To bring out this contrast, appears to me the main purpose of the dialogue, as has already been remarked by Socher and others (see Stallbaum, Prolegom. ad Euthydem. pp. 15-65): but its construction, its manner, and its result, previous to the concluding conversation between Sokratês and Kriton separately, is so thoroughly comic, that Ast, on this and other grounds, rejects it as spurious and unworthy of Plato (see Ast, über Platons Leben und Schriften, pp. 414-418).
Without agreeing in Ast’s inference, I recognize the violence of the caricature which Plato has here presented under the characters of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus. And it is for this reason, among many others, that I protest the more emphatically against the injustice of Stallbaum and the commentators generally, who consider these two persons as disciples of Protagoras, and samples of what is called “Sophistica,” the sophistical practice, the sophists generally. There is not the smallest ground for considering these two men as disciples of Protagoras, who is presented to us, even by Plato himself, under an aspect as totally different from them as it is possible to imagine. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus are described, by Plato himself in this very dialogue, as old men who had been fencing-masters, and who had only within the last two years applied themselves to the eristic or controversial dialogue (Euthyd. c. 1, p. 272, C.; c. 3, p. 273, E). Schleiermacher himself accounts their personal importance so mean, that he thinks Plato could not have intended to attack them, but meant to attack Antisthenês and the Megaric school of philosophers (Prolegom. ad Euthydem. vol. iii, pp. 403, 404, of his translation of Plato). So contemptible does Plato esteem them, that Krito blames Sokratês for having so far degraded himself as to be seen talking with them before many persons (p. 305, B, c. 30).
The name of Protagoras occurs only once in the dialogue, in reference to the doctrine, started by Euthydemus, that false propositions or contradictory propositions were impossible, because no one could either think about or talk about that which was not, or the non-existent (p. 284, A; 286, C). This doctrine is said by Sokratês to have been much talked of “by Protagoras, and by men yet earlier than he.” It is idle to infer from such a passage, any connection or analogy between these men and Protagoras, as Stallbaum labors to do throughout his Prolegomena; affirming (in his note on p. 286, C,) most incorrectly, that Protagoras maintained this doctrine about τὸ μὴ ὂν, or the non-existent, because he had too great faith in the evidence of the senses; whereas we know from Plato that it had its rise with Parmenidês, who rejected the evidence of the senses entirely (see Plato, Sophist. 24, p. 237, A, with Heindorf and Stallbaum’s notes). Diogenes Laërtius (ix, 8, 53) falsely asserts that Protagoras was the first to broach the doctrine, and even cites as his witness Plato in the Euthydemus, where the exact contrary is stated. Whoever broached it first, it was a doctrine following plausibly from the then received Realism, and Plato was long perplexed before he could solve the difficulty to his own satisfaction (Theætet. p. 187, D).
I do not doubt that there were in Athens persons who abused the dialectical exercise for frivolous puzzles, and it was well for Plato to compose a dialogue exhibiting the contrast between these men and Sokratês. But to treat Euthydemus and Dionysodorus as samples of “The Sophists,” is altogether unwarranted.
[617] Plato, Gorgias, c. 57, 58; pp. 502, 503.
[618] Plato, Gorgias, c. 72, 73, p. 517 (Sokratês speaks): Ἀληθεῖς ἄρα οἱ ἔμπροσθεν λόγοι ἦσαν, ὅτι οὐδένα ἡμεῖς ἴσμεν ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν γεγονότα τὰ πολιτικὰ ἐν τῇδε τῇ πόλει.
Ὦ δαιμόνιε, οὐδ᾽ ἐγὼ ψέγω τούτους (Periklês and Kimon) ὥς γε διακόνους εἶναι πόλεως, ἀλλά μοι δοκοῦσι τῶν γε νῦν διακονικώτεροι γεγονέναι καὶ μᾶλλον οἷοί τε ἐκπορίζειν τῇ πόλει ὧν ἐπεθύμει. Ἀλλὰ γὰρ μεταβιβάζειν τὰς ἐπιθυμίας καὶ μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν, πείθοντες καὶ βιαζόμενοι ἐπὶ τοῦτο, ὅθεν ἔμελλον ἀμείνους ἔσεσθαι οἱ πολῖται, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, οὐδὲν τούτων διέφερον ἐκεῖνοι· ὅπερ μόνον ἔργον ἐστὶν ἀγαθοῦ πολίτου.
Ἄνευ γὰρ σωφροσύνης καὶ δικαιοσύνης, λιμένων καὶ νεωρίων καὶ τειχῶν καὶ φόρων καὶ τοιούτων φλυαριῶν ἐμπεπλήκασι τὴν πόλιν (c. 74, p. 519, A).
Οἶμαι (says Sokratês, c. 77, p. 521, D.) μετ᾽ ὀλίγων Ἀθηναίων, ἵνα μὴ εἴπω μόνος, ἐπιχειρεῖν τῇ ὡς ἀληθῶς πολιτικῇ τέχνῃ καὶ πράττειν τὰ πολιτικὰ μόνος τῶν νῦν, ἅτε οὖν οὐ πρὸς χάριν λέγων τοὺς λόγους οὓς λέγω ἑκάστοτε, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸ βέλτιστον, οὐ πρὸς τὸ ἥδιστον, etc.
[619] This passage is in Republ. vi, 6, p. 492, seq. I put the first words of the passage (which is too long to be cited, but which richly deserves to be read, entire) in the translation given by Stallbaum in his note.