I have often wondered by what
 arguments those who drew up the indictment against
 Socrates could
 persuade the Athenians that his life was forfeit to the state. The
 indictment against him was to this effect:
 Socrates is guilty
 of rejecting the gods acknowledged by the state and of bringing in
 strange deities: he is also guilty of corrupting the youth.

First then, that he rejected the gods
 acknowledged by the state — what evidence did they produce of that?
 He offered sacrifices constantly, and made no secret of it, now in
 his home, now at the altars of the state temples, and he made use of
 divination with as little secrecy. Indeed it had become notorious
 that Socrates claimed to be
 guided by the deity: it was out of this claim, I
 think, that the charge of bringing in strange deities arose.

He was no more bringing in anything strange than are other believers
 in divination, who rely on augury, oracles, coincidences and
 sacrifices. For these men’s belief is not that the birds or the folk
 met by accident know what profits the inquirer, but that they are
 the instruments by which the gods make this known; and that was
 Socrates ’ belief
 too.

Only, whereas most men say that the birds or the folk they meet
 dissuade or encourage them,
 Socrates said what he
 meant: for he said that the deity gave him a sign. Many of his
 companions were counselled by him to do this or not to do that in
 accordance with the warnings of the deity: and those who followed
 his advice prospered, and those who rejected it had cause for
 regret.

And yet who would not admit that he wished to appear neither a knave
 nor a fool to his companions? but he would have been thought both,
 had he proved to be mistaken when he alleged that his counsel was in
 accordance with divine revelation. Obviously, then, he would not
 have given the counsel if he had not been confident that what he
 said would come true. And who could have inspired him with that
 confidence but a god? And since he had confidence in the gods, how
 can he have disbelieved in the existence of the gods?

Another way he had of dealing with intimate friends was this: if
 there was no room for doubt, he advised them to act as they thought
 best; but if the consequences could not be foreseen, he sent them to
 the oracle to inquire whether the thing ought to be done.

Those who intended to control a house or a city, he said, needed the
 help of divination. For the craft of carpenter, smith, farmer or
 ruler, and the theory of such crafts, and arithmetic and economics
 and generalship might be learned and mastered by the application of
 human powers;

but the deepest secrets of these matters the gods reserved to
 themselves; they were dark to men. You may plant a field well; but
 you know not who shall gather the fruits: you may build a house
 well; but you know not who shall dwell in it: able to command, you
 cannot know whether it is profitable to command: versed in
 statecraft, you know not whether it is profitable to guide the
 state: though, for your delight, you marry a pretty woman, you
 cannot tell whether she will bring you sorrow: though you form a
 party among men mighty in the state, you know not whether they will
 cause you to be driven from the state.

If any man thinks that these matters are wholly within the grasp of
 the human mind and nothing in them is beyond our reason, that man,
 he said, is irrational. But it is no less irrational to seek the
 guidance of heaven in matters which men are permitted by the gods to
 decide for themselves by study: to ask, for instance, Is it better
 to get an experienced coachman to drive my carriage or a man without
 experience? Is it better to
 get an experienced seaman to steer my ship or a man without
 experience? So too with what we may know by reckoning, measurement
 or weighing. To put such questions to the gods seemed to his mind
 profane. In short, what the gods have granted us to do by help of
 learning, we must learn; what is hidden from mortals we should try
 to find out from the gods by divination: for to him that is in their
 grace the gods grant a sign.

Moreover, Socrates lived ever
 in the open; for early in the morning he went to the public
 promenades and training-grounds; in the forenoon he was seen in the
 market; and the rest of the day he passed just where most people
 were to be met: he was generally talking, and anyone might listen.
 Yet none ever knew him to offend against piety and religion in deed
 or word.

He did not even discuss that topic so favoured by other talkers, the Nature of the Universe : and avoided
 speculation on the so-called Cosmos of the
 Professors, how it works, and on the laws that govern the phenomena
 of the heavens: indeed he would argue that to trouble one’s mind
 with such problems is sheer folly.

In the first place, he would inquire, did these thinkers suppose that
 their knowledge of human affairs was so complete that they must seek
 these new fields for the exercise of their brains; or that it was
 their duty to neglect human affairs and consider only things
 divine?

Moreover, he marvelled at their blindness in not seeing that man
 cannot solve these riddles; since even the most conceited talkers on
 these problems did not agree in their theories, but behaved to one
 another like madmen.

As some madmen have no fear of danger and others are afraid where
 there is nothing to be afraid of, as some will do or say anything in
 a crowd with no sense of shame, while others shrink even from going
 abroad among men, some respect neither temple nor altar nor any
 other sacred thing, others worship stocks and stones and beasts, so
 is it, he held, with those who worry with Universal Nature. Some hold that What
 is is one, others that it is infinite in number: some that
 all things are in perpetual motion, others that nothing can ever be
 moved at any time: some that all life is birth and decay, others
 that nothing can ever be born or ever die.

Nor were those the only questions he asked about such theorists.
 Students of human nature, he said, think that they will apply their
 knowledge in due course for the good of themselves and any others
 they choose. Do those who pry into heavenly phenomena imagine that,
 once they have discovered the laws by which these are produced, they
 will create at their will winds, waters, seasons and such things to
 their need? Or have they no such expectation, and are they satisfied
 with knowing the causes of these various phenomena?

Such, then, was his criticism of those
 who meddle with these matters. His own conversation was ever of
 human things. The problems he discussed were, What is godly, what is
 ungodly; what is beautiful, what is ugly; what is just, what is
 unjust; what is prudence, what is madness; what is courage, what is
 cowardice; what is a state, what is a statesman; what is government,
 and what is a governor;—these and others like them, of which the
 knowledge made a gentleman, in his
 estimation, while ignorance should involve the reproach of slavishness.

So, in pronouncing on opinions of his
 that were unknown to them it is not surprising that the jury erred:
 but is it not astonishing that they should have ignored matters of
 common knowledge?

For instance, when he was on the Council and had taken the
 counsellor’s oath by which he bound himself to give counsel in
 accordance with the laws, it fell to his lot to preside in the
 Assembly when the people wanted to condemn Thrasyllus and Erasinides
 and their colleagues to death by a single vote. That was illegal,
 and he refused the motion in spite of popular rancour and the
 threats of many powerful persons. It was more to him that he should
 keep his oath than that he should humour the people in an unjust
 demand and shield himself from threats.

For, like most men, indeed, he believed that the gods are heedful of
 mankind, but with an important difference; for whereas they do not
 believe in the omniscience of the gods,
 Socrates thought
 that they know all things, our words and deeds and secret purposes;
 that they are present everywhere, and grant signs to men of all that
 concerns man.

I wonder, then, how the Athenians can
 have been persuaded that
 Socrates was a
 freethinker, when he never said or did anything contrary to sound
 religion, and his utterances about the gods and his behaviour
 towards them were the words and actions of a man who is truly
 religious and deserves to be thought so.

No less wonderful is it to me that
 some believed the charge brought against
 Socrates of
 corrupting the youth. In the first place, apart from what I have
 said, in control of his own passions and appetites he was the
 strictest of men; further, in endurance of cold and heat and every
 kind of toil he was most resolute; and besides, his needs were so
 schooled to moderation that having very little he was yet very
 content.

Such was his own character: how then can he have led others into
 impiety, crime, gluttony, lust, or sloth? On the contrary, he cured
 these vices in many, by putting into them a desire for goodness, and
 by giving them confidence that self-discipline would make them
 gentlemen.

To be sure he never professed to teach this; but, by letting his own
 light shine, he led his disciples to hope that they through
 imitation of him would attain to such excellence.

Furthermore, he himself never neglected the body, and reproved such
 neglect in others. Thus over-eating followed by over-exertion he
 disapproved. But he approved of taking as much hard exercise as is
 agreeable to the soul; for the habit
 not only insured good health, but did not hamper the care of the
 soul.

On the other hand, he disliked foppery and pretentiousness in the
 fashion of clothes or shoes or in behaviour. Nor, again, did he
 encourage love of money in his companions. For while he checked
 their other desires, he would not make money himself out of their
 desire for his companionship.

He held that this self-denying ordinance insured his liberty. Those
 who charged a fee for their society he denounced for selling
 themselves into bondage; since they were bound to converse with all
 from whom they took the fee.

He marvelled that anyone should make money by the profession of
 virtue, and should not reflect that his highest reward would be the
 gain of a good friend; as though he who became a true gentleman
 could fail to feel deep gratitude for a benefit so great.

Socrates indeed never
 promised any such boon to anyone; but he was confident that those of
 his companions who adopted his principles of conduct would
 throughout life be good friends to him and to one another. How,
 then, should such a man corrupt the youth ?
 Unless, perchance, it be corruption to foster virtue.

But, said his accuser, he taught his
 companions to despise the established laws by insisting on the folly
 of appointing public officials by lot, when none would choose a
 pilot or builder or flautist by lot, nor any other craftsman for
 work in which mistakes are far less disastrous than mistakes in
 statecraft. Such sayings, he argued, led the young to despise the
 established constitution and made them violent.

But I hold that they who cultivate wisdom and think they
 will be able to guide the people in prudent policy never lapse into
 violence: they know that enmities and dangers are inseparable from
 violence, but persuasion produces the same results safely and
 amicably. For violence, by making its victims sensible of loss,
 rouses their hatred: but persuasion, by seeming to confer a favour,
 wins goodwill. It is not, then, cultivation of wisdom that leads to
 violent methods, but the possession of power without prudence.

Besides, many supporters are necessary to him who ventures to use
 force: but he who can persuade needs no confederate, having
 confidence in his own unaided power of persuasion. And such a man
 has no occasion to shed blood; for who would rather take a man’s
 life than have a live and willing follower? But his accuser argued thus.

Among the associates of
 Socrates were Critias
 and Alcibiades; and none wrought so many evils to the state. For
 Critias in the days of the oligarchy bore the palm for greed and
 violence: Alcibiades, for his part, exceeded all in licentiousness
 and insolence under the democracy.

Now I have no intention of excusing the wrong these two men wrought
 the state; but I will explain how they came to be with
 Socrates .

Ambition was the very life-blood of both: no Athenian was ever like
 them. They were eager to get control of everything and to outstrip
 every rival in notoriety. They knew that
 Socrates was living
 on very little, and yet was wholly independent; that he was strictly
 moderate in all his pleasures; and that in argument he could do what
 he liked with any disputant.

Sharing this knowledge and the principles I have indicated, is it to
 be supposed that these two men wanted to adopt the simple life of
 Socrates , and with
 this object in view sought his society? Did they not rather think
 that by associating with him they would attain the utmost
 proficiency in speech and action?

For my part I believe that, had heaven granted them the choice
 between the life they saw
 Socrates leading and
 death, they would have chosen rather to die. Their conduct betrayed
 their purpose; for as soon as they thought themselves superior to
 their fellow-disciples they sprang away from
 Socrates and took to
 politics; it was for political ends that they had wanted
 Socrates .

But it may be answered:
 Socrates should have
 taught his companions prudence before politics. I do not deny it;
 but I find that all teachers show their disciples how they
 themselves practise what they teach, and lead them on by argument.
 And I know that it was so with
 Socrates : he showed his
 companions that he was a gentleman himself, and talked most
 excellently of goodness and of all things that concern man.

I know further that even those two were prudent so long as they were
 with Socrates , not from fear
 of fine or blow, but because at that time they really believed in
 prudent conduct.

But many self-styled lovers of wisdom
 may reply: A just man can never become unjust; a prudent man can
 never become wanton; in fact no one having learned any kind of
 knowledge can become ignorant of it. I do not hold with this
 view. I notice that as those
 who do not train the body cannot perform the functions proper to the
 body, so those who do not train the soul cannot perform the
 functions of the soul: for they cannot do what they ought to do nor
 avoid what they ought not to do.

For this cause fathers try to keep their sons, even if they are
 prudent lads, out of bad company: for the society of honest men is a
 training in virtue, but the society of the bad is virtue’s undoing.
 As one of the poets says: 
 From the good shalt thou
 learn good things; but if thou minglest with the bad
 thou shalt lose even what thou hast of
 wisdom. 
 Theognis 
 And another says: 
 Ah, but a good man is at
 one time noble, at another
 base. 
 unknown

My testimony agrees with theirs; for I
 see that, just as poetry is forgotten unless it is often repeated,
 so instruction, when no longer heeded, fades from the mind. To
 forget good counsel is to forget the experiences that prompted the
 soul to desire prudence: and when those are forgotten, it is not
 surprising that prudence itself is forgotten.

I see also that men who take to drink or get involved in love
 intrigues lose the power of caring about right conduct and avoiding
 evil. For many who are careful with their money no sooner fall in
 love than they begin to waste it: and when they have spent it all,
 they no longer shrink from making more by methods which they
 formerly avoided because they thought them disgraceful.

How then can it be impossible for one who was prudent to lose his
 prudence, for one who was capable of just action to become
 incapable? To me indeed it seems that whatever is honourable,
 whatever is good in conduct is the result of training, and that this
 is especially true of prudence. For in the same body along with the
 soul are planted the pleasures which call to her: Abandon prudence, and make haste to gratify us and the
 body.

And indeed it was thus with Critias
 and Alcibiades. So long as they were with
 Socrates , they found
 in him an ally who gave them strength to conquer their evil
 passions. But when they parted from him, Critias fled to Thessaly , and got among men who
 put lawlessness before justice; while Alcibiades, on account of his
 beauty, was hunted by many great ladies, and because of his
 influence at Athens and
 among her allies he was spoilt by many powerful men: and as athletes
 who gain an easy victory in the games are apt to neglect their
 training, so the honour in which he was held, the cheap triumph he
 won with the people, led him to neglect himself.

Such was their fortune: and when to pride of birth, confidence in
 wealth, vainglory and much yielding to temptation were added
 corruption and long separation from
 Socrates , what
 wonder if they grew overbearing?

For their wrongdoing, then, is
 Socrates to be called to
 account by his accuser? And does he deserve no word of praise for
 having controlled them in the days of their youth, when they would
 naturally be most reckless and licentious? Other cases, at least,
 are not so judged.

For what teacher of flute, lyre, or anything else, after making his
 pupils proficient, is held to blame if they leave him for another
 master, and then turn out incompetent? What father, whose son bears
 a good character so long as he is with one master, but goes wrong
 after he has attached himself to another, throws the blame on the
 earlier teacher? Is it not true that the worse the boy turns out
 with the second, the higher is his father’s praise of the first?
 Nay, fathers themselves, living with their sons, are not held
 responsible for their boys’ wrongdoing if they are themselves
 prudent men.

This is the test which should have been applied to
 Socrates too. If
 there was anything base in his own life, he might fairly have been
 thought vicious. But, if his own conduct was always prudent, how can
 he be fairly held to blame for the evil that was not in him?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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?

In order to support my opinion that he
 benefited his companions, alike by actions that revealed his own
 character and by his conversation, I will set down what I recollect
 of these. First, then, for his
 attitude towards religion; his deeds and words were clearly in
 harmony with the answer given by the Priestess at Delphi to such questions as What is my duty about sacrifice? or about cult of ancestors. For the answer of the
 Priestess is, Follow the custom of the State: that
 is the way to act piously. And so
 Socrates acted
 himself and counselled others to act. To take any other course he
 considered presumption and folly.

And again, when he prayed he asked
 simply for good gifts, 
 for the gods know best what things are good. To
 pray for gold or silver or sovereignty or any other such thing, was
 just like praying for a gamble or a fight or anything of which the
 result is obviously uncertain.

Though his sacrifices were humble,
 according to his means, he thought himself not a whit inferior to
 those who made frequent and magnificent sacrifices out of great
 possessions. The gods (he said) could not well delight more in great
 offerings than in small — for in that case must the gifts of the
 wicked often have found more favour in their sight than the gifts of
 the upright — and man would not find life worth having, if the gifts
 of the wicked were received with more favour by the gods than the
 gifts of the upright. No, the greater the piety of the giver, the
 greater (he thought) was the delight of the gods in the gift. He
 would quote with approval the line: 
 According to thy power render
 sacrifice to the immortal gods, 
 and he would add that in our treatment of friends and
 strangers, and in all our behaviour, it is a noble principle to
 render according to our power.

If ever any warning seemed to be given him from heaven, he would more
 easily have been persuaded to choose a blind guide who did not know
 the road in preference to one who could see and knew the way, than
 to disregard the admonition. All men, in fact, who flouted the
 warnings of the gods in their anxiety to avoid the censure of men,
 he denounced for their foolishness. He himself despised all human
 opinions in comparison with counsel given by the gods.

He schooled his body and soul by
 following, a system which, in all human calculation, would give him
 a life of confidence and security, and would make it easy to meet
 his expenses. For he was so frugal that it is hardly possible to
 imagine a man doing so little work as not to earn enough to satisfy
 the needs of Socrates . He
 ate just sufficient food to make eating a pleasure, and he was so
 ready for his food that he found appetite the best sauce : and any kind of drink he found pleasant, because he
 drank only when he was thirsty.

Whenever he accepted an invitation to dinner, he resisted without
 difficulty the common temptation to exceed the limit of satiety; and
 he advised those who could not do likewise to avoid appetizers that
 encouraged them to eat and drink what they did not want: for such
 trash was the ruin of stomach and brain and soul.

I believe, he said in jest, it was by providing a feast of such things that
 Circe made swine; and it was partly by the prompting of
 Hermes, partly through
 his own self-restraint and avoidance of excessive indulgence in
 such things, that Odysseus was not turned into a
 pig.

This was how he would talk on the subject, half joking, half in
 earnest. Of sensual passion he
 would say: Avoid it resolutely: it is not easy
 to control yourself once you meddle with that sort of
 thing. Thus, on hearing that Critobulus had kissed
 Alcibiades’ pretty boy, he put this question to Xenophon before
 Critobulus:

Tell me, Xenophon, did you not suppose Critobulus
 to be a sober person, and by no means rash; prudent, and not
 thoughtless or adventurous? Certainly, said
 Xenophon. Then
 you are to look on him henceforth as utterly hot-headed and
 reckless: the man would do a somersault into a ring of knives;
 he would jump into fire.

What on earth has
 he done to make you think so badly of him? asked
 Xenophon. What
 has the man done? He dared to kiss Alcibiades’ son, and the boy
 is very good-looking and attractive. Oh, if that is the sort
 of adventure you mean, I think I might make that venture
 myself. Poor fellow!

What do you think will happen to you
 through kissing a pretty face? Won’t you lose your liberty in a
 trice and become a slave, begin spending large sums on harmful
 pleasures, have no time to give to anything fit for a gentleman,
 be forced to concern yourself with things that no madman even
 would care about?

Heracles! what
 alarming power in a kiss! cried Xenophon. What? Does that surprise
 you? continued
 Socrates . Don’t you know that the scorpion, though smaller
 than a farthing, if it but fasten on the tongue, inflicts
 excruciating and maddening pain? Yes, to be sure; for the scorpion
 injects something by its bite.

And do you think,
 you foolish fellow, that the fair inject nothing when they kiss,
 just because you don’t see it? Don’t you know that this creature
 called fair and young is more dangerous
 than the scorpion, seeing that it need not even come in contact,
 like the insect, but at any distance can inject a maddening
 poison into anyone who only looks at it? Maybe, too, the loves are called archers for this
 reason, that the fair can wound even at a distance. Nay, I advise you, Xenophon, as soon as
 you see a pretty face to take to your heels and fly: and you,
 Critobulus, I advise to spend a year abroad. It will certainly
 take you at least as long as that to recover from the
 bite.

Thus in the matter of carnal appetite,
 he held that those whose passions were not under complete control
 should limit themselves to such indulgence as the soul would reject
 unless the need of the body were pressing, and such as would do no
 harm when the need was there. As for his own conduct in this matter,
 it was evident that he had trained himself to avoid the fairest and
 most attractive more easily than others avoid the ugliest and most
 repulsive.

Concerning eating and drinking then and carnal indulgence such were
 his views, and he thought that a due portion of pleasure would be no
 more lacking to him than to those who give themselves much to these,
 and that much less trouble would fall to his lot.

If any hold the opinion expressed in
 some written and spoken criticisms of
 Socrates that are
 based on inference, and think, that though he was consummate in
 exhorting men to virtue, he was an incompetent guide to it, let them
 consider not only the searching cross-examination with which he
 chastised those who thought themselves omniscient, but his daily talks with his
 familiar friends, and then judge whether he was capable of improving
 his companions.

I will first state what I once heard
 him say about the godhead in conversation with Aristodemus the
 dwarf, as he was called. On learning that he was not known to
 sacrifice or pray or use divination, and actually made a mock of
 those who did so, he said: Tell me, Aristodemus,
 do you admire any human beings for wisdom? I do, he
 answered.

Tell us their
 names. In epic poetry Homer comes first, in my opinion; in dithyramb,
 Melanippides; in tragedy, Sophocles; in sculpture, Polycleitus;
 in painting, Zeuxis.

Which, think you,
 deserve the greater admiration, the creators of phantoms without
 sense and motion, or the creators of living, intelligent, and
 active beings? 
 Oh, of living beings, by far, provided only
 they are created by design and not mere
 chance. Suppose that it is impossible to guess the purpose
 of one creature’s existence, and obvious that another’s serves a
 useful end, which, in your judgment, is the work of chance, and
 which of design? 
 Presumably the creature that serves some useful
 end is the work of design.

Do you not think
 then that he who created man from the beginning had some useful
 end in view when he endowed him with his several senses, giving
 eyes to see visible objects, ears to hear sounds? Would odours
 again be of any use to us had we not been endowed with nostrils?
 What perception should we have of sweet and bitter and all
 things pleasant to the palate had we no tongue in our mouth to
 discriminate between them?

Besides these, are there not other
 contrivances that look like the results of forethought? Thus the
 eyeballs, being weak, are set behind eyelids, that open like
 doors when we want to see, and close when we sleep: on the lids
 grow lashes through which the very winds filter harmlessly:
 above the eyes is a coping of brows that lets no drop of sweat
 from the head hurt them. The ears catch all sounds, but are
 never choked with them. Again, the incisors of all creatures are
 adapted for cutting, the molars for receiving food from them and
 grinding it. And again, the mouth, through which the food they
 want goes in, is set near the eyes and nostrils; but since what
 goes out is unpleasant, the ducts through which it passes are
 turned away and removed as far as possible from the organs of
 sense. With such signs of forethought in these arrangements, can
 you doubt whether they are the works of chance or
 design? No, of course not.

When I regard them in this light
 they do look very like the handiwork of a wise and loving
 creator. 
 What of the natural desire to beget children,
 the mother’s desire to rear her babe, the child’s strong will to
 live and strong fear of death? 
 Undoubtedly
 these, too, look like the contrivances of one who deliberately
 willed the existence of living creatures.

Do you think you
 have any wisdom yourself? 
 Oh! Ask me a question and judge from my
 answer. And do you suppose that wisdom is nowhere else to
 be found, although you know that you have a mere speck of all
 the earth in your body and a mere drop of all the water, and
 that of all the other mighty elements you received, I suppose,
 just a scrap towards the fashioning of your body? But as for
 mind, which alone, it seems, is without mass, do you think that
 you snapped it up by a lucky accident, and that the orderly
 ranks of all these huge masses, infinite in number, are due,
 forsooth, to a sort of absurdity?

Yes; for I don’t
 see the master hand, whereas I see the makers of things in this
 world. 
 Neither do you see your own soul, which has the mastery of the body; so that,
 as far as that goes, you may say that you do nothing by design,
 but everything by chance. Here Aristodemus exclaimed:

Really,
 Socrates , I don’t
 despise the godhead. But I think it is too great to need my
 service. 
 Then the greater the power that deigns to serve
 you, the more honour it demands of you.

I assure you, that
 if I believed that the gods pay any heed to man, I would not
 neglect them. 
 Then do you think them unheeding? In the first
 place, man is the only living creature that they have caused to
 stand upright; and the upright position gives him a wider range
 of vision in front and a better view of things above, and
 exposes him less to injury. Secondly, to grovelling creatures
 they have given feet that afford only the power of moving,
 whereas they have endowed man with hands, which are the
 instruments to which we chiefly owe our greater
 happiness.

