Note 450 — Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS. (continued 3)

Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23.

Such was the colloquial power of Sokrates, in the portrait drawn by Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 14), “that he handled all who conversed with him just as he pleased — τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ὅπως βούλοιτο. Kritias and Alkibiades (Xenophon tells us) sought his society for the purpose of strengthening their own oratorical powers as political men, and of becoming κρείττονε τῶν συγγιγνομένων (i. 2, 16). Looked at from the point of view of opponents, this would be described as the proceeding of one who himself both could pervert justice — and who taught others to pervert it also. This was the picture of Sokrates which the accusers presented to the Athenian Dikastery: as we may see by the language of Sokrates himself at the beginning of the Platonic Apology.