Phaedo
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Plato
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 146565
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 14
subject: soul
subject: socrates
subject: body
subject: simmias
subject: cebes
subject: death
subject: narrator
subject: dialogue
subject: echecrates
subject: phlius
subject: apollodorus
subject: crito
subject: attendant
subject: prison
subject: phaedo
subject: scene
subject: narration
subject: plato
subject: western
subject: philosophy
type: text
local mirror: plato-phaedo-350.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: plato-phaedo-350.htm
sort title: Phaedo
full text: 360 BC PHAEDO by Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE PHAEDO, who is the narrator of the dialogue to ECHECRATES of Phlius SOCRATES APOLLODORUS SIMMIAS CEBES CRITO ATTENDANT OF THE PRISON PHAEDO SCENE: The Prison of Socrates PLACE OF THE NARRATION: Phlius Echecrates. Were you yourself, Phaedo, in the prison with Socrates on the day when he drank the poison? Phaedo. Yes, Echecrates, I was. Ech. I wish that you would tell me about his death. What did he say in his last hours? We were informed that he died by taking poison, but no one knew anything more; for no Phliasian ever goes to Athens now, and a long time has elapsed since any Athenian found his way to Phlius, and therefore we had no clear account. Phaed. Did you not hear of the proceedings at the trial? Ech. Yes; someone told us about the trial, and we could not understand why, having been condemned, he was put to death, as appeared, not at the time, but long afterwards. What was the reason of this? Phaed. An accident, Echecrates. The reason was that the stern of the ship which the Athenians send to Delos happened to have been crowned on the day before he was tried. Ech. What is this ship? Phaed. This is the ship in which, as the Athenians say, Theseus went to Crete when he took with him the fourteen youths, and was the saviour of them and of himself. And they were said to have vowed to Apollo at the time, that if they were saved they would make an annual pilgrimage to Delos. Now this custom still continues, and the whole period of the voyage to and from Delos, beginning when the priest of Apollo crowns the stern of the ship, is a holy season, during which the city is not allowed to be polluted by public executions; and often, when the vessel is detained by adverse winds, there may be a very considerable delay. As I was saying, the ship was crowned on the day before the trial, and this was the reason why Socrates lay in prison and was not put to death until long after he was condemned. Ech.…