PRODICUS OF

CEOS (b. c. 465 or 450 B.C.)  , a Greek humanist of the first period of the Sophistical movement, known as the " precursor of Socrates." He was still living in 399 B.C . He came to Athens as ambassador from Ceos, and became known as a speaker and a teacher . Like Protagoras, he professed to train his pupils for domestic and civic affairs; but it would appear that, while Protagoras's chief instruments of education were rhetoric and style, Prodicus made ethics prominent in his curriculum . In ethics he was a pessimist . Though he discharged his civic duties in spite of a frail physique, he emphasized the sorrows of life; and yet he advocated no hope-less resignation, but rather the remedy of work, and took as his model Heracles, the embodiment of virile activity . The influence of his views may be recognized as late as the Shepherd" of Hernias . His views on the origin of the belief in the gods is strikingly modern . First came those great powers which benefit mankind (comparing the worship of the Nile), and after these the deified men who have rendered services to humanity . But he was no atheist, for the pantheist Zeno spoke highly of him . Of his natural philosophy we know only the titles of his treatises On Nature and On the Nature of Man . His chief interest is that he sought to give precision to the use of words . Two of his discourses were specially famous; one, " On Propriety of Language," is repeatedly alluded to by Plato; the other, entitled 't pae, contained the celebrated apologue of the Choice of Heracles, of which the Xenophontean Socrates (Mem. ii .

1, 21 seq.) gives a

summary . Theramenes, Euripides and Isocrates are said to have been pupils or hearers of Prodicus . By his immediate successors he was variously estimated: Plato satirizes him in the early dialogues; Aristophanes in the Taynvturai calls him " a babbling brook "; Aeschines the Socratic condemns him as a sophist . See Spengel, Artium scriptores, pp . 45 sqq.; Welcker, " Prodikos der Vorganger des Sokrates," in Rheinisches Museum (1833), and in Kleine Schriften, ii . 393; Hummel, De Prodico Sophista (Leiden, 1846) ; Cougny, De Prodico Ceio (Paris, 1858) . prisoner not having been formally charged when brought before the vice-chancellor); so the writ was granted and the prisoner released . She afterwards brought an action against the proctor, which failed . It was now decided to abolish the practice of hearing these cases in camera . The whole practice was, how-ever, objected to by the authorities of the town, and after conference an agreement was arrived at, the proctorial jurisdiction over persons not members of the university being abolished (1904) .