The Memorabilia

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Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz.

THE MEMORABILIA

By Xenophon

Translated by H. G. Dakyns

Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a
pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,
and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.

The Memorabilia is a recollection of Socrates in
word and deed, to show his character as the best
and happiest of men.

PREPARER'S NOTE

First Published 1897 by Macmillan and Co.
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:

Work Number of books

The Anabasis 7
The Hellenica 7
The Cyropaedia 8
The Memorabilia 4
The Symposium 1
The Economist 1
On Horsemanship 1
The Sportsman 1
The Cavalry General 1
The Apology 1
On Revenues 1
The Hiero 1
The Agesilaus 1
The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians 2

Text in brackets "{}" is my transliteration of Greek text into
English using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table. The
diacritical marks have been lost.

THE MEMORABILIA

or

Recollections of Socrates

BOOK I

I

I have often wondered by what arguments those who indicted[1] Socrates
could have persuaded the Athenians that his life was justly forfeit to
the state. The indictment was to this effect: "Socrates is guilty of
crime in refusing to recognise the gods acknowledged by the state, and
importing strange divinities of his own; he is further guilty of
corrupting the young."

[1] {oi grapsamenoi} = Meletus (below, IV. iv. 4, viii. 4; "Apol." 11,
19), Anytus ("Apol." 29), and Lycon. See Plat. "Apol." II. v. 18;
Diog. Laert. II. v. (Socr.); M. Schanz, "Plat. Apol. mit deutschen
Kemmentar, Einleitung," S. 5 foll.

In the first place, what evidence did they produce that Socrates
refused to recognise the gods acknowledged by the state? Was it that
he did not sacrifice? or that he dispensed with divination? On the
contrary, he was often to be seen engaged in sacrifice, at home or at
the common altars of the state. Nor was his dependence on divination
less manifest. Indeed that saying of his, "A divinity[2] gives me a
sign," was on everybody's lips. So much so that, if I am not mistaken,
it lay at the root of the imputation that he imported novel
divinities; though there was no greater novelty in his case than in
that of other believers in oracular help, who commonly rely on omens
of all sorts: the flight or cry of birds, the utterances of man,
chance meetings,[3] or a victim's entrails. Even according to the
popular conception, it is not the mere fowl, it is not the chance
individual one meets, who knows what things are profitable for a man,
but it is the gods who vouchsafe by such instruments to signify the
same. This was also the tenet of Socrates. Only, whereas men
ordinarily speak of being turned aside, or urged onwards by birds, or
other creatures encountered on the path, Socrates suited his language
to his conviction. "The divinity," said he, "gives me a sign."
Further, he would constantly advise his associates to do this, or
beware of doing that, upon the authority of this same divine voice;
and, as a matter of fact, those who listened to his warnings
prospered, whilst he who turned a deaf ear to them repented
afterwards.[4] Yet, it will be readily conceded, he would hardly
desire to present himself to his everyday companions in the character
of either knave or fool. Whereas he would have appeared to be both,
supposing[5] the God-given revelations had but revealed his own
proneness to deception. It is plain he would not have ventured on
forecast at all, but for his belief that the words he spoke would in
fact be verified. Then on whom, or what, was the assurance rooted, if
not upon God? And if he had faith in the gods, how could he fail to
recognise them?

[2] Or, "A divine something." See "Encyc. Brit." "Socrates." Dr. H.
Jackason; "The Daemon of Socrates," F. W. H. Myers; K. Joel, "Der
echte und der Xenophontische Sokrates," i. p. 70 foll.; cf.
Aristot. "M. M." 1182 a 10.

[3] See Aesch. "P. V." 487, {enodious te sombolous}, "and pathway
tokens," L. Campbell; Arist. "Birds," 721, {sombolon ornin}:
"Frogs," 196, {to sometukhon exion}; "Eccl." 792; Hor. "Od." iii.
27, 1-7.

[4] See "Anab." III. i. 4; "Symp." iv. 48.

[5] Or, "if his vaunted manifestations from heaven had but manifested
the falsity of his judgment."

