A History of Western Philosophy: And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by Bertrand Russell

CHAPTER X Protagoras THE great pre-Socratic systems that we have been considering were confronted, in the latter half of the fifth century, by a sceptical movement, in which the most important figure was Protagoras, chief of the Sophists. The word “Sophist” had originally no bad connotation; it meant, as nearly as may be, what we mean by “professor.”

A Sophist was a man who made his living by teaching young men certain things that, it was thought, would be useful to them. in practical life. As there was no public provision for such education, the Sophists taught only those who had private means, or whose parents had. This tended to give them a certain class bias, which was increased by the political circumstances of the time. In Athens and many other cities, democracy was politically triumphant, but nothing had been done to diminish the wealth of those who belonged to the old aristocratic families. It was, in the main, the rich who embodied what appears to us as Hellenic culture: they had education and leisure, travel had taken the edge off their traditional prejudices, and the time that they spent in discussion sharpened their wits.

The age of Pericles is analogous, in Athenian history, to the Victorian age in the history of England.

At the beginning of the century comes the Athenian championship of the cities of Ionia against the Persians, and the victory of Marathon in 490 B.C. At the end comes the defeat of Athens by Sparta in 404 B.C., and the execution of Socrates in 399 B.C. After this time Athens ceased to be politically important, but acquired undoubted cultural supremacy, which it retained until the victory of Christianity.

There was at this time in Athens an extraordinarily large number of men of genius. The three great dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, all belong to the fifth century. Aeschylus fought at Marathon and saw the battle of Salamis. Sophocles was still religiously orthodox. But Euripides was influenced by Protagoras and by the free-thinking spirit of the time, and his treatment of the myths is sceptical and subversive.

Two of his pupils, Xenophon and Plato, wrote voluminously about him, but they said very different things.

The Greeks, though admirable fighters, made no conquests, because they expended their military fury mainly on each other. It was left to the semi-barbarian Alexander to spread Hellenism throughout the Near East, and to make Greek the literary language in Egypt and Syria and the inland parts of Asia Minor.

The Greeks could never have accomplished this task, not for lack of military force, but owing to their incapacity for political cohesion. The political vehicles of Hellenism have always been non-Hellenic; but it was the Greek genius that so inspired alien nations as to cause them to spread the culture of those whom they had conquered.

Aristotle was born, probably in 384 B.C., at Stagyra in Thrace. His father had inherited the position of family physician to the king of Macedonia. At about the age of eighteen Aristotle came to Athens and became a pupil of Plato; he remained in the Academy for nearly twenty years, until the death of Plato in 348-7 B.C.

In 343 B.C. he became tutor to Alexander, then thirteen years old, and continued in that position until, at the age of sixteen, Alexander was pronounced by his father to be of age, and was appointed regent during Philip’s absence.

Hegel thinks that Alexander’s career shows the practical usefulness of philosophy.

Alexander, it is true, had a certain snobbish respect for Athenian civilization, but this was common to his whole dynasty, who wished to prove that they were not barbarians. It was analogous to the feeling of nineteenth-century Russian aristocrats for Paris.

CHAPTER XXV The Hellenistic World THE history of the Greek-speaking world in antiquity may be divided into three periods: that of the free City States, which was brought to an end by Philip and Alexander; that of the Macedonian domination, of which the last remnant was extinguished by the Roman annexation of Egypt after the death of Cleopatra; and finally that of the Roman Empire. Of these three periods, the first is characterized by freedom and disorder, the second by subjection and disorder, the third by subjection and order.

The second of these periods is known as the Hellenistic age. In science and mathematics, the work done during this period is the best ever achieved by the Greeks. In philosophy, it includes the foundation of the Epicurean and Stoic schools, and also of scepticism as a definitely formulated doctrine; it is therefore still important philosophically, though less so than the period of Plato and Aristotle.

The brief career of Alexander suddenly transformed the Greek world. In the ten years from 334 to 324 B.C., he conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Samarcand, Bactria, and the Punjab, The Persian Empire, the greatest that the world had known, was destroyed by three battles.

Wherever Alexander penetrated, even in the mountains of Afghanistan, on the banks of the Jaxartes, and on the tributaries of the Indus, he founded Greek cities, in which he tried to reproduce Greek institutions, with a measure of self-government.

Although his army was composed mainly of Macedonians, and although most European Greeks submitted to him unwillingly, he considered himself, at first, as the apostle of Hellenism.

Both the Ptolemies and the Seleucids (as the dynasty of Seleucus was called) abandoned Alexander’s attempts to produce a fusion of Greek and barbarian, and established military tyrannies based, at first, upon their part of the Macedonian army strengthened with Greek mercenaries.

CHAPTER XXVI Cynics and Sceptics THE relation of intellectually eminent men to contemporary society has been very different in different ages. In some fortunate epochs they have been on the whole in harmony with their surroundings—suggesting, no doubt, such reforms as seemed to them necessary, but fairly confident that their suggestions would be welcomed, and not disliking the world in which they found themselves even if it remained unreformed.

