A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Σωκράτης), the celebrated Athenian philosopher, was the son of a statuary of the name of Sophroniscus. He belonged to the deme Alopece, in the immediate neighbourhood of Athens, and according to the statement of Demetrius Phalereus and Apollodorus, was born in the 4th year of the 77th Olympiad (B. C. 468). The assumption that he was born ten years later (D. L. 2.45) is confuted by his expression in the Apology of Plato, that, though he was more than seventy years old, that was his first appearance before a judicial tribunal, since the date of the conviction that ensued is well established (Ol. 95. 1). Whether in his youth he devoted himself to the art of his father, and himself executed the group of clothed Graces which was shown on the Acropolis as a work of Socrates (Paus. 9.35, comp. 1.22; D. L. 2.19; Porph. apud Cyrill. cont. Julian. p. 208, Spanh.), we must leave undecided ; the statements that in his youth he had in turn given himself up to an employment unworthy of a freeman, or even to a licentious life (Aristoxenus, ap. D. L. 2.20. comp. 19 ; Porphyr. ap. Theodoret. Gr. Affect. Cur. 12.174, ed. Sylb.; comp. Luzac, Lect. Att. p. 240, &c.), we cannot regard as authenticated. Nevertheless it appears that it was not without a struggle that he became master of his naturally impetuous appetites (Cic. de Fato, 5; Alex. Aphrod. de Fato, p. 30, ed. Loud.; comp. Aristox. apud Plut. de Herod. Malign. p. 856c.). That he was a disciple of the physiologists Anaxagoras and Archelaus, rests on the evidence of doubtful authorities (D. L. 2.18, &c., 23, 1.14; Porph. apud Theodoret. l.c. p. 174; Clem. Alex. Strom. 1.301; Cic. Tusc. Disp. 5.4; Sext. Emp. ad v. Math. 10.360, &c.; comp. C. F. Hermann, de Socratis Magistris et Disciplina juxenili, Marb. 1837). Plato and Xenophon know nothing of it; on the contrary, in the former (Phaed. p. 97) Socrates refers his knowledge of the doctrine of Anaxagoras to the book of that philosopher, and in the latter (Xen. Symp, 1.5) he designates himself as self-taught. But that, while living in Athens, at that time so rich in the means of mental culture, he remained without any instruction, as the disparaging Aristoxenus maintains (Plut. l c.; comp. Cyrill. c. Julian. p. 186; Porph. apud Theodoret. i. p. 8), is confuted by the testimony of Xenophon (Xen. Mem. 4.7.3) and Plato (Meno, p. 82, &c.) respecting his mathematical knowledge, and the thankfulness with which he mentions the care of his native city for public education (Plato, Crito, p. 50). Although he complains of not having met with the wished for instruction at the hands of those whom he had regarded as wise (Plat. Apol. p. 21; comp. Xen. Oecon. 2. 16), intercourse with the most distinguished men and women of his age could not remain entirely without fruit for one who was continually striving to arrive at an understanding with himself by means of an understanding with others (Plat. Charm. p. 166). In this sense he boasts of being a disciple of Prodicus

