Map showing major locations..

I'm afraid this is the best I can find. The map in Paul Woodruff's book does show all the places clearly whereas this map shows the geographical character of the two alliances. The Sicilian campaign requires a map as well in addition to the map of Syracuse given in the book.

Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides, 460 - ca.395 BC

Thucydides was an almost exact contemporary of Socrates. He was an aristocrat with connections to the rich gold mines in Thrace while Socrates was the son of a stone mason and was possibly a stone mason himself for at least part of his life before accepting a life of poverty in pursuit of intellectual inquiry  We  might wonder if the aristocratic general and historian was not one of those people Socrates claimed to have cross-questioned about the nature of wisdom and knowledge, but if he was, then he was most unfair, for few people have shown greater analytical power and trenchant insight as Thucydides did in his History of the Peloponnesian War. The two men come from very different backgrounds, but they do share a radical and all-consuming interest in morality and the way people behave. He was gripped by a sense of the urgency of moral problems as were the other most responsive spirits of that period. Socrates is something of an enigma, but Thucydides' life and work and mind is shown to us in sustained and coherent historical analysis. He knew the worth of his long endeavour. It would be, he said, 'a possession forever'. 

Thucydides' claim was no empty boast. His historical analysis surveys the Greek world at a time when war was putting every notion of what civilized life was about under intolerable stress. War is, he said, a violent teacher. He meant this perhaps not only in its obvious first-line meaning but also in the sense that it revealed the nature and character of human life and society. War was the acid that revealed the outlines of human nature. Thucydides' great achievement was to give us a complete conceptual picture of the world and how it warps under the pressures of war. This is analytical philosophy long before the term was invented and it is this that we should be looking for as we read, keeping track of the way he uses key terms in his extended diagnosis. Later, his outline was taken up and must have had a considerable influence on the young Plato's analysis of the decay of states from an imagined ideal through a spectrum of political forms - aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and finally tyranny - but where Plato is abstract, didactic and schematic, Thucydides is vivid, factual and deeply moving. He is free from the imposed patterns of his younger contemporary, but he has clear and somewhat conservative and aristocratic sympathies. 

At the risk of considerable distortion, I will try to outline some of the most important concepts in his analysis. Perhaps least apparent is his conception of what it is to be civilized and properly human, the ideal in other words that guides his view of all these violent departures. Lying at the root is the distinction between νόμος and φύσις. The first, νόμος or nomos means more than law or convention. It signifies the values of civilisation, the things that mark human beings at their best as separate from the unbridled anarchy of φύσις or nature. Nomos is for Greek writers and poets 'divine nomos', divine in the sense that it is the stable cosmic order instituted by the gods. It is the fragile expression of a civilized life that is all too easily threatened. Such a person has a certain nobility of character - τὸ γενναῖον - which shows itself as openness, even simplicity - εὐήθης - a lack of suspicion about the motives of others. His kind of openness can only flourish in stable situations where people can readily believe what others say. A noble character has a kind of unreflective confidence in himself and his outlook. It is of course a picture of the aristocratic temperament and as such one liable to attack in a rougher world. For Thucydides, as for all Greeks, the happiness of individuals and the stability of the state is always under threat from the accidents and blows of fortune. They never forgot the radical contingency of our lives. This went under the general name of τύχη. τύχη  is what one obtains - τυγχάνει - from the gods, good fortune, luck, but also bad luck and misfortune. To be born a slave or taken into slavery was the supreme misfortune. It is the way things fall out. The two most destructive forms of fortune are war and disease.  We see in the plague in Athens (following ironically hard upon Pericles' speech praising the city as the supreme expression of civilisation) and in the consequences of war.

Man's difficulties are of course also very largely man-made and no métier is more supremely human than war. Nothing undoes human nature and human society quite like war and especially civil war. Thucydides shows us the terrible effects of the civil war in Corcyra (Corfu). We see how war leads to the dissolution of all norms, laws and forms of respect, everything that for the Greeks was summed up in the word εὺσέβεια which means more than just reverence or piety towards the gods. He shows us how people start to use words in new and often dishonest or self-deceived ways and how lies and every form of fraud becomes the praised norm. For him the worst condition for a society was stasis or civil strife. It leads people into partisanship, dishonest appreciation of others' arguments and contentions and generally the destruction of civilized behaviour. He also shows us the pursuit of power has its own inescapable 'logic' that drags people lower and lower. Few things are more horrific than the debates over Mitylene and Melos. The shame that keeps men from behaving in bad ways and exhorts them to live up to better images of themselves comes to be regarded as foolishness. People no longer have the same self-images for their lives.

