Customer Reviews

The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"The Great Sophists" by Jacqueline de Romilly is a thorough and first class book on an important but rarely studied aspect of ancient Greek thought: the Sophists.

Ms. de Romilly is a great French classicist with numerous thoughtful publications to her credit of which "The Great Sophists" is the most recent.

The Sophists have historically had an evil reputation as the first cultural and moral relativists; as corruptors of virtue; and for degrading philosophy.

Ms. de Romilly attempts to demonstrate that this view is due to a variety of factors (primarily Plato's laregly negative characterization of them and the dearth of Sophistic texts)which can and should be re-examined.

She attempts to lay out, to the best of the knowledge available to us, exactly what the Sophists teachings actually were; their similarities with many of Socrates views; and why Plato viewed them with hostile but at times ambivalent feelings.

In all of this Ms. de Romilly does a superb job of rooting out every reference to the Sophists in ancient literature as well as their own statements (often from hostile witnesses like Plato). With this awkward mass of material Ms. de Romilly has fashioned a very interesting and useful work that diserves a prominent place in the history of Greek thought. With the notable exception of Kerford's "The Sophistic Movement" it is difficult to recall any modern work other than Ms. de Romilly's that attempts to so thoroughly arrive at what the Sophists actually believed and what their effect was on Greek thought and civilization.

The most important question though is does she finally redeem the Sophists from the charges of amorality and corruption that were assigned to them? Ultimately I do not think believe she can regardless of how neutral a face she puts on her analysis and how much she endeavors to redeem their thought. As with so much ancient literature it is deeply sad that we do not pocess more texts by the sophists themselves. Given that we do not and given what remains, it seems that Plato was entirely in the right to cast them in the evil light that he did. But that is certainly no reason not to buy and learn from this terrific work of scholarship.

In the "Golden Age of Pericles" Athens was a Mecca for the world's great thinkers and artists. Democracy was flourishing and demand rose for the kind of education to take advantage of it. Enter the Sophists! Sophist means master of intelligence. The Sophists, such as Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias, and Thrasymachus introduced intellectual education for a fee. They taught the would-be Athenian aristocrat how to speak well and out-think their opponents. Rhetoric and politics were closely connected since rhetoric prepared the Athenian with a way to enter public office. In an emerging democracy the Sophists offered a means to power.

Jacqueline de Romilly, a former Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the College de France, has written a compelling book on these interesting yet controversial thinkers in Fifth Century Greece. It is a difficult subject to write on since most of the writings of the Sophists has been lost. We largely rely on Plato and others who wrote of the Sophists to get an idea of their methods and ideology. We know that they were rationalists as opposed to metaphysical thinkers. Philosophy shifted from the cosmos to man. Protagoras wrote "Man is the measure of all things." It was a revolutionary departure from anything up to that time. To the Sophists, there was no objective truth, justice or virtue. It was whatever man determined they were. Truth could change depending on time and circumstances. Every argument had two sides and a Sophist could take either side and be effective.

To the students of the Sophists this new thinking offered an education that was superior to what others had and it was fast and paid immediate dividends. It became a powerful movement that effected Pericles, the historian and general, Thucydides, and Xenophon. Playwrights such as Euripides was also greatly influenced by the Sophists, but they had their critics as well. Aristophanes lampooned them and Socrates criticized them for taking virtues that bind a society together and reducing it to a utilitarian means of seeking power.

Probably no single idea had a greater impact on the classical period of ancient Greece than did the Sophists. De Romilly has done an excellent job in presenting their views. The casual reader may have difficulty with concepts presented here and may require a couple of readings but for those who want to truly understand one of the most focused periods in ancient studies this book should be a requirement.

To be called a `sophist' is a bit of a slur. It implies that a person is clever but uses fallacious reasoning. This viewpoint was originated by Plato, a contemporary philosopher and competitor to the Sophists. Jacqueline De Romilly questions whether the original Sophists are deserving of such a negative perspective. Her book makes a strong case that they do not, and that, au contraire, the Great Sophists were the cutting edge of Greek thought.

The author was a professor at the prestigious College de France. She was elected to the post at the age of 60 and became its first female member. She was a first rate academic and intellectual and "embraced the culture of ancient Athens with an almost romantic fervor and spent much of her life champing the humanities, particularly Greek and Latin..." (N.Y. Times, William Grimes, December 21, 2010). In December 2010 at the age of 97, Jacqueline de Romilly died.

If you only read this book to obtain a sense of her romantic fervor for the ancient Athenian culture you will be rewarded. You will also receive a sense of her exquisite analytical mind. The combination of both will enlighten your mind (and perhaps your own fervor) of the pivotal role played by the Great Sophists in Periclean Athens.