Again, though all creatures have a
 tongue, the tongue of man alone has been formed by them to be
 capable of contact with different parts of the mouth, so as to
 enable us to articulate the voice and express all our wants to
 one another. Once more, for all other creatures they have
 prescribed a fixed season of sexual indulgence; in our case the
 only time limit they have set is old age.

Nor
 was the deity content to care for man’s body. What is of yet
 higher moment, he has implanted in him the noblest type of soul.
 For in the first place what other creature’s soul has
 apprehended the existence of gods who set in order the universe,
 greatest and fairest of things? And what race of living things
 other than man worships gods? And what soul is more apt than
 man’s to make provision against hunger and thirst, cold and
 heat, to relieve sickness and promote health, to acquire
 knowledge by toil, and to remember accurately all that is heard,
 seen, or learned?

For is it not obvious to you that,
 in comparison with the other animals, men live like gods, by
 nature peerless both in body and in soul? For with a man’s
 reason and the body of an ox we could not carry out our wishes,
 and the possession of hands without reason is of little worth.
 Do you, then, having received the two most precious gifts, yet
 think that the gods take no care of you? What are they to do, to
 make you believe that they are heedful of you?

I will believe
 when they send counsellors, as you declare they do, saying,
 Do this, avoid
 that. 
 But when the Athenians inquire of them by
 divination and they reply, do you not suppose that to you, too,
 the answer is given? Or when they send portents for warning to
 the Greeks, or to all the world? Are you their one exception,
 the only one consigned to neglect?

Or do you suppose that the gods
 would have put into man a belief in their ability to help and
 harm, if they had not that power; and that man throughout the
 ages would never have detected the fraud? Do you not see that
 the wisest and most enduring of human institutions, cities and
 nations, are most god-fearing, and that the most thoughtful
 period of life is the most religious?

Be well assured, my good friend,
 that the mind within you directs your body according to its
 will; and equally you must think that Thought indwelling in the
 Universal disposes all things according to its pleasure. For
 think not that your eye can travel over many furlongs and yet
 god’s eye cannot see the the whole world at once; that your soul
 can ponder on things in Egypt and in Sicily , and god’s thought is not sufficient to
 pay heed to the whole world at once.

Nay, but just as by serving men you
 find out who is willing to serve you in return, by being kind
 who will be kind to you in return, and by taking counsel,
 discover the masters of thought, so try the gods by serving
 them, and see whether they will vouchsafe to counsel you in
 matters hidden from man. Then you will know that such is the
 greatness and such the nature of the deity that he sees all
 things and
 hears all things alike, and is present in all places and heedful
 of all things.

To me at least it seemed that by these
 sayings he kept his companions from impiety, injustice, and
 baseness, and that not only when they were seen by men, but even in
 solitude; since they ever felt that no deed of theirs could at any
 time escape the gods.

But if Self-control too is a fair and
 noble possession, let us now consider whether he led men up to that
 virtue by discourse like the following: My friends, if we were at war and wanted
 to choose a leader most capable of helping us to save ourselves
 and conquer the enemy, should we choose one whom we knew to be
 the slave of the belly, or of wine, or lust, or sleep? How could
 we expect that such an one would either save us or defeat the
 enemy?

Or if at the end of our life we
 should wish to appoint a guardian to educate our boys or protect
 our girls or to take care of our goods, should we think a loose
 liver a trustworthy man to choose? Should we entrust live stock
 or storehouses or the management of works to a vicious slave?
 Should we be willing to take as a gift a page or an errandboy
 with such a character?

Surely then, if we should refuse a
 vicious slave, the master must look to it that he does not grow
 vicious himself? For whereas the covetous, by robbing other men
 of their goods, seem to enrich themselves, a vicious man reaps
 no advantage from the harm he does to others. If he is a worker
 of mischief to others, he brings much greater mischief on
 himself, if indeed the greatest mischief of all is to ruin not
 one’s home merely, but the body and the soul.

In social intercourse what pleasure
 could you find in such a man, knowing that he prefers your
 sauces and your wines to your friends, and likes the women better than the company? Should not
 every man hold self-control to be the foundation of all virtue,
 and first lay this foundation firmly in his soul?

For who without this can learn any
 good or practise it worthily? Or what man that is the slave of
 his pleasures is not in an evil plight body and soul alike? From
 my heart I declare that every free man should pray not to have
 such a man among his slaves; and every man who is a slave to
 such pleasures should entreat the gods to give him good masters:
 thus, and only thus, may he find salvation.

Such were his words; but his own
 self-control was shown yet more clearly by his deeds than by his
 words. For he kept in subjection not only the pleasures of the body,
 but those too that money brings, in the belief that he who takes
 money from any casual giver puts himself under a master and endures
 the basest form of slavery.

It is due to him that a conversation
 he had with Antiphon the Sophist should not go unrecorded. Antiphon
 came to Socrates with the
 intention of drawing his companions away from him, and spoke thus in
 their presence.

Socrates , I supposed
 that philosophy must add to one’s store of happiness. But the
 fruits you have reaped from philosophy are apparently very
 different. For example, you are living a life that would drive
 even a slave to desert his master. Your meat and drink are of
 the poorest: the cloak you wear is not only a poor thing, but is
 never changed summer or winter; and you never wear shoes or
 tunic.

Besides you refuse to take money,
 the mere getting of which is a joy, while its possession makes
 one more independent and happier. Now the professors of other
 subjects try to make their pupils copy their teachers: if you
 too intend to make your companions do that, you must consider
 yourself a professor of unhappiness.

To this
 Socrates 
 replied: 
 Antiphon, you seem to have a notion that my life
 is so miserable, that I feel sure you would choose death in
 preference to a life like mine. Come then, let us consider
 together what hardship you have noticed in my life.

Is it that those who take money are
 bound to carry out the work for which they get a fee, while I,
 because I refuse to take it, am not obliged to talk with anyone
 against my will? Or do you think my food poor because it is less
 wholesome than yours or less nourishing? or because my viands
 are harder to get than yours, being scarcer and more expensive?
 or because your diet is more enjoyable than mine? Do you not
 know that the greater the enjoyment of eating the less the need
 of sauce; the greater the enjoyment of drinking, the less the
 desire for drinks that are not available?

As for cloaks, they are changed, as
 you know, on account of cold or heat. And shoes are worn as a
 protection to the feet against pain and inconvenience in
 walking. Now did you ever know me to stay indoors more than
 others on account of the cold, or to fight with any man for the
 shade because of the heat, or to be prevented from walking
 anywhere by sore feet?

Do you not know that by training, a
 puny weakling comes to be better at any form of exercise he
 practises, and gets more staying power, than the muscular
 prodigy who neglects to train? Seeing then that I am always
 training my body to answer any and every call on its powers, do
 you not think that I can stand every strain better than you can
 without training?

For avoiding slavery to the belly or
 to sleep and incontinence, is there, think you, any more
 effective specific than the possession of other and greater
 pleasures, which are delightful not only to enjoy, but also
 because they arouse hopes of lasting benefit? And again, you
 surely know that while he who supposes that nothing goes well
 with him is unhappy, he who believes that he is successful in
 farming or a shipping concern or any other business he is
 engaged in is happy in the thought of his prosperity.

Do you think then that out of all
 this thinking there comes anything so pleasant as the thought:
 I am growing in goodness and I am making
 better friends? And that, I may say, is my constant
 thought. Further, if help is
 wanted by friends or city, which of the two has more leisure to
 supply their needs, he who lives as I am living or he whose life
 you call happy? Which will find soldiering the easier task, he
 who cannot exist without expensive food or he who is content
 with what he can get? Which when besieged will surrender first,
 he who wants what is very hard to come by or he who can make
 shift with whatever is at hand?

You
 seem, Antiphon, to imagine that happiness consists in luxury and
 extravagance. But my belief is that to have no wants is
 divine; to have
 as few as possible comes next to the divine; and as that which
 is divine is supreme, so that which approaches nearest to its
 nature is nearest to the supreme.

In another conversation with
 Socrates Antiphon
 said: 
 Socrates , I for my part
 believe you to be a just, but by no means a wise man. And I
 think you realise it yourself. Anyhow, you decline to take money
 for your society. Yet if you believed your cloak or house or
 anything you possess to be worth money, you would not part with
 it for nothing or even for less than its value.

Clearly, then, if you set any value
 on your society, you would insist on getting the proper price
 for that too. It may well be that you are a just man because you
 do not cheat people through avarice; but wise you cannot be,
 since your knowledge is not worth anything.

To this
 Socrates 
 replied: 
 Antiphon, it is common opinion among us in
 regard to beauty and wisdom that there is an honourable and a
 shameful way of bestowing them. For to offer one’s beauty for
 money to all comers is called prostitution; but we think it
 virtuous to become friendly with a lover who is known to be a
 man of honour. So is it with wisdom. Those who offer it to all
 comers for money are known as sophists, prostitutors of wisdom,
 but we think that he who makes a friend of one whom he knows to
 be gifted by nature, and teaches him all the good he can,
 fulfils the duty of a citizen and a gentleman.

That is my own view, Antiphon.
 Others have a fancy for a good horse or dog or bird: my fancy,
 stronger even than theirs, is for good friends. And I teach them
 all the good I can, and recommend them to others from whom I
 think they will get some moral benefit. And the treasures that
 the wise men of old have left us in their writings I open and
 explore with my friends. If we come on any good thing, we
 extract it, and we set much store on being useful to one
 another. For my part, when
 I heard these words fall from his lips, I judged him to be a happy
 man himself and to be putting his hearers in the way of being
 gentlemen.

On yet another occasion Antiphon asked
 him: How can you suppose that you make
 politicians of others, when you yourself avoid politics even if
 you understand them? 
 How now, Antiphon? he retorted, should I play a more important part in politics by
 engaging in them alone or by taking pains to turn out as many
 competent politicians as possible?

Let us next consider whether by
 discouraging imposture he encouraged his companions to cultivate
 virtue. For he always
 said that the best road to glory is the way that makes a man as good
 as he wishes to be thought. And this was how he demonstrated the
 truth of this saying:

Suppose a bad
 flute-player wants to be thought a good one, let us note what he
 must do. Must he not imitate good players in the accessories of
 the art? First, as they wear fine clothes and travel with many
 attendants, he must do the same. Further, seeing that they win
 the applause of crowds, he must provide himself with a large
 claque. But, of course, he must never accept an engagement, or
 he will promptly expose himself to ridicule as an incompetent
 player and an impostor to boot. And so, what with incurring
 heavy expense and gaining nothing, and bringing disgrace on
 himself as well, he will make his life burdensome, unprofitable
 and ridiculous.

So too if a man who is not a general
 or a pilot wanted to be thought a good one, let us imagine what
 would happen to him. If his efforts to seem proficient in these
 duties failed to carry conviction, would not his failure be
 galling to him? if they succeeded, would not his success be
 still more disastrous? for it is certain that if a man who knew
 nothing about piloting a ship or commanding an army were
 appointed to such work, he would lose those whom he least wanted
 to lose and would bring ruin and disgrace on
 himself.

By similar reasoning he would show how
 unprofitable is a reputation for wealth or courage or strength when
 it is undeserved. Tasks beyond their
 powers, he would say, are laid on
 the incompetent, and no mercy is shown to them when they
 disappoint the expectation formed of their
 capability.

The man who persuades you to lend
 him money or goods and then keeps them is without doubt a rogue;
 but much the greatest rogue of all is the man who has gulled his
 city into the belief that he is fit to direct
 it. For my part I thought
 that such talks did discourage imposture among his companions.

In other conversations I thought that
 he exhorted his companions to practise self-control in the matter of
 eating and drinking, and sexual indulgence, and sleeping, and
 endurance of cold and heat and toil. Aware that one of his
 companions was rather intemperate in such matters, he said: Tell me, Aristippus, if you were required to take
 charge of two youths and educate them so that the one would be
 fit to rule and the other would never think of putting himself
 forward, how would you educate them? Shall we consider it,
 beginning with the elementary question of
 food? Oh yes, replied Aristippus, food
 does seem to come first; for one can’t live without
 food.

Well, now, will
 not a desire for food naturally arise in both at certain
 times? Yes, naturally. 
 Now which of the two should we train in the
 habit of transacting urgent business before he satisfies his
 hunger? The one who is being trained to rule, undoubtedly; else State
 business might be neglected during his tenure. And must not the same
 one be given power to resist thirst when both want to
 drink? Certainly.

And to which
 shall we give the power of limiting his sleep so that he can go
 late to bed and get up early, and do without sleep if need
 be? To
 the same again. 
 And the power to control his passions, so that
 he may not be hindered in doing necessary work? To the same
 again. And to which shall we give the habit of not shirking a task,
 but undertaking it willingly? 
 That too will go to the one who is being trained
 to rule. And to which would the knowledge needful for
 overcoming enemies be more appropriately
 given? 
 Without doubt to the one who is being trained to
 rule; for the other lessons would be useless without such
 knowledge.

Don’t you think
 that with this education he will be less likely to be caught by
 his enemy than other creatures? Some of them, you know, are so
 greedy, that in spite of extreme timidity in some cases, they
 are drawn irresistibly to the bait to get food, and are caught;
 and others are snared by drink. Yes, certainly. Others again — quails
 and partridges, for instance — are so amorous, that when they
 hear the cry of the female, they are carried away by desire and
 anticipation, throw caution to the winds and blunder into the
 nets. Is it not so?

He agreed again. Now, don’t you think it
 disgraceful that a man should be in the same plight as the
 silliest of wild creatures? Thus an adulterer enters the women’s
 quarters, knowing that by committing adultery he is in danger of
 incurring the penalties threatened by the law, and that he may
 be trapped, caught and ill-treated. When such misery and
 disgrace hang over the adulterer’s head, and there are many
 remedies to relieve him of his carnal desire without risk, is it
 not sheer lunacy to plunge headlong into
 danger? Yes, I think it is.

And considering
 that the great majority of essential occupations, warfare,
 agriculture and very many others, are carried on in the open
 air, don’t you think it gross negligence that so many men are
 untrained to withstand cold and heat? He agreed again. 
 Don’t you think then, that one who is going to
 rule must adapt himself to bear them lightly? Certainly.

If then we
 classify those who control themselves in all these matters as
 fit to rule, shall we not classify those who cannot behave so
 as men with no claim to be rulers? He agreed again. 
 Well now, as you know the category to which each
 of these species belongs, have you ever considered in which
 category you ought to put yourself?

I have; and I do
 not for a moment put myself in the category of those who want to
 be rulers. For considering how hard a matter it is to provide
 for one’s own needs, I think it absurd not to be content to do
 that, but to shoulder the burden of supplying the wants of the
 community as well. That anyone should sacrifice a large part of
 his own wishes and make himself accountable as head of the state
 for the least failure to carry out all the wishes of the
 community is surely the height of folly.

For states claim to treat their
 rulers just as I claim to treat my servants. I expect my men to
 provide me with necessaries in abundance, but not to touch any
 of them; and states hold it to be the business of the ruler to
 supply them with all manner of good things, and to abstain from
 all of them himself. And so, should anyone want to bring plenty
 of trouble on himself and others, I would educate him as you
 propose and number him with those fitted to be
 rulers : but myself I classify with those who wish for a
 life of the greatest ease and pleasure that can be
 had. Here Socrates asked:

Shall we then consider whether the rulers or the
 ruled live the pleasanter life? Certainly, replied
 Aristippus. To
 take first the nations known to us. In Asia the rulers are the
 Persians; the Syrians, Lydians and Phrygians are the ruled. In
 Europe the
 Scythians rule, and the Maeotians are ruled. In Africa the Carthaginians rule,
 and the Libyans are ruled. Which of the two classes, think you,
 enjoys the pleasanter life? Or take the Greeks, of whom you
 yourself are one; do you think that the controlling or the
 controlled communities enjoy the pleasanter life?

Nay, 
 replied Aristippus, for my part I am no
 candidate for slavery; but there is, as I hold, a middle path in
 which I am fain to walk. That way leads neither through rule nor
 slavery, but through liberty, which is the royal road to
 happiness.

Ah, said
 Socrates , if only that path can avoid the world as well as
 rule and slavery, there may be something in what you say. But,
 since you are in the world, if you intend neither to rule nor to
 be ruled, and do not choose to truckle to the rulers

— I think you must see that the
 stronger have a way of making the weaker rue their lot both in
 public and in private life, and treating them like slaves. You
 cannot be unaware that where some have sown and planted, others
 cut their corn and fell their trees, and in all manner of ways
 harass the weaker if they refuse to bow down, until they are
 persuaded to accept slavery as an escape from war with the
 stronger. So, too, in private life do not brave and mighty men
 enslave and plunder the cowardly and feeble
 folk? Yes, but my plan for avoiding such treatment is this. I do not
 shut myself up in the four corners of a community, but am a
 stranger in every land.

A very cunning
 trick, that! cried
 Socrates , for ever since the death of Sinis and Sceiron and
 Procrustes no
 one injures strangers! And yet nowadays those who take a hand in
 the affairs of their homeland pass laws to protect themselves
 from injury, get friends to help them over and above those whom
 nature has given them, encompass their cities with fortresses,
 get themselves weapons to ward off the workers of mischief; and
 besides all this seek to make allies in other lands; and in
 spite of all these precautions, they are still
 wronged.

But you, with none of these
 advantages, spend much time on the open road, where so many come
 to harm; and into whatever city you enter, you rank below all
 its citizens, and are one of those specially marked down for
 attack by intending wrongdoers; and yet, because you are a
 stranger, do you expect to escape injury? What gives you
 confidence? Is it that the cities by proclamation guarantee your
 safety in your coming and going? Or is it the thought that no
 master would find you worth having among his slaves? For who
 would care to have a man in his house who wants to do no work
 and has a weakness for high living?

But
 now let us see how masters treat such servants. Do they not
 starve them to keep them from immorality, lock up the stores to
 stop their stealing, clap fetters on them so that they can’t run
 away, and beat the laziness out of them with whips? What do you
 do yourself to cure such faults among your servants?

I make their
 lives a burden to them until I reduce them to submission. But
 how about those who are trained in the art of kingship,
 Socrates , which
 you appear to identify with happiness? How are they better off
 than those whose sufferings are compulsory, if they must bear
 hunger, thirst, cold, sleeplessness, and endure all these
 tortures willingly? For if the same back gets the flogging
 whether its owner kicks or consents, or, in short, if the same
 body, consenting or objecting, is besieged by all these
 torments, I see no difference, apart from the folly of voluntary
 suffering.

What,
 Aristippus, exclaimed
 Socrates , don’t you think that there is just this
 difference between these voluntary and involuntary sufferings,
 that if you bear hunger or thirst willingly, you can eat, drink,
 or what not, when you choose, whereas compulsory suffering is
 not to be ended at will? Besides, he who endures willingly
 enjoys his work because he is comforted by hope; hunters, for
 instance, toil gladly in hope of game.

Rewards like these are indeed of
 little worth after all the toil; but what of those who toil to
 win good friends, or to subdue enemies, or to make themselves
 capable in body and soul of managing their own homes well, of
 helping their friends and serving their country? Surely these
 toil gladly for such prizes and live a joyous life, well content
 with themselves, praised and envied by everyone else?

Moreover, indolence and present
 enjoyment can never bring the body into good condition, as
 trainers say, neither do they put into the soul knowledge of any
 value, but strenuous effort leads up to good and noble deeds, as
 good men say. And so says Hesiod somewhere: 
 Wickedness can be had in
 abundance easily: smooth is the road and very nigh
 she dwells. But in front of virtue the gods immortal
 have put sweat: long and steep is the path to her
 and rough at first; but when you reach the top, then
 at length the road is easy, hard though it
 was. 
 Hes. WD 285 
 And we have the testimony of Epicharmus too in the line: 
 The gods demand of us toil
 as the price of all good things. 
 Epicharmus 
 And elsewhere he says: 
 Knave, yearn not for the
 soft things, lest thou earn the hard. 
 Epicharmus

Aye,
 and Prodicus the wise expresses himself to the like effect
 concerning Virtue in the essay On Heracles that
 he recites to throngs of listeners. This, so far as I remember,
 is how he puts it: When Heracles
 was passing from boyhood to youth’s estate, wherein the young,
 now becoming their own masters, show whether they will approach
 life by the path of virtue or the path of vice, he went out into
 a quiet place,

and sat pondering which road to
 take. And there appeared two women of great stature making
 towards him. The one was fair to see and of high bearing; and
 her limbs were adorned with purity, her eyes with modesty; sober
 was her figure, and her robe was white. The other was plump and
 soft, with high feeding. Her face was made up to heighten its
 natural white and pink, her figure to exaggerate her height.
 Open-eyed was she; and dressed so as to disclose all her charms.
 Now she eyed herself; anon looked whether any noticed her; and
 often stole a glance at her own shadow.

When they drew nigh to Heracles,
 the first pursued the even tenor of her way: but the other, all
 eager to outdo her, ran to meet him, crying: Heracles, I see that you are in doubt which
 path to take towards life. Make me your friend; follow me,
 and I will lead you along the pleasantest and easiest road.
 You shall taste all the sweets of life; and hardship you
 shall never know.

First, of wars and worries you shall not think, but shall
 ever be considering what choice food or drink you can find,
 what sight or sound will delight you, what touch or perfume;
 what tender love can give you most joy, what bed the softest
 slumbers; and how to come by all these pleasures with least
 trouble.

And should there arise misgiving that lack of means may
 stint your enjoyments, never fear that I may lead you into
 winning them by toil and anguish of body and soul. Nay; you
 shall have the fruits of others’ toil, and refrain from
 nothing that can bring you gain. For to my companions I give
 authority to pluck advantage where they
 will.

Now
 when Heracles heard this, he asked, Lady,
 pray what is your name? 
 My friends
 call me Happiness, she said, but
 among those that hate me I am nicknamed
 Vice.

Meantime the other had drawn near, and she said: I, too, am come to you, Heracles: I know your
 parents and I have taken note of your character during the
 time of your education. Therefore I hope that, if you take
 the road that leads to me, you will turn out a right good
 doer of high and noble deeds, and I shall be yet more highly
 honoured and more illustrious for the blessings I bestow.
 But I will not deceive you by a pleasant prelude: I will
 rather tell you truly the things that are, as the gods have
 ordained them.

For of all things good and fair, the gods give nothing to
 man without toil and effort. If you want the favour of the
 gods, you must worship the gods: if you desire the love of
 friends, you must do good to your friends: if you covet
 honour from a city, you must aid that city: if you are fain
 to win the admiration of all Hellas for virtue, you must strive to do
 good to Hellas : if
 you want land to yield you fruits in abundance, you must
 cultivate that land: if you are resolved to get wealth from
 flocks, you must care for those flocks: if you essay to grow
 great through war and want power to liberate your friends
 and subdue your foes, you must learn the arts of war from
 those who know them and must practise their right use: and
 if you want your body to be strong, you must accustom your
 body to be the servant of your mind, and train it with toil
 and sweat.

And
 Vice, as Prodicus tells, answered and said: Heracles, mark you how hard and long is that road to joy,
 of which this woman tells? but I will lead you by a short
 and easy road to happiness. And Virtue said:

What good thing
 is thine, poor wretch, or what pleasant thing dost thou
 know, if thou wilt do nought to win them? Thou dost not even
 tarry for the desire of pleasant things, but fillest thyself
 with all things before thou desirest them, eating before
 thou art hungry, drinking before thou art thirsty, getting
 thee cooks, to give zest to eating, buying thee costly wines
 and running to and fro in search of snow in summer, to give
 zest to drinking; to soothe thy slumbers it is not enough
 for thee to buy soft coverlets, but thou must have frames
 for thy beds. For not toil, but the tedium of having nothing
 to do, makes thee long for sleep. Thou dost rouse lust by
 many a trick, when there is no need, using men as women:
 thus thou trainest thy friends, waxing wanton by night,
 consuming in sleep the best hours of day.

Immortal art thou, yet the outcast of the gods, the scorn of
 good men. Praise, sweetest of all things to hear, thou
 hearest not: the sweetest of all sights thou beholdest not,
 for never yet hast thou beheld a good work wrought by
 thyself. Who will believe what thou dost say? who will grant
 what thou dost ask? Or what sane man will dare join thy
 throng? While thy votaries are young their bodies are weak,
 when they wax old, their souls are without sense; idle and
 sleek they thrive in youth, withered and weary they journey
 through old age, and their past deeds bring them shame,
 their present deeds distress. Pleasure they ran through in
 their youth: hardship they laid up for their old
 age.

