pute with them in a direct manner by a continued discourse, was what Socrates could well have done, for he possessed in a supreme degree the talents of speaking and reasoning; but this was no means to succeed against great haranguers, whose sole aim was to dazzle their auditors with a vain glitter, and rapid flow of words. He therefore took another course; and employing the turns and address of irony, which he knew how to apply with wonderful art and delicacy, he chose to conceal, under the appearance of simplicity, and affectation of ignorance, all the beauty and great force of his genius. Nature, which had given him so fine a soul, seemed to have formed his outside expressly for supporting the ironic character. He was very ugly, and, besides that, had something very blockish and stupid in his physiognomy. The whole air of his person, which had nothing but what was very common and very poor in it, perfectly corresponded with that of his countenance. When he happened to be in the company of some one of the sophists, he proposed, his doubts with a Socrates in ironia dissimulantiaque longe omnibus lepore atque humanitate præstitit. Cic. 1. ii. de orat. n. 270. Zopyrus physiognomon-stupidum esse Socratem dixit et bardum. Cic. de Fat. n. 10. Socrates de se ipse detrahens in disputatione, plus tribuebat iis, quos volebat refellere. Ita, cum aliud diceret atque sentiret, libenter uti solitus est illa dissimulatione, quam Græci ugavuav vocant. Cic. Acad. Quæst. I. iv. n 15. Sed et illum quem nominavi (Gorgiam) et cæteros sophistas, ut e Pla. tone intelligi potest, lusos videmus a Socrate. Is enim percontando atque interrogando elicere solebat eorum opiniones quibuscum disserebat, ut ad ea, quæ ii respondissent, si quid videretur, diceret. Cic. de Finib. 1. ii. n. 2. diffident and modest air, asked simple questions in a plain manner, and, as if he had been incapable of expressing himself otherwise, made use of trivial comparisons, and allusions taken from the meanest employments. The sophist heard him with a scornful attention, and instead of giving him a precise answer, fell into his common places, and talked a great deal without saying any thing to the purpose. Socrates, after having praised, not to enrage, his adversary, entreated him to adapt himself to his weakness, and to descend so low as him, by satisfying his questions in a few words; because neither his wit nor memory were capable of comprehending or retaining so many fine and exalted notions, and that all his knowledge was confined to question and answer. This passed in a numerous assembly, and the scientific person could not recede. When Socrates had once got him out of his intrenchment, by obliging him to answer his questions succinctly, he carried him on from one to another to the most absurd consequences; and after having reduced him either to contradict himself, or be silent, he complained that the learned man would not vouchsafe to instruct him. The young people however perceived the incapacity of their mas ter, and changed their admiration for him into contempt. Thus the name of sophist became odious and ridiculous. It is easy to judge, that men of the sophists' character, of which I have now spoke, who were in high credit with the great, who lorded it among the youth of Athens, and had been long celebrated for their wit and learning, could not be attacked with impunity; and the rather, because they had been taken in the two most sensible points, their fame and their interest. Socrates, for having endeavoured to unmask their vices, and discredit their false eloquence, experienced, from these corrupt and haughty men, all that could be feared or expected from the most malignant envy, and the most envenomed hatred; to which it is now time to proceed. SECTION VI. SOCRATES IS ACCUSED OF HOLDING BAD OPINIONS IN REGARD TO THE GODS. HE IS CONDEMNED TO DIE. k SOCRATES was accused a little before the first year of the ninety fifth Olympiad, soon after the expulsion of the thirty tyrants out of Athens, in the sixty ninth year of his life; but the prosecution had been projected long before. The oracle of Delphos, which had declared him the wisest of mankind; the contempt into which he had brought the doctrine and morals of the sophists of his time, who were then in high reputation; the liberty with which he attacked all vice; the singular attachment of his disciples for his person and maxims, had all concurred in alienating people against him, and had drawn abundance of envy upon him. 'His enemies having sworn his destruction, and perceiving the difficulty of the attempt, prepared the way for it at a distance, and at first attacked him Plat. in Apol. p. 23. *A. M. 3602. Ant. J. C. 402. Plat. in Apolog. Socrat: p. 19. in the dark, and by obscure and secret methods. It is said, that to sound the people's disposition in regard to Socrates, and to try whether it would ever be safe to cite him before the judges, they engaged Aristophanes to bring him into the theatre in a comedy, wherein the first seeds of the accusation meditated against him were sown. It is not certain whether Aristophanes was suborned by Anytus, and the rest of Socrates's enemies, to compose that satirical piece against him. It is very likely, that the declared contempt of Socrates for all comedies in general, and for those of Aristophanes in particular, whilst he professed an extraordinary esteem for the tragedies of Euripides, might be the poet's true motive for taking his revenge of the philosopher. However it were, Aristophanes, to the disgrace of poetry, lent his pen to the malice of Socrates's enemies, or his own resentment, and employed his whole genius and capacity to depreciate the best and most excellent man that ever the pagan world produced. He composed a piece called "The Clouds," wherein he introduced the philosopher, perched in a basket, and hoisted up amidst the air and clouds, from whence he vents maxims, or rather the most ridiculous subtilties. A very aged debtor, who desires to escape the close pursuits of his creditors, comes to him to be taught the art of tricking them at law; to prove by unanswerable reasons that he owes them nothing; and, in a word, of a very bad, to make a very good cause. But finding himself incapable of any improvements from the sublime lessons of his new master, he brings his son to him in his stead. This young man soon after quits this learned school, so well instructed, that at their first meeting, he beats his father, and proves to him by subtile, but invincible arguments, that he has reason for treating him in that manner. In every scene where Socrates appears, the poet makes him utter a thousand impertinences, and as many impieties against the gods, and in particular against Jupiter. He makes him talk like a man of the greatest vanity and opinion of himself, with an equal contempt for all others, who out of a cruel curiosity is for penetrating what passes in the heavens, and for diving into the abysses of the earth; who boasts of having always the means to make injustice triumph; and who is not contented with keeping those secrets for his own use, but teaches them to others, and thereby corrupts youth. All this is attended with a refined raillery, and a salt, which could not fail of pleasing a people of so quick and delicate a taste as the Athenians, who were besides naturally invidious to all transcendent merit. They were so much charmed with it, that without waiting the conclusion of the representation, they ordered the name of Aristophanes to be set down above those of all his competitors. Socrates, who had been informed that he was to be acted in the theatre, went thither upon the day to see the comedy, contrary to his custom: for it was not common for him to go to those assemblies, unless when some new tragedy of Euripides was to be performed, who was his intimate friend, and whose pieces he esteemed, upon account of the solid principles of morality he took care to intersperse in them. It was however observed, that he had not patience to wait VOL. 4. 6 |