by Plato
24. and still hold it: The constancy of Socrates’ beliefs is again emphasized in the Gorgias (e.g. a482–c, c508–a509).
25. Ought one… just: There is ambiguity in the Greek: it could mean ‘Ought one to fulfil all that one agrees… to be just’, and even as translated there are two interpretations, one supposing that the unjust mechanics of agreement invalidate the contract, the other supposing that it is unjust terms that will do so. Does the contract have to be justly made? And do the terms have to be just to be binding, or do they merely have to have been agreed to be just? The latter interpretation would tend to make the condition redundant – one does not agree to terms which one considers unfair in any case. Furthermore the speech of the Laws will later emphasize the fairness of the agreement which Socrates has allegedly made with them – the fairness both of its terms and of the way in which it was made. In fact Athenian contract law does routinely make the validity of the contract subject to its fairness – to there being cause for the agreement and to the terms not requiring anything itself unjust. See R. E. Allen, Socrates and Legal Obligation (Minneapolis, 1980), p. 87. Compare Richard Kraut, Socrates and the State (Princeton, 1983), pp. 29–33, who resists a tendency which he finds in Allen to conflate the injustice of the mechanics of an agreement and the injustice of its terms (p. 32 and note 11).
26. the whole State as well: We have here the important notion that a single violation such as that contemplated is not just a challenge to the one law which is thereby not correctly applied, but to the whole system of law. See Allen, Socrates and Legal Obligation, pp. 84–5.
27. The State is guilty… trial: The language resembles that of a formal charge, here brought against the city.
28. give you life in the first place: Strictly speaking, the comparison between the Laws and one’s parents is not intended to supply an additional premise for the argument that escape would constitute an injustice, but to emphasize the magnitude of the injustice being contemplated. It does, however, also help to establish how fair and reasonable Socrates’ ‘contract’ with the Laws had been.
29. those of us Laws that deal with marriage: Preparing the way for seeing the Laws as a kind of parent. However, what is at issue now is more a matter of tradition than formal law, so that the Laws come to stand for the whole cultural system according to which the city operates. Notice how the argument depends upon the Laws being regarded as a single body of law and tradition such that no part can be disregarded without damage to the whole.
30. an education in music and gymnastics: ‘Music’ here covers the whole literary side of a traditional Greek education. Even in Republic 2 Socrates still thinks that ‘music’ and gymnastics together constitute the best basic education, but he has severe criticisms of details of the ‘musical’ part.
31. violence against mother or father is an unholy act: It is important that Socrates was regarded (ever since The Clouds, where Pheidippides learnt to justify the beating of his father and mother) as one who encouraged disrespect for one’s parents. The charge appears to have been revived by Polycrates (Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2.49), in company with the charge that he encouraged disrespect for the established laws (ibid., 9).
32. on attaining to manhood: It is clear that the Laws consider the obvious time for scrutinizing the ‘contract’ to be the age of seventeen, when the Athenian male was formally confirmed in his citizenship by a process of dokimasia. See Kraut, Socrates and the State, p. 154.
33. wherever he likes: Here the reader should reflect on how realistic this choice would have been for the average Athenian. Would there be anywhere for him to go where he could expect laws of a substantially different kind?
34. to do anything that we tell him: The personification now has the unfortunate consequence of picturing the Laws as tyrants, and the liberty-conscious Athenians as a willingly enslaved people. Their fear of a benevolent tyrant would of course be that he would not always be giving the same kind of orders, and one wonders what Socrates’ response ought to be if the Laws radically changed their methods of operation. Admittedly the Athenians can try to alter the Laws if they find them operating badly (if that is not to destroy the Laws with whom one is now contracted), but a tyrant’s subjects are also able to try to influence his rule.
35. except once to the Isthmus: It is unclear whether these words should be in the text, and whether they refer to the Isthmian Games.
36. some military expedition: For Socrates’ military service, see Apology 28e.
37. because the city suits you: A curious idea, implying that one only reproduces in congenial surroundings. That view is in fact espoused by Plato at Symposium e206 ff. Note that Socrates is hardly exceptional in having raised three children in Athens!
