Gorgias and the Socratic Principle Nemo Sua Sponte Peccat

Author(s): Guido Calogero

Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 77, Part 1 (1957), pp. 12-17
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
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GORGIAS AND THE SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE
NEMO SUA SPONTE PECCAT
MORE than a
century ago
the
great
German scholar Welcker tried to confirm the tradition
that
amongst
the
sophists
the real master of Socrates had been Prodicus. Welcker called him
his
'forerunner'.I
In our
century
this valuation was once
exaggerated
to the extent of
maintaining
that the
'principle
of Prodicus'-that
is, the care for the exact distinction and
usage
of the
meanings
of
synonyms-had
been the
starting-point
for
every
sound
development
in
logic,
whereas the
methodical
pattern presupposed by
Socrates in his discussions
was,
on the
contrary,
a
Prinzip
der
absoluten
Vieldeutigkeit,
a
principle
of absolute
equivocation
and
ambiguity,
and therefore the
starting-point
for
every
kind of trouble in that
field.z
Of
course,
the connection of Socrates with Prodicus was
justified by
the fact that
both,
in
their
conversations, appeared frequently
to be dissatisfied with certain answers or
expressions
of
their
interlocutors,
and therefore discussed the
meanings
of certain terms used
by
them. But the
difference between the two
approaches
was
very sharp,
as
appears
from
every passage
of the Socratic
dialogues
of
Plato,
in which Prodicus is introduced to
explain
the demands of his
synonymics
in
the midst of the debate.3 He wants
everybody
to
use,
for
example,
the verb
E
)"pa'lvE~eOa
in some
cases and the verb
j(8EUOaL
in some
others, following
what he thinks to be the
right usage,
the
dpOdrl's
3vodarowv
;
whereas Socrates does not care what kind of words one
may use,
but is
only
interested
in what one
really expresses by
these
words,
that
is,
the
meaning
which he
gives
to them. Both
search for
meanings
of words: but Prodicus'
question
is: What does it mean?-and Socrates'
question
is: What do
you
mean?-Prodicus
says:
dv8pdla
means
this,
OpaacrVr,
means that: so
you
shall use
dv3pEla
in the first case and
Opaamr--r
in the second. Socrates asks: What do
you
mean
by
dv8pdla?
(71
A&yES
-4Vv
cv3pdaEv;).
He does not care for correct
speaking:
he himself likes to
speak
dKn
TO-Lt
E7rvlvXoval ovo ~actav (as
he
says
in Plato's
Apology,
I
7C).
He is interested in the real
thing,
in what
is
meant,
in the human behaviour which has to be chosen and in the human valuation which has
to be
given.
So Prodicus is the forerunner of all those
people
who
try
to determine the
proper
meanings
of the words of a
language
and to
put together
its
vocabulary
for the
right usage
of those
words so
long
as the
passage
of time does not
change
their
meanings;
and also of those
people
who write treatises on
logic
or semantics in the belief that the
right knowledge
of the
meanings
of a
language
is the best method for
reasoning
well.
Socrates,
on the
contrary,
is the
perennial
master of the real
way
of
reasoning well, stressing
not so much
logic
but
dialogic,
that
is,
never
pretending
to know the true
meaning
of what has been said
by
others before
iE-iEwV
them and
never
pretending
to be
immediately
understood
by
others without
&&8dva
Adyov
to
them,
in that
incessant
dialogue
which is the moral life of men.
Now this Socratic ideal of the
dialogue
is
strictly
connected with the basic
principle
of his
ethics,
nemo sua
sponte peccat
(odI)
~s EKWV E
ctcltpr-LvEL).
As a matter of
fact, only
a
person
who under-
stands that
nobody
acts in a certain
way
without
preferring
it to
any
other
possible way
of action
of which he is
aware,
can be interested in
finding
out the reasons for such a
preference,
without
being
certain in advance that
they
are
wrong.4 Now,
this
principle
is
clearly presupposed
in the
Helena and in the Palamedes of
Gorgias.
This
sophist, therefore, might
well be considered as the
forerunner of Socrates with more reason that
Prodicus, although
none of his
interpreters,
as far as
I
know,
seems to have
suspected
such a connection.5
Let us view the main
argument
of the Encomium on Helen. After
having briefly
recalled her
origin
and
beauty, Gorgias begins
the treatment of the real
subject
of his
speech,
which is not so
much a
eulogy
as an
apology,
as was remarked
by Isocrates.6
Gorgias wants,
as he
says,
'to
subject
'
'Prodikos von
Keos,
Vorgiinger
des
Sokrates',
in Rhein.
Mus.f. Philol., 1832
and
1836, reprinted
with additions in
Kleine
Schriften,
II
(Bonn, 1845), 393-541.
Socrates
himself
says,
in Plato's Meno
96D,
that Prodicus had been
his teacher. But even if this is not a
joke,
to
study
under
somebody
and to be a
disciple
of him are not the same
thing.
