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III A World of Words: The Sophists at the Crossroads Between Grammar, Rhetoric, Poetry, and Philosophy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 July 2020
Extract
An interest in speech and an admiration for those capable of speaking well was a recurrent feature of the Greek world from its most archaic period. Contrary to a certain stereotyped image, the Homeric hero is not celebrated only for his strength and beauty; his ability to express himself is also fundamental: Achilles is the most famous hero, and Phoenix's duty was to teach him how to be ‘both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds’ (Iliad, 9.442–3). In times of war and peace, authority largely depended on one's skill in rhetoric, which allowed one to settle disputes and provide suitable advice (see, for example, Hesiod, Theogony, 83–7). Later on, the development of the institution of the polis further increased the importance of this skill, which became even more crucial in Athenian democracy, in an age in which courtrooms and assemblies shaped men's lives and careers. Hence the sophists’ success, which reflects the fame they enjoyed as masters of the art of speech: it is because he ‘makes you a clever speaker’ that the young Hippocrates wishes to rush off to visit Protagoras in Plato's dialogue of the same name (Protagoras, 312d–e).
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References
1 Pernot 2006: 15–22.
2 Gagarin 2008.
3 Brancacci 1996: 116–17.
4 Classen 1976: 223–5.
5 The distinction between these two expressions is unclear: see Guthrie 1971: 205.
6 Guthrie 1971: 220.
7 Momigliano 1930. It is difficult to determine on what basis Prodicus drew his distinctions: in some cases he would appear to rely on the traditional use of terms (e.g. 84A18 D.-K., partially reproduced in 34D24 L.-M.), while elsewhere he seems to suggest radical innovations based on their etymology (84B4 D.-K. = 34D9 L.-M.; see Pfeiffer 1968: 40–1). The small number of testimonies makes it difficult to come up with a definite answer to these questions: see Classen 1976: 232–7. As rightly noted by Dorion 2009b: 531 n. 22 in relation to 84A16 D.-K., Prodicus also investigated the problem of homonymy, which is to say the phenomenon of the semantic ambiguity of a term (the term in this particular case being manthano, which in Greek means both ‘to understand’ and ‘to learn’).
8 See Guthrie 1971: 275.
9 Classen 1976: 232.
10 Dumont 1986; Wolfsdorf 2008b.
11 In this respect, it is interesting to note that, in the Euthydemus, Plato mentions Prodicus twice as a potential opponent of sophists and eristic debaters such as Euthydemus and Dionysodorus: see Euth. 277e and 305c.
12 Cole 1991: 100.
13 Gagarin 2008: 28–30. More in general, see Rademaker 2013.
14 Significantly, Antiphon's second Tetralogy discusses the same problem. See also Antiphon's fr. 87B44, 4.10 (= 37D38 L.-M.), where the criterion of ‘correct reasoning’ is used to establish what causes pain and what pleasure. Another interesting occurrence of the criterion of correctness is to be found in the Encomium of Helen, where Gorgias sets out ‘to say correctly what is necessary’ in order to preserve Helen's honour (82B11, 2 D.-K. = 32D24 L.-M.).
15 Untersteiner 1954: 30–2 and 66.
16 Gagarin 2008: 30.
17 This doctrine also shows that Protagoras was not endorsing a conventionalist theory of names, as one might well expect (see Pl. Crat. 391b–d and the observations rightly made by Corradi 2006: 54–5). A conventionalist position is possibly to be found in Euthydemus and Dionysodorus’ thesis, as presented in Plato's Euthydemus, and has also been attributed to Antiphon by Guthrie 1971: 204 on the basis of the pseudo-Hippocratic treatise On Art that Diels published as an appendix to 87B1 D.-K. (= Med. T2 L.-M.). In this passage, however, the author's silence as regards his polemical aims makes it difficult to prove Guthrie's thesis. In the same period, in close proximity to the sophists, Democritus appears to have upheld a similarly conventionalist thesis: see Barnes 1979: i.164–9.
18 The same conception also explains the statement that ‘it is not possible to contradict’ (80A19 D.-K. = 31R 10 L.-M.): to the extent that each individual entertains a relationship with things whose reality and truth cannot be disputed or contradicted, the opposition here is only apparent. It is interesting to note that in a recently republished papyrus, the same thesis is also attributed to Prodicus, only on the basis of different arguments: see PToura III 16, 9–18, reprinted in Bonazzi 2007: 261 (= 34R14 L.-M.).
