Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/420

 398 HISTORY OF GREECE. that these teachers countervailed in part the temptations to dis- sipated enjoyment, but also that they -were personally uncon- cerned in the acrimonious slander and warfare of party in his native city ; that the topics with which they familiarized him were, the general interests and duties of men and citizens ; that they developed the germs of morality in the ancient legends, as in Prodikus's fable, and amplified in his mind all the undefined cluster of associations connected with the great words of moral- ity ; that they vivified in him the sentiment of Pan-Hellenic brotherhood ; and that, in teaching him the art of persuasion, 1 they could not but make him feel the dependence in which he stood towards those who were to be persuaded, together with the necessity under which he lay of so conducting himself as to conciliate their good-will. The intimations given in Plato, of the enthusiastic reception which Protagoras, Prodikus, and other sophists' 2 met with in the various cities ; the description which we read, in the dialogue called Protagoras, of the impatience of the youthful HSppo- krates, on hearing of the arrival of that sophist, insomuch that he awakens Sokrates before daylight, in order to obtain an introduction to the new-comer and profit by his teaching ; the readiness of such rich young men to pay money, and to devote time aod trouble, for the purpose of acquiring a personal supe- riority apart from their wealth and station; the ardor with which Kallias is represented as employing his house for the hospitable entertainment, and his fortune for the aid, of the Sophists ; all this makes upon my mind an impression directly the reverse of that ironical and contemptuous phraseology with which it is set forth by Plato. Such sophists had nothing to recommend them except superior knowledge and intellectual force, combined with an imposing personality, making itself felt in their lectures and conversation. It is to this that the admira- tion wzv> shown ; and the fact that it was so shown, brings to 1 See these points strikingly put by Isokrates, in the Orat. xv, D Permutation}, throughout, especially in sects. 294, 297, 305, 307 ; and again by Xenoph. Memorab. i, 2, 10, in reference to the teaching of Sokrates.
 * See a striking passage in Plato's Republic, x, c, 4, p. 600, C.