38. you could have proposed… without it: It is difficult to deny the implication that the jury would have accepted a proposed penalty of exile.
39. in deed and not in word: This rhetorical phrase generally strengthens the claim being made, since what is so in deed is superior evidence to what is so in word. In this case, however, a verbal agreement would have been much better evidence.
40. under no compulsion… limited time: Kraut, Socrates and the State (p. 30) finds here three reasons which might have made the ‘contract’ invalid: (i) compulsion, (ii) trickery, (iii) time-pressure.
41. you had seventy years: It is odd exaggeration that Socrates should be thought to have had this option from the moment of birth rather than from the age when such matters became his responsibility (which would give a period of just over fifty years).
42. your favourite models of good government: It is Plato’s Laws, not any Socratic text, which comes immediately to mind as an example of respect for the Spartan and Cretan legal codes.
43. destroyer of laws… human beings: Both charges seem to have been made against Socrates by Polycrates in his literary Accusation of Socrates, and were possibly linked, see note 31, and for the rare word ‘destroyer’, Themistius’ Oratio 23, b296–c.
44. There you’ll find disorder and indiscipline: Likewise Xenophon says that Critias (said by Polycrates to be Socrates’ pupil) learnt lawlessness in Thessaly. But Socrates’ claim seems insensitive to Crito’s links with that place.
45. ‘roistering in Thessaly’: Apparently a proverbial expression for pointless indulgence, which serves to underline Socrates’ derogatory attitude towards Thessaly.
46. even without: Reading
47. the authorities there: For the judges of the Underworld, see Apology 41a, Gorgias c523.
48. not by us, the Laws, but by your fellow-men: The distinction is not without problems; can the Laws, who are even given a human voice, be seen in isolation from the legislators and judges who administer them? Can the State, of which the Laws are professedly a part, be an entity separate from the people who comprise it? Further, if the citizens have judged in accordance with the law, then either (i) Socrates has not been wronged, or (ii) the Laws are implicated in the wrong he has been done but if the citizens have not judged in accordance with the law, how can Socrates be seeking to avoid lawful punishment?
49. returning injustice for injustice and injury for injury: Surely Socrates cannot return an injustice to the Laws, if they have acted justly; but can he really be returning an injustice to his fellow-men either, if he has no contract with them and has no intention of harming them? Perhaps there is the notion of repaying the Laws for an injustice which men committed in their name.
50. just as a mystic seems to hear the strains of pipes: The reference is to those experiencing a Corybantic trance, and the idea is that the sound of the ritualistic music rings on in one’s ears even when it has stopped; though oriental, these rites were quite acceptable at Athens, as Euthydemus d277 shows.
Phaedo
1. all would be well with him, if that could ever be said of anybody: It is important to realize that the Greeks, even if they expected some kind of life after death, as clearly Phaedo does, tended to assume that it would deprive al
l ordinary humans of much that was worthwhile. It would be a dark, damp semi-existence below rather than anything akin to the Christian Heaven. Socrates is therefore quite unusually reconciled to death.
2. Apollodorus: See Apology 34a and note 64 for Apollodorus; on the blending of pleasure and pain, see the introduction to Phaedo.
3. his father: Crito; see Apology 33d. On Epigenes and Aeschines, see Apology 33e and note 61.
4. Antisthenes: Perhaps the senior Socratic; he had great influence upon the subsequent cynic school.
5. Ctesippus of Paeanis: Ctesippus features in the Euthydemus and Lysis.
6. Menexenus: He features in the Menexenus and Lysis.
7. Plato was ill: We may only speculate on Plato’s absence from the discussion.
8. Simmias… from Megara: Simmias and Cebes are the chief Interlocutors in this work, and have Pythagorean connections; Euclides and Terpsion are met in the prologue to the Theaetetus, and the former was responsible for developing the Megarian philosophy, which paid much attention to subtle argument.
9. The Eleven: See Apology 37c and note 73.
10. Xanthippe: Xanthippe has the reputation of being a very difficult woman, in part owing to her portrayal by Antisthenes in Xenophon’s Symposium 2.10. Other sources mention a woman named Myrto as having also been a wife of Socrates.