But his mode of dealing with his intimates has another aspect. As
regards the ordinary necessities of life,[6] his advice was, "Act as
you believe[7] these things may best be done." But in the case of
those darker problems, the issues of which are incalculable, he
directed his friends to consult the oracle, whether the business
should be undertaken or not. "No one," he would say, "who wishes to
manage a house or city with success: no one aspiring to guide the helm
of state aright, can afford to dipense with aid from above. Doubtless,
skill in carpentering, building, smithying, farming, of the art of
governing men, together with the theory of these processes, and the
sciences of arithmetic, economy, strategy, are affairs of study, and
within the grasp of human intelligence. Yet there is a side even of
these, and that not the least important, which the gods reserve to
themselves, the bearing of which is hidden from mortal vision. Thus,
let a man sow a field or plant a farm never so well, yet he cannot
foretell who will gather in the fruits: another may build him a house
of fairest proportion, yet he knows not who will inhabit it. Neither
can a general foresee whether it will profit him to conduct a
campaign, nor a politician be certain whether his leadership will turn
to evil or good. Nor can the man who weds a fair wife, looking forward
to joy, know whether through her he shall not reap sorrow. Neither can
he who has built up a powerful connection in the state know whether he
shall not by means of it be cast out of his city. To suppose that all
these matters lay within the scope of human judgment, to the exclusion
of the preternatural, was preternatural folly. Nor was it less
extravagant to go and consult the will of Heaven on any questions
which it is given to us to decide by dint of learning. As though a man
should inquire, "Am I to choose an expert driver as my coachman, or
one who has never handled the reins?" "Shall I appoint a mariner to be
skipper of my vessel, or a landsman?" And so with respect to all we
may know by numbering, weighing, and measuring. To seek advice from
Heaven on such points was a sort of profanity. "Our duty is plain," he
would observe; "where we are permitted to work through our natural
faculties, there let us by all means apply them. But in things which
are hidden, let us seek to gain knowledge from above, by divination;
for the gods," he added, "grant signs to those to whom they will be
gracious."

[6] Or, "in the sphere of the determined," {ta anagkaia} = certa,
quorum eventus est necessarius; "things positive, the law-ordained
department of life," as we might say. See Grote, "H. G." i. ch.
xvi. 500 and passim.

[7] Reading {os nomizoien}, or if {os enomizen}, translate "As to
things with certain results, he advised them to do them in the way
in which he believed they would be done best"; i.e. he did not
say, "follow your conscience," but, "this course seems best to me
under the circumstances."

Again, Socrates ever lived in the public eye; at early morning he was
to be seen betaking himself to one of the promenades, or wrestling-
grounds; at noon he would appear with the gathering crowds in the
market-place; and as day declined, wherever the largest throng might
be encountered, there was he to be found, talking for the most part,
while any one who chose might stop and listen. Yet no one ever heard
him say, or saw him do anything impious or irreverent. Indeed, in
contrast to others he set his face against all discussion of such
high matters as the nature of the Universe; how the "kosmos," as the
savants[8] phrase it, came into being;[9] or by what forces the
celestial phenomena arise. To trouble one's brain about such matters
was, he argued, to play the fool. He would ask first: Did these
investigators feel their knowledge of things human so complete that
they betook themselves to these lofty speculations? Or did they
maintain that they were playing their proper parts in thus neglecting
the affairs of man to speculate on the concerns of God? He was
astonished they did not see how far these problems lay beyond mortal
ken; since even those who pride themselves most on their discussion of
these points differ from each other, as madmen do. For just as some
madmen, he said, have no apprehension of what is truly terrible,
others fear where no fear is; some are ready to say and do anything in
public without the slightest symptom of shame;[10] others think they
ought not so much as to set foot among their fellow-men; some honour
neither temple, nor altar, nor aught else sacred to the name of God;
others bow down to stocks and stones and worship the very beasts:--so
is it with those thinkers whose minds are cumbered with cares[11]
concerning the Universal Nature. One sect[12] has discovered that
Being is one and indivisible. Another[13] that it is infinite in
number. If one[14] proclaims that all things are in a continual flux,
another[15] replies that nothing can possibly be moved at any time.
The theory of the universe as a process of birth and death is met by
the counter theory, that nothing ever could be born or ever will die.

[8] Lit. "the sophists." See H. Sidgwick, "J. of Philol." iv. 1872; v.
1874.

[9] Reading {ephu}. Cf. Lucian, "Icaromenip." xlvi. 4, in imitation of
this passage apparently; or if {ekhei}, translate "is arranged."
See Grote, "H. G." viii. 573.