and Connus, of Aspasia and Diotime (Plat. Meno, p. 96, Cratyl. p. 384, Menex. p. 235, Symp. p. 201), and says that the reason why he so seldom went outside the walls of the city was, that it was only within it that he found instruction by means of intercourse (Plat. Phaedr. p. 230, comp. Meno, p. 80, Crito, p. 52; D. L. 2.22). Devoted as he was to his native city in love and thankfulness (Plat. Crit. pp. 50, 51, &c., Apol. 29; Xen. Mem. 3.3.12, 3.2, &c., 18, &c.), and faithfully as he fulfilled the duties of a citizen in the field (at Potidaea, Delion, and Amphipolis, Ol. 87. 2 and 89. 1, B. C. 432 and 424) and in the city, he did not seek to exert his influence either as a general or as a statesman; not that he shunned a contest with unbridled democracy (Plat. Apol. p. 31, &c., Gorg. pp. 521, 473, de Rep. vi. p. 496),--for he thoroughly proved his courage, not only in the above-mentioned expeditions (see especially Plat. Symp. p. 219, &c., comp. Alcib. p. 194, Apol. p. 28, Charm. p. 153, Lach. p. 181; D. L. 2.22, &c., ib. Menage), but also by the resistance which he offered, first, as president of the Prytaneia, to the unjust sentence of death pronounced against the victors of Arginusae, and afterwards to the order of the Thirty Tyrants for the apprehension of Leon the Salaminian (Plat. Apol. p. 32; Xen. Mem. 1.1.18, 4.4.2; D. L. 2.24 ; comp. Luzac, l.c. p. 89, &c., 131) ;--but because he entertained the most lively conviction that he was called by the Deity to strive, by means of his teaching and life, after a revival of moral feeling, and the laying of a scientific foundation for it (Plat. Apol. pp. 30, 31, 33, Euthyph. p. 2, Gorg. p. 521; Xen. Mem. 1.6.15). For this reason an internal divine voice had Warned him against participating in political affairs Plat. Apol. pp. 31, 36, Gorg. pp. 473, &c., 521), and therefore the skill requisite for such pursuits had remained undeveloped in him (Plat. Gorg. p. 474). When it was that he first recognised this vocation, cannot be ascertained; and probably it was by degrees that, owing to the need which he felt in the intercourse of minds of coming to an understanding with himself, he betook himself to the active duties of a teacher. Since Aristophanes exhibited him as the representative of the witlings and sophists in the "Clouds," which was exhibited for the first time in B. C. 423, he must already have obtained a widespread reputation. But he never opened a school, nor did he, like the sophists of his time, deliver public lectures. Everywhere, in the market-place. in the gymnasia, and in the workshops, he sought and found opportunities for awakening and guiding, in boys, youths, and men, moral consciousness and the impulse after self-knowledge respecting the end and value of our actions. On those whom he had convinced that the care of continually becoming better and more intelligent must take precedence of all other cares, he was sure he had conferred the greatest benefit (Plat. Apol. p. 36, comp. pp. 28, 29, 38, 30, 31, 33, Symp. p. 216, Lach. p. 188; Xen. Mem. 1.2.64). But he only endeavoured to aid them in developing the germs of knowledge which were already present in them, not to communicate to them ready made knowledge; and he therefore professed to practise a kind of mental mid wifery, just as his mother Phaenarete exercised the corresponding corporeal art (Plat. Thcaet. p. 149, ib. Heindorf.). Unweariedly and inexorably did he fight against all false appearance and conceit of knowledge, in order to pave the way for correct self-cognition, and therewith, at the same time, true knowledge. Consequently to the mentally proud and the mentally idle he appeared an intolerable bore, and often enough experienced their bitter hatred and calumny (Plat. Apol. pp. 22, 23, Symp. p. 215, Gorg. pp. 482, 491, 522, Meno, p. 95; Xen. Mem. 4.4.19; D. L. 2.21, ib. Menag.), Such persons might easily be misled by the " Clouds " of Aristophanes into regarding Socrates as the head of the sophists, although he was their victorious opponent. Although the story that it was after entering into a bargain with the accusers of Socrates that the poet held him up to public scorn and ridicule (Aelian, Ael. VH 2.13 ; comp. Fréret, Observations sur les Causes et sur quelques Circonstances de la Condamnation de Socrate, Mémoires de l' Académie des Inscript. xlvii. p. 209, &c.), is a palpable invention, since the first exhibition of the " Clouds" (in Ol. 89. 1, B. C. 423) preceded the prosecution and condemnation of Socrates by twenty-four years, still that the comedy produced a lasting unfavourable impression respecting the philosopher, he himself declared in the speech which he made in his own defence on his trial (Plat. Apol. pp. 18, 19, 23, 25; comp. Xen. Symp. 6.6). Yet it does not appear that personal enmity against Socrates was the motive for the production of the comedy (Plato exhibits Socrates engaged in the most confidential conversation with the poet, Symp. p. 223). As little can we tax the poet with a calumny proceeding from maliciousness, or with meaningless buffoonery, since almost all his comedies exhibit great moral earnestness and warm love for his country (see especially Acharn. 676, &c., Vesp. 1071, &c., 1022. Pac. 732, &c., Nub. 537, &c.; comp. Schnitzer's German translation of the " Clouds," Stuttgart, 1842, p. 19, &c.). It appears rather to have been from a conviction that the ancient faith and the ancient manners could be regained only by thrusting aside all philosophy that dealt in subtleties, that he represented Socrates, the best known of the philosophers, as the head of that sophistical system which was burying all morals and piety (comp. Súvern, Ueber die Wolken des Aristophanes, p. 24, &c.; Rötscher, Aristophanes und sein Zeitalter, p. 268, &c.). In adopting this view we do not venture to decide how far Aristophanes regarded his exhibition as corresponding to the peculiarities of Socrates, or contented himself with portraying in his person the hated tendency.

