Note 636 — Chapter LXVIII · SOKRATES.

This is one of the traditions which Aristoxenus, the disciple of Aristotle, heard from his father Spintharus, who had been in personal communication with Sokratês. See the Fragments of Aristoxenus, Fragm. 27, 28; ap. Frag. Hist. Græc. p. 280, ed. Didot.

It appears to me that Frag. 28 contains the statement of what Aristoxenus really said about the irascibility of Sokratês; while the expressions of Fragm. 27, ascribed to that author by Plutarch, are unmeasured.

Fragm. 28 also substantially contradicts Fragm. 26, in which Diogenes asserts, on the authority of Aristoxenus,—what is not to be believed, even if Aristoxenus had asserted it,—that Sokratês made a regular trade of his teaching, and collected perpetual contributions: see Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 6; i, 5, 6.

I see no reason for the mistrust with which Preller (Hist. Philosophie, c. v, p. 139) and Ritter (Geschich. d. Philos. vol. ii, ch. 2, p. 19) regard the general testimony of Aristoxenus about Sokratês.