Two views of Socrates, by Constantin Brancusi, 1922. Oak on a limestone base.
33 When he heard the line in Euripides’ play Auge where the poet says about virtue:
It’s best to let it wander at will,
Socrates rose and left the theater, saying that it was absurd to make a fuss about a slave who could not be found, and to allow virtue to perish in this way. When asked whether or not one should marry, he said, “Whichever you do you will regret it.” He used to say he found it surprising that sculptors take the trouble to turn a block of marble into a perfect likeness of the subject, but take no trouble about themselves, lest they turn out to resemble marble blocks. He thought that young men should constantly examine themselves in the mirror, the handsome that they might prove handsome in character, and the ugly that they might conceal their ugliness by education.
34,35 When he had invited some rich men to his house, and his wife Xanthippe was ashamed of the dinner, he said, “Take heart: if they are reasonable they will adapt themselves; if worthless, it won’t matter to us.” He used to say that some men live to eat, while he himself ate to live. To
On the third day you will reach fertile Phthia,
36,37 he said to Aeschines, “On the third day I shall die.”91 When he was about to drink the hemlock, and Apollodorus offered him a beautiful cloak to die in, Socrates asked, “Then is my own cloak good enough to live in but not to die in?”92 When told, “So-and-so is speaking badly of you,” he said, “It’s only because he hasn’t learned to speak well.” When Antisthenes had turned his cloak so that its tear became visible, Socrates said, “I discern your vanity through your cloak.” To someone who asked, “Doesn’t So-and-so insult you?” he replied, “Not at all, for what he says doesn’t apply to me.” He said that we should offer ourselves as butts for the comic poets: “For if they say something apt, they will make us better men; and if not, it’s of no concern to us.” Of Xanthippe, who first scolded him and later drenched him with water, he said, “Didn’t I say that Xanthippe’s thunder would end in rain?” When Alcibiades said that Xanthippe’s scolding was intolerable, he said, “But I am used to it, exactly as if I were constantly hearing the clattering of pulleys. And as for you,” he asked, “do you mind the cackling of geese?” “No,” replied Alcibiades, “for they provide me with eggs and goslings,” to which Socrates replied, “Well, Xanthippe provides me with children.” Once when she had stripped off his coat in the marketplace, and his friends advised him to use his hands to defend himself, he said, “Of course, by Zeus, so that each of you, while we are sparring, may say, ‘Good one, Socrates!’ and ‘Well done, Xanthippe!’” He used to say that he consorted with a cantankerous woman just as horsemen do with mettlesome horses. “And just as these men,” he said, “once they have tamed them, easily master the rest, so I, by living with Xanthippe, will know how to adapt myself to everyone else.”
Xanthippe Dousing Socrates, by Luca Giordano, 1665.
For these words and deeds, and others like them, he was honored by the Pythian priestess when she gave Chaerephon the famous response:
Of all men Socrates is the wisest.93
38 It was mainly for this that he was envied, and especially because he would refute those who had a high opinion of themselves, showing them to be fools, as he surely did in the case of Anytus, according to Plato’s Meno.94 For Anytus, unable to bear being ridiculed by Socrates, began by inciting Aristophanes and his circle against him, and then persuaded Meletus95 to lodge a complaint against him for impiety and corrupting the youth.
The complaint was lodged by Meletus, and the speech delivered by Polyeuctus, as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History. Polycrates the sophist wrote the speech, as Hermippus says; others, however, say that it was written by Anytus; and Lycon the demagogue made all the preliminary arrangements.96
39 Antisthenes97 in his Successions of Philosophers and Plato in the Apology say that he had three accusers: Anytus, Lycon, and Meletus; that Anytus was angered on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians; Lycon on behalf of the orators; and Meletus on behalf of the poets, all of whom he ridiculed. But Favorinus, in the first book of his Reminiscences, says that the speech of Polycrates against Socrates is not genuine; for he says that it contains a reference to the reconstruction of the walls by Conon, which occurred six years after the death of Socrates.98 And that is indeed the case.
Socrates debating with his pupils, from the thirteenth-century Seljuk Turkish manuscript The Best Maxims and Most Precious Dictums of Al-Mubashir.
40,41 The indictment against him was drawn up as follows (for it is still available today in the Metröon,99 says Favorinus): “This complaint was lodged under oath by Meletus, son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates breaks the law because he does not recognize the gods recognized by the city, and because he introduces other new divinities; and he breaks the law because he corrupts the youth. The penalty is death.” As for the philosopher, when he read the speech Lysias had written in his defense, he said, “A fine speech, Lysias, but it is not suitable for me.” For it was clearly more forensic than philosophical. When Lysias asked, “But how, if the speech is fine, would it not suit you?” Socrates replied, “Well, wouldn’t fine clothes and fine shoes also be unsuitable for me?”