One further contrast could be mentioned here. It is one that was central to the fifth-century intelectual debate – that between τύχη  and τέκνη; that is to say, between the radically contingent nature of the world and technology, for technology is our basic answer to life’s uncertainties.  It enables us to overcome the worst aspects of the world that threaten human survival. But this human inventiveness also leads us (it might be argued) to become ‘overreachers’ in a more general sense, dedicating our lives to the pursuit of power over others without any of the restraints imposed by traditional norms and values. It is hard not to see something of our modern situation in this criticism. Once we go down that road and we are far down it – it brings its own irreversible ‘logic’, the necessity or ἀνάγκη that Thucydides talks about so often. The drive to satisfy our hunger becomes our unquenchable greed for power over the world and everything and everyone in it. But maybe you see things in a more optimistic light...

I leave these questions for you to think about over Christmas. I do hope that you will find Thucydides interesting enough to read every golden word in Paul Woodruff’s selection. It’s certainly worth the effort.

A tenth-century manuscript of Thucydides' History

For Nietzsche, Socrates is a 'problem'...

Here are the opening paragraphs of Nietzsche's  Twilight of the idols. In the original German the title is Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert. The book was published in 1889. I'll leave you to make of it what you will, though it may be worth pointing out that Nietzsche - like many others before him - had an obsession with Socrates. Like authors, many philosophers have felt the need to come to terms with a figure who daunts and perhaps overawes them. For Nietzsche, Socrrates was the first 'idol' that had to be destroyed with his hammer!




