Chapter 5. SOCRATES (469-399 B.C.)
[
18]
Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor,
and of Phaenarete, a midwife, as we read in the
Theaetetus of Plato; he was a citizen of Athens
and
belonged to the deme Alopece. It was thought that
he helped Euripides to make his plays; hence
Mnesimachus
1 writes:
This new play of Euripides is
The Phrygians;
and
Socrates provides the wood for frying.
2
And again he calls Euripides "an engine riveted by
Socrates." And Callias in
The Captives3:
a. Pray why so solemn, why this lofty air?
b. I've every right; I'm helped by Socrates.
Aristophanes
4 in
The
Clouds:
'Tis he composes for Euripides
Those clever plays, much sound and little sense.
[
19]
According to some authors he was a pupil of
Anaxagoras, and also of Damon, as Alexander states
in his
Successions of Philosophers. When
Anaxagoras
was condemned, he became a pupil of Archelaus the
physicist; Aristoxenus asserts that Archelaus was
very fond of him. Duris makes him out to have
been a slave and to have been employed on stonework, and the draped figures of the Graces on the
Acropolis have by some been attributed to him.
Hence the passage in Timon's
Silli5:
From these diverged the sculptor, a prater about laws,
the enchanter of Greece, inventor of subtle arguments, the
sneerer who mocked at fine speeches, half-Attic in his mock
humility.
He was formidable in public speaking, according to
Idomeneus;
[
20]
moreover, as Xenophon tells us, the
Thirty forbade him to teach the art of words. And
Aristophanes attacks him in his plays for making the
worse appear the better reason. For Favorinus in
his
Miscellaneous History says Socrates and his
pupil
Aeschines were the first to teach rhetoric; and this
is confirmed by Idomeneus in his work on the
Socratic circle.
6 Again, he was the first who discoursed on the conduct of life, and the first philosopher
who was tried and put to death. Aristoxenus, the
son of Spintharus, says of him that he made money;
he would at all events invest sums, collect the interest
accruing, and then, when this was expended, put out
the principal again.
Demetrius of Byzantium relates that Crito removed
him from his workshop and educated him, being
struck by his beauty of soul;
[
21]
that he discussed moral
questions in the workshops and the market-place,
being convinced that the study of nature is no
concern of ours; and that he claimed that his
inquiries embraced
Whatso'er is good or evil in an houseHom.
Od. iv. 392.;
that frequently, owing to his vehemence in argument, men set upon him with their fists or tore his
hair out; and that for the most part he was despised
and laughed at, yet bore all this ill-usage patiently.
So much so that, when he had been kicked, and
some one expressed surprise at his taking it so quietly,
Socrates rejoined, "Should I have taken the law of
a donkey, supposing that he had kicked me?"
Thus far Demetrius.
[
22]
Unlike most philosophers, he had no need to
travel, except when required to go on an expedition.
The rest of his life he stayed at home and engaged
all the more keenly in argument with anyone who
would converse with him, his aim being not to alter
his opinion but to get at the truth. They relate that
Euripides gave him the treatise of Heraclitus and
asked his opinion upon it, and that his reply was,
"The part I understand is excellent, and so too is, I
dare say, the part I do not understand; but it needs
a Delian diver to get to the bottom of it."
He took care to exercise his body and kept in
good condition. At all events he served on the
expedition to Amphipolis; and when in the battle
of Delium Xenophon had fallen from his horse, he
stepped in and saved his life.
[
23]
For in the general
flight of the Athenians he personally retired at his
ease, quietly turning round from time to time and
ready to defend himself in case he were attacked.
Again, he served at Potidaea, whither he had gone
by sea, as land communications were interrupted by
the war
8;
and while there he is said to have remained a whole night without changing his position,
and to have won the prize of valour. But he resigned
it to Alcibiades, for whom he cherished the tenderest
affection, according to Aristippus in the fourth book
of his treatise
On the Luxury of the Ancients. Ion
of
Chios relates that in his youth he visited Samos in
the company of Archelaus; and Aristotle that he went
to Delphi; he went also to the Isthmus, according
to Favorinus in the first book of his
Memorabilia.
