Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/498

 476 HISTORY OF GREECE call the consent and concurrence of Sokrates himself. This is one of the most important facts of the case, in reference both to himself and <o the Athenians. We learn from his own statement in the " Platonic Defence," that the verdict of guilty was only pronounced by a majority of five or six, amidst a body so numerous as an Athenian dikastery ; probably five hundred and fifty-seven in total number, 1 if a con- fused statement in Diogenes Laertius can be trusted. Now any one who reads that defence, and considers it in conjunction with the circumstances of the case and the feelings of the dikasts, will see that its tenor is such as must* have turned a much greater number of votes than six against him. And we are informed by the distinct testimony of Xenophon, 2 that Sokrates approached his trial with the feelings of one who hardly wished to be acquit- ted. He took no thought whatever for the preparation of his defence ; and when his friend Hermogenes remonstrated with him on the serious consequences of such an omission, he replied, first, that the just and blameless life, which he was conscious of having passed, was the best of all preparations for defence ; next, that having once begun to meditate on what it would be proper for him to say, the divine sign had interposed to forbid him from proceed- ing. He went on to say, that it was no wonder that the gods should deem it better for him to die now, than to live longer. He had hitherto lived in perfect satisfaction, with a consciousness of progressive moral improvement, and with esteem, marked and 1 Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 25, p. 36, A; Diog. Laert. ii, 41. Diogenes says that he was condemned by two hundred and eighty-one ipfyoic vfaioai TUV uKOMovauv. If he meant to assert that the verdict was found by a major- ity of two hundred and eighty-one above the acquitting votes, this would be contradicted by the " Platonic Apology," which assures us beyond any doubt that the majority was not greater than five or six, so that the turn- ing of three votes would have altered the verdict. But as the number two hundred and eighty-one seems precise, and is not in itself untrustworthy, some commentators construe it, though the words as they now stand arc perplexing, as the aggregate of the majority. Since the " Platonic Apol- ogy" proves that it was a majority of five or six, the minority would conse- quently be two hundred and seventy-six, and the total five hundred and fifty-seven. B Xen. Mem. iv, 8, 4, seq. He horned the fact f.oiu HermogcnSs, who heard it from SokratSs himself.