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27-414: Prodicus was a native of Ioulis on the island of Ceos , the birthplace of Simonides , whom he is described as having imitated. Prodicus came frequently to Athens for the purpose of transacting business on behalf of his native city, and attracted admiration as an orator, although his voice was deep and apt to fall. Plutarch describes him as slender and weak; and Plato also alludes to his weakness, and

54-454: A choice between a pleasant and easy life or a severe but glorious life, and present their respective arguments. Xenophon credits the invention of the parable to Prodicus . He cites a precursor in Hesiod 's Works and Days , which also contrasts the paths of vice and virtue. The motif then appears in a number of works by ancient Greek and Roman writers. Aristophanes used it in a humorous way in

81-488: A close connection between religion and agriculture." Ioulis Ioulis or Ioulida ( Greek : Ιουλίς, Ιουλίδα ; Ancient Greek : Ἰουλίς ), locally called Chora or Hora ( Greek : Χώρα ) like the main towns of most Greek islands, and sometimes known by the island name of Kea or Keos (or earlier Zea ), is the capital of the island of Kea in the Cyclades . It has a population of 1,225 inhabitants according to

108-587: A degree of effeminacy which thus resulted. Philostratus accuses him of luxury and avarice, but no earlier source mentions this. In the Protagoras of Plato, (dramatic date c. 430 BC), Prodicus is mentioned as having previously arrived in Athens . He appears in a play of Eupolis , and in The Clouds (423 BC) and The Birds (414 BC) of Aristophanes . He came frequently to Athens on public business. His pupils included

135-466: A figure of the choice between a contemplative life and an active life. Petrarch had read Cicero 's summary of the story in De Officiis . Like Xenophon, Cicero stresses the hero's solitude as he deliberates with himself. Four decades after Petrarch's adaptation, Coluccio Salutati reintroduced the original moral choice between Virtus and Voluptas , using Cicero's Latin words. Famous examples from

162-529: A very abbreviated form, the leading ideas of the original, of which no fragments remain. Another speech, apparently by Prodicus, is mentioned in the spurious Platonic dialogue Eryxias . Prodicus undertakes to show that the value of external goods depends simply upon the use which is made of them, and that virtue must be learnt. Similar sentiments were expressed in Prodicus's Praise of Agriculture . The spurious dialogue Axiochus attributes to him views respecting

189-643: Is only found in Philostratus. Prodicus was part of the first generation of Sophists . "He was a Sophist in the full sense of a professional freelance educator." As he taught both philosophy and politics , so Plato represents his instructions as chiefly ethical , and gives preference to his distinction of ideas, such as courage, rashness, boldness, over similar attempts of other sophists. He sometimes gave individual show-orations, and though known to Callimachus , they do not appear to have been long preserved. In contrast with Gorgias and others, who boasted of possessing

216-620: Is related to the controversy stories in the Gospel of Matthew . In the Renaissance the story of Hercules at the crossroads became popular again, and it remained so in Baroque and Neoclassical culture. It became a part of the broader motif of psychomachia : the battle of spirits or soul war . Petrarch used it in De vita solitaria (1346) and established it in the mainstream of Renaissance humanism as

243-473: The 2021 Greek census . The Ioulida of today, while popular with both tourists and middle-class Athenians, is relatively unspoiled in that cars must be left at the entrance of the town, and "life is pretty much the way it has always been." As in Korissia, "the architectural style is not like the typical Cycladic. The heart of Chora is the square with the grand city hall." The ancient city (also called Iulis )

270-606: The early modern period it became a popular motif in Western art . The parable stems from the Classical era of ancient Greece and is reported by Xenophon in Memorabilia 2.1.21–34. In Xenophon's text, Socrates tells how the young Heracles, as the hero contemplates his future, is visited by two allegorical figures, female personifications of Vice and Virtue ( Ancient Greek : Κακία and Ἀρετή; Kakía and Areté ). They offer him

297-476: The poleis of Koressos and Poieessa were absorbed by their neighbours Ioulis and Karthaia, and in the Late Roman period Karthaia ceased to exist, leaving Ioulis (Chora) as the single polis of the island." In the thirteenth century it seems to have been still the only town on the island. Its ruins were visited by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in 1700 and identified by P. O. Brønsted in 1826. Hercules at

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324-507: The art of making the small appear great, the great small, and of expatiating in long or short speeches, Prodicus required that the speech should be neither long nor short, but of the proper measure, and it is only as associated with other sophists that he is charged with endeavouring to make the weaker cause appear strong by means of his rhetoric (thereby inspiring, e.g. , Milton's description of Belial). Several of Plato 's dialogues focus upon Prodicus' linguistic theory, and his insistence upon

351-407: The book of "the wise Prodicus" the story of the choice of Hercules . Like Protagoras and others, Prodicus delivered lectures in return for payment of from half a drachma to 50 drachmae, probably according to whether the hearers limited themselves to a single lecture or a more complete course. Prodicus is said to have amassed a great amount of money. The assertion that he hunted after rich young men

