HIPPIAS THE ELEAN: THE REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES AND POLITICAL ATTITUDES OF

A SOPHIST
Author(s): Slobodan Dušanić
Source: Aevum , Gennaio-Aprile 2008, Anno 82, Fasc. 1 (Gennaio-Aprile 2008), pp. 41-50
Published by: Vita e Pensiero – Pubblicazioni dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

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 Aevum, 82 (2

Slobodan DuSani(5

HIPPIAS THE ELEAN: THE

AND POLITICAL ATTIT

The latest facts of Hippias' public life a

ded in the Corpus Platonicum (Prot
Tertullian's Apologeticus. Hippias' politic
sed: preference of nature to law, criticis
Political facts of 385-384 BC are exami
portrait of Hippias.
o
I. This paper * deals with two in
sing chapter of Hippias' career
not his political philosophy, as
matic form and/or producing or
sets of major events of his pub
other: his mission to Athens as w
1
u with his death in the local party
'$ neglect them, these events are q
e a forgotten Elean crisis and the
a help us understand Hippias' po
uncertain there, it is true, becau
cit elements, to be precise. This
through an analysis of what the
Maior, the Hippias Minor and
quently using allusive language i
rical colour of "Socrates'" portr
that such oblique references to H
rico-biographical methods of inte

* It could not have been written with

$ bled me to complete some of my studie
(Athens, April 2006). The author is also g
o
o
quity and, especially, its director, Prof
discuss the Hippias problems in that lear
1 M. Narcy, Hippias d'Elis, in Diet,

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42 S. DUSANIC

of Greek political life in the early fourth century. For a variety of reasons, the publi
cation of these dialogues may be dated - notwithstanding all the uncertainties of
the Platonic chronology - immediately after Hippias' death in about 385-384 BC.
Only the Menexenus will have been slightly earlier, say from 386-385 BC.

II. To begin with Hippias' end. The crucial facts are recorded in Tertullian's
Apologeticus (46, 16), in a list of misdeeds (mainly political) committed by pagan
philosophers2: "... and Hippias is killed for plotting against his city - a thing no
Christian ever attempted in revenge for his friends scattered with every kind of
cruelty." The MS difficulties apart - they should not be overestimated - Tertullian's
accusation is explicit and clear if controversial nowadays as regards the identity
and/or the date of his Hippias. To cite the most popular (mis)identification, the
notorious conspirator cited by the Christian author was equated by some modern
historians with Pisistratus' son instead of the Sophist3, though the former unlike
the latter neither belonged to the brotherhood of Greek philosophers nor lost his
life in a civil conflict - nothing to say of the remarkable role of Hippias the
Elean's friends in the crisis, role which connects the Apologeticus 46, 16 with
references to Hippias' (piAoi in the Hipp. Mai. 304 A-B and the Prot. 315 C.
Now, Tertullian's testimony can be corroborated as well as developed in the
light of a number of references from the corpus Platonicum, direct or indirect, to
the revolutionary ideology and/or activities of the Elean notable. In the present
paper, I shall focus on three passages - or three groups of passages - which seem
most illustrative of the importance Plato's dialogues have in endorsing the histo
rical evidence preserved in the Apologeticus 46, 16. (I shall also add an analysis
of the lines at Prot. 315 B-C, which group, meaningfully, Hippias with a num
ber of Athenian ace^eiq).
First, Hippias' assertion at the Hipp. Mai. 304 A-B4: "What is both beauti
ful and most precious is the ability to produce an eloquent and beautiful speech
to a law court or a council meeting or any other official body whom you are
addressing, to convince your audience, and to depart with the greatest of all pri
zes, your own salvation (o(OTr\p'w) and that of your friends and property". In my
opinion, this rather particular proposal of exemplification of the beautifiil reflects
historical and (from the perspective of the revolutionary engagement of the dia
logue's eponym ) biographical realities; in other words, the Hipp. Mai. 304 A-B
is easiest to explain as Plato's allusion to a political crisis which endangered -
eventually caused the death of - Hippias and his Elean "friends" by instigating
their immoderate political ambition. It is well known that similar kinds of signi
ficant exemplification, usually termed the "relevant"5, are common enough in the
corpus Platonicum; their function is "psychagogic" in addition to purely literary
or humorous6. And it may be remarked, again, that the parallellism between the

2 ... et Hippias [edd.; Ycthyas F, icthydias P] dum civitati insidias disponit, occiditur. Hoc pro
suis omni atrocitate dissipatis nemo umquam temptavit Christianus. - Transl. T.R. Glover.
3 See e.g. M. Untersteiner, Soflsti. Testimonianze e frammenti, III, Firenze 1954, 74 f. note 15.
4 Transl. B. Jowett.
5 P. Louis, Les metaphores de Platon, Paris 1945.
6 Cfr. Mai. 288 B-C "the beautiful mares".

