Complete Works of Xenophon (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics)

by Xenophon

  “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. [52] 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.” [53] 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. [54] 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. [55]

  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. [56]

  Again, his accuser alleged that he selected from the most famous poets the most immoral passages, and used them as evidence in teaching his companions to be tyrants and malefactors: for example, Hesiod’s line:

  ““No work is a disgrace, but idleness is a disgrace.”

  “

  Hes. WD 309

  He was charged with explaining this line as an injunction to refrain from no work, dishonest or disgraceful, but to do anything for gain. [57] Now, though Socrates would fully agree that it is a benefit and a blessing to a man to be a worker, and a disadvantage and an evil to be an idler — that work, in fact, is a blessing, idleness an evil—”working,” “being a worker,” meant to him doing good work; but gambling and any occupation that is immoral and leads to loss he called idling. When thus interpreted there is nothing amiss with the line:

  ““No work is a disgrace, but idleness is a disgrace.”

  “

  Hes. WD 309

  [58] 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. [59] 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. [60] 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. [61] 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. [62] 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. [63] 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. [64] 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?

  3. 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. [2]

  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. [3]

  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. [4] 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. [5]

  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. [6] 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. [7] “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.” [8] 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: [9] “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.” [10]

  “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! [11] 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?” [12]

  “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.” [13]

  “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.” [14]

  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. [15] 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.

  4. 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. [2]

  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. [3]

  “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.” [4]

  “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.” [5]

  “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? [6] 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. [7] 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.” [8]

  “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?” [9]

  “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: [10] “Really, Socrates, I don’t despise the godhead. But I think i
t is too great to need my service.”

  “Then the greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honour it demands of you.” [11]

  “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. [12] 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. [13]

  “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? [14] 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?” [15]