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Themistocles.
Themistocles, who raised Athens from a subordinate position to her proud rank as leader of the Grecian States, was born about the yearB.C., 514. He was the son of Nicocles, an Athenian of moderate fortune, who, however, was connected with the priestly house of the Lycomedæ; his mother, Abrotonon, or, according to others Euterpe, was not an Athenian citizen; and according to most authorities, not even a Greek, but either a native of Caria or of Thrace. The education which he received was like that of all Athenians of rank at the time, but Themistocles had no taste for the elegant arts which then began to form a prominent part in the education of Athenian youths; he applied himself with much more zeal to the pursuit of practical and useful knowledge. This, as well as the numerous anecdotes about his youthful wilfulness and waywardness, together with the sleepless nights which he is said to have passed in meditating on the trophies of Miltiades, are more or less clear symptoms of the character which he subsequently displayed as a general and a statesman. His mind was early bent upon great things, and was incapable of being diverted from them by reverses, scruples, or difficulties. The great object of his life appears to have been to make Athens great. The powers with which nature had endowed him were quickness of perception, an accurate judgment of the course which was to be taken on sudden and extraordinary emergencies, and sagacity in calculating the consequences of his own actions; and these were the qualities which Athens during her wars with Persia stood most in need of. His ambition was unbounded, but he was at the same time persuaded that it could not reach its end unless Athens was the first among the Grecian States; and as he was not very scrupulous about the means that he employed for these ends, he came into frequent conflict with Aristides the Just, who had nothing at heart but the welfare of his country and no desire for personal aggrandizement.
In the year 483B.C., when Aristides was sent into exile by ostracism, Themistocles, who had for several years taken an active part in public affairs, and was one of the chief authors of the banishment of his rival, remained in the almost undivided possession of the popular favor, and the year after,B.C.482, he was elected archon eponymus of Athens. The city was at that time involved in a war with Ægina, which then possessed the strongest navy in Greece, and with which Athens was unable to cope. It was in this year that Themistocles conceivedand partly carried into effect the plans by which he intended to raise the power of Athens. His first object was to increase the navy of Athens; and this he did ostensibly to enable Athens to contend with Ægina, but his real intention was to put his country in a position to meet the danger of a second Persian invasion, with which Greece was threatened. The manner in which he raised the naval power was this. Hitherto the people of Athens had been accustomed to divide among themselves the yearly revenues of the silver-mines of Laurion. In the year of his archonship these revenues were unusually large, and he persuaded his countrymen to forego their personal advantage, and to apply these revenues to the enlargement of their fleet. His advice was followed, and the fleet was raised to the number of two hundred sail. It was probably at the same time that he induced the Athenians to pass a decree that for the purpose of keeping up their navy, twenty new ships should be built every year. Athens soon after made peace with Ægina, as Xerxes was at Sardis making preparations for invading Greece with all the forces he could muster. At the same time Themistocles was actively engaged in allaying the disputes and hostile feelings which existed among the several states of Greece. He acted, however, with great severity toward those who espoused the cause of the Persians, and a Greek interpreter, who accompanied the envoys of Xerxes that came to Athens to demand earth and water as a sign of submission, was put to death for having made use of the Greek tongue in the service of the common enemy.
After affairs among the Greeks were tolerably settled, a detachment of the allied troops of the Greeks was sent out to take possession of Tempe, under the command of Themistocles, of Athens, and Euænetus, of Sparta; but on finding that there they would be overwhelmed by the host of the barbarians, they returned to the Corinthian isthmus. When Xerxes arrived in Pieria, the Greek fleet took its post near Artemisium on the north coast of Eubœa, under the command of the Spartan admiral Eurybiades, under whom Themistocles condescended to serve in order not to cause new dissensions among the Greeks, although Athens alone furnished one hundred and twenty-seven ships, and supplied the Chalcidians with twenty others; while the Spartan contingent was incomparably smaller. When the Persian fleet, notwithstanding the severe losses which it had sustained by a storm, determined to sail round the eastern and southern coasts of Eubœa, and then up the Euripus, in order to cut off the Greek fleet at Artemisium, the Greeks were so surprised and alarmed that Themistocles had great difficulty in inducing them to remain and maintain their station. The Eubœans, who perceived the advantages of the plan of Themistocles, rewarded him with the sum of fifty talents, part of which he gave to the Spartan Eurybiades and the Corinthian Adimantus to induce them to remain at Artemisium. In the battle which then took place, the Greeks gained considerable advantage, though the victory was not decisive. A storm and a second engagement near Artemisium, severely injured the fleet of the Persians, but the Greeks also sustained great losses, as half of their ships were partly destroyed and partly rendered unfit for further service. When at the same time theyreceived intelligence of the defeat of Leonidas, at Thermopylæ, the Greeks resolved to retreat from Artemisium, and sailed to the Saronic gulf.