The Problem of Socrates

1.
Concerning life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is no good. Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths -- a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life. Even Socrates said, as he died: "To live -- that means to be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius the Savior a rooster." Even Socrates was tired of it. What does that evidence? What does it evince? Formerly one would have said (-- oh, it has been said, and loud enough, and especially by our pessimists): "At least something of all this must be true! The consensus of the sages evidences the truth." Shall we still talk like that today? May we? "At least something must be sick here," we retort. These wisest men of all ages -- they should first be scrutinized closely. Were they all perhaps shaky on their legs? late? tottery? decadents? Could it be that wisdom appears on earth as a raven, inspired by a little whiff of carrion?
2
This irreverent thought that the great sages are types of decline first occurred to me precisely in a case where it is most strongly opposed by both scholarly and unscholarly prejudice: I recognized Socrates and Plato to be symptoms of degeneration, tools of the Greek dissolution, pseudo-Greek, anti-Greek (Birth of Tragedy, 1872). The consensus of the sages -- I comprehended this ever more clearly -- proves least of all that they were right in what they agreed on: it shows rather that they themselves, these wisest men, agreed in some physiological respect, and hence adopted the same negative attitude to life -- had to adopt it. Judgments, judgments of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms; in themselves such judgments are stupidities. One must by all means stretch out one's fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by the living, for they are an interested party, even a bone of contention, and not judges; not by the dead, for a different reason. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life is thus an objection to him, a question mark concerning his wisdom, an un-wisdom. Indeed? All these great wise men -- they were not only decadents but not wise at all? But I return to the problem of Socrates.
3
In origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest class: Socrates was plebs. We know, we can still see for ourselves, how ugly he was. But ugliness, in itself an objection, is among the Greeks almost a refutation. Was Socrates a Greek at all? Ugliness is often enough the expression of a development that has been crossed, thwarted by crossing. Or it appears as declining development. The anthropologists among the criminologists tell us that the typical criminal is ugly:monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo. [“monster in face, monster in soul”] But the criminal is a decadent. Was Socrates a typical criminal? At least that would not be contradicted by the famous judgment of the physiognomist which sounded so offensive to the friends of Socrates. A foreigner who knew about faces once passed through Athens and told Socrates to his face that he was a monstrum -- that he harbored in himself all the bad vices and appetites. And Socrates merely answered: "You know me, sir!"
4
Socrates' decadence is suggested not only by the admitted wantonness and anarchy of his instincts, but also by the hypertrophy of the logical faculty and that barbed malice which distinguishes him. Nor should we forget those auditory hallucinations which, as "the daimonion of Socrates," have been interpreted religiously. Everything in him is exaggerated, buffo, a caricature; everything is at the same time concealed, ulterior, subterranean. I seek to comprehend what idiosyncrasy begot that Socratic equation of reason, virtue, and happiness: that most bizarre of all equations which, moreover, is opposed to all the instincts of the earlier Greeks.
5
With Socrates, Greek taste changes in favor of dialectics. What really happened there? Above all, a noble taste is thus vanquished; with dialectics the plebs come to the top. Before Socrates, dialectic manners were repudiated in good society: they were considered bad manners, they were compromising. The young were warned against them. Furthermore, all such presentations of one's reasons were distrusted. Honest things, like honest men, do not carry their reasons in their hands like that. It is indecent to show all five fingers. What must first be proved is worth little. Wherever authority still forms part of good bearing, where one does not give reasons but commands, the dialectician is a kind of buffoon: one laughs at him, one does not take him seriously. Socrates was the buffoon who got himself taken seriously: what really happened there?
6
One chooses dialectic only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to erase than a dialectical effect: the experience of every meeting at which there are speeches proves this. It can only be self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons. One must have to enforce one's right: until one reaches that point, one makes no use of it. The Jews were dialecticians for that reason; Reynard the Fox was one -- and Socrates too?
7
Is the irony of Socrates an expression of revolt? Of plebeian ressentiment? Does he, as one oppressed, enjoy his own ferocity in the knife-thrusts of his syllogisms? Does he avenge himself on the noble people whom he fascinates? As a dialectician, one holds a merciless tool in one's hand; one can become a tyrant by means of it; one compromises those one conquers. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he makes one furious and helpless at the same time. The dialectician renders the intellect of his opponent powerless. Indeed? Is dialectic only a form of revenge in Socrates?
8
I have given to understand how it was that Socrates could repel: it is therefore all the more necessary to explain his fascination. That he discovered a new kind of agon [“contest”], that he became its first fencing master for the noble circles of Athens, is one point. He fascinated by appealing to the agonistic impulse of the Greeks -- he introduced a variation into the wrestling match between young men and youths. Socrates was also a great erotic.
9
But Socrates guessed even more. He saw through his noble Athenians; he comprehended that his own case, his idiosyncrasy, was no longer exceptional. The same kind of degeneration was quietly developing everywhere: old Athens was coming to an end. And Socrates understood that all the world needed him -- his means, his cure, his personal artifice of self-preservation. Everywhere the instincts were in anarchy everywhere one was within five paces of excess:monstrum in animo was the general danger. "The impulses want to play the tyrant; one must invent a counter-tyrant who is stronger. When the physiognomist had revealed to Socrates who he was -- a cave of bad appetites -- the great master of irony let slip another word which is the key to his character. "This is true," he said, "but I mastered them all." How did Socrates become master over himself? His case was, at bottom, merely the extreme case, only the most striking instance of what was then beginning to be a universal distress: no one was any longer master over himself, the instincts turned against each other. He fascinated, being this extreme case; his awe-inspiring ugliness proclaimed him as such to all who could see: he fascinated, of course, even more as an answer, a solution, an apparent cure of this case.
10
When one finds it necessary to turn reason into a tyrant, as Socrates did, the danger cannot be slight that something else will play the tyrant. Rationality was then hit upon as the savior; neither Socrates nor his "patients" had any choice about being rational: it was de rigeur, it was their last resort. The fanaticism with which all Greek reflection throws itself upon rationality betrays a desperate situation; there was danger, there was but one choice: either to perish or -- to be absurdly rational. The moralism of the Greek philosophers from Plato on is pathologically conditioned; so is their esteem of dialectics. Reason = virtue = happiness, that means merely that one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark appetites with a permanent daylight -- the daylight of reason. One must be clever, clear, bright at any price: any concession to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downward.
11
I have given to understand how it was that Socrates fascinated: he seemed to be a physician, a savior. Is it necessary to go on to demonstrate the error in his faith in "rationality at any price"? It is a self-deception on the part of philosophers and moralists if they believe that they are extricating themselves from decadence when they merely wage war against it. Extrication lies beyond their strength: what they choose as a means, as salvation, is itself but another expression of decadence; they change its expression, but they do not get rid of decadence itself. Socrates was a misunderstanding; the whole improvement-morality, including the Christian, was a misunderstanding. The most blinding daylight; rationality at any price; life, bright, cold, cautious, conscious, without instinct, in opposition to the instincts -- all this too was a mere disease, another disease, and by no means a return to "virtue," to "health," to happiness. To have to fight the instincts -- that is the formula of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct.
12
Did he himself still comprehend this, this most brilliant of all self-outwitters? Was this what he said to himself in the end, in the wisdom of his courage to die? Socrates wanted to die: not Athens, but he himself chose the hemlock; he forced Athens to sentence him. "Socrates is no physician," he said softly to himself, "here death alone is the physician. Socrates himself has merely been sick a long time.

Coming face-to-face with Socrates...

