Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/188

 i64 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE view that a wife is a ' second self ' and more than any friend. In history, Hippias laid the foundations of a national system of chronology by publishing the list of Olym- pian victors. The whole science of language rests on the foundations laid by such men as Prodicus and Protagoras : the former insisting on the accurate dis- crimination of apparent synonyms ; the latter showing that language is not a divine and impeccable thing, but a human growth with conventions and anomalies. As to morals in general, most of the Sophists were essentially preachers, like Hippias and Prodicus ; others, like Gorgias, were pure artists. The whole movement was moral as well as intellectual, and was singularly free from the corruption and lawlessness which accompanied, for example, the Italian Renaissance. The main fact about the Sophists is that they were set to educate the nation, and they did it. The character of the ordinary fourth - century Greek, his humanity, sense of justice, courage, and ethical imagination, were raised to some- thing like the level of the leading minds of the fifth century, and far above that of any population within a thousand years of him. After all, the Sophists are the spiritual and intellectual representatives of the age of Pericles ; let those who revile them create such an age again. Occasional Writings The real origin of Attic prose literature is not to be found in the florid art of Gorgias, nor yet in the technical rhetoric of Teisias, where Aristotle rather mechanically seeks it : it lies in the political speeches and pamphlets