163 K. O. Müller, Dorians, Eng. tr. ii, 365–68; Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, Eng. tr. ed. 1894, iii, 113. ↑
165 Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 22. ↑
166 Philolaos, as we saw, is said to have been prosecuted, but is not said to have been condemned. ↑
167 Fairbanks, pp. 245, 255, 261; Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, 4 (§ 8). ↑
168 Fairbanks, pp. 230–45. Cp. Grote, Plato, i, 54, and Ueberweg, i, 66, as to nature of the Nous of Anaxagoras. ↑
169 Grote, i, 374; Hesychius, s.v. Agamemnona; cp. Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, 7 (§ 11); Tatian, Adv. Græcos, c. 37 (21). ↑
170 Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 6. ↑
172 Id. c. 16. The old man is said to have uttered the reproach: “Perikles, those who want to use a lamp supply it with oil.” ↑
173 Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 4. ↑
174 Cp. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. iv, 277. ↑
175 Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 32. ↑
176 Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. ix (§ 57), citing the Defence of Sokrates by Demetrius Phalereus. ↑
177 Id. bk. ii, ch. iii, 9 (§ 12), citing Sotion. Another writer of philosophers’ lives, Hermippus (same cit.), said he had been thrown into prison; and yet a third, Hieronymus, said he was released out of pity because of his emaciated appearance when produced in court by Perikles. ↑
178 Diog. Laërt. last cit. 10 (§ 14). ↑
180 Drews, Gesch. des Monismus im Altertum, p. 205. ↑
181 Even in the early progressive period “the same time which set up rationalism developed a deep religious influence in the masses.” (Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. ii, 728. Cp. iii, 425; also Grote, vii, 30; and Benn, Philosophy of Greece, 1898, pp. 69–70.) ↑
182 Plutarch, Perikles, ch. 32. ↑
183 Cp. Grote, v, 24; Curtius, ii, 208–209. ↑
184 Plutarch, as cited. Plutarch also states, however, that the only occasion on which Perikles gave way to emotion in public was that of the death of his favourite son. ↑
185 Holm (Griechische Geschichte, ii, 335) decides that Perikles sought to Ionise his fellow Athenians; and Dr. Burnet, coinciding (Early Greek Philosophy, 1892, p. 277), suggests that he and Aspasia brought Anaxagoras to Athens with that aim. ↑
187 “Der Kleinasiatische Rationalist Herodot” is the exaggerated estimate of A. Bauer, in Ilberg’s Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, ix (1902), 235, following Eduard Meyer (iv, § 448), who, however (§ 447), points to the lack of scientific thought or training in Herodotos as in Thukydides. Ignorance of Nature remained a Greek characteristic. ↑
188 Bk. viii, ch. 77. Cp. viii, 20, 96; ix, 43. ↑
189 Cp. Meyer, iv, § 446, as to the inadequacy of Athenian culture, and the unchanging ignorance of the populace on matters of physical science. ↑
190 Plutarch, Against the Stoics, ch. 31; Simplicius, Physica, i, 6. ↑
191 Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. 4. ↑
192 Refutation of all Heresies, i, 14. ↑
193 Cp. Aristotle, Metaphysics, i, 3; De anima, i, 2. ↑
194 Decharme, Critique des trad. relig. p. 137, citing scholiast on Aristoph., Clouds, 96. ↑
195 See the point discussed by Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, 3te Aufl. i, 128–29, 131–32, notes 10 and 31 (Eng. tr. i, 15, 39). Ritter and Preller say “Protagoras floret circa a. 450–430”; “Democritus natus circa a. 460 floret a. 430–410, obit. circa a. 357.” ↑
196 Cp. Ueberweg, i, 68–69; Renouvier, Manuel de la philos. anc. i, 238. ↑
199 Lange, i, 10–11 (tr. p. 17); Clem. Alex. Stromata, i, 15; Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, § 35. ↑
200 On this also see Lange, i, 128 (tr. p. 15, note). ↑
201 Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. vii, 2 (§ 34). Cp. Renouvier, i, 239–41. ↑
202 See in particular the De principiis atque originibus (Works, Routledge’s 1-vol. ed. 1905, pp. 649–50). ↑
203 Meyer, who dwells on his scientific shortcomings (Gesch. des Alt. v. § 910), makes no account of this, his vital doctrine. ↑
