[518] See Meineke, Hist. Critic. Comicor. Græcor. vol. i, p. 26, seq.

Grysar and Mr. Clinton, following Suidas, place Chionidês before the Persian invasion; but the words of Aristotle rather countenance the later date (Poetic. c. 3).

[519] See respecting these licentious processions, in connection with the iambus and Archilochus, vol. iv, of this History, ch. xxix, p. 81.

Aristotle (Poetic, c. 4) tells us that these phallic processions, with liberty to the leaders (οἱ ἐξάρχοντες) of scoffing at every one, still continued in many cities of Greece in his time: see Herod. v, 83, and Sêmus apud Athenæum, xiv, p. 622; also the striking description of the rural Dionysia in the Acharneis of Aristophanês, 235, 255, 1115. The scoffing was a part of the festival, and supposed to be agreeable to Dionysus: ἐν τοῖς Διονυσίοις ἐφειμένον αὐτὸ δρᾷν· καὶ τὸ σκῶμμα μέρος τι ἐδόκει τῆς ἑορτῆς· καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἴσως χαίρει, φιλογέλως τις ὤν (Lucian, Piscator. c. 25). Compare Aristophanês, Ranæ, 367, where the poet seems to imply that no one has a right to complain of being ridiculed in the πατρίοις τελεταῖς Διονύσου.

The Greek word for comedy—κωμῳδία, τὸ κωμῳδεῖν—at least in its early sense, had reference to a bitter, insulting, criminative ridicule: κωμῳδεῖν καὶ κακῶς λέγειν (Xenophon, Repub. Ath. ii, 23)—κακηγοροῦντάς τε καὶ κωμῳδοῦντας ἀλλήλους καὶ αἰσχρολογοῦντας (Plato de Repub. iii, 8, p. 332). A remarkable definition of κωμῳδία appears in Bekker’s Anecdota Græca, ii, 747, 10: Κωμῳδία ἐστιν ἡ ἐν μέσῳ λάου κατηγορία, ἤγουν δημοσίευσις; “public exposure to scorn before the assembled people:” and this idea of it as a penal visitation of evil-doers is preserved in Platonius and the anonymous writers on comedy, prefixed to Aristophanês. The definition which Aristotle (Poetic. c. 11) gives of it, is too mild for the primitive comedy: for he tells us himself that Kratês, immediately preceding Aristophanês, was the first author who departed from the ἰαμβικὴ ἰδέα: this “iambic vein” was originally the common character. It doubtless included every variety of ridicule, from innocent mirth to scornful contempt and odium; but the predominant character tended decidedly to the latter.

Compare Will. Schneider, Attisches Theater-Wesen, Notes, pp. 22-25; Bernhardy, Griechische Litteratur, sect. 67, p. 292.

[520]

Kratini Fragm. Incert. 51; Meineke, Fr. Com. Græcor. ii, p. 193.

[521] Respecting Kratinus, see Platonius and the other writers on the Attic comedy, prefixed to Aristophanês in Bekker’s edition, pp. vi, ix, xi, xiii, etc.; also Meineke, Historia Comic. Græc. vol. i, p. 50, seq.

... Οὐ γὰρ, ὥσπερ Ἀριστοφάνης, ἐπιτρέχειν τὴν χάριν τοῖς σκώμμασι ποιεῖ (Κρατῖνος), ἀλλ᾽ ἁπλῶς, καὶ, κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν, γυμνῇ τῇ κεφαλῇ τίθησι τᾶς βλασφημίας κατὰ τῶν ἀμαρτανόντων.

[522] See Kratinus—Ἀρχίλοχοι—Frag. 1, and Plutarch, Kimon, 10, Ἡ κωμῳδία πολιτεύεται ἐν τοῖς δράμασι καὶ φιλοσοφεῖ, ἡ τῶν περὶ τὸν Κρατῖνον καὶ Ἀριστοφάνην καὶ Εὔπολιν, etc. (Dionys. Halikarn. Ars Rhetoric. c. 11.)

[523] Aristophan. Equit. 525. seq.

[524] A comedy called Ὀδυσσεῖς (plur. numb. corresponding to the title of another of his comedies, Ἀρχίλοχοι). It had a chorus, as one of the Fragments shows, but few or no choric songs; nor any parabasis, or address by the chorus, assuming the person of the poet, to the spectators.

See Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœd. Antiq. p. 142, seq.; Meineke, Frag. Cratini, vol. ii, p. 93, Ὀδυσσεῖς: compare also the first volume of the same work, p. 43: also Runkel, Cratini Fragm. p. 38 (Leips. 1827).