But I company with gods and good men, and no fair deed of
 god or man is done without my aid. I am first in honour
 among the gods and among men that are akin to me: to
 craftsmen a beloved fellow-worker, to masters a faithful
 guardian of the house, to servants a kindly protector: good
 helpmate in the toils of peace, staunch ally in the deeds of
 war, best partner in friendship.

To
 my friends meat and drink bring sweet and simple enjoyment:
 for they wait till they crave them. And a sweeter sleep
 falls on them than on idle folk: they are not vexed at
 awaking from it, nor for its sake do they neglect to do
 their duties. The young rejoice to win the praise of the
 old; the elders are glad to be honoured by the young; with
 joy they recall their deeds past, and their present
 well-doing is joy to them, for through me they are dear to
 the gods, lovely to friends, precious to their native land.
 And when comes the appointed end, they lie not forgotten and
 dishonoured, but live on, sung and remembered for all time.
 O Heracles, thou son of goodly parents, if thou wilt labour
 earnestly on this wise, thou mayest have for thine own the
 most blessed happiness.

Such,
 in outline, is Prodicus’ story of the training of Heracles by
 Virtue; only he has clothed the thoughts in even finer phrases
 than I have done now. But anyhow, Aristippus, it were well that
 you should think on these things and try to show some regard for
 the life that lies before you.

On noticing that his eldest son,
 Lamprocles, was out of humour with his mother, he said: Tell me, my boy, do you know that some men are
 called ungrateful? Indeed I do, replied the young
 man. Do you
 realise how they come to have this bad name? I do; the word is used
 of those who do not show the gratitude that it is in their power
 to show for benefits received. You take it, then, that the
 ungrateful are reckoned among the unjust? Yes.

Now, seeing that
 enslavement is considered a just or an unjust act according as
 the victims are friends or enemies, have you ever considered
 whether the case of ingratitude is analogous, ingratitude being
 unjust towards friends, but just towards
 enemies? Indeed I have; and I think that it is always
 unjust not to show gratitude for a favour from whomsoever it is
 received, be he friend or enemy.

If that is so,
 must not ingratitude be injustice pure and
 simple? He
 assented. Therefore the greater the benefits received the greater the
 injustice of not showing gratitude? He agreed again. Now what deeper obligation can we
 find than that of children to their parents? To their parents
 children owe their being and their portion of all fair sights
 and all blessings that the gods bestow on men — gifts so highly
 prized by us that all will sacrifice anything rather than lose
 them; and the reason why governments have made death the penalty
 for the greatest crimes is that the fear of it is the strongest
 deterrent against crime.

Of course you don’t suppose that lust provokes
 men to beget children, when the streets and the stews are full
 of means to satisfy that? We obviously select for wives the
 women who will bear us the best children, and then marry them to
 raise a family.

The man supports the woman who is to share with
 him the duty of parentage and provides for the expected children
 whatever he thinks will contribute to their benefit in life, and
 accumulates as much of it as he can. The woman conceives and
 bears her burden in travail, risking her life, and giving of her
 own food; and, with much labour, having endured to the end and
 brought forth her child, she rears and cares for it, although
 she has not received any good thing, and the babe neither
 recognises its benefactress nor can make its wants known to her:
 still she guesses what is good for it and what it likes, and
 seeks to supply these things, and rears it for a long season,
 enduring toil day and night, nothing knowing what return she
 will get.

Nor are the
 parents content just to supply food, but so soon as their
 children seem capable of learning they teach them what they can
 for their good, and if they think that another is more competent
 to teach them anything, they send them to him at a cost, and
 strive their utmost that the children may turn out as well as
 possible. To this the
 young man replied:

Nay, but even if she has done all this and far
 more than this, no one could put up with her vile
 temper. Which, think you, asked
 Socrates , is the harder to bear, a wild beast’s brutality or
 a mother’s? I should say a mother’s, when she is like
 mine. Well now, many people get bitten or kicked by wild beasts; has
 she ever done you an injury of that sort?

Oh no, but she
 says things one wouldn’t listen to for anything in the
 world. Well, how much trouble do you think you have given her by your
 peevish words and froward acts day and night since you were a
 little child; and how much pain when you were
 ill? But I have never yet said or done anything to cause her
 shame.

Now do you really
 think it harder for you to listen to what she says than for
 actors when they abuse one another in a
 tragedy? But an actor, I suppose, doesn’t think that a
 question put to him will lead to punishment, or that a threat
 means any harm: and so he makes light of it. And why should you be
 annoyed? You know well that there is no malice in what your
 mother says to you; on the contrary, she wishes you to be
 blessed above all other beings — unless, indeed, you suppose
 that your mother is maliciously set against
 you? Oh no, I don’t think that. Then Socrates 
 exclaimed:

So this mother of yours is kindly disposed
 towards you; she nurses you devotedly in sickness and sees that
 you want for nothing; more than that, she prays the gods to
 bless you abundantly and pays vows on your behalf; and yet you
 say she is a trial! It seems to me that, if you can’t endure a
 mother like her, you can’t endure a good thing.

Now tell me, is there any other
 being whom you feel bound to regard? Or are you set on trying to
 please nobody, and obeying neither general nor other
 ruler? 
 Of course
 not!

Do you want to
 please your neighbour, for instance, so that he may kindle a
 fire for you at your need, may support you in prosperity, and in
 case of accident or failure may be ready to hold out a helping
 hand? Yes, I do. When you find yourself with a travelling companion
 on land or at sea, or happen to meet anyone, is it a matter of
 indifference to you whether he prove a friend or an enemy? Or do
 you think his goodwill worth cultivating? Yes, I do.

And yet, when you
 are resolved to cultivate these, you don’t think courtesy is due
 to your mother, who loves you more than all? Don’t you know that
 even the state ignores all other forms of ingratitude and
 pronounces no judgment on them, caring
 nothing if the recipient of a favour neglects to thank his
 benefactor, but inflicts penalties on the man who is
 discourteous to his parents and rejects him as unworthy of
 office, holding that it would be a sin for him to offer
 sacrifices on behalf of the state and that he is unlikely to do
 anything else honourably and rightly? Aye, and if one fail to
 honour his parents’ graves, the state inquires into that too,
 when it examines the candidates for office.

Therefore, my boy, if you are
 prudent, you will pray the gods to pardon your neglect of your
 mother, lest they in turn refuse to be kind to you, thinking you
 an ingrate; and you will beware of men, lest all cast you out,
 perceiving that you care nothing for your parents, and in the
 end you are found to be without a friend. For, should men
 suppose you to be ungrateful to your parents, none would think
 you would be grateful for any kindness he might show
 you.

On another occasion he found that two
 brothers, Chaerophon and Chaerecrates, whom he knew well, were
 quarrelling. On seeing the latter, he cried, Surely, Chaerecrates, you are not one of those who hold that
 there is more value in goods and chattels than in a brother,
 when they are senseless but he is sensible; they are helpless
 but he is helpful; when, moreover, you have many goods, but only
 one brother.

It is strange too that a man should
 think he loses by his brothers because he cannot have their
 possessions as well as his own, and yet should not think that he
 loses by his fellow-citizens because their possessions are not
 his; and whereas in this case men can reflect that it is better
 to belong to a community, secure in the possession of a
 sufficiency, than to dwell in solitude with a precarious hold on
 all the property of their fellow-citizens, they fail to see that
 the same principle applies to brothers.

Again, those who have the means by
 servants to relieve them of work, and make friends because they
 feel the need of help; but they care nothing for their brothers,
 as though friendship can exist between fellow-citizens, but not
 between brothers!

Yet common parentage and common
 upbringing are strong ties of affection, 
 for even brute beasts reared together feel a natural yearning
 for one another. Besides, our fellow-men respect those of us who
 have brothers more than those who have none, and are less ready
 to quarrel with them.

If only the
 difference between us were a slight one,
 Socrates , 
 replied Chaerecrates, it might perhaps be my
 duty to put up with my brother and not allow trifles to separate
 us. For a brother who behaves like a brother is, as you say, a
 blessing; but if his conduct is nothing like that, and is, in
 fact, just the opposite of what it should be, what is the use of
 attempting impossibilities?

Does everyone
 find Chaerophon as disagreeable as you do, Chaerecrates, or do
 some people think him very pleasant? Ah,
 Socrates , 
 replied he, this is precisely my reason for
 hating him: he is pleasant enough to other people, but whenever
 he is near me, he invariably says and does more to hurt than to
 help me.

Well now, 
 said Socrates , if you try to manage a horse without knowing the
 right way, he hurts you. Is it so with a brother? Does he hurt
 if you try to deal with him when you don’t know the
 way?

What, 
 exclaimed Chaerecrates, don’t I know how to deal
 with a brother, when I know how to requite a kind word and a
 generous deed? But I can’t speak or act kindly to one who tries
 to annoy me by his words and actions — and what’s more, I won’t
 try. Chaerecrates, you astonish me!

Had you a sheep dog that was
 friendly to the shepherds, but growled when you came near him,
 it would never occur to you to get angry, but you would try to
 tame him by kindness. You say that, if your brother treated you
 like a brother, he would be a great blessing, and you confess
 that you know how to speak and act kindly: yet you don’t set
 yourself to contriving that he shall be the greatest possible
 blessing to you.

I fear,
 Socrates , that I
 lack the wisdom to make Chaerophon treat me as he
 should. And yet, said
 Socrates , there is no need, so far as I see, of any subtle
 or strange contriving on your part: I think you know the way to
 win him and to get his good opinion.

If you have
 observed that I know some spell without being conscious of my
 knowledge, pray tell me at once. Then tell me, now; if you wanted to
 get an invitation to dine with an acquaintance when he offers
 sacrifice, what would you do? Of course I should begin by inviting
 him myself when I offered sacrifice.

And suppose you
 wanted to encourage one of your friends to look after your
 affairs during your absence from home, what would you
 do? Of
 course I should first undertake to look after his affairs in his
 absence.

And suppose you
 wanted a stranger to entertain you when you visited his city,
 what would you do? Obviously I should first entertain him when he
 came to Athens . Yes,
 and if I wanted him to show himself eager in forwarding the
 business on which I had come, it is obvious that I should first
 have to do the same by him.

It seems that you
 have long concealed a knowledge of all spells that were ever
 discovered. Or is it that you hesitate to make a beginning, for
 fear of disgracing yourself by first showing kindness to your
 brother? Yet it is generally thought worthy of the highest
 praise to anticipate the malevolence of an enemy and the
 benevolence of a friend. So if I thought Chaerophon more capable
 than you of showing the way to this friendship, I would try to
 persuade him to take the first step towards an understanding
 with you. But as things are, I think the enterprise more likely
 to succeed under your direction. Strange sentiments, these,
 Socrates !

It’s quite unlike you to urge me,
 the junior, to lead the way! And surely all hold the contrary
 opinion, that the senior, I mean, should always act and speak
 first? 
 How so? 
 said Socrates .

Is it not the general opinion that a young man
 should make way for an older when they meet, offer his seat to him, give him a comfortable
 bed, let him have the first word? My good friend, don’t
 hesitate, but take up the task of pacifying your man, and in no
 time he will respond to your overtures. Don’t you see how keen
 and frank he is? Low fellows, it is true, yield most readily to
 gifts, but kindness is the weapon most likely to prevail with a
 gentleman.

And what, 
 asked Chaerecrates, if all my efforts lead to no
 improvement? Well, in that case, I presume you will have shown
 that you are honest and brotherly, he that he is base and
 unworthy of kindness. But I am confident that no such result
 will follow; for I think that, as soon as he is aware of your
 challenge to this contest, he will be all eagerness to outdo
 your kind words and actions.

What if a pair of hands refused the
 office of mutual help for which God made them, and tried to
 thwart each other; or if a pair of feet neglected the duty of
 working together, for which they were fashioned, and took to
 hampering each other? That is how you two are behaving at
 present.

Would it not be utterly senseless
 and disastrous to use for hindrance instruments that were made
 for help? And, moreover, a pair of brothers, in my judgment,
 were made by God to render better service one to the other than
 a pair of hands and feet and eyes and all the instruments that
 he meant to be used as fellows. For the hands cannot deal
 simultaneously with things that are more than six feet or so
 apart: the feet cannot reach in a single stride things that are
 even six feet apart: and the eyes, though they seem to have a
 longer range, cannot at the same moment see things still nearer
 than that, if some are in front and some behind. But two
 brothers, when they are friends, act simultaneously for mutual
 benefit, however far parted one from the other.

Again, I once heard him give a
 discourse on friendship that was
 likely, as I thought, to help greatly in the acquisition and use of
 friends. For he said that he often
 heard it stated that of all possessions the most precious is a good
 and sincere friend. And yet, he said,
 there is no transaction most men are so
 careless about as the acquisition of friends.

For I find that they are careful
 about getting houses and lands and slaves and cattle and
 furniture, and anxious to keep what they have; but though they
 tell one that a friend is the greatest blessing, I find that
 most men take no thought how to get new friends or how to keep
 their old ones.

Indeed, if one of their friends and
 one of their servants fall ill at the same time, I find that
 some call in the doctor to attend the servant and are careful to
 provide everything that may contribute to his recovery, whereas
 they take no heed of the friend. In the event of both dying,
 they are vexed at losing the servant, but don’t feel that the
 death of the friend matters in the least. And though none of
 their other possessions is uncared for and unconsidered, they
 are deaf to their friends’ need of attention.

And besides all this, I find that
 most men know the number of their other possessions, however
 great it may be, yet cannot tell the number of their friends,
 few as they are; and, if they are asked and try to make a list,
 they will insert names and presently remove them. So much for
 the thought they give to their friends!

Yet surely there is no other
 possession that can compare with a good friend. For what horse,
 what yoke of oxen is so good a servant as the good friend? What
 slave so loyal and constant? or what possession so
 serviceable?

The good friend is on the watch to
 supply whatever his friend wants for building up his private
 fortune and forwarding his public career. If generosity is
 called for, he does his part: if fear harasses, he comes to the
 rescue, shares expenses, helps to persuade, bears down
 opposition: he is foremost in delighting him when he is
 prosperous and raising him up when he falls.

Of all that a man can do with his
 hands, see for himself with his eyes, hear for himself with his
 ears or accomplish with his feet, in nothing is a friend
 backward in helping. Nevertheless, while some strive to
 cultivate a tree for its fruit, most bestow but an idle and
 listless care on their most fruitful possession, the name of
 which is friend.

Again, I once heard him exhort a
 listener — for so I interpreted his words — to examine himself and
 to ask how much he was worth to his friends. For he had noticed that
 one of his companions was neglecting a poverty-stricken friend; so
 he put a question to Antisthenes in the presence of several others,
 including the careless friend.

Antisthenes, he said, have friends like servants their own values? For
 one servant, I suppose, may be worth two minas, another less than half
 a mina, another five minas, another no less than ten. Nicias,
 son of Niceratus, is said to have given a whole talent for a
 manager of his silver-mine. So I am led to inquire whether
 friends too may not differ in value.

Oh yes, replied Antisthenes, there are men whose friendship I, at any rate,
 would rather have than two minas: others I should value at less
 than half a mina: others I would prefer to ten minas: others I
 would sacrifice any sum and take any trouble to have among my
 friends.

Then if that is
 so, said
 Socrates , were it not well that one should ask himself how
 much he is really worth to his friends, and try to make himself
 as precious as possible, in order that his friends may not be
 tempted to betray him? For my part, I often hear complaints of
 this sort: A friend betrayed me, 
 one whom I regarded as my friend gave me
 up for the sake of a mina.

I think over such matters and
 reflect that, when a man sells a bad slave he takes anything he
 can get for him; and perhaps it is tempting to sell a bad friend
 when there is a chance of getting more than he is worth. Good
 servants, I find, are not offered for sale, nor are good friends
 betrayed.

In the following conversation I
 thought he gave instruction for testing the qualities that make a
 man’s friendship worth winning. Tell me, Critobulus, he said, if we wanted a good friend, how should we start on
 the quest? Should we seek first for one who is no slave to
 eating and drinking, lust, sleep, idleness? For the thrall of
 these masters cannot do his duty by himself or his
 friend. No, of course not. Then you think we should avoid one
 who is subject to them? I do, certainly.

Now what about
 the spendthrift who is never satisfied, who is always appealing
 to his neighbours for help, if he receives something, makes no
 return, if he receives nothing, resents it? Don’t you think he
 too is a troublesome friend? Certainly. Then we must avoid him
 too? We must indeed.

Again, what about
 the skilful man of business who is eager to make money, and
 consequently drives a hard bargain, who likes to receive but is
 disinclined to repay? So far as I see, he is even worse than the
 last.

And what of the
 man who is such a keen man of business that he has no leisure
 for anything but the selfish pursuit of gain? We must avoid him too, I
 think. There is no profit in knowing him. And what of the
 quarrelsome person who is willing to provide his friends with
 plenty of enemies? We must shun him too, of course. Suppose that a man is
 free from all these faults, but stoops to receive kindness with
 no thought of returning it? There is no profit in him either. But what
 are the qualities for which we shall try to win a man’s
 friendship,
 Socrates ? The opposite of these, I
 suppose.

We shall look for one who controls his
 indulgence in the pleasures of the body, who is truly
 hospitable and fair in
 his dealings and eager to do as much for his benefactors as he
 receives from them, so that he is worth knowing.

Then how can we
 test these qualities,
 Socrates , before
 intimacy begins? What test do we apply to a sculptor? We don’t
 judge by what he says, but we look at his statues, and if we see
 that the works he has already produced are beautiful, we feel
 confident that his future works will be as good.

You mean that
 anyone whose good works wrought upon his old friends are
 manifest will clearly prove a benefactor to new friends
 also? Yes; for when I find that an owner of horses has been in the
 habit of treating his beasts well I think that he will treat
 others equally well.

Granted! but when
 we have found a man who seems worthy of our friendship, how are
 we to set about making him our friend? First we should seek
 guidance from the gods, whether they counsel us to make a friend
 of him. And next? Supposing that we have chosen and the
 gods approve him, can you say how is he to be
 hunted?

Surely not like a
 hare by swift pursuit, nor like birds by cunning, nor like
 enemies by force. It is no light task to
 capture a friend against his will, and hard to keep him a
 prisoner like a slave. Hatred, rather than friendship, comes of
 that treatment.

But how does
 friendship come? There are spells, they say, wherewith those who
 know charm whom they will and make friends of them, and drugs
 which those who know give to whom they choose and win their
 love.

How then can we
 learn them? You have heard from Homer the spell that the
 Sirens put on Odysseus. It begins like this: 
 Hither, come hither,
 renowned Odysseus, great glory of the
 Achaeans. 
 
 Then did the Sirens chant in this strain for other folk too,
 Socrates , so as
 to keep those who were under the spell from leaving
 them?

No, only for
 those that yearned for the fame that virtue
 gives. You mean, I take it, that the spell must be fitted to the
 listener, so that he may not take the praise for
 mockery. Yes; for to praise one for his beauty, his stature
 and his strength who is conscious that he is short, ugly and
 puny, is the way to repel him and make him dislike you
 more. Do you know any other spells?

No, but I have
 heard that Pericles knew many and put them on the city, and so
 made her love him. And how did Themistocles make the city love
 him? Not by spells: no, no; but by hanging some good amulet about
 her.

I think you mean,
 Socrates , that
 if we are to win a good man’s friendship, we ourselves must be
 good in word and deed alike? But you imagined that a bad man
 could win the friendship of honest men?

I did, 
 answered Critobulus, for I saw that poor orators
 have good speakers among their friends, and some who are
 incapable of commanding an army are intimate with great
 generals.

Coming then to
 the point under discussion, do you know cases of useless persons
 making useful friends? Assuredly not; but if it is impossible
 that the bad should gain the friendship of gentlemen, then I am
 anxious to know whether it is quite easy for a gentleman as a
 matter of course to be the friend of gentlemen?

Your trouble is,
 Critobulus, that you often find men who do good and shun evil
 not on friendly terms, but apt to quarrel and treat one another
 more harshly than worthless fellows.

Yes, said
 Critobulus, and such conduct is not confined to
 individuals, but even the cities that care most for the right
 and have least liking for the wrong are often at
 enmity.

These thoughts make me despair about
 the acquisition of friends. For I see on the one hand that
 rogues cannot be friends with one another — for how could the
 ungrateful, the careless, the selfish, the faithless, the
 incontinent, form friendships? I feel sure, then, that rogues
 are by their nature enemies rather than friends.

But then, as you point out, neither
 can rogues ever join in friendship with honest men, for how can
 wrongdoers become friendly with those who hate their conduct?
 And if we must add that the votaries of virtue strive with one
 another for headship in cities, and envy and hate one another,
 who then will be friends and where shall loyalty and
 faithfulness be found?

Ah, Critobulus,
 but there is a strange complication in these matters. Some
 elements in man’s nature make for friendship: men need one
 another, feel pity, work together for their common good, and,
 conscious of the facts, are grateful to one another. But there
 are hostile elements in men. For, holding the same things to be
 honourable and pleasant, they fight for them, fall out and take
 sides. Strife and anger lead to hostility, covetousness to
 enmity, jealousy to hatred.

Nevertheless through all these
 barriers friendship slips, and unites the gentle natures. For
 thanks to their virtue these prize the untroubled security of
 moderate possessions above sovereignty won by war; despite
 hunger and thirst, they can share their food and drink without a
 pang; and although they delight in the charms of beauty they can
 resist the lure and avoid offending those whom they should
 respect;

they can not only share wealth
 lawfully and keep from covetousness, but also supply one
 another’s wants; they can compose strife not only without pain,
 but with advantage to one another, and prevent anger from
 pursuing its way towards remorse: but jealousy they take away
 utterly, regarding their own good things as belonging to their
 friends, and thinking their friend’s good things to be their
 own.

Surely, then, it is likely that true
 gentlemen will share public honours too not only without harm to
 one another, but to their common benefit? For those who desire
 to win honour and to bear rule in their cities that they may
 have power to embezzle, to treat others with violence, to live
 in luxury, are bound to be unjust, unscrupulous, incapable of
 unity.

But if a man seeks to be honoured in
 a state that he may not be the victim of injustice himself and
 may help his friends in a just cause, and when he takes office
 may try to do some good to his country, why should he be
 incapable of union with one like himself? Will his connexion
 with other gentlemen render him less capable of serving his
 friends? Will he be less able to benefit his city with the help
 of other gentlemen?

Even in the public games it is clear
 that, if the strongest competitors were allowed to join forces
 against the weaker, they would win all the events, they would
 carry off all the prizes. True, that is not permitted in the
 games; but in politics, where the gentlemen are the strongest,
 nobody prevents anyone from forming any combination he may
 choose for the benefit of the state; surely, then, in public
 life it is a gain to make friends with the best, and to see in
 them partners and fellow-workers in a common cause, and not
 rivals.

But, again, it is equally clear that
 anyone who goes to war will need allies, and more of them if he
 is to fight an army of gentlemen. Moreover, those who are
 willing to fight at your side must be well treated that they may
 be willing to exert themselves; and it is a far sounder plan to
 show kindness to the best, who are fewer in number, than to the
 worst, who are the greater company; for the bad want many more
 kindnesses than the good.

Courage, Critobulus; try to be good,
 and when you have achieved that, set about catching your
 gentleman. Maybe, I myself, as an adept in love, can lend you a
 hand in the pursuit of gentlemen. For when I want to catch
 anyone it’s surprising how I strain every nerve to have my love
 returned, my longing reciprocated by him, in my eagerness that
 he shall want me as much as I want him.

I see that you too will feel this
 need when you want to form a friendship. So do not hide from me
 the names of those whom you wish to make your friends; for I am
 careful to please him who pleases me, and so, I think, I am not
 without experience in the pursuit of men.

Well,
 Socrates , said
 Critobulus in reply, these are the lessons I have long wished to
 learn, especially if the same skill will serve to win a good soul
 and a fair face.

Ah no,
 Critobulus, said
 Socrates , it belongs not to my skill to lay hands on the
 fair and force them to submit. I am convinced that the reason
 why men fled from Scylla was that she laid hands on them; but
 the Sirens laid hands on no man; from far away they sang to all,
 and therefore, we are told, all submitted, and hearing were
 enchanted.

