The day before Socrates’ trial, the annual feast of Delphinia was celebrated. A group of maidens made a procession to the Delphinium, a shrine to Apollo near the temple of Olympian Zeus. The same day a sacred galley set sail from Athens for the island of Delos. The festival commemorated the mythical sea voyage of Theseus to Crete, where the hero slew the Minotaur and delivered Athens from the annual tribute of seven young men and seven young women who were sacrificed to the beast. On his return voyage Theseus stopped at the island of Delos and danced there with the youths he had taken ostensibly to be sacrificed, instituting a sacred pan-Ionian festival.
In Athens ever after on the day of the Delphinia, the sacred galley, a small thirty-oared vessel, was garlanded and sent on its way. No executions were allowed in Athens until she returned after the Delia festival on Delos.[1] The date of the Delphinia was the 6th of Munychion, April-May.[2] The galley normally completed its round-trip voyage in about a fortnight. But because of adverse winds and high seas that year, the trip took thirty days to complete.[3] During this stay of execution, Socrates’ friends visited him in prison daily and passed most of the day with him.[4]
Plato’s Crito recounts a conversation between Socrates and his friend and age-mate Crito. Crito comes to the prison in the early morning hours before dawn, on the 4th of Thargelion (the following month), even before the prison is open for visitors. Socrates awakens to find Crito sitting beside him and wonders that he has been admitted so early. The wealthy Crito hints that he has paid off the jailer and can come and go as he wishes. (Visitors could come and go freely during “visiting hours,” but not early in the morning.)[5] Why did you not wake me? Socrates asks.
“I have always been amazed in observing your ability to sleep peacefully,” Crito replies. “On purpose I didn’t wake you so that you might continue resting comfortably. Often before now I have admired the character you exhibited throughout your life, but I’m even more impressed at you in your present situation, how calmly and serenely you bear your fate.”
“Well, Crito, it would be silly for me to get upset about dying now, at my age.”[6]
Socrates asks why Crito has come uncharacteristically early. Crito admits that he is bringing bad news. “Has the boat arrived from Delos, whose arrival will signal my death?” Socrates asks. Crito reports that she has been seen at Cape Sunium at the tip of the Attic peninsula; she should arrive today. Socrates’ execution will inevitably take place tomorrow. Socrates relates a dream that he has had, in which a woman appears to him quoting a line from the Iliad, indicating that he will not die until the third day (indicating the day after tomorrow, counting inclusively, as the Greeks did).[7] We see an illustration of Socrates’ piety, which allows the gods to communicate with mortals via dreams and other signs. But Crito is not concerned with the exact day. He knows that Socrates’ time is short and the two men need to take action now.
[1].Plutarch Theseus 18.1; 19.1; 21; 23; Plato Phaedo 58a-c; Plato Crito 43d; Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo 146-64; Aristotle Constitution of Athens 56.3. On the dating of the events and their symbolism, see White 2000.
[2].Plutarch Theseus 18.1.
[3].Xenophon Memorabilia 4.8.2.
[4]. Plato Phaedo 59d.
[5].Plato Phaedo 59d; Crito 43a; Hunter 1997:311-312; Demosthenes Letters 2.17; Plutarch Demosthenes 26.1-3.
[6].Plato Crito 43b.
[7].Homer Iliad 9.363.