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 HIPPIAS THE ELEAN 43

contents of the Hipp. Mai. 304 A-B and the Apologeticus 46, 16 - accent on
"friends and property" goes somewhat further than "pure res gestae" or a banal
case of fiction.
Second, three Platonic passages {infra, A and B-C) allude to Hippias' theory
and practice of violence related to the destructiveness of a axdoiq but take mytho
logical forms; as such they must have been consonant with Hippias' palaeohisto
rical studies7.
(A) Apemantus, father of the Eudicus who was Hippias' host in Athens, "decla
red that the Iliad of Homer was a finer poem than the Odyssey in the same degree
that Achilles was a better man than Odysseus"8. According to the more or less
unanimous judgment of modern Platonists, we are otherwise uninformed about
these two Athenians though it is tempting to assume (as will be argued in the
sequel) that Eudicus' name alludes to the Eudicus, PA 5419 ("orator decreti a.
410/9"), or a fictitious character similar to the man of PA 5419. However, judging
from several parallels of Plato's dialogues' symbolic topography, Apemantus' com
pliment payed to Achilles and his epic in the house where Hippias was a guest
defines an aspect of Hippias himself - the author of La. a discourse on Neoptolemus
much admired by Eudicus and/or Apemantus. If I am not wrong with the present
interpretation of the Mai. 286 A, B and the Min. 363 A-B, Hippias endorsed - at
least in the political sphere - the so-called values of the Iliad and the Achilles tra
dition that made part of the mythological expression of the theory of natural justi
ce: war, asebeia (Achilles' readiness to attack the gods9), and thirst for glory (con
trasting with Odysseus' final option10 for the life of a philosopher/private citizen).
As is well known, Plato's, and the traditionalists' in general, attitudes were quite
dissimilar (cfr. e.g. the peaceful Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi).
(B) The allusive message of the NeKmcc at the Prot. 315 B and D may be
to an analogous effect. Plato indirectly assimilates Hippias with the dead Heracles
and Prodicus with the dead Tantalus respectively, probably also Protagoras with
Sisyphus. The threat of the divine punishment permeates Plato's entire image of
the "Sophists in Hades", image which rallies atheists or asebeis at least.
(C) But the choice of Heracles for Hippias' prefiguration seems particularly
instructive for our subject as it introduces the theme of the to cp\)aei Sikcciov.
Obviously, Heracles (otherwise a complex hero [deity]) presents here the sym
bol of unlawful violence approved by Hippias and Hippias' likes. This interpre
tation of Heracles' profile in the Protagoras is sustained by a lesson from the
Gorgias11. Callicles explains a poem by Pindar thus: "(the ode) says that he
(Heracles) drove off the oxen of Geryon which were neither given to him nor
payed for, because this is natural justice, that the cattle and all other possessions
of the inferior and weaker belong to the superior and stronger". And, of course,
from the cp\)ci<; / v6\ioq passage in the Prot. 337 C-D already mentioned we may
conclude that the Prot. 315 B and D points to the moral-philosophical defects
of a revolutionary Hippias identifiable with two militant heroes or representati