19 See Corradi 2007b.
20 Classen 1976: 222–5.
21 Brancacci 2002b: 183–90.
22 See Pfeiffer 1968: 16–17; Soverini 1998: 6–12. Very interesting reflections are also to be found in Most 1986, who stresses the importance of the interpretation of literary texts as a distinctive feature of the sophists. Indeed, the sophists’ penchant for the written word constitutes a distinguishing element with respect to the oral culture in which poets found themselves operating: see again Pfeiffer 1968: 24–30. It is worth recalling the fact that several sophists were also the authors of poetical works: this is the case with Hippias (86A12 and B1 D.-K. = 36D2 and D4 L.-M.), Critias, and possibly Antiphon (see 87A6 a 9 D.-K. = 37P8 L.-M.).
23 Goldhill 1986: 222–43; Morgan 2000: 89–94.
24 Brancacci 1996: 111. The likely polemical target of this method of literal exegesis is the allegorical exegesis developed by Theagenes of Rhegium in the sixth century bc and later taken up in Athens by another great intellectual of the period, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, and by his pupil Metrodorus of Lampsacus (on these authors, see Rocca-Serra 1990 and Morgan 2000: 98–101). Evidence of a polemic between Protagoras and the champions of the allegorical method is possibly to be found in testimony 80A30 D.-K. (= 31D32 L.-M.), in which Protagoras focuses on a theomachy, a theme dear to Homeric interpreters of the allegorical tradition (who were wont to interpret theomachies as symbolizing the oppositions between natural elements, such as hot and cold, or dry and moist): see Brancacci 1996: 118. On Protagoras and Homer see, more recently, Capra 2005 and Corradi 2006: 56–63.
25 Morgan 2000: 94.
26 See Corradi 2007a.
27 Arrighetti 1998: xv–xxi; Detienne 2006: 113–24.
28 Only part of this passage is included in the Diels-Kranz edition, as 80A5 D.-K. (the whole text appears in Bonazzi 2009b as T6 and L.-M. as Soph. R11). On its importance, see Brancacci 2002a.
29 See Rosenmeyer 1955; Verdenius 1981; Horky 2006.
30 As regards Parmenides, see fr. 28B, 56 D.-K. (= Parm. 19D8.57 L.-M.) and Verdenius 1981: 124. On the poetic tradition, see de Romilly 1975: 1–22 and de Romilly 1973, who also notes that this conception of poetry as something magical and illusionary (see e.g. 82B11, 9 D.-K. = 32D24, 9 L.-M.) might reflect an influence from Empedocles (whose disciple Gorgias may have been: 82A3, 10 D.-K. = 32P4–5 L.-M., and Kerferd 1985).
31 Segal 1962: 124.
32 Casertano 2004: 83
33 This idea is also taken up in the Dissoi logoi, 89, 3, 10–12 D.-K. (= 40, 3, 10–12 L.-M.), which quotes verses by the poets Cleoboulina and Aeschylus.
34 Segal 1962: 102; Poulakos 1983.
35 In Gorgias’ case, appropriation also entails an attempt to adapt the poetic style to the kind of prose declamations typical of his oeuvre: see 82A29 D.-K. (= 32D21b L.-M.) and de Romilly 1975: 8–11.
36 Detienne 2006: 191.
37 Detienne 2006: 192.
38 Besides, it is worth noting that Hippias’ ‘antiquarian’ interests were not limited to poetic quotes, since he also made lists of the winners at the Olympics, so as to establish a reliable chronology of Greek history (86B3 D.-K. = 36D7 L.-M.), of the founding of cities, and of human genealogies (86A2 and B2 D.-K. = 36D14b and D30 L.-M.), and of many other topics pertaining to mythological, ethnographic, geographical, and philosophical traditions (86B6–9, 12 D.-K. = 36D22–3, 26–8 L.-M.). On Hippias’ pursuits as a polymath, see Brunschwig 1984; A. Patzer 1986; Pfeiffer 1968: 51–4; Mansfeld 1986; and Balaudé 2006.
39 Pfeiffer 1968: 54–5.
40 See Brisson 2009: 395.
41 Another text that might help us further clarify the nature of the sophists’ interest in literary criticism and poetry is an anonymous papyrus (POxy. III 414) that Giuliano 1998 has hypothetically assigned to Antiphon. In his collection of fragments of the sophists, moreover, Untersteiner had published an anonymous treatise On Music, which deals with similar issues (Untersteiner 1949–62: iii.208–11).
42 The traditional reconstruction identified a first Sicilian stage, represented by two almost unknown figures, Tisias and Corax. From Sicily, rhetoric would then have reached Athens thanks to Gorgias (who famously visited Athens as an ambassador in 427 bc); in turn, Gorgias would have influenced other sophists such as Antiphon (assuming, of course, that the rhetor and the sophist of this name are one and the same person: see p. 128) and Thrasymachus. Among the modern champions of this view, see Kennedy 1963 and, more recently, Pernot 2006.
