said to have fallen from his lips, I cite. It is this: Satyrus, bade
him "Be silent, or he would rue the day;" to which he made answer,
"And if I be silent, shall I not rue it?" Also, when they brought him
the hemlock, and the time was come to drink the fatal draught, they
tell how he playfully jerked out the dregs from the bottom of the cup,
like one who plays "Cottabos,"[22] with the words, "This to the lovely
Critias." These are but "apophthegms"[23] too trivial, it may be
thought, to find a place in history. Yet I must deem it an admirable
trait in this man's character, if at such a moment, when death
confronted him, neither his wits forsook him, nor could the childlike
sportiveness vanish from his soul.

[22] "A Sicilian game much in vogue at the drinking parties of young
men at Athens. The simplest mode was when each threw the wine left
in his cup so as to strike smartly in a metal basin, at the same
time invoking his mistress's name; if all fell into the basin and
the sound was clear, it was a sign he stood well with her."--
Liddell and Scott, sub. v. For the origin of the game compare
curiously enough the first line of the first Elegy of Critias
himself, who was a poet and political philosopher, as well as a
politician:--

"{Kottabos ek Sikeles esti khthonos, euprepes ergon
on skopon es latagon toxa kathistametha.}"
Bergk. "Poetae Lyr. Graec."
Pars II. xxx.


[23] Or, "these are sayings too slight, perhaps, to deserve record;
yet," etc. By an "apophthegm" was meant originally a terse