[525] Aristophanês boasts that he was the first comic composer who selected great and powerful men for his objects of attack: his predecessors, he affirms, had meddled only with small vermin and rags: ἐς τὰ ῥάκια σκώπτοντας ἀεὶ, καὶ τοῖς φθειρσὶν πολεμοῦντας (Pac. 724-736; Vesp. 1030).

But this cannot be true in point of fact, since we know that no man was more bitterly assailed by the comic authors of his day than Periklês. It ought to be added, that though Aristophanês doubtless attacked the powerful men, he did not leave the smaller persons unmolested.

[526] Aristoph. Ran. 1067; also Vesp. 1095. Æschylus reproaches Euripidês:—

Τὸ ῥυππαπαὶ seems to have been the peculiar cry or chorus of the seamen on shipboard, probably when some joint pull or effort of force was required: compare Vespæ, 909.

[527] See about the effect on the estimation of Sokratês, Ranke, Commentat. de Vitâ Aristophanis, p. cdxli.

Compare also the remarks of Cicero (De Repub. iv, 11; vol. iv, p. 476, ed. Orell.) upon the old Athenian comedy and its unrestrained license. The laws of the Twelve Tables at Rome condemned to death any one who composed and published libellous verses against the reputation of another citizen.

Among the constant butts of Aristophanês and the other comic composers, was the dithyrambic poet Kinesias, upon whom they discharged their wit and bitterness, not simply as an indifferent poet, but also on the ground of his alleged impiety, his thin and feeble bodily frame, and his wretched health. We see the effect of such denunciations in a speech of the orator Lysias; composed on behalf of Phanias, against whom Kinesias had brought an indictment, or graphê paranomôn. Phanias treats these abundant lampoons as if they were good evidence against the character of Kinesias: Θαυμάζω δ᾽ εἰ μὴ βαρέως φέρετε ὅτι Κινησίας ἐστὶν ὁ τοῖς νόμοις βοηθὸς, ὃν ὑμεῖς πάντες ἐπίστασθε ἀσεβέστατον ἁπάντων καὶ παρανομώτατον γεγονέναι. Οὐχ οὖτός ἐστιν ὁ τοιαῦτα περὶ θεοὺς ἐξαμαρτάνων, ἃ τοῖς μὲν ἄλλοις αἰσχρόν ἐστι καὶ λέγειν, τῶν κωμῳδιδασκάλον δ᾽ ἀκούετε καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτόν; see Lysias, Fragm. 31, ed. Bekker; Athenæus, xii, p. 551.

Dr. Thirlwall estimates more lightly than I do the effect of these abundant libels of the old comedy: see his review of the Attic tragedy and comedy, in a very excellent chapter of his History of Greece, ch. xviii, vol. iii, p. 42.

[528] The view which I am here combating, is very general among the German writers; in proof of which, I may point to three of the ablest recent critics on the old comedy, Bergk, Meineke, and Ranke; all most useful writers for the understanding of Aristophanês.

Respecting Kratinus, Bergk observes: “Erat enim Cratinus, pariter atque ceteri principes antiquæ comœdiæ, vir egregie moratus, idemque antiqui moris tenax.... Cum Cratinus quasi divinitus videret ex hac libertate mox tanquam ex stirpe aliquâ nimiam licentiam existere et nasci, statim his initiis graviter adversatus est, videturque Cimonem tanquam exemplum boni et honesti civis proposuisse,” etc.

“Nam Cratinus cum esset magno ingenio et eximiâ morum gravitate, ægerrime tulit rem publicam præceps in perniciem ruere: omnem igitur operam atque omne studium eo contulit, ut imagine ipsius vitæ ante oculos positâ omnes et res divinæ et humanæ emendarentur, hominumque animi ad honestatem colendam incenderentur. Hoc sibi primus et proposuit Cratinus, et propositum strenue persecutus est. Sed si ipsam Veritatem, cujus imago oculis obversabatur, oculis subjecisset, verendum erat ne tædio obrueret eos qui spectarent, nihilque prorsus eorum, quæ summo studio persequebatur, obtineret. Quare eximiâ quâdam arte pulchram effigiem hilaremque formam finxit, ita tamen ut ad veritatem sublimemque ejus speciem referret omnia: sic cum ludicris miscet seria, ut et vulgus haberet quî delectaretur; et qui plus ingenio valerent, ipsam veritatem, quæ ex omnibus fabularum partibus perluceret, mente et cogitatione comprehenderent.” ... “Jam vero Cratinum in fabulis componendis id unice spectavisse quod esset verum, ne veteres quidem latuit.... Aristophanes autem idem et secutus semper est et sæpe professus.” (Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœd. Antiq. pp. 1, 10, 20, 233, etc.)

