by Paul Johnson
Socrates made a grievous misjudgment in treating this part of his trial with what most would have seen as levity, if not impudence. This error was reflected in the voting figures for his sentence. Eighty of the jury switched their votes from Socrates to his accusers, and he was condemned to death by a hugely increased majority—360 to 140. If Socrates was disturbed by this swing of Athenian opinion against him, he gave no overt sign of it. His behavior throughout the long day of his trial was composed and relaxed. He behaved as a man of his calling should do and took his reverses philosophically. He then had plenty of time to reflect upon his wisdom or lack of it. According to Athenian customary law, a sentence of death had to be carried out the day after it was pronounced. On the other hand, no execution was permitted during a period of ceremonial purity. One of these had begun the day before the trial to mark the annual commemoration of the deliverance of Athens by Theseus, the pious myth being renewed by the dispatch of a sanctified boat to the shrine of Apollo on Delos. Until it returned, the state of purity remained, and the execution was postponed.
Socrates’ rich friend Crito proposed to the court that Socrates remain at liberty, under his surety, until the boat got back. But the court refused. He was instead put into the city jail and fettered at night to prevent escape. This indignity inflicted on an old man of seventy who had served Athens honorably in her wars and was in no sense a threat to the public peace, strikes us as cruel. But these were cruel times. The defeat in war, the Spartan occupation, the terror imposed by the Thirty, and the bout of civil war that got rid of them had been profoundly demoralizing for a normally self-confident and easygoing city. Locking up their most famous philosopher in chains, as a prelude to his execution was evidence of a psychological crisis that had enveloped the once-proud city in hatred, guilt, and vengefulness. In fairness, one has to remember that most Athenian families had suffered violence within the last three or four years and were still lamenting a murdered father, brother, or son. The atmosphere was raw, bitter, and brutal, and only in this implacable moral climate was it possible for the capital of the civilized world to commit what Aristotle was to call its “crime against philosophy.”
However, the official decision to keep Socrates under duress and chained at night was mitigated by allowing him unlimited visitors by day. Many from home and abroad took advantage of the opportunity to see and talk to the famous seer, now in the shadow of death. Contrary winds delayed the sacred boat for a month, and Socrates spent it in the way that gave him most delight—questioning and speaking to those he respected and loved about the things that mattered: virtue, wisdom, the soul, and death.
He did other things too. He wrote poetry. He composed a paean, or hymn of praise, to Apollo. He turned some of Aesop’s fables into verse. Socrates explained why he made these efforts in a field that had always been foreign to him. He said he had a regular dream in which he appeared to be commanded to “practice music.” He had always interpreted this to mean “do philosophy,” for the search for wisdom is the finest music. But the dream had come again, and since he could not practice his kind of philosophy in prison, he felt that perhaps his dream was now to be taken in a more literal sense: making the music of words.
In fact, as all who have read Plato’s account of Socrates’ last days know, it was not impossible to philosophize in prison. Quite the contrary. Socrates’ thinking and his powers of expressing it reached their highest pitch during his prison days. It was as though the physical restraints on his body, by the kind of paradox he loved, released his mind and soul into a freedom he had never known before. He thought more clearly and luminously than ever, and his expressions took on a kind of beauty that Plato, happily, had the genius to convey. We must not suppose we can enjoy the full glory of the results, at any rate in translation. Ancient Greek is a magical language, both written and spoken. Like ancient Hebrew, it has undertones and overtones, echoes and melodies of its own, which point and counterpoint the strange gifts of the extraordinary peoples who spoke them. Ultimately all that is most worthwhile in the Western civilization we cherish can be traced back to Greek and Hebrew words and their humming, resonating meanings. Socrates, in his last days, gave full expression to the specifically Greek component in this intellectual magic. The Greek he spoke was prose and poetry at the same time. And more: It was as though philosophy, so long nurtured in the Greek breast, had found its authentic voice for the first time and was speaking aloud for all future generations to hear.