[
24]
His strength of will and attachment to the democracy are evident from his refusal to yield to Critias
and his colleagues when they ordered him to bring
the wealthy Leon of Salamis before them for execution, and further from the fact that he alone voted
for the acquittal of the ten generals; and again
from the facts that when he had the opportunity to
escape from the prison he declined to do so, and
that he rebuked his friends for weeping over his fate,
and addressed to them his most memorable discourses
in the prison.
He was a man of great independence and dignity
of character. Pamphila in the seventh book of her
Commentaries tells how Alcibiades once offered him
a large site on which to build a house; but he
replied, "Suppose, then, I wanted shoes and you
offered me a whole hide to make a pair with, would
it not be ridiculous in me to take it?"
[
25]
Often when
he looked at the multitude of wares exposed for sale,
he would say to himself, "How many things I can
do without!" And he would continually recite the
lines:
The purple robe and silver's shine
More fits an actor's need than mine.
9
He showed his contempt for Archelaus of Macedon
and Scopas of Cranon and Eurylochus of Larissa by
refusing to accept their presents or to go to their
court. He was so orderly in his way of life that on
several occasions when pestilence broke out in Athens
he was the only man who escaped infection.
[
26]
Aristotle says that he married two wives: his first
wife was Xanthippe, by whom he had a son, Lamprocles; his second wife was Myrto, the daughter of
Aristides the Just, whom he took without a dowry.
By her he had Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Others
make Myrto his first wife; while some writers,
including Satyrus and Hieronymus of Rhodes, affirm
that they were both his wives at the same time.
For they say that the Athenians were short of men
and, wishing to increase the population, passed a
decree permitting a citizen to marry one Athenian
woman and have children by another; and that
Socrates accordingly did so.
[
27]
He could afford to despise those who scoffed at
him. He prided himself on his plain living, and
never asked a fee from anyone. He used to say that
he most enjoyed the food which was least in need
of condiment, and the drink which made him feel
the least hankering for some other drink; and that
he was nearest to the gods in that he had the fewest
wants. This may be seen from the Comic poets,
who in the act of ridiculing him give him high praise.
Thus Aristophanes
10:
O man that justly desirest great wisdom, how blessed will be
thy life amongst Athenians and Greeks, retentive of memory
and thinker that thou art, with endurance of toil for thy
character; never art thou weary whether standing or walk-
ing, never numb with cold, never hungry for breakfast; from
wine and from gross feeding and all other frivolities thou
dost turn away.
Ameipsias too, when he puts him on the stage
wearing a cloak, says
11:
a. You come to join us, Socrates, worthiest of a small
band and emptiest by far! You are a robust fellow. Where
can we get you a proper coat?
b. Your sorry plight is an insult to the cobblers.
a. And yet, hungry as he is, this man has never stooped
to flatter.
This disdainful, lofty spirit of his is also noticed by
Aristophanes when he says
12:
Because you stalk along the streets, rolling your eyes,
and endure, barefoot, many a hardship, and gaze up at us
[the clouds].
And yet at times he would even put on fine clothes
to suit the occasion, as in Plato's
Symposium,
13 where
he is on his way to Agathon's house.
[
29]
He showed equal ability in both directions, in
persuading and dissuading men; thus, after conversing with Theaetetus about knowledge, he sent
him away, as Plato says, fired with a divine impulse;
but when Euthyphro had indicted his father for
manslaughter, Socrates, after some conversation with
him upon piety, diverted him from his purpose.
Lysis, again, he turned, by exhortation, into a most
virtuous character. For he had the skill to draw
his arguments from facts. And when his son
Lamprocles was violently angry with his mother,
Socrates made him feel ashamed of himself, as I
believe Xenophon has told us. When Plato's brother
Glaucon was desirous of entering upon politics,
Socrates dissuaded him, as Xenophon relates, because
of his want of experience; but on the contrary he
encouraged Charmides to take up politics because he
had a gift that way.
