Illegal heirs of Demodocus: a sophistic logos as a tool for the transformation of the universe

Abstract

Epic songs played an essential didactical role in ancient Greek society, stabilizing it by the maintenance of its moral patterns. To achieve the desired effect on the audience, the aedes used special techniques. The improving aspect of epic poetry is typical for an­cient authors using this genre. On the case of Parmenides’ poem, it is shown that philo­sophical poems follow only partially the principles of the epic genre, corresponding to it in form and, probably, in purpose, but the content has significantly transformed. Even if Parmenides set himself didactical tasks, they were directly related not to the social, but the cognitive sphere. The sophists as teachers of wisdom of the new generation, who pre­served and embodied the didactic claims of bards to preserve and transmit some moral paradigm. They also used ancient techniques: improvisation, mnemonics, stylistic modes. As for didactics, the sophists also taught by patterns, not transferring and preserving an­cient moral ones, but producing them anew, transforming old forms. Illustrations for the construction are given in the surviving speeches of Gorgias based on plot parallels with three songs of Demodocus in the Odyssey – on heroes, love, and insidious decep­tion. It is shown that in the process of the construction, the logos played a role of a tool for changing the world, both for the better and for the worse, and through this process the sophist edits subtly the old moral content, working out the inversion of plot lines. The ha­bitual form justifies and legitimizes the novelty of the content, and the audience, fasci­nated by the word, gradually accepts this novelty. In sum, sophists shape the moral para­digm through epic techniques, correlating ethics with the cognitive sphere, however, un­like Parmenides, the main emphasis is placed not on divine thinking, and apprehension (doxa), but on the descriptive and discursive nature of the world’s cognition.