“You seem very confident on this point. He indeed was always somewhat doubtful, and certainly there are great difficulties when you come to look into it a little more closely.”
“I really do not know what you mean,” answered Callias; “you have seen him I suppose, for you have been in Athens several days and know what he thinks.”
For a few moments Xenophon stared at the speaker in utter perplexity. Then a light broke in upon him. “What,” he cried, “you do not know? You have not heard?”
“Know what? Have heard what? You speak in riddles.”
“That he is dead.”
The young man covered his face with his hands. After a few minutes he recovered calmness enough to speak. “No, indeed, I did not know it. I never thought of such a thing. He seemed so full of life and vigor. Yet he must have been an old man, not far from seventy I suppose, for he was more than forty at Delium.[84] Tell me of what did he die?”
“They killed him.”
“Killed him! Who killed him?”
“The people of Athens.”