the political reaction after the expulsion of the thirty tyrants was sufficiently powerful to bring about an attack on him, the conviction of his guilt was not so universal but that it might have been possible for him to escape the punishment of death. For his honour and his cause it was a happy thing that he did not escape. What Socrates in pious faith expressed after his condemnation-that to die would be better for him than to live-has been fully realised in his work. The picture of the dying Socrates must have afforded to his pupils, in the highest degree, what it now after centuries affords to us-a simple testimony to the greatness of the human mind, to the power of philosophy, and to the victory of a spirit pious and pure, reposing on clear conviction. It must have stood before them in all its glory, as the guiding star of their inner life, as it is depicted by Plato's master hand. It must have increased their admiration for their teacher, their zeal to imitate him, their devotion to his teaching. By his death the stamp of higher truth was impressed on his life and words. The sublime repose and happy cheerfulness with which he met death, was the strongest corroboration of all his convictions, the zenith of a long life devoted to knowledge and virtue. Death did not add to the substance of his teaching, but it greatly strengthened its influence. A life had been spent in sowing the seeds of knowledge with a zeal unequalled by any other philosopher either before or after; his death greatly forwarded the harvest, so that they brought forth fruit abundantly in the Socratic Schools. CHAP. X. (4) The result of his death. PART III. THE IMPERFECT FOLLOWERS OF SOCRATES. СНАР. A. School of Socra tes. CHAPTER XI. THE SCHOOL OF SOCRATES: HIS POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. A MIND SO great and active in every way as that of deeper thoughts, which often appeared under so unpretentious an outside, and even of these nearly all took a very narrow view of the subjects which occupied Socrates. Combining older theories with the teaching of their master, which it is true needed to be thus supplemented, they did so in such a manner as almost to lose the distinctive merits of his philosophy. One only with a deeper insight into the spirit of Socrates has succeeded in creating a system which presents in a most brilliant and extended form what Socrates had attempted in another manner and on a more limited scale. In the first of these classes must be placed without doubt by far the greater number of those who are known to us as the pupils of Socrates. The writings Besides the Socratists who will be presently mentioned, are Crito (Xen. Mem. ii. 9; Plato, Crito, Phædo, 59, B., 60, A., 63, D., 115, A.; Euthydemus; Diog. ii. 121, who makes him the author of seventeen books, which, however, belong to him as little as his supposed children Hermogenes, and others), and Clitobulus his son (Xen. Mem. i. 3, 8. ii. 6; Ec. 1-6; Symp. 4, 10; Plato, Apol. 33, D., 38, B.; Phædo, 59, B.; Æsch. in Athenæus v. 220, a.); Chærephon (Mem. 2, 48; ii. 3; Plato, Apol. 20, E.; Charm. 153, B.; Gorgias, Aristophanes, Clouds, Birds, 1296) and his brother Chærecrates (Mem. 1. c.); also Apollodorus (Mem. iii. 11, 17; Plato, Apol. 34, A., 38, B.; Phædo, 59, B., 117, D.; Symp.); Aristodemus (Mem. 1 i. 4; Plato, Symp. 173, B., 174, (Mem. iv. 2; 3; 5; 6; Pl., Tim. 19, C., 20, A, Krit. 108, CHAP. XI. CHAP. too which are attributed to many of these followers of Socrates amongst which, however, there is much that is spurious—were, on an average doubtless little more than summaries of popular moral maxims.1 One of the best illustrations of this mode of understanding and applying the doctrines of Socrates may be found in Xenophon.2 mus, and Lysis); Theætetus (Theætet. Soph. Pol. Procl. in Euclid. 19, m. 20); the younger Socrates (Plat. Theæt. 147, E.; Soph. 218, 8; Polit. 257, C.; Arist. Metaph. vii. 11, 1036, 6, 25; conf. Hermann, Plat. i. 661); Terpsion (Pl. Theæt.; Phædo, 59, C.); Charmides (Xen. Mem. iii. 7; 6, 14; Symp. 4, 29; Hellen. ii. 4, 19; Plato, Charm. Sym. 222, B.; Prot. 315, A.); Glaucon the brother of Plato (Mem. iii. 6; the same individual to whom Diog. ii. 124, attributes nine genuine and thirty-two spurious dialogues, and who is identical with the Glauco of Plato's Republic, and the Parmenides, as we assume following Böckh; conf. Abhandlung d. Berliner Acad. 1873, Hist. Philos. Kl. p. 86); Cleombrotus (Phæd. 59, C.; perhaps the same who is said by Callim. in Cic. Tusc. i. 34, 84, and Sext. Math. i. 48; David, Proleg. in Cat. 9; Schol. in Arist. 