Socrates in prison, about to die for the right to express his opinions, is an image of philosophy for all time. It caught Plato’s imagination and brought forth all his powers. Thanks to those powers, it caught the imagination of all those since who have cared about the importance and penetration of thought. This overwhelmingly potent visual image of the thinking, righteous man on the eve of death, became the archetype of philosophy in its human incarnation. All future philosophers were, in a sense, forced to compete with this image and submit to it.
There was a prelude to the last act of Socrates’ life, related in a dialogue with Crito. He was by now Socrates’ most constant and closest friend, and he came to see him in prison to propose a means of escape. It would not be difficult, and he would finance it. Socrates, he said, owed it to his children to adopt the plan. The old man, as we might expect, rejected it, though as we would also expect, courteously and patiently. (It is one of the most agreeable aspects of studying Socrates that we are never aware of any sharpness or irritability, of dogmatic emphasis, let alone exasperation, in his tone of voice. His conversational manners are always impeccable.) He took the opportunity to explain the true relationship between philosophy and the law.
Socrates had always felt bound to fulfill his mission. It was his duty to God, as well as his delight and the meaning of his entire existence. Somehow, that mission had come in conflict with the law—as perceived by some—and he had been prosecuted. He had failed in his defense to resolve this conflict and clear up what must be a misunderstanding. So he had been sentenced to death. It was better to die over and over again than to neglect duty, which was obviously and incontrovertibly wrong. Obedience to God came before any law, however righteous. But that was not to defy law, merely to accept the consequences, even death, of obeying a higher law. That led to the second point. Socrates had been born, had been brought up and had lived all his life under Athenian law. He had chosen to do so, over and over again. He regarded Athens as the best place on earth to live, and it had always provided him with the perfect setting for his mission in life. He loved its people, with all their faults, its streets and their trades, its public places. Its government was always imperfect, often grievously remiss, and sometimes monstrous. But it was his city, which he had fought for, and to which he belonged inextricably. Everyone, even or especially philosophers, had to accept the rule of law of the place where they lived. In his case, this rule had come into conflict with his higher calling. The result was a sentence of death. He thought his conviction was mistaken and his sentence unjust. But to seek to evade it by bribery and corruption would be an even greater wrong, an unarguable and incontrovertible injustice that he could never perpetrate. If, as he believed, he was the victim of injustice, how could this be put right by committing an even greater injustice, greater in that he knew it to be unjust? The governing principle of his life was that a wrong could never justify a further wrong in response. Far better to submit to injustice, in the hope and confident expectation that, in time, men and women would come to see it so, and cherish his memory for his fortitude in accepting it.
The Crito dialogue concerns the rule of law and its paramountcy. The final dialogue, Phaedo, named after one of Socrates’ closest followers, who was with him in his last hours, concerns death and the immortal soul. It is Plato’s finest work and calls forth all the resources of Socrates’ sinuous intellect and the subtlety and beauty of the ancient Greek language. It begins soon after dawn, with the exit of Xanthippe and her child-in-arms, Socrates’ third son,
who had both evidently spent the night in the prison. His mother apart, Plato was not much interested in women as persons (as opposed to ideas), and therefore we are not told about Xanthippe’s thoughts on Socrates’ predicament or any advice she gave him. He evidently loved her, to which the young child bore witness, and she him. His leaving her undefended and unprovided for was part of the price he paid for abiding by his principles. But then, as he doubtless consoled himself, he had many devoted friends, some of whose means were ample. It is fruitless to speculate. Socrates is released from his night irons, and as he stirs back into life, muscles wearied by the shackles, he reflects upon how closely the pleasure of release is related, indeed caused by the pain of restriction, an instance of the eternal opposites that punctuate and furnish our lives, giving them movement and variety and richness.
