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The Dramatic Background of the Arguments with Callicles, Euripides' Antiope, and an Athenian Anti-Intellectual Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Harold Tarrant
Harold Tarrant*
Affiliation:
The University of Newcastle
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Extract

This paper does not aim to establish the ‘dramatic date’ of Plato's Gorgias, nor does it seek to establish with any precision the date at which Euripides’ fragmentary Antiope was written. Nor does it aim to show that Athenian anti-intellectualism had some fixed beginning and conclusion rather than persisting, in some fashion, as long as intellectuals frequented its public places. It does, however, have aims that may easily be mistaken for these. First, while Plato was not too particular about fidelity to a dramatic date, he frequently shows a strong desire to supply an intellectual background for the views that his characters will propound and the debates that follow from them. In the case of dialogues that employ a single interlocutor that certainly tends to produce a reasonably coherent dramatic date, but what matters to Plato is not so much fidelity to history as the appropriate intellectual context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 42 , 2008 , pp. 20 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2008

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References

1 Most obviously the funeral oration of the Menexenus, delivered by Socrates, continues the history of Athens for more than a decade beyond his death; more relevant to this paper, once the dramatic setting of the Protagoras is already firmly fixed in the late 430s, Plato has no qualms about having ‘Protagoras’ refer to Pherecrates' play Agrioi (over a decade later, Athen. 5.218d) at 327d when that play provides a good illustration of what is being said. When dealing with ‘dramatic dates’ in Plato it is essential to distinguish between the core material that provides a setting and material that is present only to provide a useful illustration. All dates are BCE.

2 See Nails, D., The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratica (Indianapolis 2002) 326-7Google Scholar, for an uncharacteristically cursory treatment of the issue in which she affirms that E.R. Dodds, Plato: Gorgias (Oxford 1959), was ‘so thorough that his discussion can well be called definitive, and his conclusion is that Plato sets the dialogue “in no particular year”.’ In other respects Professor Nails’ book has been an invaluable resource during the preparation of this paper.

3 Dodds (n.2) 17-8.

4 So Nails (n. 2) 324-6; the Timaeus-Critias also becomes a problem if one insists (incorrectly) on reading them as close sequels of the Republic as we have it.

5 We ought unquestionably to respect its final philosophic unity, but may reasonably postulate a later date for the arguments with Callicles than for those with Gorgias and Polus; see Thesleff, H., Studies in Platonic Chronology, Commentationes Humanamm Litterarum 70 (Helsinki 1982)66-7,Google Scholar who has now treated these issues more thoroughly in “The Gorgias Re-Written - Why?’, in Erler, M. and Brisson, L. (eds), Gorgias – Menon: Selected Papers trow the Seventh Symposium Platonicum (Sankt Augustin 2007)78–82.Google Scholar Thesleff postulates an early narrative dialogue that included the arguments with Gorgias and Polus, which is then superseded by a more personal ‘dramatic’ dialogue. By chance, I published an article that overlapped with Thesleff's findings in the very same year, H. Tarrant, ‘The Composition of Plato's Gorgias’, Prudentia 14 (1982)3–22.Google Scholar On my ‘unpublished’ linguistic argument in favour of a later date for the arguments with Callicles (Thesleff [2007]), cf. H. Tarrant, ‘The Hippias Major and Socratic Views on Pleasure’, in Waerdt, Paul A. Vander (ed.), The Socratic Movement (Ithaca 1994) 107-26 at 118 n. 28.Google Scholar Since in narrative dialogues it is ordinarily the narrative itself that supplies the setting, we should notice that Thesleff s theory would involve the stripping away of the setting of the early arguments along with the narrative. For a good illustration of how problems of consistency may arise from the revision of a work of Plato, see now David Sedley, Plato's Cratylus (Cambridge 2003) chap. 1.

6 As Nails (n. 2) 427, points out, Gorgias visited in 427 and we know only of this one occasion, though other visits may possibly have been made. Olympiodorus, author of the only surviving ancient commentary on the work, assumes that the action occurred in 427 (in Grg. proem 3).

