Xenophon — Memorabilia · Apology · Symposium

Contents — 32 sections

1. Book 1, Part 1
2. Book 1, Part 2
3. Book 1, Part 3
4. Book 1, Part 4
5. Book 1, Part 5
6. Book 1, Part 6
7. Book 1, Part 7
8. Book 1, Part 8
9. Book 2, Part 1
10. Book 2, Part 2
11. Book 2, Part 3
12. Book 2, Part 4
13. Book 2, Part 5
14. Book 2, Part 6
15. Book 2, Part 7
16. Book 2, Part 8
17. Book 3, Part 1
18. Book 3, Part 2
19. Book 3, Part 3
20. Book 3, Part 4
21. Book 3, Part 5
22. Book 3, Part 6
23. Book 3, Part 7
24. Book 3, Part 8
25. Book 4, Part 1
26. Book 4, Part 2
27. Book 4, Part 3
28. Book 4, Part 4
29. Book 4, Part 5
30. Book 4, Part 6
31. Book 4, Part 7
32. Book 4, Part 8

Book 1, Part 1

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.

Book 1, Part 2

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.

Book 1, Part 3

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. And another says: Ah, but a good man is at one time noble, at another base.

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.

Book 1, Part 4

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.

Book 1, Part 5

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. 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.

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.

Book 1, Part 6

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:

Book 1, Part 7

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.

Book 1, Part 8

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.

Book 2, Part 1

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?

Book 2, Part 2

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. And we have the testimony of Epicharmus too in the line: The gods demand of us toil as the price of all good things. And elsewhere he says: Knave, yearn not for the soft things, lest thou earn the hard.

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.

Book 2, Part 3

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.

Book 2, Part 4

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.

Book 2, Part 5

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?

Book 2, Part 6

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.

Book 2, Part 7

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.

Book 2, Part 8

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.

Book 3, Part 1

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.

Book 3, Part 2

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.

Book 3, Part 3

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.

Book 3, Part 4

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.

Book 3, Part 5

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.

Book 3, Part 6

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!

Book 3, Part 7

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.

Book 3, Part 8

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.

Book 4, Part 1

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.

Book 4, Part 2

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?YesAnd 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.

Book 4, Part 3

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.

Book 4, Part 4

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.

Book 4, Part 5

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?

Book 4, Part 6

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!

Book 4, Part 7

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.

Book 4, Part 8

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.

Contents — 34 sections

1. Section 1
2. Section 2
3. Section 3
4. Section 4
5. Section 5
6. Section 6
7. Section 7
8. Section 8
9. Section 9
10. Section 10
11. Section 11
12. Section 12
13. Section 13
14. Section 14
15. Section 15
16. Section 16
17. Section 17
18. Section 18
19. Section 19
20. Section 20
21. Section 21
22. Section 22
23. Section 23
24. Section 24
25. Section 25
26. Section 26
27. Section 27
28. Section 28
29. Section 29
30. Section 30
31. Section 31
32. Section 32
33. Section 33
34. Section 34

Section 1

It seems to me fitting to hand down to memory, furthermore, how Socrates, on being indicted, deliberated on his defence and on his end. It is true that others have written about this, and that all of them have reproduced the loftiness of his words,—a fact which proves that his utterance really was of the character intimated;—but they have not shown clearly that he had now come to the conclusion that for him death was more to be desired than life; and hence his lofty utterance appears rather ill-considered.

Section 2

Hermogenes, the son of Hipponicus, however, was a companion of his and has given us reports of such a nature as to show that the sublimity of his speech was appropriate to the resolve he had made. For he stated that on seeing Socrates discussing any and every subject rather than the trial, he had said:

Section 3

Socrates, ought you not to be giving some thought to what defence you are going to make? That Socrates had at first replied, Why, do I not seem to you to have spent my whole life in preparing to defend myself? Then when he asked, How so? he had said, Because all my life I have been guiltless of wrong-doing; and that I consider the finest preparation for a defence.

Section 4

Then when Hermogenes again asked, Do you not observe that the Athenian courts have often been carried away by an eloquent speech and have condemned innocent men to death, and often on the other hand the guilty have been acquitted either because their plea aroused compassion or because their speech was witty? Yes, indeed! he had answered; and I have tried twice already to meditate on my defence, but my divine sign interposes.

Section 5

And when Hermogenes observed, That is a surprising statement, he had replied, Do you think it surprising that even God holds it better for me to die now? Do you not know that I would refuse to concede that any man has lived a better life than I have up to now? For I have realized that my whole life has been spent in righteousness toward God and man,—a fact that affords the greatest satisfaction; and so I have felt a deep self-respect and have discovered that my associates hold corresponding sentiments toward me.

Section 6

But now, if my years are prolonged, I know that the frailties of old age will inevitably be realized,—that my vision must be less perfect and my hearing less keen, that I shall be slower to learn and more forgetful of what I have learned. If I perceive my decay and take to complaining, how, he had continued, could I any longer take pleasure in life?

Section 7

Perhaps, he added, God in his kindness is taking my part and securing me the opportunity of ending my life not only in season but also in the way that is easiest. For if I am condemned now, it will clearly be my privilege to suffer a death that is adjudged by those who have superintended this matter to be not only the easiest but also the least irksome to one’s friends and one that implants in them the deepest feeling of loss for the dead. For when a person leaves behind in the hearts of his companions no remembrance to cause a blush or a pang, but dissolution comes while he still possesses a sound body and a spirit capable of showing kindliness, how could such a one fail to be sorely missed?

Section 8

It was with good reason, Socrates had continued, that the gods opposed my studying up my speech at the time when we held that by fair means or foul we must find some plea that would effect my acquittal. For if I had achieved this end, it is clear that instead of now passing out of life, I should merely have provided for dying in the throes of illness or vexed by old age, the sink into which all distresses flow, unrelieved by any joy.

Section 9

As Heaven is my witness, Hermogenes, he had gone on, I shall never court that fate; but if I am going to offend the jury by declaring all the blessings that I feel gods and men have bestowed on me, as well as my personal opinion of myself, I shall prefer death to begging meanly for longer life and thus gaining a life far less worthy in exchange for death.

Section 10

Hermogenes stated that with this resolve Socrates came before the jury after his adversaries had charged him with not believing in the gods worshipped by the state and with the introduction of new deities in their stead and with corruption of the young, and replied:

Section 11

One thing that I marvel at in Meletus, gentlemen, is what may be the basis of his assertion that I do not believe in the gods worshipped by the state; for all who have happened to be near at the time, as well as Meletus himself,—if he so desired, — have seen me sacrificing at the communal festivals and on the public altars.

Section 12

As for introducing new divinities, how could I be guilty of that merely in asserting that a voice of God is made manifest to me indicating my duty? Surely those who take their omens from the cries of birds and the utterances of men form their judgments on voices. Will any one dispute either that thunder utters its voice, or that it is an omen of the greatest moment? Does not the very priestess who sits on the tripod at Delphi divulge the god’s will through a voice?

Section 13

But more than that, in regard to God’s foreknowledge of the future and his forewarning thereof to whomsoever he will, these are the same terms, I assert, that all men use, and this is their belief. The only difference between them and me is that whereas they call the sources of their forewarning birds, utterances, chance meetings, prophets, I call mine a divine thing; and I think that in using such a term I am speaking with more truth and deeper religious feeling than do those who ascribe the gods’ power to birds. Now that I do not lie against God I have the following proof: I have revealed to many of my friends the counsels which God has given me, and in no instance has the event shown that I was mistaken.

Section 14

Hermogenes further reported that when the jurors raised a clamour at hearing these words, some of them disbelieving his statements, others showing jealousy at his receiving greater favours even from the gods than they, Socrates resumed: Hark ye; let me tell you something more, so that those of you who feel so inclined may have still greater disbelief in my being honoured of Heaven. Once on a time when Chaerephon made inquiry at the Delphic oracle concerning me, in the presence of many people Apollo answered that no man was more free than I, or more just, or more prudent.

Section 15

When the jurors, naturally enough, made a still greater tumult on hearing this statement, he said that Socrates again went on: And yet, gentlemen, the god uttered in oracles greater things of Lycurgus, the Lacedaemonian law-giver, than he did of me. For there is a legend that, as Lycurgus entered the temple, the god thus addressed him: ‘I am pondering whether to call you god or man.’ Now Apollo did not compare me to a god; he did, however, judge that I far excelled the rest of mankind. However, do not believe the god even in this without due grounds, but examine the god’s utterance in detail.

Section 16

First, who is there in your knowledge that is less a slave to his bodily appetites than I am? Who in the world more free,—for I accept neither gifts nor pay from any one? Whom would you with reason regard as more just than the one so reconciled to his present possessions as to want nothing beside that belongs to another? And would not a person with good reason call me a wise man, who from the time when I began to understand spoken words have never left off seeking after and learning every good thing that I could?

Section 17

And that my labour has not been in vain do you not think is attested by this fact, that many of my fellow-citizens who strive for virtue and many from abroad choose to associate with me above all other men? And what shall we say is accountable for this fact, that although everybody knows that it is quite impossible for me to repay with money, many people are eager to make me some gift? Or for this, that no demands are made on me by a single person for the repayment of benefits, while many confess that they owe me a debt of gratitude?

Section 18

Or for this, that during the siege, while others were commiserating their lot, I got along without feeling the pinch of poverty any worse than when the city’s prosperity was at its height? Or for this, that while other men get their delicacies in the markets and pay a high price for them, I devise more pleasurable ones from the resources of my soul, with no expenditure of money? And now, if no one can convict me of misstatement in all that I have said of myself, do I not unquestionably merit praise from both gods and men?

