![The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/4/1/3/0/the-great-events-by-famous-historians-volumes-1-14-download.jpg)
The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]». Краткое содержание книги:
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 01
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 02 / (From the Rise of Greece to the Christian Era)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 04
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 05 / (From Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06 / (From Barbarossa to Dante)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 08 / The Later Renaissance: from Gutenberg to the Reformation
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 09
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 10
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 13
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 14
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 17
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 21 / The Recent Days (1910-1914)
Soon after, they prepared to perform the sacrifice which they had vowed. Oxen enough had been brought them to offer to Jupiter the Preserver, and to Hercules, for their safe conduct, and whatever they had vowed to the other gods. They also celebrated gymnastic games upon the hill where they were encamped, and chose Dracontius, a Spartan—who had become an exile from his country when quite a boy, for having involuntarily killed a child by striking him with a dagger—to prepare the course and preside at the contests. When the sacrifice was ended, they gave the hides[38] to Dracontius, and desired him to conduct them to the place where he had made the course. Dracontius, pointing to the place where they were standing, said, "This hill is an excellent place for running, in whatever direction the men may wish."
[Footnote 38: Lion and Kuehner have a notion that these skins were to be given as prizes to the victors, referring to Herodotus, who says that the Egyptians, in certain games which they celebrate in honor of Perseus, offer as prizes cattle, cloaks, and hides. Krueger doubts whether they were intended for prizes, or were given as a present to Dracontius.]
"But how will they be able," said they, "to wrestle on ground so rough and bushy?"
"He that falls," said he, "will suffer the more." Boys, most of them from among the prisoners, contended in the short course, and in the long course above sixty Cretans ran; while others were matched in wrestling, boxing, and the pancratium. It was a fine sight; for many entered the lists, and as their friends were spectators, there was great emulation. Horses also ran; and they had to gallop down the steep, and, turning round in the sea, to come up again to the altar. In the descent, many rolled down; but in the ascent, against the exceedingly steep ground, the horses could scarcely get up at a walking pace. There was consequently great shouting and laughter and cheering from the people.
CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SOCRATES
B.C. 399
PLATO
The death of Socrates was brought about under the restored democracy by three of his enemies—Lycon, Meletus, and Anytus, the last a man of high rank and reputation in the state. Socrates was accused by them of despising the ancient gods of the state, introducing new divinities and corrupting the youth of Athens. He was charged with having taught his followers, young men of the first Athenian families, to despise the established government, to be turbulent and seditious, and his accusors pointed to Alcibiades and Critias, notorious for their lawlessness, as examples of the fruits of his teaching.
It is quite certain that Socrates disliked the Athenian government and considered democracy as tyrannical as despotism. But there was no law at Athens by which he could be put to death for his words and actions, and the vague charge could never have been made unless the whole trial of the philosopher had been a party movement, headed by men like Lycon and Anytus, whose support of the unjust measure made the condemnation of Socrates a foregone conclusion. Xenophon, the pupil and admirer of the philosopher, expresses in his Memorabilia of Socrates his surprise that the Athenians should have condemned to death a man of such exalted character and transparent innocence. But the influence of the teacher with his pupils, most of them sons of the wealthiest citizens, might well have been dreaded by those in office and engaged in the conduct of public business. By them, the common politicians of the day, Socrates, with his keen and witty criticism of political corruption and demagogism, must have been considered a formidable adversary.
Accordingly, by the decision of the Athenian court, the philosopher was sentenced to death by drinking a cup of hemlock. Although it was usual for criminals to be executed the day following their condemnation, he enjoyed a respite of thirty days, during which time his friends had access to his prison cell. It was the time when the ceremonial galley was crowned and sent on her pilgrimage to the holy Isle of Delos, and no criminal could be executed until her return. Socrates exhibited heroic constancy and cheerfulness during this interval, and repudiated the offers of his friends to aid in his escape, though they had chartered a ship to carry him to Thessaly. With calm composure he reasoned on the immortality of the soul, and cheered his visitors with words of hope.
The literary portraits of Socrates furnished by himself, and the writings of Plato, are among the most precious monuments of antiquity, and the life and death of such a man form a memorable era in the moral and intellectual history of mankind.
Plato, in his Phædo, or the Immortality of the Soul, gives the following dialogue between Echecrates and Phædo—two friends and disciples of the late philosopher—evidently with no other purpose in view than to lend to the account of the great teacher's last hours, and the last words his followers were to hear from his lips, the additional force and dramatic value of a personal narrative in the mouth of a loving pupil and an actual eyewitness of his death.
Echecrates. Were you personally present, Phaedo, with Socrates on that day when he drank the poison in prison? or did you hear an account of it from someone else?
Phæd. I was there myself, Echecrates.
Ech. What then did he say before his death? and how did he die? for I should be glad to hear; for scarcely any citizen of Phlius[39] ever visits Athens now, nor has any stranger for a long time come from thence, who was able to give us a clear account of the particulars, except that he died from drinking poison; but he was unable to tell us anything more.
[Footnote 39: Phlius, to which Echecrates belonged, was a town of Sicyonia in Peloponnesus.]
Phæd. And did you not hear about the trial how it went off?
Ech. Yes; some one told me this; and I wondered, that as it took place so long ago, he appears to have died long afterward. What was the reason of this, Phaedo?
Phæd. An accidental circumstance happened in his favor, Echecrates: for the poop of the ship which the Athenians send to Delos, chanced to be crowned on the day before the trial.
Ech. But what is this ship?
Phæd. It is the ship, as the Athenians say, in which Theseus formerly conveyed the fourteen boys and girls to Crete and saved both them and himself. They, therefore, made a vow to Apollo on that occasion, as it is said, that if they were saved they would every year despatch a solemn embassy to Delos; which, from that time to the present, they send yearly to the god. When they begin the preparations for this solemn embassy, they have a law that the city shall be purified during this period, and that no public execution shall take place until the ship has reached Delos, and returned to Athens: and this occasionally takes a long time, when the winds happen to impede their passage. The commencement of the embassy is when the priest of Apollo has crowned the poop of the ship. And this was done, as I said, on the day before the triaclass="underline" on this account Socrates had a long interval in prison between the trial and his death.
Ech. And what, Phædo, were the circumstances of his death? what was said and done? and who of his friends were with him? or would not the magistrates allow them to be present, but did he die destitute of friends?
Phæd. By no means; but some, indeed several, were present.
Ech. Take the trouble, then, to relate to me all the particulars as clearly as you can, unless you have any pressing business.
Phæd. I am at leisure, and will endeavor to give you a full account: for to call Socrates to mind, whether speaking myself or listening to some one else, is always most delightful to me.
Ech. And indeed, Phaedo, you have others to listen to you who are of the same mind. However, endeavor to relate everything as accurately as you can.