Vitae philosophorum

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[*](So Cobet for vulgate Mnesilochus, retained by Meineke, C.G.F. ii. 371.) writes:

This new play of Euripides is The Phrygians; and Socrates provides the wood for frying.[*](There is a pun in Φρύγες and φρύγανα (= firewood).)

1. A. Pray why so solemn, why this lofty air?
2. B. I’ve every right; I’m helped by Socrates.

’Tis he composes for Euripides
1. Those clever plays, much sound and little sense.

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 Silli[*](Fr. 25 d.):

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.

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.[*](Possibly the reference is to the same citation as in 19 which Diogenes Laertius may have found independently in two of his authorities. Diogenes himself notices the agreement between Favorinus and Idomeneus of Lampsacus, a much earlier author, for he was a disciple of Epicurus, whom he knew from 310 to 270 b.c.) 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;

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 house[*](Hom. Od. iv. 392.);

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.

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[*](The reason assigned for an expedition to Potidaea by sea will not hold. Communications between Athens and Thrace were, as a rule, made by sea. Moreover, the siege of Potidaea began in 432 b.c., the year before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. It has been suggested that the words διὰ θαλάττης ... κωλύοντος should properly follow Ἰσθμόν eight lines lower down. If any Athenian wished to attend the Isthmian games during the early part of the Peloponnesian war, it was probably safer not to risk the land journey owing to the bitter hostility of the Megarians.); 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

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?

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
1. More fits an actor’s need than mine.[*](Stobaeus, Florilegium, lvi. 15, attributes these and three preceding lines to Philemon, the well-known poet of the New Comedy. If Philemon wrote them, Socrates cannot have recited them, however well they express his temper.)

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

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.

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[*](Clouds, 412-417.):

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 walking,

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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[*](Sc. in the Connus, Meineke, C.G.F. i. 201 sq., ii. 703.):

1. 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?
2. B. Your sorry plight is an insult to the cobblers.
3. A. And yet, hungry as he is, this man has never stooped to flatter.

Because you stalk along the streets, rolling your eyes, and endure, barefoot, many a hardship, and gaze up at us [the clouds].

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

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.

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

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.

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. ΑΥΓΗ.)

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?

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[*](Hom. Il. ix. 363.):

On the third day thou shalt come to the fertile fields of Phthia;

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.

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

Of all men living Socrates most wise.