Note 80 — Chapter XXVII · BACK TO ATHENS.

The last scene of his life is described by Xenophon. I give the passage with some explanation. When he drank the fatal cup he threw the dregs on the floor with the peculiar jerk given in playing the game of Cottabos. This game had several forms; but the feature common to them all was the heaving of wine out of a cup. Sometimes the object seems to have been a kind of fortune telling. A guest when he had finished his cup would jerk out any dregs that might be left. At the same time he named the guest who was to drink next, and the sound made by the drops falling was supposed to give some omen good or bad. “To the gracious Critias,” said Theramenes. It was to be a prophecy of his fate. As a matter of fact Critias fell a few weeks afterward in a battle with Thrasybulus and the exiles of the democratic party.