42 Justus of Tiberias, in his work The Garland, says that during the trial Plato ascended to the tribune and said, “Though I am the youngest, men of Athens, of those who have ascended to the speaker’s platform,” at which point the jurors roared, “Get down!” Socrates was condemned by 281 votes (more than those cast for acquittal);100 and when the jurors were assessing what he should suffer or what fine he should pay, he said he would pay a fine of twenty-five drachmas.101 (Eubulides says he agreed to pay one hundred.) And when the jurors raised an uproar, he said, “In view of my services, I propose as a penalty that I be maintained in the Prytaneum at public expense.”102
They sentenced him to death, 80 votes being added to the number cast for conviction.103 He was imprisoned, and a few days later he drank the hemlock after engaging in many noble discussions, which Plato recounts in the Phaedo. According to some, he composed a paean that begins:
Hail Apollo of Delos, and Artemis, renowned children!
But Dionysodorus says that the paean is not his work. He also composed a fable, not very successful, in the manner of Aesop, which begins:
Aesop once told the inhabitants of the town of Corinth
Not to judge virtue by the wisdom of a jury trial.
43,44 He was thus no longer among men; and the Athenians immediately felt such remorse that they closed the wrestling arenas and gymnasia. They banished his other accusers, but sentenced Meletus to death.104 They honored Socrates with a bronze statue, sculpted by Lysippus,105 which they placed in the Pompeion.106 And when Anytus visited Heraclea, the people banished him by proclamation that very day. And it was not only in the case of Socrates that the Athenians repented, but in a great many others. For they fined Homer, as Heraclides says, fifty drachmas on the grounds of insanity, and declared that Tyrtaeus was deranged, and honored Astydamas with a bronze statue before Aeschylus and his fellow poets.107 And Euripides reproached them in his Palamedes,108 saying,
A cavelike structure in A
thens, described in popular traditions as “the prison of Socrates.” Anonymous photograph, c. 1895.
You have slain, have slain, the all-wise,
The harmless nightingale of the Muses.
So much for that account. But Philochorus says that Euripides died before Socrates.
45 Socrates was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronology, during the archonship of Apsephion, in the third year of the seventy-seventh Olympiad, on the sixth of Thargelion,109 the day when the Athenians purify the city, and the day, according to the Delians, that Artemis was born. He died in the first year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad,110 at the age of seventy. Demetrius of Phalerum agrees. But others say he died at the age of sixty. Socrates and Euripides were both students of Anaxagoras;111 Euripides was born in the first year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad, during the archonship of Calliades.112
It seems to me that Socrates discoursed on natural philosophy as well as ethics, at least where he converses about divine providence; Xenophon mentions this too, though he declares that Socrates talked only about ethics. But Plato, after mentioning Anaxagoras and some other physicists in the Apology, addresses on his own account topics that Socrates disregarded, though he attributes everything to Socrates.
Aristotle says that a sorcerer who came to Athens from Syria predicted, among the other evils awaiting Socrates, that he would die a violent death.113
46 My own verses about him run as follows:
Drink, Socrates, now that you are in the house of Zeus;
For truly did the god call you wise, and wisdom is a god.
For you merely received the hemlock from the Athenians,
But it is they who, through your mouth, have drained the cup.
He had for rivals, as Aristotle says in his third book On Poetry,114 a certain Antilochus of Lemnos and Antiphon the soothsayer, just as Pythagoras115 had as his rivals Cylon and Onatas; and Homer, during his lifetime, Syagrus, and after his death, Xenophanes of Colophon; and Hesiod, during his lifetime, Cercops, but after his death, the aforementioned Xenophanes; and Pindar, Amphimenes of Cos; Thales, Pherecydes; Bias, Salarus of Priene; Pittacus, Antimenidas and Alcaeus; Anaxagoras, Sosibius; and Simonides, Timocreon.
47 Among those who succeeded him and were called Socratics, the leaders were Plato, Xenophon, and Antisthenes; among the ten traditional Socratics, the four most distinguished are Aeschines, Phaedo, Euclides, and Aristippus. We must speak first about Xenophon; then about Antisthenes, later, among the Cynics; then about the Socratics, and in turn about Plato,116 since the ten schools begin with him,117 and he himself founded the first Academy. This then is the order I will follow.
The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David, 1787.
There was another Socrates, a historian who wrote a geographical description of Argos; another a Peripatetic from Bithynia; another a composer of epigrams; and finally a native of Cos, who wrote about the names of the gods.
Xenophon
48 Xenophon was the son of Gryllus; he was an Athenian of the deme of Erchia. He was modest and extraordinarily handsome. It is said that Socrates met him in a narrow lane, extended his staff and blocked his way, inquiring where each kind of food was being sold; on receiving an answer, he then asked, “Where do men become good and honorable?” Xenophon was perplexed, and Socrates said, “Follow me, then, and learn.” And from then on he was a student of Socrates.118 He was the first to note down Socrates’ words, which he published under the title Memorabilia.119 He was also the first philosopher to write a work of history.