Xerxes was now advancing from Thermopylæ, and Athens trembled for her existence, while the Peloponnesians were bent upon seeking shelter and safety in their peninsula, and upon fortifying themselves by a wall across the Corinthian isthmus. On the approach of the danger the Athenians had sent to Delphi to consult the oracle about the means they should employ for their safety, and the god had commanded Athens to defend herself behind wooden walls. This oracle, which probably had been given at the suggestion of Themistocles, was now also interpreted by him as referring to the fleet, and his advice to seek safety in the fleet was followed. He then further moved that the Athenians should abandon the city to the care of its tutelary deity, that the women, children, and infirm should be removed to Salamis, Ægina, or Trœzen, and that the men should embark in the ships. The fleet of the Greeks, consisting of three hundred and eighty ships, assembled at Salamis, still under the supreme command of Eurybiades. When the Persians had made themselves masters of Attica, and Athens was seen in flames at a distance, some of the commanders of the fleet, under the influence of fear, began to make preparation for an immediate retreat. Themistocles saw the disastrous results of such a course, and exerted all his powers of persuasion to induce the commanders of the fleet to maintain their post; when all attempts proved ineffectual, Themistocles had recourse to threats, and thus induced Eurybiades to stay. The example of the admiral was followed by the other commanders also. In the meantime the Persian fleet arrived in the Saronic gulf, and the fears of the Peloponnesians were revived and doubled, and nothing seemed to be able to keep them together. At this last and critical moment Themistocles devised a plan to compel them to remain and face the enemy. He sent a message to the Persian admiral, informing him that the Greeks were on the point of dispersing, and that if the Persians would attack them while they were assembled, they would easily conquer them all at once, whereas it would be otherwise necessary to defeat them one after another.
This apparently well-meant advice was eagerly taken up by the enemy, who now hastened, as he thought, to destroy the fleet of the Greeks. But the event proved the wisdom of Themistocles. The unwieldy armament of the Persians was unable to perform any movements in the narrow straits between the island of Salamis and the mainland. The Greeks gained a most complete and brilliant victory, for they only lost forty ships, while the enemy lost two hundred, or according to Ctesias, even five hundred. Very soon after the victory was decided, Xerxes with the remains of the fleet left the Attic coast and sailed toward the Hellespont. The battles of Artemisium and Salamis occurred in the same year,B.C.480.
When the Greeks were informed of the departure of Xerxes, they pursued him as far as Andros, without gaining sight of his fleet, and Themistocles proposed to continue the chase. But he gave way to the opposition that was madeto this plan, and consented not to drive the vanquished enemy to despair. The Greek fleet therefore only stayed some time among the Cyclades, to chastise those islanders who had been unfaithful to the national cause. Themistocles, in the meantime, in order to get completely rid of the king and his fleet, sent a message to him, exhorting him to hasten back to Asia as speedily as possible, for otherwise he would be in danger of having his retreat cut off. Themistocles availed himself of the stay of the Greek fleet among the Cyclades for the purpose of enriching himself at the cost of the islanders, partly by extorting money from them by way of punishment, and partly by accepting bribes for securing them impunity for their conduct. He was now, however, the greatest man in Greece, his fame spread everywhere, and all acknowledged that the country had been saved through his wisdom and resolution. But the confederate Greeks, actuated by jealousy, awarded to him only the second prize; at Sparta, whither he went, as Herodotus says, to be honored, he received a chaplet of olive-leaves—a reward which they had bestowed upon their own admiral Eurybiades—and the best chariot that the city possessed, and on his return three hundred knights escorted him as far as Tegea in Arcadia.
When the Persian army had been again defeated at Platæa and Mycale inB.C.479, and when the Athenians had rebuilt their private dwellings, it was also resolved, on the advice of Themistocles, to restore the fortifications of Athens, but on a larger scale than they had been before, and more in accordance with the proud position which the city now occupied in Greece. This plan excited the fear and jealousy of the rival states, and especially of Sparta, which sent an embassy to Athens, and under the veil of friendship, which ill concealed its selfish policy, endeavored to persuade the Athenians not to fortify the city. Themistocles, who saw through their designs, undertook the task of defeating them with their own weapons. He advised his countrymen to dismiss the Spartan ambassadors, and to promise that Athenian envoys should be sent to Sparta to treat with them there respecting the fortifications. He himself offered to go as one of the envoys, but he directed the Athenians not to let his colleagues follow him until the walls, on which all hands should be employed during his absence, should be raised to such a height as to afford sufficient protection against any attack that might be made upon them. His advice was followed, and Themistocles, after his arrival at Sparta, took no steps toward opening the negotiations, but pretended that he was obliged to wait for the arrival of his colleagues. When he was informed that the walls had reached a sufficient height, and when he could drop the mask with safety, he gave the Spartans a well-deserved rebuke, returned home, and the walls were completed without any hindrance. He then proceeded to carry into effect the chief thing which remained to be done to make Athens the first maritime power of Greece. He induced the Athenians to fortify the three ports of Phalerum, Munychia, and Piræus by a double range of walls.