Socrates appears to have had some substantive ethical views, but these are few and are not grounded in elenctic argument. We can discern the following moral principles in Plato's account in the Apology and the Crito: 

(1) It is better to suffer harm than it is to inflict harm. 
(2) It is a matter of disgrace to disobey a properly constituted authority or a religious injunction.
(3) A person should always strive to become aware of the things he does not see or understand about himself.
(4) A person should take the state of his or her soul as something much more important than the pursuit of wealth and status.
(5) Disgrace is worse than death.
(6) The wisdom of human beings is something very limited and imperfect.
(7) A good man cannot be harmed by someone who is worse.

Now these things do not amount to a fully-developed moral theory or view of the world, but they do indicate a deep moral seriousness. It is this that is the hallmark of the man we know as Socrates. The most noticeable thing about these principles is that Socrates declares them, but makes no attempt to prove the or demonstrate their truth and appears in places reluctant to even attempt to do that, yet without such justification they cannot by his own criterion be considered as knowledge and therefore as virtue or excellence. 


Still, these are the things that are important to him as an individual. If we look at them, we can see that they do cohere as a unified picture of what, in his view, a life should be. The first puts him squarely in opposition to the general view that 'one should help one's friends and harm one's enemies'. One should also submit to properly constituted authorities, although he appears to have in mind his own unswerving adherence to his god-directed mission. This involved, he thought, constant striving to overcome ignorance about one's own understanding of oneself; in other words, dedicating oneself to dispelling delusion and self-deception. Too may people, he believed, were content with lives spent amassing wealth and status in the eyes of others. He does not say why he thinks these things bad, but it was probably because he thought that the exclusive pursuit of these goals led to a kind of self-satisfaction that is closely akin to self-deception. There could be nothing worse, he thought, than surrendering one's moral status - the person one strives to be - to social pressures, even if these threaten death. Socrates seems to have been convinced that it is our moral status - our character - that determines our identity as human beings, and not our bodies. This would appear to be the reasoning behind his belief that a good man cannot be harmed by a bad person. Attacking or harming your physical person left your essential identity untouched.


He was clearly himself such a man as we may see in the reports of his own behaviour: he was interested in these questions all his life and pursued them not only in questioning others but in the manner of his own life. He was very courageous, fighting in the front rank when he was sixty years old. He refused to obey the commands of the Thirty Tyrants, who had been appointed by the victorious Spartans, thus denying them the implicit moral status of his support. He saved the life of Alcibiades, an older man saving the life of a much younger and stronger man. He was physically tough to an utterly exceptional degree. He often did without a cloak in winter or shoes at any time of the year. Socrates made an impression on his contemporaries that marked him out as an exceptional human being, a man of great strength of character. Since then, people in the European tradition have felt him to be a challenge and the evidence of his work as interpreted by Plato as something that they must account for and perhaps overcome. 


Socrates was undoubtedly a towering figure of moral strength of purpose, yet we all feel a little uncomfortable in his presence. It is worth trying to ascertain the sources of this discomfort - which might of course be due to the uncompromising nature of the option he puts before us and which certainly is unsettling - but other things may also be having an effect on us here. His method is, I think, the thing that disturbs us most. His emphasis on reason - logos  or logical argument and analysis - leads him to assert that someone is wise if and only if they can give an account of wisdom or courage or generosity or whatever other aspect of character you are considering. The assumption is that if you know what wisdom is then you must be a wise person and if you have this wisdom then you will have a humanly successful life. Your life will be 'happy' or eudaimon in the sense that everything will go well with you. There is something of Robocop about this concept of the ideal good life. You will be immune to the accidents that beset more ordinary mortals like ourselves, people who feel that there happiness is vulnerable to accidents of every kind - a car crash that robs us of our ability to earn a living or our sight or of the presence of someone we love dearly. Our lives are exposed to risk at every turn. We are not invulnerable to the blows of bad people or just the accidents of contingency. Socrates would not feel these losses, because these attachments do not form part of his rather odd conception of his essential identity as a moral being.



Who is this man? He appears to be a person of simple and real moral stature, someone who dedicated his life to the pursuit and acquisition of wisdom, still striving without success - in his own estimation - at the age of seventy. He does not know what human wisdom is beyond knowing that he recognizes his own ignorance. He seems to conceive of moral knowledge - knowledge of our qualities and of ourselves - as being something like the knowledge that craftsmen have of their crafts. The sea captain knows all about navigation and can teach it to apprentices and similarly the architect and the potter, but nobody seems to be able to teach wisdom or the qualities of character to the young. It was Plato's development of Socrates' position that sought to discover a way in which these most significant qualities might be taught. That gave us the Republic. And later Aristotle's Ethics and Politics. Socrates himself seems to have been an earlier and simpler figure, probably without the logical sophistication of his successors. He was a unique exemplar of moral seriousness that everyone coming after him has had to reckon with and come to terms with. He gave us the very notion of authenticity before we had a word for it.


