Socrates in Love
Page 18
23superior beauty The passage discussed is from Xenophon’s Symposium (5.2–8).
24youthful misbehaviour See Lane Fox (2016).
25Socrates is now depicted Zanker (1995), pp. 34–9 and 58–60.
26hyperthyroidism Papapetrou (2015).
27perceived negative effects Various approaches to the question of hearing voices, including a discussion of Socrates’ daimonion, are presented in Smith (2007).
28out of place The term atopos, literally ‘out of place’, is often used to characterise the older Socrates in the writings of his biographers.
29forming friendships See Zuckert (2012), p. 384, who cites the relevant passages: Plato’s Apology 31c–d, Republic 396c, and Theages 128d–31a.
30hallucinogenic vapours Recently compiled geological evidence is presented by Broad (2006).
31oracles uttered by the Pythia In Why the Pythia does not now give oracles in verse (22), Plutarch says of the Pythia of his own day ‘having been brought up in the house of farming folk, she brings nothing with her of art or practice or skill as she descends into the sanctuary’. The same is likely to have been true in Socrates’ time.
32visited Delphi Aristotle is cited by Diogenes Laertius (2.23) regarding the visit, and by Plutarch (Against Colotes 1118c) regarding the inscription.
33wisest of men Plato, Apology 21b–e.
6
1critique of orators Plato, Menexenus 234c–235c.
2Menexenus This is likely to be Menexenus son of Demophon who appears in Plato’s dialogue Lysis, rather than the son of Socrates suggested by Dean-Jones (1995).
3family connection See Bicknell (1982), and the genealogical discussion in Ellis (1989), pp. 5–9.
4ten years Some scholars suggest that Pericles left his first wife for Aspasia, but the historical chronology does not support the idea: see Nails (2002), p. 225.
5wife in effect There is uncertainty about Aspasia’s exact status. It was not illegal in the fifth century, as it was to become in the fourth, for a citizen to marry a non-Athenian wife. As a non-citizen Aspasia may not have been able to attain legal marital status; however, it has been argued that she did so exceptionally. Vernant (1990, p. 59) notes that ‘we do not find the institution of marriage perfectly defined in fifth-century Athens … there continued to exist different types of union whose implications for the woman and her children varied according to the historical circumstances’. For simplicity, many use the word ‘married’ of Aspasia’s union with Pericles.
6inseparable partners Henry (1995) suggests that Aspasia’s rapid remarriage after Pericles’ death may support indications in comic drama that Pericles tired of her (p. 16); but comic allegations about Pericles’ alleged sexual waywardness are more likely to have been scurrilous attacks on his famous uxoriousness.
7real target Stone (1988) pp. 233–5, ably dismisses Plutarch’s misapprehension; see also Hornblower s.v. Aspasia in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn). As Stone writes (p. 234), ‘we know of no other case in which a comic poet ever convicted himself of seriousness by taking his jokes and lampoons into court … He would have cut a strange figure as a prosecutor of impiety.’
8incredulity Pomeroy (1994), p. 234, writes ‘It is quite remarkable that Socrates (or Xenophon) should choose the hetaira Aspasia as an example,’ but also notes ‘Her status was elevated when she became involved in a monogamous relationship with Pericles, and when her sons were granted citizenship’ – events that spanned most of her life in Athens.
9relationship coach See Henry (1995), pp. 43–5. Döring (2011), p. 31, describes the discussion recorded in Aeschines’ Aspasia, concluding, ‘Thus there is an intimate connection between Aspasia, Xenophon and his wife, and Socrates’ remark that he was Aspasia’s student in matters of love’; but he interprets this connection as Aeschines’ ‘projecting a Socratic aspect’ onto Aspasia, rather than one that genuinely reflects the influence of Aspasia’s thinking on Socrates.
10Megara The different and somewhat perverse interpretation of the Megarian Decree by de Ste Croix (1972) – that it was a religious rather than an economic sanction – is generally rejected. Aristophanes’ story of the theft of prostitutes has often been thought to be a play on Herodotus’s opening chapters; Pelling (2000), p. 154, suggests that both authors are more likely to be parodying popular explanations of how wars are thought to begin.