The victors of Salamis.
The victors of Salamis.
When Athens was thus raised to the station on which it had been the ambition of Themistocles to place it, his star began to sink, though he still continued for some time to enjoy the fruits of his memorable deeds. He was consciousof the services he had done his country, and never scrupled to show that he knew his own value. His extortion and avarice, which made him ready to do anything, and by which he accumulated extraordinary wealth, could not fail to raise enemies against him. But what perhaps contributed more to his downfall was his constant watchfulness in maintaining and promoting the interests of Athens against the encroachments of Sparta, which in its turn was ever looking out for an opportunity to crush him. The great men who had grown up by his side at Athens, such as Cimon, and who were no less indebted to him for their greatness in the eyes of Greece than to their own talents, were his natural rivals, and succeeded in gradually supplanting him in the favor of the people. They also endeavored to represent him as a man of too much power, and as dangerous to the public. The consequence of all this was that inB.C.472, he was banished from Athens by the ostracism. He took up his residence at Argos, where he was still residing when, in the same year,B.C.472, Pausanias was put to death at Sparta for his ambitious and treacherous designs, and his fate involved that of Themistocles. The Spartans, in their search to discover more traces of the plot of Pausanias, found a letter of Themistocles from which it was evident that he had been acquainted with his plans. This was sufficient for the Spartans to ground upon it the charge that Themistocles had been an accomplice in his crime, and ambassadors were forthwith sent to Athens to demand that he should suffer the same punishment as Pausanias.
This charge was no less welcome to his enemies at Athens than the discovery of his letter had been to the Spartans. Orders were consequently issued to arrest and convey him to Athens; and foreseeing that his destruction would be unavoidable if he should fall into the hands of his enemies, he fled to Corcyra, and thence to the opposite coast of Epirus, where he took refuge at the court of Admetus, king of the Molossians. On his arrival the king was absent, but his Queen Phthia received him kindly, and pointed out to him in what manner he might win the sympathy of Admetus. When the king returned home, Themistocles, seated on the hearth and holding the child of Admetus in his arms, implored the king not to deliver him up to his persecutors, who traced him to the court of the Molossians. It is stated that Themistocles was here joined by his wife and children. The king not only granted his request, but provided him with the means of reaching the coast of the Ægean, whence he intended to proceed to Asia and seek refuge at the court of the king of Persia. From Pydna he sailed in a merchant ship to the coast of Asia Minor. At Ephesus he received such part of his property as his friends had been able to wrest from the hands of his enemies at Athens, together with that which he had left at Argos.
A few months after his arrival in Asia, Xerxes was assassinated (B.C.465), and was after a short interval succeeded by Artaxerxes. Various adventures are told of Themistocles before he reached the residence of the Persian king. On his arrival he sent him a letter, in which he acknowledged the evils he had inflicted upon his predecessor; but at the same time claimed the merit of having saved him from destruction by his timely advice. He added that his present exile wasonly the consequence of his great zeal for the interests of the king of Persia. He did not ask for an immediate interview with the king, as he was yet unacquainted with the language and the manners of the Persians, to acquire which he requested a year's time. During this period he applied himself so zealously and with such success to these studies that at the close of the year, when he was presented to the king, he is said to have excited the jealousy of the courtiers, and was most kindly received by the king, to whom he held out prospects of conquering Greece by his assistance. The king became so attached to him, that Themistocles was always in his company.
But death overtook him at the age of sixty-five, before any of his plans were carried into effect. Most of the ancient writers state that he put an end to his life by poison, or according to another strange story, by drinking the blood of a bull, because he despaired of being able to fulfil his promises to the king. The motive for his suicide is very questionable. Reflection on his past life and upon the glory of his former rivals at Athens, are much more likely to have rendered him dissatisfied with life. Before he took the poison he is said to have requested his friends to convey his remains secretly to Attica, and in later times a tomb which was believed to contain them existed in Piræus. In the market-place of Magnesia a splendid monument was erected to his memory, and his descendants in that place continued to be distinguished by certain privileges down to the time of Plutarch.[Back to Contents]
Pericles.
