The Hemlock Cup - Bettany Hughes [185]
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.9
Unusually moderate in an age of extremes, at his trial Socrates seems to have forgotten entirely the meaning of the word ‘humility’.
Is he abhorrently arrogant? Has he lost his mind? Is this radicalism or (what we would call) hubris? First Socrates suggests his punishment should be free dinners for life, then he reminds the court he is the wisest man on earth. Has he forgotten what his fellow Athenians have recently been through? Or is he genuinely apologetic – in the Greek sense of apologia – defensive? If he believes that Apollo gave him a mission to bring wisdom to the world, does he think that a reminder of his ‘special calling’ will be the perfect defence against this ridiculous charge that he is ‘impious’? Or is Socrates, with his reference to Apollo and the Delphic Oracle, actually suggesting that the god is in all of us, that we are all capable of god-like activity? All his life the philosopher has claimed that if we look deeply into ourselves we will realise what depths we humans have. Perhaps Socrates was desperately reiterating his belief to a court that wanted to see him extinguished.
In a democracy, men are meant to be allowed to speak out. But at his trial in 399 BC Socrates speaks too big, literally. Megalegoria is the word used by Xenophon. Socrates does not play ball. He does not charm, or incite. He does not whip the crowd up to a favourable fever-pitch. Instead he is belligerent – ‘full of big talk’. Whatever form this megalegoria took, Socrates wasn’t meant to behave in this way. He was expected to observe the finely orchestrated dances of public speaking, where the audience is led – but knows it – and is comfortable about being navigated along in a barque of persuasive words.10
He was meant to weep and wail, to bring his family in tearing their cheeks, to prostrate himself, begging for mercy; he was supposed to incarnate the highly emotional timbre of a traumatised, volatile city, of 399 BC, of after-shock Athens.
Already raucous, now the crowd in the courtroom bays at him. Socrates has made many men laugh in his time, he has charmed them, enthralled them, seduced them, befuddled them, he has changed their lives – but now he cannot even raise a smile.
Perhaps only now does Socrates realise that for once he is not going to be the tenacious one, the one who is not carried off by plague or stasis, by a Spartan sword or an insurgent’s knife. And so, instead of his flippant request for dinners, the philosopher proposes a serious alternative. A fine: 30 minas – the equivalent of close on nine years’ labour for an average Athenian, or enough to pay 6,000 Athenian men to come to court in order to act as jurors for one day.
His offer is rejected. The court is in no mood to play games, let alone consider leniency. The only penalty now on offer is death.11
Too little time to fight for a life
SOCRATES: The man of the law-courts is always in a hurry when he is talking; he has to speak with one eye on the water-clock. Besides, he can’t make his speeches on any subject he likes, he has his adversary standing over him … Such conditions make him keen and highly-strung, skilled in flattering the master and working his way into favour; but cause his soul to be diminished and warped.
Plato, Theaetetus, 172d–173a12
The pissing stream of the water-clock has drooped.
Those who spoke last know their time is up. Now for the vote. This is the city, remember, that is never still. There is no pause for reflection. The crowd is asked to give its verdict immediately.
And for Socrates, the fact that his entire life could be judged on just a few hours of well-spun words, by a mongrel