11relationship The Greek citation in Athenaeus 13.589d is vague about exactly what kind of relationship it was; after listing other possible testimony (including artistic) to a love affair between Socrates and Aspasia, Pomeroy (1994), p. 82 n. 45, states that it ‘hints at an amorous relationship between the two’. Hermesianax’s florid verses (fragment 7.91–4) are dismissively characterised by Henry (1995), p. 64, as portraying Socrates’ feelings as ‘an adolescent crush’.
12what made Socrates different Lefkowitz (2008).
13express contradistinction Belfiore (2012), pp. 140–6, summarises the way in which Plato in the Symposium presents Socrates as failing fully to endorse either Diotima’s views or methods, not least in that, as a teacher, she ‘differs so radically from the philosopher-pupil who reports her words’ (p. 142).
AFTERWORD
1hold his drink We are told that no one ever saw Socrates drunk; at the end of Plato’s Symposium he continues to drink and debate with Agathon and Aristophanes into the early hours while other participants have fallen into a drunken sleep: Symposium 220a.
2egalitarian outlook Among the Vatican Sayings of Women is one that runs, ‘When asked what Socrates’ greatest attribute was, Xanthippe said “The fact that he presents the same face to noble and lowborn men alike”’.
3cannot relate to him Most (1993) gives excellent reasons why the vow refers to an ordinary recovery from illness, but argues that Plato is the person referred to; but since Plato is known to be still unwell, he less plausibly suggests that Socrates is predicting Plato’s recovery in a deathbed vision.
REFERENCES
Anderson, M. (2005) ‘Socrates as Hoplite’, Ancient Philosophy 25.2, 273–891.
Azoulay, V. (2010) Pericles of Athens. Trans. Janet Lloyd. Princeton, NJ.
Belfiore, E. S. (2012) Socrates’ Daimonic Art. Cambridge.
Bicknell, P. J. (1982) ‘Axiochus Alkibiadou, Aspasia and Aspasios’, L’ Antiquité Classique 51: 240–50.
Bloch, E. (2002) ‘Hemlock Poisoning and the Death of Socrates’, in T. Brickhouse and N. Smith, eds, The Trial and Execution of Socrates, 255–78. Oxford.
Bosworth, A. B. (2000) ‘The historical context of Thucydides’ funeral oration’, JHS 120, 1–16.
Bowra, M. (1938) ‘The Epigram on the Fallen of Coronea’, Classical Quarterly 32.2, 80–88.
Brémaud, N. (2012) ‘Folie de Socrate?’, L’information psychiatrique 88.5, 385–91.
Broad, W. J. (2006) The Oracle. London.
Csapo, E. (2004) ‘The Politics of the New Music’, in P. Murray and P. Wilson, eds, Music and the Muses, 207–48. Oxford.
— (2010) Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater. Hoboken, NJ.
D’Angour, A. J. (2011) The Greeks and the New. Cambridge.
Dean-Jones, L. (1995) ‘Menexenus – Son of Socrates’, Classical Quarterly 45.1, 51–7.
Dodds, E. R. (1951) The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley, Calif.
Döring, K. (2011) ‘The Students of Socrates’, in D. R. Morrison, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, 24–47. Cambridge.
Dover, K. (1989) Aristophanes’ Clouds. Oxford.
Ellis, W. M. (1989) Alcibiades. London.
Foxhall, L. (1997) ‘A view from the top: Evaluating the Solonian property classes’, in L. Mitchell and P. Rhodes, eds, The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece, 113–36. London.
Gay, P. (1988) Freud: A Life for Our Time. London.
Graham, D. (2008) ‘Socrates on Samos’, Classical Quarterly 308–13.
Guthrie, W. K. C. (1971) Socrates. Cambridge.
Hall, E. (2006) The Theatrical Cast of Athens. Oxford.
/>
Hansen, M. H. (1988) Three Studies in Athenian Demography. Copenhagen.
Henry, M. M. (1995) Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and the Biographical Tradition. Oxford.
Hornblower, S. (1987) Thucydides. London.
Huffman, C. (2012) ‘Aristoxenus’s Life of Socrates’, in C. Huffman, ed., Aristoxenus of Tarentum, 250–81. New Brunswick, NJ.
Hughes, B. (2010) The Hemlock Cup. London.