Pericles, the greatest statesman of ancient Greece, was born of distinguished parentage in the early part of the fifth centuryB.C.His father was that Xanthippus who won the victory over the Persians at Mycale, 479B.C.; and by his mother, Agariste, the niece of the great Athenian reformer, Cleisthenes, he was connected with the princely line of Sicyon and the great house of the Alcmæonidæ. He received an elaborate education, but of all his teachers the one whom he most reverenced was the serene and humane philosopher, Anaxagoras. Pericles was conspicuous all through his career for the singular dignity of his manners, the Olympian grandeur of his eloquence, his "majestic intelligence" in Plato's phrase, his sagacity, probity, and profound Athenian patriotism. Both in voice and in appearance he was so like Pisistratus, who had once overturned the Athenian republic and ruled as a king, that for some time he was afraid to come forward in political life. When he entered on public life Aristides had only recently died, Themistocles was an exile, and Cimon was fighting the battles of his country abroad. Although the family to which he belonged was good, it did not rank among thefirst in either wealth or influence, yet so transcendent were the abilities of Pericles that he rapidly rose to the highest power in the state as the leader of the dominant democracy. The sincerity of his attachment to the popular party has been questioned, but without a shadow of evidence. At any rate, the measures which, either personally or through his adherents, he brought forward and caused to be passed, were always in favor of extending the privileges of the poorer class of the citizens, and, if he diminished the spirit of reverence for the ancient institutions of public life, he enlisted an immense body of citizens on the side of law. He extended enormously, if he did not originate, the practice of distributing gratuities among the citizens for military service, for acting as dicast and in the Ecclesia and the like, as well as for admission to the theatre—then really a great school for manners and instruction. Pericles seems to have grasped very clearly, and to have held as firmly, the modern radical idea, that as the state is supported by the taxation of the body of the citizens, it must govern with a view to general interests rather than to those of a caste alone. About 463, Pericles, through the agency of his follower, Ephialtes, struck a great blow at the influence of the oligarchy, by causing the decree to be passed which deprived the Areopagus of its most important political powers. Shortly after the democracy obtained another triumph in the ostracism of Cimon (461). During the next few years the political course pursued by Pericles is less clearly intelligible to us, but it is safe to say that in general his attitude was hostile to the desire for foreign conquest or territorial aggrandizement, so prevalent among his ambitious fellow-citizens. Shortly after the battle of Tanagra (457), in which he showed conspicuous courage, Pericles magnanimously carried the measure for the recall of Cimon. His successful expeditions to the Thracian Chersonese, and to Sinope on the Black Sea, together with his colonies planted at Naxos, Andros, Oreus in Eubœa, Brea in Macedonia, and Ægina, as well as Thurii in Italy, and Amphipolis on the Strymon, did much to extend and confirm the naval supremacy of Athens, and afford a means of subsistence for her poorer citizens. But his greatest project was to form, in concert with the other Hellenic states, a grand Hellenic confederation in order to put an end to the mutually destructive wars of kindred peoples, and to make Greece one mighty nation, fit to front the outlying world. The idea was not less sagacious than it was grand. Had it been accomplished,the semi-barbarous Macedonians would have menaced the civilized Greeks in vain, and even Rome at a later period, might perhaps have found the Adriatic, and not the Euphrates, the limit of her empire. But the Spartan aristocrats were utterly incapable of appreciating such exalted patriotism, or of understanding the political necessity for it, and by their secret intrigues the well-planned scheme was brought to nothing. Athens and Sparta were already in that mood toward each other which rendered the disaster of the Peloponnesian war inevitable. When the Spartans, in 448, restored to the Delphians the guardianship of the temple and treasures of Delphi, of which they had been deprived by the Phocians, the Athenians immediately after marched an army thither and reinstated the latter. Three years later an insurrection broke out in the tributary Megara and Eubœa, and the Spartans again appeared in the field as the allies of the insurgents. The position of Athens was critical. Pericles wisely declined to fight against all his enemies at once. A bribe of ten talents sent the Spartans home, and the insurgents were then thoroughly subdued. The thirty years' peace with Sparta (445) left him free to carry out his schemes for the internal prosperity of Athens.
Cimon was now dead and was succeeded in the leadership of the aristocratic party by Thucydides, son of Melesias, who in 444B.C.made a strong effort to overthrow the supremacy of Pericles by attacking him in the popular assembly for squandering the public money on buildings and in festivals and amusements. Thucydides made an effective speech; but Pericles immediately rose and offered to execute the buildings at his own expense, if the citizens would allow him to put his own name upon them instead of theirs. The sarcasm was successful. Thucydides was ostracized, and to the end of his life, Pericles reigned the undisputed master of the public policy of Athens. During the rest of his career "there was," says the historian Thucydides, "in name a democracy, but in reality a government in the hands of the first man." And the Athens of his day was the home of Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Anaxagoras, Zeno, Protagoras, Socrates, as well as Myron and Phidias; while there flourished at the same time, but elsewhere in Greece, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Pindar, Empedocles, and Democritus. The centre of this splendid group was Pericles, of whom the truthful pen of Thucydides records that he never did anything unworthy of his high position, that he did not flatter the people or oppress his adversaries, and that with all his unlimited command of the public purse, he was personally incorruptible.
