Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/201

 SOCRATES AND ANYTUS 177 was left rebellious and hankering ; when his father be- came an outlaw for freedom's sake, he stayed in the city with Socrates and the tyrants ; he became ultimately a hopeless drunkard. As the old tradesman fought his way back through the bloody streets of the Pirajus, he thought how the same satyr-faced sophist was still in Athens, as happy under the tyrants as under the constitution, always gibing and probing, and discussing ambiguous subjects with his ruined son. It needed little to convince him that here was a centre of pestilence to be uprooted. The death of Socrates is a true tragedy. Both men were noble, both ready to die for their beliefs ; it is only the nobler and greater who has been in the end triumphant.