7 It is often suggested that 473e6–474a2, when compared with Apol. 32b–c, seems to suggest a dramatic date of around 405, which would indeed agree with the reference to Archelaus at 477d5; however, the purpose of referring to an occurrence during Socrates’ period of office as a bouleutês is to illustrate something about Socrates’ nature which applied throughout his life, not to fix any definite date. And it seems highly improbable that Gorgias and his pupil would have chosen to be in Athens at this time, when the city was not only in a dangerous situation but also much less wealthy than in previous times, as Aristophanes’ Frogs made apparent.

8 See Ober, J., Political Dissent and Democratic Athens (Princeton 1998)191-2,Google Scholar for the view that the dramatic date of the Gorgias (taken as a whole) is simply the upheavals of the post-Periclean age, with 503c and 473e deliberately indicating dates at least twenty years apart. Such a view can only serve to question our traditional assumptions about ‘dramatic dates’.

9 Wasps 98; Eupolis fr. 227PCG (= 213K).

10 For this date see Denyer, N. (ed.), Plato: Alcibiades (Cambridge 2001) 189; Nails (n. 2) gives late 433 to early 432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 There is also a reference to ‘the son of Cleinias’ as a euryprôktos in Acham. 716, suggesting an inclination towards sexual liberties, though promiscuity on Alcibiades’ part would scarcely stop Socrates from thinking of himself as an erastês if he wished to do so.

12 The term ‘recently’, νεωστί, serves to contrast Pericles with others of an earlier generation, Themistocles, Cimon and Miltiades; hence it would be foolish to think that we must be dealing only with a period of months, as Dodds may seem to imply. Pericles is being offered as an example of one who did care about the inner qualities of the citizens he was leading unlike contemporary politicians, and it is in response to a request for old (παλαιός) politicians that Callicles sees fit to raise Pericles’ name. While παλαιός may here mean no more than ‘former’ (as Martin Cropp has suggested to me), there is no sense that the conversation is occurring in Pericles’ shadow.

13 I infer this from the fact that just before Socrates leaves for Thrace in 432 Andron is seen in the company of none of these other three at the house of Callias (in the Protagoras); hence they seem to have become close ε;ταίροι only after Socrates has returned from Potidaea.

14 Alc. I, 118c; that Pericles had seen no incompatibility between the more relaxed and cultured life of the Athenians and the need to demonstrate one's abilities in war and other pressing circumstances is evident from the ‘Funeral Oration’ (Thuc. 2.39.1-41.1); note particularly φιλοσοφο;ύμε;ν άνε;ϋ μαλακίας, which sounds almost like a direct rebuttal of the connections between philosophy and weakness that Callicles-Zethus make. Given Thucydides’ love of contrasting Pericles and Cleon the exact terms may owe more to Thucydides’ unhappy experience of Cleon’s politics than to Pericles, though one assumes that there is some substance in his picture of Pericles’ thought. On Wallace, Damon see R., ‘Damon of Oa: A Music Theorist Ostracized?’, in Murray, P. and Wilson, P. (eds), Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousikein the Classical Athenian City (Oxford 2004)249-68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 I refer of course to Thuc. 3.37-38.

16 Such softness includes surrender to argument or pity (37.2), to indecision (37.3), and to the pleasures of listening (38.7). I consider Cleon's speech in Thucydides of general importance for an understanding of Cleon's stance, since the historian usually employs arguments that the Athenians were well used to hearing from their politicians, not ones purely confined to the specific debate to which they contribute.

17 It may be worth noting that this rules out Antiphon of Rhamnous, who was born around 480, even if he is the nomos-phusis theorist of On Truth, however, it will not help to postulate a separate ‘Antiphon the sophist’ as the author, for no sophist could be discouraging advanced education in this way.

18 See now Nails (n. 2) 28-9.

19 It may also be significant that Socrates had not known Agathon's name before this, but both he and the companion to whom he narrates the story could apparently identify Andron without any trouble, presumably because he is already part of the intellectual scene.

20 It is unfortunate that we lack a reliable date for the birth of Agathon too; Nails (n. 2) 8-9, gives ‘after 447’, and I should be happy with 445.

21 It is possible that Plato chose to place Andron in Hippias' company here precisely because Andron did utilise that teacher's stock sophistic themes, including the nomos-physis contrast.

