From the Beginning to Plato

36 FROM THE BEGINNING TO PLATO
of the developments in internal and external politics in the Greek city, that the
Sophistic Movement and the Socratic revolution grew. Just as the Greeks
themselves saw poets, statesmen, and those whom we call philosophers as all
‘wise men’ (sophoi) so, I have tried to demonstrate in this chapter, it is a mistake
to think that it was some particular feature of the Greek city that gave rise to
‘philosophers’, for asking philosophical questions was never the exclusive
prerogative of philosophers, and it is only in the context of the culture of the
Greek city as a whole that we can properly understand the development of
philosophical discourse. 55
NOTES
1 Thucydides II.40.1, part of the Funeral Oration.
2 So the pioneering work of Vernant [1.14]. For a classic statement see Lloyd [1.7],
ch. 4 and compare [1.9], 60–7.
3 Osborne [1.12].
4 Thomas [1.59].
5 Powell [1.20].
6 On the invention of the Greek alphabet see Jeffery [1.18], which contains the
definitive study of the local scripts of archaic Greece.
7 See Guralnick [1.17].
8 See generally Hurwit [1.4].
9 See especially West [1.21], and, on Pherecydes also KRS [1.6], 50–71.
10 See Lloyd [1.7], 229–34; [1.8], ch. 2.
11 Much work on relations between Greece and the East has been stimulated in recent
years by Martin Bernal’s books. For two different approaches to the problem see
Morris [1.19] and Burkert [1.16].
12 See particularly the work of Nagy [1.30, 1.31, 1.32].
13 Millett [1.29].
14 Nagy [1.31].
15 My treatment here closely follows J.-P. Vernant [1.38], chs 1–2.
16 Again the pioneering analysis of the myth is by Vernant in Gordon [1.25], chs 3–4.
17 KRS 34–46. At p. 45 n. 1 the authors aptly draw attention to the similar double
succession myth in Genesis: 1 and 2.
18 See West [1.41], ch. 1, [1.39], 31–9.
19 See Hall [1.27].
20 For the view that the ‘heroic code’ is simple and unambiguous see Finley [1.23],
and cf. Adkins [1.22], Against, among many, Schofield [1.36], Taplin [1.37].
21 I take the examples which follow from Rutherford [1.35]; 60–1.
22 On the gods in the Iliad see Griffin [1.26], Redfield [1.33].
23 For what follows see Rutherford [1.34] and [1.35].
24 Goldhill [1.24], 36. My discussion of deception in the Odyssey owes much to
Goldhill.
25 See Aristophanes Frogs 1008–112, Plato Protagoras 325e, and Heath [1.28], ch. 2.
26 On Greek religion in general see Burkert [1.43], and Bruit Zaidman and Schmitt
Pantel [1.42].