This book was first published in French in 1988. The English translation and publication were made in 1992. Its two hundred and forty two pages contain a cogent argument that: 1. Sophism has been misunderstood and has been marginalized, and that 2. the limited perspective that Sophists were solely the creators of rhetoric or "the art of making clever speeches," as expressed by Plato, was wrong.

The author considers Plato's remarks about the Sophists as hard, sharp, sarcastic and ironic sallies. The Sophists and the philosophers were fighting for the attention of the ears, eyes and minds of the aristocrats, particularly the young prospective pupils. Plato opposed them with a decidedly aggressive edge. In a nutshell, he was selling, "truth." Sophists offered "utility."

Recognizing the elusiveness of her subject and the paucity of evidence, de Romilly uses her penetrating research skills to expose the "real" Sophists by analyzing the principals involved, their sources, skills, rhetoric, knowledge and doctrine. She also assesses the impact they had on their contemporaries. We learn that beyond their teaching of rhetorical skills, they also discussed and exposed for observation and evaluation all sacred traditions and belief systems. They created a tabula rosa or a clean slate for the development of a new morality. Everything was put on the table to discuss. They asked if "man is the measure of all things" (Protagoras), why do we need absolutes in anything? The answer to that question revealed the need for a new morality: rational relativism. This new morality required conscious assessment of the utility of the matter; not tradition, not beliefs, and not the Gods.

Unfortunately, these tenets of common sense rationalism were obscured and exploited for selfish ambition and objectives by some Athenian politicians. As de Romilly states, the Sophists "provided society with an exoneration" from the past, and the opportunists seized the day. (Alcibiades and Callicles may be considered to be archetypical products of this thinking.) Her inclusion of the writings of Aristophanes, Thucydides and Euripides as examples of the application of Sophist teachings support this perspective of the late fifth century BC.

The author observes that "the Sophists are behind it all: they tried everything, created everything, inaugurated everything,." They were more than mere rhetorical wizards. In the end, their questions and arguments changed the game in Athens.

One could argue that their influence, and the moral crisis it caused, accelerated the demise of Athenian democracy and the destruction of the empire.

On the other hand, the author argues that the negative critique of the fundamental Athenian belief system gave birth to a positive reconstruction of the notions of truth, justice and virtue. Among other rational principles, here was born the notions that a contract is a basis for justice, and that the weak by banding together can overcome the strong. She opines that their contribution "once launched, ...was strong enough to reconstruct the entire spectrum of values and virtues for the benefit of human beings." (p. 188)

The Great Sophists influenced everyone. They had a perceptible impact on the works of the first historians: Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon. As a result, they affected all we know about ancient civilizations and particularly ancient Athens. To the author the Great Sophists even made Plato who he was, if only because by opposing them they defined him.

With characteristic fervor Jacqueline de Romilly concludes that the Sophists were the "spearhead of Greek thought."

Read this book. Then when someone calls you a `sophist' you will say, "thank you."

It seems this book has left nothing out when dealing with the Sophists; her thesis is well thought out, defended, and explained with meticulous detail. I give it five stars because it serves its purpose, but if you open this book with little background on the subject (like me) then it can become a bit grueling.

This is the kind of book that makes studying history fascinating and rewarding. By investigating one of the gaps in our knowledge- the question of who the Sophists were and what they represented- Madame de Romilly is able to put a crucially important missing piece back into our picture of Ancient Greece and Athens. The entire world of 5th century Athens looks different in light of this "revelation". She was able to hit upon what was a crucial, missing factor, namely the role of the Sophists and their doctrines. Through her own reconstructions of this important role, she is able to develop a picture of the Sophists that makes sense, is consistent with what was being said about them, and shines a new light on the Ancient Greek intellectual landscape.

This is "the other side of the story"- i.e. intellectual history of 5th century Athens as NOT told by Plato. For someone who has "felt" the absence of this missing element, it fills in alot of gaps and answers a lot of questions one had. Finally, things make sense. One sees the intellectual ties that bind Aristophanes, Thucydides, Euripides, as well as Plato and Socrates. Finally, Ancient Greek intellectualism isnt just about Plato and Socrates. We get a view to the progenitors of the revolution in thought that sparked the flowering of the 5th century.

Be warned, this book will be most interesting to those with an ardent interest in and prior knowledge of 1) philosophy, 2) the history of philosophy, 3) 5th century Athenian/Hellenic thought. Its discussions can be dry and involved towards the middle. Yet the style is very appealing and readable.

In my eyes, the interest and importance of this book can hardly be overstated.

I haven't read this book but the Sophists fascinate me. How good is this book?