Section 19

But in spite of all, Meletus, do you maintain that I corrupt the young by such practices? And yet surely we know what kinds of corruption affect the young; so you tell us whether you know of any one who under my influence has fallen from piety into impiety, or from sober into wanton conduct, or from moderation in living into extravagance, or from temperate drinking into sottishness, or from strenuousness into effeminacy, or has been overcome of any other base pleasure.”

Section 20

But, by Heaven! said Meletus: there is one set of men I know,—those whom you have persuaded to obey you rather than their parents. I admit it, he reports Socrates as replying, at least so far as education is concerned; for people know that I have taken an interest in that. But in a question of health, men take the advice of physicians rather than that of their parents; and moreover, in the meetings of the legislative assembly all the people of Athens, without question, follow the advice of those whose words are wisest rather than that of their own relatives. Do you not also elect for your generals, in preference to fathers and brothers,—yes, by Heaven! in preference to your very selves,—those whom you regard as having the greatest wisdom in military affairs? Yes, Meletus had said; for that is both expedient and conventional.

Section 21

Well, then, Socrates had rejoined, does it not seem to you an amazing thing that while in other activities those who excel receive honours not merely on a parity with their fellows but even more marked ones, yet I, because I am adjudged by some people supreme in what is man’s greatest blessing,—education,—am being prosecuted by you on a capital charge?

Section 22

More than this of course was said both by Socrates himself and by the friends who joined in his defence. But I have not made it a point to report the whole trial; rather I am satisfied to make it clear that while Socrates’ whole concern was to keep free from any act of impiety toward the gods or any appearance of wrong-doing toward man, he did not think it meet to beseech the jury to let him escape death; instead, he believed that the time had now come for him to die.

Section 23

This conviction of his became more evident than ever after the adverse issue of the trial. For, first of all, when he was bidden to name his penalty, he refused personally and forbade his friends to name one, but said that naming the penalty in itself implied an acknowledgment of guilt. Then, when his companions wished to remove him clandestinely from prison, he would not accompany them, but seemed actually to banter them, asking them whether they knew of any spot outside of Attica that was inaccessible to death.

Section 24

When the trial was over, Socrates (according to Hermogenes) remarked: Well, gentlemen, those who instructed the witnesses that they must bear false witness against me, perjuring themselves to do so, and those who were won over to do this must feel in their hearts a guilty consciousness of great impiety and iniquity; but as for me, why should my spirit be any less exalted now than before my condemnation, since I have not been proved guilty of having done any of the acts mentioned in the indictment? For it has not been shown that I have sacrificed to new deities in the stead of Zeus and Hera and the gods of their company, or that I have invoked ill oaths or mentioned other gods.

Section 25

And how could I be corrupting the young by habituating them to fortitude and frugality? Now of all the acts for which the laws have prescribed the death-penalty—temple robbery, burglary, enslavement, treason to the state—not even my adversaries themselves charge me with having committed any of these. And so it seems astonishing to me how you could ever have been convinced that I had committed an act meriting death.

Section 26

But further, my spirit need not be less exalted because l am to be executed unjustly; for the ignominy of that attaches not to me but to those who condemned me. And I get comfort from the case of Palamedes also, who died in circumstances similar to mine; for even yet he affords us far more noble themes for song than does Odysseus, the man who unjustly put him to death. And I know that time to come as well as time past will attest that I, too, far from ever doing any man a wrong or rendering him more wicked, have rather profited those who conversed with me by teaching them, without reward, every good thing that lay in my power.

Section 27

With these words he departed, blithe in glance, in mien, in gait, as comported well indeed with the words he had just uttered. When he noticed that those who accompanied him were in tears, What is this? Hermogenes reports him as asking. Are you just now beginning to weep? Have you not known all along that from the moment of my birth nature had condemned me to death? Verily, if I am being destroyed before my time while blessings are still pouring in upon me, clearly that should bring grief to me and to my well-wishers; but if I am ending my life when only troubles are in view, my own opinion is that you ought all to feel cheered, in the assurance that my state is happy.

Section 28

A man named Apollodorus, who was there with him, a very ardent disciple of Socrates, but otherwise simple, exclaimed, But, Socrates, what I find it hardest to bear is that I see you being put to death unjustly! The other, stroking Apollodorus’ head, is said to have replied, My beloved Apollodorus, was it your preference to see me put to death justly? and smiled as he asked the question.

Section 29

It is said also that he remarked as he saw Anytus passing by: There goes a man who is filled with pride at the thought that he has accomplished some great and noble end in putting me to death, because, seeing him honored by the state with the highest offices, I said that he ought not to confine his son’s education to hides What a vicious, fellow, he continued, not to know, apparently, that whichever one of us has wrought the more beneficial and noble deeds for all time, he is the real victor.

Section 30

But, he is reported to have added, Homer has attributed to some of his heroes at the moment of dissolution the power to foresee the future; and so I too wish to utter a prophecy.At one time I had a brief association with the son of Anytus, and I thought him not lacking in firmness of spirit; and so I predict that he will not continue in the servile occupation that his father has provided for him; but through want of a worthy adviser he will fall into some disgraceful propensity and will surely go far in the career of vice.

Section 31

In saying this he was not mistaken; the young man, delighting in wine, never left off drinking night or day, and at last turned out worth nothing to his city, his friends, or himself. So Anytus, even though dead, still enjoys an evil repute for his son’s mischievous education and for his own hard-heartedness.

Section 32

And as for Socrates, by exalting himself before the court, he brought ill-will upon himself and made his conviction by the jury more certain. Now to me he seems to have met a fate that the gods love; for he escaped the hardest part of life and met the easiest sort of death.

Section 33

And he displayed the stalwart nature of his heart; for having once decided that to die was better for him than to live longer, he did not weaken in the presence of death (just as he had never set his face against any other thing, either, that was for his good), but was cheerful not only in the expectation of death but in meeting it.

Section 34

And so, in contemplating the man’s wisdom and nobility of character, I find it beyond my power to forget him or, in remembering him, to refrain from praising him. And if among those who make virtue their aim any one has ever been brought into contact with a person more helpful than Socrates, I count that man worthy to be called most blessed.

Contents — 9 sections

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9

Chapter 1

To my mind it is worth while to relate not only the serious acts of great and good men but also what they do in their lighter moods. I should like to narrate an experience of mine that gives me this conviction.

It was on the occasion of the horse-races at the greater Panathenaic games; Callias, Hipponicus’ son, was enamoured, as it happened, of the boy Autolycus, and in honour of his victory in the pancratium had brought him to see the spectacle. When the racing was over, Callias proceeded on his way to his house in the Peiraeus with Autolycus and the boy’s father; Niceratus also was in his company.

But on catching sight of a group comprising Socrates, Critobulus, Hermogenes, Antisthenes, and Charmides, Callias bade one of his servants escort Autolycus and the others, and himself going over to Socrates and his companions, said,

This is an opportune meeting, for I am about to give a dinner in honour of Autolycus and his father; and I think that my entertainment would present a great deal more brilliance if my dining-room were graced with the presence of men like you, whose hearts have undergone philosophy’s purification, than it would with generals and cavalry commanders and office-seekers.

You are always quizzing us, replied Socrates; for you have yourself paid a good deal of money for wisdom to Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, and many others, while you see that we are what you might call amateurs in philosophy; and so you feel supercilious toward us.

Yes, said Callias, so far, I admit, I have been keeping you ignorant of my ability at profound and lengthy discourse; but now, if you will favour me with your company, I will prove to you that I am a person of some consequence.

Now at first Socrates and his companions thanked him for the invitation, as might be expected, but would not promise to attend the banquet; when it became clear, however, that he was taking their refusal very much to heart, they went with him. And so his guests arrived, some having first taken their exercise and their rub-down, others with the addition of a bath.

Autolycus took a seat by his father’s side; the others, of course, reclined. A person who took note of the course of events would have come at once to the conclusion that beauty is in its essence something regal, especially when, as in the present case of Autolycus, its possessor joins with it modesty and sobriety.

For in the first place, just as the sudden glow of a light at night draws all eyes to itself, so now the beauty of Autolycus compelled every one to look at him. And again, there was not one of the onlookers who did not feel his soul strangely stirred by the boy; some of them grew quieter than before, others even assumed some kind of a pose.

Now it is true that all who are under the influence of any of the gods seem well worth gazing at; but whereas those who are possessed of the other gods have a tendency to be sterner of countenance, more terrifying of voice, and more vehement, those who are inspired by chaste Love have a more tender look, subdue their voices to more gentle tones, and assume a supremely noble bearing. Such was the demeanour of Callias at this time under the influence of Love; and therefore he was an object well worth the gaze of those initiated into the worship of this god.

The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so, when Philip the buffoon knocked at the door and told the porter to announce who he was and that he desired to be admitted; he added that with regard to food he had come all prepared, in all varieties—to dine on some other person’s,—and that his servant was in great distress with the load he carried of—nothing, and with having an empty stomach. Hearing this, Callias said,

Well, gentlemen, we cannot decently begrudge him at the least the shelter of our roof; so let him come in. With the words he cast a glance at Autolycus, obviously trying to make out what he had thought of the pleasantry.