22 See Hippias Major 283b-286b.

23 See Ps.-Plut. Lives of the Ten Orators 833d-f.

24 Professor Nails mentions to me her surprise that she encountered in Plato quite a number of such opportunists (e.g. Clitophon, Anytus), switching their views in accordance with the necessities of the times, rather than being doctrinally committed to a system of government. I am reminded of Aristophanes’ jibe at Theramenes at Frogs 531-41 and 965-70. Relevant details are provided in Nails (n. 2) 37-8 (Anytus), 102-3 (Clitophon), and 284-7 (Theramenes).

25 Nails (n. 2) 294-5.

26 Some caution, however, is warranted when relating the Callicles who performs the role of host in the earlier arguments (like Callias in the Protagoras) to the Callicles who seeks in a sense to surpass the visitors in the remainder.

27 See the discussion of Collard, in Collard, C., Cropp, M.J. and Gibert, J., Euripides: Select Fragmentary Tragedies, vol. II (Warminster 2005) 265-6,Google Scholar and Taplin, O., ‘Narrative Variation in Vase-Painting and Tragedy’, AK(1998)33-9.Google Scholar

28 Nightingale, A. W., Genies in Dialogue (Cambridge 1995)77–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Cropp, M. and Fick, G., Resolution and Chronology in Euripides: The Fragmentary Plays, BICS Suppl. 43 (London 1985) 70 and 74-6, though Collard (n. 27) 269, oddly attributes to Cropp and Fick the date of 425-15;Google Scholar in order to explain how the date arrived at could be correct, they suggest (76) that the scholiast may have mistaken this play for the late Antigone, and any use of abbreviations in the tradition could certainly have resulted in a confusion. I have witnessed the confusion of these two titles in personal correspondence. One cannot, however, rule out other explanations, and it is just possible that the play had been re-performed for some reason. What matters here, in order to preserve a consistent context for Callicles, is that it should have been first performed in the 420s.

30 Hall, E., ‘Greek Tragedy 430–380 BC’, in Osborne, R. (ed.), Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution: Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Politics 430–380 BC (Cambridge 2007)264-87,Google Scholar at 264, offers a timely reminder that after the Medea in 431 only eight extant tragedies in all, six of them by Euripides, can securely be dated. However, the incidence of resolved feet does offer a reasonably satisfying account of Euripides' development. This applies for the most part even to the fragmentary plays.

31 It is interesting to contrast Socrates' claim to be the only real practising politician at 521d with his more characteristic statement that he is not one of the politicians at 473e6 during the arguments with Polus; so here too there appears to be a telling inconsistency between the two parts of the dialogue.

32 At the risk of seeming to argue here for a late date, I note that this conforms with the demand for a tragedian who will save the city found at Frogs 1417-50, and with the claims of ‘Euripides’ to be a genuine social engineer working in the interests of democracy, 939-61.

33 For Socrates walls, harbours and dockyards have no meaning without the qualities of soul that his own music promotes, 519a.

34 My reading differs from that of Nightingale (n. 28) 77-92, who sees much more tension between Platonic philosophy and Euripidean tragedy here.

35 See 333-4, 637-51, 1369-77; note also musical terms and/or metaphors at 318, 357.

36 See Dover's classic discussion, Dover, K.J. (ed.), Aristophanes: Clouds (Oxford 1968) intro. lxxx-xcviii.Google Scholar

37 We are told that his more risqué work had been chosen by the newly educated (and corrupted) Pheidippides for a performance, and Pheidippides argues that his father ought to be beaten for failing to appreciate the tragedian; see 1365-79, and especially Pheidippides at 1377-8.

38 Fragment 392 PCG; for the frequency of coupling Euripides with Socrates in comedy see Nightingale (n. 28) 63. See now also Wildberg, C, ‘Socrates and Euripides’, in Ahbel-Rappe, S. and Kamtekar, R., A Companion to Socrates (Oxford 2006)21–35.Google Scholar

39 Fragment 9 PCG.

40 See Sommerstein, A.H., ‘How to avoid being aKOMODOUMENOS', CQ 46 (1996)327-56Google Scholar, at 334-5; I am not sure that classing Connus as an ‘idol of the theatre’ is quite correct, and Euripides, Cinesias, and Callipides all had more direct theatrical connections.