49 Aristippus,120 in the fourth book of his work On the Luxuriousness of the Ancients, says that Xenophon fell in love with Clinias121 and said of him, “As it is, I find it sweeter to gaze at Clinias than at all the beautiful things in the world. I would accept being blinded to everything else if I could gaze at him alone. I am vexed with night and with sleep because I cannot see him, and I take the greatest joy in day and the sun because they show me Clinias.”122
50 He became an ally of Cyrus123 in the following way. He had a close friend named Proxenus,124 a Boeotian, who was a student of Gorgias of Leontini125 and a friend of Cyrus. This man, who was living in Sardis at the court of Cyrus, sent a letter to Xenophon at Athens, inviting him to visit so that he might become a friend of Cyrus. Xenophon showed the letter to Socrates and asked for his advice. And Socrates sent him to Delphi to consult the oracle. Xenophon obeyed, came into the god’s presence, and inquired not whether he should go off to Cyrus, but how he should go to him. For this he was reproached by Socrates, who nevertheless advised him to go. And he went to Cyrus and became as close a friend to him as Proxenus himself.126 As for all that occurred on his expedition and on the return journey, Xenophon has himself given us an adequate account.127 He remained on bad terms with Meno of Pharsalus,128 who throughout the expedition commanded the mercenary troops; and at one point he reproaches him for having a beloved older than himself; he also reproaches one Apollonides for piercing his ears.129
The Episode of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, by Jean-Adrien Guignet, c. 1842. A mid-nineteenth-century representation of Xenophon’s Anabasis.
51 After the expedition and the misfortunes it met with in Pontus and the betrayals of Seuthes,130 the king of the Odrysians, he went to Asia, to Agesilaus, the king of the Spartans, and provided him with Cyrus’ soldiers as mercenaries;131 for he was devoted to Agesilaus beyond measure. At that point he was banished by the Athenians for siding with the Spartans. When he was in Ephesus and had some money, he gave half to Megabyzus, the priest of Artemis, to keep until his return, or, if he should not return, to apply to the setting up of a statue in honor of the goddess. The other half he sent as a votive offering to Delphi. Then he departed for Greece with Agesilaus, who had been recalled for the war against Thebes.132 And the Spartans accorded Xenophon the office of proxenos.133
52 Then he left Agesilaus and went to Scillus,134 a place in Elis not far from the city. He was accompanied by his wife, whose name was Philesia, according to Demetrius of Magnesia, and two sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, as Dinarchus says in his work Against Xenophon in a Matter of Dereliction;135 the sons were nicknamed the Dioscuri.136 Making the festal assembly a pretext, Megabyzus joined him there. Xenophon recovered his money, purchased an estate, and dedicated it to the goddess;137 through the estate runs a river, the Selinus. (A river in Ephesus has the same name.) From then on he spent his time hunting, entertaining his friends, and writing his histories.138 Dinarchus says that his house and farm were given to him by the Spartans.
53,54,55 But there is also a report that Phylopidas the Spartan sent to him at Scillus some slaves from Dardanus,139 whom he had captured, and that Xenophon disposed of them as he saw fit, and that the Elians marched against Scillus and succeeded, owing to the Spartans’ late arrival, in capturing the place. At that point his sons withdrew to Lepreum140 with a few servants, and Xenophon himself, who had previously gone to Elis, joined his sons in Lepreum and escaped with them to Corinth, where he settled. In the meantime, since the Athenians had voted to assist the Spartans, Xenophon sent his sons to Athens to serve in their expedition in defense of Sparta. For they had actually been educated in Sparta, as Diocles says in his Lives of the Philosophers. Without performing any conspicuous feat, Diodorus returned safe from the battle. He had a son, who had the same name as his brother. But Gryllus, who had been posted with the cavalry (this was in the battle near Mantinea141), fought valiantly and died, as Ephorus says in his twenty-fifth book. (Cephisodorus was serving as cavalry commander, Hegesilaus as general.) It was in this battle that Epaminondas142 fell. They say that at that very time Xenophon was performing a sacrifice, his head crowned with a wreath. When his son’s death was reported to him, he removed the wreath; but afterward, when he learned that his son had died nobly, he replaced it. Some report that he did not even shed a tear, but said, “Well, I knew he was mortal.” Aristotle says that countless authors wrote encomia and funeral orations for Gryllus, a certain number of them in ord
er to gratify his father.143 Moreover, Hermippus, in his work On Theophrastus, says that even Isocrates144 wrote an encomium for Gryllus. But Timon mocks Xenophon in these lines:
Terra-cotta statuette of a horse, fourth century BC, Greek.
A pair of weak discourses, or a triad, or even more, such as Xenophon or the
Such was his life. He flourished in the fourth year of the ninety-fourth Olympiad,145 and departed for the expedition with Cyrus during the archonship of Xenaenetus, the year before the death of Socrates.146
56 He died, as Stesiclides of Athens says in his List of Archons and Olympic Victors, in the first year of the 105th Olympiad,147 during the archonship of Callimedes, the year Philip,148 son of Amyntas, came to power in Macedonia. He died in Corinth, as Demetrius of Magnesia says, apparently at an advanced age. He was an accomplished man in every respect, an avid horseman and hunter, and an able tactician, as is clear from his writings.149 He was pious, fond of sacrifices, and adept at prophecy from the entrails of sacrificial victims; and he modeled himself closely on Socrates.
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Page 11