶ.
Dr. Thirlwall and Dr. Arnold translate περιορώμενοι “feeling themselves slighted;” and the latter says, “The Bœotians and Megarians took neither side; not the Lacedæmonian, for they felt that the Lacedæmonians had slighted them; not the Argive, for they thought that the Argive democracy would suit them less than the constitution of Sparta.” But this again puts an inadmissible meaning on ἡσύχαζον, which means “stood as they were.” The Bœotians were not called upon to choose between two sides or two positive schemes of action: they were invited to ally themselves with Argos, and this they decline doing: they prefer to remain as they are, allies of Lacedæmon, but refusing to become parties to the peace. Moreover, in the sense proposed by Dr. Arnold, we should surely find an adversative conjunction in place of καὶ.
I submit that the word περιορᾶν does not necessarily mean “to slight or despise,” but sometimes “to leave alone, to take no notice of, to abstain from interfering.” Thus, Thucyd. i, 24. Ἐπιδάμνιοι—πέμπουσιν ἐς τὴν Κερκύραν πρέσβεις—δεόμενοι μὴ σφᾶς περιορᾶν φθειρομένους, etc. Again, i, 69, καὶ νῦν τοὺς Ἀθηναίους οὐχ ἑκάς ἀλλ’ ἐγγὺς ὄντας περιορᾶτε, etc. The same is the sense of περιϊδεῖν and περιόψεσθαι, ii, 20. In all these passages there is no idea of contempt implied in the word: the “leaving alone” or “abstaining from interference,” proceeds from feelings quite different from contempt.
So in the passage here before us, περιορώμενοι seems the passive participle in this sense. Thucydidês, having just described an energetic remonstrance sent by the Spartans to prevent Corinth from joining Argos, means to intimate (by the words here in discussion) that no similar interference was resorted to by them to prevent the Bœotians and Megarians from joining her: “The Bœotians and Megarians remained as they were, left to themselves by the Lacedæmonians, and thinking the Argeian democracy less suitable to them than the oligarchy of Sparta.”
[28] Thucyd. v, 31. Καὶ μέχρι τοῦ Ἀττικοῦ πολέμου ἀπέφερον· ἔπειτα παυσαμένων διὰ πρόφασιν τοῦ πολέμου, οἱ Ἠλεῖοι ἐπηνάγκαζον, οἱ δ’ ἐτράποντο πρὸς τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους.
For the agreement here alluded to, see a few lines forward.
[29] Thucyd. v, 31. τὴν ξυνθήκην προφέροντες ἐν ᾗ εἴρητο, ἃ ἔχοντες ἐς τὸν Ἀττικὸν πόλεμον καθίσταντό τινες, ταῦτα ἔχοντας καὶ ἐξελθεῖν, ὡς οὐκ ἴσον ἔχοντες ἀφίστανται, etc.
Of the agreement here alluded to among the members of the Peloponnesian confederacy, we hear only in this one passage. It was extremely important to such of the confederates as were imperial cities; that is, which had subordinates or subject-allies.
Poppo and Bloomfield wonder that the Corinthians did not appeal to this agreement in order to procure the restitution of Sollium and Anaktorium. But they misconceive the scope of the agreement, which did not relate to captures made during the war by the common enemy. It would be useless for the confederacy to enter into a formal agreement that none of the members should lose anything through capture made by the enemy. This would be a question of superiority of force, for no agreement could bind the enemy. But the confederacy might very well make a covenant among themselves, as to the relations between their own imperial immediate members, and the mediate or subordinate dependencies of each. Each imperial state consented to forego the tribute or services of its dependency, so long as the latter was called upon to lend its aid in the general effort of the confederacy against the common enemy. But the confederacy at the same time gave its guarantee, that the imperial state should reënter upon these suspended rights, so soon as the war should be at an end. This guarantee was clearly violated by Sparta in the case of Elis and Lepreum. On the contrary, in the case of Mantineia, mentioned a few pages back, p. 19, the Mantineians had violated the maxim of the confederacy, and Sparta was justified in interfering at the request of their subjects to maintain the autonomy of the latter.
[30] Thucyd. v, 32. Κορινθίοις δὲ ἀνακωχὴ ἄσπονδος ἦν πρὸς Ἀθηναίους.
