ng that Xanthippe scolded her idle husband, who
supplied so much food for the souls of others, but quite ignored the
demands of food for the bodies of his wife and children. His teachings
were but vaporing talk to her small mind and to those of many of the
people. And the keen questions with which he convicted so many of
ignorance, and the sarcastic irony with which he wounded their
self-love, certainly did not make him friends among this class. In
truth, he made many enemies. One of these was Aristophanes, the
dramatist, who wrote a comedy in which he sought to make Socrates
ridiculous. This turned many of the audiences at the theatres against
him.

[Illustration: PRISON OF SOCRATES, ATHENS.]

All this went on until the year 399 B.C., when some of his enemies
accused him of impiety, declaring that he did not worship the old gods,
but introduced new ones and corrupted the minds of the young. "The
penalty due," they said, "is death."

It had taken them some thirty years to find this out, for Socrates had
been teaching the same things for that length of time. In fact, no
ancient city but Athens would have listened to his radical talk for so
many years without some such charge. But he had now so many enemies that
the accusation was dangerous. He made it worse by his carelessness in
his defence. He said things that provoked his judges. He could have been
acquitted if he wished, for in the final vote only a majority of five or
six out of nearly six hundred brought him in guilty.

Socrates seemingly did not care what verdict they brought. He had no
fear of death, and would not trouble himself to say a word to preserve
his life. The divine voice, he declared, would not permit him. He was
sentenced to drink the poison of hemlock, and was imprisoned for thirty
days, during which he conversed in his old calm manner with his friends.

Some of his disciples arranged a plan for his escape, but he refused to
fly. If his fellow-citizens wished to take his life he would not oppose
their wills. On the last day he drank the hemlock as calmly as though it
were his usual beverage, and talked on quietly till death sealed his
tongue.

Thus died the first and one of the greatest of ethical philosophers, and
a man without a parallel, in his peculiar field, in all the history of
mankind. Greece produced none like him, and this homely and humble
personage, who wrote not a line, has been unsurpassed in fame and
influence upon mankind by an