The teaching of its founder Zeno, in the early part of the third century B.C., was by no means identical with that of Marcus Aurelius in the latter half of the second century A.D.

Zeno was a materialist, whose doctrines were, in the main, a combination of Cynicism and Heraclitus; but gradually, through an admixture of Platonism, the Stoics abandoned materialism, until, in the end, little trace of it remained. Their ethical doctrine, it is true, changed very little, and was what most of them regarded as of the chief importance.

Stoicism is less Greek than any school of philosophy with which we have been hitherto concerned. The early Stoics were mostly Syrian, the later ones mostly Roman.

Tarn (Hellenistic Civilization, p. 287) suspects Chaldean influences in Stoicism. Ueberweg justly observes that, in Hellenizing the barbarian world, the Greeks dropped what only suited themselves. Stoicism, unlike the earlier purely Greek philosophies, is emotionally narrow, and in a certain sense fanatical; but it also contains religious elements of which the world felt the need, and which the Greeks seemed unable to supply.

Zeno was a Phoenician, born at Citium, in Cyprus, at some time during the latter half of the fourth century B.C.

Much more important historically (though not philosophically) than the earlier Stoics were the three who were connected with Rome: Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius—a minister, a slave, and an emperor, respectively.

Seneca (ca. 3 B.C. to A.D. 65) was a Spaniard, whose father was a cultivated man living in Rome.

Seneca was less fortunate than Aristotle in his pupil, who was the Emperor Nero.

Epictetus (born about A.D. 60, died about A.D. 100) is a very different type of man, though closely akin as a philosopher.

Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121-180) was at the other end of the social scale.

Christianity took over this part of Stoic teaching along with much of the rest.

CHAPTER XXIX The Roman Empire in Relation to Culture THE Roman Empire affected the history of culture in various more or less separate ways. First: there is the direct effect of Rome on Hellenistic thought. This is not very important or profound. Second: the effect of Greece and the East on the western half of the empire. This was profound and lasting, since it included the Christian religion. Third: the importance of the long Roman peace in diffusing culture and in accustoming men to the idea of .a single civilization associated with a single government. Fourth: the transmission of Hellenistic civilization to the Mohammedans, and thence ultimately to western Europe.

Alexander’s conquests had left the western Mediterranean untouched; it was dominated, at the beginning of the third century B.C., by two powerful City States, Carthage and Syracuse.

In the first and second Punic Wars (264-241 and 218-201), Rome conquered Syracuse and reduced Carthage to insignificance.

During the second century, Rome conquered the Macedonian monarchies—Egypt, it is true, lingered on as a vassal state unti...

Roman imperialism was, perhaps, at its best in North Africa (important in Christian history as the home of Saint Cyprian and Saint Augustine), where large areas, uncultivated before and after Roman times, were rendered fertile and supported populous cities.

The Roman Empire was on the whole stable and peaceful for over two hundred years, from the accession of Augustus (30 B.C.) until the disasters of the third century.

Augustus, the heir and adopted son of Julius Caesar, who reigned from 30 B.C. to A.D. 14, put an end to civil strife, and (with few exceptions) to external wars of conquest.

Two things had ruined the Greek political system: first, the claim of each city to absolute sovereignty; second, the bitter and bloody strife between rich and poor within most cities.

The expenses of the war, while in progress, were defrayed by executing rich men and confiscating their property.

To every one else, it was a profound relief when Rome, under Augustus, at last achieved the stability and order which Greeks and Macedonians had sought in vain, and which Rome, before Augustus, had also failed to produce.

But although the world was happy, some savour had gone out of life, since safety had been preferred to adventure.

In early times, every free Greek had had the opportunity of adventure; Philip and Alexander put an end to this state of affairs, and in the Hellenistic world only Macedonian dynasts enjoyed anarchic freedom.

The Greek world lost its youth, and became either cyn...

In Rome, a similar development came later, and in a less painful form. Rome was not conquered, as Greece was, but had, on the contrary, the stimulus of successful imperialism.

The Greeks had not secured peace and order by submitting to the Macedonians, whereas both Greeks and Romans secured both by submitting to Augustus.

The great poets of the Augustan age had been formed in more troubled times; Horace fled at Philippi, and both he and Vergil lost their farms in confiscations for the benefit of victorious soldiers.

A better period began with the accession of Trajan in A.D. 98, and continued until the death of Marcus Aurelius in A.D. 180.

This result was averted by two energetic men, Diocletian (A.D. 286-305) and Constantine, whose undisputed reign lasted from A.D. 312 to 337.

By then the Empire was divided into an eastern and a western half, corresponding, approximately, to the division between the Greek and Latin languages.

Diocletian curbed the army, for a while, by altering its character; from his time onwards, the most effective fighting forces were composed of barbarians, chiefly German, to whom all the highest commands were open. This was obviously a dangerous expedient, and early in the fifth century it bore its natural fruit. The barbarians decided that it was more profitable to fight for themselves than for a Roman master.