But Philip, standing at the threshold of the men’s hall where the banquet was served, announced: You all know that I am a jester; and so I have come here with a will, thinking it more of a joke to come to your dinner uninvited than to come by invitation. Well, then, said Callias, take a place; for the guests, though well fed, as you observe, on seriousness, are perhaps rather ill supplied with laughter.

No sooner were they engaged in their dinner than Philip attempted a witticism, with a view to rendering the service that secured him all his dinner engagements; but on finding that he did not excite any laughter, he showed himself, for the time, considerably vexed. A little later, however, he must try another jest; but when they would not laugh at him this time either, he stopped while the dinner was in full swing, covered his head with his cloak, and lay down on his couch.

What does this mean, Philip? Callias inquired. Are you seized with a pain? Philip replied with a groan, Yes, Callias, by Heaven, with a severe one; for since laughter has perished from the world, my business is ruined. For in times past, the reason why I got invitations to dinner was that I might stir up laughter among the guests and make them merry; but now, what will induce any one to invite me? For I could no more turn serious than I could become immortal; and certainly no one will invite me in the hope of a return invitation, as every one knows that there is not a vestige of tradition of bringing dinner into my house. As he said this, he wiped his nose, and to judge by the sound, he was evidently weeping.

All tried to comfort him with the promise that they would laugh next time, and urged him to eat; and Critobulus actually burst out into a guffaw at his lugubrious moaning. The moment Philip heard the laughter he uncovered his head, and exhorting his spirit to be of good courage, in view of approaching engagements, he fell to eating again.

Chapter 2

When the tables had been removed and the guests had poured a libation and sung a hymn, there entered a man from Syracuse, to give them an evening’s merriment. He had with him a fine flute-girl, a dancing-girl—one of those skilled in acrobatic tricks,—and a very handsome boy, who was expert at playing the cither and at dancing; the Syracusan made money by exhibiting their performances as a spectacle.

They now played for the assemblage, the flute-girl on the flute, the boy on the cither; and it was agreed that both furnished capital amusement. Thereupon Socrates remarked: On my word, Callias, you are giving us a perfect dinner; for not only have you set before us a feast that is above criticism, but you are also offering us very delightful sights and sounds.

Suppose we go further, said Callias, and have some one bring us some perfume, so that we may dine in the midst of pleasant odours, also. No, indeed! replied Socrates. For just as one kind of dress looks well on a woman and another kind on a man, so the odours appropriate to men and to women are diverse. No man, surely, ever uses perfume for a man’s sake. And as for the women, particularly if they chance to be young brides, like the wives of Niceratus here and Critobulus, how can they want any additional perfume? For that is what they are redolent of, themselves. The odour of the olive oil, on the other hand, that is used in the gymnasium is more delightful when you have it on your flesh than perfume is to women, and when you lack it, the want of it is more keenly felt.

Indeed, so far as perfume is concerned, when once a man has anointed himself with it, the scent forthwith is all one whether he be slave or free; but the odours that result from the exertions of freemen demand primarily noble pursuits engaged in for many years if they are to be sweet and suggestive of freedom. That may do for young fellows, observed Lycon; but what of us who no longer exercise in the gymnasia? What should be our distinguishing scent? Nobility of soul, surely! replied Socrates. And where may a person get this ointment? Certainly not from the perfumers, said Socrates. But where, then? Theognis has said:. Good men teach good; society with bad Will but corrupt the good mind that you had.

Do you hear that, my son? asked Lycon. Yes, indeed he does, said Socrates; and he puts it into practice, too. At any rate, when he desired to become a prize-winner in the pancratium, [;he availed himself of your help to discover the champions in that sport and associated with them; and so, if he desires to learn the ways of virtue,]; he will again with your help seek out the man who seems to him most proficient in this way of life and will associate with him.

Thereupon there was a chorus of voices. Where will he find an instructor in this subject? said one. Another maintained that it could not be taught at all. A third asserted that this could be learned if anything could.

Since this is a debatable matter, suggested Socrates, let us reserve it for another time; for the present let us finish what we have on hand. For I see that the dancing girl here is standing ready, and that some one is bringing her some hoops.

At that, the other girl began to accompany the dancer on the flute, and a boy at her elbow handed her up the hoops until he had given her twelve. She took these and as she danced kept throwing them whirling into the air, observing the proper height to throw them so as to catch them in a regular rhythm.

As Socrates looked on he remarked: This girl’s feat, gentlemen, is only one of many proofs that woman’s nature is really not a whit inferior to man’s, except in its lack of judgment and physical strength. So if any one of you has a wife, let him confidently set about teaching her whatever he would like to have her know.

If that is your view, Socrates, asked Antisthenes, how does it come that you don’t practise what you preach by yourself educating Xanthippe, but live with a wife who is the hardest to get along with of all the women there are—yes, or all that ever were, I suspect, or ever will be? Because, he replied, I observe that men who wish to become expert horsemen do not get the most docile horses but rather those that are high-mettled, believing that if they can manage this kind, they will easily handle any other. My course is similar. Mankind at large is what I wish to deal and associate with; and so I have got her, well assured that if I can endure her, I shall have no difficulty in my relations with all the rest of human kind. These words, in the judgment of the guests, did not go wide of the mark.

But now there was brought in a hoop set all around with upright swords; over these the dancer turned somersaults into the hoop and out again, to the dismay of the onlookers, who thought that she might suffer some mishap. She, however, went through this performance fearlessly and safely.

Then Socrates, drawing Antisthenes’ attention, said: Witnesses of this feat, surely, will never again deny, I feel sure, that courage, like other things, admits of being taught, when this girl, in spite of her sex, leaps so boldly in among the swords!

Well, then, asked Antisthenes, had this Syracusan not better exhibit his dancer to the city and announce that if the Athenians will pay him for it he will give all the men of Athens the courage to face the spear?

Well said! interjected Philip. I certainly should like to see Peisander the politician learning to turn somersaults among the knives; for, as it is now, his inability to look spears in the face makes him shrink even from joining the army.

At this point the boy performed a dance, eliciting from Socrates the remark, Did you notice that, handsome as the boy is, he appears even handsomer in the poses of the dance than when he is at rest? It looks to me, said Charmides, as if you were puffing the dancing-master.

Assuredly, replied Socrates; and I remarked something else, too,—that no part of his body was idle during the dance, but neck, legs, and hands were all active together. And that is the way a person must dance who intends to increase the suppleness of his body. And for myself, he continued, addressing the Syracusan, I should be delighted to learn the figures from you. What use will you make of them? the other asked. I will dance, by Zeus.

This raised a general laugh; but Socrates, with a perfectly grave expression on his face, said: You are laughing at me, are you? Is it because I want to exercise to better my health? Or because I want to take more pleasure in my food and my sleep? Or is it because I am eager for such exercises as these, not like the long-distance runners, who develop their legs at the expense of their shoulders, nor like the prize-fighters, who develop their shoulders but become thin-legged, but rather with a view to giving my body a symmetrical development by exercising it in every part?

Or are you laughing because I shall not need to hunt up a partner to exercise with, or to strip, old as I am, in a crowd, but shall find a moderate-sized room large enough for me (just as but now this room was large enough for the lad here to get up a sweat in), and because in winter I shall exercise under cover, and when it is very hot, in the shade?

Or is this what provokes your laughter, that I have an unduly large paunch and wish to reduce it? Don’t you know that just the other day Charmides here caught me dancing early in the morning? Indeed I did, said Charmides; and at first I was dumbfounded and feared that you were going stark mad; but when I heard you say much the same things as you did just now, I myself went home, and although I did not dance, for I had never learned how, I practised shadow-boxing, for I knew how to do that.

Undoubtedly, said Philip; at any rate, your legs appear so nearly equal in weight to your shoulders that I imagine if you were to go to the market commissioners and put your lower parts in the scale against your upper parts, as if they were loaves of bread, they would let you off without a fine. When you are ready to begin your lessons, Socrates, said Callias, pray invite me, so that I may be opposite you in the figures and may learn with you.

Come, said Philip, let me have some flute music, so that I may dance too. So he got up and mimicked in detail the dancing of both the boy and the girl.

To begin with, since the company had applauded the way the boy’s natural beauty was increased by the grace of the dancing postures, Philip made a burlesque out of the performance by rendering every part of his body that was in motion more grotesque than it naturally was; and whereas the girl had bent backward until she resembled a hoop, he tried to do the same by bending forward. Finally, since they had given the boy applause for putting every part of his body into play in the dance, he told the flute girl to hit up the time faster, and danced away, flinging out legs, hands, and head all at the same time;

and when he was quite exhausted, he exclaimed as he laid himself down: Here is proof, gentlemen, that my style of dancing, also, gives excellent exercise; it has certainly given me a thirst; so let the servant fill me up the big goblet.

Certainly, replied Callias; and the same for us, for we are thirsty with laughing at you. Here Socrates again interposed. Well, gentlemen, said he, so far as drinking is concerned, you have my hearty approval; for wine does of a truth moisten the soul and lull our griefs to sleep just as the mandragora does with men, at the same time awakening kindly feelings as oil quickens a flame.

However, I suspect that men’s bodies fare the same as those of plants that grow in the ground. When God gives the plants water in floods to drink, they cannot stand up straight or let the breezes blow through them; but when they drink only as much as they enjoy, they grow up very straight and tall and come to full and abundant fruitage.

So it is with us. If we pour ourselves immense draughts, it will be no long time before both our bodies and our minds reel, and we shall not be able even to draw breath, much less to speak sensibly; but if the servants frequently besprinkle us—if I too may use a Gorgian expression—with small cups, we shall thus not be driven on by the wine to a state of intoxication, but instead shall be brought by its gentle persuasion to a more sportive mood.

