In a world obsessed with male beauty, he was famous for his ugly features which, as Plato noted, concealed a beautiful soul.
Site of Amphipolis in northern Greece, in the bend of the Strymon River. Socrates fought as a citizen soldier in a desperate battle against the Spartans here in 422 BC. The death of the Spartan general Brasidas and the Athenian general Cleon removed obstacles to a peaceful settlement of the war.
Site of Potidaea on the isthmus of the thin peninsula of Pallene in the Chalcidice. Socrates served as a citizen soldier on a campaign here for up to three years, 432-429 BC. While the Athenian army besieged a rebellious city, a plague raged in Athens, and the Spartans declared war. Socrates endured the heat of summer and the cold of winter without complaint while many of his fellow soldiers resented his calm demeanor.
Socrates lived from about 469 to 399 BC, in Athens, which emerged as the leading cultural, political, and even military center of Greece during his lifetime. Born the son of a stonecutter, he was from the working class at a time when almost all intellectuals were from the aristocracy, so that as wealthy landowners and slaveholders they could enjoy a life of leisure (scholē, the source of the word ‘school’). By the force of his intellect and determination, he studied with a natural philosopher, Archelaus, and encountered famous Sophists who came to Athens to teach, but he turned away from both approaches to knowledge. Instead of inquiring into the laws of nature or pursuing training for political success, he turned to questions of morality. What made a person good or evil, or an action right or wrong?
Rather than developing a systematic theory or a popular practice, he resorted to a method of question and answer. Responding to an endorsement of him by the Oracle at Delphi, which said that no one was wiser than he, Socrates sought interviews with the wise and famous in Athens in the hope of finding someone wiser than himself. In the process he offended influential people, but also built up a following of earnest young men who believed that his inquiries were making them virtuous and wise. Socrates seems to have practiced the virtue he was seeking, risking his life in battle as a citizen soldier, in the forum when he insisted on following constitutional procedures in a trial, and as a citizen when he refused to arrest an innocent man at the behest of a lawless government put in place at the end of the Peloponnesian War.
Socrates was put on trial in the summer of 399 BC on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. He was condemned and put to death. After his death, however, his young followers, including Plato the future philosopher and Xenophon the future soldier of fortune and historian, revived Socrates in dialogues they published, showing him in action as a philosophers and devotee of virtue. In the end they won the propaganda war against the enemies of Socrates and convinced Athens and the world that Socrates was, as he had said in his trial, God’s gift to Athens.
An ongoing challenge for scholarship is the effort to identify what, in the writings of Plato and other sources of Socrates, belongs to the historical Socrates, and what is the invention of the authors who write about him. This is known as the Socratic Problem. I happen to think that significant progress has been made in this area. Plato was a brilliant enough philosopher to understand the method in Socrates’ madness; he shows us how he worked, and lets us figure out why he does what he does. A century or more of scholarship has identified the early, middle, and late dialogues of Plato. In the early dialogues, we get a picture of the historical Socrates and how he worked, even though most of the conversations presented are fictional: Plato presents a faithful account of the kinds of things Socrates said and did.
In the middle dialogues, by contrast, Plato develops his own theory (as we learn from Plato’s student Aristotle). Instead of professing his ignorance, the character Socrates becomes a know-it-all who pontificates on speculative theories (of Plato) and defends them. In the late dialogues, Socrates, who sometimes takes a back seat to other speakers or disappears altogether, tends to discourse on more scientific and systematic theories (of Plato). So the early dialogues provide a reliable picture of Socrates, one consistent with what other contemporary sources have to say about him. In the early dialogues Plato offers a life-like and compelling portrait of the paradoxical figure he followed around for perhaps a decade.
