The generals in Greece usually possessed no professional experience — Homer and the poets were talked of as the great teachers — Plato’s view of the poet, as pretending to know everything, but really knowing nothing.
It seems strange to read such language put into Ion’s mouth (we are not warranted in regarding it as what any rhapsode ever did say), as the affirmation — that every good rhapsode was also a good general, and that he had become the best of generals simply through complete acquaintance with Homer. But this is only a caricature of a sentiment largely prevalent at Athens, according to which the works of the poets, especially the Homeric poems, were supposed to be a mine of varied instruction, and were taught as such to youth.[31] In Greece, the general was not often required (except at Sparta, and not always even there) to possess professional experience.[32] Sokrates, in one of the Xenophontic conversations, tries to persuade Nikomachides, a practised soldier (who had failed in getting himself elected general, because a successful Chorêgus had been preferred to him), how much the qualities of an effective Chorêgus coincided with those of an effective general.[33] The poet Sophokles was named by the Athenians one of the generals of the very important armament for reconquering Samos: though Perikles, one of his colleagues, as well as his contemporary declared that he was an excellent poet, but knew nothing of generalship.[34] Plato frequently seeks to make it evident how little the qualities required for governing numbers, either civil or military, were made matter of professional study or special teaching. The picture of Homer conveyed in the tenth book of the Platonic Republic is, that of a man who pretends to know everything, but really knows nothing: an imitative artist, removed by two stages from truth and reality, — who gives the shadows of shadows, resembling only enough to satisfy an ignorant crowd. This is the picture there presented of poets generally, and of Homer as the best among them. The rhapsode Ion is here brought under the same category as the poet Homer, whom he has by heart and recites. The whole field of knowledge is assumed to be distributed among various specialties, not one of which either of the two can claim. Accordingly, both of them under the mask of universal knowledge, conceal the reality of universal ignorance.
[31] Aristophan. Ranæ, 1032.
| Ὀρφεὺς μὲν γὰρ τελετάς θ’ ἡμῖν κατέδειξε φόνων τ’ ἀπέχεσθαι Μουσαῖος δ’ ἐξακέσεις τε νόσων καὶ χρησμούς, Ἡσίοδος δὲ Γῆς ἐργασίας, καρπῶν ὥρας, ἀρότους· ὁ δὲ θεῖος Ὅμηρος Ἀπὸ τοῦ τιμὴν καὶ κλέος ἔσχειν, πλὴν τοῦδ’, ὅτι χρήστ’ ἐδίδαξε. Τάξεις, ἀρετάς, ὁπλίσεις ἀνδρῶν; … Ἀλλ’ ἄλλους τοι πολλοὺς ἀγαθοὺς (ἐδίδαξεν), ὧν ἦν καὶ Λάμαχος ἥρως. |
See these views combated by Plato, Republ. x. 599-600-606 E.
The exaggerated pretension here ascribed to Ion makes him look contemptible — like the sentiment ascribed to him, 535 E, “If I make the auditors weep, I myself shall laugh and pocket money,” &c.
[32] Xenoph. Memor. iii. 5, 21, in the conversation between the younger Perikles and Sokrates — τῶν δὲ στρατηγῶν οἱ πλεῖστοι αὐτοσχεδιάζουσιν. Also iii. 5, 24.
Compare, respecting the generals, the striking lines of Euripides, Androm. 698, and the encomium of Cicero (Academ. Prior. 2, 1) respecting the quickness and facility with which Lucullus made himself an excellent general.
[33] Xen. Mem. iii. 4, especially iii. 4, 6, where Nikomachides asks with surprise, λέγεις σύ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὡς τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀνδρός ἐστι χορηγεῖν τε καλῶς καὶ στρατηγεῖν;
[34] See the very curious extract from the contemporary Ion of Chios, in Athenæus, xiii. 604. Aristophanes of Byzantium says that the appointment of Sophokles to this military function arose from the extra-ordinary popularity of his tragedy Antigonê, exhibited a little time before. See Boeckh’s valuable ‘Dissertation on the Antigonê,’ appended to his edition thereof, pp. 121-124.