This incensed the court and "death" was voted by an increased majority,' a result with which Socrates declared himself well content. As a rule at Athens the condemned man "drank the hemlock" within 24 hours, but in the case of Socrates the fact that no execution could take place during the absence of the sacred ship sent yearly to Delos caused an unexpected delay of a month, during which Socrates remained in prison, receiving his friends and conversing with them in his usual manner daily. An escape was planned by his friend Crito, but Socrates refused to hear of it, on the ground that the verdict, though contrary to fact, was that of a legitimate court, and must therefore be obeyed. The story of his last day has been perfectly told in the Phaedo of Plato, who, though not himself an eye-witness, was in close touch with many of those who were present.
Socrates wrote nothing; therefore our information about his personality and doctrine has to be sought chiefly in the dialogues of Plato and the Memorabilia of Xenophon. Both men were nearly 45 years younger than Socrates, and can therefore only speak from first-hand knowledge about the last ten or twelve years of his life. Xenophon's relations with him seem not to have been close, and he has even been suspected of deriving much of his material from Plato's dialogues. His admitted de ficiencies in imagination and capacity for thinking do not make him the more faithful exponent of a philosophical genius.
To call him a "Boswell" does poor justice to the intellect of Boswell. (It must also be remembered that Boswell collected his material largely during Johnson's life, and with his knowledge and help.) We need also to discount Xenophon's apologetic pur pose. His most valuable statements are those which appear most at variance with his main thesis that the prosecutors of Socrates were mistaken from their own point of view. Plato's more vivid picture has been suspected on the ground that Plato used Socrates as a "mouthpiece" for speculations of his own. What this really means is that the so-called "Ideal Theory" expounded in the Phaedo is held to have been originated by Plato after the death of Socrates. There are serious reasons for denying this assump tion though they have not yet convinced all scholars ; in any case it is a petitio principii to employ it, without investigation, as an argument to discredit Plato's testimony. Xenophon's silence at most only proves that Socrates did not converse on such mat ters with him. In some important respects Plato's testimony is
confirmed by the remains of Aeschines of Sphettus. The Clouds of Aristophanes yields valuable information about Socrates in his middle "forties," when allowance is made for its character as a burlesque. It should be compared carefully with the auto biographical statements put into the mouth of Socrates in the Pliiedo (96a-1 ooa). These are not "contemporary evidence," but they are clearly meant to express Plato's bona fide belief about his master's intellectual history.
Personal Characteristics.—Though Socrates was a good fight ing man, his outward appearance was grotesque. Stout and not tall, with prominent eyes, snub nose, broad nostrils and wide mouth, he seemed a very Silenus. But, as his friends knew, he was "all glorious within," "the most righteous man of the whole Kawa in the edictment means literally "novel practices in religion," not "novel deities," (though the second is insinuated).
'What offended the court was not the smallness of this sum-3o minae was not a small sum in the economic circumstances of the time —but Socrates' description of himself as a distinguished public bene factor.
age" (Plato, Ep. vii. 326 e). His self-control and powers of en durance were exemplary; "he had so schooled himself to modera tion that his scanty means satisfied all his wants." But he was no self-tormenting ascetic ; he "knew both how to want and how to abound," and could be the soul of the merri ment at a gay party. He had no sympathy—this was a main point in the Telauges of Aeschines—with the slatternliness of his friend Antisthenes or the godly dirtiness affected by "Pythago rists." There was nothing of the complacent self-righteousness of the Pharisee, nor of the angry bitterness of the satirist, in his attitude towards the follies or even the crimes of his fellow men. It was his deep and life-long conviction that the improvement not only of himself, but of those with whom he might have to do, was a task laid upon him "by God," but the task was not to be executed with a scowling face and an upbraiding voice. Like St. Francis Xavier, he thoroughly understood how important it is to one who would win men's souls to be "good company." Con scious of his own infirmities, he felt a real and profound sym pathy for those who had not learned to master their frailties and passions.