Book 1
29
What then, ought we to publish these things to all men? No, but we ought to accommodate ourselves to the ignorantHe calls the uninstructed and ignorant by the Greek word Idiotae, idiots, which we now use in a peculiar sense. An Idiota was a private individual as opposed to one who filled some public office; and thence it had generally the sense of one who was ignorant of any particular art, as, for instance, one who had not studied philosophy. (τοῖς ἰδιώταις) and to say: This man recommends to me that which he thinks good for himself: I excuse him. For Socrates also excused the jailor, who had the charge of him in prison and was weeping when Socrates was going to drink the poison, and said, How generously he laments over us.Compare the Phaedon of Plato (p. 116). The children of Socrates were brought in to see him before he took the poison by which he died; and also the wives of the friends of Socrates who attended him to his death. Socrates had ordered his wife Xanthippe to be led home before he had his last conversation with his friends, and she was taken away lamenting and bewailing. Does he then say to the jailor that for this reason we have sent away the women? No, but he says it to his friends who were able to hear (understand) it; and he treats the jailor as a child.
What we ought to have ready in difficult circumstances.