There is a kind of deep symbolism that occurred with the death of Socrates on the 6th of the month of Thargelion.[23] On this very day, the first day of the Thargelia festival, two scapegoats (pharmakoi) were ritually prepared. These were men who were fed at public expense, then hung
The story that Plato tells in the Phaedo has all the makings of a tragedy. A good man is accused falsely of crimes he did not commit. Circumstances make him hated of the people, and a commission from the gods leads him to do things that further alienate the people
There has been controversy about how Socrates died or, to be precise, how hemlock poisoning acts on the body. This is a scientific question that can be pursued independently of literary sources. For many years researchers have held that hemlock poisoning is inherently violent, causing convulsions before death. If so,
At the end of the discussion his friend Phaedo narrates the final actions and words of Socrates. “Now,” says Socrates, “fate calls me, as a tragic actor might say, and it is about time for me to go take my bath. For it seems to me better to bathe before
Now Socrates puts his feet on the floor and begins an increasingly philosophical discussion. First he talks about the ethics of suicide in connection with some teachings of the expatriate philosopher Philolaus of Croton in Italy, who was the teacher of Simmias and Cebes in Thebes. The discussion moves to
Socrates’ friends came to visit him every day he was in prison. They gathered at dawn at the courtroom where he had been tried and waited until the prison, which was located nearby, was open for visitors. The prison opened at a time that was “not early,”[1] but as the
Did some of Socrates’ friends formulate an escape plot, as related in the Crito? Xenophon accepts the reality of a plot.[39] One source accepts the plot, but attributes the conversation to Socrates’ follower Aeschines rather than to Crito.[40] It is likely several of Socrates’ friends thought it was their duty
There has been a great deal of controversy about the inconsistency of what Socrates says in the Apology and in the Crito. In the former, Socrates seems to set at defiance the laws of Athens by refusing to cooperate with the judgment of the court; in the latter, he seems
If Socrates did not approve of the laws of Athens, he had the opportunity to persuade his city otherwise under the democracy.[28] Evidently the main opportunity Socrates had to persuade was in his speech at his trial. He could persuade the Athenians that he was law-abiding and upright in his
“Consider now, Socrates,” the Laws continue, “that if what we say is true, you are not undertaking a just action in what you are planning. Having begotten you, nourished you, and educated you, shared all our goods with you and with your fellow citizens, we proclaim to any Athenian who
To clarify the situation, Socrates now begins an imaginary dialogue in which the Laws of Athens are interrogating Socrates and Crito, assuming the role of questioner in a Socratic examination. The Laws, like the chorus of a Greek play, will raise questions on behalf of the city government about Socrates’
Socrates will take up the examination with Crito. He seeks Crito’s approval, based on principles the two of them share. “Do we say that we must not do wrong intentionally in any situation, or that one must do wrong in some situations, but not in others? Isn’t it the case
Socrates asks his friend if he still holds that living well is more important than merely living. He does. And to live well means to live nobly and justly? Yes. “Therefore, on the basis of these agreements we must examine whether it’s just for me to escape from here without
“Dear Crito,” Socrates answers, “your zeal is commendable, if it’s on the right track. But if not, the greater your enthusiasm, the worse your recommendation. So let’s consider whether to do this thing or not. I, you see, am not just now but always and forever committed to following none
But Crito is not listening. Are you worried, he asks, about the financial and legal risks I and your other friends will be taking? We are ready to risk everything for you. He points out that he has more than enough money to take care of the problems, especially with
Crito worries that “It will seem to many who are not well acquainted with me and you that when I was in a position to rescue you if I would expend a little money, I neglected to do so. Yet what reputation could be more shameful than this, to be
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
Plato, for his part, wrote at a momentous time when society was making a transition from an oral to a literate culture. He was the follower of an oral philosopher who needed someone with pen to tell his mentor’s story to a broader audience. Plato was that man. Plato himself,
Although Polycrates’ version of the trial was an anachronistic fabrication, it contained a kernel of truth. Meletus may have had a personal bone to pick with Socrates, if he was the Meletus who helped arrest Leon of Salamis when Socrates refused (see ch. 23*). But what was at stake rose
One topic that notably does not get mentioned in the trial is politics. In fact the trial was surely all about politics. As one scholar of Athenian law has observed, “It is tempting to assert that Athenian religious trials were all about politics: a surprisingly high proportion of known impiety
The existence of two defense speeches of Socrates (and allusions to others) raises a problem about whom to trust as a source. The problem is part of a bigger one, known as the Socratic Problem: who is (are) our best source(s), and how can we reconstruct the life and especially
Xenophon, too, records an Apology of Socrates, providing another perspective on the trial. Others, Xenophon points out, have portrayed Socrates’ megalēgoria or “talking big” at the trial; but they have not explained clearly how he came to prefer death to life.[29] Xenophon, who was away on campaign at the time,
Plato has Socrates talk to the jurors briefly as the court is concluding its business. This part of the speech, which falls outside forensic practice, is most likely a fabrication of Plato to allow some reflection and editorializing.[25] Here Socrates says that he was condemned because he refused to play
The trial carries no mandatory sentence; the prosecutors proposed the death penalty in their complaint.[18] Socrates must now propose a counter-penalty. The prudent thing to do is to propose exile as a serious but less radical punishment for the now-convicted defendant.[19] But Socrates does not play the game. He reminds
