Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/158

 148 Journal of Philology. I entirely agree in Mr Grote's observations upon the sup- posed deterioration of the Athenian character at the end of the 5th century b. c, and I believe with him that the Athenians had in no respect degenerated during the course of that century. The supposition of such a degeneracy and corruption has doubt- less arisen partly from a too literal interpretation of the fond ex- pressions in which the succeeding poets and orators contrasted their own evil times with ' the good old days' of Marathon and Salamis ; and partly also from the fuller information that we happen to have about their private life and public conduct at the later than at the earlier period : the increased light thus thrown upon them, and the narrower scrutiny which we are enabled to bring to bear upon the object of our examination, brings out their weak points, and tells as ill upon their character as a minute biography usually does upon that of an individual: in short, the fickle volatile litigious objects of Aristophanes' satire, who had the spirit to conceive the Sicilian expedition and the forti- tude to bear up so gallantly against the crushing disaster of its failure ; who listened with approbation to the bloody argu- ments of Cleon, perpetrated the Melian massacre, and judicially murdered Socrates and the Arginusian generals ; were the genuine descendants of the Athenians who fought the battles of Marathon and Salamis, who ostracised Aristides and Themisto- cles, and appropriated the Delian fund : the same gay, giddy, enterprising, intelligent, unprincipled, unscrupulous " People, " which combined great and noble with odious and contemptible qualities in a degree perhaps unparalleled in the world's history. I am also quite prepared to admit that the personal character and personal morality of the Sophists were neither above nor below the ordinary standard of the time ; and that they had no conscious or avowed intention of inculcating licentious and demo- ralizing principles, or corrupting the minds of their youthful hearers. However to allow that eight or ten teachers who did not even permanently reside in Athens were not able to corrupt a whole generation and an entire state, is not to exonerate them from all moral culpability : and though there is perhaps no ground for imputing to them a vicious personal character, or even worse motives than those which an ostentatious vanity and a desire of wealth and distinction could account for, I still think