2 S.
Ranulf,
Der eleatische
Satz
vom
Widerspruch, Copen-
hagen, 1924;
and
cf. my criticism,
'Una nuova concezione
della
logica prearistotelica',
in Giorn. crit. d.
filos. ital.,
VIII
(1927), 409-22.
3 See
e.g.
the
passages quoted
in
Diels-Kranz,
5th
ed.
84A,13-I8.
4
May
I refer
for this to
my
article 'Socrate' in Nuova
Antologia,
November
1955, 291-308,
and to
'Logo
e
Dialogo', Milan, 1950.
5 Helena and Palamedes are still considered
only
as
'exercises' by
K. Freeman
(The
Pre-Socratic
Philosophers,
2nd
ed., Oxford, I949, 359)
and as
'jeux d'esprit' by
E.
Dupr1el
(Les Sophistes, Neuchatel, 1949, 61), although
he has
carefully analysed many aspects
of
Gorgias'
ethics. As
to the
interpretation
of
Gorgias by
M. Untersteiner
(I Sofisti, Turin, 1949, 114-248),
I find it
very
difficult
to understand
it,
even in the
English
translation
by
K.
Freeman
(The Sophists, Oxford, 1954, 92-205).
6Laudatio
Helenae, 14-15.
That Isocrates'
quotation
of
the
ypdifavra
r
ept
Ti
'Er8Evr7
really
refers to
Gorgias
and
not to another
apologist
of
Helen,
is now
generally
accepted.
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GORGIAS AND THE SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE NEMO SUA SPONTE PECCAT
13
her
story
to critical
examination,
and so rescue her from
ignorant calumny'.
7 His
point
is
that
she acted as she did because she was
irresistibly compelled
to do so. As
long
as such a
compulsion
is
supposed
to have been determined
by TvX'q
or
by
'AvyK'Y1
or
by
the Gods or the violence of a
man,
there is no
question:
her innocence is obvious. But now
Gorgias
maintains that she was
irresistibly
compelled,
and therefore
deprived
of
any
aldrla,
even if the
compulsion
was
only
enacted
through
7rOCeO,
persuasion:
and this
despite
the fact that
pta
and
rn0eo
were for his
contemporaries
the
precise
technical terms used to
express
the
opposition
between coercive and non-coercive
behaviour, as
the
distinguishing
characters of
tyranny
and
democracy,
of
slavery
and freedom.
This is
evidently
the main contention which
Gorgias
has to
prove,
and so he devotes to it the
seven central
paragraphs
of his
speech (8-14:
seven
precede
and seven
follow), beginning
with
the
expression
of his conviction that
although
his task
may appear difficult,
it will be
easy
for him
to
fulfil
it:
El
8'
AdYoS
0
TTElFtLS
KaK 7r)v
VXV
V7 rra-rquags,
OV&
T
7pOs
70970 XaE7TdVY
drroAoy `a~eOat KaU 7-qv
alTrav drroAvaOaaa
C
o8
E.8
And here
immediately
follows the famous
passage
on the
power
of the
logos,
which has
always
been considered as the most
typical expression
of
Gorgias' philosophy: Aoyos
8vvaU-r-S tya dErClv
....
This
power
is not
only
the emotional force of
poetry, Adyos
E'Xwv Ld&-pov,
or the
magic wizardry
of incantations: it is also the
power
which we would call the
persuasive
force of reason :
(13)
'That
Persuasion,
when added to
speech,
can also make
any impression
it wishes
upon
the
soul,
can be
shown, firstly,
from the
arguments
of the
meteorologists,
who
by
re-
moving
one
opinion
and
implanting
another cause what is incredible and invisible to
appear
before the
eyes
of the
mind; secondly,
from
legal contests,
in which a
speech
can
sway
and
persuade
a
crowd, by
the skill of its
composition,
not
by
the truth of its
statements; thirdly,
from the
philosophical debates,
in which
quickness
of
thought
is shown
easily altering opinion.'9
Gorgias expatiates
on this
subject
of the various forms of the influence exerted
by Ao'yo
and
its
7TEeO
upon
the
soul;
but the conclusion is
always
the
same,
and it is
clearly expressed
in
?12:
Ayoy yap
T77V VX77
0
ITEIfLS, K71V ECUELUEV,1Gy AKaE Ka
10
LS
0
ot
o
t'oLKaC
cmVwECat
ois
7TOtOtVJ1V0tS. 0t OVVrlv
jovOtToLKELL
KaKOJ.
Persuasion by Aoyos
is
equivalent
to abduction
by force,
as
nobody
can fail to 'consent
to what is done' if he
'agrees
to what is
said';
in other
words, nobody
can
help acting
in accordance
with the considerations to which he has been
brought.