[10] See "Anab." V. iv. 30.

[11] See Arist. "Clouds," 101, {merimnophrontistai kaloi te kagathoi}.

[12] e.g. Xenophanes and Parmenides, see Grote, "Plato," I. i. 16
foll.

[13] e.g. Leucippus and Democritus, ib. 63 foll.

[14] e.g. Heraclitus, ib. 27 foll.

[15] e.g. Zeno, ib. ii. 96.

But the questioning of Socrates on the merits of these speculators
sometimes took another form. The student of human learning expects, he
said, to make something of his studies for the benefit of himself or
others, as he likes. Do these explorers into the divine operations
hope that when they have discovered by what forces the various
phenomena occur, they will create winds and waters at will and
fruitful seasons? Will they manipulate these and the like to suit
their needs? or has no such notion perhaps ever entered their heads,
and will they be content simply to know how such things come into
existence? But if this was his mode of describing those who meddle
with such matters as these, he himself never wearied of discussing
human topics. What is piety? what is impiety? What is the beautiful?
what the ugly? What the noble? what the base? What are meant by just
and unjust? what by sobriety and madness? what by courage and
cowardice? What is a state? what is a statesman? what is a ruler over
men? what is a ruling character? and other like problems, the
knowledge of which, as he put it, conferred a patent of nobility on
the possessor,[16] whereas those who lacked the knowledge might
deservedly be stigmatised as slaves.

[16] Or, "was distinctive of the 'beautiful and good.'" For the phrase
see below, ii. 2 et passim.

Now, in so far as the opinions of Socrates were unknown to the world
at large, it is not surprising that the court should draw false
conclusions respecting them; but that facts patent to all should have
been ignored is indeed astonishing.

At one time Socrates was a member of the Council,[17] he had taken the
senatorial oath, and sworn "as a member of that house to act in
conformity with the laws." It was thus he chanced to be President of
the Popular Assembly,[18] when that body was seized with a desire to
put the nine[19] generals, Thrasyllus, Erasinides, and the rest, to
death by a single inclusive vote. Whereupon, in spite of the bitter
resentment of the people, and the menaces of several influential
citizens, he refused to put the question, esteeming it of greater
importance faithfully to abide by the oath which he had taken, than to
gratify the people wrongfully, or to screen himself from the menaces
of the mighty. The fact being, that with regard to the care bestowed
by the gods upon men, his belief differed widely from that of the
multitude. Whereas most people seem to imagine that the gods know in
part, and are ignorant in part, Socrates believed firmly that the gods
know all things--both the things that are said and the things that are
done, and the things that are counselled in the silent chambers of the
heart. Moreover, they are present everywhere, and bestow signs upon
man concerning all the things of man.

[17] Or "Senate." Lit. "the Boule."

[18] Lit. "Epistates of the Ecclesia." See Grote, "H. G." viii. 271;
Plat. "Apol." 32 B.

[19] {ennea} would seem to be a slip of the pen for {okto}, eight. See
"Hell." I. v. 16; vi. 16; vi. 29; vii. 1 foll.

I can, therefore, but repeat my former words. It is a marvel to me how
the Athenians came to be persuaded that Socrates fell short of sober-
mindedness as touching the gods. A man who never ventured one impious
word or deed against the gods we worship, but whose whole language
concerning them, and his every act, closely coincided, word for word,
and deed for deed, with all we deem distinctive of devoutest piety.

II

No less surprising to my mind is the belief that Socrates corrupted
the young. This man, who, beyond what has been already stated, kept
his appetites and passions under strict control, who was pre-eminently
capable of enduring winter's cold and summer's heat and every kind of
toil, who was so schooled to curtail his needs that with the scantiest
of means he never lacked sufficiency--is it credible that such a man
could have made others irreverent or lawless, or licentious, or
effeminate in face of toil? Was he not rather the saving of many
through the passion for virtue which he roused in them, and the hope
he infused that through careful management of themselves they might
grow to be truly beautiful and good--not indeed that he ever undertook
to be a teacher of virtue, but being evidently virtuous himself he
made those who associated with him hope that by imitating they might
at last resemble him.

