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[4]
Rather, then, might one side with those who say that Themistocles was a disciple of Mnesiphilus the Phrearrhian, a man who was neither a rhetorician nor one of the so-called physical philosophers, but a cultivator of what was then called
‘sophia’ or wisdom, although it was really nothing more than cleverness in politics and practical sagacity. Mnesiphilus received this
‘sophia,’ and handed it down, as though it were the doctrine of a sect, in unbroken tradition from Solon. His successors blended it with forensic arts, and shifted its application from public affairs to language, and were dubbed
‘sophists.’ It was this man, then, to whom Themistocles resorted at the very beginning of his public life.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 2.
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