41 See Nails (n. 2) 212–5 for Nicias, especially for his non-aristocratic family.

42 On the Laches see below; it may also be relevant that ‘Nicias’ appears to have a liking for Euripidean speech at Ar. Knights 17.

43 See Plut, . Nic. 7–8.Google Scholar

44 The Sausage-Seller at Knights 358 (whose tactics are largely to go one further than Cleon) promises dire trouble for Nicias, while it is Labes (stand-in for Laches, another military man who could be found in the company of Nicias) who suffers at the hands of the Dog (stand-in for Cleon) at Wasps 894-930.

45 See here Spence, I.G., ‘Thucydides, Woodhead, and Cleon’ CQ 45 (1995) 411-37, for a defence of Thucydides on this issue.Google Scholar

46 See Nic. 6; note the presence of the sophistic music-teacher Damon in Plutarch's list of those who had suffered from this prejudice, along with Pericles (in his last days), with whom he was associated; the remaining two are Antiphon and Paches (general in 427). The objects of the people's suspicions are described here as those who have ability in debate and are exceptional in thinking (τωι ερονεί ν), while two other terms used here are δεινότηο and φρόνημα. This language is immediately suggestive of the intellectuals in Clouds and elsewhere. So Nicias is represented as having to find ways to avoid a reputation for tricky speaking and tricky thinking, and hence as adopting a policy of avoiding risks and claiming minimal personal credit for his successes. This means that Nicias recognised himself as at least a potential target of intellectualism. Note also that the trends mentioned apply to the fining of Pericles at the end of his life (cf. Thuc. 2.65.3), to Paches' suicide after his success in 427, and to the formative stage of Nicias' career, as well as to an unspecified period of Antiphon's unpopularity and to the problematic ostracism of Damon. The least that can be said is that it was reportedly current for some years after the waning of Periclean power.

47 See the parabasis of the extant Clouds 520-27, and also that of Wasps 1036-50.

48 One thing that Cleon shared with Callicles is a complex relationship with the people; at Knights 732 Cleon is referred to as the lover of the Demus, something thatConnor, W.R., The New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens (Indianapolis 1992)96-8,Google Scholar believes may reflect his own professions to be their lover in a less concrete sense; Callicles is treated by Plato as a lover of both Demus and the demos, 481d, with the latter ‘love’ being in need of considerable explanation, as Kamtekar, R., ‘The Profession of Friendship: Callicles, Democratic Politics, and Rhetorical Education in Plato's Gorgias', Ancient Philosophy 25 (2005)319-39,CrossRefGoogle Scholar shows. She believes that this explanation involves Callicles' own assimilation to the people.

49 On El. 295 see Slater, W.G., ‘Euripides’ Electra 295:Google ScholarOrestes as Hamlet?’, Dioniso 2 (2003) 16–31;Google Scholar the play is dated 420/19 by Cropp, M. (ed.), Euripides: Electra (Warminster 1988).Google Scholar

50 89e-95a; one might compare an even less successful contribution of ‘Philebus’ to the Philebus.

51 Nails (n. 2) 312, gives winter 424 as the dramatic date, which may well be correct. Socrates is not yet universally known at Athens, he concludes that he needs a teacher just as the others do, and the teacher given most prominence in the dialogue is Damon, another sophistic music teacher (180dl, 197d, 200b), but the implication is that they require somebody new, and Nicias has already been using Damon. This fits well with Socrates’ appearance as a student of Connus in Ameipsias’ Connus the following spring, an experience that he mentions in the Euthydemus (272c) – and in a sufficiently comic manner to recall Ameipsias’ play.

