Chapter 6: Plato's Withdrawal From The Evils Of The Thirty
Chapter 6: Notes
1. See Diog. Laert. I.4.75 and I.5.84-86. Robin Watterfield finds it odd that Pittacus and Bias are included among men who ‘abstained from state affairs’, but he argues that although they were concerned with political matters ‘Socrates is presently thinking in terms of the traditional contrast between intellectuals and men of action.’(Robin Watterfield, in: Plato, Early Socratic Dialogues, Penguin Books, London 1987, p.232, n.3.) But this cannot be right, for Pittacus and Bias were both renowned intellectuals and practising politicians, men of action. Paul Woodruff in his edition of the dialogue explains Socrates’ words differently, viewing them as a trap set for Hippias: ‘The men Socrates mentions did not abstain from affairs of state, but Hippias chooses to proceed as if the absurdity were true, rather than to refuse Socrates’ praise. Socrates has set directly to making a fool of Hippias.’(Paul Woodruff, Plato Hippias Major, 1982, p.37, n.6.) Although Woodruff is right in remarking that ‘Socrates has set directly to making a fool of Hippias’, the question is rather whether Plato would open the dialogue with Socrates making a false statement concerning the wise men of old, mixing those who did abstain from politics with those who did not, and all that for a purpose that he very effectively achieved throughout the dialogue with his irony.
2. This pessimism is in harmony with the apophthegm attributed to Bias, to whom Socrates refers alongside of Pittacus: ‘Most men are bad’ (Diog. Laert. I. 87 and 88).
3. In his introductory greeting to Hippias Socrates says: ‘It’s a very long time since you visited Athens’ (281a1-2). Hippias’ answer ‘I’ve been busy’ suggests that nothing but his duties to his city prevented him from visiting Athens earlier. This introductory exchange between Socrates and Hippias would be meaningless, had Hippias visited Athens in the early days of the Peace of Nicias, for in that case it would have been the war, during which Elis was an ally of Sparta, which would have prevented him from visiting Athens.
4. Kai hoi men triakonta Eleusinade apêlthon, Xenophon Hellenica II.iv.24; following Xenophon, I use the term Thirty for the rulers of the aristocrats, who after the battle at Munichia were obviously less than thirty; the Thirty retreated to Eleusis with their closest adherents.
5. Prior to handing the army over to the Spartans, Xenophon’s return home was open for him. In Anabasis VII.vii.4. he says: ‘As for Xenophon ... it was plain that he was making preparations for his homeward journey; for not yet had the sentence of exile been pronounced against him at Athens. His friends in the camp, however, came to him and begged him not to depart until he should lead the army away and turn it over to Thibron.’ (Translation C.L. Brownson in the LCL edition of Xenophon)
6. See Xenophon, Hellenica: ‘While these things were being done in Asia by Dercylidas [the Spartan governor who was sent to Asia Minor by Sparta to take over the command of the army after the summoning of Thibron back to Sparta, III.i.8-10], the Lacedaemonians at the same time were engaged in war at home, against the Eleans. They had long been very angry with the Eleans ... because the latter had concluded an alliance with the Athenians [III.ii.21] ... with the exception of the Boeotians and Corinthians all the allies, including the Athenians, took part with Agis in the campaign [III.ii.25].’ (Translation C.L. Brownson in the LCL edition of Xenophon) Cf. Thucydides, Historiae, V.44-47. In paragraph 47 Thucydides quotes the treaty of the alliance concluded between the Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans in 420. The treaty was to last for one hundred years. Although the treaty was strongly opposed by Sparta, the treaty between Sparta and Athens was not denounced because of it, and the uneasy peace between the two lasted until 413.
