Callias: A Tale of the Fall of Athens Part 29

"'I suppose so,' I said.

"'But you must cut them off to-day and not to-morrow if our doctrine be stricken to death, and we cannot bring it to life again.' Then he turned to Simmias and Cebes, and said, 'Hear now what I have to say, but while you hear, think much of the truth but little of Socrates; and be on your guard lest in my eagerness I deceive not myself only but you also, and leave my sting behind me when I die even as does a bee. You, Simmias, think that the soul may be but as a harmony in the body. But do you not remember what we said about all knowledge being a remembering, and that what the soul knows it has before learnt? It existed then before the body; but a harmony cannot exist before the things are put together of which it proceeds. Then again harmony may be more or less; but one soul cannot be more a soul than another. And if, as the wise men say, virtue is harmony and vice discord, we have a harmony of a discord, which cannot be; finally one part of the soul often opposes another, as reason opposes appet.i.te; how then is the soul a harmony? You, Cebes, hold, indeed, that the soul is durable, but may not be immortal. Hear then my answer. You believe that there are ideas or principles of things, and that these ideas, being invisible, are the real causes of things that are visible.' Cebes acknowledged that he did so believe. 'Is not now the soul the principle of life, and is not this principle the opposite of death? In its essence, therefore, it is immortal; but that which is immortal cannot be destroyed, no, even though there are things which seem to threaten its existence.'

"In this we all agreed. After this Socrates discoursed in many words about the abodes and dwelling-places of the dead both good and bad, and of the manner in which they are dealt with by the powers thereunto appointed. But of this I will speak on some other occasion, if you will.

At present time is short, for I must not leave the sick man any longer, only I will relate the very end of the Master's discourse and the things that happened after.

"'To affirm positively about such matters,' he said, 'is not the part of a wise man. Yet what I have said seems reasonable. And anyhow he who has scorned the body and its pleasures during life, and has adorned the soul with her proper virtues, justice and courage and truth, may surely await his pa.s.sage to the other world with a good hope. But now destiny calls me, and I must obey. But I will bathe before I take the poison, that the women may not have the trouble of washing my body.'

"Then Crito asked: 'Have you any directions to give us?'

"'Nothing now; if you rightly order your own lives, you will do the best for me and my children; but if you do not, then whatever you may promise, you will fail.'

"'But,' Crito asked, 'how shall we bury you?'

"'As you will,' said he, 'provided only you can catch me and that I do not slip out of your hands.' Then he smiled, and said, 'Crito here will not be persuaded that I am saying the truth. He thinks that _I_ am the dead body that he will soon see here, and asks how he shall bury me.

a.s.sure him then that when this dead body is laid in the grave or put upon the pyre to be burnt it is not Socrates that he sees. For to speak in this way, O Crito, is not only absurd but harmful.'

"After this he bathed, remaining in the bath-chamber for some time. This being ended, his children were brought to him, and the women of his family also. With these he talked awhile in the presence of Crito, and afterward commanded that some one should take the women and children away. And it was now near sunset. Hereupon the servant of the Eleven came in, and said, 'O Socrates, you will not be angry with me and curse me when I tell you, as the magistrates constrained me to do, that you must drink the poison. I have always found you most gentle and generous, the best by far of all that have come into this place. You will be angry, not with me, for you know that I am blameless, but with those whom you know to be in fault. And now, for you know what I am come to tell you, bear what must be borne as cheerfully as may be.' And saying this the man turned away his face and wept.

"'Farewell!' said Socrates, 'I will do as you bid,' and looking to us he said, 'How courteous he is! All the time he has been so, sometimes talking to me, and showing himself the best of fellows. And now see how generously he weeps for me! But we must do what he says. Let some one bring the poison, if it has been pounded; if not, let the man pound it.'

"'But,' said Crito, 'the sun is still upon the mountains. I have known some who would prolong the day eating and drinking till it was quite late before they drank. Anyhow do not be in a hurry. There is still plenty of time.'

