Complete Works of Xenophon (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (123 page)

Nevertheless, although he was himself free from vice, if he saw and approved of base conduct in them, he would be open to censure. Well, when he found that Critias loved Euthydemus and wanted to lead him astray, he tried to restrain him by saying that it was mean and unbecoming in a gentleman to sue like a beggar to the object of his affection, whose good opinion he coveted, stooping to ask a favour that it was wrong to grant.
[30]
As Critias paid no heed whatever to this protest, Socrates, it is said, exclaimed in the presence of Euthydemus and many others, “Critias seems to have the feelings of a pig: he can no more keep away from Euthydemus than pigs can help rubbing themselves against stones.”
[31]
Now Critias bore a grudge against Socrates for this; and when he was one of the Thirty and was drafting laws with Charicles, he bore it in mind. He inserted a clause which made it illegal “to teach the art of words.” It was a calculated insult to Socrates, whom he saw no means of attacking, except by imputing to him the practice constantly attributed to philosophers, and so making him unpopular. For I myself never heard Socrates indulge in the practice, nor knew of anyone who professed to have heard him do so. The truth came out.
[32]
When the Thirty were putting to death many citizens of the highest respectability and were encouraging many in crime, Socrates had remarked: “It seems strange enough to me that a herdsman who lets his cattle decrease and go to the bad should not admit that he is a poor cowherd; but stranger still that a statesman when he causes the citizens to decrease and go to the bad, should feel no shame nor think himself a poor statesman.”
[33]
This remark was reported to Critias and Charicles, who sent for Socrates, showed him the law and forbade him to hold conversation with the young.

“May I question you,” asked Socrates, “in case I do not understand any point in your orders?”

“You may,” said they.

“Well now,” said he,
[34]
“I am ready to obey the laws. But lest I unwittingly transgress through ignorance, I want clear directions from you. Do you think that the art of words from which you bid me abstain is associated with sound or unsound reasoning? For if with sound, then clearly I must abstain from sound reasoning: but if with unsound, clearly I must try to reason soundly.”
[35]

“Since you are ignorant, Socrates,” said Charicles in an angry tone, “we put our order into language easier to understand. You may not hold any converse whatever with the young.”

“Well then,” said Socrates, “that there may be no question raised about my obedience, please fix the age limit below which a man is to be accounted young.”

“So long,” replied Charicles, “as he is not permitted to sit in the Council, because as yet he lacks wisdom. You shall not converse with anyone who is under thirty.”
[36]

“Suppose I want to buy something, am I not even then to ask the price if the seller is under thirty?”

“Oh yes,” answered Charicles, “you may in such cases. But the fact is, Socrates, you are in the habit of asking questions to which you know the answer: so that is what you are not to do.”

“Am I to give no answer, then, if a young man asks me something that I know? — for instance, ‘Where does Charicles live?’ or ‘Where is Critias?’”

“Oh yes,” answered Charicles, “you may, in such cases.”
[37]

“But you see, Socrates,” explained Critias, “you will have to avoid your favourite topic, — the cobblers, builders and metal workers; for it is already worn to rags by you in my opinion.”

“Then must I keep off the subjects of which these supply illustrations, Justice, Holiness, and so forth?”

“Indeed yes,” said Charicles, “and cowherds too: else you may find the cattle decrease.”
[38]

Thus the truth was out: the remark about the cattle had been repeated to them: and it was this that made them angry with him.

So much, then, for the connexion of Critias with Socrates and their relation to each other.
[39]
I venture to lay it down that learners get nothing from a teacher with whom they are out of sympathy. Now, all the time that Critias and Alcibiades associated with Socrates they were out of sympathy with him, but from the very first their ambition was political advancement. For while they were still with him, they tried to converse, whenever possible, with prominent politicians.
[40]
Indeed, there is a story told of Alcibiades, that, when he was less than twenty years old, he had a talk about laws with Pericles, his guardian, the first citizen in the State.
[41]

“Tell me, Pericles,” he said, “can you teach me what a law is?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

“Then pray teach me. For whenever I hear men praised for keeping the laws, it occurs to me that no one can really deserve that praise who does not know what a law is.”
[42]

“Well, Alcibiades, there is no great difficulty about what you desire. You wish to know what a law is. Laws are all the rules approved and enacted by the majority in assembly, whereby they declare what ought and what ought not to be done.”