204 Fairbanks, pp. 189–91. The idea is not put by Empedokles with any such definiteness as is suggested by Lange, i, 23–25 (tr. pp. 33–35), and Ueberweg, Hist. of Philos. Eng. tr. i, 62, n. But Ueberweg’s exposition is illuminating. ↑
205 Fairbanks, pp. 136, 169. ↑
209 See a good study of Empedokles in J. A. Symonds’ Studies of the Greek Poets, 3rd ed. 1893, vol. i, ch. 7; and another in Renouvier, Manuel, i, 163–82. ↑
210 Cp. Grote, Plato, i, 73, and note. ↑
211 Cp. Renouvier, i, 239–62; Lange, p. 11 (tr. p. 17). ↑
213 Diogenes Laërtius, bk. ix, ch. viii, § 3 (51); cp. Grote, vii, 49, note. ↑
214 For a defence of Protagoras against Plato, see Grote, vii, 43–54. ↑
215 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, ix, 56. ↑
216 Beckmann, History of Inventions, Eng. tr. 1846, ii, 513. ↑
217 Diod. Sic. xiii, 6; Hesychius, cit. in Cudworth, ed. Harrison, i, 131. ↑
218 Ueberweg, i, 80; Thukydides, v, 116. The bias of Sextus Empiricus is further shown in his account of Diagoras as moved in his denunciation by an injury to himself. ↑
219 It is told by Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. ix, 53) that Diagoras is said to have invented the dithyramb (in praise of Iacchos), and to have begun a poem with the words, “All things come by the daimon and fortune.” But Sextus writes with a fixed skeptical bias. ↑
220 Grote, vi, 13, 32, 33, 42–45. ↑
221 Athenagoras, Apol., ch. 4; Clem. Alex., Protrept. ch. 2. See the documentary details in Meyer, iv, 105. ↑
222 Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 1, 23, 42; iii, 37 (the last reference gives proof of his general rationalism); Lactantius, De irâ Dei, c. 9. In calling Sokrates “the Melian,” Aristophanes (Clouds, 830) was held to have virtually called him “the atheist.” ↑
223 Diod. xiii, 6; Suidas, s.v. Diagoras; Aristophanes, Birds, 1073. It is noteworthy that in their fury against Diagoras the Athenians put him on a level of common odium with the “tyrants” of past history. Cp. Burckhardt, Griechische Culturgeschichte, i, 355. ↑
224 Grote, vi, 476–77. As to the freethinking of Kritias, see Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. ix, 54. According to Xenophon (Memorabilia, i, 2), Kritias made his decree in revenge for Sokrates’s condemnation of one of his illicit passions. Prof. Decharme (pp. 122–24) gives a good account of him. ↑
225 Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. iv; Hippolytos, Refutation of all Heresies, i, 8; Renouvier, Manuel, i, 233–37. ↑
226 Cp. Cudworth, Intellectual System, ed. Harrison, i, 32; Renouvier, Manuel, i, 233, 289; ii, 268, 292; Tatian, Adv. Græcos, c. 48 (31); Diog. Laërt. bk. ii, ch. iii, 7 (§ 11); Grote, i, 374, 395, note; Hatch, Infl. of Greek Ideas, p. 60. ↑
227 Haigh, Tragic Drama of the Greeks, p. 206. Cp. Burnett, p. 278. ↑
228 Diog. Laërt. bk. ii (§ 22). ↑
229 “He never so utterly abandoned the religion of his country as to find it impossible to acquiesce in at least some part of traditional religion.” Jevons, Hist. of Greek Lit. 1886. p. 222. ↑
230 Haigh, The Attic Theatre, 1889, p. 316. ↑
232 “He had also acquired in no small degree that love of dexterous argumentation and verbal sophistry which was becoming fashionable in the Athens of the fifth century. Not unfrequently he exhibits this dexterity when it is clearly out of place.” Haigh, Tragic Drama of the Greeks, p. 235. Cp. Jevons, Hist. of Greek Lit. p. 223. Schlegel is much more censorious. ↑
233 Ion., 436–51, 885–922; Andromache, 1161–65; Electra, 1245–46; Hercules Furens, 339–47; Iphigenia in Tauris, 35, 711–15. ↑
234 Hercules Furens, 344, 1341–46; Iphigenia in Tauris, 380–91. ↑
237 Ion, 374–78, 685; Helena, 744–57; Iphigenia in Tauris, 570–75; Electra, 400; Phœnissæ, 772; Fragm. 793; Bacchæ, 255–57; Hippolytus, 1059. It is noteworthy that even Sophocles (Œd. Tyr., 387) makes a character taunt Tiresias the soothsayer with venality. ↑
238 Philoctetes, fr. 793; Helena, 1137–43; Bellerophon, fr. 288. ↑
240 Helena, 1013; Fragm. 890, 905, 935; Troades, 848–88. ↑
241 A. Schlegel, Lectures on Dramatic Literature, Bohn tr. p. 117. ↑
