Historical Tales [calibre 5.4.1]

As to what Socrates taught, we can only say here that he was the first great ethical philosopher. The philosophers before him had sought to explain the mystery of the universe. He declared that all this was useless and profitless. Man's mind was superior to all matter, and he led men to look within, study their own souls, consider the question of human duty, the obligations of man to man, and all that leads towards virtue and the moral development of human society.

PRISON OF SOCRATES. ATHENS.

It is not surprising that Xanthippe scolded her idle husband, who supplied so much food for the souls of others, but quite ignored the demands of food for the bodies of his wife and children. His teachings were but vaporing talk to her small mind and to those of many of the people. And the keen questions with which he convicted so many of ignorance, and the sarcastic irony with which he wounded their self-love, certainly did not make him friends among this class. In truth, he made many enemies. One of these was Aristophanes, the dramatist, who wrote a comedy in which he sought to make Socrates ridiculous. This turned many of the audiences at the theatres against him.

All this went on until the year 399 B.C., when some of his enemies accused him of impiety, declaring that he did not worship the old gods, but introduced new ones and corrupted the minds of the young. "The penalty due," they said, "is death."

It had taken them some thirty years to find this out, for Socrates had been teaching the same things for that length of time. In fact, no ancient city but Athens would have listened to his radical talk for so many years without some such charge. But he had now so many enemies that the accusation was dangerous. He made it worse by his carelessness in his defence. He said things that provoked his judges. He could have been acquitted if he wished, for in the final vote only a majority of five or six out of nearly six hundred brought him in guilty.

Socrates seemingly did not care what verdict they brought. He had no fear of death, and would not trouble himself to say a word to preserve his life. The divine voice, he declared, would not permit him. He was sentenced to drink the poison of hemlock, and was imprisoned for thirty days, during which he conversed in his old calm manner with his friends.

Some of his disciples arranged a plan for his escape, but he refused to fly. If his fellow-citizens wished to take his life he would not oppose their wills. On the last day he drank the hemlock as calmly as though it were his usual beverage, and talked on quietly till death sealed his tongue.

Thus died the first and one of the greatest of ethical philosophers, and a man without a parallel, in his peculiar field, in all the history of mankind. Greece produced none like him, and this homely and humble personage, who wrote not a line, has been unsurpassed in fame and influence upon mankind by any of the host of illustrious writers who have made famous the Hellenic lands.