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Aeschines the Socratic Aischines von Sphettos: Studien zur Literaturgeschichte der Sokratiker. Untersuchungen und Fragmente von Heinrich Dittmar. [Vol. xxi of Philologische Untersuchungen, edited by Kiessling and Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.] Berlin: Weidmann, 1912. 8vo. pp. xii. 326. 10 m.

A. C. Pearson

The Classical Review / Volume 27 / Issue 08 / December 1913, pp 269 - 270 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00006120, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00006120

How to cite this article: A. C. Pearson (1913). The Classical Review, 27, pp 269-270 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00006120

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.228 on 24 Apr 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 269

AESCHINES THE SOCRATIC. Aischines von Sphettos: Studien zur which are held to be closely connected Literaturgeschichte der Sokratiker. with the writings of Aeschines. The Untersuchungen und Fragmente von book is provided with adequate indexes, HEINRICH DITTMAR. [Vol. xxi of and its critical equipment is worthy of Philologische Untersuchungen, edited bythe well-known series to which it be- Kiessling and Wilamowitz-Moellen- longs. 'The paper and printing are dorff.] Berlin: Weidmann, 1912. good, and I have noticed very few mis- 8vo. pp. xii. 326. 10 m. prints. Some of Dittmar's results may be AESCHINES of Sphettus is a somewhat briefly indicated. The purpose of the shadowy figure even to those who have A spasia was to promulgate the Socratic bestowed some attention on the litera- doctrine that men and women are ture of the Socratic circle. He founded capable of the same virtue, by pointing no school; and it is generally admitted to the example of Aspasia's intellectual that his contribution to the progress of and political achievements, and of her philosophy was insignificant—a result eminence as the adviser of Pericles and which remains undisturbed by the ex- the instructress of Lysicles the sheep- haustive investigations of Dittmar. dealer. It was from her too too that Nevertheless, his writings long con- Socrates had learnt his philosophical tinued to be in vogue, and the possibility conception of the true nature of epa><;. of their recovery would by no means be On the other hand, Antisthenes, in his a matter of indifference. For there is a dialogue of the same name, considered consensus of testimony among the Pericles to have fallen short of his own ancients that his dialogues, no less than ideal of wisdom ; the uncompromising Plato's, were instinct with the genuine foe of Aphrodite saw nothing but sub- Socratic spirit (Diog. L. 2. 61, etc.); and jection to fj^ovq in the statesman's as an independent witness to the connexion with Aspasia. Dittmar in- personality of his master, he would fers that the dialogue of Antisthenes control the inferences to be drawn from was directed against Aeschines, and the divergent testimony of Plato and that the latter was also the source of Xenophon. Of course, the scanty the bantering references to Aspasia in evidence which survives is much too the Menexenus of Plato. The Menexenus incomplete clearly to display the features is assigned to 386, and the Aspasia of of the Aeschinean portrait; but by in- Aeschines was not much earlier. genious combination of the materials Another allusian to Aeschines' dialogue which he has gathered together, Dittmar is discovered in Xen. Oec. 3. 14, where has succeeded in recovering so much as Socrates promises to introduce Crito- is available for our information of the bulus to Aspasia, as capable of instruct- scope and purpose of some of the ing him more thoroughly in the proper principal dialogues. position of a woman in domestic The book is divided into two parts: the management. Wilamowitz conjectured first (pp. 1-244) contains a detailed in- that this was intended as an acknowledg- vestigation in six chapters of the six ment of the compliment which Aeschines dialogues Aspasia, Alcibiades, Axiochus, had paid to Xenophon by describing an Miltiades, Callias, and Telauges, and of interview of Aspasia with him and his their influence upon contemporary wife. Dittmar accepts the suggestion ; literature; and the second (pp. 247-310) but, as Gomperz (Greek Thinkers, iii. a critical edition of the ancient testimonia 342, E. tr.) remarks, it is by no means relating to the life and writings of 'obvious.' It is equally incapable of Aeschines, and a collection of the exist- proof—in spite of Dittmar's confident ing fragments. In the latter portion is assertion—that Xenophon's account included (p. 299 ff.) a collection of the (Mem. 3. 