The Hemlock Cup - Bettany Hughes [216]
9 The Socrates I have chosen to guide us around the fifth century BC is, in the main, the dramatic/historic character offered to us by contemporary eye-witnesses. I am using this ‘phantom-Socrates’, this ‘Socrates-sized shape’, to transport us through the city of Athens.
10 Socrates is a man of Athens. But his own travels through the eastern Mediterranean, and key events that impacted directly on his life, are located in a geographical area that encompasses perfectly all the hot and the high spots of the fifth century BC. Using history and archaeology in the field, I have attempted to visit every site connected to Socrates’ life and to pin down what it is that gives cause to his ideas, and what throws them into context. This book follows the coordinates that Socrates himself would have used.
11 And I believe we have to listen to Socrates now. Socrates lived in a brutal world – but he saw its potential. As is ours, his was a time of change. Just as the warrior ethos, the ‘might is right’, the ‘harm enemies, help friends’ modus operandi of prehistoric and archaic Greece was being replaced by something more consensual, more discursive, more intelligent, so now – when we are sliding back in to a new age of warring – we need to remind ourselves why Socrates’ analysis of life matters. Socrates offered a roadmap for humanity that was coming out of the Greek ‘Dark Ages’: we should follow his path as we approach a future that again looks stormy.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
1 E.g., Plato, Apology, 18b–c, 19d; Dover (1996), 164.
2 Dover (1996), 164.
3 For discussion of dates see Meineck (1998), p.xvi, fn. 16: ‘An inscription (IG 112 2318.196) gives Araros a Dionysia victory in 387; if the hypothesis to Plutus is correct that after 388 Aristophanes produced Cocalus and Aiolosikon through Araros, we can assign victory with Cocalus to Aristophanes in 387.’ The hypothesis referred to is Hyp. 4 Arist. Wealth, Hyp. 3 in the recent OCT. P. Meineck, Aristophanes I: Clouds, Wasps, Birds, (Hackett 1998).
4 It has been suggested that Erchia was near the modern Spata, about 10 miles outside Athens, in the Mesogeia (Macleod [2008], 7; Pomeroy [1994], 1 with bibl.). Nb Deme affiliation was hereditary, he may not have lived here.
5 Nails (2005), §2.1 s.v. ‘Xenophon’ suggests that Xenophon could not have known Socrates well, because Xenophon lived in Erchia, which was not a simple journey to Athens; Macleod (2008), 7–8, argues that Xenophon’s family would have spent a lot of their time within the city walls, to avoid the constant raiding by the Spartan forces based at nearby Decelea.
6 Following Macleod (2008), 13–16 at 6.
7 428/427 are the dates usually suggested for Plato’s birth (see, e.g., Szlezák in the New Pauly), but D. Nails considers it more likely that Plato was born in 424/423 (see Nails, The People of Plato, [2002], 245–6).
8 Press (2007), 15: ‘Plato’s connection with Socrates was not more than eight years.’ A similar length of acquaintanceship is implied by Szlezák (2000), IX, s.v. ‘Platon (1)’, col. 1095: ‘Erst mit 20 J. schloß er sich mit Sokrates an.’ [Plato did not associate with Socrates until he was 20.] Nails (2005), s.v. ‘Socrates’, §2.1 s.v. ‘Plato’: ‘Plato … had probably known the old man most of his life.’
9 Press (2007), 15; Szlezák, ibid., col. 1095.
CHAPTER ONE
The water-clock: time to be judged
1 Trans. D. Allen (1996).
2 It has been suggested that the introduction of 501 jurors occurred a few years later in the fourth century BC. See Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.) (2002) The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies (Oxford: OUP).
3 Herodotus, 1.155, 156; 3.25, 29, 59; 4.203, 204; 6.9, 17, 94; 8.126; and Aristotle, Politics, 1.4 1253b23. Cf. Hunt (2002), 42 n.13.
4 The appearance of slaves in this period is subject to debate. Pseudo-Xenophon, Constitution of the Athenians, 1.10, describes them as indistinguishable from regular citizens. Some slaves would undoubtedly have been well dressed, but the majority must have been