But let it not be inferred that he was negligent of his own body or
approved of those who neglected theirs. If excess of eating,
counteracted by excess of toil, was a dietary of which he
disapproved,[1] to gratify the natural claim of appetite in
conjunction with moderate exercise was a system he favoured, as
tending to a healthy condition of the body without trammelling the
cultivation of the spirit. On the other hand, there was nothing
dandified or pretentious about him; he indulged in no foppery of shawl
or shoes, or other effeminacy of living.

[1] See [Plat.] "Erast." 132 C.

Least of all did he tend to make his companions greedy of money. He
would not, while restraining passion generally, make capital out of
the one passion which attached others to himself; and by this
abstinence, he believed, he was best consulting his own freedom; in so
much that he stigmatised those who condescended to take wages for
their society as vendors of their own persons, because they were
compelled to discuss for the benefits of their paymasters. What
surprised him was that any one possessing virtue should deign to ask
money as its price instead of simply finding his rward in the
acquisition of an honest friend, as if the new-fledged soul of honour
could forget her debt of gratitude to her greatest benefactor.

For himself, without making any such profession, he was content to
believe that those who accepted his views would play their parts as
good and true friends to himself and one another their lives long.
Once more then: how should a man of this character corrupt the young?
unless the careful cultivation of virtue be corruption.

But, says the accuser,[2] by all that's sacred! did not Socrates cause
his associates to despise the established laws when he dwelt on the
folly of appointing state officers by ballot?[3] a principle which, he
said, no one would care to apply in selecting a pilot or a flute-
player or in any similar case, where a mistake would be far less
disastrous than in matters political. Words like these, according to
the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established
constitution, rendering them violent and headstrong. But for myself I
think that those who cultivate wisdom and believe themselves able to
instruct their fellow-citizens as to their interests are least likely
to become partisans of violence. They are too well aware that to
violence attach enmities and dangers, whereas results as good may be
obtained by persuasion safely and amicably. For the victim of violence
hates with vindictiveness as one from whom something precious has been
stolen, while the willing subject of persuasion is ready to kiss the
hand which has done him a service. Hence compulsion is not the method
of him who makes wisdom his study, but of him who wields power
untempered by reflection. Once more: the man who ventures on violence
needs the support of many to fight his battles, while he whose
strength lies in persuasiveness triumphs single-handed, for he is
conscious of a cunning to compel consent unaided. And what has such a
one to do with the spilling of blood? since how ridiculous it were to
do men to death rather than turn to account the trusty service of the
living.

[2] {o kategoros} = Polycrates possibly. See M. Schantz, op. cit.,
"Einleitun," S. 6: "Die Anklagerede des Polykrates"; Introduction,
p. xxxii. foll.

[3] i.e. staking the election of a magistrate on the colour of a bean.
See Aristot. "Ath. Pol." viii. 2, and Dr. Sandys ad loc.

But, the accuser answers, the two men[4] who wrought the greatest
evils to the state at any time--to wit, Critias and Alcibiades--were
both companions of Socrates--Critias the oligarch, and Alcibiades the
democrat. Where would you find a more arrant thief, savage, and
murderer[5] than the one? where such a portent of insolence,
incontinence, and high-handedness as the other? For my part, in so far
as these two wrought evil to the state, I have no desire to appear as
the apologist of either. I confine myself to explaining what this
intimacy of theirs with Socrates really was.

[4] See "Hell." I. and II. passim.

[5] Reading {kleptistatos te kai biaiotatos kai phonikotatos}, or if
{pleonektistatos te kai biaiotatis}, translate "such a manner of
greed and violence as the one, of insolence, etc., as the other?"
See Grote, "H. G." viii. 337.

Never were two more ambitious citizens seen at Athens. Ambition was in
their blood. If they were to have their will, all power was to be in
their hands; their fame was to eclipse all other. Of Socrates they
knew--first that he lived an absolutely independent life on the
scantiest means; next that he was self-disciplined to the last degree
in respect of pleasures; lastly that he was so formidable in debate
that there was no antagonist he could not twist round his little
finger. Such being their views, and such the character of the pair,
which is the more probable: that they sought the society of Socrates
because they felt the fascination of his life, and were attracted by
the bearing of the man? or because they thought, if only we are
leagued with him we shall become adepts in statecraft and unrivalled
in the arts of speech and action? For my part I believe that if the
choice from Heaven had been given them to live such a life as they saw
Socrates living to its close, or to die, they would both have chosen
death.