In Socratic
terms,
o0;VsE
EKWV
EetacapTr
VEL,
nobody
does
anything,
which
may appear wrong
from a better
point
of
view,
without
considering
it
dyaOdv
from his
point
of view. And even if this
point
of view is the visual
perception
of those
objects
which induce us to fall in love with
them,
the situation does not
change,
as
Gorgias says
in the
last section of his
speech:
El
yap
Epwso
7-qv
o
-avTra
r
rpdas,
o01
xaAEvorw
aL8SE-EcT-r
r7'v
AEJg
yoEp/v'JS
aLaptas LLav. a yap OPWALEV, EXEL O&(UV 0<7X 7'V 7'JlEtS
OEJOE'AOEV, dAA
7'
7
E"aacrov'vX
E
.VXE
8 8E T77S obEW5
OvX7'
KaV
iToZ
TPdTpOL TTTrrO7at (?15).
We see the
things
as
they happen
to
be,
not as we want them
to be! And what follows seems to
anticipate
some well-known Socratic
analyses
of the nature of
fear and
courage,
as
dispositions
of the soul
depending upon
its
way
of
seeing things
as
aELv'd
or
OappaAE'a,
which we find in Plato's
Protagoras
and
Laches.Io
The
general
conclusion is
repeated
in
?I 9:
if Eros is a
god, gods
are
irresistible,
Ed '8E'rt'v
avcpdTTL1ov
vdourqa
KaU
bvXq ciyvdorlta, o0x d
g
a/~apC7Lpr7a llE1t7T4rov aMAAs aTvX7t1ia
voLtEov.
There is no need to
change here,
with Weidner and
Immisch,
votuToLaEd
into
ol0KTtcr-Eo,
or
to add 4<Jtov
EAEov>
with Reiske:
Gorgias
has
already said,
at the end
of
?7,
8IKaLov oV1V '
V OpAL
oKTpat,
expressing
the same idea of the
'AiEos,
'compassion',
deserved
by
the
KaKoL
inasmuch
as
they
are
acLaOtLs,
which is so common in the Platonic
passages
concerned with the Socratic
principle iaKc-s EKC:1V OVE1) .
I
7
?2.
The
quotation
is from the
summary given by
K. Freeman in her Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic
Philosophers,
2nd ed.
(Oxford, 1952), 3
x.
8
The
feeling
of the
difficulty
of his task is
again
ex-
pressed by Gorgias
some lines farther
on,
if the
beginning
of
?9 has,
as I
think,
to be read with
Immisch
6e8 16
Kaibo$a
eiat
Tola
dKOVdOVat (all
other
readings give
a
poor sense).
9 From the
summary
of K. Freeman
(see above,
note
7),
which is here almost a
complete
translation.
So
Compare,
for
example,
what
??16-17
say
about
the
Mdflog
as
engendered
in the soul
by
the notion of a
'future
danger'
with the definition of
6etvCd
as
UsWAovraa
KaKd
and
OappaAsa
as
udAAovza
dyaOd
and of the
dvdpeda
as
EtcrrTzn1ojr
v 6etvCv
Kai
zTv OappaAo~v,
in
Laches 198B
if.
11 This
principle,
which is
clearly
ascribed to Socrates
also
by Xenophon
and
Aristotle,
was
evidently
considered
so
important by
Plato that he never disowned it
through
all his
life, although
he did not follow it in
many develop-
ments of his
philosophy. Cp. e.g. Apol. 25D-26A; Protag.
345E; Hipp.
Minor
376B; Hipp. Maior 296C; Gorgias
488A, 509E; Resp. 336E, 589C;
Tim.
86D-E; Leg. 734B,
86oD. By
the
way,
as in De
iusto 374A,
Socrates
quotes
this
principle
as
expressed by
'a
poet'
who said
o'dei&
EKi V
iwovqp6 o3"
aKWV
I jiKap (which
seems to be
Epicharmus
fr. 7
Diels-Kranz with the last two words so
changed
from
zrav
ioxwv),
and as in
Protag. 345E
he
ironically
finds
it
expressed
in Simonides'
poem,
I wonder whether this
sort of
play
with ancient
poets (which
is referred to also in
Plato's
Apol., 22B) may
not have been extended
by
Socrates
also to Homer. In this
case, oi36eir Kdv
SK
ataptdvet may
have been the
witty
inversion of
K372
.KJV 6"' ?/dpTav'E
wrd6g.
As a matter of
fact,
some MSS.
(quoted by
Allen,
ad
loc.) say
at this
point
that some
people
changed
the first
hemistich
to that of
A35o, reading
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14
GUIDO CALOGERO
Let us now look at the Palamedes. The hero defends himself
by proving, first, that he
could
not have carried into effect his
supposed
treason even if he had wanted
to, and, secondly,
that
he
could not
have
wanted to
perform
the actions of which he is accused, even if he had had the oppor-
tunity
of
performing
them. The first
part
of the
defence,
which is
by
far the shorter of the
two,
does not concern our
problem (as
the first
part
of the Helena did
not).
But the second
part
is
a
continuous reassertion of the
principle
which we know as the basis of Socrates' ethics.