This resolution received a unanimous vote, with an amendment added by Philip to the effect that the wine-pourers should emulate skilful charioteers by driving the cups around with ever increasing speed. This the wine-pourers proceeded to do.

Chapter 3

After this the boy, attuning his lyre to the flute, played and sang, and won the applause of all; and brought from Charmides the remark, It seems to me, gentlemen, that, as Socrates said of the wine, so this blending of the young people’s beauty and of the notes of the music lulls one’s griefs to sleep and awakens the goddess of Love.

Then Socrates resumed the conversation. These people, gentlemen, said he, show their competence to give us pleasure; and yet we, I am sure, think ourselves considerably superior to them. Will it not be to our shame, therefore, if we do not make even an attempt, while here together, to be of some service or to give some pleasure one to another? At that many spoke up: You lead the way, then, and tell us what to begin talking about to realize most fully what you have in mind.

For my part, he answered, I should like to have Callias redeem his promise; for he said, you remember, that if we would take dinner with him, he would give us an exhibition of his profundity. Yes, rejoined Callias; and I will do so, if the rest of you will also lay before us any serviceable knowledge that you severally possess. Well, answered Socrates, no one objects to telling what he considers the most valuable knowledge in his possession.

Very well, then, said Callias, I will now tell you what I take greatest pride in. It is that I believe I have the power to make men better. How? asked Antisthenes. By teaching them some manual trade, or by teaching nobility of character? The latter, if righteousness is the same thing as nobility. Certainly it is, replied Antisthenes, and the least debatable kind, too; for though courage and wisdom appear at times to work injury both to one’s friends and to the state, righteousness and unrighteousness never overlap at a single point.

Well, then, when every one of you has named the benefit he can confer, I will not begrudge describing the art that gives me the success that I speak of. And so, Niceratus, he suggested, it is your turn; tell us what kind of knowledge you take pride in. My father was anxious to see me develop into a good man, said Niceratus, and as a means to this end he compelled me to memorize all of Homer; and so even now I can repeat the whole Iliad and the Odyssey by heart.

But have you failed to observe, questioned Antisthenes, that the rhapsodes, too, all know these poems? How could I, he replied, when I listen to their recitations nearly every day? Well, do you know any tribe of men, went on the other, more stupid than the rhapsodes? No, indeed, answered Niceratus; not I, I am sure. No, said Socrates; and the reason is clear: they do not know the inner meaning of the poems. But you have paid a good deal of money to Stesimbrotus, Anaximander, and many other Homeric critics, so that nothing of their valuable teaching can have escaped your knowledge.

But what about you, Critobulus? he continued. What do you take greates pride in? In beauty, he replied. What? exclaimed Socrates. Are you too going to be able to maintain that you can make us better, and by means of your beauty? Why, otherwise, it is clear enough that I shall cut but an indifferent figure.

And you, Antisthenes, said Socrates, what do you take pride in? In wealth, he replied. Hermogenes asked him whether he had a large amount of money; he swore that he did not have even a penny. You own a great deal of land, then? Well, perhaps it might prove big enough, said he, for Autolycus here to sand himself in.

It looks as if we should have to hear from you, too. And how about you, Charmides? he continued. What do you take pride in? What pride, said he, on the contrary, is in my poverty. A charming thing, upon my word! exclaimed Socrates. It seldom causes envy or is a bone of contention; and it is kept safe without the necessity of a guard, and grows sturdier by neglect!

But what of you, Socrates? said Callias. What are you proud of? Socrates drew up his face into a very solemn expression, and answered, The trade of procurer. After the rest had had a laugh at him, Very well, said he, you may laugh, but I know that I could make a lot of money if I cared to follow the trade.

As for you, said Lycon, addressing Philip, it is obvious that your pride is in your jesting. And my pride is better founded, I think, replied Philip, than that of Callippides, the actor, who is consumed with vanity because he can fill the seats with audiences that weep.

Will you also not tell us, Lycon, said Antisthenes, what it is that you take pride in? Don’t you all know, he answered, that it is in my son here? And as for him, said one, it is plain that he is proud at having taken a prize. At this Autolycus blushed and said, No, indeed, not that.

All looked at him, delighted to hear him speak, and one asked, What is it, then, Autolycus, that you are proud of? and he answered, My father, and with the words nestled close against him. When Callias saw this, Do you realize, Lycon, said he, that you are the richest man in the world? No, indeed, the other replied, I certainly do not know that. Why, are you blind to the fact that you would not part with your son for the wealth of the Great King? I am caught, was the answer, red-handed; it does look as if I were the richest man in the world.

What about you, Hermogenes? said Niceratus. What do you delight in most? In the goodness and the power of my friends, he answered, and in the fact that with all their excellence they have regard for me. Thereupon all eyes were turned toward him, and many speaking at once asked him whether he would not discover these friends to them; and he answered that he would not be at all loath to do so.

Chapter 4

At this point Socrates said: I suspect that it remains now for each one of us to prove that what he engaged himself to champion is of real worth. You may hear me first, said Callias. While I listen to your philosophical discussions of what righteousness is, I am all the time actually rendering men more righteous. How so, my good friend? asked Socrates. Why, by giving them money.

Then Antisthenes got up and in a very argumentative fashion interrogated him. Where do you think men harbour their righteousness, Callias, in their souls or in their purses? In their souls, he replied. So you make their souls more righteous by putting money into their purses? I surely do. How? Because they know that they have the wherewithal to buy the necessities of life, and so they are reluctant to expose themselves to the hazards of crime.

And do they repay you, he asked, the money that they get from you? Heavens, no! he replied. Well, do they substitute thanks for money payment? No, indeed, nor that either, he said. On the contrary, some of them have an even greater dislike of me than before they got the money. It is remarkable, said Antisthenes, looking fixedly at him as though he had him in a corner, that you can make them righteous toward others but not toward yourself.

What is there remarkable about that? asked Callias. Do you not see plenty of carpenters, also, and architects that build houses for many another person but cannot do it for themselves, but live in rented houses? Come now, my captious friend, take your medicine and own that you are beaten.

By all means, said Socrates, let him do so. For even the soothsayers have the reputation, you know, of prophesying the future for others but of not being able to foresee their own fate. Here the discussion of this point ended.

Then Niceratus remarked: You may now hear me tell wherein you will be improved by associating with me. You know, doubtless, that the sage Homer has written about practically everything pertaining to man. Any one of you, therefore, who wishes to acquire the art of the householder, the political leader, or the general, or to become like Achilles or Ajax or Nestor or Odysseus, should seek my favour, for I understand all these things. Ha! said Antisthenes; do you understand how to play the king, too, knowing, as you do, that Homer praised Agamemnon for being both goodly king and spearman strong? Yes, indeed! said he; and I know also that in driving a chariot one must run close to the goalpost at the turn and Himself lean lightly to the left within The polished car, the right-hand trace-horse goad, Urge him with shouts, and let him have the reins.

And beside this I know something else, which you may test immediately. For Homer says somewhere: An onion, too, a relish for the drink. Now if some one will bring an onion, you will receive this benefit, at any rate, without delay; for you will get more pleasure out of your drinking.

Gentlemen, said Charmides, Niceratus is intent on going home smelling of onions to make his wife believe that no one would even have conceived the thought of kissing him. Undoubtedly, said Socrates. But we run the risk of getting a different sort of reputation, one that will bring us ridicule. For though the onion seems to be in the truest sense a relish, since it adds to our enjoyment not only of food, but also of drink, yet if we eat it not only with our dinner but after it as well, take care that some one does not say of us that on our visit to Callias we were merely indulging our appetites.

Heaven forbid, Socrates! was the reply. I grant that when a man is setting out for battle, it is well for him to nibble an onion, just as some people give their game-cocks a feed of garlic before pitting them together in the ring; as for us, however, our plans perhaps look more to getting a kiss from some one than to fighting. That was about the way the discussion of this point ended.

Then Critobulus said: Shall I take my turn now and tell you my grounds for taking pride in my handsomeness? Do, they said. Well, then, if I am not handsome, as I think I am, you could fairly be sued for misrepresentation; for though no one asks you for an oath, you are always swearing that I am handsome. And indeed I believe you; for I consider you to be honourable men.

But, on the other hand, if I really am handsome and you have the same feelings toward me that I have toward the one who is handsome in my eyes, I swear by all the gods that I would not take the kingdom of Persia in exchange for the possession of beauty.

For as it is, I would rather gaze at Cleinias than at all the other beautiful objects in the world. I would rather be blind to all things else than to Cleinias alone. I chafe at both night and sleep because then I do not see him; I feel the deepest gratitude to day and the sun because they reveal Cleinias to me.

We handsome people have a right to be proud of this fact, too, that whereas the strong man must get the good things of his desire by toil, and the brave man by adventure, and the wise man by his eloquence, the handsome person can attain all his ends without doing anything.

So far as I, at least, am concerned, although I realize that money is a delightful possession, I should take more delight in giving what I have to Cleinias than in adding to my possessions from another person’s; and I should take more delight in being a slave than in being a free man, if Cleinias would deign to be my master. For I should find it easier to toil for him than to rest, and it would be more delightful to risk my life for his sake than to live in safety.

And so, Callias, if you are proud of your ability to make people more righteous, I have a better right than you to claim that I can influence men toward every sort of virtue. For since we handsome men exert a certain inspiration upon the amorous, we make them more generous in money matters, more strenuous and heroic amid dangers, yes, and more modest and self-controlled also; for they feel abashed about the very things that they want most.