The criticism of Ranke (Commentatio de Vitâ Aristophanis, pp. ccxli, cccxiv, cccxlii, ccclxix, ccclxxiii, cdxxxiv, etc.) adopts the same strain of eulogy as to the lofty and virtuous purposes of Aristophanês. Compare also the eulogy bestowed by Meineke on the monitorial value of the old comedy (Historia Comic. Græc. pp. 39, 50, 165, etc.), and similar praises by Westermann; Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom. sect. 36.

In one of the arguments prefixed to the “Pax” of Aristophanês, the author is so full of the conception of these poets as public instructors or advisers, that he tells us, absurdly enough, they were for that reason called διδάσκαλοι: οὐδὲν γὰρ συμβούλων διέφερον· ὅθεν αὐτοὺς καὶ διδασκάλους ὠνόμαζον· ὅτι πάντα τὰ πρόσφορα διὰ δραμάτων αὐτοὺς ἐδίδασκον (p. 244, ed. Bekk.).

This is the early judgment of Horace (Serm. i, 4, 1): his later opinion on the Fescennina licentia, which was the same in spirit as the old Grecian comedy, is much more judicious (Epistol. ii, 1, 145): compare Art. Poetic. 224. To assume that the persons derided or vilified by these comic authors must always have deserved what was said of them, is indeed a striking evidence of the value of the maxim: “Fortiter calumniare; semper aliquid restat.” Without doubt, their indiscriminate libel sometimes wounded a suitable subject; in what proportion of cases, we have no means of determining: but the perusal of Aristophanês tends to justify the epithets which Lucian puts into the mouth of Dialogus respecting Aristophanês and Eupolis—not to favor the opinions of the authors whom I have cited above (Lucian, Jov. Accus. vol. ii, p. 832). He calls Eupolis and Aristophanês δεινοὺς ἄνδρας ἐπικερτομῆσαι τὰ σεμνὰ καὶ χλευάσαι τὰ καλῶς ἔχοντα.

When we notice what Aristophanês himself says respecting the other comic poets, his predecessors and contemporaries, we shall find it far from countenancing the exalted censorial function which Bergk and others ascribe to them (see the Parabasis in the Nubes, 530, seq., and in the Pax, 723). It seems especially preposterous to conceive Kratinus in that character; of whom what we chiefly know, is his habit of drunkenness, and the downright, unadorned vituperation in which he indulged: see the Fragments and story of his last play, Πυτίνη (in Meineke, vol. ii, p. 116; also Meineke, vol. i, p. 48, seq.).

Meineke copies (p. 46) from Suidas a statement (v. Ἐπείου δειλότερος) to the effect that Kratinus was ταξίαρχος τῆς Οἰνηΐδος φυλῆς. He construes this as a real fact: but there can hardly be a doubt that it is only a joke made by his contemporary comedians upon his fondness for wine; and not one of the worst among the many such jests which seem to have been then current. Runkel also, another editor of the Fragments of Kratinus (Cratini Fragment., Leips. 1827, p. 2, M. M. Runkel), construes this ταξίαρχος τῆς Οἰνηΐδος φυλῆς, as if it were a serious function; though he tells us about the general character of Kratinus: “De vitâ ipsâ et moribus pæne nihil dicere possumus: hoc solum constat, Cratinum poculis et puerorum amori valde deditum fuisse.”

Great numbers of Aristophanic jests have been transcribed as serious matter-of-fact, and have found their way into Grecian history. Whoever follows chapter vii of K. F. Hermann’s Griechische Staats-Alterthümer, containing the Innere Geschichte of the Athenian democracy, will see the most sweeping assertions made against the democratical institutions, on the authority of passages of Aristophanês: the same is the case with several of the other most learned German manuals of Grecian affairs.

[529] Horat. de Art. Poetic. 212-224.

[530] See the Parabasis of Aristophanês in the Nubes (535, seq.) and in the Vespæ (1015-1045).

Compare also the description of Philippus the γελωτοποῖος, or Jester, in the Symposion of Xenophon; most of which is extremely Aristophanic, ii, 10, 14. The comic point of view is assumed throughout that piece; and Sokratês is introduced on one occasion as apologizing for the intrusion of a serious reflection (τὸ σπουδαιολογεῖν, viii, 41). The same is the case throughout much of the Symposion of Plato; though the scheme and purpose of this latter are very difficult to follow.

[531] Plutarch, Solon, c. 29. See the previous volumes of this History, ch. xxi, vol. ii, p. 145; ch. xxix, vol. iv, pp. 83, 84.