Right from
the
beginning,
in
I
3,
Palamedes asks: What motive could I have had? And the reason
given
for this
question
is a statement of that
principle:
od&se yap foV'ovhAEa 7rpoZiKa TroV9 (LEylUTOVa KlV8lVVOVS
KLV8VVEELV
OVS
77qV /LEy)OT7)V
KaKd7Tl-a ElvaL KaKLUTOS. The formula
o'E
s
'ovAeraL 7rpoZtKa
E
vaL KaKLUT9o
corresponds
almost
literally
to the formula
oV'Ets
EKicV
KaKds. Only
a few lines farther on, the
same
presupposition
is
expressed
in the
following passage:
'AA"t.ws
EOKdVTES Eo'Kdv-
T
.apc8w
ovcnv,
Luo8v -rg
7P080pooulaS
avrt&dv-7gEa;
MACd
YE
-ravra
7rTOhAATqg
LWptag
Kat
7laTEvoaL
Kat
8
eaa
aL
?
rg
ya p
av
AoLo 80ovAdEav
avr7t
auaAEla,
Jv-i 70
KpalOV
' cT K K
?TO
LUT
(? 4).
As a matter of fact, the
impossibility
of
'choosing
the worst instead of the best' is a
typical point frequently
underlined
by
Socrates in the demonstration of his
principle.
At the
beginning
of
?I6
we read the sentence
Kat
t/Lv Ov3 V
EV8''v
IVEKCa
TOLOrTOLS'
E"pyOLS av-qp E7ITLXELPUSELE Katl uLEawgr pdvtLogr,
which presupposes
the
idea
that a reasonable man cannot do
things
which he
judges
harmful to himself. And
?18
insists:
KaK9s
3 ETraOE-v ov'8 E'SE' E7LOv/L wV rTaVOvpyEt.
And
?9:
8t9 aaWv yap
TroTWVY E-EKa
ITav7ESg
7TaV7a Tpa-TTOVUL,
74 KEp309
7t
(L ETOLVTESg
7)
7ltav EvyOVTEr. This theme of the KE'pos seems to anticipate the subject of
the
Hipparchus,
whose connection with the
principle
nemo sua
sponte peccat
I think to have
proved
sufficiently.z1 Finally,
in
?25 Palamedes says
that he cannot be accused at the same time of
two
opposites,
wisdom and madness: the
accuser,
who does
so,
7Tv
avq--o'v
Adyov AyIowv Irpos 70-o a'-VroV
av3pas rTEptL
7
I
aV`-&Wv -ra vavrLW-raraa yAELEt (a
sentence in which has been found an echo of
con-
temporary
discussions about the
logical
rule which was later to be called the Law of
Contradiction).
And here follows
?26,
to which we shall
compare
a
corresponding passage
from Plato's
Apology of
Socrates:
Palam.
26
BovAoly_'v
8'av
r-apa uov'
iTrvOE'OaL,
drro-pov 70 ao ov avpag vofkEtg vo
"
v,
7TOTEpo TyS' UOOg S avgpas VOtELS
avorqovg
7
qpovqiovg. El EYV
yap JVOro-oVS', Katvg d
doyos,
AM' o
AA1K
Oiq
d
E
'
8'
pOV' OvS, o -i7rov
rTpooUKKEt T yS oE qPOOV/7aS ETLa/LapawLV E ag
tLEylUI-asg J(Lap-l'ag
Kat
~tLcLov
atpEt'atoa
KaKa
7rpo
7Tapov-wYv aya8Owv.
El
tLE'
oiv EqL
uod~9,
oi'K
7)lap0ro El
8Et7Lapq-ov,
0
oods Eod
Lu. OVKOV
8c&
a(ldrEpa
a'
vl E.7OS gEVOS'.
P1. Apol. 25D
Ti
897-a, c
MEdArq-rE; I-oUooV-0v
a% 1)0 oI
ro-po
el
rALKOvOU V-
7r LKd'A
"
E/Lov OcWI-EpOS' ELC AtKOVIOV OO'
'To
-
WV, WUTE oU VLLEV EYVWKagS
OTL Ot
I-EV
a KaKot
K
aKdv 7
Epya'ovraL a'tL
E
TOvgs laAtLa-a
rTA-rl7ov
C UO
av
, Oil
a
Jyaolt
a
yao'v, E',y
8 wE
ELqS' -OOV-OV
r o
Laltag
7)KW, ;WUTE
Kat TOUT (yVOw,
q-tl,
EaV T-rla
LOXO77POV
7TOLt/aw 7I-V OUVdOV-oWY,
KLV8VVEVWc KaKdv 7rt Aa/E tv
J7T' avTOv; . . .
Tai-ca
'
OOL
ao
TElOOt,
(
ME'A-qrIE,
OLfat
8E
ovdE dlMov a'vOpCw7TWV ovSEva
aAMi1
01
&oaq)OELpW
q,
El
&aqY)ElpW, (LCWV oWUTE
9V
)E K'aT a(L -Epo
cIEo.
a3 7 aq 0 dlr?qpa OE /8.