7 On them, D/K 86 A 3; A 11.

8 Min. 363 B-C.
9 Prot. 340 A; cfr. e.g. Euthyphr. 6 B-C.
10 Plat. Rep. X 620 C-D.
11 484 B ff. (transl. W.D. Woodhead).

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44 S. DUSANIC

ves of a Titanic nature12 - Achilles who fights the Scamander and Heracles vic
tor over Geryon. To add a psychological detail, despite his opportunism and appa
rent bonhomie - to be precise, those traits of Hippias' mentality which are insi
sted upon in Plato's humourous portrait of the Sophist - Hippias too was essen
tially an autocratic and a harsh man. In a fragment which is usually neglected -
Diels-Kranz omit it altogether - Ammianus Marcellinus (XVI 5, 8) cites "Hippiam
Eleum sophistarum acerrimum" (meaning 7CiKpoxaxov? for Ammianus himself,
or his Greek source).
Third, Plato's choice of the name Eudicus for Hippias' host (cfr. PA 5422)
in Athens. Should we take this to be a simple realistic detail; for instance, to see
in him, with Wilamowitz13, just an Elean rcpo^evoq. Hardly. In Plato, such a choi
ce was rarely realistic and never purportless: to put it briefly, the host's name
and/or historical identity had to correspond with the messages of the dialogue -
with "Socrates'" condemnation of inter-Greek aggression and stasis in the pre
sent case14. The ancient readers of Plato used to criticize his \|/ea)8oXoyia, \)7iovoia,
rcoiKiAia, and related allusive techniques; no doubt, these included a special treat
ment of personal names, historical as well as fictional; the Megillus of the Laws
is a good example15. A potiori we may expect "eloquent names" among the dia
logue persons as important as Athenian hosts of the main foreign characters. To
quote an obvious example, Hermias Alexandrinus speaks of the symbolism of
Plato's topographical-prosopographical indications explicitly, a propos of the
Phaedrus 227 B, where Lysias is described as staying "at Epicrates' house, the
one Morychus used to live in"16. Morychus' biography exemplified frivolity,
Epicrates' readiness to accept Persian gold - the sin of sins17. Hermias remarks
with good reason that a man with Lysias' defects should be connected, metapho
rically at least, with the place of such a doubtful record. Now, Eudicus is not a
rare name in the Prosopographia Attica but registers one bearer only (PA 5419)
among the Athenian politeuomenoi of the classical epoch, notables who are expec
ted, in principle, to have produced the majority of the Athenian dramatis perso
nae in Plato's works of the kind of the Hippias Maior and Minor. If the corpus
Platonicum is put aside, the man of PA 5419 occurs only once in our sources -
in his capacity of rogator of the second amendment to the famous document of
409 BC, honouring Phrynichus' assassins18. Significantly, his role in the events
of 411-409 attests to his democratic persuasion19, anti-Spartan attitudes and incli
nation to revolutionary actions that would justify Plato's decision to bring him
together with Hippias and give him a father who prefers Achilles to Odysseus

12 Cfr. Plat. Leg. Ill 701 B-C.

13 U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Platon, Berlin 19202, I, 136 note 2. Wilamowitz thou
ght also of the possibility that the proxenos was, at the same time, the rogator of Meiggs - Lewis,
GHI 85, lines 38 ff. but drew no historical conclusions from that tentative rapprochment.
14 Cfr. e.g. Plat. Rep. V 470 A ff.
15 S. DusaniC, History and Politics in Plato's Laws, Belgrade 1990, 364 ff. (Engl. summ.), 96
f. (Serb.). Cfr. D. Nails, The People of Plato. A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics,
Indianapolis-Cambridge 2002, 197 f.
16 Transl. C.J. Rowe.
17 P. 18 Couvreur. DusaniC, History, 56 f. 361, and Id, ?JHS?, 119 (1991), 8 note 53.
18 Meiggs - Lewis, GHI 85, lines 38 ff.: PA 5422.
19 Cfr. M.J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, II, Brussel 1982, 20 f.

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 HIPPIAS THE ELEAN 45

emphatically. In Plato's text, Eudicus' patronymic ("son of Apemantus", citing a

man not attested elsewhere?) probably sufficed to individualize him promptly; the
name and occupation of Phidostratus, the grammar school teacher cited in the
Mai. 286 B, may have been instrumental in that, too. Indeed, Eudicus and 411
410 presented ideal symbols to provide a historical framework for the messages
of the Maior and Minor. Plato must have strongly condemned the radicals of 411
410 and their programmes, defended the then constructive roles of Critias and
Alcibiades20, and recommended, in the Laws, the constitutional values of the Five
Thousand21. He must have also approved of Phrynichus' Spartan embassy of 411;
it should not be forgotten than Cebes wrote a dialogue entitled Phrynichus22. There
is one more point to be cited in this series of coincidences. Phrynichus' peace
making mission of 411 (that failed for reasons unknown) included the Sophist
Antiphon. Antiphon, Hippias' teacher of sorts, figures together with the Elean
thinker in the Menexenus23, in a slightly earlier context with indubitable political
connotations.