“Do they suppose it is right to do good or evil?”

“Good, of course, young man, — not evil.”
[43]

“But if, as happens under an oligarchy, not the majority, but a minority meet and enact rules of conduct, what are these?”

“Whatsoever the sovereign power in the State, after deliberation, enacts and directs to be done is known as a law.”

“If, then, a despot, being the sovereign power, enacts what the citizens are to do, are his orders also a law?”

“Yes, whatever a despot as ruler enacts is also known as a law.”
[44]

“But force, the negation of law, what is that, Pericles? Is it not the action of the stronger when he constrains the weaker to do whatever he chooses, not by persuasion, but by force?”

“That is my opinion.”

“Then whatever a despot by enactment constrains the citizens to do without persuasion, is the negation of law?”

“I think so: and I withdraw my answer that whatever a despot enacts without persuasion is a law.”
[45]

“And when the minority passes enactments, not by persuading the majority, but through using its power, are we to call that force or not?”

“Everything, I think, that men constrain others to do ‘without persuasion,’ whether by enactment or not, is not law, but force.”

“It follows then, that whatever the assembled majority, through using its power over the owners of property, enacts without persuasion is not law, but force?”
[46]

“Alcibiades,” said Pericles, “at your age, I may tell you, we, too, were very clever at this sort of thing. For the puzzles we thought about and exercised our wits on were just such as you seem to think about now.”

“Ah, Pericles,” cried Alcibiades, “if only I had known you intimately when you were at your cleverest in these things!”
[47]

So soon, then, as they presumed themselves to be the superiors of the politicians, they no longer came near Socrates. For apart from their general want of sympathy with him, they resented being cross-examined about their errors when they came. Politics had brought them to Socrates, and for politics they left him.
[48]
But Criton was a true associate of Socrates, as were Chaerophon, Chaerecrates, Hermogenes, Simmias, Cebes, Phaedondas, and others who consorted with him not that they might shine in the courts or the assembly, but that they might become gentlemen, and be able to do their duty by house and household, and relatives and friends, and city and citizens. Of these not one, in his youth or old age, did evil or incurred censure.
[49]

“But,” said his accuser, “Socrates taught sons to treat their fathers with contempt: he persuaded them that he made his companions wiser than their fathers: he said that the law allowed a son to put his father in prison if he convinced a jury that he was insane; and this was a proof that it was lawful for the wiser to keep the more ignorant in gaol.”
[50]
In reality Socrates held that, if you clap fetters on a man for his ignorance, you deserve to be kept in gaol yourself by those whose knowledge is greater than your own: and such reasoning led him frequently to consider the difference between Madness and Ignorance. That madmen should be kept in prison was expedient, he thought, both for themselves and for their friends: but those who are ignorant of what they ought to know deserve to learn from those who know it.
[51]

“But,” said his accuser, “Socrates caused his companions to dishonour not only their fathers, but their other relations as well, by saying that invalids and litigants get benefit not from their relations, but from their doctor or their counsel.
[52]
Of friends too he said that their goodwill was worthless, unless they could combine with it some power to help one: only those deserved honour who knew what was the right thing to do, and could explain it. Thus by leading the young to think that he excelled in wisdom and in ability to make others wise, he had such an effect on his companions that no one counted for anything in their estimation in comparison with him.”
[53]
Now I know that he did use this language about fathers, relations and friends. And, what is more, he would say that so soon as the soul, the only seat of intelligence, is gone out of a man, even though he be our nearest and dearest, we carry out his body and hide it in the tomb.
[54]
Moreover, a man’s dearest friend is himself: yet, even in his lifetime he removes or lets another remove from his body whatever is useless and unprofitable. He removes his own nails, hair, corns: he lets the surgeon cut and cauterize him, and, aches and pains notwithstanding, feels bound to thank and fee him for it. He spits out the saliva from his mouth as far away as he can, because to retain it doesn’t help him, but harms him rather.
[55]