[532] Respecting the rhetorical cast of tragedy, see Plato, Gorgias, c. 57, p. 502, D.

Plato disapproves of tragedy on the same grounds as of rhetoric.

[533] See the discourse of Sokratês, insisting upon this point, as part of the duties of a commander (Xen. Mem. iii, 3, 11).

[534] This necessity of some rhetorical accomplishments, is enforced not less emphatically by Aristotle (Rhetoric. i, 1, 3) than by Kalliklês in the Gorgias of Plato, c. 91, p. 486, B.

[535] See the description which Cicero gives, of his own laborious oratorical training:—

“Ego hoc tempore omni, noctes et dies, in omnium doctrinarum meditatione versabar. Eram cum Stoico Diodoto, qui cum habitavisset apud me mecumque vixisset, nuper est domi meæ mortuus. A quo quum in aliis rebus, tum studiosissime in dialecticâ versabar; quæ quasi contracta et astricta eloquentia putanda est; sine quâ etiam tu, Brute, judicavisti, te illam justam eloquentiam, quam dialecticam dilatatam esse putant, consequi non posse. Huic ego doctori, et ejus artibus variis et multis, ita eram tamen deditus, ut ab exercitationibus oratoriis nullus dies vacaret.” (Cicero, Brutus, 90, 309.)

[536] Aristotel. ap. Diog. Laërt. viii, 57.

[537] See my preceding vol. iv, ch. xxxvii.

[538] Diogen. Laërt. viii, 58, 59, who gives a remarkable extract from the poem of Empedoklês, attesting these large pretensions.

See Brandis, Handbuch der Gr. Röm. Philos. part i. sects. 47, 48, p. 192; Sturz. ad Empedoclis Frag. p. 36.

[539] De Rerum Naturâ, i, 719.

[540] Some striking lines of Empedoklês are preserved by Sextus Empiricus, adv. Mathemat. vii, 115; to the effect that every individual man gets through his short life, with no more knowledge than is comprised in his own slender fraction of observation and experience: he struggles in vain to find out and explain the totality; but neither eye, nor ear, nor reason can assist him:—

[541] See Parmenidis Fragmenta, ed. Karsten, v, 30, 55, 60: also the Dissertation annexed by Karsten, sects. 3, 4, p. 148, seq.; sect. 19, p. 221, seq.

Compare also Mullach’s edition of the same Fragments, annexed to his edition of the Aristotelian treatise, De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgiâ, p. 144.

[542] Plato, Parmenidês, p. 128, B. σὺ μὲν (Parmenidês) γὰρ ἐν τοῖς ποιήμασιν ἓν φῂς εἶναι τὸ πᾶν, καὶ τούτων τεκμήρια παρέχεις καλῶς τε καὶ εὖ, etc.

[543] See the remarkable passage in the Parmenidês of Plato, p. 128, B, C, D.

Ἐστὶ δὲ τό γε ἀληθὲς βοήθειά τις ταῦτα τὰ γράμματα τῷ Παρμενίδου λόγῳ πρὸς τοὺς ἐπιχειροῦντας αὐτὸν κωμῳδεῖν, ὡς εἰ ἕν ἐστι, πολλὰ καὶ γελοῖα συμβαίνει πάσχειν τῷ λόγῳ καὶ ἐναντία αὑτῷ. Ἀντιλέγει δὴ οὖν τοῦτο τὸ γράμμα πρὸς τοὺς τὰ πολλὰ λέγοντας, καὶ ἀνταποδίδωσι ταῦτα καὶ πλείω, τοῦτο βουλόμενον δηλοῦν, ὡς ἔτι γελοιότερα πάσχοι ἂν αὐτῶν ἡ ὑπόθεσις—ἡ εἰ πολλὰ ἐστίν—ἢ ἡ τοῦ ἓν εἶναι, εἴ τις ἱκανῶς ἐπεξίοι.

[544] Plato, Phædrus, c. 44, p. 261, D. See the citations in Brandis, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philosophie, part i, p. 417, seq.

[545] Parmenid. Fragm. v, 101, ed. Mullach.

[546] See the Fragments of Melissus collected by Mullach, in his publication cited in a previous note, p. 81. seq.

[547] The reader will see this in Bayle’s Dictionary, article, Zeno of Elea.

Simplicius (in his commentary on Aristot. Physic. p. 255) says that Zeno first composed written dialogues, which cannot be believed without more certain evidence. He also particularizes a puzzling question addressed by Zeno to Protagoras. See Brandis, Gesch. der Griech. Röm. Philos. i, p. 409. Zeno ἴδιον μὲν οὐδὲν ἐξέθετο (sc. περὶ τῶν πάντων·), διηπόρησε δὲ περὶ τούτων ἐπὶ πλεῖον. Plutarch. ap. Eusebium, Præpar. Evangel. i, 23, D.

