[448] Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 31 seq.
[449] Thucydid. viii. 68.
[450] Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23.
Such was the colloquial power of Sokrates, in the portrait drawn by Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 14), “that he handled all who conversed with him just as he pleased — τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ὅπως βούλοιτο. Kritias and Alkibiades (Xenophon tells us) sought his society for the purpose of strengthening their own oratorical powers as political men, and of becoming κρείττονε τῶν συγγιγνομένων (i. 2, 16). Looked at from the point of view of opponents, this would be described as the proceeding of one who himself both could pervert justice — and who taught others to pervert it also. This was the picture of Sokrates which the accusers presented to the Athenian Dikastery: as we may see by the language of Sokrates himself at the beginning of the Platonic Apology.
Penalty for abuse of public trust — wrongful appropriation of public money — evasion of military service.
The twelfth and last Book of the Treatise De Legibus deals with various cases of obligation, not towards individuals, but towards the public or the city. Abuse of trust in the character of a public envoy is declared punishable. This offence (familiar to us at Athens through the two harangues of Demosthenes and Æschines) is invested by Plato with a religious colouring, as desecrating the missions and commands of Hermês and Zeus.[451] Wrongful appropriation of the public money by a citizen is also made capital. The penalty is to be inflicted equally whether the sum appropriated be large or small: in either case the guilt is equal, and the evidence of wicked disposition the same, for one who has gone through the public education and training.[452] This is quite different from Plato’s principle of dealing with theft or wrongful abstraction of property from private persons: in which case, the sentence of Plato was, that the amount of damage done, small or great, should be made good by the offender, and that a certain ulterior penalty should be inflicted sufficient to deter him as well as others from a repetition.
[451] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 941 A.
[452] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 941: compare xi. p. 934 A.
Provision is farther made for punishing any omission of military service either by males or females, or any discreditable abandonment of arms.[453] The orders of the military commander must be implicitly and exactly obeyed. The actions of all must be orderly, uniform, and simultaneous. Nothing can be more mischievous than that each should act for himself, separately and apart from others. This is confessedly true as to war; but it is no less essential as to the proceedings in peace.[454] Suppression of individuality, and conversion of life into a perpetual, all-pervading, drill and discipline — is a favourite aspiration always present to Plato.
[453] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 944. It is curious to compare this passage of Plato with the two orations of Lysias κατὰ Θεομνήστου A and B (Oratt. x.-xi.). Plato enjoins upon all accusers the greatest caution and precision in the terms used to indicate what they intended to charge upon the accused. To call a man ῥίψασπις is a more aggravated offensive designation than to call him ἀποβολεὺς ὅπλων, which latter term is more general, and may possibly be applied to those who have lost their arms under the pressure of irresistible necessity, without any disgrace. On the other hand, we read in Lysias, that the offence which was punishable under the Attic law was ὅπλων ἀποβολή, and that to assert falsely respecting any citizen, τὰ ὅπλα ἀποβέβληκε, was an ἀπόῤῥητον or forbidden phrase, which exposed the speaker to a fine of 500 drachmæ (sect. 1-12). But to assert respecting any man that he was ῥίψασπις was not expressly ἀπόῤῥητον (compare Lysias cont. Agorat., Or. xiii. ss. 87-89), and the speaker might argue (successfully or not) that he had said nothing ἀπόῤῥητον, and was not guilty of legal κακηγορία. — There is another phrase in this section of Plato to which I would call attention. He enumerates the excusable cases of losing arms as follows — ὁπόσοι κατὰ κρημνῶν ῥιφέντες ἀπώλεσαν ὅπλα ἢ κατὰ θάλατταν (p. 944 A). Now the cases of soldiers being thrown down cliffs are, I believe, unknown until the Phokian prisoners were so dealt with in the Sacred War, as sacrilegious offenders against Apollo and the Delphian temple. Hence we may probably infer that this was composed after the Sacred War began, B.C. 356. See Diodorus and my ‘Hist. of Greece,’ chap. 87, p. 350 seq.