Sophistae
(
σοφισταί). Strictly a name given by the Greeks to all
those who professed knowledge, or a particular knowledge or a particular art. Hence the Seven
Sages are often thus called; but the name was especially applied to the educated men of ready
speech, who, from about the year B.C. 450, used to travel through Greece from place to place,
and impart what they knew for money. These were the University Extension lecturers of
antiquity, and they have the merit of having popularized the interest in knowledge which had
up to that time been confined within narrow circles, and especially of having contributed to
the formation of eloquence; for they were the first to make style an object of study, and to
institute serious investigations into the art of rhetorical expression. Their teaching was
chiefly intended to give their pupils versatility in the use of speech, and thus to fit them
for taking part in public life. As the subject of their discourses, they chose by preference
questions of public interest to persons of general education. The expression, however, always
remained the important thing, while positive knowledge fell more and more into the background.
Some of them even started from the position that virtue and knowledge were only subjective
notions. Protagoras of Abdera, who appeared about B.C. 445, is named as the first Sophist;
after him the most important is Gorgias of Leontini; Prodicus of Ceos and Hippias of Elis are
contemporaries of the other two. Wherever they appeared, especially in Athens, they were
received with the greatest enthusiasm, and many flocked to hear them. Even such men as
Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates sought their society; and Socrates owed to them much that
was suggestive in his own pursuit of practical philosophy, though, on the other hand, he
persistently attacked the principles underlying their public teaching. These principles became
further exaggerated under their successors, who did not think they needed even knowledge of
fact to talk as they pleased about everything. Accordingly the skill of the Sophists
degenerated into mere technicalities and complete absence of reason, and became absolutely
contemptible. (See Grote,
History of Greece, ch. lxvii., and Sidgwick's essay
in the (English)
Journal of Philology, iv. 288.)
With the revival of Greek eloquence, from about the beginning of the second century A.D.,
the name of Sophist attained a new distinction. At that time the name was given to the
professional orators, who appeared in public with great pomp and delivered declamations either
prepared beforehand or improvised on the spot. Like the earlier Sophists, they went generally
from place to place, and were overwhelmed with applause and with marks of distinction by their
contemporaries, including even the Roman emperors. Dion Chrysostom, Herodes Atticus,
Aristides, Lucian, and Philostratus the Elder belong to the flourishing period of this second
school of Sophists, a period which extends over the whole of the second century. They appear
afresh about the middle of the fourth century, devoting their philosophic culture to the
zealous but unavailing defence of paganism. Among them was the emperor Julian and his
contemporaries Libanius, Himerius, and Themistius. Synesius may be
considered as the last Sophist of importance. See A. W. Benn,
Greek
Philosophers, ch. ii.
(London, 1883).