The men—they are a group of close followers and admirers, some from abroad—then get down to the final matters that dominate Socrates’ last hours: death and what follows, or rather the death and disappearance of the body and the survival of the soul in a place prepared for it. It is Socrates’ great merit as a philosopher that he always concentrates on what matters most to us. Of course it is interesting to know what set the universe in motion, if anything did, and what follows from Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and whether there is such a thing as antimatter, and other objects of speculation and experimental inquiry. These or similar questions interested the Greeks in 399 B.C. as they interest us today. But what really mattered then and matters now is the one inescapable fact of human existence: death, and what follows it. Despite all the efforts of doctors and scientists, psychologists, poets, painters, musicians, and other imaginative creators of genius, death remains as great a mystery to us now as it did to Socrates’ contemporaries 2,500 years ago. In knowledge of death we have not advanced one centimeter in all that time. Our perception of life to come, if there is any, is no more vivid. If anything, cloudier. But thanks to Socrates—and to Plato for recording him—we have at least learned, if we choose, to approach death and an unknown future with decorum, courage, and honor.
Socrates told those listening to him that the true philosopher has no fear of death or desire to resist it, because he is willing to die as an affirmation of the principles by which he has striven to live. The philosopher, by whom he meant all those anxious to live and do wisely, knows that after death, the soul of the just man will be in the care of a god who values justice above all things and therefore will ensure that the still living soul of the dead man will be comforted and made secure. Death, then, is not to be feared but to be welcomed as the natural end to our life on earth and the beginning of something infinitely more glorious.
There follows an argumentative justification of Socrates’ firm belief that the soul is indeed immortal and survives when the body rots away. This passage is spoiled by Plato’s irritating insistence on dragging into it and foisting on a reluctant (we assume) Socrates his theory of forms. But this is a detail that does not matter, for Socrates’ confidence in the survival of the soul and in the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual richness that awaits the souls of the just is so calm, serene, pure, and magisterial as to carry all before it. Socrates does not necessarily remove all doubts in the mind of the skeptic about the soul’s immortality and the afterlife. What he does do, however, is convince us of his own belief in both and of the steadfastness with which he approaches his own departure into the unknown.
The supreme lesson of Socrates’ life, it seems to me, is that doing justice according to the best of your knowledge gives you a degree of courage that no inbred or trained valor could possibly equal. If there was one particular virtue Socrates possessed, it was courage, shown in all kinds of circumstances, from the battlefield to the courtroom, and now in his last hours under sentence of death. Thanks to his incisive arguments in favor of the immortal soul and the life waiting for it after the body eparted—arguments that expressed his own total inner conviction—Socrates’ own spirits rose and rose during his last hours, until by the time death was imminent, they overflowed in a great, steady, copious fountain of optimism and expectation. He embraced death not as a punishment but as a reward. It culminated, crowned, beatified, and made luminous his entire life.
As dusk fell, the discussion came to its natural end, and the jailer arrived to announce that Socrates must now take poison. It was an axiom of the Athenian democracy that the laws, being freely voted, must be freely complied with by citizens, even and especially the punishment of death, which must be administered by the person condemned, who was required to swallow poison. This was composed of hemlock, though Plato does not explicitly say so, and it may have been a mixture more certain to produce death quickly, surely, and painlessly than a simple distillation of the noxious plant. The jailer could not help but tell those present that Socrates was the noblest, the gentlest, and the bravest man he had ever had in his custody, and his obvious distress at the work he had to do was, perhaps, the most striking tribute to the lovable nature of the seer, to anyone fortunate enough to know him well.
Before taking the poison, Socrates had a bath and again said good-bye to his children and the women of his family: “He talked to them in Crito’s presence,” says Plato, “and gave them directions about his last wishes.” Then he rejoined his friends, and later a man came in with the poison in a cup. Socrates said, “Well, my friend, you are accustomed to these things—what do I do?” “Just drink it, Sir, and then walk about until you feel your legs becoming heavy. Then lie down, and the poison will do its work.” He handed the cup to Socrates, who received it cheerfully, without any trembling or change of color or expression. He asked if he might perform a libation (an offering to the gods), but the man said the cup contained only enough for its purpose. “Well,” said Socrates, “I can still pray that my departure from this world will be beneficent. So I do pray, and I hope my prayer will be granted.” With these words he drank the cup, in one long swallow, quite calmly, and with no sign of repugnance.