Madness is in those people, too, who do not elect the handsome men as generals; I certainly would go through fire with Cleinias, and I know that you would, also, with me. Therefore, Socrates, do not puzzle any more over the question whether or not my beauty will be of any benefit to men.

But more than that, beauty is not to be contemned on this ground, either, that it soon passes its prime; for just as we recognize beauty in a boy, so we do in a youth, a full-grown man, or an old man. Witness the fact that in selecting garlandbearers for Athena they choose beautiful old men, thus intimating that beauty attends every period of life.

Furthermore, if it is pleasurable to attain one’s desires with the good will of the giver, I know very well that at this very moment, without uttering a word, I could persuade this boy or this girl to give me a kiss sooner than you could, Socrates, no matter how long and profoundly you might argue.

How now? exclaimed Socrates. You boast as though you actually thought yourself a handsomer man than me. Of course, was Critobulus’s reply; otherwise I should be the ugliest of all the Satyrs ever on the stage. Now Socrates, as fortune would have it, really resembled these creatures.

Come, come, said Socrates; see that you remember to enter a beauty contest with me when the discussion now under way has gone the rounds. And let our judges be not Alexander, Priam’s son, but these very persons whom you consider eager to give you a kiss.

Would you not entrust the arbitrament to Cleinias, Socrates? Aren’t you ever going to get your mind off Cleinias? was the rejoinder. If I refrain from mentioning his name, do you suppose that I shall have him any the less in mind? Do you not know that I have so clear an image of him in my heart that had I ability as a sculptor or a painter I could produce a likeness of him from this image that would be quite as close as if he were sitting for me in person?

Why do you annoy me, then, was Socrates’ retort, and keep taking me about to places where you can see him in person, if you possess so faithful an image of him? Because, Socrates, the sight of him in person has the power to delight one, whereas the sight of the image does not give pleasure, but implants a craving for him.

For my part, Socrates, said Hermogenes, I do not regard it as at all like you to countenance such a mad passion of love in Critobulus. What? Do you suppose, asked Socrates, that this condition has arisen since he began associating with me? If not, when did it? Do you not notice that the soft down is just beginning to grow down in front of his ears, while that of Cleinias is already creeping up the nape of his neck? Well, then, this hot flame of his was kindled in the days when they used to go to school together.

It was the discovery of this that caused his father to put him into my hands, in the hope that I might do him some good. And without question he is already much improved. For awhile ago he was like those who look at the Gorgons—he would gaze at Cleinias with a fixed and stony stare and would never leave his presence; but now I have seen him actually close his eyes in a wink.

But to tell you the truth, gentlemen, he continued, by Heaven! it does look to me—to speak confidentially—as if he had also kissed Cleinias; and there is nothing more terribly potent than this at kindling the fires of passion. For it is insatiable and holds out seductive hopes.

For this reason I maintain that one who intends to possess the power of self-control must refrain from kissing those in the bloom of beauty.

But why in the world, Socrates, Charmides now asked, do you flourish your bogeys so to frighten us, your friends, away from the beauties, when, by Apollo! I have seen you yourself, he continued, when the two of you were hunting down something in the same book-roll at the school, sitting head to head, with your nude shoulder pressing against Critobulus’s nude shoulder?

Dear me! exclaimed Socrates. So that is what affected me like the bite of a wild animal! And for over five days my shoulder smarted and I felt as if I had something like a sting in my heart. But now, Critobulus, said he, in the presence of all these witnesses I warn you not to lay a finger on me until you get as much hair on your chin as you have on your head. Such was the mingled raillery and seriousness that these indulged in.

But Callias now remarked, It is your turn, Charmides, to tell us why poverty makes you feel proud. Very well, said he. So much, at least, every one admits, that assurance is preferable to fear, freedom to slavery, being the recipient of attention to being the giver of it, the confidence of one’s country to its distrust.

Now, as for my situation in our commonwealth, when I was rich, I was, to begin with, in dread of some one’s digging through the wall of my house and not only getting my money but also doing me a mischief personally; in the next place, I knuckled down to the blackmailers, knowing well enough that my abilities lay more in the direction of suffering injury than of inflicting it on them. Then, too, I was for ever being ordered by the government to undergo some expenditure or other, and I never had the opportunity for foreign travel.

Now, however, since I am stripped of my property over the border and get no income from the property in Attica, and my household effects have been sold, I stretch out and enjoy a sound sleep, I have gained the confidence of the state, I am no longer subjected to threats but do the threatening now myself; and I have the free man’s privilege of going abroad or staying here at home as I please. People now actually rise from their seats in deference to me, and rich men obsequiously give me the right of way on the street.

Now I am like a despot; then I was clearly a slave. Then I paid a revenue to the body politic; now I live on the tribute that the state pays to me. Moreover, people used to vilify me, when I was wealthy, for consorting with Socrates; but now that I have got poor, no one bothers his head about it any longer. Again, when my property was large, either the government or fate was continually making me throw some of it to the winds; but now, far from throwing anything away (for I possess nothing), I am always in expectation of acquiring something.

Your prayers, also, said Callias, are doubtless to the effect that you may never be rich; and if you ever have a fine dream you sacrifice, do you not, to the deities who avert disasters? Oh, no! was the reply; I don’t go so far as that; I hazard the danger with great heroism if I have any expectation of getting something from some one.

Come, now, Antisthenes, said Socrates, take your turn and tell us how it is that with such slender means you base your pride on wealth. Because, sirs, I conceive that people’s wealth and poverty are to be found not in their real estate but in their hearts.

For I see many persons, not in office, who though possessors of large resources, yet look upon themselves as so poor that they bend their backs to any toil, any risk, if only they may increase their holdings; and again I know of brothers, with equal shares in their inheritance, where one of them has plenty, and more than enough to meet expenses, while the other is in utter want.

Again, I am told of certain despots, also, who have such a greedy appetite for riches that they commit much more dreadful crimes than they who are afflicted with the direst poverty. For it is of course their want that makes some people steal, others commit burglary, others follow the slave trade; but there are some despots who destroy whole families, kill men wholesale, oftentimes enslave even entire cities, for the sake of money.

As for such men, I pity them deeply for their malignant disease; for in my eyes their malady resembles that of a person who possessed abundance but though continually eating could never be satisfied. For my own part, my possessions are so great that I can hardly find them myself; yet I have enough so that I can eat until I reach a point where I no longer feel hungry and drink until I do not feel thirsty and have enough clothing so that when out of doors I do not feel the cold any more than my superlatively wealthy friend Callias here;

and when I get into the house I look on my walls as exceedingly warm tunics and the roofs as exceptionally thick mantles; and the bedding that I own is so satisfactory that it is actually a hard task to get me awake in the morning. If I ever feel a natural desire for converse with women, I am so well satisfied with whatever chance puts in my way that those to whom I make my addresses are more than glad to welcome me because they have no one else who wants to consort with them.

In a word, all these items appeal to me as being so conducive to enjoyment that I could not pray for greater pleasure in performing any one of them, but could pray rather for less—so much more pleasurable do I regard some of them than is good for one.

But the most valuable parcel of my wealth I reckon to be this, that even though some one were to rob me of what I now possess, I see no occupation so humble that it would not give me adequate fare.

For whenever I feel an inclination to indulge my appetite, I do not buy fancy articles at the market (for they come high), but I draw on the store-house of my soul. And it goes a long way farther toward producing enjoyment when I take food only after awaiting the craving for it than when I partake of one of these fancy dishes, like this fine Thasian wine that fortune has put in my way and I am drinking without the promptings of thirst.

Yes, and it is natural that those whose eyes are set on frugality should be more honest than those whose eyes are fixed on money-making. For those who are most contented with what they have are least likely to covet what belongs to others.

And it is worth noting that wealth of this kind makes people generous, also. My friend Socrates here and I are examples. For Socrates, from whom I acquired this wealth of mine, did not come to my relief with limitation of number and weight, but made over to me all that I could carry. And as for me, I am now niggardly to no one, but both make an open display of my abundance to all my friends and share my spiritual wealth with any one of them that desires it.

But—most exquisite possession of all!—you observe that I always have leisure, with the result that I can go and see whatever is worth seeing, and hear whatever is worth hearing and—what I prize highest—pass the whole day, untroubled by business, in Socrates’ company. Like me, he does not bestow his admiration on those who count the most gold, but spends his time with those who are congenial to him.

Such was the thesis maintained by Antisthenes. So help me Hera, commented Callias, among the numerous reasons I find for congratulating you on your wealth, one is that the government does not lay its commands on you and treat you as a slave, another is that people do not feel resentful at your not making them a loan. Do not be congratulating him, said Niceratus; because I am about to go and get him to make me a loan—of his contentment with his lot, schooled as I am by Homer to count Seven pots unfired, ten talents’ weight of gold, A score of gleaming cauldrons, chargers twelve, weighing and calculating until I am never done with yearning for vast riches; as a result, some people perhaps regard me as just a bit fond of lucre. A burst of laughter from the whole company greeted this admission; for they considered that he had told nothing more than the truth.

Hermogenes, it devolves on you, some one now remarked, to mention who your friends are and to demonstrate their great power and their solicitude for you, so that your pride in them may appear justified.