25.5 The Vote The herald takes the stage and gives simple instructions: a disk with a solid axle is a vote for the prosecutor, a disk with a hollow axle is a vote for the defendant. The five hundred jurymen stand up from their benches by rows. When they arrive
Now Socrates has made his defense. At this point in the trial it is common for the defendant to parade his family and friends before the court so that they can weep and make an emotional appeal to the jury.[11] Socrates does acknowledge that he has a family including three
Now Socrates goes into a discussion of his political involvement, which resulted not from any activism on his part, he claims, but from carrying out his normal duties as a citizen. He tells the story of his service as a member of the executive committee of the Council when the
Indeed, Socrates here implicitly answers the question that was left unresolved in the Euthyphro (ch. 23.5*): what is piety for Socrates? To serve the gods seems to imply tending to their needs; but the gods, if they are truly divine, do not have any needs. Now, however, we see that
Having confronted his main accuser and refuted to the best of his abilities the charges against him, Socrates now provides a positive account of his life. He imagines the jury offering to acquit him if he will just give up his practice of philosophy. He then gives to the imaginary
Here the alternative to fear of death may seem like blind obedience to political or military leaders or to the gods. But Socrates’ obedience is never blind, as his examination of the oracle indicates. He has thought long and deeply about the meaning of the revelation, and conducted an exhaustive
At this point Socrates tells us something about his beliefs; not, indeed about his beliefs in the gods, but about his moral commitments. He imagines someone asking him if he is not ashamed of following pursuits that could get him condemned. “You are mistaken, sir,” he replies, “if you think
Socrates calls up Meletus to question him, a procedure allowed in Athenian trials.[15] “Don’t you consider it of the utmost importance that the youth should be as good as possible?” he asks. “I do,” answers Meletus. “Well, now, tell these people who makes them better? It’s clear that
“Of my wisdom, such as it is,” Socrates continues, “I call as my witness—the god at Delphi. Chaerephon, I suppose, is well known to you. He was my companion since my youth, and associated with you the people and went into exile and returned to Athens with you. You know
Standing before the five hundred jurors, the king archon, the accusers, the witnesses, and a miscellaneous audience of onlookers,[1] Socrates began his defense speech. Although speakers in a trial, both accusers and defendants, usually gave memorized speeches composed by professional speech-writers, Socrates would have none of it.[2] He would speak
After the preliminary hearing with Meletus and Socrates, the king archon posted the date of the inquiry and the names of the litigants on a bulletin board near the statues of the eponymous heroes in the marketplace. On the day of the preliminary examination (anakrisis), Meletus and Socrates met again.
By now Euthyphro is befuddled. His most promising definition of the holy has been revealed as inadequate. The holy may indeed be loved by all the gods, but that does not explain what it is or why the gods love it. At this point Socrates offers a hint. “See if
Socrates now raises a different and more fundamental question. “Consider the following: is what is holy loved by [all] the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is loved by [all] the gods?” Euthyphro does not grasp the distinction at first. In fact Socrates’ question raises one of
Already the two interlocutors are talking past each other. Socrates bristles at the tales of gods going to war with each other. He refers to the god of friendship (Zeus Philios), who should reign among the deities. His objections seem directed not so much against tradition itself as against the
In this setting Plato presents a dialogue on religion. Socrates, who has just left from the preliminary hearing, encounters his friend Euthyphro. Socrates explains that he is being prosecuted for introducing new gods and learns that Euthyphro, who is a prophet and religious expert, is involved in his own religious
Since soon after the fall of the Thirty an amnesty had been in force. The citizens of Athens, the Thirty and their chief officers excluded, could not be accused for any actions they took during the reign of the Thirty.[1] This measure put a stop to the internecine conflict between
Xenophon and the Ten Thousand had done something unthinkable. They had marched into the heart of the great eastern empire of Persia, had met the Great King and an innumerable host in combat, had defeated them three times, had refused to capitulate when their allies had all surrendered and half
The army now burned its wagons, tents, and other excess baggage. They crossed the Zapatas River heading north up the Tigris valley. The first day they were not opposed by a large army, but were shadowed by a company of cavalry, archers, and slingers, who harassed them while staying out
As night fell the Greek army was in despair. Their generals had been taken, the rebel forces under Ariaeus had gone over to the king, and Cyrus’ nemesis Tissaphernes was preparing to destroy them, now deep in Persian territory on the east side of the Tigris River. Xenophon retired to
The next morning messengers from their allies rode into camp to announce to the Greeks the terrible news: Cyrus was dead. When half of Artaxerxes’ army had fled the previous day, Cyrus had wheeled his forces to the west to take on the remainder, including the Great King. He led
Three days later Cyrus’ army was still marching south with no enemy in sight. The column had dissolved into a disorderly rabble, with Cyrus confidently driving in his chariot, unprotected. Suddenly a staff officer galloped up to him to report that a massive army was arrayed against him and moving
Cyrus’s army now turned east across Syria and stopped at the city of Thapsacus. There Cyrus held a meeting of his generals and finally announced his real intentions: he was heading for Babylonia in the heart of the Persian Empire, where he would challenge the Great King. The soldiers complained
The army marched through Iconium and from there into the land of Lycaonia. Now out of his own province of Phrygia, Cyrus authorized the army to plunder the land as hostile territory. Cyrus sent the queen home ahead of his army as he continued on through Cappadocia and approached a
