Book 8

Socrates used to speak of the divine sign that accompanied him to Theages and Demodocus and to many others. He said that often, by a heavenly dispensation, a voice came to him; "and whenever it comes," he said, "it always signals to me a turning-away from what I am about to do, but it never urges me on. And again, if one of my friends consults me about something, and that voice comes, once more it turns me away. In this way it advises me, and I in turn advise the one who consults me; and I do not let him act, following the divine forewarning." He offered as a witness Charmides the son of Glaucon: for Charmides told him that he intended to train for the foot-race at Nemea, and the moment he began to speak the voice came. Socrates tried to keep Charmides from holding to his purpose, but Charmides was not persuaded; and indeed his effort did not come out as it should.

Hipparchus, the eldest of the sons of Pisistratus, was the wisest of the Athenians. He was the first to bring the verses of Homer to Athens, and he compelled the rhapsodes to sing them at the Panathenaea. He also sent a fifty-oared ship to fetch Anacreon of Teos to him. And Simonides of Ceos he kept always near him with great eagerness, winning him over, as one would expect, with great gifts and fees; for that Simonides was fond of money, no one will deny. The care of educated men was indeed this Hipparchus's chief concern. He wished the Athenians to be educated under his own patronage, and he was eager to rule over them while they grew better men; for he thought one ought to envy no man his wisdom, being himself a man of nobility and worth. So Plato says, if indeed the Hipparchus is truly Plato's.

There is this Attic custom: when the ox has been slaughtered, they acquit all the others, judging each in turn for the killing; but they condemn the knife, and say that it killed the animal. And the day on which they do this they call the festival of the Dipolia, and also the Bouphonia.

They say that Poliarchus the Athenian went so far in luxury that he had even those dogs and cocks in which he delighted carried out to public burial when they died. He invited his friends to their funeral, buried them lavishly, and set up monuments over them, carving epitaphs upon them.

Neleus son of Codrus, having no share in the kingship, left Athens because the Pythia had bestowed the rule on Medon; and he set out to found a colony. He put in at Naxos, not by choice but forced by a storm; and when he wished to sail away, contrary winds blowing against him prevented him. As he was at a loss what to do in his straits, the seers said that the camp must be purified, since many sailed with him whose hands were not clean. So he himself pretended to have killed a child and to need purification; and he withdrew, and persuaded the others who shared the same guilt to do likewise. When this had happened and those men had been found out, he abandoned them, and they settled Naxos. But Neleus came to Ionia, and first founded Miletus, having driven out the Carians and the Mygdonians and the Leleges and other barbarians, from whom the twelve cities in Ionia took their name. These are they: Miletus, Ephesus, Erythrae, Clazomenae, Priene, Lebedos, Teos, Colophon, Myus, Phocaea, Samos, and Chios. And later he founded many other cities on the mainland.

They say that none of the ancient Thracians knew letters; indeed all the barbarians who dwell in Europe held it most shameful to use writing. But those in Asia, as the story goes, used them more. Hence some even dare to say that Orpheus, being a Thracian, was no wise man, but that the legends about him are otherwise false. This Androtion says, if anyone is to be trusted on the illiteracy and want of culture of the Thracians.

When Alexander took Darius, he held a wedding feast for himself and for his companions. The bridegrooms were ninety, and the bridal chambers equal in number to them. The hall that received and entertained them held a hundred couches; and each couch had silver feet, but his own had golden feet, and all were adorned with purple and embroidered coverings of barbarian weave, very costly. He also brought into the banquet his personal guest-friends, and seated them facing himself. In the courtyard the other forces feasted, the infantry and the navy and the cavalry, and the embassies too and the Greeks who were visiting. The meals were held to the trumpet: it sounded the assembling note when they were to come in to the feast, and the recall note when it signalled them to depart. For five days running he celebrated the weddings with sacrifices. Musicians and actors came too, some of comedy and some of tragedy, very many of them. There were also from India conjurers of distinction, and they were thought to surpass all the others from elsewhere.

Cimon of Cleonae, they say, perfected the art of painting while it was still in its infancy and was being practised without skill and without experience by those before him, in a manner still, so to speak, in swaddling-clothes and at the breast. For this reason he was the first to receive larger fees than his predecessors.

Archelaus the tyrant of the Macedonians — for so Plato names him, and not "king" — had a favourite, Crateuas, who fell in love with the tyranny no less than Archelaus had loved the boy, and he killed his lover, expecting that he would become a tyrant and a man of fortune. But having held the tyranny three or four days, he in turn was plotted against by others and met his end. It would be most fitting to apply to this Macedonian drama that verse: "He who contrives evil for another contrives it for his own heart." They say that Archelaus had broken faith with him, having promised to give him one of his daughters; and when he married the girl to another, Crateuas in his rage destroyed Archelaus.

