Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/368

 344 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE the EutJiydcviHs^ Crito mentions the criticisms of a certain n imeless person upon Socrates: — "What sort of man was the critic?" — "Not a philosopher, not a speaker." Crito doubts if he has ever been into a law- court; but he understands the art of speech, and writes wonderfully. — *M//," answers Socrates, ^^ he is what Pro- dicus used to call a Boundary Stone, half philosopher and half practical states ma Ji. The Botmdary Stones believe themselves to be the wisest people in the world ; but probably are not so. For practical statesmanship may be the right thing, or philosophy may be the right thing, or conceivably both may be good, though different. But in none of these cases can that which is half one and half the other be superior to both. Perhaps in our friend's eyes both are positively bad?" The likeness to Isocrates is beyond dis- pute. Isocrates had an easy reply : both practical man and philosopher are one-sided ; the one wants culture and breadth of imagination, the other loses his hold of con- crete life. As a matter of fact his answer was his success. His school became the University of Greece. It satisfied a wide-spread desire for culture on the part of men who did not mean to become professional mathematicians or philosophers in the stricter sense. The leading names of the next generation come chiefly from the school of Iso- crates — the statesmen Timotheus and Leodamas, the tragic poet Theodectes, the historians Ephorus and Theopompus, the orators Isaeus, Lycurgus, vEschines, Hyperides, and some hundred more. The Alexandrian scholar Hermippos wrote a book on The Disciples of Isocrates. ^ Though the general statistics of the Eiithyd^mus show it to be a very early work, the epilogue is obviously separable in composition from the rest, and, as a matter of fact, contains some slight marks of lateness (^X'^MfO'' <ppovi- fffws irpayixa, and perhaps fiirws), and none of earliness.