"'Ah!' said Socrates, 'these men were quite consistent. They thought that they were gaining so much time. But I too must be consistent. I believe that I shall gain nothing by dying an hour or two later, except indeed the making of myself a laughing stock by clinging to life when there is really nothing left of it to cling to.'

"Then Crito made a sign to the slave that was standing by; he went out, and after some time had pa.s.sed brought in the man whose duty it was to give the poison, and who brought it in ready mixed in a cup. When Socrates caught sight of him, he said:

"'Well, my friend, you know all about these matters. What must I do?'

"'You will only have to walkabout after you have drunk the poison, till you feel a sort of weight in your legs. Then you should lie down, and the poison will do the rest.'

"So saying, he reached the cup to the Master, who took it. His hand did not shake; there was not the least change in his color or his look. Only he put his head forward in the way he had, and said to the man:

"'How about making a libation from the cup? May we do it?'

"'Socrates,' said the man, 'we pound just so much as we think sufficient.'

"'I understand,' said the Master. 'Still we may, nay we must, pray to the G.o.ds that my removal hence to that place may be fortunate. The G.o.ds grant this! Amen!' And as he said this he put the cup to his lips and drank it off in the easiest, quietest way possible.

"Up to that time we had all been fairly well able to keep from tears.

But when we saw him drinking the poison, when we knew that he had finished it, we could restrain them no longer. As for myself I covered my face with my mantle, and wept to myself. Not for him did I weep, but for myself, thinking what a friend I had lost. And others were still more overcome than I was. Only Socrates was quite unmoved.

"'Why all this,' he said, 'my dear friends? I sent the women away for this very reason, that they might not vex us in this fashion. I have heard it said that a man ought to die with good words in his ears. Be quiet, I beseech, and bear yourselves like men.'

"When we heard this we were not a little ashamed of ourselves, and kept back our tears. He walked about till he felt the weight in his legs, and then lay down on his back--this was what the man bade him do. Then the man who administered the poison squeezed his foot pretty strongly, and asked him whether he felt anything. He said no. Then the man showed us how the numbness was going higher and higher.

"'When it reaches his heart,' he said, 'he will die.'

"When the groin was cold the Master uncovered his face--for he had covered it before--and said, 'Crito, we owe a c.o.c.k to aesculapius; pay it, do not forget.'

"These were the last words he said.

"'I will,' said Crito, 'is there anything more?'

"But he made no answer. A little time after, we saw him move. Then the man uncovered the face, and we saw that his eyes were set. Then Crito closed his mouth and his eyes."

Phaedo left the room hastily when he had finished his narrative. For some time there was silence. Then Apollodorus spoke.

"You know, my friends," he said, "that I am not very wise nor at all learned; but he bore with me and my foolishness, and you will also because you know I loved him. Let me say then one thing. Much that Socrates said that day I did not understand, nor do I understand it now when I hear it again. Yet no one could be more fully persuaded than I was that he spoke the truth. And what persuaded me was the sight of the man. So brave was he, so cheerful, so wholly convinced in his own mind, that no one could doubt that he was indeed about to depart to a better place."

FOOTNOTES:

[89] The Eleven were the executioners of the law rather taking the place of the sheriff and the under-sheriff than that of the hangman. The vagueness of its name is an interesting example of the Greek distaste for naming anything terrible.

[90] A young Greek wore his hair long till he reached the age of eighteen. This little detail is a proof of Phaedo's extreme youth at this time.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE CONDITION OF EXILE.

The story that Callias had heard of the last days of his Master, and heard, of course, with many details which it is now impossible to reproduce, made, it need hardly be said, a profound impression on him.

