SOCRATES. 49 



which carried the annual offerings to the gods worshipped at Delos. 

 And no execution could take place at Athens from the crowning of 

 the galley till its return from Delos. Thus the death of Socrates was 

 respited for thirty days. His friends took advantage of this delay, to 

 concert means for his escape. The jailer was bribed, and a vessel 

 prepared to convey Socrates to some friends in Thessaly. But no Refuses to 

 persuasion could induce him to use the opportunity. Having all his escape * 

 life recommended obedience to the laws of his country, he would not 

 now set an example of the breach of them ; arguing, that unjust as 

 his sentence was, wrong would not justify wrong. Plato has given us 

 a beautiful representation of the manner in which Socrates employed 

 himself during this painful interval, in discussing subjects of the highest 

 nature with his favourite disciples. But there is too much reason to 

 apprehend that these representations are more striking than faithful. 

 It is, however, agreed on all hands, that when the sacred ship returned 

 (of which he professed to have been forewarned by a dream), he drank 

 the fatal cup with perfect composure, and died with a degree of tran- 

 quillity, which would have been still more admirable, had it not been 

 alloyed by a mixture of ill-timed facetiousness. He was, at his death, His death, 

 which happened OL. xciv. 1, in the 70th year of his age. B ' c> 399% 



The disciples of Socrates, after having paid the last honours to their 

 departed master, and testified their grief and indignation in the most 

 public manner, quitted Athens for some time, for fear of the faction 

 which had procured his condemnation. A general sentiment of indig- Revulsion of 

 nation prevailed in the Grecian states, at the news of this event ; and 

 it was not long before the Athenians themselves, being made sensible 

 of the injustice of their proceedings, turned their anger against the 

 accusers of Socrates ; of whom Melitus is said to have been condemned 

 to death, and Anytus banished from Athens. The friends of the 

 murdered philosopher were recalled, and a statue erected to his honour. 

 A pestilence which happened not long afterwards, was considered to 

 be a just punishment for their gross violation of justice ; and it is not 

 a little remarkable that, from that time, the affairs of Athens grew 

 continually worse. 



The grammarian who wrote the argument to that oration of Isocrates, 

 which is called the Encomium of Busiris, relates, that when the 'Pala- 

 medes' of Euripides was acted at Athens, and the chorus uttered the fol- 

 lowing words : " O Greeks, ye have killed the wisest, sweetest songstress 

 of the Muses, who injured no one, the best of the Greeks," the whole 

 theatre shed tears, perceiving the allusion to Socrates. But Diogenes 

 Laertius, after having observed, that Euripides intended, in the words 

 above quoted, to reproach the Athenians with their injustice towards 

 his illustrious friend, adds, " but Philochorus (a writer on the anti- 

 quities of Attica) says that Euripides died before Socrates ;" which is 

 perfectly true; for the poet died, OL. xciii. 1, the philosopher in OL. 

 xciv. 1. But as the ' Palamedes' was brought upon the stage nine years 

 after the first representation of ' The Clouds' of Aristophanes, Valck- 



[G. K. P.] E 