In the spring of 401 BC, Cyrus set out from Sardis with his Grande Armée. He marched through Lydia, crossing the Maeander River on a pontoon bridge (the usual Persian bridge structure), traveled into Phrygia to Colossae, where he rendezvoused with Meno of Thessaly and his force of one thousand
Now, with the major obstacles out of the way, Prince Cyrus set about to gather a mighty army that could stand against his brother, the Great King himself. By the time he returned to the Aegean, the Peloponnesian War was over and the Spartans victorious. As a result there were
With the overthrow of the oligarchy in Athens, the democrats were restored to power. They promised to avoid reprisals against ordinary citizens who had, willingly or unwillingly, collaborated with the Thirty in their brutal regime. Not all of those associated with the regime felt secure. One of those who did
Both warring factions sent envoys to Sparta, and the Spartans sent a peace commission to Athens to mediate. The general terms of the agreement stipulated that everyone might return home except for the Thirty, the Eleven, and the Ten who had ruled in the oligarchy. The former rulers, however, and
With his followers now one thousand strong, Thrasybulus stole into Piraeus by night, where many more enemies of the oligarchy were to be found. The next day when the soldiers from Athens marched down to attack them, they found the rebels occupying the hill of Munychia. The government troops had
Among these targets of the Thirty was the family of Cephalus, who is the host of the gathering portrayed in Plato’s Republic. Cephalus was a foreigner from Syracuse who had migrated to Athens at the invitation of Pericles.[46] His family ran a large arms factory, making shields. After Cephalus’ death
The one outspoken voice for moderation among the Thirty, Theramenes, opposed the policy of accusing law-abiding citizens on trumped-up charges. He had always been interested in a balanced and responsible government, not a tyranny of the Few over the Many. The Thirty had established a Council of five hundred of
One law the Thirty passed prohibited “teaching the art of words.”[32] This initiative was presumably directed against the proliferation of political expertise among the Many. According to Xenophon, a rumor reached Critias and his colleague Charicles that Socrates had said, “It would be surprising to me if a cowherd who
After they had gotten rid of undesirables, the Thirty began to arrest respectable citizens, and notably the richest and most prominent. Their objective was not simply to rid the city of troublemakers, but to remove anyone who might have the power to challenge them. Furthermore, since they confiscated the property
Athens was still required to be governed by its ancestral constitution. The requirement was vague, but clearly the Spartans expected Athens to abandon its radical democracy that had been so aggressive and, increasingly, so irresponsible. At one Assembly meeting it was proposed to appoint a commission to revise the constitution.
Conon fled to exile on the island of Cyprus, well knowing the fate that would await him, like the generals of Arginusae, if he returned home. The Paralus sailed directly to Athens to bring the sad tidings of the battle, while Lysander dispatched a privateer to report to Sparta.[10] “When
At this point Thrasymachus changes his tack. As Socrates is trying to sum up the main argument, he asks, “Do you say that complete injustice is more profitable than complete justice?” “Indeed I do, and I have explained why.” “Well then, how do you classify them? Is one
In the company at Cephalus’ house is the sophist Thrasymachus. After listening impatiently to the conversation, he breaks in. “What hogwash this is, Socrates! Why are you carrying on like nitwits bowing and scraping to each other? If you really want to know what justice is, don’t just ask questions
In Plato’s Republic, book I, Socrates enters into an extended discussion of justice that engages the might-makes-right philosophy which Antiphon promoted and Thucydides uncovered as a driving force in Athenian imperialism.[15] Socrates asks the elderly Cephalus, a foreign resident from Syracuse in whose house the dialogue takes place,[16]
The idea that might makes right was certainly not new in Socrates’ time. The early poet Hesiod expressed this attitude in a parable: Now I will tell a fable to kings who have understanding: Once a hawk addressed a nightingale with colorful neck carrying her high in the clouds clutched
In the spring of 416 BC, the Athenians sent an expedition consisting of thirty-six ships and 1500 troops against the island of Melos. What was unusual about the expedition was that Melos, as a colony of Sparta, had never been a member of the Delian League and never been part
What is Justice? This is a question Socrates asked no less than, What is Temperance? What is Piety? What is Courage? But the stakes seem larger with justice, because this virtue plays an immense role in community interactions. Socrates acted on an ideal of justice when he stood up against
Socrates showed by deeds as well as words on the day of the Assembly that he stood for the rule of law and against the arbitrary actions of a democracy out of control. The passions of the moment prevailed, as they did too often in the Assembly of Athens, particularly
It so happened that Socrates was on the Council at the time, his name having been drawn by lot. The period of service for the appointment was a year, and a citizen could serve on the Council only twice in his life. Councilors had to undergo a review or background
The victory at Arginusae should have been a cause for general rejoicing at Athens, and no doubt it was for a few days. But when the news spread that few survivors or bodies of the dead had been recovered, there was consternation. The recovery of bodies was almost as important
When the Spartan fleet at Mytilene heard of the approaching Athenian fleet, Callicratidas sailed out with 120 ships, leaving 50 to maintain the blockade against Conon’s fleet, to meet his enemy in the straits between the Asian mainland and the island of Lesbos. He found the Athenian fleet having dinner
19.1 Showdown at Lesbos After staying four months in Athens, Alcibiades set sail with a fleet for the Aegean. He attacked the island of Andros, which had recently rebelled against Athens, winning a battle and beginning siege operations against the town. He then sailed on to the main Athenian base
About the time when the Euthydemus is set, Socrates seems to have received a remarkable invitation. He was invited to join the court of Archelaus, King of Macedonia (no relation to the philosopher of the same name Socrates studied with, ch. 4*). The king reigned over much of northern Greece.
