Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-fnpn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-01T08:41:21.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Protagoras and Education at Thourioi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

J. V. Muir
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 510 B.C. two of the most prosperous cities of the Western Greeks went to war. Croton was an Achaean foundation and the proverbially wealthy Sybaris was originally founded jointly from Achaea and Troezen; the immediate cause of the war seems to have been a local quarrel and is rather unclear, but there was a history of rivalry. The army of Croton was commanded by the hefty and redoubtable Milo who was appointed general after an astonishing record of success in the international wrestling ring (over thirty major crowns and five times a victor at all four great Games on ‘the circuit'). He now showed that he could be just as ruthless in a real battle and the results for Sybaris were disastrous; the city was destroyed, the inhabitants dispersed, and the site obliterated by the diversion of a local river, the Crathis. On two subsequent occasions the erstwhile citizens attempted with remarkable tenacity to refound Sybaris in the same area (by the second attempt, this must have been undertaken by the children and even the grandchildren of the original citizens), but Croton, still nervous of rivalry, successfully eliminated both attempts at settlement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , April 1982 , pp. 17 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. I am very grateful to my colleague, Professor Averil Cameron, who cast a tactfully professional eye over the first version of this article and made some very helpful suggestions.

2. Dunbabin, T. J., The Western Greeks (Oxford, 1948), pp. 24 and 27Google Scholar; and, for a full summary of these events with sources, pp. 362–5.

3. For his legendary appetite, size, and strength, see Harris, H. A., Greek Athletes and Athletics (London, 1964), pp. 110–11Google Scholar.

4. Diod. 12.10.4.

5. For a detailed and important political interpretation of the founding of Thourioi, see Ehrenberg, V., AJP 69.2 (1948), 149–70Google Scholar; also Freeman, K., G & R x.29 (1941), 49–64Google Scholar.

6. Ehrenberg, , art. cit., 156Google Scholar.

7. Plut, . Them. 32.2Google Scholar.

8. Strabo 6.263.

9. Ehrenberg, , art. cit., 151–5Google Scholar.

10. In addition to the foundation-oracle from Delphi, the seers employed became a by-word-the Θουριομάντεις (Aristoph, . Clouds 332)Google Scholar.

11. Diod. 12.11.3; for the pan-hellenic nature of the foundation, see Ehrenberg, , art. cit., 157–9Google Scholar.

12. RE Suppl.II. 205 ff. and 224 ff.

13. RE Lysias xiii.2533.

14. Arist, . Pol. 1267b, 1330bGoogle Scholar; Hesych. 819 (Latte); Castagnoli, F., Orthogonal Town Planning in Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1972), pp. 66–72Google Scholar.

15. Diod. 12.10.7. The names of the four streets were Heracleia, Aphrodisia, Olympias, and Dionysias; those that intersected were Heroa, Thouria, and Thourina.

16. Bonner, R. J. and Smith, G., The Administration of Justice from Homer to Aristotle (Chicago, 1930), pp. 69–70Google Scholar.

17. Dem. 24.139; Polybius 12.16; Stobaeus 44.21.

18. Diod. 12.11.3 εἵλοντο δκαί νομοθέτην…Χαρώνδαν.

19. Dunbabin, , op. cit., pp. 69 and 73Google Scholar.

20. There is an interesting indication of the genuineness of one of the laws in Diodorus' list. His first law mentions σύμβουλοι; these are also mentioned by Aristotle in connection with Thourioi, (Pol. 1307b)Google Scholar. Another of the Thourioi laws came from Solon's code (Diod. 12.18.3; Plut, . Solon 20)Google Scholar.

21. Wehrli, F., Die Schule des Aristoteles (Basel, 1953) Heft xii Herakleides Pontikos, pp. 45 and 110Google Scholar. For an extended and in places speculative treatment of Protagoras as a law-giver, see Menzel, A., Sitz. ber. Sachs. Ges. Wiss. 62 (1910), 201 ffGoogle Scholar. For Protagoras’ life, see RE Protagoras xxiii. 908–11 and Davison, J. A., CQ 3 (1953), 33–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Pseudo-Plato, , Hipp. Maj. 282d–eGoogle Scholar.

23. Plato, , Theaetet. 167cGoogle Scholar; Diog. Laert. 9.55.

24. Arist, . Pol. 1274bGoogle Scholar.

25. Diod. 12.12.4 says it was neglected by previous law-givers.

26. It is noteworthy that other remarkable and unparalleled features were included in the constitution; the rule that no-one could become strategos for a second time within five years was most unusual (Arist, . Pol. 1307b)Google Scholar; see Ehrenberg, , art. cit., 166Google Scholar.

27. Hdt. 8.41; , Plut. Them. 10Google Scholar. For the inscription put up almost certainly in the fourth century at Troezen purporting to represent Themistocles' proposal, see Jameson, M. H., Hesperia 29 (1960), 198–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Habicht, C., Hermes 89 (1961), 1–35Google Scholar.

28. For the strong case for Protagoras' views being represented with reasonable fairness by Plato, see Guthrie, W. K. C., The Sophists (Cambridge, 1971), p. 64 n. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The gap which the Sophists claimed to fill is well illustrated by Socrates' admission (Plato, , Protag. 319e–320a)Google Scholar that conventional education could not offer to teach political skill and wisdom; even the sons of a successful politician like Pericles could only acquire such things by browsing on their own like the sacred cattle.

29. Protag. 326d. The meaning of this reference to methods of learning to write is not clear; see Turner, E. G., BICS 12 (1965), 67–9Google Scholar.

30. Antiphon fr. 60 DK ii.365.

31. For the iater history of Thourioi, see Freeman, , art. cit., 57–64Google Scholar.

32. Diod. 12.13.1—3. The final aphorism runs: διό καί τô⋯ μèν ζ⋯ν τ⋯ν θύσω αἰτίαν ὑποληπτέον, τōū δè καλѽς ζ⋯ν τήν ⋯κ τŵν γραμμάτων συγκειμήνην παιδείαν.

33. Eur. fr. 578 N2 (Palamedes), 3–5; Harvey, F. D., REG 79 (1966), 616 n. 4 citing earlier referencesGoogle Scholar.

34. Diod. 1.8.1–7 cf. Protag. 320c–322d; Guthrie, , op. cit., p. 81 notes 2–4Google Scholar.

35. It was said by some that Protagoras was close enough to Euripides to have given a reading of περἱ θε⋯ν in Euripides' house in Athens (Diog. Laert. 9.54).

36. περì τ⋯ν μαθημάτων (Diog. Laert. 9.55).