In the Clouds of Aristophanes, the Sophists and their pupils are represented as living in an underground Thinking-Shop. They are pale and squalid, engaged in all sorts of researches. Natural history is represented by the important question, “How many times the length of its own foot does a flea jump?” a problem which is solved by actual experiment. Later in the play they inquire why the sea does not overflow, since the rivers are always running into it. Scientific instead of mythological explanations of thunder and lightning are given. There is religious criticism too, such as Xenophanes had uttered long before: “If Zeus imprisoned his own father, why has he not been punished?” There is astronomy, “the paths and orbit of the sun,” and a hanging basket is introduced as an observatory. Geometry and compasses are mentioned. The visitor is shown a map of the world, containing Euboia, Lakedaimon, and Attica on a large enough scale, it would seem, to mark the deme Kikunna; perhaps, as Strepsiades expects to find dikastai on it at Athens, it had pictures of elephants and monsters in unknown districts. The students are interested in metres and rhythms. The poet laughs at grammar, forming “cockess” as the logical feminine of cock, and making the chief Sophist object to feminine nouns with masculine terminations. It is suggested that the pupils at the Thinking-Shop are dirty, half-starved vegetarians, too economical to go to the hair-cutter or the baths, abstaining from wine and the gymnasia. But the main point attacked by Aristophanes is the teaching of Argument. The whole object of learning under the Sophists is, according to him, to be able to cajole the dikastai and so win impunity to cheat, and to have an argument to justify anything. The successful scholars beat their fathers and mothers, giving logical reasons for their behaviour; they refuse to go to school, and are too clever to believe or accept anything. But their intellectual exhilaration is spasmodic; they have been taught, if they reach a difficult problem, to jump on to something else.
A vivid sketch of Sophist-life is given in Plato’s Protagoras. Young Hippokrates, on returning to Athens in the evening after pursuing a runaway slave to the frontier, hears that Protagoras the great Sophist has arrived in the city. Only the lateness of the hour deters him from rushing off to find Sokrates, who will give him an introduction to the teacher. Next morning he comes round to Sokrates’ house long before it is light, bangs and shouts at the door in his excitement, and announces that he is ready to spend all the money which he and all his friends possess, in fees.
They go off to the house of Kallias, where Protagoras and other Sophists are staying. The porter is so worn out by the number of visitors that he is distinctly rude. They find Protagoras walking up and down in the cloisters of the house, with three or four listeners on either side, one of whom is learning to be a Sophist himself. Behind follows a crowd, mostly composed of the foreigners whom he draws from city to city, like Orpheus, with his magic voice. Another Sophist, Hippias, is sitting on a sort of throne in the opposite part of the cloisters; around him on benches are a number of inquirers, who were asking him questions about natural science and astronomy. A third Sophist, Prodikos, is in a side-building, still in bed, covered up in blankets.[511] His audience sat on neighbouring beds. The whole assemblage finally collect couches and benches together in a great circle to hear a discussion between Sokrates and Protagoras. Kallias, the host on this occasion, often entertained Sophists: at another time he had Gorgias and Polos in the house. His cloisters must have provided a favourite lecture-room. The Sophists also haunted the gymnasia. The discussion in the Euthudemos takes place in the undressing-room of the Lukeion: the two Sophists have been walking in the cloister. Hippias on one occasion lectures in a school-room, on another in a public place at Olympia.
Protagoras was the first of these teachers to take pay. His system was very fair. On the close of their course of instruction his pupils, if they chose, paid the fee for which he asked; otherwise, they went into a temple, and, after taking an oath, paid as much as they said his instruction was worth.[512] Hippias made about £600 in a very short time in Sicily, receiving some £80 from the tiny town of Inukos, although Protagoras was also lecturing in the island at the time. Prodikos charged £2 for a particular lecture on correct speech,[513] but there was also a less complete form of it which cost only 10d.; he seems to have been noted for the gradations in his charges, for there were also lectures at 5d., 1s. 8d., and 3s. 4d.[514] The sum which Euenos of Paros asked for teaching the whole duties of a man and a citizen was £20.[515] Probably, however, the charges of these Sophists, and the money which they made, were much exaggerated by their contemporaries. Isokrates, the pupil of Gorgias, gives a much lower estimate. “None of the so-called Sophists,” he says, “will be found to have collected much money. On the contrary, some passed their lives in poverty and the rest in quite ordinary circumstances. The richest Sophist within my memory was Gorgias. He spent most of his time in Thessaly, the most prosperous part of Hellas. He lived to a great age and followed his profession for a great many years. He did not take upon himself any public burdens by settling in any one city. He did not marry or have children to bring up. Yet with all these opportunities of growing wealthy, he only left about £800 at his death.”[516] It must be remembered that the Sophists received money only from those who definitely enrolled themselves as pupils or came to a few advertised lectures. Hippias lectured at Sparta frequently, and never received a penny. Any one might go and ask a Sophist a question, and would almost always receive a voluminous answer. The eloquence and practical skill of these men were also always at the disposal of their own city. Like the greater Renaissance scholars, Hippias, Gorgias, and Prodikos were much occupied in going on embassies. For the larger part of their life-work they received no payment whatever; what they actually received was possibly less than what their philosophic opponents obtained in donations from friendly tyrants.