Gorgias' passage,
even taken
by itself,
is
completely
Socratic in its content:
every
word
might
have been said
by
Socrates in a Platonic
dialogue.
But even more
astonishing
than this coincidence
between the main
principle
of the defences of Helen and Palamedes and that of Socrates'
ethics,
is the
similarity
of this
passage
to that from the
Apology
which we have
placed
side
by
side with it.
They
end
practically
with the same
sentence,
after two formulations of a dilemma which is also
substantially
the
same,
because it refers
always
to the
principle
nemo sua
sponte peccat, according
to
which
nobody can,
at the same
time,
cL-ap-rlvELv
and be
ao&ds
or
SaBOElpEtv
and do so
KwOV.13
Now,
the coincidence between
Gorgias' Apology of
Palamedes and Plato's
Apology
of
Socrates is not limited
to this
passage,
but
permeates
the entire structure of both works. In order not to take too much
space
with
quotations,
we
only mention,
for each
subject,
the
corresponding passages (indicating
both works with the initials of their
authors,
and with an X.
Xenophon's Apology,
when the
correspondence
extends to it
too).
Death is not the real issue:
everybody
is condemned to die:
G.i; P.38C-D; X.27.
Real issue: if
d1rroOavE-V happens
&'Kals or
not:
G.i; P.34E-35C:
X.28.
Death is
preferable
to
alaxpdv
behaviour or
repute: G.35; P.38E-39B.
therefore
Kat fldAev, oZ6' dCdltapTev, SKd)V
~
lltdpiave wbOad6.
They probably
wanted to restore the
harmony
between
Socrates and
Homer, showing
that the
SK6v duadpTitza
of
Diomedes was not a real
d",dpxp~a,
otherwise it could
not have been 8Kd !
12
See
my
commentary
on the
Hipparchus (Florence,
1938),
where I have also tried to show that there are
many
reasons to believe in its
authenticity.
13 It is also to be remarked that a few lines before
Socrates had asked Meletos: &ortv
o06v o'ant flodZAexat
t
xTCv
aVdvO'wv
,~AdrreadOat
1uiAAov
7
d,
7
eAeaOat;
(25D), which
corresponds
to the
dAAov
aipelOat KaKd arpi6
rapdvTv
(or
rpoZeipwv
r'vcov,
if one
prefers
Radermacher's to Diels'
conjecture) dyaO6bv
of
Gorgias' passage;
whereas the term
dpapzjpaza,
corresponding
to
~Faapapdvetv
and
Edpapriag
of
Gorgias, appears
in what
immediately
follows in Plato's
Apology (26A).
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GORGIAS AND THE SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE NEMO SUA SPONTE PECCAT
15
Judges
who
may
condemn
people
to death should not decide in one
day: G.34-35;
P.37A-B.
If
you
kill
me, my
fame will cause
you
to be blamed:
G.36; P.38C.
I could not
go
elsewhere as an exile:
my
hosts would become
suspicious,
and it would
be a
fl/os
oi3
fgtwrod,
4 in Greece as well as E'v -roZt
fap/p3po"s:
G.20; P.37C-E; cp. Crito 53B-54A.
Not
only
am I not
guilty,
but I am
your
EvEpyEdT,7s:
G.30; P.36C (the
best
proof
of
my
innocence
is
my
entire life:
G.28-29; X.3).
I will not use lamentations and
prayers,
in order to move
you
to
pity:
I will
only
8~83aKELV
A
&qAlgES:
G.33; P-34C-35C, cp. 38D-E; X.4;
9.
Interruption
of the
dTroAoyEru0ac
by
a
aASE'yE0aU
with the accuser:
G.22; P.24B ff.;
X.19
if.
Now we can understand
why
in the enumeration of the most
important sophists
made
by
Socrates in Plato's
Apology
(I9E)
Gorgias
comes
first,
before
Prodicus,
and
why
the first hero
put
to death
by
an
unjust sentence,
whom Socrates thinks he
may
meet in
Hades,
is Palamedes
(41B).
Not
only
must he have heard
Gorgias presuppose
in his discussions the same
principle
upon
which he was to base his
ethics;I5
he must also have
clearly
remembered
Gorgias' Apology
of
Palamedes when he
pronounced
before his
judges
his own
apology,
of which we
certainly
have
the best document in Plato's work. After
all,
this information is
definitely given
to us
by Xenophon,
who
presents
Socrates himself as
recalling Gorgias' Apology
in his
Apology (26):
7TapaCLv0E7TraL
8'EIt
JLLE
Kat ~CHaA3atz3i8
I TJ
7Tapa7T atws
EtELot TEtEV
-7)cgaL-
EfL
yap
Kapa
VVV
2ToAv)
KCLAoV-S- VjkOVS 1T
TaPpEXET
'0vowEwS 7-O
crIK
aroKTEvavTog
a;?dov. Josef
MorrI6
has well
argued
that this
passage
cannot
be an allusion to
Euripides'
Palamedes
(fr. 588 Nauck),
and that
lwjvot
and
vt5/vEZv
may
refer also
to
prose
works: as a matter of
fact, Gorgias
himself
(fr. 5b Diels-Kranz)
seems to call his encomia
iwvovg.