Soon after this the Samian war broke out, in which Pericles gained high renown as a naval commander. This war originated in a quarrel between Miletus and the island of Samos, in which Athens was led to take part with the former. The Samians, after an obstinate struggle, were beaten, and a peace was concluded (439). The position in which Athens then stood toward many of the Greek states was peculiar. Since the time of the Persian invasion, she had been the leader of the confederacy formed to resist the attacks of the powerful enemy, and the guardian of the confederate treasury kept in the isle of Delos. Pericles caused the treasury to be removed to Athens, and commuting the contingents ofthe allies for money, enormously increased the contributions to the patriotic fund, Athens herself undertaking to protect the confederacy. The grand charge against Pericles is that he applied the money thus obtained to other purposes than those for which it was designed; that, in short, he adorned and enriched Athens with the spoils of the allied states. To his mind Hellas was subordinate to Athens, and he confounded the splendor of the dominant city with the splendor of Greece, in a manner possible to a man of poetic imagination, hardly to a man of the highest honor. His enemies, who dared not attack himself, struck at him in the persons of his friends. Phidias was flung into prison for the impiety of introducing portraits of himself and Pericles into the battle of the Amazons depicted on the shield of the goddess Athena in the Parthenon; the brilliant Aspasia, the famous mistress of Pericles, was arraigned on a charge of impiety, and only acquitted through the eloquence of Pericles on her behalf; while the aged Anaxagoras was driven from the city.
It is unnecessary to give a detailed account of all that Pericles did to make his native city the most glorious in the ancient world. Greek architecture and sculpture under his patronage reached perfection. To him Athens owed the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, left unfinished at his death, the Propylæa, the Odeum, and numberless other public and sacred edifices; he also liberally encouraged music and the drama; and during his life, industry and commerce were in so flourishing a condition that prosperity was universal in Attica.
At length, in 431, the long foreseen and inevitable Peloponnesian war broke out between Athens and Sparta. The plan of Pericles was for Athens to adopt a defensive attitude, to defend the city itself, leaving Attica to be ravaged by the enemy, but to cripple the power of Sparta by harassing its coasts. The story of the war must be told elsewhere; here it is enough to say that the result was unfavorable to Athens for reasons for which Pericles was only in small part to blame. He trusted in the ultimate success of Athens, both from her superior wealth and from her possessing the command of the sea, but he had not calculated upon the deterioration in her citizens' spirit, nor upon the robust courage of the Bœotian and Spartan infantry. Nor was his advice to keep behind the city walls rather than face the enemy in the field, best calculated to arouse the Athenians' courage. The plague ravaged the city in 430, and in the autumn of the following year, Pericles died after a lingering fever. His two sons had been carried off by the plague, he had been harassed by a charge of peculation brought by Cleon, and the actual infliction of a fine by the dicastery, while he had been without office from July, 430, to July, 429, but before the last he recovered his hold over the Ecclesia, and was gratified in the closing days of his life by its legitimation of his and Aspasia's son.
As a statesman his greatest fault was a failure to foresee that personal government is ultimately ruinous to a nation. He taught the people to follow a leader, but he could not perpetuate a descent of leaders like himself. Hence we cannot wonder, when days of trouble broke over Athens, how that men spoke bitterly of Pericles and all his glory. Yet he was a lofty-minded statesman, inspired bynoble aspirations, and his heart was full of a noble love for the city and her citizens. Plutarch tells the story that, as he lay dying and apparently unconscious, his friends around his bed were passing in review the great achievements of his life, and the nine trophies which he had erected at different times for so many victories. The dying patriot quietly interrupted with the characteristic sentence: "What you praise in my life belongs partly to good fortune, and is, at best, common to me with many generals. But that of which I am proudest, you have left unnoticed—no Athenian has ever put on mourning through any act of mine."[Back to Contents]
Socrates.
Socrates, who, by the consent of all antiquity, has been considered as the most virtuous and enlightened of Pagan philosophers, was a citizen of Athens, and belonged to the town of Alopecé.
He was born in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad. His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor; and his mother, Phanaretè, a midwife.