11. its apparent opposite, pain: In the Gorgias (a493–a500) pain is not conceived as pleasure’s opposite, indeed the argument at e495 ff. relies upon their not being opposites; pleasure and pain diminish simultaneously (as one slakes one’s thirst, etc.), while opposites can neither wax nor wane simultaneously. Pain is there regarded as an underlying lack, pleasure as the process by which it is restored. Hence Plato’s reluctance to state here that pain is simply pleasure’s opposite. There appear to be changes, however, to the Phaedo’s theory.
12. their continual quarrelling: On pleasure and pain alternating, see the introduction to Phaedo, ‘Pleasure and Release’.
13. Evenus: See Apology 20b and note 15.
14. the arts: Literally ‘music’, but embracing all creative activity overseen by the Muses, especially poetic activity. One of the verbs used is also commonly used for composing poetry, and would naturally be taken this way when coupled with ‘music’. Socrates now suspects that the words are to be taken in this literal sense.
15. this god’s festival: It is (Delian) Apollo’s festival, Apollo is the god of prophetic dreams, and the Muses are also closely connected with Apollo, so that he, if any god, would be connected with the composition of poetry. Hence Socrates’ prologue is addressed to Apollo.
16. welcomes death: On this section, see the introduction to Phaedo, ‘Desiring Death and Suicide’.
17. Philolaus: A prominent Pythagorean of the time, of whose work a number of fragments survive, some generally accepted as authentic. His sect had been expelled from Italy, and he settled in Thebes, where Simmias and Cebes had come into contact with him.
18. this: Probably the prohibition of suicide. For alternatives of interpretation here see David Gallop, Plato’s Phaedo (Oxford, 1975), pp. 79–83.
19. sometimes and for some people death is better than life: The relativity of ‘good’ is a major sophistic theme, associated with Protagoras at Protagoras a334–c. If one applied it only to the physical condition, circumstances, or experiences of the individual, Plato would be in agreement.
20. an advantage: Cebes is supposed to have concluded that death is better for some people. These would normally and uncontroversially be persons so bad or unfortunate that death is a boon; so to have reached that conclusion Cebes does not have to accept that philosophers are better off dying because of the attraction for them of the after-life.
21. hidden message: To judge from Gorgias a493 ff. the Orphics told a number of stories about life and death which were allegorically interpreted by the Pythagoreans. Naturally one would expect material familiar to the Pythagoreans to be used in a conversation with Cebes and Simmias.
22. lock-up: I have preferred this translation to Tredennick’s ‘guard-post’, which appears to interpret the Greek word as an outpost in which the people are designated the task of guarding. Most modern interpreters see the reference here as being to a place in which prisoners are guarded. In fact the Orphics believed that life on earth was a punishment for the soul, and the penalty was a kind of imprisonment, as Cratylus c400 shows. It is apparent that Socrates will not commit himself to the idea that we are being punished; the obligation not to escape results from God’s generosity to his human serfs.
23. other wise and good gods: It is quite conventional to think of the gods of the Underworld as a different group from the Olympians, of whom Socrates’ closest god, Apollo, was one.
24. I could commit myself… anything: A way of making a strong but guarded assertion typical of ‘Socrates’ in the early-middle dialogues; cf. Gorgias e508–a509, Meno 98b.
25. to affect the action of the poison: Medical writers at this time explained physical processes mostly in terms of hot, cold, wet and dry. No doubt the hemlock is thought of as freezing its victim, and heat will thus be seen as an antidote.
26. just that: Assent to this proposition is natural enough for the Greek (who would be used to the idea of some shadow of the former person journeying at death to Hades), and it has a tremendous influence over the course of the argument hereafter. Thus Socrates is often accused of having prejudged the issue; but the notion that something has ‘left’ the body at death is natural, ‘soul’ frequently means just ‘life’ (which is the thing most naturally thought to leave), and any important physical change would naturally be interpreted as admixture or separation according to late Presocratic physics. Socrates assumes the loss of a life-giving ingredient, but he is not assuming that this ingredient itself coheres as a functioning entity after leaving the body.
