Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/861

Rh SOCRATES. were, that Socrates was guilty of corrupting the youth, and of despising the tutelary deities of the state, putting in their place another new divinity (Plat. ApoL pp. 23, 24 ; Xen. Mem. i. 1. § I ; Diog. Laert. ii. 40, ib. Menag.). At the same time it had been made a matter of accusation against him, that Critias, the most ruthless of the Tyrants, had come forth from his school (Xen. Mem. i. 2. § ]2 ; comp. Aeschin. adv. Tim. § 173, Bekker). Some expressions of his, in which he had found fault with the democratical mode of electing by lot, had also been brought up against him (Xen. Mem. i. 2. § 9, comp. 58) ; and there can be little doubt that use was made of his friendly relations with Theramenes, one of the most influential of the Thirty, with Plato's uncle Charmides, who fell by the side of Critias in the struggle with the popular party, and with other aristocrats, in order to irritate against him the party which at that time was dominant ; though some friends of Socrates, as Cliaerephon for example (Plat. Apol. pp. 20, 21), were to be found in its ranks. But, greatly as his dislike to unbridled democracy may have nourished the hatred long cherished against him, that political opposition was not, strictly speaking, the ground of the hatred ; and the impeachment sought to represent him as a man who in every point of view was dangerous to the state. In the fullest consciousness of his innocence, Socrates repels the charge raised against him. His constant admonition in reference to the wor- ship of the gods had been, not to deviate from the maxims of the state (Xen. Mem. iv. 3. § 15, comp. i. 1. § 22) ; he had defended faith in oracles and portents (ib. iv. 3. § 12, i. 1. § 6, &c., iv. 7. § 16 ; Plat. Apol. pp. 23, &c., 28, 20, 26, 35, comp. Phaed. pp. 60, 118, Crito, p. 44) ; and with this taith that which he placed in his Daemonium stood in the closest connection. That he intended to introduce new divinities, or was attached to the atheistical me- teorosophia of Anaxagorfts (Plat. Apol. p. 26, comp. 18), his accusers could hardly be in earnest in be- lieving ; any more than that he had tauglit that it was allowable to do anything, even what was dis- graceful, for the sake of gain (Xen. Mem. i. 2. § 56), or that he had exhorted his disciples to despise their parents and relations {Mem. i. 2. § 19, &c.), and to disobey the laws (ib. iv. 4. § 12, 6. § 6), or had sanctioned the maltreatment of the poor by the rich (Xen. Mem. i. 2. § 58, &c.). Did then all these accusations take their rise merely in per- sonal hatred and envy? Socrates himself seems to have assumed that such was the case (Plat. Apol. pp. 23, 28, comp. Meno^ p. 94 ; Plut. Alcib. c. 4 ; Athen. xii. p. 534). Yet the existence of deeper and more general grounds is shown by the wide- spread dislike towards Socrates, which, five years after his death, Xenophon thought it necessary to oppose by his apologetic writings (comp. Plat. Apol. pp. 18, 19, 23). This is also indicated by the antagonism in which we find Aristophanes against the philosopher, an antagonism which, as we have seen, cannot be deduced from personal dislike. Just as the poet was influenced by the conviction that every kind of philosophy, equally with that of the sophists, could tend only to a further relaxation of the ancient morals and the ancient faith, so probably were also a considerable part of the judges of Socrates. They might imagine that it was their duty to endeavour to check, by the condemnation of the philosopher, the too subtle VOL. HI, SOCRATES. 849 ' style of examining into morals and laws, and to restore the old hereditary faith in their unrestricted validity ; especially at a time, when, after the ex- pulsion of the Thirtj% the need may have been felt of returning to the old faith and the old man- ners. But the assertion with regard to a well-known depreciatory opinion of Cato, that that opinion is the most just that was ever uttered (Forchhanmier, die Atliener und Sokrates, die Gesetzlichen und der Revohctiondr, 1838), cannot be maintained without rejecting the best authenticated accounts that we have of Socrates, and entirely misconceiving the circumstances of the time. The demand that the individual, abjuring all private judgment, should let himself be guided simply by the laws and maxims of the state, could no longer be made at the time of the prosecution, when poets, with Aristophanes at their head, — ardently desirous as he was for the old constitution and policy, — ridi- culed, often with unbridled freedom, the gods of the state and old maxims ; and when it never occurred to any orator to uphold the demand that each should unconditionally submit himself to the existing constitution. If it was brought to bear against Socrates, it could only be through a pas- sionate misconception of his views and intentions. In the case of some few this misconception might rest upon the mistake, that, by doing away with free, thoughtful inquiry, the good old times might be brought back again. With most it probably proceeded from democratical hatred of the political maxims of Socrates, and from personal dislike of his troublesome exhortation to moral self-examina- tion. (Comp. P. van Limburg Brower, Apologia co?itra Melitirediinvi Calumniam^Gromngae, 1838 ; Preller, in the Ilaller AUgemeine Literatur Zeilung, 1838, No. 87, &c., ed. Zeller, die Fhilosophie der Griechsn., ii. 73 — 104. Respecting the form of the trial, see Meier and Schoraan, Attisch. Process, p. 182.) While Socrates, in his defence, describes the wisdom which he aimed after as that which, after conscientious self-examination, gets rid of all illu- sion and obscurity, and only obeys the better, God or man, and God more than man, and esteems virtue above everything else (Plat. Apol. p. 28, &c., comp. 35, 36, 38, 39), he repudiates any acquittal that should involve the condition that he was not to inquire and teach any more (ib. p. 29). Con- demned by a majority of only six votes, and called upon to speak in mitigation of the sentence, while he defends himself against the accusation of stiff- necked self-conceit, he expresses the conviction that he deserved to be maintained at the public cost in the Prytaneium, and refuses to acquiesce in the adjudication of imprisonment, or a large fine, or banishment. He will assent to nothing more than a fine of thirty minae, on the security of Plato, Crito, and other friends. Condemned to death by the judges, who were incensed by this speech, by a majority of eighty votes, he departs from them with the protestation, that he would rather die after such a defence than live after one if. which he should have betaken himself to an endeavour to move their pity ; and to those who had voted for him he justifies the openness with which he had exhibited his contempt of death (p. 38, &c.). The sentence of death could not be carried into execu- tion until after the return of the vessel which had been sent to Delos on the periodical Theoric mission. The thirty days which intervened between its re