The two sophists pick up the conversation again, this time arguing that there is no such thing as speaking falsely.[12] When the conversation is about to get ugly, Socrates intervenes again. He takes up his conversation with Clinias where it left off. They have determined that they should seek wisdom
Socrates asks Clinias if it is good enough just to possess good things, or if we need to use them. For instance, if a carpenter had tools and wood but never used them, would they help him? If an individual had money but never used it, would it help him?
Throughout the ups and downs of Athenian empire and throughout the ups and downs of Alcibiades’ career, Socrates kept on doing what he had been doing before the expedition to Sicily. From about 410 on, Plato and Xenophon were among the company of young men who followed Socrates about, and
As the Athenian fleet in the Aegean and the Hellespont gradually gained ground against the Spartan navy, things went badly for the Four Hundred in Athens. Clearly the fleet was committed to democracy. The regime itself consisted of two factions, the hard-liners who wanted to keep all power in the
While the democracy in Athens was being overthrown, Athenian forces on the island of Samos supported the Samian democrats in removing the oligarchy Peisander had set up there. The fleet headquartered at Samos consisted of about one hundred ships, each with a complement of two hundred men. The great majority
With Athens in disarray, the city-states of Ionia, long under the dominion of Athens and the Delian League, sent envoys to Sparta secretly, offering to revolt if Sparta could defend them. Here was the escape Alcibiades needed. He got himself posted to Ionia, across the Aegean Sea from King Agis.
Meanwhile, Alcibiades sailed in a freighter to the land of Elis in the western Peloponnesus, where he had friends from the Quadruple Alliance and his campaign to isolate Sparta. He wasted no time planning his revenge. “I’ll show them who’s still alive!” he said of his Athenian persecutors.[38] Contacting the
In mid-summer the appointed day came for the fleet’s sailing. The people of Athens descended to the port of Piraeus to watch the spectacle as one hundred newly constructed and fitted-out galleys launched into the harbor. The ships were freshly painted and the soldiers and marines glittered in new or
The Athenians threw themselves into preparations for a major expedition. But as the day of departure neared, the Athenians awoke to an outrage. During the night most of the numerous stone statues of Hermes, which stood as phallic fertility symbols and good luck charms, were defaced. The action was seen
In the last chapter we met Alcibiades at the party celebrating Agathon’s victory at the Lenaea, which happened around February of 416. Around the same time a politician named Hyperbolus called for a vote of ostracism. The two leading figures this vote threatened were Nicias and Alcibiades. Currently the Athenian
The story of Socrates, as well as the story of Athens, is inextricably bound up with the fate of Alcibiades, the golden boy of the Golden Age. Alcibiades’ rise and fall, and his second rise and fall, propelled Athens ever on like some sort of tragic destiny.[1] In 420 Athens
What is most striking in Socrates’ private life is his moral character. And nothing is more indicative of Socrates’ moral life than his sexual life. Plato provides a glimpse of Socrates’ behavior in his dialogue The Symposium. The occasion is a celebration for the poet Agathon in the victory
While Socrates lived a simple and even austere life, he was not averse to enjoying pleasures. It appears that Socrates had one hobby: in his old age he took lessons in playing the lyre from the music teacher Connus. This was an accomplishment a gentleman would typically have learned as
Xenophon’s Socrates talks about things we would not hear from Plato’s character. He lets us in on the relationship between Socrates and Antisthenes, who, after Plato and Xenophon, was Socrates’ most influential follower. Antisthenes, like Socrates, was relatively poor. In Xenophon’s Symposium Antisthenes is asked what he prides himself in.
