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PHAED. Have you not heard how and in what manner the judgment passed? ECH. Yes indeed; for there came one and told us of it. At which we wondered very much that, the judgment having been given long before, it seems that he died a great while after. And what, Phaedo, might be the cause of it? PHAED. It was a fortune which happened to him, Echecrates. For it chanced that, the day before the judgment, the stern of the galley which the Athenians send every year to the isle of Delos was crowned.Plato, Phaedo, p. 58 A.
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In which discourse it is to be observed, that the expression happened to him is not simply to be understood by was done or came to pass, but it much rather regards what befell him through the concurrence of many causes together, one being done with regard to another. For the priest crowned the ship and adorned it with garlands for another end and intention, and not for the sake of Socrates; and the judges also had for some other cause condemned him. But the event was strange, and of such a nature that it might seem to have been effected by the providence of some human creature, or rather of some superior powers. And so much may suffice to show with what Fortune must of necessity subsist, and that there must be first some subject of such things as are in our free will: its effect is, moreover, like itself called Fortune.
