Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/484

462 4G2 HIST011Y OF THK CHAPTER XXXII. § 1. Profession of the Sophists : essential elements of their doctrines. The principles of Protagoras. § 2. Opinions of Gorgias. Pernicious effects of his doctrines, especially as they were carried out by his disciples. § 3. Important services of the Sophists in forming a prose style : different tendencies of the Sicilian and other Sophists in this respect. § 4. The rhetoric of Gorgias. § 5. His forms of expression. § 1. The impulse to a further improvement of the prose style proceeded immediately from the Sophists, who, in general, exercised a greater influence on the culture of the Greek mind than any other class of men, the ancient poets alone excepted. The Sophists were, as their name indicates, persons who made know- ledge their profession, and who undertook to impart it to every one who was willing to place himself under their guidance. The philosophers of the Socratic school reproached them with being the first to sell knowledge for money ; and such was the case ; for they not only de- manded admittance-money from those who came to hear their public lectures (eTjrihi^ig),* but also undertook for a considerable sum, fixed before-hand, to give young men a complete sophistical education, and not -to dismiss them till they were thoroughly instructed in their art. At that time a thirst for knowledge was so great in Greece,t that not only in Athens, but also in the oligarchies of Thessaly, hearers and pupils flocked to them in crowds ; the arrival in any city of one of the greater sophists, Gorgias, Protagoras, or Hippias, was celebrated as a festival; and these men acquired riches such as art and science had never before earned among the Greeks. Not only the outward profession, but also the peculiar doctrines of the Sophists were, on the whole, one and the same, though they admitted of certain modifications of greater or less importance. If we consider these doctrines philosophically, they amounted to a denial or renunciation of all true science. Philosophy had then just completed the. first stage of her career : she had boldly undertaken to solve the abstrusest questions of speculation, and the widely different answers which had been returned to some of those questions, had all produced conviction and obtained many staunch supporters. The difference between the results thus ob- tained, although the grounds of this difference had not been investigated, must of itself have awakened a doubt as to the possibility of any real admission-fee for some lectures was a drachma, for others fifty drachma? f Comp. the remark in Chap. XXVII.. $ 5.
 * There were wide differences in the amounts paid on these occasions. The