two horses and riders for them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a
seat, accompanied by a horseman who could fight on foot carrying a small
shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms to guide
the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy-armed soldiers, two
archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelin-men, who were
light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred
ships. Such was the military order of the royal city--the order of the
other nine governments varied, and it would be wearisome to recount their
several differences.
As to offices and honours, the following was the arrangement from the
first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city had
the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the laws,
punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the order of precedence
among them and their mutual relations were regulated by the commands of
Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were inscribed by the first
kings on a pillar of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the
island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the kings were gathered together
every fifth and every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honour to
the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they
consulted about their common interests, and enquired if any one had
transgressed in anything, and passed judgment, and before they passed
judgment they gave their pledges to one another on this wise:--There were
bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, being
left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the god that
they might capture the victim which was acceptable to him, hunted the
bulls, without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they
caught they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top of it so
that the blood fell upon the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar,
besides the laws, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the
disobedient. When therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed
manner, they had burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a
clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the
fire, after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the
bowl in golden cups, and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that
they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would punish him
who in any point had already transgressed them, and that for the future
they would not, if they could help, offend against the writing on the
pillar, and would neither command others, nor obey any ruler who commanded
them, to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon.
This was the prayer which each of them offered up for himself and for his
descendants, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which
he drank in the temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied
their needs, when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was
cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the
ground, at night, over the embers of the sacrifices by which they had
sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and
gave judgment, if any of them had an accusation to bring against any one;
and when they had given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their
sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it together with their robes to
be a memorial.
There were many special laws affecting the several kings inscribed about
the temples, but the most important was the following: They were not to
take up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue
if any one in any of their cities attempted to overthrow the royal house;
like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other
matters, giving the supremacy to the descendants of Atlas. And the king
was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen unless
he had the assent of the majority of the ten.
Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of
Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the
following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as long as
the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and
well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed
true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the
various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They
despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of
life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property,
which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by
luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were
sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and
friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for
them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such reflections and by
the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have
described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began
to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal
admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable
to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see
grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious
gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared
glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and
unrighteous power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and
is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in
a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might
be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy
habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all
created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as
follows--*
* The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost.
Crito
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
INTRODUCTION.
The Crito seems intended to exhibit the character of Socrates in one light
only, not as the philosopher, fulfilling a divine mission and trusting in
the will of heaven, but simply as the good citizen, who having been
unjustly condemned is willing to give up his life in obedience to the laws
of the state...
The days of Socrates are drawing to a close; the fatal ship has been seen
off Sunium, as he is informed by his aged friend and contemporary Crito,
who visits him before the dawn has broken; he himself has been warned in a
dream that on the third day he must depart. Time is precious, and Crito
has come early in order to gain his consent to a plan of escape. This can
be easily accomplished by his friends, who will incur no danger in making
the attempt to save him, but will be disgraced for ever if they allow him
to perish. He should think of his duty to his children, and not play into
the hands of his enemies. Money is already provided by Crito as well as by
Simmias and others, and he will have no difficulty in finding friends in
Thessaly and other places.
Socrates is afraid that Crito is but pressing upon him the opinions of the
many: whereas, all his life long he has followed the dictates of reason
only and the opinion of the one wise or skilled man. There was a time when
Crito himself had allowed the propriety of this. And although some one
will say 'the many can kill us,' that makes no difference; but a good life,
in other words, a just and honourable life, is alone to be valued. All
considerations of loss of reputation or injury to his children should be
dismissed: the only question is whether he would be right in attempting to
escape. Crito, who is a disinterested person not having the fear of death
before his eyes, shall answer this for him. Before he was condemned they
had often held discussions, in which they agreed that no man should either
do evil, or return evil for evil, or betray the right. Are these
principles to be altered because the circumstances of Socrates are altered?
Crito admits that they remain the same. Then is his escape consistent with
the maintenance of them? To this Crito is unable or unwilling to reply.
Socrates proceeds:--Suppose the Laws of Athens to come and remonstrate with
him: they will ask 'Why does he seek to overturn them?' and if he replies,
'they have injured him,' will not the Laws answer, 'Yes, but was that the
agreement? Has he any objection to make to them which would justify him in
overturning them? Was he not brought into the world and educated by their
help, and are they not his parents? He might have left Athens and gone
where he pleased, but he has lived there for seventy years more constantly
than any other citizen.' Thus he has clearly shown that he acknowledged
the agreement, which he cannot now break without dishonour to himself and
danger to his friends. Even in the course of the trial he might have
proposed exile as the penalty, but then he declared that he preferred death
to exile. And whither will he direct his footsteps? In any well-ordered
state the Laws will consider him as an enemy. Possibly in a land of
misrule like Thessaly he may be welcomed at first, and the unseemly
narrative of his escape will be regarded by the inhabitants as an amusing
tale. But if he offends them he will have to learn another sort of lesson.
Will he continue to give lectures in virtue? That would hardly be decent.
And how will his children be the gainers if he takes them into Thessaly,
and deprives them of Athenian citizenship? Or if he leaves them behind,
does he expect that they will be better taken care of by his friends
because he is in Thessaly? Will not true friends care for them equally
whether he is alive or dead?
Finally, they exhort him to think of justice first, and of life and
children afterwards. He may now depart in peace and innocence, a sufferer
and not a doer of evil. But if he breaks agreements, and returns evil for
evil, they will be angry with him while he lives; and their brethren the
Laws of the world below will receive him as an enemy. Such is the mystic
voice which is always murmuring in his ears.
That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made against him during
his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later ages. The crimes of
Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been his pupils, were still
recent in the memory of the now restored democracy. The fact that he had
been neutral in the death-struggle of Athens was not likely to conciliate
popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation,
undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to
the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the
proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented far more
than that (Phaedr.); and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the
fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the
hand of the artist. Whether any one who has been subjected by the laws of
his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape, is a
thesis about which casuists might disagree. Shelley (Prose Works) is of
opinion that Socrates 'did well to die,' but not for the 'sophistical'
reasons which Plato has put into his mouth. And there would be no
difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived and preferred to a
glorious death the good which he might still be able to perform. 'A
rhetorician would have had much to say upon that point.' It may be
observed however that Plato never intended to answer the question of
casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue which refuses to
do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to show his master
maintaining in death the opinions which he had professed in his life. Not
'the world,' but the 'one wise man,' is still the paradox of Socrates in
his last hours. He must be guided by reason, although her conclusions may
be fatal to him. The remarkable sentiment that the wicked can do neither
good nor evil is true, if taken in the sense, which he means, of moral
evil; in his own words, 'they cannot make a man wise or foolish.'
This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting the
'common principle,' there is no escaping from the conclusion. It is
anticipated at the beginning by the dream of Socrates and the parody of
Homer. The personification of the Laws, and of their brethren the Laws in
the world below, is one of the noblest and boldest figures of speech which
occur in Plato.
CRITO
by
Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Crito.
SCENE: The Prison of Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why have you come at this hour, Crito? it must be quite early.
CRITO: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: What is the exact time?
CRITO: The dawn is breaking.
SOCRATES: I wonder that the keeper of the prison would let you in.
CRITO: He knows me because I often come, Socrates; moreover. I have done
him a kindness.
SOCRATES: And are you only just arrived?
CRITO: No, I came some time ago.
SOCRATES: Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at once
awakening me?
CRITO: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great
trouble and unrest as you are--indeed I should not: I have been watching
with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not awake
you, because I wished to minimize the pain. I have always thought you to
be of a happy disposition; but never did I see anything like the easy,
tranquil manner in which you bear this calamity.
SOCRATES: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be
