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Transcribed from the 1889 Cassell & Company edition by DavidPrice, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

THE MEMORABLE THOUGHTS OF SOCRATES.
BY XENOPHON.

TRANSLATED BY EDWARD BYSSHE.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE.
1888.

p. 5INTRODUCTION.

This translation of Xenophon’s “Memorabilia of Socrates”was first published in 1712, and is here printed from the revised editionof 1722.  Its author was Edward Bysshe, who had produced in 1702“The Art of English Poetry,” a well-known work that wasnear its fifth edition when its author published his translation ofthe “Memorabilia.”  This was a translation that remainedin good repute.  There was another edition of it in 1758. Bysshe translated the title of the book into “The Memorable Thingsof Socrates.”  I have changed “Things” into “Thoughts,”for whether they be sayings or doings, the words and deeds of a wiseman are alike expressions of his thought.

Xenophon is said to have been, when young, a pupil of Socrates. Two authorities have recorded that in the flight from the battle ofDelium in the year b.c. 424, when Xenophonfell from his horse, Socrates picked him up and carried him on his backfor a considerable distance.  p. 6Thetime of Xenophon’s death is not known, but he was alive sixty-sevenyears after the battle of Delium.

When Cyrus the Younger was preparing war against his brother ArtaxerxesMnemon, King of Persia, Xenophon went with him.  After the deathof Cyrus on the plains of Cunaxa, the barbarian auxiliaries fled, andthe Greeks were left to return as they could from the far region betweenthe Tigris and Euphrates.  Xenophon had to take part in the conductof the retreat, and tells the story of it in his “Anabasis,”a history of the expedition of the younger Cyrus and of the retreatof the Greeks.  His return into Greece was in the year of the deathof Socrates, b.c. 399, but his associationwas now with the Spartans, with whom he fought, b.c.394, at Coroneia.  Afterwards he settled, and lived for about twentyyears, at Scillus in Eleia with his wife and children.  At Scillushe wrote probably his “Anabasis” and some other of his books. At last he was driven out by the Eleans.  In the battle of Mantineiathe Spartans and Athenians fought as allies, and Xenophon’s twosons were in the battle; he had sent them to Athens as fellow-combatantsfrom Sparta.  His banishment from Athens was repealed p. 7bychange of times, but it does not appear that he returned to Athens. He is said to have lived, and perhaps died, at Corinth, after he hadbeen driven from his home at Scillus.

Xenophon was a philosophic man of action.  He could make hisvalue felt in a council of war, take part in battle—one of hisbooks is on the duties of a commander of cavalry—and show himselfgood sportsman in the hunting-field.  He wrote a book upon thehorse; a treatise also upon dogs and hunting.  He believed in God,thought earnestly about social and political duties, and preferred Spartaninstitutions to those of Athens.  He wrote a life of his friendAgesilaus II., King of Sparta.  He found exercise for his energeticmind in writing many books.  In writing he was clear and to thepoint; his practical mind made his work interesting.  His “Anabasis”is a true story as delightful as a fiction; his “Cyropædia”is a fiction full of truths.  He wrote “Hellenica,”that carried on the history of Greece from the point at which Thucydidesclosed his history until the battle of Mantineia.  He wrote a dialoguebetween Hiero and Simonides upon the position of a king, and dealt withthe administration of the little realm of a man’s household inhis “Œconomicus,” a dialogue p. 8betweenSocrates and Critobulus, which includes the praise of agriculture. He wrote also, like Plato, a symposium, in which philosophers over theirwine reason of love and friendship, and he paints the character of Socrates.

But his best memorial of his old guide, philosopher, and friend isthis work, in which Xenophon brought together in simple and direct formthe views of life that had been made clear to himself by the teachingof Socrates.  Xenophon is throughout opposing a plain tale to thefalse accusations against Socrates.  He does not idealise, buthe feels strongly, and he shows clearly the worth of the wisdom thattouches at every point the actual conduct of the lives of men.

H. M.

p. 9BOOKI.

CHAPTER I.  SOCRATES NOT A CONTEMNER OF THE GODS OF HIS COUNTRY,NOR AN INTRODUCER OF NEW ONES.

I have often wondered by what show of argument the accusers of Socratescould persuade the Athenians he had forfeited his life to the State. For though the crimes laid unto his charge were indeed great—“Thathe did not acknowledge the gods of the Republic; that he introducednew ones”—and, farther, “had debauched the youth;”yet none of these could, in the least, be proved against him.

For, as to the first, “That he did not worship the deitieswhich the Republic adored,” how could this be made out againsthim, since, instead of paying no homage to the gods of his country,he was frequently seen to assist in sacrificing to them, both in hisown family and in the public temples?—perpetually worshippingthem in the most public, solemn, and religious manner.

What, in my opinion, gave his accusers a specious pretext for allegingagainst him that he introduced p. 10newdeities was this—that he had frequently declared in public hehad received counsel from a divine voice, which he called his