This brings us to Socrates’ own finances. We see Socrates behaving as a man of leisure, spending his time conversing with friends, acquaintances, and strangers, often steering the conversation to his favorite topics, attending parties, helping friends. What is odd about Socrates is that, unlike members of the leisured class,
Like family, friendship was serious business in ancient Greece. The state did not, in general, provide social services. The citizen’s safety net consisted of a man’s family and friends. Great families made formal alliances through marriage, like dynastic monarchs, while friends forged informal alliances for mutual benefit. Unlike today, social
Socrates’ eldest son was Lamprocles, whom we meet in Xenophon’s dialogues. The boy is upset with his mother. Socrates asks questions of him to help him see the many benefits he has received from his mother. “Children are indebted to their parents for giving them life, letting them behold and
When Socrates returned home from Amphipolis, he returned to Athens for good. In 421 Athens and Sparta concluded the Peace of Nicias, according to which the map of Greece would revert to its previous state. Each side would return the places it had captured during the war, and the former
Laches had a distinguished military career before and after the meeting portrayed by Plato. In 427, previous to the time of the encounter with Socrates, Laches, along with a colleague Charoedes, commanded a fleet of twenty ships that sailed to Sicily in response to the Leontine embassy Gorgias participated in
“Well,” replies Nicias, “you seem to me, Socrates, to be making a mess of your definition of courage. What I have heard you yourself aptly saying, you have not used.” “What’s that, Nicias?” “I have often heard you say that each of us is good in that in
Two of the leading military leaders of the Athenian armies were Nicias and Laches. Plato introduces us to them in a dialogue named after the latter. Socrates encounters the two generals with their friends Lysimachus and Melesias, at a time soon after the battle of Delium.[6] Lysimachus and Melesias wish
A few months before the Athenian defeat at Delium (November, 424 BC), Brasidas, an ambitious Spartan general, led an army of 1,700 infantry north on a daring march through hostile Thessaly to the Chalcidice. He appeared suddenly before the city of Acanthus, and by a combination of enticements and threats,
Surprisingly, Aristophanes was not the only comic poet to put Socrates on the stage that day. Ameipsias produced a play titled Connus, named after Socrates’ music teacher.[13] The chorus consisted of the Thinkers, Phrontistai. Socrates appeared on stage wearing a threadbare cloak. “Here you are, Socrates,” said one character, “the
Pheidippides comes out of Socrates’ school, now wearing a white mask in place of the dark one he had when he went in. Strepsiades embraces his son, admiring his wan complexion—symbol of an unhealthy life indoors—and they walk off towards their house. They meet two fat creditors who threaten legal
“Will you swear not to believe any other god but those we worship, Chaos, Clouds, and flapping Tongue, our trinity?” asks Socrates. Strepsiades confesses the creed and is received into the Thinkery. He begins a soliloquy: Now to the Thinkery hand I over this poor body of
The festival officials moved out onto the orchestra and the crowd grew quiet in anticipation of the three comedies to be performed. Now it was time to hear The Clouds. The officials retreated. The double doors of the scene building were thrown open, and the eccyclema, a stage on wheels,
In the month of Elaphebolion, in the year that Isarchus was eponymous archon [March-April, 423 BC], Socrates became a celebrity. It didn’t happen in the way you might expect. The forty-six-year-old philosopher didn’t make a brilliant speech in the Assembly that changed public policy. He didn’t win a battle
The following year, 424, Demosthenes and his fellow general Hippocrates (nephew of the late Pericles) dreamed up another brilliant initiative. The Athenians would launch coordinated attacks on Boeotia, the territory north and west of Athens, which was allied with Sparta. Demosthenes would land with a force on the Corinthian Gulf
Now in its eighth year, the Peloponnesian War continued unabated on more or less equal terms, with each side striving to get a strategic advantage over the other. With the Spartans invading their territory every year, the Athenians looked for a way to take the war to the doorstep of
Socrates sought out those with reputations for wisdom. Who were the wise men he interviewed? Later accounts provide a list of important figures. Among political leaders we see him having conversations with Critias and Charmides (see ch. 8*) and Alcibiades (ch. 17*), as well as the generals Nicias and Laches
“Last of all,” Socrates continues, “I turned to the skilled craftsmen. I knew quite well that I had practically no technical qualifications myself, and I was sure that I should find them full of impressive knowledge. In this I was not disappointed. They understood things that I did not, and
“I want you to think,” Socrates says in his trial, “of my adventures as a sort of pilgrimage undertaken to establish the truth of the oracle once and for all. After I had finished with the politicians, I turned to the poets, dramatic, lyric, and all the rest, in the
We find a sample of Socrates’ interaction with a politician in Plato’s Meno. Socrates and Meno are discussing the question of whether there are teachers of virtue as Anytus happens by. Socrates turns to him as an example of one who is the son of a successful businessman, who himself
Chaerephon came bearing the most exciting news in the world, a total vindication of Socrates and his philosophical method. Socrates was not delighted, overjoyed, triumphant: he was dumbstruck. What was Chaerephon thinking? More important, what was the god doing in making such an outrageous statement? Socrates was deeply troubled by
When did Chaerephon make his pilgrimage? It would be difficult or impossible to visit Delphi during the hostilities of the Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 431 to 404 BC. Delphi was in enemy territory and surrounded by hostile city states and ethnic groups. Furthermore, the oracle had showed itself partial
The god’s endorsement of Socrates may have come by the chance drawing of a lot, as we have seen. Or it may have come as an inspired utterance from the priestess. If the latter, why single out a so-far minor thinker for Apollo’s commendation? In fact, there are a number
