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 networking went on face-to-face and required constant maintenance in the form of visits and parties (on which, more later).
Plato gives us a glimpse of Socrates’ dealings with his friends. In the Laches, Nicias points out that Socrates has been of service to him in arranging for the distinguished musician Damon to tutor his children.[18] Lysimachus recalls that Socrates’ father Sophroniscus was a friend of his father Aristides. Now that they have met and made each other’s acquaintance, Lysimachus and Socrates should continue this friendship, and Socrates should visit Lysimachus at his home; this invitation represents a serious commitment.[19] Friendship is an important principle in Socrates’ life, and Plato devotes one Socratic dialogue, the Lysis, to an exploration of friendship.
In this dialogue, Socrates encounters some boys, Hippothales and Ctesippus, at a newly constructed palaestra, or wrestling school. Hippothales has a crush on the handsome young Lysis. Socrates starts a conversation that attracts Lysis and his friend Menexenus to leave their game of knucklebones and listen in. Socrates asks Lysis if his parents love him. Of course they do. And they wish him to be happy? Certainly. “So they let you do anything you want and never yell at you or stop you from doing whatever you want?” “Oh, but they do, Socrates! They stop me from doing lots of things,” Lysis answers.[20] By questioning Lysis, Socrates finds out that the boy’s parents let slaves do many things they don’t allow him to do. He is even led around by a paidagōgos, his babysitter, who is a slave. His parents let him do things he knows how to do, but they forbid him from doing things he doesn’t know how to do. Generalizing, Socrates concludes, “So then neither does your father love you, nor does anyone love anyone insofar as he is useless?”
The logic is shaky, but Socrates is dealing with young boys, and he will take liberties until someone challenges him (as in the Charmides, ch. 8*). Here we see Socrates covering some of the same ground as he covers in Xenophon’s account of his straightening out his son Lamprocles. Somewhere the boys should perceive that their parents’ prohibitions are a sign of love, that their parents prohibit the boys from doing certain things precisely because they love them. Socrates leads them on to consider who is a friend to whom. Friendship is not always reciprocal, and there must be some grounds for friendship. Perhaps like is attracted to like. Then good should be attracted to good. But whatever is good is self-sufficient. And “whatever is self-sufficient, insofar as it is self-sufficient, needs nothing.” And whatever needs nothing desires nothing, and hence loves nothing.[21]
Socrates goes on to develop a basic value theory: things are either good, or bad, or neutral—neither good nor bad. If good people don’t need friends, and bad people are incapable of friendship, it is those in the in-between category who are candidates for being friends. Take as an example someone who is sick. He seeks health (something good) because of sickness (something bad) in him. Thus in general, the in-between is a friend to the good because of something bad that is present. But at this point Socrates sees a problem. On this account, if the bad is removed, there will be no reason to love the good, which seems paradoxical. Socrates notes that desires such as appetites for food and drink will continue even if the bad is taken away. Perhaps desire is the basis of friendship, a desire for what is lacking. Then friends will belong to each other. But if this is so, it appears that like will be attracted to like in a way that was rejected before. So Socrates and his young acquaintances have not arrived at a definition of friendship.
In the Lysis Socrates explores friendship without gaining a satisfactory understanding. Possible theories of friendship are proposed hastily and rejected on dubious grounds. We see, however, that friendship is an important value that deserves to be examined along with virtue. It seems linked somehow to living the good life. Surely we love friends and family for reasons other than the advantage they can give to us, as Socrates’ preliminary discussion should have showed Lysis.
In Plato we see examples of Socrates’ friendship to others, but Socrates’ own actions remain in the background. For a picture of Socrates the friend (and family man) we must go to the writings of Xenophon rather than Plato. Book II of the Memorabilia contains exhortations and examples of Socrates in relation to friendship. In general, Xenophon sees Socrates as preaching a kind of golden rule: be the kind of friend you yourself would want to have. He tells a story of how Socrates found his friend Aristarchus depressed. Aristarchus explains that because of the political situation, many women relatives left by their husbands (presumably the democrats who left Athens to fight the thirty tyrants in 404) had come to his home in the Piraeus for protection. With fourteen mouths to feed not counting slaves, Aristarchus cannot make ends meet. Like Socrates, perhaps, he has to care for an extended family. Socrates points out to him that a mutual acquaintance Ceramon has become wealthy in a similar situation. But, Aristarchus complains, he is a craftsman whose household consists of slave helpers. Aristarchus’ guests, by contrast, are liberally educated gentlewomen.[22] Socrates reminds him of a number of their respectable acquaintances who have cottage industries making bread or foodstuffs, or sewing articles of clothing. Taking heart, Aristarchus secures a loan and sets up a clothing shop, which provides for his family’s needs and makes everyone feel productive.[23]
Xenophon portrays Socrates helping impoverished friends to find work as managers for others, and helping rich friends meet poor but capable individuals who can benefit from being of service to their rich neighbors.[24] He counsels a younger brother Chaerecrates to take the lead in reconciling with his elder brother, Chaerephon (both of whom we shall meet later).[25] We see Socrates as not merely an intellectual pursuing ideas but as a practical man who gladly helps his friends solve their financial and family problems.
[18].Plato Laches 180c-d.
[19].Plato Laches 180e, 181c.
[20].Plato Lysis 207d.
[21].Plato Lysis 215a-b.
[22].Xenophon Memorabilia 2.7.4, an indication that his female guest had some formal education, in a time when this was rare.
[23].Xenophon Memorabilia 2.7.
[24].Xenophon Memorabilia 2.8-10.
[25].Xenophon Memorabilia 2.3.