Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/487

465 LITERATURE Ol' ANCIENT GREECE. 4'io more pernicious variation, that laws were made by the majority of weaker men for their protection, whereas nature had sanctioned the right of the strongest, so that the stronger party did but use his right when he com- pelled the weaker to minister to his pleasure as far as he could. These are the doctrines which Plato, in his Gorgias and in his Republic, attri- butes to Callicles, a disciple of Gorgias, and to Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, who flourished as a teacher of rhetoric during the Pelopon- nesian war, and which were frequently uttered by Plato's own uncle, the able and politic Critias who has been mentioned more than once in the course of this history.* § 3. If, however, we turn from this influence of the Sophists on the spirit of their age, and set ourselves to inquire what they did for the improvement of written compositions, we are constrained to set a very high value on their services. The formation of an artificial prose style is due entirely to the Sophists, and although they did not at first proceed according to a right method, they may be considered as having laid a foundation for the polished diction of Plato and Demosthenes. The Sophists of Greece proper, as well as those of Sicily, made language the object of their study, but with this distinction, that the former aimed at correctness, the latter at beauty of style.f Protagoras investigated the principles of accurate composition (opOoineui), though practically he was distinguished for a copious fluency, which Plato's Socrates vainly attempts to bridle with his dialectic ; and Prodicus busied himself with inquiries into the signification and correct use of words, and the discri- mination of svnonvms: his own discourses were full of such distinctions, as appears from the humorous imitation of his style in Plato's Pro- tagoras. The principal object which Gorgias proposed to himself was a beautiful, ornamented, pleasing, and captivating style ; he was by pro- fession a rhetorician, and had been prepared for his trade by a suit- able education. The Sicilian Greeks, and especially the Syracusans, whose lively disposition and natural quickness raised them, more than any other Dorian people, to a level with the Athenians,]; had commenced, even earlier than the people of Attica, the study of an artificial rhetoric useful for the discussions of the law-courts. The situation of Syra- cuse at the time of the Persian war had contributed a good deal to awaken their natural inclination and capacity for such a study ; especially by the impulse which the abolition of arbitrary government had given lie is mentioned in Chap. XXVI. $ 4 ; as an Elegiae poet in Chap. XXX. $ 5 ; and as an orator. Chap. XXXI. § 4. ■ t This distinction is pointed out by Leonhard ,<engel in his useful work, ~2.<jvu.yuiyn nx.vai<), sive artium scriptores, 1828, p. (53. + Cicero, Brutus XII., 46: Siculi arnl<i gens et controversy natura. I~<-mrt. I ., 43, 95: nunqvam tarn male eat Sicu/is. <i/ti/t aliquid facile et commode dicant, 2 n
 * As a tragedian, but only with a view to the promulgation of these doctrine*,