How could such a man come to grief in his own city? He felt that his fellow citizens should lead different lives, more devoted to wisdom and the 'perfection of their souls'. Pursuit of this ideal should not have led to his death, no matter how annoying the manner of his questioning. The thing is, I believe, that when the accidental, contingent blows of fate fell upon him he asserted his moral self-sufficiency. He would continue to be true to his own calling, even though it meant his death. Even though it meant abandoning his wife and children to continued and perhaps worse poverty. There is something a little cold and not entirely attractive about his single-mindedness.


Written in great haste. I shall try to find out why people can't enter comments on this blog, but that will have to wait for a few days now. Best wishes for Christmas.

What did Socrates teach?

'One chooses logical argument only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to nullify than a logical argument: the tedium of long speeches proves this. It is a kind of self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons. Unless one has to insist on what is already one's right, there is no use for it. The Jews were argumentative for that reason; Reynard the Fox also — and Socrates too?'  - Nietzsche.

There are a number of issues that we might try to examine at our next meeting. I shall outline these briefly so as not to preempt our discussion. I will also be sending you a relevant article which is worth reading carefully. 

(1) Socrates had an unwavering faith in reason, that is to say, in the capacity of logical analysis and discussion to uncover the truth. Nietzsche held this against him, as the above quotation shows. It seems to work with the skills and knowledge we need to survive and thrive in the world, but does it produce any results when it comes to making us realize how we might best live our lives? Can you change people by logical argument?

(2) Socratic intellectualism is summarized as: (i) a belief that virtue or excellence is a kind of knowledge; (ii) virtue or excellence of character is all that is needed for the good life, that is to say, for that kind of humanly successful life that was what the Greeks understood by eudaimonia or happiness - but what if the person you love most in all the world dies, or you find yourself unable to do the thing - say, painting because you become blind - that makes your life worth living? Aren't our lives dependent on good luck as well as good character? (iii) the belief that anyone and everyone could change himself in this intellectual manner - but the young men who go round making intellectual fun of their elders in the Socratic manner would seem to show that more is needed than a skill in logic ad dialectics. (And doesn't Socrates have some measure of responsibility for this behaviour?)


(3) If there is no techne - no knowledge that you can teach people how to change and shape their lives in the way you can teach, say, navigation or pottery - which would seem to be the conclusion of his examination of the craftsmen - what can you do? What should you do? 


(4) Socrates does not seem to to be a dogmatic philosopher. He does not seem to be withholding the answer which we might imagine he has in his head from the poor deluded fools he cross-examines - like Euthyphro and perhaps ourselves as well - but if he doesn't have any specialized moral knowledge beyond his conviction of his own ignorance, how do we explain his own remarkable moral life? (It was remarkable).


(5) Plato is the one who seems to have discovered the 'seeds' of knowledge inside Socrates' life or inside his head and in the later dialogues confusingly - from our point of view - attributes them to Socrates, drawing them out ultimately as the Forms. Socrates seems to have known nothing of them. And it was Plato who in the Republic outlined a great techne that would take at least some people towards 'moral perfection', though Plato stressed that only a small number were ever going to make the grade. We are still struggling with these fundamental problems of education today and seem unlikely ever to solve them.

Crito closing the eyes of Socrates

Even if you acquitted me now ...

For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth; wherever a man stations himself, thinking it is best to be there, or is stationed by his commander, there he must, as it seems to me, remain and run his risks, considering neither death nor any other thing more than disgrace.

So I should have done a terrible thing, [28e] if, when the commanders whom you chose to command me stationed me, both at Potidaea and at Amphipolis and at Delium, I remained where they stationed me, like anybody else, and ran the risk of death, but when the god gave me a station, as I believed and understood, with orders to spend my life in philosophy and in examining myself and others, [29a] then I were to desert my post through fear of death or anything else whatsoever. It would be a terrible thing, and truly one might then justly hale me into court, on the charge that I do not believe that there are gods, since I disobey the oracle and fear death and think I am wise when I am not. For to fear death, gentlemen, is nothing else than to think one is wise when one is not; for it is thinking one knows what one does not know. For no one knows whether death be not even the greatest of all blessings to man, but they fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. [29b] And is not this the most reprehensible form of ignorance, that of thinking one knows what one does not know? 