Their acts are a conclusive witness to their characters. They no
sooner felt themselves to be the masters of those they came in contact
with than they sprang aside from Socrates and plunged into that whirl
of politics but for which they might never have sought his society.

It may be objected: before giving his companions lessons in politics
Socrates had better have taught them sobriety.[6] Without disputing
the principle, I would point out that a teacher cannot fail to
discover to his pupils his method of carrying out his own precepts,
and this along with argumentative encouragement. Now I know that
Socrates disclosed himself to his companions as a beautiful and noble
being, who would reason and debate with them concerning virtue and
other human interests in the noblest manner. And of these two I know
that as long as they were companions of Socrates even they were
temperate, not assuredly from fear of being fined or beaten by
Socrates, but because they were persuaded for the nonce of the
excellence of such conduct.

[6] {sophrosune} = "sound-mindedness," "temperence." See below, IV.
iii. 1.

Perhaps some self-styled philosophers[7] may here answer: "Nay, the
man truly just can never become unjust, the temperate man can never
become intemperate, the man who has learnt any subject of knowledge
can never be as though he had learnt it not." That, however, is not my
own conclusion. It is with the workings of the soul as with those of
the body; want of exercise of the organ leads to inability of
function, here bodily, there spiritual, so that we can neither do the
things that we should nor abstain from the things we should not. And
that is why fathers keep their sons, however temperate they may be,
out of the reach of wicked men, considering that if the society of the
good is a training in virtue so also is the society of the bad its
dissolution.

[7] In reference to some such tenet as that of Antisthenes ap. Diog.
Laert. VI. ix. 30, {areskei d' autois kai ten areten didakten
einai, katha phesin 'Antisthenes en to 'Rraklei kai anapobleton
uparkhein}. Cf. Plat. "Protag." 340 D, 344 D.

To this the poet[8] is a witness, who says:

"From the noble thou shalt be instructed in nobleness; but, and if
thou minglest with the base thou wilt destroy what wisdom thou
hast now";

And he[9] who says:

"But the good man has his hour of baseness as well as his hour of
virtue"--

to whose testimony I would add my own. For I see that it is impossible
to remember a long poem without practice and repetition; so is
forgetfulness of the words of instruction engendered in the heart that
has ceased to value them. With the words of warning fades the
recollection of the very condition of mind in which the soul yearned
after holiness; and once forgetting this, what wonder that the man
should let slip also the memory of virtue itself! Again I see that a
man who falls into habits of drunkenness or plunges headlong into
licentious love, loses his old power of practising the right and
abstaining from the wrong. Many a man who has found frugality easy
whilst passion was cold, no sooner falls in love than he loses the
faculty at once, and in his prodigal expenditure of riches he will no
longer withhold his hand from gains which in former days were too base
to invite his touch. Where then is the difficulty of supposing that a
man may be temperate to-day, and to-morrow the reverse; or that he who
once has had it in his power to act virtuously may not quite lose that
power?[10] To myself, at all events, it seems that all beautiful and
noble things are the result of constant practice and training; and
pre-eminently the virtue of temperance, seeing that in one and the
same bodily frame pleasures are planted and spring up side by side
with the soul and keep whispering in her ear, "Have done with self-
restraint, make haste to gratify us and the body."[11]

[8] Theognis, 35, 36. See "Symp." ii. 4; Plat. "Men." 95 D.

[9] The author is unknown. See Plat. "Protag." l.c.

[10] Cf. "Cyrop." V. i. 9 foll.; VI. i. 41.

[11] See my remarks, "Hellenica Essays," p. 371 foll.

But to return to Critias and Alcibiades, I repeat that as long as they
lived with Socrates they were able by his support to dominate their
ignoble appetites;[12] but being separated from him, Critias had to
fly to Thessaly,[13] where he consorted with fellows better versed in
lawlessness than justice. And Alcibiades fared no better. His personal
beauty on the one hand incited bevies of fine ladies[14] to hunt him
down as fair spoil, while on the other hand his influence in the state
and among the allies exposed him to the corruption of many an adept in
the arts of flattery; honoured by the democracy and stepping easily to
the front rank he behaved like an athlete who in the games of the
Palaestra is so assured of victory that he neglects his training; thus
he presently forgot the duty which he owed himself.

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