Meanwhile Socrates went about his daily walks, holding impromptu conversations with his many friends and with new acquaintances as well. He felt a special connection to the divine through his daimonion, a divine sign that advised him from time to time. It did not, he assured his friends, ever tell
Chaerephon’s question probably did not elicit great interest among the bystanders—who were numerous, according to Xenophon—or the priesthood of the oracle. But it would turn out to be one of the oracle’s most famous and portentous pronouncements. The answer came back, No. No one was wiser than Socrates. Xenophon reports
What made the Oracle at Delphi special? Some researches have stressed a trance-like state the Pythia entered into, so that she babbled incoherently, while the prophet or spokesman rendered the gibberish into a coherent reply for the questioner. Other researches have downplayed the mystical or paranormal aspects of the experience.[12]
The lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither conceals nor reveals, but gives a sign. Heraclitus Chaerephon’s Question One of Socrates’ constant companions was Chaerephon. Gaunt and pale, he looked like a scarecrow or, to Aristophanes, a bat, and hence was a target for impersonation on the comic stage.[1] Enthusiastic
In contrast to the archaic poets who view eloquence as a divine gift, the fifth century BC is conscious of the development of crafts that have advanced civilization. Crafts are discovered and handed down, often improved by generations of craftsmen who understand their subject matter intimately by long training and
Plato presents Socrates arriving at the end of a display Gorgias has just given to great acclaim. Socrates’ faithful sidekick Chaerephon (whom we shall meet again) offers to arrange a special audience for Socrates to hear his friend Gorgias. But Socrates wants to ask questions of Gorgias one-on-one. Meeting Gorgias,
The luxurious texture of Gorgias’ speech was not its only attraction. The Helen is also a tour-de-force of argumentation. At the beginnings of theorizing about persuasive speech, he presents a thesis, that Helen is innocent. He considers four causes for her behavior (I-IV) and argues that each cause provides a
In the summer of 427 BC, when Socrates was 42 years old, a group of emissaries came from Leontini in Sicily to ask the Athenian state for help.[1] Athens had made an alliance with Leontini in 433, or rather renewed an alliance made in the 450s. Now Leontini was at
Whatever bond the tragic poet and the philosopher shared as free-thinking intellectuals in fifth century Athens, they were clearly on different sides of a growing cultural divide. The poet thought in terms of capricious divine powers—or were they stand-ins for social and natural forces?—that could traumatize hapless mortals. The philosopher,
In which a playwright presents a tragedy driven by passions and argues against Socrates’ principles on the stage, rejecting the rationality of human action. 9.1 Philosophy on Stage At the Festival of Dionysus held in the Theater of Dionysus in early 428 BC, when Socrates was 41 years old, the
The conversation at the palaestra continues, and, baited by Socrates, Critias finally enters the discussion. Asked by Critias what he thinks temperance is, Socrates insists that Critias should give his opinion. “I assert to you in plain terms that temperance is the doing of good things,” Critias replies.[9] Exploring this
Here we see Socrates the educator, interested in the upbringing of the young. He asks about schoolchildren. He asks questions of them and tests their understanding with further questions. But for him education is not just for the young. The adults who are their teachers and guardians, no less than
Socrates returned from his long campaign abroad and resumed his familiar activities. And with this event, he re-entered the life of Athens, at least in Plato’s portrait of him. Socrates narrates his homecoming: Yesterday evening we returned from the army at Potidaea, and having been a good while away, I
In the spring of 430 King Archidamus again set out from Sparta with an army to devastate the lands of Attica. The Athenian country people again withdrew behind the walls of Athens for safety. But this time the devastation to Athens would be much worse than anything Sparta could inflict
In the spring of 431 the enemies of Athens struck the first blow when Theban commandos with the help of traitors entered the city of Plataea near the borders of Attica and attempted to take over the city by a coup. The Plataeans put up an unexpected resistance and captured,
The events around Potidaea had important consequences. The Corinthians saw the Athenians as trying to steal their colonies on both sides of Greece, Corcyra to the northwest and Potidaea to the northeast. The tenuous alliance that kept Athens and Sparta together in the early years after the Persian invasion was
In which Socrates goes on a long military expedition to the north, where he demonstrates his bravery and hardiness, as Athens begins a long, destructive war with Sparta. Although warfare was a fact of life for Greek city states, Socrates’ lifetime had been predominantly a time of peace. Athens with
Plato provides us with a picture of Socrates in his early career, entering the lion’s den of sophists, challenging their champion and leader to a game of wits, and coming out victorious. When he says, “we left,” he shows us that Hippocrates did not stay to enroll. Socrates has
Socrates offers a list of five virtues: wisdom, temperance, courage, justice, and piety. Are these just the same thing under different names, or are they different? Protagoras insists that courage, at least, is quite different from the others and often found in people who lack the other virtues. Socrates
In which Socrates argues that virtue is knowledge, refutes his opponent, and raises the question of how that virtue can be knowledge if it is not teachable. Protagoras has offered a rhetorical tour de force: a story built on a traditional myth, with a moral, which he then uses as
Socrates replies to Protagoras that he did not think that such knowledge could be taught or communicated to another. We can see this fact, he claims, from the practice of Athenian democracy. Whenever there is a technical question to be decided, such as about the construction of public buildings or
Undeterred by the warning, Hippocrates is still dying to meeting the sophist, and Socrates leads him to the house of the rich young patron Callias. They call at the door, but the doorkeeper refuses to let them in, as in a comic scene from a Greek play. Eventually they