43 See esp. Cole 1991: 71–112, and Gagarin 2007. Besides, the very adjective rhetorike, which has given us the term ‘rhetoric’, may have been coined by Plato: see Schiappa 1991: 40–9, along with the reservations voiced by Pernot 2006: 34–5.
44 See, for example, Lloyd 1979: 79–86.
45 One variation of this argument is what we might call the ‘counter-probability’ argument: see e.g. Antiphon, Tetral. 1.2.2.3 and 2.2.6. A classic example is the case of a fight between a weak man and a strong one: in order to defend himself, the former argues that, being weak, it is unlikely that he wished to pick a fight with someone stronger. In turn, the latter replies by turning this reasoning on its head: it is unlikely that he was the one to start the fight because, being the stronger, he would immediately have been blamed for it. In other words, something is claimed to be unlikely precisely because it is likely: see Aristotle, Rhetoric, 2.24.12 (this argument was apparently ‘invented’ by Corax). The sophists’ interest in the notion of ‘probability’ or ‘likelihood’, however, does not justify the criticism levelled by Plato, who in Phaedrus, 267a, accuses the sophists of choosing what is probable over what is true: for one only speaks of probability when the truth is unclear, which is often the case (unfortunately), but not always. See Gagarin 1994.
46 The most complete analysis is provided by Spatharas 2001; see too Mazzara 1999 and Long 1984. On Antiphon, see the analysis by Gagarin 2007 (who quite rightly reacts to Solmsen 1931, according to whom all of Antiphon's orations were marked by the adoption of irrational argumentative schemes, such as the use of oaths and ordeals, which were typical of the archaic age). Thrasymachus was by contrast famous for his ability to play with the audience's feelings; see Macé 2008. For an overview, see also Tinsdale 2010.
47 Natali 1986; see also above, Chapter 1, n. 11.
48 For example, he could have exploited an alternative version of the myth, according to which Helen never went to Troy (this is the version followed by the poet Stesichorus, among others: see Plato, Phaedrus, 243a–b; see too Herodotus 2.113–20 and Euripides’ Helen). The argument that Helen was innocent, despite the fact that she went to Troy, instead betrays a desire to provoke the audience with a thesis that at first sight seems utterly implausible.
49 Gagarin 2001: 285–6.
50 Gagarin 2001: 289.
51 See Solmsen 1975.
52 Segal 1962; Long 2015: 97–103. Along with logos and eros, another phenomenon to which Gorgias pays particular attention both in the Encomium of Helen and elsewhere (cf. 82B4 D.-K. =32D45a L.-M.) is sight. This has an intermediate function, so to speak, insofar as it transmits purely physical stimuli to the soul, engendering emotional states such as fear and joy, which in turn elicit certain behaviours according to the sequence: physical stimulus – emotional response – physical stimulus. In addition to the crucial study of Segal 1962: 105–7, see Casertano 1986 and Ioli 2010: 56–60, exploring a possible ‘sophistic theory of perception’.
53 See Barnes 1979: ii.524–30; Tordesillas 2008.
54 Ioli 2010: 90. On the function of language in Gorgias, see also Calogero 1932: 262 and esp. Mourelatos 1985: 627–30.
55 Cassin 1995: 73.
56 Scholars have long been debating the importance of the notion of kairos for the sophists – a notion that was widespread in the archaic Greek world. The problem is twofold: first, to determine whether the sophists developed a rhetorical theory of kairos (thereby acknowledging the importance of improvisation); and second, to determine whether they also assigned kairos a more general value, which might make it the notion that best expresses the specific nature of sophistic knowledge. The few surviving sources allow us to give a positive answer to the first problem (in 82B13 D.K. = 32D12 L.-M., Gorgias is even credited with a kairou techne; cf. 82A1a, A24 and B13 D.-K. [= 32D11–12 L.-M.]; 80A1 D.-K. [= 31D20DL.-M.] on Protagoras and Alcidamas’ speech On Those Who Write Written Speeches, or On the Sophists). As regards the second problem, the existence of a general doctrine of kairos (a ‘Kairos-Lehre’, to quote Guthrie 1971: 272 n. 4) seems like a projection on the part of modern scholars – a fascinating, yet at least partly anachronistic, view; see Tortora 1985 and Tordesillas 1986.
57 See also Detienne 2006: 205.
58 Cassin 1995: 152.