Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/499

 TENOR OF DEFENCE. 477 unabated, from his friends. If his life were prolonged, old age would soon overpower him ; he would lose in part his sight, his bearing, or his intelligence; and life with sueh abated efficacy and dignity would be intolerable to him. Whereas, if he were condemned now, he should be condemned unjustly, which would be a great disgrace to his judges, but none to him ; nay, it would even procure for him increase of sympathy and admiration, and a move willing acknowledgment from every one that he had been both a just man and an improving preceptor. 1 These words, spoken before his trial, intimate a state of belief which explains the tenor of the defence, and formed one essential condition of the final result. They prove that Sokrates not only cared little for being acquitted, but even thought that the approach- ing trial was marked out by the gods as the term of his life, and that there were good reasons why he should prefer such a consum- mation as best for himself. Nor is it wonderful that he should entertain that opinion, when we recollect the entire ascendency within him of strong internal conscience and intelligent reflection, built upon an originally fearless temperament, and silencing what Plato 2 calls " the child within us, who trembles before death ;" his great love of colloquial influence, and incapacity of living without it ; his old age, now seventy years, rendering it impossi- ble that such influence could much longer continue, and the op- portunity afforded to him, by now towering above ordinary men under the like circumstances, to read an impressive lesson, as well as to leave behind him a reputation yet more exalted than that which he had hitherto acquired. It was in this frame of mind that Sokrates came to his trial, and undertook his unpre meditated defence, the substance of which we now read in the " Platonic Apology." His calculations, alike high-minded and well-balanced, were completely realized. Had he been acquitted after such a defence, it would have been not only a triumph over his personal enemies, but would have been a sanction on the part of the people and the popular dikastery to his teaching, which. 1 Xen. Mem. iv, 8, 9, 10. rd TOtavra 6oj3ei *at- TOVTOV ov* Tp<4uci?a Trcidetv fir/ ieAifvai rdi' i9ava- rai 1, ua~rp TU
 * Plato, i'hacdon, c. GO, p. 77, E <1A?.' lauf ivt Tif o2 iv i/ftlv Tratf, darn