[714] Plato (Gorgias, c. 20-75; Protagoras, c. 9). Lysias is sometimes designated as a sophist (Demosthen. cont. Neær. c. 7, p. 1351; Athenæ. xiii. p. 592). There is no sufficient reason for supposing with Taylor (Vit. Lysiæ, p. 56, ed. Dobson) that there were two persons named Lysias, and that the person here named is a different man from the author of the speeches which remain to us: see Mr. Fynes Clinton, Fast. H. p. 360. Appendix, c. 20.
[715] See the first book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric—alluded to in a former note—for his remarks on the technical teachers of rhetoric before his time. He remarks—and Plato remarked before him (i, 1 and 2)—that their teaching was for the most part thoroughly narrow and practical, bearing exclusively on what was required for the practice of the dikastery (περὶ τοῦ δικάζεσθαι πάντες πειρῶνται τεχνολογεῖν): see also a remarkable passage in his Treatise de Sophisticis Elenchis, c. 32, ad finem. And though he himself lays down a far more profound and comprehensive theory of rhetoric, and all matters appertaining to it,—in a treatise which has rarely been surpassed in power of philosophical analysis,—yet when he is recommending his speculations to notice, he appeals to the great practical value of rhetorical teaching, as enabling a man to “help himself,” and fight his own battles, in case of need—Ἄτοπον εἰ τῷ σώματι μὲν αἰσχρὸν μὴ δύνασθαι βοηθεῖν ἑαυτῷ, λόγῳ δὲ οὐκ αἰσχρόν (i, 1, 3: compare iii, 1, 2; Plato Gorgias, c, 41-55; Protagoras, c. 9; Phædrus, c. 43-50; Euthydem. c. 1-31 and Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 12, 2, 3).
See also the character of Proxenus in the Anabasis of Xenophon, ii, 6, 16; Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator. p. 307; Aristoph. Nubes, 1108; Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 48; Plato, Alkibiadês, i, c. 31, p. 119; and a striking passage in Plutarch’s Life of Cato the elder, c. 1.
[716] Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator. p. 832; Quintilian, iii, 1, 10. Compare Van Spaan, or Ruhnken, Dissertatio de Antiphonte Oratore Attico, pp. 8, 9, prefixed to Dobson’s edition of Antipho and Andokidês. Antipho is said to have been the teacher of the historian Thucydidês. The statement of Plutarch, that the father of Antipho was also a sophist, can hardly be true.
[717] Herodot. i, 29; iv, 95.
[718] Plato (Hippias Major, c. 1, 2; Menon, p. 95; and Gorgias, c. 1, with Stallbaum’s note); Diodor. xii, 53; Pausan. vi, 17, 8.
[719] Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 31. To teach or learn the art of speech was the common reproach made by the vulgar against philosophers and lettered men,—τὸ κοινῇ τοῖς φιλοσόφοις ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ἐπιτιμώμενον (Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 31). Compare Æschinês cont. Timar. about Demosthenês, c. 25, 27, which illustrates the curious fragment of Sophoklês, 865. Οἱ γὰρ γύνανδροι καὶ λέγειν ἠσκηκότες.
[720] Such is probably the meaning of that remarkable passage in which Thucydidês describes the Athenian rhetor, Antipho, (viii, 68): Ἀντιφῶν, ἀνὴρ Ἀθηναίων ἀρετῇ τε οὐδενὸς ὕστερος, καὶ κράτιστος ἐνθυμηθῆναι γενόμενος καὶ ἃ ἂν γνοίη εἰπεῖν· καὶ ἐς μὲν δῆμον οὐ παριὼν οὐδ’ ἐς ἄλλον ἀγῶνα ἑκούσιος οὐδένα, ἀλλ’ ὑπόπτως τῷ πλήθει διὰ δόξαν δεινότητος διακείμενος, τοὺς μέντοι ἀγωνιζομένους καὶ ἐν δικαστηρίῳ καὶ ἐν δήμῳ, πλεῖστα εἷς ἀνὴρ, ὅστις ξυμβουλεύσαιτό τι, δυνάμενος ὠφελεῖν. “Inde illa circa occultandam eloquentiam simulatio,” observes Quintilian, Inst. Or. iv, 1, 8.
Compare Plato (Protagoras, c. 8; Phædrus, c. 86), Isokratês cont. Sophistas, Or. xiii, p. 295, where he complains of the teachers,—οἵτινες ὑπέσχοντο, δικάζεσθαι διδάσκειν, ἐκλεξάμενοι τὸ δυσχερέστατον τῶν ὀνομάτων, ὃ τῶν φθονούντων ἔργον εἴη λέγειν, ἀλλ’ οὐ τῶν προεστώτων τῆς τοιαύτης παιδεύσεως, Demosthen. De Fals. Legat, c. 70, 71, pp. 417-420; and Æschin. cont. Ktesiphon. c. 9, p. 371,—κακοῦργον σοφιστὴν, οἰόμενον ῥήμασι τοὺς νόμους ἀναιρήσειν.
[721] Æschinês cont. Timarch. c. 34, p. 74. Ὑμεῖς μὲν, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, Σωκράτην μὲν τὸν σοφιστὴν ἀπεκτείνατε, ὅτι Κριτίαν ἐφάνη πεπαιδευκὼς, ἕνα τῶν τριάκοντα τῶν τὸν δῆμον καταλυσάντων.