III. To better understand Hippias' political radicalism and revolutionary tempera

ment, we should turn now to his ideas or, better, the sophistic ideas he adopted.
Doctrinally if not psychologically, the crucial feature of Hippias' position in the
politics and the "scholarly" debates of his time was his view on the vojxoq / qmcnq
controversy - to be exact, his conviction "that nature is to be preferred to law,
and that it is nature which is the real source of human obligations"24. In the Laws
(HI 701 B-C), Plato equates this insistence upon the sovereignty of the nature
with the quest of liberty, which has several stages of an evil progression: to begin
with, emancipation from the authority of magistrates, parents, laws; then "con
tempt for oaths" ... and, finally, "contempt for all religion" - a progression lea
ding to the autocratic man's "Titanic nature" (Titccvikti (pvciq25).
Three salient points may be shortly referred to here to help us explain Hippias'
mixture of philosophical and Realpolitical.
First, his preference of nature to law bordered on aoe|$eia or atheism of
sorts and consequently implies (cfr. e.g. Plat. Leg. X 885 B) that the gods "are
regardless of mankind". Along a parallel line of reasoning, which a reader such
as Plato could reconcile with Hippias' conventional religiosity only at the cost of
undervaluing the Sophist's intellect, Plutarch's Hippias26 presents Lycurgus as a

20 S. DusaniC, ?Aevum?, 74 (2000), 57 note 24; Id., History, 244 ff., 364, ff., 382.
21 Dusani?, History, 322 ff., 387 f.; cfr. J. Bisinger, Der Agrarstaat in Platons Gesetzen, Leipzig
1925 (first ed.).
22 Diog. Laert. II 125, 3. Dusani?, ?The Ancient World?, 36 (2005), 112 f. note 39.
23 P. 236 A. Cfr. Athen. XI 506 F.
24 To quote GB. Kerferd's comment (The Sophistic Movement, Cambridge 1981, 148) on the
Prot. 337 C-D (D/K 86 C 1); cfr. the Hipp. Mai. 284 D and what has been said here of Heracles
and Achilles.
25 Plat. Leg. Ill 701 C.
26 Plut. Lyc. 23= D/K 86 B 11. For analogous debates in V/IV cent. Sparta itself, see C. Bearzot,
Lisandro tra due modelli: Pausania Vaspirante tiranno, Brasida il generate, in Contro le 'leggi
immutabilV. Gli Spartanifra tradizione e innovazione, ed. C. Bearzot - F. Landucci, Milano 2004,
136 ff.

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46 S. DUSANIC

warrior, not a peaceful and pious (actually, god-sent: Leg. I 632 D) law-maker!
On the other hand, as an astronomer/natural philosopher {Mai. 285 C, Min. 367
E ff.; below, Excursus), Hippias belonged to or was close to a branch of intel
lectuals notorious for their atheistic tendencies. As a noAiTiicoq, he was assimi
lated by Plato with Achilles and Heracles, both daepeiq and champions of "natu
ral justice". One of the political manifestations of Hippias' ocaepeioc seems to have
affected his relationship with Eleusis, the other with Olympia and the Olympic
Games21.
Second, Hippias' criticism of the "tyranny" of laws28 could form a theoreti
cal basis for an apology of cxdciq and freedom as the aim of the axaaid^ov
xeq. Such an apology could have been widely influential despite the traumatic
experience the Greeks had with civil wars in general29. In a discussion with Hippias
over the authority of laws, not only does Xenophon's Socrates defend them, he
insists upon the enactment of the citizens' 6|x6voice. It should be admitted that,
in principle, Hippias supported movements leading to social and ethnic equality
- he was a friend of the oi, noXXox (Mai. 281 C) and of the Persians themsel
ves30. Of course, he was not the sole sophist to defend barbarophilia and demo
cracy. Let us note, with M. Untersteiner, that his democratic affinities well accor
ded with his versatility31 and (to risk an observation of my own) that he was
known for his naive tastes32.
Third, the relativism and individualism of Hippias corresponded with a cer
tain devaluation of laws. According to Xenophon (Memorabilia IV 4, 5 ff. [D/K
86 A 14]), he (unlike Socrates) was inclined to think of the laws regulating the
to 8ikouov as a changeable norm - a description that, practically speaking, pre
supposes the sophists' right, even pedagogic obligation, to speak in utramquepar
tem. (If they take a very critical attitude towards his character and mind, Hippias'
contemporaries, as well as modern scholars, can say that he regarded money and
glory as the only constant values of human life33). At Mem. IV 4, 18, where he
declares his readiness to accept Socrates' thesis rcepi tou 8ikouod, he does not
seem to abandon his belief that one of the basic defects of most laws is to be
found in their mutability or liability to complete rejection (cfr. Mem. IV 4, 14).
All this contradicts the Spartan notions, famous for their constitutional traditio
nalism34 and the law-abiding discipline35.