Upon which Dr. Arnold remarks: “By ἄσπονδος is meant a mere agreement in words, not ratified by the solemnities of religion. And the Greeks, as we have seen, considered the breach of their word very different from the breach of their oath.”
Not so much is here meant even as that which Dr. Arnold supposes. There was no agreement at all, either in words or by oath. There was a simple absence of hostilities, de facto, not arising out of any recognized pledge. Such is the meaning of ἀνακωχὴ, i, 66; iii, 25, 26.
The answer here made by the Athenians to the application of Corinth is not easy to understand. They might, with much better reason, have declined to conclude the ten day’s armistice with the Bœotians, because these latter still remained allies of Sparta, though refusing to accede to the general peace; whereas the Corinthians, having joined Argos, had less right to be considered allies of Sparta. Nevertheless, we shall still find them attending the meetings at Sparta, and acting as allies of the latter.
[31] Thucyd. v, 33, 34. The Neodamodes were Helots previously enfranchised, or the sons of such.
[32] Thucyd. iv, 80.
[33] Thucyd. v, 34. Ἀτίμους ἐποίησαν, ἀτιμίαν δὲ τοιαύτην, ὥστε μήτε ἄρχειν, μήτε πριαμένους τι, ἢ πωλοῦντας, κυρίους εἶναι.
[34] Thucyd. v, 32.
[35] Thucyd. v, 35-39. I agree with Dr. Thirlwall and Dr. Arnold in preferring the conjecture of Poppo, Χαλκιδῆς, in this place.
[36] Thucyd. v, 36.
[37] Thucyd. v, 37. ἐπεσταλμένοι ἀπό τε τοῦ Κλεοβούλου καὶ Ξενάρους καὶ ὅσοι φίλοι ἦσαν αὐτοῖς, etc.
[38] Thucyd. v, 36.
[39] Thucyd. v, 38. οἰόμενοι τὴν βουλὴν, κἂν μὴ εἴπωσιν, οὐκ ἄλλα ψηφιεῖσθαι ἢ ἃ σφίσι προδιαγνόντες παραινοῦσιν ... ταῖς τέσσαρσι βουλαῖς τῶν Βοιωτῶν, αἵπερ ἅπαν τὸ κῦρος ἔχουσι.
[40] Thucyd. v, 38.
[41] See Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. ii, ch. xvii, p. 370.
[42] Thucyd. v, 3.
[43] Thucyd. v, 41. Τοῖς δὲ Λακεδαιμονίοις τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἐδόκει μωρία εἶναι ταῦτα· ἔπειτα (ἐπεθύμουν γὰρ τὸ Ἄργος πάντως φίλιον ἔχειν) ξυνεχώρησαν ἐφ’ οἷς ἠξίουν, καὶ ξυνεγράψαντο.
By the forms of treaty which remain, we are led to infer that the treaty was not subscribed by any signatures, but drawn up by the secretary or authorized officer, and ultimately engraved on a column. The names of those who take the oath are recorded, but seemingly no official signature.
[44] Thucyd. v. 42.
[45] Thucyd. v. 42.
[46] Thucyd. v. 43. Ἀλκιβιάδης ... ἀνὴρ ἡλικίᾳ μὲν ὢν ἔτι τότε νέος, ὡς ἐν ἄλλῃ πόλει, ἀξιώματι δὲ προγόνων τιμώμενος.
The expression cf Plutarch, however, ἔτι μειράκιον, seems an exaggeration (Alkibiad. c. 10).
Kritias and Chariklês, in reply to the question of Sokratês, whom they had forbidden to converse with or teach young men, defined a young man to be one under thirty years of age, the senatorial age at Athens (Xenophon, Memor. i. 2. 35).
[47] Plato, Protagoras, c. 10, p. 320; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 2, 3, 4; Isokratês, De Bigis, Orat. xvi, p. 353, sect. 33, 34; Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 1.
[48] Πέπονθα δὲ πρὸς τοῦτον (Σωκράτη) μόνον ἀνθρώπων, ὃ οὐκ ἄν τις οἴοιτο ἐν ἐμοὶ ἐνεῖναι, τὸ αἰσχύνεσθαι ὁντινοῦν.
This is a part of the language which Plato puts into the mouth of Alkibiadês, in the Symposion, c. 32, p. 216; see also Plato, Alkibiad. i, c. 1, 2, 3.