I am not going to
 put a hand on anyone, said Critobulus, so teach me any good plan you know for making
 friends. Then won’t you put lip to lip
 either? Courage! answered Critobulus, I won’t touch a lip with mine either — unless the
 owner is fair! That’s an unfortunate beginning for you,
 Critobulus! The fair won’t submit to such
 conduct; but the ugly like it, supposing that they are called
 fair for the beauty of their souls.

A kiss for the
 fair, exclaimed Critobulus, and a
 thousand kisses for the good! That shall be my motto, so take
 courage, and teach me the art of catching
 friends. Well then, Critobulus, said
 Socrates , when you want to make a new friend, will you let
 me warn him that you admire him and want his
 friendship? Warn him by all means: no one hates those who
 praise him, so far as I know.

Suppose I go on
 to warn him that your admiration makes you well disposed towards
 him, you won’t think I am slandering you, will
 you? Nay; when I guess that anyone feels well disposed towards me, a
 like goodwill towards him is begotten in me.

Then you will
 permit me to say this about you to those whose friendship you
 desire. Now if you will give me permission to tell them besides
 that you are devoted to your friends and nothing gives you so
 much pleasure as good friends; that you take as much pride in
 your friends’ fair achievements as in your own, and as much
 pleasure in your friends’ good as in your own, and never weary
 of contriving it for your friend’s; and you have made up your
 mind that a man’s virtue consists in outdoing his friends in
 kindness and his enemies in mischief; then I think you will find
 me a useful companion in the quest of good friends.

Now why do you
 say this to me? as if you were not free to say what you choose
 about me. Not so indeed: I can quote Aspasia against you.
 She once told me that good matchmakers are successful in making
 marriages only when the good reports they carry to and fro are
 true; false reports she would not recommend, for the victims of
 deception hate one another and the matchmaker too. I am
 convinced that this is sound, and so I think it is not open to
 me to say anything in your praise that I can’t say
 truthfully.

It appears,
 Socrates , that
 you are the sort of friend to help me if I am in any way
 qualified to make friends: but if not, you won’t make up a story
 to help me. How do you think I shall help you best,
 Critobulus, by false praise, or by urging you to try to be a
 good man?

If you don’t yet see clearly, take
 the following cases as illustrations. Suppose that I wanted to
 get a shipmaster to make you his friend, and as a recommendation
 told him that you are a good skipper, which is untrue; and
 suppose that he believed me and put you in charge of his ship in
 spite of your not knowing how to steer it: have you any reason
 to hope that you would not lose the ship and your life as well?
 Or suppose that I falsely represented to the Assembly that you
 are a born general, jurist and statesman in one, and so
 persuaded the state to commit her fortunes to you, what do you
 suppose would happen to the state and to yourself under your
 guidance? Or again, suppose that I falsely described you to
 certain citizens in private as a thrifty, careful person, and
 persuaded them to place their affairs in your hands, wouldn’t
 you do them harm and look ridiculous when you came to the
 test?

Nay, Critobulus, if you want to be
 thought good at anything, you must try to be so; that is the
 quickest, the surest, the best way. 
 You will find on reflection that every kind of virtue named
 among men is increased by study and practice. Such is the view I
 take of our duty, Critobulus. If you have anything to say
 against it, tell me. Why,
 Socrates , 
 said Critobulus, I should be ashamed to
 contradict you, for I should be saying what is neither
 honourable nor true.

To pass to another subject. The
 distresses of his friends that arose from ignorance he tried to cure
 by advice, those that were due to want by telling them how to help
 one another according to their power. On this subject too I will
 state what I know about him. One day,
 noticing that Aristarchus looked glum, he said: Aristarchus, you seem to have a burden on your mind. You should
 let your friends share it; possibly we may do something to ease
 you.

Ah yes,
 Socrates , 
 replied Aristarchus, I am in great distress.
 Since the revolution there has been an exodus to the Piraeus , and a crowd of my
 women-folk, being left behind, are come to me, — sisters, nieces
 and cousins, — so that we are fourteen in the house without
 counting the slaves. We get nothing from our land, because our
 enemies have seized it, and nothing from our house property, now
 there are so few residents in the city. Portable property finds
 no buyers, and it’s quite impossible to borrow money anywhere: I
 really think a search in the street would have better result
 than an application for a loan. It’s hard,
 Socrates , to let
 one’s people die, but impossible to keep so many in times like
 these. When
 Socrates heard this,
 he asked:

How is it that with so many mouths to feed
 Ceramon not only contrives to provide for the needs of himself
 and his family, but actually saves enough to make him a rich
 man, whereas you, with so many mouths to feed, fear you will all
 be starved to death? The explanation, of course, is this: my dependants
 are gentlefolk, his are slaves.

And which do you
 think are the better, his slaves or your
 gentlefolk? My gentlefolk, I think. Then is it not
 disgraceful that you with your gentlefolk should be in distress,
 while he is kept in affluence by his meaner
 household? Of course his dependants are artisans, while mine
 have had a liberal education.

What is an
 artisan? one who knows how to produce something
 useful? Certainly. Are groats useful? Yes, very. And bread? No less so. What about men’s and women’s cloaks, shirts,
 capes, smocks? Yes, all these things too are very
 useful. Then don’t the members of your household know how
 to make any of these? I believe they can make all of
 them.

Don’t you know,
 then, that by manufacturing one of these commodities, namely
 groats, Nausicydes keeps not only himself and his family, but
 large herds of swine and cattle as well, and has so much to
 spare that he often undertakes costly public duties; that
 Cyrebus feeds his whole family well and lives in luxury by
 baking bread, Demeas of Collytus by making capes, Menon by
 making cloaks; and most of the Megarians make a good living out
 of smocks? Yes, of course; for they buy foreign slaves and
 can force them to make what is convenient, but my household is
 made up of gentlefolk and relations.

And so, just
 because they are gentlefolk and related to you, you think they
 should do nothing but eat and sleep? Do you find that other
 gentlefolk who live this sort of life are better off and happier
 than those who are usefully employed in work that they
 understand? Or is it your experience that idleness and
 carelessness help men to learn what they ought to know and
 remember what they learn, to make themselves healthy and strong,
 and to get and keep things that are of practical use, but
 industry and carefulness are useless things?

When these women learned the work
 that you say they understand, did they regard it as of no
 practical use, and had they no intention of taking it up, or did
 they mean to occupy themselves in it and obtain some benefit
 from it? Which makes men more prudent, idleness or useful
 employment? Which makes men more just, work or idle discussions
 about supplies?

Besides, at present, I fancy, you
 don’t love these ladies and they don’t love you: you think they
 are a tax on you, and they see that you feel them to be a
 burden. And the danger in this state of things is that dislike
 may grow and their former gratitude fade away; but if you exert
 your authority and make them work, you will love them, when you
 find that they are profitable to you, and they will be fond of
 you, when they feel that you are pleased with them. Both you and
 they will like to recall past kindnesses and will strengthen the
 feeling of gratitude that these engender; thus you will be
 better friends and feel more at home.

To be sure, if they were going to do
 something disgraceful, death would be a better fate. But in
 point of fact the work they understand is, as it appears, the
 work considered the most honourable and the most suitable for a
 woman; and the work that is understood is always done with the
 greatest ease, speed, pride and pleasure. So do not hesitate to
 offer them work that will yield a return both to you and to
 them, and probably they will welcome your proposal.

Well,
 well, said Aristarchus, your advice
 seems so good, Socrates ,
 that I think I shall now bring myself to borrow capital to make
 a start. Hitherto I have had no inclination to do so, knowing
 that when I had spent the loan I should not have the wherewithal
 to repay it.

The consequence was that capital was
 provided and wool purchased. The women worked during dinner and only
 stopped at the supper hour. There were happy instead of gloomy
 faces: suspicious glances were exchanged for pleasant smiles. They
 loved him as a guardian and he liked them because they were useful.
 Finally Aristarchus came to
 Socrates and told him
 this with delight. One objection they have to
 me, he added: I am the only member
 of the household who eats the bread of idleness.

Then why not tell
 them the story of the dog? asked
 Socrates . It is said that when beasts could talk, a sheep
 said to her master: It is strange that you
 give us sheep nothing but what we get from the land, though
 we supply you with wool and lambs and cheese, and yet you
 share your own food with your dog, who supplies you with
 none of these things. The dog heard this, and
 said:

Of course he
 does. Do not I keep you from being stolen by thieves, and
 carried off by wolves? Why, but for my protection you
 couldn’t even feed for fear of being killed. And so,
 they say, the sheep admitted the dog’s claim to preference. Do
 you then tell these women that you are their watch-dog and
 keeper, and it is due to you that they live and work in safety
 and comfort, with none to harm them.

Again, on meeting an old comrade
 after long absence he said: Where do you come
 from, Eutherus? I came home when the war ended,
 Socrates , and am
 now living here, he replied. Since
 we have lost our foreign property, and my father left me nothing
 in Attica , I am forced
 to settle down here now and work for my living with my hands. I
 think it’s better than begging, especially as I have no security
 to offer for a loan.

And how long will you have the
 strength, do you think, to earn your living by your work? 
 Oh, not long, of course. But remember, when you get old you will
 have to spend money, and nobody will be willing to pay you for your
 labour. True.

Then it would be
 better to take up some kind of work at once that will assure you
 a competence when you get old, and to go to somebody who is
 better off and wants an assistant, and get a return for your
 services by acting as his bailiff, helping to get in his crops
 and looking after his property.

I shouldn’t like
 to make myself a slave,
 Socrates . But surely those who
 control their cities and take charge of public affairs are
 thought more respectable, not more slavish on that
 account.

Briefly,
 Socrates , I have
 no inclination to expose myself to any man’s
 censure. But, you see, Eutherus, it is by no means easy to
 find a post in which one is not liable to censure. Whatever one
 does, it is difficult to avoid mistakes, and it is difficult to
 escape unfair criticism even if one makes no mistakes. I wonder
 if you find it easy to avoid complaints entirely even from your
 present employers.

You should try, therefore, to have
 no truck with grumblers and to attach yourself to considerate
 masters; to undertake such duties as you can perform and beware
 of any that are too much for you, and, whatever you do, to give
 of your best and put your heart into the business. In this way,
 I think, you are most likely to escape censure, find relief from
 your difficulties, live in ease and security, and obtain an
 ample competence for old age.

I remember that he once heard Criton
 say that life at Athens 
 was difficult for a man who wanted to mind his own business. At this moment, Criton added, actions are pending against me not because I have
 done the plaintiffs an injury, but because they think that I
 would sooner pay than have trouble.

Tell me,
 Criton, said
 Socrates , do you keep dogs to fend the wolves from your
 sheep? Certainly, replied Criton, because
 it pays me better to keep them. Then why not keep a man who may be
 able and willing to fend off the attempts to injure
 you? I
 would gladly do so were I not afraid that he might turn on
 me.

What? don’t you
 see that it is much pleasanter to profit by humouring a man like
 you than by quarrelling with him? I assure you there are men in
 this city who would take pride in your friendship.

Thereupon they sought out Archedemus,
 an excellent speaker and man of affairs, but poor. For he was not
 one of those who make money unscrupulously, but an honest man, and
 he would say that it was easy to take forfeit from false accusers.
 So whenever Criton was storing corn, oil, wine, wool or other farm
 produce, he would make a present of a portion to Archedemus, and
 when he sacrificed, he invited him, and in fact lost no similar
 opportunity of showing courtesy.

Archedemus came to regard Criton’s house as a haven of refuge and
 constantly paid his respects to him. He soon found out that Criton’s
 false accusers had much to answer for and many enemies. He brought
 one of them to trial on a charge involving damages or
 imprisonment.

The defendant, conscious that he was guilty on many counts, did all
 he could to get quit of Archedemus. But Archedemus refused to let
 him off until he withdrew the action against Criton and compensated
 him.

Archedemus carried through several other enterprises of a similar
 kind; and now many of Criton’s friends begged him to make Archedemus
 their protector, just as when a shepherd has a good dog the other
 shepherds want to pen their flocks near his, in order to get the use
 of his dog.

Archedemus was glad to humour Criton, and so there was peace not
 only for Criton but for his friends as well. If anyone whom he had
 offended reproached Archedemus with flattering Criton because he
 found him useful, he would answer: Which, then,
 is disgraceful: to have honest men for your friends, by
 accepting and returning their favours, and to fall out with
 rogues; or to treat gentlemen as enemies by trying to injure
 them, and to make friends of rogues by siding with them, and to
 prefer their intimacy? Henceforward
 Archedemus was respected by Criton’s friends and was himself
 numbered among them.

Again I recall the following
 conversation between him and his companion Diodorus. Tell me,
 Diodorus, he said, if one of your
 servants runs away, do you take steps to bring him back
 safe?

Yes, of
 course, he replied, and I invite
 others to help, by offering a reward for the recovery of the
 man. And further, if one of your servants is ill, do you take care
 of him and call in doctors to prevent him
 dying? Indeed I do. Well, suppose that one of your acquaintance, who
 is much more useful than your servants, is near being ruined by
 want, don’t you think it worth your while to take steps to save
 him?

Now you know that Hermogenes is a
 conscientious man and would be ashamed to take a favour from you
 without making a return. Yet surely it is worth many servants to
 have a willing, loyal, staunch subordinate, capable of doing
 what he is told, and not only so, but able to make himself
 useful unbidden, to think clearly and give advice .

Good householders, you know, say
 that the right time to buy is when a valuable article can be
 bought at a low price; and in these times the circumstances
 afford an opportunity of acquiring good friends very
 cheap.

Thank you,
 Socrates , 
 said Diodorus, pray bid Hermogenes call on
 me. No, indeed I won’t, said he; for in
 my opinion it is at least as good for you to go to him yourself
 as to invite him to come to you, and you have quite as much to
 gain as he by doing so.

The consequence was that Diodorus set
 off to visit Hermogenes; and in return for a small sum he acquired a
 friend who made a point of thinking how he could help and please him
 either by word or deed.

I will now explain how he helped
 those who were eager to win distinction by making them qualify
 themselves for the honours they coveted. He once heard that Dionysodorus had arrived at
 Athens , and gave out
 that he was going to teach generalship. Being aware that one of his
 companions wished to obtain the office of general from the state, he
 addressed him thus:

Young man, surely it would be disgraceful for
 one who wishes to be a general in the state to neglect the
 opportunity of learning the duties, and he would deserve to be
 punished by the state much more than one who carved statues
 without having learned to be a sculptor.

For in the dangerous times of war
 the whole state is in the general’s hands, and great good may
 come from his success and great evil from his failure. Therefore
 anyone who exerts himself to gain the votes, but neglects to
 learn the business, deserves punishment. This speech persuaded the man to go and
 learn.

When he had learnt his lesson and returned,
 Socrates chaffed
 him. Don’t you think, sirs, he said,
 that our friend looks more majestic, as Homer called Agamemnon,
 now that he has learnt generalship? For just as he who has
 learnt to play the harp is a harper even when he doesn’t play,
 and he who has studied medicine is a doctor even though he
 doesn’t practise, so our friend will be a general for ever, even
 if no one votes for him. But your ignoramus is neither general
 nor doctor, even if he gets every vote.

But, he continued, in order that any one of us who may happen to
 command a regiment or platoon under you may have a better
 knowledge of warfare, tell us the first lesson he gave you in
 generalship. The first was like the last, he replied;
 he taught me tactics — nothing
 else.

But then that is
 only a small part of generalship. For a general must also be
 capable of furnishing military equipment and providing supplies
 for the men; he must be
 resourceful, active, careful, hardy and quick-witted; he must be
 both gentle and brutal, at once straightforward and designing,
 capable of both caution and surprise, lavish and rapacious,
 generous and mean, skilful in defence and attack; and there are
 many other qualifications, some natural, some acquired, that are
 necessary to one who would succeed as a general.

It is well to understand tactics
 too; for there is a wide difference between right and wrong
 disposition of the troops, just as stones, bricks, timber
 and tiles flung together anyhow are useless, whereas when the
 materials that neither rot nor decay, that is, the stones and
 tiles, are placed at the bottom and the top, and the bricks and
 timber are put together in the middle, as in building, the
 result is something of great value, a house, in
 fact.

Your analogy is
 perfect,
 Socrates , said
 the youth; for in war one must put the best men
 in the van and the rear, and the worst in the centre, that they may
 be led by the van and driven forward by the
 rearguard.

Well and good,
 provided that he taught you also to distinguish the good and the
 bad men. If not, what have you gained by your lessons? No more
 than you would have gained if he had ordered you to put the best
 money at the head and tail, and the worst in the middle, without
 telling you how to distinguish good from base
 coin. I assure you he didn’t; so we should have to judge for
 ourselves which are the good men and which are the
 bad.

Then we had
 better consider how we may avoid mistaking
 them. I want to do so, said the youth. Well now, said
 Socrates , if we had to lay hands on a sum of money, would
 not the right arrangement be to put the most covetous men in the
 front? I think so. And what should we do with those who are going to
 face danger? Should our first line consist of the most
 ambitious? Oh yes: they are the men who will face danger for
 the sake of glory. About these, now, there is no mystery: they
 are conspicuous everywhere, and so it is easy to find
 them.

But, said
 Socrates , did he teach you only the disposition of an army,
 or did he include where and how to use each
 formation? Not at all. And yet there are many situations that
 call for a modification of tactics and
 strategy. I assure you he didn’t explain
 that. Then pray go back and ask him. If he knows and has a
 conscience, he will be ashamed to send you home ill-taught,
 after taking your money.

One day when he met a man who had
 been chosen general, he asked him, 
 For what reason, think you, is Agamemnon dubbed
 Shepherd of the people by
 Homer? Is it
 because a shepherd must see that his sheep are safe and are fed,
 and that the object for which they are kept is attained, and a
 general must see that his men are safe and are fed, and that the
 object for which they fight is attained, or, in other words,
 that victory over the enemy may add to their
 happiness?

Or what reason can Homer have for
 praising Agamemnon as 
 both a good king and a
 doughty warrior too’? 
 Is it that he would be a doughty
 warrior too not if he alone were a good fighter, but if
 he made all his men like himself; and a
 good king not if he merely ordered his own life aright,
 but if he made his subjects happy as well?

Because a king is chosen, not to
 take good care of himself, but for the good of those who have
 chosen him; and all men
 fight in order that they may get the best life possible, and
 choose generals to guide them to it.

Therefore it is the duty of a
 commander to contrive this for those who have chosen him for
 general. For anything more honourable than that is not easy to
 find, or anything more disgraceful than its
 opposite. By these
 reflections on what constitutes a good leader he stripped away all
 other virtues, and left just the power to make his followers
 happy.

Again, when someone had been chosen a
 leader of cavalry, I remember that
 Socrates conversed
 with him in the following manner: Young man, he said, can you tell us why you hankered after a cavalry
 command? I presume it was not to be first of the cavalry in the
 charge; for that privilege belongs to the mounted archers; at
 any rate they ride ahead of their commanders
 even. True. Nor was it to get yourself known either. Even madmen are known
 to everyone. True again.

But perhaps you
 think you can hand over the cavalry in better condition to the
 state when you retire, and can do something for the good of the
 state as a cavalry leader, in case there is any occasion to
 employ that arm? Yes, certainly, said he. Yes, said
 Socrates , and no doubt it is a fine thing if you can do
 that. The command, I presume, for which you have been chosen, is
 the command of horses and riders. Indeed it is.

Come then, tell
 us first how you propose to improve the
 horses. Oh, but I don’t think that is my business. Every
 man must look after his own horse.

Then if some of
 your men appear on parade with their horses ailing or suffering
 from bad feet or sore legs, others with underfed animals that
 can’t go the pace, others with restive brutes that won’t keep in
 line, others with such bad kickers that it is impossible to line
 them up at all, what will you be able to make of your cavalry?
 how will you be able to do the state any good with a command
 like that? I am much obliged to you, he replied,
 and I will try to look after the horses
 carefully.

Won’t you also
 try to improve the men? said
 Socrates . I
 will. Then will you first train them to mount
 better? Oh yes, I must, so that if anyone is thrown he may
 have a better chance of saving himself.

Further, when
 there is some danger before you, will you order them to draw the
 enemy into the sandy ground where your manoeuvres are held, or
 will you try to carry out your training in the kind of country
 that the enemy occupy? Oh yes, that is the better
 way.

And again, will
 you pay much attention to bringing down as many of the enemy as
 possible without dismounting? Oh yes, that too is the better
 way. Have you thought of fostering a keen spirit among the men and
 hatred of the enemy, so as to make them more gallant in
 action? Well, at any rate, I will try to do so
 now.

And have you
 considered how to make the men obey you? Because without that
 horses and men, however good and gallant, are of no
 use. True, but what is the best way of encouraging them to obey,
 Socrates ?

Well, I suppose
 you know that under all conditions human beings are most willing
 to obey those whom they believe to be the best. 
 Thus in sickness they most readily obey the doctor, on board
 ship the pilot, on a farm the farmer, whom they think to be most
 skilled in his business. Yes, certainly. Then it is likely that
 in horsemanship too, one who clearly knows best what ought to be
 done will most easily gain the obedience of the
 others.

If then,
 Socrates , I am
 plainly the best horseman among them, will that suffice to gain
 their obedience? Yes, if you also show them that it will be safer
 and more honourable for them to obey you. How, then, shall I show
 that? Well, it’s far easier than if you had to show them that bad is
 better than good and more profitable.

Do you mean that
 in addition to his other duties a cavalry leader must take care
 to be a good speaker? Did you suppose that a commander of
 cavalry should be mum? Did you never reflect that all the best
 we learned according to custom — the learning, I mean, that
 teaches us how to live — we learned by means of words, and that
 every other good lesson to be learned is learned by means of
 words; that the best teachers rely most on the spoken word and
 those with the deepest knowledge of the greatest subjects are
 the best talkers?

Did you never reflect that, whenever
 one chorus is selected from the citizens of this state — for
 instance, the chorus that is sent to Delos — no choir from any
 other place can compare with it, and no state can collect so
 goodly a company? True.

And yet the
 reason is that Athenians excel all others not so much in singing
 or in stature or in strength, as in love of honour, which is the
 strongest incentive to deeds of honour and
 renown. True again.

Then don’t you
 think that if one took the same pains with our cavalry, they too
 would greatly excel others in arms and horses and discipline and
 readiness to face the enemy, if they thought that they would win
 glory and honour by it? I expect so.

Don’t hesitate
 then, but try to encourage this keenness among the men: both you
 and your fellow-citizens will benefit by the results of your
 efforts. Most certainly I will try.

Once on seeing Nicomachides returning
 from the elections, he asked, Who have been
 chosen generals, Nicomachides? Isn’t it like the Athenians? 
 replied he; they haven’t chosen me after all the hard work I
 have done, since I was called up, in the command of company or
 regiment, though I have been so often wounded in action (and
 here he uncovered and showed his scars); yet they have chosen
 Antisthenes, who has never served in a marching regiment nor
 distinguished himself in the cavalry and understands nothing but
 money-making.

Isn’t that a
 recommendation, said
 Socrates , supposing he proves capable of supplying the men’s
 needs? Why, retorted Nicomachides, merchants too are capable of making money, but that doesn’t
 make them fit to command an army.

But, 
 cried Socrates , Antisthenes also is eager for victory, and that is
 a good point in a general. Whenever he
 has been choragus, you know, his choir has always
 won. No doubt, said Nicomachides, but
 there is no analogy between the handling of a choir and of an
 army.

But, you
 see, said
 Socrates , though Antisthenes knows nothing about music or
 choir training, he showed himself capable of finding the best
 experts in these. In the army too, then, said Nicomachides,
 he will find other to command for him, and
 others to do the fighting.

And
 therefore, said
 Socrates , if he finds out and prefers the best men in
 warfare as in choir training it is likely that he will be
 victorious in that too; and probably he will be more ready to
 spend on winning a battle with the whole state than on winning a
 choral competition with his tribe.

Do you mean to
 say, Socrates , that the
 man who succeeds with a chorus will also succeed with an
 army? I mean that, whatever a man controls, if he knows what he wants
 and can get it he will be a good controller, whether he control
 a chorus, an estate, a city or an army.

