298 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE philosophical work of Plato that is not a dialogue, pur- ports to be Socrates's defence at his trial, but is, in fact, neither a speech for a real court nor an answer to a legal accusation, but a glorification of a great man's whole character in the face of later Athenian rumours. It cannot have been written for some years after 399. The Crito is in the same spirit ; it tells how Crito had arranged for Socrates to escape from prison, and how Socrates would not evade or disobey the laws. The Euthyphro is a slight sketch, framed on the usual plan : people were ready to put Socrates to death for impiety, when no one really knew what piety was. The Phcedo gives the last hours in prison, the discourse on the immortality of the soul, and the drinking of the poison. It is realistic in every detail, but the realism is softened partly by the essential nobleness of the actors, partly by an artistic device which Plato loved in the middle period of his work : the conversation is not given directly, it is related by Phaedo, who had been present, to one Echecrates of Phlius, some years after, and far from Athens. "There is nothing in any tragedy ancient or modern," says the late Master of Balliol, " nothing in poetry or history (with one exception), like the last hours of Socrates in Plato." Very characteristic is the lack of dogmatism or certainty : one argument after another is brought up, followed intently, and then, to the general despair, found wanting ; that which is ulti- mately left unanswered is of a metaphysical character, like the Kantian position that the Self, not being in Time, cannot be destroyed in Time. ' Soul ' is that by which things live ; when things die, it is by being separated from Soul : therefore Soul itself cannot be conceived dead. It is an argument that carries conviction