13, b, 35; Ammon in Porphyr. Isag. 2, b, to have committed suicide over the Phædo, probably not from misunderstanding the exhortation to a philosophic death, but from shame for his conduct there blamed); Diodorus (Mem. ii. 10); Critias, whom Dionys. Jud. de Thuc. c. 31, p. 941, reckons among the followers of Socrates and Alcibiades in their younger years (Mem. i. 2, 12, Plato); not to mention others who were acquainted with Socrates, but did not join his way of thinking, such as Phædrus the friend of Sophistry (Plato, Phæd., Symp.); Callias (Xen. Symp., Plato, Phot.); the younger Pericles (Mem. iv. 5); Aristarchus (Mem. ii. 7.); Eutherus (Mem. ii. 8); and many others. 1 Crito and Glaucon. 2 Xenophon, the son of the Athenian Gryllus, died according to a statement in Diog. ii. 56, 360-359 B.C. From Hellen. vi. 4, 35, however, it appears that he survived the murder of Alexander of Pheræ 357. If the treatise respecting the public revenues of Athens belongs to the year 355, he must also have outlived that year. On the authority of Ps. Lucian. Macrob. 21, his birth was formerly placed in 450, or on account of his participation in the battle of Delium, p. 66, 2, in 445 B.C. The first of these passages is, however, extremely untrustworthy, as giving information depending on the date of his death which is very It is impossible in reading the works of this СНАР. author not to be struck with the purity and loftiness uncertain. The latter is so much at variance with what Plato, Symp. 220, D. says, that it is a most uncertain foundation on which to build. Neither passage agrees with what Xenophon himself says (Anab. iii. 1, 4 and 25, ovdev προφασίζομαι τὴν ἡλικίαν) 2, 37, where he mentions himself and Timasion as the two youngest amongst the generals. These passages place it beyond dispute, that at the time of the expedition he is describing, 401-400 B.C., he was about 45 years of age and not much older than his friend Proxenus, who fell in it about 30. (So Grote, Plato iii. 563; Cobet, Novæ Lect. 535; Bergk in Ersch. u. Gruber's Encyl. i. 81, 392; Curtius, Griech. Gesch. iii. 772, 31.) The circumstances of his life we only know imperfectly. He speaks himself in the Anabasis iii. 1, 4, Memorabilia and Economicus of his relations to Socrates, as to the origin of which Diog. ii. 48, tells a doubtful story, and in the Anabasis of his activity and experience in the retreat of the 10,000. After his return he entered the Spartan army in Asia Minor, and fought under Agesilaus at Coronea against his own countrymen. Banished for this from Athens, he settled in the Elean Scillus, colonised by Spartans (Xen. Anab. v. 3, 6; Diog. ii. 51; Pausan. v. 6, 4; Plut. Agesil. 18; De Exil. 10, p. 603). According to an ill-accredited story XI. B. Xeno in Pausanias he died here. phon. More credible authorities state that he was banished by the Eleans (probably in 370 B.C., when they joined the Thebans after the battle of Leuctra Diodor. xv. 62), and spent the rest of his life at Corinth (Diog. 53). His banishment appears to have ended, when Athens joined Sparta against Thebes, as the treatise on the revenues indicates, whether before or after the battle of Mantinæa, in which his two sons fought among the Athenian cavalry, and the elder one Gryllus fell (Diog. 54; Plut. Consol. ad Apoll. 33, p. 118), Xenophon's writings are distinguished for purity and grace of language, and the unadorned clearness of the description. They appear to have been preserved entire. The Apology, however, the Agesilaus, and the treatise on the Athenian constitution are certainly spurious and several others of the smaller treatises are either spurious or have large interpolations. Steinhart, Plat. l. 95, 300, wrongly doubts the Symposium. For his life and writings consult Krüger, De Xenoph. Vita, Halle, 1832, also in 2nd vol. of Historisch. philol. Studien, Ranke, De. Xenoph. Vita et Scriptis, Berlin, 1851. Grote, Plato iii. 562; Bergk, l.c.; Bähr in Pauly's Realencyclop. vi. 6, 2791. For other literature on the subject Ibid. and Ueberneg, Gesch. d. Phil. i. 95. |