V. SOCRATES
1. The Mask of Silenus
It is pleasant to stand at last face to face with a personality apparently so real as Socrates. But when we consider the two sources upon which we must rely for our knowledge of Socrates we find that one of them, Plato, writes imaginative dramas, that the other, Xenophon, writes historical novels, and that neither product can be taken as history. “They say,” writes Diogenes Laertius, “that Socrates having heard Plato read the Lysis, cried out, ‘O Heracles! what a number of lies the young man has told about me!’ For Plato had set down a great many things as sayings of Socrates which he had never said.”113 Plato does not pretend to limit himself to fact; probably it never occurred to him that the future might have scant means of distinguishing, in his work, imagination from biography. But he draws so consistent a picture of his master throughout the Dialogues, from Socrates’ youthful timidity in the Parmenides and his insolent loquacity in the Protagoras to the subdued piety and resignation of the Phaedo, that if this was not Socrates, then Plato is one of the greatest character creators in all literature. Aristotle accepts as authentically Socratic the views attributed to Socrates in the Protagoras114 Recently discovered fragments of an Alcibiades written by Aeschines of Sphettos, an immediate disciple of Socrates, tend to confirm the portrait given in the earlier dialogues of Plato, and the story of the philosopher’s attachment to Alcibiades.115 On the other hand, Aristotle classes Xenophon’s Memorabilia and Banquet as forms of fiction, imaginary conversations in which Socrates becomes, more often than not, a mouthpiece for Xenophon’s ideas.*116 If Xenophon honestly played Eckermann to Socrates’ Goethe we can only say that he has carefully collected the master’s safest platitudes; it is incredible that so virtuous a man should have upset a civilization. Other ancient writers did not make the old sage into such a saint; Aristoxenus of Tarentum, about 318, reported, on the testimony of his father—who claimed to have known Socrates—that the philosopher was a person without education, “ignorant and debauched”;117 and Eupolis, the comic poet, rivaled his rival Aristophanes in abusing the great gadfly.118 Making due discount for polemic vitriol it is at least clear that Socrates was a man, hated and loved beyond any other figure of his time.
His father was a sculptor, and he himself was said to have carved a Hermes, and three Graces that stood near the entrance to the Acropolis.119 His mother was a midwife: it was a standing joke with him that he merely continued her trade, but in the realm of ideas, helping others to deliver themselves of their conceptions. One tradition describes him as the son of a slave;120 it is improbable, for he served as a hoplite (a career open only to citizens), inherited a house from his father, and had seventy minas ($7000) invested for him by his friend Crito;121 for the rest he is represented as poor.122 He paid much attention to the training of the body, and was usually in good physical condition. He made a reputation for himself as a soldier during the Peloponnesian War: in 432 he fought at Potidaea, in 424 at Delium, in 42 2 at Amphipolis. At Potidaea he saved both the life and the arms of the young Alcibiades, and gave up in the youth’s favor his claim to the prize for valor; at Delium he was the last Athenian to give ground to the Spartans, and seems to have saved himself by glaring at the enemy; even the Spartans were frightened. In these campaigns, we are told, he excelled all in endurance and courage, bearing without complaint hunger, fatigue, and cold.124 At home, when he condescended to stay there, he worked as a stonecutter and statuary. He had no interest in travel, and seldom went outside the city and its port. He married Xanthippe, who berated him for neglecting his family; he recognized the justice of her complaint,125 and defended her gallantly to his son and his friends. Marriage disturbed him so little that he seems to have taken an additional wife when the mortality of males in the war led to the temporary legalization of polygamy.128
All the world knows the face of Socrates. Judging precariously from the bust in the Museo delle Terme at Rome, it was not typically Greek;129 its spacious spread, its flat, broad nose, its thick lips, and heavy beard suggest rather Solon’s friend of the steppes, Anacharsis, or that modern Scythian, Tolstoi. “I say,” Alcibiades insists, even while protesting his love, “that Socrates is exactly like the masks of Silenus, which may be seen sitting in the statuaries’ shops, having pipes and flutes in their mouths; and they are made to open in the middle, and there are images of gods inside them. I say also that he is like Marsyas the satyr. You will not deny, Socrates, that your face is that of a satyr.”130 Socrates raises no objection; to make matters worse he confesses to an unduly large paunch, and hopes to reduce it by dancing.131
Plato and Xenophon agree in describing his habits and his character. He was content with one simple and shabby robe throughout the year, and liked bare feet better than sandals or shoes.132 He was incredibly free from the acquisitive fever that agitates mankind. Viewing the multitude of articles exposed for sale in the market place, he remarked, “How many things there are that I do not want!”133—and felt himself rich in his poverty. He was a model of moderation and self-control, but all the world away from a saint. He could drink like a gentleman, and needed no timid asceticism to keep him straight.* He was no recluse; he liked good company, and let the rich entertain him now and then; but he made no obeisance to them, could get along very well without them, and rejected the gifts and invitations of magnates and kings.135 All in all he was fortunate: he lived without working, read without writing, taught without routine, drank without dizziness, and died before senility, almost without pain.
His morals were excellent for his time, but would hardly satisfy all the good people who praise him. He “took fire” at the sight of Charmides, but controlled himself by asking if this handsome lad had also a “noble soul.”136 Plato speaks of Socrates and Alcibiades as lovers, and describes the philosopher “in chase of the fair youth.”137 Though the old man seems to have kept these amours for the most part Platonic, he was not above giving advice to homosexuals and hetairai on how to attract lovers.138 He gallantly promised his help to the courtesan Theodota, who rewarded him with the invitation: “Come often to see me.”139 His good humor and kindliness were so unfailing that those who could stomach his politics found it simple to put up with his morals. When he had passed away Xenophon spoke of him as “so just that he wronged no man in the most trifling affair. . . so temperate that he never preferred pleasure to virtue; so wise that he never erred in distinguishing better from worse . . . so capable of discerning the character of others, and of exhorting them to virtue and honor, that he seemed to be such as the best and happiest of men would be.”140 Or, as Plato put it, with moving simplicity, he “was truly the wisest, and justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known.”141