He first studied philosophy under Anaxagoras, and next under Archelaus, the natural philosopher. But finding that all these vain speculations concerning natural objects served no useful purpose, and had no influence in rendering the philosopher a better man, he devoted himself to the study of ethics; and (as Cicero, in the third book of his Tusculan Questions, observes) may be said to be the founder of moral philosophy among the Greeks. In the first book, speaking of him still more particularly and more extensively, he expresses himself thus: "It is my opinion (and it is an opinion in which all are agreed) that Socrates was the first who, calling off the attention of philosophy from the investigation of secrets which nature has concealed (but to which alone all preceding philosophers had attached themselves), engaged her in those things which concern the duties of common life; his object was to investigate the nature of virtue and vice; and to point out the characteristics of good and evil; saying, that the investigation of celestialphenomena was a subject far above the reach of our powers; and that even were they more within the reach of our faculties, it could have no influence in regulating our conduct."
That part of philosophy, then, whose province is the cultivation of morals, and which embraces every age and condition of life, he made his only study. This new mode of philosophizing was the better received on this account, that he who was the founder of it, fulfilling with the most scrupulous care all the duties of a good citizen, whether in peace or in war, enforced by example the precepts which he taught.
Of all the philosophers who have acquired celebrity, he (as Lucian in his dialogue of the Parasite remarks) was the only one that ever subjected himself to the hardships of war. He served two campaigns, in both of which, though unsuccessful, he served in person and exhibited a manly courage. In the one, he saved the life of Xenophon, who when retreating, had fallen from his horse and would have been killed by the enemy, had not Socrates taking him upon his shoulders, removed him from the danger and carried him several furlongs, till his horse, which had run off, was brought back. This fact is related by Strabo.
In his other campaign, the Athenians having been entirely defeated and put to flight, Socrates was the last to retreat, and showed such a stern aspect that the pursuers of those who fled, seeing him every moment ready to turn upon them, never had the boldness to attack him. This testimony is given him by Athenæus.
After these two expeditions, Socrates never set a foot out of Athens. In this, his conduct was very different from that of the other philosophers, who all devoted a part of their life to travelling, that by intercourse with the learned of other countries they might acquire new knowledge. But as that kind of philosophy to which Socrates limited himself led a man to use every effort to know himself rather than to burden his mind with knowledge which has no influence on moral conduct, he thought it his duty to dispense with tedious travelling, in which nothing was to be learned which he might not learn at Athens among his countrymen, for whose reformation, besides, he thought his labors ought to be devoted, rather than to that of strangers. And as moral philosophy is a science which is taught better by example than by precept, he laid it down as a rule to himself, to follow and practise all that right reason and the most rigid virtue could demand.
It was in compliance with this maxim that, when elected one of the senators of the city, and having taken the oath to give his opinion "according to the laws," he peremptorily refused to subscribe to the sentence by which the people, in opposition to the laws, had condemned to death nine officers; and though the people took offence at it, and some of the most powerful even threw out severe menaces against him, he always firmly adhered to his resolution; thinking it inconsistent with the principles of a man of virtue or honor, to act contrary to his oath merely to please the people. Except on this single occasion, we know not whether he ever acted in a civil capacity; but insulated as the occasion was, heacquired such reputation by it at Athens, for probity and the other virtues, that he was more respected there than the magistrates themselves.
He was very careful of his person, and blamed those who paid no attention to themselves, or who affected exterior negligence. He was always neat, dressed in a decent, becoming manner; observing a just medium between what might seem gross and rustic, and what savored of pride and effeminacy.
Though furnished with few of the blessings of fortune, he always maintained perfect disinterestedness by receiving no remuneration from those who attended on his instructions. By such conduct he condemned the practice of the other philosophers, whose custom it was to sell their lessons, and to tax their scholars higher or lower, according to the degree of reputation they had acquired.
Thus Socrates, as Xenophon relates, used to say that he could not conceive how a man, whose object it was to teach virtue, should think of turning it to gain; as if to form a man of virtue, and to make of his pupil a good friend, were not the richest advantages and the most solid profit with which his cares could be rewarded.
It must further be remarked that Socrates kept no class, as did the other philosophers, who had a fixed place where their scholars assembled, and where lectures were delivered to them at stated hours. Socrates' manner of philosophizing consisted simply in conversing with those who chanced to be where he was, without any regard to time or place.
He was always poor; but in his poverty so contented, that though to be rich was within the reach of a wish, by receiving the presents which his friends and scholars often urged him to accept, he always returned them; to the great displeasure of his wife, who had no relish for carrying philosophy to such a height. In regard to food and clothes, so hardy was his manner of life that Antiphon, the Sophist, sometimes reproached him, by saying that he had not a slave so miserable as would be contented with it: "For," said he, "your food is disgustingly mean; besides, not only are you always very poorly dressed, but winter or summer you have the same robe; and never anything above it: with this, you on all occasions, go barefoot."