The Athenians chose Solon to rule them by election, for they did not choose him by lot. When he had been chosen, he set the city in order in other respects, and in particular he drew up for them the laws that are still kept to this day. And then the Athenians ceased to use the laws of Draco; those laws were called "ordinances." Only his homicide laws did they keep.

We shall no longer wonder if human nature, being mortal and short-lived, compels men to perish, when we see even rivers failing, and hear that even the highest of the mountains are diminishing. The voyagers, at any rate, say that Etna is seen to be smaller than it was before; and they say that Parnassus and Pierian Olympus have suffered the same thing. And those who think they have observed the nature of the universe still more closely say that even the cosmos itself is perishing.

Strange, is it not? Yet true. When Demosthenes failed in Macedonia, Aeschines son of Atrometus, of the deme Cothocidae, both stood in high repute with the Macedonians and far surpassed the other envoys in spirit. The cause of this for Aeschines was his friendship with Philip and the gifts he had from him, and the fact that Philip listened to him gently and gladly, regarding him with a kindly look and showing the goodwill he bore him. All this drew Aeschines on to free speech and to a ready flow of words. Demosthenes was not the only one to suffer this in Macedonia, clever as he was at speaking; Theophrastus of Eresus did the same. For he too broke down while speaking before the Council of the Areopagus, and offered this excuse, that he had been overawed by the dignity of the council. Most bitterly and most readily, then, did Demochares meet this speech of his, saying: "Theophrastus, they were Athenians who sat in judgment, not the twelve gods."

They say that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was never seen laughing, nor smiling at all. They say too that Aristoxenus was a mighty enemy of laughter; and that Heraclitus wept over everything in life.

Diogenes of Sinope, when at last he lay sick unto death, dragged himself along alone and threw himself down beside a little bridge near a gymnasium, and ordered the keeper of the wrestling-school, when he perceived that he had breathed his last, to throw him into the Ilissus. So little did Diogenes care for either death or burial.

When Philip conquered the Athenians at Chaeronea, though elated by his success, he nonetheless kept his reason in check and did not grow insolent; and for this reason he thought he ought to be reminded each morning by one of his pages that he was a man, and he gave the boy this duty to perform. And they say that he would neither go out himself, nor would any of those who had business with him be admitted to him, until the boy had called this out to him three times.

Solon son of Execestides, being now an old man, suspected that Pisistratus would set himself up as tyrant, when Pisistratus came forward in the assembly of the Athenians and asked for a bodyguard. Seeing that the Athenians listened carelessly to his own words but gave heed to Pisistratus, he said that he was wiser than some and braver than others: than those who do not understand that, once he has obtained a guard for his person, he will be tyrant — wiser than these; and than those who understand it yet keep silent — braver than these. But Pisistratus, having received the force, was tyrant. Then Solon, sitting before his house with his shield and spear laid beside him, said that he had armed himself and was aiding his country as he could, being no longer a general because of his age, but loyal in his judgment. Yet Pisistratus, whether out of respect for the man and his wisdom, or out of remembrance of their youth — for the man is said to have been his favourite — did Solon no harm at all. And so Solon, a little later, being very old, ended his life, leaving behind a great reputation for wisdom and courage. They set up a bronze statue of him in the marketplace, and they buried him too at public expense beside the gates near the wall, on the right as one enters, and his tomb was walled about.

Scythes of Inycum, the sole ruler of the Zanclaeans, went up into Asia to King Darius. And Darius judged him the most just of all the men who had come up to him from Greece, because, having asked the king's leave, he went to Sicily and from Sicily back again to the king. This Democedes of Croton did not do, and for this reason Darius spoke ill of him, calling him a cheat and a most worthless man. So Scythes, living in great prosperity among the Persians, ended his life in old age.

Euthymus the Locrian, of those in Italy, was a good boxer, and he is believed to have been most marvellous in bodily strength; for the Locrians show a stone of the greatest size, which he carried and set before his doors. And the hero in Temesa, who was exacting tribute from the neighbouring people, he made to cease; for, coming to the hero's shrine, which was forbidden ground to most men, he fought it out with him, and forced him to pay back more than he had plundered. From this, indeed, the proverb spread, said of those who profit by something to no good end, that "the hero in Temesa will come to them." They say that this same Euthymus, going down to the river Caecinus, which is before the city of the Locrians, vanished.

This is the epitaph inscribed for Anaxagoras: "Here, having passed to the utmost bound of truth concerning the heavenly cosmos, lies Anaxagoras." And there is an altar set up to him, and on it is inscribed by some "To Mind," by others "To Truth."