too largely, but that exhilaration may not be too rapid.' Plato describes him as boasting that he can equally well take much or little, that he can surpass all in drinking, without ever being intoxicated himself,2 and represents him at the close of the banquet as leaving all his companions under the table, and pursuing his daily work, after a night spent over the bowl, as if nothing had happened. Moderation here' appears with him not to consist in total abstinence from pleasure, but in perfect mental freedom, neither requiring pleasure, nor being ever overtaken by its seductive influence. His abstemiousness in other points is also recorded with admiration.3 Numerous passages, however, in Xenophon's Memorabilia '4 prove that his morality was far below our strict standard of principles. The Grecian peculiarity of affection for boys marks, indeed, his relations to youth, but his character is above all suspicion of actual vice, and he treats with irony a supposed 5 1 Xen. Mem. 2, 26: v dè ἡμῖν οἱ παῖδες μικραῖς κύλιξι πυκνὰ ἐπιψεκάζωσιν, οὕτως οὐ βιαζόμενοι ὑπὸ τοῦ οἴνου μεθύειν, ἀλλ ̓ ἀναπειθόμενοι πρὸς τὸ παιγνιωδέστερον ἀφιξόμεθα. affection. Not only is there 2 Symp. 176, C.; 220, A.; charge. The other comic poets, 213, E. 3 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 1; 3, 14. We have already seen that Aristoxenus and his followers cannot prove the contrary. 1 i. 3, 14; ii. 1, 5; 2, 4; iii. 11; iv. 5, 9. Conf. Conv. iv. 38. 5 The cotemporaries of Socrates seem to have found nothing to object to in Socratic according to Athen., v. 219, CHAP. IV. СНАР. IV. love-affair of his own.1 At the same time, what Greek in the presence of youthful beauty was proof against a certain element of æsthetic pleasure, which at least was the ground and origin, even though (as in his case) an innocent one, of deeper affection ?2 The odious excrescences of Greek morality called forth his severest censure; yet at the same time, according to Xenophon,3 and Æschines, and Plato,5 Socrates described his own relations to his younger friends by the name of Eros, or a passionate attachment grounded on æsthetic attractions. Not otherwise may Grecian peculiarities be noticed in his ethical or political views, nor is his theology free from the trammels of the popular belief. How deeply these lines had influenced his character may be seen not only in his simple obedience to the laws of his country throughout life, and his genuine respect for the state religion, but far more also in the trials of purporting to be written by 1 Xen. Mem. iv. 1, 2; Symp. D. 2 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 29; 3, 8; Sym. 8, 19, 32, with which Plato agrees. 3 Symp. 8, 2 and 24; Mem. iv. 1, 2. In his Alcibiades he speaks of the love of Socrates for Alcibiades. See Aristid. Or. xΙν. περὶ ῥητορικῆς, p. 30, 34. 5 Prot. beginning; Symp. 177, D.; 218, B.; 222, A.; not to mention other expressions for which Plato is answerable. 6 Plato, Apol. 28, E. Xenophon, Mem. i. 1, 2, assures us not only that Socrates took part in the public sacrifices, but that he was frequently in the habit of sacrificing at home. In Plato he invokes Helios, Symp. 220, D.; and his last words, according to the Phædo, 118, A., were an earnest commission to Crito to offer a cock to Esculapius. Often is his last days, when for fear of violating the laws, he scorned the ordinary practices of defence, and after his condemnation refused to escape from prison. The epitaph which Simonides inscribed on the tomb of Leonidas might very well be inscribed on that of Socrates: He died to obey the state.2 СНАР. IV. minent racter. Deeply as Socrates is rooted in the national C. Procharacter of Greece, there is about him a some- traits in thing decidedly unlike a Greek, presenting a foreign his chaand even almost modern appearance. This it was which made him appear to his cotemporaries a thoroughly eccentric and singular person. This, for a Greek so unintelligible, something, which he described by one word as his singularity,3 consisted, according to Plato's account, in a want of agreement between his outward appearance and his belief in oracles mentioned, which he always conscientiously obeyed (Mem. i. 3, 4; Plato, Apol. 21, B.) and the use of which he recommended to his friends (Xen. Mem. ii. 6, 8; iv. 7, 10; Anabas. iii. 1, 5). He was himself fully persuaded that he possessed an oracle in the truest sense, in the inward voice of his δαιμόνιον, and he also believed in dreams and similar prognostications. Plato, Crito, 44, Α. ; Phædo, 60, D.; Apol. 33, C.) 1 This motive is represented by Xenophon (Mem. iv. 4, 4) and Plato (Apol. 34, D.; Phædo, 98, C.) as the decisive one, although the Crito makes it appear that a flight from Athens would have done no good to himself, and much 2 Xen. says: προείλετο μᾶλλον 3 Plato, Symp. 221, С.: Поλ- τὸ δὲ μηδενὶ ἀνθρώπων 4 Symp. 215, A.; 221, E. CHAP. inward and real nature. In this respect he contrasts most strikingly with the mutual interpenetration of both, which constitutes the usual classic ideal. On the one hand we behold in Socrates indifference to the outer world, originally foreign to the habits of his countrymen; on the other hand, a meditativeness unknown before. Owing to the former feature there is about him a something prosy and dry, and, if the expression may be allowed, philistine-like, sharply contrasting with the contained beauty and the artistic grace of life in Greece. Owing to the latter there is about him something akin to the revelation of a higher life, having its seat within, in the recesses of the soul, and not fully explained in its manifestations, and which even Socrates himself regarded as superhuman. In their account of these two peculiarities both Plato and Xenophon are agreed. Even from an outward point of view, the Silenus-like appearance of Socrates, which Plato's Alcibiades,' and Xenophon's Socrates himself 2 describe with so much humour, must rather have concealed than exposed the presence of genius to the eye of a Greek. But more than this, a certain amount of intellectual stiffness, and an indifference to what is sensibly beautiful, is unmistakeable in his speech and behaviour. Take for instance the process of catechising given in the 'Memorabilia,' 3 by which a general of cavalry is brought to a knowledge of his crates a pleasing appearance, but this is of course quite untenable. 1 Symp. 215; conf. Thæet. 14, 3, E. 2 Symp. 4, 19; 2, 19; Epictetus (Diss. iv. 11, 19) gives So 3 iii. 8. 2 4 duties, or the formality with which things,' long familiar to his hearers, are proved, or the way in which the idea of the beautiful is resolved into that of the useful. Or hear him, on grounds of expediency, advising conduct, which to us seems simply abominable, or in the Phædrus refusing to walk out because he can learn nothing from trees and the country, and taking exception in the Apology to the works of poets and artists, because they are the results of natural genius and inspiration, and not of reflection. Or see him in Xenophon's Symposium,7 despite the universal custom of the ancients, dancing alone at home, in order to gain healthful exercise, and justifying his conduct by the strangest of reflections; unable even at table to forget considerations of utility. Taking these and similar traits into account, there appears in him a certain want of imagination, a one-sided prominence of the critical and intellectual faculties, in short a prosiness which clashes with the poetry of Grecian life, and the 1 Symp. iii. 10, 9; iii. 11. 2 iii. 8, 4. i. 3, 14. 1 230, D. 8 M. Crasso, in foro, mihi crede, * This point will be subse- Ἐνταῦθα δὴ ἐγέλασαν ἅπαντες. quently discussed. • 22, C. And when Charmides found Xen. Symp. 3, 2. |