Attached to none of the prevailing parties, Socrates found in each of them his friends and his enemies. Hated and persecuted by Critias, Charicles, and others among the Thirty Tyrants, who had a special reference to him in the decree which they issued, forbidding the teaching of the art of oratory (Xen. Mem. 1.2. §§ 31, 37), he was impeached after their banishment and by their opponents. An orator named Lycon, and a poet (a friend of Thrasybulus) named Melitus, had united in the impeachment with the powerful demagogue Anytus, an embittered antagonist of the sophists and their system (Plat. Meno, p. 91), and one of the leaders of the band which, setting out from Phyle, forced their way into the Peiraeeus, and drove out the Thirty Tyrants. The judges also are described as persons who had been banished, and who had returned with Thrasybulus (Plat. Apol. p. 21). The chief articles of impeachment

were, that Socrates was guilty of corrupting the youth, and of despising the tutelary deities of the state, putting in their place another new divinity (Plat. Apol. pp. 23, 24; Xen. Mem. 1.1.1; D. L. 2.40, ib. Menag.). At the same time it had been made a matter of accusation against him, that Critias, the most ruthless of the Tyrants, had come forth from his school (Xen. Mem. 1.2.12 ; comp. Aeschin. ad v. Tim. § 173, Bekker). Some expressions of his, in which he had found fault with the democratical mode of electing by lot, had also been brought up against him (Xen. Mem. 1.2.9, comp. 58); and there can be little doubt that use was made of his friendly relations with Theramenes, one of the most influential of the Thirty, with Plato's uncle Charmides, who fell by the side of Critias in the struggle with the popular party, and with other aristocrats, in order to irritate against him the party which at that time was dominant; though some friends of Socrates, as Chaerephon for example (Plat. Apol. pp. 20, 21), were to be found in its ranks. But, greatly as his dislike to unbridled democracy may have nourished the hatred long cherished against him, that political opposition was not, strictly speaking, the ground of the hatred ; and the impeachment sought to represent him as a man who in every point of view was dangerous to the state.

In the fullest consciousness of his innocence, Socrates repels the charge raised against him. His constant admonition in reference to the worship of the gods had been, not to deviate from the maxims of the state (Xen. Mem. 4.3.15, comp. 1.1.22); he had defended faith in oracles and portents (ib. 4.3.12, 1.1.6, &c., 4.7.16 ; Plat. Apol. pp. 23, &c., 28, 20, 26, 35, comp. Phaed. pp. 60, 118, Crito, p. 44); and with this faith that which he placed in his Daemonium stood in the closest connection. That he intended to introduce new divinities, or was attached to the atheistical meteorosophia of Anaxagoras (Plat. Apol. p. 26, comp. 18), his accusers could hardly be in earnest in believing ; any more than that he had taught that it was allowable to do anything, even what was disgraceful, for the sake of gain (Xen. Mem. 1.2.56), or that he had exhorted his disciples to despise their parents and relations (Mem. 1.2.19, &c.), and to disobey the laws (ib. 4.4.12, 6.6), or had sanctioned the maltreatment of the poor by the rich (Xen. Mem. 1.2.58, &c.). Did then all these accusations take their rise merely in personal hatred and envy? Socrates himself seems to have assumed that such was the case (Plat. Apol. pp. 23, 28, comp. Meno, p. 94; Plut. Alc. 100.4; Athen. 12.534). Yet the existence of deeper and more general grounds is shown by the widespread dislike towards Socrates, which, five years after his death, Xenophon thought it necessary to oppose by his apologetic writings (comp. Plat. Apol. pp. 18, 19, 23). This is also indicated by the antagonism in which we find Aristophanes against the philosopher, an antagonism which, as we have seen, cannot be deduced from personal dislike. Just as the poet was influenced by the conviction that every kind of philosophy, equally with that of the sophists, could tend only to a further relaxation of the ancient morals and the ancient faith, so probably were also a considerable part of the judges of Socrates. They might imagine that it was their duty to endeavour to check, by the condemnation of the philosopher, the too subtle style of examining into morals and laws, and to restore the old hereditary faith in their unrestricted validity; especially at a time, when, after the expulsion of the Thirty, the need may have been felt of returning to the old faith and the old manners. But the assertion with regard to a well-known depreciatory opinion of Cato, that that opinion is the most just that was ever uttered (Forchhammer, die Athener und Sokrates, die Gesetzlichen und der Revolutionär, 1838), cannot be maintained without rejecting the best authenticated accounts that we have of Socrates, and entirely misconceiving the circumstances of the time. The demand that the individual, abjuring all private judgment, should let himself be guided simply by the laws and maxims of the state, could no longer be made at the time of the prosecution, when poets, with Aristophanes at their head,--ardently desirous as he was for the old constitution and policy,--ridiculed, often with unbridled freedom, the gods of the state and old maxims; and when it never occurred to any orator to uphold the demand that each should unconditionally submit himself to the existing constitution. If it was brought to bear against Socrates, it could only be through a passionate misconception of his views and intentions. In the case of some few this misconception might rest upon the mistake, that, by doing away with free, thoughtful inquiry, the good old times might be brought back again. With most it probably proceeded from democratical hatred of the political maxims of Socrates, and from personal dislike of his troublesome exhortation to moral self-examination. (Comp, P. van Limburg Brower, Apologia contra Meliti redivivi Calumniam, Groningae, 1838 ; Preller, in the Haller Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung, 1838, No. 87, &c., ed. Zeller, die Philosophie der Griechen, 2.73-104. Respecting the form of the trial, see Meier and Schöman, Attisch. Process, p. 182.)