5 A Meeting of the Minds In which Socrates crashes a party full of professional wise men who have come to town to teach young men how to succeed in life, and he challenges one of them to show how he can teach virtue. 5.1 The Sophists Have Come to
The question arises, why would two philosophers go to the island of Samos? Samos was the birthplace of Pythagoras about 570 BC. Yet Pythagoras was long gone by then, for he’d left to build his religious society in Croton (modern Crotone) in Italy. But there was yet one famous
Anaxagoras left behind a student, Archelaus.[28] Probably a native Athenian,[29] Archelaus continued the tradition of his master, seeking naturalistic explanations of phenomena. He held that the separation of the hot from the cold led to a gathering of elemental stuffs with earth at the center, surrounded by water, air, and
Meanwhile, back in Athens, Aeschylus wrote a play which featured both the question of the Nile’s floods and Anaxagoras’ new theory: I have learned to praise the race of the Ethiopian land, where seven-streamed Nile rolls with rain of winds on earth, where sun beaming out
Around the time the meteor fell, a young Greek tourist was traveling up the Nile River in Egypt. Armed with the latest theories and a boundless curiosity, he stopped to question Egyptian priests, the repositories of ageless wisdom: What was the cause of the Nile floods? Late each summer the
A luminous fire appeared in the morning sky before sunrise one day in the summer of 466 BC. Morning by morning the fire grew larger, sprouting a tail that trailed away from the sun. This was a great comet, another heavenly portent. As the comet approached the sun, the tail
Writing after Parmenides, Anaxagoras saw the importance of his predecessor’s conception. In a month Anaxagoras could verify Parmenides’ insight: the perceived shape of the moon is a function of its position relative to the sun, showing that the moon is indeed illuminated by the sun. Parmenides’ insight allowed Anaxagoras to
A turning point in the succession of cosmologies occurred when Parmenides of Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy, wrote a poem criticizing cosmology and arguing—explicitly presenting arguments for the first time—that change was impossible and all that existed was “what is.”[10] Scholars disagree over whether he allowed only one
Heraclitus of Ephesus, an important city just to the north of Miletus, meditated on the ideas of his predecessors. In his enigmatic pronouncements, he hinted that if one substance turns into another—for instance if air turns into fire and water, and so on, then nothing, or rather no substance, is
In which Socrates studies the cosmological theories of the first philosophers and goes on a trip to meet a critic of such theories. Eclipse On February 17th, 478 BC, at Athens, a little before noon, the sky grew unusually dark as though it was twilight. The bright disk of the
Socrates’ borough or deme was Alopece, located in the immediate suburbs of Athens to the southeast.[35] In his constitutional reforms of 508 BC, Cleisthenes identified and distributed the hundred and thirty-nine demes among ten administrative “tribes,” replacing four mutually hostile kinship tribes. He designed the new mapping to break up
Socrates probably pursued his studies diligently and unobtrusively from about the age of seven to fourteen.[29] At that point his education would be finished: there was no secondary school and no higher education system available in Athens. Upon reaching puberty he would participate in another rite of passage, again at
At school, Socrates had three teachers: a grammatistēs, or reading instructor; a gymnastēs, or physical education instructor; and a kitharistēs, or music instructor.[7] He sat on the ground or on a plain wooden bench and listened as his instructors taught. He would first learn the letters of the
469-449 BC In which Socrates learns his ABCs in a culture that is making literacy available to ordinary people for the first time and making an explosion of knowledge possible while promoting democracy. Childhood Socrates’ childhood was probably fairly typical for a boy from a family of modest means. He
Throughout the turbulent era of the Persian wars, Athens built a powerful democratic political system that held the city together and made her unique in the world. Since time immemorial, Greek cities had developed power-sharing institutions, as was evident even in reactionary Sparta: there were two kings, a council of
Just before the Athenians had made their retreat to Salamis during the war with Persia, a young nobleman on a personal mission led a procession of his friends up to the Acropolis, where he dedicated his horse’s bridle to Athena in her temple. On the walls were shields dedicated to
After the Persian invasion, Athens herself was in ruins. The houses and public buildings had been burned and much of the city wall torn down; the temple to Athena had been razed while the Persians were still occupying the city. A lesser people than the Athenians might have given up.
Soon after the battle Xerxes ordered the remainder of his fleet — still a large force, but demoralized and in disarray — to return to the Hellespont to protect his supply lines, and especially his escape route.[14] His main army set fire to Athens as they withdrew northward to Thessaly,[15]
The Battle of Salamis As the enemy ships formed a battle line on the far shore in the early morning, they observed no panic among the Greek ships beached along the island’s shore. The Greek sailors and marines ate a hearty breakfast and assembled before their commanders. After breakfast, a
480-432 BC In which two small city-states defeat an Asian superpower, build a defensive alliance against their enemies, then fall out among themselves; while one of the cities builds a great empire and a glorious city, and pioneers a new form of government called democracy. Surrounded The world in which
On that fateful day, one group of partisans demanded justice that was long overdue for a malefactor. Another group declared the proceedings a travesty of justice, the latest example of political irresponsibility and judicial folly. The five hundred jurors who were deputized to represent the will of the Athenian people
399 BC In which Socrates faces a hostile jury in a courtroom for the first time and turns the tables. On the seventh of Munychion in the year that Laches was the archon of record,[1] the infamous trial took place. The prosecution had presented its case. The presiding officer, called
