Socrates has fascinated and inspired men and women for over two thousand years. All five of the major "schools" of ancient Greece (Academics, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, and Cynics) were influenced by his thought. Some of the early Christian thinkers, such as Justin Martyr, considered him a "proto- Christian," while others, such as St. Augustine (who rejected this view) still expressed deep admiration for Socrates' ethical life. More recently, existentialists found in Socrates' admonition "know thyself" an encapsulation of their thought, and opponents of unjust laws saw in Socrates' trial a blueprint for civil disobedience. In short, Socrates is one of the most admired men who ever lived.

BIOGRAPHY

The Acropolis in the center of Athens with the Parthenon and the Erechtheion in the center. (Click on picture for full size.)

The Athens into which Socrates was born in 470 B.C. was a city still living in the flush of its epic victory over the Persians, and it was bursting with new ideas. The playwrights Euripides and Sophocles were young boys, and Pericles, the great Athenian democrat, was still a young man. The Parthenon's foundation was laid when Socrates was twenty-two, and its construction completed fifteen years later.

Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and of Phaenarete, a midwife. As a boy, Socrates received a classical Greek education in music, gymnastics, and grammar (or the study of language), and he decided early on to become a sculptor like his father. Tradition says he was a gifted artist who fashioned impressively simple statues of the Graces. He married a woman named Xanthippe, and together they had three children. He took an early interest in the developing science of the Milesians, and then he served for a time in the army.

SOCRATES' MISSION

When he was a middle-aged man, Socrates' friend, Chaerephon, asked the oracle at Delphi "if there was anyone wiser than Socrates." For once the mysterious oracle gave an unambiguous answer: "None." When Socrates heard of the incident, he was confused. He knew that he was not a wise man. So he set out to find a wiser as "an excuse for going back and cross-examining the oracle." Socrates later described the method and results of his mission:

So I examined this man--there's no need for me to mention his name, let's just say he was a politician--and the result of my examination . . . and of my conversations with him, was this. I decided that although the man seemed to many people, and above all to himself, to be wise, in reality he was not wise. I tried to demonstrate to him that he thought he was wise, but actually was not, and as a result I made an enemy of him, and of many of those present. To myself, as I left him, I reflected; "Here is one man less wise than I. In all probability neither of us knows anything worth knowing; but he thinks he knows when he doesn't, whereas I, given that I don't in fact know, am at least aware I don't know. Apparently, therefore, I am wiser than him in just this one small detail, that when I don't know something, I don't think I know it either." From him I went to another man, one of those who seemed wiser than the first. I came to exactly the same conclusion, and made an enemy of him and of many others besides. (Apology 21c)

As Socrates continued his mission by interviewing the politicians, poets, and artisans of Athens, young men would follow along. They enjoyed seeing the authority figures humiliated by Socrates' intense questioning. Those in authority, however, were not amused. Athens was no longer the powerful, self-confident city of 470, the year of Socrates' birth. An exhausting succession of wars with Sparta (the Peloponnesian Wars) and an enervating series of political debacles left the city narrow in vision and suspicious of new ideas and of dissent. In 399 B.C. Meletus and Anytus brought an indictment of "impiety and corrupting the youth" against Socrates. As recorded in the Apology,the Athenian assembly found him guilty by a vote of 280 to 220 and sentenced him to death. His noble death is described incomparably in the closing pages of the Phaedo.

Socrates was executed by being forced to drink hemlock. Plato records that Socrates was teaching his followers until the very end.

SOCRATES' INFLUENCE

Socrates wrote nothing, and our knowledge of his thought comes exclusively from the report of others. The playwright Aristophanes (455-375 B.C.) satirized Socrates in his comedy The Clouds. His caricature of Socrates as a cheat and charlatan was apparently so damaging that Socrates felt compelled to offer a rebuttal before the Athenian assembly. The military general Xenophon (ca. 430-350 B.C.) honored his friend Socrates in his Apology of Socrates, his Symposium, and, later, in his Memorabilia("Recollections of Socrates"). In an effort to defend his dead friend's memory, Xenophon's writings illumine Socrates' life and character. Though born fifteen years after the death of Socrates, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) left many fascinating allusions to Socrates in his philosophic works, as did several later Greek philosophers. But the primary source of our knowledge of Socrates comes from one of those young men who followed him: Plato.