Chapter II: The Greek Humanists: Nature and Law (3)

[62] _Phoenissae_, 536-47. There is a delicious parody of this method in the _Clouds_. A creditor asks Strepsiades, who has been taking lessons in philosophy, to pay him the interest on a loan. Strepsiades begs to know whether the sea is any fuller now than it used to be. ‘No,’ replies the other, ‘for it would not be just,’ (οὐ γὰρ δίκαιον πλείον εἶναι). ‘Then, you wretch,’ rejoins his debtor, ‘do you suppose that the sea is not to get any fuller although all the rivers are flowing into it, and that your money is to go on increasing?’ (1290-95.)

[63] Xenophon, _Memor._, IV., iv., 19.

[64] _Pol._, I., ii.

[65] The _Hippias Minor_.

[66] Diog. L., IX., viii., 54.

[67] Diog. L., IX., viii., 51.

[68] Plato, _Protagoras_, 327; Jowett’s Transl., vol. I., p. 140. On the superior morality which accompanies advancing civilisation, as evinced by the great increase of mutual trust, see Maine’s _Ancient Law_, pp. 306-7.

[69] This point is noticed by Zeller, _Ph. d. Gr._, II., 22.

[70] This phase of Greek life is well illustrated by the addresses of Theognis to Cyrnus.

[71] Eristicism had also points of contact with the philosophies of Parmenides and Socrates which will be indicated in a future chapter.

[72] _Ph. d. Gr._, I., 903 (3rd ed.).

[73] See Plato’s _Meno_, _sub. in._

[74] Lord Beaconsfield recently [written in February 1880] spoke of the Balkans as forming an ‘intelligible’ frontier for Turkey. Continental telegrams substituted ‘natural frontier.’ The change was characteristic and significant.

[75] Aristoph., _Pax_, 697.

[76] ‘As Mr. Grote remarks, there is no reason to suspect any greater moral corruption in the age of Demosthenes than in the age of Pericles.’ (_The Dialogues of Plato_, vol. IV., p. 380.) We do not remember that Grote commits himself to such a sweeping statement, nor was it necessary for his purpose to do so. No one would have been more surprised than Demosthenes himself to hear that the Athenians of his generation equalled the contemporaries of Pericles in public virtue. (Cf. Grote’s _Plato_, II., 148.)

[77] _Geschichte der Entwickelung der Griechischen Philosophie_, I., p. 204.

[78] _Philosophie d. Gr._, I., p. 943 (3rd ed.).

[79] The invention of memoir-writing is claimed by Prof. Mahaffy (_Hist. Gr. Lit._, II., 42) for Ion of Chios and his contemporary Stesimbrotus. But—apart from their questionable authenticity—the sketches attributed to these two writers do not seem to have aimed at presenting a complete picture of a single individual, which is what was attempted with considerable success in Xenophon’s _Memorabilia_.