Compare his other contemporary, Xenophon, Memor. i, 2, 16-25.
Φύσει δὲ πολλῶν ὄντων καὶ μεγάλων πάθων ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ φιλόνεικον ἰσχυρότατον ἦν καὶ τὸ φιλόπρωτον, ὡς δῆλόν ἐστι τοῖς παιδικοῖς ὑπομνήμασι (Plutarch, Alkib. c. 2).
[49] I translate, with some diminution of the force of the words, the expression of a contemporary author, Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2. 24. Ἀλκιβιάδης δ’ αὖ διὰ μὲν κάλλος ὑπὸ πολλῶν καὶ σεμνῶν γυναικῶν θηρώμενος, etc.
[50] Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, c. 49; Thucyd. vi, 16; Antipho apud Athenæum, xii, p. 525.
[51] Athenæus, ix, p. 407.
[52] Thucyd. vi, 15. I translate the expression of Thucydidês, which is of great force and significance—φοβηθέντες γὰρ αὐτοῦ οἱ πολλοὶ τὸ μέγεθος τῆς τε κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα παρανομίας ἐς τὴν δίαιταν, etc. The same word is repeated by the historian, vi, 28. τὴν ἄλλην αὐτοῦ ἐς τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα οὐ δημοτικὴν παρανομίαν.
The same phrase is also found in the short extract from the λοιδορία of Antipho (Athenæus, xii, p. 525).
The description of Alkibiadês, given in that Discourse called the Ἐρωτικὸς Λόγος, erroneously ascribed to Demosthenês (c. 12, p. 1414), is more discriminating than we commonly find in rhetorical compositions. Τοῦτο δ’, Ἀλκιβιάδην εὑρήσεις φύσει μὲν πρὸς ἀρετὴν πολλῷ χεῖρον διακείμενον, καὶ τὰ μὲν ὑπερηφάνως, τὰ δὲ ταπεινῶς, τὰ δ’ ὑπεράκρως, ζῆν προῃρημένον· ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς Σωκράτους ὁμιλίας πολλὰ μὲν ἐπανορθωθέντα τοῦ βίου, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ τῷ μεγέθει τῶν ἄλλων ἔργων ἐπικρυψάμενον.
Of the three epithets, whereby the author describes the bad tendencies of Alkibiadês, full illustrations will be seen in his proceedings, hereafter to be described. The improving influence here ascribed to Sokratês is unfortunately far less borne out.
[53] Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 4; Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 2; Plato, Protagoras, c. 1.
I do not know how far the memorable narrative ascribed to Alkibiadês in the Symposium of Plato (c. 33, 34, pp. 216, 217) can be regarded as matter of actual fact and history, so far as Sokratês is concerned; but it is abundant proof in regard to the general relations of Alkibiadês with others: compare Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 29, 30; iv. 1-2.
Several of the dialogues of Plato present to us striking pictures of the palæstra, with the boys, the young men, the gymnastic teachers, engaged in their exercises or resting from them, and the philosophers and spectators who came there for amusement and conversation. See particularly the opening chapters of the Lysis and the Charmidês; also the Rivales, where the scene is laid in the house of a γραμματιστὴς, or schoolmaster. In the Lysis, Sokratês professes to set his own conversation with these interesting youths as an antidote to the corrupting flatteries of most of those who sought to gain their good-will. Οὕτω χρὴ, ὦ Ἱππόθαλες, τοῖς παιδικοῖς διαλέγεσθαι, ταπεινοῦντα καὶ συστέλλοντα, ἀλλὰ μὴ, ὥσπερ σὺ, χαυνοῦντα καὶ διαθρύπτοντα (Lysis, c. 7, p. 210).
See, in illustration of what is here said about Alkibiadês as a youth, Euripid. Supplic. 906 (about Parthenopæus), and the beautiful lines in the Atys of Catullus, 60-69.
There cannot be a doubt that the characters of all the Greek youth of any pretensions were considerably affected by this society and conversation of their boyish years; though the subject is one upon which the full evidence cannot well be produced and discussed.
[54] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 10.
[55] See the description in the Protagoras of Plato, c. 8, p. 317.
[56] See Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 12-24, 39-47.
