[488] He calls off their attention by pretending to show them a geometrical problem and seizes the opportunity to steal something for supper. The young men who gathered together in the palaestra, or gymnastic school, were wont there to offer sacrifices to the gods before beginning the exercises. The offerings consisted of smaller victims, such as lambs, fowl, geese, etc., and the flesh afterwards was used for their meal (vide Plato in the 'Lysias'). It is known that Socrates taught wherever he might happen to be, in the palaestra as well as elsewhere.
[489] The first of the seven sages, born at Miletus.
[490] Because of their wretched appearance. The Laconians, blockaded in Sphacteria, had suffered sorely from famine.
[491] In fact, this was one of the chief accusations brought against Socrates by Miletus and Anytus; he was reproached for probing into the mysteries of nature.
[492] When the Athenians captured a town, they divided its lands by lot among the poorer Athenian citizens.
[493] An allusion to the Athenian love of law-suits and litigation.
[494] When originally conquered by Pericles, the island of Euboea, off the coasts of Boeotia and Attica, had been treated with extreme harshness.
[495] Is about to add, "you believe in them at all," but checks himself.
[496] This was the doctrine of Anaximenes.
[497] The scholiast explains that water-cress robs all plants that grow in its vicinity of their moisture and that they consequently soon wither and die.