Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/419

 SOKRATES AT DELIUM. 3^7 kept their ranks, their arms, and their firmness of countenance ; insomuch that the pursuing cavalry found it dangerous to meddle with them, and turned to an easier prey in the disarmed fugitives. Alkibiades also served at Delium in the cavalry, and helped to protect Sokrates in the retreat. The latter was thus exposing his life at Delium nearly at the same time when Aristophanes was exposing him to derision in the comedy of the Clouds, as a dreamer alike morally worthless and physically incapable. 1 Severe as the blow was which the Athenians suffered at Delium, their disasters in Thrace about the same time, or towards the close of the same summer and autumn, were yet more calamitous. I have already mentioned the circumstances which led to the preparation of a Lacedaemonian force intended to act against the Athenians in Thrace, under Brasidas, in concert with the Chal- kidians, revolted subjects of Athens, and with Perdikkas of Mac- edon. Having frustrated the Athenian designs against Megara (as described above), 2 Brasidas completed the levy of his division, seventeen hundred hoplites, partly Helots, partly Dorian Pelo- ponnesians, and conducted them, towards the close of the sum- mer, to the Lacedaemonian colony of Herakleia, in the Trachinian territory near the Maliac gulf. To reach Macedonia and Thrace, i*, was necessary for him to pass through Thessaly, which was no easy task ; for the war had now lasted so long that every state in Greece had become mistrustful of the transit of armed foreigners. Moreover, the mass of the Thessalian population were decidedly friendly to Athens, nor had he any sufficient means to force a passage : while, should he wait to apply for formal permission, 1 See Plato (Symposion, c. 36, p. 221 ; Laches, p. 181 ; Charmides, p 153 ; Apolog. Sokratis, p. 28), Strabo, ix, p. 403. Plutarch, Alkibiades, c. 7. We find it mentioned among the stories told about Sokrates in the retreat from Delium, that his life was preserved by the inspiration of his familiar daemon, or genius, which instructed him on one doubtful occasion which of two roads was the safe one to take (Cicero, de Divinat. i, 54; Plutarch, de Genio Sokratis, c. 11, p. 581). The skepticism of Athenaeus (v, p. 215) about the military service of Sokrates is not to be defended, but it may probably be explained by the exaggerations and falsehoods which he had read, ascribing to the philoso- pher superhuman gallantry.
 * See above, page 378.