SOCRATES. 
324 
of the sentence of death, to propose some pecuniary amerce¬ 
ment. But he, at first, peremptorily refused to make any 
proposal of this kind, imagining that it might be construed 
into an acknowledgment of guilt; and asserted, that his 
conduct merited, from the state, reward rather than punish¬ 
ment. At length, however, he was prevailed upon by his 
friends to offer, upon their credit, a fine of thirty mince. 
The judges, notwithstanding, still remained inexorable : they 
proceeded, without farther delay, to pronounce sentence 
upon him; and he was condemned to be put to death by 
the poison of hemlock. Socrates received the sentence with 
erfect composure, and by a smile testified his contempt 
oth for his accusers and his judges. Then, turning to his 
friends he expressed his entire satisfaction in the recollection 
of his past life, and declared himself firmly persuaded, that 
posterity would do so much justice to his memory as to 
believe, that he had never injured or corrupted any one, 
but had spent his days in serving his fellow-citizens, by 
communicating to them without reward, the precepts of wis¬ 
dom. Conversing in this manner, he was conducted from 
the court to the prison, which he entered with a serene coun¬ 
tenance and a lofty mind, amidst the lamentations of his 
friends. 
On the day of the condemnation, it happened that the 
ship which was employed to carry a customary annual 
offering to the island of Delos, set sail. It was contrary 
to the law of Athens, that, during this voyage, any capital 
punishment should be inflicted within the city. This cir¬ 
cumstance delayed the execution of the sentence against 
Socrates for thirty days. So long an interval of painful 
expectation, however, only served to afford farther scope 
for the display of his constancy. When his friends were 
with him, he conversed with his usual cheerfulness. In 
their absence, he amused himself with writing verses. His 
friends urged him to attempt his escape, or at least to 
permit them to convey him away; and Crito went so far, 
as to assure him that, by his interest with the gaoler, it 
might be easily accomplished, and to offer him a retreat in 
Thessaly; but Socrates rejected the proposal, as a criminal 
violation of the laws; and asked them, whether there was 
any place out of Attica which death could not reach. 
News being, at length, brought of the return of the ship 
from Delos, the officers, to whose care he was committed, 
delivered to Socrates, early in the morning, the final order 
for his execution, and immediately, according to the law, 
set him at liberty from his bonds. His friends, who came 
thus early to the prison that they might have an oppor¬ 
tunity of conversing with their master through the day, 
found his wife sitting by him with a child in her arms. As 
soon as Xantippe saw them she burst into tears, and said, 
“ O, Socrates, this is the last time your friends will ever speak 
to you, or you to them.’’ Socrates, that the tranquillity of 
his last moments might not be disturbed by her unavailing 
lamentations, requested that she might be conducted home. 
With the most frantic expressions of grief, she left the prison. 
An interesting conversation then passed between Socrates 
and his friends, which chiefly turned upon the immortality 
of the soul. In the course of this conversation, Socrates ex¬ 
pressed his disapprobation of the practice of suicide, and as¬ 
sured his friends, that his chief support in his present situa¬ 
tion was an expectation, though not unmixed with doubts, 
of a happy existence after death. “ It would be inexcuse- 
able in me,” said he, “ to despise death, if I were not per¬ 
suaded that it will conduct me into the presence of the gods, 
who are the most righteous governors, and into the society 
of just and good men: but I derive confidence from the 
hope, that something of man remains after death, and that 
the condition of good men will then be much better than 
that of the bad.” Crito, afterwards asking him in what 
manner he wished to be buried, Socrates replied, with a 
smile, “ As you please, provided I do not escape out of your 
hands.” Then, turning to the rest of his friends, he said, 
“ Is it not strange, after all that I have said to convince you 
that I am going to the society of the happy, that Crito still 
thinks this body, which will soon be a lifeless corpse, to 
be Socrates ? Let him dispose of my body as he pleases, but 
let him not, at its interment, mourn over it, as if it were 
Socrates.” 
Towards the close of the day, Socrates retired into an 
adjoining apartment to bathe; his friends, in the mean time, 
expressing to one another their grief at the prospect of 
losing so excellent a friend. After a short interval, during 
which he gave some necessary instructions to his domestics, 
and took his last leave of his children, the attendant of the 
prison informed him, that the time for drinking the poison 
was come. The executioner, though accustomed to such 
scenes, shed tears, as he presented the fatal cup. Socrates 
received it without change of countenance, or tiie least ap¬ 
pearance of perturbation: then, offering up a prayer to the 
gods, that they would grant him a prosperous passage into 
the invisible world, with perfect composure he swallowed 
the poisonous draught. His friends around him burst into 
tears. Socrates alone remained unmoved. He upbraided 
their pusillanimity, and entreated them to exercise a manly 
constancy, worthy of the friends of virtue. He continued 
walking, till the chilling operation of the hemlock obliged 
him to lie down upon his bed. After remaining, for a short 
time, silent, he requested Crito (probably in order to refute 
a calumny which might prove injurious to his friends after 
his decease), not to neglect the offering of a cock, which 
he had vowed to Esculapius. Then covering himself with 
his cloak, he expired. Such was the fate of the virtuous 
Socrates! a story, says Cicero, which I never read without 
tears. 
The friends and disciples of this illustrious teacher of 
wisdom were deeply afflicted by his death, and attended 
his funeral with every expression of grief. Apprehensive, 
however, for their own safety, they, soon afterwards, pri¬ 
vately withdrew from the city, and took up their residence 
in distant places. Several of them visited the philosopher 
Euclid, of Megara, by whom they were kindly received. 
No sooner was the unjust condemnation of Socrates 
known through Greece, than a general indignation was 
kindled in the minds of good men, who universally regretted 
that so distinguished an advocate for virtue should have 
fallen a sacrifice to jealousy and envy. The Athenians 
themselves, so remarkable for their caprice, who never 
knew the value of their great men till after their death, 
soon became sensible of the folly, as well as criminality, of 
putting to death the man who had been the chief ornament 
of their city, and of the age, and turned their indignation 
against his accusers. Melitus was condemned to death, and 
Anytus, to escape a similar fate, went into voluntary exile. 
To give a farther proof of the sincerity of their regret, the 
Athenians, for a while, interrupted public business; decreed 
a general mourning; recalled the exiled friends of Socra¬ 
tes ; and erected a statue to his memory in one of the 
most frequented parts of the city. His death happened 
in the first year of the ninty-sixth Olympiad, and in the 
70th year of his age. Brucker's Hist. Phil, by Enfield. 
As Socrates left nothing in writing, we are indebted to 
his illustrious pupils, Xenophon and Plato, for what is known 
both of his opinions and manner of teaching; and more 
especially to the former, whose memoirs of Socrates contain 
more accurate information than the dialogues of Plato, be¬ 
cause the latter mixes his own conceptions and diction with 
the ideas and language of his master. Accordingly it is re¬ 
lated, that when Socrates heard Plato recite his Lysis, he 
said, “ How much does this young man make me say, which 
I never conceived!” The distinguishing character of Socra¬ 
tes was that of a moral philosopher; and to this purpose 
Xenophon denies that he ever taught natural philosophy, or 
any mathematical science, and charges with misrepresentation 
and falsehood those who had ascribed to him dissertations 
of this kind, probably in this charge referring to Plato, in 
whose works Socrates is introduced as discoursing on these 
subjects. 
The doctrine of Socrates concerning God and religion is 
rather 
