Note 84 — Chapter VIII · PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.
Reading edition
Οὐδὲν σοφιζόμεσθα τοῖσι δαίμοσι· Πατρίους παραδοχὰς, ἃς θ’ ὁμήλικας χρόνῳ Κεκτήμεθ’, οὐδεὶς αὐτὰ καταβαλεῖ λόγος, Οὔδ’ εἰ δι’ ἄκρων τὸ σοφὸν ηὕρηται φρενῶν. (Euripides, Bacchæ, 200.)
Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forté rearis Impia te rationis inire elementa, viamque Endogredi sceleris. (Lucretius, i. 85.)
Compare Valckenaer, Diatrib. Eurip. pp. 38, 39, cap. 5.
About the accusations against Sokrates, of leading the youth to contract doubts and to slight the authority of their fathers, see Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 52; Plato, Gorgias, 522 B, p. 79, Menon, p. 70. A touching anecdote, illustrating this displeasure of the fathers against Sokrates, may be found in Xenophon, Cyropæd. iii. 1, 89, where the father of Tigranes puts to death the σοφιστὴς who had taught his son, because that son had contracted a greater attachment to the σοφιστὴς than to his own father.
Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 9; i. 2, 49. Apolog. So. s. 20; compare the speech of Kleon in Thucyd. iii. 37. Plato, Politikus, p. 299 E.
Timon in the Silli bestows on Sokrates and his successors the title of ἀκριβόλογοι. Diog. Laert. ii. 19. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 8. Aristophan. Nubes, 130, where Strepsiades says —
πως οὖν γερὼν ὦν κἀπιλήσμων καὶ βραδὺς λόγων ἀκριβῶν σχινδαλάμους μαθήσομαι;
Compare 320-359 of the same comedy — σύ τε λεπτοτάτων λήρων ἱερεῦ — also Ranæ, 149, b.
When Euripides (ὁ σκηνικὸς φιλόσοφος) went down to Hades, he is described by Aristophanes as giving clever exhibitions among the malefactors there, with great success and applause. Ranæ, 771 —
Ὅτε δὴ κατῆλθ’ Εὐριπίδης, ἐπεδείκνυτο τοῖς λωποδύταις καὶ τοῖς βαλαντιητόμοις … ὅπερ ἔστ’ ἐν ᾍδου πλῆθος· οἱ δ’ ἀκροώμενοι τῶν ἀντιλογιῶν καὶ λυγισμῶν και στροφῶν ὑπερεμάνησαν, κἀνόμισαν σοφώτατον.
These astute cavils and quibbles of Euripides are attributed by Aristophanes, and the other comic writers, to his frequent conversations with Sokrates. Ranæ, 1490-1500. Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhet. p. 301-355. Valckenaer, Diatribe in Euripid. c. 4. Aristophanes describes Sokrates as having stolen a garment from the palæstra (Nubes, 180); and Eupolis also introduces him as having stolen a wine-ladle (Schol. ad loc. Eupolis, Fragm. Incert. ix. ed. Meineke). The fragment of Eupolis (xi. p. 553, Ἀδολεσχεῖν αὐτὸν ἐκδίδαξον, ὦ σοφιστά) seems to apply to Sokrates. About the sympathy of the people with the attacks of the comic writers on Sokrates, see Lucian, Piscat. c. 25.
The rhetor Aristeides (Orat. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, pp. 406-407-408, Dindorf), after remarking on the very vague and general manner in which the title Σοφιστὴς was applied among the Greeks (Herodotus having so designated both Solon and Pythagoras), mentions that Androtion not only spoke of the seven wise men as τοὺς ἕπτα σοφιστάς, but also called Sokrates σοφιστὴν τοῦτον τὸν πάνυ: that Lysias called Plato σοφιστὴν, and called Æschines (the Sokratic) by the same title; that Isokrates represented himself, and rhetors and politicians like himself, as φιλοσόφους, while he termed the dialecticians and critics σοφιστάς. Nothing could be more indeterminate than these names, σοφιστὴς and φιλόσοφος. It was Plato who applied himself chiefly to discredit the name σοφιστὴς (ὁ μάλιστα ἐπαναστὰς τῷ ὀνόματι) but others had tried to discredit φιλόσοφος and τὸ φιλοσοφεῖν in like manner. It deserves notice that in the restrictive or censorial law (proposed by Sophokles, and enacted by the Athenians in B.C. 307, but repealed in the following year) against the philosophers and their schools, the philosophers generally are designated as σοφισταί. Pollux, Onomast. ix. 42 ἔστι δὲ καὶ νόμος Ἀττικὸς κατὰ τῶν φιλοσοφούντων γραφείς, ὃν Σοφοκλῆς Ἀμφικλείδου Σουνιεὺς εἶπεν, ἐν ᾧ τινα κατὰ αὐτῶν προειπὼν, ἐπήγαγε, μὴ ἐξεῖναι μηδενὶ τῶν σοφιστῶν διατριβὴν κατασκευάσασθαι.