Lucian (Volume 19-20) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. SOCRATES AND HIS FRIENDS. SYMPOSIUM--PHDRUS--APOLOGY--CRITO--PHEDO. "There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of Plato. The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Socrates in the days of his youthful vigour and glory."--Plato, Ep. ii. 314 (Grote). Socrates, in whom, as we have seen, Plato thus merges his own personality, and who is the spokesman in nearly every Dialogue, was the son of a sculptor at Athens, and was born in the year B.c. 468. He left his father's workshop at an early age, and devoted himself to the task of public teaching, --being, as he believed, specially commissioned by the gods to question and cross-examine all he met. Accordingly he might be found, day after day, in the workshops, in the public walks, in the market-place, or in the Palsestra, hearing and asking questions; careless where or when or with whom he talked. His personal ugliness--about which he makes a joke himself in the "Thesetetus "--his thick lips, snub nose, and corpulent body, and besides this, his mean dress and bare feet, made him, perhaps, the most remarkable figure in Athens, especially when contrasted with the rich dresses and A. c. voL xix. D classic features of the youths who often followed him. Yet under that Clenus mask (as Alcibiades described it) was concealed the image of a god. None who had ever heard him speak could easily forget the steady gaze, the earnest manner, and, above all, the impassioned words which made their hearts burn within them as they listened. Many youths would approach the circle which always formed whenever Socrates talked or argued, from mere curiosity or as a resource to pass away an hour; and at first they would look with indifference or contempt on the mean and poorlydressed figure in the cent...