Really,
 Socrates , 
 cried Nicomachides, I should never have thought
 to hear you say that a good business man would make a good
 general. Come then, let us review the duties of each that
 we may know whether they are the same or
 different. By all means.

Is it not the
 duty of both to make their subordinates willing and
 obedient? Decidedly. And to put the right man in the right
 place? That is
 so. I
 suppose, moreover, that both should punish the bad and reward
 the good. Yes, certainly.

Of course both
 will do well to win the goodwill of those under
 them? That is so. Do you think that it is to the interest of both to
 attract allies and helpers? Yes, certainly. And should not both be
 able to keep what they have got? They should
 indeed. And should not both be strenuous and industrious
 in their own work?

All these are
 common to both; but fighting is not. But surely both are
 bound to find enemies? Oh yes, they are. Then is it not important
 for both to get the better of them?

Undoubtedly; but
 you don’t say how business capacity will help when it comes to
 fighting. That is just where it will be most helpful. For
 the good business man, through his knowledge that nothing
 profits or pays like a victory in the field, and nothing is so
 utterly unprofitable and entails such heavy loss as a defeat,
 will be eager to seek and furnish all aids to victory, careful
 to consider and avoid what leads to defeat, prompt to engage the
 enemy if he sees he is strong enough to win, and, above all,
 will avoid an engagement when he is not ready.

Don’t look down on business men,
 Nicomachides. For the management of private concerns differs
 only in point of number from that of public affairs. In other
 respects they are much alike, and particularly in this, that
 neither can be carried on without men, and the men employed in
 private and public transactions are the same. For those who take
 charge of public affairs employ just the same men when they
 attend to their own; and those who understand how to employ them
 are successful directors of public and private concerns, and
 those who do not, fail in both.

Once when talking with the son of the
 great Pericles, he said: For my part, Pericles,
 I feel hopeful that, now you have become general, our city will
 be more efficient and more famous in the art of war, and will
 defeat our enemies. I could wish, answered Pericles, that it might be as you say,
 Socrates ; but
 how these changes are to come about I cannot
 see. Should you like to discuss them with me, then, said
 Socrates , and
 consider how they can be brought about? I should.

Do you know then,
 that in point of numbers the Athenians are not inferior to the
 Boeotians? Yes, I know. Do you think that the larger number of
 fine, well-developed men could be selected from among the
 Boeotians or the Athenians? In that matter too they seem to be at no
 disadvantage. Which do you think are the more
 united? The Athenians, I should say, for many of the
 Boeotians resent the selfish behaviour of the Thebans. At
 Athens I see
 nothing of that sort.

And again, the
 Athenians are more ambitious and more high-minded than other
 peoples; and these qualities are among the strongest incentives
 to heroism and patriotic self-sacrifice. Yes, in these respects
 too the Athenians need not fear criticism. And besides, none have
 inherited a past more crowded with great deeds; and many are
 heartened by such a heritage and encouraged to care for virtue
 and prove their gallantry. All you have said is true,
 Socrates.

But, you see, since the disasters
 sustained by Tolmides and the Thousand at Lebadea and by Hippocrates at
 Delium , the relations of the
 Athenians and Boeotians are changed: the glory of the Athenians
 is brought low, the pride of the Thebans is exalted; and now the
 Boeotians, who formerly would not venture, even in their own
 country, to face the Athenians without help from Sparta and the rest of the
 Peloponnese ,
 threaten to invade Attica by themselves, and the Athenians, who
 formerly overran Boeotia , fear that the Boeotians may plunder
 Attica .

Ah, I am aware of
 that, answered Socrates; but the
 disposition of our city is now more to a good ruler’s liking.
 For confidence breeds carelessness, slackness, disobedience:
 fear makes men more attentive, more obedient, more amenable to
 discipline. The behaviour of sailors is a case in
 point.

So long as they have nothing to
 fear, they are, I believe, an unruly lot, but when they expect a
 storm or an attack, they not only carry out all orders, but
 watch in silence for the word of command like
 choristers.

Well, 
 exclaimed Pericles, if they are now in the mood
 for obedience, it seems time to say how we can revive in them a
 longing for the old virtue and fame and happiness.

If then, 
 said Socrates, we wanted them to claim money
 that others held, the best way of egging them on to seize it
 would be to show them that it was their fathers’ money and
 belongs to them. As we want them to strive for pre-eminence in
 virtue, we must show that this belonged to them in old days, and
 that by striving for it they will surpass all other
 men.

How then can we
 teach this? I think by reminding them that their earliest
 ancestors of whom we have any account were, as they themselves
 have been told, the most valiant.

Do you refer to
 the judgment of the gods, which
 Cecrops delivered in his court because of his
 virtue? Yes, and the care and birth of Erectheus, and the war waged in his day
 with all the adjacent country, and the war between the sons of
 Heracles 
 and the Peloponnesians, and all the wars waged in the days of
 Theseus, in all of which it is manifest
 that they were champions among the men of their time.

You may add the victories of their
 descendants, who lived not long before our own day:
 some they gained unaided in their struggle with the lords of all
 Asia and of
 Europe as far as
 Macedonia , the
 owners of more power and wealth than the world had ever seen,
 who had wrought deeds that none had equalled; in others they
 were fellow-champions with the Peloponnesians both on land and
 sea. These men, like their fathers, are reported to have been
 far superior to all other men of their time. Yes, that is the report
 of them.

Therefore, though
 there have been many migrations in Greece , these continued to dwell in their own
 land: many referred to them their rival claims, many found a
 refuge with them from the brutality of the
 oppressor.

Yes,
 Socrates, cried Pericles, and I
 wonder how our city can have become so
 degenerate. My own view, replied Socrates, is that the Athenians, as a consequence of their
 great superiority, grew careless of themselves, and have thus
 become degenerate, much as athletes who are in a class by
 themselves and win the championship easily are apt to grow slack
 and drop below their rivals.

How, then, can
 they now recover their old virtue? There is no mystery about it, as I
 think. If they find out the customs of their ancestors and
 practise them as well as they did, they will come to be as good
 as they were; or failing that, they need but to imitate those
 who now have the pre-eminence and to practise their customs, and
 if they are equally careful in observing them, they will be as
 good as they, and, if more careful, even better.

That means that
 it is a long march for our city to perfection. For when will
 Athenians show the Lacedaemonian reverence for age, seeing that
 they despise all their elders, beginning with their own fathers?
 When will they adopt the Lacedaemonian system of training,
 seeing that they not only neglect to make themselves fit, but
 mock at those who take the trouble to do so?

When will they reach that standard
 of obedience to their rulers, seeing that they make contempt of
 rulers a point of honour? Or when will they attain that harmony,
 seeing that, instead of working together for the general
 good, they are
 more envious and bitter against one another than against the
 rest of the world, are the most quarrelsome of men in public and
 private assemblies, most often go to law with one another, and
 would rather make profit of one another so than by mutual
 service, and while regarding public affairs as alien to
 themselves, yet fight over them too, and find their chief
 enjoyment in having the means to carry on such
 strife?

So it comes about that mischief and
 evil grow apace in the city, enmity and mutual hatred spring up
 among the people, so that I am always dreading that some evil
 past bearing may befall the city.

No, no, Pericles,
 don’t think the wickedness of the Athenians so utterly past
 remedy. Don’t you see what good discipline they maintain in
 their fleets, how well they obey the umpires in athletic
 contests, how they take orders from the choir-trainers as
 readily as any?

Ah yes, and
 strange indeed it is that such men submit themselves to their
 masters, and yet the infantry and cavalry, who are supposed to
 be the pick of the citizens for good character, are the most
 insubordinate.

Then Socrates asked, But what of the Court of the Areopagus, Pericles?
 Are not its members persons who have won
 approval? Certainly. Then do you know of any who decide the
 cases that come before them and perform all their other
 functions more honourably, more in accordance with law, with
 more dignity and justice? I am not finding fault with the
 Areopagus. Then you must not despair of Athenian
 discipline.

But, you see, in
 the army, where good conduct, discipline, submission are most
 necessary, our people pay no attention to these
 things. This may be due to the incompetence of the
 officers. You must have noticed that no one attempts to exercise
 authority over our harpists, choristers and dancers, if he is
 incompetent, nor over wrestlers or wrestlers who also box? All
 who have authority over them can tell where they learned their
 business; but most of our generals are improvisors.

However, I don’t suppose you are one
 of this sort. I suppose you can say when you began to learn
 strategy as well as when you began wrestling. Many of the
 principles, I think, you have inherited from your father, and
 many others you have gathered from every source from which you
 could learn anything useful to a general.

I think, too, that you take much
 trouble that you may not unconsciously lack any knowledge useful
 to a general; and if you find that you don’t know anything, you
 seek out those who have the knowledge, grudging neither gifts
 nor thanks, that you may learn what you don’t know from them and
 may have the help of good coaching.

I can see,
 Socrates, that in saying this you don’t really think I study
 these things, but you are trying to show me that one who is
 going to command an army must study all of them; and of course I
 admit that you are right.

Have you
 observed, Pericles, that our frontier is protected by great
 mountains extending to Boeotia , through which there are steep and
 narrow passes leading into our land, and that the interior is
 cut across by rugged mountains? Certainly.

Further, have you
 heard that the Mysians and Pisidians, occupying very rugged
 country in the Great King’s territory and lightly armed,
 contrive to overrun and damage the King’s territory and to
 preserve their own freedom? Yes, I have heard so.

And don’t you
 think that active young Athenians, more lightly armed and
 occupying the mountains that protect our country, would prove a
 thorn in the side of the enemy and a strong bulwark of defence
 to our people? Socrates , 
 replied Pericles, I think all these suggestions too have a
 practical value.

Then, since you
 like them, adopt them, my good fellow. Any part of them that you
 carry out will bring honour to you and good to the state; and
 should you fail in part, you will neither harm the state nor
 disgrace yourself.

Ariston’s son, Glaucon, was
 attempting to become an orator and striving for headship in the
 state, though he was less than twenty years old; and none of his
 friends or relations could check him, though he would get himself
 dragged from the platform and make himself a laughing-stock. Only
 Socrates , who took
 an interest in him for the sake of Plato and Glaucon’s son
 Charmides, managed to check him.

For once on meeting him, he stopped
 him and contrived to engage his attention by saying: Glaucon, have you made up your mind to be our
 chief man in the state? I have, Socrates. Well, upon my word
 there’s no more honourable ambition in the world; for obviously,
 if you gain your object, you will be able to get whatever you
 want, and you will have the means of helping your friends: you
 will lift up your father’s house and exalt your fatherland; and
 you will make a name for yourself first at home, later on in
 Greece , and
 possibly, like Themistocles, in foreign lands as well; wherever
 you go, you will be a man of mark.

When Glaucon heard this, he felt
 proud and gladly lingered. Next
 Socrates asked,
 Well, Glaucon, as you want to win honour, is
 it not obvious that you must benefit your
 city? Most certainly. Pray don’t be reticent, then; but tell us how you
 propose to begin your services to the state.

As Glaucon remained dumb, apparently
 considering for the first time how to begin,
 Socrates said: If you wanted to add to a friend’s fortune, you
 would set about making him richer. Will you try, then, to make
 your city richer? Certainly.

Would she not be
 richer if she had a larger revenue? Oh yes,
 presumably. Now tell me, from what sources are the city’s
 revenues at present derived and what is their total? No doubt
 you have gone into this matter, in order to raise the amount of
 any that are deficient and supply any that are
 lacking. Certainly not, exclaimed Glaucon, I haven’t gone into that.

Well, if you have
 left that out, tell us the expenditure of the city. No doubt you
 intend to cut down any items that are
 excessive. The fact is, I haven’t had time yet for that
 either. Oh, then we will postpone the business of making
 the city richer; for how is it possible to look after income and
 expenditure without knowing what they are?

Well,
 Socrates , one
 can make our enemies contribute to the city’s
 wealth. Yes, of course, provided he is stronger than they;
 but if he be weaker, he may lose what she has got
 instead. True.

Therefore, in
 order to advise her whom to fight, it is necessary to know the
 strength of the city and of the enemy, so that, if the city be
 stronger, one may recommend her to go to war, but if weaker than
 the enemy, may persuade her to beware. You are
 right.

First, then, tell
 us the naval and military strength of our city, and then that of
 her enemies. No, of course I can’t tell you out of my
 head. Well, if you have made notes, fetch them, for I should greatly
 like to hear this. But, I tell you, I haven’t yet made any notes
 either.

Then we will
 postpone offering advice about war too for the present. You are
 new to power, and perhaps have not had time to investigate such
 big problems. But the defence of the country, now, I feel sure
 you have thought about that, and know how many of the garrisons
 are well placed and how many are not, and how many of the guards
 are efficient and how many are not; and you will propose to
 strengthen the well-placed garrisons and to do away with those
 that are superfluous.

No, no; I shall
 propose to do away with them all, for the only effect of
 maintaining them is that our crops are stolen. But if you do away with
 the garrisons, don’t you think that anyone will be at liberty to
 rob us openly? However, have you been on a tour of inspection,
 or how do you know that they are badly
 maintained? By guess-work. Then shall we wait to offer advice
 on this question too until we really know, instead of merely
 guessing? Perhaps it would be better. Now for the silver
 mines.

I am sure you have not visited them,
 and so cannot tell why the amount derived from them has
 fallen. No, indeed, I have not been
 there. To be sure: the district is considered unhealthy, and so when
 you have to offer advice on the problem, this excuse will
 serve. You’re chaffing me.

Ah, but there’s
 one problem I feel sure you haven’t overlooked: no doubt you
 have reckoned how long the corn grown in the country will
 maintain the population, and how much is needed annually, so
 that you may not be caught napping, should the city at any time
 be short, and may come to the rescue and relieve the city by
 giving expert advice about food. What an overwhelming task, if one
 has got to include such things as that in one’s
 duties!

But, you know, no
 one will ever manage even his own household successfully unless
 he knows all its needs and sees that they are all supplied.
 Seeing that our city contains more than ten thousand houses, and
 it is difficult to look after so many families at once, you must
 have tried to make a start by doing something for one, I mean
 your uncle’s? It needs it; and if you succeed with that one, you
 can set to work on a larger number. But if you can’t do anything
 for one, how are you going to succeed with many? If a man can’t
 carry one talent, it’s absurd for him to try to carry more than
 one, isn’t it?

Well, I could do
 something for uncle’s household if only he would listen to
 me. What? You can’t persuade your uncle, and yet you suppose you
 will be able to persuade all the Athenians, including your
 uncle, to listen to you?

Pray take care, Glaucon, that your
 daring ambition doesn’t lead to a fall! Don’t you see how risky
 it is to say or do what you don’t understand? Think of others
 whom you know to be the sort of men who say and do what they
 obviously don’t understand. Do you think they get praise or
 blame by it?

And think of those who understand
 what they say and what they do. You will find, I take it, that
 the men who are famous and admired always come from those who
 have the widest knowledge, and the infamous and despised from
 the most ignorant.

Therefore, if you want to win fame
 and admiration in public life, try to get a thorough knowledge
 of what you propose to do. If you enter on a public career with
 this advantage over others, I should not be surprised if you
 gained the object of your ambition quite easily.

Seeing that Glaucon’s son, Charmides,
 was a respectable man and far more capable than the politicians of
 the day, and nevertheless shrank from speaking in the assembly and
 taking a part in politics, he said: Tell me,
 Charmides, what would you think of a man who was capable of
 gaining a victory in the great games and consequently of winning
 honour for himself and adding to his country’s fame in the Greek
 world, and yet refused to compete? I should think him a poltroon and a
 coward, of course.

Then if a man
 were to shrink from state business though capable of discharging
 it with advantage to the state and honour to himself, wouldn’t
 it be reasonable to think him a coward? Perhaps; but why ask me
 that? Because I fancy that you shrink from work that is within your
 powers, work in which it is your duty as a citizen to take a
 hand. What makes you think so?

In what sort of work have you
 discovered my powers? In your intercourse with public men.
 Whenever they take counsel with you, I find that you give
 excellent advice, and whenever they make a mistake, your
 criticism is sound.

A private
 conversation is a very different thing from a crowded debate,
 Socrates . But, you know, a man who
 is good at figures counts as well in a crowd as in solitude; and
 those who play the harp best in private excel no less in a
 crowd.

But surely you
 see that bashfulness and timidity come natural to a man, and
 affect him far more powerfully in the presence of a multitude
 than in private society? Yes, and I mean to give you a lesson. The
 wisest do not make you bashful, and the strongest do not make
 you timid; yet you are ashamed to address an audience of mere
 dunces and weaklings. Who are they that make you
 ashamed?

The fullers or the cobblers or the
 builders or the smiths or the farmers or the merchants, or the
 traffickers in the market-place who think of nothing but buying
 cheap and selling dear? For these are the people who make up the
 Assembly.

You behave like a man who can beat
 trained athletes and is afraid of amateurs! You are at your ease
 when you talk with the first men in the state, some of whom
 despise you, and you are a far better talker than the ordinary
 run of politicians; and yet you are shy of addressing men who
 never gave a thought to public affairs and haven’t learnt to
 despise you — all because you fear ridicule!

Well, don’t you
 think the Assembly often laughs at sound
 argument? Yes, and so do the others; and that’s why I am
 surprised that you, who find it easy to manage them when they do
 it, think you will be quite unable to deal with the
 Assembly.

My good man, don’t be ignorant of
 yourself: don’t fall into the common error. For so many are in
 such a hurry to pry into other people’s business that they never
 turn aside to examine themselves. Don’t refuse to face this duty
 then: strive more earnestly to pay heed to yourself; and don’t
 neglect public affairs, if you have the power to improve them.
 If they go well, not only the people, but your friends and you
 yourself at least as much as they will profit.

When Aristippus attempted to
 cross-examine Socrates in
 the same fashion as he had been cross-examined by him in their
 previous encounter,
 Socrates , wishing to benefit
 his companions, answered like a man who is resolved to do what is
 right, and not like a debater guarding against any distortion of the
 argument.

Aristippus asked if he knew of
 anything good, in order that if
 Socrates mentioned
 some good thing, such as food, drink, money, health, strength, or
 daring, he might show that it is sometimes bad. But he, knowing that
 when anything troubles us we need what will put an end to the
 trouble, gave the best answer:

Are you asking me, he said, whether I know of anything good for a
 fever? No, not that. For ophthalmia? No, nor that. For
 hunger? No, not for hunger either. Well, but if you are
 asking me whether I know of anything good in relation to
 nothing, I neither know nor want to know.

Again Aristippus asked him whether he
 knew of anything beautiful: Yes, many
 things, he replied. All like one another? On the contrary, some
 are as unlike as they can be. How then can that which is unlike
 the beautiful be beautiful? The reason, of course, is that a beautiful
 wrestler is unlike a beautiful runner, a shield beautiful for
 defence is utterly unlike a javelin beautiful for swift and
 powerful hurling.

That is the same answer as you gave
 to my question whether you knew of anything good. You think, do you, that good is one thing
 and beautiful another? Don’t you know that all things are both
 beautiful and good in relation to the same things? In the first
 place, Virtue is not a good thing in relation to some things and a
 beautiful thing in relation to others. Men, again, are called
 beautiful and good in the same respect and in relation to the same
 things: it is in relation to the same things that men’s bodies look
 beautiful and good and that all other things men use are thought
 beautiful and good, namely, in relation to those things for which
 they are useful.

Is a dung basket
 beautiful then? Of course, and a golden shield is ugly, if the one
 is well made for its special work and the other
 badly. Do you mean that the same things are both beautiful and
 ugly? Of course — and both good and bad.

For what is good for hunger is often
 bad for fever, and what is good for fever bad for hunger; what
 is beautiful for running is often ugly for wrestling, and what
 is beautiful for wrestling ugly for running. For all things are
 good and beautiful in relation to those purposes for which they
 are well adapted, bad and ugly in relation to those for which
 they are ill adapted.

Again his dictum about houses, that
 the same house is both beautiful and useful, was a lesson in the art
 of building houses as they ought to be. He approached the problem thus: When one means to have the right sort of
 house, must he contrive to make it as pleasant to live in and as
 useful as can be?

And this being admitted, Is it pleasant, he asked, to have it cool in summer and warm in
 winter? And when they
 agreed with this also, Now in houses with a
 south aspect, the sun’s rays penetrate into the porticoes in
 winter, but in summer the path of the sun is right over our
 heads and above the roof, so that there is shade. If, then, this
 is the best arrangement, we should build the south side loftier
 to get the winter sun and the north side lower to keep out the
 cold winds.

To put it shortly, the house in
 which the owner can find a pleasant retreat at all seasons and
 can store his belongings safely is presumably at once the
 pleasantest and the most beautiful. As for paintings and
 decorations, they rob one of more delights than they
 give. For temples and
 altars the most suitable position, he said, was a conspicuous site
 remote from traffic; for it is pleasant to breathe a prayer at the
 sight of them, and pleasant to approach them filled with holy
 thoughts.

When asked again whether Courage
 could be taught or came by nature, he replied: I
 think that just as one man’s body is naturally stronger than
 another’s for labour, so one man’s soul is naturally braver than
 another’s in danger. For I notice that men brought up under the
 same laws and customs differ widely in daring.

Nevertheless, I think that every
 man’s nature acquires more courage by learning and practice. Of
 course Scythians and Thracians would not dare to take bronze
 shield and spear and fight Lacedaemonians; and of course
 Lacedaemonians would not be willing to face Thracians with
 leather shields and javelins, nor Scythians with bows for
 weapons.

And similarly in all other points, I
 find that human beings naturally differ one from another and
 greatly improve by application. Hence it is clear that all men,
 whatever their natural gifts, the talented and the dullards
 alike, must learn and practise what they want to excel
 in.

Between Wisdom and Prudence he drew
 no distinction; but if a man knows and practises what is beautiful
 and good, knows and avoids what is base, that man he judged to be both wise and prudent.
 When asked further whether he thought that those who know what they
 ought to do and yet do the opposite are at once wise and vicious, he
 answered: No; not so much that, as both unwise
 and vicious. For I think that all men have a choice between
 various courses, and choose and follow the one which they think
 conduces most to their advantage. Therefore I hold that those
 who follow the wrong course are neither wise nor
 prudent.

He said that Justice and every other
 form of Virtue is Wisdom. For just actions and
 all forms of virtuous activity are beautiful and good. He who
 knows the beautiful and good will never choose anything else, he
 who is ignorant of them cannot do them, and even if he tries,
 will fail. Hence the wise do what is beautiful and good, the
 unwise cannot and fail if they try. Therefore since just actions
 and all other forms of beautiful and good activity are virtuous
 actions, it is clear that Justice and every other form of Virtue
 is Wisdom.

Madness, again, according to him, was
 the opposite of Wisdom. Nevertheless he did not identify Ignorance
 with Madness; but not to know yourself, and to assume and think that
 you know what you do not, he put next to Madness. Most men, however, he declared, do not call those mad who err in matters that lie
 outside the knowledge of ordinary people: madness is the name
 they give to errors in matters of common knowledge.

For instance, if a man imagines
 himself to be so tall as to stoop when he goes through the
 gateways in the Wall, or so strong as to try to lift houses or
 to perform any other feat that everybody knows to be impossible,
 they say he’s mad. They don’t think a slight error implies
 madness, but just as they call strong desire love, so they name
 a great delusion madness.

Considering the nature of Envy, he
 found it to be a kind of pain, not, however, at a friend’s
 misfortune, nor at an enemy’s good fortune, but the envious are
 those only who are annoyed at their friends’ successes. Some
 expressed surprise that anyone who loves another should be pained at
 his success, but he reminded them that many stand in this relation
 towards others, that they cannot disregard them in time of trouble,
 but aid them in their misfortune, and yet they are pained to see
 them prospering. This, however, could not happen to a man of sense,
 but it is always the case with fools.

Considering the nature of Leisure, he
 said his conclusion was that almost all men do something. Even
 draught-players and jesters do something, but all these are at
 leisure, for they might go and do something better. But nobody has
 leisure to go from a better to a worse occupation. If anyone does
 so, he acts wrongly, having no leisure.

Kings and rulers, he said, are not
 those who hold the sceptre, nor those who are chosen by the
 multitude, nor those on whom the lot falls, nor those who owe their
 power to force or deception; but those who know how to rule.

