At this point, it may be well to indicate briefly the conclusions to which we shall come in the next few chapters with regard to the development of philosophy during the first half of the fifth century B.C. We shall find that, while the old Ionic school was still capable of training great men, it was now powerless to keep them. Anaxagoras went his own way; Melissos and Leukippos, though they still retained enough of the old views to bear witness to the source of their inspiration, were too strongly influenced by the Eleatic dialectic to remain content with the theories of Anaximenes. It was left to second-rate minds like Diogenes to champion the orthodox system, while third-rate minds like Hippon of Samos even went back to the cruder theory of Thales. The details of this anticipatory sketch will become clearer as we go on; for the present, it is only necessary to call the reader’s attention to the fact that the old Ionic Philosophy now forms a sort of background to our story, just as Orphic and Pythagorean religious ideas have done in the preceding chapters. [Sidenote: Anaxagoras at Athens.] 123. Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to take up his abode at Athens. We are not to suppose, however, that he was attracted thither by anything in the character of the Athenians. No doubt Athens had now become the political centre of the Hellenic world; but it had not yet produced a single scientific man. On the contrary, the temper of the citizen body was and remained hostile to free inquiry of any kind. Sokrates, Anaxagoras, and Aristotle fell victims in different degrees to the bigotry of the democracy, though, of course, their offence was political rather than religious. They were condemned not as heretics, but as innovators in the _state_ religion. Still, as a recent historian observes, “Athens in its flourishing period was far from being a place for free inquiry to thrive unchecked.”[661] It is this, no doubt, that has been in the minds of those writers who have represented philosophy as something un-Greek. It was in reality thoroughly Greek, though it was thoroughly un-Athenian. Footnote 661: Holm, _Gr. Gesch._ ii. 334. The whole chapter is well worth reading in this connexion. It seems most reasonable to suppose that Perikles himself brought Anaxagoras to Athens, just as he brought everything else he could. Holm has shown with much skill how the aim of that great statesman was, so to say, to Ionise his fellow-citizens, to impart to them something of the flexibility and openness of mind which characterised their kinsmen across the sea. It is possible that it was Aspasia of Miletos who introduced the Ionian philosopher to the Periklean circle, of which he was henceforth a chief ornament. The Athenians in derision gave him the nickname of Nous.[662] Footnote 662: Plut. _Per._ 4 (R. P. 148 c). I follow Zeller, p. 975, n. 1 (Eng. trans. ii. p. 327, n. 4), in regarding the sobriquet as derisive.