While Socrates, in his defence, describes the wisdom which he aimed after as that which, after conscientious self-examination, gets rid of all illusion and obscurity, and only obeys the better, God or man, and God more than man, and esteems virtue above everything else (Plat. Apol. p. 28, &c., comp. 35, 36, 38, 39), he repudiates any acquittal that should involve the condition that he was not to inquire and teach any more (ib. p. 29). Condemned by a majority of only six votes, and called upon to speak in mitigation of the sentence, while lie defends himself against the accusation of stiffnecked self-conceit, he expresses the conviction that he deserved to be maintained at the public cost in the Prytaneium, and refuses to acquiesce in the adjudication of imprisonment, or a large fine, or banishment. He will assent to nothing more than a fine of thirty minae, on the security of Plato, Crito, and other friends. Condemned to death by the judges, who were incensed by this speech, by a majority of eighty votes, he departs from them with the protestation, that he would. rather die after such a defence than live after one in which he should have betaken himself to an endeavour to move their pity; and to those who had voted for him he justifies the openness with which he had exhibited his contempt of death (p. 38, &c.). The sentence of death could not be carried into execution until after the return of the vessel which had been sent to Delos on the periodical Theoric mission, The thirty days which intervened between its return

and the condemnation of Socrates were devoted by the latter, in undisturbed repose, to poetic attempts (the first he had made in his life), and to the usual conversation with his friends. One of these conversations, on the duty of obedience to the laws even in the case of an unjust application of them, Plato has reported in the Crito, so called after the faithful follower of the condemned man, who bore that name, and who, although he himself had become bail for Socrates, had endeavoured without success to persuade him to make his escape. In another, imitated or worked up by Plato in the Phaedo, Socrates immediately before he drank the poison developed the grounds of his immovable conviction of the immortality of the soul. The manner in which the assembled friends, in the alternation of joyful admiration and profound grief, lauded him as one who, by the divine appointment, was going to a place where it must fare well with him, if with any-one ;--how he departed from them with the one wish, that, in their care for themselves, that is, for their true welfare, they would cherish in their memories his latest and his earlier sayings ;--and how, with his last breath, he designates the transition to the life that lies beyond death as the true recovery from a state of impurity and disease, --all this is set before us with such liveliness, that we gladly accord with the closing words of the dialogue :--"Thus died the man, who of all with whom we were acquainted was in death the noblest, in life the wisest and most just." (Plat. Phaed. pp. 58, 59, 115, 118, ib. Interp.; comp. Xen. Mem. 4.8.4, &c.)

To the accusations which were brought against Socrates in his impeachment subsequent enviers and haters added others, of which that impeachment takes no cognizance, and which are destitute of all credibility on other grounds. The accusation that he was addicted to the vice of paederastia (Lucian de Domo, 100.4., and in contradiction Maxim. Tyr. Dissert. xxv. xxvi. xxvii.; J. M. Gesner, Socrates sanctus paederasta, Traj. ad Rhen. 1769), we do not hesitate, supported by his unambiguous expressions respecting the essence of true, spiritual love in Xenophon (Symp. 8.2, 19, 32, &c., Mem. 1.2.29, &c., 3.8, &c.) and Plato (Symp. p. 222, &c.), to reject as a calumny. Also the account that in consequence of a resolution of the people allowing bigamy, which was passed during the Peloponnesian war, he was married to two women at the same time (Plut. Aristid. p. 335 ; Athen. 12.555, &c.; Diog. Laert., &c.), is to be set aside as unfounded, since the existence of any such resolution of the people cannot be proved, while the Socratics know of only one wife, Xanthippe, and the account itself is not free from contradictions. J. Luzac, following Bentley and others, completely refutes it (Lect. Att. de Bigamia Socratis, Lugd. Bat. 1809).

Whether, and how soon after the death of Socrates, repentance seized the Athenians, and his accusers met with contempt and punishment; and further whether and when, to expiate the crime, a brazen statue, the work of Lysippus, was dedicated to his memory (Plut. de Invid. et Odio, p. 537, &c.; D. L. 2.43. ib. Menag.), it is not easy to determine with any certainty, in consequence of the indefiniteness of the statements. Five years after his execution, Xenophon found himself obliged to compose the Memorabilia, in vindication of Socrates. (Comp. A. Boeckh, de Simultate quam Plato cum Xenophonte exercuisse fertur, p. 19.)

[Ch. A. B.]