of Samos went back to the cruder theory of Thales. The details of this anticipatory sketch will become clearer as we go on; for the present, it is only necessary to call the reader's attention to the fact that the old Ionic Philosophy now forms a sort of background to our story, just as Orphic and Pythagorean religious ideas have done in the preceding chapters.
123.Anaxagoras at Athens. Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to take up at his abode at Athens. We are not informed what brought him there in the year of Salamis. He was, however, a Persian subject; for Klazomenai had been reduced after the suppression of the Ionian Revolt, and it seems likely enough that he was in the Persian army.[1]
Anaxagoras is said to have been the teacher of Perikles, and the fact is placed beyond the reach of doubt by the testimony of Plato. In the Phaedrus[2] he makes Sokrates say: "For all arts that are great, there is need of talk and discussion on the parts of natural science that deal with things on high; for that seems to be the source which inspires high-mindedness and effectiveness in every direction. Perikles added this very acquirement to his original gifts. He fell in, it seems, with Anaxagoras, who was a scientific man; and, satiating himself with the theory of things on high, and having attained to a knowledge of the true nature of mind and intellect, which was just what the discourses of Anaxagoras were mainly about, he drew from that source whatever was of a nature to further him in the art of speech." This clearly means that Perikles associated with Anaxagoras before he became a prominent politician. So too Isokrates says that Perikles was the pupil of two "sophists," Anaxa-
- ↑ That might explain the charge of "Medism" which was perhaps brought against him at his trial (§ 124). It is also perhaps, significant that Apollodoros (and probably Demetrios of Phaleron) spoke of him as twenty years old κατὰ τὴν Ξέρξου διάβασιν, which means, of course, the crossing of the Hellespont, and would hardly be relevant if Anaxagoras had not been with Xerxes then. It is certainly difficult to see what else could bring a young Klazomenian to Athens at that date.
- ↑ 270 a (R. P. 148 c).