Moreover,
Morr
(who
had
strongly
underlined the coincidence between
Gorgias'
Palamedes
and
Xenophon's Apology of
Socrates as to the
point
that
everybody
is
already
condemned
by
nature
to
die,
without
noting, however,
the far more numerous
coincidences,
in this and in other
points,
with the Platonic
Apology), quotes
Xen. Mem.
IV, 2, 33:
T!
3' HaAackj3ovs
o3K cK
-LKoag
c7
8T
;
-rovrov
yap 87) 70a
srv-r
vO~vorvu
w

lroctav
ovl6EL
7Td~
v 70r
ro
O'vccTE'cJ adTodAAvrat.
In connection
with this
interpretation, according
to which
Odysseus
had accused Palamedes because he was
envious of his
crola,
Morr refers to
Gorgias'
Palamedes
(25:
co'cav t~ov Kar77yopEt9s)
in
order
to show
that the situation here is the
same,
and that therefore this is the work
quoted by
Socrates in
Xenophon.
This
may
be true or
false,
but in
any
case
Xenophon
was
particularly
influenced
by Gorgias,
and certain
aspects
of this influence
may
confirm what we have seen
concerning
the relation
between the
sophist
and Socrates.
Nestle,
who has
carefully
studied the
sophistic heritage
in
Xenophon,'7 recognises
for instance
Gorgias
in the
&&'dKaAos i-rv
Tra1iwv
about whom
Cyrus
is told
by
his father in Inst.
Cyri, I, 6, 31.
He
&'%a&LKEV i-os
o
TraL
a 7
V
8CKatO(cv'V]V
.
. .,
E7b)~JEEcGL
Kat
/iv'uoat,
Ka8
EL) taapaaaAv Kal Ea-naiv, Kal
~L7 fAAEW Kat
&af8apAAEtv,
Kat
tz-q
7TAEOVEK-TEWZ Kat
7TEOVEK-'rE-.
Atcptt'E
~W
TOva'W a
rTE Tp3S o
RS

btAovg
TOtq70V
Ka16Ka1
%~
Ips EOpov'S. Kc
Er
U-rt v
-E&aCYKEV
(S0 Kal
T rou v
tAovs
&Katov7 L'))'arra-ai
v
E'7T1
yE ayaO4-
Kat
KAEITTEW
i-4
i-65V 7-t'wV E 17T E
1
yaO-.
Now,
if this
*cr'cKaAos
is really Gorgias,18
it is also
easy
to see that his doctrines are
very
similar
to certain loci communes of the ethics of
Socrates,
who liked to
show,
in his criticism of the
traditional
dpE-ral,
how what is
good
from the
point
of view of a
single
JdpE-r-
in certain cases is not
good
in other
cases;
for
example,
that which is
good
with reference to friends
may
not be so as
regards enemies,
and so
on.'9
On the other
side,
Nestle
agrees
with Hertlein and
Ritter,
who
see a
symbolic representation
of both the
destiny
and the fundamental moral
principle
of Socrates
14
Gorgias' d'fliwroj fiog
(20)
and
flio
' oi
fltwdE (21)
literally correspond
to Plato's
fliog
o3
fltwgod,
which
appears
just
a little farther in his
Apology (38A).
It is to be re-
marked that such
expressions, according
to the 'Wort-
index' of Kranz in Diels'
Vorsokratiker,
are used
only
here in all the
pre-Socratic period (dflto~o
in
Antiphon
has
just
the
opposite meaning).
I
cannot, therefore,
under-
stand
why Untersteiner,
in his
commentary
on this
passage (I Sofisti:
testimonianze e
frammenti, II, Florence,
1949, 23-4), says
that
Gorgias' dfltwrog
fliog
is an
'espressione empedoclea', quotirig Empedocles
fr.
2, 3
as
reading wFj?g dfltov.
This is
only
a
conjecture
of
Scaliger,
the text
given by
Sextus is
4otae
fltov..
'5 And
possibly
also discuss
topics
which became at the
*same time well-known
points
of
departure
for Socratic
discussions: for
example,
the relation between
dab3tiEiOat
and
dai6LKe
(Palamedes, 31,
and
cf. Crito, 49Bff.)
or the idea
that one has to
help
friends and
injure
enemies
(Pal., 18).
16
'Des
Gorgias
Palamedes und
Xenophons Apologie',
in
Hermes,
LXI
(1926), 467-70.
'7 W.
Nestle, 'Xenophon
und die
Sophistik',
in
Philologus,
XCIV
(1939-40), 31-50.