Κριτίας μὲν καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδης, οὐκ ἀρέσκοντος αὐτοῖς Σωκράτους ὡμιλησάτην, ὃν χρόνον ὡμιλείτην αὐτῷ, ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὡρμηκότε προεστάναι τῆς πόλεως. Ἔτι γὰρ Σωκράτει ξυνόντες οὐκ ἄλλοις τισὶ μᾶλλον ἐπεχείρουν διαλέγεσθαι ἢ τοῖς μάλιστα πράττουσι τὰ πολιτικά.... Ἐπεὶ τοίνυν τάχιστα τῶν πολιτευομένων ὑπέλαβον κρείττονες εἶναι, Σωκράτει μὲν οὐκ ἔτι προσῄεσαν, οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἄλλως ἤρεσκεν· εἴτε προσέλθοιεν, ὑπὲρ ὧν, ἡμάρτανον ἐλεγχόμενοι ἤχθοντο· τὰ δὲ τῆς πóλεως ἔπραττον, ὧνπερ ἕνεκεν καὶ Σωκράτει προσῆλθον. Compare Plato, Apolog. Sokrat. c. 10, p. 23; c. 22, p. 33.
Xenophon represents Alkibiadês and Kritias as frequenting the society of Sokratês, for the same reason and with the same objects as Plato affirms that young men generally went to the Sophists: see Plato, Sophist. c. 20, p. 232 D.
“Nam et Socrati (observes Quintilian, Inst. Or. ii, 16) objiciunt comici, docere cum, quomodo pejorem causam meliorem reddat; et contra Tisiam et Gorgiam similia dicit polliceri Plato.”
The representation given by Plato of the great influence acquired by Sokratês over Alkibiadês, and of the deference and submission of the latter, is plainly not to be taken as historical, even if we had not the more simple and trustworthy picture of Xenophon. Isokratês goes so far as to say that Sokratês was never known by any one as teacher of Alkibiadês: which is an exaggeration in the other direction. Isokratês, Busiris, Or. xi. sect. 6, p. 222.
[57] Plato, Symposium, c. 35-36, p. 220, etc.
[58] See the representation, given in the Protagoras of Plato, of the temper in which the young and wealthy Hippokratês goes to seek instruction from Protagoras, and of the objects which Protagoras proposes to himself in imparting the instruction. Plato, Protagoras, c. 2, p. 310 D.; c. 8, p. 316 C.; c. 9, p. 318, etc.: compare also Plato, Meno. p. 91, and Gorgias, c. 4. p. 449 E., asserting the connection, in the mind of Gorgias, between teaching to speak and teaching to think—λέγειν καὶ φρονεῖν, etc.
It would not be reasonable to repeat, as true and just, all the polemical charges against those who are called Sophists, even as we find them in Plato, without scrutiny and consideration. But modern writers on Grecian affairs run down the Sophists even more than Plato did, and take no notice of the admissions in their favor which he, though their opponent, is perpetually making.
This is a very extensive subject, to which I hope to revert.
[59] I dissent entirely from the judgment of Dr. Thirlwall, who repeats what is the usual representation of Sokratês and the Sophists, depicting Alkibiadês as “ensnared by the Sophists,” while Sokratês is described as a good genius preserving him from their corruptions (Hist. of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, pp. 312, 313, 314). I think him also mistaken when he distinguishes so pointedly Sokratês from the Sophists; when he describes the Sophists as “pretenders to wisdom;” as “a new school;” as “teaching that there was no real difference between truth and falsehood, right and wrong,” etc.