11) of Socrates' colloquy with remains of four dialogues of Antisthenes Theodote was inspired by Aeschines. (Aspasia, Heracles, Cyrus, Alcibiades) The longest chapter (pp. 65-177) 270 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW deals with the various writings by thenes despised naiBeCa. On p. 104 followers of Socrates which described stress is laid upon a distinction between the relations of their master with moral and intellectual aperi] which Alcibiades. The character of this seems to me inconsistent with the literature was apologetic in so far as it Socratic attitude as commonly under- was directed to the defence of Socrates stood, and on p. 107 the phrase ' failure against the denunciations of Polycrates in knowledge of evaefieia' does not (Isocr. II. 4) ; and this is especially square with the proposition that evcrefteia true of the chapter which Xenophon itself is an eTnaryfirj. Dittmar is not devotes to the subject (Mem. 1. 2. 12-48). free from the tendency which appears Dittmar holds that the earliest of these to be inseparable from work of this writings was the Cyrus of Antisthenes, kind, namely, that of attaching excessive which was shortly followed by the importance to isolated words and A Icibiades of Aeschines, and perhaps by phrases. This becomes especially his Axiochus. The two dialogues of noticeable in the investigation of Aeschines were nearly contemporary sources. Thus the use of eva-eftec-repon with Plato's Meno (c. 391). Some years as an attribute of eminent statesmen after came the celebrated description in such as Themistocles does not justify the Symposium (384-380). Xenophon's the assumption (pp. 139, 141) that the work was considerably later, and last allusions to TO Oelov in [Plat.] Alcib. 1 in order must be placed the spurious 124 c and 133 c were suggested by the Alcibiades I, which passes under the dialogue of Aeschines. Again, con- name of Plato. Dittmar, who describes siderable play is made with the re- it as an unsuccessful experiment (p. currence of eTTi/ieXeia, eirifiekelcrdai, 165), assigns it to the years 340-330, eavrov etc. in Alcibiades I as indicating supposing that it shows the influence a dependence upon Aeschines, because of the Memorabilia and the Protagoras, they do not occur in the chapter of as well as of the dialogues of Aeschines Xenophon which the author is held to and Antisthenes. A comparison with have followed. Probably, however, Mem. 4. 2. is worked out in detail, and the coincidence only proves that the that chapter, in its turn, is brought duty of self-improvement was frequently into connexion with the Alcibiades of inculcated by Socrates himself; and, if Aeschines. the author of the dialogue required to Thanks chiefly to a long extract look elsewhere for so common a phrase, quoted by Aristides, we know more of the he might have found it applied to Alci- Alcibiades than of the other dialogues; biades in Xenophon (Mem. 1. 2. 24). and, by making full use of the indica- Space will not permit us to notice tions which the fragments afford, the interesting chapter which is devoted Dittmar has succeeded in effecting a to the Telauges, but attention should be plausible reconstruction of its contents. called to the proposal to insert TijXavyei But the results are often insecure. in order to elucidate an obscure passage Thus on p. 117 a passage in Maximus in Dio Chrysostom (55. 22 : see p. 225). Tyrius suggests the indentification of a On fr. 48 (p. 292) Weil's correction, fragment quoted by Demetr. de doc. which Roberts records, should have 205 with the opening words of the been quoted. Alcibiades, but on p. 182 reasons are Dittmar's book is heartily to be given for transferring it to the Miltiades. welcomed as a valuable contribution to Similarly, if Dalecamp was right in the literary history of the Socratic holding that airaihevTov in Athen. 534 c. school, though it is doubtful if the con- was corrupted from evTraCSevrov by aclusions drawn as to the interdependence common error, the reasoning of p. 86 of some of the documents concerned falls to the ground. In this connexion will meet with general approval. it should be remembered that Antis- A. C. PEARSON.