For once it was granted that it is the business of the ruler to give
 orders and of the ruled to obey, he went on to show that on a ship
 the one who knows, rules, and the owner and all the others on board
 obey the one who knows: in farming the landowners, in illness the
 patients, in training those who are in training, in fact everybody
 concerned with anything that needs care, look after it themselves if
 they think they know how, but, if not, they obey those who know, and
 not only when such are present, but they even send for them when
 absent, that they may obey them and do the right thing. In spinning
 wool, again, he would point out, the women govern the men because
 they know how to do it and men do not.

If anyone objected that a despot may
 refuse to obey a good counsellor, How can he
 refuse, he would ask, when a penalty
 waits on disregard of good counsel? All disregard of good
 counsel is bound surely to result in error, and his error will
 not go unpunished.

If anyone said that a despot can kill
 a loyal subject, Do you think, he
 retorted, that he who kills the best of his
 allies suffers no loss, or that his loss is trifling? Do you
 think that this conduct brings him safety, or rather swift
 destruction?

When someone asked him what seemed to
 him the best pursuit for a man, he answered: Doing well. Questioned further, whether he thought good
 luck a pursuit, he said: On the contrary, I
 think luck and doing are opposite poles. To hit on something
 right by luck without search I call good luck, to do something
 well after study and practice I call doing well; and those who
 pursue this seem to me to do well.

And the best men and dearest to the
 gods, he added, are those who do
 their work well; if it is farming, as good farmers; if medicine,
 as good doctors; if politics, as good politicians. He who does
 nothing well is neither useful in any way nor dear to the
 gods.

Then again, whenever he talked with
 artists who followed their art as a business, he was as useful to
 them as to others. Thus, on entering
 the house of Parrhasius the painter one day, he asked in the course
 of a conversation with him: Is painting a
 representation of things seen, Parrhasius? Anyhow, you painters
 with your colours represent and reproduce figures high and low,
 in light and in shadow, hard and soft, rough and smooth, young
 and old. True.

And further, when
 you copy types of beauty, it is so difficult to find a perfect
 model that you combine the most beautiful details of several,
 and thus contrive to make the whole figure look
 beautiful.

Yes, we
 do! Well now, do you also reproduce the character of the soul, the
 character that is in the highest degree captivating, delightful,
 friendly, fascinating, lovable? Or is it impossible to imitate
 that? Oh no, Socrates ; for
 how could one imitate that which has neither shape nor colour
 nor any of the qualities you mentioned just now, and is not even
 visible?

Do human beings
 commonly express the feelings of sympathy and aversion by their
 looks? I think so. Then cannot thus much be imitated in the
 eyes? Undoubtedly. Do you think that the joys and sorrows of their
 friends produce the same expression on men’s faces, whether they
 really care or not? Oh no, of course not: they look radiant at their
 joys, downcast at their sorrows. Then is it possible to represent
 these looks too? Undoubtedly.

Moreover,
 nobility and dignity, self-abasement and servility, prudence and
 understanding, insolence and vulgarity, are reflected in the
 face and in the attitudes of the body whether still or in
 motion. True. Then these, too, can be imitated, can they
 not? Undoubtedly. Now which do you think the more pleasing sight,
 one whose features and bearing reflect a beautiful and good and
 lovable character, or one who is the embodiment of what is ugly
 and depraved and hateful? No doubt there is a great difference,
 Socrates .

On another occasion he visited
 Cleiton the sculptor, and while conversing with him said: Cleiton, that your statues of runners, wrestlers,
 boxers and fighters are beautiful I see and know. But how do you
 produce in them that illusion of life which is their most
 alluring charm to the beholder?

As Cleiton was puzzled and did not
 reply at once, Is it, he added, by faithfully representing the form of living
 beings that you make your statues look as if they
 lived? Undoubtedly. Then is it not by accurately representing the
 different parts of the body as they are affected by the pose —
 the flesh wrinkled or tense, the limbs compressed or
 outstretched, the muscles taut or loose — that you make them
 look more like real members and more convincing? Yes, certainly.

Does not the
 exact imitation of the feelings that affect bodies in action
 also produce a sense of satisfaction in the
 spectator? Oh yes,
 presumably. Then must not the threatening look in the eyes of
 fighters be accurately represented, and the triumphant
 expression on the face of conquerors be
 imitated? Most certainly. It follows, then, that the sculptor
 must represent in his figures the activities of the
 soul.

On visiting Pistias the armourer, who
 showed him some well-made breastplates,
 Socrates exclaimed:
 Upon my word, Pistias, it’s a beautiful
 invention, for the breastplate covers the parts that need
 protection without impeding the use of the hands.

But tell me, Pistias, he
 added, why do you charge more for your
 breastplates than any other maker, though they are no stronger
 and cost no more to make? >Because the proportions of mine are
 better,
 Socrates . And how do you show
 their proportions when you ask a higher price — by weight or
 measure? For I presume you don’t make them all of the same
 weight or the same size, that is, if you make them to
 fit. Fit? Why, of course! a breastplate is of no use without
 that!

Then are not some
 human bodies well, others ill proportioned? Certainly. Then if a breastplate is to fit an
 ill-proportioned body, how do you make it
 well-proportioned? By making it fit; for if it is a good fit it is
 well-proportioned.

Apparently you
 mean well-proportioned not absolutely, but in relation to the
 wearer, as you might call a shield well-proportioned for the man
 whom it fits, or a military cape — and this seems to apply to
 everything according to you.

And perhaps there is another
 important advantage in a good fit. Tell it me, if you know,
 Socrates . The good fit is less
 heavy to wear than the misfit, though both are of the same
 weight. For the misfit, hanging entirely from the shoulders, or
 pressing on some other part of the body, proves uncomfortable
 and irksome; but the good fit, with its weight distributed over
 the collar-bone and shoulder-blades, the shoulders, chest, back
 and belly, may almost be called an accessory rather than an
 encumbrance.

The advantage you
 speak of is the very one which I think makes my work worth a big
 price. Some, however, prefer to buy the ornamented and the
 gold-plated breastplates. Still, if the consequence is that they buy
 misfits, it seems to me they buy ornamented and gold-plated
 trash.

However, as the body is not rigid,
 but now bent, now straight, how can tight breastplates
 fit? 
 They
 can’t. You mean that the good fits are not the tight ones, but those
 that don’t chafe the wearer? That is your own meaning,
 Socrates , and
 you have hit the right nail on the head.

At one time there was in Athens a beautiful woman named
 Theodoté, who was ready to keep company with anyone who pleased her.
 One of the bystanders mentioned her name, declaring that words
 failed him to describe the lady’s beauty, and adding that artists
 visited her to paint her portrait, and she showed them as much as
 decency allowed. We had better go and see
 her, cried
 Socrates ; of course what beggars description can’t very well
 be learned by hearsay.

Come with me at
 once, returned his informant. So off they went to
 Theodoté’s house, where they found her posing before a painter, and
 looked on. When the painter had
 finished, Socrates said:
 My friends, ought we to be more grateful to
 Theodoté for showing us her beauty, or she to us for looking at
 it? Does the obligation rest with her, if she profits more by
 showing it, but with us, if we profit more by
 looking?

When someone answered that this was a
 fair way of putting it, Well now, he
 went on, she already has our praise to her
 credit, and when we spread the news, she will profit yet more;
 whereas we already long to touch what we have seen, and we shall
 go away excited and shall miss her when we are gone. The natural
 consequence is that we become her adorers, she the
 adored. Then, if that is so, exclaimed Theodoté,
 of course I ought to be grateful to you for
 looking.

At this point
 Socrates noticed
 that she was sumptuously dressed, and that her mother at her side
 was wearing fine clothes and jewellery; and she had many pretty
 maids, who also were well cared for, and her house was lavishly
 furnished. Tell me, Theodoté, he said, have
 you a farm? Not I, she answered. Or a house, perhaps, that brings in
 money? No, nor a house. Some craftsmen, possibly? No,
 none. Then where do you get your supplies from? I live on the generosity
 of any friend I pick up.

A fine property,
 upon my word, Theodoté, and much better than abundance of sheep
 and goats and oxen. But, he went on, do you trust to luck, waiting for friends to settle on you like
 flies, or have you some contrivance of your own?

How could I
 invent a contrivance for that? Much more conveniently, I assure
 you, than the spiders. For you know how they hunt for a living:
 they weave a thin web, I believe, and feed on anything that gets
 into it.

And do you advise
 me, then, to weave a trap of some sort? Of course not. Don’t
 suppose you are going to hunt friends, the noblest game in the
 world, by such crude methods. Don’t you notice that many tricks
 are employed even for hunting such a poor thing as the
 hare?

Since hares feed by night, hounds
 specially adapted for night work are provided to hunt them; and
 since they run away at daybreak, another pack of hounds is
 obtained for tracking them by the scent along the run from the
 feeding ground to the form; and since they are so nimble that
 once they are off they actually escape in the open, yet a third
 pack of speedy hounds is formed to catch them by hot pursuit;
 and as some escape even so, nets are set up in the tracks where
 they escape, that they may be driven into them and stopped
 dead.

Then can I adapt this plan to the
 pursuit of friends? Of course you
 can, if for the hound you substitute an agent who will track and
 find rich men with an eye for beauty, and will then contrive to
 chase them into your nets.

Nets! What nets
 have I got? One, surely, that clips close enough — your body!
 And inside it you have a soul that teaches you what glance will
 please, what words delight, and tells you that your business is
 to give a warm welcome to an eager suitor, but to slam the door
 upon a coxcomb; yes, and when a friend has fallen sick, to show
 your anxiety by visiting him; and when he has had a stroke of
 good fortune, to congratulate him eagerly; and if he is eager in
 his suit, to put yourself at his service heart and soul. As for
 loving, you know how to do that, I am sure, both tenderly and
 truly; and that your friends give you satisfaction, you convince
 them, I know, not by words but by deeds. Upon my word, 
 said Theodoté, I don’t contrive one of these
 things.

Nevertheless, he continued, it is
 very important that your behaviour to a man should be both
 natural and correct. For assuredly you can neither catch a
 friend nor keep him by violence; it is kindness and sweetness that catch the
 creature and hold him fast. True, she said.

First, then, you
 must ask such favours of your suitors as they will grant without
 a moment’s hesitation; and next you must repay their favours in
 the same coin; for in this way they will prove most sincerely
 your friends, most constant in their affection and most
 generous.

And they will appreciate your
 favours most highly if you wait till they ask for them. The
 sweetest meats, you see, if served before they are wanted, seem
 sour, and to those who have had enough they are positively
 nauseating; but even poor fare is very welcome when offered to a
 hungry man.

And how can I
 make them hunger for my fare? Why, in the first place, you must
 not offer it to them when they have had enough, nor prompt them
 until they have thrown off the surfeit and are beginning to want
 more; then, when they feel the want, you must prompt them by
 behaving as a model of propriety, by a show of reluctance to
 yield, and by holding back until they are as keen as can be; for
 then the same gifts are much more to the recipient than when
 they are offered before they are desired.

Then,
 Socrates , 
 exclaimed Theodoté, why don’t you become my
 partner in the pursuit of friends? By all means — if you persuade
 me. And how am I to persuade you? That you will find out and contrive
 for yourself, if you want my help. Come and see me often,
 then.

Ah! said
 Socrates , making fun
 of his own leisurely habits, it’s not so easy
 for me to find time. For I have much business to occupy me,
 private and public; and I have the dear girls, who won’t leave
 me day or night; they are studying potions with me and
 spells.

Indeed! do you
 understand these things too,
 Socrates ? Why, what is the reason
 that master Apollodorus and Antisthenes never leave me, do you
 suppose? And why do Cebes and Simmias come to me from Thebes ? I assure you these
 things don’t happen without the help of many potions and spells
 and magic wheels.

Do lend me your
 wheel, that I may turn it first to draw you. But of course I don’t
 want to be drawn to you: I want you to come to
 me. Oh, I’ll come: only mind you welcome me. Oh, you shall be welcome
 — unless there’s a dearer girl with me!

On noticing that Epigenes, one of his
 companions, was in poor condition, for a young man, he said: You look as if you need exercise, 
 Epigenes. Well, he replied, I’m
 not an athlete, Socrates. Just as much as the competitors entered
 for Olympia , he retorted. Or do you count the life and death struggle with their enemies,
 upon which, it may be, the Athenians will enter, but a small
 thing?

Why, many, thanks to their bad
 condition, lose their life in the perils of war or save it
 disgracefully: many, just for this same cause, are taken
 prisoners, and then either pass the rest of their days, perhaps,
 in slavery of the hardest kind, or, after meeting with cruel
 sufferings and paying, sometimes, more than they have, live on,
 destitute and in misery. Many, again, by their bodily weakness
 earn infamy, being thought cowards.

Or do you despise these, the
 rewards of bad condition, and think that you can easily endure
 such things? And yet I suppose that what has to be borne by
 anyone who takes care to keep his body in good condition is far
 lighter and far pleasanter than these things. Or is it that you
 think bad condition healthier and generally more serviceable
 than good, or do you despise the effects of good
 condition?

And yet the results of physical
 fitness are the direct opposite of those that follow from
 unfitness. The fit are healthy and strong; and many, as a
 consequence, save themselves decorously on the battle-field and
 escape all the dangers of war; many help friends and do good to
 their country and for this cause earn gratitude; get great glory
 and gain very high honours, and for this cause live henceforth a
 pleasanter and better life, and leave to their children better
 means of winning a livelihood.

I
 tell you, because military training is not publicly recognised
 by the state, you must not make that an excuse for being a whit
 less careful in attending to it yourself. For you may rest
 assured that there is no kind of struggle, apart from war, and
 no undertaking in which you will be worse off by keeping your
 body in better fettle. For in everything that men do the body is
 useful; and in all uses of the body it is of great importance to
 be in as high a state of physical efficiency as
 possible.

Why, even in the process of
 thinking, in which the use of the body seems to be reduced to a
 minimum, it is matter of common knowledge that grave mistakes
 may often be traced to bad health. And because the body is in a
 bad condition, loss of memory, depression, discontent, insanity
 often assail the mind so violently as to drive whatever
 knowledge it contains clean out of it.

But a sound and healthy body is a
 strong protection to a man, and at least there is no danger then
 of such a calamity happening to him through physical weakness:
 on the contrary, it is likely that his sound condition will
 serve to produce effects the opposite of those that arise from
 bad condition. And surely a man of sense would submit to
 anything to obtain the effects that are the opposite of those
 mentioned in my list.

Besides, it is a disgrace to grow old through sheer
 carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by
 developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest
 limit. But you cannot see that, if you are careless; for it will
 not come of its own accord.

On a man who was angry because his
 greeting was not returned: Ridiculous! 
 he exclaimed; you would not have been angry if
 you had met a man in worse health; and yet you are annoyed
 because you have come across someone with ruder
 manners!

On another who declared that he found
 no pleasure in eating: Acumenus, he
 said, has a good prescription for that
 ailment. And when asked What? he answered, Stop eating; and
 you will then find life pleasanter, cheaper, and
 healthier.

On yet another who complained that
 the drinking water at home was warm: Consequently, he said, when you
 want warm water to wash in, you will have it at
 hand. But it’s too cold for washing, objected the
 other. Then do
 your servants complain when they use it both for drinking and
 washing? Oh no: indeed I have often felt surprised that
 they are content with it for both these
 purposes. Which is the warmer to drink, the water in your
 house or Epidaurus water? Epidaurus water. And which is the colder to wash in,
 yours or Oropus water? Oropus
 water. Then reflect that you are apparently harder to please than
 servants and invalids.

When someone punished his footman
 severely, he asked why he was angry with his man. Because he’s a glutton
 and he’s a fool, said the other: he’s rapacious and he’s lazy. Have you ever considered, then,
 which deserves the more stripes, the master or the
 man?

When someone was afraid of the
 journey to Olympia , he
 said: Why do
 you fear the distance? When you are at home, don’t you spend
 most of the day in walking about? on your way there you will
 take a walk before lunch, and another before dinner, and then
 take a rest. Don’t you know that if you put together the walks
 you take in five or six days, you can easily cover the distance
 from Athens to
 Olympia ? It is
 more comfortable, too, to start a day early rather than a day
 late, since to be forced to make the stages of the journey
 unduly long is unpleasant; but to take a day extra on the way
 makes easy going. So it is better to hurry over the start than
 on the road.

When another said that he was worn
 out after a long journey, he asked him whether he had carried a
 load. Oh
 no, said the man; only my
 cloak. Were you alone, or had you a footman with
 you? I
 had. Empty-handed or carrying anything? He carried the rugs and
 the rest of the baggage, of course. And how has he come out
 of the journey? Better than I, so far as I can
 tell. Well then, if you had been forced to carry his load, how would
 you have felt, do you suppose? Bad, of course; or rather, I
 couldn’t have done it. Indeed! do you think a trained man ought
 to be so much less capable of work than his slave?

Whenever some of the members of a
 dining-club brought more meat than others,
 Socrates would tell
 the waiter either to put the small contribution into the common
 stock or to portion it out equally among the diners. So the high
 batteners felt obliged not only to take their share of the pool, but
 to pool their own supplies in return; and so they put their own
 supplies also into the common stock. And since they thus got no more
 than those who brought little with them, they gave up spending much
 on meat.

He observed on one occasion that one
 of the company at dinner had ceased to take bread, and ate the meat
 by itself. Now the talk was of names and the actions to which they
 are properly applied. Can we say, my
 friends, said
 Socrates , what is the nature of the action for which a man
 is called greedy? For all, I presume, eat meat with their bread
 when they get the chance: but I don’t think there is so far any
 reason for calling them greedy? No, certainly not, said one
 of the company.

Well, suppose he
 eats the meat alone, without the bread, not because he’s in
 training, but to tickle his palate, does he seem a greedy fellow
 or not? If not, it’s hard to say who does, was the
 reply. Here another of the company
 queried, And he who eats a scrap of bread with a
 large helping of meat? He too seems to me to deserve the
 epithet, said
 Socrates . Aye, and when others pray for a good wheat
 harvest, he, presumably, would pray for a good meat
 supply.

The young man, guessing that these
 remarks of Socrates applied
 to him, did not stop eating his meat, but took some bread with it.
 When Socrates observed this,
 he cried: Watch the fellow, you who are near
 him, and see whether he treats the bread as his meat or the meat
 as his bread.

On another occasion he noticed one of
 the company at dinner tasting several dishes with each bite of
 bread. Can you imagine, he asked, a meal more extravagant and more ruinous to the
 victuals than his who eats many things together, and crams all
 sorts of sauces into his mouth at once? At any rate by mixing
 more ingredients than the cooks, he adds to the cost, and since
 he mixes ingredients that they regard as unsuitable in a
 mixture, if they are right, then he is wrong and is ruining
 their art.

Yet it is surely ridiculous for a
 master to obtain highly skilled cooks, and then, though he
 claims no knowledge of the art, to alter their confections?
 There’s another drawback, too, attaching to the habit of eating
 many things together. For if many dishes are not provided, one
 seems to go short because one misses the usual variety: whereas
 he who is accustomed to take one kind of meat along with one bit
 of bread can make the best of one dish when more are not
 forthcoming.

He used to say too that the term good feeding in Attic was a synonym for eating. The good in the
 compound implied the eating of food that could harm neither body nor
 soul and was not hard to come by. Thus he attributed even good
 feeding to sober livers.

Socrates was so useful
 in all circumstances and in all ways, that any observer gifted with
 ordinary perception can see that nothing was more useful than the
 companionship of Socrates ,
 and time spent with him in any place and in any circumstances. The
 very recollection of him in absence brought no small good to his
 constant companions and followers; for even in his light moods they
 gained no less from his society than when he was serious.

Thus he would often say he was in love ; but clearly his heart was set not
 on those who were fair to outward view, but on those whose souls
 excelled in goodness. These excellent beings he recognised by their
 quickness to learn whatever subject they studied, ability to
 remember what they learned, and desire for every kind of knowledge
 on which depend good management of a household and estate and
 tactful dealing with men and the affairs of men. For education would
 make such beings not only happy in themselves, and successful in the
 management of their households, but capable of conferring happiness
 on their fellow-men and on states alike. His method of approach
 varied.

To those who thought themselves possessed of natural endowments and
 despised learning, he explained that the greater the natural gifts,
 the greater is the need of education; pointing out that
 thoroughbreds by their spirit and mettle develop into serviceable
 and splendid creatures, if they are broken in as colts, but if
 unbroken, prove intractable and sorry jades; and high-bred puppies,
 keen workers and good tacklers of game, make first-rate hounds and
 useful dogs, if well trained, but, if untrained, turn out stupid,
 crazy, disobedient brutes. It is the same with human beings.

The most highly gifted, the youths of ardent soul, capable of doing
 whatever they attempt, if educated and taught their duty grow into
 excellent and useful men; for manifold and great are their good
 deeds. But untrained and untaught, these same become utterly evil
 and mischievous; for without knowledge to discern their duty, they
 often put their hand to vile deeds, and through the very grandeur
 and vehemence of their nature, they are uncontrollable and
 intractable: therefore manifold and great are their evil deeds.

Those who prided themselves on riches
 and thought they had no need of education, supposing that their
 wealth would suffice them for gaining the objects of their wishes
 and winning honour among men, he admonished thus. Only a fool, he said, can think it possible to distinguish between things useful and
 things harmful without learning: only a fool can think that
 without distinguishing these he will get all he wants by means
 of his wealth and be able to do what is expedient: only a
 simpleton can think that without the power to do what is
 expedient he is doing well and has made good or sufficient
 provision for his life: only a simpleton can think that by his
 wealth alone without knowledge he will be reputed good at
 something, or will enjoy a good reputation without being reputed
 good at anything in particular.

I will now show his method of dealing
 with those who thought they had received the best education, and
 prided themselves on wisdom. He was informed that Euthydemus, the
 handsome, had formed a large collection of the works of celebrated
 poets and professors, and therefore supposed himself to be a prodigy
 of wisdom for his age, and was confident of surpassing all
 competitors in power of speech and action. At present,
 Socrates observed,
 he did not enter the Market-place owing to his youth, but when he
 wanted to get anything done, he would be found sitting in a
 saddler’s shop near the Market. So, to make an opening,
 Socrates went to
 this shop with some of his companions. At the first visit, one of them asked:

Was it by constant intercourse with some wise
 man or by natural ability that Themistocles stood out among his
 fellow-citizens as the man to whom the people naturally looked
 when they felt the want of a great leader? In order to set Euthydemus thinking,
 Socrates 
 said: If in
 the minor arts great achievement is impossible without competent
 masters, surely it is absurd to imagine that the art of
 statesmanship, the greatest of all accomplishments, comes to a
 man of its own accord.

Some time afterwards, meeting
 Euthydemus again, he saw that he was reluctant to join the circle
 and anxious not to betray any admiration for the wisdom of
 Socrates : Well, gentlemen, said he, when our friend Euthydemus has attained his full
 powers, and some question of policy is before the Assembly, he
 won’t be backward in offering advice: that is obvious from his
 behaviour. I fancy he has prepared a noble exordium to his
 addresses, with due care not to give the impression that he is
 indebted to anyone for his knowledge. No doubt he will begin his
 speech with this introduction:

Men of Athens ,
 I have never yet learnt anything from anyone, nor when I
 have been told of any man’s ability in speech and in action,
 have I sought to meet him, nor have I been at pains to find
 a teacher among the men who know. On the contrary, I have
 constantly avoided learning anything of anyone, and even the
 appearance of it. Nevertheless I shall recommend to your
 consideration anything that comes into my
 head.

This exordium
 might be adapted so as to suit candidates for the office of
 public physician. They might begin their speeches in this
 strain: Men of Athens , I have never yet studied medicine,
 nor sought to find a teacher among our physicians; for I
 have constantly avoided learning anything from the
 physicians, and even the appearance of having studied their
 art. Nevertheless I ask you to appoint me to the office of a
 physician, and I will endeavour to learn by experimenting on
 you. The
 exordium set all the company laughing.