On the influence of
Gorgias
upon Xenophon
see also H. Schacht,
De
Xenophontis
studiis rhetoricis,
Berl. Diss.
189o,
and K.
Miinscher,
in
Philologus, Suppl.
Band
13, I920, p. 3.
s8
Nestle sees in
Gorgias' philosophy
the common source
of what is said in this
passage,
in
JAWaoo d?'ot, 3,
and in
Plato, Resp., 33IE
if.
'9
Every
criticism
by
Socrates of the
single
traditional
dpeTra
in the
early
Platonic
dialogues might
be
quoted
as
an
example
for this
(e.g.
the discussion of the
awowpooavrJ
in Charmides:
owrpooavr
is not
equivalent
to
walking
in a
slow
and
dignified manner,
because in certain cases it is
more
aoCbpov
to
hurry,
and so on).
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16 GUIDO CALOGERO
in the
portrait
of the man of whom
Tigranes
tells
Cyrus
that his father sentenced him to
death
because he
thought
that he was
corrupting him,
whereas the man
was,
in
fact, so KaA~'g
Kiyaods,
that he advised the son not to be
angry
with the father for this: o3
y)p
KaKOVOla
TLtv
TOrTO vrOLEC,
aAaciyvo'a- onorruoa
SEa
yvoaa,
advepwnrot E'caqtapravovt, rratvTra aKovcfta " rav-a Eyo'
vo1tdw
(Inst. Cyri, III,
I, 38).
And so we see that in the main
educational work of
Xenophon,
it is Socrates and
Gorgias
who seem to be
present,
as masters of the
youth, worthy
to be idealised
together; Gorgias main-
taining points
familiar also to
Socrates,
and Socrates
reasserting
his nemo sua
sponte peccat.
Anyway,
be it as it
may
with
Xenophon,
the
presence
of the aforementioned
principle in
Gorgias'
Helena and Palamedes is
evident,
we
believe,
after our
analyses
of their contents. G.
Bux2o
was
right
in
remarking
that the
'logical'
structure of both those discourses has
nothing
to do
with
the
ElKdO
of Teisias and Corax. Neither defence
presupposes any likely
reconstruction of
facts
individually
connected with the
personal
situation of Helen or of
Palamedes-as,
for
instance, all
other defences of Helen in Greek literature
do, including
the
very inept
one of
Isocrates.21
They
are based
only
on
general arguments,
which could be
employed by any
other
person accused
of
adultery
or treason. But it is no use to
say
that this
type
of
argumentation
is an
apagogischer
Schlussbeweis,
whose
presence
in both defences as well as in the
HEpy
vroi
^
k
vros
reveals all of
them
to be
only
exercises in Eleatic dialectic.22 What is
important
is the real content of this
Beweis: and
this,
we have
seen,
is
nothing
else than the sum of the
considerations, upon
which the nemo sua
sponte
peccat
of Socrates is based.
The date of
Gorgias'
discourses is not
certain,
but no one has
thought
that
they might
have
been written after
4Io
B.C.23 As it is also
quite unlikely
that
they
were
composed by
the
very
old
Gorgias
after the death of
Socrates,
there is no reason to
change
the ancient view that the
Defence
of
Palamedes influenced Socrates' own defence as well as its
descriptions by
Plato and
Xenophon,
and not vice versa. At the same
time,
the idea of the irresistible
power
of
Adoyos
and
7TEtE6o,
so
brilliantly
outlined in the
Helena,
coincided with the
oVdSe
E KCV
KaKod
Of
Socrates,
but also con-
fronted him with the most
important problem
of moral conduct. In
fact, Gorgias, envisaging
the
nemo sua
sponte peccat
in its most
elementary form, might
fall into a sort of moral indifference.
Every-
body
could act
only according
to his
persuasions:
so
everybody
could dominate the others if
he
was able to
persuade
them !24
Against
this new
tyranny
of the
logos,
which was both
threatening
the
independence
and
directing
the behaviour of the
ObvX~
in her most intimate realm
(by
the
way,
even this idea of the soul as the seat of consciousness and moral
conduct,
in which Burnet and
Taylor
saw the most
important
element of Socrates'
philosophy,
has been found
present
in
Gorgias' discourses),
Socrates had to find a
remedy.
And this was not a
repudiation
of the nemo
sua
sponte peccat,
but the
discipline
of the
TEt&lo
by
the
&8tdoyos. Everybody
acted
according
to his
private reasons,
but
everybody
had to
Stodvat Aodyov
of these reasons and to
altreTy
A'yov
of the reasons
of the
others,
in order that the better ones could exercise their better
vraEt0o.
So the
Eytoy-rov dya6dv
was for Socrates the
EtEcraStE
through
the
4tdAoyo-,
both in this life and in
any
other
possible
lifez5:
and the
Ka-7
/3paxt &taAEyErOat
was
the
only
civic
discipline necessary
in order to check the
taKpoAoyla
of the rhetors and their
possibly
bad
ErreloL.26
But this was not
enough
for
Plato,
who was not
2o 'Gorgias und Parmenides',
in
Hermes, 1941, 393-407.