Now in saying all this, he was not giving a lesson on “the duty of burying one’s father alive, or making mincemeat of one’s body”: he meant to show that unreason is unworth, and was urging the necessity of cultivating sound sense and usefulness, in order that he who would fain be valued by father or by brother or by anyone else may not rely on the bond of familiarity and neglect him, but may try to be useful to all those by whom he would be valued.
[56]

Again, his accuser alleged that he selected from the most famous poets the most immoral passages, and used them as evidence in teaching his companions to be tyrants and malefactors: for example, Hesiod’s line:

““No work is a disgrace, but idleness is a disgrace.”
“

Hes. WD 309

He was charged with explaining this line as an injunction to refrain from no work, dishonest or disgraceful, but to do anything for gain.
[57]
Now, though Socrates would fully agree that it is a benefit and a blessing to a man to be a worker, and a disadvantage and an evil to be an idler — that work, in fact, is a blessing, idleness an evil—”working,” “being a worker,” meant to him doing good work; but gambling and any occupation that is immoral and leads to loss he called idling. When thus interpreted there is nothing amiss with the line:

““No work is a disgrace, but idleness is a disgrace.”
“

Hes. WD 309

[58]
Again, his accuser said that he often quoted the passage from Homer, showing how Odysseus:

““Whenever he found one that was a captain and a man of mark, stood by his side, and restrained him with gentle words: ‘Good sir, it is not seemly to affright thee like a coward, but do thou sit thyself and make all thy folk sit down...’ But whatever man of the people he saw and found him shouting, him he drove with his sceptre and chid him with loud words: ‘Good sir, sit still and hearken to the words of others that are thy betters: but thou art no warrior and a weakling, never reckoned whether in battle or in council.’”
“

This passage, it was said, he explained to mean that the poet approved of chastising common and poor folk.
[59]
But Socrates never said that: indeed, on that view he would have thought himself worthy of chastisement. But what he did say was that those who render no service either by word or deed, who cannot help army or city or the people itself in time of need, ought to be stopped, even if they have riches in abundance, above all if they are insolent as well as inefficient.
[60]
But Socrates, at least, was just the opposite of all that: he showed himself to be one of the people and a friend of mankind. For although he had many eager disciples among citizens and strangers, yet he never exacted a fee for his society from one of them, but of his abundance he gave without stint to all. Some indeed, after getting from him a few trifles for nothing, became vendors of them at a great price to others, and showed none of his sympathy with the people, refusing to talk with those who had no money to give them.
[61]
But Socrates did far more to win respect for the State in the world at large than Lichas, whose services to Sparta have made his name immortal. For Lichas used to entertain the strangers staying at Sparta during the Feast of the Dancing Boys; but Socrates spent his life in lavishing his gifts and rendering the greatest services to all who cared to receive them. For he always made his associates better men before he parted with them.

Such was the character of Socrates.
[62]
To me he seemed to deserve honour rather than death at the hands of the State. And a consideration of his case in its legal aspect will confirm my opinion. Under the laws, death is the penalty inflicted on persons proved to be thieves, highwaymen, cutpurses, kidnappers, robbers of temples; and from such criminals no man was so widely separated as he.
[63]
Moreover, to the State he was never the cause of disaster in war, or strife or treason or any evil whatever. Again, in private life no man by him was ever deprived of good or involved in ill.
[64]
None of these crimes was ever so much as imputed to him. How then could he be guilty of the charges? For so far was he from “rejecting the gods,” as charged in the indictment, that no man was more conspicuous for his devotion to the service of the gods: so far from “corrupting the youth,” as his accuser actually charged against him, that if any among his companions had evil desires, he openly tried to reform them and exhorted them to desire the fairest and noblest virtue, by which men prosper in public life and in their homes. By this conduct did he not deserve high honour from the State?