[548] Compare Plutarch, Periklês, c. 3; Plato, Parmenidês, pp. 126, 127; Plato, Alkibiad. i. ch. 14, p. 119, A.

That Sokratês had in his youth conversed with Parmenidês, when the latter was an old man, is stated by Plato more than once, over and above his dialogue called Parmenidês, which professes to give a conversation between the two, as well as with Zeno. I agree with Mr. Fynes Clinton, Brandis, and Karsten, in thinking that this is better evidence, about the date of Parmenidês than any of the vague indications which appear to contradict it, in Diogenes Laërtius and elsewhere. But it will be hardly proper to place the conversation between Parmenidês and Sokratês—as Mr. Clinton places it, Fast. H. vol. ii, App. c. 21, p. 364—at a time when Sokratês was only fifteen years of age. The ideas which the ancients had about youthful propriety, would not permit him to take part in conversation with an eminent philosopher at so early an age as fifteen, when he would not yet be entered on the roll of citizens, or be qualified for the smallest function, military or civil. I cannot but think that Sokratês must have been more than twenty years of age when he thus conversed with Parmenidês.

Sokratês was born in 469 B.C. (perhaps 468 B.C.); he would therefore be twenty years of age in 449: assuming the visit of Parmenidês to Athens to have been in 448 B.C., since he was then sixty-five years of age, he would be born in 513 B.C. It is objected that, if this date be admitted, Parmenidês could not have been a pupil of Xenophanês: we should thus he compelled to admit, which perhaps is the truth, that he learned the doctrine of Xenophanês at second-hand.

[549] Plato, Parmenid. pp. 135, 136.

Parmenidês speaks to Sokratês: Καλὴ μὲν οὖν καὶ θεία, εὖ ἴσθι, ἡ ὁρμὴ, ἣν ὁρμᾷς ἐπὶ τοὺς λόγους· ἕλκυσον δὲ σαυτὸν καὶ γυμνάσαι μᾶλλον διὰ τῆς δοκούσης ἀχρήστου εἶναι καὶ καλουμένης ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ἀδολεσχίας, ἕως ἔτι νέος εἶ· εἰ δὲ μὴ, σὲ διαφεύξεται ἡ ἀλήθεια. Τίς οὖν ὁ τρόπος, φάναι (τὸν Σωκράτη), ὦ Παρμενίδη, τῆς γυμνασίας; Οὗτος, εἰπεῖν (τὸν Παρμενίδην) ὅνπερ ἤκουσας Ζήνωνος.... Χρὴ δὲ καὶ τόδε ἔτι πρὸς τούτῳ σκοπεῖν, μὴ μόνον, εἰ ἔστιν ἕκαστον, ὑποτιθέμενον, σκοπεῖν τὰ ξυμβαίνοντα ἐκ τῆς ὑποθέσεως—ἀλλὰ καὶ, εἰ μή ἐστι τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, ὑποτίθεσθαι—εἰ βούλει μᾶλλον γυμνασθῆναι.... Ἀγνοοῦσι γὰρ οἱ πολλοὶ ὅτι ἄνευ ταύτης τῆς διὰ πάντων διεξόδου καὶ πλάνης, ἀδύνατον ἐντυχόντα τῷ ἀληθεῖ νοῦν σχεῖν. See also Plato’s Kratylus, p. 428, E, about the necessity of the investigator looking both before and behind—ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω.

See also the Parmenidês, p. 130, E,—in which Sokratês is warned respecting the ἀνθρώπων δόξας, against enslaving himself to the opinions of men: compare Plato, Sophistes, p. 227, B, C.

[550] See Aristotel. De Sophist. Elenchis, c. 11, p. 172, ed. Bekker; and his Topica, ix, 5, p. 154; where the different purposes of dialogue are enumerated and distinguished.

[551] See Isokratês, Orat. x; Helenæ Encomium, sects. 2-7; compare Orat. xv, De Permutatione, of the same author, s. 90.

I hold it for certain, that the first of these passages is intended as a criticism upon the Platonic dialogues (as in Or. v, ad Philip. s. 84), probably the second passage also. Isokratês, evidently a cautious and timid man, avoids mentioning the names of contemporaries, that he may provoke the less animosity.

