Book 2
3.13
When news was brought him that he was condemned and his sons were dead, his comment on the sentence was, Long ago nature condemned both my judges and myself to death; and on his sons, I knew that my children were born to die. Some, however, tell this story of Solon, and others of Xenophon. That he buried his sons with his own hands is asserted by Demetrius of Phalerum in his work On Old Age. Hermippus in his Lives says that he was confined in the prison pending his execution; that Pericles came forward and asked the people whether they had any fault to find with him in his own public career; to which they replied that they had not. Well, he continued, I am a pupil of Anaxagoras; do not then be carried away by slanders and put him to death. Let me prevail upon you to release him. So he was released; but he could not brook the indignity he had suffered and committed suicide.
3.14
Hieronymus in the second book of his Scattered Notes states that Pericles brought him into court so weak and wasted from illness that he owed his acquittal not so much to the merits of his case as to the sympathy of the judges. So much then on the subject of his trial.