Johnson, P. (2011) Socrates: A Man for Our Times. London.
Kallet-Marx, L. (1989) ‘Did Tribute Fund the Parthenon’, Classical Antiquity 8.2, 252–66.
Karamanou, I. (2006) Euripides, Danae and Dictys. Berlin.
Lane Fox, R. (2016) Augustine, Conversions and Confessions. London.
Lefkowitz, M. R. (2008) Review of Emily Wilson, The Death of Socrates (Cambridge, Mass., 2007). Reason Papers 30, 107–12.
Levin, F. (2009) Greek Reflections on the Nature of Music. Cambridge.
Leroi, A. M. (2014) The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science. London.
Lewis, D. M. (1963) ‘Cleisthenes and Attica’, Historia xii 1963, 22–40 (= Selected Papers in Greek and Near Eastern History, P. J. Rhodes, ed., Cambridge, 77–98).
Littman, R. (1970) ‘The Loves of Alcibiades’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 101.
Lynch, T. (2013) ‘A Sophist “in disguise”: a reconstruction of Damon of Oa and his role in Plato’s dialogues’, Etudes Platoniciennes online, 10: 2013.
MacLeod, C. (1974) ‘Form and meaning in the Melian Dialogue’, Historia 23: 385–400 (= Collected Essays, Oxford 1983, 52–67).
Marshall, C. W. and G. Kovacs, eds (2012) No Laughing Matter. London.
Marshall, C. W. (2016) ‘Aelian and Comedy: Four Studies’, in C. W. Marshall and T. Hawkins, eds, Athenian Comedy in the Roman Empire, 197–222. London.
Morgan, K. A., ed. (2003) Popular Tyranny. Austin, Tex.
Most, G. (1993) ‘A Cock for Asclepius’, Classical Quarterly 43.
Nails, D. (2002) The People of Plato. Indianapolis, Ind.
Ober, J. (2011) ‘Socrates and Democratic Athens’, in D. R. Morrison, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, 138–78. Cambridge.
Papapetrou, P. D. (2015) ‘The philosopher Socrates had exophthalmos (a term coined by Plato) and probably Graves’ disease’, Hormones (Athens).
Parker, R. (1997) Athenian Religion. Oxford.
Pelling, C. B. R. (2000) Literary Texts and the Greek Historian. London.
Pomeroy, S. B. (1994) Xenophon: Oeconomicus. Oxford.
Poole, J. C. F. and A. J. Holladay (1979) ‘Thucydides and the Plague of Athens’, Classical Quarterly 29.2, 282–300.
Power, T. (2012) ‘Sophocles and Music’, in A. Markantonatos, ed., Brill’s Companion to Sophocles, 283–304. Leiden and Boston, Mass.
Rhodes, P. J. (2011) Alcibiades. Barnsley.
—(2018) Periclean Athens.
Ste Croix, G. E. M. de (1972) The Origins of the Peloponnesian War. London.
Samons II, L. J. (2016) Pericles and the Conquest of History. Cambridge.
Schorn, S. (2012) ‘Aristoxenus’s biographical method’, in C. Huffman, ed., Aristoxenus of Tarentum, 177–222. Austin, Tex.
Smith, D. B. (2007) Muses, Madmen and Prophets. London.
Sommerstein, A. H. ‘Comedy and the unspeakable’, in D. L. Cairns and R. A. Knox, eds (2004) Law, Rhetoric, and Comedy in Classical Athens, 205–22. Swansea.
Stone, I. F. (1988) The Trial of Socrates. London.
Taylor, J. (2007) Classics and the Bible: Hospitality and Recognition. London.
Vander Waerdt, P. A. (1994) ‘Socrates in the Clouds’, in The Socratic Movement, 48–86. Ithaca, NY.
van Wees, H. (2004) Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities. London.
Vernant, J.-P. (1990) Myth and Society in Ancient Greece. Trans. Janet Lloyd. New York.
Wallace, R. W. (2015a) ‘Socrates as Hoplite’, Philosophia 45 (2015), 148–60.
—(2015b) Reconstructing Damon. Oxford.
Waterfield, R. (2009) Why Socrates Died. New York and London.
Wheeler, E. (1982) ‘Hoplomachia and Greek dances in arms’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 23: 229–230.
