[577] Isokratês, Or. xv, (De Permut.) sect. 16, νῦν δὲ λέγει μὲν (the accuser) ὡς ἐγὼ τοὺς ἥττους λόγους κρείττους δύναμαι ποιεῖν, etc.
Ibid. sect. 32. πειρᾶταί με διαβάλλειν, ὡς διαφθείρω τοὺς νεωτέρους, λέγειν διδάσκων καὶ παρὰ τὸ δίκαιον ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι πλεονεκτεῖν, etc.
Again, sects. 59, 65, 95, 98, 187 (where he represents himself, like Sokratês in his Defence, as vindicating philosophy generally against the accusation of corrupting youth), 233, 256.
[578] Plato, Sok. Apolog. c. 10, p. 23, D. τὰ κατὰ πάντων τῶν φιλοσοφούντων πρόχειρα ταῦτα λέγουσιν, ὅτι τὰ μετέωρα καὶ τὰ ὑπὸ γῆς, καὶ θεοὺς μὴ νομίζειν, καὶ τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν (διδάσκω). Compare a similar expression in Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 31. τὸ κοινῇ τοῖς φιλοσόφοις ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ἐπιτιμώμενον, etc.
The same unfairness, in making this point tell against the sophists exclusively, is to be found in Westermann, Geschichte der Griech. Beredsamkeit sects. 30, 64.
[579] See the last chapter of Aristotle De Sophisticis Elenchis. He notices these early rhetorical teachers, also, in various parts of the treatise on rhetoric.
Quintilian, however, still thought the precepts of Theodôrus and Thrasymachus worthy of his attention (Inst. Orat. iii, 3).
[580] Quintilian, Inst. Orat. iii. 4, 10; Aristot. Rhetor. iii, 5. See the passages cited in Preller, Histor. Philos. ch. iv, p. 132, note d, who affirms respecting Protagoras: “alia inani grammaticorum principiorum ostentatione novare conabatur,” which the passages cited do not prove.
[581] Isokratês, Or. x, Encom. Helen. sect. 3; Diogen. Laërt. ix, 54.
[582] Diogen. Laërt. ix. 51; Sext. Empir. adv. Math. ix. 56. Περὶ μὲν θεῶν οὐκ ἔχω εἰπεῖν, οὔτε εἴ εἰσιν, οὐθ᾽ ὁποίοι τινές εἰσι· πολλὰ γὰρ τὰ κωλύοντα εἰδέναι, ἥ τε ἀδηλότης, καὶ βραχὺς ὢν ὁ βίος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.