Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/422

400 Sokratês as one whose special merit it was to have rescued the Athenian mind from such demoralizing influences; a reputation which he neither deserves nor requires. In general, the favorable interpretation of evidence, as exhibited towards Sokratês, has been scarcely less marked than the harshness of presumption against the sophists. Of late, however, some authors have treated his history in an altered spirit, and have manifested a disposition to lower him down to that which they regard as the sophistical level. M. Forchhammer's treatise: "The Athenians and Sokratês, or Lawful Dealing against Revolution," goes even further, and maintains confidently that Sokratês was most justly condemned as an heretic, a traitor, and a corrupter of youth. His book, the conclusions of which I altogether reject, is a sort of retribution to the sophists, as extending to their alleged opponent the same bitter and unfair spirit of construction with that under which they have so long unjustly suffered. But when we impartially consider the evidence, it will appear that Sokratês deserves our admiration and esteem; not, indeed, as an anti-sophist, but as combining with the qualities of a good man, a force of character and an originality of speculation as well as of method, and a power of intellectually working on others, generically different from that of any professional teacher, without parallel either among contemporaries or successors.

The life of Sokratês comprises seventy years, from 469 to 390 His father, Sophroniskus, being a sculptor, the son began by following the same profession, in which he attained sufficient proficiency to have executed various works; especially a draped group of the Charites, or Graces, preserved in the acropolis, and shown as his work down to the time of Pausanias. His mother, Phænaretê, was a midwife, and he had a brother by the mother's side named Patroklês. Respecting his wife Xanthippe, and his three sons, all that has passed into history is the violent temper of the former, and the patience of her husband in enduring it. The position and family of Sokratês, without being absolutely poor, were humble and unimportant but he