But Socrates proved to him that he was greatly mistaken if he thought that happiness depended on wealth or finery; and that, poor as he might seem to him, he was in fact happier than he. "I consider," said he, "that as to want nothing is the exclusive prerogative of the gods, so the fewer wants a man has, the nearer he approaches to the condition of the gods."
It was impossible that virtue so pure as that of Socrates should have no effect in exciting admiration, especially in a city such as Athens, where that example must have appeared very extraordinary. For those very persons who have not the happiness to follow virtue themselves, cannot refrain from doing justice to those who do follow it. This soon gained Socrates the universal esteem of his fellow-citizens, and attracted to him many scholars of every age; by whom the advantages of listening to his instructions, and engaging in conversation with him, were preferred to the most fascinating pleasure and the most agreeable amusements.
What rendered the manner of Socrates peculiarly engaging was, that though in his own practice he maintained the most rigid severity, yet to others he was in the highest degree gentle and complaisant. The first principle with which he wished to inspire his youthful auditors was piety and reverence for the gods; he then allured them as much as possible to observe temperance, and to avoid voluptuousness; representing to them how the latter deprives a man of liberty, the richest treasure of which he is possessed.
His manner of treating the science of morals was the more insinuating, as he always conducted his subject in the way of conversation and without any apparent method. For without proposing any point for discussion, he kept by that which chance first presented. Like one who himself wished information, he first put a question, and then, profiting by the concessions of his respondent, brought him to a proposition subversive of that which in the beginning of the debate had been considered as a first principle. He spent one part of the day in conferences of this kind, onmorals. To these everyone was welcome, and according to the testimony of Xenophon, none departed from them without becominga better man.
Though Socrates has left us nothing in writing, yet by what we find in the works of Plato and Xenophon, it is easy to judge both of the principles of his ethical knowledge and of the manner in which he communicated them. The uniformity observable (especially in his manner of disputing), as transmitted by these two scholars of Socrates, is a certain proof of the method which he followed.
It will be difficult to conceive how a person who exhorted all men to honor the gods, and who preached, so to speak, to the young to avoid and abandon every vice, should himself be condemned to death for impiety against the gods received at Athens, and as a corrupter of youth. This infamously unjust proceeding took place in a time of disorder and under the seditious government of the thirty tyrants. The occasion of it was as follows:
Critias, the most powerful of these thirty tyrants, had formerly, as well as Alcibiades, been a disciple of Socrates. But both of them being weary of a philosophy the maxims of which would not yield to their ambition and intemperance, they, at length, totally abandoned it. Critias, though formerly a scholar of Socrates, became his most inveterate enemy. This we are to trace to that firmness with which Socrates reproached him for a certain shameful vice; and to those means by which he endeavored to thwart his indulging in it. Hence it was that Critias, having become one of the thirty tyrants, had nothing more at heart than the destruction of Socrates, who, besides, not being able to brook their tyranny, was wont to speak against them with much freedom. For, seeing that they were always putting to death citizens and powerful men, he could not refrain from observing, in a company where he was, that if he to whom the care of cattle was committed, exhibited them every day leaner and fewer in number, it would be very strange if he would not himself confess that he was a bad cow-herd.
Critias and Charicles, two of the most powerful of the thirty tyrants, feelingthe weight of the allusion fall upon themselves, first enacted that no one should teach in Athens the art of reasoning. Although Socrates never had professed that art, yet it was easy to discover that he was aimed at; and that it was intended thus to deprive him of the liberty of conversing as usual, on moral subjects, with those who resorted to him.
That he might have a precise explanation of this law, he went to the two authors of it; but as he embarrassed them by the subtlety of his questions, they plainly told him that they prohibited him from entering into conversation with young people.
But, seeing Socrates' reputation was so great that to attack him and serve him with an indictment would have drawn upon them public odium, it was thought necessary to begin by discrediting him in the view of the public. This was attempted by the comedy of Aristophanes entitled "The Clouds," in which Socrates was represented as teaching the art of making that which is just appear unjust.
The comedy having had its effect, by the ridicule which it threw upon Socrates, Melitus brought a capital accusation against him, in which he alleged; first, that he did not honor those as gods, who were acknowledged such at Athens, and that he was introducing new ones; secondly, that he corrupted the youth; that is to say, that he taught them not to respect their parents, or the magistrates. The accuser required that for these two crimes he should be condemned to death.
Enraged as the tyrants were (and especially Critias and Charicles) against Socrates, it is certain that they would have been very reluctant to condemn him, had he availed himself in the least of the favorable circumstances in his case. But the intrepidity and resolution with which he heard the accusation, refusing even to pay any fine, as that would have been to avow himself in some degree culpable; and especially the firmness with which he addressed the judges when called upon to state the punishment which he thought he deserved, enraged them against him. For, with confidence in his integrity, he answered them, "That he thought he deserved to be maintained at the public expense during the rest of his life." This whetted afresh the resentment of the thirty tyrants, who caused him now to be condemned to death.