Now when it became evident that
 Socrates had gained
 the attention of Euthydemus, but that Euthydemus still avoided
 breaking silence himself, and thought that he assumed an air of
 prudence by remaining dumb,
 Socrates wanted to put
 an end to that affectation. How strange it
 is, he said, that those who want to
 play the harp or the flute, or to ride or to get skill in any
 similar accomplishment, work hard at the art they mean to
 master, and not by themselves but under the tuition of the most
 eminent professors, doing and bearing anything in their anxiety
 to do nothing without their teachers’ guidance, just because
 that is the only way to become proficient: and yet, among those
 who want to shine as speakers in the Assembly and as statesmen,
 there are some who think that they will be able to do so on a
 sudden, by instinct, without training or study.

Yet surely these arts are much the
 harder to learn; for many more are interested in them and far
 fewer succeed. Clearly then these arts demand a longer and more
 intense application than the others.

For a time, then,
 Socrates continued
 to talk in this strain, while Euthydemus listened. But on finding
 him more tolerant of his conversation and more attentive,
 Socrates went alone
 to the saddler’s; and when Euthydemus had taken a seat beside him,
 he said: Tell me, Euthydemus, am I rightly
 informed that you have a large collection of books written by
 the wise men of the past, as they are called? By Zeus, yes,
 Socrates , 
 answered he, and I am still adding to it, to
 make it as complete as possible.

By Hera, 
 retorted Socrates , 
 I do admire you for valuing the treasures of
 wisdom above gold and silver. For you are evidently of opinion
 that, while gold and silver cannot make men better, the thoughts
 of the wise enrich their possessors with
 virtue. Now Euthydemus was
 glad to hear this, for he guessed that in the opinion of
 Socrates he was on
 the road to wisdom.

But Socrates , aware that he
 was pleased with his approbation, went on to say: Tell me, Euthydemus, what kind of goodness do you
 want to get by collecting these books? And as Euthydemus was silent, considering
 what answer to give, Possibly you want to be a
 doctor? he guessed: Medical
 treatises alone make a large collection. Oh no, not at
 all. But perhaps you wish to be an architect? One needs a
 well-stored mind for that too. No, indeed I
 don’t. Well, perhaps you want to be a good mathematician, like
 Theodorus? No, not that
 either. Well, perhaps you want to be an
 astronomer? And as he again said no, Perhaps a rhapsodist, then? They tell me you have a complete
 copy of Homer. Oh no, not at all; for your rhapsodists, I know,
 are consummate as reciters, but they are very silly fellows
 themselves. Then
 Socrates exclaimed:

Surely, Euthydemus, you don’t covet the kind of
 excellence that makes good statesmen and managers, competent
 rulers and benefactors of themselves and mankind in
 general? Yes, I do,
 Socrates , 
 answered Euthydemus, that kind of excellence I
 greatly desire. Why, cried
 Socrates , it is the noblest kind of excellence, the greatest
 of arts that you covet, for it belongs to kings and is dubbed kingly. However, he added,
 have you reflected whether it be possible to
 excel in these matters without being a just
 man? Yes, certainly; and it is, in fact, impossible to be a good
 citizen without justice.

Then tell me,
 have you got that? Yes,
 Socrates , I think I
 can show myself to be as just as any man. And have just men, like
 carpenters, their works? Yes, they have. And as carpenters can
 point out their works, should just men be able to rehearse
 theirs? Do you suppose, retorted Euthydemus, that I am unable to rehearse the works of justice?
 Of course I can, — and the works of injustice too, since there
 are many opportunities of seeing and hearing of them every
 day.

I propose, then,
 that we write J in this column and I in that, and then proceed
 to place under these letters, J and I, what we take to be the
 works of justice and injustice respectively. Do so, if you think it
 helps at all. Having
 written down the letters as he proposed,
 Socrates went
 on:

Lying occurs among men, does it
 not? Yes, it does. Under which heading, then, are we to put
 that? Under the heading of injustice, clearly. Deceit, too, is found,
 is it not? Certainly. Under which heading will that
 go? Under injustice again, of course. What about doing
 mischief? That too. Selling into slavery? That
 too. Then we shall assign none of these things to justice,
 Euthydemus? No, it would be monstrous to do so.

Now suppose a man
 who has been elected general enslaves an unjust and hostile
 city, shall we say that he acts unjustly? Oh no! We shall say that his
 actions are just, shall we not? Certainly. And what if he deceives
 the enemy when at war? That too is just. And if he steals and plunders their goods, will
 not his actions be just? Certainly; but at first I assumed that
 your questions had reference only to friends. Then everything that we
 assigned to injustice should be assigned to justice
 also? Apparently.

Then I propose to
 revise our classification, and to say: It is just to do such
 things to enemies, but it is unjust to do them to friends,
 towards whom one’s conduct should be scrupulously
 honest. By all means.

Now suppose that
 a general, seeing that his army is downhearted, tells a lie and
 says that reinforcements are approaching, and by means of this
 lie checks discouragement among the men, under which heading
 shall we put this deception? Under justice, I
 think. Suppose, again, that a man’s son refuses to take a dose of
 medicine when he needs it, and the father induces him to take it
 by pretending that it is food, and cures him by means of this
 lie, where shall we put this deception? That too goes on the
 same side, I think. And again, suppose one has a friend suffering from
 depression, and, for fear that he may make away with himself,
 one takes away his sword or something of the sort, under which
 heading shall we put that now? That too goes under justice, of
 course.

You mean, do you,
 that even with friends straightforward dealing is not invariably
 right? It isn’t, indeed! I retract what I said before, if you will let
 me. Why, I’m bound to let you; it’s far better than getting our
 lists wrong.

But now, consider deception
 practised on friends to their detriment: we mustn’t overlook
 that either. Which is the more unjust deception in that case,
 the intentional or unintentional? Nay,
 Socrates , I have
 lost all confidence in my answers; for all the opinions that I
 expressed before seem now to have taken an entirely different
 form. Still I venture to say that the intentional deception is
 more unjust than the unintentional.

Do you think
 there is a doctrine and science of the just, as there is of
 letters? Yes. Which, in your judgment, is the more literate, the
 man who intentionally blunders in writing and reading, or the
 man who blunders unintentionally? The one who blunders intentionally,
 I presume; for he can always be accurate when he
 chooses. May we not say, then, that the intentional
 blunderer is literate and the unintentional is
 illiterate? Indeed we must. And which knows what is just, the
 intentional liar and deceiver, or the
 unintentional? The intentional, clearly. You say, then, as I
 understand, that he who knows letters is more literate than he
 who is ignorant of them? Yes And he who knows what is just is more just
 than he who does not know? Apparently; but here again I don’t feel
 sure of my own meaning.

Now come, what do
 you think of the man who wants to tell the truth, but never
 sticks to what he says; when he shows you the way, tells you
 first that the road runs east, then that it runs west; and when
 he casts up figures, makes the total now larger, now
 smaller? Why, I think he shows that he doesn’t know what he
 thought he knew.

Are you aware
 that some people are called slavish? Yes. To what do they owe the
 name, to knowledge or to ignorance? To ignorance,
 obviously. To ignorance of the smiths’ trade, shall we
 say? Certainly not. Ignorance of carpentry perhaps? No, not to that
 either. Of cobbling? No, to none of these: on the contrary,
 those who are skilled in such trades are for the most part
 slavish. Then is this name given to those who are ignorant
 of the beautiful and good and just? That is my
 opinion.

Then we must
 strain every nerve to escape being slaves. Upon my word,
 Socrates , I did
 feel confident that I was a student of a philosophy that would
 provide me with the best education in all things needful to one
 who would be a gentleman. But you can imagine my dismay when I
 realise that in spite of all my pains I am even incapable of
 answering a question about things that one is bound to know, and
 yet find no other way that will lead to my
 improvement. Hereupon
 Socrates exclaimed:

Tell me, Euthydemus, have you ever been to
 Delphi ? Yes, certainly; twice. Then did you notice
 somewhere on the temple the inscription Know
 thyself ? I did. And did you pay no heed to the inscription, or did
 you attend to it and try to consider who you
 were? Indeed I did not; because I felt sure that I knew that already;
 for I could hardly know anything else if I did not even know
 myself.

And what do you
 suppose a man must know to know himself, his own name merely? Or
 must he consider what sort of a creature he is for human use and
 get to know his own powers; just as those who buy horses don’t
 think that they know the beast they want to know until they have
 considered whether he is docile or stubborn, strong or weak,
 fast or slow, and generally how he stands in all that makes a
 useful or a useless horse? That leads me to think that he who does
 not know his own powers is ignorant of himself.

Is it not clear
 too that through self-knowledge men come to much good, and
 through self-deception to much harm? For those who know
 themselves, know what things are expedient for themselves and
 discern their own powers and limitations. And by doing what they
 understand, they get what they want and prosper: by refraining
 from attempting what they do not understand, they make no
 mistakes and avoid failure. And consequently through their power
 of testing other men too, and through their intercourse with
 others, they get what is good and shun what is bad.

Those who do not know and are
 deceived in their estimate of their own powers, are in the like
 condition with regard to other men and other human affairs. They
 know neither what they want, nor what they do, nor those with
 whom they have intercourse; but mistaken in all these respects,
 they miss the good and stumble into the bad.

Furthermore, those who know what
 they do win fame and honour by attaining their ends. Their
 equals are glad to have dealings with them; and those who miss
 their objects look to them for counsel, look to them for
 protection, rest on them their hopes of better things, and for
 all these reasons love them above all other men.

But those who know not what they
 do, choose amiss, fail in what they attempt and, besides
 incurring direct loss and punishment thereby, they earn contempt
 through their failures, make themselves ridiculous and live in
 dishonour and humiliation. And
 the same is true of communities. You find that whenever a state,
 in ignorance of its own power, goes to war with a stronger
 people, it is exterminated or loses its liberty.

Socrates , 
 answered Euthydemus, you may rest assured that I
 fully appreciate the importance of knowing oneself. But where
 should the process of self-examination begin? I look to you for
 a statement, please.

Well, 
 said Socrates , I may assume, I take it, that you know what things
 are good and what are evil? Of course, for if I don’t know so much as
 that, I must be worse than a slave. Come then, state them
 for my benefit. Well, that’s a simple matter. First health in
 itself is, I suppose, a good, sickness an evil. Next the various
 causes of these two conditions — meat, drink, habits — are good
 or evil according as they promote health or
 sickness.

Then health and
 sickness too must be good when their effect is good, and evil
 when it is evil. But when can health possibly be the cause of evil,
 or sickness of good? Why, in many cases; for instance, a disastrous
 campaign or a fatal voyage: the able-bodied who go are lost, the
 weaklings who stay behind are saved. True; but you see, in
 the successful adventures too the able-bodied take part, the
 weaklings are left behind. Then since these bodily conditions
 sometimes lead to profit, and sometimes to loss, are they any
 more good than evil? No, certainly not; at least so it appears from the
 argument.

But wisdom now,
 Socrates , — that
 at any rate is indisputably a good thing; for what is there that
 a wise man would not do better than a fool? Indeed! have you not
 heard how Daedalus was seized by Minos because of his wisdom,
 and was forced to be his slave, and was robbed of his country
 and his liberty, and essaying to escape with his son, lost the
 boy and could not save himself, but was carried off to the
 barbarians and again lived as a slave there? That is the story, of
 course. And have you not heard the story of Palamedes?
 Surely, for all the poets sing of him, how that he was envied
 for his wisdom and done to death by Odysseus. Another well-known
 tale! And how many others, do you suppose, have been kidnapped on
 account of their wisdom, and haled off to the great King’s
 court, and live in slavery there?

Happiness seems
 to be unquestionably a good,
 Socrates . It would be so,
 Euthydemus, were it not made up of goods that are
 questionable. But what element in happiness can be called in
 question? None, provided we don’t include in it beauty or
 strength or wealth or glory or anything of the
 sort. But of course we shall do that. For how can anyone be happy
 without them?

Then of course we
 shall include the sources of much trouble to mankind. For many
 are ruined by admirers whose heads are turned at the sight of a
 pretty face; many are led by their strength to attempt tasks too
 heavy for them, and meet with serious evils: many by their
 wealth are corrupted, and fall victims to conspiracies; many
 through glory and political power have suffered great
 evils.

Well now, if I am
 at fault in praising even happiness, I confess I know not what
 one should ask for in one’s prayers. But perhaps you never
 even thought about these things, because you felt so confident
 that you knew them. However, as the state you are preparing
 yourself to direct is governed by the people, no doubt you know
 what popular government is? I think so, certainly.

Then do you
 suppose it possible to know popular government without knowing
 the people? Indeed I don’t. And do you know, then, what the
 people consists of? I think so. Of what do you suppose it to
 consist? The poorer classes, I presume. You know the poor,
 then? Of course I do. And you know the rich too? Yes, just as well as the
 poor. What kind of men do you call poor and rich
 respectively? The poor, I imagine, are those who have not enough
 to pay for what they want; the rich those who have more than
 enough.

Have you
 observed, then, that some who have very little not only find it
 enough, but even manage to save out of it, whereas others cannot
 live within their means, however large? Yes, certainly — thanks
 for reminding me — I know, in fact, of some despots even who are
 driven to crime by poverty, just like paupers.

Therefore, if
 that is so, we will include despots in the people, and men of
 small means, if they are thrifty, in the rich. I am forced to agree
 once more, cried Euthydemus, evidently by my stupidity. I am inclined to think I had better
 hold my tongue, or I shall know nothing at all
 presently. And so he went away very dejected, disgusted
 with himself and convinced that he was indeed a slave.

Now many of those who were brought to
 this pass by Socrates , never
 went near him again and were regarded by him as mere blockheads. But
 Euthydemus guessed that he would never be of much account unless he
 spent as much time as possible with
 Socrates .
 Henceforward, unless obliged to absent himself, he never left him,
 and even began to adopt some of his practices.
 Socrates , for his
 part, seeing how it was with him, avoided worrying him, and began to
 expound very plainly and clearly the knowledge that he thought most
 needful and the practices that he held to be most excellent.

Skill in speaking and efficiency in
 affairs, therefore, and ingenuity, were not the qualities that he
 was eager to foster in his companions. He held that they needed
 first to acquire prudence. For he believed that those faculties,
 unless accompanied by prudence, increased in their possessors
 injustice and power for mischief.

In the first place, then, he tried to
 make his companions prudent towards the gods. Accordingly he
 discoursed on this topic at various times, as those who were present
 used to relate. The following conversation between him and
 Euthydemus I heard myself.

Tell me,
 Euthydemus, he began, has it ever
 occurred to you to reflect on the care the gods have taken to
 furnish man with what he needs? No, indeed it has not, 
 replied Euthydemus. Well, no doubt you know that our first and
 foremost need is light, which is supplied to us by the
 gods? Of course; since without light our eyes would be as useless as
 if we were blind. And again, we need rest; and therefore the gods
 grant us the welcome respite of night. Yes, for that too we owe
 them thanks.

And since the
 night by reason of her darkness is dim, whereas the sun by his
 brightness illuminates the hours of the day and all things else,
 have they not made stars to shine in the night, that mark the
 watches of night for us, and do we not thereby satisfy many of
 our needs? That is so. Moreover, the moon reveals to us not only
 the divisions of the night, but of the month
 too. Certainly.

Now, seeing that
 we need food, think how they make the earth to yield it, and
 provide to that end appropriate seasons which furnish in
 abundance the diverse things that minister not only to our wants
 but to our enjoyment. Truly these things too show
 loving-kindness.

Think again of
 their precious gift of water, that aids the earth and the
 seasons to give birth and increase to all things useful to us
 and itself helps to nourish our bodies, and mingling with all
 that sustains us, makes it more digestible, more wholesome, and
 more palatable: and how, because we need so much of it, they
 supply it without stint. That too shows design at work.

Think again of
 the blessing of fire, our defence against cold and against
 darkness, our helpmate in every art and all that man contrives
 for his service. In fact, to put it shortly, nothing of any
 account that is useful to the life of man is contrived without
 the aid of fire. This too is a signal token of
 loving-kindness.

Think again how
 the sun, when past the winter solstice, approaches, ripening
 some things and withering others, whose time is over; and having
 accomplished this, approaches no nearer, but turns away, careful
 not to harm us by excess of heat; and when once again in his
 retreat he reaches the point where it is clear to ourselves,
 that if he goes further away, we shall be frozen with the cold,
 back he turns once more and draws near and revolves in that
 region of the heavens where he can best serve
 us. Yes, verily, these things do seem to be done for the sake of
 mankind.

And again, since
 it is evident that we could not endure the heat or the cold if
 it came suddenly, the sun’s
 approach and retreat are so gradual that we arrive at the one or
 the other extreme imperceptibly. For myself, exclaimed
 Euthydemus, I begin to doubt whether after all
 the gods are occupied in any other work than the service of man.
 The one difficulty I feel is that the lower animals also enjoy
 these blessings.

Yes, 
 replied Socrates , and is it not evident that they too receive life
 and food for the sake of man? For what creature reaps so many
 benefits as man from goats and sheep and horses and oxen and
 asses and the other animals? He owes more to them, in my
 opinion, than to the fruits of the earth. At the least they are
 not less valuable to him for food and commerce; in fact a large
 portion of mankind does not use the products of the earth for
 food, but lives on the milk and cheese and flesh they get from
 live stock. Moreover, all men tame and domesticate the useful
 kinds of animals, and make them their fellow-workers in war and
 many other undertakings. There too I agree with you, seeing that
 animals far stronger than man become so entirely subject to him
 that he puts them to any use he chooses.

Think again of
 the multitude of things beautiful and useful and their infinite
 variety, and how the gods have endowed man with senses adapted
 for the perception of every kind, so that there is nothing good
 that we cannot enjoy; and again, how they have implanted in us
 the faculty of reasoning, whereby we are able to reason about
 the objects of our perceptions and to commit them to memory, and
 so come to know what advantage every kind can yield, and devise
 many means of enjoying the good and driving away the bad;

and think of the power of
 expression, which enables us to impart to one another all good
 things by teaching and to take our share of them, to enact laws
 and to administer states. Truly,
 Socrates , it
 does appear that the gods devote much care to
 man. Yet again, in so far as we are powerless of ourselves to
 foresee what is expedient for the future, 
 the gods lend us their aid, revealing the issues by divination
 to inquirers, and teaching them how to obtain the best
 results. With you,
 Socrates , they seem
 to deal even more friendly than with other men, if it is true
 that, even unasked, they warn you by signs what to do and what
 not to do.

Yes, and you will
 realise the truth of what I say if, instead of waiting for the
 gods to appear to you in bodily presence, you are content to
 praise and worship them because you see their works. Mark that
 the gods themselves give the reason for doing so; for when they
 bestow on us their good gifts, not one of them ever appears
 before us gift in hand; and especially he who co-ordinates and
 holds together the universe, wherein all things are fair and
 good, and presents them ever unimpaired and sound and ageless
 for our use, and quicker than thought to serve us unerringly,
 is manifest in his supreme works, and yet is unseen by us in the
 ordering of them.

Mark that even the sun, who seems
 to reveal himself to all, permits not man to behold him closely,
 but if any attempts to gaze recklessly upon him, blinds their
 eyes. And the gods’ ministers too you will find to be invisible.
 That the thunderbolt is hurled from heaven, and that he
 overwhelms all on whom he falls, is evident, but he is seen
 neither coming nor striking nor going. And the winds are
 themselves invisible, yet their deeds are manifest to us, and we
 perceive their approach. Moreover, the soul of man, which more
 than all else that is human partakes of the divine, reigns
 manifestly within us, and yet is itself unseen. For these reasons it behoves us not to
 despise the things that are unseen, but, realising their power
 in their manifestations, to honour the godhead.

Socrates , 
 replied Euthydemus, that I will in no wise be
 heedless of the godhead I know of a surety. But my heart fails
 me when I think that no man can ever render due thanks to the
 gods for their benefits.

Nay, be not
 down-hearted, Euthydemus; for you know that to the inquiry,
 How am I to please the
 gods? the Delphic god replies, Follow the custom of the state ; and
 everywhere, I suppose, it is the custom that men propitiate the
 gods with sacrifices according to their power. How then can a
 man honour the gods more excellently and more devoutly than by
 doing as they themselves ordain?

Only he must fall no whit short of
 his power. For when he does that, it is surely plain that he is
 not then honouring the gods. Therefore it is by coming no whit
 short of his power in honouring the gods that he is to look with
 confidence for the greatest blessing. 
 For there are none from whom a man of prudence would hope for
 greater things than those who can confer the greatest benefits,
 nor can he show his prudence more clearly than by pleasing them.
 And how can he please them better than by obeying them
 strictly?

Thus by precept and by example alike
 he strove to increase in his companions Piety and Prudence.

Again, concerning Justice he did not
 hide his opinion, but proclaimed it by his actions. All his private
 conduct was lawful and helpful: to public authority he rendered such
 scrupulous obedience in all that the laws required, both in civil
 life and in military service, that he was a pattern of good
 discipline to all.

When chairman in the Assemblies he would not permit the people to
 record an illegal vote, but, upholding the laws, resisted a popular
 impulse that might even have overborne any but himself.

And when the Thirty laid a command on him that was illegal, he
 refused to obey. Thus he disregarded their repeated injunction not
 to talk with young men; and when they commanded him and certain
 other citizens to arrest a man on a capital charge, he alone
 refused, because the command laid on him was illegal.

Again, when he was tried on the charge brought by Meletus, whereas
 it is the custom of defendants to curry favour with the jury and to
 indulge in flattery and illegal appeals, and many by such means have
 been known to gain a verdict of acquittal, he rejected utterly the
 familiar chicanery of the courts; and though he might easily have
 gained a favourable verdict by even a moderate indulgence in such
 stratagems, he chose to die through his loyalty to the laws rather
 than to live through violating them.

Such views frequently found
 expression in his conversations with different persons; I recollect
 the substance of one that he had with Hippias of Elis concerning Justice. Hippias,
 who had not been in Athens for a considerable time, found
 Socrates talking: he
 was saying that if you want to have a man taught cobbling or
 building or smithing or riding, you know where to send him to learn
 the craft: some indeed declare that if you want to train up a horse
 or an ox in the way he should go, teachers abound. And yet,
 strangely enough, if you want to learn Justice yourself, or to have
 your son or servant taught it, you know not where to go for a
 teacher.

When Hippias heard this, How now? he cried in a tone of raillery,
 still the same old sentiments,
 Socrates , that I
 heard from you so long ago? Yes, Hippias, he replied, always the same, and — what is more astonishing —
 on the same topics too! You are so learned that I daresay you
 never say the same thing on the same subjects. I certainly try to say
 something fresh every time. Do you mean, about what you
 know?

For example, in answer to the question, How many letters are there in
 Socrates 
 and how do you spell it? do you try to say something
 different now from what you said before? Or take figures:
 suppose you are asked if twice five are ten, don’t you give the
 same answer now as you gave before? About letters and
 figures, Socrates , I
 always say the same thing, just like you. As for Justice, I feel
 confident that I can now say that which neither you nor anyone
 else can contradict.

Upon my word, you
 mean to say that you have made a great discovery, if jurymen are
 to cease from voting different ways, citizens from disputing and
 litigation, and wrangling about the justice of their claims,
 cities from quarrelling about their rights and making war; and
 for my part, I don’t see how to tear myself away from you till I
 have heard about your great discovery.

But I vow you
 shall not hear unless you first declare your own opinion about
 the nature of Justice; for it’s enough that you mock at others,
 questioning and examining everybody, and never willing to render
 an account yourself or to state an opinion about
 anything. Indeed, Hippias!

Haven’t you noticed that I never
 cease to declare my notions of what is just? And how can you call
 that an account? I declare them by my deeds, anyhow, if not by my
 words. Don’t you think that deeds are better evidence than
 words? Yes, much better, of course; for many say what is just and do
 what is unjust; but no one who does what is just can be
 unjust.

Then have you
 ever found me dealing in perjury or calumny, or stirring up
 strife between friends or fellow-citizens, or doing any other
 unjust act? I have not. To abstain from what is unjust is just,
 don’t you think? Even now,
 Socrates , you are
 clearly endeavouring to avoid stating what you think Justice to
 be. You are saying not what the just do, but what they don’t
 do.

Well, I thought
 that unwillingness to do injustice was sufficient proof of
 Justice. But, if you don’t think so, see whether you like this
 better: I say that what is lawful is just. Do
 you mean, Socrates , that
 lawful and just are the same thing? I do.

