Mat/i. vii. 65-87) and by the author of the De Melisso, etc. (chs.
5, 6), show that, in defending these propositions, Gorgias availed himself of the arguments which Zeno had used to discredit the popular belief in the existence of the Many; in other words, that Gorgias turned the destructive logic of Zeno against the construc tive ontology of Parmenides, thereby not only reducing Eleaticism to nothingness, but also, until such time as a better logic than that of Zeno should be provided, precluding all philosophical inquiry whatsoever. Thus, whereas the representatives of the three suc cessions had continued to regard themselves as philosophers or seekers after truth, Protagoras and Gorgias, plainly acknowledging their defeat, withdrew from the ungrateful struggle.
Meagre as were the results which the earlier thinkers had obtained, the extinction of philosophy just at the time when the liberal arts became more technical and consequently less avail able as employments of leisure, threatened to leave a blank in Hellenic life. Accordingly Protagoras, while with the one hand he put away philosophy, with the other offered a substitute. Em phasizing the function of the teacher, which with the philosophers had been subordinate, and proclaiming the right end of intellectual endeavour to be, not "truth" (aMOEta) or "wisdom" which was unattainable, but "virtue" or "excellence" (ciper17), he sought to communicate, not a theory of the universe, but an apti tude for civic life. "The lesson which I have to teach," Plato makes him say (Prot. 318 E), "is prudence or good counsel, both in respect of domestic matters that the man may manage his household aright, and in respect of public affairs, that he may be thoroughly qualified to take part, both by deed and by word, in the business of the state. In other words, I profess to make men good citizens." As instruments of education Pro tagoras used grammar, style, poetry and oratory. Thus, whereas hitherto the young Greek, having completed his elementary train ing in the schools of the the and the Tatborpi.Aris, was left to prepare himself for his life's work as best he might, by philosophical speculation, by artistic practice, or otherwise, one who passed from the elementary schools to the lecture-room of Protagoras received from him a "higher educa tion." The programme was exclusively literary, but for the mo ment it enabled Protagoras to satisfy the demand which he had discovered and evoked. Wherever he went, his lecture-room was
crowded with admiring pupils, whose homage filled his purse and enhanced his reputation.
After Protagoras the most prominent of the literary sophists was Prodicus of Ceos. Establishing himself at Athens, he taught "virtue" or "excellence," in the sense attached to the word by Protagoras, partly by means of literary subjects, partly in dis courses upon practical ethics. It is plain that Prodicus was an affected pedant ; yet his simple conventional morality found favour, and Plato (Rep. 600 C) couples him with Protagoras in his testimony to the popularity of the sophists and their teaching.
At Athens, the centre of the intellectual life of Greece, there was soon to be found a host of sophists; some of them strangers, others citizens; some of them bred under Protagoras and Prodicus, others self-taught. In the teaching of the sophists of this younger generation two points are observable. First, their independence of philosophy and the arts being assured, though they continued to regard "civic excellence" as their aim, it was no longer neces sary for them to make the assertion of its claims a principal element in their exposition. Secondly, for the sake of novelty they extended their range, including scientific and technical subjects, but handling them, and teaching their pupils to handle them, in a popular way. In this stage of sophistry then, the sophist, though not a specialist, trenched upon the provinces of specialists; and accordingly Plato (Prot. 318 E) makes Protagoras pointedly refer to sophists who, "when young men have made their escape from the arts, plunge them once more into technical study, and teach them such subjects as arithmetic, astronomy, geometry and music." The sophist of whom the Platonic Protagoras is here thinking was Hippias of Elis, who gave popular lectures, not only upon the four subjects just mentioned, but also upon grammar, mythology, family history, archaeology, Homerology and the edu cation of youth. In this polymath we see at once the degradation of the sophistry of culture and the link which connects Protagoras and Prodicus with the eristics, who at a later period taught, not, like Hippias, all branches of learning, but a universally applicable method of disputation.