Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/383

Rh lie enjoyed a great reputation, and gained much money as he travelled from city to city. (5) Prodicus of Ceos, who is said to have exercised much influence upon Socrates in early life. He was best known for certain apologues or fables bearing upon morals and right conduct. The well-known fable of the "Choice of Hercules," in which virtue and vice describe to the young hero the two paths of life which they alternately urge him to take, is preserved in the Memorabilia of Xenophon.

As these Sophists depended for their living on the power to draw large classes of young men in the various cities which they visited, they had not only to embellish their discourses with such attractive episodes, but to study to make their style and language striking, novel, or ornate. It would be impossible for them to treat philosophical questions profoundly or in an over-technical spirit. They had to be popular, but their teaching seems to have been suggestive, and on the whole on the side of right. The sort of sensation which they wished to create among the young men of ability in the various cities visited, has been well illustrated by Plato's account of the arrival of Protagoras in Athens. He makes Socrates describe how he was roused before daybreak one morning by an enthusiastic friend, announcing in a state of violent excitement that Protagoras had arrived, the wisest man and most accomplished speaker in the world. He insists on Socrates rising at once and accompanying him to the house of Callias where Protagoras is staying. When they arrived they were roughly repulsed