27. what people call pleasures: It is perfectly normal for Plato to be questioning whether these ‘pleasures’ are properly so called. We learn from the Protagoras (c353 ff.) that the long-term effects are often painful rather than pleasant.
28. the poets: Particularly Xenophanes, fr. 34’35, Epicharmus, fr. 12, and Parmenides, fr. 7. But still, it must be admitted that nothing there explains how Plato can hope to avoid clarifying his reasons for his low estimation of the senses in the Phaedo, and it would be dangerous to suppose that his reasons are the same as those of ‘the poets’. What he shares with them is the belief that the senses cannot penetrate to that deeper reality which will explain the world, but it is likely that his reasons are linked with his own Theory of Ideas, and concern the alleged failure of any object of sensation to perfectly exemplify any of the various attributes (e.g. holy, equal, cold) which are accredited to them.
29. the rest: i.e. taste, smell and touch.
30. leaves the body to its own devices: The language recalls Socrates’ dismissal of the jailer’s concerns about his body in favour of his own desire for philosophical discussion (63e).
31. justice itself: The Platonic Theory of Ideas (eternal, unchanging, perfect principles of various qualities which occur imperfectly in this world) now makes its first appearance. The philosopher aims to understand these things in their own right so far as is possible. In the middle-period dialogues they feature as the true objects of knowledge, since we cannot fully know what is changing, and their instantiations in the physical world are subject to change. See also the postscript on the Theory of Ideas.
32. the sense of sight: Rejecting, as is usual, the textual emendation proposed by Burnet in his Oxford Classical Text (Platonis Opera) vol. 1; 1900).
33. in our investigation: Keeping the full text of the Oxford Classical Text, and interpreting approximately as Gallop does in Plato’s Phaedo.
34. the company of others like ourselves: This may be a surprise, for withdrawal from the body does not entail finding ourselves in the presence of other souls. We know that Socrates expects to meet other fine souls after death (63b), but we do not know why.
However, there was a tendency to envisage similar physical substances finding their way naturally to the same strata of the universe, and if the rule can be extended to soul then there might be a particular place where soul in its pure state will naturally come to reside – whereas, if it were contaminated with substances that seek a lower place, it would be held back nearer to earth.
35. the chains of the body: This recurrence of the ‘body-prison’ theme of 62b indicates why Socrates finds the image attractive. It is not that the soul has committed an offence to get there, but rather that the body is, for the philosopher, an exceedingly restrictive place.
36. beloveds: The text refers explicitly to the younger partner in a male-to-male homosexual relationship, for whom, as the Symposium demonstrates, erotic passion was more likely to be felt by a Greek male than for any other; a Classic case of a lover dying a certain death on behalf of a dead beloved would be that of Achilles for Patroclus (Symposium e179; where, however, the relationship is inverted). Symposium 204–12 also makes much of the similarity between this erotic love and the philosopher’s love of wisdom. The terminology here is most appropriate to erotic love. Hence it is possible, though not certain, that the reference to wives and sons should be deleted (with W. J. Verdenius, ‘Notes on Plato’s Phaedo’, Mnemosyne 11, 1958, pp. 133 – 243). The words could easily be a gloss – the result of an attempt to impose upon the text the moral expectations of a later age.
37. “philosopher”: It is important here that ‘philosopher’ literally means ‘lover of wisdom’.
38. one or the other, or both: It is customary for Plato in his middle period to see men as falling into three basic types: those who pursue basic physical needs (in which case they are likely to value money highly), those who pursue honour, and the ‘philosophers’ who pursue wisdom. Such a division operates in the Republic, particularly in Book 8, where it goes hand in hand with the tripartite division of the human soul. I have understood the text in such a way as seems to accord with that theory, for whereas it is clear why a body-lover should be a lover of money (money enabling him to fulfil his bodily desires), there is no special connection between love of the body and love of prestige. If I am right, the money-lover is in fact the conventionally temperate man, or the oligarchic man of Republic 8, who controls desires with a view to wealth, while the prestige-lover is the conventionally brave man.