§ 74. Eunapius tells us of an interesting dispute of this kind for the office of Sophist (the highest literary post at Athens) on the death of Julianus, 340 A.D., and its consequent vacation. Six candidates--four of them pupils of Julianus, and two other needy persons--were selected by common consent; the Roman proconsul was president of the electing court, and so violent was the canvassing that he was obliged to interfere and order people out of Athens. The candidates handed in essays and made set speeches. There were _claqueurs_ ready with their prepared applause. Then the proconsul again cited them, and gave them a theme for an extempore speech. Five refused, saying they were not accustomed to pour out, but to think out, their orations. Prohæresius, a pupil of Julianus, alone took up the challenge, and, all applause being interdicted, maintained his reputation splendidly. Nevertheless, he did not then obtain the chair; for his opponents secured influential electors with dinners and presents, and, no doubt, the social talents of a Sophist in this chair were very important. They took shameful ways of succeeding; “but, indeed,” says Eunapius, “you can hardly blame them for working their case as best they could.” This interesting story belongs to later days, when the chairs of philosophy and rhetoric at Athens came under State support and control. In early days, up to the Christian era, the schools were perfectly private, free, and independent of the State. We hear, indeed, of such decrees as that of the Thirty Tyrants forbidding rhetoric and philosophy to be taught. But though any ancient state, even a free democracy, would have thought itself quite justified in such interference for public reasons, there is no definite attempt at such a policy till the days of Theophrastus, when (about 316 B.C.) Sophocles, son of Amphicleides of Sunium, passed a law that no one should open a school of philosophy without the approval of the senate and people. There was a formal exodus of philosophic students, who only returned with Theophrastus, when Sophocles was convicted under the _law against illegal procedure_ (γραφὴ παρανόμων), and his law repealed. This attempt of Sophocles might have been defended from Plato’s “Republic” and “Laws,” where the philosopher distinctly recommends State control of education. But it was, no doubt, the antidemocratic tone of the schools, especially of the Platonic school, which prompted this action, for we hear that Demosthenes’ nephew, Demochares, and other democratic leaders, supported Sophocles, on the special ground that Plato’s school had supplied most of the later tyrants to Greece.