Note 715 — Chapter XLVI · CONSTITUTIONAL AND JUDICIAL CHANGES AT ATHENS UNDER PERIKLES.

See the first book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric—alluded to in a former note—for his remarks on the technical teachers of rhetoric before his time. He remarks—and Plato remarked before him (i, 1 and 2)—that their teaching was for the most part thoroughly narrow and practical, bearing exclusively on what was required for the practice of the dikastery (περὶ τοῦ δικάζεσθαι πάντες πειρῶνται τεχνολογεῖν): see also a remarkable passage in his Treatise de Sophisticis Elenchis, c. 32, ad finem. And though he himself lays down a far more profound and comprehensive theory of rhetoric, and all matters appertaining to it,—in a treatise which has rarely been surpassed in power of philosophical analysis,—yet when he is recommending his speculations to notice, he appeals to the great practical value of rhetorical teaching, as enabling a man to “help himself,” and fight his own battles, in case of need—Ἄτοπον εἰ τῷ σώματι μὲν αἰσχρὸν μὴ δύνασθαι βοηθεῖν ἑαυτῷ, λόγῳ δὲ οὐκ αἰσχρόν (i, 1, 3: compare iii, 1, 2; Plato Gorgias, c, 41-55; Protagoras, c. 9; Phædrus, c. 43-50; Euthydem. c. 1-31 and Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 12, 2, 3).

See also the character of Proxenus in the Anabasis of Xenophon, ii, 6, 16; Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator. p. 307; Aristoph. Nubes, 1108; Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 48; Plato, Alkibiadês, i, c. 31, p. 119; and a striking passage in Plutarch’s Life of Cato the elder, c. 1.