Perhaps, gentlemen, in this matter also I differ from other men in this way, and if I were to say that I am wiser in anything, it would be in this, that not knowing very much about the other world, I do not think I know. But I do know that it is evil and disgraceful to do wrong and to disobey him who is better than I, whether he be god or man. So I shall never fear or avoid those things concerning which I do not know whether they are good or bad rather than those which I know are bad. And therefore, even if [29c] you acquit me now and are not convinced by Anytus, who said that either I ought not to have been brought to trial at all, or since was brought to trial, I must certainly be put to death, adding that if I were acquitted your sons would all be utterly ruined by practicing what I teach—if you should say to me in reply to this: 

“Socrates, this time we will not do as Anytus says, but we will let you go, on this condition, however, that you no longer spend your time in this investigation or in philosophy, and if you are caught doing so again you shall die”; [29d] if you should let me go on this condition which I have mentioned, I should say to you, 

“Men of Athens, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you, and while I live and am able to continue, I shall never give up philosophy or stop exhorting you and pointing out the truth to any one of you whom I may meet, saying in my accustomed way: “Most excellent man, are you who are a citizen of Athens, the greatest of cities and the most famous for wisdom and power, not ashamed to care for the acquisition of wealth [29e] and for reputation and honour, when you neither care nor take thought for wisdom and truth and the perfection of your soul?” 

And if any of you argues the point, and says he does care, I shall not let him go at once, nor shall I go away, but I shall question and examine and cross-examine him, and if I find that he does not possess virtue, but says he does, I shall rebuke him for scorning [30a] the things that are of most importance and caring more for what is of less worth. This I shall do to whomever I meet, young and old, foreigner and citizen, but most to the citizens, inasmuch as you are more nearly related to me. For know that the god commands me to do this, and I believe that no greater good ever came to pass in the city than my service to the god. For I go about doing nothing else than urging you, young and old, not to care for your persons or your property [30b] more than for the perfection of your souls, or even so much; and I tell you that virtue does not come from money, but from virtue comes money and all other good things to man, both to the individual and to the state. If by saying these things I corrupt the youth, these things must be injurious; but if anyone asserts that I say other things than these, he says what is untrue. Therefore I say to you, men of Athens, either do as Anytus tells you, or not, and either acquit me, or not, knowing that I shall not change my conduct even if I am [30c] to die many times over.

An ostrakon voting to banish Cimon

Do not make a disturbance, men of Athens; continue to do what I asked of you, not to interrupt my speech by disturbances, but to hear me; and I believe you will profit by hearing. Now I am going to say some things to you at which you will perhaps cry out; but do not do so by any means. For know that if you kill me, I being such a man as I say I am, you will not injure me so much as yourselves; for neither Meletus nor Anytus could injure me;[30d] that would be impossible, for I believe it is not God's will that a better man be injured by a worse. He might, however, perhaps kill me or banish me or disfranchise me; and perhaps he thinks he would thus inflict great injuries upon me, and others may think so, but I do not; I think he does himself a much greater injury by doing what he is doing now—killing a man unjustly. And so, men of Athens, I am now making my defence not for my own sake, as one might imagine, but far more for yours, that you may not by condemning me err in your treatment of the gift the God gave you.

Horseflies buzz and bite, causing painful swelling

[30e] For if you put me to death, you will not easily find another, who, to use a rather absurd figure, attaches himself to the city as a gadfly to a horse, which, though large and well bred, is sluggish on account of his size and needs to be aroused by stinging. I think the god fastened me upon the city in some such capacity, and I go about arousing,[31a] and urging and reproaching each one of you, constantly alighting upon you everywhere the whole day long. Such another is not likely to come to you, gentlemen; but if you take my advice, you will spare me. But you, perhaps, might be angry, like people awakened from a nap, and might slap me, as Anytus advises, and easily kill me; then you would pass the rest of your lives in slumber, unless God, in his care for you, should send someone else to sting you. And that I am, as I say, a kind of gift from the god,[31b] you might understand from this; for I have neglected all my own affairs and have been enduring the neglect of my concerns all these years, but I am always busy in your interest, coming to each one of you individually like a father or an elder brother and urging you to care for virtue; now that is not like human conduct. If I derived any profit from this and received pay for these exhortations, there would be some sense in it; but now you yourselves see that my accusers, though they accuse me of everything else in such a shameless way, have not been able to work themselves up to such a pitch of shamelessness [31c] as to produce a witness to testify that I ever exacted or asked pay of anyone. For I think I have a sufficient witness that I speak the truth, namely, my poverty.

Questions to bear in mind:

(1) Socrates seems to compare death and disgrace, claiming that disgrace is worse than death. He seems to say that fearing death is a matter of being controlled by the way we imagine death whereas disobeying the commands of the god is a real disgrace, a dereliction of the worst kind. What do you think of these claims? [28e].