[552] Isokratês alludes much to this sentiment, and to the men who looked upon gymnastic training with greater favor than upon philosophy, in the Orat. xv, De Permutatione, s. 267, et seq. A large portion of this oration is in fact a reply to accusations, the same as those preferred against mental cultivation by the Δίκαιος Λόγος in the Nubes of Aristophanês, 947, seq.; favorite topics in the mouths of the pugilists “with smashed ears.” (Plato, Gorgias, c. 71, p. 515, E; τῶν τὰ ὦτα κατεαγότων.)

[553] There is but too much evidence of the abundance of such jealousies and antipathies during the times of Plato, Aristotle, and Isokratês; see Stahr’s Aristotelia, ch. iii, vol. i, pp. 37, 68.

Aristotle was extremely jealous of the success of Isokratês, and was himself much assailed by pupils of the latter, Kephisodôrus and others, as well as by Dikæarchus, Eubulidês, and a numerous host of writers in the same tone: στρατὸν ὅλον τῶν ἐπιθεμένων Ἀριστοτέλει; see the Fragments of Dikæarchus, vol. ii, p. 225, ed. Didot. “De ingenio ejus (observes Cicero, in reference to Epicurus, de Finibus, ii, 25, 80) in his disputationibus, non de moribus, quæritur. Sit ista in Græcorum levitate perversitas, qui maledictis insectantur eos, a quibus de veritate dissentiunt.” This is a taint no way peculiar to Grecian philosophical controversy; but it has nowhere been more infectious than among the Greeks, and modern historians cannot be too much on their guard against it.

[554] See Plato (Protagoras, c. 8, p. 316, D.; Lachês, c. 3, p. 180, D.; Menexenus, c. 3, p. 236, A; Alkibiad. i, c. 14, p. 118, C); Plutarch, Periklês, c. 4.

Periklês had gone through dialectic practice in his youth (Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 46).

[555] Isokratês, Or. xv, De Permutat. sect. 287.

Compare Brandis, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philosophie, part i, sect. 48, p. 196.

[556] Isokratês calls both Anaxagoras and Damon, sophists (Or. xv, De Perm. sect. 251), Plutarch, Periklês, c. 4. Ὁ δὲ Δάμων ἐοικεν, ἄκρος ὢν σοφιστὴς, καταδύεσθαι μὲν εἰς τὸ τῆς μουσικῆς ὄνομα, ἐπικρυπτόμενος πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς τὴν δεινότητα.

So Protagoras too (in the speech put into his mouth by Plato, Protag. c. 8, p. 316) says, very truly, that there had been sophists from the earliest times of Greece. But he says also, what Plutarch says in the citation just above, that these earlier men refused, intentionally and deliberately, to call themselves sophists, for fear of the odium attached to the name; and that he, Protagoras, was the first person to call himself openly a sophist.

The denomination by which a man is known, however, seldom depends upon himself, but upon the general public, and upon his critics, friendly or hostile. The unfriendly spirit of Plato did much more to attach the title of sophists specially to these teachers, than any assumption of their own.

[557] Herodot. i, 29; ii, 49; iv, 95. Diogenês of Apollonia, contemporary of Herodotus, called the Ionic philosophers or physiologists by the name sophists: see Brandis, Geschich. der Griech. Röm. Philosoph. c. lvii, note O. About Thamyras, see Welcker, Griech. Tragöd., Sophoklês, p. 421:—

The comic poet Kratinus called all the poets, including Homer and Hesiod, σοφισταί: see the Fragments of his drama Ἀρχίλοχοι in Meineke, Fragm. Comicor. Græcor. vol. ii, p. 16.

[558] Æschinês cont. Timarch. c. 34. Æschinês calls Demosthenês also a sophist, c. 27.

We see plainly from the terms in Plato’s Politicus, c. 38, p. 299 B, μετεωρολόγον, ἀδολεσχήν τινα σοφιστὴν, that both Sokratês and Plato himself were designated as sophists by the Athenian public.

[559] Aristotel. Metaphysic. iii, 2, p. 996; Xenophon, Sympos. iv, 1.

Aristippus is said to have been the first of the disciples of Sokratês who took money for instruction (Diogen. Laërt. ii, 65).

[560] Xenoph. Memor. iv, 2, 1. γράμματα πολλὰ συνειλεγμένον ποιητῶν τε καὶ σοφιστῶν τῶν εὐδοκιμωτάτων....

The word σοφιστῶν is here used just in the same sense as τοὺς θησαυροὺς τῶν πάλαι σοφῶν ἀνδρῶν, οὓς ἐκεῖνοι κατέλιπον ἐν βιβλίοις γράψαντες, etc. (Memor. i, 6, 14.) It is used in a different sense in another passage (i, 1, 11), to signify teachers who gave instruction on physical and astronomical subjects, which Sokratês and Xenophon both disapproved.

