Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

158 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
prized asset among leading aristocrats. The Sophists were roundly
condemned by Sokrates, who regarded their training as antithetical
to the pursuit of philosophy. He did so in part because they
took a relativist stance on morality, whereas he and his pupil Plato
were idealist philosophers who believed that virtue was nonnegotiable,
so to speak. Similarly, the comic dramatist Aristophanes
mocks Sophists in his play the Clouds (first produced 423 b.c.e. ),
mischievously transforming Sokrates into a quintessential Sophist
who teaches his pupils to make the worse case appear the better
without any regard for the truth. The hostility between practitioners
of rhetoric and philosophy would endure almost throughout
antiquity. Plato was particularly dismissive of Sophists in the Gorgias,
which takes its name from one of its most famous and successful
practitioners. Incidentally, Gorgias was one of the highest
paid Sophists. He became so wealthy that he erected a gold statue
of himself at Delphi—the first gold statue to be erected to a human
in Greece—testimony to the high regard in which men of his profession
were generally held, as well as to the enormous fees they
commanded.
It is unlikely, therefore, that the criticisms of Sokrates and Plato
had much impact on public sentiment, though it may well have
been the case that many Athenians would have instinctively concurred
with the characterization of Sophists as money-grubbing
charlatans, especially those who could not afford their services.
In the fourth century b.c.e., schools of rhetoric began to emerge
in the Greek-speaking world, including one in Athens run by an
orator named Isocrates, indicating that the discipline had achieved
respectability. Aristotle also instructed his pupils in rhetoric as well
as in philosophy, and he wrote a highly influential treatise on the
subject. When the Greek states lost their independence, rhetoric
ceased to have any political importance, but it still remained the
centerpiece of higher education.
As well as hosting the Sophists, itinerant teachers who resided
only temporarily in the city, Athens was also home to the four
principal philosophical schools. The first two to establish themselves
were Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. Athens
remained a leading center of philosophy into the Hellenistic
Period and beyond and was the birthplace of both Epicureanism
and Stoicism. Epicureanism was named after Epikouros, an Athenian
who flourished around 300 b.c.e. Those who espoused his
doctrine lived in seclusion in a complex called The Garden and
maintained a simple style of living. They included women and