IV. Biographical and political facts - especially those connected with the large
scale happenings of 385-384 BC - harmonise with this psychological and intel
lectual portrait of Hippias. The course of the abortive coup d'etat which cost him

27 See the excursus below; S. DuSani?, The Noble Virtue of Sophrosyne: Historical Notes on
the Minos and Plato's Laws, ?ZA?, 56 (2006), 37-39.
28 Plat. Prot. 337 C= D/K 86 C 1.
29 See e.g. Plat. Rep. VII 521 A and Xen. Mem. IV 4, 16 f.
30 Min. 386 B= D/K 86 A12 (Persian dress); Clem. Strom. VI 15= B 6 (barbarian books).
31 Untersteiner, Softs ti, 75 note 15.
32 E.g. his bearing rings: Min. 368 B. Needless to say, Plato disliked the fashion: Ael. VH III
19, 1.
33 D/K 86 A 2 and 6 f. 9= Philostr. Vitae Soph. I 11, 1 ff.
34 Cfr. Mem. IV 4, 14.
35 Plat. Leg. Ill 685 A; Hipp. Mai. 283 E, 284 B, 285 B.

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 HIPPIAS THE ELEAN 47

his life can be traced now, I believe, in its main lines though modern histories of
the period tend to pass it over in silence. The coup was directed against the oppres
sive, radically oligarchical and pro-Spartan regime created in Elis in 402-400 BC
but it did not occur as early as c. 400 BC (according to the chronology of a num
ber of scholars who thought of Hippias as an oligarch). The approximate date of
the crisis - its first phase at least - is best put c. 385-384 BC as (implicitly) sug
gested by Diodorus Siculus; significantly, he writes about gxolgeic, in the
Peloponnese that were provoked by Antialcidas' Peace with its autonomy clause.
Certain other parts of Greece witnessed similar troubles at the same time. Judging
from the chronological and political framework of the Eleans' gxolgxq, of 385-384,
it received a measure of Persian support but met with the opposition of Sparta as
well as the traditional laconophiles elsewhere. The followers of Agesilaus' current
policy, which was oriented against Artaxerxes now and inspired Panhellenic pro
grammes, must have been especially hostile to the Peloponnesian revolutions men
tioned in Diodorus36. It may be assumed that the revolutionaries asked for Athenian
help, with no tangible success. The balance of power within divided Athens and
most Peloponnesian cities was such that the enemies of Lacedaemon were unable
to win the cities of the Peninsula. After defeat, many of the Elean ataaia^ovteq
saw their goods confiscated. Some - like Hippias - were killed, with or without
a trial. Some were banished etc' axnKic\i& or simply fled to Athens. Hippias'
family was among them, as we shall try to show.
The main contribution of Hippias (who was still vigorous in his old age: D/K
86 A 2,1) to this chain of happenings must have been diplomatic; he was a pro
minent but not sincere37 diplomat. His presence in Athens spoken of in the
Protagoras and the two Hippias dialogues is best explained as an allusion to his
embassy of c. 385 BC. For, the dialogues whose setting reproduces a diplomatic
occasion of that kind are rather common in the corpus Platonicum38. It is striking
that our sources, Plato especially, tend to allude to the Sophist's Athenian mis
sion as connectible with the axdaiq, the political ideals of the oi nokXox, and
the theme of (? the Athenian-Elean) aDyyeveia (perhaps going back to the demo
cratic Poseidon?) - a series of eloquent facts that modern scholarship overlooks
or misinterprets. At Menex. 236 A, Socrates' reference to an anonymous pupil of
Lamprus and Antiphon the Rhamnusian who "might make a figure if he were to
praise the Athenians among the Athenians" will have been to Hippias himself, as
Athenaeus informs us (XI 506 F); Prot. 337 C-E probably points to the same
occasion, which implies Hippias speaking in the assembly of Athens ("to praise
the Athenians among the Athenians") .The controversial date of Hippias' Athenian
mission is best synchronised with the politically analogous embassy of Mantinea
to Athens in about 385 BC (Diod. XV 5, 5). Socrates' role in all those dialogue
elements of the Menexenus, Protagoras, Hippias Maior and Hippias Minor which
concern Antialcidas' Peace and/or its immediate aftermath is blatantly anachroni
stic but 385-384 was considered sufficiently important by Plato to demand and

