Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/113

Rh self to discoursing on human affairs, considering what was just, what unjust; what was sanity, what insanity; what was courage, what cowardice; what was a state; wherein consisted the character of the true statesman; how men were to be governed; and the like.

With regard to prayer, he made a point of not asking for definite things, not knowing whether they would be good for him. But he prayed the gods to give him what it would be best for him to have, which they alone could know. Owing to his poverty, his sacrifices were small; but he believed that, if offered in a pious spirit, they would be equally accepted by the gods. And he used to say that it was a good maxim, with regard to friends, and guests, and all the relations of life, "perform according to your ability."

When Athens was under the Thirty Tyrants, Critias, an old pupil of Socrates, was one of them. By cruel proscriptions they had put many of the citizens to death, on which Socrates compared them to "herdsmen who, being intrusted with cattle, reduced instead of augmenting the number of their herd." The remark was repeated to Critias, who, being stung by it, and also bearing a grudge against his former master for certain rebukes that he remembered, passed a law that "no one should teach the art of disputation," and sending for Socrates, he required his attention to it. Socrates, on hearing him, put on his usual humble demeanour, and asked to be informed the exact purport of the prohibition—"Was the art of reasoning considered to be an auxiliary to right or to wrong?" On this one of the Tyrants got angry, and said, "In order