Wildberg, C. (2009), in S. Ahbel-Rappe and R. Kamtekar, eds, A Companion to Socrates, 21–35. Wiley-Blackwell: London and New York.
Wilson, E. (2007) The Death of Socrates. London.
Zanker, P. (1995) The Mask of Socrates. Berkeley, Calif.
Zuckert, C. (2012) Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues. Chicago, Ill.
INDEX
Acropolis here, here, here
Aegean Sea here, here
Aelian here, here, here
Aeschines of Sphettus here
Aeschines (orator) here
Aeschylus here
Agathon here, here
Agora here, here, here, here
Alcibiades here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Alcmaeonids here, here, here, here
Alopeke here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Ameipsias, author of Konnos here
Amphipolis here, here
Anacreon here
Anaxagoras here, here, here, here
Apollo here
Archelaus here, here, here
Arginusae (naval battle) here, here
Aristides ‘the Just’ here
Aristophanes here Acharnians here
Clouds here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Peace here
Aristotle here, here, here
Aristoxenus here, here, here, here, here
Aspasia here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Assembly of Athens (ekklēsia) here
Athens here, here, here
Augustine, St. here
Axiochus here
Callias, son of Calliades here, here, here
Callias, son of Hipponicus here, here
Chaerephon here, here, here, here
Charmides here, here
Cicero here, here
City Dionysia here
Clearchus of Soli here
Cleinias here, here, here, here, here, here
Cleisthenes here
Coronea, Battle of here, here, here
Corinth here, here
Council of Athens (Boulē) here, here
Cratinus here, here, here
Critias here, here
Critobulus here
Damon of Oa here, here
dance here, here, here
Deinomache here, here, here
Delian League here, here
Delium, Battle of here, here
Delphi (seat of Apollo’s oracle) here, here, here, here
demes (villages) here, here
Diagoras of Melos here
Diogenes Laertius here, here, here
Dionysus, Theatre of here, here, here
Diotima here, here, here, here
Eros here, here, here
Eupolis here
Euripides here, here, here
Douris of Samos here
hemlock here, here, here, here
Henry VIII here
Hermesianax here
Hermippus here
Herms, mutilation of here, here
hetairai (courtesans) here
Homer here, here, here
innovation here, here, here, here
Ion of Chios here, here
Ionia here, here, here, here, here
Jesus of Nazareth here
Johnson, Samuel here
Kimon here, here, here
Konnos here, here
Lampon here, here
Lampros here
Lefkowitz, Mary here, here
Lenaia here
Leon of Salamis here, here
Lysicles here
Lysimachus here, here, here
Macedon here, here
Mantinea here
mēkhanē (crane, māchina) here, here
/> Melissus of Samos here, here
Miletus here, here
music here, here, here
Myrto here, here, here, here, here
Mysteries here
Nails, Debra here
Nicias here, here, here, here, here
Nietzsche, Friedrich here, here, here
ostracism here, here
parabasis here
Parmenides here, here
Patrocles here
Peloponnesian War here, here, here, here
Perdiccas of Macedon here, here
Pericles here, here, here, here, here, here as Zeus here, here
Funeral Speech here, here, here, here, here
Pericles Junior here, here, here, here, here
Persians here, here, here, here, here, here
Phaenarete here
Pheidias here, here, here
Pheidippides here, here
plague here, here, here, here, here
Plataea, Battle of here, here, here
Plato here, here, here, here, here, here, here Alcibiades here
Apology here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Charmides here
Ion here
Laws here
Menexenus here, here, here, here
Meno here
Phaedo here, here, here
Phaedrus here
Protagoras here, here, here
Republic here, here
Symposium here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Theaetetus here, here
Platonic love here, here
Plutarch here, here, here, here, here, here
Potidaea here, here
Presocratics here
Protagoras of Abdera here, here
pyrrichē (war dance) here, here, here
Pythagoras here, here
Pythia here, here
Samos here, here, here, here, here
Sicilian Campaign here
Socrates Ch. 5 appearance here, here, here, here, here
catalepsy here, here, here, here
character here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
dancer here
‘divine voice’ here, here
eccentricity here, here, here, here
hyperthyroidism here, here
heroic aspirations here, here, here, here, here