36 XV 5, 1 ff. DusaniC, ?ZPE?, 133 (2000), 30 note 59.

37 On Athen. XI 506 F and Prot. 337 C-E see supra. For a somewhat different view of Hippias'
diplomacy, J. Brunschwig (Hippias d'Elis, philosophe-ambassadeur [non vidi], in The Sophistic
Movement, ed. K. Boudouris, Athens 1984, 269-76).
38 DusaniC, ?JHS?, 119 (1991), 4 with note 18; St. White, ?Class. Phil.?, 90 (1995), 307-27.

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48 S. DUSANIC

justify such a chronological "mistake" - the analogous gross anachronisms of the

Symposium show that clearly enough.
There is an interesting detail that sustains and completes the foregoing recon
struction of events. It is recorded that Isocrates married Plathane, the widowed
daughter of a Hippias, the 'sophist' and 'rhetor'. Isocrates adopted her youngest
son, Aphareus (the future tragic poet), who cannot have been born later than 380;
... it is therefore unlikely that Plathane's second marriage postdates 38039. If the
natural identification of Plathane's father with the Elean polymath is accepted -
and the eloquent, as well as rare, name of Aphareus favours this though, to my
knowledge, it has never been introduced into the discussion of the matter - it must
be assumed that Plathane, an Elean, possessed the right of kn\ya\i\a in Athens.
Otherwise, the whole arrangement involving her, Isocrates, and Aphareus (a citi
zen of Athens) would have been legally impossible. The only way we see to recon
cile all these pieces of evidence would be to assume that Plathane was among
those Eleans who were rewarded, as refugees, with rcoAiTeia and erciyajna in 385
384 BC (the women's civitas, in practical terms, meant little more than ius conu
bii then); such rewards were a normal feature of the international diplomacy of
the period and were anticipated, in the case of Hippias' family, by honours spoken
of by Philostratus40. Plathane with her sons obviously ranked among the notables
worthy of these privileges, a conjecture to explain not only her second marriage
but also Aphareus' status of adoptive son of Isocrates and an Athenian citizen.
Politically and socially speaking, there would be nothing strange in her decision
to marry Isocrates, since the teacher of rhetoric, as an intimate friend of Isocrates,
must have been close to the atticophile Peloponnesians41. And c. 384 BC Isocrates
seems to have been especially active on the side of Sparta's enemies42. Thanks to
the topicality of Hippias' celebrated visit to Athens of the same date and his death
in the immediate sequel, the ?KKA,r|(ri(x obviously had no political difficulty in
granting Athenian citizenship to the family of the Elean sophist.

V. To conclude very briefly. Naturally enough, Hippias' mentality, political ideas

and realpolitical activities had much in common. That nexus of the Hippianic
values, it seems, had practical policy in its focus. Generally speaking, and despi
te the scantiness of our evidence, it is hard to qualify the political thought of the
city-state as a prevailingly abstract effort or one reflecting the needs of an indi
vidual; it must have been closely connected with the realities of public life.
One last observation, which concerns Alcidamas as Hippias' spiritual heir
of a sort. His example well illustrates the main aspects of connection between
Hippias' position in the v6jio; / <p\xn<; controversy and his decision to take
part in anti-Spartan, anti-oligarchical activities in Elis and elsewhere. For, the
famous fragment of Alcidamas' Messeniacus runs: "God has left all men
free" - including the Messenian helots, of course - "Nature has made none a

39 J.K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families, 600-300 B.C., Oxford 1971, 247.
40 Vitae soph. I 11, 5.
41 On the whole problem, S. Du$ani?, Plato's Academy, Elis and Arcadia after Leuctra: Some
Observations, in Achaia und Elis in der Antike. Akten des 1. int. Symposiums, hrsg. A.D. Rizakis,
Athen 1989 (1991), 81-83.
42 Dusani?, ?JHS?, 119 (1991), 1 ff.