14
[
30]
He roused Iphicrates the general to a martial
spirit by showing him how the fighting cocks of
Midias the barber flapped their wings in defiance of
those of Callias. Glauconides demanded that he
should be acquired for the state as if he were some
pheasant or peacock.
He used to say it was strange that, if you asked
a man how many sheep he had, he could easily tell
you the precise number; whereas he could not name
his friends or say how many he had, so slight was
the value he set upon them. Seeing Euclides keenly
interested in eristic arguments, he said to him:
"You will be able to get on with sophists, Euclides,
but with men not at all." For he thought there
was no use in this sort of hair-splitting, as Plato shows
us in the
Euthydemus.
[
31]
Again, when Charmides offered him some slaves in
order that he might derive an income from them, he
declined the offer; and according to some he scorned
the beauty of Alcibiades. He would extol leisure as
the best of possessions, according to Xenophon in the
Symposium. There is, he said, only one good, that
is, knowledge, and only one evil, that is, ignorance;
wealth and good birth bring their possessor no
dignity, but on the contrary evil. At all events,
when some one told him that Antisthenes' mother
was a Thracian, he replied, "Nay, did you expect
a man so noble to have been born of two Athenian
parents?" He made Crito ransom Phaedo who,
having been taken prisoner in the war, was kept in
degrading slavery, and so won him for philosophy.
[
32]
Moreover, in his old age he learnt to play the lyre,
declaring that he saw no absurdity in learning a new
accomplishment. As Xenophon relates in the
Symposium, it was his regular habit to dance, thinking
that such exercise helped to keep the body in good
condition. He used to say that his supernatural
sign warned him beforehand of the future; that to
make a good start was no trifling advantage, but a
trifle turned the scale; and that he knew nothing
except just the fact of his ignorance. He said that,
when people paid a high price for fruit which had
ripened early, they must despair of seeing the fruit
ripen at the proper season. And, being once asked
in what consisted the virtue of a young man, he
said, "In doing nothing to excess." He held that
geometry should be studied to the point at which a
man is able to measure the land which he acquires
or parts with.
[
33]
On hearing the line of Euripides' play
Auge
where
the poet says of virtue:
'Tis best to let her roam at will,This
line, now found in Eur.
Electra, 379, may have
come into our text from the lost play
Auge:
cf. Nauck,
T.G.F.2, p. 437,
s.v.*a*u*g*h.
he got up and left the theatre. For he said it was
absurd to make a hue and cry about a slave who
could not be found, and to allow virtue to perish in
this way. Some one asked him whether he should
marry or not, and received the reply, "Whichever
you do you will repent it." He used to express his
astonishment that the sculptors of marble statues
should take pains to make the block of marble into
a perfect likeness of a man, and should take no pains
about themselves lest they should turn out mere
blocks, not men. He recommended to the young
the constant use of the mirror, to the end that handsome men might acquire a corresponding behaviour,
and ugly men conceal their defects by education.
[
34]
He had invited some rich men and, when Xanthippe
said she felt ashamed of the dinner, "Never mind,"
said he, "for if they are reasonable they will put up
with it, and if they are good for nothing, we shall
not trouble ourselves about them." He would say
that the rest of the world lived to eat, while he
himself ate to live. Of the mass of men who do
not count he said it was as if some one should object
to a single tetradrachm as counterfeit and at the
same time let a whole heap made up of just such
pieces pass as genuine. Aeschines said to him, "I
am a poor man and have nothing else to give, but
I offer you myself," and Socrates answered, "Nay,
do you not see that you are offering me the greatest
gift of all?" To one who complained that he was
overlooked when the Thirty rose to power, he said,
"You are not sorry for that, are you?"
[
35]
To one
who said, "You are condemned by the Athenians to
die," he made answer, "So are they, by nature."
But some ascribe this to Anaxagoras. When his
wife said, "You suffer unjustly," he retorted, "Why,
would you have me suffer justly?" He had a dream
that some one said to him
16:
On the third day thou shalt come to the fertile fields of
Phthia;
and he told Aeschines, "On the third day I shall
die."
