Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/339

 1ITE D1UMA. 317 CHAPTER LXVII. THE DRAMA. -RHETORIC AXD DIALECTICS. -THE SOPHISTS. RESPECTING the political history of Athens during the tew years immediately succeeding the restoration of the democracy, we have unfortunately little or no information. But in the spring of 399 B.C., between three and four years after the begin- ning of the archonship of Eukleides, an event happened of paramount interest to the intellectual public of Greece as well as to philosophy generally, the trial, condemnation, and execution of Sokrates. Before I recount that memorable incident, it will be proper to say a few words on the literary and philosophical character of the age in which it happened. Though literature and philosophy are now becoming separate departments in Greece, each exercises a marked influence on the other, and the state of dramatic literature will be seen to be one of the causes directly contributing to the fate of Sokrates. During the century of the Athenian democracy between Kleisthenes and Eukleides, there had been produced a develop- ment of dramatic genius, tragic and comic, never paralleled before or afterwards. ^Eschylus, the creator of the tragic drama, or at least the first composer who rendered it illustrious, had been a combatant both at Marathon and Salamis ; while Sophokles and Euripides, his two eminent followers, the former one of the generals of the Athenian armament against Samos in 440 B.C., expired both of them only a year before the battle of JEgospotami, just in time to escape the bitter humiliation and suffering of that mournful period. Out of the once numerous compositions of these poets we possess only a few, yet sufficient to enable us to appreciate in some degree the grandeur of Athe- nian tragedy; and when we learn that they were frequently beaten, even with the best of their dramas now remaining, in i'air competition for the prize against other poets whose names only have reached us, we are warranted in presuming that th