[18] See the compliments to Sokrates, on his strenuous ardour and vocation for philosophy, addressed by Parmenides, p. 135 D.
[19] Plat. Euthyd. p. 303 B. Ἐνταῦθα μέντοι, ὦ φίλε Κρίτων, οὐδεις ὅστις οὐ τῶν παρόντων ὑπερεπήνεσε τὸν λόγον, καὶ τὼ ἄνδρε (Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus) γελῶντε καὶ κροτοῦντε καὶ χαίροντε ὀλίγου παρετάθησαν.
[20] Xenophon. Memor. iv. 2, 5-8. ὡς δ’ ᾔσθετο (Sokrates) αὐτὸν ἐτοιμότερον ὑπομένοντα, ὅτε διαλέγοιτο, καὶ προθυμότερον ἀκούοντα, μόνος ἦλθεν εἰς τὸ ἡνιοποιεῖον· παρακαθεζομένον δ’ αὐτῷ τοῦ Εὐθυδήμου, Εἶπέ μοι, ἔφη, &c.
[21] Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 39-40. Compare the remarks of Sokrates in Plato, Theætêtus, p. 151 C.
Opinion of Stallbaum and other critics about the Euthydêmus, that Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias talked to their auditors.
Stallbaum, Steinhart, and other commentators denounce in severe terms the Eristics or controversial Sophists of Athens, as disciples of Protagoras and Gorgias, infected with the mania of questioning and disputing every thing, and thereby corrupting the minds of youth. They tell us that Sokrates was the constant enemy of this school, but that nevertheless he was unjustly confounded with them by the comic poets, and others; from which confusion alone his unpopularity with the Athenian people arose.[22] In the Platonic dialogue of Euthydêmus the two Sophists (according to these commentators) represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias with their disciples reasoned: and the purpose of the dialogue is to contrast this with the way in which Sokrates reasoned.
[22] Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Plat. Euthydêm. pp. 9-11-13; Winckelmann, Proleg. ad eundem, pp. xxxiii.-xxxiv.
That opinion is unfounded. Sokrates was much more Eristic than Protagoras, who generally manifested himself by continuous speech or lecture.
Now, in this opinion, I think that there is much of unfounded assumption, as well as a misconception of the real contrast intended in the Platonic Euthydêmus. Comparing Protagoras with Sokrates, I maintain that Sokrates was decidedly the more Eristic of the two, and left behind him a greater number of active disciples. In so far as we can trust the picture given by Plato in the dialogue called Protagoras, we learn that the Sophist of that name chiefly manifested himself in long continuous speeches or rhetoric; and though he also professed, if required, to enter into dialectic colloquy, in this art he was no match for Sokrates.[23] Moreover, we know by the evidence of Sokrates himself, that he was an Eristic not only by taste, but on principle, and by a sense of duty. He tells us, in the Platonic Apology, that he felt himself under a divine mission to go about convicting men of ignorance, and that he had prosecuted this vocation throughout many years of a long life. Every one of these convictions must have been brought about by one or more disputes of his own seeking: every such dispute, with occasional exceptions, made him unpopular, in the outset at least, with the person convicted: the rather, as his ability in the process is known, upon the testimony of Xenophon[24] as well as of Plato, to have been consummate. It is therefore a mistake to decry Protagoras and the Protagoreans (if there were any) as the special Eristics, and to represent Sokrates as a tutelary genius, the opponent of such habits. If the commentators are right (which I do not think they are) in declaring the Athenian mind to have been perverted by Eristic, Sokrates is much more chargeable with the mischief than Protagoras. And the comic poets, when they treated Sokrates as a specimen and teacher of Eristic, proceeded very naturally upon what they actually saw or heard of him.[25]
[23] See Plat. Protag., especially pp. 329 and 336. About the eristic disposition of Sokrates, see the striking passage in Plato, Theætêt. 169 B-C; also Lachês, 187, 188.