8
foll.

(6) Cf. Arist. "Frogs," 82; of Sophocles, {o d' eukolos men enthad',
eukolos d' ekei}.

(Let us pause and ask how could man die more nobly and more
beautifully than in the way described? or put it thus: dying so,
then was his death most noble and most beautiful; and being the most
beautiful, then was it also the most fortunate and heaven-blest; and
being most blessed of heaven, then was it also most precious in the
sight of God.) (7)

(7) This is bracketed as spurious by Sauppe and other commentators.
But see "Cyrop." VIII. ii. 7, 8, for similar ineptitude of style.
R. Kuhner defends the passage as genuine.

And now I will mention further certain things which I have heard from
Hermogenes, the son of Hipponicus, (8) concerning him. He said that even
after Meletus (9) had drawn up the indictment, he himself used to hear
Socrates conversing and discussing everything rather than the suit
impending, and had ventured to suggest that he ought to be considering
the line of his defence, to which, in the first instance, the master
answered: "Do I not seem to you to have been practising that my whole
life long?" And upon his asking "How?" added in explanation that he had
passed his days in nothing else save in distinguishing between what is
just and what is unjust (right and wrong), and in doing what is right
and abstaining from what is wrong; "which conduct" (he added) "I hold
to be the finest possible practice for my defence"; and when he
(Hermogenes), returning to the point again, pleaded with Socrates: "Do
you not see, Socrates, how commonly it happens that an Athenian jury,
under the influence of argument, condemns innocent people to death and
acquits real criminals?"--Socrates replied, "I assure you, Hermogenes,
that each time I have essayed to give my thoughts to the defence which I
am to make before the court, the divinity (10) has opposed me." And when
he (Hermogenes) exclaimed, "How strange!"--"Do you find it strange" (he
continued), "that to the Godhead it should appear better for me to close
my life at once? Do you not know that up to the present moment there
is no man whom I can admit to have spent a better or happier life than
mine. Since theirs I regard as the best of lives who study best to
become as good as may be, and theirs the happiest who have the liveliest
sense of growth in goodness; and such, hitherto, is the happy fortune
which I perceive to have fallen to my lot. To such c