Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/162

 152 Journal of Philology. I own that Plato*s censure of the practice does remind us of Byron's sneers at Scott for accepting money for a poem from his publisher: but the taunt of an angry satirist conveyed in a neatly turned couplet, which after all may have been the main motive for Byron's attack, is a very different thing from the deliberate opinion of three grave philosophers in prose; and besides, if Plato was a rich man, Socrates was one of the poorest in Athens, and yet he spent his life in gratuitous teaching, and uses the strongest language in condemning the contrary prac- tice. Every age and nation has its own notions of decency and propriety, some of them purely conventional 6 ; so that the usages of one can hardly be measured by the standard of another : but any one who deliberately violates these customary proprieties, and acts in defiance of public opinion, manifests a recklessness and want of good feeling for which he must expect, and deserves, censure and ridicule. In examining the remaining characteristics of this class, we shall be obliged at the same time to consider the character of our witnesses and how far their testimony may be relied on ; 6 There were many licenses short of positive immorality permitted to te ancient Athenian (and Corcyrean), as to the modern Frenchman, by the libe- ral and, so to speak, free-and-easy social code then and there prevailing, from which we are debarred by our sterner and stricter notions of etiquette : and there are some things sanctioned by our habits particularly in the case of the conduct and treatment of women from which a well-bred Greek would have re- coiled with horror. A modern professor of Moral Philosophy may " teach virtue for hire" without incurring censure; but at Athens, in the 5th century B.C., he could not. A philosopher might at Athens drink any quantity of wine and water, in large or small cups, (Xen. Symp. II. 26,) and mixed in any pro- portion he pleased, without scandal and in fact, the strength of his head seems to have been sometimes regarded as a sort of measure of the strength of his principles or power of self-controul but what would Aristotle have said to a baUt On the philosophical view of tippling just referred to, see Plat. Legg. I. 649, n. 671-674, cited by Mr Grote, p. 553 ; and compare the scene described at the end of Plato's Symposium. In Xenophon'a Symposium, n. 17, there is a very ab- surd account of the effect produced on the company by Socrates' announcement of his intention of dancing. Charmides ( 20) caught him one day engaged at home in this occupation, as a substitute for a constitutional walk. He was at first utterly amazed at the sight, and thought that Socrates was out of his senses ; but afterwards recovered his composure so far as to join him, not in dancing, for he did not know how, but in gesticulating with his hands, by way of exercise. Every one remembers Cicero's expression upon this subject, pro Mur. c. 6, "Nemo fere saltat so- brius nisi forte insanit :" and compare Plat. Menex. 236. c.