to be called upon to defend his life and property any day in one of the numerous law-courts. Again, eloquence, far more than with us, was a source of success and popularity in public life; and as a French soldier was said to carry a marshal’s baton in his knapsack, so every citizen who had the natural or acquired gift of eloquence might aspire to rise from the ranks, and become president of Athens. Provided that he had a ready and plausible tongue, neither his poverty nor mean descent need stand in his way; for the foremost place in Athens had been occupied in succession by a tanner and a lamp-seller. The small number of citizens, as compared with slaves, made political power more accessible than in our over-grown democracies; and every citizen was forced to become part and parcel of the state in which he lived. Moreover, the Greek Assembly was more easily moved by an appeal to their feelings or imagination, especially on an occasion of strong public interest, than a modern House of Commons, Sometimes their enthusiasm broke through all bounds, and Plato’s description of the effect produced by a popular orator is probably not exaggerated.
All motives, therefore—policy, ambition, self-defence—combined to induce the Athenian to learn the art of speaking, and there was an increasing demand for teachers. The Sophists undertook to qualify the young aspirant for political distinction; to teach him to think, speak, and act like a citizen, to convince or cajole the Assembly, to hold his own in the law-court, and generally to give him the power of making "the worse seem the better reason." Their lecture-rooms were