(2) Anytus would claim, says Socrates, that if he were acquitted the sons of Athenians would all be utterly ruined by practicing what he teaches. [29c]. Does Socrates actually teach people anything? if so, what are his teachings? Socrates also claims elsewhere that he is not responsible for the behaviour of the young people who follow him about. Do you agree?

(3) “Most excellent man, are you who are a citizen of Athens, the greatest of cities and the most famous for wisdom and power, not ashamed to care for the acquisition of wealth [29e] and for reputation and honour, when you neither care nor take thought for wisdom and truth and the perfection of your soul?” Should we be ashamed of pursuing wealth and reputation rather than wisdom and 'the perfection of your soul'? How can we know what are the things that we should take most seriously in life?

(4) "I shall question and examine and cross-examine him, and if I find that he does not possess virtue, but says he does, I shall rebuke him for scorning [30a] the things that are of most importance and caring more for what is of less worth". How can one persuade someone who does not value the same things as oneself?

(5) What different sorts of evidence does Socrates offer in support of his claim to sincerity and unswerving commitment? 

Do the artisans know anything?

Extract B: After talking to the statesmen and public figures, Socrates goes to the poets and playwrights and finally to the artisans and craftsmen.

Arctitects as well as mathematicians, metalworkers, potters and painters

Finally then I went to the hand-workers. [22d] For I was conscious that I knew practically nothing, but I knew I should find that they knew many fine things. And in this I was not deceived; they did know what I did not, and in this way they were wiser than I. But, men of Athens, the good artisans also seemed to me to have the same failing as the poets; because of practicing his art well, each one thought he was very wise in the other most important matters, and this folly of theirs obscured that wisdom, so that I asked myself [22e] in behalf of the oracle whether I should prefer to be as I am, neither wise in their wisdom nor foolish in their folly, or to be in both respects as they are. I replied then to myself and to the oracle that it was better for me to be as I am.

Athena, goddess of handicrafts

Now from this investigation, men of Athens, [23a] many enmities have arisen against me, and such as are most harsh and grievous, so that many prejudices have resulted from them and I am called a wise man. For on each occasion those who are present think I am wise in the matters in which I confute someone else; but the fact is, gentlemen, it is likely that the god is really wise and by his oracle means this: “Human wisdom is of little or no value.” And it appears that he does not really say this of Socrates, but merely uses my name, [23b] and makes me an example, as if he were to say: “This one of you, O human beings, is wisest, who, like Socrates, recognizes that he is in truth of no account in respect to wisdom.”

Therefore I am still even now going about and searching and investigating at the god's behest anyone, whether citizen or foreigner, who I think is wise; and when he does not seem so to me, I give aid to the god and show that he is not wise. And by reason of this occupation I have no leisure to attend to any of the affairs of the state worth mentioning, or of my own, but am in vast poverty [23c] on account of my service to the god.

Questions worth thinking about

(1) Does Socrates' encounter with the artisans lead him to be doubtful or sceptical about the possibility of knowledge itself?

(2) Does knowledge such as these men (or their modern counterparts) have automatically lead them into false estimations of what life is all about? Why should Socrates believe that?

(3) Socrates claims again here that he knows that he doesn't know anything. What is it that he recognizes he knows nothing about for sure?

(4) He knows to them believing and then confirming that 'they knew many fine things', but he says, they had no clear idea about wisdom. This suggests that we may fairly infer that wisdom is knowledge of the finest things. So what might this knowledge be?


(5) If you know what honesty is or what courage is or generosity or reliability or some other virtue does that mean that the 'knowledge' you have is like the 'knowledge' that an architect or a navigator or a potter has? If it is why can't we teach people to be wise or honest or honest or reliable or generous the way we can teach them to build, navigate or throw and glaze pots? What don't we have A Levels in Honesty and Generosity in our schools? Why can't we have Honours Degrees (First Class) in Wisdom?

Was this the origin of Socrates’ mission?

The pythia's utterances were interpreted by priests

Extract A 

[21a] He was my comrade from a youth and the comrade of your democratic party, and shared in the recent exile and came back with you. And you know the kind of man Chaerephon was, how impetuous in whatever he undertook. Well, once he went to Delphi and made so bold as to ask the oracle this question; and, gentlemen, don't make a disturbance at what I say; for he asked if there were anyone wiser than I. Now the Pythia replied that there was no one wiser. And about these things his brother here will bear you witness, since Chaerephon is dead. [21b] But see why I say these things; for I am going to tell you whence the prejudice against me has arisen. For when I heard this, I thought to myself: “What in the world does the god mean, and what riddle is he propounding? For I am conscious that I am not wise either much or little. What then does he mean by declaring that I am the wisest? He certainly cannot be lying, for that is not possible for him.” And for a long time I was at a loss as to what he meant; then with great reluctance I proceeded to investigate him somewhat as follows.

