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, Socrates’ irenic passing, then, must be a product of Plato’s fertile imagination in order to emphasize the self-control of Plato’s philosophical and moral hero.[14]
But in a recent article, Enid Bloch has shown that the appropriate hemlock plant can produce all the effects described by Plato.[15] Conium maculatum, poison hemlock, produces alkaloid substances that bring about paralysis and, in sufficient quantity, death. Nineteenth-century toxicologists recorded cases of accidental death that occurred much like that described in the Phaedo. These deaths resulted from ingesting the leaves and roots, which resemble parsley and parsnip, respectively, to which the poisonous plant is in fact related. Several other plants, such as water hemlock, have been confused with the Greek herb, making identification of the herb and its effects more difficult.
Plato does not use the term ‘hemlock’ in his own account, but only the more neutral pharmakon, ‘drug,’ which I have rendered with ‘potion.’ We learn that it was prepared on the spot, in part by grinding or crushing the herb, presumably with a pestle. Theophrastus tells of a Greek pharmacist, Thraysas of Mantinea, who prepared mixed hemlock with poppy to produce a deadly poison of which a small dose would produce “an easy and painless release,” presumably for those contemplating suicide. He points out that in his time pharmacists strip off the husk, which is difficult to assimilate, grind up the inner plant in a mortar, strain it, and sprinkle it on water. “And then the death is made swift and easy.”[16] Some such mixture may have been used in Athens also. Opiates from poppy could be added to further numb the senses.
In the Frogs Aristophanes has Heracles give the god Dionysus advice on the best ways to get to Hades, which include hemlock beaten in a mortar. “That’s a chill and wintry way!” replies Dionysus. “It quickly freezes your shins solid.”[17] Aristophanes recognizes the “coldness” of the paralysis, and specifically mentions the shins which in Socrates went numb before the final grip of death. The play was performed in 405, just six years before Socrates’ death, and assumes hemlock is an easy way out of life. The Roman scientist Pliny the Elder also attributes the herb’s paralytic effects to its tendency to cool the body.[18]
Death by hemlock was probably the most humane form of execution practiced anywhere in antiquity. Plato’s report can be corroborated down to specific details and uses the medical terminology of his time to explain Socrates’ death. Paralysis affected his extremities, then moved up to his rib cage, where the paralysis caused asphyxia. Socrates died peacefully surrounded by his friends.
[14].Gill 1973; Graves et al. 1991.
[15].Bloch 2002.
[16].Theophrastus Enquiry into Plants 9.16.8-9, trans. Hort.
[17].Aristophanes Frogs 117-126, trans. Henderson.
[18].Pliny Natural History 9.95.151; Dioscurides Materials of Medicine 4.78.