[561] Isokratês, Orat. v, ad Philipp. sect. 14: see Heindorf’s note on the Euthydemus of Plato, p. 305, C. sect. 79.

[562] Diogen. Laërt. ix, 65. Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι, ὅσοι πολυπράγμονές ἐστε σοφισταί (Diogen. Laërt. viii, 74).

Demetrius of Trœzen numbered Empedoklês as a sophist. Isokratês speaks of Empedoklês, Ion, Alkmæon, Parmenidês, Melissus, Gorgias, all as οἱ παλαιοὶ σοφισταί; all as having taught different περιττολογίας about the elements of the physical world (Isok. de Permut. sect. 288).

[563] Eurip. Med. 289:—

The words ὁ περισσῶς σοφὸς seem to convey the same unfriendly sentiment as the word σοφιστής.

[564] Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 6. In another passage, the sophist Antiphon—whether this is the celebrated Antiphon of the deme Rhamnus, is uncertain; the commentators lean to the negative—is described as conversing with Sokratês, and saying that Sokratês of course must imagine his own conversation to be worth nothing, since he asked no price from his scholars. To which Sokratês replies:—

Ὦ Ἀντιφῶν, παρ᾽ ἡμῖν νομίζεται, τὴν ὥραν καὶ τὴν σοφίαν ὁμοίως μὲν καλὸν, ὁμοίως δὲ αἰσχρὸν, διατίθεσθαι εἶναι. Τήν τε γὰρ ὥραν, ἐὰν μέν τις ἀργυρίου πωλῇ τῷ βουλομένῳ, πόρνον αὐτὸν ἀποκαλοῦσιν· ἐὰν δέ τις, ὃν ἂν γνῷ καλόν τε κἀγαθὸν ἐραστὴν ὄντα, τοῦτον φίλον ἑαυτῷ ποιῆται, σώφρονα νομίζομεν. Καὶ τὴν σοφίαν ὡσαύτως τοὺς μὲν ἀργυρίου τῷ βουλομένῳ πωλοῦντας, σοφιστὰς ὥσπερ πόρνους ἀποκαλοῦσιν· ὅστις δὲ, ὃν ἂν γνῷ εὐφυᾶ ὄντα, διδάσκων ὅ,τι ἂν ἔχῃ ἀγαθὸν, φίλον ποιεῖται, τοῦτον νομίζομεν, ἃ τῷ καλῷ κἀγαθῷ πολίτῃ προσήκει, ταῦτα ποιεῖν (Xenoph. Memor. i, 6, 13).

As an evidence of the manners and sentiment of the age, this passage is extremely remarkable. Various parts of the oration of Æschinês against Timarchus, and the Symposion of Plato, pp. 217, 218, both receive and give light to it.

Among the numerous passages in which Plato expresses his dislike and contempt of teaching for money, see his Sophistes, c. 9, p. 223. Plato, indeed, thought that it was unworthy of a virtuous man to accept salary for the discharge of any public duty: see the Republic, i, 19, p. 347.

[565] Aristot. Rhetoric. i, 1, 4; where he explains the sophist to be a person who has the same powers as the dialectician, but abuses them for a bad purpose: ἡ γὰρ σοφιστικὴ, οὐκ ἐν τῇ δυνάμει, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῇ προαιρέσει.... Ἐκεῖ δὲ, σοφιστὴς μὲν, κατὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν, διαλεκτικὸς δὲ, οὐ κατὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν. Again, in the first chapter of the treatise de Sophisticis Elenchis: ὁ σοφιστὴς, χρηματιστὴς ἀπὸ φαινομένης σοφίας, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ οὔσης, etc.

[566] Respecting Isokratês, see his Orat. xv, De Permutatione, wherein it is evident that he was not only ranked as a sophist by others, but also considered himself as such, though the appellation was one which he did not like. He considers himself as such, as well as Gorgias: οἱ καλούμενοι σοφισταί; sects. 166, 169, 213, 231.

Respecting Aristotle, we have only to read not merely the passage of Timon cited in a previous note, but also the bitter slander of Timæus (Frag. 70. ed. Didot, Polybius, xii, 8), who called him σοφιστὴν ὀψιμαθῆ καὶ μισητὸν ὑπάρχοντα, καὶ τὸ πολυτίμητον ἰατρεῖον ἀρτίως ἀποκεκλεικότα, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις, εἰς πᾶσαν αὐλὴν καὶ σκήνην ἐμπεπηδηκότα· πρὸς δὲ, γαστρίμαργον, ὀψαρτύτην, ἐπὶ στόμα φερόμενον ἐν πᾶσι.