Because I don’t
 see what you mean by lawful or what you mean by
 just. Does the expression laws of a state convey
 a meaning to you? It does. And what do you think they
 are? Covenants made by the citizens whereby they have enacted what
 ought to be done and what ought to be avoided. Then would not that
 citizen who acts in accordance with these act lawfully, and he
 who transgresses them act unlawfully? Yes,
 certainly. And would not he who obeys them do what is just,
 and he who disobeys them do what is unjust? Certainly. Then would not he who does what is just be just,
 and he who does what is unjust be unjust? Of
 course. Consequently he who acts lawfully is just, and he
 who acts unlawfully is unjust.

Laws, 
 said Hippias, can hardly be thought of much
 account, Socrates , or
 observance of them, seeing that the very men who passed them
 often reject and amend them. Yes, said
 Socrates , and after going to war, cities often make peace
 again. To be sure. Then is there any difference, do you think,
 between belittling those who obey the laws on the ground that
 the laws may be annulled, and blaming those who behave well in
 the wars on the ground that peace may be made? Or do you really
 censure those who are eager to help their fatherland in the
 wars? No, of course not.

Lycurgus the
 Lacedaemonian now — have you realised that he would not have
 made Sparta to
 differ from other cities in any respect, had he not established
 obedience to the laws most securely in her? Among rulers in
 cities, are you not aware that those who do most to make the
 citizens obey the laws are the best, and that the city in which
 the citizens are most obedient to the laws has the best time in
 peace and is irresistible in war?

And again, agreement is deemed the
 greatest blessing for cities: their senates and their best men
 constantly exhort the citizens to agree, and everywhere in
 Greece there is a
 law that the citizens shall promise under oath to agree, and
 everywhere they take this oath. The object of this, in my
 opinion, is not that the citizens may vote for the same choirs,
 not that they may praise the same flute-players, not that they
 may select the same poets, not that they may like the same
 things, but that they may obey the laws. For those cities whose
 citizens abide by them prove strongest and enjoy most happiness;
 but without agreement no city can be made a good city, no house
 can be made a prosperous house.

And how is the individual citizen
 less likely to incur penalties from the state, and more certain
 to gain honour than by obeying the laws? How less likely to be
 defeated in the courts or more certain to win? Whom would anyone
 rather trust as guardian of his money or sons or daughters? Whom
 would the whole city think more trustworthy than the man of
 lawful conduct? From whom would parents or kinsfolk or servants
 or friends or fellow-citizens or strangers more surely get their
 just rights? Whom would enemies rather trust in the matter of a
 truce or treaty or terms of peace? Whom would men rather choose
 for an ally? And to whom would allies rather entrust leadership
 or command of a garrison, or cities? Whom would anyone more
 confidently expect to show gratitude for benefits received? Or
 whom would one rather benefit than him from whom he thinks he
 will receive due gratitude? Whose friendship would anyone
 desire, or whose enmity would he avoid more earnestly? Whom
 would anyone less willingly make war on than him whose
 friendship he covets and whose enmity he is fain to avoid, who
 attracts the most friends and allies, and the fewest opponents
 and enemies?

So,
 Hippias, I declare lawful and just to be the same thing. If you
 are of the contrary opinion, tell me. Upon my word,
 Socrates , 
 answered Hippias, I don’t think my opinion is
 contrary to what you have said about Justice.

Do you know what
 is meant by unwritten laws, 
 Hippias? Yes, those that are uniformly observed in every
 country. Could you say that men made
 them? Nay, how could that be, seeing that they cannot all meet
 together and do not speak the same language? Then by whom have these
 laws been made, do you suppose? I think that the gods made these
 laws for men. For among all men the first law is to fear the
 gods.

Is not the duty
 of honouring parents another universal law? Yes, that is
 another. And that parents shall not have sexual intercourse
 with their children nor children with their
 parents? No, I don’t think that
 is a law of God. Why so? Because I notice that some transgress
 it.

Yes, and they do
 many other things contrary to the laws. But surely the
 transgressors of the laws ordained by the gods pay a penalty
 that a man can in no wise escape, as some, when they transgress
 the laws ordained by man, escape punishment, either by
 concealment or by violence.

And pray what
 sort of penalty is it,
 Socrates , that may
 not be avoided by parents and children who have intercourse with
 one another? The greatest, of course. For what greater penalty
 can men incur when they beget children than begetting them
 badly?

How do they beget
 children badly then, if, as may well happen, the fathers are
 good men and the mothers good women? Surely because it is not
 enough that the two parents should be good. They must also be in
 full bodily vigour: unless you suppose that those who are in
 full vigour are no more efficient as parents than those who have
 not yet reached that condition or have passed
 it. Of
 course that is unlikely. Which are the better
 then? Those who are in full vigour, clearly. Consequently those who
 are not in full vigour are not competent to become
 parents? It is improbable, of course. In that case then, they
 ought not to have children? Certainly not. Therefore those who
 produce children in such circumstances produce them
 wrongly? I think so. Who then will be bad fathers and mothers,
 if not they? I agree with you there too.

Again, is not the
 duty of requiting benefits universally recognised by
 law? Yes, but this law too is broken. Then does not a man pay forfeit for
 the breach of that law too, in the gradual loss of good friends
 and the necessity of hunting those who hate him? Or is it not
 true that, whereas those who benefit an acquaintance are good
 friends to him, he is hated by them for his ingratitude, if he
 makes no return, and then, because it is most profitable to
 enjoy the acquaintance of such men, he hunts them most
 assiduously? Assuredly,
 Socrates , all this
 does suggest the work of the gods. For laws that involve in
 themselves punishment meet for those who break them, must, I
 think, be framed by a better legislator than man.

Then, Hippias, do
 you think that the gods ordain what is just or what is
 otherwise? Not what is otherwise — of course not; for if a
 god ordains not that which is just, surely no other legislator
 can do so. Consequently, Hippias, the gods too accept the
 identification of just and lawful. By such words and actions he encouraged Justice in those
 who resorted to his company.

He did also try to make his
 companions efficient in affairs, as I will now show. For holding
 that it is good for anyone who means to do honourable work to have
 self-control, he made it clear to his companions, in the first
 place, that he had been assiduous in self-discipline; moreover, in his conversation he exhorted his
 companions to cultivate self-control above all things.

Thus he bore in mind continually the aids to virtue, and put all his
 companions in mind of them. I recall in particular the substance of
 a conversation that he once had with Euthydemus on
 self-control. Tell me, Euthydemus, he said, do
 you think that freedom is a noble and splendid possession both
 for individuals and for communities? Yes, I think it is, in
 the highest degree.

Then do you think
 that the man is free who is ruled by bodily pleasures and is
 unable to do what is best because of them? By no
 means. Possibly, in fact, to do what is best appears to you to be
 freedom, and so you think that to have masters who will prevent
 such activity is bondage? I am sure of it.

You feel sure
 then that the incontinent are bond slaves? Of course,
 naturally. And do you think that the incontinent are merely
 prevented from doing what is most honourable, or are also forced
 to do what is most dishonourable? I think that they are forced to do
 that just as much as they are prevented from doing the
 other.

What sort of
 masters are they, in your opinion, who prevent the best and
 enforce the worst? The worst possible, of course. And what sort of slavery
 do you believe to be the worst? Slavery to the worst masters, I
 think. The worst slavery, therefore, is the slavery endured by the
 incontinent? I think so.

As for Wisdom,
 the greatest blessing, does not incontinence exclude it and
 drive men to the opposite? Or don’t you think that incontinence
 prevents them from attending to useful things and understanding
 them, by drawing them away to things pleasant, and often so
 stuns their perception of good and evil that they choose the
 worse instead of the better? That does happen.

With Prudence,
 Euthydemus, who, shall we say, has less to do than the
 incontinent? For I presume that the actions prompted by prudence
 and incontinence are exact opposites? I agree with that
 too. To caring for what is right is there any stronger hindrance, do
 you think, than incontinence? Indeed I do not. And do you think there
 can be aught worse for a man than that which causes him to
 choose the harmful rather than the useful, and persuades him to
 care for the one and to be careless of the other, and forces him
 to do the opposite of what prudence dictates? Nothing.

And is it not
 likely that self-control causes actions the opposite of those
 that are due to incontinence? Certainly. Then is not the cause of
 the opposite actions presumably a very great
 blessing? Yes, presumably. Consequently we may presume,
 Euthydemus, that self-control is a very great blessing to a
 man? We may presume so,
 Socrates .

Has it ever
 occurred to you, Euthydemus — ? What? That though pleasure is the one and
 only goal to which incontinence is thought to lead men, she
 herself cannot bring them to it, whereas nothing produces
 pleasure so surely as self-control? How
 so? Incontinence will not let them endure hunger or thirst or
 desire or lack of sleep, which are the sole causes of pleasure
 in eating and drinking and sexual indulgence, and in resting and
 sleeping, after a time of waiting and resistance until the
 moment comes when these will give the greatest possible
 satisfaction; and thus she prevents them from experiencing any
 pleasure worthy to be mentioned in the most elementary and
 recurrent forms of enjoyment. But self-control alone causes them
 to endure the sufferings I have named, and therefore she alone
 causes them to experience any pleasure worth mentioning in such
 enjoyments. What you say is entirely true.

Moreover, the
 delights of learning something good and excellent, and of
 studying some of the means whereby a man knows how to regulate
 his body well and manage his household successfully, to be
 useful to his friends and city and to defeat his enemies —
 knowledge that yields not only very great benefits but very
 great pleasures — these are the delights of the self-controlled;
 but the incontinent have no part in them. For who, should we
 say, has less concern with these than he who has no power of
 cultivating them because all his serious purposes are centred in
 the pleasures that lie nearest?

Socrates , 
 said Euthydemus, I think you mean that he who is
 at the mercy of the bodily pleasures has no concern whatever
 with virtue in any form. Yes, Euthydemus; for how can an
 incontinent man be any better than the dullest beast? How can he
 who fails to consider the things that matter most, and strives
 by every means to do the things that are most pleasant, be
 better than the stupidest of creatures? No, only the
 self-controlled have power to consider the things that matter
 most, and, sorting them out after their kind, by word and deed
 alike to prefer the good and reject the evil.

And thus, he said, men become
 supremely good and happy and skilled in discussion. The very word discussion, according to him, owes its
 name to the practice of meeting together for common
 deliberation, 
 sorting , discussing things after their kind: and therefore one
 should be ready and prepared for this and be zealous for it; for it
 makes for excellence, leadership and skill in discussion.

I will try also to show how he
 encouraged his companions to become skilled in discussion.
 Socrates held that
 those who know what any given thing is can also expound it to
 others; on the other hand, those who do not know are misled
 themselves and mislead others. For this reason he never gave up
 considering with his companions what any given thing is. To go through all his definitions would be
 an arduous task. I will say only enough to indicate his method of
 analysis.

His analysis of Piety — to take that
 first — was more or less as follows: Tell me, Euthydemus, what sort of thing is
 Piety, in your opinion? A very excellent thing, to be
 sure, he replied. Can you say what sort of man is
 pious? He who worships the gods, I think. May a man worship the
 gods according to his own will and pleasure? No, there are laws to be
 observed in worshipping the gods!

Then will not he
 who knows these laws know how he must worship the
 gods? I think so. Then does he who knows how he must worship the
 gods think that he must do so according to his knowledge, and
 not otherwise? He does indeed. And does everyone worship the gods
 as he thinks he ought, and not otherwise? I think so.

Then will he who
 knows what is lawful about the gods worship the gods
 lawfully? Certainly. Then does not he who worships lawfully
 worship as he ought? Of course. Yes, but he who worships as he ought is
 pious? Certainly. Shall we therefore rightly define the pious man as
 one who knows what is lawful concerning the
 gods? I at any rate think so.

In dealing with
 men, again, may one do as one chooses? No, in the case of men
 too there are laws of conduct. Then do not those who observe them
 in their dealings with one another behave as they
 ought? Of course. And do not they who behave as they ought behave
 well? Certainly. And do not they who behave well towards men act
 well in human affairs? Presumably. And do not those who obey the laws
 do what is just? Certainly.

Do you know what
 sort of things are called just? The things that the laws
 command. Consequently those who do what the laws command do
 both what is just and what they must do? Of
 course. And are not they who do what is just, just
 men? I
 think so. Do you think then, that any obey the laws without
 knowing what the laws command? I do not. And knowing what they
 must do, do you suppose that any think they must not do
 it? I
 don’t think so. Do you know of any who do, not what they think
 they must do, but something else? I do not. Consequently those who
 know what is lawful concerning men do what is
 just? Certainly. But are not they who do what is just, just
 men? Exactly. At last, then, we may rightly define just men as
 those who know best what is just concerning
 men? I
 think so. And what of Wisdom?

How shall we describe it? Tell me,
 does it seem to you that the wise are wise about what they know,
 or are some wise about what they do not know? 
 About what they know, obviously; for how can a
 man be wise about the things he doesn’t know? The wise, then, are
 wise by knowledge? How else can a man be wise if not by
 knowledge? Do you think that wisdom is anything but that by
 which men are wise? No. It follows that Wisdom is
 Knowledge? I think so. Then do you think it possible for a man
 to know all things? Of course not — nor even a fraction of
 them. So an all-wise man is an impossibility? Of course, of
 course. Consequently everyone is wise just in so far as
 he knows? I think so.

Now to seek the
 Good, Euthydemus: is this the way? What do you mean? Does it seem to you
 that the same thing is useful to everyone? No. In fact, what is useful
 to one may sometimes be hurtful to another, don’t you
 think? Assuredly. Should you call anything good except what is
 useful? No. Consequently what is useful is good for him to
 whom it is useful? I think so.

Consider the
 Beautiful: can we define it in any other way? Or is it possible
 to name a beautiful body, for instance, or vessel, or anything
 else that you know to be beautiful for all
 purposes? Of course not. Then does the beauty in using
 anything consist in using it for just that purpose for which
 that particular thing is useful? Certainly. And is a thing
 beautiful for any other purpose than that for which it is
 beautiful to use that particular thing? For no other purpose
 whatever. The useful, then, is beautiful for any purpose
 for which it is useful? I think so. Next comes Courage,
 Euthydemus.

Do you think it a beautiful
 thing? 
 I prefer to say
 very beautiful. 
 So you think
 Courage useful for no mean purposes? 
 
 Of course — or rather, for the
 greatest. Then do you think that in the pressure of terrors
 and dangers it is useful to be ignorant of
 them? By no means. So those who feel no fear of such things because
 they are ignorant of them are not courageous? Of course not, for in
 that case many madmen and cowards would be
 courageous. What of those who are afraid when there is no
 ground for fear? Still less, of course. Then do you think that
 those who are good in the presence of terrors and dangers are
 courageous, and those who are bad are cowards? Certainly.

And do you think
 that any are good in the presence of such things, except those
 who can deal with them well? None but these. And bad, except such as
 deal badly with them? These and none others. Then do both classes
 behave as they think they must? How can they behave
 otherwise? Then do those who cannot behave well know how
 they must behave? Surely not. So those who know how they must behave
 are just those who can? Yes, only they. Well now, do those who
 are not utterly mistaken deal badly with such
 things? I think not. So those who behave badly are utterly
 mistaken? Presumably. It follows that those who know how to
 deal well with terrors and dangers are courageous, and those who
 utterly mistake the way are cowards? That is my
 opinion.

Kingship and despotism, in his
 judgment, were both forms of government, but he held that they
 differed. For government of men with their consent and in accordance
 with the laws of the state was kingship; while government of
 unwilling subjects and not controlled by laws, but imposed by the
 will of the ruler, was despotism. And where the officials are chosen
 among those who fulfil the requirements of the laws, the
 constitution is an aristocracy: where rateable property is the
 qualification for office, you have a plutocracy: where all are
 eligible, a democracy.

Whenever anyone argued with him on
 any point without being able to make himself clear, asserting but
 not proving, that so and so was wiser or an abler politician or
 braver or what not, he would lead the whole discussion back to the
 definition required, much in this way:

Do you say that
 your man is a better citizen than mine? I do
 indeed. Then why didn’t we first consider what is the
 function of a good citizen? Let us do so. In financial
 administration, then, is not the better man he who makes the
 city wealthier? Certainly. And in war he who makes her stronger than
 her rivals? Of course. And on an embassy he who turns enemies
 into friends? Presumably. And in debate he who puts down strife and
 produces harmony? I think so. By this process of leading back the argument even his adversay
 came to see the truth clearly.

Whenever he himself argued out a question, he advanced by steps that
 gained general assent, holding this to be the only sure method.
 Accordingly, whenever he argued, he gained a greater measure of
 assent from his hearers than any man I have known. He said that
 Homer gave Odysseus the credit of being a safe
 speaker because he had a
 way of leading the discussion from one acknowledged truth to
 another.

I think that I have said enough to
 show that Socrates stated
 his own opinion plainly to those who consorted with him: I will now
 show that he also took pains to make them independent in doing the
 work that they were fitted for. For I never knew a man who was so
 careful to discover what each of his companions knew. Whatever it
 befits a gentleman to know he taught most zealously, so far as his
 own knowledge extended; if he was not entirely familiar with a
 subject, he took them to those who knew.

He also taught them how far a well-educated man should make himself
 familiar with any given subject. For
 instance, he said that the study of geometry should be pursued until
 the student was competent to measure a parcel of land accurately in
 case he wanted to take over, convey or divide it, or to compute the
 yield; and this knowledge was so easy to acquire, that anyone who
 gave his mind to mensuration knew the size of the piece and carried
 away a knowledge of the principles of land measurement.

He was against carrying the study of geometry so far as to include
 the more complicated figures, on the ground that he could not see
 the use of them. Not that he was himself unfamiliar with them, but
 he said that they were enough to occupy a lifetime, to the complete
 exclusion of many other useful studies.

Similarly he recommended them to make
 themselves familiar with astronomy, but only so far as to be able to
 find the time of night, month and year, in order to use reliable
 evidence when planning a journey by land or sea, or setting the
 watch, and in all other affairs that are done in the night or month
 or year, by distinguishing the times and seasons aforesaid. This
 knowledge, again, was easily to be had from night hunters and pilots
 and others who made it their business to know such things.

But he strongly deprecated studying astronomy so far as to include
 the knowledge of bodies revolving in different courses, and of
 planets and comets, and wearing oneself out with the calculation of
 their distance from the earth, their periods of revolution and the
 causes of these. Of such researches, again he said that he could not
 see what useful purpose they served. He had indeed attended lectures
 on these subjects too; but these again, he said, were enough to
 occupy a lifetime to the complete exclusion of many useful
 studies.

In general, with regard to the
 phenomena of the heavens, he deprecated curiosity to learn how the
 deity contrives them: he held that their secrets could not be
 discovered by man, and believed that any attempt to search out what
 the gods had not chosen to reveal must be displeasing to them. He
 said that he who meddles with these matters runs the risk of losing
 his sanity as completely as Anaxagoras, who took an insane pride in
 his explanation of the divine machinery.

For that sage, in declaring the sun
 to be fire, ignored the facts than men can look at fire without
 inconvenience, but cannot gaze steadily at the sun; that their skin
 is blackened by the sun’s rays, but not by fire. Further, he ignored
 the fact that sunlight is essential to the health of all vegetation,
 whereas if anything is heated by fire it withers. Again, when he
 pronounced the sun to be a red-hot stone, he ignored the fact that a
 stone in fire neither glows nor can resist it long, whereas the sun
 shines with unequalled brilliance for ever.

He also recommended the study of
 arithmetic. But in this case as in the others he recommended
 avoidance of vain application; and invariably, whether theories or
 ascertained facts formed the subject of his conversation, he limited
 it to what was useful.

He also strongly urged his companions
 to take care of their health. You should find
 out all you can, he said, from
 those who know. Everyone should watch himself throughout his
 life, and notice what sort of meat and drink and what form of
 exercise suit his constitution, and how he should regulate them
 in order to enjoy good health. For by such attention to
 yourselves you can discover better than any doctor what suits
 your constitution.

When anyone was in need of help that
 human wisdom was unable to give he advised him to resort to
 divination; for he who knew the means whereby the gods give guidance
 to men concerning their affairs never lacked divine counsel.

As for his claim that he was
 forewarned by the deity what he ought to do
 and what not to do, some may think that it must have been a delusion
 because he was condemned to death. But they should remember two
 facts. First, he had already reached such an age, that had he not
 died then, death must have come to him soon after. Secondly, he
 escaped the most irksome stage of life and the inevitable diminution
 of mental powers, and instead won glory by the moral strength
 revealed in the wonderful honesty and frankness and probity of his
 defence, and in the equanimity and manliness with which he bore the
 sentence of death.

In fact it is admitted that there is
 no record of death more nobly borne. For he was forced to live for
 thirty days after the verdict was given, because it was the month of
 the Dêlia, and the law did not allow any
 public execution to take place until the sacred embassy had returned
 from Delos. During this interval, as all his intimate acquaintances
 could see, he continued to live exactly as before; and, in truth,
 before that time he had been admired above all men for his
 cheerfulness and serenity.

How, then, could man die more nobly? Or what death could be nobler
 than the death most nobly faced? What death more blessed than the
 noblest? Or what dearer to the gods than the most blessed?

I will repeat what Hermogenes, son of
 Hipponicus, told me about him. When Meletus had
 actually formulated his indictment, he said, Socrates talked freely in my presence, but made
 no reference to the case. I told him that he ought to be
 thinking about his defence. His first remark was, Don’t you think that I have been preparing
 for it all my life? And when I asked him how, he
 said that he had been constantly occupied in the consideration
 of right and wrong, and in doing what was right and avoiding
 what was wrong, which he regarded as the best preparation for a
 defence.

Then I said, Don’t you see, Socrates, that the juries in our courts are
 apt to be misled by argument, so that they often put the
 innocent to death, and acquit the guilty? 
 Ah, yes, Hermogenes, he answered,
 but when I did try to think out my
 defence to the jury, the deity at once
 resisted.

Strange words, said I; and he,
 Do you think it strange, if it seems
 better to God that I should die now? Don’t you see that to
 this day I never would acknowledge that any man had lived a
 better or a pleasanter life than I? For they live best, I
 think, who strive best to become as good as possible: and
 the pleasantest life is theirs who are conscious that they
 are growing in goodness.

And to this day that has been my experience; and mixing
 with others and closely comparing myself with them, I have
 held without ceasing to this opinion of myself. And not I
 only, but my friends cease not to feel thus towards me, not
 because of their love for me (for why does not love make
 others feel thus towards their friends?), but because they
 think that they too would rise highest in goodness by being
 with me.

But if I am to live on, haply I may be forced to pay the old
 man’s forfeit — to become sand-blind and deaf and dull of
 wit, slower to learn, quicker to forget, outstripped now by
 those who were behind me. Nay, but even were I unconscious
 of the change, life would be a burden to me; and if I knew,
 misery and bitterness would surely be my
 lot.

But now, if I am to die unjustly, they who unjustly kill
 me will bear the shame of it. For if to do injustice is
 shameful, whatever is unjustly done must surely bring shame.
 But to me what shame is it that others fail to decide and
 act justly concerning me?

I see that posterity judges differently of the dead
 according as they did or suffered injustice. I know that men
 will remember me too, and, if I die now, not as they will
 remember those who took my life. For I know that they will
 ever testify of me that I wronged no man at any time, nor
 corrupted any man, but strove ever to make my companions
 better.

This was the tenor of his
 conversation with Hermogenes and with the others. All who knew what
 manner of man Socrates was and who seek after virtue continue to
 this day to miss him beyond all others, as the chief of helpers in
 the quest of virtue. For myself, I have described him as he was: so
 religious that he did nothing without counsel from the gods; so just
 that he did no injury, however small, to any man, but conferred the
 greatest benefits on all who dealt with him; so self-controlled that
 he never chose the pleasanter rather than the better course; so wise
 that he was unerring in his judgment of the better and the worse,
 and needed no counsellor, but relied on himself for his knowledge of
 them; masterly in expounding and defining such things; no less
 masterly in putting others to the test, and convincing them of error
 and exhorting them to follow virtue and gentleness. To me then he
 seemed to be all that a truly good and happy man must be. But if
 there is any doubter, let him set the character of other men beside
 these things; then let him judge.