7. I have arrived at the figure of ‘the last three months’ by comparing the account of the reign of the Thirty in Xenophon’s Hellenica, in Isocrates’ Panegyricus, and Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution. In Xenophon’s Hellenica, after the victorious battle of the democrats against the Thirty at Munichia, the herald Cleocritus made a speech to the defeated fellow-citizens from Athens before they retreated, in which he said that the Thirty ‘in eight months’ (en oktô mêsin) killed more Athenians, almost, than all the Peloponnesians in ten years of war (II.iv.21). Isocrates in the Panegyricus says that the Thirty and their sympathizers ‘put to death without trial more men in the space of three months (en trisi mêsin) than Athenians tried during the whole period of their supremacy’ (IV.113). I believe that Isocrates’ ‘three months’ refer to the last three months of the reign of the Thirty. Xenophon’s Hellenica as well as Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution make it clear that for a considerable time the Thirty appeared to have ruled in the spirit of true aristocracy, that is the rule of the best with the best interests of the citizens in mind. Thus Aristotle says of the Thirty: ‘At first they were moderate towards the citizens and pretended to be administering the ancestral form of constitution, and they removed from the Areopagus the laws of Ephialtes and Archestratus about the Areopagites, and also such of the ordinances of Solon as were of doubtful purport, and abolished the sovereignty vested in jurymen, claiming to be rectifying the constitution and removing its uncertainties: for example, in regard to the bestowal of one’s property on whomsoever one wishes, making the single act of donation valid absolutely, while they removed the tiresome qualifications “save when in consequence of insanity or of old age, or under the influence of a woman,” in order that there might be no opening for blackmailers (hopôs mê êi tois sukophantais ephodos); and similarly they did this in the other matters as well. At the outset, therefore, they were engaged in these matters, and in removing the blackmailers and the persons who consorted undesirably with the people to curry favour and were evil doers and scoundrels (kai tous sukophantas kai tous tôi dêmôi pros charin homilountas para to beltiston kai kakopragmonas ontas kai ponêrous anêiroun); and the state was delighted at these measures, thinking that they were acting with the best intentions (eph’ hois echairen hê polis gignomenois, hêgoumenoi tou beltistou charin poiein autous). (The Athenian Constitution, XXXV. 2-4, translation H. Rackam in the LCL edition of Aristotle).
8. See Xenophon, Hellenica II.iii.2 and Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution XXXV. 2-3, quoted in the previous note.
9. See e.g. Herodotus I. 32.5.
10. Tr. E.V. Rieu in: Homer, Iliad, Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.
11. The exact date of Isocrates’ Against the Sophist is unknown. Norlin in the ‘Introduction’ to his LCL edition of the pamphlet says ‘about 390’ (vol. ii. p. 160, n. b), and in the ‘Introduction’ to the i. volume he says ‘probably in 392’.
12. Isocrates himself said in several of his extant writings that he did not have a good enough voice and not enough confidence to be an orator. See Isocrates, Philip, v. 81, Ep. VIII.7, Panthenaicus, xii. 9-10.
The main reason for my dating Plato’s Euthydemus after Isocrates’ Against the Sophists is the following:
In Against the Sophists, in paragraphs 1-8 Isocrates criticizes the exaggerated promises of philosophers preoccupied with educating the young in moral virtues and in paragraph 9 he criticizes teachers of political rhetoric for similar reasons. In paragraph 11 he suggests that both these groups should properly moderate their messages, promises and claims, following his lead, for if anyone could make such claims as they do, it would be him. He takes it for granted that his philosophical credentials are well known. In paragraphs 12-18 he outlines his own program of philosophic rhetoric. In paragraphs 19-20 he criticizes previous teachers of rhetoric, and in paragraph 21 he says that those who will follow the precepts of his philosophy (tous boulomenous peitharchein tois hupo tês philosophias tautês) will acquire virtuousness (epieikeian) through the study of political speeches (tên tôn logôn tôn politikôn epimeleian). In the short closing paragraph 22 he then offers all this to those who will become his students.
In the Euthydemus, having identified his critic as a formidable composer of rhetorical speeches, but not an orator – thus pointing his finger unmistakably at Isocrates – Socrates directs his criticism against Isocrates’ philosophic position as it is expressed in Against the Sophists:
‘He is one of an amphibious class, whom I was on the point of mentioning – one of those whom Prodicus describes as on the border-ground between philosophy and statesmen – they think that they are the wisest of all men, and that they are generally esteemed the wisest; nothing but the rivalry of the philosophers stands in their way; and they are of the opinion that if they can prove the philosophers to be good for nothing, no one will dispute their title to the palm of wisdom, for that they are themselves really the wisest, although they are apt to be mauled by Euthydemus and his friends, when they get hold of them in conversation. This opinion which they hold of their wisdom is very natural; for they have a certain amount of philosophy (metriôs men gar philosophias echein), and a certain amount of political wisdom (metriôs de politikôn); there is reason in what they say, for they argue that they have just enough of both, and so they keep out of the way of all risks and conflicts and reap the fruit of their wisdom.’ (305c5-e2, tr. B. Jowett)
|