styled poetical. There are not many which, both for contents and style, can be read in colleges. Best suited for this purpose are the Apology and Crito. The Apology, or Defense of Socrates, the only work of Plato which is not in the form of a dialogue, probably contains the substance of the answer Socrates made to the insidious charges of his accusers. The tone is throughout fearless, at times even defiant, the accused merely pleading that, whatever he did, was done at the bidding of the divinity, who spoke to him through a mysterious inner voice, and that all his doings were directed towards improving the minds and morals of his fellow-citizens. It is, on the whole, grand and elevating reading. A Jesuit professor and distinguished critic, Father Stiglmayr, wrote recently: "What a pity, if youths should no longer drink inspiration from such a source!"[1]
In the Crito we find Socrates in prison, during the interval between his condemnation and death. Crito advises him to fly, Socrates refuses, "as it was not allowed a good citizen to withdraw from proper authority and violate the laws of the state." The dialogue contains very fine passages.
The Phaedo is one of the most remarkable of Plato's dialogues. It relates a conversation held shortly before the death of Socrates, in which the great Athenian undertakes to prove the immortality of the soul. The last chapters narrate in a touching manner, how, when
- ↑ A beautiful appreciation of the Apology is given by this Professor in two articles in the Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, vol. LXII, 1902. – Professor Bristol, in his Teaching of Greek in the Secondary School, thinks the Apology not a suitable introduction to the study of Plato. His arguments are not convincing.