I went to one of those who had a reputation for wisdom, [21c] thinking that there, if anywhere, I should prove the utterance wrong and should show the oracle “This man is wiser than I, but you said I was wisest.” So examining this man—for I need not call him by name, but it was one of the public men with regard to whom I had this kind of experience, men of Athens —and conversing with him, this man seemed to me to seem to be wise to many other people and especially to himself, but not to be so; and then I tried to show him that he thought [21d] he was wise, but was not. As a result, I became hateful to him and to many of those present; and so, as I went away, I thought to myself, “I am wiser than this man; for neither of us really knows anything fine and good, but this man thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not think I do either. I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either.” From him I went to another of those who were reputed [21e] to be wiser than he, and these same things seemed to me to be true; and there I became hateful both to him and to many others.

After this then I went on from one to another, perceiving that I was hated, and grieving and fearing, but nevertheless I thought I must consider the god's business of the highest importance. So I had to go, investigating the meaning of the oracle, to all those who were reputed to know anything. And by the Dog, men of Athens [22a] —for I must speak the truth to you—this, I do declare, was my experience: those who had the most reputation seemed to me to be almost the most deficient, as I investigated at the god's behest, and others who were of less repute seemed to be superior men in the matter of being sensible. So I must relate to you my wandering as I performed my Herculean labours, so to speak, in order that the oracle might be proved to be irrefutable. 

Questions we might ask ourselves...

(1) Was Chaerophon's visit to the Pythia at Delphi the origin of Socrates' mission?

(2) What kind of wisdom might a 'public man' - a politician - be expected to have?

(3) “I am wiser than this man; for neither of us really knows anything fine and good, but this man thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not think I do either. I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either.” What does Socrates mean by 'wisdom'? How is this a solution for the problem posed by the oracle's declaration?

(3) On what logical basis does Socrates reach his conclusion that these public men were not as wise as they thought?


(4) How would you show that someone was not wise?


(5) How would you feel if subjected to this examination?

The theatre at Delphi on the slopes of  Mount Parnassus

Background to Plato's Apology


The type of trial - Graphê and Agôn Timêtos

Socrates drank the hemlock 31 days after the trial

"In Athens, legal cases fell into one of two basic categories: the graphê and the dikê. The distinction is not to be confused with the modern distinction between civil and criminal cases. Rather, it turns on who may press a legal accusation before court. In a graphê, any citizen could bring a specific charge of wrongdoing. In a dikê, on the other hand, only the victim (or the nearest male relative) could charge another with having illegally caused the harm. Socrates' case is a graphê. Indeed in the Euthyphro he claims he has never even met the man bringing the accusation against him (2b7-9).


"As we just noted, the second speech that makes up the Apology concerns Socrates' offer to the jury of what punishment he is willing to pay. The explanation of why Socrates would have been given this opportunity after his conviction lies in the fact that some graphai carried penalties fixed by law and others did not. An agôn timêtos was one in which the penalty was not stipulated in the law. In this sort of case, the law required that the jury decide what the defendant 'deserved to suffer or to pay' by choosing between the penalty the prosecutor requested, stated at the end of the indictment, and a 'counterpenalty,' or antitimêsis, which would be proposed by the defendant after conviction. As we will later see, it is significant that the jury was required to choose between the two proposals and was not allowed to impose another penalty of its own devising. After a vote to convict was taken and announced to the court, the defendant was apparently given a relatively brief time to explain why he was proposing the particular penalty he was. Because Socrates was charged with impiety, a charge calling for an agôn timêtos, the jury was required to choose between the penalty sought by Miletus ... and the counterpenalty Socrates proposed following his conviction. As we will also see, how we understand Socrates' antitimêsis is of crucial importance to how we understand what Socrates hoped to accomplish with his speech, at least according to Plato."


These two paragraphs are taken from Plato & the Trial of Socrates, by Brickhouse and Smith, Routledge 2004, pp 72-3. I chose them partly for their own interest and partly to illustrate the historical context of the trial and which would have been known to anyone reading Plato's account, whenever it was published. This has some relevance when we try to work out how accurate an account this is - is it all historical or is it a fiction? The answer is likely to be somewhere between the two. The words put into Socrates' mouth must have been (in my view) a passable and plausible version of what was actually said because so many people who had been there at the time would be able to contradict the published version. The text is probably far from a stenographic court record but not so far from the truth.


You can find out about this and much else besides from the Brickhouse & Smith book, or, more succinctly, by consulting the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which is online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/.