not even look at or take into the reckoning. For he did not choose, he
said, to save his poor body, but to save that which is increased and
saved by doing what is just, and is impaired and destroyed by doing
what is unjust. Socrates will not save his life by a base act; he
who would not put the Athenians to the vote when they clamoured that
he should do so, he who refused to obey the tyrants, he who discoursed
in such a manner about virtue and right behavior. It is not possible
to save such a man's life by base acts, but he is saved by dying,
not by running away. For the good actor also preserves his character
by stopping when he ought to stop, better than when he goes on
acting beyond the proper time. What then shall the children of
Socrates do? "If," said Socrates, "I had gone off to Thessaly, would
you have taken care of them; and if I depart to the world below,
will there be no man to take care of them?" See how he gives to
death a gentle name and mocks it. But if you and I had been in his
place, we should have immediately answered as philosophers that
those who act unjustly must be repaid in the same way, and we should
have added, "I shall be useful to many, if my life is saved, and if
I die, I shall be useful to no man." For, if it had been necessary, we
should have made our escape by slipping through a small hole. And
how in that case should we have been useful to any man? for where
would they have been then staying? or if we were useful to men while
we were alive, should we not have been much more useful to them by
dying when we ought to die, and as we ought? And now, Socrates being
dead, no less useful to men, and even more useful, is the
remembrance of that which he did or said when he was alive.
Think of these things, these opinions, these words: look to these
examples, if you would be free, if you desire the thing according to
its worth. And what is the wonder if you buy so great a thing at the
price of things so many and so great? For the sake of this which is
called "liberty," some hang themselves, others throw themselves down
precipices, and sometimes even whole cities have perished: and will
you not for the sake of the true and unassailable and secure liberty
give back to God when He demands them the things which He has given?
Will you not, as Plato says, study not to die only, but also to endure
torture, and exile, and scourging, and, in a word, to give up all
which is not your own? If you will not, you will be a slave among
slaves, even you be ten thousand times a consul; and if you make
your way up to the Palace, you will no less be a slave; and you will
feel, that perhaps philosophers utter words which are contrary to
common opinion, as Cleanthes also said, but not words contrary to
reason. For you will know by experience that the words are true, and
that there is no profit from the things which are valued and eagerly
sought to those who have obtained them; and to those who have not
yet obtained them there is an imagination that when these things are
come, all that is good will come with them; then, when they are
come, the feverish feeling is the same, the tossing to and fro is
the same, the satiety, the desire of things which are not present; for
freedom is acquired not by the full possession of the things which are
desired, but by removing the desire. And that you may know that this