378-410: The comedy The Birds , where Heracles has to choose between kingship and a tasty meal, and almost chooses the meal. In book 15 of the epic poem Punica by Silius Italicus , the military commander Scipio Africanus appears in a situation modeled on the choice of Heracles. The literary device of a contest in dialogue appears within many different genres throughout the literature of ancient Greece. It

405-522: The correct use of names. He paid special attention to the correct use of words, and the distinction of expressions related in sense. Thucydides is said to have gained from him his accuracy in the use of words. In the Cratylus , Socrates jokes that if he could have afforded the fifty drachma lectures he would now be an expert on "the correctness of names." In several of the Platonic dialogues Socrates appears as

432-547: The crossroads Hercules at the crossroads , also known as the Choice of Hercules and the Judgement of Hercules , is an ancient Greek parable attributed to Prodicus and known from Xenophon . It concerns the young Heracles (also known to the Romans as Hercules ) who is offered a choice between Vice ( Kakia ) and Virtue ( Arete )—a life of pleasure or one of hardship and honour. In

459-404: The friend and companion of Prodicus, which reveals at least that the two did have close personal relations, and that Socrates did attend at least a few of his lectures. "For Socrates, correct language was the prerequisite for correct living (including an efficient government). But Prodicus, though his linguistic teaching undoubtedly included semantic distinctions between ethical terms, had stopped at

486-410: The morals of the citizens and their mode of life. One of them quoted by Menander was particularly celebrated: ὀ μὴ δυνάμενος ζῆν καλῶς οὑ ζῇ κακῶς ["whoever cannot live well should (at least) not live badly"]. Under Roman rule it enjoyed political supremacy as well has been the main population center of the island. A process of nucleation reduced the number of population centers: "By the 2nd century BC

513-450: The orators Theramenes and Isocrates , and in the year of the death of Socrates (399 BC), Prodicus was still living. According to the statement of Philostratus, on which little reliance can be placed, he delivered his lecture on virtue and vice in Thebes and Sparta also. The Apology of Plato unites him with Gorgias and Hippias as among those who were considered competent to instruct

540-412: The other of a voluptuous form, and meretricious look and dress. The latter promises to lead him by the shortest road, without any toil, to the enjoyment of every pleasure. The other, while she reminds him of his progenitors and his noble nature, does not conceal from him that the gods have not granted what is really beautiful and good apart from trouble and careful striving. While one seeks to deter him from

567-515: The path of virtue by urging the difficulty of it; the other calls attention to the unnatural character of enjoyment which anticipates the need of it, its want of the highest joy, that arising from noble deeds, and the consequences of a life of voluptuousness, and how she herself, honoured by gods and men, leads to all noble works, and to true well-being in all circumstances of life. Hercules decides for virtue. This outline in Xenophon probably represents, in

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594-424: The sun, moon, rivers, fountains, and whatever else contributes to the comfort of our life, and he was sometimes charged with atheism . "His theory was that primitive man was so impressed with the gifts nature provided him for the furtherance of his life that he believed them to be the discovery of gods or themselves to embody the godhead. This theory was not only remarkable for its naturalism but for its discernment of

621-404: The threshold. The complete art of logoi embraced nothing less than the whole of philosophy." The speech on the choice of Hercules was entitled Horai ( Ancient Greek : Ὧραι ). Hercules, as he was entering manhood, had to choose one of the two paths of life, that of virtue and that of vice . There appeared two women, the one of dignified beauty, adorned with purity, modesty, and discretion,

648-431: The worthlessness of earthly life in different ages and callings, and how we must long after freedom from connection with the body in the heavenly and cognate aether . Also found here is a doctrine that death is not to be feared, as it affects neither the living nor the departed. Prodicus, like some of his fellow Sophists, interpreted religion through the framework of naturalism . The gods he regarded as personifications of

675-455: The youth in any city. Lucian mentions him among those who held lectures at Olympia . In the dialogues of Plato he is mentioned or introduced with a certain degree of esteem, compared with the other sophists. Aristophanes , in The Clouds , deals more indulgently with him than with Socrates; and Xenophon 's Socrates, for the purpose of combating the voluptuousness of Aristippus , borrows from

702-513: Was celebrated as the birthplace of Simonides , Bacchylides , Prodicus , Erasistratus , and Aristo ; it was said to have been built by "Eupylos the son of Chryso the demi-goddess." It led a revolt against Athens in 364/3 BC; an Athenian decree has been preserved imposing a fine and punishing rebels, of which "ll. 27-42 contain 'the most formidably complex sentence so far to be found in classical Athenian decrees' ( KJ Dover , TPS 1981, 1-14 at 8-11)." A nineteenth-century description says: Iulis

729-481: Was situated on a hill about 25 stadia from the sea, in the northern part of the island, on the same site as the modern Zea, which is now the only town in the island. There are several remains of Iulis: the most important is a colossal lion, about 20 feet in length, which lies a quarter of an hour east of the town.... The laws of Iulis were very celebrated in antiquity; and hence "Cean Laws" were used proverbially to indicate any excellent institutions... These laws related to

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