Note 195 — Chapter XVIII

The passage of Ælian (iii., 17), quoted both by Mitford and Mitchell, as giving the true solution of the cause of Socrates’ death, contains no solution at all of that problem: it merely tells us, what we knew on better authority, that Socrates did not like democracy. Xenophon, Mem. i., c. 2, does more to support this opinion; for he states distinctly that the avowed dislike of Socrates to the practice of choosing magistrates by lot, the bad character of his pupils Alcibiades and Critias, and his alleged perversion of passages in the poets, to teach his pupils “to be evil–doers and supporters of tyrannies,” were topics insisted on by his accusers in the speech for the prosecution. Nor is it improbable that such topics had their weight with many in the multitude of judges who composed the court, a body too numerous to discriminate and weigh evidence.