urging on the state to mad and ruinous schemes, and bringing false accusations against innocent persons: the sophists are represented as pretenders to knowledge, corrupt and immoral teachers, confounding all distinctions of right and wrong, and introducing among the Athenians a laxness of morality and a degeneracy of character which rendered the contemporaries of Euripides and Socrates far inferior to the generation which won the battles of Marathon and Salamis. Against these opinions Mr. Grote enters his most decided protest. According to his views, the demagogues correspond nearly to our popular leaders or speakers of the opposition party; the sophists to our public teachers or professors. At the time at which the demagogues first came into notice, persons of ancient family and wealth enjoyed, it is true, no special political privilege; but they still possessed great advantages in entering upon political life by their connexions and associations, and by the social sentiment which at Athens, as in many other popular states, still continued to prefer men of noble birth after all such distinctions had been effaced by law. Moreover, these men were closely united in political clubs, which assisted them in gaining power, and endeavoured to protect them from the consequences of their misconduct. It must also be recollected that pecuniary corruption was a common vice among the leading men of Greece, and that few Greeks could bear the intoxicating influence of success. It was, therefore, most important to keep a strong check upon all who held important public offices. This was the use of the demagogues, who, springing from the lower classes, had to win their way to distinction by their ability in public speaking, and by their boldness in bringing political offenders to justice, and in opposing the aristocratical party in the state. We see by the conspiracy of Antiphon, which ended in the establishment of the oligarchy of the Four Hundred, that there were political combinations at Athens opposed to the established democracy; and that the demagogues attacked dangers which were not imaginary, but real and menacing to the state. While Mr. Grote defends the demagogues in general, he takes under his protection the most celebrated of them all. Our estimate of Cleon's character has been formed from the severe judgment upon him pronounced by Thucydides, and from the virulent abuse with which he is assailed by Aristophanes. But both of those writers were the enemies of Cleon. It is stated by an ancient biographer of Thucydides, that Cleon was the cause of the banishment of the historian, on account of his neglect to relieve Amphipolis; and Mr. Grote thinks that this has warped the judgment of Thucydides, and made him unjust towards Cleon. We can only only observe in passing, without entering into any discussion upon this interesting subject, that Mr. Grote maintains that the banishment of Thucydides was deserved-that the promise of Cleon to bring the Lacedæmonians at Sphacteria as prisoners to Athens within twenty days, which Thucydides stigmatises as insane,' Mr. Grote characterises as 'a reasonable and even a modest anticipation of the future'—and that Mr. Grote charges the historian upon another occasion with pronouncing a criticism harsh and unfair towards Cleon, and careless in regard to truth and the instruction of his readers.'* Aristophanes himself admits that he had a personal grudge against Cleon; and even without such an admission it would be most unfair to form a judgment of any one from the libellous abuse of the Old Comedy, especially when we have an opportunity of testing the candour and accuracy of Aristophanes by his delineation of Socrates in the Clouds,' where his portrait of the philosopher is little better than pure fancy, and can hardly be termed even a caricature.† That Cleon was a man of violent temper and more than usual audacity-that he indulged in vehement and sometimes dishonest invectives against his political adversaries, we may readily believe, but these are the qualities,' Mr. Grote adds, which, in all countries of free debate, go to form what is called a great opposition speaker.' 6 6 In defence of the Sophists, Mr. Grote's language is still more emphatic. He says, that he knows 'few characters in history who have been so hardly dealt with as these so-called Sophists;' and he invokes the rare sentiment of candour' in discussing the history of these persons, the practical teachers of Athens and of Greece, misconceived as well as misesteemed.' The word Sophist did not originally bear the invidious sense which it now conveys. It originally meant only a wise or a clever man. Thus both Solon and Pythagoras were called Sophists; and the same name was also applied by the Grecian public to Socrates, Plato, and Isocrates. Plato was the first to use the word in an invidious sense to designate the class of professional teachers in Greece. These men taught for pay, and both Socrates and Plato considered that giving instruction for money was incompatible with the relation that ought to exist between teacher and pupil. Moreover, Plato was opposed to the Sophists on another ground. Plato was a great speculative genius-a syste'a matic theorist and reformer.' He was discontented with all * Vol. vi. p. 627. Mr. Grote reminds the reader upon this point that no man thinks of judging Sir Robert Walpole, or Mr. Fox or Mirabeau, from the numerous lampoons put in circulation against them; that no man will take measure of a political Englishman from Punch,' or of a Frenchman from Charivari.'—vi. 659.' existing existing institutions, and wished to reconstruct society anew from the beginning. The Sophists, on the contrary, considered it no part of their vocation to reform the state, or to discuss or discover the best theory of ethics. They took society as they found it, and professed to train up youth for the duties, the pursuits, and successes of active life, both public and private. Moreover, as Mr. Grote remarks, it ought not to be forgotten, that those who taught for active life were bound, by the very conditions of their profession, to adapt themselves to the place and society as it stood. They no more deserved to be reproached for receiving money for their services than the great body of modern masters, who pursue their profession with the prospect of making an income from it. It is usual to speak of the Sophists as if they were a sect or a school, teaching certain pernicious doctrines or principles common to them all; but this rests upon no evidence whatsoever. They had nothing in common but their profession as paid teachers, and were distinguished from one another by strong individual peculiarities. The accusation against the Sophists, that their teaching had corrupted the Athenian character, Mr. Grote