First and foremost--and this was what the dead man himself would have been most rejoiced to see--was the profound conviction that this teaching, inspired, as it was, with a faith which the immediate prospect of death had not been able to shake, was absolutely true. The young man can hardly be said to have had any feeling of religion in the sense in which we understand that word. To believe in the fables, grotesque or even immoral, which made up the popular theology, in G.o.ds who were only exaggerated men, stronger, indeed, but more cruel, treacherous, and l.u.s.tful, was an impossibility. The poets' tales of the Elysian plain and of the abyss of Tartarus had in no wise helped towards producing any emotions of the spiritual kind, any wish to dwell in an invisible world.

The most sacred of these poets in his description of that world as another earth in which everything was feebler, paler, less satisfying than it is here, had certainly repelled rather than attracted him. Now this want had been supplied; the lofty teaching of duty, duty owed to country, kinsfolk, friends, fellow-citizens, fellow-men, that he had heard from the Master was now supplemented and sanctioned by this clear enunciation of a doctrine of immortality. The young man felt that he could face the world, whether it brought him prosperity or adversity, joy or sorrow, life or death, with a more equable soul or more a.s.sured spirit than he had ever dreamed could be possible.

His immediate duty, however, was less clear. When his country lay under the heel of the Spartan conqueror, Hermione had pointed out to him--not without sacrifice of herself, as he sometimes could not help feeling, what he owed to the city that had given him birth. But now, how did the case stand? Athens had suffered a second, a more fatal fall. She might repair her losses; she might retrieve defeat. But when she had definitely broken with right and truth, had deliberately chosen the worse rather than the better, what hope, what remedy was there? And what was the obligation on himself? Could he aspire to a career in a State which was so false to all the principles of life and government?

The two or three days that followed the conversation related in my last chapter were spent by the young Athenian in debating with himself the question: What am I to do? But the more he thought over the problem, the more complex and intricate did it seem to become. Just when he was beginning to despair, a solution, rude and peremptory, but satisfactory in so far as it admitted of no questioning, was forced upon him.

He had just risen on the morning of the fourth day, when a visitor was announced. It was Xenophon, looking, as Callias thought, serious, but not depressed.

"And what have you been doing these three days?" cried the newcomer.

"Thinking," replied Callias.

"That is exactly what I have been doing myself, and I would wager my chance of being Archon next year, a very serious stake indeed, that we have had the same subject for our thoughts. You have been debating with yourself what you are to do?"

"Exactly so; and I am no nearer a conclusion than I was when I began."

"Well, some one else has been good enough to save us the trouble of deciding. Listen to this. I have a friend in office, I should tell you, and he has given me an early copy of what will be soon known all over Athens. 'It is proposed by Erasinides, son of Lysias, of the township of Colonus, that Xenophon, son of Grythus, of the township of Orchia, and Callias, son of Hipponicus, of the township of Eleusis,' and some twenty others, whose names I need not trouble you with, 'be banished from Athens for unpatriotic conduct, especially in aiding and abetting the designs of Cyrus, who was a notorious enemy of the Athenian people.'

Well; that is going to be proposed to the Senate to-day. My friend, who knows all about the strings, and how they are pulled, tells me that it is certain to be carried. In the course of a few days it will be brought before the a.s.sembly, and I have no doubt whatever that it will be accepted."

"But what have the Athenian people got to do with Cyrus, who is dead and gone, and can neither help nor hurt?"

"Ah! you don't understand. The Lacedaemonians, you know, have declared war against the Persian King. Of course that gives the Athenians a chance of becoming his friends. It is true that things are not ripe just yet for anything decisive or public. We are allies with the Lacedaemonians, and can't venture to quarrel with them. But this is a matter at which they cannot take offence, but which will most certainly please the Great King. He has not forgotten the Cyrus business, you may depend upon it, and it will delight him to hear of any, who had a part in it suffering for their act. That is why we are to be banished. It is disgraceful, I allow, to find a great city banishing its citizens in order to curry favor with the barbarians; but it is a fact, and we must take it into account."