goras and Damon.[1] There can be no doubt that the teaching of Damon belongs to the youth of Perikles,[2] and it is to be inferred that the same is true of that of Anaxagoras.
A more difficult question is the alleged relation of Euripides to Anaxagoras. The oldest authority for it is Alexander of Aitolia, poet and librarian, who lived at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphos (c. 280 B.C.). He referred to Euripides as the "nursling of brave Anaxagoras."[3] The famous fragment on the blessedness of the scientific life might just as well refer to any other cosmologist as to Anaxagoras, and indeed suggests more naturally a thinker of a more primitive type.[4] On the other hand, it is likely enough that Anaxagoras did not develop his system all at once, and he doubtless began by teaching that of Anaximenes. Besides there is one fragment which distinctly expounds the central thought of Anaxagoras, and could hardly be referred to any one else.[5]
124.The trial. It is clear that, if we adopt the chronology of Demetrios of Phaleron, the trial of Anaxagoras must be placed early in the political career of Perikles.[6] That is the tradition preserved by Satyros, who says that
- ↑ Isokrates, Περὶ ἀντιδόσεως, 235. Περικλῆς δὲ δυοῖν (σοφισταῖν) ἐγένετο μαθητής, Ἀναξαγόρου τε τοῦ Κλαζομενίου καὶ Δάμωνος.
- ↑ Damon (or Damonides) must have been politically active about 460 B.C. (Meyer, Gesch. des Altert. iii. 567; Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen, i. 134) so that he must have been born about 500 B.C. He was ostracised before 443 B.C. according to Meyer, and an ostrakon with the name of Damon son of Damonides has been found (Brückner, Arch. Anz., 1914, P. 95). If we suppose that he was ostracised in 445 and returned in 435, his subsequent relations with Sokrates are quite natural. Plato can hardly have known him personally. On the whole subject, see Rosenberg in Neue Jahrb. xxxv. p. 205 sqq.
- ↑ Gell. xv. 20, "Alexander autem Aetolus hos de Euripide versus composuit"; ὁ δ' Ἀναξαγόρου τρόφιμος χαιοῦ (so Valckenaer for ἀρχαίου) κτλ.
- ↑ See Introd. p. 10, n. 3.
- ↑ R. P. 150 b.
- ↑ The trial of Anaxagoras is generally referred to the period just before the Peloponnesian War. That is how it was represented by Ephoros (reproduced by Diod. xii. 38), and the same account is followed by Plutarch (V. Per. 32). The pragmatic character of the chronology of Ephoros is, however, sufficiently established, and we cannot infer anything from it. Sotion, who made Kleon the accuser, must also have assumed a late date for the trial.
