[33] A doctrine taught by the philosopher Anaxagoras, whose lectures Socrates is said to have attended.
[34] A hit, no doubt, at theories of education which were in fashion then, and which have been revived in modern days. Plato, in his treatise on Legislation, advises that the child who is intended for an architect should be encouraged to build toy-houses, the future farmer to make little gardens, &c.—(De Leg., i. 643.)
[35] Some of the old commentators say that the disputants were brought upon the stage in the guise of game-cocks; but there are no allusions in the dialogue to justify such an interpretation of the scene.
[36] See Plato’s Republic, Book I. Of course it must be remembered that we have here only the representation of Thrasymachus’s teaching as given by an opponent. As Mr Grote fairly remarks: “How far the real Thrasymachus may have argued in the slashing and offensive style here described, we have no means of deciding.”—Grote’s Plato, i. 145.
[37] See p. 8.
[38] See p. 92.
[39] Dialog. Icaro-Menippus.
[40] The names in the Greek are significant. “Philocleon” means “friend of Cleon” (who represents litigation, as he does most other things which are bad, in the view of Aristophanes); “Bdelycleon,” the name of the son, means “hater of Cleon.”
[41] The Athenians affected to wear a golden grasshopper in their hair, as being “sprung from the soil.”
[42] K. Henry IV., Pt. ii., act iii. sc. 2.