Note 720 — Chapter XLVI · CONSTITUTIONAL AND JUDICIAL CHANGES AT ATHENS UNDER PERIKLES.
Reading edition
Such is probably the meaning of that remarkable passage in which Thucydidês describes the Athenian rhetor, Antipho, (viii, 68): Ἀντιφῶν, ἀνὴρ Ἀθηναίων ἀρετῇ τε οὐδενὸς ὕστερος, καὶ κράτιστος ἐνθυμηθῆναι γενόμενος καὶ ἃ ἂν γνοίη εἰπεῖν· καὶ ἐς μὲν δῆμον οὐ παριὼν οὐδ’ ἐς ἄλλον ἀγῶνα ἑκούσιος οὐδένα, ἀλλ’ ὑπόπτως τῷ πλήθει διὰ δόξαν δεινότητος διακείμενος, τοὺς μέντοι ἀγωνιζομένους καὶ ἐν δικαστηρίῳ καὶ ἐν δήμῳ, πλεῖστα εἷς ἀνὴρ, ὅστις ξυμβουλεύσαιτό τι, δυνάμενος ὠφελεῖν. “Inde illa circa occultandam eloquentiam simulatio,” observes Quintilian, Inst. Or. iv, 1, 8.
Compare Plato (Protagoras, c. 8; Phædrus, c. 86), Isokratês cont. Sophistas, Or. xiii, p. 295, where he complains of the teachers,—οἵτινες ὑπέσχοντο, δικάζεσθαι διδάσκειν, ἐκλεξάμενοι τὸ δυσχερέστατον τῶν ὀνομάτων, ὃ τῶν φθονούντων ἔργον εἴη λέγειν, ἀλλ’ οὐ τῶν προεστώτων τῆς τοιαύτης παιδεύσεως, Demosthen. De Fals. Legat, c. 70, 71, pp. 417-420; and Æschin. cont. Ktesiphon. c. 9, p. 371,—κακοῦργον σοφιστὴν, οἰόμενον ῥήμασι τοὺς νόμους ἀναιρήσειν.