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 her allies in the Delian League had stood up to the mighty Persian Empire until the two powers had made peace in 449. Under Pericles, relations with Sparta had deteriorated until a war broke out, but after some indecisive campaigns Athens and Sparta signed a Thirty Years’ Peace in 446. For over a decade no major wars troubled Greece. But with the Persian threat neutralized, the members of the Delian League no longer saw the need to pay heavy assessments to Athens to protect them. Some members revolted, including the island of Samos where Socrates had visited. Indeed, the philosopher Melissus served as an admiral for the Samians and won a significant victory before the island was finally subdued.[1] Athens sent armed forces to put down the revolts wherever they occurred, and the voluntary alliance began to look like a coercive empire. Meanwhile, Athenian demands to control her empire conflicted with the rights and interests of other Greek cities.
Chief among the cities affected was Corinth, which had been the dominant seapower before the rise of Athens and still carried on active trade with many of her own colonies. When Corcyra, an island colony of Corinth in the Ionian Sea on the northwestern borders of Greece, went to war with her mother city in 433, the Athenians were only too happy to assist the colony. Athens saw the conflict as a chance to weaken her rival Corinth and add an ally to the Athenian camp. The Athenians sent ships to support Corcyra, which fought alongside the colonists in a naval battle against Corinth. Corinth saw the move as a hostile act and began to lobby Sparta to join her in a war against Athens.[2] Athens and her allies slowly moved into a confrontation with Sparta and her allies, and a war between the major powers of the Greek world loomed.
In northern Greece, Chalcidice lay between Macedonia to the west and Thrace to the northeast—two strong barbarian kingdoms. From Chalcidice three peninsulas project roughly southward into the Aegean like fingers from a hand. On the westernmost peninsula, Pallene, the city of Potidaea occupied the landward isthmus. As a colony of Corinth, but also a member of the Delian League, Potidaea was caught in a tug of war. Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, launched a war against the Athenians, and he made contact with the Corinthians to get their support. Potidaea, whose tribute to Athens had recently been increased from six to fifteen talents per year, found the Macedonian offer tempting, and the Corinthians prepared to support them. The Athenians were aware of their precarious hold on Potidaea and other cities of the region, and planned their own show of force.
Worried about the loyalty of the league member, the Athenians demanded that the Potidaeans tear down their walls, give the Athenians hostages (a common Greek practice), and expel the Corinthian magistrates from their city. Potidaean emissaries in Athens pled for more moderate terms throughout the winter of 433-32. That winter the Athenians prepared a fleet and an army under the direction of the general Archestratus to make war on Perdiccas. In spring, Archestratus set sail with thirty ships and a thousand soldiers. While Archestratus was en route, the Potidaeans openly broke with Athens. They allied themselves with their neighbors the Chalcedonians and the Bottiaeans. These allies fortified Olynthus nearby and abandoned some small towns on the coast to concentrate their forces in defensible cities.[3]
When he found it was too late to stop the Potidaeans from revolting, Archestratus turned first to deal with the Macedonians. In concert with some dissident Macedonians, the Athenians captured Therme (now Thessaloniki), to the northwest of Potidaea. Meanwhile, the Corinthians had sent Aristeus with two thousand volunteer soldiers to defend Potidaea against the Athenians. When the Athenians found out about the enemy reinforcements, they sent a second force to help Archestratus, consisting of two thousand soldiers and forty ships, led by Callias son of Calliades and four other generals. The thirty-seven-year-old Socrates was among the soldiers called up to serve in the campaign.
The two Athenian forces besieged Pydna to the south of Therme, which was still held by Perdiccas. Suddenly Perdiccas offered to make peace with them; the Athenians accepted and now at last turned their attention to Potidaea. With three thousand soldiers augmented by six hundred cavalry from the Macedonians, shadowed by seventy warships, the Athenians marched around the Themaic Gulf to Potidaea. Aristeus had arrived from Corinth with his forces and was waiting in Potidaea for the attack. When the Athenians marched to the neck of the peninsula, the Corinthians and Potidaeans would advance to meet them. An army of Potidaea’s allies was waiting in Olynthus, just seven miles to the north and in sight of Potidaea. When the Athenians were engaged with the Potidaeans, they were to march out and attack the Athenians in the rear.