52 This at least is the dominant view today, when interpreters like to see all Platonic characters making a positive contribution to the debate; see Iain Lane's Introduction to the Laches, in Saunders, T.J. (ed.), Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues (Harmondsworth 1987);Google Scholar if anything it is Nicias who emerges with less credit than Laches, on which deficiency see Benitez, E.E., ‘Cowardice, Moral Philosophy, and Saying What You Think’, in Press, Gerald A. (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato (Lanham 2000) 83–98, at 91-4.Google Scholar

53 See Euthd. 271d.

54 By way of contrast, Sparta is removed from the ‘map’ around which the Laches moves (182e–3b).

55 See on this Zeitlin, F.I., ‘Staging Dionysus between Thebes and Athens’, in Carpenter, T.H. and Faraone, C.A., Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca 1993)147-82.Google Scholar

56 See here Slater (n. 49), who speaks of this notion that the wise are susceptible to pity as a deeply ingrained one (22-26). He finds the theme that pity leads to weakness in Cleon's speech at Thuc. 3.40.2 (22), and sees Pericles’ insistence that the Athenians do not (like their opponents) dither as a result of their reasoning (2.40.3) as already a response to such popular ‘folk-wisdom’ (26). However, folk-wisdom's suspicions do not ordinarily lead straight to anti-intellectualism in Athens, since, as Slater (22) notes: ‘Athenians were prone to attribute to themselves pity (and also, by implication, intelligence, education, and civilization) as a national virtue.’

57 I emphasise that I find nothing of the language of Callicles here; Alcibiades makes no explicit claim to phusisr, what I do find interesting here is the final suggestion that the Athenians should stick to their own ways even if they are not the best, which may be linked to Cleon's claim at Thuc. 3.37.3 that a city is better off with rigid but inferior laws than it would be with toothless superior ones.

58 See most obviously PI. Tht. 153b-d for this type of theory; cf. Crat. 411a-412c, on the etymologies of intellectual qualities and of αγαθόν.

59 See Clouds 103, 120, 1112, 1171-4.

60 See also 184-6, 502-4; Strepsiades is shocked at the thought that he may come to resemble Chaerephon at 504.

61 See 360-3, and by implication 414-7, which must be designed to say that Strepsiades will become another Socrates; a different version of these lines known from D.L. 2.27 may have been present in the first version, but the argument is complex.

62 Amphion was certainly no simple musician, but a figure gifted with skills in argument that would have seemed to many to be sophistic. Certainly hearers are apt to distrust his arguments in the play, as fragment 206 reveals. The language of cleverness is particularly well represented; see fragments 186 (σοφόν), 188.5 (τά κομψά ταΰτα σοφίσματα), 200.1 (γνώμαις) and 3 (σοφόν γαρ lv βούλεϋμα … άμαθία), and finally 206.5 (σοφός μεν άλλ’…). It is this play that preserves the ‘Protagorean’ observation about the availability to the clever speaker of arguments on both sides of the question (fr. 189), whether it is somebody responding to Amphion's cleverness, or Amphion himself (whose character the fragment would better suit). If Amphion did see reason to become more dynamic at some stage, then he may have wished to claim that there was in fact no inconsistency with his previous arguments.

63 It is possible that fr. 189 or fr. 206 could be placed in such a context.

64 See for the first claim fr. 186 = Org. 486b5; Plato shares this fear as far as the sophists are concerned, but only to the extent that they are retailing learning, which Socrates never did (Prt. 314b1–4). See for the second fr. 187.5–6. One should not be misled by Callicles’ formal defence of pleasure as the ultimate good into supposing that he would be any more sympathetic to ‘giving into pleasure’ than Zethus. He has no time for any pleasures associated with άνανδρία (494c-e, 498b-c).

65 Given as Antiope (?) by Collard in Collard, Cropp and Gibert (n. 27) 280, but I find it too sophistic to be a woman's speech, and would rather attribute this to the chorus-leader acting as arbitrator at the agon.

66 For Socrates in comedy see Patzer, A., ‘Sokrates in den Fragmenten der Attischen Komödie’, in Bierl, A. (ed.), Orchestra: Drama, Mythos, Bühne (Stuttgart 1994)50–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67 See for instance Zeitlin (n. 55) particularly 174.

68 See Collard in Collard, Cropp and Gibert (n. 27) 268, for a balanced discussion that seems to make most of similarities with the Ion (where I find a similar suspense revolving around the delayed recognition of mother and son, followed perhaps by similar means of recognition, and ultimately by a happy ending) and with the Cresphontes. On similarities with the Phoenissae and the Hypsipyle see below.

