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. He answers, in his wealth. Antisthenes has discovered that wealth and poverty do not reside in property, but in the soul. People are so desperate for possessions that they will steal and commit all manner of crimes to get them. But Antisthenes is content because he has enough food to eat and enough clothing to keep warm. If he needs female companionship, he picks up women whom no one else wants, and they are happy to oblige him. “Socrates here,” he explains, “from whom I received this wealth, has imparted it to me unstintingly, giving me as much as I could carry away. For my part, I don’t begrudge my wealth to anyone, but I show off my possessions to all my friends, and I freely share the fortune of my soul with anyone who is interested.”[40] Best of all, his wealth has given him leisure, which allows him to spend every day with Socrates.
Whereas ragged clothing was for Socrates a side-effect of his dedication to his mission, as he says at his trial,[41] for Antisthenes it was a fashion statement. After Socrates’ death Antisthenes gathered a following around himself. His own followers later became known as the Cynics or “canine” philosophers (from the Greek word for ‘dog,’ kyōn), who flaunted their poverty, sometimes living on the streets. Some made it a point to do all their business, including relieving themselves and copulating, alfresco. They were the hippies of ancient Athens, the flower children who challenged conventional values and convention in general. Socrates’ worn cloak and bare feet became badges of the Cynic movement, the trademark of the committed philosopher. Poverty became a kind of religion for the movement. Later, the Stoics saw themselves as descendants of the Cynics, more respectable advocates of the life lived according to nature, and followers of Socrates in their own more conventional way.
Socrates himself never boasted of his poverty. While his manner of dress advertised his poverty, he was capable of the proper decorum. We are told, for instance, that he had some nice sandals he wore to dress-up occasions.[42] Rather than opposing wealth, he wished to emphasize, as he would put it at his trial, that character and goodness of soul are more important than wealth and reputation.[43] What he criticized in Athenian society, mostly indirectly, was the emphasis on the outward trappings of success at the expense of goodness. Athenian society, like much of the modern world, was unabashedly materialistic. What mattered most was least cultivated. Socrates made it his business to care about and to promote the ultimate values.
[40].Xenophon Symposium 4.43.
[41].Plato Apology 23b.
[42].Plato Symposium 174a.
[43].Plato Apology 29d-30b.