Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​And when Antisthenes turned the torn part of his worn cloak so that it showed, "I see your vanity, he said, through your cloak." To the man who said, "Is not so-and-so abusing you?" "No, he said; for these traits do not belong to me." And he used to say that one ought deliberately to expose oneself to the comic poets; for if they should say anything of what really belongs to us, they will correct it; but if not, it is nothing to us. To Xanthippe, who was at first reviling him and afterwards even poured water over him, he said: "Did I not say that Xanthippe, having thundered, would also make rain?" To Alcibiades, who said that Xanthippe was unbearable in her abuse, he said: "Yet I, for my part, have grown used to it, just as if I were continually listening to the creaking of pulleys."

"And you, too, he said, put up with the cackling of geese." And when Alcibiades replied, "Yes, but they lay eggs and hatch goslings for me," "And for me, too, he said, Xanthippe bears children." Once, when she even stripped off his cloak in the market-place, his acquaintances advised him to defend himself with his fists, but he said: "By Zeus, yes, so that while we are boxing, each of you may shout, 'Well done, Socrates! Well done, Xanthippe!'" He used to say that he lived with a rough woman just as horsemen do with spirited horses: "For just as they, he said, having mastered these, easily overcome the rest, so I too, by dealing with Xanthippe, shall learn to get along with all other people." By saying and doing these and suchlike things, he was attested by the Pythia, when Chaerephon consulted the oracle and received that famous response: "Of all men, Socrates is wisest."

​From this very circumstance, indeed, he came to be envied most of all; and also because he refuted those who thought highly of themselves as being foolish, just as he did with Anytus, for instance, as is also related in Plato's Meno. For Anytus, unable to endure the mockery of Socrates, first egged on Aristophanes and his circle against him, and then persuaded Meletus to lodge an indictment against him for impiety and corrupting the young. Meletus, then, brought the indictment, while Polyeuctus delivered the prosecution speech, as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History; and Polycrates the sophist composed the speech, as Hermippus says, or Anytus, as some assert; while Lycon the demagogue prepared everything beforehand.

​Antisthenes, however, in the Successions of Philosophers, and Plato in the Apology, say that three men accused him: Anytus, Lycon, and Meletus—Anytus being angry on behalf of the artisans and politicians, Lycon on behalf of the orators, and Meletus on behalf of the poets, all of whom Socrates used to pull to pieces. But Favorinus says in the first book of his Memorabilia that the speech of Polycrates against Socrates is not authentic; for in it, he says, mention is made of the walls rebuilt by Conon, an event which occurred six years after the death of Socrates. And this is indeed the case.

​The sworn affidavit of the trial was of the following tenor; for it is still preserved even now, as Favorinus says, in the Metroon: "Meletus, son of Meletus, of the deme Pitthos, indicted and swore this charge against Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, of the deme Alopece: Socrates is guilty of not recognizing the gods whom the city recognizes, and of introducing other, novel divinities; and he is also guilty of corrupting the young. The penalty proposed is death." The philosopher, then, when Lysias had written a defense speech for him, read it through and said: "A fine speech, Lysias, but certainly not fitting for me." For it was clearly more forensic than philosophical in character.

​And when Lysias said, "How, if the speech is fine, could it not be fitting for you?" he said: "Might not fine garments and fine shoes also be unfitting for me?" While he was on trial, Justus of Tiberias says in the Wreath that Plato mounted the platform and said: "Being the youngest, men of Athens, of those who have mounted the platform..." whereupon the judges shouted him down: "Come down, come down!" (that is, descend). When, therefore, he was condemned by two hundred and eighty-one votes more than those for acquittal, and the judges were assessing what penalty he ought to suffer or pay, he said that he would pay twenty-five drachmas; though Eubulides says that he agreed to pay one hundred.