All the plausibility that there is in this representation, arises from a confusion between the original sense and the modern sense of the word Sophist; the latter seemingly first bestowed upon the word by Plato and Aristotle. In the common ancient acceptation of the word at Athens, it meant not a school of persons professing common doctrines, but a class of men bearing the same name, because they derived their celebrity from analogous objects of study and common intellectual occupation. The Sophists were men of similar calling and pursuits, partly speculative, partly professional; but they differed widely from each other, both in method and doctrine. (See for example Isokratês, cont. Sophistas, Orat. xiii; Plato, Meno. p. 87 B.) Whoever made himself eminent in speculative pursuits, and communicated his opinions by public lecture, discussion, or conversation, was called a Sophist, whatever might be the conclusions which he sought to expound or defend. The difference between taking money, and expounding gratuitously, on which Sokratês himself was so fond of dwelling (Xenoph. Memor. i, 6, 12), has plainly no essential bearing on the case. When Æschinês the orator reminds the dikasts, “Recollect that you Athenians put to death the Sophist Sokratês, because he was shown to have been the teacher of Kritias,” (Æschin. cont. Timarch. c. 34, p. 74,) he uses the word in its natural and true Athenian sense. He had no point to make against Sokratês, who had then been dead more than forty years; but he describes him by his profession or occupation, just as he would have said, Hippokratês the physician, Pheidias the sculptor, etc. Dionysius of Halikarn. calls both Plato and Isokratês sophists (Ars Rhetor. De Compos. Verborum, p. 208 R.). The Nubes of Aristophanês, and the defences put forth by Plato and Xenophon, show that Sokratês was not only called by the name Sophist, but regarded just in the same light as that in which Dr. Thirlwall presents to us what he calls “the new School of the Sophists;” as “a corruptor of youth, indifferent to truth or falsehood, right or wrong,” etc. See a striking passage in the Politicus of Plato, c. 38, p. 299 B. Whoever thinks, as I think, that these accusations were falsely advanced against Sokratês, will be careful how he advances them against the general profession to which Sokratês belonged.
That there were unprincipled and immoral men among the class of Sophists—as there are and always have been among schoolmasters, professors, lawyers, etc., and all bodies of men—I do not doubt; in what proportion, we cannot determine. But the extreme hardship of passing a sweeping condemnation on the great body of intellectual teachers at Athens, and canonizing exclusively Sokratês and his followers, will be felt, when we recollect that the well-known Apologue, called the Choice of Hercules, was the work of the Sophist Prodikus, and his favorite theme of lecture (Xenophon, Memor. ii, 1, 21-34). To this day, that Apologue remains without a superior, for the impressive simplicity with which it presents one of the most important points of view of moral obligation: and it has been embodied in a greater number of books of elementary morality than anything of Sokratês, Plato, or Xenophon. To treat the author of that Apologue, and the class to which he belonged, as teaching “that there was no real difference between right and wrong, truth and falsehood,” etc., is a criticism not in harmony with the just and liberal tone of Dr. Thirlwall’s history.
I will add that Plato himself, in a very important passage of the Republic (vi, c. 6, 7, pp. 492-493), refutes the imputation against the Sophists of being specially the corruptors of youth. He represents them as inculcating upon their youthful pupils that morality which was received as true and just in their age and society; nothing better, nothing worse. The grand corruptor, he says, is society itself; the Sophists merely repeat the voice and judgment of society. Without inquiring at present how far Plato or Sokratês were right in condemning the received morality of their countrymen, I most fully accept his assertion that the great body of the contemporary professional teachers taught what was considered good morality among the Athenian public: there were doubtless some who taught a better morality, others who taught a worse. And this may be said with equal truth of the great body of professional teachers in every age and nation.
Xenophon enumerates various causes to which he ascribes the corruption of the character of Alkibiadês; wealth, rank, personal beauty, flatterers, etc.; but he does not name the Sophists among them (Memorab. i, 2. 24, 25).
[60] Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 1; Satyrus apud Athenæum, xii, p. 534; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 23.
Οὗ γὰρ τοιούτων δεῖ, τοιοῦτος εἰμ’ ἐγώ, says Odysseus, in the Philoktêtês of Sophoklês.
[61] I follow the criticism which Plutarch cites from Theophrastus, seemingly discriminating and measured: much more trustworthy than the vague eulogy of Nepos, or even of Demosthenês (of course not from his own knowledge), upon the eloquence of Alkibiadês (Plutarch, Alkib. c. 10); Plutarch, Reipubl. Gerend. Præcept. c. 8, p. 804.
Antisthenês, companion and pupil of Sokratês, and originator of what is called the Cynic philosophy, contemporary and personally acquainted with Alkibiadês, was full of admiration for his extreme personal beauty, and pronounced him to be strong, manly, and audacious, but unschooled, ἀπαίδευτον. His scandals about the lawless life of Alkibiadês, however, exceed what we can reasonably admit, even from a contemporary (Antisthenês ap. Athenæum, v, p. 220, xii, p. 534). Antisthenês had composed a dialogue called Alkibiadês (Diog. Laërt. vi, 15).
