Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/160

 150 Journal of Philology. tendency, and condemned by them accordingly : that these men first received the name of <ro<pi<rrat in a disparaging sense ; that they were included in that class by the Greeks generally, and that by the more enlightened and discriminating the name was almost, if not entirely, confined to them. Though the name ' Sophist* had not necessarily an offensive connotation; and when it was used as a term of contempt was certainly sometimes applied ad libitum to any individual or class of men of whose opinions or occupations the writer or speaker happened to dis- approve; yet I deem it certain that the name as an offensive appellation was first given to Gorgias, Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias and their immediate pupils and followers, and that at the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth centuries before Christ the mention of the name * Sophist* would have suggested these men, either alone or pre-eminently, to the mind of any Athenian of ordinary education and enlightenment. The first distinguishing characteristic of the class was that they taught (philosophy and virtue 2 ) for hire 3. Here again Mr Grote appeals to modern practice, and concludes that because with us it is no disgrace to teach any thing for money, therefore it was none in Greece in the 5th century b. c, or at any rate that we have no right to find fault with the practice of the Sophists in this particular. But it is evident from the combined 8 They certainly professed to teach They were obliged to set up these exag- virtue ; and according to Aristotle, Xe- gerated pretensions, says Aristotle, Eth. nophon and Isocrates failed signally in Nic. EC. I, because no one would have the attempt : and most likely the ques- bought of them what they really knew. tion el SiSaKTbv 1} dper-fi, so often dis- a The definition of  apxaLav aoQurriKty frirropticty ^yet- as this "virtue" was the public virtue <rdai xp*l QCkoaotyvaav. AtaX^yercu fitv of a citizen, and to give instruction in it ybp virkp wv ol <pio<ro<povvTs, d Si iKei- meant, according to their interpretation, vot tAi ipurrfatis vTroKa0T}fx(voi [subdoli to qualify for public life, so it may be in interrogationibus. Kayser] nal rd presumed that what they really taught cjwcpd ruiv iftrovixivuv irpo^d^oures was chiefly rhetoric (as Zeno logic), and otfirw $aal yryvuHncfur, ravra 6 xaKaibs that their fees for the two respectively aoKpurr^t wt tlSus eyei, (here appears were in the proportion of those paid by the dXafovcfa, which we shall have pre-. Paul Clifford to his early instructors, sently to notice), and further on, rd " two bob for the Latin and a sice for to<TO<po6fiva virortdep.ivri 5t#et airrd the vartue," out of the weekly half-crown dirordbrpf ko.1 is p.r}KOS. which was disbursed for his tuition.