meets,-first, by the denial of the fact, that the Athenians at the close of the Peloponnesian war were more corrupt than the same people in the days of Miltiades and Aristides; and secondly, by an examination of the character of the more celebrated Sophists, such as Prodicus, Protagoras, Hippias, and others. Almost the only remaining composition from any of them is the wellknown fable of Prodicus, called The Choice of Hercules,' the object of which is to kindle the imagination of youth in favour of a life of virtue. There is in fact no evidence that the Sophists corrupted their pupils; and if they had done so, it is impossible to believe that parents would have continued to send their sons to such teachers and pay them for their services. Even Plato, their accuser-general' does not charge them with this crime. His quarrel with them rested, as we have already seen, upon another ground; and he includes in the same indiscriminate sentence of condemnation, all the poets, and all the statesmen, past as well as present, because they ministered to the immediate gratification and desires of the people, without looking to their permanent improvement or inaking them morally better. We cannot enter further into this subject, but we would strongly recommend to such of our readers as are not acquainted with Mr. Grote's work, a perusal of the very remarkable chapter, in which he explains his views. * * Vol. viii. p. 434, seq. This chapter is followed by another of equal value and importance upon Socrates, of which we have given an account in a previous number of this Review.* The true nature of the Athenian maritime empire has been for the first time fully explained by Mr. Grote. It has been too much the fashion of modern historians to attribute both to nations and to individuals deep-laid schemes and far-seeing views of policy and ambition, interpreting their preceding actions by subsequent events. Thus an eminent modern writer represents Julius Cæsar as meditating from an early age the overthrow of the Roman aristocracy, and the making himself sole master of the Roman world; and at the present day it is commonly believed upon the Continent that the English empire in the East is the result of a well-laid scheme of imperial aggrandisement. But this is a totally false way of reading history. Circumstances have controlled the destinies of nations and individuals, and have suggested to them lines of conduct and courses of policy of which they had never dreamed, and which have often been in direct opposition to their original intentions. It is one of the besetting sins of modern historians to start with some preconceived idea, and to make all events fall in with their imaginary notions. Into this error Mr. Grote never falls. He points out the difference between presiding Athens, in the confederacy of Delos, with her independent and regularly-assembled allies in B. c. 476, and imperial Athens with her subject allies in B. c. 432. There is a tendency to confuse the two periods, and to suppose that, because Athens subsequently exercised a real empire, she aimed at it from the beginning; but Mr. Grote justly remarks— and his observations apply equally to many other historical events-that such systematic anticipation of subsequent results is fatal to any correct understanding, either of the real agents or the real period, both of which are to be explained from the circumstances preceding and actually present, with some help, though cautious and sparing, from our acquaintance with that which was then an unknown future.'t The confederacy of Delos was originally an alliance upon equal terms-in so far as alliance between the strong and the weak can ever be equal-in which every individual member was more exposed, more defenceless, and more essentially benefited in the way of protection than Athens herself, and which promised at the time the greatest advantages to the Grecian world-not simply protection against the Persians, but security against piracy in the Ægean sea. Mr. * Vol. lxviii. p. 41, seq. † Vol. v. p. 395. Grote Grote carefully traces the various steps by which this equal alliance was converted into an Athenian empire; but the indifference of the allies, and their disinclination to discharge the duties they had taken upon themselves, contributed quite as much to this result as the ambition of Athens. That Athens eagerly availed herself of the opportunity thus thrown in her way, and afterwards treated the allies as her subjects, and punished them severely if they attempted to revolt, Mr. Grote does not, of course, deny ; but this will hardly be made a subject of reproach against her by any one who bears in mind the whole course of history, and how rarely a powerful state has had the self-denial to abstain from extending her sovereignty over her weaker neighbours, especially when circumstances actually invited her aggressions. The real question is, in what manner did Athens exercise her empire; and in this respect she need not fear a comparison with any state, whether in ancient or in modern times. Mr. Grote calls attention to the fact, that the Athenian empire was essentially a government of dependencies; and that, viewed in this relation, it will most certainly stand full comparison with the government of England over dependencies in the last century, as illustrated by the history of Ireland, with the penal laws against the Catholics-by the Declaration of Independence, published in 1776 by the American colonies, setting forth the grounds of their separation—and by the pleadings of Mr. Burke against Warren Hastings.'* There is no evidence that Athens, in the administration of her empire, was guilty of oppression; and the feeling of the allies towards her seems to have been neither attachment nor hatred, but simple indifference and acquiescence in her supremacy. All the movements for revolt originated with the aristocracies, which were always eager to shake off the supremacy of Athens, but they received little support from the people, who were hardly ever willing to make sacrifices for the object. The popular dikasteries seem to have afforded effectual protection against cruel and tyrannical acts on the part of Athenian officers, as we see by the memorable instance of the Athenian general, Paches, who, when brought to trial before the dikastery for an outrage upon two women at Mitylene, slew himself in open court, because he saw his condemnation was certain. The chief complaint urged against Athens by the orators of the hostile states before and during the Peloponnesian war was, that she had robbed so many Grecian commonwealths of their political independence; but not a word is said of any acts of cruelty and oppression committed by individual Athenians. What a contrast is presented by Sparta in the * Vol. vi. p. 63. exercise |