See the collection of the Fragmenta Antisthenis (by A. G. Winckelmann, Zurich, 1842, pp. 17-19).
The comic writers of the day—Eupolis, Aristophanês, Pherekratês, and others—seem to have been abundant in their jests and libels against the excesses of Alkibiadês, real or supposed. There was a tale, untrue, but current in comic tradition, that Alkibiadês, who was not a man to suffer himself to be insulted with impunity, had drowned Eupolis in the sea, in revenge, for his comedy of the Baptæ. See Meineke, Fragm. Com. Græ. Eupolidis Βάπται and Κόλακες (vol. ii, pp. 447-494), and Aristophanês Τριφαλῆς, p. 1166: also Meineke’s first volume, Historia Critica Comic. Græc. pp. 124-136; and the Dissertat. xix, in Buttmann’s Mythologus, on the Baptæ and the Cotyttia.
[62] Thucyd. vi, 15. Compare Plutarch, Reip. Ger. Præc. c. 4, p. 800. The sketch which Plato draws in the first three chapters of the ninth Book of the Republic, of the citizen who erects himself into a despot and enslaves his fellow-citizens, exactly suits the character of Alkibiadês. See also the same treatise, vi, 6-8, pp. 491-494, and the preface of Schleiermacher to his translation of the Platonic dialogue called Alkibiadês the first.
[63] Aristophan. Ranæ, 1445-1453; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 16; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 9.
[64] Thucyd. v, 43, vi, 90; Isokratês, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 352, sect. 27-30.
Plutarch (Alkibiad. c. 14) carelessly represents Alkibiadês as being actually proxenus of Sparta at Athens.
[65] Thucyd. v, 43. Οὐ μέντοι ἀλλὰ καὶ φρονήματι φιλονεικῶν ἠναντιοῦτο, ὅτι Λακεδαιμόνιοι διὰ Νικίου καὶ Λάχητος ἔπραξαν τὰς σπονδὰς, αὐτὸν διὰ τὴν νεότητα ὑπεριδόντες καὶ κατὰ τὴν παλαιὰν προξενίαν ποτὲ οὖσαν οὐ τιμήσαντες, ἣν τοῦ πάππου ἀπειπόντος αὐτὸς τοὺς ἐκ τῆς νήσου αὐτῶν αἰχμαλώτους θεραπεύων διενοεῖτο ἀνανεώσασθαι. Πανταχόθεν τε νομίζων ἐλασσοῦσθαι τό τε πρῶτον ἀντεῖπεν, etc.
[66] Thucyd. v, 43.
[67] Thucyd. v, 48.
[68] Thucyd. v, 44. Ἀφίκοντο δὲ καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων πρέσβεις κατὰ τάχος, etc.
[69] Thucyd. viii, 6. Ἐνδίῳ τῷ ἐφορεύοντι πατρικὸς ἐς τὰ μάλιστα φίλος—ὅθεν καὶ τοὔνομα Λακωνικὸν ἡ οἰκία αὐτῶν κατὰ τὴν ξενίαν ἔσχεν· Ἔνδιος γὰρ Ἀλκιβιάδου ἐκαλεῖτο.
I incline to suspect, from this passage, that the father of Endius was not named Alkibiadês, but that Endius himself was nevertheless named Ἔνδιος Ἀλκιβιάδου, in consequence of the peculiar intimacy of connection with the Athenian family in which that name occurred. If the father of Endius was really named Alkibiadês, Endius himself would naturally, pursuant to general custom, be styled Ἔνδιος Ἀλκιβιάδου: there would be nothing in this denomination to call for the particular remark of Thucydidês. But according to the view of the Scholiast and most commentators, all that Thucydidês wishes to explain here is, how the father of Endius came to receive the name of Alkibiadês. Now if he had meant this, he surely would not have used the terms which we read: the circumstance to be explained would then have reference to the father of Endius, not to Endius himself, nor to the family generally. His words imply that the family, that is, each successive individual of the family, derived his Laconian designation (not from the name of his father, but) from his intimate connection of hospitality with the Athenian family of Alkibiadês. Each successive individual attached to his own personal name the genitive case Ἀλκιβιάδου, instead of the genitive of his real father’s name. Doubtless this was an anomaly in Grecian practice; but on the present occasion, we are to expect something anomalous; had it not been such, Thucydidês would not have stepped aside to particularize it.