At this point, his friends, who had been anxious to show self-restraint, began to weep. Crito, to compose himself, left the room. Apollodorus, already weeping, erupted in a spasm of convulsive tears, which set everyone else going, and brought a rebuke from Socrates himself: “What a way for men to behave! I sent away my womenfolk to prevent this kind of scene. I planned to die in a reverent silence, and now your tears are forcing me to joke! Pray, be calm, and brave.” So it was, over two millennia later, when W. E. Gladstone, the great Liberal statesman, announced to his fourth and last cabinet, in 1894, that he was resigning as prime minister and ending his political career of over sixty years. There were tears on all sides, and Gladstone, dry-eyed and sardonic, called it “my blubbering cabinet.” Socrates made no reference to “my blubbering death scene.” Instead, he walked about for a while, until he said, “I shall lie down. My legs are heavy.” He lay on his back, as the poison bearer recommended. The man then examined his feet and legs, then pinched one foot hard and asked if he felt it. Socrates said no. The man then pinched his legs and moved to the center of his body, finding all cold and numb. He told those watching, “When the numbness reaches his heart, Socrates will be no more.”
Suddenly, however, the old man drew back the covers he had placed over his face and said clearly, “Crito, we ought to offer a cock to Asclepius. Do so, and don’t forget.” These were his last words. Some early Christian writers used to cite them as evidence of Socrates’ incorrigible paganism: thinking of a childish sacrifice to the god of healing on his deathbed. In fact it was more a sign of Socrates’ love of joking and irony. He was anxious to thank God for a safe transit from fretful life into easeful death, and “a cock for Asclepius” was his droll way of putting it. So he passed away with a smile.
VII
Socrates and Philosophy Personified
In terms of his influence, Socrates was the most important of all philosophers. He supplied some of the basic apparatus of the human mind, especially in the wa
y men and women approach moral choices and make them, and in the consequences that flow from them in this world and the next.
Socrates did not exactly abolish the fantastic polytheism of ancient Greek paganism, with its humanlike gods and goddesses and its godlike heroes apotheosized into deities and all their fictionalized and poetic feuds, favoritism, magic, miracles, and interventions. This pantheon was fading fast even in his lifetime, and Socrates, always tender toward the superstitions of others, did not assault it frontally. What he did was to concentrate on making more substantial the presence of an overriding divine force, a God who permeated all things and ordained the universe. This dramatic simplification made it possible for him to construct a system of ethics that was direct, plausible, workable, and satisfying.
Socrates did this by drawing an absolute distinction between the body and the soul. The body was the source of desires, appetites, gratifications, and glory. It represented the animal nature of man, his physical being and his ambitions and pleasures, both legitimate and harmful. Without this body, humans were nothing and could do nothing; they needed the body to be significant, creative, and purposeful. The body was a problem and burden, however, because of the sheer power of its desires and the destruction involved in gratifying them. But the body was balanced by the soul, which represented the principle of virtue and wisdom; the two were intimately connected and in some respects indistinguishable. The body was the outward form; the soul was the inward personality of the human being. The more the appetites of the body were controlled and restrained, the more the soul prospered and flourished, and the personality of the human became benevolent, useful, and at ease with himself and the world. The body pursued pleasure, hoping to find happiness. But happiness was to be found, in this life, only by allowing the soul to direct the body in the path of virtue and wisdom. The body came to an end with death, and rotted away, taking its problems and appetites away too. The soul survived, and if guided in this life by virtue and wisdom, found itself prepared to be united with God and with other well-nurtured souls in an immortal existence of content.