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 HIPPIAS THE ELEAN 49

slave"43. Its implicit denial of the relevance of law (and, obviously, of Spartan
e\)voLiia too) clearly corresponds with Alcidamas' equally famous description of
philosophy as "a barrier against the laws"44. Though the evolution of the entire
problem of the v6\ioq / cp\)0i<; antithesis in Alcidamas' thought remains largely
obscure one may note Alcidamas' praise of the political effects, at a democratic
and anti-Laconian Thebes, of the philosophy developed by Epaminondas and the
other Theban pupils of Philolaos45. Such a Thebes in power of philosophy was
not universally glorified, of course, neither its "natural" programme of the
Messenian freedom met with unqualified support. Led by his Panhellenic,
Cimonian, anti-sophistic and aristocratic emotions Plato opposed it, as did some
other promoters of the Athenian-Lacedaemonian alliance. Like most thinkers of
his period, however, Plato condemned the sophists' teaching primarily because of
its evil consequences in the world of politics and moral; their philosophical and
linguistic mistakes were, for him, of secondary importance only (Phaedo 115 E).

EXCURSUS ad III 1: Elis did not allow the Spartans to participate in the Games
and perform their cult obligations towards the sanctuary at the end of the fifth
century (an anti-Spartan policy strongly disapproved by Plato and the traditiona
lists in general but probably approved of by Hippias the compiler of the tenden
tious list [its early parts, to be exact] of Olympian victors). As to Hippias' athei
sm, note that, according to the Protagoras, he finds himself in the Hades together
with such daepetq as Tantalus (cfr. Mat 293 B) and Sisyphus. In the Maior (285
B-C), Socrates envisages the stars and the celestial phenomena as the first pos
sible theme of Hippias' teaching in Sparta, one best known to the Sophist. However,
Socrates is undeceived promptly and emphatically, obviously not because of the
Spartans' lack of interest for astronomy as such (that interest is well attested) but
because Hippias taught an atheist astronomy (like so many ancient scientists)
which was quite undesirable in the pious world of Sparta. Actually, the atheism
is the main of Hippias' intellectual sins. This may be concluded from the ope
ning of the Protagoras (315 B-C), where he is described as belonging to a spe
cific group of visitors to Callias' home (transl. Guthrie): "After that I recognized,
as Homer says (Od. XI 601), Hippias of Elis, sitting on a seat of honour in the
opposite portico, and around him were seated on benches Eryximachus, son of
Acumenus, and Phaedrus of Myrrhinus and Andron, son of Androtion, with some
fellow citizens of his and other foreigners. They appeared to be asking him que
stions on natural science, particularly astronomy, while he gave each his expla
nation ex cathedra and held forth on their problems"; natural science / astronomy
was a typical subject for the atheists (Leg. XII 966) and political radicals - com
pare Plato's systematic replies in the Timaeus-Critias. The fact which is crucial,
though not recognized by modern Platonists, concerns Plato's use of allusive tech
nique here. All the three of Hippias' interlocuters at Prot. 315 B-C were atheists
themselves, at that ready to offend the Eleusinian cult: Eryximachus was guilty
of the profanation of mysteries in 415 (PA 5187); Phaedrus of the same crime (D.

43 Schol Arist. Rhet. I 13, 1373 B 18. Transl. J.H. Freese.

"Ibid. Ill 3, 1406 B 11.
45 Ibid. II 23, 1938 B 11 ff.

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 50 s. duSanic

Nails [supra, note 15] 232-35); Andron or Androtion of composing a book that
must have sounded blasphemous, with regard to its central subject (i.e. a Etepi
0\)ciG)v [contrast Leg. VII 800 B f; "gods are not appeased by gifts"; Leg. X 905
D f, 908 E passim], F. Jacoby, FGrHist 324 F 70-71, with the editor's critical
commentaries) and the allegations of wars between Eumolpus and Erechtheus.
Finally, let us note the irony of Callias' public position: he was at the same time
a passionate friend of Sophists, a daduchus, a laconophile, and a peace-maker
(cfr. Xen. Hell. VI 3, 3 ff.).

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