СНАР. X. (2) It did not pro ceed from may have borne him a grudge. has been reached of asserting with Cato,' that of all sentences ever passed, this was the most strictly legal. Among these views the one lying nearest to hand, is that of some older writers, who attribute the execution of Socrates to personal animosity; always personal animosity. giving up the unfounded idea that the Sophists were (a) Anytus in any way connected therewith.2 A great deal may be said in favour of this aspect of the case. In Plato,3 Socrates expressly declares that he is not the victim of Anytus or Meletus, but of the ill-will which he incurred by his criticism of men. Even Anytus, it is however said, owed him a personal grudge. Plato hints at his being aggrieved with the judgments passed by Socrates on Athenian statesmen, and, according to Xenophon's Apology," took it amiss 1 Plut. Cato, c. 23. 2 This is found in Fries, Gesch. d. Phil. i. 249, who speaks of the 'hatred and envy of a great portion of the people,' as the motives which brought on the trial. Sigwart, Gesch. d. Phil. i. 89, gives prominence to this motive, and Brandis, Gr. Röm. Phil. ii. a. 26, who distinguishes two kinds of opponents to Socrates, those who considered his philosophy incompatible with ancient discipline and morality, and those who could not endure his moral earnestness, attributing the accusation to the latter. Grote, viii. 637, inclines to the same view. He proves how unpopular Socrates must have made himself by his sifting of men. He remarks that Athens was the only place where it would have s Apol. 28, A.; 22, E.; 23, C. 4 Meno, 94; in reference to which Diog. ii. 38, says of Anytus: οὗτος γὰρ οὐ φέρων τὸν ὑπὸ Σωκράτους χλευασμόν. 5 Compare with this Hegel, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 92; Grote. Hist. of Greece, viii. 641. СНАР. (b) But there must have been other causes at work to condemna tion. that Socrates urged him to give his competent son a higher training than that of a dealer in leather, thereby encouraging in the young man discontent with his trade.1 Anytus is said to have first moved Aristophanes to his comedy, and afterwards in common with Meletus to have brought against him the formal accusation.2 That such motives came into play in the attack on Socrates, and contributed in no small degree to the success of this attack is antecedently probable. To convince men of their ignorance is the most thankless task you can choose. Anyone who can persevere in it for a life-time so regardless of consequences as Socrates did, must make many enemies; dangerous enemies too, if he takes for his mark men of distinguished position or talents. 3 Still personal animosity cannot have been the sole cause of his condemnation. Nor are Plato's statements binding upon us. Indeed the more Socrates and his pupils became convinced of the lead to his justice of his cause, the less were they able to discover any grounds in fact for the accusation. The one wish of Socrates being to will and to do what was best, what reason could anyone possibly have had for 1 Later writers give more details. According to Plut. Alc. c. 4; Amator. 17, 27, p. 762; and Satyrus in Athenæus, xii. 534, e, Anytus was a lover of Alcibiades, but was rejected by him, whilst Alcibiades showed every attention to Socrates, and hence the enmity Such of Anytus to Socrates. an improbable story ought not to have deceived Luzac (De Socr. Cive, 133); especially since Xenophon and Plato would never have omitted in silence such a reason for the accusation. 2 Elian, V. H. ii. 13. Diog. 1. c. 3 Compare Grote, 1. c. 638. opposing him, except wounded pride? The narrative This is just possible. That the character of Anytus was not unimpeachable we gather from the story (Aristot. in Harpocration deκάwv; Diodor. xiii. 64; Plut. Coriol. 14), that when he was first charged with treason he corrupted the judges. On the other hand Isocr. (in Callim. 23) praises him for being together with 3 СНАР. CHAP. of youth. On this point the testimony of writers so opposite as Xenophon and Aristophanes proves that the prejudice against Socrates was not merely a passing prejudice, at least not in Athens, but that it lasted a whole life-time, not confined only to the masses, but shared also by men of high importance and influence in the state. Very deeply, indeed, must the feeling against Socrates have been rooted in Athens, if Xenophon found it necessary six years after his death to defend him against the charges on which the indictment was framed. With regard to Aristophanes, it was an obvious blot in his plays to allow here and there such a prominence to political motives as to forget the claims of art, and for a comedian, who in his mad way holds up to ridicule all authorities divine and human, to clothe himself with the tragic seriousness of a political prophet.2 Yet it is no less an error to lose sight of the grave vein which underlies the comic license of his plays, and to mistake his occasional pathos for thoughtless play. hollowness of the sentiment would soon show itself in artistic defects. Instead of this, a sincerity of patriotic sentiment may be observed in Aristophanes, 1 Polit. 299, B.; Rep. vi. 488, 496, C.; Apol. 32, E.; Gorg. 473, E.; 521, D. 2 Rötscher's spirited description suffers from this onesidedness, and even Hegel, in his passage on the fate of Socrates, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 82, is not quite free from it, although Were it only this, the not only in the unsullied beauty of many individual utterances; but the same patriotic interest sounds through all his plays, in some of the earlier ones even disturbing the purity of the poetic tone, but proving all the more conclusively, how near the love of his country lay to his heart. 2 This interest only could have brought him to give to his comedies that political turn, by means of which, as he justly takes credit to himself,3 comedy gained a far higher ground than had been allowed to it by his predecessors. At the same time it must be granted that Aristophanes is as much deficient as others in the morality and the faith of an earlier age, and that it was preposterous to demand the olden time back, men and circumstances having so thoroughly changed. Only it does not follow herefrom that he was not sincere in this demand. was rather one of those cases so frequently met with in history, in which a man attacks a principle in others to which he has himself fallen a victim, without owning it to himself. Aristophanes combats innovations in morals, politics, religion, and art. Being, however, in his inmost soul the offspring of his age, he can only combat them with the weapons and in the spirit of this age. With the thorough dislike of the narrow practical man unable to give a His 3 Peace, 732; Wasps, 1022; Clouds, 537. 4 Compare Droysen, Aristoph. Werke, 2 Aufl. i. 174, which seems to go too far. СНАР. X. |