[567] In the general point of view here described, the sophists are presented by Ritter, Geschichte der Griech. Philosophie, vol. i, book vi, chaps. 1-3, p. 577, seq., 629, seq.; by Brandis, Gesch. der Gr. Röm. Philos. sects, lxxxiv-lxxxvii, vol. i, p. 516, seq.; by Zeller, Geschichte der Philosoph. ii. pp. 65, 69, 165, etc.: and, indeed, by almost all who treat of the sophists.

[568] Compare Isokratês, Orat. xiii. cont. Sophistas, sects. 19-21.

[569] Aristot. Sophist. Elench. c. 33; Cicero, Brut. c. 12.

[570] See a striking passage in Plato, Theætet. c. 24, pp. 173, 174.

[571] Isokratês, Orat. v (ad. Philip.), sect. 14; Orat. x (Enc. Hel.), sect. 2; Orat. xiii (adv. Sophist.), sect. 9 (compare Heindorf’s note ad Platon. Euthydem. sect. 79); Orat. xii (Panath.), sect. 126; Orat. xv (Perm.), sect. 90.

Isokratês, in the beginning of his Orat. x, Encom. Helenæ, censures all the speculative teachers; first, Antisthenês and Plato (without naming them, but identifying them sufficiently by their doctrines); next, Protagoras, Gorgias, Melissus, Zeno, etc., by name, as having wasted their time and teaching on fruitless paradox and controversy. He insists upon the necessity of teaching with a view to political life and to the course of actual public events, abandoning these useless studies (sect. 6).

It is remarkable that what Isokratês recommends is just what Protagoras and Gorgias are represented as actually doing—each doubtless in his own way—in the dialogues of Plato, who censures them for being too practical, while Isokratês, commenting on them from various publications which they left, treats them only as teachers of useless speculations.

In the Oration De Permutatione, composed when he was eighty-two years of age (sect. 10, the orations above cited are earlier compositions, especially Orat. xiii, against the sophists, see sect. 206), Isokratês stands upon the defensive, and vindicates his profession against manifold aspersions. It is a most interesting oration, as a defence of the educators of Athens generally, and would serve perfectly well as a vindication of the teaching of Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, etc., against the reproaches of Plato.

This oration should be read, if only to get at the genuine Athenian sense of the word sophists, as distinguished from the technical sense which Plato and Aristotle fasten upon it. The word is here used in its largest sense, as distinguished from ἰδιώταις (sect. 159): it meant, literary men or philosophers generally, but especially the professional teachers: it carried, however, an obnoxious sense, and was therefore used as little as possible by themselves; as much as possible by those who disliked them.

Isokratês, though he does not willingly call himself by this unpleasant name, yet is obliged to acknowledge himself unreservedly as one of the profession, in the same category as Gorgias (sects. 165, 179, 211, 213, 231, 256), and defends the general body as well as himself; distinguishing himself of course from the bad members of the profession, those who pretended to be sophists, but devoted themselves to something different in reality (sect. 230).

This professional teaching, and the teachers, are signified indiscriminately by these words: οἱ σοφισταί—οἱ περὶ τὴν φιλοσοφίαν διατρίβοντες—τὴν φιλοσοφίαν ἀδίκως διαβεβλημένην (sects. 44, 157, 159, 179, 211, 217, 219)—ἡ τῶν λόγων παιδεία—ἡ τῶν λόγων μελέτη—ἡ φιλοσοφία—ἡ τῆς φρονήσεως ἄσκησις—τῆς ἐμῆς, εἴτε βούλεσθε καλεῖν δυνάμεως, εἴτε φιλοσοφίας, εἴτε διατρίβης (sects. 53, 187, 189, 193, 196). All these expressions mean the same process of training; that is, general mental training as opposed to bodily (sects. 194, 199), and intended to cultivate the powers of thought, speech, and action: πρὸς τὸ λέγειν καὶ φρονεῖν—τοῦ φρονεῖν εὖ καὶ λέγειν—τὸ λέγειν καὶ πράττειν (sects. 221, 261, 285, 296, 330).

Isokratês does not admit any such distinction between the philosopher and dialectician on the one side, and the sophist on the other, as Plato and Aristotle contend for. He does not like dialectical exercises: yet he admits them to be useful for youth, as a part of intellectual training, on condition that all such speculations shall be dropped, when the youth come into active life (sects. 280, 287).

This is the same language as that of Kalliklês in the Gorgias of Plato, c. 40, p. 484.