nd prominent eyes, gave
him the appearance of a Silenus, or satyr. He served with credit as an
hoplite at Potidaea (B.C. 432), Delium (B.C. 424), and Amphipolis (B.C.
422); but it was not till late in life, in the year 406 B.C., that he
filled any political office. He was one of the Prytanes when, after the
battle of Arginusae, Callixenus submitted his proposition respecting
the six generals to the public Assembly, and his refusal on that
occasion to put an unconstitutional question to the vote has been
already recorded. He had a strong persuasion that he was intrusted
with a divine mission, and he believed himself to be attended by a
daemon, or genius, whose admonitions he frequently heard, not, however,
in the way of excitement, but of restraint. He never WROTE anything,
but he made oral instruction the great business of his life. Early in
the morning he frequented the public walks, the gymnasia, and the
schools; whence he adjourned to the market-place at its most crowded
hours, and thus spent the whole day in conversing with young and old,
rich and poor,--with all in short who felt any desire for his
instructions.

That a reformer and destroyer, like Socrates, of ancient prejudices and
fallacies which passed current under the name of wisdom should have
raised up a host of enemies is only what might be expected; but in his
case this feeling was increased by the manner in which he fulfilled his
mission. The oracle of Delphi, in response to a question put by his
friend Chaerephon, had affirmed that no man was wiser than Socrates.
No one was more perplexed at this declaration than Socrates himself,
since he was conscious of possessing no wisdom at all. However, he
determined to test the accuracy of the priestess, for, though he had
little wisdom, others might have still less. He therefore selected an
eminent politician who enjoyed a high reputation for wisdom, and soon
elicited by his scrutinising method of cross-examination, that this
statesman's reputed wisdom was no wisdom at all. But of this he could
not convince the subject of his examination; whence Socrates concluded
that he was wiser than this politician, inasmuch as he was conscious of
his own ignorance, and therefore exempt from the error of believing
himself wise when in reality he was not so. The same experiment was
tried with the same result on various classes of men; on poets,
mechanics, and especially on the rhetors and sophists, the chief of all