At any rate, their fees were not heavy enough to damp the ardour of their pupils. Young men left their relations and friends to follow Sophists from city to city. These enthusiastic disciples were almost ready to carry their teachers about on their shoulders, so great was their affection for them. Why this enthusiasm? Partly because the Sophists were men of great personal charm. Partly because in that age the thirst for knowledge was unbounded. Partly from a desire to learn the way of virtue, which the Sophists claimed to teach. But the most potent reason was ambition. The young wished to shine in conversation, the great occupation of the age, and to be able to discuss every conceivable topic with intelligence. But education was also the road to political success. The Sophists taught systematic rhetoric, and logic of a sort. They also supplied the subject-matter for orations, in their practical handling of political science, of history, of ethical commonplaces; for a public oration was expected to be a storehouse of erudition. Rhetoric was needful not only for power, but also for security; for in the courts it had more influence than mere argument and facts.
* * * * *
About the individual Sophists little is known. They appear for us only in the pages of those who traduced them. Plato is mainly occupied with various conclusions which he draws from their philosophic theories, which were not a part of their teaching. Protagoras, the eldest of them, a most dignified personage, set himself to train good citizens: he claimed that he enabled his pupils to manage their households and govern their states. He imparted to them all the worldly wisdom which he had gained by long years of personal experience. He made a special study of political science, no doubt for this purpose, and left a treatise upon the subject, which was sufficiently excellent for a certain Aristoxenos to be able to say that Plato had plagiarised most of the Republic from it.[517] Being businesslike, he favoured clearness of thought, and studied grammar: he was the first to separate nouns into the three genders.[518]
Prodikos belonged to the same practical school. He began by teaching his pupils the right use of words.[519] Thus he told Sokrates not to use δεινός when he meant “clever”; for its proper meaning was “terrible,” applicable to war, disease, or the like.[520] There is an amusing skit on his pet subject in Plato.[521] “The audience in a philosophical debate should give an impartial but not an equal attention to both speakers; for it is not the same thing. For it is right to give an impartial hearing, but you ought to incline, not equally towards both, but rather towards the wiser speaker. I also ask you to agree, and to discuss, not to dispute. For friends discuss with friends for friendship’s sake, but enemies dispute. In this way our meeting will be best conducted. For you, the speakers, would thus win from the audience most repute, not praise (for repute is without deception in the minds of the hearers, but praise is an outward expression of what is often not felt); and we, the audience, would thus receive most happiness, not pleasure; for happiness is produced by the mental reception of knowledge and wisdom, pleasure by eating or by some other pleasant physical state.” It was easy to laugh, but, as Plato himself shows, these distinctions of meaning were extremely useful in meeting logical quibbles, and were much needed in contemporary logic. Besides this, Prodikos was a moral teacher, and composed the famous Choice of Herakles, in which he inculcated the duty of hard work as opposed to a life of laziness and pleasure. He was an invalid, but worked on in spite of ill-health; the result was, perhaps, a certain amount of pessimism.
Hippias was a marvellously all-round genius. He once came to the Olympian festival with everything that he wore or carried made by himself, ring, oil bottle, shoes, clothes, a wonderful Persian girdle; he also brought epic poems, tragedies, dithyrambs, and all sorts of prose-works.[522] He knew astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, grammar. At Sparta he taught history and archæology. He had a wonderful system of mnemonics, by which, if he once heard a string of fifty names, he could remember them all.[523] He lectured on Homer and other poets. He also composed a moral discourse, which won great applause at Sparta, where quibbles or bad morality would have been sternly repressed; it was afterwards delivered in an Athenian school-room. Hippias was always ready to answer any question which was put to him, and was rarely at a loss.
A less prominent Sophist was Antiphon, who must be carefully distinguished from his namesake the Attic orator. He published works on physics, on concord (ὁμόνοια), and on political science. The fragments are interesting, and show some popular handling of ethical teaching. The following extracts[524] will give some idea of the man:—