See the remarkable contention between Æschylus and Euripides in Aristophan. Ran. 876 seq., about the function and comparative excellence of poets (also Nubes, 955). Aristophanes, comparing Æschylus with Euripides, denounces music as having degenerated, and poetry as having been corrupted, at Athens. So far he agrees with Plato; but he ascribes this corruption in a great degree to the conversation of Euripides with Sokrates (Ranæ, 1487); and here Plato would not have gone along with him — at least not when Plato composed his earlier dialogues — though the ἦθος of the Treatise De Legibus is in harmony with this sentiment. Polybius cites, with some displeasure, the remark of the historian Ephorus, who asserted that musical teaching was introduced among men for purposes of cheating and mystification — ἐπ’ ἀπάτῃ καὶ γοητείᾳ παρεισκῆχθαι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, οὐδαμῶς ἁρμόζοντα λόγον αὐτῷ ῥίψας (iv. 20). Polybius considers this an unbecoming criticism.
[102] Aristotle, Polit. viii. c. 4-5-7, p. 1340, a. 10, 1341, a. 15, 1342, a. 30. We see by these chapters how much the subject was discussed in his day.
The ethical and emotional effects conveyed by the sense of hearing, and distinguishing it from the other senses, are noticed in the Problemata of Aristotle, xix. 27-29, pp. 919-920.
[103] Plato, Legg. iii. p. 689 A. ἡ μεγίστη ἀμαθία … ὅταν τῷ τι δόξῃ καλὸν ἢ ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, μὴ φιλῇ τοῦτο ἀλλὰ μισῇ, τὸ δὲ πονηρὸν καὶ ἄδικον δοκοῦν εἶναι φιλῇ τε καὶ ἀσπάζηται· ταύτην τὴν διαφωνίαν λύπης τε καὶ ἡδονῆς πρὸς τὴν κατὰ λόγον δόξαν, ἁμαθίαν φημὶ εἶναι τὴν ἐσχάτην. Compare p. 688 A.
Historical retrospect as to the growth of cities — Frequent destruction of established communities, with only a small remnant left.
Besides all the ethical prefatory matter, above noticed, Plato gives us also some historical and social prefatory matter, not essential to his constructive scheme (which after all takes its start partly from theoretical principles laid down by himself, partly from a supposed opportunity of applying those principles in the foundation of a new colony), but tending to illustrate the growth of political society, and the abuses into which it naturally tends to lapse. There existed in his time a great variety of distinct communities: some in the simplest, most patriarchal, Cyclopian condition, nothing more than families — some highly advanced in civilization, with its accompanying good and evil — some in each intermediate stage between these two extremes. — The human race (Plato supposes) has perhaps had no beginning, and will have no end. At any rate it has existed from an indefinite antiquity, subject to periodical crises, destructive kosmical outbursts, deluges, epidemic distempers, &c.[104] A deluge, when it occurs, sweeps away all the existing communities with their property, arts, instruments, &c., leaving only a small remnant, who, finding shelter on the top of some high mountain not covered with water, preserve only their lives. Society, he thinks, has gone through a countless number of these cycles.[105] At the end of each, when the deluge recedes, each associated remnant has to begin its development anew, from the rudest and poorest condition. Each little family or sept exists at first separately, with a patriarch whom all implicitly obey, and peculiar customs of its own. Several of these septs gradually coalesce together into one community, choosing one or a few lawgivers to adjust and modify their respective customs into harmonious order, and submitting implicitly to the authority of such chosen few.[106] By successive coalitions of this kind, operated in a vast length of time,[107] large cities are gradually formed on the plain and on the seaboard. Property and public force is again accumulated; together with letters, arts, and all the muniments of life.
[104] Plato, Legg. iii. pp. 677-678, vi. p. 782 A.
[105] Plato, Legg. p. 680 A. τοῖς ἐν τούτῳ τῷ μέρει τῆς περιόδου γεγονόσιν, &c.
[106] Plato, Legg. iii. p. 681 C-D.
[107] Plato, Legg. iii. p. 683 A. ἐν χρόνου τινὸς μήκεσιν ἀπλέτοις.