ABSTRACT
G. C. Field (in Plato and His Contemporaries, 114 f.) defends Plato and Aristotle against the ‘reproach … that, with the possibility, and, in the case of the latter, the actuality of this’ (i.e. the Macedonian conquest) ‘before their eyes, they … say nothing of these new developments’. But Field’s defence (perhaps directed against Gomperz) is unsuccessful, in spite of his strong comments upon those who make such a reproach. (Field says: ‘this criticism betrays … a singular lack of under standing.’) Of course, it is correct to claim, as Field does, ‘that a hegemony like that exercised by Macedon … was no new thing’; but Macedon was in Plato’s eyes at least half-barbarian and therefore a natural enemy. Field is also right in saying that ‘the destruction of independence by Macedon’ was not a complete one; but did Plato or Aristotle foresee that it was not to become complete? I believe that a defence like Field’s cannot possibly succeed, simply because it would have to prove
too much; namely, that the significance of Macedon’s threat could not have been clear, at the time, to any observer; but this is disproved, of course, by the example of Demosthenes. The question is: why did Plato, who like Isocrates had taken some interest in pan-Hellenic nationalism (cp. notes 48-50 to chapter 8, Rep., 470, and the Eighth Letter, 353e, which Field claims to be ‘certainly genuine’) and who was apprehensive of a ‘Phœnician and Oscan’ threat to Syracuse, why did he ignore Macedon’s threat to Athens? A likely reply to the corresponding question concerning Aristotle is: because he belonged to the pro-Macedonian party. A reply in Plato’s case is suggested by Zeller (op. cit., II, 41) in his defence of Aristotle’s right to support Macedon: ‘So satisfied was Plato of the intolerable character of the existing political position that he advocated sweeping changes.’ (‘Plato’s follower’, Zeller continues, referring to Aristotle, ‘could the less evade the same convictions, since he had a keener insight into men and things …’) In other words, the answer might be that Plato’s hatred of Athenian democracy exceeded so much even his panHellenic nationalism that he was, like Isocrates, looking forward to the Macedonian conquest.