Very well; in the first place, it is clear as day that both Greeks and barbarians believe that the gods know everything both present and to come; at any rate, all cities and all races ask the gods, by the diviner’s art, for advice as to what to do and what to avoid. Second, it is likewise manifest that we consider them able to work us good or ill; at all events, every one prays the gods to avert evil and grant blessings.

Well, these gods, omniscient and omnipotent, feel so friendly toward me that their watchfulness over me never lets me out of their ken night or day, no matter where I am going or what business I have in view. They know the results also that will follow any act; and so they send me as messengers omens of sounds, dreams, and birds, and thus indicate what I ought to do and what I ought not to do. And when I do their bidding, I never regret it; on the other hand, I have before now disregarded them and have been punished for it.

None of these statements, said Socrates, is incredible. But what I should like very much to know is how you serve them to keep them so friendly. A very economical service it is, I declare! responded Hermogenes. I sound their praises,—which costs nothing; I always restore them part of what they give me; I avoid profanity of speech as far as I can; and I never wittingly lie in matters wherein I have invoked them to be my witnesses. Truly, said Socrates, if it is conduct like this that gives you their friendship, then the gods also, it would seem, take delight in nobility of soul! Such was the serious turn given to the discussion of this topic.

When they got around to Philip, they asked him what he saw in the jester’s profession to feel proud of it. Have I not a right to be proud, said he, when all know that I am a jester, and so whenever they have a bit of good fortune, give me hearty invitations to come and join them, but when they suffer some reverse, run from me with never a glance behind, in dread that they may be forced to laugh in spite of themselves?

Your pride is abundantly justified, said Niceratus. In my case, on the contrary, those friends who enjoy success keep out of my way, but those that run into some mishap reckon up their kinship to me on the family tree, and I can’t get rid of them.

No doubt, said Charmides; and then, turning to the Syracusan, What is it that you are proud of? The boy, I suppose? Quite the contrary, was the reply; I am instead in extreme apprehension about him. For I understand that there are certain persons plotting his undoing.

On receiving this information, Good Heavens! exclaimed Socrates; what wrong do they imagine your lad has done them that is grave enough to make them wish to kill him? Syr. It is not killing him that they desire; oh, no! but to persuade him to sleep with them. Soc. Your belief, then, if I mistake not, is that if this happened, he would be undone? Syr. Aye, utterly!

Soc. Do you not then sleep in his bed yourself? Syr. Most certainly, all night and every night. Soc. Marry, you are in great luck to be formed of such flesh that you are unique in not corrupting those that sleep with you. And so you have a right to be proud of your flesh if of nothing else.

Syr. And yet that is not the basis of my pride. Soc. What is, then? Syr. Fools, in faith. They give me a livelihood by coming to view my marionettes. Ah! ejaculated Philip; that explains the prayer I heard you uttering the other day, that wherever you were the gods would grant you an abundant harvest of grain but a crop-failure of wits!

Good! said Callias. And now, Socrates, what can you advance in support of your pride in that disreputable profession that you mentioned? Let us first, said he, come to an understanding on the functions that belong to the procurer. Do not hesitate to answer all the questions I ask you, so that we may know our points of agreement. Is that your pleasure? he asked. Certainly, was their reply; and when they had once started with certainly, that was the regular answer they all made to his questions thereafter.

Soc. Well, then, you consider it the function of a good procurer to render the man or the woman whom he is serving attractive to his or her associates? All. Certainly. Soc. Now, one thing that contributes to rendering a person attractive is a comely arrangement of hair and clothing, is it not? All. Certainly.

This, also, we know, do we not, that it is in a man’s power to use the one pair of eyes to express both friendship and hostility? Certainly. And again, it is possible to speak both modestly and boldly with the same voice? Certainly. Moreover, are there not words that create ill feeling and others that conduce to friendliness? Certainly.

Now the good procurer would teach only the words that tend to make one attractive, would he not? Certainly. Which one would be the better? he continued, the one who could make people attractive to a single person or the one who could make them attractive to many? This question brought a division; some said, Clearly the one who could make them attractive to a great many; the others merely repeated, Certainly.

Remarking that they were all of one mind on this point as on the others, he went on: If a person could render people attractive to the entire community, would he not satisfy the requirements of the ideal procurer? Indubitably, they all said. And so, if one could produce men of this type out of his clients, he would be entitled to feel proud of his profession and to receive a high remuneration, would he not?

All agreeing on this point, too, he added, Antisthenes here seems to me to be a man of just that sort. Antisthenes asked, Are you resigning your profession to me, Socrates? Assuredly, was the answer. For I see that you have brought to a high state of perfection the complementary trade. What is that? The profession of go-between, he said.

Antisthenes was much incensed and asked, What knowledge can you possibly have of my being guilty of such a thing as that? I know several instances, he replied. I know that you acted the part between Callias here and the scholar Prodicus, when you saw that Callias was in love with philosophy and that Prodicus wanted money. I know also that you did the same for Hippias, the Elean, from whom Callias got his memory system; and as a result, Callias has become more amorous than ever, because he finds it impossible to forget any beauty he sees.

And just recently, you remember, you introduced the stranger from Heraclea to me, after arousing my keen interest in him by your commendations. For this I am indeed grateful to you; for I look upon him as endowed with a truly noble nature. And did you not laud Aeschylus the Phleiasian to me and me to him until you brought us to such a pass that in mutual yearning, excited by your words, we went coursing like hounds to find each other?

It is the witnessing of your talent at achieving such a result that makes me judge you an excellent go-between. For the man who can recognize those who are fitted to be mutually helpful and can make them desire one another’s acquaintance, that man, in my opinion, could also create friendship between cities and arrange suitable marriages, and would be a very valuable acquisition as friend or ally for both states and individuals. But you got indignant, as if you had received an affront, when I said that you were a good go-between. But, indeed, that is all over now, he replied; for with this power mine I shall find my soul chock-full of riches. And so this round of discourse was brought to a close.

Chapter 5

Callias now said, Critobulus, are you going to refuse to enter the lists in the beauty contest with Socrates? Undoubtedly! said Socrates; for probably he notices that the procurer stands high in the favour of the judges.

But yet in spite of that, retorted Critobulus, I do not shun the contest. So make your plea, if you can produce any profound reason, and prove that you are more handsome than I. Only, he added, let some one bring the light close to him. The first step, then, in my suit, said Socrates, is to summon you to the preliminary hearing; be so kind as to answer my questions. And you proceed to put them.

Do you hold, then, that beauty is to be found only in man, or is it also in other objects? Crit. In faith, my opinion is that beauty is to be found quite as well in a horse or an ox or in any number of inanimate things. I know, at any rate, that a shield may be beautiful, or a sword, or a spear.

Soc. How can it be that all these things are beautiful when they are entirely dissimilar? Why, they are beautiful and fine, answered Critobulus, if they are well made for the respective functions for which we obtain them, or if they are naturally well constituted to serve our needs.

Soc. Do you know the reason why we need eyes? Crit. Obviously to see with. In that case, it would appear without further ado that my eyes are finer ones than yours. How so? Because, while yours see only straight ahead, mine, by bulging out as they do, see also to the sides. Crit. Do you mean to say that a crab is better equipped visually than any other creature? Soc. Absolutely; for its eyes are also better set to insure strength.

Crit. Well, let that pass; but whose nose is finer, yours or mine? Soc. Mine, I consider, granting that Providence made us noses to smell with. For your nostrils look down toward the ground, but mine are wide open and turned outward so that I can catch scents from all about. But how do you make a snub nose handsomer than a straight one? Soc. For the reason that it does not put a barricade between the eyes but allows them unobstructed vision of whatever they desire to see; whereas a high nose, as if in despite, has walled the eyes off one from the other.

As for the mouth, said Critobulus, I concede that point. For if it is created for the purpose of biting off food, you could bite off a far bigger mouthful than I could. And don’t you think that your kiss is also the more tender because you have thick lips? Soc. According to your argument, it would seem that I have a mouth more ugly even than an ass’s. But do you not reckon it a proof of my superior beauty that the River Nymphs, goddesses as they are, bear as their offspring the Seileni, who resemble me more closely than they do you?

I cannot argue any longer with you, answered Critobulus; let them distribute the ballots, so that I may know without suspense what fine or punishment I must undergo. Only, he continued, let the balloting be secret, for I am afraid that the wealth you and Antisthenes possess will overmaster me.

So the maiden and the lad turned in the ballots secretly. While this was going on, Socrates saw to it that the light should be brought in front of Critobulus, so that the judges might not be misled, and stipulated that the prize given by the judges to crown the victor should be kisses and not ribbons.

When the ballots were turned out of the urn and proved to be a unanimous verdict in favour of Critobulus, Faugh! exclaimed Socrates; your money, Critobulus, does not appear to resemble Callias’s. For his makes people more honest, while yours is about the most potent to corrupt men, whether members of a jury or judges of a contest.

Chapter 6

At this some of the company urged Critobulus to take his kisses, the need of victory; others advised him to get the consent of the young people’s legal guardian; and others indulged in other badinage. But even then Hermogenes kept silent. And Socrates, calling him by name, inquired, Hermogenes, could you define convivial unpleasantness for us? If you ask me what it actually is, he answered, I do not know; but I am willing to tell you what I think it is. Soc. Very well, tell us that.

Herm. My definition of convivial unpleasantness is the annoying of one’s companions at their drink. Soc. Well, do you realize that at the present moment you conform to the definition by annoying us with your taciturnity? Herm. What! while you are talking? No, but in the intervals. Why, don’t you see that a person could not insert even a hair in the interstices of your talk, much less a word?