17 When he was about to drink the hemlock,
Apollodorus offered him a beautiful garment to
die in: "What," said he, "is my own good
enough to live in but not to die in?" When
he was told that So-and-so spoke ill of him, he
replied, "True, for he has never learnt to speak
well."
[
36]
When Antisthenes turned his cloak so that
the tear in it came into view, "I see," said he,
"your vanity through your cloak." To one who
said, "Don't you find so-and-so very offensive?" his
reply was, "No, for it takes two to make a quarrel."
We ought not to object, he used to say, to be subjects for the Comic poets, for if they satirize our
faults they will do us good, and if not they do not
touch us. When Xanthippe first scolded him and
then drenched him with water, his rejoinder was,
"Did I not say that Xanthippe's thunder would end
in rain?" When Alcibiades declared that the scolding of Xanthippe was intolerable, "Nay, I have got
used to it," said he, "as to the continued rattle of
a windlass. And you do not mind the cackle of
geese."
[
37]
"No," replied Alcibiades, "but they furnish me with eggs and goslings." "And Xanthippe,"
said Socrates, "is the mother of my children." When
she tore his coat off his back in the market-place and
his acquaintances advised him to hit back, "Yes, by
Zeus," said he, "in order that while we are sparring
each of you may join in with `Go it, Socrates!'
`Well done, Xanthippe!' " He said he lived with
a shrew, as horsemen are fond of spirited horses,
"but just as, when they have mastered these, they
can easily cope with the rest, so I in the society of
Xanthippe shall learn to adapt myself to the rest of
the world."
These and the like were his words and deeds, to
which the Pythian priestess bore testimony when
she gave Chaerephon the famous response:
Of all men living Socrates most wise.
[
38]
For this he was most envied; and especially because
he would take to task those who thought highly of
themselves, proving them to be fools, as to be sure
he treated Anytus, according to Plato's
Meno.18 For
Anytus could not endure to be ridiculed by Socrates,
and so in the first place stirred up against him Aristophanes and his friends; then afterwards he helped to
persuade Meletus to indict him on a charge of impiety and corrupting the youth.
The indictment was brought by Meletus, and the
speech was delivered by Polyeuctus, according to
Favorinus in his
Miscellaneous History. The speech
was written by Polycrates the sophist, according to
Hermippus; but some say that it was by Anytus.
Lycon the demagogue had made all the needful
preparations.
19
[
39]
Antisthenes in his
Successions of Philosophers,
and
Plato in his
Apology, say that there were three
accusers, Anytus, Lycon and Meletus; that Anytus
was roused to anger on behalf of the craftsmen and
politicians, Lycon on behalf of the rhetoricians,
Meletus of the poets, all three of which classes had
felt the lash of Socrates. Favorinus in the first
book of his
Memorabilia declares that the speech
of
Polycrates against Socrates is not authentic; for he
mentions the rebuilding of the walls by Conon, which
did not take place till six years after the death of
Socrates. And this is the case.
[
40]
The affidavit in the case, which is still preserved, says
Favorinus, in the
Metron, ran as follows: "This
indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son
of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of
Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and
of introducing other new divinities. He is also guilty
of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is
death." The philosopher then, after Lysias had
written a defence for him, read it through and said:
"A fine speech, Lysias; it is not, however, suitable
to me." For it was plainly more forensic than
philosophical.
[
41]
Lysias said, "If it is a fine speech,
how can it fail to suit you?" "Well," he replied,
"would not fine raiment and fine shoes be just as
unsuitable to me?"
Justus of Tiberias in his book entitled
The
Wreath
says that in the course of the trial Plato mounted
the platform and began: "Though I am the
youngest, men of Athens, of all who ever rose to
address you"--whereupon the judges shouted out,
"Get down! Get down!" When therefore he was
condemned by 281 votes more than those given for
acquittal, and when the judges were assessing what
he should suffer or what fine he should pay, he proposed to pay 25 drachmae. Eubulides indeed says
he offered 100.
[
42]
When this caused an uproar among
the judges, he said, "Considering my services, I
assess the penalty at maintenance in the Prytaneum
at the public expense."