69 There is no agreement about the likely order by the supporters of the trilogy-theory; see Collard in Collard, Cropp and Gibert (n. 27) 269, and Mastronarde, D. (ed.), Euripides: Phoenician Women (Cambridge 1994)11–4Google Scholar, referred to with apparent approval by Cropp in Collard, Cropp and Gibert (n. 27), 183. To my mind it is hard to argue from extant fragments that any great stress was laid upon the differences between the brothers in the Hypsipyie, what there is here is just enough to remind the more mature members of the audience of the earlier Antiope, not the clear development of a theme from that play. Others occasionally support the view that the Phoenissae was accompanied by two different plays, the Oenomaus and the Chrysippus, on the basis of the tentative restoration of a corrupt hypothesis (Zeitlin [n. 55] 172 n. 49; against this, see Mastronarde [n. 69] 11-4, 36-8). Overall the trilogy-theory is no more than mildly attractive, and it raises deep questions about the connections that we could rightly expect between the four plays offered by the tragedians at any post-Aeschylean Dionysia.

70 The date of this work is usually given as somewhere in the late 420s, and Collard, C. (ed.), Euripides: Supphants (Gröningen 1975), argued with some force for the Dionysia of 423.Google Scholar

71 Possibly one that mentioned the Hypsipyie and the Phoenissae, and went on to make a plausible connection with the Antiope, leading to an inference by the later scholiast about the Antiope's date.

72 Cropp and Fick (n. 29) 76; note that the Antigone would naturally come third in any trilogy Hypsipyie, Phoenissae, Antigone, and that it would offer the opportunity to study the way that differences between a pair of sisters might impact upon the wider family.

73 While it is at first sight plausible that it was written around 423 but failed for some reason to be performed, the Gorgias strongly suggests an actual performance (and a high profile one) in the 420s. I should be somewhat less reluctant to consider the notion of a re-performance, probably after some revision. Here I note that Clouds II remains recognizably the same play up until the parabasis (where the play speaks of what happened to itself earlier), but as a minimum its conclusion changed with the introduction of an arson scene. Euripides was presumably constrained to a degree in what he could change by the myth, but two tragic-sounding lines from Eubulus about the destinies of Amphion and Zethus once used to be thought the words of a deus ex machina in the Antiope before the papyrus proved otherwise. It strikes me as just conceivable that it is from the conclusion of Antiope II, now making an even more explicit connection between the music of Amphion and the culture of Athens.

74 See Slater, (n. 49) 21-6.Google Scholar

75 See Cropp, M. (ed.), Euripides: Electra (Warminster 1988) on Electra 295; the thought here is simply that a good education leads to the rather ambiguous quality of aidôs.Google Scholar

76 See Osborne, R., ‘Tracing Cultural Revolution in Classical Athens’, in Osborne, R. (ed.), Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution: Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Potitics 430-380 BC(Cambridge 2007) 1–26, at 5.Google Scholar

77 See n. 12 and associated text.

78 I remain committed to the view that the arguments with Callicles were not part of the original Gorgias. Hence it appears to me unsurprising if Plato's attempt to create a detailed context applies to the arguments of Callicles only. I acknowledge that Archelaus is again referred to at the close (525dl), but this is beyond the arguments with Callicles, in the myth section in which Plato attempts to tie the whole work together. By this stage it is no longer important to him that we see Callicles in a historical context, and Socrates has already affirmed at 509a that all attempts to argue against his commitment to justice have failed.

79 Normally one would have thought it certain that Euripides would have attempted to produce the play at the Dionysia, but it was also a time when Aristophanes seems to have sought out the Lenaean Festival to stage his most political plays, following his brush with Cleon; scholars who favour the theory of a trilogy, and are reluctant to cast aside the scholiast's evidence should consider the possibility that Euripides too sought an unconventional venue if he thought the play could be seen as in any sense unfavourable to Athens.

80 Particular thanks to Debra Nails and Martin Cropp who have commented on an early draft of this paper. The latter has informed me in a recent communication that he has recently recalculated the date of the Antiope on the basis of the incidence of resolved feet in iambic lines, and that if anything the new calculation would push the date back a further year. Thanks also to referees who have led me to define more accurately the purpose of this study, particularly as far as Plato is concerned.