der to put him to death: the sort of commands they often
gave to many others, anxious as they were to incriminate all they
could. And on that occasion {135} I showed not by words only, that for
death, to put it bluntly, I did not care one straw--but I did care,
and to the full, about doing what was wicked and unjust. I was not
terrified then into doing wrong by that government in all its power;
when we left the Rotunda, the other four went off to Salamis and
brought Leon back, but I went home. And probably I should have been
put to death for it, if the government had not been overthrown soon
afterwards."

But there was a third, and greater reason, for the condemnation of
Socrates. These charges were brought against him because the popular
mind confused him with the Sophists. This was entirely absurd, because
Socrates in no respect resembled the Sophists, either in the manner of
his life or in the tendency of his thought, which was wholly
anti-sophistical. But that such a confusion did exist in the popular
mind is clearly proved by "The Clouds" of Aristophanes. Aristophanes
was a reactionary in thought and politics, and, hating the Sophists as
the representatives of modernism, he lampooned them in his comedy,
"The Clouds." Socrates appears in the play as the central character,
and the chief of the Sophists. This was entirely unjust, but it
affords evidence of the fact that Socrates was commonly mistaken for a
Sophist by the Athenians. Aristophanes would not have ventured to
introduce such a delusion into his play, had his audience not shared
in it. Now at this time a wave of reaction was passing over Athens,
and there was great indignation against the Sophists, who were rightly
supposed to be overturning all ideals of truth and goodness. Socrates
fell a victim to the anger of the populace against the Sophists.

{136}

At the trial Socrates conducted himself with dignity and confidence.
It was usual in those days for an accused person to weep and lament,
to flatter the judges, to seek indulgence by grovelling and fawning,
to appeal for pity by parading his wife and children in the court.
Socrates refused to do any of these things, considering them unmanly.
His "defence" was, indeed, not so much a defence of himself as an
arraignment of his judges, the people of Athens, for their corruption
and vice. This attitude of Socrates certainly brought about his
condemnation. There is every reason to believe that if he had adopt