Sentence of death was passed, with an accession
of eighty fresh votes. He was put in prison, and a
few days afterwards drank the hemlock, after much
noble discourse which Plato records in the
Phaedo.
Further, according to some, he composed a paean
beginning:
All hail, Apollo, Delos' lord!
Hail Artemis, ye noble pair!
Dionysodorus denies that he wrote the paean. He
also composed a fable of Aesop, not very skilfully,
beginning
20:
"Judge not, ye men of Corinth," Aesop cried,
"Of virtue as the jury-courts decide."
[
43]
So he was taken from among men; and not long
afterwards the Athenians felt such remorse that they
shut up the training grounds and gymnasia. They
banished the other accusers but put Meletus to death;
they honoured Socrates with a bronze statue, the
work of Lysippus, which they placed in the hall
of processions. And no sooner did Anytus visit
Heraclea than the people of that town expelled him
on that very day. Not only in the case of Socrates
but in very many others the Athenians repented in
this way. For they fined Homer (so says Heraclides
21)
50 drachmae for a madman, and said Tyrtaeus was
beside himself, and they honoured Astydamas before
Aeschylus and his brother poets with a bronze statue.
[
44]
Euripides upbraids them thus in his
Palamedes: "Ye
have slain, have slain, the all-wise, the innocent,
the Muses' nightingale."
22 This is one account; but
Philochorus asserts that Euripides died before
Socrates.
He was born, according to Apollodorus in his
Chronology, in the archonship of Apsephion, in the
fourth year of the 77th Olympiad,
23 on the
6th day
of the month of Thargelion, when the Athenians
purify their city, which according to the Delians is
the birthday of Artemis. He died in the first year
of the 95th Olympiad
24 at the age of
seventy. With
this Demetrius of Phalerum agrees; but some say he
was sixty when he died.
[
45]
Both were pupils of Anaxagoras, I mean Socrates
and Euripides, who was born in the first year of the
75th Olympiad in the archonship of Calliades.
25
In my opinion Socrates discoursed on physics as
well as on ethics, since he holds some conversations
about providence, even according to Xenophon, who,
however, declares that he only discussed ethics. But
Plato, after mentioning Anaxagoras and certain other
physicists in the
Apology,
26
treats for his own part
themes which Socrates disowned, although he puts
everything into the mouth of Socrates.
Aristotle relates that a magician came from Syria
to Athens and, among other evils with which he
threatened Socrates, predicted that he would come
to a violent end.
[
46]
I have written verses about him too, as follows
27:
Drink then, being in Zeus's palace, O Socrates; for truly
did the god pronounce thee wise, being wisdom himself;
for when thou didst frankly take the hemlock at the hands
of the Athenians, they themselves drained it as it passed
thy lips.
He was sharply criticized, according to Aristotle
in his third book
On Poetry, by a certain
Antilochus
of Lemnos, and by Antiphon the soothsayer, just as
Pythagoras was by Cylon of Croton, or as Homer
was assailed in his lifetime by Syagrus, and after his
death by Xenophanes of Colophon. So too Hesiod
was criticized in his lifetime by Cercops, and after
his death by the aforesaid Xenophanes; Pindar by
Amphimenes of Cos; thales by Pherecydes; Bias
by Salarus of Priene; Pittacus by Antimenidas and
Alcaeus; Anaxagoras by Sosibius; and Simonides
by Timocreon.
[
47]
Of those who succeeded him and were called
Socratics
28 the chief were Plato, Xenophon,
Antisthenes, and of ten names on the traditional list the
most distinguished are Aeschines, Phaedo, Euclides,
Aristippus. I must first speak of Xenophon;
Antisthenes will come afterwards among the Cynics;
after Xenophon I shall take the Socratics proper, and
so pass on to Plato. With Plato the ten schools
begin: he was himself the founder of the First
Academy. This then is the order which I shall
follow.
Of those who bear the name of Socrates there is
one, a historian, who wrote a geographical work
upon Argos; another, a Peripatetic philosopher of
Bithynia; a third, a poet who wrote epigrams;
lastly, Socrates of Cos, who wrote on the names of
the gods.