Callias, said Socrates, appealing to him, could you come to the rescue of a man hard put to it for an answer? Yes, indeed, said he: we are absolutely quiet every time the flute is played. Hermogenes retorted, Is it your wish that I should converse with you to the accompaniment of a flute, the way the actor Nicostratus used to recite tetrameter verses?

In Heaven’s name, do so, Hermogenes, urged Socrates. For I believe that precisely as a song is more agreeable when accompanied on the flute, so your discourse would be embellished somewhat by the music, especially if you were to gesticulate and pose, like the flute-girl, to point your words.

What is the tune to be, asked Callias, when Antisthenes here gets some one at the banquet cornered in an argument? For the discomfited disputant, said Antisthenes, I think the appropriate music would be a hissing.

The Syracusan, seeing that with such conversation going on the banqueters were paying no attention to his show, but were enjoying one another’s company, said spitefully to Socrates, Socrates, are you the one nick-named the Thinker? Well, isn’t that preferable, he rejoined, to being called the Thoughtless? Yes, if it were not that you are supposed to be a thinker on celestial subjects.

Do you know, asked Socrates, anything more celestial than the gods? Syr. No; but that is not what people say you are concerned with, but rather with the most unbeneficial things. Soc. Even granting the expression, it would still be the gods that are my concern; for (1) they cause rain under the heavens and so are beneficial, and (2) they produce light, also under the heavens, and are thus again beneficial. If the pun is strained, he added, you have only yourself to blame for it, for annoying me.

Syr. Well, let that pass. But tell me the distance between us in flea’s feet; for people say that your geometry includes such measurements as that. At this Antisthenes said to Philip: You are clever at hitting off a person’s likeness; wouldn’t you say that our friend here resembles one with a penchant for abuse? Yes, indeed, came the answer; and I see a resemblance in him to many another kind of person, too.

Nevertheless, interposed Socrates, do not draw the comparison, lest you take on a similar likeness to one stooping to abuse. But suppose I am likening him to all the upright, the very elite; then I should deserve to be compared to a eulogist, rather than to a detractor. Ah, you resemble the latter right now, for you are asserting that every one is better than he.

Would you have me compare him to those who excel him in villainy? No, not those, either. What, to no one? No; don’t compare him to any one in any particular. But if I hold my peace, I do not understand how I am going to render services suitable to such a fine dinner. That is easily effected, said Socrates, if you will be reticent on matters that should not be talked about. Thus was quenched this bit of convivial unpleasantness.

Chapter 7

Then some among the rest of the banqueters kept urging Philip to go on with his comparisons, while others opposed. As the clamour rose to some height, Socrates once more interposed, saying: Since we all want to talk, would this not be a fine time to join in singing? And with the words he began a song.

When they had finished, a potter’s wheel was brought in for the dancing girl on which she intended performing some feats of jugglery. This prompted Socrates to observe to the Syracusan: Sir, it is quite probable that, to use your words, I am indeed a thinker; at any rate, I am now considering how it might be possible for this lad of yours and this maid to exert as little effort as may be, and at the same time give us the greatest possible amount of pleasure in watching them,—this being your purpose, also, I am sure.

Now, turning somersaults in among knives seems to me to be a dangerous exhibition, which is utterly out of place at a banquet. Also, to write or read aloud on a whirling potter’s wheel may perhaps be something of a feat; yet I cannot conceive what pleasure even this can afford. Nor is it any more diverting to watch the young and beautiful going through bodily contortions and imitating hoops than to contemplate them in repose.

For it is of course no rare event to meet with marvels, if that is what one’s mind is set on. He may marvel at what he finds immediately at hand,—for instance, why the lamp gives light owing to its having a bright flame, while a bronze mirror, likewise bright, does not produce light but instead reflects other things that appear in it; or how it comes about that olive oil, though wet, makes the flame higher, while water, because it is wet, puts the fire out.

However, these questions also fail to promote the same object that wine does; but if the young people were to have a flute accompaniment and dance figures depicting the Graces, the Horae, and the Nymphs, I believe that they would be far less wearied themselves and that the charms of the banquet would be greatly enhanced. Upon my word, Socrates, replied the Syracusan, you are quite right; and I will bring in a spectacle that will delight you.

Chapter 8

So the Syracusan withdrew amid applause. Socrates now opened up another new topic for discussion. Gentlemen, said he, it is to be expected of us, is it not, when in the presence of a mighty deity that is coeval with the eternal gods, yet youngest of them all in appearance, in magnitude encompassing the universe, but enthroned in the heart of man,—I mean Love,—that we should not be unmindful of him, particularly in view of the fact that we are all of his following?

For I cannot name a time when I was not in love with some one, and I know that Charmides here has gained many lovers and has in some instances felt the passion himself; and Critobulus, though even yet the object of love, is already beginning to feel this passion for others.

Nay, Niceratus too, so I am told, is in love with his wife and finds his love reciprocated. And as for Hermogenes, who of us does not know that he is pining away with love for nobility of character, whatever that may be? Do you not observe how serious his brows are, how calm his gaze, how modest his words, how gentle his voice, how genial his demeanour? That though he enjoys the friendship of the most august gods, yet he does not disdain us mortals? Are you the only person, Antisthenes, in love with no one?

No, by Heaven! replied he; I am madly in love—with you. And Socrates, banteringly, pretending to be coquettish, said: Don’t pester me just now; I am engaged in other business, as you see.

How transparent you are, sir procurer of your own charms, Antisthenes rejoined, in always doing something like this; at one time you refuse me audience on the pretext of your divine sign, at another time because you have some other purpose in mind.

In Heaven’s name, Antisthenes, implored Socrates, only refrain from beating me; any other manifestation of your bad temper I am wont to endure, and shall continue to do so, in a friendly spirit. But, he went on, let us keep your love a secret, because it is founded not on my spirit but on my physical beauty.

But as for you, Callias, all the city knows that you are in love with Autolycus, and so, I think, do a great many men from abroad. The reason for this is the fact that you are both sons of distinguished fathers and are yourselves in the public eye.

Now, I have always felt an admiration for your character, but at the present time I feel a much keener one, for I see that you are in love with a person who is not marked by dainty elegance nor wanton effeminacy, but shows to the world physical strength and stamina, virile courage and sobriety. Setting one’s heart on such traits gives an insight into the lover’s character.

Now, whether there is one Aphrodite or two, Heavenly and Vulgar, I do not know; for even Zeus, though considered one and the same, yet has many by-names. I do know, however, that in the case of Aphrodite there are separate altars and temples for the two, and also rituals, those of the Vulgar Aphrodite excelling in looseness, those of the Heavenly in chastity.

One might conjecture, also, that different types of love come from the different sources, carnal love from the Vulgar Aphrodite, and from the Heavenly spiritual love, love of friendship and of noble conduct. That is the sort of love, Callias, that seems to have you in its grip.

I infer this from the noble nature of the one you love and because I see that you include his father in your meetings with him. For the virtuous lover does not make any of these matters a secret from the father of his beloved.

Marry, quoth Hermogenes, you arouse my admiration in numerous ways, Socrates, but now more than ever, because in the very act of flattering Callias you are in fact educating him to conform to the ideal. True, he replied; and to add to his pleasure, I wish to bear testimony to him that spiritual love is far superior to carnal.

For we all know that there is no converse worth the mention that does not comprise affection. Now affection on the part of those who feel admiration for character is commonly termed a pleasant and willing constraint; whereas many of those who have a merely physical concupiscence reprehend and detest the ways of those they love.

But suppose they are satisfied on both scores; yet the bloom of youth soon passes its prime, and as this disappears, affection also inevitably fades away as fast; but the soul becomes more and more lovable the longer it progresses toward wisdom.

Besides, in the enjoyment of physical beauty there is a point of surfeit, so that one cannot help feeling toward his favourite the same effect that he gets toward food by gratification of the appetite. But affection for the soul, being pure, is also less liable to satiety, though it does not follow, as one might suppose, that it is also less rich in the graces of Aphrodite; on the contrary, our prayer that the goddess will bestow her grace on our words and deeds is manifestly answered.

Now, no further argument is necessary to show that a soul verdant with the beauty of freeborn men and with a disposition that is reverent and noble, a soul that from the very first displays its leadership among its own fellows and is kindly withal, feels an admiration and an affection for the object of its love; but I will go on to prove the reasonableness of the position that such a lover will have his affection returned.

First, who could feel dislike for one by whom he knew himself to be regarded as the pattern of nobleness, and, in the next place, saw that he made his favourite’s honour of more account than his own pleasure, and beside this felt assured that this affection would not be lessened under any circumstances, no matter whether he suffered some reverse or lost his comeliness through the ravages of illness?

Moreover, must not those who enjoy a mutual affection unavoidably take pleasure in looking into each other’s faces, converse in amity, and trust and be trusted, and not only take thought each for the other but also take a common joy in prosperity and feel a common distress if some ill fortune befall, and live in happiness when their society is attended by sound health, but be much more constantly together if one or the other become ill, and be even more solicitous, each for the other, when absent than when present? Are not all these things marked by Aphrodite’s grace? It is by conducting themselves thus that men continue mutually to love friendship and enjoy it clear down to old age.

But what is there to induce a favourite to make a return of affection to a lover who bases his feeling solely on the flesh? Would it be the consideration that the lover allots to himself the joys he desires but gives the favourite only what excites the deepest contempt? Or that he conceals, as best he can, from the favourite’s relatives the ends that he is bent on attaining?