242 This charge is on a par with that of Hygiainon, who accused Euripides of impiety on the score that one of his characters makes light of oaths. Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii, 15. ↑
243 K. O. Müller, Hist. of the Lit. of Anc. Greece, 1847, p. 359. The complaint is somewhat surprising from such a source. The only play with an entirely invented plot mentioned by Aristotle is Agathon’s Flower (Aristotle, Poetic, ix); and such plays would not have been eligible for representation at the great festivals. ↑
244 Cp. Jevons, Hist. of Greek Lit. pp. 223–24. ↑
245 Haigh. The Attic Theatre, p. 191. Cp. Müller, pp. 362–64. ↑
246 See, however, the æsthetic theorem of Prof. Murray, Euripides and his Age, pp. 221–27. ↑
247 It seems arguable that the aversion of Aristophanes to Euripides was primarily artistic, arising in dislike of some of the features of his style. On this head his must be reckoned an expert judgment. The old criticism found in Euripides literary vices; the new seems to ignore the issue. But a clerical scholar pronounces that “Aristophanes was the most unreasoning laudator temporis acti. Genius and poet as he was, he was the sworn foe to intellectual progress.” Hence his hatred of Euripides and his championship of Æschylus. (Rev. Dr. W. W. Merry, introd. to Clar. Press ed. of The Frogs, 1892.) ↑
248 Girard, Essai sur Thucydide, 1884, pp. 258–59. ↑
249 Cp. Haigh, The Attic Theatre, p. 315. In the same way Ktesilochos, the pupil of Apelles, could with impunity make Zeus ridiculous by exhibiting him pictorially in child-bed, bringing forth Dionysos (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxv, 40. § 15). ↑
251 Cp. Benn, Philos. of Greece, p. 171. ↑
252 Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, Eng. tr. 3rd ed. p. 227: Hegel, as there cited Grote, Plato, ed. 1885, i, 423. ↑
253 Cp. Owen, Evenings with the Skeptics, i, 181 sq., 291, 293, 299, etc. ↑
254 Grote, History, i, 334; Xenophon, Memorabilia, i, 1, §§ 6–9. ↑
255 Cp. Benn. The Philosophy of the Greeks, 1898, p. 160. ↑
256 Grote, i, 334–35; Hippocrates, De Aeribus, Aquis, Locis, c. 22 (49). ↑
257 Plato, Phædrus, Jowett’s tr. 3rd ed. i. 434; Grote, History, i, 393. ↑
258 Compare, however, the claim made for him, as promoting “objectivity,” by Prof. Drews, Gesch. des Monismus im Altertum, 1913. P. 213. ↑
260 “The predominatingly theistic character of philosophy ever since has been stamped on it by Socrates, as it was stamped on Socrates by Athens” (Benn, Philos. of Greece, p. 168). ↑
261 Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, as cited, p. 231. The case against Sokrates is bitterly urged by Forchhammer, Die Athenen und Sokrates, 1837; see in particular pp. 8–11. Cp. Grote, Hist. vii, 81. ↑
262 “Had not all the cultivated men of the time passed through a school of rationalism which had entirely pulled to pieces the beliefs and the morals of their ancestors?” Zeller, as last cited, pp. 231–33. Cp. Haigh, Tragic Drama, p. 261. ↑
263 See Aristophanes’s Frogs, 888–94. ↑
264 Æschines, Timarchos, cited by Thirlwall, iv, 277. Cp. Xenophon, Mem. i, 2. ↑
265 “Nothing could well be more unpopular and obnoxious than the task which he undertook of cross-examining and convicting of ignorance every distinguished man whom he could approach.” Grote, vii. 95. Cp. pp. 141–44. Cp. also Trevelyan’s Life of Macaulay, ed. 1881, p. 316: and Renouvier, Manuel de la philos. anc. 1, iv, § iii. See also, however, Benn, Phil. of Greece, pp. 162–63. For a view of Sokrates’s relations to his chief accuser, which partially vindicates or whitewashes the latter, see Prof. G. Murray’s Anc. Greek Lit. pp. 176–77. There is a good monograph by H. Bleeckly, Socrates and the Athenians: An Apology, 1884, which holds the balances fairly. ↑
266 On the desire of Sokrates to die see Grote, vii, 152–64. ↑
267 The assertion of Plutarch that after his death the prosecutors of Sokrates were socially excommunicated, and so driven to hang themselves (Moralia: Of Envy and Hatred), is an interesting instance of moral myth-making. It has no historic basis; though Diogenes (ii, 23 § 43) and Diodorus Siculus (xiv, 37), late authorities both, allege an Athenian reaction in Sokrates’ favour. Probably the story of the suicide of Judas was framed in imitation of Plutarch’s. ↑
