GR - T6: Socrates

• Socrates was a classical philosopher (respectable pose with cloak carefully wrapped around him)
• Athens has been defeated in the Peloponnesian War by Sparta in 404BC (5 years before Socrates' death)
• Under pressure from the Spartans, democracy was replaced by an oligarchy led by "the Thirty" (later known as the Thirty Tyrants). The Thirty sought to exile or kill anyone who outwardly opposed their regime
• After a year of turmoil, the Thirty were driven out and democracy was restored (403). In 399 BC, Socrates was condemned to death
• Critias of Athens, one of the leaders of the Thirty was a controversial politician who was also a playwright, poet and philosopher. He had been one of Socrates' students, which led many to think Socrates was their ally
• Socrates was born and lived in Athens most of his life
• His father was a stone mason and mother was a midwife
• Socrates fought in the army in his thirties but wasn't interested in taking an active part in public life apart from serving in the Boule (council)
• He married twice and had three sons
• Plato's Symposium provides the best details of Socrates' physical appearance. He was not the ideal of Athenian masculinity. Short and stocky, with a snub nose and bulging eyes. Socrates always seemed to appear to be staring (similar to satyr)
• Socrates disregarded normal everyday comforts such as wearing shoes and bathing
• He was tried by the Athenian state for impiety (not believing in the civic gods), invention of new gods and corrupting the young
• He conducted his own defence in court in front of a jury of 500. 280 of the jury cast their votes for condemnation. 220 of the jury cast their votes for acquittal
• One month in prison waiting for the theoria (embassy mission) ship sent to Delos to come back (not allowed to execute people during this time)
• Socrates drank hemlock - cold from feet upwards
• Socrates didn't write anything down himself so we are reliant on Plato for accounts about Socrates (friend and student of Socrates - biased and written 3 years after the time - but if he lied, people would have known)
• Plato wrote a series of dialogues in which Socrates was represented as employing the same methods of inquiring which he had used when he was alive
• The Apology appears to be the speech delivered by Socrates at his trial
• In his Defence of Socrates (Apology), + Plato makes it clear that Socrates was not an atheist at all but that he was engaged in theological thinking
• Xenophon also gives us evidence of the trial but as he was abroad at the time, we have to be careful about his reliability
• Aristophanes also knew Socrates in person, but he writes comedies - reliability
• Socrates was on trial for impiety so his views must have been controversial to an extent - seen as a threat
• He mentioned his daimonion which was controversial because it was not a traditional religious idea
• He recognised the idea of life after death which was not controversial as it was a traditional view
• Socrates was concerned about acting justly which was not controversial because he had a pious attitude
• Socrates believed in Delphi's oracle, saw his questioning as a divine mission and believed in his "demon" - this was not controversial because this refutes the charge of atheism
• Other people before have also had philosophical and theological discussions (eg Herodotus and the pre-socratics - Socrates mentions how well-known Anaxagoras is)
• SR: He caused frustration from the city's leaders by questioning them and publicaly proving them to be ignorant
• SR: Socrates was eccentric as he didn't wear shoes or bathe - people were wary of his unconventional behaviour
• SR: Socrates was assimilated by many to the sophists, seen as teachers of immorality, destroying traditions
• PR: Socrates was put on trial because of his friends or students - his circle included certain right-wing aristocrats such as Critias (a self proclaimed atheist who was one of the Thirty Tyrants who turned against democracy). One of his closest friends was Alcibiades - remembered as a traitor who had ruined his country and who was himself tried on religious charges for mocking the Eleusinian Mysteries
• PR: Friendship with rich people made him suspect to the leaders of the democrats. Socrates was critical of Athenian democracy (seen as fostering demagogy, flattery, incompetence)
• How far did the new philosophical schools affect the Greeks - only the well-educated few were able to read and understand such writings. Among those even fewer were interested enough to risk being treated as a criminal as someone who does not believe in civic gods
• How far did the new philosophical schools affect the Greeks - philosophical theology influence few and mainly those of educated classes - perhaps the exception rather than the norm
• How far did the new philosophical schools affect the Greeks - The Olympian gods were honoured for almost an entire millennium after the Pre-Socratics, so the philosopher's influence on the masses can only have been marginal