Lysias, a very eloquent philosopher, had composed an apologetical oration that Socrates might avail himself of it, and pronounce it before the judges, when called to appear before them. Socrates having heard it, acknowledged it to be a very good one, but returned it, saying that it did not suit him. "But why," replied Lysias, "will it not suit you, since you think it a good one?"
"Oh, my friend!" returned Socrates, "may there not be shoes and different articles of dress very good in themselves, and yet not suitable for me?"
The fact is, though the oration was very fine and energetic, yet the manner in which it was conducted, did not suit the uprightness and candor of Socrates.
Death of Socrates.
Death of Socrates.
Now condemned to death, Socrates was put into prison, where some days after, he died by drinking the poison hemlock. For this was the instrument of death,then used by the Athenians, in the case of those who were condemned for capital crimes.
According to Diogenes Laërtius, Socrates was twice married, but of the two wives he has given him, we know nothing except of the famous Xantippè, by whom he had a son named Tamprocles; Xantippè rendered herself celebrated by her ill-humor, and by the exercise which she afforded to the patience of Socrates. He had married her, he said, from a persuasion that if he were able to bear with her bad temper, there could be nothing which he might not support.
He died in the first year of the 95th Olympiad, aged seventy.[Back to Contents]
Diogenes.
Diogenes the Cynic, son of Icesius a banker, was born about the 91st Olympiad, in Sinope, a city of Paphlagonia. He was accused of having forged money, in concert with his father. Icesius was arrested, and died in prison. Alarmed at the fate of his father, Diogenes fled to Athens. When he had arrived at that city, he inquired for Antisthenes; but the latter, having resolved never to take a scholar, repulsed him and beat him off with his stick. Diogenes was by no means discouraged by this treatment. "Strike—fear not," said he to him, bowing his head; "you shall never find a stick hard enough to make me run off, so long as you continue to speak." Overcome by the importunity of Diogenes, Antisthenes yielded, and permitted him to become his scholar.
Banished from his native country and without any resource, Diogenes was reduced to great indigence. He perceived one day, a mouse running briskly up and down, without any fear of being surprised by the approach of night, without any anxiety about a lodging-place, and even without thinking of food. This reconciled him to his misery. He resolved to live at his ease, without constraint,and to dispense with everything which was not absolutely necessary for the preservation of life. He doubled his cloak, that by rolling himself up in it, it might serve the purposes both of a bed and of a coverlet. His movables consisted of a bag, a jug, and a staff; and wherever he went he always carried his furniture along with him. His stick, however, he used only when he went to the country, or on some emergency. Persons really lame were, he said, neither the deaf nor the blind, but those who had no bag.
He always went barefoot, nor did he wear sandals even when the ground was covered with snow. He endeavored also to accustom himself to eat raw flesh, but this was a point of perfection to which he never could arrive. He entreated a person of his acquaintance to afford him some little hole in his lodging, to which he might occasionally retire. But as he was dilatory in giving him a positive answer he took possession of an earthen tub, which he always carried about with him, and which was the only house he ever had. In the heat of summer when the fields were scorched by the sun, he used to roll among the burning sands, and in winter to embrace statues covered with snow, that he might accustom himself to endure without pain the inclemencies of heat and cold.
He treated everyone with contempt. He accused Plato and his scholars of dissipation, and of the crime of loving good cheer. All the orators he styled "the slaves of the people." Crowns were, he said, as brittle marks of glory as bubbles of water, which burst in the formation; that theatrical representations were the wonder of fools only. In a word, nothing escaped his satiric humor.
He ate, he spoke, he slept, without discrimination, wherever chance placed him. Pointing to Jupiter's porticos on one occasion, he exclaimed: "How excellent a dining-room the Athenians have built for me there!"
He frequently said: "When I consider the rulers, the physicians, and the philosophers whom the world contains, I am tempted to think man considerably elevated by his wisdom above the brutes; but when, on the other hand, I behold augurs, interpreters of dreams, and people who can be inflated with pride on account of their riches or honors, I cannot help thinking him the most foolish of all animals."
When taking a walk one day, he observed a child drinking from the hollow of his hand. He felt greatly affronted at the sight. "What!" exclaimed Diogenes, "do children know better than I do with what things a man ought to be contented?" Upon which he took his jug out of his bag, and instantly broke it, as a superfluous movable.
The province in philosophy to which Diogenes attached himself, was that of morals. He did not, however, entirely neglect the other sciences. He was possessed of lively parts, and easily anticipated objections.