As for his using entreaty rather than coercion, that is all the stronger reason for detestation. For any one who applies force merely discovers his rascality, but he who uses persuasion corrupts the soul of the one upon whom he prevails.

Once more, how will he who traffics in his beauty feel greater affection toward the buyer than he who puts his produce up for sale and disposes of it in the open market? For assuredly he will not be moved to affection because he is a youthful companion to one who is not youthful, or because he is handsome when the other is no longer so, or because he is untouched by passion when the other is in its sway. For a youth does not share in the pleasure of the intercourse as a woman does, but looks on, sober, at another in love’s intoxication.

Consequently, it need not excite any surprise if contempt for the lover is engendered in him. If one looked into the matter, also, he would descry no ill effect when people are loved for their personality, but that many shocking results have come from companionship lost to shame.

I will now go on to show also that the union is servile when one’s regard is for the body rather than when it is for the soul. For he who inculcates right speech and conduct would merit the honour given by Achilles to Cheiron and Phoenix; but the man who lusts only after the flesh would with good reason be treated like a mendicant; for he is always dogging the footsteps of his favourite, begging and beseeching the favour of one more kiss or some other caress.

Do not be surprised at my plain speaking; the wine helps to incite me, and the kind of love that ever dwells with me spurs me on to say what I think about its opposite.

For, to my way of thinking, the man whose attention is attracted only by his beloved’s appearance is like one who has rented a farm; his aim is not to increase its value but to gain from it as much of a harvest as he can for himself. On the other hand, the man whose goal is friendship is more like one possessing a farm of his own; at any rate he utilizes all sources to enhance his loved one’s worth.

Furthermore, the favourite who realizes that he who lavishes physical charms will be the lover’s sovereign will in all likelihood be loose in his general conduct; but the one who feels that he cannot keep his lover faithful without nobility of character will more probably give heed to virtue.

But the greatest blessing that befalls the man who yearns to render his favourite a good friend is the necessity of himself making virtue his habitual practice. For one cannot produce goodness in his companion while his own conduct is evil, nor can he himself exhibit shamelessness and incontinence and at the same time render his beloved self-controlled and reverent.

My heart is set on showing you, Callias, on the basis of olden tales, also, that not only humankind but also gods and demi-gods set higher value on the friendship of the spirit than on the enjoyment of the body.

For in all cases where Zeus became enamoured of mortal women for their beauty, though he united with them he suffered them to remain mortal; but all those persons whom he delighted in for their souls’ sake he made immortal. Among the latter are Heracles and the Sons of Zeus; and tradition includes others also.

And I aver that even in the case of Ganymede, it was not his person but his spiritual character that influenced Zeus to carry him up to Olympus. This is confirmed by his very name. Homer, you remember, has the words, He joys to hear; that is to say, he rejoices to hear; and in another place, harbouring shrewd devices in his heart. This, again, means harbouring wise counsels in his heart. So the name given Ganymede, compounded of the two foregoing elements, signifies not physically but mentally attractive; hence his honour among the gods.

Or again, Niceratus, Homer pictures us Achilles looking upon Patroclus not as the object of his passion but as a comrade, and in this spirit signally avenging his death. So we have songs telling also how Orestes, Pylades, Theseus, Peirithous, and many other illustrious demi-gods wrought glorious deeds of valour side by side, not because they shared a common bed but because of mutual admiration and respect.

Moreover, take the splendid feats of the present day; would not a person discover that they are all done for glory’s sake by persons willing to endure hardship and jeopardy, rather than by those who are drifting into the habit of preferring pleasure to a good name? Yet Pausanias, the lover of the poet Agathon, has said in his defence of those who wallow in lasciviousness that the most valiant army, even, would be one recruited of lovers and their favourites!

For these, he said, would in his opinion be most likely to be prevented by shame from deserting one another,—a strange assertion, indeed, that persons acquiring an habitual indifference to censure and to abandoned conduct toward one another will be most likely to be deterred by shame from any infamous act.

But he went further and adduced as evidence in support of his position both the Thebans and the Eleans, alleging that this was their policy; he stated, in fine, that though sharing common beds they nevertheless assigned to their favourites places alongside themselves in the battle-line. But this is a false analogy; for such practices, though normal among them, with us are banned by the severest reprobation. My own view is that those who assign these posts in battle suggest thereby that they are suspicious that the objects of their love, if left by themselves, will not perform the duties of brave men.

In contrast to this, the Lacedaemonians, who hold that if a person so much as feels a carnal concupiscence he will never come to any good end, cause the objects of their love to be so consummately brave that even when arrayed with foreigners and even when not stationed in the same line with their lovers they just as surely feel ashamed to desert their comrades. For the goddess they worship is not Impudence but Modesty.

We could all come to one mind, I think, on the point I am trying to make, if we were to consider the question in this way: of two lads, the objects of the different types of love, which one would a person prefer to trust with his money, or his children, or to lay under the obligation of a favour? My own belief is that even the person whose love is founded on the loved one’s physical beauty would in all these cases rather put his trust in him whose loveliness is of the spirit.

In your case, Callias, I deem it meet that you should thank Heaven for inspiring you with love for Autolycus. For his ardour for glory is manifest, inasmuch as he undergoes many toils and many bodily discomforts to ensure his being proclaimed victor in the pancratium.

Now if he were to believe that he is going not merely to shed lustre on himself and his father but also to acquire through his manly virtue the ability to serve his friends and to exalt his country by setting up trophies of victory over its enemies, and for these reasons draw the admiring glances of all and be famous among both Greeks and barbarians, do you not suppose that he would esteem and honour highly any one whom he looked upon as the best partner in furthering these designs?

If, then, you would be in his good graces, you must try to find out what sort of knowledge it was that made Themistocles able to give Greece liberty; you must try to find out what kind of knowledge it was that gave Pericles the name of being his country’s wisest counsellor; you must reflect, further, how it was that Solon by deep meditation established in his city laws of surpassing worth; you must search and find out what kind of practices it is that gives the Lacedaemonians the reputation of being pre-eminent military commanders; for you are their proxenus, and their foremost citizens are always being entertained at your house.

You may regard it as certain, therefore, that our city would be quick to entrust itself to your hands, if you so desire. For you possess the highest qualifications for such a trust: you are of aristocratic birth, of Erechtheus’ line, a priest serving the gods who under the leadership of Iacchus took the field against the barbarian; and in our day you outshine your predecessors in the splendour of your priestly office in the festival; and you possess a person more goodly to the eye than any other in the city and one at the same time able to withstand effort and hardship.

If what I say appears to you gentlemen to be too grave and earnest for a drinking party, I beg you again not to be surprised. For during practically all my life I have been at one with the commonwealth in loving men who to a nature already good add a zealous desire for virtue.

The rest of the company now engaged in a discussion of the views propounded by Socrates; but Autolycus kept his eyes fixed on Callias. And Callias, addressing Socrates, but looking beyond him and returning the gaze of Autolycus, said: So you intend acting the procurer, do you, Socrates, to bring me to the attention of the commonwealth, so that I may enter politics, and the state may always look upon me with favour?

Assuredly, was the reply, that is, if people see that you set your heart on virtue, not in pretence, but in reality. For false reputation is soon exposed when tried by experience, whereas true manly virtue,—barring the interposition of Providence,—confers ever more and more brilliant glory when put to the test of actual deeds.

Chapter 9

Their conversation ended here. Autolycus got up to go out for a walk (it being now his usual time); and his father Lycon, as he was departing to accompany him, turned back and said: So help me Hera, Socrates, you seem to me to have a truly noble character.

After he had withdrawn, a chair of state, first of all, was set down in the room, and then the Syracusan came in with the announcement: Gentlemen, Ariadne will now enter the chamber set apart for her and Dionysus; after that, Dionysus, a little flushed with wine drunk at a banquet of the gods, will come to join her; and then they will disport themselves together.

Then, to start proceedings, in came Ariadne, apparelled as a bride, and took her seat in the chair. Dionysus being still invisible, there was heard the Bacchic music played on a flute. Then it was that the assemblage was filled with admiration of the dancing master. For as soon as Ariadne heard the strain, her action was such that every one might have perceived her joy at the sound; and although she did not go to meet Dionysus, nor even rise, yet it was clear that she kept her composure with difficulty.

But when Dionysus caught sight of her, he came dancing toward her and in a most loving manner sat himself on her lap, and putting his arms about her gave her a kiss. Her demeanour was all modesty, and yet she returned his embrace with affection. As the banqueters beheld it, they kept clapping and crying encore!

Then when Dionysus arose and gave his hand to Ariadne to rise also, there was presented the impersonation of lovers kissing and caressing each other. The onlookers viewed a Dionysus truly handsome, an Ariadne truly fair, not presenting a burlesque but offering genuine kisses with their lips; and they were all raised to a high pitch of enthusiasm as they looked on.

For they overheard Dionysus asking her if she loved him, and heard her vowing that she did, so earnestly that not only Dionysus but all the bystanders as well would have taken their oaths in confirmation that the youth and the maid surely felt a mutual affection. For theirs was the appearance not of actors who had been taught their poses but of persons now permitted to satisfy their long-cherished desires.

At last, the banqueters, seeing them in each other’s embrace and obviously leaving for the bridal couch, those who were unwedded swore that they would take to themselves wives, and those who were already married mounted horse and rode off to their wives that they might enjoy them. As for Socrates and the others who had lingered behind, they went out with Callias to join Lycon and his son in their walk. So broke up the banquet held that evening.