Certain coincidences between Palamedes and Plato's
Apology
had also been noticed
by
H.
Gomperz (Sophistik
und
Rhetorik, Leipzig, I912, 9-I )
in his defence of the
authenticity
of
Gorgias'
discourses.
2,
The
history
of the defences of Helen has been studied
by
M. S.
Khafaga,
'Absolutio
Helenae',
in Bulletin
of
the
Faculty of Arts, Cairo,
195o,
85-98,
which
unfortunately
I
was unable to trace. The fact that
Gorgias'
discourses
do not consider
any
individual circumstance of Helen's
and Palamedes'
actions,
but
generally prove every
adultery
or treason to be either
impossible
or uninten-
tional,
had been stressed also
by
H.
Gomperz (Soph.
und
Rhet.,
II
ff.). But, considering
such demonstrations
simply
as
absurdities,
he saw in them
only
the
proof
that
Gorgias'
discourses were mere
jokes.
22
Through
a similar reduction of the real
arguments
to their external structural
pattern
H.
Gomperz (Soph.
u.
Rhet., 1-35)
had
already
arrived at the conclusion that the
Hept
xov~
tnri
ovxro
was a
pure display
of rhetorical
ability,
no less than Helena and Palamedes. I believe that I have
proved,
on the
contrary,
that also the
Hepi 0zoi g
V
7
1JvTo
is neither a
joke
nor an
exercise,
but a
highly
ironical
reductio
ad absurdum of the Eleatic
philosophy (especially
of
Zeno)
: see the
chapter
on
Gorgias
in
my
Studi sull'Elea-
tismo, Rome, 1932, 157-222.
23
Helena
is
placed by
Preuss
(De Eurip. Helena, Leipzig,
191 ) between the Troades and the Helena of
Euripides,
in
414 B.c., and
by
Pohlenz
(Nachr.
d. Gitt. Ges. d.
Wiss.,
I920, 166) before the Troades
(see
also K.
Freeman,
Pre-Socr.
Philos., 363).
The Palamedes is dated before
411I
by E. Maas
(in Hermes, XXII, 1887, 579).
24 In Plato's
Gorgias 452D-E
Socrates asks
Gorgias
what he thinks to be the
jdytazrov dyaOdv,
and how he can
give it to men: he answers that it is the
7esOetv oiTo AOdyotg,
because it ensures the
apyetv
EKdaiTp,
making everybody
else a
doAog.
The same idea
o
g
xoi7 restOetv 7roAtz
dtaoipot
7aatcv
zeXv6tv--rrdvra ydp
v5'avyij dooAa ad'
KdOTrov
dAA'
O3
6td flt'ag 7,ototTo-is
attributed to
Gorgias
in Phileb., 58A-B.
So
7retOd,
which was the essential
instrument of
any
democratic
opposition
to a
tyrannical
la,
becomes the instrument of a new sort of
tyranny
(flia
6t'
K'v-rCov),
until it is checked
by
6tcdAoyog.
25 Plato, Apol., 38A,
4IB;
and
cf.,
for the
interpretation
of these
passages, my
article 'Socrate'
quoted above,
note
4.
26 This
explains also the fundamental value of the
opposition between the
sophistic
/IaKpoAoyla
and the
Socratic Katd
flpaxi)
taAtSyaOat
in Plato's
Protagoras.
According to
Dupriel ('Sophistes',
8o-I),
Gorgias 449B-C
might
be considered as a
proof
that the
KaaTd fpax6
dtaAtyeaOat
was at least less alien to
Gorgias
than to
Protagoras. This could be another
sign
of his
particular
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GORGIAS AND THE SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE NEMO SUA SPONTE PECCAT
17
only
a teacher but a
politician
as
well,
and did not
possess
the
quiet
Socratic
patience
to wait for
the slow results of the
8ta)toyos.
The reason
why
we find the manifesto of his new
position
in a
dialogue
entitled
Gorgias
is
probably
that he could not discuss the faith in
7TE66o
and
otdEElJ
ECJKV
KaKds
and
&d\Aoyos
of his master Socrates without
beginning by
a discussion of the faith in
7T0EL1
and
oVd'SE
EIK(CV KaKs, Of the master of Socrates himself.
GUIDO CALOGERO.
University of
Rome.
proximity
to Socrates. In
any case,
the
only
one who
had not understood
anything
at all was
poor
Prodicus.
Confronted with the choice between
puaKpoAoyla
and
flpaxvAoyia,
he
just
recommended a moderate
length!
(podvog
aJrdz
r6prwn"Kvat '
90ly
68 &i
A'dyov
zeT'vv E68v
~6
oi'rze
paKpcv
orZe
ppa~w
dAAa

ytpt'wv?:
Phaidros, 267B).
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