269 Id. i, 194. Not till Strabo do we find this myth disbelieved; and Strabo was surprised to find most men holding by the old story while admitting that the race of Amazons had died out. Id. p. 197. ↑
270 Life of Thukydides, by Marcellinus, ch. 22, citing Antyllas. Cp. Girard, Essai sur Thucydide, p. 239; and the prefaces of Hobbes and Smith to their translations. ↑
272 “His writings,” remarks Dr. Hatch, “contain the seeds of nearly all that afterwards grew up on Christian soil” (Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890, p. 182). ↑
273 Clem. Alex. Stromata, v, 14; Fairbanks, pp. 146–47; Grote, Plato, ch. 38. ↑
274 Cp. Grote, Plato, iv, 162, 381. Professor Bain, however (Practical Essays, 1884, p. 273), raises an interesting question by his remark, as to the death of Sokrates: “The first person to feel the shock was Plato. That he was affected by it to the extent of suppressing his views on the higher questions we can infer with the greatest probability. Aristotle was equally cowed.” ↑
275 Diog. Laër. bk. ix, ch. vii, § 8 (40). ↑
276 Republic, bk. ii, 377, to iii, 393; Jowett’s tr. 3rd ed. iii, 60 sq., 68 sq. In bk. x, it is true, he does speak of the poets as unqualified by knowledge and training to teach truth (Jowett’s tr. iii, 311 sq.); but Plato’s “truth” is not objective, but idealistic, or rather fictitious-didactic. ↑
277 Id. Jowett. pp. 59, 69, etc. ↑
278 Id. bk. iii; Jowett, pp. 103–105. ↑
279 Laws, x; Jowett, v, 295–98. ↑
280 Received myths are forbidden; and the preferred fictions are to be city law. Cp. the Laws, ii, iii; Jowett, v, 42, 79. ↑
281 Laws, Jowett’s tr. 3rd ed. v, 271–72. Cp. the comment of Benn, i, 271–72. ↑
282 Republic, bk. ii, 379; Jowett, iii, 62. ↑
283 Laws, x, 906–907, 910; Jowett, v, 293–94, 297–98. ↑
284 On the inconsistency of the whole doctrine see see Grote’s Plato, iv, 379–97. ↑
285 Ueberweg, Hist. of Philos. Eng. tr. i, 25. Cp. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, i, 38–39 (tr. i, 52–54), and the remarkable verdict of Bacon (De Augmentis, bk. iii, ch. 4; Works, 1-vol. ed. 1905, p. 471; cp. Advancement of Learning, bk. ii, p. 96) as to the superiority of the natural philosophy of Demokritos over those of Plato and Aristotle. Bacon immediately qualifies his verdict; but he repeats it, as regards both Aristotle and Plato, in the Novum Organum, bk. i, aph. 96. See, however, Mr. Benn’s final eulogy of Plato as a thinker, i, 273, and Murray’s Anc. Greek Lit. pp. 311–13. ↑
286 Laws, x, 908; Jowett, v, 295. ↑
287 Grote, History, vii, 168. ↑
288 Cp. Grote, Aristotle, 2nd ed. p. 10. ↑
289 Origen, Against Celsus, ii, 13; cp. i, 65; iii, 75; vii, 3. ↑
290 Grote, Aristotle, p. 13. ↑
291 Benn, Greek Philosophers, i, 352. Mr. Benn refutes Sir A. Grant’s view that Aristotle’s creed was a “vague pantheism”; but that phrase loosely conveys the idea of its non-religiousness. It might be called a Lucretian monotheism. Cp. Benn, i, 294; and Drews, Gesch. des Monismus, p. 257. ↑
292 Metaphysics, xi (xii), 8, 13 (p. 1074, b). The passage is so stringent as to raise the question how he came to run the risk in this one case. It was probably a late writing, and he may have taken it for granted that the Metaphysics would never be read by the orthodox. ↑
293 Cp. the severe criticisms of Benn, vol. i, ch. vi; Berry, Short Hist. of Astron. p. 33; and Lange, Ges. des Mater. i, 61–68, and notes, citing Eucken and Cuvier. Aristotle’s science is very much on a par with that of Bacon, who saw his imperfections, but fell into the same kinds of error. Both insisted on an inductive method; and both transgressed from it. See, however, Lange’s summary, p. 69, also p. 7, as to the unfairness of Whewell; and ch. v of Soury’s Bréviaire de l’histoire du Matérialisme, 1881, especially end. ↑
295 Strabo, bk. ix, ch. iii, § 11. Strabo reproaches Ephoros with repeating the current legends all the same; but it seems clear that he anticipated the critical tactic of Gibbon. ↑
