Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/109

Rh him. He said, proudly, that "what he was conscious of having merited was, to be maintained at the public expense as a benefactor to the State; at the solicitation of his friends, however, he would name as a counter-penalty, instead of death, a fine of thirty minæ (£120), which his friends were ready to pay for him." This proposition, or the manner in which it was made, pealed the doom which he had apparently hardly desired to escape. The jury now, by a separate vote, of which we do not know the numbers, sentenced him to suffer death.

For the glowing details of the last days and conversations of Socrates, given truly to the idea if not to the actual fact, we must refer our readers to the 'Phædo' of Plato. Xenophon shortly summarises the matter, saying that "by universal acknowledgment no man ever endured death with greater glory than Socrates. He was obliged to live thirty days after his sentence, for the Delian festival happened to be going on at the time, and the law allowed no one to suffer capital punishment until the sacred deputation which was sent on these occasions to the Isle of Delos should have returned. During that time Socrates was seen by all his friends, living in no other way than at any preceding period, with the same cheerfulness and tranquillity for which he had always been remarkable. What death could have been more noble or more happy than this?"

In many respects the end of Socrates may indeed be regarded as a euthanasia. There was nothing like the shame of a public execution, or the horror of a