Callias, the Athenian commander, recognized the danger from Olynthus in his rear and stationed his cavalry and some infantry facing that city. With the main body of his force he advanced south onto the peninsula of Pallene and towards the wall of Potidaea, which blocked the narrow isthmus just north of the city. The Corinthian and Potidaean soldiers advanced to meet the Athenians with a phalanx, and the battle commenced. Aristeus commanded the Corinthians on one wing, where he pushed back the Athenians and broke out. But on the other wing, the Athenians broke the Potidaean line and forced the defeated soldiers to retreat to the safety of the walled city. When Aristeus saw that the other wing was beaten he hesitated as to whether to march through to Olynthus or to turn back to Potidaea; he decided to stay with the citizens he had come to defend. Since the Athenians were blocking his return, he had his men charge double-time in a compact body toward the city and then wade through the water along the shore, dodging arrows and javelins, to return to the safety of the city walls.[4]
This may be the day Socrates saved Alcibiades. According to Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium,
When the battle took place for which the generals gave me the medal, no one else rescued me than Socrates here. When I was wounded he wouldn’t leave me but protected me along with my armor. And I, Socrates — and you won’t blame me for this or deny it — when I urged the generals to give you the award you deserved and the generals wanted to give it to me because of my social standing, you recommended me over yourself with more enthusiasm than they had.[5]
Socrates heroically defended his fallen friend and then gave the credit to him.
The Potidaeans had lost three hundred dead, the Athenians one hundred and fifty, including the general Callias. The Athenians built a siege wall on the peninsula just north of the city wall, to cut off the exit of the Potidaeans. They wanted to build a siege wall on the south of the city, too, to cut it off completely, but did not have the forces to man it. The Athenians now made a more or less permanent camp and prepared for a long siege. They would try to starve out the Potidaeans by controlling the land and sea around them.
As winter approached the days grew short and the weather cold. In winter armies did not take to the field, and navies were effectively beached by the stormy weather. As Boreas, the cold north wind, howled down from the Black Sea and the Russian steppes, the Athenians huddled around small fires while the Potidaeans fought hunger and desperation. The Athenians, too, were short on supplies as their ships could not travel to Athens and back in the stormy winter weather. In Plato’s Symposium Alcibiades tells the story of this part of the campaign and Socrates’ role in it:
After this we were both on the campaign to Potidaea and we were messmates there. In the first place, he was far superior not only to me, but to all the rest in suffering hardships. And whenever we were forced to go hungry, as often happens on campaign, no one compared to him in endurance. But at a feast he could enjoy himself like no one else, and as for drink, when he had to, however unwillingly, he could put away more than anyone and, what is most amazing, no one has ever seen Socrates drunk.[6]
Socrates showed his remarkable self-control during the harsh winter:
As for getting through the winter — and the winters there are frightful — he was amazing. For instance, sometimes when there was a heavy frost and nobody would go outside, or if someone did, he went all wrapped up, wearing shoes wound with felt and sheepskin, Socrates would go out in the cold wearing the cloak he always wore, and he would walk about more comfortably barefoot on the ice than the rest did with their feet all covered. In fact the soldiers glared at him as if he were showing off to them.[7]
Socrates went about dressed as usual in an old cloak sans shoes, paying no more heed to the bitter cold of a windblown post on a lonely peninsula than to the heat of summer. He did not brag, he did not complain, he did not mind the hunger, the cold, or the loneliness of a campaign far from the comforts of home. He soldiered on in a way that put his fellow soldiers to shame and stirred up some resentment. But he did not draw attention to himself or seek recognition. Indeed, it appears that he refrained from his usual philosophical inquiries while he was on campaign. We hear no tales of his conducting examinations of his fellow soldiers. He was, perhaps, aware that his activities might be disruptive of the order necessary for military life. Yet he did not cease struggling through his own understanding of important issues.
[1].Thucydides 1.115-117; Plutarch Pericles 25-28.
[2].Thucydides 1.26-31, 44-53.
[3].For the Potidaea campaign, see Thucydides 1.57-65, 2.70.
[4]. Thucydides 1.62-63.
[5].Plato Symposium 220e.
[6].Plato Symposium 219e-220a.
[7].Symposium 220a-c.