296 As to the Stoics, cp. Zeller, § 34, 4; Benn, The Philosophy of Greece, pp. 255–56. As to Epicurus, cp. Benn, p. 261. ↑
297 Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. xi, 5, § 64. The lengthy notice given by Diogenes shows the impression Pyrrho’s teaching made. See a full account of it, so far as known, in the Rev. J. Owen’s Evenings with the Skeptics, 1881, i, 287 sq., and the monograph of Zimmerman, there cited. ↑
298 These propositions occur in the first of the ten Pyrrhonian tropoi or modes (Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. xi, 9), of which the authorship is commonly assigned to Ænesidemos (fl. 80–50). Cp. Owen, Evenings with the Skeptics, i, 290, 322–23. But as given by Diogenes they seem to derive from the early Pyrrhonian school. ↑
299 Thus, where Democritos pronounced the sun to be of vast size, Epicurus held it to be no larger than it seemed (Cicero, De Finibus, i, 6)—a view also loosely ascribed to Herakleitos (Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. i, 6, § 7). See, however, Wallace’s Epicureanism (“Ancient Philosophies” series), 1889, pp. 176 sq., 186 sq., 266, as to the scientific merits of the system. ↑
300 The Epicurean doctrine on this and other heads is chiefly to be gathered from the great poem of Lucretius. Prof. Wallace’s excellent treatise gives all the clues. See p. 202 as to the Epicurean God-idea. ↑
301 Grote, History, i, 395, note; Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi sec. Epicur. ↑
302 Compare Wallace, Epicureanism, pp. 64–71, and ch. xi; and Mackintosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, 4th ed. p. 29. ↑
303 De rerum natura, i, 62–79. ↑
304 Alexander seu Pseudomantis, cc. 25, 38, 47, 61, cited by Wallace, pp. 249–50. ↑
305 The repute of the Epicureans for irreligion appears in the fact that when Romanized Athens had consented to admit foreigners to the once strictly Athenian mysteries of Eleusis, the Epicureans were excluded. ↑
306 Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 13; Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata, v, 14; Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Mathematicos, ix, 51, 55. ↑
307 Diog. Laërt. bk ii, ch. viii, §§ 7, 11–14 (86, 97–100). He was also nicknamed “the God.” Id. and ch. xii, 5 (§ 116). ↑
308 Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 1, 23, 42. ↑
309 Diogenes, as last cited, § 12 (97). ↑
310 Id. §§ 15, 16 (101–102). ↑
311 Professor Wallace’s account of the court of Lysimachos of Thrace as a “favourite resort of emancipated freethinkers” (Epicureanism, p. 42) is hardly borne out by his authority, Diogenes Laërtius, who represents Lysimachos as unfriendly towards Theodoros. Hipparchia the Cynic, too, opposed rather than agreed with the atheist. ↑
312 Diog., last cit. Cp. Cicero, Tusculans, ii, 43. Philo Judæus (Quod Omnis Probus Liber, c. 18; cp. Plutarch, De Exilio, c. 16) has a story of his repelling taunts about his banishment by comparing himself to Hercules, who was put ashore by the alarmed Argonauts because of his weight. But he is further made to boast extravagantly, and in doing so to speak as a believer in myths and deities. The testimony has thus little value. ↑
313 Diog. bk. ii, ch. xii, § 5 (116). ↑
315 Id. ch. xii, § 5 (117) and bk. iv, ch. vii, §§ 4, 9, 10 (52, 54, 55). ↑
316 Plutarch, De defectu orac. ch. 19. Bion seems to have made an impression on Plutarch, who often quotes him, though it be but to contradict him. ↑
317 Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 13. ↑
318 Id. ib.; Academics, iv, 38. ↑
319 Cicero, Tusculans, i, 10, 31; Academics, ii, 39; and refs. in ed. Davis. ↑
320 Sir A. Grant’s tr. of the hymn is given in Capes’s Stoicism (“Chief Ancient Philosophies” series), 1880, p. 41; and the Greek text by Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, p. 262. Cp. Cicero, De nat. Deor. i, 14. ↑
321 Pseudo-Plutarch, De placitis philosoph. i, 7. ↑
322 Eusebius, Præp. Evang. bk. ii, ch. 2; Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, ch. 23. ↑
324 It may be noted that Diogenes of Babylon, a follower of Chrysippos, applied the principle to Greek mythology. Cicero, De nat. Deor. i, 15. ↑